Sunday 14 September 2014

Bieke Depoorter - new images

From the translator Catherine Schelbert comes this link to the website of a Belgian photographer, new to me, called Bieke Depoorter.

Catherine has recently edited the text of  Depoorter's forthcoming book 'I am about to call it a day' and writes: 

Depoorter travels with pajamas and a camera to places where there are no hotels and asks people if she can spend the night and take pictures. She always just spends one night. She must have tremendous insight, gentleness, modesty – I'm not sure what it takes. But her photographs are as if she weren't there; they leave so much room for  their subject matter and for us. 

This is beautifully put. Depoorter has travelled around remote parts of the United States and stayed in the homes of some of the people she met on the way. We see inside their homes and often bedrooms - some cosy, some comfortless and austere, all of them deeply personal spaces - but with no sense of intrusion or violation. From time to time Depoorter includes breathtaking shots of the bleak surrounding countryside, often at night, rendering the homes and communities all the more fragile and temporary. The images are wonderful - haunting and atmospheric, sometimes unsettling and always human, and humane.

Find out more about her book here

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