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alexanderingram-blog · 11 years ago

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Essay Research: D&G 2007 Ad Campaign

The ad that caused the controversy: Fantasy Gang Rape? The ad they seem to be running instead Below article reprinted from MSN NBC By Susanna Schrobsdorff, Newsweek March 6, 2007 - The fashion design duo behind Dolce & Gabbana announced today that they are pulling a controversial print advertisement from publications worldwide following protests in Spain, and, egads, their home turf of Italy. The photo features a blank looking young woman in a bathing suit and high heels being pinned down by a glossy shirtless man while four other men look on. Is the image glorifying gang rape or tapping into a sexual fantasy? That may still be up for debate in some quarters. But Kim Gandy, president of the National Organization for Women says the ad indisputably promotes violence against women and has put it at the top of their Web site's page of offensive advertisements. Meanwhile, Stefano Gabbana says that he regrets the way the ad was perceived and insists that he and his partner Domenico Dolce were not intending to demean women. He adds that the image is artistic and was meant to "recall an erotic dream, a sexual game." Provocative images have been a staple for D&G, whose other ads have featured sexy scenes including one of a nude man lying down while several other clothed men look on seductively. Another ad, which was pulled last year from British publications, featured women brandishing knives. The most recent controversy broke out last month when the Spanish government demanded that D&G's "fantasy rape" ads be withdrawn. The country was coping with a wave of crimes against women at the time and public outrage was high. The designers complied, but said that Spain was "behind the times." That claim got harder to maintain on Friday when 13 Italian senators also demanded that the photo be taken out of circulation. On Tuesday, Stefano Gabbana said that they did not mean to "cause controversy," and were pulling the ads. But when is an onslaught of attention ever bad for a company looking to stay on fashion's leading edge? We asked Kim Gandy at NOW in Washington and Stefano Gabbana in Milan, Italy, about the ad and about that elusive line between sexy and exploitative. (Gabbana responded via e-mail.) Above: Dolce & Gabbana Excerpts: STEFANO GABBANA NEWSWEEK: Were you surprised at the criticism of your ads in Italy and Spain? Stefano Gabbana: It was never our purpose to cause any controversy and instigate violence against women. From both human and emotional points of view, we certainly do not want to attack women, a sex for whom we have always declared our love, as the feminine market represents 60 percent of our worldwide sales. We are businessmen and the results that our company achieves demonstrate it. How did you hope women would respond when they saw the ads? In Italy, the image first came out Feb. 5, in the most famous and bestselling [Italian] newspaper ... at that time, there was no reaction. The effects did not arrive in Italy until after the poor Spanish reaction [to] the ad. We understand that in Spain there is a truly important social emergency as far as violence against women [is concerned], which is why we did not want to offend anyone, so we immediately withdrew the image from all Spanish press. We want to reaffirm that the image does not represent rape or violence, but if one had to give an interpretation of the picture, it could recall an erotic dream, a sexual game. Women's groups say the ads promote violence against women. Is that an overreaction? We respect other people's opinions, but we do not look at it in this way. Can you talk about how you navigate the border between what's considered sexy and what's considered offensive? Sexy and offensive are two concepts very far from each other. Sexy can become vulgar according to how the item is worn and interpreted. From our point of view, we like to enhance everything that is beautiful and sexy in a woman; but, never offending, demeaning or being vulgar. We have always been in love with women and our collections are dedicated to their beauty. Has your agency ever shown you a campaign that you thought went too far? We do not work with agencies; we personally develop the campaigns' concept with photographers and art directors. From our point of view, we do not feel that we've ever gone too far. You've been in the business for 20 years and your advertisements have successfully pushed the envelope before. But a number of your campaigns this year have gotten some bad press. Is this the strongest, or most negative reaction you've ever gotten to your ads? We are sorry that unfortunately other campaigns also weren't understood, but we want to reaffirm that we never had the intention of causing noise or controversy in any way. One might expect these kinds of images to attract protests in America, which is considered a little more prudish about sex than Europe. Are