Alfons Iseli - A portrait of an artist |
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Art photographs are not based on words, they deliver their message not only visually, but also by way of your heart. They have the ability to bring you both joy and astonishment. They also are able to extend the visual logic into the absurd and capture a fleeting moment for eternity. Art photographs pull the viewer into their spell and Alfons Iseli from Schoetz is creating such pictures. “People are able to send rockets to the moon, but we are not able to create a blade of grass that sways gently in the wind.” Alfons Iseli receives his motivation from his love of nature; flowers and plants are for him a never ending well of inspiration. “Nature is full of surprises, it is important to me to take the unnoticed and create into something we give our attention, as well as to highlight and make visible the monumental little details.” Alfons’ photographs of flowers appear to be a still life vs. a sharp contrast to the hectic pace of our daily lives. His process is never rushed, he goes to great lengths to capture and pay attention to even the smallest of details. In fact, he can take a full day to capture one image. “When l am absorbed in the process of my work, I lose all concept of time, all my attention is directed to the search of the perfect form. If I look at my work afterwards, very often I see that I came close, but I also realize that it is the journey of the process which brings me joy vs. the ability to capture the perfect form.” Alfons gets much of his inspiration from hikes in his local surroundings and Switzerland provides a great variety of shapes which also influence his work. The light in the south of France evokes strong emotions for Alfons and this is one medium in which he likes to capture flowers. Alfons’ photographs are a balance of form and color, movement and calmness. When viewing his work, one can feel that Alfons has taken his time to create special images. He highlights the still life pictures by leaving the camera shutter open for 30-50 seconds which brings a sharpness and full color to his work. “As a photographer, I live in contrast; in one way I want to show the beauty of nature, but on the other hand, I use the modern technique. I need cameras, film and sometimes colored light, that’s the concession I must often make to capture my images.” In viewing his work, we can see the balance he tries to achieve between form and the meaning of his work. For his work in colored flowers, he uses white flowers and then takes different sources of light to obtain a color composition. He uses no laboratory tricks; the images are composed by merely pressing the button. The development of the film takes place with no manipulation.
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