Storytelling and Art Making

Family portraiture: a unique aunt-niece collaboration

Portraits, Storytelling and Art Making, Workshops / June 8, 2023

My niece is very smart – she is sociable, she is sweet, and she is kind. At the moment, she’s reaching the end of her time at high school and, to my delight, has developed (pun intended) an interest in photography on the side of her studies. So, when she asked me to teach her about analogue and portrait photography, it was easy to say yes.

Having my niece see my studio in Berlin and work here with me was important for both of us, so I invited her to join me with a friend. And in the studio, I simply followed their needs: the perfect combination of input and exchange.

First, with our analogue cameras in our hands, I realised that although my niece and her friend had received some photography instruction and explanations before, it so happened that no one had ever taken the time to really explain to them the relation between speed and aperture. This relationship is a vital one in portraiture photography – in all photography, really – since it dictates the depth of field, i.e.  the distance between the nearest and furthest element in a scene that appears sharp enough in the image. Both young women are really smart, excellent students, but until then they had never dared to ask and ask again until they had truly grasped the concept. So that’s exactly what I made a safe space for them to do.

To put their newly gained portraiture photography knowledge into practice, I leant them my analogue middle format camera and we all took turns posing and photographing. I’ve put my most favourite of the images we created collaboratively here in this blog. And when they both held the light meter next to my camera and discussed the set-up so confidently, I could see that they had deeply understood my answers to their questions.

Then, to finish, I had them both smell individual scent notes and write down their associations – as well as choose colours to accompany them. It turned out that my niece is very connected to smells and their memories and emotions, something I would never have known were it not for our gorgeous studio session.

My niece and her friend left with a new perspective on photography and scent, and the memory of a happy, creative day together in the studio of an artist… who happens to be her aunt! And I left with a deep confirmation of how much I love to create workshops and art with and for people, according to their individual needs. Our time together opened my heart to workshops in a whole new way and reminded me that I deeply love sharing my studio for someone else’s creative needs.

Listening as a practice: Asocial Telepathic Ensemble launch

Sensory Art, Storytelling and Art Making / June 24, 2022

This week I had the pleasure of giving an artist’s talk at the The Asocial Telepathic Ensemble launch party, released by the amazing Corvo Records label at the sound art space, Errant Sound (where I was a member for many years).

black and white photography, black and white portrait, artist portrait, art photography, female photographer, music photographer, Berlin

Being part of the event gave me the opportunity to reflect back on the Asocial Telepathic recording session which took place over a year ago — when we were in the depths of another lockdown. In doing so I realised, once again, how much listening is at the core of pretty much everything I do as an artist and practitioner, no matter which medium I choose to use.

Listening with all my senses and simultaneously translating what I perceive are at the heart of my practice… be it in creating river perfumes, encountering horses, or capturing portraits of women.

For the talk, I put together a selection of images that focus on the act of listening itself: depicting visually what can only be evoked in this silent medium.

The first image is a voice portrait of Francis Bebey, a wonderful musician and musicologist, I had the honour of encountering and listening to in 1996 at the multi-disciplinary Sura Za Africa festival in Austria – my first ever photography commission! Bebey lost his voice shortly after, making this image even more precious in later years.

street photography, artist portrait, art photography, female photographer, music photographer, ParisThe second is from the 2001 Langue des Signes series, a photographic research project on the visibility of sign language in Paris’ public spaces.

The third is a portrait of a deaf girl born into a hearing family. I had the honour of following her first steps into spoken language through a technique called Codali (CODage Audition Langage Intégration). The resulting project, Franchir un Seuil (To Cross A Threshold) is part of the Museum der Moderne Salzburg.

black and white photography, black and white portrait, artist portrait, art photography, female photographer, Berlin The Asocial Telepathic Ensemble was initiated and curated by Alessandra Eramo (sound artist, composer, and vocalist) and Brandon LaBelle (artist, writer, and theorist) during the Covid-19 lockdown of last Spring. It’s an international, collaborative work of sound culture that brings together 11 composers, sound artists, curators, writers, and performers (see below for full credits) who simultaneously switched on their recording devices on the 21st March 2021 for 15 minutes. The result was a globe-spanning, telepathic recording session, documenting thoughts, habits, and surroundings — an attempt to connect with each other. No editing was done.

black and white photography, black and white portrait, artist portrait, art photography, female photographer, music photographer, Berlin The recording documents a historic moment in the 21st century, a very intimate glimpse into the reality of self isolation which has been experienced globally. Each recording offers a poetic approach to daily routine and deals with relatable themes such as: communicating with artificial voices, loneliness, yearning to travel, or being bored. 

