Black
and
White and
Color
AN INTERVIEW WITH
PHOTOGRAPHER DIANA ADAMS
2.
Influences
DRIFT:
Joe McPhillips is in charge of The American School of Tangier--there
was an article in Vanity Fair recently recounting the history of the
school and the presumably important role it is playing today. What
is McPhillips' background?
ADAMS:
He studied literature at Princeton. Loves theater. He took a year
in the 80's to apprentice himself to a theatre in New York. In Tangier,
there was no distinction between living and formal education. They
were not separate as they are here. He was somewhat to blame for this
approach-to be young was to be in development twenty-four hours a
day in twenty-four ways!
In
Tangier, there was no distinction between living and formal education.
DRIFT:
What role did McPhillips play in what you would do later?
ADAMS:
It's incalculable, really. He created my thinking-and my confidence
in my own approach to art and literature. He wanted me to be an actress
and was primarily responsible for getting me into Sarah Lawrence College.
I did try to follow through with acting there, but I didn't enjoy
the theater world at the university, which was very closely tied to
the theater world in Manhattan. So, I ended up pursuing film criticism
and writing instead.
DRIFT:
Does your film criticism background play a role in your work in photography?
ADAMS:
Probably, most of all when I am in Europe. When I'm in Italy, France,
or even Greece, I find myself kind of seeing the scene from the perspective
of old films.
DRIFT:
Such as Fellini's or Truffaut's?
ADAMS:
Yeah, bicycle motifs (laughter). It always looks that way to me. Things
haven't changed physically there all that much. Yes, especially if
I'm shooting black and white, and I start thinking in black and white.
It can all start looking like a New Wave production.
DRIFT:
I don't suppose I'm not the only one who notices your pictures sometimes
appear to be stills extracted from a movie.
ADAMS:
They do! And they also look like they could have been taken forty
years ago. And I like that effect. On my recent trip to Europe I wanted
to do something very different--something along the lines of Michael
McKenna. Something very pared down, pristine, modern, Zen-like, and
simple. But as soon as I was there, I reverted back to my "white telephone
movies" as they called those Italian films of the 50's.
DRIFT:
In contrast to Europe, does the American scene seem to free you up
to experiment more?
ADAMS:
Yes. I was really influenced by things in New York when I attended
Sarah Lawrence. I loved modern abstract images that were being made
there.
DRIFT:
Whose images?
ADAMS:
No one's in particular. Believe it or not, they could even be things
sold in the gift shop of the Museum of Modern Art--promotional things.
I was interested in the way painting looked--not so much photography.
DRIFT:
Was there anyone in particular you really liked?
ADAMS:
No, I was just doing an overview of art history. I was learning.
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