B elgium, says Stephan Vanfleteren, one of its most celebrated photographers, is a country with a 'strange and good energy'. Talking to me from his home in the small town of Veurne, close to the French border, Vanfleteren explains how Catching Light, Freezing Time, his selling exhibition at Sotheby’s Brussels, takes a fresh look at his thirty-year career. His work spans photojournalism, celebrity portraiture and Expressionist landscapes, has seen him contribute to The New York Times and Paris Match and won him six World Press Photo Awards.
As a portraitist, Vanfleteren is a cartographer of faces, drawing out every line, valley and shadow in subjects ranging from farmers to film stars (sitters have included Juliette Binoche, Woody Harrelson and Matthias Schoenaerts). He immerses his landscapes in elemental atmosphere, and his Nature Morte series on animal carcasses hark back to the Old Masters. As the exhibition opens, Vanfleteren discussed sourcing dead birds, directing Spike Lee and the malleable mystery of natural light.
How did you select the works at Sotheby’s?
That’s quite a difficult question. I did it together with my gallery, Gallery FIFTY ONE. Normally, what I do when I come up with a show is that it’s new work about a new project, for instance I did something about the Atlantic Wall and something about surfer portraits. So that’s very easy. But for Sotheby’s, it’s a mix of different things, different times, different styles, black and white, colour, still life, action, landscape.
I didn’t plan to make a small retrospective at Sotheby’s. I think we chose something that fits well there: maybe work that Brussels or the French-speaking part of Belgium are not so familiar with. Maybe for them this kind of work is new. For instance, I thought it was a good place to show the Nature Morte series.
Yes, how long have you been working on that series?
I think about six years. It’s a never-ending story. I did it for an exhibition in Holland but it’s still ongoing. If I find another little bird or some small animal – or a bigger one like a fox – I take them with me and I photograph them.
You just find dead animals?
Most of them I find myself. I have some friends who are close to the beach and the sea and they know if they find something to call me - they take a photograph and ask: ‘Are you interested?’ I come over right away. Like now, I have a little bird in the fridge. A woodpecker, a bird that someone found recently. Two weeks now it’s been in my fridge, because sunlight is my enemy for my daylight studio. If there’s sunlight, it’s not good light. So, I’m waiting for a good moment when it’s cloudy and I can take out the little bird and start to photograph.
Did you intend for that series to echo the Old Masters?
Absolutely. The lamb, of course, is Francisco de Zurbarán and Agnes Dei. And you have the duck and the pheasant which is a reflection of the hunting scenes and still lifes of the hunting painters. The light makes it very painterly. Although, of course, it’s a photograph, there is a connection with painting, especially the vanitas.
'With ninety percent of my work, I use natural light. And I find it very interesting to manipulate daylight. It’s like a quest. I try not to make this grey always the same.'
That series is near monochrome but there are flecks of colour.
I use this background for my portraits and still lifes, it’s always in my daylight studio. The grey curtains are waiting for me. I wanted something very neutral. But if you look at the pictures, sometimes it’s more blueish, sometimes it’s warmer of tone. From the beginning I was more a black and white photographer. I did that for almost 20 years. Then I thought, maybe I can do something with colour. And for me, what was interesting and exciting to see was the effect of the weather. Also, the seasons: when it’s summertime, I feel the green in the studio. With ninety percent of my work, I use natural light. And I find it very interesting to manipulate daylight. It’s like a quest. I try not to make this grey always the same.
Your approach sounds similar to that of an en plein air painter.
To be honest, I only have two lights. For a professional photographer this is rare. The simpler it looks, the harder it is. It’s much easier to use tricks and artificial light. It’s the same with a portrait. To take a very simple portrait, that works very well, is so complicated.
Is it harder when the face is famous?
Not really. Sometimes with famous people, they know how they look because they’re actors or they have been photographed a million times before me. They know which parts they like. They have already thought about how they want to look. With people who are not known or not used to being photographed, sometimes it’s interesting because they don’t care.
Actors are nice to photograph because most of them have an interesting face. But also, they know what it is to have patience. I like when I make a portrait that people don’t move that much. I’m not like a fashion photographer. In the process, silence becomes very important.
Are some portrait shoots easier than others?
Some pictures I’m proud of, because they were made under a lot of stress working for Le Monde at Cannes film festival. I’m thinking about Mads Mikkelsen, Vanessa Paradis and Joaquin Phoenix. Those were made in a very short amount of time, but concentration was high. There are always people saying, 'You have five minutes' and you know they’re counting. The advantage of that is that you go straight away to what you want. With Spike Lee, he was like, ‘What you want, man?’ I took his hand, impulsively, and said, put it there. I photographed, and it was done.
Vanessa Paradis was funny. She saw my work and said I want this photographer from Le Monde. I was in this very expensive hotel in Cannes, in the penthouse. We had problems with the backdrop because we couldn’t fix it. And she was late and my light was changing. When we came in, the light was perfect, after an hour the light was terrible. And then she came in and I was in a panic. It was chaos. I’m sure she was thinking, ‘What a fool. Who is this Belgian guy?’
And what does Belgium offer a photographer?
It’s quite small. If you live in Brussels, you can get everywhere in Belgium in two hours. And it’s a very photogenic place because its surrealistic, it’s a little bit crazy. I do believe there’s a reason why a lot of Surrealist artists came from Belgium. And Brussels is quite chaotic, it’s not spectacularly beautiful like Paris or touristic like Amsterdam. There’s always a crack in the wall.
