The 5X5 Interview: Phil Toledano, Photographer

There have been rumors circulating about this for months, but it's still hard to believe: there are these cameras that take pictures you can't post on the Internet. They use something called "film," which comes in those little canisters you store your coke in. Phillip Toledano, it turns out, uses that stuff for his eerie, lonely photography. After the jump, he displays a fine ability to dodge an insulting question (#3) and makes one wonder how someone who wore an eye patch as a kid could grow up to be a shutter bug. Also, who needs fashionistas when beat-up LES photogs look this hot?

Age: 35
Occupation: Photographer
Location: Lower East Side

1. Your book of photos "Bankrupt: Photographs of recently vacated offices" shows, well, just that: empty cubicle farms and the like. Did you see any ghosts of office workers in your travels as you shot these? Even metaphorically?

Once I interrupted a building super and a hooker doing it in the middle of an empty cube farm. It was horrible. I wish I could unsee it.

I suppose the only ghosts I saw were the personal things left by former occupants of the offices I was in. It s odd to open a drawer in an empty office and to find a toothbrush and toothpaste, or to see a photograph from a night out on the town still pinned to the wall. I often wondered if people had left the things they left, as a kind of memorial, a sort of corporate "Kilroy was here."

2. So many of your pictures are of nighttime scenes. I submit exhibits A, B, and C. Are you, by any chance, one of those people I've heard tale of whose pupils can't dilate and therefore can't go out in the sun? Why so many evening pics?

I see your three nighttime references and raise you three blazing daytime shots:
A,
B,
and C.

The great thing about darkness is that it s wonderfully reductive, which I love — it s a little like editing film — you can really choose what your story is going to be . . .

As far as my eyes go, they re weak and mole-like (actually, as a youth, I had to wear a patch on one eye, pirate-style).

3. During your ten-year stint in advertising, you must have made buckets of dough and been involved in some great projects that millions of people saw. How'd you cope with the loss of your soul, though?

It's amazing how scrubbing yourself with a gold leaf loofah will alleviate the separation anxiety of loosing your soul.

All things considered, advertising was the best possible training I could ever have had to be a photographer. It focused me on the idea of ideas. Plus having a soul is sooo outmoded — just ask the current administration.

4. As a Londoner of French Moroccan decent living in New York City (that is, someone with a world view) in this great melting pot, why do you think we still have these little enclaves like Chinatown, Korea Town, Little Italy, and the Upper East Side? Well, the UES is self-explanatory, I suppose.

I m not sure, but living in Chinatown is very interesting. Every time I take my dog for a walk, kids scream in terror. And I m not talking "Hound of the Baskervilles" here — more dustball with legs . . .

5. Your photography philosophy is that everything should start with an idea. What idea would you start with if your assignment was to sell a fat, homebound Internet interviewer to that girl who rides the Stairmaster next to me at my gym from 6 to 6:45 and whose eye I can't ever catch?

Let s see. You re a business owner. (Do you have your own car? Metrocard?) And it s an internet business — everyone knows that anyone who works on the net must be loaded (ok, maybe in the late 90s, but that s just a small detail). Where were we? Ah yes, Smith Kleiner Perkins want to give you millions in seed money, Google keeps leaving messages on your voicemail — but you, you re not interested in selling out to da man — no way — you re in it for the art (which is why you live in a tiny apartment, filled with empty Cheetos bags). Do you want me to teleprompt you while you re at the gym?

Phil Toledano's Top 5

Whenever I read people s top ten lists, I always wonder if they ve spent weeks Googling strange and obscure books/movies. Then again, they might actually BE interesting.

As I look at my top 5 list, I think I may actually be catatonically boring:

Chicken fried Rice/Mint Chip Ice cream (I m counting that as one, and don t try and stop me)
Halo
Light and the way it changes (I know it sounds poncy, but it s true)
The Clash
Linguistic acrobatics

—Andrew Krucoff and Chris Gage conduct a daily interview series for Gawker.

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