Bare bones
Magnum’s Jacob Aue Sobol tours a landscape with a harrowing history. He talks to Oliver Atwell
Jacob aue sobol’s haunting images from a desolate siberian landscape
The Kolyma Highway can be found in the far east of Russia. It cuts through the desolate Siberian landscape, where the severe temperatures can plummet to as low as -60°C and where, despite the seemingly inhospitable conditions, isolated communities living in towns and villages line the route and carve out an existence for themselves. It’s a landscape with a dark aura and one that is haunted by the ghosts of a gruesome past, for the Kolyma Highway is popularly known by another name – the Road of Bones. Between 1932 and 1953, Stalin’s regime sent millions of prisoners to forced labour camps, or Gulags, in Siberia, where they would be literally worked to death. One of the largest tasks undertaken was the construction of the 2,031km Kolyma Highway. It was a painful and fatal labour that saw the deaths of countless prisoners. Their bodies, rather than being buried in newly
Above: The cold winter of Siberia provided Jacob with the perfect conditions for his stark and haunting photography Leica M Monochrom, 35mm, 1/60sec, ISO 1600 Above right: Twins seem to hold a particular fascination for Jacob. It’s a subject that has appeared time and again in his work Leica M Monochrom, 35mm, 1/80sec, ISO 1000 Right: The subject’s vulnerability is key to many of Jacob’s portraits Leica M Monochrom, 35mm, 1/60sec at f/10, ISO 1600
dug holes, were laid beneath or around the road. Today, the road is a grim memorial to the fallen.
The isolated communities that exist along the Kolyma’s route form the backbone of a new project by Magnum photographer Jacob Aue Sobol, who worked in collaboration with Leica Cameras and who last month had 28 of his images on show at Photo London 2017. Jacob and these communities are a perfect fit. His work is famous for its stark black & white tonal range, its strangeness and its haunting intimacy. Despite the harrowing history captured in the Road of Bones, Jacob’s distinct aesthetic, shot using Leica M cameras, is able to draw out the beauty of the area and reveal the strength of the people who live there to this day.
‘When I first arrived in the area during my travels around the northern parts of Russia, I didn’t know about the dark history of the Kolyma Highway,’ Sobol tells me as we sit in the back offices of Somerset House in London while upstairs countless bodies get ready for the stampede that will move through the many Photo London exhibitions. ‘I discovered the story of the Road of Bones once I was there. Then I started reading more and more about it and realised it would be interesting to explore the
communities living along the road now. Also, I was really curious to see how the people live in these extreme weather conditions and under the blanket of this dark history where they live on top of thousands of corpses.’
Love in a cold climate
In the earliest stages of his career, Jacob was known as a photographer whose travels were generally dictated by an emotional connection to the place. In 2004, Sobol published his book Sabine, which documented his relationship with a local girl he met and fell in love with in Greenland. Later, in 2006, he found himself in similar circumstances with his book I, Tokyo where he spent 18 months exploring the city through his unusual black & white images and living with his Japanese girlfriend.
‘But in 2012, I fell in love with Russia. I’ve travelled there six times now and I’ve always been more inspired and attracted to the north. One year, I travelled through the northeastern part of Siberia. Each year, I went further and further into the wild. This attraction to these cold areas really has to do with the first pictures I ever took when I was 23 years old of my girlfriend in Greenland. The warmth of our relationship combined with these harsh surroundings in this area was something that had a huge influence on me and you can see that in all the work I’ve done since. Now I only photograph during winter. Every time it gets cold and dark, I feel like travelling again.’
Communication
The thing that hits you about Sobol’s work is its almost overwhelming intimacy. The subjects fill the frame. We look deep into their eyes. We feel as if we can almost reach into the frame and take their hand in ours. Jacob’s work creates the kind of emotional connection that many photographers can only dream of. He has in the past described himself as shy and the nature of his photography as a social gesture. It’s his way of engaging with the world. Images are a universal language and it is through his photography that he’s able to
‘I was curious to see how the people live under the blanket of this dark history’
‘I only take pictures during the cold season. So in two months, I take around 150,000 images’ Above: Here we see a good example of the intimate nature of Jacob’s approach. We feel so close to the subject we can almost feel their breath on our face Leica M Monochrom, 35mm, 1/30sec at f/10, ISO 1000
communicate with people that may otherwise be lost to him through the barrier of spoken language.
‘When I visit people, I usually have some pictures to show them,’ says Sobol. ‘When I go back there year after year, I’m able to take some prints from the last time I visited to give them to the people I photographed the year before. On other occasions, I’ll communicate by working with local people, a photographer, perhaps. When I return to the same area, I start making friends there and they can help me to explain to others what I’m doing. But the further you get into the countryside, the more complicated it becomes. Other times, I have to rely on gestures or body language.
‘ The important thing is that if I expect people to be open and vulnerable in front of me then I have to show them who I am. It’s essential to be able to build a mutual trust. I have to give some of myself to them as well. I can’t just be a camera – I have to be a person. I want to meet people in new areas and share a moment. Then I’m able to transform that moment into a picture and an emotion. It becomes a statement that other people can look at and use as a reflection of their own life. It becomes about the person who’s looking at the picture. What does it tell you about your life and who you are?’
Stripped bare
Jacob’s use of black & white is his most distinct feature. While he has experimented with colour in the past – at one stage he went through a brief phase of shooting in colour first and black & white later – monochrome is the place in which he feels safest. It’s something he can identify with. This very much links back to his ease in wintry conditions – the comfort that was instilled in him during his time in Greenland. It’s a season that lends itself so well to the near Rorschachstyle tones that Sobol is so fond of. More than that, it allows us a closer relationship with the subject. It’s a further expression of intimacy. The people he depicts are stripped down, made naked by the lack of colour. They are revealed within high contrast and rich black.
When I ask Sobol how many images he takes per day while travelling, I have to ask him to repeat his answer.
‘Somewhere between 1,000 and 2,000,’ he says, matter-of-factly. ‘And I only take photographs two months per year. The rest of the time my team and I edit the books, put together exhibitions and do some work in the studio. It’s because of the winter, as I mentioned earlier. I only travel and take pictures during the cold season. So in two months I take all those pictures. But that’s still somewhere around 150,000 images. Then my editor will look through all the pictures and she’ll select maybe 2,000. These are worked on and printed at A5. Then I look through the pictures with my editor, and make a selection of a couple of hundred. We’ll put them together on the floor and look at how they all work together.
‘ There are 28 pictures here in the Photo London exhibition. But they were selected from 50,000 pictures. What you see in this exhibition is just a small part of the project, but right now they are the most essential pictures.’