Three emerging photographers share their biggest lessons learned

Every year, Brooklyn-based Red Hook Labs puts on a major show curated with the help of key industry figures and a submissions process open to any photographer not signed or represented by an agency. This year, myself, Kim Jones, Ibrahim Kamara, Edward Enninful, Jimmy Moffatt, and more, selected 25 of the world’s rising visionaries, many who will show work publicly for the first time when the Labs New Artists III exhibition opens on 11 July.

As they put the finishing touches on their prints, we catch up with three of the photographers featured to find out more about their process, inspirations, and the lessons they’ve learned to get them to this milestone in their careers.

RENATE ARIADNE VAN DER TOGT

What is it that inspires you to take photographs?

Renate Ariadne van der Togt: Dreams have always been on my list as a key inspiration. I remember dreams that I have during night time vividly and often think about them all day. It affects the way I look at the world and how I feel about the people around me. I guess what fascinates me about dreams the most is that they’re such a ludicrous mix of reality and fantasy. Last night I was working on a photo exhibition and swimming with polar bears in the same dream for example – it just doesn’t add up. But that’s what I love about it!

Within my photography I’m searching for that dream feeling: capturing a feeling of magic within reality is something that really excites me.

Can you tell us about the work included in the Labs New Artists III show?

Renate Ariadne van der Togt: I’ve recently started to voice my opinion on equal opportunities for men and women in my work – this includes the two nudes in the show. I’m personally getting a bit fed up with seeing how the subject needs to come back again and again, confirming that it’s still not equal enough – and it’s biting in my pride as a woman that it’s necessary to talk about it; there should be no question of equality at all. The two nudes are examples of my ‘strong woman’, an image that I created for myself when I moved to London.

The works exhibited together give insight into the magical realist part of my work – some of them are things I’ve seen the way they are, other images are fully constructed – but they’re all part of the same world.

“Never think the world will be knocking on your door – go out and introduce yourself” – Renate Ariadne van der Togt

What do you hope people feel or see when they look at your work?

Renate Ariadne van der Togt: It’s simple, beauty. We hardly stand still to realise what our surroundings look like. Our world and everything on it, even the most mundane objects, is beautiful. Perhaps you’ve ever had one of those moments: when it just rained and the orange twilight sky is reflected on the road of your street, the temperature is pleasant and you can smell that someone lit up their barbecue – the green of the trees around your house looks unreal and then there’s a soft breeze and a girl’s laugh from the park up the road. Everything feels electric – like something is about to happen, but nothing does and the moment passes, leaving you confused but grateful to be alive.

What’s a lesson you’ve learned in the last few years as an emerging photographer that you can pass on to someone else?

Renate Ariadne van der Togt: You are the key to your own success. I remember being in art school in The Netherlands and fantasising about how old I would be when my work would be ‘picked-up’ internationally. Earlier this year I hit the age I had set out for myself and realised that it wasn’t the world that had to pick up my work, it was me. Never think the world will be knocking on your door – go out and introduce yourself.

KYLE WEEKS

What is it that inspires you to take photographs?

Kyle Weeks: The people. I’m constantly inspired by my interactions with other human beings and meeting an interesting character will often bring on a wave of new ideas. Although for me inspiration isn’t singular. It could come from a moment witnessed from afar. A scene from a film. A song. A stranger standing on a train on his or her commute to work. Or the way that light flickers off the surface of water and then interacts with someone’s face. I use these as cues and then circle back to translate these experiences into something that might help me make an interesting picture within the framework that I’ve established for myself and my photographic practice.

Can you tell us about the work included in the Labs New Artists III show?

Kyle Weeks: I’ll be showing six images that are all portrayals of youth in Africa. Photographed on my travels between Cape Town, Accra, and Kinshasa, these works were either documented as moments in time or thought up and then constructed in collaboration with other creatives like musicians, stylists, costume designers, and models. Shown collectively, they tell a story of vibrant energy, dynamism, and creativity amongst African youth. Having been born and raised in Namibia, my interest lies in themes of representation and in photography’s ability to shape and preserve identity. My role as an African photographer of western descent is to tell a positive story of the continent with as much clarity and conviction as possible. Why would I want to focus on any of those stereotypical stories? I think that now more than ever there is a need for new narratives of Africa and I like to believe that I’m contributing toward that. Because of the place and people that I know and that I like to see.

“Find something that speaks to your soul and then go out and make images around it” – Kyle Weeks

What do you hope people feel or see when they look at your work?

Kyle Weeks: Of course I can’t make that decision for them. It’s that idea that we don’t see the world as the world is but we actually see the world the way we are. I think that’s true on so many levels as each one of us brings a set of preconceived ideas along with us that shape our view of the world. All I can hope for is that when people see my work that it translates into a sort of visceral experience. I hope my images are impactful in the way they demand your attention simply by the characters or situations they depict. I want them to feel the people and energy in my images and if even only for a split second they can make the viewer question their outlook or experience a shared humanity, then I think the work has succeeded on some level.  

What’s a lesson you’ve learned in the last few years as an emerging photographer that you can pass on to someone else?

Kyle Weeks: I’d say that what it really comes down to in the end is your work. Find something that speaks to your soul and then go out and make images around it. Make it personal and then identify the right people to show it to. Of course, there are all these varying components to establishing yourself as a photographer but in the end, the work speaks for itself. Pour your heart and soul into it, believe in what you’re doing, and people will begin to take notice and sift it out from the ocean of imagery being created today.

OLYA OLEINIC

What is it that inspires you to take photographs?

Olya Oleinic: I think the act of taking photographs and everything that leads up to it is somewhat a cognitive process and an attempt to touch the previously unexplored, a form of search, where the shutter release is a record of a split moment that will never occur again.

That moment, inspiring on its own, composed of anything tangible or not, a special formula of different elements in each individual photograph. 

I love to observe people’s changing mimics as much as moving shadows or plasticity of the shapes. But then there is so much to this as an experience, more than what I can even fathom to describe.

Can you tell us about the work included in the Labs New Artists III show?

Olya Oleinic: The photographs included in the show are from different bodies of work. If I had to think of the red line throughout, I’d say they are all some form of construction that is meant to speak associatively, based around simple observations, but shaped to differ from its original form or context. I find it interesting to play with the definition of truth within the photographic culture, and possibilities of telling a story without a necessary notion of being an undetachable part of it.

“Growth is shaped like an uneven spiral” – Olya Oleinic

What do you hope people feel or see when they look at your work?

Olya Oleinic: I don’t have a set of expectations as to what people must see in my work solely based on the fact that I don’t inject the images with a singular meaning. What I want to convey is usually a starting point for conversations. I think plurality and curiosity make space for individualism, knowledge, emotional intelligence, and open-mindedness. I feel that images have the power of subtlety which verbal communication may often lack. 

So, in the extremely image-saturated space we are all a part of today, my biggest wish is for a photograph to maintain the power to make one not only look but see. 

What’s a lesson you’ve learned in the last few years as an emerging photographer that you can pass on to someone? 

Olya Oleinic: Power of attraction, power of hard work, and that growth is shaped like an uneven spiral.

Labs New Artists III runs at New York City’s Red Hook Labs from 11 July – 28 July 2019