“I look at people and just click. That’s the magic of the moment. But I pay extra attention to the details.”
Louise te Poele will present her new book Famers at ABC Amsterdam on Saturday March 26th at 3pm
Te Poele’s photographs come from her fascination with people. She picks out unusual characteristics, peculiarities that make up the individual. Acquaintances, strangers, family, casual passers-by; she is looking for the eccentric, the outstanding. Therein lies the beauty of every human.
For Farmers she took portraits of the inhabitants of her own village, in the Achterhoek.
“I took the people from my birthplace as a starting point for this series. When I first photographed them, I was touched by them. That was at my former neighbor’s 50th birthday party. It cheered me up to watch them party together and see how strongly they resembled each other. I decided to follow them to different parties and weddings and that’s how the series came about. I didn’t portray them posing. That’s where I touch upon documentation photography. By making the background black, the images become dramatic. I did this to remove these headshots from any context.”
“For me it’s about the person, not their surroundings. This way I added a personal interpretation of reality. The headshots become characters, they loom up from the pitch dark backgrounds and evoke images/memories from a distant past. From the date you can tell the photos are very recent and don’t stem from the era they’re referring to.”
You can see Louise talking about her work and her latest project (in Dutch) on the Dutch TV program Ochtendspits.
