138 DIGITAL CAMERA^ AUGUST 2019 http://www.digitalcameraworld.com
All of the photos Ruud shoots go into his
database, and from there he can choose
the photos he wants to work with.
“I have built a database since 1997.
When I started photographing digitally
in 2002, it grew enormously, and it now
contains more than 100,000 photos.”
As you’d expect, the transition to the digital
age has transformed Ruud’s workflow. “It has
undergone enormous development,” he says.
“Digital photography works much better for
me than analogue work. My database has
grown through it, and everything goes muchfaster now. Technically it has become more
and more complicated than in the beginning,
and since I started to make bigger pictures.”
Throughout his career, Ruud’s imagery has
embraced a range of historical references,
including Dutch Old Masters and early
photomontage artists. He describes his visual
style as “similar to painting, which is really my
great inspiration”. Ruud’s working methods
blend the techniques of painting, photography
and collage together, encouraging the viewer
to confront the value of truth in photography,
but also their own ideas about what’s real
(and what isn’t) in a picture.
“[My work] looks like a painting, but it is a
photograph, a montage,” he says. “Everything
was placed where I wanted it. My idea was to
construct a photograph that would look like
an ordinary photo, but where everything
was actually made up.”See more of Ruud van Empel’s work at
huxleyparlour.com/artists/ruud-van-empel“ My idea was to construct
a photograph that would
ǼȒȒǸȒȸƳǣȇƏȸɵِِِƫɖɎɯǝƺȸƺ
everything was made up”
Above: Floresta
Negra #2B.Ruudvan^Empel.^ CourtesyofHuxley-ParlourGalleryNEXT
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