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The Night
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The Swiss photographer Joël Tettamanti is an observer, a watcher who soaks up a place like a sponge for a brief period of time before releasing what he has learned back into his eerily beautiful images. His work takes him to many distant lands but in the end it is always the light that rules him: “Some places have a unique light,” he says, “there are areas of China that are very bright but intensely overcast and in Greenland the light is sometimes so bright it is too complicated for me to shoot”. After nightfall it gets even more difficult. Here he shares his thoughts with uncube alongside a selection of his after dark shots from Iceland, Nigeria, France and Spain.
All photos © Joël Tettamanti
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“There is a certain fascination with the night, because there is this quietness. The light that people use to light the streets, or whatever, is designed in a way.”
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“Usually people tend to put me in a very analytical box as a photographer, the photographic box that is linked to this medium. The technique of photography makes people think that there is always some big quest behind it, but I just keep it spontaneous and unplanned.”
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“Night shooting is difficult as there are many problems linked to the long exposure times like vibration from wind, cars or people. Only a very low percentage of these images actually succeed.”
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“I usually shoot alone and always shoot in the same way, always with a 4x5-inch camera. I am a bit of a voyeur. Hanging out in in places that nobody uses at that time of day is a bit odd, a bit strange – maybe even suspicious.”
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“Nature is very exciting, but there are very few images of pure nature in my work. I am concerned with cities and the mutation of landscape. A road in nature is an urban picture even if we see only a road. And pure nature… pure nature doesn’t exist anymore. It’s a fiction, a fake.”
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The Swiss photographer Joël Tettamanti was born in 1977 in Efok, Cameroon and grew up in the Jura, Lesotho and Switzerland. He is now based in Lausanne and teaches photography at the ECAL design school there when he is not travelling the world shooting extraordinary landscapes and portraits. His work has been exhibited widely and he has published three monographs: Local Studies, (Etc. Publications, 2007), Davos, (Scheidegger und Spiess, 2009) and, just published, Joel Tettamanti: Works 2001-2019 (Benteli Verlag 2014).
tettamanti.ch
“I love getting in contact with a place through photography. I am not a tourist when I shoot. I am something, someone, different.”
Joël Tettamanti at work. (Photo: Thomas Rousset)
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