Transitional Oddities, a collaboration between curator Lowe Seger and photographer Ian Faranda

Swedish London-based fashion photographer Lowe Seger bought his first camera when he was 10 years old and has been taking pictures ever since. After working for 20 years in the fashion industry, Lowe felt it was time for a challenge: to curate his first exhibition. He met Ian Faranda around 3 years ago at a gym where Ian taught him Martial Arts. After a few conversations, Ian mentioned he enjoyed photographing in his spare time, and their relationship grew from then on.

“He was really intrigued by my work, and he wondered if I could teach him the fundamentals of photography, so I ended up becoming sort of his mentor”, Lowe tells.

Ian and Lowe’s work follow a different direction. Ian is a street photographer with a great interest in architecture, and his care for details is what made Lowe particularly interested in his work.

“He has a great eye for detail, such as colour and texture, and the relationship between these details. He can stand in a place, waiting for the right person with the right look or colour or expression to come by, and then suddenly he has lost the light, so he has to come back another day. That is a great dedication for these small details, and you can see this through his work. Ian is a new grown photographer and I think he has loads of potential, because this interest comes naturally to him. He’s doing it because he wants, it feels real, there’s energy into it.”

A few months ago, Ian wanted to go further. He had done a few exhibitions in small places before and he enjoyed the process, so he thought of doing another one or creating a photographic book, and asked if Lowe would be interested in being part of it. When the opportunity to exhibit in the Print House Gallery came up, Lowe felt it was the perfect time to do it. Despite having a lot of experience working with other people’s work, this was Lowe’s first time curating an exhibition. He says the learning curve was massive. When you step out from your own relationship to certain pictures, the pictures might look completely different. Looking at someone else’s images puts you in a position of emotional detachment from what you are seeing, making it easier to make connections that wouldn’t be possible otherwise. As for working with Ian’s images, Lowe claims the process was very natural:

“Ian gave me his whole archive to go through, from day one to now. This can make you feel a bit stripped down, showing things you might not be so proud of, and I am really happy to have that trust. I had seen a lot of his work, but going through older folders, I would pull something out and he would be “are you sure?”, but because I am seeing it from a different angle than him, and with years of experience, I can visualize it a little bit easier how that image would react with another picture. In the end, when everything was put together, there were very few things to be changed”.

That is how Transitional Oddities was born, a simple and beautiful collection of photographic prints using a raw approach to execute the relationship between objects and subjects, all to enhance the oddness in this transitional city in which we are often too busy to see or experience. You can catch the exhibition at the Print House Gallery from 6th February to 28th February 2020.