Emma Hartvig – An Interview

Emma Hartvig is a Berlin-based photographer originally from Sweden. She is a recent graduate from London College of Communication, with a background in both commercial photography and film production and loves cinema, rain forests and sand dunes.

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KALTBLUT: How did you start photographing?

Emma: I suppose taking photographs suited my pretty impatient and enthusiastic personality, so I went from fine art to photography when I was in my early teens. Although I like the way you can capture something spontaneously and quickly with your camera, I have always been very interested in the process around it – finding objects that are visually pleasurable, sketch the image, spend too many hours editing – to then put the final result into a certain context.

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KALTBLUT: What do colours mean to you? Do you have a favourite one?

Emma: I’m not sure I have a favorite one, but colors are certainly a major aspect of my work. I suppose color, like most other things, have a way of provoking and stimulating our senses and I think that’s what I have always aimed to do with my photographs.

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KALTBLUT: How did you develop your style? What influenced you?

Emma: By becoming extremely interested in everything do, I tend to research and read plenty of whatever aspects that are included in a body of work. So my photographs are somehow born from my readings and perceptions about a subject. This kind of helped me develop my style from just photographing everything I find aesthetically pleasing to narrow it down and really get lost in a project. Influentially, I think everything from the cinema of David Lynch and Wim Wenders to the subjects of Hollywood glamour, iconography, eroticism, symbolism and fetishism. Although I would probably always just say that I like fruits, palm trees and nudity.

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KALTBLUT: What are you working on at the moment?

Emma: I have just graduated from London College of Communication, so I suppose I am in the process of balancing all new ideas and things I want to do with recovering from my finished body of work. Although, I am certainly continuing this and it will include a lot more fruits, swimming pools and dripping liquid.

Interview by Emma Elina Keira Jones

emmahartvig.com

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