Alix Carmichele

Alix is an extraordinary photographer - and even more extraordinary person having battled against the injustice of the South African legal system following a brutal attack. Despite, or perhaps in spite of her past she produces the most wonderful, unique photographs which we're proud to represent on RooM. Meet Alix and prepare to fall in love with her imagery. 

“A photograph is like a good joke”

South Africa is a wonderful country with a beautiful landscape and a history book full of emotions and tensions. Would you agree that your country is one of the most inspiring places to be for a photographer and are there any other places in the world that you’d absolutely love to visit and photograph?

It's a good question, in part I tended to overlook the variety and beauty of my own country and always wanted to be somewhere else shooting and experiencing different light in other parts of the world, also the allure of other cultures seemed preferable to my own. During the last few years I lived and freelanced in Johannesburg for the South African print media and I came to see and understand the tensions and emotions that you suggest, the awful struggle of humanity in poverty stricken areas; the mayhem and grief caused by senseless violence and the ability for compassion in the aftermath of these situations. It taught me to see and experience my own country with less complacent eyes... But that's more of a Political overview. The country has many challenges to face but it IS geographically very beautiful and very colourful and a wonderful environment for a photographer. Personally I adore South America and would love to revisit my favourite town in Brazil one more time...

Your images are very atmospheric. They’re a mixture of keen observations and more carefully composed images that have a beautiful dreamlike quality to them. Is that a conscious decision or just a style that has evolved naturally over time?

Consciously I try and tell a story in one picture, something I learned to do as a press photographer, whether I am successful or not is up to the viewer. I'm sure you've heard this one: a photograph is like a good joke, if you have to explain it then it's not good! I guess this style has evolved with time and although my earlier work is quite stylized, almost contrived in certain instances, I always try and stay true the composition and the message of the image.

How important are stories behind a photo for your own creative process?

Very, I don't necessarily start shooting straight away, I wait for my characters to develop their own stories, I allow them and the light to dictate when I start. Obviously there are times when I don't have that luxury and must start shooting immediately because I may lose that one special moment. Fortunately I know most of the people I photograph, I find that it's a much more personalized interaction and quite honestly, having said this every time I photograph them, I always get something unique and exciting!

Robert Bresson once said, “Make visible what, without you, might perhaps never have been seen”. In what way does your own past influence the development of your images and are there messages that you want to reveal through your imagery?

I came up through the disciplines of film photography, light, form, composition, learning how to develop a roll of film and then getting the best possible print from it, which has given me the advantage of really understanding the digital age and how to use the new technology. To answer your question, I feel that digital photography has become the new tool to express the individual self, but the end result although important, is not the most crucial achievement, it's the getting to your piece de resistance that is the ultimate creative process! Each individual will see something quite different from the other and so will make visible what perhaps may never be seen without their unique perspective on whatever they are experiencing.

“We have an insatiable desire to be visually entertained”

Photography is on the increase and there seems to be an almost insatiable appetite for imagery. How do you feel about society being bombarded with such vast amounts of visual content and do you think it affects the way people appreciate photography?

We have an insatiable desire to be visually entertained whether through films, television and fine art... It's all eye candy and in turn a pleasant trip via the retina to the brain. It seems to be easier to interpret an image rather than read a well written paragraph. I think that there is a lot of junk out there, but as I said earlier technology and the internet have made it very easy for people to express themselves through this medium and the more pictures they take the better they become, the more they are exposed to outstanding work the higher their aspirations are to be a better photographer... Does that sound too condescending? My own style of photography was altered when I joined Instagram, there I was exposed to many different interpretations and freedoms of expressing oneself and I found it liberating in the sense that I didn't feel bound by the so called rules and constraints of all the disciplines I had learned at the outset of my career.

After winning a case against the State for not protecting you from a violent criminal, you said it took 15 creative years of your life. Did you shoot at all during that period and do you feel you’re back to your creative best?

Fighting for my own rights at first, then the rights of all women and children, against a political system, (in this case the South African justice system) who have enormous and endless resources, was a mentally and physically exhausting endeavour! It took a hold of my life steered, manipulated and almost mangled it to the point of irrevocable despair.I was so traumatized, went to ground and for some years managed to do simple photographic work, safe work, like restoration and the odd portrait. For some inexplicable reason I travelled a lot during those years and perhaps may have even accomplished some of my finest photographic art work albeit in a "I'm not really here" haze...It was hard to finally shed the tag of being some kind of cause célèbre, but if I'm completely honest "it" has defined the person I am and how I view the world and how I present my photographs... My creative best? At this particular moment... Yes.