on how to make greed look good

Therese Öhrvall and Joel Jägerroos, the photographers behind the fine-art photography team Therese + Joel, describe their style as dramatic, suggestive, a bit cold, and rather dark. Shooting “Greed” for Spirit & Flesh in a Staten Island mansion, they worked with cats, dogs, models, and thousands of dollars’ worth of clothing and accessories to create these beautifully haunting images.

Therese + Joel feel their early influences come from the extremes in the weather conditions of their childhood environments: Therese is from Stockholm, Sweden, and Joel from the Finnish Arctic Circle, which they describe as “pitch black and hypothermia-cold most of the time of the year, while the sun never sets during the summers.” Early on, they appreciated the beauty within those contrasts.

They met in 2006 while studying in Paris and soon transferred to Parsons in New York City. While helping each other on shoots, they noticed similarities in their style, and professors encouraged their collaboration, which resulted in their partnership after graduation in 2010.

Common interests and friendship enable this team to work smoothly and without ego clashes. Even in disagreement they trust each other’s opinions and input; they often discover that they have been thinking about the same idea. The “result” of the team effort is what drives them to refine a style shaped by European cinema, particularly Ingmar Bergman, and contemporary directors like David Lynch and Almodovar. Old-school Hollywood starlets and Helmut Newton’s work inspired the “Greed” story, evoking Amazon women using beauty as a tool of dominance.

Before a shoot, Therese + Joel share and develop ideas through “moodboarding”: pulling images from books and magazines as references for the lighting and feeling they aim to achieve. During photography, they stress communication with and direction of their subjects, casting models as actors portraying a story. And as entrepreneurs, they assume many roles: producer, technician, graphic designer, creative director, retoucher, accountant. Editing and post-production take up most of their time.

Therese + Joel wished to express “Greed” lavishly, as a sin of excess. As the luxury of such creative freedom is not always guaranteed, they support themselves with mainstream work while contemplating such lofty dream projects as nudes of Devendra Banhart in the Grand Canyon, or a series with Willem Dafoe in Moscow; humbler plans include acquiring a larger studio with snake plants, a cat and, alas, a stocked fridge.  And much like the rest of us, they admit that the strangest experience of their lives has been: “having someone break your heart”.