Brian Sergio

I think most of the influence came from my dad; he used to work for a government advertising agency as an art director but he had a stroke when I was 4 years old and was forced to retire early. His right arm and right leg got paralyzed, so he taught himself to write with his left hand. And after a few months of practice, he started painting. I have my praise for how strong-willed my dad was that I’ve become a creative myself. I started drawing and copying illustrations from comic books and right then and there, at a very young age, I wanted to be a painter just like my dad.

I think I’ve always been into photography, even when I was a kid and used to sneak into my parents’ room to look at my dad’s smut magazines, I would admire and wonder how it was photographed. And when I got into college, I used photographs as a reference for paintings. But every time I developed a film, I always thought to myself that the photograph was good enough and would question myself on why I have to paint it. I guess it’s because fine art photography is not huge in Manila.
In fact, people think it’s the lowest form of art because it’s a mechanical reproduction aspect, and art collectors want something that is one-of-a-kind. So painting makes more money. But I never regretted my decision to pivot to photography. I like the fact that I can be out of the studio and be social with people, money aside.

Mostly design theory. I can relate to Bresson’s discipline. When I learned that he started out as a painter, I looked him up and saw his compositions were applied greatly from standard painting theories. So I tried to apply that as well when I first started out. But later on, I got into William Klein and Japanese photography, and my perspective and method changed after that. It opened a door full of possibilities that my approach became more instinctual and punk rock.

I wasn’t born colourblind. I remember that I used to see colour like a ‘normal’ person, but I noticed that my vision had become faded over the years and now I can’t identify some of the secondary and tertiary colours. Everything seems a bit flat, and grey appears more and more. So black and white became a staple, and I pumped up the contrast and details to see it as I would prefer seeing it. It was never a visual style, it was just visually convenient.

I think it has a lot to do with the environment. I am living in a third world city, full of grit clichés and contradictions, so my visual approach has been pretty much daily spoon-fed by these factors. The way I see it, it’s about constantly challenging myself on how I can best represent my environment and self-interests.

This is the kind of environment I am exposed to. I love going to strip clubs late at night and meet people who are involved in kink activities and exploring the taboo subculture. For a country that is known for its conservative traits, people of this generation have become unfastened to their sexual urges and desires. So the subjects I shoot are the people I encounter every day – friends and friends of friends. It’s natural for me to photograph these things because they’re existent in my life.

I had a show back in 2014 called Pak! that was cut short because of a backlash from feminist and religious groups. Because of them, my show got abruptly cut-off. I have also been rejected by local galleries because of my work, so I gave up on them and started looking into other platforms like publishing photo books. They have helped me greatly since I figured a photo book is a much more personal item, sort of like a hand-carry gallery which you can view anytime, privately. I considered it as a compromise to show my work without having to deal with society’s conservative perceptions and sensibilities.

My first encounter with Araki was his bondage work when I was browsing through a photographer compilation book called The Photo Book, published by Phaidon. I got drawn to the way his subject looked at the camera. Even if I know it was staged, there’s a certain melancholic feeling to those pictures. That made me curious to dig deeper and research about the world of Japanese bondage. For that, I also became obsessed with the work of Norio Sugiura, which shows different forms and techniques of Kinbaku – which I later applied to my work.
As for Daido Moriyama, it was different because it was honest and straight-forward. That was best captured in his cutting of the blacks and a certain shade of grey, which I find astonishingly succulent. With these references, I figured that I wanted to be more involved with the subjects I photograph and show my personal and intimate take. I don’t know if it modernizes the ideas from what these past masters have achieved. All I know is I’ve become more adaptable to what is out there.

I like the photo book format, I think it’s a supreme platform to showcase photographs. I’d rather have something published than having short-run exhibitions that will be forgotten after a long time. I think photo books are timeless, it’s an affordable gallery exhibition that you can hold with your hands and store on a shelf.

I have a few projects on the pipeline right now, and hopefully, I’ll have something out published by Dienacht Publishing real soon. And maybe, another one with Zen Foto Gallery.

Manila is on complete lockdown. The government demanded everyone to stay at home. I might be asymptomatic with the coronavirus, and we got a limited supply of testing kits because our country couldn’t afford mass-testing, so I shot a few self-portraits for fourteen days, a one-portrait-per-day kind of thing since the virus only lasts fourteen days. I’m guessing by now I should be virus-free. I posted my progress on my personal Facebook account and later posted on my Instagram and my Facebook page. Other than that, just watched some Netflix shows, learned how to cook paella and other dishes. Just killing time till the lockdown is lifted.