INSPIRATION
My Favorite Shot
NIGHT LIFE
What’s your favorite photo?
“This one”. “No, that one”. “Or maybe this one?!”
Could you pick a favorite image you’ve taken? Not easy we know, but to coincide with our January 2021 NIGHT LIFE call for entries, we asked some of the photographers in our community to do just that. Or at least to pick a shot related to the topic of Night Life that they hold dearly, were happy to have taken recently, or that resonates with them right now. Here they tell us why…
(Banner image: Tom Leighton. See more below)
GABRIEL ISAK
www.gabrielisak.com / @gabriel_isak
’Under the Moon’. This image was photographed in Death Valley, California in 2018 when I took a trip to the west coast. I photographed it right after the sun had set to create the painterly blue atmosphere in the image. My friend posed for me in a black bodysuit as I photographed the image on a tripod due to it being very windy and cold. I’m so grateful we got the shot, since it was such a magical moment to experience a landscape so surreal as this one. I’m excited to go back to Death Valley one day soon when travel restrictions are over to explore more of its landscape and create more works there.”
LARA WILDE
www.lara-wilde.com / @lara_wilde
’Youngsters – A young couple looking after the horses, taking a rest at the water tank’. “As for everyone, this was not a normal year for me. I am a true Berlin girl – I love the busy streets of my town, but fled the scene due to Coronavirus. I spent the summer at my Mom’s house, a small village in Lower Saxony, Germany. There, I was touched by how differently time passes, on how the next generation of farmers is growing up and how they might or might not spiral out of the old ways. Inspired, I created a series about working with your hands in the face of climate change, on thinking about global themes while working on what is right in front of you. The picture shows my little brother with his girlfriend on a hot Saturday night. Not hitting the clubs but watching the horses. I thought, with different clothing this could have been a picture from hundreds of years ago. This kind of stability made me jealous for a moment… What kind of life am I living?”
JUSTIN LISTER
www.justinlister.com / @justinlisterphoto
’Self Reflection’. The project from which this image is taken has very real experiences from my life and childhood as the inspiration for each image. Even though the project is very personal, I know that a lot of these are shared experiences in many families. I want the viewer to make up their own story for this, and perhaps even imagine a different interpretation. This shot is probably my favorite. The concept came directly from a devastating loss I experienced in 2018. My brother, at 36 years old, died of gallbladder cancer. I remember having a profound realization of my own mortality, and the fact that he looked so much like me, made it like I was looking at myself. To make this image, I used the same person as both characters at the motel. I had the subject face completely away from the camera with a static pose. This made the character totally expressionless to represent the empty feeling. Even though the story came from my experience, the image has a surreal feeling to it, which I love.”
THÉO GOSSELIN
www.theogosselin.format.com / @theogosselin
“Ely, Nevada, February 2019. Minus 17 degrees Celsius. My friend Emmanuel Rosario is crossing the Main Street just before nightfall, and the wind is absolutely freezing. We’re staying in this motel with 7 other friends, all in the same room. Sometimes I sleep on the floor as there’s only two beds, sometimes I get the chance to have a proper bed. The gap between the door and the floor is very big, and the room is very cold but our hearts are warm because of bourbon, cigarettes and folk songs. We spent two weeks in this motel before returning to France with our heads full of memories.
This image is a mix of everything I love – a cinematic vibe, with an unrecognizable character, between night and day. We want to know the story… why is he carrying a guitar? Where is he headed? This is the US I love, the spirit of the freedom of the 70s, with a soundtrack set against the Vietnam War. The feeling of freedom and the poetry of a nostalgic atmosphere. Bon voyage.”
VERL ADAMS
www.verlanceladams.com / @verladams
“One of the challenges of street photography is to capture the familiar (sometimes even the mundane) from different vantage points. This encourages an approach to photography that is constantly evolving. Because of that I tend to appreciate the photos that teach me to see in different ways. One of my favorite things to do at night is to explore the city through photography. I’m especially drawn to the intimate, human scale of Tokyo’s back streets and alleyways. After dark these chaotic, but charming spaces are transformed by the night’s shadows and the lure of fluorescent lights.
The image I selected as one of my favorite night shots is a recent photo taken in October 2020, and I chose it for what I learned from it. I realized that what is left out of the frame of the photo (but still implied) can sometimes create a more accurate overall impression than including the entire picture. In the case of this photo, an orange Japanese lantern from across a narrow alleyway, within a small red-light area in Tokyo, is reflected in a darkened window of an abandoned building where obscured, late-night “services” were once being offered. As I have grown as a photographer there were certain photos that have changed my perspective and influenced how I approached my work moving forward. Perhaps this will be one of those photos.”
