Portfolio: Jan von Holleben

'Dreams of Flying'

Since graduating from art college in Farnham seven years ago, the 32-year-old German photographer has won a slew of awards thanks to a playful approach to composition that favours analogue film over highly composed digital photography.

Cilick on the image above to see Von Holleben's "Dreams of Flying" series.

"This is a project I did back in Germany, in between art-college terms," he explains. "I was playing games with the kids next door and using the camera as a documentation of what was happening, and it's turned out to be the best work I've done. Playfulness is the key to these images, which are inspired by classic pop culture. I'm trying to amaze people with [visual] tricks they wouldn't expect, but allow them to realise it was all done so easily.

"This picture, 'Tarzan', was one of the very early ones. I live near a very old forest, so we had loads of vines at hand; we went outside on the patio of my mum's house and the kids started playing out Tarzan, wearing brown towels from the bathroom, while I was shooting from the bathroom window above."

www.janvonholleben.com