Perceiving Perfect - Photographer Zuzu Valla
Ashford photographer Zuzu Valla finds beauty where others might not and it has led her to international recognition, writes Marijke Hall
In a world obsessed with how we look and evidently little shame in vanity, we all need a bit of Zuzu Valla (@zuzu.valla) in our lives.
She’s the antithesis of what we see shared daily across social media and celebrity news outlets, which can chip away at your soul. Filters, edits and the ‘perfect’ beauty, which brings with it sycophantic fawning and a plethora of likes.
No, Slovakian photographer Zuzu’s concept of beauty is quite the opposite.
It’s refreshingly beautiful, in fact, something that is translated through her pictures and not lost on the big hitters such as Vogue Portugal, British Vogue and L’Officiel, in which her work has been featured.
Her images are striking, at times haunting and, admittedly, often weird.
Most of them feature females. Some are disabled. There’s one woman missing an eye, another a leg. There’s overweight, older, there’s freckles and there’s some real extravagant hair and make-up going on.
Some looks are inspired by Renaissance art, another - a shoot for avant-garde womenswear brand IA London - depicting patients from a psychiatric hospital.
They all rebel against what many in society believe to be beautiful.
Zuzu, who lives in Ashford, admits that from the start she was drawn to more unique models and even stops people in the street to ask if she can use them in her shoots.
“Someone might have big ears or big eyes and I think it’s beautiful, I can’t really explain it,” she says. “Everybody is beautiful and I see beauty in different things.
“Lots of filters and make-up, though, it doesn’t talk to me at all. It’s beauty, but I don’t find it interesting.
“I feel like I’m drawn to unique things that can be seen as a bit weird. Where you can see the story but without the words.”
The 40-year-old was brought up in a traditional Slovak family, with a boxing champion dad and stay-at-home mum.
Her grandfather was an amateur photographer, but she didn’t pick up a camera herself until the age of 29 after becoming frustrated with the quality of pictures on her phone.
She taught herself with the help of YouTube and support from her photographer friends and husband.
“I used to get really upset when they said I’d done a bad composition or was doing it wrong,” she laughs. “I’d think ‘How dare they?’ but they were right.
“Now I can tell how much they have helped me by giving me real feedback - it really pushed me to do even better.”
And she really has proved this, most notably by winning the #VogueChallenge, a social media phenomenon that challenges readers to create their own cover, with winners chosen by editor-in-chief Edward Enninful.
Her image was of model twins Leah and Chloe Barnes wearing full fabric masks made by Anvita Sharma, the designer behind Two Point Two.
Zuzu had already been doing editorial shoots and had met Sharma during London Fashion Week.
“She texted me and said ‘I’d like to work with you one day’ and I said ‘That would be nice’ and she says ‘OK I’m in London now, I’m leaving for India in three days, can we do it?’.
“I organised the photoshoot in my living room and had to find a make-up artist and someone to do hair. I had literally one day to do it all.
“We did all the pictures of her collection and when we were packing up we realised we’d forgotten to do the masks and I said ‘Let’s quickly do it’. We almost didn’t.
“This was two months before lockdown when masks weren’t even a thing.”
The image was then selected as one of 10 by British Vogue for its cover challenge.
“This is probably my proudest moment as there were 100,000 images submitted, maybe even more,” says Zuzu. “I was jumping and screaming, I was so happy.
“Lots of filters and make-up, though, it doesn’t talk to me at all. It’s beauty, but I don’t find it interesting”
“Then the editor of British Vogue, she sent me an email saying they would like to do an interview.
“I think this started it all off for me, really, because then I approached Vogue Portugal and had my images there. I felt like the dream had really started.”
It was this editorial shoot, using disabled models for a Vogue Portugal piece entitled The Plasticity of Being, that she holds in her heart most dearly.
“I feel like we only see the ‘beautiful’ models,” she explains. “Why can’t disabled people be models, too, wearing expensive clothes like Gucci? And so this shoot we felt like we’d done it, we were changing the industry and changing people’s minds - hopefully.
“It was my favourite shoot as I feel like I did it for them, too.”
She says one of the models, a 24-year-old woman, had her eye removed due to a rare form of cancer called retinoblastoma. Despite having a prosthetic, she embraces having her picture taken without it in place.
“I thought she was so beautiful without that eye, it made her so unique and stand out,” says Zuzu.
“I looked at her and she is so comfortable in her body, I just thought it came from inside.
“It’s like if you see a model who is overweight, for example, but they are happy with themselves, you feel the energy and you feel so good with them.
“You can be with someone who is very beautiful but the girl doesn’t think so and so you feel that energy instead and it’s not the same.
“A picture is not just about the picture, it’s about the person.”
Despite her success with photography, Zuzu works part-time at Premier Foods in Ashford, mainly, she says, because she really likes it there.
She started out 12 years ago as a food taster and now is in development.
As for her photography, she gains most of her work through fashion editorials and when a designer wants her to shoot their collections. She says she loves shooting magazines, with a dream to feature in i-D and Wonderland.
She is also exhibiting in Paris and Iran for Unicef after being contacted by a photographer impressed by her work.
Her passion, though, is to shine a light on disabled models and she is in the process of planning future shoots.
So what about her inspiration? There’s got to be someone who ignited her passion.
“There’s my grandfather and also a Slovakian photographer called Evelyn Bencicova who I really admire.”
Zuzu admits being in England has helped, too, being a place, she believes, that is more open and forward-thinking than her home country of Slovakia.
“For example, my father, he says he is very proud of me, but he says he doesn’t understand who would like my images because they’re terrible,” she laughs.
“I’m not upset because I understand. I sometimes worry too that people might look at my pictures and think I’m a bit crazy.”
INFO: zuzuvalla.com
