Welcome to the first ever Other Ways of Seeing conversation. Other Ways of Seeing is a project to discover the personal art practices of people who work in the creative industries. What they make and why they make it. This first conversation is with my long time friend Sophie Ebrard. Sophie is a hugely successful and prolific photographer and more recently, film maker. We start at the beginning of her career in advertising as an account handler in ad agency BDDP & Fils in Paris, to Mother in London and then JWT which leads her to jack it all in to become a photographer. We talk about where her projects come from, her influences, motherhood, incredibly brave exhibitions held in her own house, and an awesome piece of advice for herself when she started out…

Mel: Tell me a little bit about you starting in advertising and what role you were in before you made the change.

Sophie: Okay, so I started my career in advertising in 2001, fresh out of a business school. I went into working in one of the most successful advertising agencies at the time in France called BDDP & Fils. I worked there for four years and then we went to London in 2005 and I carried on working in advertising. And it's only in 2010 that, 10 years after I started, that I had a burnout. I was working at an agency called JWT and I was working on this really big account for hair, Sunsilk. And it was the opposite of what I wanted to do because everything I had done at the start was working in really cool creative advertising agencies like Mother and doing really cool creative work and working with all these amazing photographers and directors. And suddenly I was on Sunsilk relaunching the brand in 90 countries and it was hell… and so obviously it was not for me. I had a burnout and I was like, okay, this is it. I'm done with advertising at least for a while. So I decided that for six months I wanted to try something that I really loved and that something was photography. I picked up a camera, not really knowing the technicalities about it and I started shooting a portfolio. At the time, mind you, 14 years ago, Instagram was not really big, and it was harder to find the photographers that you would like. Now on my Instagram there's tons of photographers that I follow and that I like and that in a way influences my work. But back then, I only knew a few photographers, like maybe 10 photographers, maximum. The old photographers, like Sally Mann or Diane Arbus, people like that. What was amazing is that very quickly I developed my own style of photography because I also didn't assist, I just tried. It was really trial and error. I also had very little knowledge in Photoshop, which meant that I could only really work on colours throughout the picture and I couldn't really mask or do anything like that. So yeah, the pictures that I took were really me. It was very much my body of work, it was really very much the way I was seeing the world. Which I think it must be difficult today if you’re fresh out of an art school, and you have all the knowledge of all these photographers and all the different techniques and all the different colours and styles and everything.. to really know what you want to do what you want to make. So, I think that was an amazing start. I already had an eye for photography and then I did my look and people started to hire me for that. I was very lucky.

Mel: So how much does your own work influence your commercial work? Because obviously there is a lot of blurring. It feels like one influences the other or one inspires the other. There's lots of work you've done in the past that clients have seen, and gone, ‘we want you to do something like that’.. there is that crossover.

Sophie: I think what I'm the most proud of now is that I think that I really have a DNA that is really specific. So I'm not just a photographer that takes beautiful pictures. I also have a say in what I want to express within the world, I really want to be there and say, this is what I've witnessed and this is a taboo topic and I want to raise it. So for instance, I started talking about taboo topics with the series ‘It’s Just Love’ that we can talk about later. And then with ‘I Didn't Want To Be A Mum’ talking about motherhood, I think I was one of the very first ones who was talking about motherhood in this way. I was saying, it's really hard, I didn't like it at first, it was very hard for me to really become a mother and really enjoy and embrace motherhood. And when I did the exhibition in 2019, I think I was really one of the first ones who was really raising this taboo. It was really taboo to say, ‘oh, I don't like being a mum’. You would meet someone in the park and obviously the mum would be like, isn't it the best thing you've ever done in your life? And you'd be like… ‘urgh, your life must have been miserable before!’.

(Both giggling wildly and knowingly).

Mel: So true..

Sophie: And of course there's amazing things about motherhood that I discover. And I keep on discovering and I discovered after the birth of my second child, but I think the first one, it feels so much like a trap, you feel like you're in prison and you're like, ‘where is my old life where I was free and I was a photographer and I could do anything I wanted?’. Especially since I became a mother only three years after starting my career as a photographer. And I was just on the rise. It really felt like I was like being stopped in the middle of this motion, which was really amazing for me because I had finally discovered that there was this passion that I had that I could make a living off. And it was just so exciting. It was one of the most exciting times of my life… And then boom, I was pregnant. So it was hard.

