We had the good fortune of connecting with Steven Silverstein and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Steven, we’d love to hear about how you approach risk and risk-taking

I grew up in Los Angeles and after attending Art Center worked as a product photographer for a few fashion and beauty clients. In 1972, I went to Paris but only stayed a year. I couldn’t make it as a photographer there but it was an awakening and I came back to Los Angeles to make a new portfolio. I worked for the music labels shooting album covers to stay afloat and left again for Paris in 1975 with about twenty 35mm fashion slides that fit in my shirt pocket. My singular goal was to work as a fashion editorial photographer for French magazines. It was a big risk going back, especially at that time, when there weren’t many Americans there. I didn’t think about the future, just the moment I was in, what I wanted that was right in front of me. In the sixties and seventies, my generation was all about overthrowing the establishment, with music, photography, fashion, literature, and drug culture gone wild. It was all out in the open, especially on the West Coast. We wanted to start something, so you picked up a picket sign, and if you were an artist or had the dream to be one, you picked up a guitar, a paintbrush, a camera, or a pen as your expression. If not, you worked for “the man.”

I never thought about it from a standpoint of failure or risk. I just jumped. The second time around in Paris, it moved quickly. I had the right photos at the right time, and a little help from my friends. I had met photographer Sarah Moon and her husband, the late Robert Delpire, a brilliant, renowned publisher of photography books. They looked at my slides and Sarah made an introduction to the art director at ELLE magazine, the original French edition before it expanded internationally. At the same time, I was also making the rounds to other publications – Depeche Mode (an avant-garde fashion magazine the band would later appropriate their name from), Marie Claire and a few others. I was a one camera, one lens guy at the time, and a foreigner, but started landing assignments. It was extraordinary that the French fashion industry gave me an opportunity to speak their language with my camera.

Many years later I mentored aspiring fashion photographers and one of the nuggets of advice I offered was to really want it before you go for it. As an artist you have to be passionate about what you are doing, what you want. Everything is right in front of you and once you know what it is, practice it over and over. If it doesn’t happen right away, keep trying to see it through, with your eye on the goal. Basically, that’s been my mantra. I was able to distill my dreams and thoughts in a focused way, and move beyond the initial risk to find success. Even so, there were other risks along the way and my entire life has been filled with uncertainty as a freelancer. It was like a circus act on a high wire, only with a camera.

In 2013, the next profound career risk was to start creating abstracts with my photography after four decades shooting fashion, beauty and portraits. It was an entirely different direction that happened by chance when I was working on an assignment.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
When I started as a fashion photographer it was a much simpler time than it is today, not quite with the same global reach, or exposure. The magazine paper wasn’t great; the technology wasn’t what it became a decade later, or the advancements we have today, but it was important that my name was on the page, which led to more editorial and advertising jobs. Eventually, I was fortunate to work at the highest levels of international fashion and beauty. One of my clients was L’Oreal during their rise to becoming the largest beauty company in the world, photographing some of their major launches and campaigns throughout the 1980s, along with assignments for Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel, Carolina Herrera, Givenchy, Maybelline, Max Factor, Revlon, and dozens of other brands. In editorial, I worked for French ELLE the most, along with international editions of Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar and many others across Europe and the United States. It was extraordinary to photograph and work with couture designers Thierry Mugler, Christian Lacroix, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Georges Chakra and so many others, along with hair stylists, makeup artists, and models both unknown and well known. My wife and I are finishing up a book about the fashion business in Paris and my life within it during that seminal period starting with the 1970s. I think the main audience is for people who appreciate fashion, beauty, art, music, Paris, New York, and Los Angeles, which is all covered, but other people may find some interesting truth in it, whatever trek they are on. To get on our first-to-know list, sign up on my website or follow on social media.

Throughout my career I’ve been conceptual and a master of light, noticing it, and manipulating it, which molded me early on. I have it in my DNA to experiment but in 2013, I made a discovery with light that was completely unexpected. That discovery led to an obsession, and over the last decade I’ve been creating abstracts with a digital camera, in-camera, not as photograms, scans, digital art, or other well-known abstract techniques. I’ve always been an artist with a camera in my hand, but not focused on fine art hung in a gallery. My fashion images were shown in some gallery and museum exhibitions along the way but for the most part it was shown in magazines. So, when I began the abstract photography, I had to find a new voice and venues for it. I also had to learn with master printers about different substrates to print on, the inks, editions, and framing, which I’m meticulous about. My breakthroughs now are more personal since I don’t work with crews. My rewards are satisfaction with the results, seeing it hung in galleries, in the homes of collectors, and commissions that have supported my work. But I’m still striving as an artist, even at my age, and never completely satisfied. There’s always a weight of needing to express myself and searching for more.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.

