Angela Cappetta was born in New Haven, Connecticut, and currently lives and works in New York City. Her work has begun to be acquired by private collections and museums worldwide such as The Victoria and Albert Museum in London and The Center of Photography at Woodstock. Angela’s work is often commissioned for publications such as: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Weekend Journal, Harper’s Bazaar, Travel and Leisure, Marie Claire, Vogue, The New Yorker and The London Times. Her work also appears in the new breast cancer charity Latin cookbook Babalu, and her images are available from Stone.
creativepro.com: I read that you got into photography at a young age and built a darkroom at 16. What was your inspiration?
Angela Cappetta: I just really wanted one. I found an old roll of slide film in a Kodak Autographic camera. I was heartbroken that it wasn’t black and white because I wanted to develop it myself. I mean it was an old, odd-sized spool; they don’t even make it anymore. After that, that was it, I said, “OK. I’m doing it.”
creativepro.com: So obviously you’d been taking pictures for a while before that. You don’t just build a darkroom the first time you pick up a camera!
AC: (Laughs.) No. I’d always taken a lot of pictures. I’d always been a shutterbug when I was a kid.
creativepro.com: What kind of subject matter inspired you at that age?
AC: I don’t remember… let me think for a second. (Pause.) My dog, definitely. I took most of the pictures of my dog… and my dad’s rosebushes.
creativepro.com: Your current style is obviously documentary. Did that evolve or has everyday life always been your focus?
AC: Everyday life has always been something I’ve been very interested in. I would say the lion’s share of my work is relationship oriented. People are definitely the protagonists in most of my pictures, if not all, up until recently. I do a fair amount of landscape work, but it’s very recent. I’ve only been doing them for about a year.
creativepro.com: Is your current work an outgrowth of the wedding photography you do?
AC: No. It’s the other way around.
creativepro.com: I imagine the wedding photography is work for hire, not images for your portfolio necessarily?
AC: I don’t think about anything in terms of images for my portfolio. I think that’s really the kiss of death. I mean, you take pictures because you’re interested in something. When my first friend got married when I was in my early twenties, I became interested in weddings. And when I’m not interested in them anymore I won’t shoot them anymore.
creativepro.com: Your approach to wedding photography is a little unconventional, isn’t it?
AC: I think wedding photography used to be the way I do it now. You look at my grandmother’s album — it’s black-and-white, 4 x 5, beautifully lit pictures. They’re from Europe in the early Twenties. I think wedding photography [evolved into] a horrible mercenary thing that a lot of people did [simply] because they could.
A wedding is just a thing you’re interested in, like flowers, or cherry blossoms, or trucks. I think to bring baggage to a project is really bad.
I’m just interested in doing weddings. OK. So maybe I don’t do them like everybody else. But I probably don’t tie my shoes like everybody else either. Everybody does something differently.
creativepro.com: Yours is definitely a noncommercial approach though, isn’t it?
AC: Definitely. But I also make a living doing stuff commercially that I would do artistically. A lot of people who interview me (for work) don’t realize that they can have what I do, because it was never an option before. They look at my book and say “Wow! I want this. I didn’t know I could have this.” My work is definitely all about moments.
creativepro.com: Virtually all your subjects are women: Is it your aim to capture the female perspective or experience in your work?
AC: That’s not accurate. I shoot a lot of men. I think it just happens that the stuff Stone has is women. I’m also very interested in dogs. I had a show last year at a gallery in Montréal called Vie de Chien (Life of a Dog).
creativepro.com: I noticed that a project of yours called PR Girls was featured on Feminist.com.
AC: That project has morphed many times. It’s now called Glendalis. It’s the name of the youngest daughter of this family I’ve been shooting for five years. I was interested in this family, a single mother and her three daughters. I was there every week.
creativepro.com: Your portfolio looks like a family photo album. Is that intentional?
AC: That’s how I want it to look. I don’t think about “intentions” when I’m photographing, I just think about what I’m interested in.
creativepro.com: And apparently that works for you commercially?
AC: When a client says “Don’t chop their head off,” I say, “Well, I’m really sorry. If I feel like chopping their head off, I’ll chop their head off — you know, crop their head out, in the camera. (Laughs.) Don’t say, “chop their head off,” say “crop their head out.”
creativepro.com: Oh, I think people know what that means. They do it all the time with their own Instamatics.
AC: (Laughs.) Yeah, but they don’t know they’re doing it! I’m doing it on purpose!
I mean, I make choices as I’m photographing. When a client asks me to do something, I try hard to fulfill their needs, but I don’t do it at the risk of my style. I don’t try to be someone else when I do the job. People are hiring me because they know what I do and I’m known for it. And they like it. And they pay me for it. And it works. I’ve never done a job where someone hasn’t been completely thrilled to have Angela Cappetta do the job. If they want someone else they should pick someone else.
creativepro.com: So do you only accept work that interests you?
AC: I do jobs that I know I would be good at. I don’t think I’ve ever bid on a job that hasn’t been right for me.
creativepro.com: What is it about your subjects that draws you?
AC: So many things. It could be the light. It could be what they’re wearing. It could be their hair. I was walking down the street the other day and I saw this woman with the most unbelievable corkscrew-curl, copper hair. It was just amazing. So I took a few frames of her.
creativepro.com: So you just approach people on the street and ask permission to shoot them?
AC: No, I don’t ask. When you’re shooting on the street it’s knee-jerk responses all the time. You can’t stop, because if your intellect gets involved you’ll get in your own way. So if I’m walking down the street with my Leica (camera) in my hand, I put it up to my eye and I stand where I stand and if I come away with a bunch of pictures at the end of the day, great. And if I don’t it’s not the end of the world. I’ll go out the next day.
creativepro.com: I’m guessing from your comments thus far that you don’t really have a target audience in mind. So who do you think your audience is?
AC: You’ll have to ask my agent that question. I’m taking photographs for myself. When I have a show and someone buys a picture, I don’t ask the gallery who bought it. It’s not my responsibility to determine who likes my work. I like my work. If I start getting involved with questions like that I’m going to stop taking pictures. … I need to be an artist. And I need to be a good artist.
creativepro.com: Tell me about the landscapes you’re now doing.
AC: I’m going to the country to photograph, but I’m also going to private gardens in New York City and photographing trees, and afternoon light on grass… I’m beginning to see that I need to believe that the world can be a beautiful place. When I was photographing Glendalis I think I needed to believe that the world was a very tough place, but that there was hope.
I’m also interested lately in turning the camera on myself. I’m doing a whole self-portrait thing. I’ve been doing them all along, but only recently have I started printing them. So the self-portraits are concurrent with the landscapes.
creativepro.com: Do you have any future plans beyond the landscapes and self-portraits?
AC: I’ve got to wait and see what happens. You know, it all just comes to you. As long as you breathe you’re going to be interested in things, so I’m sure there’s no lack of things for me to point my camera at.
Contact Info:
https://www.angelacappetta.com
Rep: Anita Green 212.807.7545
Read more by Marty Beaudet.
This article was last modified on March 12, 2022
This article was first published on May 13, 2000
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