Mirror Mirror with Emma Rose Milligan
Produced by Worlds Through Minds founder, Macy Castañeda Lee.
- Name, age, where are you from, what format you like using, what are you currently working on if you are?
My name is Emma Rose Milligan, and I’m a NYC-based commercial, editorial, and fine art photographer. Although I use photography as my primary medium, I also work with alternative processing, mixed media, and painting in my personal practice. I’ve got a few series I’m working on, but most recently have had a documentary project called “Mirror, Mirror” at the forefront.
Photograph by Emma Rose Milligan
- What about your surroundings/environments and upbringing interested you?
Being from the North Fork of Long Island, I had a small town upbringing surrounded by beaches, farms, and nature. My early work focused heavily on my connection to the environment, and how climate change was affecting both the physical and socioeconomic landscapes. Since moving to NYC over a decade ago, my focus has since shifted to work about cultural critique, but many of the sentiments remain the same.
- When was the first time you met photography? How did you feel when you met it?
As early as I can remember, I would steal my Mom’s point + shoot to take photos of my house, my dog, and my neighborhood, but the first photo that really shifted my understanding of photography was around age 10. As silly as it sounds, it was a photo of a small rock in front of a big hill that I photographed up close, so it looked like a big rock in front of a small hill. Understanding that how you perceive the world is distinct to you, and that you’re in control of this creation and perception, blew my mind. Since then, I’ve found my photographic tenet is understanding the tension between “looking” versus “being looked at.”
Photograph by Emma Rose Milligan
- Tell us about your project, mirror mirror. Is this story inspired out of personal reasons, or others? How was the process like reaching out to different women, how did they respond, and how did you work with empathy?
Mirror, Mirror is an ongoing series documenting young women interacting in Summit One Vanderbilt, the latest tourist destination in NYC. Located 93+ floors up, it is a multi-cardinal view of the NYC skyline opposing floor to ceiling mirrors. Allowing for 360° directional reflections and refractions of light to create a hyper realistic space, the subjects are uniquely illuminated as they look at themselves in photographs, mirrors, and selfies. By focusing on young women, the series acts as a cultural critique, reflecting on the rapid acceleration of girlhood into adulthood at a pace we’ve never seen before. Perhaps a nod to a global hegemony, or social media’s effect on vanity, the series acts as a tangible representation of Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle. What happens to culture when we’re just “representing” for the perception of “the image”?
This work is shot all on iPhone, and the young women do not know they’re being photographed; if you’re too busy looking at yourself, you don’t notice people looking at you. I photograph this work with empathy because it’s not criticism about these young women, but rather seeking an understanding of how we’ve gotten here as a culture. Why do people pay $65+ to look at themselves in mirrors? What does it mean to exist as a representation, and who is this even for? What happens when everyone begins to look the same? My interest in this series is much larger than just what these young women “look” like.
Photograph by Emma Rose Milligan
- What are lessons you have learned when doing the project, Mirror Mirror?
From a tactical standpoint, it can be quite difficult to make interesting looking images of people looking at themselves. It can be repetitive when every subject is taking the same style selfie with their similar looking phones, and it can be overwhelming in such a visually maximalist, cacophonic tourist destination. Pushing myself to “play” within the space has been my biggest lesson, as well as keeping in mind that there’s a time to shoot and a time to edit. My favorite photographs from the series are when the image is abstracted, either literally or physically, which oftentimes is only “seen” after. Find the magic.
- How did you find your visual literacy? Why are you attracted to certain images more than others?
Understanding your sense of visual literacy is a daily practice, and means being open to “looking” at everything, no matter the medium. It also means removing yourself from the photographs you make, so you can better understand “imagemaking.” Is the photograph actually interesting, or are you looking at it through the guise of your emotional connection? Is the photograph actually showing something, or are you looking at it through the experience of yourself in that moment?
Pursuing both my BFA and MFA degrees at School of Visual Arts helped channel creativity into tangible skills, but the baseline of curiosity in understanding visual media has been there all along. If a photograph is a simulacrum and thus nothing is real, what drives us to pursue new ways of seeing? I look at everything, because everything is informative; but the best part of photography is getting to see how everyone else sees.
Photograph by Emma Rose Milligan
- Imagine meeting someone who is picking up a camera for the first time. What do you tell them?
The best camera you have is whatever’s in hand.
Show us how YOU see the world!!!