“Pretend you and I are old friends. You know me and I know you already. Let’s have fun with this and keep it as chill and laid-back as possible.”
is what New York based photographer Francisco Marin usually tells his models during a shoot. He loves to go with the flow and keep things light-hearted, nevertheless we all know that in order to make it in a city as New York as a creative person (or anything else you do over there really) you have to have a few more aces up one´s sleeve. Which he certainly has. His stunning images have helped him to collaborate with clients such as Kenneth Cole, Rolling Stone, Vice Magazine etc. and model agencies such as APM, Ford, Frame and many more. We had a very interesting talk to him about the pros and cons of living in NYC and about changing the perception of reality through images.
Describe your work in one sentence.
Casual fashion portraits, sometimes tinged with angst, mystery, sexiness, or all of the above.
“People take pictures of the happy moments in their lives. Someone looking through our photo album would conclude that we had led a joyous, leisurely existence free of tragedy. No one ever takes a photograph of something they want to forget.“ It reads on your Tumblr. Really true. Your words? Do you think that this changes the perspective of reality?
That’s so funny that you mention that. That’s actually a quote by a character named Seymour Parrish in a film called “One Hour Photo” (2002). It’s a psychological thriller film starring Robin Williams as Seymour, who works at one of those one-hour film developing labs (keep in mind, in 2002 people still developed a lot of film rather than taking digital photos). Seymour had been collecting and harvesting photos of happy families, kids, wives, and husbands from his photolab customers and making a giant scrapbook while pretending those people were his actual family and slowly going insane over the course of the film. It’s a really chilling, weird, scary film, but his quote rings so true for me.
I think most people use photos as a way capture the moments we want to remember later on. Maybe not all of those moments are truly happy or joyous, but you can’t deny that there’s a strong connection between photography and remembrance. Otherwise, what’s the point of taking a photo? I’ve had a couple of friends mention that they actually do take photos of things they want to forget — mental and physical scars, melancholic vignettes of their daily lives, whatever evokes heartbreak and tragedy. But I think the very act of taking pictures of these darker moments is contradictory to the act of forgetting. It’s one of those things that’s hard to explain but easy to understand.
When we keep the subject; in your portfolio there are only beautiful images of beautiful people. Personally, is there anything where you would draw the line and you would not photograph it at all? Or asked differently, is there anything you want to photograph besides fashion and lifestyle?
When I started taking photography seriously, my style was a bit all over the place. I liked shooting landscapes and cityscapes, portraits of people (and not necessarily models), food, drunk nights out with friends. Last year, I got a scathing review of my website from a photographer I really admire so I decided to cut down my portfolio to just images that represented the very best of the kind of photography I’m interested in, which is lifestyle/fashion. Now, my website is much more accessible to clients that want to book me, but unfortunately I feel like I’ve lost touch with the art crowd that I originally found a lot of support from when I was making dreamy double exposures on film and taking a really capricious approach to shooting. However, my Tumblr blog is a total free-for-all. I post a few times a week and I’m always hopping from one style of photography to the next.
The best thing about living in New York?
Seeing the entire city glow peach and orange at sunset from a tall rooftop. Loft parties, dance parties, rooftop parties. Seeing the trees in Central Park turn every possible shade of red and gold in autumn. Getting lost in the Upper West Side for the first time and standing in awe of the massive skyscrapers. Going out with friends until bars close at 4am, eating $1 slices of pizza, and then grabbing a taxi home, rolling your windows down as you go back over the Williamsburg Bridge as the sun starts to rise over the East River.
Making eye contact with the most beautiful woman in the world just before the train door closes. [like this] And your train and her train ride side-by-side until the trains split in different directions and you never see her again. Meeting people who are inspired, passionate, competitive, driven, and beautifully mad in their life pursuits.
And the worst?
The obscene amount of money it takes to rent an apartment in a good neighborhood. Garbage overflowing in trash cans and on the street. Walking underneath sweating, dripping air conditioners in the summer. Slipping on dirty black snow slush in the winter. When I came here I hoped to hear jazz music in the streets at night, not police sirens and garbage trucks. It’s impossible to have a good dating relationship here. The city wears you down day after day and you want to escape but the city keeps you in her claws, and sometimes you like it that way. Sometimes you’ll be surrounded by hundreds of people and feel completely lost and alone.
What is the usual creative process at a shooting?
The creative process for me is highly unstructured. I love to “go with the flow” and keep things very lighthearted. A week or more before the shoot I’ll send my models a mood board of images that show what I want the aesthetic of the shoot to be and we’ll work together to emulate the mood, scene, and emotion of those photos. But during the actual shoot, I usually tell models: “Pretend you and I are old friends. You know me and I know you already. Let’s have fun with this and keep it as chill and laid-back as possible.”
What camera do you use?
Right now a Canon 5d Classic (it’s old but still has the best colors of any camera I’ve used). A Canon Powershot S120 for street shooting and snapshots. For analog film cameras, I use a Mamiya 645, Holga 120 CFN, and a Canon AE-1. Soon I’m hoping to purchase either a Canon 6D or the Sony A7.
And how do you reset to be creative?
Sometimes the best way to stay creative is to stop for a while, take a step back, and look at how your work has changed from 2-3 years ago. I also am constantly soaking up new inspiration from other photographers on Tumblr, Instagram, and sites like C-Heads. One of my favorite film directors, Jim Jarmusch, also has some amazing advice for staying creative and inspired: “Nothing is original. Steal from anywhere that resonates with inspiration or fuels your imagination. Devour old films, new films, music, books, paintings, photographs, poems, dreams, random conversations, architecture, bridges, street signs, trees, clouds, bodies of water, light and shadows. Select only things to steal from that speak directly to your soul. If you do this, your work (and theft) will be authentic. Authenticity is invaluable; originality is nonexistent.”
Who is your celebrity crush?
Oh, that’s difficult to say. I’m always really drawn to people I think would be interesting to photograph. Right now I’d give anything to get close to Mélanie Laurent, Emily Ratajkowski, Olivia Wilde, and the band London Grammar.
Where do you see yourself in the future?
It’s been a huge goal of mine to start working with more brands that fit my aesthetic and 2014 has proven so far to be much more business-focused than 2013. I’m definitely hoping to photograph a really great lookbook for a fashion brand the next year or so. My dream would be to shoot editorial lookbooks for brands like Band of Outsiders, Madewell, or Nasty Gal.
A questions we should have asked you?
What’s my favorite pizza? A puff pastry croissant dough with anchovies, black olives, goat cheese, sea salt, pepper, and a drizzle of olive oil. Served with Basil Hayden’s bourbon whiskey.
www.FranciscoMarinPhotography.com
www.FranciscoMarin.tumblr.com
www.instagram.com/pizzaparty4ever
