Getting Freaky with Artist Cameron Emory
We chatted with Cam following our recent photographic collaboration about her work and lens on art making in practice.
Inconclusive #3, 2026 - Archival inkjet print, 9.5" x 14"
A core tenant in founding Cosimo's is to live deeply within our community, and platform the artists working within it.
Following an intimate in store photoshoot with photographer Cameron Emory, Evan Skovronsky, a fellow photographer, caught up with Cam to discuss her process, concepts, and her first solo show at Cleo the Project Space that wrapped in June of this year. Cam is the kind of artist we love working with most, bridging the conceptual and commercial spaces to produce imagery that speaks to our audience but stands alone as a fine art image.
So we hope you enjoy our inaugural Artist Feature Interview on Cosmo's Moon. Please explore Cam's work in more detail and follow along as her career grows beyond Savannah.
Evan Skovronsky: Tell me a little bit about you, where you grew up, your move to Savannah and how you found your space there.
Cameron Emory: I'm from Atlanta. Well, I say Atlanta, but I'm actually from Alpharetta. Most of my upbringing was typical American, suburban kind of experience. So I think I really wanted to go to art school, especially nearing the end of high school, because I felt like I stood out where I was from.
I was really interested in photography when I was young. I took all kinds of darkroom classes. When I was a teenager, it was the one class I would actually make an effort at. SCAD was in-state and I learned about it in high school. I felt like Savannah specifically was such a peaceful environment and was so slow that it gave you time to kind of explore yourself.
And landing there, especially being so young, at 18 you don't know how to be an artist yet, I think I felt really comforted by Savannah. It was really comforting to be able to not feel like I was rushing or somewhere so unfamiliar while learning something so new.
I think in terms of finding my artistic space, I initially leaned a lot more on what I was comfortable with in terms of photography, but I didn't have as much knowledge about how the medium can look so different as I do now at 22.
ES: You mentioned the dark room in high school, and I know you shoot primarily film and medium format. What's kind of the voice behind wanting to do this kind of "older" and more expensive form of photography rather than just shooting digitally?
CE: Definitely more expensive.
It really makes you focus so much more on your skill and it slows you down a lot more than digital does. And I think that, turning to film made me a better photographer. It made me a better artist in general, because you have to have an understanding of this tool and of light in general. Photographers are artists of light. And I think... I didn't understand that until I got in a dark room.
I also think there's a quality to it that's really tactile and I've noticed in collaborating with other people, they seem to be drawn a lot more to film and how it comes out. It feels more approachable.
ES: You feel more connected.
CE: Yes, exactly. And I think... shooting with film, too, is a lot more disarming than digital because when I pull out the large format camera and I'm putting a blanket over my head, it's silly. I think it makes people feel special, too, that they're being documented in analog. We're having this kind of symbiotic relationship in a moment together.
ES: One of my favorite memories of you is on a shoot and the way you'd hold your breath and really-
Oh you're rolling your eyes, but you're so connected to it. It's apart of you
CE: Hahaha yeah, I think it's impossible not to be. Maybe this is just my experience, but there's such a satisfaction in that moment after you hold your breath and you take the image that you can exhale and everyone feels that release. You don't get that kind of, hold your breath, decisive moment feeling with a digital camera in the same way.
ES: I also think it's more of a challenging of your skills, because you can't see the photo and know you used your equipment correctly rather than having making adjustments digitally.
CE: For sure. I think it teaches you a lot too about messing up and being able to grow from your mistakes as a photographer. You can't rely on your tool to understand the settings for you. Especially now where I think we are inundated with creatives that are the top of their craft within photography and visual media. You see so many perfect photos. I think it's important to make bad photos and to do that through film so that you know there's a human hand in the process and there's human mistakes happening.
ES: I think it makes it higher stakes for everyone involved too, that I'm not just spamming the SD card with gigabytes and gigabytes of photos. That you have to sit and be intentional with everything. Each shot needs to be intentional because you have such a limited amount of them.
We've known each other for a while and I've followed a lot of your work, I would say you've always been a little bit freaky. Your Senior Showcase Source (Body) was stylistically different from the work I had seen from you before. The show was beautiful and freaky and strange, but really visceral. What was behind that shift? Then we can dive more into the process of how some of those came to be.
CE: In this past year especially, working with Cleo, which is a nonprofit art space. I was introduced to a lot of different artists and it opened my world to what it can mean to define yourself artistically. The mid-career to late-career artists I met were still evolving. They might be a called a photographer, but they still explored different mediums within their practices. And at the core of what they're doing is an ethos that moves them into so many different subject matters. This exposure had a deep impact on how I can make. For most of my initial years of college, I was really leaning on what I felt comfortable with exploring, which was fashion and portraiture. And I still love those things. I love them so much, but I think that, with this freakier side of myself and my interests, that it felt so much more expansive then just limiting myself to "how do I make this person look good?"
Asking myself, what am I confused by right now? What am I... attracted to. And I think in the end, there seemed to be a through line with the body.
ES: Yeah, it also feels like even in your older work that kind of ideology is there, but you arrived to the core of that idea with this body of work.
