“I want my photos to portray my own and people’s mental landscapes in general,” says photographer Svante Gullichsen to the Phoblographer in an interview. “The human mind operates in intriguing and unpredictable ways, which is why I want my photos to reflect that. Common emotional states in my work include anxiety, panic, tranquility, freedom, and ecstasy.” We can see and feel this in Svante’s images as he goes out into the wilds and puts himself in situations that one wouldn’t necessarily think of. However, they all feel a bit like a dream.

All images by Svante Gullichsen. Used with permission. These images will be at Photo London 2024 and exhibited by Albumen Gallery. For more, visit Svante’s website and Instagram @gullichsen

Svante’s previous works addressed OCD and negative opinions. And through his images, he wants people to understand how folks feel and the struggle happening in their minds. This struggle isn’t often visible on the surface. When we look at his images, we’re reminded of photographers like Jonathan Higbee and many others we’ve interviewed that try to do similar pieces. All of them feel a bit like both a dreamy space and a bit like a nightmare — which further solidifies the understanding that isn’t easy at all for people. Combining these scenes with nature helps add to the sense of foreboding since so much is out of our control. Perhaps most importantly, the fact that the humans are such a small but important part of the scene gives us the feeling that there is much work to do.

How Svante Gullichsen Got Into Photography

Way before Instagram and Facebook, there were other social platforms. Xanga was a huge one. There was also Myspace, LiveJournal, Deviant Art, etc. But there was also a Finnish social media service called IRC-Galleria. “People would post pictures there, comment on them, and write diary entries,” Svante tells us. “I saw how some people took great and, at that time, inventive photos and decided that I wanted to do the same. That was the first spark.” So after begging his parents for. DSLR, he got one at the age of 14 for confirmation. The camera became a part of him.

These days, he’s not very tech-oriented. He shoots with a classic Canon 5D Mk IV, a Sigma 24-70mm f2.8, a Canon 24-105mm f4 L, and a Profoto B1x flash. Truly, he doesn’t need much more than that.

The Creative Side

The photo above is called Minute / Lifetime and it’s from 2022. It’s all about finding the world open again after being such at home due to severe mental health issues. He used to travel a ton until 2019 when severe OCD turned his life into a miserable existance. “Severe anxiousness prevented me from leaving my home and seeing the world like I had loved to do before,” he tells us. Years of therapy and medication helped him get ready to go out into the world again in 2022 — which was also a bit after the pandemic. Svante went to Dresden, Germany where he learned to be confident in being alone and away from home.

Here’s more about that photograph:

During one day, I went hiking alone in Saxon Switzerland National Park, which I had researched online beforehand. I had brought along a few clothes in case I felt like taking some photos. I spent the whole day wandering through small villages and breathtaking landscapes without the familiar anxiety that had plagued me for years. At some point, I veered off the trail to this spot and decided to take a picture that would capture this feeling of freedom. The clouds were behaving unpredictably, and sometimes the sunbeams would shine dramatically through the clouds. I climbed onto a small rocky outcrop and let the camera do its magic. The problem arose when it was time to leave the outcrop. Between it and the bedrock was a deep ravine of about 50 meters, and I had to jump uphill onto the wet rock to get out. I was far from other people, and a small fear gripped my stomach, realizing that things could go really wrong here. Nonetheless, I jumped and made it. It cemented together the euphoric feeling of freedom

Svante Gullichsen

We’d be curious to know how Svante’s work would differ if he lived in a metropolitan city and how it would look if the images were shot there instead.

The Algorithms are Sadness

Svante Gullichsen was asked about AI imagery and tells us that the outputs are dull and repetitive. To that end, he doesn’t consider it art at all. To him, art stems from humanity and the processing of experiences — which a computer cannot do. “The quality of the work doesn’t matter because the lack of experience and lived life behind it completely undermines the foundation of these ‘pieces,’” he tells us. Instead, no one will remember it like so much of social media today. “It’s ultra fast-fashion in the art world – meaningless, empty, and trend-chasing. Beware, SHEIN and TEMU.”

AUTHENTICITY STATEMENT

The Phoblographer works with human photographers to verify that they’ve actually created their work through shoots. These are done by providing us assets such as BTS captures, screenshots of post-production, extra photos from the shoot, etc. We do this to help our readers realize that this is authentically human work. Here’s what this photographer provided for us.

