Four decades in black and white is a real commitment. The 'somewhere between observation, memory, irony and staged reality' line, that's the entire territory worth chasing. What pulls you toward staged moments versus straight observation?
First, a small disclaimer about my sometimes clumsy English — it isn’t even my second language. :)
Then I should point out that I’m not really talking about “staged moments”, but about “staged reality”. A tiny but important difference. A staged moment might be the photograph called “Four and a Half Men (Self-Portrait with a Cat)”, but that is quite rare in my work, as I usually use photography to comment on real life.
Often I do that with the tiny figure of “Suicidal Mr. Bones” — who isn’t suicidal at all, since, being a friendly skeleton, he simply can’t die. :D
But to fully answer your question, “What pulls you toward staged moments versus straight observation?”, I would probably have to write an essay. Not impossible, just not at this very moment. :)
The short version is that I love nature and landscapes, and I love photographing them while searching for what I call “textures of weather”. And those “other” photographs — from series such as “My Hat”, “Suicidal Mr. Bones” or “Meals and Drinks. Before” — are, in a way, caricatures of reality.
Welcome Janko, curious to see what you bring here.
Four decades in black and white photography puts you in rare territory. That balance you describe between observation and staged reality is where the most interesting work lives.
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Four decades of threading that line between observation and staged reality, that's the calibration that shows in the work. The black and white commitment tracks. Curious what draws you to the intersection of memory and irony specifically, since those two don't always sit comfortably together but the tension usually does something interesting to a frame.
I wouldn't exactly say "intersection" (between memory and irony" but rather "existence" (through photography) between observation (of a landscape for example) that builds and stimulates memories and the creation (perhaps caricature photographs*) of irony through staged reality.
* and again: my English is a bit clumsy: by "caricature photographs" I don't mean photographs that someone draws over, but rather photographs that act as a caricature of life. (Joke, irony, cynicism, sadness, regret, dissatisfaction, joy... It depends on the moment/event that inspires me.)