I think because I'm a photographer who expresses things like that, clients come to see me and say, ‘here is the topic that we want to talk about. Are you happy to work with us on it?’. For instance, the Persil campaign came about like this. For Persil, I shot a campaign with menstruation. We used real menstruating women and for the very first time we show blood on panties.

Mel: When was that?

Sophie: This was in 2022, two years ago. And this one was very interesting because they briefed me with almost like an e-commerce campaign. And we started to talk more about how we could do it. And there's a funny fact, which is, they briefed me the day I had my period.

Mel: Oh dear.. (laughing).

Sophie: And so, as you know, as a photographer, you're asked to do a treatment and send your ideas on how you would want to do the shoot. Well, I took it very seriously. So I bled into my underwear. And then I started to use this underwear and put it everywhere in the house and trying to take pictures and started to take pictures on me, seeing what it could look like with blood. Obviously with my style of photography, I think it's still very much beauty, every subject I touch I try to infuse beauty in it. So whether it's porn sets or blood on panties, I try to make it still look chic and beautiful. So that's where I was going, I was trying to see how I could do it. And it was amazing because I don't think any of the other photographers they briefed did this, went that far, showing their own blood on panties. We then started an amazing collaboration because we were like, okay, what shall we do and, how should we do it. And so the shoot was amazing. I felt like I was paid to do a personal project really. I was completely mad on this shoot. I usually shoot maybe, I don't know, five images a day and it's quite a lot. But I think I shot like 12 images a day for three days on that shoot, I was so excited. And we had a B team that was setting up lights whilst I was shooting so we could go from one set to the other.

Mel: So cool..

Sophie: We ended up doing a book, which is incredible, with all the pictures. And I shot Polaroids, I was just so inspired. It was amazing to work with them. And we won a Bronze Lion in Cannes, we won lots of awards. We won awards on photography, we won awards on art direction, we won loads of awards with that campaign. And yeah, it's really amazing to have this because you know that it’s thanks to your personal work, that you're going to get this kind of commissioned work. And in a way, this could be personal work as well. Everything kind of infuses each other. And you know, along the line, you're also going to get more work like these kinds of jobs.

Mel: It definitely feels like it's a series that you would have done anyway. It feels very, very personal. It's so much in your style, of turning something confrontational into something incredibly beautiful or seeing the other side of it. You encourage the viewer to look at it in a different way and not perhaps vilify it, make it a bad thing. It’s something beautiful and to be proud of. I thought that was an amazing campaign. Congratulations on your Bronze Lion!

Sophie: Thank you. Thank you!

Mel: It’s huge!

Sophie: It was incredible.. It was incredible because the minute they heard about the Lion, the client and the business director called me from Cannes and they were like, ‘we have news for you’… and, and then they gave me the Lion. So I have it here at home.

Mel: Damn right.

Sophie: Yeah!

Mel: I think it’s yours. That’s the thing.. it’s your period blood.

Sophie: No, but it was amazing and you're right. You know, I think now it makes me remember that when I started doing, I Didn't Want To Be A Mum, which is the motherhood project. It was in fact a project that was even bigger, I think called ‘Bloody Changes’ and it was about all the changes that woman goes through in her life. And then I did make it about motherhood, but it was about your first period and then how your period also changes in your life and menopause and so I had done a lot of research.

Mel: So this was the first idea?

Sophie: This was the first idea before I did, I Didn't Want To Be A Mum. I started shooting a woman, a young girl who was 13 and she was about to have a period and I was going to carry on shooting her as if she was me. Like I was really putting myself in different situations. And then when it came to motherhood, those images were stronger and the point of view was stronger. So I kind of let go of the rest. And also because I was not in perimenopause or menopause at the time, it felt like it was just too much to understand. But yeah, it was called Bloody Changes, which I liked. I liked the name of it.

Mel: I still love the name..

Sophie: Maybe I should do another project with it.. Trademark! And so I had done tons of research about menstruation, I already had ideas in my head. So you're right, it was totally a Sophie Ebrard project.

Mel: So tell me about, ‘I Didn't Want To Be A Mum’. It was such a powerful project. Perhaps it's something that you'd been thinking of for a long time.. I remember you being quite cross about moving to Amsterdam, but also having to have your baby there, but also having a baby which you thought would stop your career. Then it came to the point where it actually influenced your career so enormously that you had an exhibition in your own house. It's so exposing and brave, I think, to want to tell the story, the proper story, what it really felt like.. and then actually inviting people physically in to your house. It's such an extraordinary thing to do.

