Obstinate sketches of a life

Obstinate sketches of a life

As a photographer you seemingly simply register reality, although you always try to create your own specific reality. I consider myself as a visual storyteller; Either I create my own stories as I used to do during my career as a professional publicity photographer, or I attempt to register reality, and I invent a parallel universe, in which my objects tell a different story: a story based on my imagination. It is a way to invent another world for my objects, in which they think and act, and which makes their lives more interesting and varied, or more boring and dull than the original lives they experience. The objects become a tool of my inspiration, and their fictitious life is always unexpected.

The experience of being a professional photographer gave me the unique opportunity of controlling and creating atmosphere, using only light as a medium. The various ways of lighting allow the photographer to compose his own reality, which is an indispensable element in visual storytelling.

My work bounces constantly on the thin line between beauty and reality, considering that as well beauty as reality are coloured by my imagination. But: can one speak of reality, when a scene is seen through the eyes of an artist?  How real is his reality? And how fake is real beauty? Can reality become beauty, and is beauty an objective for an artist? Is reality often more interesting than beauty? And more important: can one see beauty in reality?

As a photographer you seemingly simply register reality, although you always try to create your own specific reality. I consider myself as a visual storyteller; Either I create my own stories as I used to do during my career as a professional publicity photographer, or I attempt to register reality, and I invent a parallel universe, in which my objects tell a different story: a story based on my imagination. It is a way to invent another world for my objects, in which they think and act, and which makes their lives more interesting and varied, or more boring and dull than the original lives they experience. The objects become a tool of my inspiration, and their fictitious life is always unexpected.

The experience of being a professional photographer gave me the unique opportunity of controlling and creating atmosphere, using only light as a medium. The various ways of lighting allow the photographer to compose his own reality, which is an indispensable element in visual storytelling.

My work bounces constantly on the thin line between beauty and reality, considering that as well beauty as reality are coloured by my imagination. But: can one speak of reality, when a scene is seen through the eyes of an artist?  How real is his reality? And how fake is real beauty? Can reality become beauty, and is beauty an objective for an artist? Is reality often more interesting than beauty? And more important: can one see beauty in reality?

2015-2020
Mich Verbelen

Mich Verbelen

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Mich Verbelen
Mich Verbelen
Mich Verbelen