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Interview with Nicolas Wormull
We interviewed Chilean photographer Nicolas Wormull who will be presenting his work Chocolate on my jeans during the second edition of SAN JOSE FOTO. We talked, among other things, about his comings and goings between Sweden and Chile, and how during that process he became a photographer. We also talked about the role of photography festivals and his upcoming projects.
How did you get started in photography?
My photography story merges with my own life story: the comings and goings between Chile and Sweden. I was born in Chile, but as a child I had many problems, specially when I moved to Sweden with my father. I went to a psychologist and was surrounded by people who took care of me. Suddenly, I began to watch a lot of movies because I felt there was something in the image that calmed me, releasing me from my anguish.
At age sixteen I returned to Chile with my dad and I messed up again. I was a bit outdated, as I did not manage the language to read or study as my peers. So my adolescence was also a bit difficult. When I entered the career of graphic design there was a very simple photography course and I started working with analogue. During those early days I was quite self-taught, because the professor was very bad and the class was very basic.
Then I met my wife, who is Swedish, and we returned to Sweden. When I got there I really wanted to study photography, but I couldn’t because I had left the country long ago and never got my residence. I could not study because I had to work. So the process repeated again, I wanted to study but it was hard to start. Finally, when I got my residence again, I began a very short but very intensive course in a pretty good school. When I left there I went to work for some magazines for almost two years, and then we decided to return to Chile.
When I returned I worked as a freelancer, but here it was not like in Sweden, and the money from that work would not cover even a week of living. The situation became very difficult and I was disenchanted with that theme. In 2007 I directly stopped taking pictures. I kept doing some portraits but abandoned the assignments for newspapers and magazines. Until I had children, when I returned to photograph and exhibited some work in New York. After that, I fell in love with photography again and went back to take pictures with enthusiasm and creativity.
Was it then that the idea of working on the series Chocolate on my jeans arose?
Yes. When I had my children I no longer had to deal with the need of earning money and doing commercial work, because my wife and I had some savings. So I could be free to stay at home, although that was not as nice as it sounds. Being at home became a day and night work. Taking care of children and so, one begins to get tired and become a little crazy [laughs]. So I invented an exercise for myself, it was that of taking a daily picture of my children.
I made a written design of what was going through my head. Thinking about what I was doing, what my role in society was, if I am a man or a woman, if I do or do not have a right to make paid work … and all those questions, which are normal things that in this society a woman would ask herself. I had to make them to myself, and it was very good.
After this process I decided to make a blog, without any special intention. The only aim was to force me to take a picture day, and I also put the condition that it had to be analog and take one medium format film per day. As I live far from where I could process the photos, I would upload the images to the blog a day after taking them, because I had to travel about 20 km, process, wait, come back, scan and upload the photos. I always selected the images in the car, just looking at the negatives. I found much better pictures when I looked at them at home, but it was how I decided to do the process. And so, I spent a year doing that work.
And why the title ‘Chocolate on my jeans’?
Actually I used that title because it is a bit like one walks when raising young children. It is always a bit spotty, with leftovers, always a little sticky. And it occurred to me on the same night I started writing ideas.
What do you think can be the contribution of photography to discussions on gender — the theme of SAN JOSE 2016 — ?
To be honest, I’ve never wanted to take a picture that fulfills a political role; if I did, it was unconsciously. I never said “I will make that picture because I want to denounce that,” but there are themes with which I’ve crossed and that have interested me. Actually my authorial work is very self-centered, but now maybe that egocentrism also has a social burden, complaint or something.
For me, it was not a conscious decision to choose this theme, although I am a person living with many women and also grew up in Sweden, a rather feminist country. Of course, I have this instilled in my system. For example, I don’t have to think in order not to say a nonsense as many people do in Chile, that is behind in terms of gender and equality between men and women. But there is not an awareness about working on a social fact in reality, it is something very egocentric. I think about it and if it brings something good, great and if it brings something bad, you also learn from that.
I try to stay honest with my photography because I also know many people who want to make a complaint, but they don’t care about the theme, they just do it because it is a position that is cool now.
What is for you the most important role of a Festival of Photography?
What I like the most, for example, is what happens in our festival (FIFV — International Festival of Valparaiso), where we make ties with other countries and other forms of knowledge. Furthermore, our festival is very unpretentious, it is a festival in which you can talk to the director because he is always there sitting at the back, more accessible. It is a small festival but many activities are carried out and we try to take it to the streets, and I like that too.
But what I think is most important is that exchange, that release of knowledge, because in each festival there is a learning. And it is also an exercise to treat ego, because I think the ego is something that the photographer still has to learn to manage. Because if you do not control it, you lose a little sense and charm in the photo. First, I have to think that I am a human being, then a dad and after, a photographer.
It is also very good to see that important photographers are normal people, another mortal like us all; I like the thing to be human, real. And I think in every encounter I learn something, in the pleasant and unpleasant ones, and a festival is nothing but a big meeting.
Are you currently working on new projects?
I want to do a book about Sweden. But of course, it’s not about Sweden, but about my relationship with Sweden. I think maybe it has to do with detachment. It is a slow process, because I can’t go more than once a year and stay there one or two weeks, and that is short time for shooting. You need to get more into the dermis, if not, I do not believe the work.
But I’m also doing another journal, from my last book, which is called STAY. It is a dialogue between Chile and Sweden from my point of view, but also those pictures are not made from one day to the other. These are slow processes, the photos are appearing over time.