Sophie: I was really happy living in London and Thierry, my partner, moved to Amsterdam for a job and he was never supposed to stay here. He was always supposed to come back to London. And then in the middle, I got pregnant. And so, you know, we were like, what shall we do? So, I moved to Amsterdam. I was eight months pregnant. I didn't know anyone. It was October, the beginning of the horrible time here where you can't really go out and it's miserable. I didn't have my support system. I didn't have any friends. So I don't really know what I was thinking, just doing that. I mean, there was also no choice because Thierry was not going to leave the job that he loved in Amsterdam. I was just very lonely and it was very difficult to become a mum in this situation. Not having anyone close to me that I could say, ‘oh, it's really hard’. And also, I think at the time, nobody was really saying it. I think really women were toughening up and being like, ‘we can do this’. Not really explaining to their girlfriends - at least my girlfriends were not like that - that it was so difficult. I was really feeling resentful because I thought it was going to stop my career. And I was really feeling like I was the only person in the world that was feeling this way. So it makes you feel even worse if you think you're not normal and that you shouldn't feel this way because, you know, having a baby is the most beautiful thing in the world. So yeah, it was very hard for that. And then the truth is, I decided to have another baby. Thierry convinced me to have another baby. He convinced me very hard! And when Louison was born, it was just really the opposite that I felt. I suddenly realised what motherhood was. And I think I was in a better position, I was in a better situation. I had friends around and it was the second time, so it was not so much of a slap in the face, and my career had evolved in four years. So obviously everything, you know, was made for it to be better. So I really realised at that time, oh my God, I really suffered so much. It was really hard. I wanted to really put it on paper and write down my story. Which I did. I took pictures, self portraits with my daughter, who was a baby at the time. And then in the exhibition, there's those pictures, but there's also the smell of the top of the head of a baby. I worked with a nose for that. There was a sound of a woman giving birth. It was in a very dark room for four minutes. You could listen to her giving birth and it was just very emotional. Intense and emotional. There was a diary text that took about 15 minutes to read. And it was all my story. It was really the explanation of what I had felt.

It was really interesting and really amazing because usually for exhibitions, people come and they see the pictures and then they leave. I didn't really know if people were really going to experience everything, but people really did religiously, all the way to the end, and reading the story. It really affected people's lives. It was incredible. We had to buy tissues because everyone was crying and a lot of the women, I would say 80% of women who came through that door, just cried. A lot of them were hugging me and saying that it was also their story, which was so interesting at the time.. I couldn't believe it. It was like, ‘punch me, this is not happening’. I thought I was really the only one in the world feeling this. So experiencing this, experiencing changing people's lives, was just so amazing. It was something that was better than I could have ever imagined. And it was also changing my story as well because suddenly I felt seen and I felt that I was not the only one feeling this way. So it was very validating also for my feelings at the time. When the exhibition stopped, I was like, wow, it's so powerful because you can tell a story with pictures and words and it can really, really affect people in a good way. So it's almost like a drug now. I really love that.

Some people do have photography exhibitions and it's just pictures and that’s fine. I think it's beautiful, but I like it when when you feel something, you know, when you get to the cinema and you really feel an emotion and it's because it's told you a story for two hours. And so I'm really trying to do that. I think I'm also at the crossover now where being a photographer is not enough. So that's also why I'm now a director. I'm newly represented by Bold in the UK and we're trying to do more films. So I've just done a film for L'Oréal and it's telling people stories of people who have really severe skin conditions. It's portraits of them and and it was just very beautiful to do it, to hear their stories and to put it together into a film. And it really, really touches you. So I'm still kind of in a crossover.

