ESTEVAN ORIOL (January 2011) | Interview By: Jose Ho-Guanipa

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Interview was conducted in January 2011. 

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Be sure to check out PART 1 of the interview.

Related Media & Links
Estevan Oriol.com

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Estevan Oriol // Exclusive Video Interview (Part 2) // Dubcnn


Press Play to stream footage (Fast Connections Recommended)
 

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Dubcnn: Your work has definitely spanned across a lot of different mediums, the photography, the videos and stuff and the clothing too. There's still an overarching style that you have that's very wets coast, very LA. Can you describe your style and how you bring out - especially in these photos, I don't wanna say it's documentary, but you really bring out the life in these people.

Estevan Oriol: I'd say my style is rugged rough and raw. What you see is what you get. There's no fancy Photoshop, there's no big setups, no elaborate sets. It is what it is. I just shoot and hope for the best. With this whole digital thing, it's like it's no fun no more really. To take a picture digital and to see it right then and there kind of takes away the fun. The fun of it for me is to take a picture or do a job and for those two or three days I'm waiting for the lab to develop the film and get it back I'm stressed out. I'm thinking fuck, I know it was in focus, I know I had the film in the camera, but what if something went wrong. What if the lighting was wrong, or my settings weren't right, which happens. Those couple days I'm tripping out. I can't wait to see how the thing turned out. Then when it comes back I'm like, "Fuck yea I did it." And that whole thing, those two days of waiting is gone. It's kind of like when you go to get an AIDS test and they take your blood and you got a couple days where you're stressing out. And when you get the results back and they're negative you're like, "Fuck yeah." That's how it is when you do a big job and you have 20 or 30 rolls of film. Send it to the lab and when you get it back and they're good you're just like, "I fucking did it." That shit is gone now with the digital cameras 'cause you can just take a picture, look and keep shooting or erase it. Shooting with film you take your time and set the shots up, because each shot is money, you can't delete it. You really take your time and make sure that shit is right. Like I don't shoot with film unless I think that shit is right. But with a digital camera you just go snap snap and shoot the fuck out of it and you get lucky. You might pan the camera across and get some amazing shot you didn't try to get, but then it's luck. It's not your fucking skill, it's not your eye, you just got lucky. You're just shooting randomly. It's like shooting a gun into a fucking crowd, you're not a good aim, you just shot it into a crowd. When you get that bulls-eye, tha's the one where you feel good.

Dubcnn: I was looking at a lot of these pictures; there's something you capture from these people that's authentic. Do you do anything to get people to not pose and feel comfortable when you're taking pictures or shooting stuff?

Estevan Oriol: No, most of the time they're looking right at me, almost every shot. So they're really aware there's a camera there. Most documentary shots are spur of the moment, you capture something, and the person wasn't really giving a fuck if you were there or not. With me, 80% of it they know I'm there. They're there for the picture. Event hat being said it still looks like a documentary. Even though I stop them and they're looking into my camera, it still has that documentary feeling, which is hard to get. 'Cause usually, like you said, it looks posed, it looks all set up. But most of the time I just see people doing some cool shit and I go, "Hey homes, look right here real quick" and they'll do it and go back to doing their thing and bla bal. It works out cool but it ain't easy. The easiest part of photography is shooting the pictures. The hardest part is in between the shoots. The before and after and the waiting for the next one. I do it myself, so I don't have an agent out there pushing me getting me jobs. As soon as I'm done with one job I'm onto the next one. Whether its sending emails to people, calling people, texting people, facebooking. Somehow someway getting out there hustling. It's kind of tiring at times. I'm getting to a point where I just want to find an agent, let them do that shit and I just stick to taking pictures.

Dubcnn: How have you been evolving as an artist starting out taking pictures with Cypress hill, to doing videos, to doing coffee table books, you just said you had a gallery showing. What's the evolution of your art?

