While exploring Eric Kaluzny’s website, one is presented not just with a series of captivating photographs, but also with a whole universe of stories. His portfolio shows a wide range of styles and subjects, from captivating portraits to haunting and barren landscapes to documentary photography. What links them is a propensity towards story telling – the kind that forces you to interpret using your own deeply personal and perhaps slightly odd experiences. In one portrait, an older man looks at the camera from a living room chair. The chair is part of a set, whose match sits empty nearby. In another portrait, a young woman appears dreamlike and ethereal as she stares into the distance.

Andrew Weir: Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
Eric Kaluzny: I like the more simple things, but I want that simple thing to tell a story. I want feelings to come out. I want someone to relate to the stories in my photos with feelings inspired by events in their own lives.

I went to college for photography. It was alright; it wasn’t the best.

It was more based on commercial work. In my second year I started breaking away from that and moved towards a more realistic style

AW: And more towards fine art as well?
EK: I’m trying to, but – it’s kind of shitty to say – you can’t really make money only making art. I also do the film catalogue for Affiliated Equipment.

AW: Is that what your series Innocent Things and Teen Getaway belong to?
EK: Actually, my cousin (OTM alumnus, Sam Catalfamo) is a filmmaker and asked me to help him with those. He won the TIFF award a couple of years ago as best new director. We’ve always done stuff together like photo shoots and making movies.

AW: How’s your experience been in Toronto thus far?
EK: You walk out your front door and there’s always something weird happening in the city. I’m influenced a lot by weird things.

I try to show it in most of my images –little bits of it – it’s funny, sometimes I’m the only one who gets it though.

AW: Is that what attracted you to the street photography that you did for the gallery show Let Me Be Your Understudy? And how was that experience?
EK: That was actually done in New York. For that series, I really wanted to capture people’s vulnerabilities; to catch people doing things they do when they think no one’s looking.

It was a fun series. There’s this one image. I was just sitting, looking around with my camera ready and there was this woman sitting next to me. She had a Ziploc bag and she started pouring it into a cup. It was coffee and she had been saving it. And she pulled it out of her purse.

AW: You must have been pretty happy to capture that.
EK: [laughs] Oh for sure. I mean, it just didn’t make any sense. Obviously she was drinking cold coffee.

AW: Are there any local artists that you particularly admire?
EK: My friend Dustin Parr is an extraordinary artist. Matt Tammaro is great. I think he lived with Mark Peckmezian. I love Mark’s stuff too.

AW: Film or Digital?
EK: Both, but mostly digital. I miss being in a dark room though. I haven’t been in a dark room for a long time. That’s one thing I do miss. It’s fun. You’ll be in there for hours – sometimes days – in the dark messing with your photos. It’s a great feeling when you actually expose your image on paper and get to work with it with your hands.