AN INTERVIEW WITH SYDNEY HOLMES

Originally from Atlanta, Ga, photographer Sydney Holmes aims to tell visual stories through her work that feel emotive and dignified, whether she uses her camera and creative eye to foreground stories that already exist, or to create space for ones that yet don't. She is a soon-to-be graduate of Yale University with a major in Art/Photography. Sydney is incredibly adept at carefully executing any artistic vision, whether as a creative director, or as a collaborator, and has a wide variety of experience photographing for large institutions like Yale and the International African American Museum, celebrities such as Jidena and Playboi Carti, and a host of smaller organizations. Sydney talks to Teresa and Sam about stories she hopes to tell through photography, photography as an academic discipline, and her inspirations.

Sam: Thank you so much for being here with us. We've been really loving your photography. I don't know how much you know about the podcast but we just try to interview a lot of artists that we really admire, and we just wanted to ask you a lot about your work and also what it's like to study photography and kind of a more academic side?

Teresa: So I guess our first question would be, can you just tell us a bit about how you first found your love for photography and when that whole journey began?

Sydney: Absolutely, yeah. So, my father was, is, eh, was a professional photographer, but so I grew up with a camera in my face like all the time. I hated it. I absolutely hated it. But I mean I have such a deep appreciation for it now, of course. But my introduction to photography was just like being at the dinner table or like being at a birthday party or like on a family vacation and just like having to do a whole like “cheese” thing.

And, yeah, I mean, I really didn't appreciate it until now. But when I did finally sort of come to see it as a tool that I could use. I was like 11, and I'm not even sure how my parents knew that I wanted a camera for my birthday, but I got a little point-and-shoot camera for my birthday. And it was just like the most perfect thing, I mean I was attached at the hand to that thing pretty much since then. I guess that’s 11 years ago, just wild. 

But um, at first I used it because I was a very anxious child. Like, I mean, I’m an anxious person in general, but I was extremely anxious—like clinical levels of anxiety—as a child. And you know that was sort of meeting my family circumstances but I… because I was an anxious child, I was not present, you know?

So like, I'm having all these wonderful life experiences, like as a young person, you know, coming into consciousness, if you will, and I feel like I didn't remember things. Like my sister, or my family, like my mom, or my dad had like—they can think of a moment and just like immediately transport themselves back to that day, like what they smelled, what they were wearing, who they're like, and I couldn't do that. I don't have a chronological sense of memory at all. 

And that scared me, so I was like, ‘oh my god, who am I if I don't remember—you know—really dire thoughts as a young person?’ But I was taking pictures, I was like, ‘Well, this is a way that I can literally capture moments in time so that I don't have to worry about forgetting’ because, you know, anything that I find beautiful or worth remembering, I will always have it in this sort of image form. And it became obsessive. Like it was this obsessive fear of forgetting and also a desire to capture beautiful things like that just drove me to always take my camera everywhere I went.

It didn't matter where I was, what I was taking pictures of, whether it was like people, places, landscapes, water, little flowers on the side road. So that was like my first, probably four or five years, with photography. Was sort of that compulsive-like need and drive to do it, It gave me a sense of control as an anxious person. I was like, well this is a place where I feel control behind the camera, and I still feel that way to this day, for sure.

Sam: Yeah, that totally makes sense. And you talked about how photography kind of came to you at a very early age, and know that you grew up in Atlanta, right. 

Sydney: Mmhmm.

Sam: How did Atlanta shape your photographic style or just your art in general?

Sydney: That's an interesting question because I think I often feel like it doesn't. And I think this is because, so in addition to being an anxious child, I was an athlete from a young age. So I was running track, track was my thing, up until probably two years ago is when I like retired, but um, I spent all my time running. Like, if I was not in school, I was on their tracks somewhere from the age of three to 20 years old, so I didn't really get a sense of the city of Atlanta, like until really a few years ago.

Being an adult, realizing what the city can offer, especially artistically. Like there's a huge, really rich creative scene there. Any possible creative outlet you might want or might want to find, like there's a community of people who are doing that in Atlanta and have a space for you, and I love that. But yeah, I didn't really appreciate the city until recently. But I mean that's not to say that I'm sure. Like, sort of unconsciously, maybe the cityscape and sort of how I am with people, like my approach to photography, is probably, you know, influenced by growing up in the South.

