Inside the Photographer’s Studio - Alma Rosaz: Queen of Collage
June 7th, 2022
By Anna Prudhomme @annaprudhomme
Among Alma Rosaz’s eclectic mix of objects, which include a giant stuffed pony, an inflatable pair of pants and a grass rug, is her prized fisheye Nikon. Journalist Anna Prudhomme went to meet Alma and see inside the up-and-coming photographer’s studio.
Born in France but raised between Norway and Nigeria this 26-year-old fashion and music photographer has a unique aesthetic. Visiting numerous countries with her family (hiking most of the time), the different landscapes and the cultural diversities she encountered, have all inspired her photography practice. Creating a visual world that is uniquely her own: colours are bright and flash like the outfits of the women she met in the Gulf of Guinea; bodies are distorted; and the classical elements of nature are unfolded. Diving in a wild ocean, standing on top of a post-apocalyptic mountain, or lying in the middle of a sunflower field, Alma places herself and the models she shot in the most dazzling settings… without even leaving her apartment.
Working for brands such as Adidas or Daily Paper, alongside magazines and the music industry, she has developed a distinctive style. Based in London since completing her MA in Fashion Photography at UAL, Alma Rosaz took us inside the photo studio in her Notting Hill apartment.
Campaign for brand FCLX, 2021
Alma’s luminous flat is located on the first floor of an old Victorian house. Huge pink glasses on her nose, she warmly welcomes me inside. Pouring a cup of hot chocolate, she explains shooting in the living room, a round-looking space delimited by bow windows. The walls are white and the floor is wooden, but don’t be fooled by this apparent plainness: a vintage Mickey Mouse mask and a plastic diplodocus are sleeping on the desk, props and glasses are overflowing the drawers, while a suitcase full of wigs is hidden under the couch.
She begins by telling me about the huge stuffed pony that caught my eyes when entering the place: “In my street people dump a lot of stuff and I always end up with the weirdest things,” says Alma. She wants to use it for a shoot but still hasn’t found the right occasion - in the meantime the pony stays in the living room.
“I’m always curious about finding objects in the streets because they’ve had past histories and I feel as if they need new ones,” tells Alma.
After bringing home a massive 90s TV that almost couldn’t get up the stairs, she got obsessed with old phones from the 60s and collected a few that she used for photoshoots. “I really love doing set designs,” exclaims the young French photographer. Even when she collaborates with professionals, she likes keeping a hand on props and how models interact with those objects.
“I’m always curious about finding objects in the streets because they’ve had past histories and I feel as if they need new ones.”
She followed by telling me about the time when doing a self-portrait, a gigantic inflatable kangaroo kept falling on her. “I’m really into quirkiness so sometimes, when I find the fits too simple, I just love to add a lot of props,” acknowledged Alma.
That is why, in her opinion, a lot of singers and musicians approach her. “I guess my work is weird and loud and it really speaks to this [music] industry”; most of the time she will only get the guideline to showcase the talent’s personality and have fun, be creative - and that’s what Alma Rosaz is all about.
Her mother being a painter, Alma grew up surrounded by art books like those of Frida Kahlo, Egon Schiele or Klimt. Their masterpieces influenced Alma’s taste, just as her mother’s artistic practice did. Having a strange fixation over feet and hands, her mother always made these elements in her paintings disproportionate. “When I was 5 years old, my mum couldn’t stop obsessing about one of my dolls’ hands which struck me and stayed!” tells Alma.
For Noctis, an independent East London magazine, Alma created a series intertwining her photographic work with her mother’s paintings. Called À la croisée des chemins (At the crossroads), it focused on the elements of her mum’s practice that most inspired Alma’s artistic vision: the colours, the proportions, the movements and, obviously, the hands.
À La Croisée des Chemins published by Noctis Magazine, 2021
“When I was 5 years old, my mum couldn’t stop obsessing about one of my dolls’ hands which struck me and stayed!”
Today, especially when shooting with a fisheye camera, Alma carefully places those body parts in the foreground of the scenes she creates. “The fingers became strangely long, bending in the wrong way, […] the disproportionate hands and feet are what tricks the viewer's eye, creating a new vision…and new creatures!” she said.