But, ultimately, these artistic statements also talk about hope, transforming tragedy into irony, and accepting bodily and mental fragility — during the pandemic and beyond.

You can order the tape or listen online.

The Asocial Telepathic Ensemble are: Alessandra Eramo (voice, electronics); Ambra Pittoni (field recordings); Brandon LaBelle (field recordings); Florence Cats (field recordings, electronics); Ines Lechleitner (field recordings); Israel Martinez (field recordings, voice); James Webb (field recordings); Korhan Erel (field recordings, melodica); Lucia Udvardyova (field recordings, electronics); Ricarda Denzer (field recordings, voice); and Thea Farhadian (field recordings, violin, electronics).

Das Rhein Rauschen: a multi-media journey

Portraits, Sensory Art, Storytelling and Art Making / February 15, 2022

Das Rhein Rauschen was my 2016 multi-media exhibition in Basel, Switzerland. Translated literally, this title means The Rhine Rush, speaking to the rushing sound it makes as it flows – as well as offering a little play on words around the idea of rushing into something or to do something. With the curation expertise and support of Emily Bruner throughout the whole process, the exhibition took form. 

female photographer, Basel, Switzerland, empowering photography, artistic photography, monochrome photography From an artistic perspective, I was looking to somehow create a new river perfume and my aim was to translate as many sensual encounters with this wild river as possible: sounds, sensations, colours, stories, scents. Rivers are ever-changing and ungraspable and, yet, such a fundamental, ancient, and constant feature in our collective human history: from drinking to washing to burials to songs…

But these water spaces are definitively contained, and we often perceive them only in terms of their boundaries, their banks.

female photographer, Basel, Switzerland, empowering photography, artistic photography, monochrome photography

So, it was essential that my own explorations would take the form of a multi-media project – leaving the many aspects of the river to roam freely through my work, uncurtailed by a single medium. 

To achieve this, I hired a diver who could move like a whale, allowing us to filter out the essential ingredients for the river perfume I was creating. And I cast a woman’s body and its fragments became seashell-like, papier-maché objects.

female photographer, Basel, Switzerland, empowering photography, artistic photography, monochrome photography, female singer, female artistsDuring this process, I also photographed the model with her body casts – one of the many portraits of women I have loved capturing over the years. Plus, I wrote a river soundscape which was then interpreted by the amazing vocal artist, Alessandra Eramo. Altogether, this was a truly creative flow. The different mediums – photography, sculpture, drawing, film, and sound – emerged from the multi-sensory approach that I had started with to create the scent in the first place.

This scent formed the starting point, and centre, of the whole project: especially the exhibition at Villa Renata, Basel.

I loved sharing my initial research with the great nose and perfume maker, Andreas Wilhelm.  He actually described his position within the project as that of a ‘sponge’ in our collaborative process, which I find very fitting. The direction I chose with him was very close to a natural imprint and, therefore, close to the other mediums I used, like photography and sculptural casts. 

The 50ml perfume bottle is currently sold out, but the limited edition published with backbonebooks – a beautifully boxed set containing 10ml as a river-roll-on, an original papier-mache body fragment, a mobile to make yourself, and a photographic leaflet – is still available. You can purchase on request via email to hello@ines-l.com or via the backbonebooks shop.

female photographer, Basel, Switzerland, empowering photography, artistic photography, monochrome photography, female artists

I hope you will enjoy exploring this part of my work as a space within which to perceive yourself as a river and its shore at the same time. It’s an invitation for you to connect to our environment in an empathic and multisensory way, in order to find new ways to care and to listen.

 

Family portraiture: capturing the beauty

Photography in Berlin, Portraits, Storytelling and Art Making / January 20, 2022
Family portraiture is a fine art.