The 405 Freeway on a Friday afternoon, right? The great thing about being back in my hometown after decades in Paris, New York and at extraordinary locations around the world is that there are still discoveries to be made here. There is more diversified culture from when I grew up, with food from different countries and experimental fusions. Lately though I’ve been revisiting older spots, the tried and true. When friends come to town, I try to avoid the tourist traps they could get on their own but it depends on where they’re from and what they’re into. One curated day might be a trip to the Getty Museum or the galleries at Bergamont Station, a visit to the Charles and Ray Eames house in the Palisades, and an afternoon on the beach, putting our feet in the sand at Back on the Beach Café followed by a short bike ride, later capped off with small plates for dinner at Tar & Roses. If they were staying at the Sunset Marquis in West Hollywood, I would start with breakfast at Canter’s that I grew up with, or the Butcher, The Baker & Cappuccino Maker Café on Sunset Plaza, a visit to the Academy Museum of Motion Picture, lunch back at the hotel (a tropical oasis in the middle of the city) with a quick cruise through their music photo gallery, a visit to the Stahl house perched high above Sunset Boulevard with a spectacular view of the basin, and dinner at Mercado for one of the best Mexican meals in Los Angeles. I’d like to try the new Di Di on La Cienega because I often frequented French-Vietnamese restaurants in Paris. I recently had a hot dog at Tail o’ the Pup’s new location on Santa Monica Blvd. in West Hollywood. I hadn’t been back there since I made one of my first 35mm portfolio images in 1974 at its original spot across from where the Beverly Center is now.

The amazing thing about Los Angeles is there are so many excursions within driving distance. If my friends weren’t too jet-lagged and wanted to see more of the area, I would drive them out to Palm Springs in the Mojave Desert, splurge in a stay at the L’Horizon hotel, take a mid-century modern architectural tour during one of the Modernism Weeks every year, visit galleries and the Palm Springs Art Museum, or the new Agua Caliente Museum and mineral pools (which I haven’t tried yet), browse the objects at second-hand stores, lunch in the garden at the Tropicale, and if we were especially adventurous, hike through Joshua Tree national park. Another day trip might be up to Los Olivos and Santa Ynez area for a self-guided tasting tour of the artisan wineries there, a DIY lunch outside at Rusack Vineyards, some Zen time at Lotusland in Santa Barbara, dinner at Toma across from the harbor, or a walk through the Funk Zone.

Shoutout is all about shouting out others who you feel deserve additional recognition and exposure. Who would you like to shoutout?
When I went to Paris the first time, I became aware of French fashion magazines, and was taken with the concepts, photography, clothing, and style. The first photographers I noticed were Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin, Sarah Moon, and others who would influence me. Sarah was someone I felt strongly about and wanted to meet, and did. I came to know her and her husband Robert Delpire, and her American assistant Michael Yavel. About a month after I returned to Los Angeles to create a new fashion portfolio, Sarah called. She was bringing a crew to Los Angeles for a Cacharel catalog shoot and asked if I would help her produce it. I was running out of money so it was just in time. Working with her was more of a pleasure than a job but of course she paid me for my production services. My cameras had been stolen in Paris so after I was paid, I went to Schaeffer’s Camera store in Hollywood and bought a new Nikon F, which I used to shoot my portfolio. Later, when I went back to Paris, she was instrumental in helping me land at ELLE magazine. There’s no question that this shout out goes to Sarah Moon, all the way to Paris where she lives. Locally, another shout out is to the Janssen Artspace Gallery in Palm Springs, where my recent abstract work is being shown among a talented group of artists.

Website: www.stevensilversteinphotography.net

Instagram: www.instagram.com/silversteinart

Twitter: www.twitter.com/silversteinart

Facebook: www.facebook.com/silverstein.fine.art

Image Credits
© 1975-2023 Steven Silverstein. All rights reserved.

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