Her Story

Gia Coppola

On finding beauty in flaws.

I remember being in high school and my classmates had to define me in three adjectives, and the one that stuck out the most was quirky, and I got kind of offended by that at the time. But now I feel like it’s true and everything that feels appealing to me has a bit of a quirk to it. A weird, unusual weirdness. A bit of goofiness. I like the kind of haphazardness of life and those fleeting in-between moments that are less constructed and posed. That allows magic to happen.

I don’t try to preconceive things too much. It’s more about letting my composition have a bit of a narrative to it and allowing flaws to happen. Perfectionism is unattainable and just a level of being controlling, so when I notice that I’m kind of white-knuckling or grabbing on too tightly, I think of it as a reminder that I need to loosen my grip. Because it’s happier in the long run. I feel like that’s sort of the goal [of everything I create], to make it feel candid and a little bit messy. Make it more tangible and relatable. I guess the essence is just to follow instincts and play.

“I like the kind of haphazardness of life and those fleeting in-between moments that are less constructed and posed. That allows magic to happen.”

I’ll look at other photographers, or movies or even in books, and draw out what excites me at that moment. Then I investigate how to apply it on what’s in front of me, to wherever I am emotionally, and to what kind of catharsis I’m looking for. Sometimes it’s about a technical challenge that I haven’t tried to execute yet. I constantly ask myself ‘how can I be challenged and learn in new ways?’.

They say with every artist, a great sort of motto is to steal from the best. So, to learn, I try to execute something that I admire. But actually, there’s no way that I could entirely execute something in the same way as someone else. But by trying, I find my own version of that vision and a new direction.