Fashion Photographer Shortlisted for Film Award

Fashion Photography graduate Esmé Moore was a recent finalist at this year's SHOWstudio Fashion Film Awards. Esmé, who graduated in 2018, saw her film 'Side by side, Sisters' up for Best Fashion Film.

The SHOWstudio Fashion Film Awards, in partnership with Harrods, showcase top fashion talents globally in order to find the next, best fashion filmmaker. The awards took place on Thursday 17 October. Second year student Nick Dibble recently interviewed Esmé to find out more...

How has your career been since graduating?

A whirlwind! A mixture of being on photographic sets, personal work, and establishing exactly what direction I want to take. At the moment, I am focused on working with designers and set designers alike to create a new, larger body of work. I have definitely learnt that everything takes time!

Explain the awards, what do they represent?

There was a worldwide open call for submissions released by SHOWstudio in July, and after seeing this release I submitted 'Side by side, Sisters.'

The awards are a celebration of the surge in fashion film as its own medium, having just as strong or arguably, a stronger presence in the fashion industry as a way of communicating to the wider public. On a personal level, it heightens my desire to make more fashion films and moving pieces, there is something very freeing about working in motion that I definitely want to expand on.

What is your film about?

Created with the use of a human-scale camera obscura, 'Side by side, Sisters' is a short fashion film narrating the inseparable bond of two sisters. Inspired by the eerie characteristics of Victorian cameo portraits that often evoked an image of sisterhood, dependence and reliance on female companionship, Elitsa and Yana are seen to move freely in the designs of Martha Mouat Salkeld. Their intimate response to one another's actions are able to be witnessed by the viewer for a short, undeclared moment.

What are your ambitions, when it comes to a career pathway?

That's such a difficult question to give a direct answer to. Ultimately, it is to have the freedom to continue creating work as a fashion photographer and filmmaker without boundaries, but who, as a creative doesn't want that.

Fashion photography and filmmaking are two processes that simultaneously work together, they are mediums that are there to converse, challenge and question what we are seeing and excepting visually. As a means of conversation within my own work I have always been intrigued by the balance between fashion and art, and how this relationship can begin a new conversation as people question exactly what they are seeing, forming a means of escapism.

I don't know if it is considered as an ambition, but as my career progresses, I want to make sure that I am constantly learning new methods and ways of making, something that I have done up until this point and believe will never stop, it is when I am most intrigued by the medium.

Do you have any tips for current students who wish to take a similar career path as you?

I know students have probably heard it before, but self-perseverance and belief in your own work is massive. You've got to remember that the work you create as a photographer, you have done in response to what you are seeing and hearing every day, what intrigues you. Even though doors are going to close before they are opened, it will happen, but you have got to keep creating in order for opportunities to arise. Don't always believe you have to take the traditional root, or what it seems everyone else is doing, you've got to do what feels right for you.

Have you had any networking opportunities with SHOWstudio?

I attended the awards show at Harrods last week, where I met with other filmmakers in the final alongside the SHOWstudio team, and founder Nick Knight. But I shall see what happens from here!

Find our more about
BA(Hons) Fashion Photography