TCF Ep. 312 - Michelle Groskopf

The Candid Frame: Conversations on Photography

Ibarionex R. Perello

Arts, Visual Arts

4.8 • 768 Ratings

🗓️ 29 February 2016

⏱️ 50 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Michelle Groskopf is a street photographer based in Los Angeles. She's made a practice of shooting the world around her almost daily for the past 20 years. Her work has been featured in The British Journal Of Photography, American Photo Magazine,Capricious Magazine, FLAUNT Magazine, Dazed and Confused, Vice.com, Trip Magazine, Booooooom, The Heavy Collective, Fotografia Magazine, The Magenta Foundation, It's Nice That, The Daily Mail, Conde Nast Traveler Michelle is an ongoing contributor to Vice.com Her themes revolve around tween / teen culture, girlhood and suburban ideology / iconography. "I grew up in the suburbs of Toronto surrounded by shopping carts and old ladies in headscarves. That’s all I knew for the longest time. Housing developments, strip malls, backyards and Jewish summer camp. It was comforting, one of those good childhoods and I loved it. As I got older I caught the notion of other things, other places I wanted to see. I fled straight for the city, and then kept going till I managed to get as far away I could. At some point I started taking photos. Photos of shopping carts and old ladies in headscarves, people wandering around strip malls. It didn’t matter what city I was in, I’d find them, these people that seemed so familiar to me. I’d get so close to them with my camera they would be forced to talk to me. They’d ask me why and I would tell them that I thought they were beautiful." Resources: Michelle Groskopf http://mgroskopf.com/Michelle-Groskopf Shawn Theodore https://www.instagram.com/_xst/?hl=en Guy Bolongaro https://www.instagram.com/bandini3000/ Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for iOS. Click here to download for Android Click here to download for Windows 8 Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with your donations via PayPal. https://www.paypal.com/us/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_flow&SESSION=mjae26r3BEcGz-ee0ba6YK5zP2OmJpIvKuwHEke0my0QEQ5QhJiOhhWsFVK&dispatch=5885d80a13c0db1f8e263663d3faee8defcd6970d4fd9d661117ac2649af92bb

Transcript

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0:00.0	The Candid Frame is supported by donations by listeners just like you.
0:04.8	You can support the show by clicking on the donate button on the website or in the show notes. This is Ivarianx and this is The Candid Frame.
0:23.6	One of the questions it's often asked from aspiring photographers is how do I develop my style?
0:33.6	After they've gained some sense of confidence over the technical aspect of photography, there's this obsession on discovering that unique voice as a photographer that will help differentiate them from everyone else with the camera.
0:48.1	They're often looking for a simple answer, which is as easily understandable as using a fast enough shutter speed to counter camera shake
0:56.2	or using low ISO to minimize noise.
0:59.8	But discovering one's style is often less about technique and more about something more personal.
1:06.6	What you were drawn to photograph, what you respond to visually, is often colored by the life
1:12.0	that you've led, the choices you've made or failed to make. It's about both the good and the
1:17.5	bad, the joyful and the painful. It's all these things brought together into an almost
1:23.6	unfathomable hole, which sometimes only finds its meaning within the context of a photograph.
1:30.3	At least this is part of the story for today's guest Michelle Groskopf, of street photographer,
1:35.3	who you heard a little from during our previous episode.
1:38.3	Michelle is often described as a street photographer, but her photographs of strangers and suburban communities
1:45.0	is also part documentary, part autobiography.
1:48.0	It's this intimate and personal use of the camera that inspires her to photograph in the way that she does.
1:55.0	And her style comes forth not as a result of some construct or strategy, but rather as a result of something far more natural and sincere.
2:09.5	Well, I love your work, and I'm so glad that I got a chance to meet you in person a couple of weeks ago.
2:14.4	Yeah, thanks. Ditto back.
2:16.4	That was a lot of fun.
2:17.4	It was. I'm so impressed by your work. Yeah, thanks. Ditto back. That was a lot of fun. It was.
2:18.5	I'm so impressed by your work.
	...

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