FPAC: What is the inspiration behind your work?
JS: All of my work, whether street photography in Paris or working in thestudio with the human form is driven by my desire to communicate what is beautiful and/or important to me. And by beautiful I also mean ugly, in the sense that some of my images will address in a hopefully visually beautiful way "ugly" topics such as human trafficking. I feel I communicate best visually and find photography is the medium that I can bemost clear and expressive in. It is also the medium in which byinteracting with my subjects and collaborators I learn the most about whatI am photographing.
FPAC: "Ugly Topics" made beautiful through photography. It is so hard to communicate topics that need to be heard. You do this so beautifully. There is this great video by musician friends of mine that you would perhaps appreciate: The Click Five, new album about human trafficking.
FPAC: Do you always shoot in black and white, if yes why?
JS: I almost always shoot and print in B&W. For me, art always has at its root an expression of complex and or deep emotions. If my photographs donot have emotional resonance, I feel they are missing their mark. B&W images to me are emotional where as color photographs are representational. I am not saying that there aren't color images that express profound emotions. I mean this as a hopefully very global but accurate observation. For example, if you look at wedding photographs and you see an image of the bride and groom kissing. If the image is in color you think: "There is the bride and groom kissing and you notice their skin tone, their clothes, their hair, the environment around them,
all the colors , matching and not matching
etc." If you look at the same image gray-scaled in B&W your are more likely to simply go:"Ahhh. They're in love". Having said that I am currently working on a project called "Security" that is based in people's choice of attire and I am shooting in color because the subject demands it and I hope the emotional resonance will be there.
FPAC: In this digital age why do you work in film?
JS: I believe that shooting film is a very different process than shooting digitally. Shooting film is an act of faith. You make your setting and then you photograph, engaged in the process of shooting and staying incontact with your subject whether animate or inanimate. You are not constantly checking the back of the camera looking to see if "you got the shot" while "the shot" is actually occurring right in front of you. I work a lot with people who are unclothed, trusting me with the work we are doing. When I shoot film I am in constant contact with them, visually andemotionally. If I were looking at the back of a camera or at a monitor,the trust, the moment, the image would be lost. And the darkroom is a place of mystery and magic. Yes, I think I know the images I am putting inthe enlarger put as the print slowly develops in the chemistry I seethings that weren't there, (sometimes good sometimes not so good) but Iwork slowly, patiently, in a more spiritual manner. To me, this isimportant. And at times I work with multiple exposures and the revelationsthat occur are wondrous to me. To use another analogy, its like the lostart of letter writing and that feeling of getting touchable handwritten correspondence and not just an e-mail. It's not just the physical sensation of the paper, but the obvious time and pace of writing that changes the very nature of what is written.
FPAC: Sounds like you are into traveling! How does this influence your work?
JS: Traveling, by taking one out of what is familiar simply open's one's eyesand perceptions. From this awakening new and interesting work can occur. There is a sociological construct called marginality, which is a group ofpeople who are part of a society but somehow apart from it. I did a film on people who worked the night shift. Yes, they are a part of or society and we expect them to be there, (e.g. nurses), but these people are seen by society as slightly different and they have different observations about the society they live in. To me, traveling makes me marginal to theculture I am in and I can observe and see things that I cannot in my own comfortable milieu. Hopefully this helps me create different images.
FPAC: What is the Zipper Project?
JS: The Zipper Project was an exploration of the moments when we decide to reveal ourselves to others, physically and emotionally. This project evolved into a series called Skin Deep that explored this concept furtherbut losing the artifice of clothing and where I used mud as the medium forcovering and revealing. In the past two years this has evolved into thebelief that we can be most powerful when we are the most vulnerable. Arecent show "Hits Back" as well as a benefit exhibition called "StopTraffic" explore this concept of strength through experience in moredepth. I am hoping that images from this body of work can be used to helpaddress and fight human trafficking.
FPAC: Who are your favorite artists? Why?
JS: Krzysztof Kieslowski: His films speak to me of the incredible need forfaith in a world where chance seems to dictate so much.
Edward Weston: His photographs are what inspired me to take photographsand to this day when I see his work I smile from the core of my being.
