<\/span>The Phoblographer: Do you usually have a rough idea of how many balloons would be needed while sketching the designs? Or is it more just adding them steadily in layers as you go?<\/span><\/h2>\nDJ Morrow:<\/strong> My ideas stay in the design phase for sometimes weeks but usually months. By the time I put pencil to paper, I\u2019ve already crafted the image clearly in my mind, and the sketch process is to make sure the composition, color, and lighting all make sense. I sketch things out fairly realistically and go over them afterward, drawing balloons on top to get a sense of how I\u2019m going to balloonify my idea and the scale I need to work in. This helps me decide the scale and techniques I\u2019ll use, and from there, I know how many balloons I\u2019ll need for the build.<\/p>\nI\u2019ll often build prototype models at this stage to work on new twisting techniques. It\u2019s important I\u2019ve decided exactly how I\u2019m gonna build everything and what I\u2019ll need for the build before starting because once the twisting starts in earnest, there\u2019s only a 2-3 day window when the balloons still look pristine and ideal for photography. No time to order more balloons and wait for their arrival.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/span>The Phoblographer: What\u2019s the best lighting setup to photograph these? Given the various colors and reflective surfaces all around, is it a straightforward approach?<\/span><\/h2>\nDJ Morrow:<\/strong> Lighting is everything when it comes to balloons! If I\u2019m capturing a bright image, I love the look of large soft boxes. There\u2019s no one-size-fits-all when it comes to lighting though. No discounting the tasteful use of a single spotlight when making darker, more dramatic images, like my classical painting recreations. When I use a light source in the image itself, like in \u201cReaching 2021\u201d, I take several shots with the lighting elements separated and composite them in editing. This is something I\u2019ve taken from my experience with rendering in 3d software, where rendering differing lighting passes and compositing them after the fact is common practice. <\/p>\nMy sculptures aren\u2019t usually placed in the real world; rather I use a backdrop that I can tweak or edit out completely in post, or I create balloon environments to fill the image. Backgrounds and balloons are tricky. You can\u2019t use a green screen for easy editing because the background color shows up in the highly reflective balloon surfaces. Any background removal is done painstakingly by hand.<\/p>\n
<\/span>The Phoblographer: What\u2019s been the biggest challenge you\u2019ve faced when photographing these on location?<\/span><\/h2>\nDJ Morrow:<\/strong> The location has primarily just been my living room. These are all passion projects of mine, and my efforts to monetize my work is going to be primarily focused on prints. When a piece needs to be built at a larger scale, finding an appropriate venue to work in has been a challenge. These things usually take two solid days to finish, and it works best when they\u2019re built and photographed on-site rather than transported to the shoot location after twisting. I\u2019d love to use natural outdoor lighting more for different things, but the humidity you find here in Houston, Texas oxidizes the balloons nearly instantly, and they lose their brilliant shine.<\/p>\n\n
<\/span>The Phoblographer: When you pose with these creations, have you ever accidentally popped some of the balloons? <\/span><\/h2>\nDJ Morrow:<\/strong> The shots of me standing inside my creations are always done last, so I don\u2019t have to worry about messing anything up. The balloons pop all the time though. It\u2019s usually not a big deal to repair. The Take These Seeds build was a particularly difficult headache as the blue rounds I had gotten were just awful quality. Half of them would pop on inflation, they all stuck to each other, causing more popping, and they inflated more than they were supposed to, causing the blue and yellow in the wall to be misaligned. It almost ruined the whole build. Sourcing quality balloons has been a struggle since the pandemic disrupted manufacturers\u2019 supply chains. The general quality of the balloons you can get your hands on has also seen a decline.<\/p>\n\n
The most devastating balloon pops come when using balloon distortion. This is a technique where you blow up and manipulate smaller balloons inside of other balloons to create more complex shapes, like how I created the woman in \u201cNUDE.\u201d After over two hours of working on that bust, the outer balloon popped, and I had to start over from scratch. For particularly complex distortion shapes, adding more talcum powder inside the balloons makes the distortion process a little bit less risky.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/span>The Phoblographer: There are quite a few NSFW ones in your collection. Typically what sort of events do these get sent to?<\/span><\/h2>\nDJ Morrow:<\/strong> I\u2019ll occasionally donate some SFW sculptures to my local library after I\u2019m done with the photography, but none of my signature fine art sculptures have been commissioned. I usually end up popping them soon after photography is wrapped, as I don\u2019t have the space or desire to store them.<\/p>\nMy balloon recreation of the painting \u201cSaturn Devouring His Son\u201d by Fransisco Goya marked my departure away from a family-friendly aesthetic. I had originally kept myself from posting it to social media, as I was planning on returning to children\u2019s entertainment once the pandemic subsided and events resumed. The only place I uploaded it to was Reddit, and to my surprise, it shot up to the number one post on the whole site that day. That was the kick in the butt I needed to decide to stop limiting myself and start creating honestly.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/span>The Phoblographer: Do you also make some of these for yourself and photograph them? Could we see some of the ones closest to your heart?<\/span><\/h2>\nDJ Morrow:<\/strong> The pieces I love the most are the ones that speak to real-world issues that are important to me. \u201cA Shattered Visage\u201d is about climate change and the world we live in becoming increasingly hostile and unsuitable for life as the climate crisis worsens. \u201cThe Feasting of Jephthah\u201d is about right-wing reactionaries fighting against abortion and LGBT rights, often being blind to the harm they cause to those close to them.<\/p>\n\n
<\/span>The Phoblographer: There must have been one that was the most complex to create. Which one do you suppose that was?<\/span><\/h2>\nDJ Morrow:<\/strong> I try to incorporate a new challenging technique with each new piece. \u201cThe Great Wave\u201d was challenging because I had never done a full balloon dress before, and the sheer scale and complexity of the build was overwhelming at times. I created a really interesting look for the skull in \u201cTake These Seeds,\u201d inspired by the works of Bekzinski and Giger, that took a lot of experimentation and failed attempts to get right. Working with broken mirror shards and balloons for \u201cA Shattered Visage\u201d was as crazy as it sounds. \u201cThe Feasting of Jephthah\u201d was an opportunity to push myself in weaving organic forms to create the enormous hand and fingers.<\/p>\nI have so many more crazy ideas and new techniques I\u2019m waiting to try. Underwater balloons. Two-dimensional creations. Incorporating body-painted models. Comic book page-style collages. Gory imagery. Large-scale abstract painting backgrounds. Art Nouveau linework. Fire. Monochromatic color schemes. So many projects and ideas in different stages of development, each challenging in its own way.<\/p>\n