Ten Questions with Oliver Kolding Palm

Oliver Kolding Palm is a Swedish photographer whose work sits somewhere between observation, abstraction and diary.

His photographs have a quiet confidence to them. They never rush to explain themselves, instead asking you to spend a little longer looking.

I came across Oliver's work online recently and found myself returning to it. I wanted to ask him ten questions about photography, paying attention and learning to trust your own eye.

1.

Your photographs often feel discovered rather than constructed. When you're walking through the world, what actually makes you stop? Is it light, form, colour, or something that's harder to explain?

It’s usually instinct more than anything. Sometimes it’s the light or an expression, but most of the time I couldn’t really tell you why I stopped.

2.

Many photographers spend years trying to develop a recognisable style. Looking at your work, it already feels unmistakably yours. Was that something you consciously searched for, or did it simply appear through making enough photographs?

It happened gradually. I never sat down and thought, “this is how I want my work to look.” I just kept returning to the same process because I enjoyed it, and I suppose the style came with that.

3.

Your pictures seem comfortable with ambiguity. They rarely tell the viewer exactly what they're looking at or how they should feel. Do you actively resist explanation, or is that just a consequence of the way you photograph?

I quite like not knowing everything about a photograph myself. If it keeps me looking, I hope it’ll do the same for someone else.

4.

When you edit a body of work, what are you actually looking for? A technically strong photograph, or a picture that keeps revealing something each time you return to it?

I’m looking for the photographs that keep my attention. I don’t really mind if they’re technically imperfect, as long as they still make me curious.

5.

There seems to be a fascination with ordinary things in your work - a flower, a face, a shadow, a fragment of a room. Do you think photographers train themselves to notice differently, or were you always someone who paid attention?

I think the more photographs you make, the more you realise that ordinary things are rarely that ordinary if you spend enough time looking at them.

6.

You've self-published several books in a relatively short space of time. At what point does a collection of photographs stop being individual pictures and become a body of work?

It’s usually only obvious in hindsight. I’ll make photographs over a period of time, and eventually I notice they’re all asking the same question in different ways.

7.

Do you think photographs lose something when they're consumed one at a time on Instagram? Your work feels like it wants to be experienced slowly, almost as a sequence rather than individual images.

I think they do. Instagram is great for sharing work, but I still think photographs make more sense when they’re seen together. That’s one of the reasons I keep making books.

8.

If someone looked through your archive without knowing who made it, what would you hope they learnt about the person behind the camera?

I hope they’d think I was interested in the world around me. That’s probably the reason I picked up a camera in the first place.

9.

Do you think photographers spend too much time chasing new cameras? If somebody took away all but one body and one lens tomorrow, how much would it really change the photographs you make?

I get asked about my camera and recipes quite a lot. I’ve always found that a bit odd. They’re just tools. If I only had one camera and one lens tomorrow, I don’t think the photographs would change very much.

10.

You've achieved a great deal very quickly—books, exhibitions and publications before turning thirty. What are you trying to become less interested in as a photographer?

Validation, I suppose. It’s nice when people respond to the work, but I don’t think it’s a very good reason to keep making it.