from TWTGE the end of the world/a new beginning issue, February 2014

The love that we have for Polaroid is already known by all of you, but with “Lake of Death” Charlotte Thömmes leads it to an higher level. In this interview she explains her story with photography and tells us about the magic of this project. It was born from a personal moment, created during a trip between California and Nevada. Charlotte transforms the lifeless Death Valley in an alien landscape colored by the hand of a painter, making it a brand new place, powerful and own.

Hi Charlotte, please introduce yourself.

My name is Charlotte Thömmes, i`m a fine art photographer. If i’m not traveling, you’ll find me in Berlin, Germany.

What is your relationship with nature?

“Nature! We are surrounded and embraced by her, powerless to leave her and powerless to enter her more deeply. We live within her and are strangers to her. She speaks with us all the time, but does not betray her secrets. We work on her constantly, yet have no power over her. She is the only artist, working-up the most uniform material into utter opposites, arriving without a trace of effort, at perfection. Each of her works has an essence of its own, each of her phenomena a special characterization, and yet her diversity is in unity.” (Goethe) Sometimes I suffer from the feeling of being detached from nature. Living in a city, facing pollution, not knowing, what is in the food you buy, the term “circle of life” can become abstract.

What is wild for you?

The roaring ocean and the dense jungle.

What is for you an end? and a beginning?

It is the same, every end is a beginning leading to an end again. Like a circle. Or a spiral, as a circle sounds like endless rounds with the same mistakes.

A phrase of your renaissance.

Even bad situations can become something good. With time and change of attitude, everything can be a good lesson learned. It is just important to overcome your self-pity.

20 years from now, how do you think the World will look?

I don’t want to paint the future black, even if there are many trends and tendencies, that frighten me. It is obvious to everyone that we already have a lot of problems when it comes to environmental and social issues. Positively I imagine a future where we all learned to treat each other and our environment peaceful and respectful.

What is Photography?

Depending on how it is used: A snapshot freezing time and space, a memory, a document of reality, an image that lies, a way to capture emotions, an expression more than its literal presentation, a form of art.

In you site you talk about the norwegian philosopher Arne Naess, in which way he has influenced your work?

His work gave me thought-provoking impulses about the environmental side of photography. As a photographer, you or your lab, work with a lot of chemicals. I was at odds with myself, that with every picture, in which i want to honor natural beauty, i leave so much waste behind. These thoughts got me started to do environment friendly projects like chlorophyll prints, unique sun-printed leaves. Now I also develop my films with caffenol, a homemade developer brewed out of coffee and soda, to lessen my impact.

How did you get into photography?

I started after recovering from a serious accident in 2000. I picked up my fathers old camera and build up a small darkroom in my flat. Looking back i would say, that the feeling of fugacity of my own life brought the necessity to capture fleeting moments in time. In 2003 i took it to a serious level and began to study photography.

Where did you get inspiration?

Mostly the little shiftings of light and shadow inspire me. Every object or landscape changes within the right light into something magical and beautiful. Also big sources are, in no particular order, my dreams, nature, poems, music and traveling.

How much affects your travels on your work?

Traveling is a big part of my work. Finding myself in a different cultural and natural environment is a good way to open my senses. And as natural surroundings and landscapes are my main subjects, i shoot my projects mainly while traveling. Back in Berlin, i then edit and print the images.

All your Photos are made in wonderful place, but which is your favorite place to shoot?

Every place has its own beauty and atmosphere. Even places that may look unspectacular on first sight, can become truly magical and beautiful in the right light.

Who are your favourite photographers?

There are plenty of talented people out there, but to name some : I can’t take my eyes of the beautiful and poetic images of Masao Yamamoto and Nicholas Hughes.

What kind of camera do you use?

I work with different kind of cameras, depending on the project. That ranges from small or large format, SX 70, Holga or homemade pinholes.

In your project lake of death you express a concept of xc, endless and lifeless, talk us about it.

The year before my father suddenly died and the attendance of death was all around me. It made me think about the momentariness of life again. We all know, that death is where all our life paths heading to, but most of the time we push those thoughts aside, as they make us feel small and our lives uncontrollable. I wanted to find a metaphor for these feelings and create images, that show a “lifeless” environment, a landscape, apparently denying to humans but on the same revealing the immense beauty that lies within everything.

How did you choose the location?

I went on a road trip through California and Nevada visiting several national parks along the way. The images were taken in Death Valley, one of the hottest and driest places on earth. The colors of the land and the stones are breathtaking. And standing in that hostile and unreal landscape made me feel small and humble. The valley is one of the harshest but most beautiful places i’ve ever seen and so the perfect equivalent for what i wanted to express.

Which manipulation techniques did you use?

I took the pictures and let the hot desert wind dry them. At home i peeled the back off and worked on the surface, washing away some parts, while others stayed.

Why you chose to use a Polaroid for this project?

The delicate colors of the polaroid films are just adorable and i wanted to add an additional layer on the images, something unseen by the eye, but felt emotionally. So polaroid seemed to be the adequate material for this project.

What kind of film did you use?

SX 70, slightly expired.

What do you think of Impossible project films?

I haven’t tried them enough to deliver a judgement. But i honor the people for their effort to keep instant photography alive.

We have a perfect question for you by Andy Jenkins that in our last interview wants to know if Is there a particular type of photography or alternative process you’ve yet to explore that you’d like to try and why?

That could become a long list, but one of the next steps is, that i want to learn how to print with photopolymer plates, as it combines two of my interest, photography and printmaking.

I really like what you say in your artist statement on your site, do you think photography is now affordable for everyone and has become almost a game?

Through handy-cam and digital cameras, photography is affordable to a large number of people all around the globe and the amount of digital snapshots is rising everyday, but i don’t think that makes it a game. We are mostly visually coined and in my opinion digital snapshots function as part of our memories. Theses images provide us with a simple possibility to out source pieces of our memory. It can be easier to participate in someones memories by looking at pictures rather than listening to solely words. The loss of these precious documents of time, no matter if it is the only hand-painted wedding picture or your entire data volume, is sad for most people. Only the fatal tendency to snapshot everything with hundreds of pictures instead of enjoying moments with all their essence and all our senses confuses me. Over the years I rather absorb a beautiful sunset instead of taking memorized pictures of it.

Do you have some project in progress?

I tend to work on different projects at the same time. I just finished a new series of chlorophyll prints, which will be printed on vinyl covers next year. And i also work on a long time project about human interventions in natural environment and on some hand-colored lumen prints.

Where people can find you and your works?

You find my pictures, exhibition dates, news etc. on my website: www.charlottethoemmes.de.

What would you like to ask our next Interviewee?

Is there a “dream project”, no matter of place, cost- or time factor, that you wish to realize?