Christopher Bethell - 'Four Hours East'
Manchester based photographer Christopher Bethell is a good friend of ours here at Route, and we are big fans of his his recent body of work Four Hours East, which documents his short stay in Nerekhta, Russia during a teaching opportunity back in March. We caught up with him to gain an insight into the making of the work, and his experience as an outsider observing an entirely new city and culture.
Firstly, congratulations on the success of your body of work Four Hours East. Can you tell us a little about how you got to teach in Russia back in March?
Thank you very much! I was invited by my friend & fellow photographer Tina Remiz to accompany her on the workshop. We originally met on Redeye's Lightbox 2 workshop where we worked together in a group to produce an exhibition for Look13 festival. The theme of the show was Fictional Narratives within which we both tested photography's ability to both tell truths and lies. The workshop that she pitched was in teaching Documentary Storytelling – a genre of photography that we are both invested in.
Did you plan for the kind of project you wanted to shoot before you arrived?
I didn't prepare at all. In the months leading up to it I spent a lot of time writing up plans of what I should be researching – time that I should have spent reading instead of making up lists. However, this lack of preparation turned out to be the main crux of the work and actually worked in my advantage. In between workshop and tutorial times I would leave the complex that we were staying at and head into Nerekhta – seeing and experiencing everything for the first time. I started photographing with the intention of creating a fairly objective document of the village, but quickly began to realise that the work was about my naïve experience as a Westerner in an Eastern country that I had very little knowledge of.
The project is a combination of portraiture, documentary and landscape. What were your intentions in choosing these different photographic approaches?
Since the whole experience of an Eastern village was new to me, I wanted to explore all facets of it. The people, their activities and their environments is largely alien to me. The differing approaches help me to compare and contrast each of these to the experience of my home. On the first day I started out with much of the same style that I had been shooting in Trick or Treat, wandering the streets and photographing people at a distance. This didn't seem enough though, I started to feel too comfortable, which didn't feel right. I therefore started to approach people that I met on the street and ask to take their portrait. My broken Russian was pretty entertaining for the locals to hear, which more often than not loosened them up.
You were in Russia for 2 weeks, which is a fairly short time to execute such a well rounded body of work. Did the 2 weeks feel adequate enough for you to achieve everything you wanted?
Thank you for the compliments! I personally don't think that it's anywhere near completed. I think it's a good start, but needs investigating much further. I don't know at this point whether I should continue by visiting other areas of Russia, or whether I should keep it focused on Nerekhta. If/when I go back, I want to push myself even further by trying to befriend some of the locals, hopefully being invited into their homes.
Did you at all feel daunted being in a completely different place, or did the culture shock and the uncertainty push you photographically?
Travelling to Nerekhta from Manchester was incredibly daunting as I went alone, meeting Tina there. I arrived in Moscow not being able to read a single thing due to their different alphabet, although luckily it was arranged that I met a lovely guy called Sasha there whom would guide me around for the day. After this, I hopped on a five hour sleeper train that took me through the night to Nerekhta. When we arrived, I fell into four foot of snow and was greeted by two people who couldn't speak English and jumped into a taxi that was lit up like a disco with neon lights. By this point, I had become slightly overwhelmed by it all.
However, I went to bed, woke up the next morning and Tina was there to translate for me. The rest of the time was incredibly relaxed and I found it pretty easy to fit in and pick up a small amount of Russian.
Is there any image that holds a particular significance to you?
The image taken outside of the grocery shop of the two ladies stood very close together is one that I can look at over and over. In Russia, old ladies are known as Babooshkas and are also known for having interesting personalities. I saw this scene, took a few photographs and wandered off down the road for a while. About half an hour later I came back and they were still in exactly the same position. I think the lady closest to the wall must have severely annoyed the other lady in some way.
Lastly, what can we expect from you in the upcoming months and New Year?
In January I am going to be leaving Manchester to study a masters at LCC in Photojournalism & Documentary Photography in London. At this point, i'm unsure what my masters project is going to be based on as I want to keep an open mind for when I start the course. Currently though I am working on a few projects.
Firstly, I am soon to be publishing a small-run zine called Use Me or Live in Filth. All of the photographs in this were commissioned by VICE for different events and articles, and I have edited the collection down into a set with a very different style to the original images – taking influence from Daido Moriyama & William Klein.
Secondly, I am continuing research for a long-form project based around chasing my family's history in America. I have dual nationality, being both British and American, although I have never been over to the states. This is at very early stages though, so I won't go into much detail.
And finally, i've just started working on a project based around English archetypes. I became inspired by August Sander's attempts to document the whole of contemporary Germany in 1910 and onwards – although I have no intention of producing a scientific, representation of the whole of Britain's population. Instead I am using different archetypes as a tool to help me find the people I am going to photograph. Today, I received a call from a UFO Hunter that I emailed. He told me about how he has had M.E. ever since he was abducted by aliens. I'm pretty excited about the variation of people I am going to meet in this work.
View more of Chris's work on his website
