I met up with Alessandra Sanguinetti Thursday afternoon prior to her lecture at the PRC. Here are some of the questions that I asked during the brief interview:
Jason Landry: What got you into photography?
Alessandra Sanguinetti: When I was a kid, around nine or so, my mother had this book, Wisconsin Death Trip, along with a few other books including Dorothea Lange. I don’t know why she had them. She wasn’t a photographer. Wisconsin Death Trip that just blew my mind. It made me realize that I was going to die. It was really direct. What really got me was the little girl in the coffin with the headband. I think everyone has a point in their lives when they realize they are going to die. I ran around the house saying, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die!” I then asked for a camera. Ever since then I was the one taking the family pictures up until now.
JL: Do you find more inspiration photographing in Argentina or the US?
AS: I only photograph in Argentina.
JL: Has your photographing style changed since having a child of your own?
AS: The style, No…I just photograph less.
JL: Is it important that the viewer know in advance when a photograph is staged, or should they look at the work and respond to it without a back-story?
AS: First of all, my pictures are not really staged. In many cases, in The Adventures of Guille and Belinda, it has all of the elements of being staged, but it’s really more of a mixture of me giving them an idea, like, let’s pretend you are husband and wife, and then they sort of make it up a little. With children it makes sense to stage that, because I could represent their life much more faithfully, getting at their fantasies and having them recreate them. I would never stage adults because I have no idea what they are thinking.
JL: What is the most important photograph that you have ever made.
AS: I guess it would be the picture I took when I was ten or so, with a small Kodak square camera. It was a black & white picture of a storm coming toward my father’s farm. I never get tired of looking at it; I always want to go back there.
JL: Can a photograph truly help you remember something?
AS: I’m actually worried about that. I’m taking tons of pictures of my child and she’s looking at them now. And she’s going to be looking at them like everybody until she grows up. I don’t know what her memories will be of, the pictures I took of her, or her experiences.
JL: If you can make one photograph right now, who or what would you photograph?
AS: I don’t have a longing to photograph something that I haven’t photographed yet. I do have a few ideas in mind that I haven’t realized. I’d like to take a picture of Bob Dylan just so I can say I met him, but if I really want to go make a photograph of something, I don’t waste any time.
This interview can also be seen on the PRC blog, BostonPhotographyFocus