Ange Chats With Photographers Nashi Ferguson and Cristian O’Sullivan About Their 'City Slang' Exhibition @ Our Neon Foe Gallery (Opening August 17th 2024)

Our Neon Foe is an artist run initiative situated in Leichhardt, Sydney, Australia. The gallery is very excited to be hosting an exhibition by Photographers Nashi Ferguson and Cristian O’Sullivan, opening on August 17th at 3pm.
We sat down to chat to them about their show, titled ‘City Slang’, and their enduring passions and influences.
Check it out below…

City Slang feels like this hazy, enriched love letter to Sydney in all its forms and contradictions, but an emphasis on small details and what may be hidden to most.
How did you guys come up with the concept?
Did it come organically out of looking at your work or was it something that you set out to do?

Nash – I’d say organically, we started shooting in Sydney when we were living up the coast. It definitely is a love letter, we ended up moving back!
These photos were taken over a period of four years from 2020 to now.

The mixture of colour snaps and black and white is a real feast for the eyes.
How did that arise and is there a thematic difference between the two collections, as you guys see it?

It basically comes down to preference, Cristian shoots more with black and white film and I more with colour. That sorta gives away who took what, but actually it’s not that clear cut because we both have some colour and black and white in the show.
There is a difference for sure but we like similar content so we feel it compliments each other.

The original photographer is not demarcated, so I am curious to know, were you working together to create these photos, or did you take them separately but curate the show together?
I love this heavy sense of collaboration that comes across!

We sometimes go out to shoot together. It’s fun and sometimes competitive (lol) but if we both really want the same or similar shot, we both take it and then we see what shot turns out best. We just have to take note of who took what and with what camera!
Cristian took this amazing photo of a sign when we did a road trip to Lightning Ridge and I convinced myself that I took it. hahah.
But in all seriousness, we really support each other’s work and being a couple means we can be brutally honest. So, I think that’s why we didn’t bother saying who did what. It’s a collection of our work together.
Other shots are from completely separate missions. We spent quite a few weeks going through negatives and curating what works together. We’ve done two zines together in the past and so we’ve developed an aesthetic of what images gel together.

One thing I think about photography is that getting a good photo is down to a bit of chance and luck.
Would you agree?

Cristian – Yes and no. I think on the street, right place right time is a big factor, so there is an element of luck. When hanging with friends I know there are certain people I have shot that know exactly how to behave in front of a camera so you are almost always guaranteed a good shot.
Also, if you have a scene in your mind, like a location or a landscape you have passed before and taken note of the light at that time, you can pretty much so work out what time would be the best to go back and get the shot.

Nashi, you recently had an exhibition of your solo work at China Heights gallery; as part of the Phonies group show.
Would you mind telling our readers a little bit about that and whether City Slang is a small or grand departure from your oeuvre?

Phonies was a group photographic show that Sam Stephenson (Samoh) curated. I was so stoked to be invited to be a part of it. It was actually my first time exhibiting and a really awesome experience.
Samoh, Ed and Nina were so helpful, supportive, and generous with their time and it has encouraged me to keep shooting and inspired me to do more shows.
I had three very large still life flower photos in that show, each flower based on female characters from 80s films. I’d say Phonies was more of a departure but I’d like to call it an extension of my work.

The images in City Slang are how I photograph mostly, just everyday scenes that are there for the taking quite literally. I usually try to find some dramatic light or frame them in a filmic way, but I also love setting up scenes so still life is what I do at home in a controlled environment.

The connection between the two styles would be that flowers always seem to make an appearance in my work and even though my everyday street photos aren’t staged there is often a stillness to them – I often shoot scenes without people in them.

My mind casts to Luigi Ghirri or Antonioni’s cinematography in Red Desert when looking at the colour photos, through the intensity of lumina and sense of subtle abstraction – but then the black and white photos feel more gritty, punk and nodding to street photography.
Who are your photographic influences?
I would love to hear about that!

N. As a kid I was obsessed with the Wizard of Oz, the part where it turns from black and white to colour really blew my mind. So, I have to say Technicolor and that film was my earliest recollection of really being into colour.
Wim Wenders and cinematographer Christopher Doyle for sure.
The cinematography in Wong Kar-Wai films by him is just stunning.
Ama Billing’s film Love Witch and Argento’s Suspira.
Photographers I’d say William Eggleston, Trent Parke, Nan Goldin and Robert Mapplethorpe.
I’m also into fashion photographers Micaiah Carter, Tyler Mitchell and Nadia Lee Cohen but the photography they do is in between fashion and art photography.
Closer to home, I’m inspired by the work of Sam Stevenson (Samoh) and Ellen Virgona, I love their point of view.

Cristian – I love the photography of Edward Clover, Boogie, Ed Templeton, Jason Lee etc but I’d say these days, my biggest influences are my friends that shoot. I love seeing photos by Nash, Samoh, Luke Waskowitz, Ryan Ellem, Jack Mannix, Ellen Virgona, Mike O’Meally, Lobster. Too many to remember right now.

Cristian, you have been involved in the band Low Life for many years, one of Sydney’s most incendiary punk bands.
Do you see your longstanding involvement in the “rock world” as giving you a unique ability to capture these moments on film so well?

Cristian – Yeah, 100%. As you know yourself, you meet lots of weird and wonderful (and some not so wonderful) people playing in bands and often end up in unique scenarios so if you have your camera handy, you get to document situations that maybe an outsider would not get the opportunity to see.
There is also a quiet a bit more of trust with the people that you are shooting too, almost as if they forget that you are photographing them so they tend to act way more natural or be more open to posing for shots because they trust that you are not going to make them look like dicks.
Trust goes a long way when you are shoving a camera in people’s faces.