Jo Ann Callis
[Photographer, b. 1940, Cincinnati, Ohio, lives in Los Angeles.]
I photographed models, but all of them, female or male, are me. It’s coming from me. My insecurities, my revenge, my disappointment.
I do like to control the image and create it and not just take what’s there.... But of course taking a picture is not like life. It’s “let’s pretend” for an hour...
...sexuality, or sensuality is used throughout my work. Even with objects, I’m looking at them in a way that I’m caressing them with my eyes—that’s how it felt, anyway.
I always think of photography as being out there and catching decisive moments and wonderful things that are happening and putting them together by juxtaposition. I never did that.
I began by making pictures in interiors and about interiors—pictures about feelings, and emotions, and relations.
I consistently want to make things that satisfy my sense of beauty.
