front&center: Jarrett Murphy

Batesville transplant on the verge of being world-renowned

By Jeremy Peppas

LITTLE ROCK — Jarrett Murphy needed to find some gloves.

Murphy, a Batesville-based photographer, wanted to get some of his pictures, some of his art, from underneath the bed, but he needed to find gloves first.

“I need those for the spiders,” he said of the gloves.

“Nobody told us about the spiders when we moved here.” Murphy, 22, came to Batesville last fall with his girlfriend, Margaret LeJeune, a tenure-track professor at Lyon College who is also a photographer. Murphy was one of 10 professional photographers named to the short list for the Sony World Photography Awards in nature photography.

Seven amateur photographers were also selected and to put the short list recognition in some perspective, the contest received a total of 70,575 entries with 44,641 in the professional category and 25,934 as amateurs. The winner will receive $25,000 and will be announced April 26 in Cannes, France.

“I just know a whole lot of people entered,” Murphy said. “Just to be one of those 10 photographers out of those 40,000, 45,00 entries, that is kind of cool. As far as winning, that would be nice, the 25 grand is, but I think even more than the money, whomever wins, they are going to get so much more recognition from the award.” Murphy never expected to be living in Batesville, or for that matter, Arkansas, after spending much of his young life in the Northeast.

On the other hand, the move hasn’t mattered as much as he originally thought.

“It really wasn’t that big of a difference,” he said. “As far as I was concerned, we had to move, and the week before, of course, it was super-hectic. When we got here, I was afraid that it would go from super high-speed hectic to get down here and then have nothing to do. Right away you start unpacking but it really wasn’t that much of a change for me personally to be here.” He has his Nintendo Wii and a large selection of video games in his living room. Murphy has his cameras and gear, plus places and things to shoot, not just around Batesville, and when he heard about the short list selection he was in Salt Lake City.

“I was out there photographing. [My girlfriend] has a brother who lives out there, and I like to take pictures of the snow, and it doesn’t snow that much here.” Murphy said he is surprised by how busy he has stayed since moving to Batesville.

“I apply to shows every week, every couple of weeks,” he said. “There’s two that I should apply to right now.

I’m always updating my Web site. I’m writing my artist statement. I’m surprised that I don’t find myself with the abundance of time that I expected. I’ve always had things to do. Yeah, there’s been some changes, like the much lighter winter, but the day-to-day stuff, with the exception of not being able to go out, it is pretty much the same.” Murphy came to Batesville with some expectations.

“I was told that everything goes a little slower in the South,” he said. “You don’t really have a place where people gather. Batesville has one coffeehouse, thatnobody goes to, and, obviously, no bars. You don’t have a place to get together with people.”

Yet with modern technology, Batesville is, in some ways, not much different from the Philadelphia suburb where Murphy grew up.

“You can kind of make your own world and take it with you,” Murphy said. “I just go online and find the shows I need and send it off. All I need is a post office.”

E-mail and the Internet has made the world smaller as well.

“We all have our Web sites, and as a result we all have pretty permanent e-mail addresses,” Murphy said of himself and of his friends in the photography world. “When I found out Iwas on the Sony list, I got a call from a friend in Rochester who congratulated me. I was getting messages on my Facebook. And outside of the mention on Sony’s site, all I could find was an article in an online London newspaper, but everyone already seemed to know.”

While the adjustment to Southern living hasn’t been as drastic as he had anticipated, there are still a few things Murphy misses. He can’t find Tastykakes, a sort-of Philadelphia version of Little Debbie snack cakes, west of the Mississippi.

“Butterscotch Krumpet,” Murphy said of his favorite Tastykake. “You have a lot of Philadelphia foods you can’t get around here. Philly cheesesteaks. The rolls to make them on. Next time I’m in Philly, I’m coming back with a carload.”

Murphy still maintains a busyschedule of shows.

“The last one? I just had an opening in Atlanta last week,” Murphy said. “The week before it was in Johnson City (Tenn.), then one in Denton (Texas), I think it is in April. I have another one in Portland (Ore.).”

At the time of the interview, Murphy was preparing for a trip to Chicago and another show, but that one was for his girlfriend.

The shows haven’t been solo exhibitions, and Murphy said usually he gets to display one or two of his pieces. Not one has sold.

“Most of my shows have been on college campuses, and the students, they don’t have any money,” he said. “So I have been sending off to the larger galleries and seeing what happens.” - jpeppas@ arkansasonline.commatter of fact

Name: Jarrett Murphy

Age: 22

Birthday: May 18, 1985

Family: Margaret LeJeune,

girlfriend and a professor at

Lyon College in Batesville

Occupation: Professional

photographer

When did you become

interested in photography?

I guess I was 16 when I took

a photo class in high school.

The school only had two

photo classes, photography

and advanced photography. I

took them and I took advanced

photography again but only

if I did different assignments.

I did an independent study

in photography for another

semester, then I needed to

go to college for something.

They said photography was

an option. I said, ‘You can

go to college for that?’ and

my teachers told me about

RIT (Rochester Institute of

Technology, a noted school for

photography in New York) and it

was a tough first year.

Favorite thing about

Arkansas: All the people I

have talked to have been very

cooperative about allowing us

to shoot. We went out in the

middle of the night and shot

[someone’s] farm.

Least favorite things about

Arkansas: Spiders and the

Arkansas summer. Did you

know spiders could jump?

I was hesitant to go out and

shoot when I got here. It was

100 degrees out and you have

spiders everywhere.

Three Rivers, Pages 116, 120 on 03/16/2008