A self-confessed goofball, Chip Simons believes in taking humour seriously and exploring new perspectives.

You describe photography as a “grand and glorious lie”...
Photography is a frame... a stage... it's what you choose not to have in the photo. If you could look to the left and the right of most images you would see a completely different scene. If want to win a contest, emulate a famous image or put something on a wall, you’d better not include the CNN news crew or the clamps that are pulling the clothing tighter. If I want to sell you on the idea that something is horrible, I'd better not show the happy people eating ice cream. It is a two dimensional lie. The reason I say it is grand and glorious is because it is beautiful, detailed, sharp, shocking, saturated, lit, dressed up and retouched. That cloud was not so perfect because the lighting wasn’t hitting.  That person is not smart or cool – do you know how many jerks I have had to make look cool?

A lot of your photographs take animals and objects and anthropomorphise them. What inspired you to take these images?
I think I am a bit twisted. American television and cartoons are all about anthropomorphism. The teapot is named Chip; he has emotions and all the same characteristics of a child. The same applies to the broomstick, the fish, the whatever. They talk and feel and they have brains, morals and consciousness. We take it to the extreme in America. Our cars have names, we talk to our dogs, environmental people think chickens are people too. But, there is a weird thing about objects in that I think you can see and feel all there is to life in a simple object sometimes – just look at my black period (a series of photographs by Chip).

You say that you “don’t really feel comfortable with people”. Is this a setback when you photograph people?
No, I get along with people. I just don't trust them. They lie, cheat and steal. They tell you one thing and do another. They take all they can and society is about how to get ahead and teaming up with those who can help you to survive. It's natural. The older I get, the less I trust people, and for good reason. I like innocence.  I like kids, babies, dogs... and nature.

You describe yourself as an entertainer and comedian. How do you think your sense of humour is reflected in your work?
I think, as a young child, I learned that humour was a way of being accepted and liked that (I was small). As an adult (not really) I find irony and hypocrisy everywhere. I also like exaggeration and distortion. People laugh at jokes. For example, the expression "holy cow" about something being unbelievable, generates an image of a cow that is tall and has holes in it. People think it is funny and they are entertained by it in many ways. Can you name many other photographers that are as entertaining? I think I was born into a seriousness festival in today’s media. There should be a magazine called "gloom and doom” – serious pictures of egotistical people done by today’s favourite four photographers, over and over again … ha.
When was the last time you looked at a magazine and laughed? Probably one in a thousand. My problem is that people don't take humour seriously.

A striking feature of your photographs is their use of colour. How would you describe your approach to colour?
I found New York City to be a bunch of grays and washed out blues … and black. This is not like sunshine countries and states where people wear something colourful and fun, where fruit grows, where they are into pattern and have fun with colours. I think colour is emotion. When was the last time you saw a kid crying because he wanted the grey or black balloon? If you could only take one M and M candy from a bowl, which colour would you take? Do you get up every morning and say, “I think I will wear the same thing I wore yesterday – something drab and the same as everyone else” or “I think I will buy a silver car”? It's so boring. I love colour; it makes things fun and exciting.  It puts your mark on an image and it separates something from the background.  It steers your mood. If you think about it, the main colour in photography is warm yellow, like my bunny pictures. It is calming and romantic. And besides people think of someone with healthy skin tones as a healthy and desirable person whereas a vampire can be white and an alien can be green.

You mention Magritte as one of your influences. What inspired you about his work?
I think he was funny as hell.  This unassuming guy...doing all these crazy ideas and hallucinations about his wife's toes morphing out of her shoes, people covered in fabric while kissing or day is night and night is day at the same time. He also thinks about ideas and what an image is, going as far as to say "this is not a pipe"...and he is right: it is a painting of a pipe. Most of today’s photographers assume you go along with the idea that this is real, this is a pipe, this person is cool, this place exists...
I love the idea that identity is an illusion.  He covers faces, and seems to imply that it is all in our minds anyway.
He is the most ripped off image maker in advertising history.

You say that you like “seeing new things”. How do you manage to achieve this?
I like mistakes. Because of the way cameras are designed these days, I rarely look through the viewfinder (get down on your knees and look through this tiny hole in this brick at this postage stamp sized rectangle now). Mistakes, chance...seeing what something looks like. Why would I be content to see the thing I know I will get? I want to be surprised and delighted...and I want to grow. I also use perspective concepts, like how would an ant see this, or an elephant, a satellite in outer space, a drunk person, a dog? It's fun.

What is your attitude to technology?
I am a mechanic. I am a goofball too. I like motors and technical things. Somehow there is a melding of machine and emotion with photography. You need to get past the mechanical learning curve ... and they make it really easy now. I love that it is easy to see what is happening and to make corrections now, however I miss the craft and alchemy of photography.

Please tell us more about your series of photographs entitled “Bunny”.
Bunny was an autobiographical series that I stumbled upon while I was shooting some monster pictures in the forest one day. I was so taken by the first image, of the bunny in the nightgown, that I set out to just do these images more and more, not understanding why.
It was all about me telling myself that my world was about to come to an incredible and horrible transformation.

The melancholy, the post-apocalyptic backgrounds, the innocence, the wonder, the fun, the surreality?
My wife got cancer, she almost died, we got divorced, my kids rejected me, she used twenty-eight years of my success against me and took all of my money and property, the dogs died and were given away, my industry is eroding at 50% a year, I have little work, and I have no home … all in two and a half years.
It sucks... and it was all foreshadowed in the Bunny series.

Do you have any advice for Fotoflock members on how to keep producing original work?
Yes, try some of the ideas I have said: plays on words, not looking through the camera, try a different camera, a different perspective. Don't show me anything with a zoom lens and don't show me anything from 5 foot nine inches off of the ground – I know what that looks like. Try to do something that you enjoy the most and see what you get. The hell with the ideas that it looks like someone else's stupid scenic photo or something, what are you, Rembrandt?  Remember that if you are really motivated by the enjoyment you get, it is a good thing for you to do.
It's all for you to enjoy and explore, to learn and grow from, so have fun and try to evolve and see inside of yourself for real.

Photos by Chip Simons | Fotosocial