Documentary and news photographer James Nachtwey in coalition with TED plans a monumental release of a story he has been working on for the past two years. Besides the story itself (which we know little about as of today) the project aims to demonstrate the power of news photography in the digital age. On October 3rd the story will break simultaneously through different media channels, the internet and (this is cool!) his photographic project will be projected on monuments and public buildings throughout the world!
To me this is brilliant and I’m very excited and left wondering what we will see on October 3rd!
I am getting a lot of questions lately on how I got started, what my general thoughts on photography are and what kind of tips I have for photographers who are just starting out. So I decided to post a transcript of an interview I recently gave to the Indonesian THE LIGHT Magazine. (If you have any questions not covered here you are of course most welcome to keep asking!)
Here it goes:
THE LIGHT: How did you get into photography? Tell us from the beginning.
NICOLAS HENRI: Initially I studied Film at Humber College in Toronto, Canada, where I specialized in post production and directing. When I returned to Switzerland I started to work for TV as a picture editor and colorist. On the side I tried to get a few film projects off the ground. But as it is with film (especially when you are a bit of a perfectionist like me) you need a lot of people and funding to get anything done. On top of that it takes a long time to get from an idea or concept to a finished product, which I found really frustrating. At film school we regularly worked with still cameras to work out concepts and for composition assignments, but I never saw it as a medium of expression for myself. In 2005 a good friend of mine got his first Minolta DSLR and I had to get one for myself after he showed it to me. (I got a Nikon D50 at the time.) I quickly started shooting whatever came in front of my lens. It was still more of a hobby for the first time until it dawned on me that this was the tool to get the ideas and images out of my head and onto the screen/print. In early 2006 I started staging bigger shoots, working with models, learned how to use studio lighting and invested more time for Photoshop compositing and finishing. For all of this my education at film school came in very handy. Obviously my post production skills translated very well to photography and my directing classes really helped working with the models.
My thanks go out to the editorial team at PHOTO International and to Eve who modelled for this picture! Please note, that “Fall Into The Light” is also available as a limited edition fine art print here!
