Clashing Patterns: Francesca Tallone

Today is the official launch of Patternclash, the site of photographer Francesca Tallone. We’ve been working together on the site in bits and pieces over the summer and amidst a few domain and host issues, have everything sorted out.

Francesca has in the last year, been featured as part of Surface Magazine’s Avant Guardian portfolio — a selection of stateside photographers who are recognized as pushing the boundaries of commercial photography.

The way I approach designing photography sites tends to be clean and minimal — sites that don’t draw attention to the site design itself but let the work speak for itself, especially with such a specific focus that a photo has. The site should support the work by being functional and concise. I believe this is the result.

Francesca Tallone has been a pleasure to work with and I’m also glad to call her a friend. She agreed to let me ask her a few questions regarding her work.

1. Why the name Patternclash?
   Patternclash just seemed to be a theme in my life, sometimes literally and other times it was just a concept that seemed to make sense in a lot of situations.
2. What drives the photography?
   Well I tried being a painter for a while but couldn’t really get into the life. I’m just not a very messy person. But I’d been taking pictures since I was a kid and always felt really good about it, and when I started printing colour in University I realised that what I had been doing wrong with painting was that I was not printing colour photos.
3. It seems you have a passion for fashion and it shows — how does it affect the photography side of things?
   I didn’‘t really think about the fashion side of things in my pictures until I actually started actively pursuing the Avant Guardian, which was only a few years ago. Before that I rarely took pictures with people, fashion or not. But I’ve always been intrigued and a bit unnerved by fashion and I think it’s a really interesting challenge to shoot it because it’s not static, like a building or a sidewalk, which is sort of what I was shooting before pretty clothes.
4. Current favourite 5 songs.
   Soon To Be Innocent Fun/Let’s See, Arthur Russell
   Move On Up, Curtis Mayfield (ALWAYS one of my favorites)
   Dignified and Old, The Modern Lovers
   Love Me or Leave Me, Ruth Etting
   Tunic (Song for Karen), Sonic Youth / Making Plans for Nigel, XTC (tie)

Take a look at Patternclash.