Mother’s Day Synergy

BY JACK CRAGER

Danielle Levitt pays homage to a personal hero—with a little help from her team.

Danielle Levitt’s Mother’s Day photo series about her own mom, Marie France, was collaborative from the get-go: The initial idea wasn’t even Levitt’s. It came from her friend Gary Armstrong, an LA-based fashionphoto stylist whose editorial clients include British GQ, i-D and The Ingénue magazine. “Through our friendship, he met my mother. She’s always been the most amazing, eccentric kind of woman, and her spirit inspired Gary, who asked me if I would be interested in doing a shoot with her.”

Armstrong's suggestion led to a playfully stylized set of vignettes for The Ingénue, each spotlighting a di erent facet of Marie France’s personality. “I was inspired by her life and her interests while creating the scenes,” Levitt says. These range from glam-enhanced exercise routines to food prep involving a blender and gargantuan mounds of produce. “She’s a huge health nut and drinks the juice of 15 pounds of carrots a day— granted the carrots on the counter are an exaggeration,” Levitt

ALL PHOTOS © DANIELLE LEVITT

explains. “My mother also sells real estate, and we had her cleaning a pool in the backyard of a house she had just sold. She normally wouldn’t clean the pool, but it made for a more fun image to watch her fi gure out the extended pool stick.”

As the director, Levitt faced the challenge of guiding a restless subject who happens to be her mom. “She loves people and doesn’t stop chatting with everyone around,” Levitt confi des. “She is so social she forgets she is being photographed. It's like herding a cat: I’m constantly reminding her why she is on set.”

Nonetheless the creative sparks fl ew. “The mood around these two women is always powerful yet lighthearted,” says Eli Metcalf, prop stylist and set designer. “They feed each other an energy for life and love of all things. I've met Marie many times; she’s a regular drop-in at Danielle’s shoots.”

Metcalf says crew members took the creative recipe from Levitt, then added their own ingredients. “Danielle has great ideas she brings forward and then she passes them o to you with respect of what you o er the image,” Metcalf says. “She has a trust of her team that is wonderful to work with.”

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ELEMENTS OF STYLE Moving through these images, each scene switches to a new palette of color, texture and symbolism. Drawing on France’s own wardrobe, Armstrong provided sartorial pizazz—”he created her looks,” Levitt says—with assistance from versatile hairstylist Brian Fisher and make-up artist Molly Greenwald.

Charged with rounding up props, Metcalf came to the set with notes: “Eli created a mood board to show me props/things/items that he thought would enhance the scene,” Levitt recalls. These items ranged from mini trampolines to elliptical trainers and parking-garage shopping carts.

LEFT: LEVITT WANTED TO CAPTURE HER MOM'S PLAYFUL SPIRIT, CHOOSING TO STAGE MULTIPLE VIGNETTES OF HER MOM'S LIFE AND INTERESTS FOR HER SHOOT IN THE INGENUE. THIS SPREAD: IN ADDITION TO HER CREW MEMBERS, LEVITT CITES HER MOM, MARIE FRANCE, AS AN IMPORTANT COLLABORATOR IN THE CREATIVE PROCESS FOR THIS SHOOT.

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“All of the ideas or subjects behind the propping were based on true aspects of Marie’s daily life,” says Metcalf. “She strives to stay active and fit. We were just elaborating sometimes to create more energy or saturation for the image. Most props came directly from her apartment—and she kept all the carrots.”

Using a Canon EOS 5D Mark III, Levitt shot the series in two homes, a Whole Foods Market and several street locations. “Lighting was natural with the exception of the parking lot scene, where I used car headlights,” she says.

Levitt hand-picked her creative team based on past work. “Boss Lady asked me and I couldn't say no,” says Metcalf, referring to Levitt, \a frequent creative partner. “Working with Danielle is always an exciting example of collaboration. Any day I get to spend with her is a blessing. Add Marie France to the mix and there's no telling the fun.” +

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