On occasion, the editors of Sight Unseen spot a story about creativity told from a viewpoint that’s not unlike our own. This one, about British photographer Toby Glanville, comes from MOLDE, a Buenos Aires–based online magazine on crafts and applied arts, run by Juan Ignacio Moralejo. Click here to view the whole set of photos, and here to read more of MOLDE’s archived entries on food, architecture, art, industrial design, botanicals, and chocolate.
Interview by Juan Ignacio Moralejo
Photography by Toby Glanville
Where were you born?
I was born in London.
Where do you live now?
I live in London.
When did you first become interested in photography?
I first became interested in photography when I was about six years old.
Perhaps I unconsciously understood something of its power in capturing images of people we love. At such a young age I think that children are attuned to the idea of loss. And photography is a modern form of icon making, if you like.
Among your portraits you have many of people in their workplace. What it your motivation for shooting them?
I have been drawn to photographing people in the workplace for a number of reasons, chief of which is the idea that work places us in the world. And as a photographer working from day to day on commissions for magazines and books as well as my own projects, one inevitably feels comparatively itinerant. In other words, when one encounters people in the workplace one feels quite removed from the order of things, from society’s method of ordering. Freedom can be a terrifying prospect.
Therefore to witness people at work, perhaps in uniform, is to contemplate the other side, if you like. Always aware of the finest of lines which staves off the abyss which unemployment — or freedom — may represent.
Most of these portraits seem to be of people who are comfortable with their jobs, that maybe work in small-scale enterprises or are their own bosses. Is that something you consciously look for, instead of the ones oppressed, detached or bored with routine?
Many of the people I photograph are indeed working in small scale enterprises. Some are their own bosses. That is not to suggest necessarily that they are not bored by monotonous routine jobs. What interests me is the idea that work itself, if it is not undertaken in bad pay and conditions, is capable of investing the worker with something more than simply a living. The society of others for example. Perhaps this is a Romantic — pre-Industrial Revolution — stance to take.
Work and exploitation seem always to have gone hand in hand. Perhaps no more so than today. All I can allude to in my photographs is the possibility of its power to bestow dignity. To place the individual in the world. And then of course other questions beg themselves such as: how should we define work? A friend’s child recently said as he was interrupted at play: “I’m working here!” Work can be play and vice versa.
Do you think this kind of labour is disappearing, or at risk, with the big companies spreading all over the world? The notion of what’s more efficient: slow and personal or fast and anonymous.
It is certainly true to say that multinational companies and supermarkets have forced and continue to force many of the smaller food producers out of business. The bargain is stark: produce for us or die.
In countries such as France and Italy where artisanally produced food is celebrated it is perhaps easier to survive. Modern consumers are like sheep. We live in a McDonald’s world. Where low cost, at any price, is king.
Does photography requires a certain craftsmanship? Are you skilled in its techniques?
I do believe that photography is a craft. However we are all photographers now thanks to the digital revolution. While on the one hand it can be a cause for celebration, on the other, as you suggest in your question, the speed of acquiring images is gained at the expense of time spent in actually looking. Photography is not about pressing a button. It is about the act of seeing. And this involves the heart as much as it does the eye, if not more so.
This article originally appeared at MOLDE.