you surprised at the complaints about the ads in your home country—a place which is not known to be repressed? As we already said, the reaction blew up in Italy only after it did in Spain. When it came out in February nobody was appalled, the reaction arose after a while, following what had happened in Spain. We are shocked because we do not agree, but we respect other people's opinions and do pay attention to the frustrations the advertising has caused worldwide. Will you pull the ads from Italian publications? The image will not be used going forward worldwide. It will come out only in publications that we could not block, because of printing deadlines. KIM GANDY NEWSWEEK: Where is the line between an ad that is about a sexy fantasy and something that is offensive? Kim Gandy: The line there is whether one considers rape to be a sexy fantasy. The Dolce & Gabbana ad was a stylized gang rape. Were you surprised that the ad caused such a stir in Italy and Spain, but not when it ran in Esquire magazine here in the United States? It surprises me a little bit because I thought almost anything could be in Italian and French ads to some extent. I guess this goes too far even for a society that has traditionally objectified women. It was interesting to me that the Italian senators who made this objection were both women and men and were from the ruling party and the minority party. It crossed gender and party lines. Above: NOW's Kim Gandy says that modern girls are'bombarded with the message that women are there for sex and are available for sex at anytime' Do ads like this successfully sell clothing to women? I think they were trying to sell clothes to men with this one. The woman was wearing a kind of bathing suit, but presumably the men were wearing Dolce & Gabbana clothes. It was in Esquire [magazine] here in the States and the idea that even a stylized image of rape appeals to a broad readership of men is disturbing. Interestingly, in Italy it ran in some women's magazines, which may have been what generated the response there. You've got a number of ads on your "Love Your Body" Web site that you've deemed offensive to women. Should they all be removed from circulation? Some of those ads are just insulting and of course there's a difference between being insulting and portraying women as less than human—as people to be raped or assaulted. The bourbon ad that said "Your bourbon has a great body and fine character. I wish the same could be said for my girlfriend," is more insulting. I think that insulting various groups of people has become a lazy way of getting laughs or attention Men are insulted a lot in ads too. Fathers and husbands are often portrayed as clueless. If everyone is being insulted can we pick out one ad or another for criticism? The sexualization of girls is different. It has gotten extreme and that can't be good for our kids or our society. I don't want my two middle school daughters internalizing images which objectify women and I especially don't want their male friends internalizing them. They are bombarded with the message that women are there for sex and are available for sex at anytime. And as strong as parents try to be in educating our own kids and giving them good values, they get bombarded by messages from the outside for more hours per day than their parents have them. Is advertising more demeaning to women today than it was 10 or 20 years ago? Advertising is far more demeaning to women today than it was 20 years ago. In the 1970's and 1980's, we had a national project where you could send post cards to companies who used offensive advertising. It said that they were the recipient of a bad ad award. I'm sure if we looked back at some of the ads we were talking about then, they probably wouldn't even register as offensive now. Dove has recently launched ads with nude older women as part of their "Real Beauty" campaign. Several big cosmetic companies are using older women like Christie Brinkley and Diane Keaton in their ads. Is there also concurrent trend toward ads that promote more realistic images of women? In some ways yes. Thank goodness for the Dove campaign. Nike did something similar with the ads that show girls running and jumping and being athletic. And maybe cosmetic companies have finally figured out that women over 50 are using these products. So the kind of nudity Dove is using is OK? I'm not a great proponent of using naked women to sell products, but it's refreshing for a change at least to see a normal-looking woman who's not emaciated being used to sell products. The whole idea of airbrushing and elongating the necks and legs and enlarging eyes in advertisements is very dangerous. They are creating a standard of beauty that's impossible to reach. Even the models don't attain it. Yet this is what our daughters aspire to and what our sons are expecting. By these standards women and girls are always inadequate and they're always buying the next beauty treatment trying to catch up, trying to be something they can't ever be. © 2007 Newsweek, Inc.

