TCF Ep. 472 - Jessica Chou

The Candid Frame: Conversations on Photography

Ibarionex R. Perello

Cameras, Art, Photoshop, Visual Arts, Career, Interviews, Photographers, Arts, Photography, Photo, Digital

4.8 • 749 Ratings

🗓️ 17 June 2019

⏱️ 60 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Jessica Chou approaches her subjects with as little preconceived notions as possible, allowing people the space to collaborate with the moment and the place they inhabit. She strives for honesty and to look at things as they are, without artifice or judgement. The result is something that is at once observant and intimate. While her photography is documentary in style, it is led by the possibilities for storytelling and expression within a single frame. From photographing high-profile public figures to exploring changes in the cultural landscape or reporting at the U.S. and Mexico border, what unites her work is her curiosity, empathy and her ease in shifting between disparate worlds and finding the naturalness in things that do not necessarily belong together. Jessica was born in 1985 in Taipei, Taiwan and raised in the suburbs of Los Angeles known as the San Gabriel Valley. She graduated from UCLA with a degree in Middle East History and is currently living and working between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Photographer Links: Education Resources: Candid Frame Resources Download the free Candid Frame app for your favorite smart device. Click here to download for . Click here to download Support the work we do at The Candid Frame with contributing to our Patreon effort. You can do this by visiting or visiting the website and clicking on the Patreon button. You can also provide a one-time donation via . You can follow Ibarionex on and .

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, this is Alex Casares from Oracle, Arizona, and you are listening to The Candid Frame.
0:15.0	For the longest time, the story of how a photographer got their big break sounded pretty familiar.
0:21.6	You would imagine a young photographer with a leather-bound portfolio visiting New York City.
0:28.6	There they would visit editors and art directors trying to make an impression that would hopefully lead to that career launching opportunity. Though that still may be part of some
0:40.4	stories, the age of Instagram, websites, and email have resulted in different narratives.
0:47.8	Taiwanese-born photographer Jessica Chow was aspiring to do editorial and commercial work,
0:53.3	but was keeping ends meet by shooting weddings.
0:56.4	But things began to change when one day she responded to an email.
1:01.5	I got this email from the editor looking they needed a photographer, but you know,
1:06.3	take you have a little bit more work. So I kind of had like some like where I did the second
1:10.5	photography or like little bits of photo from like my wedding, the wedding work and kind of
1:15.3	use that to kind of like showcase just a little bit of extra stuff just to like show that
1:19.6	documentary style. And then I got the job. They're like, hey, this is great. Like I think
1:25.9	they want to go with you. By the way, this is for L'Oreal Paris shooting on commercial photo shoots. So that was like, hey, this is great. Like, I think they want to go with you. By the way, this is for L'Oreal, Paris, shooting on commercial photoshoots.
1:31.1	So that was, like, my first job.
1:33.1	So my first day of work was on photographing behind the scenes with Gwen Stefani for, like, an entire week.
1:39.8	But she was, like, this sort of the secret new talent that they were going to showcase.
1:44.7	Over the years, she has created a body of work that revolves around portraiture and documentary-style photography,
1:52.0	all produced with a keen eye for color and gesture.
1:56.3	But the learning curve for being a professional photographer had less to do with anything related
2:01.4	to the camera and more about how to interact with people.
2:06.4	It's very psychological.
	...

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