L’Oreal Skin Stories

I'm working on a project right now in Morocco about horses. The story is that I met this kid when he was seven, seventeen, eighteen years ago, and he was working on the beach with his cousin and they had horses. I stayed over for two months in this area over the summer. I wanted to do horse riding and I didn't really have money, so I was helping them with the horses. I was helping them take tourists on rides. I was always with them, but mostly I was always with Achraf, this little boy who was seven. He was really amazing. We really had a really big connection then and I'm not really a kid's person, but for some reason with him, there was something happening and we had fun. When I look at the pictures that I have from back then, we were always together. So over the years, we never lost touch because I went back to Essaouira a few times, every two or three years I would go back and I would see him and go see his family and ride with him. And in December, 2022, so two years ago, I went back with my family and my daughter really wanted to ride. So obviously I was going to ride with Achraf. And now he's 25 and he owns his horses and he has a company. He employs like seven or eight people. He's incredible. He's like a really respected man in his village. He's really made it. When I went to see him again and rode with Louison, because she always wanted to go see Achraf, I really rediscovered him. It was so interesting to try to find the traces of the boy that I once knew, in his face and what we were doing and in his laugh. And then also witnessing that he was a man. And we had both obviously grown up and I was a mother, it was just very beautiful. We spent a week together, and when I came back, James, my agent asked me if I had pictures of horses because they needed pictures for a pitch for Lloyds. And I didn't have pictures.. I didn't really know why because I'm a rider. So I decided to go back. I went back to Morocco for a few days. It was January, there was no work around, so I was like, I might as well just go back. I went back and started to shoot his horse, his favourite horse called Amazyr. After one or two days we were done, we had shot everything that I needed for the pitch. So I started to shoot pictures of him.. Suddenly like there was this magic that happened. Something really fell into place. Sometimes projects just land on your plate. It's not that I'm looking for a project, but this time was like, wow, it just felt like it was what I needed to do. So I started taking pictures of him and when I came back, I thought the pictures were really beautiful. I've been shooting this series for now two years. I've gone four or five times to Morocco to shoot him and to spend time with him. And it's interesting how also our relationship, our friendship has evolved. We were already friends, but we’re even more friends now that we've spent 30 days together.

Mel: What I find really interesting with the people who work in advertising and who make personal work is that the storytelling is so strong, because in advertising, you have to tell a story in one image and you get really good at it. For you, what is the difference when it's not advertising and it's a personal piece of work.. do you feel like you have more time to tell your story or you can tell your story in different ways? If it’s your story to tell, not, someone else’s?

Sophie: What you said is so true about me coming from an advertising background and telling a story. I think that's also the reason I don't want to just take beautiful pictures. Some people do it, but for me, I really want every image to be able to tell.. like you should be able to write a novel with it. And when I shoot commissioned work there's always a time pressure, so it's always hard to follow your gut, but I'm always trying to do that as well. For me, it's really about the gut feeling. When I'm on set, when I'm shooting commissioned work, I'm always trying at some point to be like, okay, what is it that I want? Because I know for a fact that if I'm taking a picture that I really love and that I really can feel it in my gut, the client is going to love it. Even though they don't know it yet, they haven't really expressed it or they haven't even seen it yet, it’s probably the one that they're going to end up choosing because if you feel that there's something that is happening inside of you, of course, the picture is also going to say it, right? So on personal projects, it's the same way. I'm always trying to follow my gut and try to explore what I see, and take pictures in that respect.

I actually realised with this project that last year there was a time where I didn't follow my gut. I started taking pictures in January 2023 and when I came back it was amazing, the pictures were great. So I went back again and at some point Achraf had mentioned a horse market and my assistant was like, oh my God, it's going to be amazing, you should go there! And I couldn't really figure out how to put the pictures of the horse market with Achraf. But, then I was there in summer and it was like, let's go to your horse market. So we went to two horse markets and it was incredible. One of them was like Glastonbury, but with livestock. It was just mad. You can imagine the pictures, it was just insane. We arrived at, I don't know, six o'clock in the morning, the light was rising and it was just, it was just gorgeous, it was such an incredible experience. I was the only woman in the field and also the only photographer. So the pictures are absolutely incredible. But when I came back, I just couldn't find an edit. I was trying to understand what how it worked and I just couldn't find it. But I carried on shooting and I also shot his friends because I thought that it was also very interesting to have his life. I'm telling a story.. I should tell a story about, you know, his friends. So I started shooting also his friends, I have amazing pictures of his friends. One of them was selected by the Taylor Wessing Prize.

Last year was kind of about that. There's a friend of mine who's a photographer who works in the same studio as I do. And he just came back with a series from Cape Town and he had incredible images shot at dusk. And I was like, oh, this is really nice. I was so happy to do this. So here I go to Morocco with my tripod and the pictures are great. But for some reason I felt like I was not really in my head, and not really following what I wanted to do. And what I wanted, the reason why I did the project in the first place was actually just Achraf and his horse. It's Achraf and Amadyr and us. That’s it. As simple as it feels or seems, this is what is the most beautiful and those pictures are the most precious.

Mel: That must be such a weird conflict for you in it being personal work and advertising, commissioned work, because you're having to think about your client or the client is thinking about the audience, does that make you think differently? Or do you go fuck that, this is my work and this is what your hired me for.

