Perspectives: Jacob Mitchell

For Shreveport-based fine art photographer Jacob Mitchell, an image does not function merely to capture a subject, but to construct an entire world. Through the twenty-three-year-old’s lens, everyday mundane settings become supernatural. With a keen eye for architectural symmetry and big, expansive backgrounds, Mitchell makes abandoned buildings and parking lots seem otherworldly, transforming them into whimsical, surreal, and sometimes eerie doppelgangers of their subaverage counterparts. His South series permeated by dreamy images lush with color. Within another collection, entitled EMPTY SIGNS, desolate signs and derelict billboards for once-active businesses loom as dystopian remnants of corporate America. A play on prismatic light transforms a Waffle House logo into a glittering Oz just beyond the hill. Through Mitchell’s use of intentional framing, steep contrast, and saturated neon hues, his inanimate subjects become characters, tempting the viewer to look closer. Mitchell’s artistic philosophy recalls the simple underlying logic with which anything is created, really: “I just thought it would look cool,” he said. Sometimes it doesn’t need to be any deeper than that.

[See the event listing for the Louisiana Contemporary exhibit at the Ogden Museum.]

“I take photos of things that people normally overlook and turn it into something you can actually pay attention to; there's a lot of abandoned signs and buildings around town that just caught my eye,” said Mitchell. “Likewise, there's so many commercial businesses with For Sale signs in front that people drive by every single day, so I put that out there to show that there's beauty in the mundane and ugly, too.”

One of Mitchell’s shots entitled “Moon 002,” depicts a waxing crescent moon centered within a loop of barbed wire atop a rusted chain link fence, a cotton candy sky backdrop softening the harsh metal barrier. The photo was one of fifty-six works selected for the Ogden Museum of Southern Art’s annual juried exhibition, Louisiana Contemporary, opening September 5. Though Mitchell has been taking photos since he picked up his first camera at thirteen, this will be his first exhibition, and certainly far from the last.

Most of Mitchell’s work is taken in and around his native Shreveport, but you wouldn’t know it; his photos contain the essence that they could have been captured not just anywhere, but everywhere. His fluid style is the product of lengthy experimentation in Photoshop, achieving a heavily artificial, cinema-like aesthetic by combining multiple photos to form a composite image. Because of this emphasis on post-production in his creative process, when Mitchell is shooting he doesn’t aim to get the perfect shot; instead, he searches for separate elements that possess the “potential to be a great photo.” His approach is freeing in its simplicity; it allows him to make old photos into something new altogether, and to see a world of possibility within each frame. “I can create my entire world and make it look totally different.”

You can find more of Jacob Mitchell’s work on his website, jacobmitchellphoto.com, or on Instagram @thesoggyblanket.