It’s about getting close, but still keeping that little bit of space. In fact, I believe it’s the perception of a related outsider that best captures family moments: very much present, yet at that crucial distance. 

grandmother portrait, family portraiture, monochrome portrait, artistic portrait, female photographer, female artist Within my own family, the photographic act rarely takes centre stage, it’s more like briefly coming up for air or jotting down a quick note, while being immersed in the flow of things. So, getting round to capturing family portraiture always needs a specific type of urgency in order to make it happen, like when we gathered to photograph my grandmother shortly before she passed away.

During this particular session, in front of my great grandmother’s family home, she urged me to photograph her sons for her. To create the desired set-up with my uncles, I needed my grandmother’s personal commission.

And, I have to say, it was a truly empowering experience for me to be directing them as a professional photographer after having always been their little niece.musician portrait, family portraiture, monochrome portrait, artistic portrait, female photographer, female artist  

It was a brand new dynamic and the resulting images give just a trace of a specific moment in time that will never occur again.

Because I have a deep respect for family constellations and the art called for in capturing their representation, I was very happy and honoured to be commissioned for family portraiture after a friend’s daughter’s confirmation last autumn. Coming into this group of family members and close friends, it felt very precious to be trusted with such an important job. The process was absolutely magical – and a lot of fun for everyone involved.

I could feel that I became a witness and a vessel for what they wanted to express and share with one another.

portraits of women, family portraiture, baby portrait, artistic portrait, female photographer, female artist For my 2012 solo show at the M-Museum in Leuven, Belgium, I took parallel exhibitions as starting points for my installation Poem to be sung. One was the Sol Lewitt retrospective from which I derived the shape alphabet, and the other was a Madonna sculpture from the museum’s Medieval collection. Ultimately, my Artist with removed objects and child  photograph is a dialogue of both these influences, taking a unique place in my growing collection of portraits of women. Plus, I had a 3 year-old boy of my own at home while preparing for this show – my first big solo show in a museum.

So this photograph most definitely captured my creative process in a moving and personal way too.

woman portrait, family portraiture, monochrome portrait, artistic portrait, female photographer, female artist Ultimately, what I’ve found through my empowering photography work, is that people want to be shown with their closest family members. For example, I was working on a portrait of my godmother, a Finnish priest living in Vienna. After our session, she called for her sons, and then her husband, to come in too. It felt to me as if her self image was only complete when surrounded by her loved ones. We are social animals after all. 

And, as for me – the photographer in the room – what’s special and satisfying is the inherent trust that I sense being extended towards me. Being in such a situation gives me the confidence to involve myself, respectfully, and arrange beautiful family portraits according to what feels right.

The Magic of Portrait Photography (Part Two)

Photography in Berlin, Portraits, Storytelling and Art Making / November 3, 2021

My portraits of women are a cornerstone of what I do. In that work, I am often hired to do a single portrait, which then expands into a pair or group portrait – this is down to the natural, evolving need to subsequently show that same person in connection with their products or within their team.

While in a single portrait session there is an intimate space between the person I am photographing and my camera, especially in terms of what she wants to represent professionally, as soon as there are two or more subjects, their shared relationship comes into play.

portraits of women, empowering photography, Berlin

Channeling my empowering photography ethos, my aim was to show Caroline Schneider, founder of Sternberg Press, as the true art and discourse-related thinker, as well as leader that she is.

When I took this solo portrait for Sternberg – a publishing house for artistic and cultural criticism, creative non-fiction, and literary and experimental fiction founded by Caroline in New York in 1999 – it gave way to a team shoot where I captured an even fuller picture of their work environment and the dynamics exist between them. It is in their creative home on Karl-Marx-Allee, amidst their books, that I took this series.

group portrait, empowering photography, Berlin

I wanted to illustrate how Caroline has a very strong relationship to each and every single title published by the press, plus with the vital, dynamic team she has carefully built over the years in this truly unique place. Her beauty shines.

Indeed, once you start representing a person in a professional context, there is always that wider spectrum or bigger picture which wants to be shown to the world. And, ideally, all of these photographs should be taken by the same person, so that they can create a cohesive vision – one which aesthetically becomes one body. That’s where I come in!

art curator, women portrait, women monochromeIn this vein, I’ve also photographed Eva Meyer-Hermann: a curator and art historian who decided to become a curator for artists, as her way of responding to the political developments in the art world which have led to its general lack of real exchange and mediation.

