Taylor O'Sullivan Talks Film and Photography in This Week's Episode
The Laguna Beach local has traveled around the world filming documentaries. This summer, she opened a pop-up gallery called CULTERRA, which featured photography from her trips with a focus on nature. CULTERRA, meaning “culture of earth” in Latin, closed its pop-up gallery in July, but you can still see O’Sullivan’s fine art photography in person at Pure Design House through the fall. “I lived in Europe and Asia and loved it, but I kept trying to find somewhere better than Southern California, and I couldn’t,” she says. “It’s such a gift that I don’t take for granted.”
How did you get into photography?
I’ve worked as a documentary filmmaker for the last 15 years … and I’ve shot in 60 countries. That’s how most of this collection came about. Generally, I’m working in really remote, exotic places, often in nature. I would wake up an hour before my call time, and I would walk around by myself and shoot a roll of film for fun.
How did CULTERRA come about?
When I started making documentaries, people had really long attention spans. If you made an hour-anda-half-long documentary, people would sit down and watch it. But in the last four or five years, the attention spans are just shorter. I was feeling more drawn to creating something a little more permanent. So instead of a 10-second video, I want to create a piece of art that PHOTOGRAPH BY TIMOTHY SEKIGUCHI culterra.art you’ll have on your wall for 10 years. The common thread for the whole collection in the gallery is about slowing down. I made a very intentional step in slowing down my creative process—shifting from purely digital to bringing it back to the basics, shooting in 35mm film and medium format film, and having to wait two weeks to see if anything turned out.
What inspires you when you’re shooting?
I have been calling it “the art of noticing.” The collection is all about engaging with nature, it’s all around us, and it’s up to us if we decide to notice it. (A piece in the collection called) “Dharma” is the underside of a king oyster mushroom. I love the way that it’s a simple thing that we see all the time; my whole intention is finding the beauty in the nature that’s all around us. I was shooting for a luxury resort in Thailand, and they have an organic farm on the island. We were getting a tour and shooting some footage for them, and they had a mushroom cave where they grow these incredible culinary mushrooms. A farmer held one up to me, and it was just a quick shot. I went to my computer later that night and was just completely struck and was excited to find something that felt powerful in a lot of ways.
How did you come to work with Katy Perry?
I met my husband during COVID-19, and we both had been working in the film industry in different sectors. Katy Perry was a long-term client of his, and they are close friends. When we first started dating, she wanted to meet me. We all ended up working really well together. My husband will do most of her video work, and I’ll do most of her photography work.