Sophie: Well, I think this is exactly the problem. I think I was very busy last year shooting commercial work and when you shoot commissioned work it’s not for you. There is a client and you want to please them, and I really want them to be 100 percent happy about what we're doing. I try to listen to them and do what they want, but it's a mix of using your gut feeling, but at the same time also shooting what they want. So when I arrive on on a personal shoot at the very beginning, I tend to shoot a lot of pictures. And then I'm like, wait, wait, wait, calm down… this is not commissioned work, you don't have to get this shot. It's like, just use your instinct and only use your gut feeling. It's just very hard because that's not what you do on commissioned work. You don't only use your gut feeling. You have to, but it's a balance, right? If they like the direction you're taking, then you carry on. But if they don't like it, you have to change it. And I think my background in advertising really helps in this respect because when we are on a PPM call, I know exactly what the client wants and the agency wants. And when I'm on set, it's the same. I know the dynamics. I know exactly what they mean when they're like, ‘we want blue’.. you know, they don't just want blue. They want a tiny bit of blue and and some other things. I think it's so much easier for me. It's like my mother tongue, right? I understand the environment. But yeah, it does have an influence on personal work. So there's always a watch out. And then it comes back to what we were talking about with Instagram and all the the amount of information and visuals that you're fed throughout your day. It also has an influence, like when I when I say Nick came back with pictures from Cape Town that were amazing and I want to shoot the same. You know, it's ridiculous. It's like, I mean, it's great because I also pushed my boundaries. And that picture that I shot, that is for the Taylor Wessing Prize, I don't think I would have shot it if I had not had this feeling of.. oh, I really want to have pictures that are a bit more dark that are not necessarily using the sunlight. So I was using available light, which was the scooter lamps.

*Image from Mon Ami Achraf at The Taylor Wessing Prize*

Mel: No, really? Cool!

Sophie: It’s Achraf's car that lights his face and then there's a scooter that lights the horse. The guys were also really helpful because they were trying to change the lights as the light was fading. It was it was amazing, you know, it's super interesting. And I love all the pictures I have of him and his friends. But it was a very good lesson that I learned and I mean, better to learn it now than in five years time, right? So now I'm like really trying to be aligned and follow my gut feeling and everything that I'm doing.

Mel: Now you do both commercial and non commercial work within advertising or within advertising your commercial work and then you have your personal work. But also you have this other background, which is in accounts where you were dealing directly with clients. So you have already got this language that a lot of people never experience. And I think that's really, really cool and very lucky in some ways. And also I remember once when when you came to Cornwall on a shoot and we had we had dinner with the guys you were working with and I remember you telling me about the ‘Sophie Show’, which I think must come from having extra knowledge on clients and knowing how to.. you know, loosely manipulate people. It's so powerful that you're able to do that. And I think I got a bit of that when we went for dinner. We had a bit of the Sophie Show, which was so awesome.

Sophie: Well, you have to play different roles, right?

Mel: Hell yeah. Of course you do. You held that table so well. It was brilliant to watch, and listen to. That was the night that you decided to tell everybody how ‘It's Just Love’ came about.

Sophie: One of the reasons is because you were in the room and ‘It's Just Love’ came about because, well I don't know if it's because of you, but it's thanks to you. So I can probably tell the story…

So in 2010, I was just fresh being a photographer, maybe it was 2011. I had been a photographer for a year and I had taken pictures of my immediate family and you know my friends that were around but I could feel that the pictures that I had were quite naive. I could feel that I was not pushing myself so much and I had this idea of shooting people just after they had sex. So let's do something that I've never done before. Let's push my boundaries to the maximum. I had this idea and I remember you were one of the first ones who was really encouraging me, and proud of my work. And at the time you were my agent, you were my very first agent. And you were very supportive. So when I told you about the idea I was like, I don't know how to make this happen because I don't know anyone who will want to participate in this project. And you happened to know someone who ran swingers parties in London. So we both went to meet him and he invited us to come to one of his parties. So here we went, both of us to a swingers party in London, which is really hilarious… One of the best memories I have, it was really amazing, what I remember is that it was the very very first time that I saw anyone having sex in front of me. And it was just so beautiful. I remember thinking at the time that I had only seen these kind of pictures through a male gaze. And what I was seeing was very different. It was just so beautiful. It's not something that I had seen before and I really wanted to take pictures of this. That night I was like, oh yeah, this is what I want to shoot. I really want to shoot a project of people naked and having sex and and with their bodies entwined. It was just fascinating. And as it was fate that night, we met a porn director, Gazman and his girlfriend. I explained to him about my project that I wanted to shoot people having sex. And he said, well, if you want to practice, you can come on one of my shoots. I'm shooting in Stoke-On-Trent in two weeks. And off I go I was just offered on a platter a project that I didn't really want to shoot at the beginning because there was already a project by Larry Sultan that had been done. And I was thinking, oh, it's been done before. I don't know if I really want to do this, but just let's go and have a look and let's see what I can make of it. So I went to Stoke-On-Trent, took pictures, and when I came back, I realised that the pictures were really funny and interesting and that I could really do something as well. So that's how it started. It started thanks to you, and the swingers party.

