Photo Shoot As a Self-Exploratory Ritual
Featuring Rachel Israela as part of partnership with Connected Archives
Rachel is working as duo with Fede Reyes Rachel’s images are available for licensing on Connected Archives Website
Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski
Rachel Israela is a portrait and fashion photographer who lives and works between Berlin and Mexico City and forms a duo with Fede Reyes. Rachel is a photo editor and a part of Connected Archives. Her work is playful, researching the joys of life, the mundane, relationships between people, self-awareness, and an individual's
connection to their immediate environment. Her commercial projects performed as a duo with Fede in the sphere of fashion photography are fierce, powerful, and inclusive. Working with models is a process that focuses on allowing the protagonist's personality to emerge and become an active participant in the shot.
We speak with Rachel about her decision to pursue photography after studying sound and light engineering and being part of a music collective. Her love for the process has to do with the tangibility of a photograph and the possibility to influence the end result throughout the way, from making the image to working on it in the lab. Rachel explains her passion for photography “That's one of my favorite parts — doing the handprints. I enjoy bringing the images I had in my head and then seeing them on glossy paper. It's a peaceful workflow.” Rachel speaks about the formation of a duo with Fede Reyes and their work together, merging the best of two worlds and their unique and complementing skill sets on set. With Connected Archives, Rachel offers her images for licensing and manages artists around the world.
WÜL Magazine partnered with Connected Archives, an international collective of established and award-winning artists, for the interview series. In the series, we discuss with artists their practice and how it developed, the establishment of their vision, and their relationship with photography. Connected Archives is a global community of photographers created by Daniel Gebhart De Koekkoek. The community supports emerging and established artists and provides an opportunity to offer exclusive and published images for licensing for commercial and editorial usage.
‘I enjoy bringing the images I had in my head and then seeing them on glossy paper. It's a peaceful workflow, and even small mistakes, like light rays that hit the paper or an expired paper, are always beautiful and unexpected.’
Way Into Photography
Choosing photography as a career path usually comes from passion and love for this medium. You studied Photography in Lette Verein Berlin after finishing your studies in B.I. Raschplatz e.V. majoring in a different sphere. What led you to decide to focus on photography? How did you work to build yourself in this sphere?
Before Studying at Lette Verein, I learned sound and light engineering in a multi-cultural center (B.I. Raschplatz e.V). I think that helped me a lot with building the light set ups for our shoots. I'm also a nerd when it comes to technical things you can do with your hands. After that, I was part of a music and design collective focusing on electronic music for several years. I worked with the collective on numerous projects and exhibitions worldwide and had an opportunity to see so many places in the world and also got a chance to shoot in these places. I carried my medium format film camera everywhere with me and was able to put in practice my documenting skills.
I have loved taking pictures since I was a child. My father had an old SLR camera and captured every moment of our childhood with it. I'm really thankful for that. Today everything is captured mostly with phones and stored in clouds, it's easy to lose the tactile relationship to what you observe and photograph, and sometimes you assign less value to an image or a moment. I was always fascinated by this medium and had so much fun having an actual hard copy of a moment in my hands.
My photo school was super technical, and I always liked working with my hands, so I stuck to shooting on film because of the look and also the work afterward in the photo lab doing handprints which is much more immersive. That's one of my favorite parts — doing the handprints. I enjoy bringing the images I had in my head and then seeing them on glossy paper. It's a peaceful workflow, and even small mistakes, like light rays that hit the paper or an expired paper, are always beautiful and unexpected. Sometimes I work with stencils and different pre-flashing settings to get an exact color as an extra element — skin tones look great with this.
‘Fede and I decided to work as a duo, and it turned out great. We had a fulfilling feeling to create something together as artists.’
Available for licensing on Connected Archives
Studio Reyes & Israela
You work in a duo with Fede Reyes on most of the commercial projects and fashion editorials, such as the recent editorials for Zeit Magazine, SLEEK Magazine, and Contributor. How did you meet and decide to form the duo?
