Cenci Goepel & Jens Warnecke
June 13, 2008 8 Comments
I took four years of German in high school and all it got me was a lousy girlfriend. After the final breakup a decade and a half ago, I didn’t have much use for the language. Then I came across the imagery of the Teutonic twosome Cenci Goepel and Jens Warnecke. Over the course of our interview, I’d begin my e-mails with a quick “Ich heisse York” or “Wie geht’s dir?” before gratefully surrendering to my native tongue for the remainder of the message. Jens would warmly compliment my dubious fluency before answering my questions (which often don’t make sense even to me,) with great candor and clarity in what is, for him, a second language.
In addition to being kind, considered, and multilingual, you’ll also learn that these two travel extensively, love the outdoors, embark on regular adventures, and are artistically gifted. Oh, sweet, sweet envy.
Who are Cenci Goepel and Jens Warnecke?
We are a couple of two persons who like to be outdoors. That’s where we met, that’s where we started to work and that’s where we’ll continue to be. When we met, Cenci was a painter and Jens was engaged in filming, editing and animation: maybe photography was somehow in between.
Why do you create?
We like the process and we like the results. It’s as simple as that. Once we started to figure out that there is more light in the dark than we thought, we wanted to see more of it. So we continued to take pictures at night.
Is the world becoming a better place through culture and fine arts? Yes, we believe so very strongly. But we can’t claim honestly that that’s why we do what we do.
No.55 | S 54°51’48.1“ W 67°29’41.1“
Provincia Tierra del Fuego, Argentinia, 2007
Each image is named for its location, numerical coordinates followed by a geographic description. You say this is a “lack of phantasy” [sic] on your part. Am I wrong to think there’s more to it than that?
You are right, there is a little more to it. We consider the names to be an invitation. Since the landscape at the location where the pictures are taken is the most important component of the final result, we would like to invite people to visit these places. What is more: we hope to encourage some people to visit these places at night, for that can be a very special experience. Take Lightmark No 57, for instance. It is taken close to Badwater in Death Valley — a horrible place most of the time, packed with busloads of tourists. But in the night it’s deserted. We started to walk towards the middle of the lake about one hour before moonrise. At first it was completely dark, but soon the moon came up and illuminated the surrounding mountains. Then the light swept very fast over the salt crust and flooded the whole valley. It appeared very bright because our eyes were adapted to the darkness and the salt was reflecting much of it: an extremely beautiful scene and a very impressive experience both of us won’t forget.
There is another reason for naming the pictures in this way: it doesn’t provide too much of an interpretation. People tend to see different things when they watch our pictures. Things that range from technological to spiritual. We like to keep it that way.
No.60 | N 70°26’36.5“ E 27°53’27.1“
Tanafjorden, Finnmark, Norway, 2007
You travel broadly for your images: Tierra del Fuego, Briksdalbreen, and Death Valley are just a few of the places you’ve produced your art. How often and for how long do you typically travel? How do you select the locations? How do you conceive the light patterns you create?
We travel as often as we can afford — typically around three times a year. Sometimes we take it slow: in Argentina we cycled from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia, which took us about three months. On other occasions we visit the places where we want to work straight away. We always watch out for places with interesting landscapes. The list of places we would like to visit is pretty long already and growing with the speed of light! But that’s only part of the story: one great aspect of the kind of photography we engage in is that one can do it almost everywhere. We took some very nice pictures in the forest just around the corner and even small things like a tuft of grass and some patches of moss can make up a great setting. We experiment quite a lot with different light-sources ranging from LED lights to various kinds of fire.
No.63 | N 61°39’51.9“ E 6°51’27.8“
Briksdalbreen, Norway, 2007
How do love and creativity coexist between collaborating artists?
People can collaborate in creative work without being in love — we did so for a couple of years. And people can be in love without being creative at all. But if both come together, it’s like an explosion!
My thanks to Cenci and Jens for sharing their work. Please visit lightmark.de for more.
8 Comments
These are so beautiful!
[...] interview @ YorkRules [...]
Thank you for this nice interview. I really love this works
I must say these images are awesome!
AMAZING!!!!! I cannot have enough!!
Güzel çalışmalar!
very very god!
[...] Cenci Goepel und Jens Warnecke of Lightmark travel the world to take these beautiful long exposure night shots, using various light sources including LED and fire. They are not photoshopped! Their work is really wonderful, so be sure to check out the rest of their images on the Lightmark website. You can also read an interview with Jens Warnecke here. [...]
How about some insight into how this photos were taken? something about the technique used to capture these strange patterns of light