Time Moves Slowly In the Photographs Of Carl Oliver Ander
- Name
- Carl Oliver Ander
- Words
- Rosie Flanagan
The work of Swedish photographer Carl Oliver Ander toys with notions of reality; capturing moments as a way of reflecting on how we measure time.
“Photographs are just like accidents”, Ander explains. “Similar to a car crash, they stop the progress of movement and time.” This is his introduction to the series ‘Accidents and Aftermath’, but can be applied more broadly to his oeuvre, much of which questions photographic truth and
renderings of time. People believe photographs capable of freezing time—does that mean ‘captured’ moments are eternal? In ‘Time Marches On’ Ander trains his lens on occasions and locations that are united solely by the movement within them that indicates the progression of time. “Some lifespans (stones) outlive us humans”, he explains. “Some are so short that the only way to preserve their existence is by being photographed (waves)”. Whilst some images have been taken as an act of preservation, others Ander has shot at staggered intervals to distort time and to create the illusion of repetition—or as he explains, to stress “the unstoppable progress of time marching on.”All images © Carl Oliver Ander