SOPHIA TERRA-ZIVA & AN ODE TO

Sophia Terra-Ziva is an award-winning food and still life photographer from Sydney. I first saw her work on a photography critique work, where her abstract and out-of-the-box photography style caught my periscope. What appeals to me is her eye for beauty, pen for words, atmosphere for creation and manipulation of natural light. She initially started her creative journey as a philologer and a theatre critic.  Followed by a stint in journalism and news editing. She has several award-winning entries for food photography,at the International Photography Awards, Los Angeles (2013, 2014 and 2015).

She masters the art of storytelling where the plot is woven with mystical string of words and stunning artistic photography to permeate the imagination.

Define photography.

Photography to me is one of the artistic tools with which I can send waves of evocative visual tales beyond the borders of a language, beyond the restrictions of the words and their limitation of interpretation.  To me photography (in all its genres), just like music, is a bridge – between cultures and customs, between past and present, between generations.  Photography bonds like-minded people.

And Food Photography, in particular, became for me the umbilical cord between the wisdom of those of my past that have lived and I loved, and those that are being born and have in their veins the acumen of the next generation.  My photography is charged with emotions; it is redolent of memories and is edited through the filters of my tears and my laughter.

Do you do photography by keeping the audience in mind or the story?  Or it is entirely your perception for that moment.

First comes the story and the urge to be told.  It is a bit like falling in love.  And it strikes me like a natural disaster – tsunami or a hurricane…I can’t be rational and levelheaded.  It is passion and lust.

However, I do have my audience in mind when it comes to finding the right means to communicate.  In that sense it is a kind of controlled spontaneity.  I always put time and effort to think through the narrative as how to compose, how to style, what camera angle and light to use.  Big part in this process takes my visualisation.  The visualisation for me is like meditating.  But I never stray or cheat on the story line in order to please the audience only.  I treat my audience with greatest respect and presume that they are sophisticated viewers, connoisseurs of well-told stories. But above all dance to the rhythm of story.

And here, as I am in the midst of confession about how my passion strikes me, I wish to admit some more sins.  I am a flirt.  I will flirt with my audience, I will tickle their perceptive world, I will exchange with them some secret codes in my images, that will be for them only to see or decipher.  I leave multiple layers of messages associated to maybe a book, perhaps a motion picture or classic painting.  I will scatter a minefield of hints and clues that take my photos beyond the obvious in the image.  And it is fine if not all is seen and not all is understood.  We all are open to see different things in a different state of our mind and mood.  The visual intertextuality is floating and allowing everybody to dip in and take what they see fit and what nourishes them.  I deeply believe in the collective cultural consciousness.

Is camera an extension of an eye or outpourings of one’s heart?

I can’t talk on behalf of other photographers.  To me it is a language, it is a tool of expressing my emotions, and it is a means of starting a dialogue.

Are you a stickler for perfection?  Do you take many pictures of the same subject or believe in just one perfect one?

(laughs), perfection!  What perfection?

My perfection can be only as big as is my worldly-wise understanding of life at a certain point at a given moment of my life.

In the beginning, when I was just crawling and toddling in the world of photography, I was clicking more than photographing.  Just pressing the button till I see something that I liked, without a clue how I’ve achieved it.  That’s normal for every beginner, right?

Much later, experience took over the chaotic enthusiasm and more constructive approach now is part of my shooting.  But that is called experience and lots of practice (and lots of hard work).  And most of all – I am still learning and working even harder.

I like to discover new ways with light.  I observe the surrounding light, trying to memorize its movement and patterns during different daytime and seasons.

Do I take many pictures of the same thing?  No, nowadays I don’t have the luxury for time to take many pictures and experiment different POV.  Most of all I am a mother and my priorities are my small kids.   So practically I can’t fuss around a shooting session longer than half an hour to an hour – that includes setting the Mise-en-scène, styling, camera and light setting and shooting.  I preconceive the final outcome before my photo shoot.

