Alan Aubry – Down Memory Lane
Alan Aubry’s images of South Africa, especially those from his ‘Memory Lane‘ series, show another side to this country, and in that bring back memories for anyone who grew up here in the late 70′s and 80′s.
Alan is currently based in France, but travels back to his old home, South Africa occasionally.
Alan agreed to answering a few questions about his work and approach.
What makes you get up and go out and take images?
I believe that more and more, I need a project which distracts me from everyday life, and generally that’s travel. I work from home and have 3 young children, so believe that it is mainly connected to three reasons:
- First of all, I work slowly and I take time when taking pictures and when I feel ready. This process can often take a while, as I don’t take pictures when I’m not feeling 100% ready.
- Secondly, once I graduated from art school, I was left with very little money, so I worked a lot locally here in Normandy exploring this everyday life and environment from a photographic point of view. As a matter of fact I know my place almost by heart and more and more I like to be surprised by new places.
- Finally, I lived in numerous countries as a child, in South Africa, my father worked in Koeberg, which was a good period, so as a result of my childhood movements, I’m addicted to travel.
I cannot say that I get up every morning thinking of the photo that I’m going to take, I believe that my first thought is to know if the bread which my wife has just cooked is going to be as good as usual.
I only work on personal series and in a rather slow way, because I spend a lot of time documenting myself.
For the next series I’m documenting, I’m looking at the concept of Terra Nullius who “justified” the colonization of Australia. Often I look at a wide range of topics whilst researching, for example I’ve read a Norwegian thriller where this concept is that of a mobile serial killer.
In the end, I am not sure that all the information is perfect for my projects, but I will only know at the end.
Right now I’m concentrating on how to promote the new work I’ve created in South Africa rather than creating new images.
What are you trying to capture through photography?
When I eventually come up with an intelligent answer to this question, I shall celebrate in a good restaurant with a bottle of Château Cheval Blanc 1995!
I’m always dazzled by those who succeed in answering this question in a relevant way. I just can’t, in every attempt I felt like I was writing something by Forrest Gump.
Taking pictures is such an impulsive and intuitive act for me that I don’t know what provokes the need to make a precise photo.
I’m driven by my sensations without trying to theorize too much about it, as I can’t say why I prefer the orange to the yellow, I can’t say exactly why such object or place attracted me more than the other.
When something attracts me, and it’s often very furtive, like a flash, I try to find the right angle, if I don’t, I keep on going.
When I work on a more precise series, such as the self-portraits, I have a rather precise image in mind, I don’t try to know how it came there, but rather how I am going to be able to get as close as possible to recreating it.
Sometimes, once I’m on a spot, the idea changes little, according to the place or to what can take place there, for example, for self-portraits in Sea Point’s swimming pool with the two swimmers under the water, this shot wasn’t planned.
Little by little I realize that I’m introducing more and more small enigmas into my images while trying to keep them as documentary as possible. These small indications in the pictures, and sometimes I’m the only one to have the clue, bring a more fictional or historical dimension to the cliché, as a not at once perceptible extra layer which goes beyond the pure composition.
Right now are you working on a specific subject? If yes can you tell us more about?
I have a large list of projects I want to shoot. My last series on self portraits in South Africa has pushed me to work at creating similar images, mixing auto-fiction and documentary.
I have a project which I hope to shoot shortly, one that I’m working on the technical details due to the equipment being used, a 4.5×6 rangefinder format, with the use of a flash, a GPS and Google Earth.
I also have a dream to visit again the foreign countries where I lived as a child and document them with my personal story, but this requires an investment and that is not possible right now.
What, or whom, are your main inspirations?
Naturally, there are the photographers of Dusseldorf’s school, but also those of the New Topography.
In France I like the work of Raymond Depardon, his photos, but also his tremendous documentaries.
I also like the fictional work of Jeff Wall or the inmost work of Sophie Calle, I also like Bill Viola’s videos, very pure, for example the installation an ocean without a shore is really deeply moving.
Bill Viola and Raymond Depardon are two persons who make me take more of an interest in films, being also a film editor; I have feelings working with this media.
However, I wouldn’t want to look some elitist because a very smutty comedy or a comic book can also give me ideas, of which often the idea doesn’t leave my notebook because sometimes, just to write an idea without making it is enough for me.
Which South African photographers do you admire?
I would say Pieter Hugo, Guy Tillim and David Goldblatt.
All images © Alan Aubry
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