ROBIN SCHWARTZ
GREYHOUND HAIR DOORS (2010)
Courtesy of Robin Schwartz
Why do you make pictures?
My picture “making” has been a lifelong process that makes me happy. I’m inspired by my fantasy dreams and my need to memorialize my subjects and experiences.
I hope viewers consider that animals and people are fundamentally the same, both with relationships and feelings.
What are some of the important themes in your work?
Photography is an extension of drawings and paintings that I made as a child of the subjects I love and the artists I admire. My drive to represent animals and their relationships with people has been constant. As a child, I drew, painted, and photographed specific animals, sometimes with girls. Unfortunately, I had to depart from my passion in college, but found myself again in graduate school.
Describe your creative process.
Photography and historical paintings ranging from medieval, Renaissance, and Impressionist periods, as well as contemporary art, inspire my work. I figure out how to apply the art I admire into my own photography with my own subjects.
How similar are the final images you create to your initial ideas?
My more meaningful results are always a surprise. My subjects are unpredictable, so I must go with the flow. A spontaneous element usually makes for a better image. When I attempt to control the shoot, my results are not as exciting for me.
What are your personal characteristics that enable/help you to make your work?
I belong to a tribe of like-minded, animal people. This universal “tribe” connection and my prior photography projects earn me access and trust. Sometimes I think my lack of confidence helps me relate to people, but it can also hinder me.
Do you have any places you visit or rituals to maintain your inspiration?
I had been a regular visitor to the Metropolitan Museum of Art when my daughter was younger. This exposure influenced my work. These days I’m digital and find inspiration on the Internet.
Who are your favorite artists?
This is always a challenge to answer and to remember the eclectic mix of painters, illustrators, and photographers who inspire me—I grab inspiration wherever I can.
Photographers such as August Sander, Sally Mann, Diane Arbus, Mary Ellen Mark, Dorothea Lange, Helen Levitt, Eugène Atget, W. Eugene Smith, Sebastião Salgado, Erika Larsen, and painters such as Mark Ryden, Henri Rousseau, Margaret Keane, medieval paintings of the Virgin Mary, Vermeer for the light—as every photographer mentions—and a range of formal painted portraiture inspire me. There are so many more.
What are your other interests outside of photography?
My life and time overlap my photography because of my obsession with animal subjects. As a mother and a full-time professor of photography, my time has been a juggling act of demanding responsibilities. My students have sparked my ideas. As I said before, I will take inspiration wherever I can. I find events where I can watch animals, be it with friends or at organized activities such as lure coursing or animal fashion shows. I read a great deal and used to collect children’s books.
Recently, I have readdressed an older photography project for my sabbatical year, photographing in Mexico indigenous Huichol artists and their families and communities.
How do you keep your work evolving while maintaining your personal vision?
Being true to what I’m obsessed with is my answer to what to do, to photograph what I care about, whether it’s successful or not. I was waylaid in college by being embarrassed about what I loved. My professor in graduate school guided me back to photographing what I cared about, back to animals.
What do you do when things are not going well?
Things can always be better. I’m working on being part of a community in photography now. Working and being productive always makes me feel better, but my life is not my own. I have regretted giving up on an important project, because I did not know how to manage the opinions of others. Now, I work at not being derailed by others’ judgments and my own lack of confidence. It’s important to keep on going.
Does your process differ when making work for a client?
I have more of an adrenaline rush working for a client—my editor. I’m wired up by fear and work much harder, pulling out all I can think of until time is up. Fear of failure is a huge motivator to do everything I can think of beyond what was asked for.
Any practical production advice?
I kick myself each time I go on a shoot, as I have often forgotten something. I have procrastinated making a packing list and studio check-off list. Gentle persistence has gotten me through the disappointment of canceled and rescheduled shoot dates.
It’s invaluable to have a photo community to ask questions of and share.
What do you always have with you while shooting?
Usually I bring gifts for my subjects.
ARTIST INFORMATION
Robin Schwartz is a 2016 Guggenheim Fellow. Her photographs are in the permanent collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Museum of Modern Art, and Smithsonian American Art Museum, among others. Aperture published Schwartz’s fourth monograph, Amelia & the Animals.
Schwartz’s photographs have been published in The New York Times Magazine, TIME LightBox, The New Yorker, The Oprah Magazine, Stern, The Telegraph, The Guardian, and Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers on Their Art, published by the Aperture Foundation and The Chrysler Museum of Art (2004). Schwartz created and edited National Geographic magazine’s “Your Shot” assignment, “The Animals We Love,” and based on this assignment wrote a chapter in the book, National Geographic: Getting Your Shot (2015).
She has presented Master Talks at the National Geographic Photography Magazine Seminar, LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph, The Eddie Adams Workshop, Aperture Foundation, FotoDC, and The Chrysler Museum of Art.
Robin Schwartz is an Associate Professor in Photography at William Paterson University of New Jersey and has taught at The International Center of Photography in New York.
AMELIA AND RICKY (2002)
Courtesy of Robin Schwartz
FRANK FLAMINGO (2014)
Courtesy of Robin Schwartz