Vanessa Winship lived for the past decade in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Turkey and covers with her work especially the region of the black sea. Her work talks about the concepts of borders, land, desire, identity, memory and history. She is a member of the French agency “Vu”, and won several awards, like the Orvieto book prize in Italy, World Press Photo, Iris d’Or and latest the HCB Award 2011.
You can see the entire page with all posts of Vanessa Winship’s work here on Lost in Publications.
“Schwarzes Meer”, which means ”Black Sea”, is Vanessa Winship’s first publication. The title is in German, because the book was published in Germany by “Mare”. The original title had been “Between Chronicle and Fiction: the Black Sea”.
During many months, Vanessa Winship travelled the coasts of the Black Sea eight times. The Black Sea is bordered by six countries; Romania and Bulgaria to the west, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia to the north and east and Turkey to the south. The countries have all had their own complicated histories of conflict and shifting of populations. They all are fighting one way or another for their integrity and identity. It is a story essentially about migration and belonging, about identity.
"For me their expressions are anything but blank, and in fact they give everything away. The details of what they wear, how they stand in the space, and how they connect and make contact with one another and to the camera is anything but deadpan. I think the success of this work has centered in part as a reaction to this type of photography. For me the images are all about emotion, as has been all of my work."
Vanessa Winship in a conversation with Joerg Colberg
In “Sweet Nothings” Vanessa Winship has been taking photographs of schoolgirls from the borderlands of Eastern Anatolia.
“I had been living and working in the region for almost a decade, and in Turkey itself for more than four years. I was drawn by ideas of borders and belonging. One enduring image that had always struck me wherever I travelled was the schoolgirls in their little blue dresses, the same in every town, city or village.
I wanted to make a series of portraits of these girls on the borderlands. Knowing their status I wanted to give a space for the girls to have a moment of importance in front of a camera. I decided to use a slower, formal way of making the pictures to create this space. Every frame was made at the same distance to ensure a kind of equality to each girl. I hoped symbol of the uniform, the distance in repetition, and the austerity of the landscape would represent one thing, but I also hoped more than anything, in the expressions of the girls faces, to draw attention to the idea of these young girls poised at the moment “just before”.” - Vanessa Winship
Vanessa Winship shares the story of her favorite accidental photograph.
“In a way, I don’t believe in accidents. But for certain, the image in question was not originally intended this way. I’d made several portraits of boxers, and had to get to this small dance company before I ran out of daylight. I work with a large-format field camera. This kind of working method requires a very specific level of concentration and, I suppose, discipline. You have to remember to turn the slide from white to black after you’ve exposed each frame. I’ve gotten quite good at this. In fact the whole process and procedure has its own internal rhythm and musicality to it:open the lens, look, focus, make a light reading, set the aperture, set the shutter speed, close the lens, cock the shutter, place the film holder into position, pull out the dark-slide, wait … expose the film, turn the dark-slide around to indicate exposed, return it into the film holder, finish.
I set up my camera and asked the first dancer to stand for me. Then I made a few more photos. I was rushed because of the disappearing light, but nevertheless this fading light and necessary long exposure was adding something. I was taken by it. In my stomach, I felt I had a picture. What I hadn’t realized was that one of the film holders I used during this session had exposed film from earlier in the day, and I had created this double exposure … two images on one frame. The magic of the image is the perfect relationship between the two and the way it appears that they are holding hands but at the same time partly disappearing. For me, this image encapsulates something about this place—dancers and fighters at the same time, a kind of romance of the Georgian psyche that is somehow inevitably unsustainable.” - (via The New Yorker)
“Georgia” isn’t published yet, even though there exists a book dummy, which looks terrific. I hope we don’t need to wait too long for it.
“I went to Georgia for the first time in 2003, not long after the Rose Revolution. I didn’t go because of the revolution as such, but that was the context I found myself in. I was on a journey, a personal journey, a dialogue with photography and story telling. Georgia, like so many places with a sense of an ancient past, was a place that seemed to be in love with its own idea of self. It is a place where people comfortably celebrate the lush beauty of the land. The density and texture of the forests and mountains at first sight, transport you to a reality that might have been created by some alchemists brew. It is the same with the features of people who occupy this place.[…]
On my return in 2008, after a summer at war with it’s powerful neighbour. I found my friends exhausted but very much alive, alive in a way that is only possible when one is so close to the possibility of death. I wanted to search for the people I felt most represented a flavour of this collective imagining, both theirs and at once mine. I chose dancers and pilgrims, guests at weddings, and young judo players, they are only the beginning. It is a work in progress and I must add to these portraits of human faces, a series of portraits of the land, the land that lies so close to the origin of their story telling.” - Vanessa Winship
“This particular image was made at a school on the outskirts of a town called Hakkari which lies very close to the Iraq border. On the evening we arrived at our hotel we were visited by the police who had come to tell us that the only real road leading out of the town had been blown up.
At first we thought there had been some kind of an attack, but in fact it was being blown up in order to start new work enlarging the road. They cheerfully told us that it probably wouldn’t be open again for a few days and that the only other road out was over a mountain pass which wasn’t so easy to navigate!
I’m working with a 4×5 camera was lucky with the light on this occasion. In many of the other schools I’d really struggled with there not being enough light inside, or there being impossibly bright sunlight outside. I usually asked the teachers if there were any sisters who might like to be photographed together, and so of course these two almost identical small girls presented themselves to me.”
