F L A U N T
Los Angeles-based photographer Tatiana Wills looks past her subject’s identities as performers and into who they are at the core, in what she calls “a kind of unvarnished selfhood.”
Dancers are often at the forefront of her work, but creatives of all kinds can be seen spersed throughout her portfolio. Her portraits include the likes of Shepard Fairey, Mister Cartoon and dancers from New York City Ballet and the Bolshoi. Her book “Heroes & Villains,” published in 2011, features over 100 portraits of individuals from the contemporary creative world, photographed by herself and fellow photographer Roman Cho.
Read Flaunt’s conversation with Tatiana and check out some of her work below!
Dancers and choreographers are often the focus of your work, what inspires that?
As I was completing my photography book Heroes & Villains and feeling open to what was next, my daughter announced her intention to pursue dance professionally. I’ve been photographing her for her whole life, and we experiment in the studio constantly. Naturally, I took the opportunity to ask if she’d let me photograph her on the cusp of this career choice, thinking it’d be cool to have her be the inaugural subject if I ever worked with professional dancers, which was something I’d always thought about.
Around this same time I was doing work for the Oregon Cultural Trust and had the pleasure of photographing a local contemporary dance company whose founders were choreographers. Despite my lack of experience photographing dancers, the laughter and generosity in the room resonated over any “mistakes” I might have made that day. It just felt natural and I wanted nothing more than to keep doing it.
What I’ve discovered about the art form of photography is that it allows me to highlight outsiders and vanguards alike. Dancers and choreographers often seem so underrepresented in the cultural mainstream, and it’s that representation (for all creatives) that I’m fundamentally most interested in.
You are a dancer yourself, does that experience aid you as a photographer?
It absolutely informs and enhances my life in general. I take a daily ballet class and am constantly learning about myself on any given day. Using what I know to learn what I don’t know. For me, it is a sort of meditation. The music, the movement, the discipline: dancing frees me up to access parts of myself I never knew were there. It is magic in that way.
In a work context, I find that keeping my body busy allows ideas and thoughts about my practice to crystallize. Being able to access the dance vocabulary and demonstrate what I want more clearly to the other artists I am working with is also a plus. Like speaking a universal language.
Other than dancers, who are some of your favorite people to photograph?
I am most at peace around those who don’t seem to mind that I have a process around the work we do together. There is a lot of satisfaction to be gleaned from that mutual respect. Anyone who lives a creative life probably understands that experience of collaborating on something meaningful with those who know their value. For example, when I ask my seven year old son what his favorite sport is, he usually answers that it’s the one he’s currently playing. That’s how I feel. Right now my subject matter leans heavily towards dancers, but it’s also been everyone from street artists to cartoonists, and I like that flexibility.
Is there a person, or a group of people, you’d like to photograph that you haven’t yet?
I have lists upon lists. In keeping with my previous projects, I am very interested in documenting artists with social justice practice and of course the “firsts” like Stacey Abrams, Amanda Gorman, Kamala Harris, Antwaun Sargent.
How do you want people to feel when they see your photographs?
I’ve always struggled to answer this kind of question, actually. I guess the short answer is that I’d like them to feel something, but mainly I’d love for any viewer to come away feeling like they want to know more about the people I work with. I mean, in a hundred plus years if someone stumbled on my work maybe they’d wonder about me; they’d wonder about the person who is the subject, too.
Hopefully the work has a positive impact on those who participate. And, to be blunt, I’d like them to also think “how do I buy this?” Something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately is a question that comes up frequently along the lines of: Who buys photographs of other people? Especially portraits. The search for an answer to this is of course related to the issue of money but also a deeper question about why we value other people.
On your Instagram you wrote, “Looking at someone is an act of vulnerability that always seems to flirt with the edge of discomfort.” What does it mean to you to be able to capture that vulnerability?
Let’s face it, having someone stare at you through a camera lens can be a bit disconcerting to begin with. On my end, too, by the way. I think it’s really cool when we kind of lean in to that discomfort and allow ourselves to be “seen.” Even if it’s only a part of you that’s being shared, who you want to be that day, or in that moment. For me, it’s essential to build trust so we can be vulnerable and true to ourselves.
Your book Heroes & Villains features a collection of portraits from yourself and Roman Cho, what was it like collaborating on that project?
I learned so much on that project and I’m super proud of it. Heroes & Villains was a huge undertaking, born out of necessity, as he and I were both looking for a personal project to balance the commercial nature of our respective day jobs. Using each other's strengths and the ability to delegate tasks allowed the scope of that project to exist. The best part was that we were keeping the portraits about the artists, instead of about the “person taking the photograph.” I try my best to carry that through my current practice.
Are there any other people you’d like to collaborate with in the future?
The pandemic has really made this a burning question. I would have answered this very differently a year ago. Right now I’m collaborating with an author, a musician, a dancer, and a florist on an upcoming short film. I’ve engaged an animator to play with some existing imagery of the movement artists.
I’m in love with the idea of working with artists to create scenery for an upcoming series. I’d like to see a Marcel Dzama painting as a backdrop for a portrait of Taylor Stanley, for instance.
I’m still, of course, photographing my daughter and that collaboration is constantly evolving and always something I look forward to.
