My Ultraviolet Street Portrait Taken by Cara Phillips on the Corner of Ninth Ave. & 14th St.

PHOTO BY CARA PHILLIPS

A few weeks ago, after a day of frenzied photo industry activity at the Javitz Center for PDN’s PhotoExpo, I decided to take a little detour on the way back to the office and have my picture taken at the corner of Ninth Avenue & 14th Street, where New York photographer Cara Phillips had set up a makeshift outdoor photo studio, shooting ultraviolet portraits of any random passersby who fancied it.

It was quite a pleasant experience, a bit of chitchat with Cara and her assistants, sign a model release, and then off I went to have my turn in the chair against the white seamless backdrop on that sunny day. As I shut my eyes [irrationally fearing being permanently blinded by the flash], my face was blanketed by the sizzling heat of the powerful flashes that surrounded my face only inches away. A few blinks later, I was back at the office anxiously waiting to see my UV portrait.

Last week, when Cara graciously emailed me a jpeg of my UV portrait after getting her film processed, my initial response was one that bordered on shock and awe! There was an eerie, death-mask-like quality to my stoic mug-shot, where the entire surface of my face seemed mapped out with wrinkles and pock marks, ruthlessly carved into the pewter sheen of my skin. As I looked at my UV image more, I found it to be quite engaging, curiously examining all of the details of my facial anatomy and its dermatological nuances. The differentness of seeing my portrait in such a way, allowed me to step back and view my face objectively. All of the flaws and blemishes of my portrait, nakedly exposed through Cara’s camera, showed the uniqueness and character in my face, picking out the personal facial history of everything from the remnants of high school sunburns, to a scar from a dog bite I got when I was ten. One of the fascinating aspects of her UV portrait is that it toys with one's self-perception, by giving a glimpse into the future of what I might look like, as the lines of my face gain prominence some years from now. I look forward to seeing the results of Cara’s intriguing ultraviolet portrait project, which I view as an aesthetically unique form of portraiture.

I have since caught up with Cara Phillips to ask her a few questions about her project:

DARREN CHING: How did you get started with this project?
CARA PHILLIPS: While I was in school, I was working on my first body of work, Singular Beauty, which is a study of the interiors spaces of cosmetic surgery offices and their psychological implications. My last year, I studied with conceptual photographer Penelope Umbrico. She gave us a class assignment to create an appropriation, using source material from the New York public library image collection. I found some old black and white before and after surgery photos. I scanned them high-res and then printed them in a 40x50 grid. Having just the faces so large was really powerful. Not long after I came across the UV images on a google image search and fell in love. They reminded me of the best of Julia Margaret Cameron's portraits and death daguerreotypes of children. I printed them out and carried them around for a while. When I began to research the technology of how I could shoot them and read the marketing materials, aimed at cosmetic dermatologists and medi-spas, I knew I had to take portraits with the filter. The UV technology is primarily used to "scare" people by showing them a future of terrible aging so that they are more willing to both get treatments, and to get them more often. The irony is, that most cosmetic treatments including lasers, retinol, microdermabrasion, make you dramatically more photosensitive. So by trying to prevent the damage we actually cause more.

D: How many UV portraits did you shoot at street locations?
C: Around 185 people in 4 days of shooting. Two days at Union Square and two at 14th and 9th Avenue.

D: Why did you choose to set up on the street?
C: This past winter I posted on Craigslist, but most of the people who replied flaked out on me. Then I posted a call for people on an acting website, but I only got young attractive women. Which resulted in some fantastic portraits, but conceptually it was more limited. I always thought the UV filter should be turned on everyone. When the 'cultural beauty lens' is applied to all of us, the strangeness of it seems more apparent. Suddenly, the crazy standards that we place on women, especially women in the media, is illuminated. It's funny, you would be surprised how many conservative looking men I have seen in the offices of the surgeons where I have shot. Beauty, is no longer just a 'girl thing.' So when I saw the call for entries for the Art in Odd Places event, I immediately thought, I should shoot on the streets of New York.

