Photography Silvia Grav Essay

The Spanish-born, Los Angeles-based artist Silvia Grav speaks to us through her mesmerizing photographs what it is to be human. Aged only 23, she already appears as a mature and recognized photographer who lives out of her passion. She describes herself as the most impatient and anxious person she knows, but sometimes, for some reason, Silvia is able to direct and focus all that energy into something. It is when miracles occur. In the beginning it was drawing. Now it’s photography.

What led you into photography? Was it something you always been interested in or you stumble into it?
The idea of freezing moments with a plastic machine always freaked me out, but being a kid it felt more as a miracle than a tool. It was that weird thing I could

I received so much from talking or listening to people that I always try to have something to give in exchange. That connection is the closest thing I know from happiness.
Is that the reason why you mostly do portraits? And to what extent is empathy important in portrait photography.
It is very important. At first I refused to photograph other people because they normally feel uncomfortable being in front of the camera while feelings are what interest me the most. This makes it really hard to get what you want from them. Since some years it changed and I actually found that really interesting. That's why I'm photographing other people more often now: that interaction and connection or disconnection the camera generates between me and the model is an amazing moment to learn from.

The majority of your photographs posses elements of the surreal and the classical, a mixture of the real and the dream. What is it

I mix a lot of analog looks. I also paint my photographs, or light them in ways that make them more interesting. I do not have a solid and concrete technique I always repeat, just a mix of little tricks I discovered playing with PS.

Robert Frank once said that black and white are the colors of photography. Plenty of photographers, including yourself, favors black and white photography. Why is that? What does it offer that color photography doesn’t?
There are too many colors and human brain loves them too much. And because of that, sometimes they distract us from what is more important in the photograph: maybe the light, the contrast, the moment. As humans, we tend to love binary information: we understand it faster. Black and white photography also supports another thing our brain loves: high contrast. The atemporality of black & whites is another great feature that color image doesn't have.

How has your practice change over