Dream To Seam – Agatha Ruiz de la Prada from modaCYCLE on Vimeo.

modaCYCLE’s Seth Friedermann sits down with famed Spanish designer Agatha Ruiz de la Prada for an in-depth interview about how she works. This is the second episode of the Dream To Seam series.

On December 28th, 2011, returning from visiting family in Virginia on an early flight, and having found myself recently intrigued by the collected writings of the artist Paul Gauguin, I was inspired to go to The Museum of Modern Art. These are my notes, scribbled into a miniature Moleskine notebook.

[...]

I think style generally develops as a way of dealing with problems in an efficient way. It’s not random, it’s a system or predetermined choices that you develop when you’re overwhelmed. To develop style you have to be challenged. Sustained originality almost always comes from a crucible passage. You need to create images that scare you. Transcending the difficulty will bring out who you are, and that’s where real style comes from in art.

Even when I have the latest equipment I feel constrained by the limits of the technology.

Even if I got some sort of digital Super IMAX 4D rig, I’m not sure I’d be happy.

Part of being an artist is being never really satisfied with your tools or your last piece. If we get happy we stop.

This is the first episode in a series we’ve started to produce for modaCYCLE, extended interviews called Dream To Seam.

Dream To Seam – Ralph Rucci from modaCYCLE on Vimeo.

Dream To Seam is an interview series from modaCYCLE. This episode features top American fashion designer Ralph Rucci.

Here are some photos of my studio. [...]

I’ve been running the formal critique section of the forum on the Model Mayhem community site since it was started, and over the last few years I’ve identified several recurring issues. Here are my stock responses to some of the most common problems new and experienced photographers have. [...]

I’m going through a lot of old magazines ripping out the photos I like and tossing the other 99.5% of the paper.

One thing I noticed in the stack of what I’ve kept, the models don’t look at the camera very often. I sometimes tell new models “don’t look at the camera unless you mean it.”

I look at all of these thousands of images in the magazines I’m tossing out, and I have a visceral reaction to compelling lighting, compositions, dances of color on the page. When I look at a photo in which the model is just standing there deer in headlights waiting for the shutter to click, supremely unconfident, no matter what is going on in the rest of the image, I have a strong dislike for the whole. If it is an interesting setting, I am even angry at the photographer for wasting it on an uncompelling subject.

To me, photography is only a rush when it feels challenging, and if the model just stands there looking at the lens, waiting to have their picture taken, it is uninteresting. I don’t like when they submit to the process, when they are having their picture taken rather than being interesting.

Unless you have the confidence to stare down the lens or tell a story, don’t go near it, the lens will know you are weak. The lens is predatory. To use it is always to be hunting for something. When the prey is immediately submissive, the hunt is dull.