D: What camera/lights/filter did you use?
C: It's actually really funny because there are so many photographers in New York that I ended up shooting several of them, not including my friends who came out to have their portrait done. They all freaked out about how close the lights were to the subjects. Many of them, all male, came up and tried to correct me, which I found quite funny. The UV process is actually very difficult, I spent a year doing tests. My rental place, Lens & Repro, has been really helpful. They figured out how to get enough light, and how to get everything in focus, and they found a beautiful vintage Kodak Ektar commercial lens for me. It has almost no UV coating on it, but it is very sharp. Modern lens's have much more so they interrupt with the process. But even with all of this preparation, it is still a little unpredictable. But I am lucky that my lab, LTI/Lightside has been so generous and helpful. They are helping me out on the project so I can afford to custom test every single box and push each one accordingly. If I had to pay for all of that, it would be hard. They have done an incredible job on all my film.

But it is this very unpredictability that I am attracted to. For some time now there has been trend in contemporary fine art photography to make perfectly sharp, commercial lit imagery, the “Yale Aesthetic” so to speak. And to me the emergence of digital, is the death of photography in some ways. The medium has a magical quality. The way an image appears when you drop your paper into the developer, the feeling you get when you first pull your negs out of the box and see the possibility of an image. That is the attraction. While the process of photography has so many factors that are concrete, what makes an image work often comes from unquantifiable factors. That is the beauty of the ultraviolet process. I am pushing this magic even further, by using my camera to see what is invisible. When I have shot digitally and see the image right away, all of that is lost. Perhaps, this is a transitional time and we need to find a way to re-create that magic using digital technology. Of course it does allow photographers to create more and more technically accomplished photographers. Which continue to create a higher standard of visual perfection. Technology is always feeding on itself.

D: Will you be shooting more UV street portraits?
C: I think I might be hooked. I was just talking to a gallery owner about this. There is always a lot of chatter on the blogs, from street photographers, that they feel marginalized. But when I look at most street photography being done in the Magnum traditional, I have trouble being engaged by it, even thought I love so much of the vintage work. So I do find it really exciting to have found a way to shoot in the tradition of Robert Frank, but such a completely different way. I also love the diCorcia Street portraits, I think those were so good, it has been hard for anyone to go near the streets of New York ever since.

But there is something to shooting out there, not only did I meet some amazing people, the faces of the average New Yorker, or thousand times more interesting to me, than most models. I am currently looking to find funding for the project. I would like to do 3 or 4 other locations. Because I self-funded this project, and even with the $700 of donations from friends and family I am pretty much bankrupt.

D: What are you planning on doing with the images [exhibit/book/etc.]?
C: I have already shown the original UV work in a group show this fall at the Michael Mazzeo Gallery, and in a group show at the Westbeth Gallery. Once I have all my film back and printed, I am interested in how the UV portraits work in conjunction with my interiors of cosmetic surgery offices. I think conceptually they have a strong connection and they enhance each other's meaning. Although, I think both projects can also stand on their own. But I am always interested in how to exhibit work to get the most interesting, provoking, and exciting effect. It seems that the days of a white room with 8, overproduced, uniform, large prints, on the wall are waning. People would like to see artists taking more risks. With the art market in flux, it actually probably the best time to push expectations. As for publishing, I recently got 1st runner up in the Blurb Photography Book now contest for my Singular Beauty project. So I am selling a limited edition version which is custom printed and hand bound. And I am looking for a publisher, while working on the writing and content. As for the UV portraits, I am also planning to do a limited edition book once I am done.

More of Cara Phillips work can be viewed on her website <http://cara-phillips.com>

Comments

[Holly Hughes]

Darren, I want to reassure: You look NOTHING LIKE THAT in normal light.

[Randy www.poptophorror.com]

Cara's Singular Beauty project is a very sophisicated body of work. Everyone should take a look.