Mar 2013

Photography, a woman’s perspective … Glenn Capers interviews Carla Fiorina

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Carla has been a woman that took an interest in street photography when she discovered, that people in need of help do fall between the cracks and are left in limbo by government laws that make survival impossible.

For Carla, she discovered there is a female view point that has been over looked in the realities of extreme hardships for a more male view and outcome. Nonetheless, the reality of being homeless, or in need of any type of care for an individual, should be viewed from the natural instincts of a woman. Carla feels that, from her lenses, we are able to see the feminine side of how people and the establishment has ignored a global world crises.

Carla hopes to show women photographers that they have a voice and show people that there is more service in showing reality that can affect us all and give purpose to the female photographer, just as Dorothea Lange did during the dust bowl disaster for farmers living in the middle America before World War Two.

Tell me what makes a woman shoot with empathy.
Generally speaking, it is not difficult for any woman to make contact with a subject at an emotional level, before any rational consideration about the shot comes into mind. It is this innate subconscious ability that helps us understand a baby’s needs even before the child becomes able to communicate them.

What do you see when you walk the streets
I see people within the boundaries of their own thoughts. I see people being what they are as they walk, run, or sit, basically unaware of my scrutiny. I see people socializing and being part of a community. I see people interacting with the urban environment, coming to terms with its complexity. I see the relationship between people and a particular spot they find themselves in in a particular moment. I am there, make it all come together, and I shoot.

What is your camera to you.
A sophisticated mechanical tool that helps me reach my objective of shooting sharp images. It has to be handy, light, unobtrusive, dependable and manageable. It must give me the ISO I need in low light, it has to respond fast when I ask it to shoot, it has to focus exactly when and where I ask it to.

What kind of camera do you shoot with
I use a Olympus OMD-EM5, I found it has all the features I need, none missing.

How do you see yourself from start to finish on shooting
I see myself as a recorder of my own time. When shooting street you don’t just shoot subjects and places. You shoot clothes, habits, ways of speaking and body languages, you shoot people working and the tools or machines they use. You shoot buildings, cars and stores, and dogs and posters. You shoot what makes up the world we live today in our cities. I record the chaos of the streets at rush hour, and the buskers trying to make a living. I record the quiet park where mothers wait and kids play, and elderly people play chess. Everything is different if I shoot in Lyon or London, in Santa Fe or Reykjavik. Then I also shoot cultural differences, the rich variety of peoples and cities. I shoot contrasts, the rich in elegant cafes and the people society has left behind. I also record feelings and emotions, as they unfold on the faces of people walking the stretch of stage in front of my camera – and that is universal. When I walk the street I have no plan, no project. I let the city whisper or scream what the city wants me to see, what life there is about, what makes that moment then and there different from any other single moment in that city, in that street, on that corner between those two buildings.

If there is one idea you want to make in life tell us in four sentences and 10 images.
I wouldn’t want to see and shoot homeless people and beggars, and junkies and drunkards, in any city in the world. The forgotten human discards of our societies, the 21st century world of unequal wealth and health. The pictures I wish will remain as documents of the past, when greed was king – our times now.

Difficult ride home by Carla Fiorina