Double Standard?

Now what amazes me is the double standard here. Take a look at the two following Dolce & Gabbana ads that ran without any controversy. You're gonna tell me these don't imply gang rape as well? So, what gives? You tell me.... - See more at: http://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/menacing-or-marketing-d-controversial.html#sthash.t4P833Dm.dpuf Source: http://ifitshipitshere.blogspot.co.uk/2007/03/menacing-or-marketing-d-controversial.html

#criticalPerspectives

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alexanderingram-blog · 11 years ago

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Martin Schoeller

Martin Schoeller is one of my all time favourite photographers, and I find his style of portrait photography especially inspiring. One thing that I find most interesting about his portraits is the amount of detail and attention that he pays to the subjects eyes. Not only are they crystal clear and sharp, but I also love the fact that you can see the lighting setup that he used reflected in the subjects iris. His work is not just the typical mugshot portrait, but is a style that is immediately recognisable to anyone, whether they are interested in photography and art or not. The shallow depth of field and incredibly sharp details of the face, combined with the soft lighting that illuminates the face perfectly result in a portrait that is incredibly appealing and eye catching.

A CONVERSATION WITH MARTIN SCHOELLER

Flip through the pages of any major magazine published in the last few years and it’s likely you’ve seen a picture snapped by Martin Schoeller therein. The German-born award-winning photographer got off to a rough start upon moving to the United States in the early 1990s, only to find himself as an in-demand iconic picture taker today.

He’s covered every major celebrity you can imagine with his trademark close-up portraiture and fashion photos alike (though, he admits fashion isn’t quite his bag). From Paris Hilton to Barack Obama, Schoeller has worked with Hollywood’s elite and America’s most influential politicians. He’s seen it all. And despite his demanding schedule, I was recently able to have an intriguing conversation with Schoeller on the topic of his photography career:

PetaPixel: What’s your background? How did you get started in the world of photography?

Martin Schoeller: Well, I didn’t know what I wanted to do until I was about 20-years-old and a friend of mine applied to a photo school in Berlin and said ‘Why don’t you apply as well? We can go to the school together.’

Since education is free in Germany, a lot of people apply for these more artistic professions. It’s quite competitive to get into these schools. My friend gave me all of this advice, and in the end I was accepted and he wasn’t. Then I had to move in with him because he already lived in Berlin.

That’s how I really got started with photography.

So I came into it quite late. I think a lot of people start with photography when they’re like, 14 – 15. They always were kind of interested in it. But once I start going to the school I was so relieved that I found something where I felt I could be good at if I try really hard.

It’s kind of until then I knew I wasn’t quite a bookworm. I knew I wasn’t the studious type. It was kind of a great fit for my personality.

Then I worked for a photographer in Frankfurt for a little while. I also worked for a photographer in Hamburg. Came to the United States in ’92. I had to go back [to Germany] because I couldn’t find a job. And then came back [to the United States] in ’93 and ended up, after a while, working with Annie Leibovitz for three years until early ’97. It took about a year in a half to kind of get my first job.

I kept on shooting like crazy on the street, you know? Having no money, I started hanging out at the police station in Newark, New Jersey. I would take the PATH train to Newark from New York, which was only a dollar. I lived on two slices of pizza and a Budweiser beer a day for probably about a year. I had a five dollar spending limit for food a day. So I knew exactly where the cheapest food places are. So it was a little bit rough.

For quite some time, I would take roller blades to get around to save on the token money to drop off my book and pick up my book. It was quite a hassle because you had to drop them off and you had to pick them up. You don’t even get an appointment to see anybody. Having worked with Annie, and a lot of other former assistants that had worked with Annie, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you get to see anybody at a magazine.

