subscribe 0330 333 1113 I http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk I 15 June 2019 25
nadav kander
Assuredly not deceased,
Nadav Kander has been
living in London since- His numerous
works have been
exhibited around the
globe and he has
published a total of
seven books to date. You
can read more about his
life and see additional
work at his website
nadavkander.com. This
year, he was awarded
the 2019 Sony World
Photography Awards
Outstanding Contribution
to Photography Award.
For more details
about the awards, see
worldphoto.org.
point, as I will have spent probably
three hours working with the
lighting so I’ll know sort of the
positions that would work best.
When a person enters the room,
they come with everything that
had made them the people that they
are. I have my own baggage and
everything that’s made me the
person that I am, too. That meeting
is incredibly important when it
comes to portrait making – but I’m
certainly not trying to relax them. I
might gently persuade someone to
look to the left or to the right, but
generally I wait for those periods
of time when somebody’s being
genuine to themselves – when
somehow there’s an atmosphere that
I know that if I release the shutter
in that moment or that period of
time, that I will frustrate the viewer
- I suppose that’s a good word –
where they want to look at the work
for longer and look deeper.’
Kander acknowledges that the
photographic landscape – both
literally and metaphorically in his
case – has changed immensely in
the past 45 years. 'The playing field
is so much flatter now – you don’t
need the same amount of craft and
ability and expertise. However, I
think it’s harder to shine – there are
so many people working out there.
It becomes all about your network
and how you navigate through
this minefield of just the most
unbelievable amount of images that
are shown to us every day.’ That
but we decided to go with a close-up
grid, which threw out so many
portraits that are more distant.’
After all this time in photography,
I ask Kander if there’s anything left
which he would love to photograph,
and I get an answer that I must
admit I wasn’t anticipating. ‘I’d love
to be in a rocket and look back at
the Earth,’ he says, looking a little
wistful. It’s clear however that
humanity is the subject that
continues to hold the biggest grip
over the photographer: ‘I think I
want to continue to find ways
which I haven’t thought of yet of
uncovering more – just digging and
provoking, and looking at the
human condition. We’re going
through a mammoth change at
the moment – children of our time
are seen as so different from the
generation that precedes them, so
the work changes accordingly.
Global warming is becoming a
massive subject and a real hardship,
and again the work will change.’
Despite that initial presumption
that the World Photography
Organisation must think Kander is
dead, it’s clear to see that he’s keen
to carry on taking pictures just as
much as he ever was, albeit perhaps
closer to home. His latest project,
‘Dark Line – The Thames Estuary’,
is something he can escape into
without having to travel. He’s been
working on it for the past four years,
and although it was published in
book form last year, he tells me that
he’s keen to carry on pursuing it.
With that, he wanders back into the
exhibition space that has by now
filled up with yet more people keen
to chat with the man behind
the pictures.said, were he starting out today
he still firmly believes that
photography would be his chosen
vocation: ‘I can’t imagine ever doing
anything else – since I was 13 I have
dealt with photography pretty much
every single day,’ he says.
Narrowing down a lifetime’s work
into just a few rooms – even in the
palatial setting of Somerset House- is a tricky proposition. ‘That was
pretty hard,’ Kander says. ‘For
Bodies, I especially love the larger
woman who’s sitting (above), while
another from that set is a favourite
of viewers – so those were almost
chosen for us. Portraits were harder
Below left: Patrick
Stewart, taken in
2012 as part of
Kander’s ‘Titans of
the Stage’ setBelow right: HRH
Prince Charles,
taken in 2013