And it was precisely at this special moment of building her new identity – and website – that I came into the picture, with my personal branding photography, with the aim of communicating both Eva herself and her practice to a wider audience.

personal branding photography, portraits of women, empowering photography, art curator

We spent a couple of hours together in her office – first alone, then with her associate curator, Johannes Schmidt. Every photograph I took for Eva had a different role to play. In the headshot, the aim was to show her as open and smiling, offering an invitation for dialogue.

The other two images show moments of contemplation and creative thinking, as well as her explaining a work of art that is dear to her.

Similarly, I have enjoyed the privilege of capturing Laura Galatti’s portrait. Laura is a Swiss pianist, composer, and politician. After having encountered her and her partner, Christina Thürmer-Rohr, performing Die Kontroverse in the Viennese Liszt-Saal, I had the honour of joining them during rehearsal in their performance space, Akazie 3, here in Berlin Schöneberg.

empowering photography, portraits of women, female pianist, female artistsMy role in facilitating empowering photography here was centred on conveying Laura’s artistry and skill. This type of work presents me with the wonderful challenge of somehow finding a meaningful way to convert aural beauty into a visual medium.

So in my single portraits of Laura, the viewer is able to experience Laura listening to the sound she is producing with a metal sheet. And in her partnered shots, I have sought to communicate her close relationships and dialogues with her instrument, her partner, and the very process of writing music.personal branding photography, portraits of women, empowering photography

Ultimately, it’s all an organic process. During the portrait session, the women I’m photographing talk with me and show me what they are selling or creating or offering. Then, I capture these aspects too.

In fact, in so much of my art photography work to date, I have searched for ways to capture invisible processes within a photographic image, something of an essence that would otherwise be hidden: from plants and fruits, to animals, and nonverbal communication between people.

In this way, I am very versatile in what and how I can photograph, so website photography – as this broad, rich spectrum – just comes naturally to me. 

 

 

ink connections

Storytelling and Art Making / September 17, 2021

Late summer greetings!

The two workshops by Lucila Kenny at WirWir Berlin on natural dyes from food waste and ink making from the plants that grow around us lead me on a wonderful journey.

I acquired new skills to experiment with in my creativity workshops and have met many interesting and skillful people here in Berlin.

It also traced a colorful paths to three women I had the chance to be and work with in past Septembers in the forest of Kent and at Mount of Oaks in Portugal in the context of the nomadic residencies by fourthland. Here are two portraits of Maya and Gail from Portugal.

While making the inks here in Berlin, images of M. writing for hours an anger script in Catalan and later reading it out aloud and burning it in the fire kept flashing up in my mind.

Following my invitation, M. has made blackberry ink near Bristol and is preparing a script yet to be traced on whereas Gail has kindly sent me one of her drawings with Walnut ink.

 

September weavings of friendship, ink and living colours

Opening the Tomb: sharing stories about my art

Storytelling and Art Making / May 23, 2021

Hello there. 

As a visual artist I am used to sharing projects with the public once they are finished. But for me, the fun has always been in the ‘making of’ – colored with encounters, coincidences and the interplay of different mediums and perspectives. Unfortunately, all these background stories were often discarded as anecdotal – summed up by academics and abstract analysis. This made me feel like I was dropping dead objects into a tomb when updating my former website. The people I cared about connecting with couldn’t understand what my work as an artist truly meant. 

I decided that I wanted more.

textures of body positive photography  

And so, I have created this new website as a space where I can share stories about my artistic process in a more accessible way. It is my deep wish to create more of an exchange as I create new works with new and old clients, friends and collaborators – instead of only presenting my finished works to a formal audience. For me this blog is not a platform but rather a place to share stories about the processes behind my artistic journeys.

I have always loved to talk about my work but dreaded writing about it. When you speak with someone in real time it often includes all the juiciness I loved about the processes behind the work but often the written text merely summed up the content itself and fell short of the original, thrilling experience. It’s in the oral storytelling where curiosity and discovery truly live-  through its encounters and shared experiences. I know this through my work with artists, scientists and others in projects, workshops and collaborations. These are the spaces where I’ve truly enjoyed sharing my deeper insights and skills.

women laughing

Whether it’s through empowering photography or one of my creativity workshops, I want to offer my services and create new work and experiences with you! I hope that we can co create together, exchange ideas and find inspiration in an open honest dialogue. 

Welcome to my new art playground – I look forward to meeting you here!

lemon whale soap drawing