Contemporary Photographer Series - Andrew Phelps

© Andrew Phelps

Andrew Phelps is an American photographer who has lived in Europe since 1990. He is a curator at Galerie Fotohof in Salzburg, Austria and his work is represented by Robert Morat Galerie in Hamburg. He has had several books published including Higley, Not Niigata, and Haboob by Kehrer Verlag. His most recent book, Cubic feet/sec., was just published earlier this month and is now available here. Matthew Jessie recently interviewed Andrew about his work for our Contemporary Photographer Series (CPS).

As your statement for the series describes, "Alpine Half-Life is an ongoing series which marks the point of my life where I have spent more time living in the Alps than in the deserts of Arizona." How has living in a country so different from your native country of America influenced the way your work?

I spent so many years living in the Alps without ever really photographing in the mountains. This always surprised a lot of people because the landscape plays such a pivotal role in my work, and here I am living in a powerful landscape deep in tradition and I could never get my head around photographing it. In 2012 I passed the point where I have now lived longer in Europe than in the States, and I have always insisted that the landscape shapes who we are, so I figured I had better start taking a look at the places right outside my door. To answer the question, I would have to say the biggest disappointment about traveling to Europe is finding out how similar it is to the States. There is a lot more which the two places have in common than what separates them. I think one has to ask the question about the difference between living and growing up in the desert and living in the mountains; it's as much about the physical difference as it is about the cultural differences. So Alpine Half-Life was a conscious effort to make a work about the mountains, but not just the physical space, also the cultural relationships between man and the land in a place with a lot of people, little space and a rich tradition of looking at the land.

© Andrew Phelps

This series contains many different culturally descriptive elements - landscapes, people, interiors and objects are all included. Do you think that your unique perspective allows you to see things in a way that a native might not simply because they were born into that society and are used to it?

I think photographers in general, especially documentary photographers, have a way of pointing out quirky ways of seeing a place. It's my way of combining portraits, landscapes, architecture and still-lifes to create the narrative I want to tell. But of course the narrative is just my relationship to the place. There is no narrative which is inherent in photography, the only narrative that exists is the photographer's relationship to the subject. My relationship to the Alps is a bit of wonder, confusion and doubt, so those all lead to my narrative, which can be sarcastic and funny at times, while also not being afraid of being beautiful.

© Andrew Phelps

From the pictures there is a feeling that the people of the Alps have a great appreciation for the natural world. Many of the objects and interiors in your photographs incorporate elements from nature. Murals and paintings of nature even coexist in actual natural settings. How much of your own interest in the natural world drove your approach to this series?

The series Nature De-Luxe from 2004 is an attempt to get back to my childhood summers in Arizona which were filled with camping and outdoor adventure. The European landscape is much different than the West in America. Here in Europe the term wilderness doesn't really exist; the next town is just on the horizon and the term camping doesn't allude to adventure and extreme outdoor activities, instead it involves a very controlled relationship to the wilderness where nature is avoided and the best campgrounds are the ones which more resemble cites. Nature De-Luxe became very sarcastic after a while and I don't really like sarcasm in photography so I decided to try to make Alpine Half-Life much broader than just the campers and let it include the general relationship which people have to the Alps. I really enjoy being in the mountains - climbing and kayaking - it's only recently that I take my cameras with me. It is strange for me to think that I spent years here without ever feeling the need to photograph the place, but that is not unusual.

© Andrew Phelps

As a large format photographer, do you think the view camera's innate process of considering and composing each image individually helps the formal aspects of your pictures?

I don't know if it helps the formal aspects directly, but it makes you slow down. I don't always use large format, in fact it's becoming less and less because I want to work quicker now, and I want to utilize the fantastic aspects of digital. Being that I used the large format for so many years I know exactly what I want and how to wait for it and plan for it and set up for it, so even if it isn't the large camera all the time, the approach is still one of long consideration.

Although you have spent more than half of your life in Europe and most of your work has been made outside the US, Higley and Haboob are two major projects that have been made in the US. What is it like to travel back home to work?

It's ironic that I had to move to Europe so that I could do the two most important bodies of my work about America. I grew up in Arizona and Higley is by far the most important thing I've done photographically. But I had to leave that place to ever be able to see it. There is no way that I would have spent 8 years making that work if I had never left; it is all about going back home and finding it nothing like you remember it. It's all about my family, but it is broader than that, it tries to take on a lot of global themes such as urban expansion, family traditions, the American Dream, the instability of unbridled economic growth, etc. Something interesting happens for me when the images of places and people in front of my camera are superimposed with the images of those same places and people out of my childhood memories, it is a double exposure of sorts which becomes very complex to me and I hope a bit of the complexity seeps through to the viewer.

© Andrew Phelps