Mel: Well, I was there as a facilitator. That was it really. But what I thought was really amazing was that you really followed it through. It wasn't a one time only. You followed this team of people, you went to different locations, you recorded different shoots. You kind of became friends with them, didn't you? It was very journalistic. The images were just so intimate. And it was so wonderful because it wasn't glorifying anything, it just told a different story.

Sophie: Yeah, at the time, I mean, still today, I think there's a lot of criticism about the porn industry and I also had doubts when I went on shoots for the first time. But what I saw was a very, very different story. I saw people who really enjoyed what they were doing and they were treated really well and it was like a job like any other job and I had not really realised that. I remember the very first time one of the porn actors told me about his life in LA and how he was cooking in his living room and in his kitchen and I just couldn't picture him like that. And then I realised he's a human, he’s a normal person of course, he has a normal life outside of this. I really wanted to say It's Just Love, it’s a story of people doing it for the love of it and whatever their stories, it was just beautiful to witness their moments.

Mel: I think you humanised the industry or certainly that part of the industry. I’m sure it was terrifying going to the first shoot but then realising they were just humans, that really comes across in the images.

Sophie: Yeah, and maybe I was lucky because this was by all means not a representation of what the industry could be at the time or even could be today. But it's true, everyone was treated so respectfully and it was amazing to be around them. What I love in my job, I love being a chameleon I really love when I can just immerse myself into people's worlds and the porn industry is definitely an industry that you know no one has access to. So being able to be a fly on the wall, to witness their lives and be friends with them, I think that was just incredible. It kind of takes me out of the experience it makes me forget about my own life and I guess be more empathetic about their lives and what they're going through. And so with every single one of my projects, that's also what I'm trying to do. I Didn't Want To Be A Mum is a different one because it was about me. But with Achraf that's also what I'm trying to do. When I'm with him I'm really trying to understand what is his life and what he’s going through, his struggles and the beauty of what he's doing and and so for It's Just Love, it was the same thing.

I finished shooting the project in 2014 and I did an exhibition in Amsterdam for Unseen, and I was really lucky because I also ended up doing it in my own house which also at the time was not something that you would do. You would do exhibitions in galleries and not really in different settings. But I felt it was a really nice way to do it because I wanted to have a proper set design. I wanted it to feel like a boudoir I didn't want it to feel seedy in any way. I wanted it to feel beautiful. And the response was amazing. Yeah, so it was nine years ago and it was really my first breakthrough in the world of photography. Suddenly I went from like 800 followers on Instagram to 20,000 in like a week. It was published by Dazed and it was syndicated all over the world and then suddenly a lot of other newspapers wanted to publish the story which was absolutely incredible, I never had as much press. It really gave me a name it was really the beginning of me being a successful photographer which was absolutely incredible.

Mel: Is there something you would say to yourself when you decided to take the leap fourteen years ago?

Sophie: That's a good question… Trust the process and fall in love with the daily work. I think that's the hardest sometimes you know because you spend so much time working on these projects that after a while you have the feeling that everyone has seen those pictures that are on your computer when in fact it's only you who’s been editing them, retouching them, forever. There's really so much work that is done, prepping a project, shooting it, editing it. So I think falling in love with the process is good advice.

Mel: I love what you said about the daily work and I think that's a piece of advice that I should take as well. That sometimes it's the things that you do every day that help your creativity.

Sophie: It’s the small steps that you make every day that will end up being the bigger projects. And don't give up. I think the hardest thing is not to shoot. It's not to prep a project. It's not to be excited about it. The hardest thing is when you've completed your project to like, let's say 90% and you have the 10% remaining. That's the hardest step to take because you really have to carry on believing in it and believing that the world is going to like what you want to say. So yeah, push it through. There are so many projects that are still in people's computers that nobody's seen just just because of the fear and just because it's just so hard, those last few steps.

Mel: Yeah.. follow through.

Sophie: Follow through.

SOPHIE EBRARD