SOPHIE ELGORT: Something that’s interesting about all of you is that you put your work and ideas into more than just one platform. Vanessa, you write for The New York Times in print and online, but I also see you pop up on Threads with your little notes. Dara, you’re modeling, styling, and even photographing—and you’re doing it for some of the world’s top campaigns and magazines. I saw your recent [Devon Lee Carlson] shoot on an iPhone, which I love. But then you’re also on TikTok talking about Alaïa. And dad, you’ve been taking photos since well before digital even existed, when it was just on film, but now I think you love your Instagram more than most people.
ARTHUR ELGORT: Well, it is a way to talk to people.
S. ELGORT: It’s a way to get it out there.
A. ELGORT: Yeah, kind of.
S. ELGORT: I guess you can start us off. Why is it important to be in all of these spaces?
A. ELGORT: Because it’s new and it keeps you posted. Before, you had film and you had to wait more, but now it goes so quickly. That’s the difference. But I’ve been doing this for–
S. ELGORT: Over 40 years.
A. ELGORT: I started when I was 20.
S. ELGORT: He’s almost 85, so that’s a long time.
DARA: That’s iconic.
A. ELGORT: I was doing pictures this morning, and I had my sons there. I have two sons. They’re younger than Sophie, but they’re brilliant, too. Then all of a sudden, somebody on Instagram said, “Oh, you’re still alive. Isn’t that wonderful?” Or something like that. And I post pictures every day, right?
S. ELGORT: You do. Do you like looking at other people’s Instagrams as well?
A. ELGORT: No. A little bit. If it’s a model I know and I took the picture I say, “You picked a good picture. Sell it and make some money for both of us.” I know I look at yours sometimes.
S. ELGORT: I appreciate that.
A. ELGORT: Now she’s better than Dad. I thought I was good at taking photos of ballerinas. I began [my career] photographing dancers, but I realized there was no money in it. I still like it. In fact, I have a book about it, a very good book. So I became a fashion photographer.
S. ELGORT: Okay. So Dara, what about you?
DARA: How do I follow that up? My goodness. I feel like fashion photography is just a way to communicate fashion, whatever that means to you. Whether it’s about the dress, the design, a woman, an identity, a feeling, a desire—the picture is a channel through which that message comes across. If you’re trying to communicate something, you have to go where people are. At a certain point in time, that would’ve maybe only been in a magazine. Now it’s on a magazine and on your laptop and on TikTok and on Instagram and on a billboard and on a red carpet. I treat all of it equally and approach it with the same level of effort and drive and excitement because I want to share this with people. I just really love images. I love photography. I love fashion. Seeing people get excited about it is the thing that’s exciting to me. So it’s like, where did teenagers or my mom go look at it? It’s on their phone. Just getting out there and being around where people are, that’s why you go to different places.
S. ELGORT: You can have a dialogue with the people who are watching or reading or looking. What about you, Vanessa?
VANESSA FRIEDMAN: I think these are all different ways to be part of a conversation and get news out. When you’re writing for a news platform that allows you to use more words, you can write a fuller story and communicate longer thoughts. But when you’re working on social media, it’s really an opportunity to get news out in as immediate a fashion as possible. They both create different conversations and allow you to do different kinds of reporting, which is fun.
S. ELGORT: You cover all the shows. Now, when you’re at a fashion show, everybody is on their phones. Everyone’s taking pictures or videos, and everyone’s a fashion critic. Has that changed what you do, and how do you feel about that generally?
FRIEDMAN: It hasn’t meaningfully changed what I do, but it has added a dimension to it because it’s a form of reporting for yourself. You can take pictures, so you don’t just have to take notes. It’s also a way to share the experience with people who maybe can’t be there. In terms of the actual substance of what I do, technology has made it possible for you to communicate your thoughts faster. You can get a review up faster, but even then, I’m not like, “Oh my god, I must get 100 words up in an hour.”
S. ELGORT: You’re still taking the time you need. And Dad, before you fall asleep on us here—
A. ELGORT: It’s very interesting, but not really.
S. ELGORT: You were one of the first photographers to take fashion out of the studio and to the street.
A. ELGORT: Maybe.
S. ELGORT: Well, a lot of photographers were shooting in the studio.
A. ELGORT: No, I would say [Richard] Avedon when he was younger, he used a Rolleiflex when he was out on the streets and did great work. Then, for me, he kind of lost it.
S. ELGORT: Once he started using a larger format camera in the studio?
A. ELGORT: Yeah. If you look at the pictures he took when he went to Paris, he did the best pictures then. He had Mike Nichols as his man, but he decided he wanted to use a bigger camera. It’s interesting, because Penn never went bigger.
S. ELGORT: Irving Penn?
A. ELGORT: Yeah, but he’s a different kind of person.
S. ELGORT: Why did you decide to get out of the studio and go to the streets?
A. ELGORT: Well, first of all, I started with nothing. I had a canvas in my building, but it was terrible.
S. ELGORT: You didn’t have a good studio.
A. ELGORT: Exactly. I always went out—to the river or an alley or anything—and made a good picture. You started with maybe not the best models, but you looked at somebody and decided these could be good. I didn’t discover Dayle Haddon, but I was part of it.
S. ELGORT: Did you ever find people on the streets to photograph?
A. ELGORT: All the time.
S. ELGORT: Dara, you said that when you first came to New York, you walked into a party and the host saw you and told you that they wanted you in a photo shoot.
