France 1987

Featuring Mark Steinmetz

Mark Christopher Steinmetz is a photographer from Athens, Georgia, USA. Together with his wife and photographer, Irina Rozovsky, Mark runs The Humid, an educational space that provides workshops and lectures for photographers. Mark's latest photo book, France 1987, published by Nazraeli Press, contains previously unpublished work created 35 years ago during Mark’s stay in the South of France. The book takes us back to the world before social media, digital cameras, or the vast introduction of the internet to the public.

In this interview, Mark talks about the work on the printed edition, the selection of images, and the atmosphere created to present France 1987. Mark explains his perception of the 80s comparing it to today, “The world I photographed in 1987 was different from the one we live in today. People were more relaxed then, there was more downtime; in public, people touched one another more often. Nowadays, our lives are highly scheduled; traffic is worse everywhere, and people have become more isolated and less communal.” 

In this conversation, we discuss the thematic elements of building a narrative and working on the layout in which the emphasis is on the appearance of people in the frame, their gaze and motion, and the arrangement of images on spreads. We speak about the influence of cinematographers of the 30s and 50s on the way the story is built, capturing a person in the moment of performing an action while freezing this fragment of time to preserve it. The movement, emotion, and life happening in the midst of an image are what keep the viewer fascinated with Mark's work.    

Words by Nastasia Khmelnitski

Photography by Mark Steinmetz
Published by Nazraeli Press
In collaboration with Setanta Books
Special thanks to Alex Buchan
The Humid is founded by Mark Steinmetz and Irina Rozovsky

Get your copy at Setanta Books

Publication Details
Hardcover, cloth
10.5 x 12 inches
80 pages
63 plates
Limited to 1,000 casebound copies
Published by Nazraeli Press

‘Looking at my past work, I’m surprised by all the gentle gestures and the small moments I was capturing.’

The Experience

Hi Mark, it’s such a pleasure to speak with you! Thank you for this opportunity to discuss your recent photo book, France 1987, published by Nazraeli Press. The work was made 35 years ago during your artist residency in the south of France after graduating school and includes over 60 previously unpublished images. Looking back at the archives and unpublished work, what was the main difference for you in the way you perceive the work, the narrative you introduce in the book, and France? 

In my youth, I was too busy, too much in a hurry to see what I was doing in a very thorough way. Printing in the darkroom to really see results takes a lot of time, and there were always other projects I felt I had to move on to. I also had to figure out how to make a living, and a lot of time was sunk into that. So, like many other photographers of the film era, I was forever behind on my printing and editing, though I did manage to develop all my rolls promptly. Nowadays, with computer programs like Lightroom, it’s much easier to archive the work and to have a clearer, more complete picture about it. With the distance of time, I’ve been able to consider my work from a more detached point of view. I’m a better editor of my work these days.

The world I photographed in 1987 was different from the one we live in today. People were more relaxed then, there was more downtime; in public, people touched one another more often. Nowadays, our lives are highly scheduled; traffic is worse everywhere, and people have become more isolated and less communal. Looking at my past work, I’m surprised by all the gentle gestures and the small moments I was capturing. The book conveys a sense of traveling, a feeling of being on a journey. Most of the work takes advantage of available light and is rather atmospheric, but there is a sequence of photographs taken with flash, which is something I’ve rarely done later in my career.

‘The book ends on a quiet note: the setting sun over a herd of sheep, and finally, the exterior of a cemetery at dusk.’

The Narrative

Looking back at the images you made probably brings a vast amount of memories about the place and the situations you encountered. What was the central theme that you wanted to preserve when creating the narrative and selecting the best-fit images for the story about France 1987 for this photo book? How did the process of working on design and layouts influence some of the decisions when building the narrative? 

Initially in the book, people are seen from behind or from a distance, then, as the sequence builds, faces appear. In many of the pictures of people from behind, they are looking at something that is beyond the frame, and they are savoring the moment. There are almost twice as many double-page spreads in the book as there are single-page spreads. There are thematic and formal connections and juxtapositions between the photos on the double-page spreads. The book ends on a quiet note: the setting sun over a herd of sheep, and finally, the exterior of a cemetery at dusk.

‘Freezing life with a fast shutter is an intrinsically surrealistic gesture; photographs suggest but never explain.’

The Atmosphere

The atmosphere created is reminiscent of the French New Wave: the picturesque city landscapes, the occurrences that take place at the moment captured on film, and the reality of interaction between people in the frame while preserving distance, which allows to explore society and its ways of existence. The moments captured are in movement as if the viewer gets to see a story in its development, which in turn makes it easier to capture the emotion of the character. What was your technique back then in France exploring those stories on the streets, and how did it change at the later stages?     

I’ve seen quite a few movies by Godard, Truffaut, Varda, etc., and admire and respect what they did, but it’s an earlier period of film that excites me the most, in particular, the films of Jean Renoir and Jean Vigo — these mostly date from the 30s. I also love the austere work of Robert Bresson, who began making movies in the 50s, but I’m not sure if he is technically considered New Wave.   

In my early work, I was typically making a kind of portrait that was taken while the subject was in the middle of doing some activity. I used a 35mm Leica for the most part, though there are a few in France 1987 taken with a 6x9 cm camera. Freezing life with a fast shutter is an intrinsically surrealistic gesture; photographs suggest but never explain. In later work, such as in The South Trilogy, I tended to move closer to the subject, yet there is still an environmental context and still a sense of a moment unfurling. In the early work, there was more candid photography, and it was less necessary to talk to people in order to take the picture. In some ways, the later work is more direct and economical. 

‘I met Garry Winogrand when I was 22, and just knowing that a handful of people were out there who were serious about photography has been enormously helpful.’

The Story

What were the decisive moments in your life that took you and your career to the next level or the people that helped you be inspired and continue the work you were doing? 

I’ve been lucky in that I’ve never felt like my work was totally abandoned by the world. There have always been a few open doors that I’ve managed to find and wiggle through. There have been so many helpful people and influences, too many to discuss. When I first entered college, I thought I would go into the sciences, but somehow, I took an immersive course over the month of January on the films of Michelangelo Antonioni, which completely shifted my course. I met Garry Winogrand when I was 22, and just knowing that a handful of people were out there who were serious about photography has been enormously helpful. When I was 30 and living in Chicago, I got a last-minute offer from Baldwin Lee to teach at the university in Knoxville, Tennessee for a year. I packed up my things and have remained in the South ever since.

The Humid

I learned that, together with Irina Rozovsky, you are running The Humid, an educational space for photographers. Could you tell about this project?

Irina is my wife, and together, we run a photographic workshop space in Athens, Georgia. We also arrange portfolio reviews and artist lectures, and we’ve put up a few shows around town. During the pandemic, this was all done by Zoom, but now we have in-person workshops again. Our next ones are this June, but they are abroad – one in Italy, near the marble quarries of Carrara, and one in France near the Pont du Gard, the famous Roman aqueduct. There are at least six photos from the small town that neighbors the massive bridge in France 1987. It’s wonderful to teach students who seek you out and want to learn from you. A few are of college age, but there’s a big range of people in their 30s to their 60s who attend.