60-SECOND EXPOSURE

F E AT U R E 6 0 - S ECO N D E X P OSU R E

All images © Lori Vrba Multi-media ar tist Lori Vrba ponders whether Julia Margaret Cameron and Ralph Eugene Meat yard would get on, why she felt miserable as a professional photographer, and the usefulness of her best par t y trick. Trac y Calder is all ears.

Girl Child Garden at Lacock Abbey

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 diar y 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 behind. Photography is my own meaningful connection to humanit y. It sounds like a haught y answer, but it’s a profound question.

Describe your st yle in three words? Feminine. Evocative. Southern.

What is your favourite photographic book? Wolf’s Honey by Vojtech V. Slama. I never get over it.

Tell us about a photographic oppor tunit y you have missed. A photographic oppor tunit y can mean a lot of dif ferent things, but I’ll go with photographs I wish I’d taken. In fact, there’s a magical moment happening right now, as I t ype this email, that I’d give any thing 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 per fectly 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 hur ts. Tell us your favourite photographic quote. ‘Sharpness is a bourgeois concept’ – Henri Car tier-Bresson.

What’s the biggest risk you have taken as a photographer? I’ve been taking exhibition and installation risks right from the ver y beginning, so I don’t think of them as risks anymore. When I began working with assemblage and threedimensional objects, that felt risk y. I wasn’t well known enough to safely branch out in a way that could potentially dilute my visual voice, so I felt ner vous about confusing people.

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 majorit y 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 Rober t 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 lef t hand writing back wards and the right hand writing for wards. I would have to demonstrate it because it’s dif ficult to explain. It’s a great bar trick !

What would you say to your younger self? You have ever y thing you need to make a wonder ful 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 tr y 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

Seven Dresses

and ripped open an exposed roll of film – so, of course, I lost probably the best images ever made in the histor y of time – and a hot-shot-fancy-pants photographer was sit ting nex t to me and saw it all happen. For the record, I was seriously sleep deprived that day.

Who would join you in your ultimate camera club ( dead or alive )? Julia Margaret Cameron, Francesca Woodman, Josef Sudek, Henr y Fox Talbot, Viviane Maier, Ralph Eugene Meat yard. I wonder if they would like each other and who’d be the most fun? What single thing would improve your photography? The return of 20 / 20 vision – I miss it terribly.

Which exhibition could you have spent a month in? This will sound arrogant, but it would have to be one of my own or one that I have curated or produced for someone else. I put so much time and guts into an exhibition and installation that I am always a lit tle hear tbroken when I have to walk away. It feels a lit tle like leaving a new baby. Resting

Which Instagram or social media accounts inspire you? Alain L aboile @ alainlaboile, Dawn Surrat t @ dawn_ surrat t, A ri Seth Cohen @ advancedst yle, Heidi Lender @ heidilender.

The worst thing about being a professional photographer is… I don’t consider myself a professional photographer now, but I was for a while many years ago. I actually hated it. I was physically and spiritually miserable making photographs for the sole purpose of pleasing someone else. Which characteristics do you think you need to become a photographer? Need is a strong word, but I can share some characteristics that I find invaluable. Firstly, hypersensitivit y. It's a blessing and a curse. It means that I fully experience the world in front of me. Secondly, tenacit y, because there is nothing easy about doing it well or being relevant. Thirdly, a sense of humour – the self-deprecating variet y.

What are you thinking about when you release the shut ter? Hold your breath, like a prayer.