For the past few years I have participated in a number of exhibitions which have been preceded or accompanied by the publication of an art book or catalogue: the Imaginaire exhibitions in Denmark, the Dreamscapes in Holland and Magical Dreams in Poland.
The annoying thing about these is the need for high quality pictures. Now, as much as I would love to be good at photography and as much as I have tried, the truth is that I absolutely suck at it and the things I sent in were always a bit of an embarassement.
About 10 years ago, I started working with a gallery in Berlin and there I met 2 wonderful people who would not only become my 'official' photographers, but also very good friends.
Ansgar Noeth and Iris Bitter are just amazing with a camera. It started out just for fun, when Ansgar took a few pics of one of my sculptures in a dark hallway in the gallery and sent them to me. I was amazed. My static sculpture had come to life.
A few months later we came back together to do more shoots and since then we've either traveled to their place in Germany or they have traveled here to us in Belgium to take pics of my creatures.
One of the craziest things we did was the Tanith shoot in their garden. We had lost track of time catching up over dinner and since it had already gotten dark outside, I figured we would do the shoot in the morning. But Ansgar had an idea.
Armed with flashlights, we made our way into the garden, set up the sculpture and then just by the light of the moon, he started taking pictures. It felt silly, but then he showed me the result. It was actually pretty damn good.
Then Iris used her flashlight to put some light on the sculpture from behind and what we came up with was Tanith a.k.a. 'Tank' in full battle mode.
I think it really looks like she is in the middle of a war with explosions going off behind her. It was really fitting for the piece and we didn't bother doing another shoot in the morning.
So when you see a disappointing pic of one of my sculptures, you'll know it was done by me. When you see a brilliant one, it'll be one of Noeth & Bitter.
