From Tumblr to TikTok: Anna Koblish is the photographer with digital influence at her fingertips
Welcome to CHEW THE FAT WITH…, our long-form profile series where we invite you to sit down with fashion’s next generation as they dig deep into their memories. To chew some fat - defined as an informal conversation brimming with small talk - we encourage you to pull up a chair and take a big old bite as we spill the tea on the life and work of the industry’s need-to-knows. Just remember to mop up after yourself.
“I want to make you feel hot!” declares 23-year-old photographer ANNA KOBLISH. Whether it’s in the hands of paparazzi or our selfie generation, the camera has remained an ego-boosting constant on the human quest for vanity. These days social validation on IG is about as universally desired as oxygen, but for the Philadelphia-born, New York-based creative, photography isn’t about pouting duck-lips or catfish clout. To Koblish, the medium is a weapon of self-esteem that can chip away insecurities one click at a time. Embracing mental health drawbacks, she is impressively candid about life behind the lens; noting how perfectionism blurs personal objectivity and warps pride.
Distortion, rather aptly, is a running theme in Koblish’s photosets that stretch, bend and snap margins in contemporary image-making. As saturated colours trickle across TikTok filters, her electric style seems almost prophetic, ahead of its time. She blends spontaneity and surrealism like a visual sorceress, mixing her cauldron of a mind with rich influences like DAVID LACHAPELLE, MOWALOLA and AMBER ASALY. Once a Tumblr success story, Koblish put down the camera in high school, fearing that her hobby was deemed drastically uncool. Some years, a product design degree at PARSONS and a little pandemic curiosity later, Koblish’s work has switched into a dynamic new style. On the video call she rummages around a mannequin-laden studio then holds up clippings of old shoots; her face alight with a nostalgic grin, enthusiasm quaking through the screen. A variable that never changed in her photography hiatus – not even slightly – has been passion.
Alice May Stenson: How did you first get into photography?
Anna Koblish: When I was like 13, I was a real big Tumblr kid. Obviously that was all about images – I was totally obsessed with it, I spent basically every day on the website. For photography in general I don’t think there was ever a moment of decision or a sudden flip, where I was like, “I want to do this!” It was just something that felt really natural to me, which sounds super cliché but that's the truth. It was never a choice. I took it seriously for a while and taught myself bootleg Photoshop. Then when I hit high school, I was doing straight up Tumblr photography. My aesthetic was abandoned buildings, so kind of dark, but colourwise it was super pastel. You know the cottagecore scene that was happening back in 2015?
AMS: You mean the flower crown era?
AK: Yes, exactly that vibe! But when I got to high school, I eventually stopped altogether. The older kids were commenting negative things on my photography page and back then I really wanted to fit in and be “normal” so beyond that I didn’t really shoot at all. I barely did anything creative, which is crazy. I figured out that I really wanted to go to art school in my senior year of high school. I started product design at Parsons. As my senior year came about during the pandemic that’s when I picked up a camera again for the first time.
AMS: So why do you prefer photography to product design? They’re both creative outlets.
AK: There's this very specific thing in me that I find hard to describe. It relates to fashion and music. I’ll try to explain: Whenever I hear a song I’ll be able to instantly see the music video for it in my head. I’ll see the colours and I’ll picture the dance moves. It’s holistic image-making. See, in college I could see myself working on video shoots and fashion but I didn’t know how I’d fit an exact role like set designer, for example, I had no idea of the capacity but I knew I belonged there. Which is nuts because all of my work throughout college always revolved around image, I guess I never considered that photography could be an actual career option. This now makes the most sense to me over product design. I love making someone look beautiful or interesting or cool. Or an image that's visually pleasing.
AMS: Is there a specific album cover or music video you wish you worked on?
AK: Oh that is such a good question! I’m trying to frantically go through my Spotify right now [laughs]. I wish I assisted HUGO COMTE when he shot DUA LIPA for Future Nostalgia – and maybe any BILLIE EILISH record. But honestly there are so many. I think album art is one of my favourite things to do. It’s a shame because I haven't gotten to do a whole lot of it, but I'm starting to go there. It's funny, I think I'm going away from fashion photography and I’ve realised I want to work more in music.
AMS: How did your photography evolve after the hiatus?
AK: It's so funny when people say evolve, because I’ve not been doing it for very long at all, literally a year. Actually no… that’s bullshit because I was doing these funky edits with iPhone photos starting pretty much when I visited London. I had an account – oh my gosh I feel like I need to start sharing this with people – because what I wanted with @bitchinabuckethat was the following that I have now. No one has really seen this, when I made these photos abroad it was one of the happiest moments of my life. And actually, right now, when I’m looking back at this I’m realising that I’ve been doing this for way longer than I thought.
AMS: I’m scrolling through and I can see traces of your current style, like the repeated compositions.