Fede and I met three years ago at a friend's finissage. We only knew each other's faces from being represented by the same agency in Berlin back then. From that point on, we started seeing each other both as friends and collaborators until we realised our compatibility was obviously beyond just our craft. Fede is also obsessed with using film and has a formation in cinematography, so we can nerd about movies obsessively. We seamlessly merged our aesthetics and way of life and have been living together at our home studio ever since, splitting our time between Germany and Mexico, where Fede is from.
The first shoot we did was in a castle in east Germany with a bunch of friends from the fashion field. The payment for the location was actually working on the CBD farm near the castle a few weeks earlier before the shoot. It was insane, it was in November 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, with a few friends, and we barely slept. Living and working in such a massive and royal-looking castle felt very dreamlike. After that shoot, Fede and I decided to work as a duo, and it turned out great. We had a fulfilling feeling to create something together as artists. We sometimes have to be careful that we don't work around the clock but also take time off and do something completely different. At work, we actually do everything together. We don't have anything divided between us, from moods to shooting on set, we both do everything, and we complement each other very well. For example, if one of us is completely focused and only looking through the viewfinder and the other one discovers something new, we simply swap cameras for a moment, and new perspectives and ideas emerge. We then work with two brains and four eyes, so to speak, which is always very satisfying.
‘The act itself, putting together the photo shoot, is what really gets me going. The end result is, of course, rewarding, but the process of working with people, tools, knowledge, contact with the materials we use, and interaction with the environment is a self-exploratory ritual.’
The Angle
You focus mainly on fashion and portraiture that meets the viewer with a certain twist. Authenticity and personality in a mundane environment are presented in a very high-end fashion-oriented approach. Tell us about your work with models, direction on set, and the stylistic choices that are important for you to be part of when working on a story.
I love to create situations, staged or documented. The act itself, putting together the photo shoot, is what really gets me going. The end result is, of course, rewarding, but the process of working with people, tools, knowledge, contact with the materials we use, and interaction with the environment is a self-exploratory ritual. Directing the protagonists on set feels pretty natural to me. I always try to get a feeling of the vibe of the person to make sure not to force anyone into anything just because it's a vision. It should be an exchange from both sides to get the most honest result. Even during long shooting days, we always try to keep our intuition awake, look out for anything that feels stagnant, and find a way to refresh the energy of the team.
Connected Archives
What is the additional value that being part of Connected Archives allows you to pursue (as connected to your vision, technique, or themes you process)?
It has been a great opportunity to develop people skills and art direction criteria also on the business side which can definitely be a bumpy road for creatives. I feel very thankful to have such an exchange with other visual artists through this. Some of my own images would just not be seen by such a big audience. It's a great way to show a wide spectrum of your art.
As a photo editor, I also take care of the artist management for CA, and this gives me a unique insight into other ways of working with this craft. Most of the photographers we have on board are living in different countries across the planet, and this affects their way of working and creating. It's very enriching to talk to them and see how they see the world through their cameras, reviewing their photos, and curating their work online. Especially when it comes to noticing small things like natural light — it renders completely differently depending on what part of the world you're in. The light in Northern Europe has a very different quality than the light in Santa Monica or Hong Kong.
Available for licensing on Connected Archives
‘Fede is the best in researching and can dig for days about the most abstract or obscure themes — we have an amazing exchange.’
Next Project
What is the next project we will see from you, and what topic are you developing?
Well, Fede and I are working on several things, but look out for an upcoming personal publication we are developing with some amazing beauty artists in the realms of dark fantasy. Besides that, we always try to develop concepts for future shoots. Fede is the best in researching and can dig for days about the most abstract or obscure themes — we have an amazing exchange. I can't disclose more than this as we like to keep the energy of things enclosed within the project itself. Once you start talking too much about a work in progress, it loses its spark.
