ISOLITUDINE
In conversation with Georges Salameh
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Category: Interviews
O Human Child / Vera Saltzman
Originally interviewed February 2018 Tell us a bit about yourself. I’m a photographer based in Saskatchewan, Canada. I grew up in on the east coast on Cape Breton Island but I’ve also lived in the Arctic, in Ottawa, and for the last six years, on the Prairies. I primarily explore themes of identity, place and […]
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Tell me her story because war is only the half of it / Dorothee Nowak
Note: Interview took place in June 2018 I am from France and my family, originally from Poland. It has been nearly fifteen years since I have been living in France on and off. Now, I’ve been living in Japan since last February. Coming from a Polish family, travelling has always been part of who I […]
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My Friend, You are a Lunar Lamplight / Christopher J Russell
Tell us a bit about yourself. I was born in Milton Keynes in the UK about three decades ago. It’s a town most notable for its quantity of roundabouts stuck within a grid system, its rows of planted trees and our Concrete Cows (a set of sculptures given to us by an artist in residence […]
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Marching the MacLehose / Ethan Lo
Ethan Lo, based in Hong Kong, is a visual artist whose work focuses on the human-altered landscape and environmental issues in his home country. Today we feature his recent project Marching the MacLehose, a series following the longest hiking trail in Hong Kong, and the relationship between the city and its changing, disappearing wilderness. – Even […]
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A certain slant of light / Trish Morrissey
“It was, I think, the first time that I realised I was “trying on” different lives and states of being.” For many photographers, performance is not something that comes naturally. In front of the camera, we wilt and stutter and wish we were back on the other side. But, the truth is that we are performing […]
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Sea Shanties
Natalija Gormalova Born in Latvia, Natalija Gormalova moved to London at only eighteen years old. She completed a degree in photography at the London College of Communication, and later landed a scholarship for a master’s at the prestigious Royal College of Art. In her feature, Gormalova speaks about her practice and about her project Sea […]
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Lanzarote
Giovanna Petrocchi How often do you challenge yourself within your practice? Are you comfortable with what you do? Are you too comfortable? Featured today is Giovanna Petrocchi, who was recently was a juror’s pick in the 2017 LensCulture Emerging Talent Awards. A photographer and an artist, Petrocchi playfully utilises collage along with her photography — combining handcraft […]
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Kolkata Blue
David Lurvey “They didn’t talk about cameras, they talked about ideas. They created a space of real critique and that drove me to make better pictures, to be curious with a camera — and just enjoy the ride.” How essential is travel to developing yourself as a photographer? And “travel” photography — often seen as quite cliché and teeming with […]
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Kuçedra: Life on Europe’s last wild river
Nick St. Oegger ‘It’s so easy to pass by a river, see it flowing and think ‘oh, how beautiful’. Most people don’t realise that rivers are complex living things and that, for the most part, they are not in their original states.’ The ‘Bolla’: a demonic serpent-like dragon from Albanian mythology which also appears in English […]
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Les Sommets Inhabitables
Teo Becher What is it about the landscape that captivates us so? What is it about being in solitude and wandering amongst the great mountain giants, the serene lakes seemingly made of mirror glass, the rumbling thunderous waves on those icy cold grey days, the wonder and mystery found between the tall forest trees? Featured […]
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Coalville Photographed
Chris Mear Born, raised and currently living Leicestershire (UK), Chris Mear has been making photographs over the last decade about the industrial history of the English landscape and its people, exploring its past and present. Mear uses his photography as a way to understand the social, economic and physical impact that the time of de-industrialisation, […]
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GIB50
Iggy Smalls Born and raised in Norway, young photographer Iggy Smalls is now based in Spain, having studied for her degree in photography in Florida, USA. This week, it is her project GIB50 which we are sharing; the series — both wonderful to look at and essential to consider — looks at the land and people of Gibraltar, the […]
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Borderlands: The Edges of Europe
Paola Leonardi Borders: sometimes invisible lines only depicted on paper, sometimes a towering built wall or a threatening and unkind sharp wire fence. We think of borders as these things which separate us into our continents, countries, counties, cities; but, what do these places really look like? How does the border affect the land, the […]
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Decoy
Peter Spurgeon It is a difficult task to combine certain genres within photography. For example, historical documentary and constructed fine art is not often a pairing that goes together seamlessly and well; however, British photographer Peter Spurgeon has done just that. In his project Decoy, Spurgeon is inspired by real-life history and takes on the […]
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Staten Island
Olga Ginzburg We all know the feeling of returning to a place we used to know well; that strange mix of familiarity and newness when our memory, as clear as day, collides with the reality seen through our eyes. Many of us as photographers have trodden down the path of retracing our steps: to see […]
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Q&A
Alexander Missen For many, America has always been an epic icon of freedom and discovery — and the road trip an “enduring symbol”, as David Campany put it in his book The Open Road. This seems to be especially true of photographers, with the road trip being a seminal experience for or the subject of (often both) […]
