Meet Stephan Loeber-Bottero | Photographer

We had the good fortune of connecting with Stephan Loeber-Bottero and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephan, what makes you happy? Why?
Traveling exploring the world and taking photographs in connection with my inner feelings. Observing people, their lifestyle and their connection with the city life. And my goal when I work with portraits (often at night!) is to get in touch with the deep, often intimate, values of the person photographed and to reveal his sensitivity, his potential, his roughness; beauty is universal and I strive to magnify what I call the unique beauty of each one.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Being a photographer is not easy at all. It takes time, efforts, concentration, and creativity. It takes patience and love for people and the world around you. I specialized myself mostly in night photography in very special cities like L.A. and Venice, Italy. It took me so many years to publish my first book of photographs “Night in Venice” as a selection in more than thousands of photographs. For more than twelve years, I traveled the labyrinth of Venice, Italy to build my vision of a poetic and unusual Venice. My photographs, taken in the middle of the night, reflect a silent atmosphere, rarely disturbed by a human presence.

My photographs have been taken during all seasons, from the harsh winters when palaces and canals are covered with a veil in the heart of icy mists, to the summers saturated with heat. Using analogue photographic technology, I exploited the variations in temperature and humidity of the air to exacerbate the colors of Venice in the middle of the night, to the light of the candelabras with tinted glass and sometimes to that of a masterful and benevolent Moon !

The book I published is organized around nocturnal walks that invite everyone to meet with places inspired, noble or popular, sumptuous or modest, sacred or profane.

My goal was for the reader to gradually enter into the mystery of Venice, and for his gaze to be modified.

I wanted to share the secrets of my long Venetian stays and invite the amateur and collector of original photographs, or the reader of my book, to a trip to Venice at night, which is an inner journey in every sense of the word.

After the publication of my book of photographs, I wanted to extend my research by collecting literary testimonies of what Venice at night had inspired authors, poets or novelists. Thus I published an anthology «Venice Nocturnes», literary equivalent to my photographic work, drawing on literature and poetry from the 17th century to the present day.

Without pretending to the exhaustiveness of such a rare theme, it is the sensations, the mental images, the impression left by the stories, which guided my choices and which I gathered.

Essential authors have taken an obvious place: George Sand, Gabriele d’Annunzio, Henri de Régnier, Casanova or Marcel Proust, among others. Others, more unknown or less read nowadays, come to punctuate their visions or their sensitive analysis, this course: the Countess of Noailles, Joseph Brodsky, René Huyghe and Marcel Brion. At the heart of these novels or poems, I discovered that the night of Venice sometimes holds a short place, sometimes as a lightning, sometimes as a quest for love, sometimes as a fear: I wanted to share my passion and these revelations.

Let’s say your best friend was visiting the area and you wanted to show them the best time ever. Where would you take them? Give us a little itinerary – say it was a week long trip, where would you eat, drink, visit, hang out, etc.
Exploring L.A. is limitless. Every street, every situation or circumstance, any architecture or details, depending on the hour during the day or the night gives a lot of photographic opportunities. From DTLA to Venice, an exploration will take hours and so many occasions to catch moments. During such explorations you don’t eat or drink, you spend your time in observing and training the eye. And you might finish in the sea to refresh yourself, but without your camera!

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Every person is unique and it is something very rare and subtle to catch simplicity and beauty as a photographer.

Website: https://www.saatchiart.com/loeber-bottero

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/loeberbottero/

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@LoeberBottero

Other: https://www.amazon.com/Venice-Night-Photographs-Stephane-Loeber-Bottero/dp/235340068X/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2RFEGR0JSTX98&keywords=loeber-bottero&qid=1690919904&sprefix=loeber-bottero%2Caps%2C145&sr=8-1