AK: Absolutely, it wasn’t just photography for me. It was also about thrifting and putting together outfits. When I was posting this shit on my normal Instagram I lost so many followers at the time. Literally, nobody cared. I’m sure people actually thought it was annoying, which is so funny now because you can't go on social media without seeing edits like this. To me it’s sick. It’s cool to know that I was ahead of the curve. I also feel partially proud of this new wave of editing, on TikTok at least, because I helped to bring it forward. I don’t want to say I started it but I was one of the bigger accounts pushing it and 20-year old Anna is super happy about that.
AMS: What are some other things you’re proud of?
AK: Well, I'm going through a little bit of a mentally hard time right now in appreciating where I'm at and feeling stuck, frustrated and like nothing's really moving forward. One of my really good friends asked when I last sat down and wrote a list of things I’m proud of. I haven’t ever done that in my life but I feel like now is a great time to reflect a little bit… I think if you asked me this maybe like a year ago, my answer would proceed my photography. It’s when I last-minute decided I wanted to go to art school and had basically no time to create a portfolio. I had nothing. Two months later, I got into every art school I applied for: Prat, Parsons, those sorts of places. In my head – which is deluded because I'm really hard on myself – that was the first time I was truly proud of myself. At Parsons I wanted to make a fashion magazine but because of the pandemic I ended up doing a photobook for my thesis project.
Looking back on it, duh, my whole fucking project was a video about becoming a photographer. It’s crazy because it was almost predicting the future but I didn’t realise it at the time. It was a transition in my career from pre-pandemic to post-pandemic Anna. Surprisingly it was received so well by a bunch of old stuffy white guys in product design. I hadn’t thought about that in so long and I’m getting emotional because I’m just so proud of that project. It had a narrative about artists, ironically, changing their medium. Now it’s a harder trajectory. I just wonder: “Is my work even going anywhere? Are you a one hit wonder? Does anybody care? Am I just being really hard on myself?” That’s just how I am.
AMS: Do you find photography therapeutic?
AK: Not really, each project takes so much time and mental energy. I don't even know if other photographers have this but I think because of the nature of it and how long it takes it’s so draining. I'm also somebody who doesn't like to dwell. So when it's over, I instantly move on. When I posted my series with Adam and Soo, my really good friends, I loved that because it took me two months to get through it, which is like an insane amount of time. Most photography pros would be like “you took that long to get the photos back?!” I mean, yeah, but they turned out fucking amazing. I also love working with my sister or anybody that’s close to me.
AMS: What does collaboration mean to you?
AK: I only just started working with other people. Before that it was literally all me. I did everything because I was a makeup artist and I can do hair alright. I guess I have access to cool clothes. I could do it all, but granted, it wasn’t all good. But collaboration is fucking everything, it’s a lot about friendship even if it has flaws. I think with photographers we can get really protective or egotistical over our work. Dude, creatives in general. I've had people who don't credit correctly or take more credit than what they actually did. But it makes me recognise that I'm not great at everything. When you trust people and click with them it’s incredible and provides the best result.
AMS: If you were commissioned for a series of magazine covers, who would be on them?
AK: I love this question! Definitely SHYGIRL, myself, then my friend and artist IZZY CAMINA.
AMS: How do you realise your vision?
AK: For the past few months someone will come to me and they'll either have no idea or some idea, and we'll build something together. It's hard for me – I know that I'm a really bad planner. I have ADHD, right? So I think that can fuck me over, but it’s also a blessing because I can work on a project for like 12-hours and not notice. My gut instinct knows what it's going to look like before I know what it's going to look like. I can be particular about the hair, make-up, clothes and the backdrop like, and the editing, they need to work together. I think that's a very obvious thing to say, like of course they should, but in my brain they totally inform each other. It’s a whole infrastructure. I’ll use something as a starting point and make everything feed into that vision. Then the editing is what pulls it all together, but that can also change the vibe. I do such intensive colour editing. It's very non-linear, but there is also a string of continuity between everything.
AMS: What about the editing treatment? Where does that come from?
AK: I don't know. The other day I was looking back at my old work and that shit used to be so colourful – what happened? Ever since I shot TYLER MAZAHERI for PRADA it all desaturated a little bit, it got so dark. And I think a part of that was because I felt I had to mature my work. I felt childish before, even though I miss that vibrancy and it was what I was known for. That’s what makes me happy. Maybe that’s why editing is so draining, because it really could go in any direction, it’s overwhelming sometimes. Perfectionism gives me a need to exhaust multiple avenues before settling on an image. There was a photoset I took that ended up being edited in squiggles. But that had a warm colour palette and I naturally moved it towards cooler blues. Then I wanted to make it yellow, my printer ink fucked it up and I saved it a couple more times in green too and had to psych myself up before deciding. The final image selection makes me anxious, it causes an internal anguish if it’s not right.
AMS: Imagine your idea of bliss. What’s a fictional setting you could visualise yourself in?
