Priscilla Rattazzi is suspicious of change. She bought her first digital camera in 1998 and was excited by the instant results, but was disappointed by the quality of the images. Relieved, she wrongly assumed that digital technology would never become a real threat to film.
Today, she stares warily at her fresh-out-of-the-box Nikon, which has sat on a shelf for almost a year. Her agony with digital technology is the absence of a physical negative. She worries about her external hard drive. Will it fail, and, if so, when?
Rattazzi says, “The physical presence of my negatives and contact sheets dating back to 1974 is my equivalent of clutching a Linus blanket.” In the meantime, she has been playing with her I-phone, “a good way,” she says, “to postpone the moment when I will have to fully embrace digital technology.”
Her children taught her about Instagram. “I fell in love with the notion of postcards from around the world, in real time, with humorous captions and hashtags,” she says, “Instagram is creative, addictive, fun, and best of all it is my children’s medium and it makes me feel young.”
As she makes her slow, deliberate transition to digital imaging – even including Instagram images in her latest exhibition and book – she wistfully thinks back to the grain, speed and flexibility of film with which she created her signature portraits of Gianni Agnelli and Diana Vreeland as well as her uniquely personal pictures of dogs and trees. Priscilla Rattazzi may have embraced Instagram, but heart belongs to Tri-X.
Priscilla Rattazzi
Selected Images 1975 to 2013
Through February 22nd, 2014
Staley Wise Gallery
560 Broadway
New York City 10012
USA
Priscilla Rattazzi – e-book: http://online.flipbuilder.com/diya/zjbt/
