I've been a huge fan of Gene Kiegel's work for quite some time now. I've always admired his work. One of my friends has coined the word Gene-ious to describe his skill with a camera. At first I was a bit of a voyeuristic fan as I admired the work from a far but after Interviewing Sadie Phelps for the blog, I decided to make contact with Gene as I knew that she had worked with him. So I set off to a cafe in East London to do the interview and what was initially supposed to be a short interview turned into long and enjoyable conversation about Gene the man versus Gene the photographer. Today I share with you Gene the man and Tommorow I will share part 2 of this interview where Gene discusses his photography.
1.I've seen you putting a stamp-like character on some of your photos. What is the significance of that?
Well, being originally from Ukraine, my first name is Yevgenii, or Zhenia for short, where "Ж" is the first Cyrillic character of the shorter version. The character is quite unique and very graphic. I made it into a stamp and often use it instead or along with my name signature for some of my personal and fine art work.
But you probably wonder, how did I get to Gene from Yevgenii in the first place. Yevgenii is a name of Greek origin and means "born into nobility, noble". The English variation of that name is Eugene or Gene for short. So, during the time of making my name "official" I went with Gene Kiegel for the ease of usage
2.You had many different career ambitions throughout your life (product designer, computer scientist, architect) how did you finally settle on photography? 
Well, to be honest I'm still toying with the idea of being an inventor. I think growing up in the environment where there are few basic things available but you wanted more, you were naturally forced to use your creativity to find ways to solve everyday challenges. I think it really opens ones mind to work with what you have and come up with creative solutions to any challenges that come along your way.
I enjoy all sorts of creativity and I think that photography was my main and most natural outlet of that. See, I never realized that photography could actually be a profession. Coming from the socialist Soviet Union and being somewhat sheltered from visual adverts, I was never really exposed to the world of beautiful photo imagery. I had seen some beautiful art and movies, but .. not photos.
When I moved to the US with my parents, I was 15 years old. The things that really struck an interest were movies and video games. I won't deny it, yes, I did think of going into acting as well and the only reason I ended up doing computer science and engineering at UC Berkeley was my love for creating the worlds of video games. After two years of computer science I realized that creativity was not really something that graders were looking at. They wanted solid answers by proven methods. So, clearly, what's the fun in that I decided I needed to find something closer to my heart. After some soul searching I ended up graduating in Architecture and took a few fine art courses along the way. I love architecture and it is really one of the hardest and time consuming professions out there. I have the greatest respect for people who are doing it.
After finishing school I was tempted by the social myth of making money first and following your passion later, so I ended up back in Information Technology world. I figured that from the funds I'd accumulate from my work I'd be able to start my own architecture practice in just few years.
To cut a long story short, at 25 I had a million and a half dollars stuck in stock options. The timing wasn't on my side though, as the stock market crash left me with virtually nothing. I lost my job, my relationship was over so I figured to come back home to Los Angeles and have a fresh start.
I got a call from one of my friends asking me if I'd like to replace one of their friends who cancelled their trip last minute to go to Brazil for Carnival. I figured it couldn't be a better timing.
Oh Brazil.. I think I owe so much of that experience to where I am today. I still remember the exact moment I had my "epiphany". It was sunset at a beautiful beach in Bahia. The tourists were long gone with the carnival crowd and I was all one on the beach watching the sky as it changed colours and I was just laying there with nothing on me but a pair of shorts and a capirinha in my hand. For the first time in my life I felt contempt with myself. I felt happy. I realized that my ever-going chase for money or material things or career goals or being happy by social standards is nothing but a trap. I've had the money, I've had the cars, and I've had the lifestyle everyone dreamed off, yet that never really made me happy.
There was always the next goal to set, the next milestone that I thought would make me happy, but it's like a dog chasing its own tail. This is not a route to happiness. The key to it is to be happy now. To be content with your reality, with your daily actions and your daily life. It needs to have a purpose that material things would never replace. That feeling really stuck with me and when I came back to LA, things started to slowly change the direction. I just wanted to enjoy my life, and most importantly, to give it a purpose. Naturally, all the decisions make its course and nothing happens overnight, so while searching for the next IT job in the dead market, I stumbled upon a part time opportunity of being a model scout. Given the fact that I was recently single and also never really having a proper chance to party as I was studying and working pretty hard all along, this seemed like a perfect match. My job consisted of scouting potential models and new faces while going out, partying and meeting new people.
I soon realized that many of these models are completely new to the industry, and needed photos for their portfolio. I had always done photography as a hobby ... I think from the age of six.. I really didn't know much.. but I had a good sense of composition and since I've always been into painting or drawing, I learned to look at things differently and to find beauty in things. So, I started giving out my "photographer" card along with the model scout card to offer them a very cheap photo shoot sessions.
Unfortunately, I found out the modelling agency was a scam and I cut ties with them but I still pursued my new-found joy - photography. I wanted to learn as much as I could. For a number of reasons, I didn't really see a point of going to school to study photography, so I would read books, experiment and visit the guys at the local photo store to bombard them with loads of questions.
I guess because I've never had any formal photography training, nor really any exposure to photography / fashion world, my pictures were different from people that were in the industry. I got noticed by a few agencies at first and soon model agencies like Wilhelmina, Ford, Warning and Elite started paying me to do portfolios for their models.
Stay tuned to this blog as part 2 of this interview will be posted tommorow. In part 2 Gene discusses his inspiation, his style and th future of fashion photography.
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