Interview: Photographer Ted Lapidus (France)

Modellenland

8 mei 2023

Tell me about yourself

I'm 47 years old, father of two beautiful children who teach me the art of being a human being in their own right. I am also a business manager and negotiation consultant.

How and when did you start photography?

Photography is not my first medium of expression, I was a drawer. But the search for a certain immediacy of realization pushed me to discover photography. At the time I could spend three or four days on a drawing. The main idea was to reduce this time. Later on I understood that the maturation time of my work was not modified by the use of one medium or another.

I only use an Hasselbald, and trees lenses.

What is your goal in photography?

My goal in photography is to freeze the moment and capture the emotions, the dialogue. The idea is also to sublime the constraints.

What does photography mean to you?

Photography is an important part of my creativity and it is also and above all an open door to otherness. In fact, photography, as I practice it, is fundamentally human and focused on the human. Each session, each roll is the pretext for exposing the consciousness, the model, the other, in what is most intimate or most precious.

How does your work differ from others?

I'm not sure it's so different. I think that unlike some people, but like many others, I feel that the photo is done, when I have taken the shot. When I photograph, I don't add any light or anything. I only use what exists.

Where do you draw your inspiration from?

Avedon, Lindbergh and especially painters like Caravagio, Vermeer, Rembrandt,

Do you prepare your images in advance?

Rarely do I go on a shoot with an idea, an intention, a will that is apparent in the choice of the model's location and in our initial discussions. I have in my conscious and unconscious a set of themes, ideas and intentions that are there and that often emerge in the temporary alchemy of the triumvirate, the location, the model and the photographer.

Do you work on your photos and describe your post-production work?

There is no post-production work for me. The photo is made when I release the shutter, I digitise my films, as I am purely film-based when I want to publish on the networks. At this stage of digitisation, which is in no way obligatory, I do not do any post-processing, just the removal of clashes and a play on contrasts. Some photographers are more computer graphic artists and they come out with beautiful things but that's not my way of doing things.

What is your preference rented or studio?

I have never worked in a studio. In my opinion, the studio is the antinomy of my way of working. For me, the studio is the territory of photographers who are in permanent control of the control of everything... on the contrary, I am in the overcoming of existing constraints, I take the light as it is the piece as it is the model as it is... nothing is controlled.

What are the places and subjects that inspire you the most?

What inspires me the most are either large spaces empty of humans or places of human interaction.

What would you most like to photograph?

the infinity of emotions.

What is the most important thing you have learned over the years?

I would say that what has taught me about photography is patience and the certainty that everything happens at its own pace, when I am focused on intention and not control.

What are your future or short term projects?

Portraits in the fog!

What do you look for in the models you work with?

For me, there are three categories of models : the bimbos, (uninteresting), the women who try to reappropriate their female body, (extremely interesting) and the women who want to participate in an act of artistic creation (also extremely interesting). The last two categories are fantastic for me to exchange and I only ask for their trust for an emotional rather than physical exposure.

https://www.instagram.com/ted_phot/