interview between SOPHIE JOSEPH SCHWARTZ and MADELEINE MORLET.

Info

Photographer: Sophie Joseph Schwartz

Website: www.sophie-schwartz.com

Instagram: @s_o_p_h_i_e_

Sophie Joseph Schwartz is an artist and educator living in Brooklyn, NY from Cleveland, OH. Their practice positions collaboration as an entry point to explore grief, memory, and queer connection.

Schwartz earned an MFA from Yale School of Art in 2023 where they were awarded the Richard Benson Prize and the Harvey Geiger Travel Fellowship, following a BA in Modern Culture + Media from Brown University in 2017. Their work has been exhibited at Camera Club, LaMama Galleria, François Ghebaly, Benrubi Gallery, AMANITA, Penumbra Foundation, Cleveland Print Room and Silver Eye Center for Photography, among others. They’ve been a recent artist in residence at Visual Studies Workshop, WORTHLESSSTUDIOS, Flower City Arts Center, Penumbra Foundation, and Haystack. Publications including Purple Magazine, CULTURED, i-D, VICE, Vogue, BOOOOOOOM, WÜL Magazine, and Architectural Digest have published their work.

In 2023, Schwartz published their debut book, With and For, with Tall Poppy Press in Melbourne. They have previously taught at Rhode Island School of Design, Yale Norfolk School of Art, and School of Visual Art, and currently serve on the faculty at New York University Steinhardt, and Penumbra Foundation. Schwartz is the director of Rubylith Darkroom in Brooklyn, NY.

Interview

MM: We have known each other for a long time, so I’m aware of how unusual the photographic legacy of your childhood is. I'd love to start with you sharing your early memories of photography and how this led to you becoming a photographer.

SS: My work makes a lot of sense when I reveal I was raised by a photographer and a psychologist. My dad grew up in Fort Lee, New Jersey, and went to college at Rutgers thinking he was going to study law. He would have been an incredible lawyer (besides all the paperwork), but once he took a photography class, he fell in love with it. Eventually he transferred to Princeton to study with Emmet Gowin. He went on to start a graphic design business, which he used to commission fine art photographers for various projects in Cleveland. These commissions often included having out of town photographers come live with us for weeks at a time while they made photographs. We basically hosted artist residencies in our home. Many of these artists we grew very close to and they made photographs of my family along the way. 

My earliest memories of photography mostly consist of being photographed by my dad and my parents’ friends, and living with these photographs on the walls of my childhood home. When I started making pictures in high school I  was immediately obsessed with the darkroom, the process, and printing. 

MM: Can you speak to the development of your practice, whether or not there are specific subjects or themes you return to, what these are and how they have evolved over time?

SS: It’s a rare experience to grow up in a bedroom full of photographs of you throughout your life made by other people. My practice stems from being photographed so much as a kid, and by so many people, and how I learned to be photographed. My early pictures were mostly self-portraits – I was interested in seeing how I looked photographed when I was operating the camera. 

This shifted when I got to college and had the most significant social breakthrough of my life. All of a sudden I had so many friends, and felt generally seen and like I had something to give to the community around me. During this period is also when my dad died and I learned how to use the view camera. My current practice stemmed from the collision of these events and changes. The camera’s ability to mediate relational dynamics between people and community have been the threads that connect the work I have made for the past fifteen years. 

Throughout the past decade of sustained commitment to using the view camera, to make photographs with other people, I came to the deeper realization that this tool could help mediate a study of power and interpersonal dynamics. I structure my portrait sessions as psychological containers where the camera and conditions can either mirror the world at large or subvert it. They are akin to a BDSM or kink play session where goals, desires, and boundaries are shared and mutually decided upon, so that improvisation, experimentation, and trust can develop. The methodology and constraints of my photographic sessions have been redefined and refined over time. I exclusively use a large format view camera for the slowness it demands, the control it fosters, and most importantly, the way it allows me to be present with a subject, revealing our  relationship in the resulting work. 

For a long time I was struggling with what my work was about, wanting it to be smarter or something. Going to grad school helped me just lean in. You know what? My gift is connecting with people and building community, and I think when people lean into what they're naturally good at and apply it to their work - that's when the work is the best.

MM: I couldn’t agree more. Okay, I love the Fire Island pictures, by the way.

SS: Thank you, yeah, it was fun to share them, I haven't really shared them yet.

MM: I want to hear more about this project, where the idea came from and how you executed it.

