{"id":2698,"date":"2023-04-13T14:06:50","date_gmt":"2023-04-13T14:06:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/taratw.com\/?p=2698"},"modified":"2023-04-28T13:19:25","modified_gmt":"2023-04-28T13:19:25","slug":"gabrielle-lurie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/taratw.com\/gabrielle-lurie\/","title":{"rendered":"Dumping her \u2018art\u2019 for intimacy led Gabrielle Lurie to win POYi\u2019s top prize \u2013 three years in a row."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Photojournalism isn\u2019t just about f-stops and lighting. Sometimes it\u2019s about sitting on the sidewalk with someone at their lowest point, and earning their trust so they\u2019ll give you the time of day. It\u2019s about finding the untold stories in a city like San Francisco, which is combed over by reporters on the daily. And for Gabrielle Lurie<\/a>, it\u2019s about developing a craft since she was a high school student, growing up in Washington DC, and finally recognizing when she saw an intimate moment through her lens. But that last part took a while. Lurie says she spent years, misguided by her concept of \u2018art\u2019, and admits to making some big visual storytelling mistakes early on in her journey.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lurie and I spoke during her morning commute to work at the San Francisco Chronicle<\/a>. In our discussion, she explained how she overcame her own challenges, and why she thinks she was named POYi<\/a>\u2019s local photographer of the year three years in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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San Francisco Chronicle staff photographer Gabrielle Lurie photographs at the Corridor Restaurant on 100 Van Ness Ave for a story about how businesses are impacted by corporate cafeterias on Tuesday, July 24, 2018 in San Francisco, Calif.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You spent a lot of time in the 2000 aughts shooting and developing film in a darkroom \u2013 from the Field School in Washington DC to your documentary style that you took on while working for a small newspaper in Queens. You\u2019ve mentioned it was fun, but that you also made a lot of mistakes, and that you only really began to improve once you turned to digital cameras. So, what kind of mistakes were you making?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I was very resistant to digital. When I was shooting film, I just wasn’t moving. I wasn’t changing where I was shooting. And I would see later, like, oh, I should have moved here, I should move there. However, not being in the moment and doing it \u2013 I think it just sort of censored me a little bit. And I always had a lot of empty space in the bottom of my frame. I can’t really explain why.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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Can you give me an example?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yeah, like I took photos of stray dogs in India, and like, the whole bottom half of the image is just sidewalk, like blank, basically. So, I did learn by looking at my contact sheets, but I think that once I started doing digitally in real time, I could see my mistakes, and began moving my feet, I was moving faster. Film is amazing but it’s very clunky. And it’s just not \u2013 it’s not the instant feedback that I needed.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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But you stuck with film for a while. Is that because you felt it was more of an art?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Yeah, exactly. I mean, I went to art school. And so I felt like it was more artistic, I felt like, I myself was developing the film, it had a personal touch to it, it felt tangible. And digital just felt so cold. And at the time, it wasn’t amazing, you know, digital wasn’t as good as it is now. So it just felt pixelated and ugly, and I didn’t like it. And I was just resistant to change.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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You’re a very different person now. What do you think of that photographer back in New York?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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During that time I was naive and confused. I think photography can take you in so many different directions. So I was kind of narrowing down what that meant for me. So San Francisco was really my real growth point.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\t\t

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