I approach photography akin to improvisation in music, using the means available in the moment – or, the lack thereof – in search of a meaningful image. The technique, practice, preparation, and theoretical knowledge, all in service of the illusive. Visual language and musical art are wordless, and are in my experience much like poetry where, between the language, the lines, and the unwaveringly pressed continuation of words, the formulation, lies a meaning, an emotion, a seemingly random collocation and combination of sensory perception, leading to value.

The corona pandemic halted my work as a performing musician since 2020, which carved out plenty of time for long walks. Being outside more often thus became an extension to the work and life indoors, the living room became bigger. Outdoors, time and space are filled with alternating visual phenomena such as color, shadow, and light, which along the way I learned to distinguish, recognize, and appreciate more proficiently. Capturing a temporary appearance in narrative image fascinates me, as the picture itself takes on the weight of the immaterial.

“You must, in studying Nature, always consider both each single thing and the whole: nothing is inside and nothing is outside, for what is within is without.” - Goethe

For this project [21-23], I sought meaning or the narrative in a single image beyond the apparent everydayness, exceeding consciousness and reason, arriving at the transcendental. The combination of wandering and photographing landed me in dialogue with abstraction: a state of rest and unrest at once, a practice in focus, by facing the quest in silence and capturing a picture that was not there before. Unrest in rest is fermentation, there’s poetry in there.

“A poet is someone who can use a single image to send a universal message.” - Andrei Tarkovsky

[21-23] covered two and a half years (from Januari 2021 to May 2023) of photographing without any preconceived plan. They were, in fact, spontaneous trips with my camera on hand, all within a range of 80km from my residence: Zeeland, Rotterdam and Antwerp. My trips resulted in a selection of ninety photos, which I then sorted into five chapters.

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CV Frans Blanker can be found here.