Vanessa Winship talks about one of her favorite photographs.
“These two girls touched me, and I can’t say why. The image was made last spring in a school playground in Kars, near the Armenian border in eastern Turkey. I had been based in Istanbul for five years, so knew the country quite well, but I began this piece when I decided to come home. It represents a turning point for me as a photographer.
Because I was using a very formal camera, everyone was very still when I came to take the image; the moments before and after were pandemonium. Boys were leaping around, wondering why they weren’t involved. These girls are not from wealthy backgrounds; traditionally, girls in rural Turkey don’t go to school. What I wanted was to give them time to have a moment of importance.
I had arranged to visit a number of different rural schools. This was the first. I had requested girls between seven and 11, and asked if they would come with either their friends or sisters. They were incredibly keen and excited, asking me questions about who I was and saying basic things like, “I like the way you look” or “I like your hair” - things one might talk about with a group of young girls. We shared a very short moment. Maybe they touched me because they are very raw. There is no posturing at all - and that is rare. For me, they are the embodiment of innocence.” - (via the guardian)
Vanessa Winship lived for the past decade in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and Turkey and covers with her work especially the region of the black sea. Her work talks about the concepts of borders, land, desire, identity, memory and history. She is a member of the French agency “Vu”, and won several awards, like the Orvieto book prize in Italy, World Press Photo, Iris d’Or and latest the HCB Award 2011.
You can see the entire page with all posts of Vanessa Winship’s work here on Lost in Publications.
“Schwarzes Meer”, which means ”Black Sea”, is Vanessa Winship’s first publication. The title is in German, because the book was published in Germany by “Mare”. The original title had been “Between Chronicle and Fiction: the Black Sea”.
During many months, Vanessa Winship travelled the coasts of the Black Sea eight times. The Black Sea is bordered by six countries; Romania and Bulgaria to the west, Ukraine, Russia and Georgia to the north and east and Turkey to the south. The countries have all had their own complicated histories of conflict and shifting of populations. They all are fighting one way or another for their integrity and identity. It is a story essentially about migration and belonging, about identity.
"For me their expressions are anything but blank, and in fact they give everything away. The details of what they wear, how they stand in the space, and how they connect and make contact with one another and to the camera is anything but deadpan. I think the success of this work has centered in part as a reaction to this type of photography. For me the images are all about emotion, as has been all of my work."
Vanessa Winship in a conversation with Joerg Colberg
In “Sweet Nothings” Vanessa Winship has been taking photographs of schoolgirls from the borderlands of Eastern Anatolia.
“I had been living and working in the region for almost a decade, and in Turkey itself for more than four years. I was drawn by ideas of borders and belonging. One enduring image that had always struck me wherever I travelled was the schoolgirls in their little blue dresses, the same in every town, city or village.
I wanted to make a series of portraits of these girls on the borderlands. Knowing their status I wanted to give a space for the girls to have a moment of importance in front of a camera. I decided to use a slower, formal way of making the pictures to create this space. Every frame was made at the same distance to ensure a kind of equality to each girl. I hoped symbol of the uniform, the distance in repetition, and the austerity of the landscape would represent one thing, but I also hoped more than anything, in the expressions of the girls faces, to draw attention to the idea of these young girls poised at the moment “just before”.” - Vanessa Winship
“Georgia” isn’t published yet, even though there exists a book dummy, which looks terrific. I hope we don’t need to wait too long for it.
“I went to Georgia for the first time in 2003, not long after the Rose Revolution. I didn’t go because of the revolution as such, but that was the context I found myself in. I was on a journey, a personal journey, a dialogue with photography and story telling. Georgia, like so many places with a sense of an ancient past, was a place that seemed to be in love with its own idea of self. It is a place where people comfortably celebrate the lush beauty of the land. The density and texture of the forests and mountains at first sight, transport you to a reality that might have been created by some alchemists brew. It is the same with the features of people who occupy this place.[…]
On my return in 2008, after a summer at war with it’s powerful neighbour. I found my friends exhausted but very much alive, alive in a way that is only possible when one is so close to the possibility of death. I wanted to search for the people I felt most represented a flavour of this collective imagining, both theirs and at once mine. I chose dancers and pilgrims, guests at weddings, and young judo players, they are only the beginning. It is a work in progress and I must add to these portraits of human faces, a series of portraits of the land, the land that lies so close to the origin of their story telling.” - Vanessa Winship
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Sweet Nothings”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Sweet Nothings”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Sweet Nothings”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Sweet Nothings”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Georgia” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Georgia” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Georgia” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Georgia” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Georgia” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Georgia” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Black Sea Between Chronicle and Fiction”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Black Sea Between Chronicle and Fiction”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Black Sea Between Chronicle and Fiction”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Black Sea Between Chronicle and Fiction”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Black Sea Between Chronicle and Fiction”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Black Sea Between Chronicle and Fiction”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Black Sea Between Chronicle and Fiction”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Black Sea Between Chronicle and Fiction”
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Dancers and Fighters” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Dancers and Fighters” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Dancers and Fighters” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Dancers and Fighters” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Dancers and Fighters” 
© Vanessa Winship from the series “Dancers and Fighters” 
