In a 30-year career Magnum member Stuart Franklin has photographed all over the world, but he’s best known for his World Press Photo award-winning image of the Tiananmen Square uprising. Stuart’s Iconic Image, taken from an ongoing personal project about the landscape of western Norway, will feature on the front cover of his forthcoming book, Narcissus, published by Hatje Cantz.

"People see this image in different ways. Someone sees it as an elephant, somebody else as a mythical Greek creature.  It’s actually a pool of water that has frozen. But that’s the point of the work – it’s about how we look for recognisable forms in the landscape. 

"I took the photo about three weeks ago, on the island of Øtroya in Norway, where most of the pictures I’ve taken in the last five years are from. I was out hiking and came across a series of pictures of quite extraordinary shapes in the ice. Normally it snows a lot in December and early January, so you don’t get much raw ice, but this year there had been no snow at all so it was unusual. The image was shot with a Leica monochrome camera. It’s the best easily portable digital camera for black and white photography I know. I have a Noctilux 0.95 lens on it, a beautiful, incredibly sharp lens designed to soften night lighting. 

"Black and white has several advantages. One is that it gives homogeneity to a complex long-term project. The pictures jump around less, and you focus more on the form and on the light. After all, if you get to the core of photography that’s what it is – painting with light. Secondly, I don’t trust the colour you get with colour photography. It has its own agenda and it misses a lot. Especially in this place, it’s difficult to handle because of the high contrast. When I’m looking out at the shadows on the snow I can see that they’re a lilac colour, but if I shoot that on coloured film they look blue. With black and white, there’s more honesty."

Stuart's advice for young photographers:

"You have to find your voice in the same way you would as a musician or a painter or a writer. Sometimes it takes years. I feel like I’m just finding my voice now, after 30 years. Be sensitive to your surroundings, to the people you meet and the things you look at. Learn to be coherent with the medium so that there’s a seamless transition between what you’re looking at with your eyes and the way it will translate in print or on the screen. That takes a lot of practice."

More Iconic Image:

Oivia Arthur

Bruce Gilden

Martin Parr

Stuart Franklin was talking to Rachel Segal Hamilton. 

Main image: © Stuart Franklin/Magnum Photos.

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