honorable mention
Ivan Mervillie belgium
Photo © Ivan Mervillie
title
Autumn Leaves
As the earth spins on its axis, producing night and day, it also moves around the sun in an elliptical orbit. The earth's spin axis is tilted. When that axis points towards the sun, it is summer. When it points away, winter can be expected. In between we have spring and autumn, in my opinion the two most appealing seasons; the first bringing life, the second, taking it away.
This series of photos was shot in Budapest, during the first days of autumn. Days get shorter, temperature drops and more often than not it rains. Some of us are still wearing our summer clothes, others have taken out their winter garderobe and all of us seem in a hurry to get back home. It was a no-brainer to shoot this series in black & white.
Shooting in black & white comes natural to me. Because my first steps into photography were in a black & white darkroom, but also because I am suffering from protanopia, a type of red-green color blindness. So black & white is my natural habitat, the home where I belong. On top of that the high contrast black & white brings focus to the subjects and hints on the hidden, underlying drama.
I meanly shoot environmental portraits for magazines and do travel reportages too. I can’t determine a single point in time, or a pivotal moment but through the years my intrest started shifting to street photography. From the rigid document to the spontaneous impression. And it all fell into place during my visit to Japan around the turn of the century. Like always I had meticulously planned my subjects but when I arrived in Tokyo I found myself dwelling the streets more often than not. I strolled through the public parks and along the banks of the rivers crossing the metropole. I no longer worked from within a well define concept but I tried to keep an open mind and photograph the unexpected, the wonder and astonishment.
Nowadays I walk through my hometown or the cities I visit alike, and try to make series of short stories centered on a common theme.
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entry description
My photography is rooted in an everlasting curiosity and fascination for mankind. Like an anthropologist I want to decipher and catalog the stories that surround me. At the same time I try to arrange the formal aspects in a visual reassuring manner within the frame of a photograph. With my photography I create structure in the chaos around me to achieve a better understanding.As the earth spins on its axis, producing night and day, it also moves around the sun in an elliptical orbit. The earth's spin axis is tilted. When that axis points towards the sun, it is summer. When it points away, winter can be expected. In between we have spring and autumn, in my opinion the two most appealing seasons; the first bringing life, the second, taking it away.
This series of photos was shot in Budapest, during the first days of autumn. Days get shorter, temperature drops and more often than not it rains. Some of us are still wearing our summer clothes, others have taken out their winter garderobe and all of us seem in a hurry to get back home. It was a no-brainer to shoot this series in black & white.
Shooting in black & white comes natural to me. Because my first steps into photography were in a black & white darkroom, but also because I am suffering from protanopia, a type of red-green color blindness. So black & white is my natural habitat, the home where I belong. On top of that the high contrast black & white brings focus to the subjects and hints on the hidden, underlying drama.
about the photographer
I was born into a family where photography was always present. The first camera I took a picture with was a Voigtländer Vitomatic III CS. And when I was twelve, I for the fist time saw an image appear on a previously white paper in the darkroom. I was hooked for life. Twelve I am no longer and it's been ages since I last stepped into a darkroom but the passion remained. When I leave the house without a camera, which I hardly ever do, I feel amputated, and this has nothing to do with fact that photography has been my livelihood since the '90's.I meanly shoot environmental portraits for magazines and do travel reportages too. I can’t determine a single point in time, or a pivotal moment but through the years my intrest started shifting to street photography. From the rigid document to the spontaneous impression. And it all fell into place during my visit to Japan around the turn of the century. Like always I had meticulously planned my subjects but when I arrived in Tokyo I found myself dwelling the streets more often than not. I strolled through the public parks and along the banks of the rivers crossing the metropole. I no longer worked from within a well define concept but I tried to keep an open mind and photograph the unexpected, the wonder and astonishment.
Nowadays I walk through my hometown or the cities I visit alike, and try to make series of short stories centered on a common theme.
back to gallery
