“I’ve made my kids do everything from being pooped on by animals to having snakes on their faces. They’ve done crazy things for me. One got on a billboard.”
Photographer Emily Neville Fisher’s three young children and her zoo-like coterie of birds, animals, and reptiles serve as both muses and models in her striking images that feel more like oil paintings than photographs. PETER DAVIS spoke to the artist near her home in Bedford, NY.
Your photographs feel like Old Master paintings.
My mom is a painter and art was always my favorite subject in school. I grew up surrounded by art in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, which is Wyeth country—Andrew, Jamie and N.C. Wyeth. Andrew Wyeth is still one of my favorite artists. I thought I was going to be a painter originally but I really took to photography in my 40s. I do, however, feel that my images have a painterly sensibility to them.
You won an award for your first photograph, which was taken with an iPhone.
Everyone was coming up to me after they announced that I’d won first place and asked, “What camera did you use?” I was embarrassed to admit it was my iPhone. So, I vowed that day to go back to school and learn how to use a real camera, do my own editing, and not use Instagram filters. I went to ICP and did just that. I even do my own printing now. A couple of years ago, I started a photography club in Bedford which has grown to around 30 people with a wide range of levels and specializations. Many of the members love to talk about gear but that doesn’t interest me much. I just want the picture to exist. I need to see right away if I got what I wanted, which is why I prefer digital. I edit mostly using Lightroom, not Photoshop. I’m not cutting and pasting or changing an image. I’m not against manipulation and photoshop, but that’s a different kind of process than what I do. What you’re seeing is pretty much the image as it came out of the camera. I prefer overcast skies, like fog, clouds and snowstorms. An overcast sky creates flat light and minimal or no shadows. I want my images to look timeless, like they could have been taken a hundred years ago or yesterday.
“Animals are like people because they have eyes, they look at the camera, they look away. Little personalities.”
Like Sally Mann, you photograph your children a lot.
Yes, they are my main muses. They’ve stood in freezing blizzards, gotten stuck in a sandstorm in the Great Sand Dunes, they’ve been scratched and pooped on by animals and held stinky rotten fish covered in yellow jackets. They’ve always been game for it all, luckily. I won a competition and one of my images of my son, Alex, and our duck got on a billboard in NYC. I said, “Alex, this will be great for two truths and a lie someday. You can say, I was on a billboard in New York City. Not many people can say that.
Are the animals you photograph good models?
They are surprisingly tolerant. We probably have 30 birds at the moment. We have quail, chickens, ducks, and geese right now, plus a snake and a dog. We briefly had a skunk (which I loved but it was illegal). We’ve had goats but got rid of them because they were too naughty. “Sometimes my animals make better models than my kids! Some of our birds, like our rooster, Alejo, loved to be in front of the camera. He stayed and posed long after the kids got bored and left.
Emily Neville Fisher Photography
