The Art of Storytelling Through Film

My name ist Jan Meifert and I live in Wrist, Schleswig-Holstein, Germany. I studied Fine Arts in Hamburg, upgraded my skills in the development of film and video projects. I don’t make single pictures, I try to create homogenous photographic series which tell a short story. I sketch and draw, make illustrations and satirical cartoons for small magazines and fanzines. I have to earn some money, and so I work as a lecturer in the German orientation programme for 8th-grade students (13-14 years old). My subjects are media design and a kind of room/colour design.

I love movies and my favourite directors are the Coen Brothers, Jim Jarmusch, Ken Loach, David Lynch, Quentin Tarantino and also Documentarians like Claude Lanzmann, who made their interview partners the central point in his films.

I am a musical man, but I have never learned an instrument. I was socialised by hardcore punk music in my youth (and I am still in love with it) and like to listen to post-rock, post-metal, and post-hardcore as well – but I am also open-minded to every kind of „true“ (d.i.y.) music. You see, I listen to music a lot, it’s an important part of my life, and artwork. My favourite (books and) authors: Hannah Arendt, Anthony Burgess’s „A Clockwork Orange“, Nick Hornby, Birgit Vanderbeke’s „Das Muschelessen“, and Stefan Zweigs „Schachnovelle“. During the last years, I read more biographies and novels with big biographical parts like Jenny Hvals „Girls against God“. I also like non-league football (still playing: VfL Kellinghusen Reserve, supporting HFC Falke), go to small concerts, use my bicycle each day, go sailing, drinking and tasting craft beers and love to cook and travel.

Bernadette [2022], Hasselblad 500C, Kodak Tri-X Pan 400 (pulled ISO 50; expired 08/1989, Bernadette’s year of birth)

Cameras have been companions since my childhood. My parents owned both a SLR and a video camera, and I was allowed to try them out, especially the camcorder. My own camera was a Kodak Instamatic 255x, and I documented my surroundings with it. When I was 21, I got my first own SLR and started to photograph stands and fan communities in football (soccer) stadiums, especially of my favourite club, Hamburger SV. And any idols? I appreciate many artists, but I’ve never had any! I got a lot of feedback and training through my art study and found my design this way. Important for my work are composing, poetry and a topic (including a question; because there is so much behind and more than the seen individual) – so I don’t develop the films myself, I give them to a laboratory.

I have always photographed film, tried out the digital way in the meantime, but came back to analogue after a few months. I love the slowness, taking a lot of time to study my counterpart, to create and compose pictures – and also the limit, because limits prevent random pictures. I think this and the individuality and dignity of my muses are the main points in my portrayal works. Sometimes I use expired films for special projects, sometimes because it is a little bit cheaper and always because of the effects these films make (b/w: grain, contrasts; colour: contrast, colours) – one example: I photograph a muse born in 1989 with a film expired in 1989.

Finland [08/2018, Vuolijoki, Revonneva, Säynäjäoja]: Canon EOS 500N, Intercolor 200 (pulled ISO 50; expired 05/2005)

Most of my pictures are made with available light. Some years ago, a colleague who grew up 500 kilometres away near the Dutch border told me the „light in North Germany would be very hard“. I think light can have many different looks and feelings: sun, clouds, rain, twilight, daylight, by the sea, in the forest, in meadows, indoors, in tunnels, dark and bright rooms, and the different seasons.

Prefered films: I use both BW and colour, „normal“ and expired films. On journeys I prefer colour films, for portraits I decide intuitively.

Tips: It comes how it comes, just love the result! Sometimes expired films do not bring any results, at best, maybe a handful of pictures. I recommend manipulating the films with the ISO configuration. For every ten years, you have to half down the ISO number (for example: original ISO 400, after ten years ISO 200, after 20 years ISO 100…).

My main cameras: Canon EOS 500N (3x), Canon T70, Hasselblad 500C

For filming: Canon EOS M50 (digital), Panasonic Palmcorder (VHS-C)

Sometimes in use: Agfabox, Agfa Isolette V, Canon AF35M, Kodak Tele-Ektra 350, Nikon F401x