C'est grâce à Lisen Adbåge que j'ai découvert le travail de Gustav Gustafsson. J'ai eu envie de lui poser quelques questions sur son travail.
I don't remember if you are still a student or already end up with school. Do you make photography project on your own or for someone/something else?
I finished school, more of a project year actually.
I only make projects for myself and on my own, maybe in the future I'll do something for someone.
How do you make a specific photography project? Do you choose a theme and then take picture or do you gather photos together and organize them under a subject. To resume my questions : does the picture come first or is it the theme?
The theme always comes first when I'm working on a special project. But I also take pictures, snapshots if you like, just because they are aesthetic or have something that can categorize as humour in them.
How do you consider your projects, works : as something philosophical, illustrative or just technic?
I more consider my photography as some level of documentary. But I like to set up photos also, to illustrate a made up event.
I am particularly curious about the project 23/4. Those pictures are so mysterious. What happen this day?
I love the subtle shades of grey, the very low contrasts. When I see them I want to use them as an inspiration for the shades while engraving.
The date should actually be 24/3, I wrote it wrong when I made the website and haven't bother to change it. haha.
It's last day of snow this past winter. I woke up early that morning and everything was white, you could'nt hardly see 100 meters ahead of you cause of the snowfall. I found it so bizzare, cause the days before it really felt like the spring was on is way.
So I went out and documented it, using film and exposing it, for me, in a new way. The pictures are then copied on paper in a darkroom and then later scanned.
The send him to find me project is also very attractive to me. Why do you choose to fire the flash? Again I see it like a project very narrative. But it is maybe because I am an illustrator and imagining stories is my way to consider the things I see.
In 'send him to find me' i used flash because i wanted that certain look, the hard direct flash on the trees and the ambient light in the background. the title is from a song that my older brother wrote, that I wanted to illustrate.
Merci beaucoup Gustav!