CE: It taught me a lot about seeing too, even in my everyday and in my personal life. Because I think in finding this root, I was able to apply it outside of my work. Like when I'm out with my friends and the light hits one of their shoulders in a compelling way. I was to explore how I see my surroundings and what I want to make permanent.
ES: Photography is not easy. But personally speaking, once you are comfortable within your skillset, portraiture can feel somewhat repetitive. But what you've made here, I would say looks incredibly challenging and resulted in images that feel distinct. So what exactly are they and how did you make them?
CE: In terms of subject matter, a lot of it was found in trips aquariums and grocery stores. I think I was looking for an otherworldly, ethereal feeling? I was also shooting a lot in macro. I shoot primarily film in my personal practice, but for this body of work, I was using digital because there are some tools that better fit the needs of the concept.
I got really into using a macro lens and a tilt shift lens, which is just another way of getting closer and distorting an image. What you're seeing, some of it was just food I had taken super, super up close, or some other images were reefs or the parts of starfish.
<3 2026 - Archival inkjet print, 24" x 20"
ES: Like <3
CE: Yes! The heart one is a jellyfish.
And I'm super into sci-fi and like Dune particularly.
ES: Yes!
CE: It's always Dune. I'm always chasing the feeling I got watching that.
ES: We've talked about this, I love Dune. I saw it in the Pooler, Georgia, The world's tallest IMAX, best experience ever.
CE: Yes! Oh my gosh.
I can't tell you how it felt to watch that first scene too where they're going up the side of the mountain. So I'm always looking for things that feel kind of alien in that way and a bit scientific. Achieving that connection using fish felt appropriate.
Untitled 1 & Untitled 2 2026 - UV resin print on acrylic, 36" x 24"
ES: That's really interesting. I felt the essence of a fish but I couldn't prove it. But... And then I'm assuming Untitled 1 and 2, is that a mouth?
CE: Yes, those are tongues. The umbrella theme of the project was the body. So throughout the process, I photographed and abstracted lots of different parts of the body. I love to take photos of mouths and tongues. I like images that are kind of sexual in nature. But for this show specifically, I was thinking about how our bodies parallel to a fish's body. How we can create connections between the bodies around us by abstracting them. This can help us to understand, okay, when I come back to myself this fish anemone could be similar and also just as beautiful as the underside of my tongue. And maybe that connection isn't made on first glance and maybe it's gross and maybe it looks a bit disturbing, but I think that is what is exciting to me. That these things can connect and disturb, but they can also be attractive and ethereal, I guess.
ES: I want to talk about Potential. I feel like that was one of the first works that I've seen from you that moved away from strictly photography.
Potential 2026 - Archival inkjet print on silk, light box, 20" x 24"
CE: This piece was super fun to work on because I did a lot of printing on fabric this past year while I studied fibers and textiles. In my initial exploration with textiles I couldn't quite put my finger on how I wanted to incorporate the practice with photography. It felt very separate. And I think printing my photos on fabrics and using them as soft sculptural objects bridged the gap between media. With these simple elements of light box and magnets and my photograph printed on fabric, I was able to make something that felt like it's own being. And I think even in the title, I think the image is, or at least reminded me of, cells in my body. It also feels egg adjacent, and having it backed by this light box, it's very medical in nature. Pushing this theme of the tactile body, or even the bigger question of life itself.
And connecting our bodies to producing life and the ability to create life. Not just as a woman, but as a species you know?
ES: That one was always my favorite and I just I want one.
CE: I will make you one king.
ES: So what's next for you? I know we spoke about this before joining, but you want to move to LA and all of that, but artistically, is there anything you want to focus on now? Do you want to expand upon that work or?
CE: I think I really want to dig deeper into my own practice as an artist, generally speaking, and not rely as heavily on photography. I would especially love to try glass and welding, processes I can build with my hands. This first solo show was only a first iteration of this idea. And I still think there's a lot about it to explore that I don't necessarily understand.
I think it will come with more practice and making. Yeah, I really want to keep working in fine art and dip my toes in curating and working with the galleries. I think, that engaging in art critically and being an observer as much as I am a maker has been so, so impactful to my life.
That's definitely the route I would like to go. Not to say that I don't want to keep shooting fashion and portraiture.
ES: Hire Cam, everybody.
I know you just shot for us here at Cosimo. I love the black and white kind scans. Even with these you're still exploring. Different poses and shapes of the legs. I can still see the through line through some of those images as well. So what was that day like?
CE: It was so much fun. Emily is so, so kind and she has such a calm presence. And I think, That's always such an exciting moment to have with someone who is willing to be in conversation with you while you're shooting them. And it felt like hanging out more than I was shooting them.
I felt that even having her parents there, it felt so vulnerable, and I wanted everyone to feel comfortable like, it's not a gun, it's a camera.
ES: I'm shooting you, but it's not a gun.
CE: Bye. No, my love, it's just photos.
Her family was just as warm as she was. And I think the space too, photographed so well. She did such a great job decorating it and making it feel that, yes, it is a retail store, but I also think it's a home.
There's a lounge kind of essence to it where you can be there and it's inviting.
ES: Well the photos turned out incredible, and so did this interview. Thank you so much for agreeing to do this and being one of our first!
CE: Thank you for having me!
