Nomadic photographer
Swiss photographer Reto Camenisch has been travelling around with his bulky plate camera for 30 years. Before releasing the shutter on a portrait photo he spends a long time talking to the subject, and takes only a few shots.
Camenisch, who was born in Thun in 1958, started out as a magazine and advertising photographer at the end of the 1970s. His personal projects hark back to the era of traditional black-and-white photo-journalism and portrait photography.
Over the years he has come to value slowness, and in his lengthy travels has been drawn to uninhabited landscapes, but without neglecting portrait photography.
His books include Bluesland (1997), a search for the blues in the Mississippi Delta, and Berge Pilger Orte (Mountains Pilgrims Places, 2011) about a hike through northern India, Nepal and Tibet.
The exhibition “Reto Camenisch – Portraits over 30 years” can be seen in Bern’s Kornhausforum until December 2, and a book of his photos has been published by Stephan Witschi, Zurich, 2012.
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