Liam Crivellaro took his first photos when he was 14 or 15 — he was riding BMX and wanted to document it. He lives in Chatham, but Wellfleet, where he used to surf, figures in a lot of his images. After having some early success with photographs of surfers, he worked as an assistant to photographer Cole Barash. But he never studied photography: “I’m not a school guy,” he says.
He’s a patient photographer and shoots sparingly, when the right moment arises. He’s equally patient in editing. After taking a photograph, he’ll let it sit for six months before showing it to anyone. —Abraham Storer
Q: How do you find images to shoot?
I don’t go out looking for a picture. When it happens, it happens; when it doesn’t, it doesn’t.
I have my camera on me 24/7 for moments that I want to capture. The feeling of having a moment happen and missing it is devastating. There are a few images that I would consider staged. Others feel staged — that’s what I’m looking for.
Q: What kind of equipment do you use?
I shoot in digital now and not film because the moments that I like to photograph are so rare that when I have that moment, I want to be able to shoot as many versions of that as I can. I shoot on a really old digital camera, because I like the way it looks. I do minor tweaks in Lightroom, but the camera does most of the heavy lifting.
Q: Who or what influences your work? It seems like the off-season is one theme.
For me, the off-season isn’t a positive or negative experience but rather an opportunity for different pictures. There’s a darkness to the off-season that appeals to me.
I like to think of my photos as stills from hypothetical movies I would make. I’m really inspired by David Lynch. I feel we are both looking for the same things: something beneath the surface. There’s this one view of Cape Cod and then there’s an under-the-surface Cape Cod. I’ve seen that, and I like to think that I capture it in my images.
