Photograph by Elinor Carucci

Image Title: Cat Person, 2017

Paper Dimensions (H x W): 22x17 inches

Image Dimensions (H x W): 20x16 inches

Year Created: 2017

#7/8 (no. 7 out of edition of 8)

Signed on verso

Image Description: This is an image that was taken to illustrate the famous Cat Person short story by Kristen Roupenian. The image was shot to accompany the short story "Cat Person" by Kristen Roupenian. It was published in December 2017, in The New Yorker and went viral online.

Reading the story and making this photograph was intense and provoked a lot of feelings, and made me think and respond to the specific times we are in regarding male and female's relationship.

Especially recently, in the media, things are made to seem black and white, but things are never black and white. What I loved about the story was its complexity-how things that are positive can quickly become negative. It felt like a piece of real life. I decided to use a real-life couple for the shoot, I felt it had to be real, maybe because of the kind of photographer I am. My personal work is about the everyday dramas of real life, my own family, my own flaws and ugliness and joy and wonderfulness. I am drawn to photographing real things.

During the shoot, the kisses were so alive. They were happening right in front of me. I tried to work with who they were, but also to direct them in a way that would allow me to take pictures. Some of it was also about-I don't want to sound too poetic-but it was about the conceptual space between a couple, any couple. Even if you've been married for twenty years, there's something that's always there, between two people. With the composition, I wanted to create that space.

Photographer's Bio: Fine Art Photographer Elinor Carucci was born in Jerusalem in 1971. Her work has been included in many solo and group exhibitions worldwide and appeared in publications internationally. Her work is in the collections of MoMA, The Jewish Museum, the Brooklyn Museum and many others.

She was awarded the ICP Infinity Award in 2001, The Guggenheim Fellowship in 2002 and NYFA in 2010. Carucci has published 4 monographs to date, Closer, Diary of a dancer, MOTHER, and most recently MIDLIFE.

Carucci currently teaches at the graduate programs of photography at School of Visual Arts and is represented by Edwynn Houk Gallery.

http://www.elinorcarucci.com/