When exhibiting at Hungry Eye Fair, you are assigned a spot by Roy Kahmann and his team. And since Roy knows his business to the point of turning it into an art form, he surrounds you with photographers whose work enhances your own, without contradiction or interference from your neighbours. There is a kind of savant mélange: black and white alongside colour, animals next to humans, live action beside studio photography. As a result, a moving coyote in colour and a black-and-white wolf can hang side by side without either stealing the limelight from the other. But there is another, perhaps even more valuable, aspect to exhibiting at Hungry Eye Fair. Spending more than 35 hours together inevitably creates connections. You share the long days, the conversations, the excitement, the quiet moments between visitors, the occasional doubts and, of course, the enthusiasm for photography. I was particularly privileged to be paired with incredibly talented artists and, equally importantly, wonderful human beings. That is perhaps one of the things I will remember most from this edition of Hungry Eye Fair.
Petra Mwaro particularly impressed me with her Imprints. Clothes hanging from coat hangers, accompanied by fragments of the human beings who inhabited or will inhabit them. There is something haunting about these images: the bodies are absent, yet their presence is unmistakable. Imprint in Green made me think that I was contemplating a portrait of Elton John. Imprint in Military, perhaps the most impressive to me, shows two uniforms side by side, with an arm hanging over the shoulder of the other. The human presence is almost palpable, despite the complete absence of a face or body. Petra is remarkably precise in her work, down to the smallest detail, including the design of her own backgrounds. Nothing seems accidental. The result is a series that is both meticulously constructed and very evocative.
In a very different genre, Sander Hoefnagels clearly enjoys the thrill of being face to face with apex predators, rubbing shoulders with them, so to speak. His portrait of a lion, titled The Special One, is indeed very special and shows the King in all his splendour. It is a fascinating dive into the eyes of this noble beast, a moment of intimacy with an animal that is anything but tame. His other photograph of lions, shot with a 35mm lens, is equally impressive, as the distance between photographer and subject had been reduced to an absolute minimum. Sander himself is an incredibly quiet, soft-spoken man and a wonderful companion to hang out with. I am already looking forward to hearing about his next adventures around the world, and, hopefully, seeing the incredible photographs he will bring back.
Stephan Heppe, an IT professional by day, cultivates his passion for photography through black-and-white portraits of friends, some of whom were present at the exhibition. A quiet man with a mission and a passion: to reveal the beauty of faces, bodies and movement. I loved his portrait of a woman in a 1950s style, which I mentioned in my 4 September entry. This time around, however, I chose another impressive photograph, Continuum #1, taken in Saint-Marguerite-sur-Mer, near Dieppe. It shows what appears to be a massive dark cube falling onto a woman desperately trying to hold it back. There is something both surreal and unsettling about the scene. I liked it so much that I ended up swapping one of my own photographs for it. A proper barter deal between photographers, which makes owning the picture even more enjoyable.
And then there are the two ladies who enchanted our neighborhood with their enthusiasm, energy and flair: Ilse Koks and Mia Stawinski. Both in the prime of their lives, both utterly passionate about photography, both fascinated by animals and nature, and yet each with a very different approach. Mia is a diver. She does not hesitate to travel far and dive deep to capture magnificent animals in their natural habitat. Her photograph of a diving baby whale was one of the most spectacular images I saw at Hungry Eye Fair. Beauty, wonder and admiration are all there, but so is a certain anxiety about the future of these magnificent creatures. Looking at that young whale, I could not help but marvel at its existence while wondering how long we will still be able to witness such encounters. Ilse is a flight attendant, and she turns her travels around the world into opportunities for photographic safaris wherever she happens to land. Her photographs of animals in motion are graphic, visually striking and intriguing. The hare and the elephant triggered some of the strongest reactions from visitors. Personally, I was particularly drawn to her photographs of birds in flight, where the animals almost disappear into shadows, shapes and movement, pushing the images towards abstraction. Two women, two very different ways of approaching nature, and one shared enthusiasm that was for me impossible to miss.
