WHO? I started taking photographs in 2003 and quickly fell in love with the darkroom. I’m in love with film photography because the process is magic, the result is great and you don’t have the urgency to show your work straight away. I’m glad to be a member of AllFormat Collective since 2017. I don’t consider myself a street photographer now although in the beginning I spent quite a few years trying to pursue that path. These years helped me understand how to approach people and what I really loved about photography.
Interviews
Interview with Saumalya Ghosh
WHO? I’m Saumalya Ghosh. I was born in a village in West Bengal, India. My father was a Mechanical Engineer and in my childhood I was very passionate about machines. I always wanted to become an engineer and today I am a Software Engineer by profession.
Interview with Suresh Naganathan
WHO? Born in Switzerland in 1980 to Indian parents, I did something that most Indians wouldn’t do, I moved back to the country of my origins in 2008. I’ve been living and working in Mumbai, the megapolis I call home, for the last 11 years. I am both Swiss and Indian, and neither Swiss nor Indian. This tension in my identity has colored all my life and I try to use it in my photography as well.
Interview with Sandra Cattaneo Adorno
WHO? I started photographing six years ago, when my daughter took me to my first photography class as a present for my 60th birthday. It was the summer of 2013 and the course was tutored by Alex and Rebecca Webb in Barcelona. ‘Oh God,’ I replied to my daughter Gwen when she asked me to go, but I went for the fun of it. I had no idea how to use the camera and I was obviously the worst in the class, but for some reason, I don’t know why, I really found it fascinating.
Interview with Dotan Saguy
WHO? As far back as I can remember I was always equally obsessed with art on one hand and technology on the other. I have this vivid memory of myself as a young child sketching out the idea for what I later found out already existed as the jet engine. Around the same time I spent hours learning how to draw dozens of Disney characters from a poster in my bedroom so I could draw them by heart for my classmates.
Interview with Bojan Nikolic
WHO? I was born Sarajevo in the former Yugoslavia. I moved to London when I was eight years old, just before all the madness started back home. I have been intrigued about most forms of art since I was a kid. Music was the first to make a profound impact on me when I was young. For some reason, the need of having a camera was a recent urge – I have been pretty ignorant about the world of photography until fairly recently.
Interview with Stan De Zoysa
WHO? I was born in Colombo, Sri Lanka and migrated to Europe at the age of 19. I’ve been living in Barcelona since 2001. I work as a logistics engineer for an automotive company. I live in a small town near Barcelona, with my beloved partner in crime Reka and my two kids, Mireia and Xavier, to all of whom I’m ever so grateful for helping me so much with pursuing photography.
Interview with Ximena Echague
WHO? I am Ximena Echague. I was born in Buenos Aires, became a photographer in Europe and now live between New York and Brussels. I am always on the move and feel equally at home in Europe, America or Asia.
Interview with Orietta Gelardin Spinola
WHO? I am a graphic designer born in Madrid to an American father and an Italian mother. I have been very inspired by my mother’s social photography, as well as by one of my three brothers who used to shoot on the streets during the 70’s and 80’s.
Julia Baier in Conversation with Blake Andrews
Blake Andrews: Where did you grow up?
Julia Baier: I grew up in the south of Germany, in Bavaria in a small town, Passau, next to three rivers.
Blake Andrews: How did you first get interested in photography?
Julia Baier: My interest in photography first started when it was clear that I would leave the town to go study elsewhere. So it was the classical aspect of photography to archive and to hold on things to keep it better in memory. I went to buy my first camera, a Minolta X300. And I also did my first internship in a small photo shop in Passau — this was the best I could do. The person working in the photo lab introduced me to b/w photography, so I fell completely in love with darkroom work.