Interview with Marc De Tollenaere
November 29, 2023
Venice
Capturing the Essence: An Expedition Through the Lens
Interview with Marc De Tollenaere
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Introduction
In the picturesque setting of Venice, on November 29, 2023, I embarked on an enlightening journey with Marc De Tollenaere, a maestro of photography whose lens has woven tales of life, culture, and identity. Born out of the alleys and canals of Venice, this interview uncovers the intricate layers of Marc's photographic odyssey.
As Marc shares his narrative, we traverse the realms of his artistry, delving into the evolution of his perspective from a professional photographer to an author and curator of his own experiences. His unique approach to photography goes beyond mere documentation; it's a form of storytelling, a visual diary that unfolds organically as he immerses himself in the world around him.
The conversation navigates through Marc's early encounters with photography, tracing back to the age of 14 when he began "taking photographs" with his eyes. His story unfolds like a captivating novel, with twists and turns leading him to become not just a photographer but a curator of life experiences, moulding his identity as an artist.
The interview illuminates Marc's distinctive journey in creating thematic bodies of work, from the unplanned exploration of Venetian homes in "ONE, NO ONE AND FIFTY THOUSAND" to the subsequent commissioned books. We explore his psychogeographic adventures, from Venice's enchanting streets to Beijing's transforming landscape.
The interview takes a turn into the realm of influences, with Marc highlighting the profound impact of mentors like Gianni Berengo Gardin and David Alan Harvey. The dialogue on the changing landscape of photography, influenced by digital advancements, offers insights into Marc's dedication to film and the necessity of continuous training in the craft.
Marc sheds light on the intricacies of storytelling in photography, contemplating the balance between captions and allowing room for viewer interpretation. His thoughts echo the sentiment that an image should not just capture a moment but evoke a narrative, a sentiment echoed by his mentors.
The conversation pivots to the heart of Marc's artistic expression—Venice. With the city as his canvas, Marc shares his passion for urban photography, emphasizing the discovery that urban environments offer. The interview explores the significance of context in Marc's work, unravelling the magic that occurs when "something not special" becomes extraordinary in the right place and time.
As the interview progresses, Marc reflects on his preference for black-and-white photography, the technical aspects of his equipment, and the importance of breaking free from constraints. The discussion on emotional perception, authenticity, and the role of walking in Marc's art adds layers to our understanding of his creative process.
MDT: Given that in part of my life I was a professional photographer, first of all, I would like to clarify what we mean by the term "photographer".
I started, at the age of 14, "taking photographs" with my eyes. More than a photographer, I consider myself an author and a curator of myself because what I have done and done is about what I have experienced.
With the photographic medium, I "write notes" of my personal path, which I have not planned and which, by instinct, I know I must travel. I don't know in advance if and what story will arise from this path, but it is what I have to do.
The books I created with my publisher (Biblos) were not commissioned by me: I was the one who went to the publisher with the body of work already done.
I remember the first time I presented myself with the book on Venice, "ONE, NO ONE AND FIFTY THOUSAND", which then had excellent success. This book, the result of ten years of experience, I had first of all written for myself because it was for me that I had gone to the homes of the few remaining Venetians to talk to them, to see the environments where they live, out of pure impulse and personal interest.
When I started taking the first photos, I didn't have the slightest idea of where I would go and what I would accomplish.
Then, two years after publication, I returned with a body of work, complete with texts and translations, on the construction of gondolas.
Later, given the success of these experiences together, the same publisher commissioned themed books from me.
These are the keys to interpreting my being a photographer because, in this second phase, I was certainly what is commonly defined as a professional photographer- someone who goes to satisfy a photographic need. The client photographs the subject he is interested in through me.
All professional photographers photograph for a living and photograph for a living, commissioned by others.
At this point, I would cease to be an author because this role belongs to someone else. However, I have come to be able to allow myself, and it is a great privilege, to decide what to be.
I have decided to be the curator of my life and the author of my works.
In this regard, the definition of "photographer" is a bit narrow for me: this definition is always associated with stereotypes that lead people to ask me, for example, where do I have my studio.
As you can imagine, my studio, or my study area, is the surrounding environment.
Today, when I accompany people to almost unknown places in Venice, I return to where I created my authorial works.
The camera, for me, is not the end but a means to "write" about the experiences of my life.
"ONE, NO ONE AND FIFTY THOUSAND", paraphrasing the title of Pirandello's book "One, no one and one hundred thousand", follows the dominant theme of Pirandello's thought, comparing the protagonist, who no longer knows who he is, to the loss of identity of the fifty thousand remaining Venetians. Not even during the plague had there been so few.
Q: This theme of identity (or lack thereof) mapped onto a geographical area determines psychogeographic themes.
MDT: Certainly, and this reminds me of an experience that we could define as purely "psychogeographic".
