SOCIÉTÉ PERRIERE
World Press Photo: Wolfram Hahn Turns MySpace Inside Out
The World Press Photo contest is one of the most prestigious annual events recognizing the work of press photographers, and it’s also the art form’s biggest traveling exhibit, offering up its striking photo collection to adorn gallery walls from Slovakia to Angola. The breadth of topics covered by each year’s winning photographs is quite astounding: the earthquake in Haiti, travelers partaking in CouchSurfing, the harrowing violence against Afghan women, Milan Fashion Week and Madrid bullfights are but a handful of themes represented among 2011’s award-winning crop.
Societe Perrier reached out to Berlin-based photographer Wolfram Hahn, whose Into the Light series was awarded the second prize in the Portrait Series category. For his project, Hahn contacted fellow Berliners who’d posted self-portraits on the social networking site MySpace, asking them to restage the precise moment when the profile photos were taken.
How did you go about selecting the Berliners you’d want to restage their MySpace profile picture?
I was looking for people taking self-portraits alone at home in Berlin. That was all I was looking for. I wanted to see and to find out what it looks like, when people sit at home and take photos of themselves alone. The contradiction between being alone and, at the same time, being or trying to be part of a community within a social network, was my point of interest.
You’re commenting on the artificiality of these online portraits. Do you think social networking sites have made it more difficult to be spontaneous?
I think that most of these self-portraits are based on reproducing stereotypes. They are somehow a mirror of the media and society.
What is your relationship to digital technology? Has its proliferation and increased everyday use affected your line of work?
It doesn’t affect the way I work so much. Mostly I work conceptually, there’s a lot of thinking that goes into my process, before even taking an image.
Do you take self-portraits? How much time, thought and effort do you put into staging your own digital identity?
I don’t take so many self-portraits but when I do, I try to tell a story through that image, like Lee Friedlander did. It’s always about me and the situation, the background. The tension between me as a subject, the situation and the circumstances.
Your photo series makes the case that there’s nothing spectacular about people photographing themselves, because it’s happening everywhere, all the time. Do you think the value of the photographic medium has taken a toll since the advent of digital photography?
Since digital technology came around, it has now become more important to reflect and think about your work. It is easier to take a photo and publish it, but it’s still just as hard work to produce a good image.
Does winning a prize at the World Press Photo competition open doors for a photographer? What do you believe to be the significance of the prize?
The significance of this prize is to get attention. People take your work more serious all of a sudden, as do I.
What’s your favourite prize-winning photograph from the WPP 2011 and why?
The multimedia project Prison Valley is my favourite in the contest. There is duality in this work, which I like. Also, the viewer is invited to interact.
by Michael-Oliver Harding, 09.29.11, (Société Perriere)