OLEG TOLSTOY
www.olegtolstoy.com / @olegtolstoy
From the series Trikes of El Nido. “In 2017 I travelled to seven countries in South-East Asia with my then-girlfriend, art director Tessie Gaertner. I shot projects in many of the countries we visited. When we arrived at the small town of El Nido in Palawan, Philippines, we couldn’t help but notice the trikes. One thing led to another, and each evening we started to photograph the riders and their tricks, using our iPhones to light the drivers and letting their neons do the rest. We ended up extending our stay by a few weeks just to continue working on the project.
Trikes of El Nido is a series with contrast at its core: at first glance, this could be the set of the new Blade Runner film, but the unpaved roads and corrugated iron fences tell a different story. El Nido is a remote town on the Philippine island of Palawan. There’s not much of a nightlife and the drivers need to compete for the limited business, but only a few have gone to this much effort.
When I learned that LED lights only became available in the town in 2016, I realised that their customisations are a creative outlet as much as a commercial decision. I thought it was time to show the world that El Nido is more than its natural scenery. This is innovation, Palawan-style.”
DAVID SCHERMANN
www.davidschermann.com / @davidschermann
”I took this photo in Hong Kong. When I think of Hong Kong, images of enormous skyscrapers and colourful neon signs immediately come to mind. These bright lights illuminate Hong Kong’s night sky. But stars in the night sky above Hong Kong Island are searched in vain. Instead, the city is enveloped in a pink-orange haze that downright suppresses the darkness of the night. Hong Kong‘s night sky has been proven to be one of the brightest in the world and this is not without consequences. Light pollution has an impact not only on flora and fauna but also on Hong Kong residents, especially on their sleep quality and well-being. One of them is Lulu, whom I photographed only illuminated by neon lights surrounding her on a buzzing street in the middle of Kowloon.”
BASTIEN DESCHAMPS
www.bastiendeschamps.com / @ecdemomaniak
From the series Ecdemomania. “I’ve always felt more comfortable at night. For me it is synonym of desire, risk, and oblivion. The meaning of the word Ecdemomania is ‘a compulsive need to be away from home’. This idea and this need drive my work. Ironically, I took this picture in a dive bar in NYC called ‘Home Sweet Home’. My friend was working there as a barmaid, giving away a lot of free booze so I was there quite often. That’s actually her on the right, flirting.
For me, this picture channels some kind of primal need. The need of the other. The need to hunt. The desire which shows up late at night with all its pleasures and perils.”
JAN SCHÜNKE
www.janschuenke.com / @janschuenke
From the series Moonstudies. “When we hear ‘Night Life’ we usually have a picture of the city in mind – the street or a club scene. But everyone’s night life in 2020 felt very different. This year’s events made me focus on the environment directly around me. It brought me to closer to new things, both very close and very far. I focussed on the surrounding nature, and discovered daily changes in the form of blooming flowers and plants, as well as stars and planets in our sky. Last March I decided to capture the upcoming three super full moons, and with that started my Moonstudies.
2020 has shown me again, how important it can be to focus on the little things around me. Being patient, aware and concentrating on one topic opens new doors and details which can be found in very common things. I like the fact that once a door starts to open, the things to discover become bigger and bigger, with every single session. By deciding to focus on the moon, curiosity takes hold and soon you notice the stars around it as well. When you are present, aware and open, nature offers you so much beauty.
In this last full moon, we see the dimensions of layers and distance, the aura of the moon, its colours and, as if visible, its energy. For these reasons it’s one of my favourite Moonstudies. In 2020 I once again learned to travel within walking distance, exploring the world by focussing on my surroundings.”
OSKAR ALVARADO
www.oskaralvarado.com / @oskaralvarado.photography
From the series Where Fireflies Unfold. “This series takes place in Deleitosa, which is the village of my parents located in the province of Cáceres, in the Extremadura region of Spain. Deleitosa was the town that Eugene Smith chose for his photographic essay “Spanish Village” published in the American magazine Life on April 9, 1951.