In the beginning, my work was very static. I basically photographed people in the same style with an eight by ten inch camera. They were very personal portraits. It was more like face studies. And that didn’t go over too well with photo editors. I’d make them into sixteen-by-twenty-inch prints. I had this big portfolio. People didn’t know what to do with my photographs.

After a while, I came across with the scheme of low-lights and then I started to loosen up and it allowed for more expression to create this look that I’ve been doing ever since then. Still pretty static. So, a very controlled environment. Always the same lens, the same lighting, the same angle. Very similar expression, but there’s a little more life in them than in my earlier portraits. My career started taking off in ’99.

PP: You noted that you spent time working for Annie Leibovitz. No doubt, one of the most famed celebrity photographers out there. Can you talk more about that experience?

MS: I came to the States because I wanted to work with her, Irving Penn, or Steven Meisel. I thought maybe I could do fashion, which in retrospect is quite funny considering I don’t really care about clothes. But I knew I’d learn a lot from her. I was a great fan of her work and still am.

I had seen a show in Hamburg at the Deichtorhallen and was so, so impressed by her pictures and by that show. It took me a while to have that opportunity to assist her, [and I did] for a couple of days. Somebody had just left and the first assistant liked me and saw that I had a lot of technical knowledge. My school was very technical and not, you know, not very fine-art paced. It was very much about optics, the chemistry, printing, and color temperature. He kind of liked it.

My English was really bad back then. So anyway, he really liked the idea of having a technical backup. I thought I was fairly qualified, but I was pretty much totally overwhelmed for the first year. I mean, you think you know so much coming out of photo school and then you work with a professional photographer [on] these huge set-ups. It’s like stepping into a whole other league. A whole other stratosphere.

PP: So you were intimidated?

MS: I was intimidated, and fascinated. It was like the most exciting thing, you know? We worked insane hours. It was a roller coaster ride. And I was, at times, third assistant so I would only go on shoots in Manhattan or, you know, around New York where we’d drive to. A lot of her work is done outside of the city, so I’d stay back and organize the equipment room.

While working with her, the other assistants left pretty quickly and then I became her first assistant in charge of lighting. And that’s when it got really intense. She’s very demanding and she’s often known impatient in photo shoots. You’re often running out of time and can’t play around with the light.

You have to know what you’re doing. You have to work immediately. People get impatient having their picture taken. They don’t want to sit and wait around. So I learned so much because she gave me so much responsibility, but with the responsibility also came the burden if things didn’t go so well. It got pretty heated sometimes. But there’s no way I’d be where I am now without having worked with her. I think I owe a great deal of my success to Annie.

PP: Did you come out of the experience having a plan? In other words, did you know what you wanted to do specifically once you stopped working for Annie?

MS: Well, I kind of felt like I wanted to do what Annie’s doing. I never thought I’d be as successful as I am now. Or that I’d get these high-profile jobs. But I knew I wanted to be a magazine photographer. That’s what I came out of [it thinking]. I thought what a great, cool job. I love all the traveling, the challenges that come with it. I felt like that’s what I wanted to do myself. I thought having worked with Annie I had a good starting point. But then working for somebody and doing the lighting and then doing everything yourself. That was another quite steep learning curve.

PP: You mentioned earlier your portrait style. Can you talk about the development of the portrait style you’re famous for today?

MS: When I left Annie I had done a lot of photo shoots in those few free days that I had and I tried fashion shoots and portraits of friends of mine. And I never thought those [close-up portraits] would be the ones I’d want to take in the future. I just had one idea for one project and then made it happen.

I went to the police department in Newark, New Jersey to photograph all the cops and make friends with them. Ended up in the homicide squad, and car chases, and photographed those police officers arresting people, people getting beaten up, and people being dead on the streets. So then that was another thing I did.

And then I ended up doing a whole series on drag queens. I never really thought ‘Oh, this is the career I want to have, and this is going to lead to this, and this is going to lead to that.’ It’s hard enough to come up with an idea. If you start over thinking it, and looking too much in a sense of what has been done in the past, I think you end up doing nothing.

