Hey Tim.
Hi.

I don't really have any questions written down, so I guess we should just talk about who you are.
Ok.

Where are you from?
I grew up in Western Massachusetts, but I was born in Vancouver... and I lived in Vermont for a while, then I went back to Vancouver for art school, and now I live in New York.

What did you do for work when you came to New York?
Right after I graduated I started working with Vice as a photo editor, I did that for almost three years, then I started working as a freelance photographer and a curator. I was doing the website tinyvices.com, started expanding that project into galleries and more recently into books.

Right, the publishing company—TV Books. How's that going?
It's going good! I've always said it's kind of an experiment, I'm printing the books on demand, I think it's a new format in terms of publishing, so it's been a bit of an experiment but it's working out good.

You also did a project with Aperture recently too, right?
Yeah, I curated a series of five books by different photographers that Aperture published, it just came out last month.

Do you still photo assist for Ryan McGinley?
Not so much anymore, I used to a lot.

And you went to Elton John's house.
Yeah! We did, me and Ryan went to Elton John's house! We also went to Las Vegas and shot him.

On stage, right?
Yeah.

And you just wore a T-shirt and Jeans.
Yeah...?

I mean, I wouldn't expect you to wear a feathered headdress or something, but it's seems so surreal—you on stage with Elton John, just wearing your normal clothes.
It was one of the more surreal moments in my life.

What was his house like?
Insane. He lives in what used to be the Queen's doctor's house, it's within view of Buckingham Place. You can see the palace from his front steps and supposedly there's an underground tunnel that goes from his house to the palace that the doctor used to use to, like, run to her aid if she was sick.

Did you guys sleep over?
No.

Did you want to?
No. Well actually yeah, I would have, it was fucking cool!

Yeah, with a big 'EJ' on the back.
We did get to snoop around in his archived wardrobe, which was totally insane, like, looking through all the different outfits he's worn over the years.

Wow!
Yeah, it was totally nuts, but anyway, enough about that.

Ok. Here's a question—your last name is Barber?
Yeah?

Does that mean you come from a long line of hairdressers?
Ah, probably. I'm not too up on my ancestry. But probably right? That's how names were given out back in the day.

Can you cut hair?
I cut my own hair.

Do you really?
Yup.

When was the last time you had someone else cut it?
Actually, recently I had someone else cut it. A friend of mine has a salon nearby so I went down there. But most of my life I've cut my own hair.

How'd you cut the back though?
You just go for it! Just reach around.

You kind of are though, you got three cats and...
I only got two cats now, one of them had to go.

To heaven?
No, Colorado. Weirdly enough.

Which one?
Monkey. Her name was Monkey and when she was relocated to Colorado she was renamed 'Special D' which I thought was pretty awesome.

Is that the one that jumped on my back that time?
No, that's Basil, he's our oldest and he's the one with the extra toes.

He's the polydactyl cat.
Yeah, he's a freak.

He is weird, I walked in the door and he jumped from a table onto my shoulder!
Yeah, he's really weird.