Juliana and her dog, Moishe Godoshevitz Beasley

Let's start with Jersey City resident Juliana Beasley. I had the pleasure of meeting Juliana and seeing some of her work first-hand last week. A disco fiend, if not out and about with her camera, she can be found at home dancing with her beloved pet, Moishe.

Birthplace? Where were you raised?
I was born in the East Falls part of Philadelphia, PA. I was raised in Philadelphia, New Rochelle, New York, and Florence Italy.

Your age?
I'm 39 years old.

What do you do to pay the bills?
I worked as a career stripper for eight years. Now, I take photos.

What initiated your committed romance with photography?
As a child, I was obsessed to create a sense of self and a personal history through my mother's intricately made photo albums of family snapshots. I began shooting my own work after modeling for my ex-boyfriend Christoph. I changed majors from Italian and French to photography in my third year of school.

What artists inspire you, whether they be photographers, musicians, politicians, painters, or the like?
I was inspired early on by Charles Addams, Oliver Sacks, and Robert Crumb. Later and now, I am inspired by Larry Clark, Boris Mikhailov, Jim Goldberg, Bill Burke, Kent Klich, Eugene Richards, and E.J. Bellocq. Wow, I picked all male artists...that's gotta' change.

What do you like most about being a "photographer"?
I enjoy getting to break boundaries and get close to my subjects. I like going to the point of "no return" when you go through the manic spells of the creative process.

What formal training, if any, do you have?
I studied at New York University for two years and graduated with a B.F.A. in photography.

What camera do you use?
I'm still trying to figure out if I should stick with one format. I can see the benefits of all of them...it's like changing your clothes, or better said I'm non committal in my format selections. So, here goes, I shoot with a Rollei Twin Lens, a panoramic, a polaroid, a Mamiya 645 and a Contax 35mm. I suppose I'm most fond of the square format. While working on a project, I will use several formats.

What piece of equipment do you fetishize the most and/or what is your guiltiest tech pleasure?
I love to color correct....I love getting down to the subtle nuances of color correction and the feeling of my own color vivid persona.

What do you find to be the biggest cliche in photography these days?
The dead zombie look of staged scenes crafted after Philip Lorca di Corcia. Children and adults naked and frozen in surreal situations. The lighting is flawless but the photograph is devoid of feeling and depth. After a while it begins to look like an exercise in masturbatory lighting technical finesse.

What are your loftiest goals?
Really simple. Have the means to travel as much as I can and photograph as much as I can and make more books. And get a deep tissue massage once a week.

Do you have any other creative talents?
I love to dance to Bollywood Pop music in my apartment with my dog, Moishe. I love words more than I enjoy reading books and I found out in my early thirties that I love writing...finding the right words without using too much vernacular and expressing myself though language to my deepest core.

What are the top three movies on your queue?
I would be lying if I were to say these are my top favorite three...there are too many good choices out there.

Four Hundred Blows
Harold and Maude
Vagabond

Favorite possession?
The air that I breathe.