In 2001, I travelled to Beijing, China. The Beijing that I saw no longer exists today. In fact, the old Beijing was destroyed from 2002 to 2008 to make way for the Olympics.
I remember starting to "drift" on foot, with only my camera for company, without knowing where to go and what to see. Every place I went, I discovered a new world, like in a children's story, where every step you take encounters something, and you are not following any path on any geographical map.
Beijing was like this, with its population living around the (immense) forbidden city, indifferently inside or outside their homes. In fact, there were four cities (one on each side of the Forbidden City).
I was walking along a non-path of successive passages between a street immersed in the steam from cooking food and, around the corner, a world of children's games. And then the place of horse carts and canary breeders.
As in a fairy tale, it is a journey of sensations, emotions, and perceptions without a topographically defined process but rather defined by the behaviours and sense of aggregation based on the identity of human beings.
Q: Don't you think that this way of perceiving and interpreting the urban environment, making little or no reference to topography, is a characteristic common to oriental populations, particularly Chinese, Japanese, and Koreans?
MDT: Yes, however, keeping in mind that, in the case of imperial China, the neighbourhoods around the Forbidden City were arranged according to the function that was performed for the imperial court: for example, the washerwomen's neighbourhood.
This interpretation, a bit fairy-tale as I said before, brought me back to a pedestrian city like Venice, which lends itself well to a psychogeography of this kind. You travel around Venice on foot, wander, and always encounter new situations and subjects. Walk through your personal fairy tale. You don't need to have a goal; you don't have to have it.
Q: Did you have any direct teachers? Which ones inspired/influenced you the most and why?
MDT: There have been several; among those who have taught and inspired me the most, Gianni Berengo Gardin certainly exists. He made me understand how to create an entire story within an image.
Gianni comes from French humanist photography (Doisneau, Bresson, Ronis), according to which a single photo is enough. You don't tell a story through 10 images, but put 10 photos in a single image.
There are two approaches of those who practice this type of photography: there are photographers who need to link the photographic event to an event that happens in reality and that attracts attention, and this can happen in street photography as well as in fashion photography or in sports photography.
There are photographers, however, who don't need anything special to happen to take their shot but find something special in everyday life. That “something “not special” becomes something special in that place and at that time.
The second reference, particularly from an authorial point of view, is David Alan Harvey of the Magnum Agency and National Geographic.
Now that he is almost eighty, David still comes to give workshops in Venice, and I am happy to help him.
David influenced me profoundly from an authorial point of view, and here I refer to what I told you before about the photographer who lives from photography: Gianni Berengo Gardin is like that, and I remember that he stated, ".... unfortunately, I had to start making books....".
Paradoxically, he has done so many.
Then we see another type of photographer, like David Alan Harvey, who has written very few books in twenty years of photography.
Q: Like Vivian Maier, who never even developed many of her films
MDT: Exactly: some are satisfied with the pure personal experience and adrenaline of photographing at the decisive moment. Cartier Bresson comes to mind who, during the period he lived and photographed in India, sent the rolls of film to Life without seeing the result of what he had done.
Q: In this regard, the advent of digital has changed the cards on the table, inducing the photographer to immediately see "how it went".
MDT: Yes, I see this as an involution, which induces the photographer to make successive approximations and "settle" and not have the pressure to do well.
Harvey told me that National Geographic once invested significant sums in its photographers, and they went on trips for months without seeing the results of their shots.
Digital has revolutionized this way of doing things. For this reason, I often shoot films and do training. I don't understand why anyone is still convinced that the eye and mind shouldn't be trained to perform excellently. I may be influenced by the fact that I am a missed physical education teacher. Still, training is essential even in photography (and studying is part of training).
Q: Today, how would you define your photography, and how would you define yourself as a photographer, also from an artistic point of view?
MDT: Mine was a personal journey influenced by my childhood: as I told you, I took the first photographs with my eyes.
Having moved house many times (I was born in Libya, and I lived in Belgium, Milan, Genoa, and Venice), the only fixed point in my life has always been my grandmother's house in Mestre (Venice).
Then my grandmother had to move house, and I, at fourteen, decided to "photograph" every room of my grandmother's old house with my eyes so as not to forget this place.
This happened forty years ago.
I have realised what I have become as a photographer, and the themes I prefer to develop are a legacy of these youthful experiences and my own experience.
“One, Nobody, fifty thousand” is the testimony of this inclination and of the achieved awareness of my personal way of developing visual and photographic themes.
From a practical point of view, I am a photographer who takes pictures almost every day, and the immense mutant versatility of Venice allows me to do so.
At this point, it would be appropriate to talk about Venice and its unique characteristics, including its natural borders (it is surrounded by water even though it is not an island), which have preserved it from modernization and the tendency of urban planning to standardize.
