Klara Kallstrom & Thobias Fäldt

A Conversation with Julie Fishkin

Photo collaborations are a unique way to view the world through a lens. Despite two very separate pairs of eyes, the ability to hone in on a single subject gives the work added dimension. Klara Källström and Thobias Fäldt teamed up to produce this body of work. They look for unique perspectives onto certain events, capturing the moment that leaves the viewer questioning the context and the potential narrative. They zero in on something curious, scanning the dark exterior of a cold night for a worthwhile moment in time. I spoke with them about their collaborations.

Julie Fishkin: Your images appear to be glimpses of life with a frozen moment in time. Are you constructing a narrative?

Klara Källström & Thobias Fäldt: The narrative is a construction.

Do you hope the viewer becomes an active observer and therefore projects his or her own narrative?

The story is within the viewer. The pictures function differently for each person that sees them, off course. The story is something you make up yourself and the pictures help the imagination. If an individual picture can tell a story on its own, if it doesn’t need explanations, then its an interesting piece of work and can be a part of a bigger plan.

Photographic collaborations are quite interesting. How do you both choose what you will photograph?

We found each other cause we found out we find the same things interesting as motives for a photograph. We have kind of the same background and are brought up under similar circumstances and we guess that has to do with what forms the eye. Our photographs are a lot about culture and time. And Sweden. And we share that. And if you do things long enough, it becomes part of your consciousness. It works both ways; you start seeing things and in the beginning its hard to explain why certain things are more interesting than others. After a while its like these sceneries appear more frequently – maybe cause you developed a strategy to find/see these moments more easily.

Does the collaboration involve a shared vision?

Not sure if there is a clear vision. But definitely we share a big passion.

Most of the images in this selection seem to be night shots. Is there something visually enticing for you about night imagery?

It’s a matter of control and “setting the scene” in the photograph. With image making there are always choices to make, you can choose to take a picture night time or daytime with flash or not. And what hours you choose to be awake. During the last two years we’ve been more active night time than daytime.

Is the geographic location an important aspect of the work?

The geographic location is always an aspect. Avoid the geography or not. If the place is important for the image, then its been shown in the picture. If it is not, it’s better to avoid it. Sometimes it’s disturbing for the viewers imagination if its too much of a link to the place where it was shot.

Thobias is more strict when it comes to erasing the geography. Klara recently made a travelogue in Japan and then the geography was of great importance.

Do you shoot randomly or are your scenes carefully constructed and pre-planned?

We shoot randomly. Never preplanned.

Would you say you look for deliberate elements of mystery, something to preclude any one particular reading of the work?

The post construction is the narrative work and its at that moment you decide what the story really is about. You have all those fragments to play with, put together to something interesting to look at. The pictures raise more questions than answers so the mysterious part is probably an evident part of the work. Its very interesting with photography, that the medium it self in most cases serves to demystify the world – to show us what we could see with our own eyes. Its something that can be used, to produce work that plays with the idea of bringing back the mystery to the well-recognized object.

How has collaborating shaped your individual work?

It’s like our individual work became a part of a bigger plan when we put them together the first time. The individuality is a matter of choice,sometimes you choose to keep your work separately. We don’t share the same brain but often the same thoughts about things.