In retrospect I think it was good I was slightly ignorant. I just kept on taking pictures. Eventually, these close-ups were the pictures that people responded to the most. I felt the strongest about them myself, so I kept them doing more and more of those. But if I wouldn’t have gotten all the other pictures over the years, I probably I wouldn’t have ended up doing them. It wasn’t a like a concept that I thought would ever be taking off. It was just one of many things I was working on.

PP: Do you think these close-ups are something you’ll continue doing for the rest of your career? Will they stick with you?

MS: Yeah, you know, I made a mistake and stopped doing them for a while. A friend of mine said ‘Oh, you got to reinvent yourself, you’ve done a lot of those.’ Then I started doing them a little bit differently. I even started shooting with an eight-by-ten-inch camera. But I will keep on doing them now.

I think It’s important to have one style. There’s no reason to stop doing it, really, because Richard Avedon took all of his pictures in front of a white background. With an eight-by-ten or something and a medium-format camera. I mean he never changed his style, ever.

He barely showed a color picture. So why would I [stop taking them] now? After I’ve been doing them for fifteen years, why would I think ‘now I’m going to start doing some self-portraits’?

Magazines like them, people like them. That’s telling. Why would Diane Albus now all of a sudden start shooting color or change up her lighting? She did the same thing all of her life. Weegee did the same thing all of his life.

It doesn’t mean I can’t do other bodies of work that I can light differently, or that are very differently conceptually. I’m still in the same position I was fifteen years ago. You get an assignment, and you have very little time with somebody. You’re in a location that you haven’t chosen, they’re wearing something that you might not like. But [with] the close-up you’re in this fortunate position of always walking away with something where nothing else but the person matters.

It doesn’t matter where they are or what they’re wearing. So it feels like an honest portrait that sometimes is impossible to take given the circumstances that you’re handed.

PP: You do a lot of work for fashion magazines like Vogue and Vanity Fair. But you mentioned earlier that you’re not particularly interested in clothes. So where does your real passion in photography lie? Is it doing the close-up images you talked about or is there something else that you enjoy doing as well?

MS: Yeah, I love doing the close-ups. You know, I really enjoy working for magazines because they pay [me] to go to places, they pay [me] to meet people, to research people. I mean, if people say ‘what’s the most exciting assignment you ever had?’ Then I probably would have to say where I find myself the happiest and not as stressed out, and just like having a great time.

I’ve been sent to photograph one of those indigenous groups [in Brazil and Tanzania]. I was basically there for a month and then hanging out with this group of people that still goes hunting and gathering. I didn’t have to come up with concepts, I didn’t have to try to talk to anybody into anything. You know, and I could just watch these people and hang out.

You can’t even really talk to them because you don’t speak their language. So you depend on some translators and then they’re not around. So you just become this entity in the village where everybody more or less gets used to. Some people are just smiling at you and you’re just sitting there on a rock and watching life go by in this environment that is so, so foreign to us.

And I always love those assignments because you get to climb out of your tent with your camera around your neck and there’s no publicist, no stylist, no make-up people. I have an assistant with me but often I went along by myself. They remind me of my old days of my photography career.

PP: Who were those shoots for?

MS: One was for The New Yorker, a short trip. And then another one was for German Geo. And then I’ve done two for National Geographic and then I was once in Africa for Travel + Leisure.

Sometimes I try to talk people into doing a story on a tribe in order to [go]. It’s so expensive to go there, and authorization is difficult to come by. So it’s good to have somebody sending you rather than me spending all that money trying to do it on my own.

PP: I wanted to get your opinion on something. Do you think once you start doing photography as a career that it becomes less interesting to do it as a hobby?

