Nicole Anne Robbins took us by storm earlier this year when she blessed us with her The Virgins -editorial and film. Her raw and unpolished style stood out and served us a kind of closeness and honesty that is often overlooked in fashion photography. Her next piece for us is a film that confirms her stylistic approach, and manifests what her work is essentially about: emotions and a personal almost untouched connection with her subjects.
Most of Nicole Anne’s work is a reflection of her personal relationship with her models. This is also the case in her second fashion film for Ben Trovato, Our First Love. “- I had shot with Tamara & Samantha before, both of them together, and I realized they were the “Juliets” I had been searching for, my two girls who are like soul-mates, like twins who are also lovers…. magnets together.”
Nicole Anne says the film is really about herself and her relationship with her twin sister: “- I was born with my soulmate. She has been my reason to keep breathing, my willpower, my strength, my rock. I would die for her, I would try anything to please her and I cry for her, and she weeps when I weep.”
“My twin is my first love, and it is very hard to compete with any first love. A person who knows me inside so deeply that a glance or a certain look can replace a thousand words.”
She tells us the shoot was a dark and emotional affair: “- Working with them the day of the shoot was interesting, because I was so in my own headspace that afternoon, which admittedly was a dark one, and the girls were just so brilliant at respecting my darkness, because I needed to pull from them certain emotions. I needed them to cry, and they really did, or at least in the raw footage I as a young director felt sympathy and could not detach, haha, and stopped filming and asked Samantha if she was OK.”
But it wasn’t all acting, Nicole Anne explains: “- Tamara was heading back home the following day, so the film and the directions I was giving them was very true to their real life emotions at the time because they were going to be separated within 24 hours of filming this. They were very filled with sadness and elation, and it was my job to capture it but also to reign it where it needed to go.”
Since her last editorial on Ben Trovato, she’s been working in New York on small films and editorials, trying to understand her own personal brand: “- Being on Ben Trovato helped me realize, because of the response I got, that really what I am doing that I love and what others love, is the connection I can get from a group of models, or a pair. Having them connect to me as a photographer and director, and also with each other. And really since my last editorial on BT, what has happened is life.”
“I think we begin as artists because we hurt, but to last as an artist we need to survive by being alive and thankful for what we have learned from our pain. move on, and keep creating. And right now I am in survival mode, yet as passionate as ever.”
Credits
Director and Photographer - Nicole Anne Robbins
Models - Tamara & Samantha @ Muse NY
