TO THE MOON AND BACK
"I ‘recognize’ something that I had never seen until that moment, that is beyond all my intentions." - Sarah Moon Photographer
The mention of Sarah Moon conjures up ethereal images of beautiful girls in black and white, contrasting shadows, slightly out of focus, blurred lines, timeless. I've loved her work for years, in fact my childhood bedroom wall had an early illustration of hers and I didn't make the connection until years later when my photographer husband reintroduced me to her photography work.
Her style is called "impressionist" photography and it's due to her near sightedness that her style came about.
"It was only when I started photography that I became aware of it," Moon told an interviewer. "People would say to me: ‘But it’s not sharp!’, and I didn’t understand because that was the way I saw things. I had never worn glasses in my life." Even after she started wearing glasses she continued shooting in the same moody dream like style which became her signature. There's something quite surreal and beautiful in the images, a quiet desperation or a longing of some sort.
Sarah Moon was the first woman photographer to shoot the renowned Pirelli calendar, in 1972. She worked on Cacherel, Chanel, Dior Comme de Garcons and Vogue. Here are some images I love and thought I'd share.
