At first glance, the lush vintage images of Manhattan-based artist Richie Fahey appear to be fantastically rendered oil paintings honoring days of guns and garters gone by. In reality, Fahey's world is a photographer's paradise, borne of hours of hand-tinting in meticulous mid-century technique. Jesse Hernandez jumps in the way-back machine for a closer look.

How did you get started as an artist?
I started to draw when I was a kid, mostly copying old Pogo comic strips. Both my grandmother and my great grandfather were professional painters. I remember my grandmother trying to give me an art lesson when I was young, but by then, she was pretty old, and her hand shook. My mother tells me that I tried to imitate her shaking hand, and that was the last lesson I had from her. But we always had their artwork on our walls; the biggest was of a naked Florida girl that my great grandfather painted and my grandmother retouched (she lengthened some hair and added more gauze in some strategic places). My folks gave me a 35mm camera when I was in high school. I thought photography would help my drawing and painting. One of my first projects was photographing girls in striped outfits to use on a school mural, which I painted with a striped background. I got the idea from some high-contrast photograph in a book. I also had a great art teacher in high school. He taught us pinhole photography (which I still like to do) and encouraged me a lot.

What gear were you using?
I started using old cameras when a friend gave me her father's old 3 1/4 x 4 1/4-speed graphic camera. We used to cut film down to shoot with this camera because we couldn't find any. Later I was able to locate the film and bought a bunch before Kodak discontinued it. I still shoot with that camera once in a while

Did you do the art school thing?
I received a BFA in painting from the University of South Carolina. My photography was encouraged more than my painting, and because I thought I had a better chance of making a living as a photographer, I went to Rochester Institute of Technology to study photography after a year of working in a photo store/lab. After two years of classes, I moved to New York City.

How did you get started working in such a vintage style?
When I was a kid, I was very interested in World War II. I used to collect little army men and tanks and stuff. The first book I ever read was an old paperback, Escape from Colditz, that I found in a neighbor's bookshelf and that fell apart while I was reading it. In college I started going to see old movies, reading old paperbacks, and listening to rockabilly and old country music. Old movies were seductively easy to get lost in, and I never thought of them as outdated. I also found my parents' old photographs (they were married in 1946) and the remains of my father's record collection, just three records: Frank Sinatra: The Columbia Years, a Billie Holiday, and a Count Basie. My sisters and I sold all the of the other records as kids and didn't know any better. I inherited my great aunt's '66 Ambassador but envied the '37 For convertible my father once owned. Through looking at old photographs, I discovered that when my father was 20, he looked a lot like me at that age. So I started to live my life vicariously through my father's early years and wanted to create my own world of all things old. I wanted my work to be temporally ambiguous, too.

How do you describe your style?
Pulpy.

How is your work received?
I often heard, "I like your work, but I don't know what to do with it," which is very frustrating. I think I have been pigeonholed as a "period photographer," and there doesn't seem to be as much work for that in New York. I did illustrate a contemporary serial story for Gotham Magazine's first four issues and was going to do a fashion shoot for then, too, but with the terrorist attack and changes in the magazine's staff, my contributions ended. I mostly do book covers and theater promotions now. I just completed the James Bond series for Penguin books. I illustrated a story in this year's Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue but still have not been able to make much of a living with that, either. I don't feel like a part of the world of contemporary photography or of the art world. I guess I'm just an illustrator who uses a camera. If I got enough interest in my work in California, I would consider packing my bags and moving to the West Coast.

Tell me about your photo-tinting technique.
I started to color my photographs in high school with photo dyes and acrylic paints. It was not until college that I started to figure out what kind of paper to use (Ektalure, an old portrait paper that Kodak has since discontinued), and what kind of paints to use (Marshall's photo oils, which are getting hard to find as individual tubes). I would practice by printing my folk's old negatives on this Ektalure paper and dabbling with these photo oil paints. I did not like most of the handcoloring in the '80s and tried to emulate earlier color images. I liked the sometimes-bad color of old lobby cards and the reproductions of Kodachrome and other early color film in the old magazines. It was not until I hit New York City and found an old copy of Hand-Coloring for Fun and Profit that I somewhat mastered the technique, although there are still some technical questions I have about it all that I would like answered. I also started to experiment with using a heavier hand with the paints to get a more illustrative look. I guess some people could get similar effects with Photoshop, but when I try, it just looks like many filters being used. I have found the actual process of hand-coloring neither very "fun"-it's very tedious and time consuming-nor "profitable." However, I'm generally happy with the results.

What photographers influenced your style?
In college I like Duane Michaels and Cindy Sherman, but I feel more influenced by the staged photographs in old detective magazines, with posed models, old lobby cards, and stills from movies, and old paperback covers. I also like the old pin-up photographers (such as Bernard of Hollywood) and Hollywood portrait photographers (George Hurrell, Clarence Sinclair Bull, etc.)

Are you a collector?
Mostly of old paperbacks, but I don't consider it collecting because I read the books, which usually messes them up. I have also been collection postcards from the motels in Wildwood, New Jersey. I used to be a great place to shoot, and I wanted to make a book. But Wildwood is depressing now, because they are tearing down the old motels to put up condos. And I just found out that someone else is making a book, which is very disappointing because I have been wanting to do this for some time now. I guess I need to find another place stuck in time that I can use as my backlot.

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