Chad Moore’s art photography is all over town — in more ways than one.
Moore’s become a popular figure in the Magic City’s artistic culture, with his works finding their places at festivals, businesses and homes, but his work also depends on Birmingham for its backgrounds. Moore makes art by taking photos of action figures from nostalgic childhood comic books, movies and cartoons in unlikely (and often humorous) Birmingham-centric situations.
A Birmingham resident since 2000, Moore has been creating his whimsical pieces for seven years. His standing in the artistic community was not an immediate occurrence; that was a slow process that began when his wife was put in charge of a local art fundraiser thrown by her interior design business.
“They were looking for artists to submit their work and I thought, ‘I’m pretty creative, so why not give it a try?’” Moore recalled.
Moore’s first piece was of a honey bear visiting various Birmingham landmarks. “I placed him [the bear] in front of the Alabama Theatre, Sloss Furnace and Vulcan. I submitted it for fun and there ended up being a bidding war over it,” he said.
Moore continued to submit his artwork to the annual fundraiser for the next two years, but it wasn’t until 2010 that his career took a huge step forward. “I took a leap of faith and submitted an image to the Birmingham Red Cross’s Paint the Town Red event, and I told myself that if it got accepted then I would submit my work to Birmingham Artwalk. It was accepted, so then I applied to Artwalk and I got accepted there as well.” After Artwalk, Moore spent his time taking as many pictures as possible to get his work spread throughout the community.
Moore admits that he is self -taught when it comes to using a camera. “I’ve taken a few classes, but really I don’t do anything that’s high-tech when it comes to my pictures. There’s no intricate lighting or lens technology. It’s basically me getting up on a Saturday morning, getting down on the ground and taking a few angle shots of the figures I’ve brought with me.”
Since his first Artwalk, Moore’s work has been displayed at most of the local art shows and festivals thrown throughout the year. “This year I’ll be featured in nine of Birmingham’s festivals,” Moore said.
The festivals are his favorite part of the artistic community. “I love becoming friends with all the artists in the community through these festivals,” Moore said. He’s found Birmingham’s artistic community to be “a very tight-knit group. There’s no real competitive harshness to these festivals. Sometimes the artists swap pieces they admire and there are no feelings of resentment or dislike towards each other.”
The festivals are also a great opportunity for Moore to see which works the public favors, he says. “There are some pieces I’ll sell out of within the first hour of the festival and some that I’ll still have every copy of by closing time. I try to keep a good stock in the back so I can restock the ones that I sell out of, but you never know what’s going to sell at these festivals.”
Moore’s most popular piece is a photo called “Akbar Road”, which is a crossover between Star Wars and The Beatles’ Abbey Road album. “It has Star Wars characters walking across the cross walk like on the Abbey Road album cover. People went nuts over that one,” Moore said with a laugh.
His fastest-selling piece is one for Lord of the Rings fans called “The One Ring to Rule Them All”, which features the deformed hobbit Gollum in front of a box of donuts. Moore says that the more humorous the piece, the faster it sells. “I have one photo that’s of a little stuffed bear and no one wants the picture because they say he looks so sad. Which I find humorous, because I actually found the picture hilarious,” Moore said.
Moore’s creative process is simple: it consists of whatever pops into his head. “I would say half of my pictures are a concept I’ve had in mind and have thought hard on. And the other half are — I made sure I had enough action figures in my car, so if I see an interesting background, I’ll be prepared.”
Moore gets his action figures mostly from his children, or buying them online. In 2008, he used a pink stuffed bunny rabbit that belonged to his daughter to create his second piece. “I submitted the bunny picture to the Paint the Town Red event and whenever she (my daughter) saw the bunny, she would get so happy and then get so sad when it would go away.”
The Internet has also given Moore an endless supply of possibilities to choose from. “People will ask me, ‘Where on earth did you find a Rosie from The Jetsons action figure?’ and the truth is it’s really not difficult. Amazon Prime is your friend,” Moore joked.
Moore has no plans to stop his photography any time soon. “Since my frame is so small and Birmingham is constantly changing and growing, there are millions of opportunities for me to make new pieces. There’s always going to be an alley that I haven’t seen yet or a new construction site that will give me a cool background.”
Chad Moore will be at the ArtRageous event at Gallery Services on Oct. 16 from 5:30-8:30 p.m. and at Moss Rock Art Festival, Nov. 1-2 in Hoover. You can peruse (and buy) his work at his website pifflepics.com and at Naked Art Gallery on Clairmont Avenue.