Estevan: I want to take it to doing movies. I wanna make the pictures come to life, but more than a video. To me music videos are burned out. They've watered down the music videos so bad it's ridiculous. I don't want to say I'll never do a music video again, 'cause I'm sure there's shit I'd want to do. There's shit I'd lie to do and there's some shit if somebody hit me up I'd be like, "Fuck yeah let's do it." Everybody has a 5D camera and everybody thinks they're a photographer and a director and its crazy to me, it's sick. A lot of people do 'em for free or like a 10th of what you should be charging, so the people that do know what they're doing are getting assed out. It's at the point where somebody's like, "Why would I pay this guy 20 grand when I can have the homie do it for 2 thousand. All I need is the rinky dink camera and then press play." And the kids that are watching the shit on Youtube, they don't know the difference; they don't give a fuck. They just want to see their dude rapping in the hood or whatever, whatever the concept is. They just want to see somebody singing into the camera and different edits. As long as the beat's good and the guy's talking some good shit they pretty much don't care about the integrity of the art. It's like fast food for them. Everybody wants to go and stuff their fucking face with a Big Mac special for 99 cents, when they can go and get a steak dinner for 50 dollars and treat themselves right like a king. They'd rather go to McDonalds and get the cheap fast version and feel and look like shit afterwards. That's on them and all their management, that's on their whole team. But to me the imagery is just as important as the beat or the lyrics. To me, if I see an artist that has an incredible sound and incredible beats, but the packaging, the photography and the videos are wack, then this guy is a fucking idiot. All he sees is the beats and the music. What about the rest of it, you don't see that or what? To me it's just like a pie, you gotta cut everything up the same size. Put as much into the imagery as you do into the music and lyrics, whatever it is.

Dubcnn: What have you been working on lately, I think the LA Woman came out last year. What do you have planned for 2011?

Estevan Oriol: I have to beat myself, not like that, beat myself like "What I did last year. I wanna double it up. Whatever I did last year I wanna double up and come out sicker than I did last year." It's just an artist, you're never happy, you're happy, but you're never happy with the art. You wanna keep pushing, doing more and more, and get better. One thing I've learned you don't talk about nothing you got coming out until it's at the point where it's to late for somebody to come out with it before you. I didn't talk about my book until it was at the printer. I knew it was coming in a couple weeks. I knew the second I went out there and told everybody, told on myself, then everybody would have an idea. 'Cause that's the game, you gotta try and beat the next man, coming out with something or try and be better than them. You try and keep all your shit to yourself until you're coming out with it, they don't have no game. Another thing too is I've talked about shit and it didn't come out, and I felt like a fucking idiot. So I just wait until the shit's ready then I just go all out and go hard on it. Like with the book I didn't talk about it too much before it came out, but after it came out I went on promo tours, like to Europe. I went to France, Italy Germany, I went to Mexico, couple cities, then Brazil, you know promoting the book. I was just doing it the way the homies from Cypress Hill taught me. I promoted the book like they promoted a record. I did art shows, I did interviews for magazines, I did radio interviews, TV interviews, just promoted the shit out of it. And I came out with a successful project.

Dubcnn: On that note let's promote it one last time. Tell us about the book and where we can get it.

Estevan: You can get the book on my website estevanoriol.com on my retail shop i got on the web. That's pretty much where I have all the stuff that I come out with new. I'm in the process of redoing my website right now, which is a fucking project and a half. When you look at a website you don't think its shit. The work behind the scenes of a website is ridiculous. That's probably my main project right now, putting my new website up, thinking for new ideas for shirts, organizing my office, 'cause I got another room to my office, putting all my archives in there. That shit's important you know. Shooting is cool, but you gotta be organized, have all your ducks in a row for everything to be right. 'Cause if your shit is all scattered, it's all gonna get lost when you come back.

Dubcnn: On that note we look forward to your projects in 2011, and stuff coming out and we'll be looking out for your latest stuff.