psychological landscape

Charlotte Colbert Interview: Using Timelapses to Capture Psychological Landscapes

Insight into the works of Charlotte Colbert

The physical boundaries of a photograph are clear: without edges, a photograph would expand forever until light washed out all else. The frame bordering a photograph, the limits of its scope, both bounds and protects it. The boundaries of the mind are less clear. Where do you find imagination’s limits? Where’s the edge between dream and reality? Or, better, where and when does reality begin?
In her latest work, Charlotte Colbert draws from questions like these to explore what the inner states of the mind might look like. Using time lapses and medium-format film, as well as roughly emulsified homemade photographic paper, she materializes images of disconnect and ambiguity. Sticking to no reality other than their own, the photos in Studies and A Day at Home bring to mind our own uncharted inner depths, and point to reality’s tenuous hold.
I briefly spoke to Charlotte over email about her work.

Charlotte Colbert - 8
Do photographers capture a moment of the world or create one? Is a photo something that they’ve read from reality or something that they’ve written in? Something else? What do you think?
I suppose it depends on the photographer, and perhaps there is no capturing a moment without creating it? For me a photograph is an illusion, whether it’s a photograph of a landscape or a purpose built set. It’s just a limited attempt to create an image, which in itself is an illusion. For me illusion-making is the essence of art.
Charlotte Colbert - 6
What would you say you’re bringing into the world with your photography? How would you describe the “Charlotte Colbert” work?
I am very interested in the concept of time and the ability for a photograph to explore its philosophical possibilities. For example, with a long-exposure image, one can collapse time onto itself and capture a glimpse into the fourth dimension or through the use of staging and symbols build psychological landscapes.
Charlotte Colbert - 5
To take a question from Clarice Lispector, one of my favorite writers: does shooting photography help make the anguish of life more bearable? How did you get your start in photography?
Recreating gives you the illusion of understanding and control. In a way that is reassuring.
Charlotte Colbert - Francesca Woodman
I can’t talk about the work of Charlotte Colbert without mentioning Francesca Woodman. Would you consider her a great influence? If so, do you have a favorite photo of hers? This is one of the most haunting photos that I’ve ever seen.
I love her work. It always reminds me of a photographic version of Sarah Kane’s theater work. They are all beautiful. I’ve attach one that I find particularly touching – like a jump-start attempt to feel (above).
You’ve said that your photographs often begin as written stories. When do you know you have an image that might successful jump from the page to something that you can shoot?
Some stories, concepts, situations, feelings or ideas will immediately create strong symbolic images in my mind. Generally, I let them distil, in a sort of creative editing process, and the ones that I follow through with tend to be the ones that I can’t get out of my head, and realizing them is a way of moving on.
Charlotte Colbert - 3
You’re very interested in the boundary between reality and illusion, the waking life and the dream world. So I have to ask you about your dreams. Do you ever have recurring dreams? Lucid ones? Are your dreams important to your work?
Yes, I am fascinated with dreams and the symbolic meaning they have, so it’s definitely an influence on my work.
In a write-up for the Independent, you wrote that you “often feel the thread linking us to the world is so frail that at any time it could break, leaving us at the mercy of all our repressed confusion, loss and fear.” Could you explain this idea more fully? How does photography help you explore this tenuous link to the world? Have you ever feared going mad?
I guess the idea of normality, sanity, and humanity, being such social constructs, are easily breakable. Photography, painting, writing, music, and storytelling often aim to question and shake up these constructs.
Charlotte Colbert - 2
Many of your influences, including Woodman, explored this link in their work, too. They also lived complicated lives. Both Sylvia Plath, a writer you’ve mentioned as an influence, and Woodman killed themselves at an early age. Should their deaths indicate something about the underlying motivation of their work? A signal that these artists are grappling with something that’s harmful not only to them but to the world at large, perhaps? How separate is an artist from his or her work?
I also love Emily Dickinson, TS Eliot, Cocteau, Walt Disney – all of whom lived long lives. I don’t like the idea of glamorizing suicide. I think what Sylvia Plath and Francesca Woodman have is an intensely feminine interpretation of isolation and solitude.
You wrote that writers fill their solitudes with “rituals, compulsiveness, superstitions, and habits.” Do you have any noteworthy ones? Also, can you suggest a few writers that might help photographers imagine more vividly?
Some writings leave images with you that can never leave you, like Sarah Kane, Rainer Maria Rilke’s Duino Elegies, TS Eliot’s the Wasteland, George Bataille, Anais Nin, Boris Vian, Anna Akhmatova to name a few.
Charlotte Colbert - 1
Check out all Charlotte Colbert’s work on her website!

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1 Comment on “Charlotte Colbert Interview: Using Timelapses to Capture Psychological Landscapes

  1. Reminds you of Francesca Woodman?! – I would say that some of these
    images are a direct copy of Woodman’s work. Disappointing when someone
    rips off someone’s work.

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