MS: Yeah, that is definitely true. I’m taking pictures of my four-year-old quite a lot but honestly I’ve taken them with my phone. You know, I’m too lazy to carry around a camera, it’s kind of pathetic.

I’m not taking a Leica and doing contact sheets, which is something that I should be doing and I probably will regret later. I have done some close-ups of him over the years but that’s pretty much all.

So yes, it is true because as soon as a camera is involved you feel like you’re working.

For me, looking at magazines is stressful because you constantly reflect on everything you see. I like to go to shows, and museums, and exhibitions but it’s always something that’s visual and could change my views. It’s all stimulation, but it’s also professional stimulation. It’s not just entertainment. It is kind of stressful. It feels like work, so sometimes you don’t want to do it.

PP: So, I take it you’re not really attracted to taking pictures when you’re not on a job, or do you? You mentioned you like to take pictures of your four-year-old. Is there anything else that you like doing, or you pretty much limit it to that?

MS: I love taking pictures of him, but you know, I just take them with a phone snapshot. For me that really doesn’t count. You know, people think that aiming your telephone at something is the same as taking a photograph. It’s just basically such a passive thing. You’re not really thinking about it, it’s just: ‘oh, that’s cool, click’.

Everybody is a photographer nowadays on Instagram but those pictures are all, you know, basically snapshots. Like, they’re blurbs. They’re not really photography in the sense of, there’s no concept behind it, no thought, nobody is being directed. It’s just like ‘hey, look at the camera,’ you know?

I mean, it has its own needs and its own purpose but you can’t really take those pictures that serious.

PP: But back to the question. You don’t really spend much time taking pictures outside of assignments, or do you?

MS: I mean, outside of assignments I do. I’m going back to the tribe that I photographed last year for National Geographic, and I helped them organize a meeting of chiefs, financially. So I’m going back to Brazil on my own dime to photograph all of these chiefs that are coming together. So I do that, you know? It’s not an assignment. I’m just doing it for myself.

I do personal projects here and there. Family pictures, or very often friends. But I never have a camera with me. I’m not somebody who goes out for dinner with a camera and constantly wants to be thinking about what picture to take. If that makes any sense.

PP: What do you say to someone who is trying to get into photography? Also, I wonder if you have any advice for hobby photographers who are trying to find inspiration or style.

MS: Well, I think the most important thing is to, well, a number of things . I have a 23-year-old son who’s going to the same photo school I went to, and I see a lot of people that go to school with him. Some people just don’t take photography serious enough. It depends on what you want to get from it. If you want to have fun, do whatever you want. But if you want to take great pictures, then it is not something that is to be taken lightly.

If you want to be a good photographer, think of somebody who wants to be a lawyer. And not just an okay lawyer who helps some people not get kicked out of their apartment or someone who deals with a simple contract loan. If you want to be one of the best lawyers or whatever field of law you might be in — those people work twelve hours a day, fourteen hours a day. Maybe not all of their lives but at least for like ten years of their lives.

It’s such a huge time commitment. If you want to be a photographer, you have to take it serious and you have to be willing to work as hard as anyone else who wants to be successful in any kind of field would have to do. You can’t just be like ‘I’m an artist, and I’m looking at magazines, and I’m going to some shows, and then I chat with some friends about the latest equipment, and then I retouch some image for five hours, and then that was a work day for photographer.’

I think most people spend too much time looking at pictures, too much time talking about pictures, too much time on Instagram, too much time on Facebook, too much time on all the social media, and so preoccupied with — they think if more people see their pictures, the more valid of a photographer they are and the more important their pictures become.

Photography shouldn’t be a competition on who has the most photos on Instagram and can get the most compliments on Instagram by some other people that don’t know anything about photography. You have to take a lot of pictures, you have to think about the pictures you take, you have to be able to explain why you’ve taken those pictures, and you have to be honest. And that’s the hardest part, you have to be honest with yourself. You have to compare yourself to the best photographers out there.

