Capturing the Speed Of Light
By Rebecca Fox
Rebecca Fox interviews emerging fashion photographer Sarah Silver
Padding around the Union Square studio she shares with four other photographers in black Chinese slippers, Sarah Silver prepares her pre-interview beverage in classic Middle Eastern fashion. Silver, petite with a blonde, Mia Farrow cropped haircut and clad in her "uniform" (usually low-slung trousers or jeans and an ever-rotating cast of finely milled tank tops), begins by reaching for an oversized water glass. Into it, she deposits a tea bag, pours scalding water, and divulges sugar from a diner-style canister for an unbroken 30 seconds.
Like her beverage of choice, Silver’s images are potent, hitting a visual sweet spot. Stylistically, Silver’s work combines intense, saturated colors, and dynamically captured movement. The visual palette she uses is lush and modern, as is her medium of choice (digital photography). Yet, inherent within the subject Silver captures in motion, is the classicism of lines and shapes evoked by even the most modern of dance.
Born in Japan and raised in Chicago, Silver grew up traveling extensively throughout Asia and the Middle East–a product of her father’s work as a U.N. consultant. Silver traded dance classes for dance photography while pursuing a B.A. at Vassar College. After spending a year in Israel, photographing dance extensively and completing her degree in Middle East Studies, Silver graduated from college and went directly into an M.F.A. program at New York’s School of Visual Arts.
Currently, Silver juggles a schedule packed with fashion editorial and advertising projects. One recent afternoon, tall glass of tea by her side, Silver broke from scheduling upcoming shoots to discuss how her twin passions for dance and technology inform her work in fashion photography.
So, the progression for you, in terms of your subjects, went from dance, which you shot in college, to more movement photography in grad school, leading to your work now, which is fashion-oriented. How did you first introduce high fashion into your work?
I was at grad school when my friend, Ofer Wolberger who, the year before, had been a Surface Avant Gardian (featured in an issue the magazine devotes to emergent talent) said, ‘I really think you can submit your work.’ So I sent in a bunch of dance stuff where the clothing was cute, simple, not very high style at all, but it was very stylized movement. After seeing that, Surface asked me to take what I knew of movement and shoot it with fashion clothing. I fused the two, and they accepted it, and it was fantastic–I got the table of contents page. It was pretty amazing, especially as a first publication. You can’t do much better than the Surface Avant Gardian issue as an entry into the fashion world.
So, what has been the relationship between your dance/movement work and high fashion?
There are two things I shoot: fashion spreads for magazines and advertising. I realized I wanted my work to appeal to a broader audience, so I had to start using models, and break away from using dancers in shoots, because it has to be understood as fashion. To reach a market which is expecting a certain look, you have to meet them there. You’re pushing them with the movement anyway, so you can’t switch all the cues, entirely. Because people look at dancers and they see that they’re very muscular and athletic-looking, or they see that they’re way shorter than fashion models–people don’t relate to those images as fashion images.
So, to make the clothes the focus, movement or no, you stick with models?
Usually, but fashion models don’t always move very well, so you have to cast very carefully. Or find someone so incredibly awkward that they look great when they’re falling over. You need an extreme … The thing that I didn’t realize when I started this was–who pays for fashion editorial? Fashion advertisers. And what do they want? They want their clothing to look good. Fashion looks fine when it’s still, but it can look even better when the people in it are moving. Suddenly it really has a shape with someone controlling it, and capturing that movement in a photograph makes people say, ‘I want that dress.’ And the advertisers are happy and that markets you well. You’re not going to get an advertising job by just walking in the door and saying hi. But all that editorial and the creative control there allows you to walk into the advertising agency and say–
‘–I make your clothes look like they’re going to move right off the shelf…’
Exactly. And people get so inspired by that. Last year, Nokia used an image I shot of two dancers. They put it on the box for one of their phones, because they wanted to get customers to feel like they could dance the tango while using the phone. So the movement I shoot has a lot of applications. People have said to me ‘How can you make a whole career based on movement?’ Well, I don’t only shoot movement. But, there’s always some sort of feeling of motion. I hope that my pictures never feel too static. It is a niche, but if it is what makes me an artist then, it works.
Well, a niche is also another way of describing a specialty, or an area of expertise.
Yes, and I go back to my dance clients, and we have a really good time. I still shoot a lot of dance–it’s exciting. I take what I understand about fashion now and I shoot dance differently.
How does the fashion come back into the dance photography?
I understand costumes better; I understand hair and makeup better. Now, when it comes to dance, I’m looking for something that’s more than just a dance pose or movement. I’m looking for something that’s fashionable, even if it’s within pure dance, which I wouldn’t have known if I hadn’t shot fashion.
What’s your favorite fashion subject to shoot?
I love to shoot couture.
Why?
Those gowns, they move almost on their own. You can do things when shooting couture you can’t with other clothes, because it’s just that beautiful.
How about your own relationship to fashion?
It was the Avant Gardian shoot that really made me understand that the things I love about shooting movement were grace and color. And so, fashion was introduced into my work as this beautiful component. Good materials were a vehicle for capturing the color and the movement and the dynamic action that really comes through the clothes. I don’t shoot in black and white much because of this, because color makes things so dynamic. Coupled with the movement, it’s a knockout. For me, the revelation was that there’s an entire world dedicated to producing these clothes which help me get exactly what I want out of my shots. I think in grad school, I might have done two or three shoots where the clothing wasn’t exquisite, but I quickly realized that everything looks cheap unless it’s not cheap.
What about trends in fashion photography?
With trends in photography, it’s like this: As an artist in any medium, you have to know what came before you, so it can show you where you’re going. As a photographer, you have to know that, and if you’re shooting fashion, should have a sense of that history, too. You’re always going to be referencing people, no matter what. Everything’s been done, and maybe you’re doing it a little different, but… you want to make sure that you don’t come up with something you think is totally brilliant but turns out to be overdone.
What about other fashion photographers you look to, people whose work or careers you might aspire to?
Favorite photographers in history–George Platt Lynes. George was a big fashion photographer and advertising photographer, but he ripped up his negatives and burned them before he died. He worked from about ’35 to ’55. He was a huge dance photographer and he’s well known, mostly for his male nudes. I love that old style, Irving Penn, also. The thing I love about these photographers is that they used to shoot dance, too. Sølve Sundsbø is just amazing–he shoots a lot of movement in his fashion work, also.
What do you see as the ideal response from someone who’s regarding your work? What are you going for, in terms of the reaction you elicit in your viewer?
I want to make sure it’s colorful, and dynamic. It’s not as if you’re going to run around your party doing leaps and jumps. But there should be something that makes the clothing look striking and makes the image stand out.
What are you hoping people aren’t noticing? What are the seams, as it were, of the pictures?
We retouch all of that out. By the time we’re done with it, you see none of that. I won’t release any image that isn’t 100%. If it’s not perfect, it’s not out there. There is no seam.
So what can we look forward to from you?
I don’t want to lose that niche market that I’ve always been so passionate about. People are always trying to shoo me away from shooting movement. I don’t want to lose the whole reason why I was here in the first place, which is that I understand something about capturing bodies in motion, using fashion. I’m looking for new ways to put movement in photography. I don’t want to stick to convention–I want to keep looking forward. The passion for me isn’t just in the photography, it’s that split second moment when you’ve captured something on film you never knew was possible, and everybody in the studio looks at the computer screen and says "I didn’t know you could do that." I can light as well as anybody else, but what sets me apart is the movement I capture in that 1/25 of a second. That’s what makes someone an artist, the evolution of their work, and not relying on the same old tricks. If I’m always trying new things, this will never stop being something I’m excited about.
