"Hello Hanadi,
From the various questions I have been receiving about my series, yours are by far the most thorough. Below are my answers. If you need, I am also happy to expand on any subject over a Zoom or Skype call.
Eric"
The virtual interview with international renowned photographer, Eric Raeber, Started over a year ago.
Way over a year ago.
I was still in the Annahar newspaper where I remained for 30 years before I decided to leave the only nest I have ever known since I was 22 years old, and something about his ability to turn ballet dancers into heroes and heroines of ordinary lives, pulled me towards him.
Why would a photographer dedicate a whole series to enchanting dancers doing house chores?
was the question I found myself pondering upon before I gathered my courage to reach out to him.
I did not have to try too hard to persuade him to talk to me about his fascination with dancers, and their swaying bodies.
He welcomed me with an open mind, and granted me the most elaborate answers any storyteller could hope for.
And then I decided that it was time to taste other parts of life.
So I resigned, turning the page of a story that I wrote for 30 years.
Never forgetting our beautiful virtual interactions, I had to wait until a few days ago, when I officially launched my blog, to give This extraordinary, humble and generous photographer, the space he deserved with his lithe dancers.
The captivating, delicate yet robust dancers he asked to do house chores while he captured their majestic gracefulness in its attempt to flirt with the ordinary.
And I could not resist to brag, as you may have noticed in my introductory paragraph, when he complimented my questions.
Who is Eric Raeber? and whatever was he thinking when he put these whimsical dancers face to face with reality?
we will find out in the following Q and A.
I did not wish to interfere with his answers.
That is the least I can do after he patiently waited for me to provide him with the space he deserved to tell me his story with the pointed toes and the iron!
WHAT DOES THE PHRASE "SEEKING THE INTERSECTION OF MOVEMENT AND TIME" MEAN, PLEASE? (A phrase he had written in his artist statement)
Dance is a sequence of movements. When watching a dance performance, spectators rarely remember specific movements. Instead they remember the emotion they felt as they watched. With my photography, I capture movements at a particular point in time. The intersection of movement and time refers to freezing these fleeting moments. The moments I freeze through photography go by so quickly that the eye does not have the time to capture every detail when watching an entire choreography.
YOU SAID THAT YOU CAN USUALLY SPOT BALLET DANCERS AMIDST A CROWD OF ORDINARY PEOPLE. CAN YOU PLEASE TELL US HOW THIS FASCINATION WITH THEIR ELEGANCE AND POISE BEGIN?
I have always been more of a conceptual photographer than a photojournalist. I like creating images from scratch and being in control of what goes into my frame. I always iterate in order to get the exact image I envision.
I also enjoy photographing people. The social interaction during a photo shoot is fun and the discussions are always enriching. But getting a natural expression out of a fellow human can be difficult. This is what makes it so interesting and often requires story telling or a little bit of psychology. When you get that perfect expression on the subject’s face, the body pose often follows subconsciously; it is what it is.
Dancers are different. They talk with their body instead of their face. They control every muscle with a precision and a grace that is truly unique. With a dancer I can iterate on the pose to match the shapes of the background or the mood of the concept. It is only after we have found the perfect movement as well as which instant to capture, that we work on the emotion of the face. This is the reason ballet dancers are the perfect complement to my style of photography; they have control of their body.
IN THE SPRING OF 2019, YOU STARTED A PHOTOGRAPHIC SERIES, AND YOU ACTUALLY INVITED BALLET DANCERS TO YOUR LIVING ROOM! NOW THAT IS A SCENE I WOULD LOVE TO DESCRIBE TO OUR READERS. CAN YOU RECALL THE BEAUTIFUL, MINUTE DETAILS OF THOSE VISITS?
Before each photo session I will share an online document in which I list between 6 and 10 concepts that I think would work well for that dancer. I usually have more concepts than we have time for, in case we miss the adequate clothing, a required prop, or in case the concept simply does not resonate with the dancer.
When the dancer arrives home, I will have already reconfigured our living room into a photo studio: I push the dining table against the wall, roll in the shelves with my photo gear and set up the paper backdrop as well as my lighting.
