Thank you very much Herr Schlattner (or - the planning of a photo shoot)

When you want to do a photo shoot with a person, a “model” as we say and as I really don’t like saying, things are slightly different from going out on the street or into nature. As you have a certain goal you also need to plan the shooting. And that means you need to find a “model”, the right time and of course a suitable place.

I don’t own or rent a studio. (It would be completely useless in my case as I am traveling from Greece to New Zealand to Australia and back. Where would I have my studio then?) So I need to find a place where I can shoot. It turned out that I was very lucky in Osnabrück. Marine, my first “model” knew the owner of a Yoga place in town who was willing to let us shoot at his premises.

But I wanted a second session at a different place. And on my mind I had an industrial place, possible abandoned and in it’s original state. Such a place is really hard to find, particularly if you don’t know the city, it’s environment and the options it gives you.

So I started driving around and I came to an old harbour area where they had started refurbishing storage buildings and halls. Regrettably none of those buildings was in the original state anymore and the ones that I found were already refurbished and turned into relatively small office spaces which where not suitable for a photo shoot.

But then I discovered a large storage hall where the refurbishment works were just on their way. With a little bit of chuzpe I drove into the building site and right in front of me a grey haired chap was walking on the street blocking me from continuing. He actually looked like the foreman of this building site.

So I started talking to him asking him if he knew if the place could be used for a photo shoot. And immediately he said that yes, this would be possible and I could take a look at the hall and decide if it was suitable for my purposes. He came across as a very assertive and cooperative foreman indeed.

We walked around on the site where builders were working and creating a lot of dust. The hall was gorgeous. Approximately 60 meters long, 30 meters wide and at least 10 meters high with large windows all around the top of the walls. A huge photo studio!

Our “Photo Studio”

I said “yes!”, that place I would love to use. And he told me that I could use it over the weekend when works were interrupted, he just needed to know when exactly because he would need to open the building site for us. He gave me his cell phone number and told me his name. “Schlattner” he grumbled with a typical Austrian accent.

So I contacted Marine, my dancer and we arranged for our shooting for the following Saturday. And Herr Schlattner told me that he would be in his office on the building site the whole day anyway. “Hm”, I was thinking by myself, “a foreman who works at his office the whole weekend?”

So I googled him as soon as I returned back home. And of course I discovered that my assertive foreman was the owner of the building company that was doing the work at that storage hall. And for whatever reason he had a heart for the arts and for a poor photographer. I was really incredibly lucky.

Herr Schlattner, you were very generous and I thank you very much for the wonderful opportunity that you gave us for our photo shoot!

The Inner Core Project

What if we tried to show the inner core of a person in a photograph? That was the question I was wondering about some time ago. You can read my first thoughts about this here in the article “Destiny (is a very big word)”. http://www.chris-r-photography.net/2019/11/29/s0tfzb1zssh7b7coavrfxtgdrmvv46

The starting point of my considerations was the assumption that we all have a deeper inner core of our person, of our personality. On top of that we develop over the years layers of behaviour that are determined by education, interaction with people, experience, traumata, neuroses and other influences. Our every day behaviour is a mixture of these layers interacting with the core personality deep within.

From there I was wondering if it might be possible to show the “inner core” of a person in a photograph. During my photographic development over the past few years I used long exposure photography, motion blur, intentional camera movements a lot. When watching these blurred pictures I noticed that it felt as if I could see deeper into a person’s characteristics in pictures that I had taken with this long exposure technique. The question is of course if a long exposure picture really represents a person’s characteristics on a deeper level or if a blurred picture gives the viewer more space to imagine certain characteristics because imagination can fill the gaps that the picture leaves. This question I have not answered to myself entirely, you might have your own very personal answer to it too.

In order to find out if my hypothesis works, I decided to start a photographic project around the core idea. The plan is, to shoot people with long exposure and ask them to do things where they feel that they are within themselves to the most. I would assume that every person has a different way of “feeling herself/himself”. So I am asking my “models” to do exactly what brings them “to themselves” in the most intense way.

I was lucky to meet Marine in Osnabrück during my current trip to Europe. Marine is a dancer with the Osnabrück Theater Dance Company. She agreed to participate in this project and we met for a shooting. The owner of YogaOmline in Osnabrück was so kind to allow us shooting in his rooms.

I asked Marine, not to “perform” for me but to find a way of getting deep into herself in her own personal way. She used moving her body for this. During the shooting we both remained completely silent. I did not ask her to strike any poses but only followed her movements with my camera.

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Marine, Inner Core Project

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Marine, Inner Core Project

I found this collaboration amazing. I was allowed to look into the personality of my “model” and to take pictures of what was a very intimate personal experience. Marine has allowed me to share the pictures. I am very grateful and thank her very very much.

What is your way of expressing the core of your personality? How can you reach deep within yourself? Is there a way of showing this outside? If any of you is interested in this project and wants to participate I would ask you to get in touch with me. Leave me a message on this website or write me a Flickr mail (https://www.flickr.com/photos/chrisrsouthland). I will continue this project over the coming months. Currently (September 2020) I am still in Osnabrück, Germany.