In Conversation
Light & Brutality
In-house head of photography Julianne Moreau on capturing the unrepeatable moment, why she still shoots on film, and what she's looking for in the dark room that no algorithm can replicate.
Julianne's studio smells like fixer and old paper. Film contact sheets are pinned to every wall. She shoots on a Mamiya RZ67 she bought secondhand in 1999 and refuses to replace it.
VLT
What does a VLT portrait need to do that a standard editorial shot doesn't?
It needs to make you feel like you're in the room with that person. Not looking at them, with them. There's a difference. Most fashion photography is about distance, about putting something on a pedestal. We want the opposite. We want the portrait to close the gap.
VLT
Why still film? Practically speaking, it costs more and takes longer.
Because the latency changes how people behave. When you're shooting digital you can review after every frame and start correcting, adjusting, performing. Film forces everyone to commit. The model commits, I commit. That commitment shows up in the image. You can feel it. Digital is amazing for a lot of things but it adds a layer of self-consciousness that I don't want in a portrait.
VLT
Describe a shoot that went sideways in a way you're proud of.
I was doing a session with a new face, she was nineteen, first time in a professional studio, terrified. Everything I planned to shoot just wasn't working because she was frozen. So I put the camera down and we just talked for about forty minutes. About nothing. She had this extraordinary laugh. Eventually I just picked the camera back up quietly and didn't say anything, and that's when I got the shot. The laugh. The complete absence of performance. It was the best portrait I've taken in ten years.
VLT
What makes a model genuinely interesting to photograph, versus technically proficient?
Honestly? Porousness. The ones who are technically perfect, they know their angles, they know how to stand, they're efficient to shoot. But the interesting ones are the ones who let things in. The weird light, the moment just before the shot, the thing that happened that morning. They're not managing the session, they're living through it. That's what I want to photograph.