The dancer puts on clothings they brought for that concept and we start shooting. In the first couple of images we try different poses to see what works best. We review all images on a monitor connected to my camera and decide which pose to pursue. We then take more images and review the result between each shot. This allows me to get my timing exactly right and the dancer can refine his/her position of hands and feet with precision. Finally, once the pose and the timing is decided, we iterate a few more times to get the facial expression to convey the emotion that goes with the story. Sometimes the entire process is very quick (2 or 3 images) and sometimes it can take 15 to 20 tries. In particular when the concept involves flying captured mid-air.
WERE THE DANCERS COOPERATIVE AND EAGER TO PARTICIPATE IN SUCH A BEAUTIFUL PROJECT? HOW WAS THE AMBIANCE OF THE SHOOTING? HOW MANY DAYS DID IT LAST? HOW MANY DANCERS PARTICIPATED?
I worked with senior students at a local dance school, dance instructors as well as professional dancers with part time positions. Most of them were willing and eager to participate. I had more difficulties with full time dancers that were part of the local ballet company. They can be dancing up to 6 days a week during the season and chances are, that when they have their day off, they prefer doing other activities than putting on their pointe shoes yet again for a photographer in his living room!
Suddenly, towards the end of the project, Covid hit. We had to close our living room to visitors and I finished the series with photos of my daughter who is also a ballet dancer.
In total 24 dancers and 4 contortionists contributed to the 127 images of this book over a period of 1.5 years.
I BELIEVE THE PHOTOS ARE OR WILL BE PART OF A BOOK. CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME MORE ABOUT THE “FATE” OF THIS SERIES?
In sommer of 2022 I left my day job to refocus on photography. This gave me the time to design and publish the book “Dancer at Home” which is now available on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Dancers-Home-Finding-Grace-Everyday/dp/B0BPGQCBQT
YOU GRADUATED IN ENGINEERING, AND EVEN NOW, AS YOUR PASSION FOR PHOTOGRAPHY IS TAKING NEW HEIGHTS, YOU REMAIN IN YOUR PROFESSION IN CALIFORNIA, AS I HAVE READ. CAN YOU TELL OUR READERS PLEASE HOW YOU FIT PHOTOGRAPHY IN YOUR LIFE?
I have had a passion for photography since my early years. Later, during my engineering studies at university in Lausanne, Switzerland, I did a summer internship with a professional photographer. I learnt how to light and I decided to keep photography as a hobby rather than as a job. When you need photography to pay for your bills, you often have to prioritize the customer over the art.
In both conceptual photography and engineering you often start from a blank canvas. The beauty of the resulting art (a photograph or a solution to an engineering problem) is a subjective matter. The advantage in engineering is that the customer often cares more about the functionality of the product, rather than the elegance of the solution. This gives a lot of freedom to create beauty in the solution.
Over these years, I organized many photo sessions over the week-end or in the evening. Now thirty years later, I resigned from my job as an engineer to refocus on photography as an art, rather than as a business.
I LOVE THAT YOU TELL STORIES THROUGH YOUR PHOTOS. CAN WE HAVE PLEASE SOME EXAMPLE OF OTHER SERIES YOU SHOT WITH DIFFERENT STORIES?
I love working on series because of the constraints. Creating images repeatedly within constraints forces you to exploit every imaginable option and becomes an excellent exercise of creativity.
In a prior series I asked children, if earth was the size of a beach ball, what would they do to save the planet? I turned their responses into a series of images available here: https://www.ericraeber.com/Earth
In another project, I recreated all sorts of activities, in a pool, with the model upside-down. This resulted in a fascinating series where the water surface, seen from below, acts as the floor: https://www.ericraeber.com/Portfolio/The-Underside
AND CAN WE HAVE A GLIMPSE OF YOUR BEGINNINGS WITH PHOTOGRAPHY? THE FIRST PROJECT, SERIES, PHOTO, THE FIRST CAMERA, THE INITIAL SUBJECTS?
I began photography when I was 15, in the darkroom a neighbor had installed in his basement and allowed me to use. It was not long later that I signed up to the photography club at school and later purchased my own darkroom.
My first camera was a Yashica FX-D, a 24×36 camera which I used essentially with black-and-white film.
I did not do series until much later, but went out with friends to create images or participated in local photography contests. At one point, we hosted a young tamil refugee at home. During that time, a local newspaper ran a photography contest with the subject “My Switzerland”. I submitted an image showing a tamil child’s hand reaching through the mesh of a metallic fence, for a piece of chocolate held by a white hand. My image won first place.
(And I need to update the about page on my website to reflect that change)
AR 
EN