Illuminated by an ascending Sun : The exciting street photography and ideas of Nina Welch-Kling
The late Helen Levitt (1913-2009) once said – I paraphrase – the aesthetic is in reality itself. She was talking about street photography and there, in one observation, is the challenge for all street photographers. Keeping it real.
So, I am going to start by saying that in capturing this reality – and she does it well – there is often a dream-like quality to Nina Welch-Kling’s street photography and projects.
Ironic? Yes, but in seeking this truth it lifts her work above the ordinary and the everyday.
A probing, instinctual shooter the German-born New York City-based photographer seeks out a reality and in doing so leads us toward, something perhaps deeper, more meaningful.
I was thinking of the series of photographs she has called Rallentando – literally decreasing in speed.
Copyright ⓒ Nina Welch-Kling
“This project,” she starts up, “as projects often do, started through an accidental discovery. About a year into COVID I decided to try something different and used a long lens (135mm) for candid street photography (usually I use a fixed 28mm lens). One of the photographs from that day had this wonderful blur and I decided to intentionally recreate it.
“I discovered that all the people photographed in this manner were given a sense of prominence, reminding me of paintings. It didn’t matter that they were going about their everyday business, candidly photographed in this way rendered them with an almost studio like formality.”
I nod my agreement. This extraordinary idea of a mosaic of humanity captured in solitary moments and in soft blur lends itself to the idea that while we might think we know people, we can never really tell what is going on in their heads.
“But there is another aspect to the series,” she counters, “[in] how we are isolated from the world around us.”
Isolated?
“Busy on phones with earphones to drown out any noise,” she informs. “People barely take any notice of each other; visions are blurred and [they] have very little recollection of what they experienced while out on the street. I position myself in front of the monotone-coloured background and wait for people to pass by – to most…I am invisible.”
I think, “invisible”, hangs in the air like a bird on an updraft, and there is something extraordinarily beautiful about Rallentando.
In her project Doulogues, a series of diptychs that seek some interplay between images, she seeks out the poetry in two, outwardly disassociated photographs which somehow and in some way chime. She succeeds, for me this work resonates and hums with meaningful endeavour. It sings with a rhythmic catch that stretches toward the twin sacred cows of culture – the extraction of meaning from art and the recognition of our own existential experiences therein.
Copyright ⓒ Nina Welch-Kling
We see in patterns and we try to decipher two unconnected photographs into some kind of intertwined relationship.
The smoke circling around the subject’s skull is, simultaneously, reflected as a tree reaching skyward on the windscreen of a car. The man in allowing his head to be covered in cigarette smoke mirrors the design of tree branches in nature and the randomness of just being alive ( maybe for not much longer with a twenty a day habit) and noticing things captured in a photographic diptych.
Could the convergence of man and tree and the toxic pollution of his cigarette fumes be a metaphor for the destructive interplay of humanity and planet?
“My series Duologues grew out of a class assignment,” Nina tells me, “we investigated sequencing a body of work and one of the examples viewed was a book by Ralph Gibson. As an assignment, we were asked to create some diptychs.”
Welch-Kling has studied the Grammar of Photography with Christopher Giglio for the last four years
“While looking at my work through a narrower lens,” she quickly added, “I realized that my photos could be categorized into different prototypes and that rhyming different elements created another layer to my investigations. Each pair looks at different ways to relate one photograph to another – a detail, a colour, a shape, a gesture, an emotion. I try to find different relationships without repeating themselves. The paired photos are not easily interchangeable – yet there might be multiple meaningful rhymes that could occur.”
And do!
Nina Welch-Kling’s Duologues will be published in a book by KEHRER Verlag later this year so watch this space.
This project is a trip into another photographic world with one foot in the street and the other just, marginally, outside the frame altogether. A testing series of photographic siblings, rhyming couplets of speculation, forensically poured over in an effort to extrapolate some inner deep-seated message and relay it on to an unsuspecting world – but then isn’t that what art is all about?
Copyright ⓒ Nina Welch-Kling
In one individual shot from her Duologues project – paired with a red hat, blue wall and part of the New York skyline – the bright red stripes of the American flag, representing the original 13 colonies, obscures the torsos of two people ( a man and a woman) as they stride along the grey concrete of the city pavement.
“On a quiet Sunday morning near my apartment,” she starts out and then says as an aside. “I just realised that quiet Sundays seem to offer quieter photographic opportunities.”
We mused on this for a moment before she continued, “I caught sight of an American flag outside a hardware store beautifully illuminated by the sun. I observed the scene for a few minutes before I noticed a few people dressed elegantly walking home from a nearby church. A couple approached and the wind blew the flag to obstruct the passers-by, creating the sense of anonymity and mystery I often look for in my photography.”
Nina Welch-Kling’s Duologues was a winner at the Lens Culture critics award in 2020, and deservedly at the Passepartout Catalogue prize, Rome, Fourth edition in 2022.
Don’t you just love how long and convoluted photographic prize titles can be?
Photography for Nina Welch-Kling is more of a happening, more a part of her than a job or career.
“Photography is definitely something I have to do,” she says unequivocally. “It’s hard to pinpoint where the motivation comes from. My photography is a culmination of what I have experienced and learned in my past as I didn’t really start my photographic journey until my late 40’s. My background in fine art and architecture guides my visual acuity in terms of colour and composition.
“Often… something I see, mainly light and shadow, and sometimes it’s something I feel – it’s intuitive but I believe intuition can be guided by learning. Once I return home and look at my photographs, there are often discoveries that were unintended.”
Copyright ⓒ Nina Welch-Kling
A man wearing a soft hat pulled down trudges through the New York snow, his body is hunched, his face scrunched and his collar turned up against the cold like in a Suzanne Vega song.
“I love people, people watching,” she says enthusiastically, “and exploring my environment. Street photography allows me to record those fleeting special moments I encounter. One could argue that street photography has documentary value but, in the end, I really enjoy the freedom of street photography – no prep work required. With my cell phone shut off, I can focus on what is around me with a heightened sense of awareness.”
I tell her I like another of her projects Darker Days.
I say off-handed that I thought it was an obvious choice, but then when I take a few seconds to reconsider I realise it is not so obvious.
Copyright ⓒ Nina Welch-Kling
Well I mean – the shot of the jigsaw reflecting how we, perhaps, wiled away the time during our COVID incarceration, the balloon going up like none of us knew what came next or what to do about it, the cat trapped in the corner screaming – a mirrored representation of our own pent up frustrations to meltdown, a let-it-all-out shriek at confinement.
“During the initial weeks of COVID, I needed to keep some sense of normalcy,” she said. “Photography re-focuses me on what is directly in front, my version of meditation. I went out at night when the streets were empty and this felt safe – what a new reality!
“These photos are more intimate, focusing on my family and close surroundings and expressing (myself) by creating open-ended images…leaving room for interpretation.”
Copyright ⓒ Nina Welch-Kling
We started with Helen Levitt’s idea of seeking the aesthetic in the reality of street photography. Nina Welch-Kling’s photography echoes this idea. A thoughtful reflection on the art of street photography mixed with an urgent drive to find meaning and experience in the ordinary.
“I love observing people,” she says simply, “ and the challenge of organising the visual clutter of a busy city into a single, split-second frame while being immersed in everyday life.”
Exactly!
Nina uses a Fuji X100v and an XT3 with an 18-135mm lens. She never, she tells me, leaves home without sunscreen and a smile.
To see More of Nina Visit her Website & Follow her on Instagram
Nina’s Book can be Purchased HERE
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