2071:
Ansel Adams and Imogen Cunningham by Alan Ross, 1975
look at that baller
BIG PIMPIN’
This is me putting in work with my new hasselblad in Wilmington.
Danny Fuckin’ Quinonez
Sarah Palmer is 26 years old and could spend the rest of her life watching tiny planes fly around in the sky.
MOSSLESS: What was the last thing that really made you smile?
SARAH PALMER: The last thing that made me smile was passing a car driving the opposite direction in downtown Berkeley. We both had our windows rolled down, and the other driver sneezed at the exact same moment that our cars passed each other. It made me feel aligned with the universe :)
ML: Speaking of the universe and alignment, one of your ongoing projects deals with planes. How did this project come about?
SP: My father is an airline pilot, so from childhood I’ve spent time sky gazing, imagining my father inside each plane that passed over my head. I’m always amazed how minuscule these planes appear to us on the ground. They carry several hundred bodies, yet to us they often look as small and visually detailed as an ant does when we’re standing above it. With this in mind, I started photographing planes during my last year at CalArts in 2009. The project has been ongoing for a little over a year now. You’d think the thrill might have worn off by now, but I still find my heart skipping a beat every time a tiny plane flies between two buildings or in between an intersection of power lines. Documenting these chance occurrences really moves me.
ML: Considering how your work involves interior, exterior, and light experiments - what is your favorite camera to work with?
SP: My favorite camera by far is my Hasselblad 501 c/m. While it doesn’t give me instant results like my Polaroid or digital camera, I always get so much satisfaction out of working with film. I love waiting to see how a light experiment is going to turn out, or getting my film back and rushing to a light table to see if the planes I shot are actually visible on a negative. I think I get better results when I’m forced to be really selective about what I’m shooting, and I’m concentrated on not wasting film. Plus, when I go through lulls in my artmaking, it can be fun to see how an entire month shows up over a roll of just 12 photographs.
ML: Graduating from college is a pretty big change. What are you up to now?
SP: When I first left CalArts, I felt like I was leaving my security blanket behind. It was hard because I was no longer having critique every week, meetings with my professors, or just spending time seeing what other projects my colleagues were working on. It’s hard to get honest critique in “the real world.”
On the other hand, it gave me a gigantic freedom. I stopped worrying about whether or not my classmates would think something was a good or bad idea, and started to pursue all my ideas. Now I find making art at my own pace to be very satisfying. I am also lucky to have found people to engage me in the critique and conversation I was longing for.
Since graduation, I’ve lived in Maine, New Mexico, and now I’m finally back in California, living in the San Francisco Bay Area (and I plan on actually staying put here for a while.)
Horrah for Sarah Palmer! :) Interviewed by me.
