Who is Philip Kanwischer?
Photographer Philip Kanwischer graduated from the Alberta College of Art and Design with a Bachelor of Design and a distinction in photography in 2015. He is fascinated by habitat loss, environmental ethics, and human impact in both urban and natural realms.
Philip’s photographs are highly captivating, powerful, and soothing; in fact, I feel an array of emotions when I view his work. He has the incredible talent of capturing so much strength, power, and emotion in a single photograph.
What Does He Create?
He has been exploring human/animal relationships photographically in his art practice for the past four years. You can see by his work that there is more than meets the eye here.
His photos need to be pondered upon; there is depth & power in the stillness and simplicity of what he creates.
“I also worked with wild animals photographing and enacting in different encounters with foxes, wolves, caribou and bears, to name a few, observing their behaviors while being mindful of how they see me.” he says
He also adds;
“Often combining photographic and sculptural components to dramatize human impact on the natural environment, my work proposes unlikely narratives in which the genre and methods of wildlife photography are implicated. I often spend days out in the wild, working to build a relationship with the land and its inhabitants, enacting the romantic notion of being able to live side by side with animals and nature.”
The connection he showcases between humans, animals, and their environments is genuinely breathtaking. I even find that there are initial thoughts of confusion that come up when viewing his work. How did he create this? What was he thinking? How did he come up with such an incredible still image? How long did it take to get that perfect shot?
Then shortly after my analytical mind stops, I get lost once again in the feeling that the photograph creates within me.
Philip creates his work using a technique called “photo bonding”. This term was created in place of Photoshop, conjuring up images of oversaturated fake images.
“Photo bonding in place of Photoshop refers to the mending of images and the “bonding” between myself and “the other,” he says.
Why?
He strives to create an eerie atmosphere, begging the question, how did he make the animals do that? and how could he do that to them? Working in deliberate realism, he plans to reveal our existential trauma.
He has never had the aim of taking beautiful photographs of wildlife in their natural environment.
He wants to construct visual commentaries by compositing realistic, probable, and problematic interactions between wildlife and humans.
“Using the unspoken communication I feel with wildlife to anthropomorphically advocate for their territories, I am shedding light on the philosophy of the moral status of animals and environmental politics, transitioning this dialogue into the gallery space,” he explains.
Gallery
You can have a look at more of Philip’s captivating photography in our gallery below.
Contact
You can get in contact and connect with Philip to see more of his incredible work HERE.
