Last Updated on 03/18/2024 by Chris Gampat
“…the flowers I have learned to love photographing are Dahlias,” explains photographer Paulette Tavormina to the Phoblographer in an interview about her images. “My grandparents lived near us growing up where they had large garden beds of roses, plate size dahlias, figs and Italian plum trees – often winning blue ribbons for their garden club.” Her most recent photographs of the beautiful flowers were cut from her garden before the frost came. Each has this own unique shape, pattern, color, size, etc. But each of them remind her of her grandparents. This is just part of the emotional relationships that Paulette puts forth in her photographs.
All images by Paulette Tavormina. Used with permission. Her photographs are on display at the Winston Wachter Gallery in NY until January 6th, 2024. For more, please visit her website.
How Paulette Tavormina Got Into Photography
“After working at Sotheby Parke Bernet for six years, I worked for a boutique public relations firm in New York City,” explains Paulette about her beginnings in photography. For one of my first jobs, I was asked to photograph Jean-Pierre Rampal, the flutist, after his concert. I used an Olympus clamshell camera with a pop-up flash.” Surrounded by professional photographers with big cameras and flashes, she realized that she got the shot perfectly with the equipment she used. Still, she decided to get more into photography and learn it. So, Paulette took classes at the International Center for Photography. Eventually, she moved to New Mexico and photographed Native American pottery.
These days, she’s using a lot more than a little Olympus film camera. Paulette uses a Hasselblad XIDII Camera 50 megapixel medium format camera along with a 120mm macro lens, Broncolor lights, and an assortment of good support gear. But over the years, she’s shot with Canon, Nikon, Contax, and more.
Paulette’s Creative Vision
When Paulette got into photographing Native American pottery and Navajo jewelry, she was introduced to the works of seventeenth-century painters, particularly Giovanna Garzoni and Maria Sibylla Merian, whose palettes and compositions inspired her. “I was gobsmacked and decided then, that I wanted to create my own natura morta still lifes photographically,” she states. “The Natura Morta images I have made in response to the Old Masters are intensely personal interpretations of timeless, universal stories. Years from now, I hope that the photographs I create will affect someone as deeply as the Old Masters’ paintings have affected me.”
What She Thinks of AI Imagery
While admitting that she’s not familiar with the new AI projects, she also states that she can’t imagine herself using them. To her, there’s a soulful way that she lovingly creates her photographs. But she admits that it might be helpful to other people. And she further talks about happy accidents.
“In photography there is spontaneity and sometimes mistakes that happen…it happens in an organic way – like a leaf that falls on the table or if time has passed – a fruit will age or a flower petal will droop, color of the flower will change. The process takes use of a camera, tethered to a computer, all the chosen equipment working and thirty-three years of experience to achieve a final expression of art which is paramount.
Paulette Tavormina
This process can’t truly happen when using AI imagery platforms.