The map of Venice has not changed over the centuries, and the populations that entered it (Jews, Armenians, Orientals...) have never left it.
Furthermore, the urban planning of Venice has no solution of continuity and is not made up of points of interest connected to each other by public transport: it is a single, very compact agglomeration containing all of its history and experience.
Q: According to Gianni Berengo Gardin (one of your teachers), I quote verbatim: “They say that a photograph is worth a thousand words, but I don't believe it. The photograph should always have two or three words written, which make it clear.” What do you think?
MDT: Gianni says this because he has always worked for newspapers and has this journalistic influence.
On the other hand, Cartier Bresson did not want others to put captions on his photos; he wanted to do it personally and make sure that the caption was consistent with the meaning he wanted to give to the image.
However, I reiterate that we must distinguish between what is work and what is authorial. If I go to Ukraine to represent what is happening, I want the lyrics to reflect what I witnessed without misunderstandings, and only I can write these words.
When I, however, wander the streets or, as was the case for "ONE, NO ONE AND FIFTY THOUSAND", enter the houses of the Venetians, I develop a theme but always leave room for the viewer's interpretation.
I remember that, after seven years of photos, the time had come to put captions on the selected images, and there I was, in front of the computer: I didn't know where to start. My son, who was 10 years old at the time, arrived and started saying things about the images.
In the end, he made the captions himself.
For example, I can cite an image of a gentleman in the living room of his Venetian house, with his eyes closed, facing a large picture of religious people, all looking in a certain direction.
My son said: “The man looked at by the painting”.
This caption is powerful in many ways and opens the door to other interpretations and questions. For example, why does the subject have his eyes closed? Or considerations on the fact that the only living being is the one that seems dead, while beings that are not alive seem so.
From this simple caption by a 10-year-old child, various stories can be constructed, each their own.
Q: However, it is often said that “an image must tell a story”. What weight does this statement have in creating your images compared to the attention to canonical composition and aesthetics? In your opinion, how important is the content compared to a photo's technical/aesthetic quality?
MDT: Photography is like writing: there is an alphabet and a language. If I don't give coherence and complete meaning to my language, I write, and no one understands me. This would give a secondary role to composition or aesthetics, but these statements must be contextualized.
In street photography, what happens is less important, and what happens in an interesting context is more important.
For example, let's take a photo of Bresson at the Tuileries Gardens and see three different points: an opening through the trees and the coincidence (the decisive moment) in which, at these three points, three people are walking. There is no particular event, but this image attracts the viewer because it interests him and allows him to build his own story, and the context contributes.
However, the stronger the image, the less significant the context: for example, in the photo of the attack on the Pope, the context fades into the background, and the viewer is exclusively interested in the event.
Q: Is it more about the meaning you give to your photograph or what the viewer attributes to it?
MDT: First, I give a pre-meaning, and it is the answer to the question: “Why am I there?”. I never try to think about what photo I want to take but where I would like to be.
I wander the streets without a specific destination, and I build bonds with people and places.
In reality, photography is the excuse to do all this!
The result is a canvas, which, in the case of Venice, I have woven for twenty years, comprises relationships, friendships, experiences, returns, details, and situations.
Much of this is unique and unrepeatable.
Even though it might be perceived that I do all this just for myself, subconsciously, I know that I will then show my images to someone, and equally unconsciously, I need the approval of others, and this goes beyond the pure meaning conveyed or perceived.
Photographers who create authorial works tend to be solitary. Still, it is important, at least for me, to know that what I do as a photographer also has a connection with other photographers who came before me and will come after me.
In this sense, meetings like the one with Grazia Neri (about twenty years ago) were very important to me. When I spent even a quarter of an hour with Grazia, her feedback on my images gave me ideas to reflect on and work on throughout the year.
I need confirmation that I'm on the right path and not wasting my time.
Q: These are people who are part of your world. How do you approach the unattended spectator you don't know?
MDT: I'm always looking for feedback, to the extent that I'm told by people who perhaps belong to artistic disciplines rather than photography to tell me what they see in my photos that I don't see.
In the democratization of photography in recent years, where everyone is a photographer, it has become increasingly difficult to have a meaningful opinion on one's photos.
I am interested not so much in photography but in the fact that my life experience continues to exist in the images I have created.
Perhaps I am driven by the fact that, for example, if I enter the house of a Venetian and photograph it, I project into that image my torment of never having had a real home. Seeing a house inhabited by the same family for 5 centuries means becoming part of something that has roots, for me, who don't have roots.
Thanks to photography, I can experience what I couldn't experience.
Q: In which environment do you feel most inclined to practice your photographic act: urban, natural, industrial, etc...
