Index World Press Photo
January 2007 | Edition Six     

In each issue of Enter, we put a set of identical questions to people who have taken part in a World Press Photo Joop Swart Masterclass.

These five-day events, introduced in 1994 to encourage and train young photographers, are normally held every November so that a dozen young practitioners from all over the world can meet and learn from some of the world's top professionals and each other.


  Stephan
 Vanfleteren
The subject for edition five is Stephan Vanfleteren, a 37-year-old from Vilvoorde in Belgium who was a Masterclass participant in 1998.

A multi-World Press Photo prize winner, Stephan has worked as a freelance photographer for De Morgen since 1994, as well as other international newspapers and magazines.

Stephan, how did you get started in photography and what was your biggest break?

I wanted to be an architect, but soon realized it would mean depending on other people’s budgets. That’s why photography appealed. Setting out alone, being responsible for your own decisions, traveling the world with a camera. Is there a better way to meet people and see the world? My first ‘break’ was actually the result of a portrait I took as a student, of Belgian surrealistic painter Paul Delvaux at the end of his life. He was almost completely blind. When I showed him the result a week later he felt the photograph with his wrinkled hand and said it was good. It was then that I knew I had to continue with photography.

What qualities does a top photojournalist need?

The same qualities that make you a good person.

What is your most memorable assignment?

The most precious assignments are often those you impose on yourself. I plan by myself or with friends and colleagues to go out on a shoot. There is nothing as satisfying as an impulsive or wild idea originated in a pub, on the train or out in the street that sometime later comes to life in your dark room, in a newspaper, a magazine or book. The assignment that had the most impact was during the genocide in Rwanda in 1994 where, as a relatively young photographer, I witnessed things you hope to never witness, even as an old man. The most intense and adventurous assignment was two weeks I spent non-stop on the freight trains with the ‘hobos’ (train tramps) in the United States. And the reportage that got under my skin the most was one I did on poverty and loneliness in my home country Belgium.

Are you – or will you ever be – fully digital?

Last year I bought my first digital camera. I love it - when the job is quick, cheap or is not that important. But for subjects that are precious, I automatically grab for film. But I don’t know for how much longer with the laws laid down by commercial logic. How much longer will film be produced? And at what cost? The continuing improvement of digital cameras might make a complete transfer faster than we expect. At the moment I find putting in a new film in my camera as touching as Humphrey Bogart lighting a cigarette in the film Casablanca but neither is cheap nor healthy.

What essential equipment do you travel with?

Everything depends on the assignment. For portraits I often use a Pentax 6/7 with only the standard lens. The Canon 5D for the fast job and pure reportage. For the more personal, intimate work, nothing beats the eternal love for my old, worn out and, unfortunately sometimes unreliable, Rolleiflex.

Do you prefer natural light or artificial/mix?

There’s nothing like the simplicity and beauty of natural light. And nothing as annoying as carrying around lamps and tripods. Flash, in particular, is not my thing. Even though I often see fellow photographers handle it well.

How, when under pressure, do you try and make sure the image is as good as possible?

Under pressure you never know whether you have taken a good image. Intuition takes over and you have no control over that. You can only hope that you make the right decisions at that particular moment.

If there is one piece of advice you would give to a photojournalist starting out on a career, what would it be?

Follow your heart, brains, dreams and conscience.

Which of the pictures you selected for Enter is your personal favorite and why?

That’s hard to say. Some pictures are important in certain periods of your life. There are some pictures you have to take before you can capture others later in life. I don’t see photographs as a collection of separate images but as a gradual process leading to a captivating entity. Asking for someone’s favorite photo is like asking a parent which is his or her favorite child.

Next to whom would you like to sit in an airplane going where?

Whatever beautiful, exotic or interesting place I travel to nothing is more unpleasant than standing in the departure hall of the airport, ticket in your hand, at the beginning of a journey. Every time, an indefinable feeling of acute homesickness, restlessness and mild fear comes over me. It disappears only when I get my camera out and hear the sound of my shutter as I stand right in ‘the field’. Nothing beats flying back home to my wife and children with a bag full of exposed film and new life experiences. But if I could choose who I’d like to sit next to then it would be Nelson Mandela in the window seat, Fidel Castro in the aisle seat and air hostess Margaret Thatcher pouring us Cuba Libres. Shaken, not stirred.

What ambitions do you have left?

I am working on a project about my home country Belgium which should be ready next year and which will result in a photo exhibition and a photo book. After that we’ll see what happens. The future is invisible. The past though is sometimes visible thanks to photographers, film makers, writers and journalists.

Stephan Vanfleteren




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Morad Bouchakour
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Nadia Benchallal
Trent Parke

Copyright © 2007, all rights reserved by the photographers