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Views of a Mountain
Declan Connolly Featured today on of the land & us is fine art and documentary photographer Declan Connolly. Connolly. Originally from the North West of England, Connolly was living and working in Hong Kong until he recently returned home. Connolly’s interest is in building narratives around small fictions, and how they can be used to […]
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Tanera
Kevin Percival When we think of off-the-grid communities, we often forget about the places which are “off-the-grid” simply because of their natural placements in the world, like the tiny island of Tanera Mòr in the breathtaking Inner Hebrides of Scotland. Tanera Mòr is a self-sufficient island which was inhabited until a few years ago — it was […]
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Eilean, Burnt Ice, Interventions & The Floating Islands
Mhairi Law Scotland-based Mhairi Law is originally from the Scottish borders, and she moved to Edinburgh where she studied photography and film at university. She now lives between Edinburgh and the Isle of Lewis in Scotland’s magnificent Outer Hebrides. Many photographers, ourselves included, dream of living in or having easy access to the sublime landscape; […]
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They Were My Landscape
Phoebe Kiely Our last feature was a fairly intensive and heavy topic, and so we wanted to share something more about the little moments in life. Today we’re featuring the beautifully tender work of Manchester-based photographer Phoebe Kiely and her work They Were My Landscape which focuses on all those “in-between moments” that so many […]
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Oil Sands
Alan Gignoux On of the land & us today, we are featuring the work of photographer Alan Gignoux — Oil Sands, an on-going long term photojournalistic and documentary project on the gigantic oil sands industrial project in Canada. Gignoux’s work stood out to us as a work which has had and continues to have absolute dedication and […]
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The conquest
by Mélanie Desriaux America. The one place that intrigues and compels us all equally; sometimes beguiling, often extraordinary and quite scary. The Wild West, despite the glorification constantly handed out by Hollywood, was a terrifying and lawless hot hell, and it’s the original discovery of the American West that intrigues French photographer Mélanie Desriaux. In […]
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The edges of these isles
by Simon Bray & Tom Musgrove We have a firm belief, here at of the land & us, that the practice of other artistic mediums can only improve your photography and art. Painting yields understanding of light, drawing yields understanding of composition and the necessary slowness and attention to detail in both of those things […]
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The geese are gone
by Alex de Bruycker There’s something about black and white photography that’s just so innately captivating, like no colour photograph could be… for us, the lack of colour is ethereal, mysterious and sometimes provokes strange, unsettling feelings. Strange and unsettled is what we felt when we came across Alex de Bruycker’s serene, dark photography. de […]
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Thames: Dark River, Still Shining
by Tom Farmer Tom Farmer is originally from Southampton. He has been living in the big smoke for the past three and a half years, assisting editorial and advertising photographers whilst also focusing and developing three long-term projects. Interested in photography from a young age, he gradually became interested in documentary photography and, specifically, the […]
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Desert Fest
by Sam Mellish To capture something in a tender way, something that is not intrinsically tender, is a tough endeavour. London-based photographer Sam Mellish has managed to achieve a quiet and beautiful portrayal of the Desertfest community; Desertfest being an annual weekender festival based in Camden dedicated to stoner rock music. Desert Fest is the result […]
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Unconscious commands and judgements of our century
by Diogo Duarte Featured today is photographer Diogo Duarte with his self-portraiture work Unconscious Commands and Judgements of our Century. Diogo, originally from Portugal, moved to the midlands in the UK at 19 to study psychology and criminology, finally moving to London where he is currently based. We rarely get submissions that are self-portraiture work, which we […]
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Meerror
by Leonardo Magrelli When you look into a mirror, do you see your true self? Is the person in the mirror the truer version, compared to a photograph? It was the technical ability displayed in Leonardo Magrelli’s Meerror that caught our attention, the difficulty that Magrelli has overcome in photographing mirrors, somehow without including himself. Of course, […]
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East of Jesus
by Rhombie Sandoval Our feature today is on promising young photographer Rhombie Sandoval. She is a photographer we have been following for some time, and as such we are greatly pleased to share her work today. Sandoval, normally based in Los Angeles, California, is currently artist-in-residence in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland. She is traveling the Fjords of […]
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Everybody watch your step
by Tory Ho Tourism is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it brings in money and interest to a place. On the other, it brings bad attitudes, behaviour and congestion, amongst other things. Photographer Tory Ho, originally from Hong Kong, is currently studying and in her final year of photography at Falmouth University, an institute […]
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The Moor
by Robert Darch Our feature today focuses on Exeter-based photographer Robert Darch, who also runs Macula collective and, along with Jessica Lennan, the exhibition space Dodo Photo. Darch speaks to us about his wonderful project The Moor, a constructed, fictional documentary work influenced by Darch’s memories and nostalgia. It reimagines the area in a dystopian future […]
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Steel City