MDT: Definitely urban: discovery is the dimension that matters for me. In some urban areas, this is natural. Even more so in Venice, also because the private dimension is incredible: open a door, and you are transported to another world.
This is not indicated in any tourist guide (as if there were a psychogeographical map that goes inside the houses), and the camera becomes the diary.
Q: When you take a photo, is it more natural for you to isolate the subject you are interested in or present the environment in which the subject is and moves?
MDT: As I told you before about the "something not special", the context (hic et nunc) is part of the subject and is therefore fundamental to determine a complete and unique image because that "something "not special" will not happen more, (as the ancient Greeks stated: “panta rei” = everything flows).
In Venice, you can wander a thousand times through its streets and squares, and you will never see a scene where everything coincides for a second time, from the subject to the context to the light to the acts.
Q: Did your preference make you choose one or more focal lengths?
MDT: Let's briefly focus on the technical characteristics: small camera, 28 mm, very bright optics = Leica Q2.
I don't need the 1.7 lens to apply blur (I never do it). It allows me to do everything and not use a flash or tripod.
Bringing more complex equipment with me, in my poetic view, would distort everything and make everything planned, which I don't want.
Q: Your images are often in black and white: could you tell me about this choice?
MDT: All my authorial work is in black and white, and I chose it immediately. Furthermore - this is a practical consideration - connected to what I told you about the equipment; black and white allows me to shoot in all possible situations, even the most extreme.
I don't want to be conditioned by the limits of the technical means, and I don't want to plan the periods of the day in which there is the best light. Why shouldn't I have that specific photographic experience due to the low quality of light and, consequently, colour?
Colour takes the fun out of me.
Q: You say that from your son, who at the age of 6 used a camera in an "unusual" way, to say the least, you learned that, in photography, breaking the rules can be productive and creative. Speaking of breaking the rules, according to Guy Debord, the randomness of deriving contrasts the so-called "spectacularization" of the urban environment, in which routes with pre-established views are imposed on us, just like in a show. According to Debord, practising drift in an urban environment leads to "despectacularizing" the environment itself and, therefore, not being a conformist photographer and giving more content to visual art than he does. What do you think? When you go out for a photo session, do you have a plan or a project, or do you prefer to improvise and let yourself go? Which attitude comes most naturally to you? Do you think you are more instinctive or more rational?
MDT: Ah, I actually rationalized my instincts.
The ideal sequence is to perform the instinctive act and then rationalize it. A virtuous circle is triggered at this point because you improve it when you understand why you do a certain photographic act. Therefore, the random act remains random but progressively selected among the many random acts you could perform.
I mention Cartier Bresson, who, throughout his life, had the same photographic style, and Josef Koudelka, from whose photos people gradually disappeared. However, you always recognize Koudelka's style, with his way of "creating stages", first with people and then empty.
From my son, I learned not to have filters/conditioning. In photography, you shouldn't set yourself limits and inhibitions, especially technical ones, and you should try to be spontaneous. My son took a beautiful photo because it was full of meaning after thirty "fresh" seconds of having the camera in his hand.
Q: What similarities do you see between “photographic drift” and street photography?
MDT: For me, drifting, as letting go, is the soul of street photography, or at least my way of doing street photography.
Q: Don't you think street photography places too much emphasis on the rational research of the event or human bizarreness and leaves little space for the emotional perceptions of what surrounds you?
MDT: Emotional perception is essential for me, so I am attracted more to some cities than others. I have been to Calcutta seven times (from which I returned yesterday), and I have never been to New York (the city of street photographers par excellence). It could be the search for something authentic, untainted.
After all, what is authentic?
In any case, even if I decide where to go, I let myself go to the unexpected, and if it weren't like this, I wouldn't be happy.
Q: You give me the impression of being more of a drift photographer than a street photographer.
MDT: Absolutely, yes. I don't feel like a "fisherman" (as Rebecca Solnit states about street photographers): if I could ask one question to street photographers today (of which there are many), it would be: "Why are you there?". I expect them to answer that they don't know but know how a street photographer behaves.
I am there because I got there through my emotions, through letting myself go.
Q: Street photographer Gus Powell said: “Before I was a street photographer, or even a photographer, I was a walker…….. At some point the camera became a part of the walking“. What role does walking have in your art and in the photographic act, particularly in the pedestrian city by definition?
MDT: Walking is an act of liberation because it frees you from predetermined paths or those imposed by traffic rules. Certainly, without rules, there would be chaos in circulation, and it is precise because I understand that means of transport must respect rules that I rely on the act of walking.
By walking, you meet people, make connections, and choose your path.
Walking allows you to embrace the freedom of randomness.
If you take away my walking, you take away the soul of my artistic work.
Q: Thanks, Marc, you shared this time and talks with me.
MDT: It was my pleasure. Ok then, now we're going around Venice, taking photographs!
