A Pose of Good Will

Rotterdam, the Netherlands.

q: Give a short introduction to yourself: I’m Florian Braakman, 26 years old. I’m a visual storyteller, mainly working with photography. I present my work in publications and installations.

q: Your photo book “She Comes in Colors” is built around a brief romance. Did making the series affect the way you viewed the time spent with her? I think it did, it more or less romanticized the situation. There is nothing bad about that. How the memory works is a very strange thing after all.

q: Photography can be intensely personal for the photographer, yet other viewers would not have the same sense of sentimentality. Does this affect the way you select and show your images? Good question. Images can’t be read in one direction, they are always open to interpretation. When making a story, I try to get the viewer on a certain track, into a certain mood, where yet anything is possible. Of course I have different associations with the images, everyone does. But I like to give the viewer this freedom of interpretation within the story. I digress from the question…I try to select and show my images in a way that personal feelings get subservient, on the other hand my pictures are personal but their meaning is universal.

q: What colour describes your current mood? Orange (how nationalistic…).

q: Photographic equipment? I work with a digital DSLR and system camera.

q: Upcoming projects or ideas? I am always taking pictures and there are some loose ends which have the potential to be a series or project. I am currently working on a project in the area Rotterdam-Delfshaven where I live in (some sketches you can find here). I am also collaborating with a friend on a project about our hometown.

q: Any new music to recommend? When I work at home I listen a lot to a radiostation from Paris called Fip Radio.This is also a nice set of music by Selvagem.

his tumblr and website.