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.

THE LIGHT: What photography specialties that you interest most? (Landscape, fashion, fine art, commercial, etc) What make you interest on it?

NICOLAS HENRI: When I got my first DSLR I shot a lot of landscape for a while but quickly realized that this wasn’t my field. I started doing self portraits for few months almost on a daily basis until I got bored of my own face and started to work with other models. At first these were my friends and after a while a started to book professional and semiprofessional models. So I really see myself as portrait photographer. As of this year I have started to move towards fashion photography, which to me seems as a natural progression - at least in a commercial sense. Coming from film however, it is very important for me to inject some kind storytelling in the images. Along those lines I still do a lot of free projects for my yearly exhibitions. Those works are
somewhere in between of fine art, portraiture and film stills. My Heart-Break Farm series is a good example for that.

THE LIGHT: On that specialties, how do you learn to get better on it, what have you done and you will do to get improved continuously?

NICOLAS HENRI: There are many ways to improve. I read a lot of photography magazines and look at a lot of stuff on deviantART and similar platfroms. Seeing what other photographers do, can be a great inspiration. Not to copy them but to see that there are always different ways to approach something and that your way is not the only one. On one hand it can really be intimidating when you see great work of other artists but at the same time it can really get me going to reach similar results. There will always be someone who’s better than you and so there’s always room to improve - a blessing in my opinion! Something I tell people who are just starting out is to actually do try to copy their inspiration. I have found that in doing that you never get close to the original at all, but you learn so much, especially about what you don’t know. Knowing what you still have to learn is a great asset in my opnion. Apart from that, when you try (and fail) to copy someones style you are inevitably confronted with your own style. Finding and developing your own style is one of the most important things. It can take years (I’m still in the process as well) and understanding what components make up the style of other artists is a great starting point for that.

THE LIGHT: When we see your portfolio on your web, it seems that you like a gothic/thriller kind of look photography. Is that true or it’s just one series of a lot more variety of look?

NICOLAS HENRI: Well I really hate the label “gothic”. But it is true, I have a done a lot of things in that genre in the past. I have had an affinity towards darker themes since childhood. I am just not very interested in happy and pretty things. It is in the darker hours of life, where stories unfold and the true character humanity comes to a test. So when I concieve an idea for an image it will usually come from that perspective. But I am really trying to refine my visual language to get away from the association with the gothic subculture as this was never my intention. The darker feel of my work is present in most of my images, yes. But especially with my more fashion oriented work I leave a lot of it behind and try to replace it with a sense of mystery. I think it’s important that the viewer senses that there is something beneath the surface. Even with a fashion shot, which is really just about the fashion, I think it is important to add emotional layers. This is just my way of achieving that.

THE LIGHT: On overall daily activities, what inspired you on doing photography?

NICOLAS HENRI: Everyday life actually is a great source of inspiration for me. While I am not at all interested in documenting real life (as a reporter would) I try to keep an open eye for the stories around me. As a photographer in any genre one should always try to suck in all the real life imagery that presents itself to you. Sometimes it’s a location I see, which spawns an idea, or the quality of light on something familiar which suddenly makes you see it in a new way. Or just the little scenes of life. Recently I was stuck in a traffic jam in Zurich and I was just looking around at the people passing on the sidewalk when I discovered a young woman outside of a theatre. She was sitting on the steps of the back entrance and looked so tired and sad and isolated. Immediately a story started to unfold in my head, that she had just been fired after working a twelve hour shift and no one to go home to. She was all alone and the whole scene looked so sad and beautiful at the same time. Now, I would never pick up my camera and try to catch that real moment but I will take the scene with me, try to lift it up to an iconic level and stage it at a later time…

THE LIGHT: Mention one word that describe your photo. And please explain.

NICOLAS HENRI: “Personal” or “intimate”. None of the images I produce are ever “just” some image. I always (need to) have a peronal connection to it. I need to be able to invest myself into it. Without a connection to the subject matter, or to a sub context behind it with which I can identfy, I can’t make the image. This is a little tricky for client work of course, but thus far I have always managed to find a story behind it for myself, which will give me the necessary connection. As a result the work with my models, make up artists and assistants is always very intimate. I tell them the story I see behind it all and encourage them to work towards that story. It’s another little trick from my directing classes at college. As soon as your talent and to some extent your crew have this little universe of the story in their heads the results get much better.

