Platinum Prints, Limited Edition of 5 in the size of 56x76cm (Arches Platinum Rag)

Portraits by Jan C. Schlegel are minimalist works with no emptiness; every detail in them is of importance. There are no typical model poses, feigned emotions or complex light schemes. It is the situation when a photographer catches an elusive moment, a living emotion in a glance, or even a special turn of the head.

If Jan has no topic for the series, he simply wants to show a person the way he or she is. The truth in his pictures is vital for him because this is the only way his photographs can become works of art that are capable of deeply touching the viewer. There are no photo manipulations, effects or Photoshop tricks. In his creative process, Jan resorts to the "window and mirror" principle.

Creation of artistic photo portraits always implies co-authorship. A model needs to open, bare their soul to the photographer with all their fears and weaknesses, with all the beauty and strength. This is also a sort of labor because one needs to fully trust a person without any fear of being exposed in front of the camera.

This is why working on portraits is a delicate and intimate process. Portrait photography is both a window and a mirror for Jan. Through a window you can see a person you have photographed: not just the appearance but also what is hidden in his or her soul. On the other hand, photography is a mirror that shows the photographer's vision, feelings, emotions and thoughts.

The window must be wide-open: only when the person being portrayed lays bare their true feelings, the photograph becomes a powerful reflection of the person in the picture. Blank emotions created artificially cannot influence the viewer, they are just kitsch.

One can often see melancholy and sorrow in Jan's photographs. Enigmatic looks with an unspoken question is another frequent feature of his works. You can find absolute tranquility and childish expression or, on the contrary, a completely unexpected seriousness on a young face. All of these are complex emotions associated with vulnerability and they tell their story.

Jan C. Schlegel never betrays the trust of his characters, carefully looking into their inner world through a large format camera lens. A picture taken with such an approach becomes a revelation.

By the way, in the opinion of Paolo Roversi, one of Jan's favorite photographers, such a camera can catch a larger part of the soul than the medium format or 35 mm film.

The artist pays particular attention to details and imperfections. Tiny wrinkles, the texture of the skin or shadows on a face are the inseparable attributes of Jan C. Schlegel's images, which many photographers retouch, considering them as flaws. Jan doesn't think so. Wrinkles are attributes of a living face but not of old age. Marks, scars and irregularities on the skin, in the photographer's opinion, constitute a part of the person being portrayed and are, therefore, valuable from the artistic viewpoint.

The shadows add volume, depth and intensity to the face but do not spoil it. All these details show that a person is not ideal, meaning that he or she is real, because there are no ideal people in the world.

Time leaves its traces on everything, and we should all appreciate this and find it beautiful. All of this taken together, and not the complex light schemes, decorations or processing methods, is Jan C. Schlegel's true secret method. In fact, he uses one source of light, a background and a flash lamp. Models do their best in the studio and Jan works hard in a darkroom as he develops the film and prints the pictures, completing the process of penetrating the inner world of a person that once inspired him.