Industry: Education

Photography Business Institute celebrates 10 students from the Certified Boutique Photographer program during its Spring Immersion event

Springfield, IL (PRUnderground) May 16th, 2024

On May 8, 2024, the Photography Business Institute awarded the Certified Boutique Photographer (CBP) distinction to 10 students from its esteemed CBP Program. The ceremony occurred in Springfield, IL, coinciding with the Spring Immersion event hosted by the photography business school for its Peak Performance Coaching students.

The CBP program is a rigorous certification process designed to recognize professional photographers who excel not only in the craft of photography but also in business practices, client experience, and marketing. Unlike other certifications, CBP sets photographers apart with instruction on a unique marketing strategy for students’ photography businesses. The program emphasizes the importance of providing a superior client experience and investing in professional growth.

This marks the second cohort of Certified Boutique Photographers, following the inaugural class in the Fall of 2023, which saw 12 photographers earn the distinction. The Spring 2024 ceremony celebrates the achievements of 10 photographers who have demonstrated exceptional dedication, skill, and expertise in the field of boutique portrait photography.

The graduation ceremony was attended by over 100 photographers in person, with an additional 75 participating virtually as part of the Spring Immersion event. Highlighting the school’s dedication to continual professional improvement, Spring Immersion is a professional development conference for boutique photographers, where industry leaders come together to enhance their business skills and elevate their client service to the highest level.

“We are thrilled to award our second photography business class of Certified Boutique Photographers,” said Sarah Petty, Founder of Photography Business Institute. “These talented individuals have demonstrated their commitment to excellence and dedication to providing an exceptional client experience. We are confident that they will continue to thrive and make a significant impact on their communities and in the lives of their clients.”

The graduates of the CBP program have undergone extensive training, testing, and evaluation to achieve certification, making them among the best boutique portrait photographers in the world. Their success reflects not only their passion for photography but also their professionalism and commitment to continuous improvement. For more information about Photography Business Institute and its Certified Boutique Photographer Program, please visit www.PhotographyBusinessInstitute.com.

About Photography Business Institute

Photography Business Institute aims to educate photographers about how to have a viable, self-sustaining career as a professional portrait photographer and to make lasting contributions to the legacies of the families they photograph and the communities in which they reside.

As art fairs go, this year’s Photo London is an entertaining romp. Featuring 120 exhibitors from nearly 50 cities, it promises delights at every turn, from huge names like Steven Meisel, Martin Parr, and Lee Miller to the next generation of creators. Take for example artists spotlighted by the Deutsche Börse Photography Foundation, which places its emphasis on particularly timely topics. These include Marvel Harris’s ongoing series Inner Journey, which documents his gender transition, Anastasia Samoylova’s subtle studies of impending climate doom in Miami, and Philip Montgomery’s visions of American life racked by inner turmoil.

Among several strong solo presentations of women photographers, the standouts are charming portraits of New York street life by Helen Levitt at Cologne’s Zander Galerie and the strikingly monochromatic landscapes, interiors, and still lifes of Yildiz Moran, a Turkish photographer who deserves greater recognition, presented by Galeri Nev from Ankara. This year’s Master of Photography, Valérie Belin, is honored by a small retrospective that also features entirely new, unseen work.

Yildiz Moran, Untitled Svetlana Beriosova and Svetlana Kessessinova (1952). Photo courtesy of Galeri Nev.

For those hoping to determine what new directions the medium might be taking, the fair is littered with pieces that show how photography keeps evolving as it feeds into and emerges out of all manner of artistic practices. On show are textiles, sculptural pieces, and paintings, alongside an increasingly prominent yet still controversial presence: A.I. Here are some of the most interesting examples on show.

Roope Rainisto

Installation view of Roope Rainisto’s Vacations at Photo London 2024. Photo courtesy of Verse Works.

Finnish artist Roope Rainisto has become a prominent name on the Web3 scene for his experimental projects using A.I. He will likely be unknown to many attendees of Photo London, who will encounter his latest series, Vacation, presented by the NFT platform Verse Works in an immersive holiday-inspired setting. Almost like ads, the works contain hyperreal images of classic vacation scenes that are imbued with heightened luxury and beauty. At a passing glance nothing is amiss but, on closer inspection, limbs suddenly appear out of nowhere, a diner stool has too many legs, or a plane is strangely distorted.

Is there always such a chasm between our want or expectation and the eventual reality? “Dream” holidays represent a utopian ideal into which we can escape, if only for a week or two. Their innate impossibility and the disappointments that follow lay bear the hollow superficiality of our aspirations.