by Leticia Batty Today we’re featuring Leticia Batty’s Steel City project, which explores the city of Sheffield. We were inspired by the simplicity of the concept of the work, which resulted from Batty’s love of the place. Sometimes less is more – not all art needs a complex narrative behind it and this is what […]
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Lost Place
by Kamil Śleszyński Featured today is self-taught documentary photographer Kamil Śleszyński. Based in Bialystok, Poland, he focuses on long-term projects that focus on the complex relationships between people and works often with a large-format camera. Śleszyński’s Lost Place immediately captured us with its beautiful black and white photographs depicting an intimate and emotive picture of […]
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On the Fringe
by Andrew Mellor Andrew Mellor is a landscape photographer, born and raised in Blackpool in North West England and still currently living there. The landscape is Mellor’s main focus and interest, and he likes to explore the man-made landscape and the natural; the human impact within and on the landscape, and the sometimes far-reaching political, […]
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The Archive Collective
Today we’re sharing something a bit different and very special; photographer Elena Cremona and publication The Archive Collective – run by Maela Ohana – are collaborating on the Earth Issue, which focuses on and investigates the relationship between fine art and the environment. As a platform whose focus is on “the land and the people […]
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Hometown
by Fábio Miguel Roque Today we’re featuring Portuguese photographer Fábio Miguel Roque, who also heads up the small publishing house The Unknown Books and also Preto Collective, a collective who focus only on black and white photography. After studying photography at the Portuguese Institute of Photography, he began his career working as a photojournalist and creating work […]
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Drake’s Folly
by Dan Mariner Featured today is British documentary photographer Dan Mariner, who is currently living in Bodø, Norway. Dan works as a freelance photographer, spending his time between commissions and refining his practice as a documentary photographer. His main interests photographically lie in anthropology, and he often seeks themes within this subject which explore how humans […]
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Love of the Land
by Daniel Regan Featured today is portrait and fine art photographer Daniel Regan. Regan originally hails from Essex, moved to Brighton where he gained his BA in photography, and now lives in London where he completed his MA in photography at the renowned London College of Communication. He discovered photography at a young age which […]
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False Memory: Reimagining of the ruined landscapes of Latin America.
by Dante Busquets Featured today is Berlin-based Mexican photographer Dante Busquets, whose work first caught our attention on Twitter. It was the above portrait of the unidentified and fully-covered person dressed in the white overalls, yellow hard-hat and black balaclava that we saw. They stand against a background of what looks like a huge pile […]
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Between Spaces
by Garry Loughlin Inspired by Ernest Hemingway, Irish but Belgium-based photographer Garry Loughlin took to bicycle to travel on his very own version of the well-worn American road trip. Between Spaces is the series of work that resulted from his journey, focusing on Louglin’s interest in “documenting the beauty of banality”. The images are quiet […]
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Midwest Dirt
by Nathan Pearce We were immediately taken in by photographer Nathan Pearce’s way of working; he has created several smaller projects which all connect and form a larger narrative together, which has become his project Midwest Dirt. Pearce describes the Midwest as having a “stillness”, and it’s something he manages to capture beautifully. The majority of photographs […]
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Travels in a Strange Land: Dark Spaces
by Matt Botwood Photographer Matt Botwood’s project Travels in a Strange Land: Dark Spaces is featured on of the land & us today. We spotted Botwood’s enchanting project online, and it was the strange and inconceivably detailed photographs that appear to be monochrome landscapes from another world that drew our attention so completely. Are these […]
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The Northeast Kingdom
by Andrew Frost Today we’re having a look at Andrew Frost’s The Northeast Kingdom. What caught me first of all was the name. The Northeast Kingdom seems like it could be a magical land straight out of a fantasy novel, and I couldn’t wait to have a look at Frost’s series, to see what this […]
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An Empty Valley
by Ettore Moni Featured today on of the land & us is Italian documentary photographer Ettore Moni and his project An Empty Valley. Ettore’s work immediately hooked us with the fact that it was all shot on large-format. We love film photography, and it’s a pleasure to see beautiful large-format work, and Ettore’s project absolutely […]
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The Last Stand
by Marc Wilson Today we’re looking at The Last Stand, a long-term project on a combination of topics including landscape, memory and history, from photographer Marc Wilson. The project documents some of the physical remnants of the Second World War on the coastlines of the British Isles and Northern Europe, focusing on military defence structures […]
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Occupied – Portraits from the West Bank
by Liam Arthur Featured today on of the land & us is London-based photographer Liam Arthur, and his recent project Occupied – Portraits from the West Bank. Liam’s project is a beautifully simple exploration of the characters and surrounding landscape of Palestine – a place we often see in the media and a place we know […]
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Direction of Travel
James Duncan Clark’s Direction of Travel is an immersive and curious series which documents a London landscape in the midst of change; the “urban regeneration” caused by the 2012 Summer Olympics. James uses found objects off the streets of the areas surrounding and within the evolving (or devolving?) landscapes, hand in hand with large-format photographs. […]
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