THE LIGHT: What kind of picture “shocked” you (in a positive way)?

NICOLAS HENRI: Well that happens a lot. I just a got a book on Edward Steichen this weekend. He was one of the great photographers of the 20’s and 30’s who shaped fashion photography to what it still is today. There’s one image in the book with a woman in a black dress against a white background with a black bar going across it. The image is so strikingly simple but with an immense graphic impact. The Composition is pristine. Another example is a portrait of the daughter of Charlie Chaplin done by Peter Lindbergh in his book “Untitled 116”. It is very simple as well but the emotional impact is amazing. There is also a series entitled “Reflections of Glamour” by Steven Meisel (he did it for the american Vogue, I believe) which keeps on striking me as brilliant.

THE LIGHT: Copying another photographer style has already been a never ending issue these days. Share us some tips to still get inspired by another photographer without trapped into a just copying the style.

NICOLAS HENRI: As I already mentioned above, copying your inspiration can be a great way of learning what it takes for an image to be so great as it is. In fact, art classes around the world do it all the time. It’s great way to analyze style and technique. In the end it is all about finding your own style which in my opnion is the essence to becoming artisticly and/or commercially successful. It’s a whole different story when you do client work of course. But even there, I believe it will hurt your own career a lot more when you copy than it will hurt the original artist. But again, whenever I was mesmerized by someones work and tried to get the same look it was always just a starting point. In the end something quite different came out with my own stamp on it. I believe if you are serious about your own work there is no big danger of really copying anybodys work because you will always bring yourself into the picture.

THE LIGHT: What is the most importing thing on doing fashion photography?

NICOLAS HENRI: A lot of photographers or photo editors and art buyers might answer that you are supposed to have a feeling and understanding for the product (the clothing which is displayed) and that you need to be able to work out the texture, the detail and the individual features of a piece of fashion. (By means of light, composition, post production…) This is true of course! But images with only this in mind will be dead. beautiful perhaps, but uninteresting and interchangeable. In my opinion, in addition to the above, a good fashion photographer will be able to bring a sense of story and depth to the image. Fashion can’t exist without a human wearing it. So there needs to be a human element. I always aim to create an underlying emotional layer which connects the product to the person wearing it. Ultimately you need to unlock an interesting and disreable world to the viewer and the piece of fashion must a part of it.

THE LIGHT: What is the different between successful fashion photographer and unsuccessful fashion photographer besides their level of success? I mean what unsuccessful fashion photographer don’t do or have compared to successful fashion photographer which makes them unsuccessful?

NICOLAS HENRI: Being successful and being good/talented are two different things of course. I can only answer what sets apart a good fashion photographer from a bad one. A bad one will shoot models wearing clothing in order to pay for rent and food etc. He does the same thing all the time and will not contemplate how to move forward. A good fashion photographer will have a deep love and excitement for images before anything else. He will shoot fashion because of the same reason and will always try to push forward with new ideas. But as I said, there are many bad fashion photographers who are very successful. Success is about knowing the right people…

THE LIGHT: Share some tips for beginner to learn photography on the right
way effectively.

NICOLAS HENRI: Well I said a lot of things towards that end already. One thing I would like to elaborate on a bit is taking self portraits. If portraiture and related genres are your goal this is definately the best way to get started. Try to stage little stories with yourself in it. Get strange outfits at the flee market, paste different
backgrounds to your living room wall. Get a few construction lights from a hardware store and light yourself.
There’s no pressure and you can experiment. One thing which is particularly helpful is learning how to get the right expression. Later on you will have to direct your models to get the right look. It is the best preparation knowing first hand what works and what not and how to induce a certain emotion into a face.

And most important: Just keep on working. Daily. Just shoot whenever you can!

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Interview with THE LIGHT, September 2008

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Posted by nicolas_henri on September 17th, 2008 :: Filed under Artist Technique, Photography, Uncategorized
Tags :: Fashion, Getting Started, Interview, The Light Magazine
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