“That’s really the perfect theme for A.I., to visualize these fantasies,” said Rainisto at the show’s installation. “The photographic style gives people the impression that it’s reality. I want to play with that [assumption].”

He noted also that, unlike on a small digital screen, the physical prints can be blown up to show off the works’ impressively high resolution. “You can actually see small skin details, so you really get the extra impact of the size.”

Sander Coers

Sander Coers, POST n. 28, left, and POST n. 48, right (2024). Photos courtesy of Open Doors Gallery.

At some point, our recollection of a trip will become almost entirely informed by faded old photographs. The eerily false impression this inevitably creates is at the heart of Dutch artist Sander Coers’s series POST, from which several new works are on view at Open Doors Gallery. Small-scale, fragmented, and grainy, his images evoke a nostalgic longing that is hard to place. A man wades through a field of flowers that reach up to his waist amid alpine scenery. A well groomed 1950s-style couple stare out to sea. If these images aren’t real then what are the tell-tale signs?

That A.I.-generated images are plainly fake yet still manage to evoke something close to truth underscores the futility of looking to any one image for an objective or faithful representation. Rather, our vision of the past always takes on a cinematic quality, regardless of the medium.

Jamie Gallagher  

Jamie Gallagher, Headsculpt (7) (2024). Photo courtesy of Notton Gallery.

At Notton Gallery in the fair’s Discovery section, artist Jamie Gallagher has taken a different approach, training A.I. on his previous paintings in order to create images that reinterpret his style in new and unexpected ways. The alien-like beings that result have taken on a life of their own, much as any creative act is inevitably born out of what came before.

Photo London 2024 is at Somerset House in London through May 19. 

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Fourteen months ago, a catastrophic flood upended thousands of lives in Pájaro, a small Central California farmworker town filled with immigrants who speak mostly Spanish or Indigenous languages. A relentless series of atmospheric rivers transformed the inviting Pájaro River into a malevolent foe that charged through a crumbling levee and engulfed the coastal community in floodwaters. 

Regional and state officials knew a levee break was inevitable—it had failed at least four times before—but didn’t prioritize desperately needed repairs for a town populated by low-income farmworkers. The flood destroyed hundreds of structures, leaving families homeless, unemployed and traumatized. 

Construction crews will finally start reinforcing the levee this summer, but the project will take years to complete. And a flood is just one of many potential climate disasters threatening Pájaro and the agricultural industry the community depends on to survive. Last year was the planet’s hottest on record, setting the stage for more frequent and severe extreme weather events, heavier rains and longer lasting droughts, heat waves and wildfires that fill the air with toxic smoke. 

A group of Pájaro residents explored the impacts of climate change on their town through a very personal lens as part of the Pájaro PhotoVoice Project, organized by the nonprofit climate justice organization Regeneración. The photos will be on display at Somos Watsonville, a nonprofit community center, until June 7. 

Elisa H., a resident of Pájaro and mother, is originally from Oaxaca, Mexico. Elisa, who asked not to use her last name, speaks Zapotec and Spanish and is learning English at Cabrillo College. Elisa works in a packaging company making boxes and harvests strawberries during the growing season.

“This was when the rains started falling in Pájaro, before the levee break, and I was working in the fields. I was feeling so anxious when I took this photo because I knew that the rains would ruin the strawberries. And if there’s no strawberries there wouldn’t be work and so I was feeling really anxious.”

Ricardo Paz-Hernandez, 17, is a Pájaro resident and 11th grade student at Watsonville High School, where he is a member of the Mosaic art academy. He enjoys playing video games and participating in football, track and field and other sports. Ricardo hopes to find innovative ways for his community to thrive.

“The story starts with the tree. The tree had fallen and the school that was there is still being renovated after all the damage from the flood. It’s been a year and it’s still closed. And all the students that live here in Pájaro have to go across town to Lakeview in Watsonville. And so it starts with that image of being abandoned, forgotten. And then with a photo of the strawberry later, it’s like, you know what, we’re hurt, we’re left behind, but we’re gonna keep fighting. And then in the end with a bird with a tree, it’s like liberty, it’s like being released, being free and working hard to persevere.” 

