Emma Livingston:
Light & Matter
For a long time, I experienced them as two very separate paths. I didn’t see the connection, because my artistic work was focused on nature, its different forms, and my professional work focused on architecture, people, interior design and lifestyle photography. So I thought there was a division between the two; sometimes I felt a little “bipolar”.
But I gradually realised that the connection lay in the search itself -in what I wanted to convey and in how I wanted to convey it. Natural light has always been the foundation of my photography. There is a thematic division, but ultimately my way of portraying things is the same. I always look for something natural, both in the light and in the way I represent a space, a landscape or a person. I’m interested in working with diffused light; an overcast day is ideal for me. That’s where the two practices meet: in the search for how to convey something. The subtlety of an atmosphere, of nature or architecture.
Without artifice.
Exactly. Without artifice. The natural, the subtle. Less make-up, less artificial light.
What distinguishes an image that documents a space from one that proposes a personal interpretation? What constitutes the gaze?
What distinguishes a documentary photograph from one that is more of a personal interpretation is what I want to convey. With a photograph that documents, I need to assure a certain detail, light and depth of field, so as to convey the necessary information to the viewer. The other approach gives me the freedom to choose what I want to convey. I’m not constrained by the obligation to document something specific. So it becomes a search for nuances, or for plays of light, textures and details.
How does light influence the way you recognise the form, materiality and atmosphere of a place?
I’m interested in the subtleties of ambient and natural light. The transition, for example, between light and shadow is much more delicate in soft and diffused light, and it allows you to retain a greater range of detail. I don’t want to lose information because the light is too strong and burns out or saturates the image. I want to retain all that information, all that detail, and convey a complete image. I’m not looking for visual impact; I’m looking for a more nuanced experience of the space through light.
What, then, happens with contrast?
I try to avoid contrast because it’s a much stronger language - something you often find, for example, in black-and-white photography. That contrast is deliberately sought out.
I’m interested in that in-between space, the transition between light and shadow. That’s where I find the whole world of details, textures and atmospheres that interest me.
When you encounter the complexity of a space or composition with a great deal of volume and form, does that present a challenge when it comes to photographing it? How do you position the camera, for example, in order to document it?
If there’s a great deal of volume, I don’t think it presents a particular challenge. It allows another kind of game, which gives me permission to experiment and play with those volumes.
For me personally, the challenge appears when there’s a light that burns out or becomes too strong and creates a kind of visual disturbance. That’s what I try to avoid when creating my artistic photographs, but also when photographing a portrait, a space, an interior or a building.
Throughout the history of photography, what has captured your attention, inspired you or altered the way you look when photographing?
Among photographers and artists who work with photography, I’m most interested in those known as “cameraless” - working without a camera. They work directly with light, colour and shadow. That’s what inspires me the most when I create an image.
In the process, how much of a photograph is decided before you make it, and how much emerges through the encounter with the space?
There are certain things I take into consideration. For example, if I have to photograph a specific subject, or if it’s for an article about a particular aspect of interior architecture, I keep that in mind. But then I make the decisions about composition, light, depth of field and angle very much in the moment. It’s very spontaneous, and I’m not someone who plans my shots.
Throughout your practice, you’ve moved between photographing landscapes, natural forms, spaces and architecture. Do you find a connection between them?
Yes. I had to think about the answer to this question, because of that conflict I’ve always had. The connection is, to a certain extent, what I mentioned earlier: the way I treat light.
It also has a great deal to do with my studies in Art History at school, and also at university. I studied Renaissance art, sculpture, painting and architecture, particularly Italian Renaissance. To this day, it continues to inspire me in terms of composition and treatment of light.
In the paintings, landscapes always had a much more diffused light, without strong shadows - the treatment of green, the background. All of that became embedded in my imagination and emerges when I create an image.
It’s the same with architecture, which has always fascinated me. The Pantheon - much more ancient of course - in Rome is a space that continues to inspire me to this day. The light falling from the ceiling, the architectural treatment of the dome is spectacular, the columns, the treatment of the space as a whole, and the importance of light within that space. I find it very unique.
