© Anne Lass, Milwaukee Avenue #03, 2005. From the series Milwaukee Avenue.
1. You’ve been trained as a documentary photographer at the Folkwang School of Design in Essen Germany from which you graduated in 2007: was your photographic education there film-based only, and have your artistic practices changed since then? If yes, how?
At the university, we started out with strict traditional black and white photography and dark room prints on fibre paper, later we were “allowed“ to do color and analogue color printing – around 2004 the school went more digital and a light jet printer and drum scanners were introduced to us. The first students bought digital cameras and so did I – but decided to go back to my film camera after a year. I was not satisfied with the result, my digital camera was not good enough for my idea of large format prints and fine details, partly because I had a lack of knowledge on how to scan correctly and use photoshop. Nowadays, I still use the Mamiya 7 for most projects, scan my negatives and print them out digitally.
© Anne Lass, Milwaukee Avenue #05, 2005. From the series Milwaukee Avenue.
2. For most people, the recurring question on the topic of film photography is why? Why photograph on film in 2013? What do you think (besides why not)?
I like the slow process about it. There is always a special and exciting moment when seeing the developed negatives for the first time and sometimes being surprised about captured moments, which had already been forgotten. I even like the slow process of cleaning a scanned negative and discovering every inch of the file. Besides that I just have a lot of trust in my personal analogue camera, which I have used for almost all of my projects for years. I know that it works well for me, I have another focus and confidence when photographing with it.
© Anne Lass, Milwaukee Avenue #09, 2005. From the series Milwaukee Avenue.
3. You are based in Berlin, Germany and often travel the entire country (and abroad) for commissioned and personal projects: how is the film photography industry doing now in Berlin and Germany in general? Do you see a viable future for it anywhere?
In the commercial business here in northern Europe, shooting on film is almost never part of the budget anymore and the deadline of having to deliver the material has become faster. But as long as there is film for sale there will always be fine art photographers who will use it because of the different process – it has become more a political issue shooting on film, rather than the frequently used argument of a better quality.
© Anne Lass, Milwaukee Avenue #06, 2005. From the series Milwaukee Avenue.
4. FOTOFILMIC is dedicated to promoting the new generations of photographers attached to film today: what essential advice or recommendation would you have for them?
If you scan your negatives and print them out digitally be sure to know how to do it right. A bad scan can ruin a very good negative.
6. What have you been up to recently? Any recent achievements, projects, news?
Right now I am finishing a book project about an abandoned guesthouse located in the northern part of Denmark. It is a combination of my own photographs of the current state of the place, images of the place found in the private album of the former owners and excerpts of interviews with them.
It is an interesting challenge to bring these different parts together, because the aesthetic of their photographs and mine are so different, last but not least because of the difference in the color tone, which after 30 years now start to fade and turn orange. It is an interesting investigation into absence and presence in images and how the film material itself also tells something about it.
© Anne Lass, Milwaukee Avenue #14, 2005. From the series Milwaukee Avenue.
7. If anything was possible, what would be your next ultimate project photography-wise (or else)?
I would like to do a project about the situation of the refugees coming to Europe by boat, how Europe tries to prevent that and how refugees are treated when they arrive here.
© Anne Lass, Milwaukee Avenue #24, 2005. From the series Milwaukee Avenue.
________________
FotoFilmic’s new FILM TALKS series is all about sharing experienced views, artistic endeavors, industry outlooks and how to reshape the contemporary practices at the center of the film photography medium today. FILM TALKS invite advanced artists, independent publishers, photo editors and art dealers, as well as the broad creative crowd of visual arts to engage in insightful dialogues with FotoFilmic about film photography in all aspects.