In terms of etiquette and manners, I don't know. I think I'm always hesitant, and maybe this is more so knowing the history of photography now, of objectifying people with a camera. So maybe that's my southern etiquette, maybe that's partially my academic learning, but yeah. I don't know but I can say, consciously, that Atlanta has had a great effect on my style. At least starting out. Like now, I mean I'm always taking pictures of Black people doing creative things. I mean, and that's like what Atlanta is about really, so I can say it's definitely crept into my subject matter for sure.

Teresa: Yeah, thank you for that honest answer and not just being like, ‘It influenced me a lot.’ Also, I used to live in Decatur in Atlanta. But it was when I was young, so the only artist I remember was Georgia O'Keeffe. Like, they would always plug her when you're in the third grade. But kind of relating to what you were saying about pushing boundaries and photography, do you feel like—just in terms of learning photography in an academic state—do you feel like you're constantly having to push back against more academic conceptions of photography?

Sydney: That's an interesting question because I feel like since studying it…  Like my first photo class was in 2018. So I came into college like refusing to major in art or study photography. I was like, I was a STEM baddy for one semester. And then I was like, this isn’t for me. And I have a lot of sort of things that pushed me further from STEM and further into humanities, which eventually led me into the arts.

But my first photography class was Black Atlantic photography, and it was my first time setting photography at all in an academic context and it was really focused on sort of placing photography within a broader history of like Black liberation movements, like sort of pushing back, yes, on a lot of violent representations of Blackness that like early photography established and reified. 

And so like that being my first entry point was really important to, I think, my current relationship to photography and academia and critical theory. So like, I would say, that prior to studying it in an academic setting I was wary—I was very wary—because I didn't feel like I needed that. I was like, ‘Why do we need to be up in this—you know—Ivory Tower?’ sort of speaking about images from this high place. But I think the way that it gave me, one, a really necessary historical context of Black image-makers, and the histories of how Black people have been represented in photography.

It also just gave me a way to interpret images and also figure out what my own voice is. Like, I think, before, you know I mentioned it was very compulsive for me to take pictures. It was instinctive. It was about what I felt I needed to do in that moment. It was very an unconscious thing I didn't have language for, as far as my focus. But, once I got into academia, I was like, ‘Okay, like you can sort of read a photo, you know, like you read a book.’ It sort of functions a little differently but like there's certain things that you can pull out from a photo that sort of show you like, I mean, they can speak the truth about the world, sure, but like they really speak the truth about who took the photo, which is something I didn't consider before sort of going in an academic setting. Like authorship and positionality when it comes to taking photos, it's something that's like always on my mind and that's really only because of what I've learned since being in school.

So it's had the opposite effect of really helping me to appreciate what I can do and like where I'm located in a broader history of photographers and photography.

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Teresa: I love hearing stories of how people are committed to their passions, because it always stems from a place of like, there is nothing else for me to do but try this thing. So I love hearing about that because same. But what you're saying about, yeah, using photography like sort of as a lens, what type of stories do you feel are important to tell with your photography and like the specific way that you see the world and see this medium?

Sydney: So for me, what I always come back to, in terms of like, subject matter and the stories I want to tell, it's always about being a Black person in America. Like, even if I sort of try to resist that, because you know it feels essentializing, maybe, to always be making work about identity, because there's no one way to be any kind of person, you know, at any kind of intersection of identity. So it was sort of hard for me to just accept that what I was making work about was myself, and I simply am a Black woman. And so I really enjoy the idea of just not even telling stories of Black womanhood, but just finding new visual languages to represent it, so that people who aren't Black women sort of get a sense of our experiences, at that very specific intersection.

I mean if you just pick up a magazine, social media, TV, movies, any sort of media that you look at, you can find really unsavory and limiting representations of what it is to be a Black woman, whether that's in terms of body objectification, or just, yeah, I mean, just severe limitations on emotional range. Like, you sort of see the same scopes of Black womanhood, angry Black women, hyper sexualized Black women, whatever the case is. It was always these extremes is like the way that I've seen it. Either we're really visible in a space, and sort of hyper critiqued or hyper criticized, you know, from a very young age. Like Black girls are just really…  there's a lot of things imposed upon young Black girls as far as who you can and can't be, and how you can and can't present.