I propose a contemporary narrative that is born from emotion. My gaze has some subjective nuances that are linked to a series of experiences, places, memories that are what make up my imagination. I focus on twilight and night. Moments in which reality and fiction blur their borders. One of the keys to my personal style is to stage the strangeness. I am more interested in suggesting than telling and everything is encompassed in a mystery key where the images make up a dark, magical, suggestive world with open meanings. My intention in this series is to evoke this mystery, that which is hidden in the daily rhythms, in the poetic condition that underlies the strange.”
TOM LEIGHTON
www.tleighton.com / @tomleightonart
From the series Variegation. “During the current travel restrictions, I have taken time to explore new techniques both with the camera and in post. I am applying my experiments to subjects much closer to home, examining in particular the possibilities of colour, pushing to an extreme which transcends context and implies an otherworldliness.
This work is inspired by the nightlife of foliage, a glimpse of what we might see if our night vision had truly evolved. After the sun fades, the process of photosynthesis stops and respiration begins. Plants begin to burn their stored sugars and breathe back in some of the precious oxygen they have created. Growth continues, under the cloak of darkness, with careful calibration of the rate at which the plant’s fuel reserves are burnt. The colours I have used in this series represent the light absorbed within the structure of the plants and its conversion to energy. The title Variegation refers to to the multiple colours across a plant’s leaves or stems – representing the levels of chlorophyll in the plant which directly affects its gathering and burning of energy.”
PAUL THOMPSON
www.paulthompsonstudio.com / @paulthompsonstudio
‘MOONLIGHT 23:24 – 01:24’ from the series Moonlight. “All images are shot at full moon, using long exposures, ranging between 1-3 hours per image on a film large format plate camera. Moonlight is a lonely labour of love; I spent more than four years venturing to the English, Italian, Scottish, and Welsh coasts on dark nights, with only the moon to light my way.
For this particular image, I was staying in a cottage across the road from this location, I didn’t realise during the day that the masts would light up so you can imagine my joy when I started getting ready and walked out the front door and saw the view in front of me. The tide was out when I stated making the exposure, I knew that as the water came in over the rocks it would make for a great image however the speed of the water coming in did catch me out and I ended up with wet feet.
These are photographs of places, but they are also photographs of time passing. Over the course of these pivotal midnight hours, the tides come and go; the clouds shift positions, and the skies might grow stormy at any moment. The shutter remains open, and the camera records all the details that are too short-lived for the human eye to register.
We see traces of human life in many of the Moonlight photographs— lights, trails, concrete— but while we might own these places during the day, they belong to the sea and the moon at night. For this reason, the Moonlight pictures might be unnerving to some viewers, but for others, like me, they are a comfort and a respite from a busy, noisy world.”
LUCAS GIBSON
www.lucas-gibson.com / @lucascgibson
From the series Under the Nerve of the Night. “Rio de Janeiro, 30 December 2016. This picture represents the foundation of my project that aims to photograph alternative nightlife in the cities of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. As a nightlife lover, I was moved by the urge of knowing places where I could find people expressing their inner selves. At the same time, I felt this need to wander through the nights and seek to comprehend my desires and ways of expression.
This picture makes me feel very nostalgic. It was the first party I photographed in Rio and I remember the exact feelings I had when taking it. I recall being nervous and afraid, doubting my skills as a photographer and an artist. I had so many questions at that time, but I lived all of them intensely. Palloma Maremoto, the drag queen in the picture, was performing Carry On, a song she used to hear daily during her process of overcoming depression. We became good friends and she has appeared countless times in my photos since then. This project is about portraying my friends and the ones who share the night and its immersive experience with me.”
IOANNA NATSIKOU
www.ioannanatsikou.com / @natsikoui
’Shades of Scarlet Red’ from the series Interlude in Blue. “During the first lockdown due to the Covid-19 pandemic I was in Berlin. The first time I saw the city empty I was shocked. It was scary but at the same time intriguing. I saw the whole city as the perfect scenery, as a disruption of reality, a pause in time strangely familiar, bizarre and unexpected. At that period, I was working on my project Interlude in Blue – a body of work touching upon themes of loneliness, isolation and alienation. An isolated city? Right away I knew I had to include outdoor photo shooting in the process of the project.
One of my favorite buildings in Berlin is a historical film theatre from the 60s. It was one of the first places I visited after the lockdown. I went several times and I tried to take a photo, but it didn’t work. Something was missing. One evening I tried again. I was lucky that time. There was an installation of red lights outside of the building, just for a couple of hours, and I took this self-portrait.”
