FEATURE
All images © Lori Vrba
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60-SECOND EXPOSURE Multi-media artist Lori Vrba ponders whether Julia Margaret Cameron and Ralph Eugene Meatyard would get on, why she felt miserable as a professional photographer, and the usefulness of her best party trick. Tracy Calder is all ears.
Girl Child
B+W
Lori Vrba is a multi-media artist based in North Carolina, USA. Her work is rooted in themes of memory, illusion, loss and revival and is held in collections throughout the world. She has curated several exhibitions, including Tribe for the Fox Talbot Museum and the Center for Photographic Art. Her first monograph The Moth Wing Diaries was published in 2015. lorivrba.com instagram.com/lorivrba facebook.com/lori.vrba.1
What does photography mean to you? Photography is my own personal connection to the past, present and future. It allows me to keep a visual diary of what has happened in my lifetime, as well as a glimpse into the lives before my own. It insists that I be fully present in any given moment in order to look deeply and miss nothing. Other than love, and my children, my pictures will possibly be the most significant mark on the world I leave
Garden at Lacock Abbey behind. Photography is my own meaningful connection to humanity. It sounds like a haughty answer, but it’s a profound question.
Tell us your favourite photographic quote. ‘Sharpness is a bourgeois concept’ – Henri Cartier-Bresson.
Describe your style in three words? Feminine. Evocative. Southern.
What’s the biggest risk you have taken as a photographer? I’ve been taking exhibition and installation risks right from the very beginning, so I don’t think of them as risks anymore. When I began working with assemblage and threedimensional objects, that felt risky. I wasn’t well known enough to safely branch out in a way that could potentially dilute my visual voice, so I felt nervous about confusing people.
What is your favourite photographic book? Wolf’s Honey by Vojtech V. Slama. I never get over it. Tell us about a photographic opportunity you have missed. A photographic opportunity can mean a lot of different things, but I’ll go with photographs I wish I’d taken. In fact, there’s a magical moment happening right now, as I type this email, that I’d give anything to witness through the lens. My best friend’s sister has been training hummingbirds to eat out of her hand. She has set up a backdrop outside, placed flowers in her hair and is standing perfectly still. The hummingbirds are hovering all around her like she is Snow White. This is all taking place about a thousand miles from here and the only reason I’m not there is because of the pandemic. It hurts.
Name one item (aside from a camera) that every photographer should own. A field tool belt. Who would you most like to collaborate with? I spend the majority of my time collaborating with wildly creative people, so I already feel it’s an embarrassment of riches. I will go with a fantasy and say Shana and Robert ParkeHarrison. I love to physically construct a scene and I like how they think and take it to the finish line. In my
fantasy, I am their understudy and I am taking notes as fast as I can while contributing in some way. What is your worst photographic habit? Not exhausting a subject. I walk away too soon when I should have loaded the proverbial contact sheet. Tell us one thing most people don’t know about you. I can write with both hands at the same time, with the left hand writing backwards and the right hand writing forwards. I would have to demonstrate it because it’s difficult to explain. It’s a great bar trick! What would you say to your younger self? You have everything you need to make a wonderful life. Stop looking around for it, look within and just get on with it. What has been your most embarrassing moment as a photographer? Gosh. I try to forget embarrassing moments, and there have been quite a few! I hate this question. Ugh. OK, it was the day I was loading a Hasselblad