AK: Oh gosh, I’ve thought about this so much. So I’d want to live in an abandoned-looking cathedral in the woods, on a mountain. The inside of it has flowers and vines, all the furniture has crazy colours like hot pink and it has sick artwork on these super high ceilings. There's a lot of glass. I’m living there, I have like four kids, my partner and I ride horses on the outdoor farm. There are two big black dogs. I’m such a nature driven person; I need rolling grass and the sun – that’s my idea of bliss. One of my happiest memories was actually visiting the white cliffs of Dover. It’s hard to find that in New York which is why I get so miserable here so quickly. When I need to I’ll go home and visit Valley Forge Park, find my little place at the water to clear my head. Nature is a total reset.
AMS: What’s a memorable moment you have from shooting?
AK: Due to the way I shoot things, it's not normal at all. I broke my strobe light the other day – it just smashed! If you could zoom out, it's such a stressful, chaotic but fun environment. I have people holding lights in weird positions, there’s duct tape everywhere, people are yelling and falling over. Then I’ll switch on the fog machine and my apartment becomes like a fucking club and you can’t see anything. There’s literally nothing professional about it [laughs] so every shoot I do has its memorable moments. I think the most important thing is how the person in the photo feels, having that reaction of “Oh my god, I didn’t know I could look like that!” Their positive reaction is like so important to me and it makes me feel good. I just want the feeling I get when I see something that I love, like I want to immediately save it, screenshot it, put it in the inspiration folder, and question how they did that.
AMS: What do you hope to be remembered for?
AK: I would love to be a creative director more than I want to be a photographer. I’d like to be remembered for being a big personality, who was hopefully a good person and made cool shit. I always would like to help people along the way and not be tied down to one thing.
AMS: Any guilty pleasures?
AK: I think the concept of a guilty pleasure is bizarre because I feel like if it makes you happy then you shouldn't feel guilty about it. I don’t feel guilty about them but my pleasures are beer… I love house music. I’ve learnt how to DJ so I want to open a club one day, that’s another goal. I love movies, doing my make-up and creating characters. Biking, being outside and collecting magazines – I can’t wait to make a photobook, I don’t know what the hell it’ll be about. Oh, and popcorn.
AMS: Out of interest, what’s your star sign?
AK: A Virgo sun which is probably so evident, Sagittarius rising, which is my strong side shining through, and then a Libra moon. My chart is very balanced and cool. But I don't really understand my Libra moon yet, I'm still figuring her out.
AMS: How influential was your early life in Philadelphia?
AK: I grew up outside of the city, in the suburbs. I think the best part about it was my family. My parents are fucking sick, their taste level is just so high. Our house had super well-designed furniture, like growing up I remember going to nice furniture stores, I would always go to museums, have good eating, good food. That stuff really does matter and my parents were really amazing, I’m so grateful. It's a privilege we had the money to do that. Having that access to the city and having parents who could afford to expose us to things and send us to the summer camp, take us on vacation, school trips or whatever. That's not exclusive to Philadelphia, but in a sense it is because of the location being close to amenities.
AMS: Do your parents have creative careers? Or are you the first?
AK: I’m the first in my family with a creative job for sure. My dad is artistic but he’s basically in biotech. It’s funny though, I always got a free pass. Almost as if I was a problem kid, like “Oh that’s just Anna” that’s how I am. When I went to art school all that mattered was the fact I was studying something, to provide for me in later life. My parents were big on skills. Although I haven’t used that degree my parents are super into the photography even if it took them a hot second. They just have no doubt that I'm going to be fine, it’s a little unnerving. They say that no matter what and I'm like, “Okay, but how do you know?” Telling me everything is going to work out [laughs] which is nuts when you think about it. But they’re so supportive.
AMS: I’m glad they’re into it. Are you confident in front of the camera yourself?
AK: I have such horrible body dysmorphia and trauma from eating disorders and it's so impossible for me. It's something I'm still trying to get better at. In my head I imagine that if I was thinner, I would murder in front of the camera. I mean maybe I can now but I just don’t. When you’re taking the photos, you understand what's going to look good in a photo. So I’m not that comfortable in front as I’m paranoid about how it looks. We're talking about my eating disorder experience and I think it's incredibly important to like shed light on these things. If I'm going to have a following, I want to be responsible and honest. I want to share those struggles. I don't want to just project all the good stuff. Especially in fashion photography there’s a lot of problems with that – you know, the models being thin and not always eating well enough. It’s so important to speak out, to reinforce better standards. I have this responsibility I’m aware of to not just shoot slim girls and I’m still actively trying to integrate that into my work.
AMS: Thank you for being so open. Do you have any final words?
AK: I'm just really excited for the future. As much as I question myself I know it’s all going to be okay. I guess the part that we didn't really talk about is validation. I just want to say that social media is so fake. Everything is fake. I really want people to know that literally no one's life is that cool. No, there's not one single person on social media whose life is as interesting or fun as they're making it out to be. Myself included – and that's my closing thought.