Isabella Stahl
Left Behind
[ EPF 2014 SHORTLIST ]
When I grew up I despised my village. I felt trapped by the dull normality, the narrow-minded people and the lack of amusements. I was depressed, bored and anxious to get out. Several years have passed and I’m now living in one of the largest cities in the world. Despite satisfying my adolescent desire to escape, I feel a longing to return to the place I so badly wanted to leave behind. When I’m far away and distanced from my past, I can value what I’m no longer part of. I return, and I see what before was hidden in the dark shadows of my youth. I admire the beauty of the landscape, the calm, the romantic light and the endless bright summer nights. But there are two sides of my present experience. The sound of the river’s flowing stream or the birds singing will never drown out the endlessly thoughts spinning in my head. I am still lost. I walk my old paths as I’m searching for answers for the scars in a childhood that formed who I am today. I photograph my brother growing up and my father who never will. I photograph the people that still live here and the animals I’ve always felt more close to. I use photography to help understand my surroundings and myself. “Left Behind” is a story about Sweden from my perspective today.
Bio
Isabella Stahl was born in northern Sweden in 1984 and now lives and works in New York City. She studied at one of Sweden’s most prestigious schools for photography at the island “Gotland,” and moved to New York in 2012 to continue her studies at the International Center of Photography. She graduated in 2013 and is now working on her own long-term photographic art projects. She has received the Helge Ax:son Johnson grant two years in a row, 2012 and 2013, and exhibited at galleries such as Visby Art Museum, Photoville and Greenpoint Gallery. She is represented by Kasher|Potamkin Gallery in Chelsea, New York.
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To me this series feels confusing , but as I understand so was it for you to be back and still not really connected ( sorry for the wrong spelling maybe at times ).
Part of my confusion is that I don’t know who all this people are , what is your relation to them , you tried to photograph them in some intimate way , close but at the same time , I hardly feel any connection , maybe that was for you too .
Photo 18 , I do like in this way that I can feel this dullness , distance , some way of life .
Some other photo’s feel maybe too romantic , maybe the feeling for you what you long for , or how you like to think back of your hometown when you are living in this other anonymous citty .
Maybe it needs some more soulsearching , and maybe this is what it is , life is incomplete in so many ways .
Rather than being confusing, my feeling is that the issue is of calling this set of pictures a “story”. I’ve made this comment on other essays here: it’s quite alright to present a “depiction” rather than a “story”, without suggesting a photojournalistic ethic. I like very much the photographs here that are shot directly into the light. Having lived in Sweden from the ages of 6–11, some of these pictures make me feel quite at home.
Mieczysław (Mitch)/Paris
I think there is a story, but a personal story of someone who returns to her childhood village and the things and people she finds there. Her view after been out for a time. Personally, I don´t mind to know exactly who those people are. I suppose family and neighbours…
I like most of the pictures, the use of light in some of them. My favourites are 5,6,9,11 and 17.
cheers
These are no better than a snapshot. No story, no artistry and nothing to say. I am getting so bored with mediocrity……………..sorry
So you accepted mediocrity when you first viewed it? Essays as shown on photographic sites and digital news sites on the internet have never gone beyond the old slide show format and that brings the images down to mediocrity.
Story telling photographically works best in books as they are more interactive audience response wise.
Long term (at least a year instagram posts) by an individual are great essays though there is a need for the viewer to become a very astute editor so it goes beyond snapshot
…and remember you as the audience has a responsibility, in what and how images are viewed