After a 15-year-long career as a dancer, The Juilliard School graduate Luis Alberto Rodriguez turned to photography, skyrocketing to the top of the fashionsphere. His beautiful, romantic images, which include Vogue and I-D covers and Ami campaigns, have made him one of the best practitioners of his generation. But pigeonholing Rodriguez as a fashion photographer wouldn't do justice to this protean artist.

In his latest book, simply titled ‘O’, there are no clothes to be seen. Just bodies, naked, swaying and falling to the floor, half-dance, half-trance. Bodies of varying shape, size and identity, including plus-size figures whose skin folds ripple and wrinkled bodies that convey the unavoidable ravages of old age. The subjects, which include his father, seldom stare at the camera, and the backdrop; spare and grey, heighten the purity and bare essentials feel of the book. Interspersed are pictures of coffee-stained cups, a reference to tasseography, at which the author's mother excelled, which add to the spiritual force of the work. In this exclusive interview, the American-Dominican artist tells us more about this new endeavour.

How did the idea for the book come about?

In 2020, when everything locked down, I was stuck in Berlin while my family was in New York. The nonstop news of doom and gloom was as if a train was chasing me and I could not run fast enough. It was frightening and exhausting. I was particularly nervous for my father who has underlying health issues. Eventually, we started to better understand and live with this panic. It became a moment of reflection and contemplation for many of us. I began thinking of my own mortality, the state of denial I was in, and the unknown that always awaits us. The initial conception of this new body of work stemmed from this aching and nagging feeling that had infiltrated my everyday life during that period.

How did the project take shape?

I made this work over a period of two and a half years, shooting between New York and Berlin. I did not give myself any deadlines and did not really know what would come out of this. I just kept chasing that feeling that was pressing on me from what felt like all sides. After having a catch up with Sarah and Lewis from my publishers Loose Joints in the fall of 2022, we decided to move ahead and shape what became 'O' for the following spring.

Can you tell us more about the casting process?

I initially worked with friends and those close to me. From there, I started to understand better what I was looking for. Each new photo session revealed something new about the work, shaped my interests and carried me forward. I'd ask my friends to recommend others who might be interested in taking part. Those people would recommend others and so forth. In a way it became a chain of encounters; a few degrees of separation between people. It was really incredible for me to meet everyone.

Your subjects often look like dancers caught mid-performance. How much did you use choreography?

My interest is rarely in creating dance photography. I use my dance background to inform what it is I am doing and have it as a tool. For this project, I wanted to put the people I was working with in a state of deep listening. To create 360-degree awareness in their physicality and the surrounding space. When I felt we were close to that sensitivity, I'd use their physicality and encourage them to get lost, lose control, collapse. There was no one-size-fits-all formula as each person required different directions from me. I found that very exciting.

There is a strong sense of decay in the images. Can you explain this?

I've been feeling as if there is a large source of energy, let's call it gravity for the purpose of this book, that has been slapping us around and shaping us in ways that at times make us unrecognisable to ourselves. The past few years feel like gravity has been unsettling us like quicksand. The ground feels shaky and unsteady and there are no guarantees that we will be okay. How much collective will do we have to resist the trajectory of an eventual collapse? I am interested in the juxtaposition between the illusion of power and the reality that we all eventually have the same address. Documenting a process of collapse was a core motivation when working on this project.

Are there references to Irving Penn in the spareness of the images?

The great Irving Penn is generally a fountain of inspiration for me. His exquisite eye, so gentle and so beautiful, move me tremendously. There is an unparalleled elegance in his work that is an extension of a man who was perpetually devoted to his craft. He honoured the people he photographed. From the most mundane objects to the most iconic people, the subject is figuratively and literally front and centre; a study on humanity. The environment I created was a place for my subjects to land. A place of common ground.

Your work is very poetic but also often has humour. This time, the humour is less apparent. Was that also deliberate?

Thank you. I never aim to be humorous but it makes me happy to hear you find humour in my work. Humour was definitely not top of my agenda when I was working on this particular body of work. More than anything, feelings of chaos, confusion, desperation, surrender, and resilience occupied my headspace during the creation of 'O'.

How would you compare the experiences of shooting ‘People of the Mud’ and ‘O’?

My first book ‘People of the Mud’ was the result of a residency I was awarded by the Hyères festival to go to Ireland and create work. For that residency, I was given a specific topic to work with. It is a very important body of work for me as it was the first time I worked on a longer project where I was sent to a place which was a very different culture than what I have been around most of my life. I worked with a community of people who received me with open arms and the resulting work became a book.

In contrast, 'O' was a project of my own undertaking, where I let my own curiosity and desires lead me. I originally thought I'd be working on 'O' for many years but then started to feel I had gotten to a place with it where it could be shaped into book form. In both works, however, I worked very closely with my subjects to create a space of trust and intimacy where they feel free to share themselves with me. From that standpoint, ‘People of the Mud’ is a direct precursor to 'O'.

‘O’ by Luis Alberto Rodriguez is published by Loose Joints. Find out more here.