SS: Ever since I started photographing my friends, the occasional portrait would be used on their dating app profiles, with remarks like: "your picture got me a date" or "your picture is why I'm with the love of my life". I became obsessed with the idea of the dating app as a gallery space for my work. That people felt seen enough, or good enough, or hot enough, to use the pictures in that way. That was always in the back of my mind. When I got to graduate school, I knew I wanted to keep working with people, but didn't want to work with my classmates, and didn't want to work with models, so I started using dating apps to cast - which was quite fruitful. I would use Tinder, and also this lesbian app called Lex, which is text-based (more like a lesbian Craigslist). I posted ads like: "looking to cover someone in baby oil for a photograph, professional vibes only" and easily found willing participants.

When I moved back to New York City after grad school, I found it to be the least inspiring place, photographically, that I've ever lived. I tried to lean into this feeling and make a project about New York, specifically, which was a first for me. Dating, romance, and online dating are one of my niche interests and favorite topics to discuss with friends and strangers. The conundrum of dating in New York was specific: there were too many people here to potentially connect with and in a post pandemic metropolis, people were mostly finding people to date via apps. 

My previous body of work had explored the performance and optics of hotness, and how it can  be charged with both beauty and the grotesque. I now was curious what seduction might look like, depending on what one’s looking for, who one’s looking for, what apps they're using. So for the first time, I put out a call on my Instagram story simply stating: “CASTING. Do you need photos of yourself for your dating app profiles? I am looking to make photographs for free for use on apps. DM to schedule in January. NYC.” I was shocked by the number of responses and,  all at once, thrust into the project. I used this investigation as an opportunity to research how the images on one's apps are charged with specific tasks and how I might be able to help craft these images. I sent all interested participants a detailed Google form with questions about basic demographics as well as: What apps are you using?, When do you feel attractive in photos?, and What do you find attractive in other people's photos? I worked on this project in New York for six months, and most participants were people looking for pictures for Hinge but I wanted to also do more explicit photos for hookup centered apps like Grindr. 

MM: Why more explicit stuff, what's the call for you?

SS: The primary interest here was the performance of seduction. I wanted to see what pictures could be produced for the people looking for sex. And so I thought… Where is there a dense population of people looking for sex? Fire Island. Everyone's on vacation, which is key. Then I applied to this residency through WORTHLESSSTUDIOS, where they give you a darkroom in an Airstream for a month. I proposed continuing this project on Fire Island and they were able to help me make it happen.

MM: How did you find your subjects on the Island?

SS: The Fire Island casting was really different from the New York casting. A lot of the way information is disseminated there is via paper fliers. So I made these fliers, and also made business cards which included a QR code link to the survey, and would hand them out at the beach and at bars. When responses slowed, I went on Grindr and started messaging people. I was mostly staying in the neighborhood of Cherry Grove, and many of the sessions were in the neighborhood over, the Pines, which are separated by this mile long undeveloped protected national seashore which is often referred to as The Meat Rack and is where people primarily go to cruise. I ended up making many of my pictures there, because it is incredibly beautiful, and an interesting commentary on the state of cruising. 

This project mediated many conversations about dating and hookups, and I was able to hear stories from such a wide age range on Fire Island – including people who had been coming for thirty or forty years. They’d lament the shift from in person cruising to apps mediating connection. The older men in particular were incredibly grateful for my services and I felt like I was helping people. That was a major perk to this project, I'm doing a service, you know? My photographs serve a clear function. That feels really good.

MM: I love the structure of the project, because what you are making has a specific function it sort of mitigates the power dynamic. It's an interpersonal exchange, they're doing something for you and you are doing something for them, which photography can be - but isn't always. I particularly love the image of Robert, where he is in front of the mirror mural. Do you want to talk about that image, why you chose to include yourself in it, and what the relational exchange was like?

SS: Yeah, he was one of my favorite people to work with. He's one of the few people that lives on that part of the island year-round. We spent hours together, and I even ended up running home to get more film to keep making pictures with him. He had a lot of ideas. He also had an amazing garden, and was really into landscaping. As I was framing the picture, I could see my reflection in the image and I thought it would be interesting to include a picture that spoke more to the dynamic in the project. It is actually the picture that I have on my website for him. I probably should change it, because I do feel like it's different. It's not a picture that he is using on his apps, you know? That's where I feel like the Fire Island pictures differ a little bit from the New York ones. Where the prompt for the session became more of a jumping-off point. Between New York and Fire Island I did around 100 sessions and have been trying to figure out if they are separate projects or the same.

MM: I love it. I love it so much, that's all my questions.