Light is everything to the artist : the street photography of Markus Andersen
It says : ‘You imagine what you desire.’ Really?
So, what does…?
The slogan is written on the front of a large building which looks, suspiciously, like an educational institution.
So, what’s the meaning? A pretentious sounding stick-up to encourage their students’ application to their tasks? Well yeah, but isn’t it a bit like daydreaming?
I mean we might imagine we win the lottery every Friday, and we might even desire that vault full of cash, but it never happens and, if I am honest, who really expects it to.
Alternatively, it is a rallying call for the guardians of some cultural Nirvana – a line from a self-help book that tells you to meditate and ask the universe for…well…anything. Or, maybe it just means a heap of things to many different people?
Look…
Copyright ⓒ Markus Andersen
In the foreground of the photograph a person lies on their back. Maybe trampled underfoot by the weight of life rushing in on top of them? Sunbathing? Drunk? Sunbathing drunk?
In the background we see other people, sitting around on the grass, apparently, totally uninterested in the person laid out. So, we can assume – sigh of relief – it is unlikely that he, or she, has been violently struck down by a gun, though they have been shot by the camera.
“I had just left the museum of contemporary art in Sydney after seeing an exhibition,” Australian street photographer Markus Andersen was telling me. “I saw the person sleeping and the text on the building. I thought it was a good metaphor for how many feel about contemporary art.”
Okay we can live with a ‘metaphor for contemporary art’ as an explanation, but just as easily it could be a still from a Coen Brothers movie, the album cover of a UK Garage band? Most importantly as a street photography shot it works. It is art.
Markus Andersen likes to work in film.
“Film is organic,” he explains. “It has a randomness and unexpected beauty with every frame. The results are always unique. Shooting film is like a ritual – loading, winding on , cocking the film … every frame matters and you focus on that.”
Copyright ⓒ Markus Andersen
I like the speed of this, the girl is just cutting through the air in front of her, moving somewhere in a hurry. Where? Why? But the light and shadow and the use of it is trademark Andersen.
He also likes the unknown. While digital is immediate and allows the photographer to make an instant judgement on their work, the quality, the sharpness, the light, you have to be patient with film.
“When the edge of the film sort of eats into the image,’ Andersen reveals in the Rob Norton short Belly of the Beast. “Like it’s organic, it’s real…it is more like print making. I like that, it’s the indefinable, like photography that is really hard to achieve, that’s what excites me, that’s why street photography, documentary is so awesome because it is unpredictable and you have got to use your innate ability to shoot that.”
Awesome is a good word for street photography, it takes no prisoners, and documentary well, often the two merge and often they box each other for dominance.
Copyright ⓒ Markus Andersen
A thought-provoking, beautiful shot of a man and a child – his son or grandson presumably, watching kites. This shot is a gentle nod to generational music, the seasons, the movement of life from spring to winter over and over again.
“Yes, I like that one,” Andersen agrees. “Shot looking out at Manly Beach, Sydney, Australia. Soft overcast light – an image of family and hope. It’s a very cinematic frame, like taken directly from a motion picture to me.”
It is, what I would call an eternal shot, the boy in the photo will grow. If Andersen returns to the same spot at Manly Beach in 20 years’ time, he might be able to take a photo of the boy having become a man with his own son. Watching kites?
It is an interesting photograph which suggests the evolutionary forces that keep the species going. On a profound level it reflects that there are 7.7 billion people on the planet – some are fathers and sons.
Did you know that there are 250 babies born every minute? While within the same 60 seconds 105 people pass away.
Hope, as Markus says.
Copyright ⓒ Markus Andersen
There is no doubt Andersen likes to play with the light. I love the way he styles the light into this shot, taken from his brilliant Cabramatta series. It is almost as if he is playing with it.
“Honestly?,” he starts up. “The light in Sydney doesn’t fascinate me that much, it is just very hard and cutting in Summer. It’s more that all light fascinates me, how it reacts to objects and people. To an artist light is everything.”
But you can see in the shots he takes that Markus Andersen is someone who flits, shifts ground and shoots. His Cabramatta is a stunning grouping of great shots from a suburb of south-western Sydney. But, for this project he has moved from his usual black and white.
“Purely,” he says thoughtfully. “Because the suburb is very colourful.”
Makes sense?
“And, it could only be shot in colour,” he added. “Colour was the primary factor in the body of work.”
Copyright ⓒ Markus Andersen
The girl looks out of the photo at the camera, she is pretty, orange hair, black-collared floral shirt and a comic-book-cum-manga background that jams with the foreground. She looks curious. What is she doing?
“Yes,” Markus Andersen was saying. “Yes, this was one of the street portraits I did for the book. Interesting subject, strong light and a background that complimented the sitter’s flowery top.”
This for me is also cinematic. Powerful art, bright sunshine lights her face, the colours fly out at you, one of my favourites of the year. There is something drawing the viewer in, is she frowning, is she at the point of being annoyed, there is tension on her face and Andersen has captured this.
“It was actually not an area of photography that interested me,” Markus Andersen handed me a throwaway line on street photography. “Particularly when I was studying or when I first entered the field. I was drawn initially (and still am) more so to portraiture, documentary and concept-based work.”
I think his street photography is great, all that light and dark, people emerging from darkness or disappearing out of the light.
“Street photography,” he was adding. “Was just something I did as I went from one place to another in my daily travels (and it still is). Now I’m only interested in street work if it’s part of a larger concept etc. Meaning not just random images but pieces in a larger architecture of imagery.”
Then he slipped back into the hard and cutting sunlight of Sydney, like a ghost.
So, I was thinking, maybe you desire what you imagine…
*Markus Andersen uses several film cameras and lenses including Leica MP, MA and M5, as well as 28mm Elmarit, and 35mm and 50mm Summicron lenses, plus several digital camera and lenses Fuji Xpro 2, Fuji X100 series cameras (several), Fuji 24mm and 50mm F2 lenses.
To see More of Markus visit Markus Andersen
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