EMILY LIPSON

Known to take a technically pristine image then run it through a low-res office copier as a final touch, photographer Emily Lipson is the rare artist that is deadly serious about the work, while refusing to take any of her work too seriously. Though Emily has done stints as the photo editor for W Magazine and produced shoots for legendary photographers at the top of the industry, it’s her own distinct, irreverent images that have made her a go-to when the world’s biggest brands, publications and celebrities – including Nike, Dazed, Fran Leibowitz, Charli XCX and more – want to cut through the sameness.

We caught her at the end of her itinerant summer for a conversation that resembled her work: elliptical, kinetic, and full of nostalgia.

Interview by Samantha Bloom

Photography by Emily Lipson

SAMANTHA BLOOM

What’s the most important advice that you’ve ever received?

EMILY LIPSON

Structuring and outlining boundaries is critical as a photographer, and the best advice I ever received helped me find mine.

Think about your wills , wants , and won’ts .

‘Wills’ are steppingstone opportunities. You’re evaluating an opportunity. Some aspects may not be perfect – the budget might not be great, the timeline might not be awesome, the subject matter might not be the most interesting – but you will take the job because it’s a vehicle to get you closer to what you want.

‘Wants’ are somewhat self-explanatory. You’re not going to start out and immediately shoot the most notable subjects for the most notable magazines or brands or companies. That’s been important to keep in mind when I’ve found myself in periods of aimlessness, a place familiar to any free lancer. Staying aware of your long-term goals and remembering your motivations keeps you focused as you go from job to job.

‘Won’ts’ are often in response to something that’s gone wrong, but every significant professional shift I’ve experienced has come through learning my won’ts.

SB Can you share a few of them?

EL The pace and expectations within the industry can be brutal. We’re constantly being faced with impossible deadlines, zero-budget projects, delivery of dozens of images on a 10-image budget, etc.

Those just starting out especially fall into a position where they’re not advancing because they struggle to assert themselves and establish boundaries.

I went through a period where I was overworking myself and was too slammed to do anything successfully. It seems counterintuitive, but sometimes the only way to get ahead is by saying no. If you can’t, you’re not going to make the work that you want to make, or earn the credibility you may be seeking.

SB Where did that advice come from?

EL It’s a sentiment a lot of my peers share, but my former boss, ( W Magazine Visuals Director) Alex Ben-Gurion, is a big champion of this sort of thinking. I left W in order to pursue a career as a full-time photographer, and Alex said: ‘be picky. Think long and hard about how you’re developing your brand, and what kind of shoots you’re deciding to do.’

She’s not someone who’s going to look at a hundred images and like them all; she pushed me to hold my cards a bit closer to the chest and only put forward my best work. I still struggle to send a tight edit when I’m submitting a project and always send too many images.

SB You and I discuss this often: no editor ends up choosing your least favorite image if you haven’t sent it to them...

EL ...Show the strongest images! Take the rest out of the fucking folder! Yeah, It’s a really simple thing, but it can be so hard to do in the moment.

I see things with an imagination. I’m a big, big editor: I retouch, I do a lot in post, so I often look at images as what they can be, versus what I’m seeing in front of me... people don’t really apply that lens when you submit work for the types of jobs that I get. I typically send more with that thought in mind: oh, this could be cropped like that, that blue could be pushed to this shade . I see countless things that I would do, and rarely have the time in advance to do them, and people don’t choose them with the same imagination I have.

I look up to artists that have a very specific, uncompromising point of view, and aren’t sacrificing it in their work, like (stylist and editor-in-chief of Dazed ) Ib Kamara, (photographer) Sam Rock, or Rafael Pavarotti. The common thread between these artists is they’re able to make work clearly, unfalteringly, and consistently demonstrating their vision as artists, all within a commercial landscape. That unwavering approach to your vision is not only a skill, it’s the goal for any artist working in this context.

SB Your work is highly collaborative. Who do you call for advice, and who are your mentors?

EL I call my friends – I’m not only friends with people in the arts, or people who work in or even appreciate photography. I actually seek advice outside of that bubble and look to people that are well-rounded, that’s important to me.

Many of my mentors have been my school teachers across subjects. I think that a mentor is someone who, in a sense, was like a cheerleader to you. You need people who see you as special and want to cultivate skills within you that you’re either unaware of, or may not have cultivated on your own. My teachers all saw something in me that I couldn’t see at the time.

I don’t know if this is true for you, but I always performed worse in settings where I wasn’t challenged, and excelled when I was really pushed.

You need to have jet fuel under you, and it sort of doesn’t come from you completely. I have a lot of intrinsic motivation, but the second I’m picked up by someone else and told: ‘you’re really good at this, let me help you’, that’s when I get really inspired to keep going.

SB And the opposite can also be true, right?

EL Exactly. There are people who went through college not having direct contact with their professors. I’m just not that kind of student, or person. I gravitated to Visual Studies for the content, but also because it was a small, very hands-on program. I’ve always needed and excelled in those kinds of intimate spaces.

A photoshoot is similar: a small group of people working on something with a lot of direct contact and direct communication.

SB Who would you want to speak with if you could call anyone?

EL Performance artist Tehching Hsieh. I was flipped out when I first discovered conceptual performance art. There are great artists that don’t necessarily break barriers, but he is and was such a vanguard: no one was doing work like it at the time he was creating his ‘One Year Performance‘ pieces in the ’80s which explored endurance and the passage of time.

There’s always a concept in photography but more often than not, the work is driven by aesthetics. His documentation of his works have their own aesthetic conventions, but they’re almost beside the point.

I look to other mediums and in particular, gravitate toward performance. I trained as a dancer from childhood, and wanted to pursue it but never did.

The beauty of ballet lies in its precision and an adherence to a rubric that rarely changes. I think that’s diametrically opposed to the conceptual performance artists like Hsieh, Marina Abramovich, or Rirkrit Tiravanija –

SB – submitting Vito Acconci to that list. First Abstract Expressionists tested the physical limits of paint, canvas, and gesture, then this school of artists say: ok, bodies, space and time are the materials now. How far can our bodies go, what can they do, what can be done to them and what becomes of the spaces they move through?

EL Yeah. Part of why I respect Hsieh so much is for his exploration of those concepts of time, duration, physical and mental limits in extremis. And that’s why even in my own work, I don’t want to see just the image I made. I want to see layers. I want to see tactility – Is there writing on it? Is there a graphic component? I don’t want to see something at face value. It’s something I’m still really trying to push forward in my own work.

That said, my other advice is: don’t take yourself too seriously.

SB Have you always subscribed to that belief, or is this a post-Covid revelation?