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IC w3 Phototalks

  • HildeMaassen
  • Feb 13, 2020
  • 4 min read

Updated: Aug 16, 2020


Last week I went to "phototalks", an event where 9 photographers talked about their projects. I went there with my daughter. The photographers were:


Charlie Koolhaas Darren Smit & Adrian Lambert Perrine Philomeen Otto Snoek Suzette Bousema Ann Inger Johansson Luuk Smits Ilvy Njiokiktjien


Again I realised that I had to love the images to appreciatie the project. I didn't like the photo's Charlie Koolhaas presented although I see interesting work on her site. The project she presented was about a 10 years project she did in China.


The work I like you see here.

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Charlie Koolhaas, Photofolds - 2013

Darren Smit & Adrian Lambert make complete different work. Darren uses a pop-up photostudio to portrait people. He researches new "tribes". He told that it is not just register but he really works to make the images using light, choosing a background, collaborating with the model. Adrian Lamberts did a project about an old school. "sense of place." What Darren and Adrian did together "DNA project" spoke the most to me although they just showed one image. They both sent an image to the same server and then the photo's are mixed together without there intervention. They don't know what kind of image the other person sent.


Perrine Philomeen was was very energetic. Had a whole project around the hijab (hijabistas) and globalization. But little relevance for me and her style was very 80s.Agian her story was better than the images.


Otto Snoek is a street photographer whom I have known for about 30 years. He has a series "Nation". About how people behave when they are together as a group. Consider, for example, football supporters who go to a football match abroad. A group then behaves as one body and is in solidarity with each other. It is interesting to see how they "matched" with the locals. He said he actually "steals" the energy from people the moment he takes a picture of them. The old idea that when you take a picture of someone you also take something of his soul with you. He himself did not have that much energy. He is now 53 and it is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain. People used to thank you for taking pictures of them. Now you sometimes have to run for your life. He never asks people for permission because then the moment is already over. He takes his photos at a distance between one and a half meters and 3 meters. He calls it the "private space". If you come even closer, he calls it physical space; he stays away from there. Photography is telling a story with a series of photos. Otto sounds very disappointed. He no longer thinks he can deliver a controbution as a photographer. He is disappointed what he can mean.


Suzette Bousema is a photographer who is interested in science and who also wants to combine that. For that she went looking for a scientist to work with. She found this at the annual polar symposium in The Hague. She tells about the a book about Hyperobjects by Timothy Morton. Hyperobjects are subjects that are so large that they are elusive, too large in size and therefore incomprehensible. Consider the rising sea level. She is looking for a visual representation for that.

Fig. Suzette Bousema, Climate archive. 2019


She fund out that at different places around the world they have drilling columns from the ice from the poles and Greenland. Air bubbles are trapped in those columns. The condition of those air bubbles does not change and measurements can therefore be made of the CO2 levels. Those colomns can contain thousands of years of air. The photos are very beautiful, graphic and the book that it has made fits completely. The name for the project: "climate archive". She knows a lot about it. Her photography is very registering and that is not interesting enough for me personally; I would like to add something myself. not just register something there already. https://suzettebousema.nl/Climate-Archive


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Ann Inger Johansson is a photographer living in Calefornia. In her work she too is concerned with climate changes. They now have wildfires there all year round, but they also say that people are creatures of habit. The burned house was on that spot so I build it up again so it can only happen once. That while it has been shown that fires often occur in the same places is an example that she gives. People now know that the climate is changing, but they are not yet acting accordingly. She hopes that her photography can help to make it more understandable. She has classified her projects in 4 categories:

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Luuk Smits had a project about mining in the south of the Netherlands. I sent his story to Nick Hodgsen, very interesting for him.


Ilvy Njiokiktjien won world pressphoto a couple of years ago but is to slow to be a journalist so she told. That's why she focuses on documentary photography. Her field of activity is South Africa. "born free" the Mandela generation. Her site is an 20 minutes experience with sound: https://www.bornfreegeneration.com Very interesting and recognizable. I myself have been in South Africa for three months in 1993.



Intent


Listening to and looking at all these stories I notice that most of these photographers want to show other people, through photography, what is going on, make their opinion clear and sometimes teach a lesson. Otto himself is still interested in his subject but has lost confidence and can no longer really bring the energy to convey his vision to others and that makes him a bit disillusioned.

This made me think about my own motivation to make images. This is not so much in convincing others of a point of view or a vision. Curiosity, research and creating visually appealing images in a playful way is my intrinsic motivation. If others also like the images, then that's the icing on the cake.



Websites photographers


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© 2019 by Hilde Maassen 

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