And so I'm always just like, how do you just represent a Black woman as she is, or how she wants to be more, more importantly. It's like that's my driving force. Whenever I'm taking pictures, whether it's you know paperwork that I'm doing, or whether it's my personal work, that's what really gets me going. How to show the range and complexity of black womanhood, because it’s complex, I hate seeing it sort of flattened out in the way that you often see it, like in media specifically.

Sam: And I think I saw some of those ideas at play in some of the images that you've posted. And you kind of introduced this idea of obscuring the face, and then an “anti-portrait.” Could you talk about what those mean and how you feel like those can be just as good a representation as like, maybe a traditional portrait?

Sydney: Yeah, like, I think with anti portraiture and sort of resistance to being seen as—that's sort of the core thing that I'm trying to work through in pictures. Because I think our engagement with images currently is Instagram, Twitter, Facebook—it's just image, image, image, image. We're bombarded with imagery and I feel a lot of times people don't realize how that could be sort of changing how we look at people and images and how we interact with images.

And so I'm just thinking about the fact that you’re scrolling on your phone, you look at a picture, and you're like okay, I know what's going on there, like I know who that is, I know what's happening. I'm trying to sort of subvert that process of ease of knowing, like feeling like you can look at something or someone and just know who they are. Because very often, you know, it's just projections. At the end of the day, we're all just projecting. But this idea of only revealing what you only want to reveal or making yourself illegible and unable to be read, and unable to be like known is important to me as a way to sort of regain power over who you are.

I think that works for Black womanhood, but I think that can be expanded to like anyone. We're always, you know, sort of packaging ourselves, depending on where we are, whether that's your classroom - you're sort of tailoring who you are to your audience or who's in the space or what space you're in. And I'm just like, what if we sort of take a step and not try to sort of fit into a space, but just I mean - what if we just don't fit? What if we're not completely able to be read by people? Is that okay, like what happens when you sort of occupy that space? Because I think then it's harder for people to sort of categorize you in one space, and you can just sort of move more fluidly in the world. So yeah, that was the long answer.

Teresa: No, that was super well said. And I guess throughout your journey as a photographer—not even like who has been some of your artistic inspirations—but have there been certain moments or photos where you've completely rethought something about photography or the way that you approach art or a new concept?

Sydney: For sure. or like, I think the first thing that comes to my mind is when I encountered Carrie Mae Weems’ work. Because, I mean, she uses her body and her images and so prior to that, like, I said I made self portraits all the time but I was never showing them. Like, it was one of those things that was for me and for me only. And I think I'm still sort of grappling with the idea of personal work, and public work. And you know what you sort of allow people to see in terms of your artistry and what you produce.

But when I saw her photos - I mean she was the first like highly regarded seminal Black woman photographer who I'd ever heard of, like, I didn't even know that they were famous Black women photographers at all before hearing her name. But, specifically, her series - I think it's called “Roaming” - she has one called Roaming. It’s a set of pictures where she's wearing a Black gown, and they're self portraits, and so she sort of sets up her camera in front of these sites, like it could be a body of water, it could be like a museum building, it could be a monument. And she just sort of sets herself up as like this observer, like in the frame, and I think the concept of a Black woman observer or spectator is really, really interesting to me.

And bell hooks has an essay called The Oppositional Gaze that is really influencing my work currently that I just came across recently. Well, sourcing Carrie Mae Weems work and how she actually sets herself up as a witness to history, and like this witness to like, power, power imbalances. And just like American history, was a radically - I was like wait, I can do that. Like I can do that, I can put my body in conversation with sort of larger systems and structures or whatever. Um, so like seeing her work just opened up what I could do with photography, because I was very new at this point.

When I came across a work, I was very reluctant to even showing my work to people. I didn’t start doing that until I majored in photography. So the idea of critique and an audience for your work was first introduced to me through Carrie Mae Weems’ work. I still think about it all the time, like those images in that series. So, yeah, I think that was my first thought.

