Sara Lando is my friend. She’s also a brilliant photographer, artist, and teacher based in Bassano del Grappa, Italy. Last week we hopped on a FaceTime call and she graciously sat as my subject for an hour-long shoot.
For the first set I worked with rubber cement. I have a panel of plexiglass that is covered in layers of the material, which I typically use in these remote photo shoots. Unfortunately, I dropped it on the ground of my dirty studio, which immediately covered the panel in bits of wood and dirt. However, the grit nicely complemented the bubbles in the rubber cement, making for interesting images.
For the next set I shot through a corrective orange gel, covered in honey. Not only do I enjoy the soft orange tone the gel offers, it also means that I don’t have to clean honey off of glass anymore (thank god).
For the final set I photographed her warped reflection in mylar.
The thing I love the most about Sara is her insight. Insight on people. On the world. On image-making. As a fellow photographer who is hyper aware of the photographer-subject dynamic as well as someone with an especially heightened insight on human behavior, Sara was in the unique position to make observations about the shoot dynamic. For example, she pointed out the fact that every time I walked away from the computer to change my setup I immediately began whistling. I wasn’t even aware I was doing it but she described it as me subtly maintaining a connection with her, which helped to put her at ease. As someone who isn’t very good at discerning how I come across, this was a fascinating insight into what it’s like to be my subject.
I highly recommend taking her online course, The Support Group for Lazy Photographers. It’s a 3-month, anonymous course for photographers of all levels to come together and make ego-free art. It’s one of the best classes I’ve ever taken.
If you’d like to schedule a Remotrait session with me, go to https://www.nickfancher.com/remotrait-sessions/remotraits for details.