DARA: Yeah, it was a little bit of that classic story of being discovered. But I also knew a lot of people from being online and blogging about fashion.
A. ELGORT: They knew you wanted to be in the picture.
DARA: Totally. It’s funny because I feel like when I first started working in fashion and modeling, a lot of that early time was spent shooting outside. My understanding of what it was to make and be in a picture was just this guerrilla style—you throw the clothes in the back of a car and drive around and do it on the street. Then, when I started working as a stylist more, it was so studio. Because of the way that people shoot and privacy and budgets, it’s always studio. It’s a funny thing, that relationship between the two disciplines. It’s a really different way of working, but they have their own lessons and I think it’s really enlightening to do both and see both. There is this narrative and historical arc in fashion photography from studio to outdoor. Outdoor is the modern way. But now, it’s a pick-and-choose of what’s right for the thing you’re trying to say. Both really teach you about the other, and that’s the cool part of it.
S. ELGORT: It’s also interesting that now everybody has a camera in their pocket with their iPhones. I mean, you can’t walk down a street without seeing somebody taking a photo.
A. ELGORT: When I came here 40 years ago, they thought I was weird. But I had a real camera. It’s different. The iPhone has taken over. Some are very good, and most people are bad.
S. ELGORT: Maybe it doesn’t matter as much what you use to take the photo. It’s more about what you choose to take and how you direct.
DARA: Totally.
S. ELGORT: Vanessa, you’ve said before that fashion is just a way to talk about anything else. You said it is kind of like a Trojan horse in which you can talk about any subject.
FRIEDMAN: Yes, I believe that.
S. ELGORT: What are some subjects that you’ve been able to talk about through the lens of fashion?
FRIEDMAN: You can talk about politics, identity, power, tariffs.
S. ELGORT: How would you talk about tariffs?
FRIEDMAN: I mean, every issue around dress codes or uniforms is really a story about the social contract. It’s really about [Jean-Jacques] Rousseau. That’s one example.
S. ELGORT: Dara, you studied print journalism, right?
DARA: Yeah.
S. ELGORT: You’ve said that you like to write with clothes and photos and speak to people through images. So you decided to use those to write instead of actually writing?
DARA: I think it’s always been my more comfortable mode of communication, but that doesn’t mean I’m looking at the subject with any less of an eye about what this person means right now and why we care and how to translate that. It’s not just like, “That’s a cool jacket, let’s put you in that jacket.” It’s thinking, “Where are you photographing them? Why are you doing that?” Approaching it in a way that illustrates the words that go along with those pictures. There’s nothing worse than an amazing interview or written piece with dead pictures that do nothing. If they both work together, they activate each other in a way that’s even more exciting. You see this amazing image, then you stop and read what’s written, and you get a fully well-rounded experience of that person or that idea. That’s such an important way to look at making a picture when you’re an editor or a stylist. I think it’s such a waste to not look at it that way. No dress exists in a vacuum, and you have to think about it a little bit.
S. ELGORT: How do you find your next project?
DARA: I mean, as an editor in fashion, a lot of it is assignment-based. It’s sort of, “What’s being promoted? Who’s out in culture right now? Who’s available to do something?” That’s why I look at it with that lens—because, a lot of times, it’s someone that I’m not thinking about until they land in my lap as a person to be paying attention to or shooting. Then you’re like, “What do I think about them? What is the public’s perception? What are they trying to say right now? How do we make them look new or identify and amplify something if they’re someone we don’t know yet?” That’s normally the case.
S. ELGORT: Dad, how do you pick who you want to photograph?
A. ELGORT: I have an inkling. For example, I discovered Christy Turlington. She was a model that came from Ford [Model Management]. Somebody saw her and came to me, but the booker said, “We have much better models than this.” I said, “I like Christy Turlington. I think I’m going to make her a star.” And guess what? She’s still as beautiful and smart as can be.
DARA: Oh my god, the best.
A. ELGORT: I didn’t discover Kate Moss, but I began [photographing her] when she was younger. And that was because of Anna Dello Russo from Italian Vogue. She said, “You’ve never seen her. She’s not short but not tall, and you are going to love her.” I saw the pictures the next day and I said, “She can’t take a bad picture no matter what you do.”
S. ELGORT: Some people just have it. It’s an instinct for you.
A. ELGORT: Sometimes, I learn because somebody brings me someone. I had to convince Cindy Crawford who is still a model—
S. ELGORT: She was living in Chicago.
A. ELGORT: Yeah. She did well there, but she didn’t want to come to New York because a famous photographer in Chicago said, “If you go there, I won’t use you anymore.” Then Johnny Casablancas, an agent, called me and said, “I convinced Cindy Crawford to visit New York for two days, and one of the jobs she has to do is with you for free because you’re doing me a favor.” I shot her and I said, “You know, you come out pretty good. And not only that, you have a body, not skinny at all. In fact, you got tits. It’s amazing.” So I said, “Now think of it this way. You’ll get Helmut Newton, Dick Avedon, Irving Penn, me and Patrick Demarchelier instead of the other one.”
S. ELGORT: Just one photographer.
A. ELGORT: Now who do you remember more? The guy from Chicago—
S. ELGORT: Or everyone else?
A. ELGORT: And she said, “Oh no, I think you’re right. I’m coming to New York.”
DARA: Wow.
A. ELGORT: I didn’t know she was going to make a million dollars. That I didn’t know.
S. ELGORT: Probably more than that.