“Originally, I didn’t really have a vision of what I wanted to capture. I just set out with the mission of walking outside my house, going back on the train tracks, because behind my house, there’s some train tracks. And I want to just take pictures and see where that led me. And I ended up taking the strawberry photo. I was done taking photos for the day and started walking back, and I saw the strawberry on the ground. And thought that’s something I want to capture. Then one of my peers in the project pointed out the leaves on the trees, in the back. And she brought up the idea of perseverance after going through such hard times with the floods and struggles. And so I took this image of being left behind, and turned it into something about persevering after such struggles with the picture of a bird with the tree.” 

Alejandra Vargas is a Pájaro resident and entrepreneur. Alejandra runs a small gourmet food business and a printing business and attends the Pájaro resident meetings at Casa de la Cultura, a nonprofit community center that supports farmworkers.

José Lomeli Flores, 17, is a Pájaro resident and 11th grade student at Watsonville High School. José is part of his school’s ECHO (Education, Communication, Humanitarian Outreach)  leadership academy.

“When I took a picture of la chancla I thought of every single mom, including my mom. She’s been taking care of us three boys by herself since I was in second grade. La chancla, a sandal, is a stereotype that Latin moms threaten misbehaving kids with a sandal to control them. When I saw la chancla, I thought of all the single moms that keep us safe here in Pájaro.” 

“I call this Flashback. I was hanging out with my friend talking about life, about what’s going on in our lives, and I was thinking back to the flood. I was also walking with my friend when the flood hit. When we saw the clouds coming in last month, it was almost exactly like it was when the flood came. Back then, we thought, the flood’s not gonna hit us. But since they didn’t fix the levee, and they knew the levee was damaged and didn’t do anything to stop it, it flooded. They left us behind. Each time I see a storm coming it reminds me of waking up in the middle of the night, hearing sirens, the cops saying, “Get out of the house! It’s an emergency.” My friend still lives in Castroville with his mom because his landlord didn’t want to fix his house.” 

“I called this Pájaro, are you concerned? Walking around the rural areas of Pájaro, it makes me worried for the people who don’t have easy transportation. Because as we can see here, this “sidewalk” offers no protection. I have to walk every day to be able to get my education. I also have to walk to get around town to go grocery shopping. It doesn’t always feel safe. And I can’t carry many things back home because I don’t have a car and there’s no bus route. How are the people who live here without a proper sidewalk supposed to safely get around? And it’s getting worse with climate change. Just imagine all the dangers it’s putting us in if we don’t do anything to stop this. If we don’t keep the earth safe, we’re not keeping ourselves safe.” 

Angelina Gonzalez is a Pájaro resident and mother who recently started working as a home caregiver, after years of working in the fields. Angelina is also a Community Climate Coalition member working on the Transformative Climate Communities Planning grant from the state of California. Angelina joined the PhotoVoice project because she wants to represent the feelings of Pájaro residents after the flood. She also wanted to capture how climate change affects her daily life.

“This picture reminds me a lot of what it was like after the flood. As a mother I had to find a way to protect my daughters, be able to find food for them, clothes for them, because we weren’t able to take anything when the flood came. And so the same thing with this man. He’s doing his work finding a way to protect himself from the sun because it was a very hot day. Workers wear hats but it’s not enough to protect your body. This box protects your whole body. And it’s not like they’re just bending over and then walking. They’re bending over, picking and then running because they get paid by how much they pick.”

The city of Roquebrune Cap-Martin provided the backdrop for the first underwater photography contest “Blue Trophy,” held on Sunday, May 12th.

Mayor Patrick Cesari, accompanied by numerous elected representatives, expressed his gratitude to the event organizers: the CoDep 06 of the FFESSM, the Department of Maritime Alps, the Télémaque diving club, and all the participants.

During his address, he emphasized the importance of protecting marine environments, discussing the possibility of establishing a marine protected area and organizing a maritime brigade in the coming summer to strengthen the safeguarding of the seabeds at Cap Martin.

The photographs presented during the contest showcased the beauty of the underwater landscapes in the area. The winners of this inaugural edition were announced as follows:

• 1st prize: David Roger and Jean François Guidi • 2nd prize: Benjamin Raffin and Laetitia Gauthier • 3rd prize: Christian Gelpi and Christine Leherquier • Municipality Prize: Shannon Tissot and Thierry Fouihac • Lightning Strike Prize: Benjamin Raffin and Laetitia Gauthier

The ceremony concluded with a reception to celebrate the efforts and successes of all participants.

Undoubtedly, this first edition marks the beginning of a series of initiatives aimed at promoting the beauty and conservation of the marine environment in the region.

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