Emil Handke: From Silence

Emil Handke: From Silence by Aline SmithsonMay 15, 2017

©Emil Handke

Photographer Emil Handke‘s moody and evocative night photographs speak to those quiet spaces where velvety black backdrops set the stage for the mysteries of dark and light. His project, From Silence, is about internal searching, childhood memories, and the fragility of uncertain times.

For the past several years, Emil has been self-publishing zines as a way to consider sequencing and to experience the work in an intimate way. He was recently featured on photographer John O’Connor’s new podcast site, Zine Report. John’s inaugural effort is a podcast on Emil, discussing his work and approaches to zine making. You can listen here.

Emil resides in Louisville, KY with his wife and three daughters. He primarily makes photographs at night. In 2016 he released Prelude to Silence. This zine was an overture to the forthcoming book, From Silence.

©Emil Handke, Cover of Prelude to SILENCE

©Emil Handke, a spread from Prelude to SILENCE

From Silence

Give me a childhood again and I will live

as owls do, in the moss and curvature

of nightfall

-glimpsed,

but never really seen,

-John Burnside

As a child, I would often sleep with the TV on so that when I woke I wasn’t startled by darkness. I could see the room, make sure I was alone. The fuzzy faces on the screen provided some strange comfort. But often that comfort wouldn’t last. From Silence searches for the quiet, the voids, the other-worldly. In this work, I roam at dusk amidst the darkening landscape. Almost habitually, whether walking or driving, I am searching. I look for scenes that haunt me or bring to mind faded memories. This is coupled with me confronting questions that seep from my childhood. I force myself to face the disquiet that lies within me. All the while, I gaze into the tension of my past and my children’s future.