Steph

After years of working in the fashion industry as a stylist, Cero Magazine’s fashion director Melissa Levy is now using her experience to expand her creative expression through the art of photography. In her inaugural photoshoot as a photographer, she collaborates with her friend and muse, Steph Shiu, to celebrate the female form in our fashion story for CERO05. Below is a conversation with Levy about the inspiration behind this shoot, edited for brevity and clarity. —Mackenzie Hamilton

MACKENZIE HAMILTON What was the inspiration behind this shoot?

MELISSA LEVY This was an amalgamation of curiosity. Having spent fifteen years behind many other people in front of me, it was about being able to reach the corners of my mind and expressing that through the tool of photography as opposed to going through a third party, which was primarily the impetus for it.

One night Steph and I were at her place, and I was helping her make crystal cakes for her next gig. We were talking and I confided in her about an interest in taking photos and she was like, "Okay, I'm making you a crystal bracelet and you're going to wear it until you become a photographer." It was so cute. So this has been an alignment of many things and an expression and culmination of people around me, including Jasmine Holm, [one of Cero Magazine's creative directors,] who really pushed me to just do it, as well as my new agent.

MH What inspired the direction?

ML The female form—the woman, and the body, and just showing it. It's not objectifying it, it's expressing myself with the female gaze and really understanding that, holding that within my hands, with the camera, you really feel the power that it has.

MH How has your experience as a stylist shaped your point of view as a photographer?

ML Having an understanding of shape, color, form, and the storytelling behind fashion and clothes—as a photographer telling stories about fashion, to have such intimate and rigorous training in the fashion world is really helpful and makes sense. It just feels like a natural progression to now document the things that I see and the experiences that I've had.

This intuition that I have now comes from the rooms I've been in and the number of clothes that I've touched, the studios and the conversations I’ve experienced—I don't know how to put it in a box and say it's one thing, it's more that years of experience have really informed my photography process, and it's only the beginning. I feel like there's so much more for me every time I've picked up the camera now. I'm learning so much, and it doesn't feel like coming full circle but continuing the loop.

MH How did you approach the styling direction for this shoot?

ML I let Ava do her thing. She's a young, new stylist, and I really like her æsthetic and her vibe. I totally trust her.

MH Where did the inspiration come from to include still life in this?

ML I'm heavily influenced by Wolfgang Tillmans. I was also looking at Araki's books, and I like the mirroring of very mundane objects like the potato and the tomato and the carnation flower, which is a bodega flower and to have these very ordinary objects mirroring the female anatomy. Also, just from an æsthetic point of view, it's quite sexual, and by crushing and smashing the fruit, it's almost a little bit violent, or a hint that there was an act of violence. It creates this open-ended narrative or question about what happened or why it happened.

MH What inspired the collage element?

ML Another big inspiration for me is M/M Paris and the time of the early 2000s to 2010 and old Self Service, French Vogue—and working with Jasmine Holm, who had the idea to include collage. I love the appropriation of images, like post-work on images, and as someone who has always been very much obsessed with illustration and the art world, I enjoy the process of reappropriating images. I've done that in my styling work, which also inspired me to take photos. I discovered that I can take pictures and document the fashion in the way that I want to see it before it gets disrupted by a third party.

MH Why did you select Steph as your muse?

ML She's in her thirties, and she's a babe! I wanted to shoot someone comfortable in their body, and I think that after the initial conversation with her, I knew it had to be Steph. I definitely prefer to work with women who are older than their late twenties, preferably thirties and older, and women who are confident in their bodies because I love nudity and shape and form and looking at the body in a different way.

MH Was there anything you were surprised by in your first foray into photography?

ML I was surprised at how natural and powerful it felt to hold the camera. The photographer is meant to be in control of everything, and I felt that I wasn't the person behind the photographer anymore. I was the person making the decisions, which felt really cool.

MH What's next for you as a photographer?

ML Keep trying, keep shooting, and see what happens! To just keep exploring—at this moment, it's an exploration and an extension of my visual language.

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