When you position your camera, does your “Renaissance” background naturally lead you to understand spaces through symmetry? Can you find a variation in perspective, or a different way of understanding or recording a space despite that underlying conception?
In general, when photographing architecture, I tend to look for parallel lines, vertical or horizontal. It has a certain order I am attracted to.
What do you seek to preserve from a place, and what do you prefer to leave open or indeterminate within an image?
What interests me most to preserve is not so much the information, but the feeling conveyed by the complete image, or by a particular detail. I really enjoy creating a space where I am asking myself: what am I looking at? Where am I looking from? What are the proportions of the space? All of that interests me when I take a photograph. It can happen with a landscape or with a building, such as the Kavanagh, for example.
Does that allow you to continue working on a subject, or to revisit a photograph some time later? Can you make a series and look at it again with different eyes five or ten years later? Or is there something in you that tends to close subjects -to photograph certain things, leave them finished, and consider the series complete?
I’ve always worked in series, from the very beginning. But over time I gradually diluted that structure. At a certain point, I became interested in removing all the structures I might have imposed on myself when creating an artistic work. The same thing happened when we selected the photographs for last year’s Kavanagh exhibition. We wanted to think of different ways to frame the work, choosing images that weren’t typical architectural or interior photographs, looking for more play in the selection. Creating a series with images of different dimensions, loosening the structures that we sometimes impose on ourselves, in addition to those imposed on us by photography itself.
Do you think that, particularly in the early stages of training, we rely on that structure to make the work coherent, and then gradually loosen up with time, as we learn, look, practise, exercise and so on? Does all that structure somehow disappear?
Yes, I think it comes very much from there. There are beliefs that we inherit from culture, society and education, and then there are beliefs that we impose on ourselves.
Over time we can dismantle them. Piece by piece.
Is that where it becomes possible to develop new ways of seeing? What ways of working with photography would you like to explore now?
Something I’ve always been interested in, or that has always been there but has grown increasingly stronger, is erasing the boundaries between photography and other practices.
Painting, drawing and Indian ink are all languages that have always inspired me. I’m interested in creating images that move away from traditional photography - with a traditional horizontal or vertical composition or format- and playing with other possible formats, techniques and papers. Naturally, I began intervening in my own photographs, and now I’m painting freehand directly onto the paper. The photograph is always present, but I’m playing around with it, almost extending the photograph and using my hands, working with paint, Indian ink or drawing.
Are you moving towards mixed media, then?
Definitely. Yes, I’ve already moved into mixed media.
What did your practice find in the Kavanagh that gave rise to the proposal developed for this project? It wasn’t that you produced something new, but rather that you revisited the work, wasn’t it?
Exactly. For this project, the idea was to look at the photographs again, reconsider them and choose which images I could use for this exhibition, which is specifically about design and about works and objects inspired by the building.
I wasn’t interested in showing a general view of the space, but rather something emblematic of the building’s visual language. So I thought about those straight, parallel lines, and how they appear repeatedly in the building : in the lobby, the entrance doors and the façade. And that’s how I ended up choosing images that conveyed these ideas while remaining almost abstract.
12/08/2026
14:30 HRS
Photo credits:
Emma Livingston
Emma Livingston (Born in Paris, 1976) is a photographic artist who has lived and worked in Buenos Aires since 2005. She studied Art History at University College London (UK) and has undertaken courses, workshops and art clinics - in Buenos Aires - with Silvana Lacarra, Margarita García Faure, Fabiana Barreda, Mariana Sissia, Ernesto Ballesteros and Daniel Fischer, among others. Her work has been exhibited in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, the United States, France, Germany and the UK, in both solo and group exhibitions.
Alongside her artistic practice, she worked for more than a decade as a photographer for Argentina for publications including D&D, La Nación Revista and Harper’s Bazaar, and her editorial work has also been published internationally in magazines such as DWELL (USA); Monocle, House & Garden, ICON (UK), Casa Viva (MX) and FvonF, in Germany. She has also contributed to editorial projects and books commissioned by the Buenos Aires City Heritage Directorate and Díaz Ortiz Ediciones.