JONATHAN CHERRY: What time did you get up today? 

SARAH GRAVES: I got up around 9 this morning and my cat immediately came over from his spot at the end of the bed to purr in my ear.

JC: Who are your photography heroes?

SG: Sally Mann, Elinor Carucci, Emmet Gowin, and Mona Kuhn. I have also been inspired by Bo Bartlett’s paintings and by folk music. 

JC: You seem to have a dream like quality to some of your work - where do you draw inspiration from?

SG: While I was working on this project, I was reading Grimm’s Fairy Tales and drawing heavily on the more obscure stories that had been read to me as a child. I didn’t want to make connections that were too literal; I think ambiguity is much more powerful. I definitely have a completely different appreciation of “The Juniper Tree” as an adult.

JC: In your opinion what makes a successful portrait?

SG: Light is everything, in any photograph, and especially in portraiture. That said, I wait for the subject’s face to have a certain expression before taking the picture. I shoot with a large format 4x5 camera, so often this involves setting up the shot and simply waiting until the “decisive moment” occurs. Most people feel uncomfortable with a camera’s lens directed at them. They freeze or flash a goofy smile or just end up looking very uncomfortable. You have to wait for their face to relax back to the way they look the other 99% of the time. 

My sister is my little muse, who I photographed throughout this project, and she has an incredible gaze. I think that’s the other part of portraiture - I occasionally encounter people who I am drawn to photograph. I think you have to follow your instincts when it comes down to it. I’ve begun projects before with no plans but to photograph a certain person and a body of work came out of it that I never could have planned. 

JC: Have you discovered anything significant about yourself or your practice through the time of your studies?

SG: Everything I photograph is hugely personal. When I have done portrait projects focusing on other people, the themes running through the images always point back to me, forcing the subject to become merely a stand-in for my own memories, fears, and desires. Every photographer brings parts of themselves into their work, even friends of mine who photograph idyllic landscapes where it is difficult to see anything of the person in the images, unless they were to talk about them.

I guess I’ve also realized I often go for shock value in my work, but I try to keep it under control. Maybe I just have a good sense of what will elicit a response.

JC: What is your recent body of work all about and how did it develop?

SG: At the beginning, I had the intention of documenting a view of childhood innocence (and its loss), and the sense of wonder about the world where grownups live and interact.  Drawing from the stories of classic fairy tales, with their themes of identity, mortality, growth, and decay, I created a narrative focusing on one young girl. The images study her physical self, as well as serving as windows into her states of mind. As the project progressed, I became attuned to its allusions to danger and to life’s fragility. It is a recalling of the time before our imaginings give way to the senses of self and reality that constitute maturity.

The more I grow up and read more Freud and become worldly (HAHA) I think I realize how everything seemed forbidden when I was young. So in a way I took this work to the extreme and explored what scared me as a child, and what I was scared of but drawn to nevertheless.

I set out to document the process of girl becoming woman, or becoming teenage girl at least. I was picturing a woman on the verge. In hindsight I realize what I was probably imagining was Sally Mann’s “At Twelve,” but the project became so much more than that. I think I found my own voice and established a style that is uniquely my own and not so much a regurgitation of my heroes. 

JC: Whats next?

SG: I’d like to turn my lens to the opposite sex. I think there is a lot we can learn from each other. I may have exhausted the female photography theme, at least for the moment.