Mischa Haller

Professional practice / 26 Jan 2011

Mischa Haller is a Swiss photographer based in London since 1998. He talked about his career, how each work led to a new one and, the most interesting of all in my point of view, how his personal projects led to commissioned ones.

He started in London, showing a personal project of close-ups of human bodies to a magazine editor. The editor liked it so much, that wanted him to explore it and do a cover and story with it.

Following that, Mischa Haller had this idea of publishing a book by himself with small stories that he had been exploring in the year before. He took a model of it to several shops and galleries that might be interested to sell it. He got some positive answers, so he publish it. Mischa talk about this book as the best investment he have ever done, once it was crucial for the development of his career.

Mischa’s work is related with social and cultural reportage. He looks for details that can tell a story without showing everything. He argues that details make life special. These details can cover as well certain moments, unusual angles, contrasts.

He also concentrates his work on people. Because people animate the places. Therefore when Mischa needs to do some reportage, he spends some time in the place, he talks to the people until they are comfortable and let him do some photos.

On the other hand, when he does portraits, he tries to include some context. It tells more about the person.

I’ll conclude with something he said in the beginning of the lecture: “If you want to do interesting stuff, sometimes you have to do it for yourselves”.