Don’t look at a magazine and say ‘oh, that’s a shitty picture in this magazine; my pictures are better than that one shitty picture in this magazine’ because you don’t know the circumstances the picture in the magazine was taken under. A lot of magazine photographs are lousy because you have to deal with publicists and egos, PR agents, restriction on time, lighting, and location.

So yeah, there is a lot of not so great photographs in magazines but you should compare yourself with, you know, two, three of the greatest photographers, whose work you really like. Think about really which work means the most to you rather than saying ‘I like Albert Watson, I like Mark Seliger, I like Avedon, I like Gursky.’

I like all of these people too but do I really love their work? Does their work really mean something to me? Out of all of them, only the Bechers’ work probably means something to me. I think it’s important not to have too many idols. Have a few idols, and then try to take pictures like them that hold up to their quality.

Out of that there will be something will come up that’s your own. No photographer is ever the same. You will walk away with something that will be yours that would look different.

So — oh god — I’m always so passionate and tell young photographers this, but you know, that’s really the way it is. Most young people are not willing to work hard enough.

From “Identical: Portraits of Twins”

PP: Well what, in your opinion, do you think makes a successful photographer?

MS: I think talent is only a part of the whole equation. I’m not going to name any names but I think there’s a lot of photographers out there that are not really that talented –

PP: Oh, come on! Give me a name.

MS: No, no, no!

They’re not really great photographers but they’re working a lot. And they’re making money. They’re making a fine living for themselves. Those kind of photographers are ultra driven. They really try hard, and they take an okay picture once in a while, or pretty good pictures.

I might be one of those, for what it’s worth. Time will tell which photographer still being talked about in twenty, thirty years from now. Only a few will be remembered. You have to always try to separate yourself from the photographers that just work really hard and that are just okay, and try to be better than you.

I have to push myself all the time. A lot of success in photography really comes from a very strong work ethic. Once you start getting jobs, once you develop your own style, things get a little bit easier. You can hire help, you even can afford other people to work for you, which makes your life a little bit easier.

But in the beginning you have to do everything yourself. Then there’s photographers who just have this great talent or maybe it’s their personality, or they do something that hasn’t been done before or they totally reinvent, like David LaChapelle, who revolutionized modern-day photography.

Terry Richardson, I think he is in the footsteps of [LaChapelle] a little bit in the sense that he really stood out with his style. He was really, really different when he started.

Annie [Leibovitz] invented modern-day magazine photography as we know it. Those people just have a lot of talent. But even then, they still have to work really hard.

Even though it has gotten so much harder, you have to have the drive and you have the self-reflection. Be honest about your own work. That’s the point that I always make.

I did a workshop once, and I had these young photo students show me these really bad-to-mediocre photographs, and they expected to be patted on the shoulder and being told how great their work is. No, I told them ‘it’s crap.’

They looked at me as if I was crazy. I’m like ‘well, have you ever looked at a photo book? Do you think your work is as good as the work in this photo book?’

Realistically, [your pictures] have to be as good as those pictures in those books. Or better! They have to be better in order to get a new book. If you did the same thing, it was already published!

I sound too bitter or something, I don’t know. I know all other photographers try to be more optimistic and more upbeat. I always sound so pessimistic when it comes to young photographers but it’s more me talking about my twenty-three year old than about the average photo student.

From “Identical: Portraits of Twins”

PP: Any upcoming projects?

MS: I have this book, Identical, that just came out a few months ago. I don’t know if you’ve seen that with the twins and multiples photographed close-up style?

PP: I have seen that, yeah.

MS: And then next book is probably coming out next year, with more of my magazine work. Not my close-up images that I’ve taken during magazine assignments but what I call my ‘mental’ pictures — people in an environment. Then we’ll see what I do after that. Maybe another close-up book one day, in a couple of years, maybe after 20 years of doing them.

PP: Martin, thank you so very much for your time!

MS: Thank you!

#studio

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