Teresa: Yeah and I'm really glad that you mentioned the oppositional gaze, because I'm a cinema minor and so in one of my classes, we were reading bell hooks text about that and how she was combatting this idea that, you know, Black woman didn't even have a gaze, because they weren't being represented. And I feel like it's so fair to love something, but also be able to critique it, but think that, you still love it, you know what I mean? Like, there's still room for critique. And so I think that one of the things I wanted to ask, less conceptually about photography, but just like, technically, what are some things that you think about when you're positioning a subject or adjusting things on your camera? Because I used to do photography and I feel like sometimes I would have a vision, and then not be able to execute it because my technicalities were bad. So what are some technical things that you hold to be really important?

Sydney: Hmm… That's a great question. I think I’ll start with more recently and work back. Because recently, I'd say around November, December, January, I just had a technical awakening of sorts where I realized there were all these things I didn't know, and all these technical things I wasn’t utilizing, like in terms of artificial lighting. But it was really me realizing that I didn't know light in the way that I should, as a photographer. I think after doing it for so long, I was like, Oh yeah, okay, I sort of know enough technical skill, I know how to get my cameras always in manual, I've seen enough YouTube tutorials where I was like, okay, I think I know how to say what I want to say.

But prior to a few months ago, I really didn't have a consistent technical style or skill set or toolkit that I pulled from. I think prior, two months ago, I was really always focused on foreground and background effects, so I would always shoot in wide open apertures. I would very, very rarely go smaller than like F28. Like I was just obsessed with this idea of like, what is foregrounded and was backgrounded just as a way to think about images and what's happening in an image. 

And I just remember my one sort of thing that I'll always keep in mind when I'm close to the photograph, like from my early times taking pictures, was this idea of something being in the way. So I would always carry around like a piece of tool fabric in my camera bag. It would be like either Black or white or whatever, and I was always trying to sort of wave it in front of my lens, or just in some way have it impact the photo, because I wanted people to be aware that they were looking at my perspective. 

But also, light is an obvious answer too. I'm drawn to dappled lighting, which I mean I have in some of the photos I have on Instagram, like my earlier portrait works where I love this idea of light and shadow just interplaying on an object, on a body. It seems to speak to the complexity that I sort of want to represent in my photos of people in general. So yeah, I think those are maybe the two things that usually drive me. This idea of foregrounding, backgrounding, centering. And then having light also be added to the conversation. But also color. I'm obsessed with color, which is showing I think now in the work that I’ve posted recently.

Sam: We talked to a lot of artists that - we’re both in college so on our campuses - and I know that a lot of people find it hard to kind of break outside of just being an artist on their campus. How have you found a way to move beyond, I guess, the confines of your campus, to share art to a larger group of people?

Sydney: I think social media is the most obvious answer, or like my first thought about that. Well actually, I think there's my ultimate answer. So I was taking pictures, and I took a gap year after my freshman year for mental health reasons. I needed therapy, so I left and I got my therapy. And while I was there like I was sort of reconnecting with high school friends, and was just doing sort of open calls for, you know, I just wanted to make work, so it wasn't about being paid.

It was sort of about figuring out my artistic process, figuring out how to execute a vision from start to finish, having a concept down to the wardrobe, down to location, who you might want as your sitter and all that stuff. So I was getting comfortable with that, around that time. And I think, because I was sort of networking unintentionally, it sort of allowed me to maintain an audience that wasn't based on Yale. And I think that has been helpful in my current practice. 

When I did come back to Yale, I felt like I was only getting Yale work. Like I did feel very much confined to the people who I knew here and the opportunities that they were sort of plugging me for. So much of the work that I've done over the last few years has been like, you know, word of mouth, I mean that's how a lot of photographers work, but it was still only spreading to campus.

And so, recently, a Yale person actually was able to get me a really, really important gig outside of Yale that got me out into the world, meeting a lot of different people. I mean it's the most important gig of my life actually to the point. It was very unexpected, like I honestly would not have had an answer to this question honestly before December of last year. I was also wondering how I was going to find work in the real world without my Yale connections, but my Yale connections, actually solved that problem for me!