Black family life, memory and ‘purist’ image-making in Kate Sterlin’s Still Life

From Still Life © Kate Sterlin published Anthology Editions

The photographer’s new book explores family love, loss, and legacy through the lens of ‘Black storytelling’ and poetic documentary images

In Kate Sterlin‘s book “Still Life: Photographs & Love Stories,” published by Anthology Editions, she notes, “There’s a Korean word, han, that means generational sadness.” Her book wrestles with the legacy of family – loss, illness, closeness – from the perspective of both a daughter and a mother: what it means to be tied to others, lovingly, agonisingly. In an exchange at the back of the book, her interviewer notes: “Photos can be like history, but they can also be like dreamcatchers.” Pairing oblique texts and meditative black-and-white photos, Sterlin captures bodies in clear waters and bodies on city streets and bodies in the hospital, poetic day-to-day moments interspersed with human frailty and pensive examinations of racialised selfhood. Sarah Moroz spoke to Sterlin from her home in Los Angeles to discuss Black storytelling, the creative conviction that comes with ageing, and why she abstains from giving her subjects any directives.

“Going from my archives, looking back through negatives, I can see not only how I shot – what made me release the shutter – but also what I discarded and what I didn’t print”

Sarah Moroz: When did you decide to become a photographer?

Kate Sterlin: I was around 13-14, after I saw Diane Arbus’s first book. It just visually shocked me. I decided I needed to get a camera; I bought a Minolta. We were living in New Hampshire at the time, and there was a little dark room in this little village school – no one used it, and no one knew how to teach anybody to use it. I would just go in there and fuck around. That experience felt so singularly mine – you try to individualise as much as you can. Printing in a dark room, I was hooked. Then, everywhere I went, I was making my bathroom or whatever into a dark room. 

SM: On your website, you describe yourself as a “purist.” What does that mean, and how does that orient your work?

KS: I started as a purist – I’ve only recently started using lights and indoor studio [material]. I guess the purist thing relates to the way I would shoot: I would make the decisions whilst shooting rather than in the darkroom. Whatever I got, I would dodge burn a little bit, but I was never very creative after that.

SM: You thank Mary Ellen Mark in your book: What kind of mentorship did she provide?

KS: She was a friend of a friend, who brought her to my first solo show in New York City where I was showcasing light boxes. I wanted her to see my portfolio – I had it at the show just for her, because I knew she was coming. She invited me to the workshop she did every year at the Puerto Rican Day Parade. We shot all over the city and then she looked through all of our stuff and I got to share. I’m self-taught  – I didn’t graduate high school, to be honest, so it was wild for me to be in that setting with other students and with her. Everybody was deciding whether they’d be working in this medium and in this business, and it was assumed you’d have to go digital. I hadn’t. I just shot with my one camera – everybody had a few – I just had an M6. I had one lens, because I could only afford one. She gave me the confidence to say, “I’m doing this.” 

SM: For the book, how did you figure out pacing the visuals with text? 

KS: The writing really helped shape the editing of the images. I met Jesse Pollock at Anthology through a friend, and he really was drawn to the project: He loved it and was confused by it at the same time. He said, “I don’t know where this is sold in the bookstore.” We went back-and-forth for over a year or so, adding and subtracting images based on how they created a tone around the writing. 

With four of us together – me, Jesse, the literary editor, the designer – every little decision to help create this experience for the reader felt as important to them as to me. There were four hands on this; it’s not just my contribution. It was a beautiful synchronicity between us to bring out the best version.

SM: You say: “I am still learning the whats and whys of my lens and where I point it now, as I age and feel the weight of everything in a different way.” How has your gaze changed?

KS: 2020 was a time when obviously the world stopped and isolated – but also with the BLM Movement and George Floyd’s death and getting us out of our houses and into the streets. The conversation of race, finally, for me, in my lifetime, was something that I didn’t have to feel bad about. It’s always been about race for me, and now it was a part of the conversation, front and centre. Being at those protests and photographing… I’m mixed-race, but out in the world I have that white-passing privilege. What that means when you’re on the street, when you’re taking photos… it’s about storytelling and authorship and responsibility, and creating a cultural archive – one that I think has been really skewed in this country. It’s about accountability to that. 

Going from my archives, looking back through negatives, I can see not only how I shot, what made me release the shutter, but also what I chose and what I discarded and what I didn’t print. Going back years later, I think, “Oh my god – that’s the shot!” But things inside the frame resonate differently, not just for me, but for all of us. It’s been really exciting looking through who I was and how I’ve tracked the people around me.

SM: You state: “I’m not big on directing, and it makes for more awkwardness initially. But if we get through that, then I know that neither person is performing, that we are just trying to communicate something and make a moment.” How does that approach lead you where you want?

KS: It’s something that I’ve always felt a little funny about and thought maybe I’m not doing it right. That’s what happens with age and enough experienceyou realise this is who you are. It’s your style, it’s what feels most natural to you, so maybe that’s okay, you know? 

If I feel as vulnerable as I think this person feels – because I’m trying to go into this space with them, and have them feel relaxed – we sort of pretend like we’re not doing this. There’s all this equipment, a camera, I’m looking at the light… and we’re just trying to find this intimate space. If we get through that without me directing it, then we’re making it together. I’m holding the camera, and I’ve got some skills about where I think the best light would be, but we are creating this image, I can’t do it without you. This is really where we can meet.

SM: Can you give some details about the image “Jody Rome Backlit, Los Angeles, CA” (2020)? It’s one of my favourites.

KS: All my kids are grown, and they were all home in 2020. My daughter made a music video for one of her songs. In 2020, you either did it at home on your own, or you couldn’t do it at all. We went into the garage, a totally ramshackle place, and we shot this video. That was my son, Jody Rome: he’s so game. My daughter was holding a light and they were filming this. I grew up doing plays with my siblings, and it felt like that. We were on our own making these creative things, and everybody jumped in. 

SM: How did you select the cover image? Why did that feel like the most emblematic?

KS: Where my family lives, in this tiny village, they have this free box everybody puts clothes in to give away to the community. It’s this free little thrift shop and every year they would have a fashion show. It’s a really saturated negative, but it made a really beautiful kind of painterly image, it looks more like a painting than a photo. Often when I’m working on projects, I’ll pin a few things up that I feel close to inside of that project and, invariably, throughout the time of making the project, things get taken off the wall. That one just stayed. It’s a black-and-white book, but with the end pages being colour, it just felt right.

Sarah Moroz

Sarah Moroz is a Franco-American journalist and translator based in Paris. Her words have been published in the International New York Times, the Guardian, Vogue, NYLON, and others.