Last year a similar question inspired a blog post THEY CALL ME THE ASSASSIN, where I answered with these words:

“My shooting method is pretty plain and straight forward – shoot to “kill” on first sight!

No misses…

Yep, they call me The Assassin and I cook, style and “shoot to kill”.”

How difficult it is to express your storytelling through your photograph?  Can you express more through a written story or a clever photograph?

My creative road started as a philologer and theatre critic.  I worked as a journalist and made a deep mark as a sharp, direct and unforgiving “pen”.  Writing was part of my life for many years.

I often joke that I took on photography in Australia because I didn’t want to explain anymore what my accent was.  Photography allowed me to take my storytelling to a different level and to break boundaries.

In many ways, words are very restricting and they can enforce a tyranny over their users if they are taken the wrong way.  While photography is a universal way of communication on conscious and on subconscious levels.  An image can move and bring out emotions from people of many ages and walks of life.  If Shakespeare was not translated on other languages, he wouldn’t be appreciated and celebrated in other countries but English-speaking only.  While a well shot photograph can speak volumes and cross the language “fence”, it can move the viewers and spring a fountain of feelings and emotions.  No special education required!

All that said, I will still search for the right words and written story to accompany my photography and to share with my friends my feelings or sporadic thoughts, that are jumping in my mind.

Is truth more stranger than a photograph? 

My answer would be different every given day.  And every answer will be truthful.  I am moody.  I am spontaneous and I like to be honest.  All my photographs were created with some true story and true feeling being behind them.  Something happens and brings in me the need to share it.  Then I gather objects that are in very tight, close network.  I only control how they will appear in the image.  But I can’t control how they come across visually and how the audience interprets them.  From that moment on they are in full possession of their own life as objects, as a story.  And at that very moment the truth becomes what the viewer sees it.  That’s why I only sigh that the truth of the artist is not always the truth of the viewer.

What qualities of appeal do you look for in an editorial magazine shot? 

Simple as styling and daring as lighting.

Do you like repetition in your work? 

When repetition is a plain cliché, then the diagnose for the artist is that he or she has fallen in trap of lazy comfort of the familiar and easy work.  And it also means that he or she don’t have enough steam to push the creative engine or are not born with that special creative grain that brings them a harvest of abundant imagination.  So for this kind of photographers I can say that they’ve fallen in the trap of their own cliché.

At the same time a repetition as a technique can be a very reinforcing tool.  A creative tautology in the style of a clever, imaginative artist can become a masterpiece.

Cliché I am trying to avoid at any cost.  I challenge myself with every photo to express the mood or the story in some different way than last time.

Repetition, however, I find very empowering device in creating a visual melody when I am shooting series of images.  It is like the famous orchestral piece by Maurice Ravel “Bolero” where the same musical theme keeps on repeating and rearranging, reasserting the notion till it builds up and erupts at the end in culmination.  If this is artistically executed, it can be absolute visual orgasm.

Sounds exciting, no?  It is a sharp sword to walk on, but I wouldn’t miss it for the world!

Black and white or Colour? 

Both.

Old monk or young monk? 

Both again – I want to have the wisdom and peacefulness of the old monk and the endless enthusiasm and inquisitiveness of the young one.

Art or abstract?

Art.

Magazine or art gallery?

Wouldn’t mind both.  Ah, and a book. ☺

Do you have any parting message for budding photographers? 

Dear young photographers,

The art of photography is just like lovemaking –there is no User’s Manual.

Don’t be afraid to be inexperienced.

Don’t be afraid to experiment.

Be truthful to your feelings.

Listen to your artistic urges.

Be thirsty for mastery.

Find out what pleases you.

Be selfish to strive for satisfaction.

Be generous to give satisfaction.

Create and express yourself.

The rest will come with time and experience.

Sincerely yours,

S. xo (VSOP)

If you liked her interview then you can see more of her work at her blog, Facebook,instagram and  pinterest.