Marla Rutherford

Photographer Marla Rutherford integrates psychology with art-photography, rendering the dynamic forces in fixed images, and in this film she discusses her work and personal motivations behind it.

Rutherford’s stylized and dramatic images are striking, including subjects such as celebrities and fetish models to children, convicts and more. She started taking photos a long time ago, but didn’t start thinking about it professionally until after finishing college, having studied psychology at Boston University. An introverted personality by nature, Rutherford was always taking pictures in college and soon found that photography was the best medium for her; because photography gave her an excuse to really get to know people that she otherwise would be to shy to approach.

Her images show a surreal realm that brings together groups of people from completely different worlds, using a style close to advertising photography, which is intended to seduce the viewer. By the distinct originality of her work it is clear that Rutherford hones in on the perceptions, cognitions and characteristics of photography and its production. With photography you only have to see, you don’t have to say, and Rutherford does this extremely well, without the use of any narrative or analytical methods. The seductive power of her photographs lies in the suggestion that it is possible for us to become pure intensities of feeling. We therefore connect to her photographs out of a desire for a direct experience of something that is not ourselves.

There is no sign of staged photography as Rutherford has departed from classic orderliness and stillness in her photographic style, transcending the property of natural accident to portray indifference, isolation and unawareness. However, the so-called natural accident is Rutherford’s intent, and always under her control.

Rutherford’s candid images are the trophies of a skilled photographer who looks for the unusual in the world of what actually exists and discovered something exceptionally good, showing us momentary phases isolated in time and space from the action and setting of which they are a part.