A Conversation with Michele Abeles

I Heart Photograph first introduced me to the work of Michele Abeles.
It is hard for me to put into words why I am so captivated by her work. And I like that. My favorites photographs are those that I react to instinctively.
The narratives Michele creates are simultaneously familiar and completely strange. Her imagery teeters between memory and creation, carrying with it a palpable tension.

For the Nymphoto Conversations sometimes the artist decides on which images to show. But most frequently the editing is left to the Nymphoto member presenting the interview.
Michelle not only decided which images to show but also in which sequence.




© Michele Abeles


Nymphoto: Tell us about yourself. You were born and live in New York, but you photograph much outside the city.

Michele Abeles: I was born in New York. However, I grew up in Maryland just outside of Washington, D.C. I lived in St. Louis then moved to Brooklyn in 1999.
The move to New York was intended as a temporary, post-undergraduate exercise. I had a ticket and work visa for Australia. Still haven't been to Australia.



© Michele Abeles


NP: Is travel essential to your process?

MA: Much of the basic structure of my work is exploring the play between expectation, reality and delusion. How we humans experience and shape the process of living, interact and navigate through a world where nothing is ever what it seems. Travel is important. When I'm away taking pictures, the rules of the world disappear, anything seems possible and everything is magnified, beautiful and connected. Of course, I'm forgetting the bad moments that come with this type of traveling. It really is difficult. Still I love the feeling of looking in from the outside. Being a stranger.

My motivations for going to certain places can feel scarily illogical.
Initially they are somewhat uninformed in terms of logistics and personal knowledge. I don't consult maps as often as I should and underestimate distances. Saying all of that makes me feel like I should be knocking on wood. I've been lucky. Ultimately working this way is a form of opening myself up to chance. The more doomed a trip seems from the outset the more special or preordained a successful outing becomes. It's a way of romanticizing experience. And these "places" can be actual locations or more often, they are the simulation of the feeling of a place that has personal meaning for me and then the way it functions as a photograph. The photograph of the forest in snow is a good example of that. Or the one I took in Yosemite. I'd never been there and couldn't get over how it all looked like a movie backdrop.

I do shoot equal amounts in and away from New York. Many of these photographs were taken in New York with the intention of looking like
they could be elsewhere or anywhere. This summer I spent a month
shooting in Los Angeles and barely saw the ocean. When I got back to New York I began shooting at nearby beaches. I have to go everywhere but where I want to be to find out where that was.




© Michele Abeles


NP: How did you discover photography?

MA: In college I was a psychology major. During my senior year I took an introductory photography class having had the feeling it was what I wanted to do. I was too scared to take a photography class any earlier in my life. Something clicked, I moved to New York and began to teach myself photography mostly by working in the field. I grew up with a family that worked in the sciences, so I never thought of art as a career. I still have trouble thinking of it that way.



© Michele Abeles


NP: What inspires you?

MA: I'd have to think of what doesn't inspire me. I'm staring at the white wall above my computer. White walls are uninspirational.



© Michele Abeles


NP: What's next?
MA: Dinner and a movie.

NP: Thank you so much!

To see more of Michele's work please visit www.micheleabelesphotography.com.
And you can also see Michele's in the current Women in Photography web exhibit IF THERE WERE A LITTLE MORE SILENCE.