Every tool we encounter serves a purpose in what we create as artists. In Bruin Fesken’s case, his use of light birthed a fascinating product that sparked our unique appreciation for the purity and crispness of black-and-white, with the contrast and exuberant experience of a stand-alone bold accent color. We experience the focus and characteristics of light and how it illuminates yet conceals just enough to draw us closer for detailed exploration. As best put by Bruin himself, “They demand a rejuvenating presence.”
Inspired by his mother’s photography background, Bruin started his career in commercial sets with an interest in film directing and cinematography at the tender age of fifteen. His family’s relocation from the Netherlands to South Africa provided a variety of landscapes and locations for shooting, from beautiful beaches to greenlands and deserts. Falling in love with Cape Town, South Africa, for the past twelve years was also instigated by his encounter with an incredibly hands-on, young, and collaborative creative community. Living in such a culture pot of young creatives and connecting with people who speak the language of his craft facilitated opportunities to finetune his photography skills by test shooting for modeling agencies.
Discouraged by the response he often received from some agencies, it steered him towards wanting to create what he believed was beautiful from his perspective, allowing the spirit of his creations and the feeling of the story to translate.
Although self-taught with instructional assistance from his mother, Bruin started off learning videography techniques before transitioning into experimenting with still analog photography. His desire grew into taking lighting courses, which he credits to enhancing his ability to understand “the impact of light on an image,” or, say, why landscape photography captures better the essence of a feature, allowing the craft to reveal itself and technically teach what comes through—wanting an outcome but getting somewhere beyond by “letting the camera teach me, failing forward, opening up myself to the little barriers, and figuring it out through problem-solving. It’s sometimes hard, but it really works that way coming out from that deep end”.
It’s the reason Guzangs was drawn to feature his ‘Nine,’ a minimalist, black-and-white series that explores the transient beauty of form and light, that garnered so much attention. Since featuring his breathtaking shoot on the platform, Bruin reveals how that has impacted his work and network connections.
“I am grateful for the feature as it exposed me to other platforms to catch on to my work. It was a massive boom for me. I got a lot of new followers and networking opportunities, leading to my first feature with ‘Amateur Photography Magazine’ in the UK, for which I am happy and even more so my Grandma.”
Are you still interested in film or planning to explore still photography only?
“While I love film and remain open to it in the future, or presently helping with an overall look for an interesting project, I really love the last 2.5 years and how it’s been going. I really get to think and make what I think is pretty. It’s going to be scary to put it out there, but it’s a fun challenge with minimal resource planning and something I can manage autonomously. Video requires a crew, which can be daunting and in the way of just wanting to freely create in the moment”.
Was the black-and-white choice intentional, or was it something that came through during the process?
“I shot the cover for a Nigerian music artist who loved the hat concept with the yellow ribbon, and it started from there. I shot mostly in color before, but I felt drawn to black and white, even though they all looked the same initially. But my love for using silhouettes and playing with the light and the outline of the shapes is the part of photography I understand the best, and it translated better with shades of black and white. It’s funny how when I look back, I never knew how impactful the light course would be for my photos.”
Studying light and listening to the knowledge of its direction drove Bruin to explore its capacity, leading him to express a unique version of its value to his craft. In a sense, light, as a tool, took Bruin where it wanted to go. Pushing him to explore its infinite possibilities so Bruin, in turn, could expand his craftsmanship abilities.
Bruin plans to explore and expand this realm further by blending color with his black-and-white perspective in the future as an expression of the overall energy of each piece or working on a series in line with Kintsugi, a Japanese art form involving the repair and building of broken pieces with liquid gold to scar them back together. “Like shooting the arid crackling planes of Namibia, or Salt lakes, and painting over printed photos. The idea is that even if something is broken, it can be more beautiful once it’s fixed. It is satisfying to the eyes but not too busy. The goal is to facilitate a full exploration of the piece without feeling overwhelmed”.
It’s not often that one encounters impressive work from a minimal yet very impactful perspective. When artists create from a place of reverence for what comes through their vision and not necessarily what is popularly acknowledged, we get to experience a little magic. A refreshing perspective that opens us up to another way of experiencing or, should I say, re-experiencing a love for the arts from a different dimension.
It’s safe to say we remain excited to receive what comes next for this young 27-year-old artist.
Antoinette Njombua-Fombad is a creative writer, and the author of ‘Everything Is WITHIN.’ She is inspired by the ‘wordless’ expressions of life and believes they are the true language of artistic expression. A mother and wife, she advocates for mental health and enjoys traveling, creating, and most fervently, Style.