Her love for fisheye effects obviously comes from the distortion this wide-angle lens creates, but it is also Tim Walker’s best-loved camera. The British fashion photographer is Alma’s favourite along with the American portrait artist Annie Lebovitz; from whom I noticed the retrospective Wonderland on the bookshelf, along with Helmut Newton’s Polaroids.
Talking about her lifelong inspiration, Alma jumps into the story of an Egon Schiele inspired photoshoot called Loud Lines made for the Italian magazine Pap a few months ago. “I really wanted something in a box with a hand and a foot”—the family obsession. And thinking of Schiele’s shade of skin pigment, she and the set designer decided to pay a real homage to the Austrian Expressionist painter by colouring the sets with his palette and casting a model that looked like him.
Loud Lines published by PAP Magazine, 2022
Loud Lines published by PAP Magazine, 2022
It was during the pandemic that Alma started doing collages, perhaps her best known work. Stuck at home with the same boring backdrops, no subjects to capture and desperate to escape the city, she took herself out of a self-portrait to pose among the mountains of New Mexico. With a blond mullet wig on, 60s sunglasses, and a long cigarette holder in hand, Alma’s first collages shortly became a hit. The Ragged Priest, a London-based fashion brand who had seen the collage on Instagram, immediately commissioned her for a series on the theme of escapism.
Whether at the airport, on a sunny terrace in Paris or in an inflatable unicorn applying sun cream, Alma’s eccentric and quirky aesthetic had found another great way of expressing itself.
“After that I noticed people were reacting well to the collages, I decided to make it more graphic, abstract, with punchy colours and that’s how my style truly came about!”. Since then, Alma has produced numerous collages, for magazines such as the Berlin-based Kaltblut, F world or Noctis but also for fashion brand campaigns including the brands Jaded LDN and Studio FCLX.
“It takes up to 2 hours per photo, depending on if I know the kind of world I’ll put behind the subject,” says Alma, who never lacks imagination. When commissioned, she usually gets a concept, a colour or a special element such as snakes, rain drops or a light bulb and does an interpretation of those instructions. “[But] it’s really from the poses that my brain goes into creative mode and wants to put stuff on the models,” she explains half-laughing.
“It’s really from the poses that my brain goes into creative mode and wants to put stuff on the models”
Shooting with Alma is a lot of yoga and stretches as she does like complicated poses: in her images, the models are in movement - elbows out, squatting, almost mimicking contemporary dance positions. “It is a bit annoying for the models but I’m doing the same to find the right angles, so we’re doing yoga together” she said giggling.
Self-Portrait series Role Reversal 5.0 for FWORD Magazine, 2021
Never taking breaks while editing, Alma spends her nights in front of her gigantic iMac frantically swallowing water while listening to Secret d’Histoire, a French show on the history of castles and the royal families who lived in it. Then “it’s pretty much back and forth with them [the client] until they are happy with the final results” said Alma before adding, “most of the time they’ll tell me to get rid of stuff because it’s too buzzy”. She chuckles while explaining this is why she finds much more freedom in self-portraiture. “I feel that when you have models or clients, there are always opinions coming out,” while alone in her Notting Hill studio, once her boyfriend has left for work, she can really get into her creative mindset.
One to watch, Alma gave a self-portrait master class in Birmingham at the beginning of the year, teaching how to create eye-catching images using yourself as the main subject. A virtual show was dedicated to her work in December and, looking to the future, she’ll be collaborating with the Hong Kongese fashion designer Celine Kwan in the upcoming months.
“It’s pretty much back and forth with them [the client] until they are happy with the final results... most of the time they’ll tell me to get rid of stuff because it’s too buzzy.”
Alma Rosaz - from Self-Portrait series How to take creative self-portraits at home for The Photography Show, 2021
About Alma Rosaz
Alma Rosaz is a fashion and music photographer based in London. Her practice explores the artistic and quirky sides of photography. She is currently focusing on colourful and distorted portraits touching on cultures, gender performance and identity. She lived in many countries such as Nigeria, Norway and Indonesia, and is the daughter of a painter which strongly participated in educating her eyes for all sorts of arts, colours and cultures. Her fascination for staging and storytelling is translated by the use of props, composition and the habit to change the people she photographs into her own characters.
Her most recent clients include Adidas, Universal Music, Daily Paper, The Ragged Priest, Jaded LDN, Wonderland Magazine, and Underground UK.