King of the castles
Steve Fairclough speaks to photographer Frédéric Chaubin about his epic ve-year project shooting the castles of Europe
Over a period of approximately five years journalist and photographer Frédéric Chaubin traversed Europe and shot between 250 and 300 castles in 21 different countries. The results are in his new book Stone Age, which combines historical background texts with Chaubin’s photographs, mainly shot on Linhof view cameras. His pictures showcase a selection of historical European castles, built across a period of 400 years from the feudal Middle Ages to the 15th century, which have endured to this day.
Chaubin is the former editor of the French lifestyle magazine Citizen K and, in 2011, due to a growing love of combining his writing skills with photography, he produced the book CCCP: Cosmic Communist Constructions Photographed on the extreme architecture of the former USSR. Like Stone Age, Taschen published it.
His love of photography dates back to his childhood: ‘I had an interest in my mother’s photography with pictures of myself. The interest was connected with the fact that the picture is what remains after all. There is this dimension, which, for me, is very important about catching places and dealing with the past. Later on I was an editor of a
magazine, so I was much more into writing than considering pictures. This magazine was very visual, kind of a lifestyle indie magazine. I started taking pictures for the magazine and including stories, which were very much related to architecture, culture and travel.’
Chaubin started taking pictures with his mother’s Leica M3 camera and admits, ‘it eventually broke’. He adds, ‘I went on from normal size to mid-size [cameras] and then a view camera. The view camera has been broadly used for the Stone Age book. My previous [CCCP] book was mixing different types of cameras – I was using a 6x6, a 7x6 Asahi Pentax, a Kiev Russian camera and the Leica M3.’
Visual arts
With his background as a magazine editor Chaubin spent years commissioning, viewing and choosing photography. He reveals, ‘I was very much committed to selecting pictures, selecting photographers’ work and I had a strong interest for visual arts. So a love of photography didn’t come suddenly from nowhere.’
Chaubin also has a deep love for history and deciphering the stories of the past. He explains, ‘The camera helps very much in writing the story. Basically, when you do a book about castles and you select 200 of them, you’re just offering a very small selection of what is available. This is where the work starts to be subjective, as it’s your choice. If you haven’t been travelling in those countries you buy the book and you flick through it… this is the vision you will have of this world that you don’t know, that the photographer is bringing back to you.’
He adds, ‘I was very much focusing on remote places, abandoned buildings or castles: some kind of nostalgic reception with those remains was my choice. Architecture is very much expressing the past. In France we have a famous architect, Jean Nouvel, who gave a definition of architecture, which, for me, is absolutely perfect. He says that, “architecture is the petrification of a moment of culture” and I’m interested in petrifications of moments of cultures. What is fascinating about castles is they bring several layers of cultures. You don’t have one moment of culture, you have several moments of cultures going through this process of petrification.’
Criteria for choosing
When asked about how he chose the castles he shot, Chaubin replies, ‘The idea was to travel throughout Europe and get some kind of big picture, a global vision, to bring buildings from different places and have some kind of a balance. Sometimes you find very beautiful castles that I couldn’t photograph because they had scaffolding. But you also sometimes discover a castle that you weren’t expecting that is absolutely beautiful.’
He continues, ‘I wasn’t giving priority to the most famous ones. I was looking for some kind of extraordinary dimension in terms of setting, taking into account the site, the way that the castle connects with the background – that was very important for me. Those are usually the most dramatic castles. Sometimes they may be small or less interesting in terms of architecture – there are a lot which are much more famous – but there is something that the picture will bring that will be special.’
Chaubin adds, ‘There’s no absolute control in the process. It’s a lot of checking through the internet before travelling, then, later on, travelling and using this homogenous perception that brings the view camera to get something that is, in some way, coherent.’ He would sometimes shoot two or three castles in a day and would try not to spend more than a couple of hours in one location unless, of course, he had to return at a later date to get better weather conditions for his shoots.
The Stone Age project was shot on two Linhof cameras, mainly because the first one broke when it blew over in Spain. Chaubin worked with just three Schneider lenses without going too wideangle, in order to avoid any distortions. He recalls, ‘Sometimes I have to be brave enough to trespass to get into a place where you may get bitten by a dog that may be there. The worst thing that can happen when you’re using a view camera is the rain. I did some shoots that were really horrendous. It’s terrible because you get even more wet when you’re trying to protect the camera with your coat or your hat and, obviously, using a view camera is a slow process.’ Other challenges included travelling long distances and getting used to hiring cars.
Two colour films and one black & white one were utilised for Chaubin’s shoots. ‘I’ve always been floating between the Portra and the Kodak Ektar, which is sharper and less grainy but, for me, is a little bit too strong in terms of the contrast. I was looking for very sharp pictures but, at the same time, very mild, which, in some ways, was contradictory as the films didn’t have the same quality and weren’t providing exactly the same type of pictures. I had to choose between the sharpness of the Ektar and the mildness of the Portra. I used the black & white Fujifilm [Neopan] Acros film, which was absolutely extraordinary. It’s really extremely sharp, without grain and with a very beautiful range of grey and shades of grey at the same time.’
Preparing the book
Chaubin worked on producing Stone Age during the Covid lockdown. He explains, ‘There were a lot of pictures – about five to ten pictures of each castle. There were a lot of castles that aren’t featured in the book – the pictures are still at home in the cupboard. What is also a little bit confusing is that I did the whole process. Obviously, I took the pictures, I scanned the films, I did the post-production… so maybe it’s a problem when there’s not any
distance from the subject when you have to choose the pictures, even when you have several shots. I did it, but it was a hard part of the job.
‘For me, the most rewarding [thing]… there is a moment that I love and it’s when I pick up the films that have just been processed because, you never exactly know what you’re going to get. Of course, you remember more or less what you’ve been shooting. Then you have this picture that is given back to you and everything is there. There’s a coffee shop nearby the Arka lab I use in Paris and I stop there, drink a coffee and look at what I’ve got on the films. This is the most enjoyable part of it besides working and travelling. To discover the places is great. Sometimes when you are facing the castle for the first time, because you’ve just discovered it, there is a kind of joy fulfilment when you know you’re going to be taking a beautiful picture.’
When asked about how he would best describe the Stone Age book, Chaubin replies, ‘There is a written part, which is important, and there is also the photographer’s work. What happened is getting into the topic and going from one castle to another, and starting to get familiar with the theme, I realised how fascinating they are and how many doors they open. It’s not only about history or heritage – it’s about our European consciousness, about our dreams, about our fantasies. All of these elements make it extremely complex. A castle is a place that may be frightening and, at the same time, it’s a place where you can get shelter. Everything is absolutely paradoxical when you think about castles. The book emphasises this European cultural diversity as seen through the eyes of one photographer.’
Chaubin sums up, ‘I’m very fond of photography. I like being on my own. It’s a very in-deep, personal process, this story. It’s extremely special. There was no one else involved in the project. It was not a commissioned work, so it’s years of personal dedication. It’s very sensitive to show it around in some ways because it’s yourself that you’re revealing… not only the castles but also your vision of the castles. Without being pompous or pretentious I think that it’s what every artist – may they be good or bad – is probably feeling when they show their work.’