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A lifelong musician and photographer, Ali's awareness of the spirit and often the duality within every performer, affords her a rare insight and connection to the inner life of her subjects while her images also acknowledge and enjoy the superficial aspects inherent in a photograph. She brings this connection to the inner and respect for the outer aspects of performers to every type of person she photographs. Some years ago, at the height of the grunge music scene, weary of photographing four boys in plaid shirts whenever she got a music assignment, Ali decided it was time to concentrate on work that was very dear to her heart. She shot, wrote and consequently released (through an imprint of Random House Publishers) her first book of photography Entitled "Laws of the Bandit Queens; words to live by from 35 of today's most revolutionary women." What was meant to inspire others particularly inspired her, both through collaborations with the 35 successful women she admired and photographed for it (such as Janeane Garofalo and Alice Walker) and her resulting raised profile as an artist. Currently, Ali works as a freelance photographer for various magazines, record labels and publishing houses, and as an art director and designer at a major publishing house in her home town of New York City. She continues to record albums, teaches a photography class to teenage girls in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn, is working on her second book of photography, and has just finished a photo essay on women in a maximum security prison and their children. I have had the pleasure of being photographed by Ali and jumped on the opportunity to turn the tables here with this interview. Did you go to school for photography and if so, where? I went to NYU for free because my mom was a nurse at NYU hospital. I started out studying visual arts in general. I used to consider myself foremost an illustrator and worked a bit as such, but when I got to photography, it stuck. I think it had something to do with the fact that I could integrate it fully into my life, which was very much about music and musicians and the underground punk scene in New York. I feel like my life was already in progress when I was in school and that if my head had been settled more, perhaps I could have gotten more out of the actual time spent there. But I gleaned knowledge there and moved on.
That's a great comment! I love that. I have been shooting quite a few book covers lately and I think book jackets are an incredible forum for art. It's a great size, it's very personal, people connect to their favorite books and the cover becomes very important and evocative to them, they hold books in their laps, put them in their bags, it's very personal. And some of the book design happening now is incredible. So I'm really happy to be involved in that type of work. As for the cinematic aspect, thanks. I like that a lot. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I'm keenly aware of and have no wish to hide the superficial/contrived nature of photographs. A photograph can reveal a great deal about reality, but it's rarely the reality that the subject is hoping to present. Truth is usually communicated in the stuff you're not supposed to see in a scene or in the way the photographer chooses to observe and reflect a scene or a moment. In this way, it's fake and extremely truthful simultaneously and I love that. I think that's the power of a great film as well. The premises is that it's all fake. Within that context, a million great truths can take place. What have you been working on lately?Starting next week, I'll be teaching a photography class to inner city teenage girls in Bed Stuy. I'm really excited about that. I think that helping girls and women feel inspired to become their best versions of themselves may be the reason I'm here most. When I put out my book, it was that perfect marriage of art and life philosophy merging. Now I get weekly emails from strangers out there who say things like "I have cancer and each morning I wake up, read a "life law" from one of these amazing women, and try only to live by that for that day. That's what gets me through, one day at a time." Others tell me that reading the book with their daughter has helped the two to bond and open up to each other. That's all I could have hoped for from that. Through my book I was able to be supportive of and encouraging to the people I felt might need it.
Teaching this class is an extension of that. I hope that I can instill in these girls that photography is a form of respect for your own vision and has the power to take you places and open up the world to you. I've recently finished a photo essay looking at the family bonds between incarcerated women and their kids. Most family portraits are taken on Santa's lap at the mall or with a Sear's coupon. Mine were taken in the visiting center of a maximum security prison on circus day. It's a very different life for them. I'm currently looking to place that story in a magazine. I'm also working on my second book of photography that explores the realities behind what makes up different peoples' families and how women can parent well and still maintain a sense of self and individuality when they're classically expected to completely subjugate themselves for the purpose of parenting in a way not expected of men. And I'm recording a new album with my fiance Steve Almaas.
It's a subject of importance to just about every woman I now right now. Plus at my age, a lot of the judgments we all made about our own families have started to wane and we all seem to be thinking about those bonds and what they mean and who our families really are. Since I became a step mother five years ago, which has been one of the very best things that has happened to me, I've also recognized just how much you do have to give over to a child in order to do right by them. I just think that is required of both parents and I'm sick of it almost always falling to the woman. Of course, no one gets demonized like a bad mother, not even a bad father! Plus in this extremely intolerant and dogmatic era of the country, I like to get more real about how peoples' lives are rather than how they're told they should be. Do you still like photographing music and musicians?Music and musicians are such a huge part of my life that it's just like photographing any aspect of life. Full of rich material. I enjoy photographing anyone I find interesting, either because of the art they make or my personal interest in their lives. Who are some performers you've photographed recently because their art moved you? David Cross comes to mind. I think he's brilliant. Once we latched on to some ideas he thought were funny, he was 100% committed and that's totally inspiring to watch and shoot with. I had him pee his name onto a wall for one of my favorites! Who would you love to photograph that you haven't been able to? For some reason, I have a list that remains in my mind of a bunch of people from a certain era. I think it's because many of them represent a time I have such fond memories of, 1970's New York. Granted I was a wee lass, but my childhood is filled with visual memories that look like Woody Allen movies.
Anyway, people that remind me of that era that I would love to photograph are Gena Rowlands, because she was stunning and cool and interesting and she starred in "Gloria". And Peter Falk because I'll watch "Columbo" any time it's on, I think he's gorgeous, and because he was brilliant in "Husbands" and a number of other heart wrenching Cassavettes movies. A third person who I'd like to photograph, which seems more possible because I have friends who know her, is Marianne Faithful. I don't have an explanation for that one except for the obvious one no one wore a black leather cat suit like her. - Contributed by Ashley Jacobs >> See more work from Ali Smith >> See other member spotlights on the member spotlight index >> Find out more on how to become an altpick.com member |
