by Yvette Depaepe 

To Esther Margraff  fantasy is elementary, the base of creativity and inner richness.  Her work is surreal, her artistic mind doesn't know any boundaries.  Everything becomes possible, leaving familiar paths and taking new ones.  Besides being an exceptional artistic photographer, Esther has a charming and warm personality.  In this interview, she takes us on a journey into her dazzling magic world.

'the Ultimatum'

I live in East Belgium, am 65 years old and a retired art teacher.
Additionally, for many years I've been creating crazy chairs made from polyester. My great ideal in this process used to be Nikki de St Phalle.

Already while working in school my greatest concern was to stimulate fantasy and creativity in my pupils. I thereby freely adapted Einstein's motto: 'Fantasy is more important than knowledge, because knowledge is finite.' For me fantasy is something elementary, the base of creativity and an inner richness, that nobody can take from me. I'm also firmly convinced that everybody can train fantasy. It has to do with letting loose. It means turning things upside down, leaving familiar paths and taking new paths that may also turn out to be dead ends. But that is part of the process.

As far as photography is concerned, I've kept myself busy with it since digital photography emerged. It allows us to take pictures without restraint, but – most important - the image processing programs enable me to be absolutely creative. With them everything becomes possible and in contrast to my polyester sculptures nothing is stinking, sticking and making a mess.

For 14 years now I've been engaged in working with 3D-software. I enjoy fooling around with them for hours and doing so I forget time, space and the potatoes on the kitchen stove. It is amazing what those programs are capable of. I'm afraid it will take me a hundred years to penetrate all the functions, which at times can be very frustrating.

It's evident that I've been especially influenced by surrealism. Belgians probably have it in their genes but I couldn't say who of the surrealists I admire most. Magritte, Delvaux, de Chirico? It's hard to say; together with Gilbert Garcin, certainly all of them had an influence on me.

'Game over'

But as a matter of fact, I prefer turning my attention to contemporary artists and there is a lot of good surrealists around: for me THE representative of Belgian surrealism today is Ben Goossens.

I adore the very peculiar surrealism of hardibudi.
I also love the very expressive surreal portraits by Lotta van Droom.

Lately the Iranian art scene has been catching my eye, not only in the field of photography. But here too there are good representatives of a surrealism, that turns out to be very poetical and metaphorical:  Amin Roshan Afshar, Daniyalarabzadeh  and Mohammad Rasool Fahmani.

I'm also very fond of humorous surrealism: Juan de Villalba and Victoria Ivanova.
I could list a lot more here but that would go beyond the scope.

People often ask me how I get my ideas. In my work the idea doesn't stand at the beginning as one would guess, but develops little by little.
First, I take a lot of pictures: on holiday, at street parties, during shootings with friends, with models. At this stage everything is still meaningless for me. It's just collecting material. Only when I'm sitting in front of my computer and watching my pictures, something starts ticking.  Actually, I let myself be surprised by my own pictures. At times it is a detail - a small movement of the hand for instance - that inspires me. Then I start thinking about how I could tell a story out of it. In this case for example it was Indira's forefinger.

'The Yoga Bubble'

To go on spinning the idea further, my 3D software (VUE xstream) proves being very helpful. It's a software specialised in creating synthetical landscapes. This allows you to model terrains, let vegetations grow and make the sun wander around. You feel a little bit like God.

You can of course also work with in a very realistic style, but when you play with untypical textures and shapes, your work gets a surreal touch. Instead of flowers I can also let chairs sprout or magically arise mountains of peas. For that purpose, I like using self-created textures.

'a pea-counting beauty'

 
For the atmospheric settings I must start from the real elements in a picture: where was the sun standing, how hard were light and shadow, how misty was the atmosphere? All this has to be analysed first and has to be integrated into my synthetic landscape making it look most harmonious and credible in the end. Into my new scenery I also put synthetical figures as replacement characters for the real ones, to simulate a correct shadow. The replacement character will later be replaced by the real figure. The shadow remains.

'Parisian Waltz'

My basic program for working on photos, especially to produce compositions, is Corel Photopaint X8. The first version I used was Corel 4 and it was issued more or less ...28 years ago!! This shows on the one hand how old I have become but on the other hand it has allowed me to grow with the program and not be smashed down by it. I took my first steps in the field of 3D photography with Bryce. It was built up very playfully and one could get along without the manual. But at a certain point I reached the limit and changed to VUE. My actual version is VUE Xstream.

I possess two cameras: a somewhat older Nikon Df and of late also a Nikon Z7. I have several lenses: a Nikkor 24-70 mm 4/S, a 28-300 mm, a 50 mm as well as a 16-35 mm wide angle which I very rarely use.

I take my pictures in raw format, develop the photos with the Nikon software and then I continue with Corel Paint X8 and the 3D programs. At the end I harmonise it all with my much appreciated Nikfilters.

To sum it all up, one can say that in most cases my pictures are a mixture between real and synthetic photography. The more fluent the transition is, the merrier I am. I try to watch the world with a wink and if the completed picture leaves the observer with a smile on his lips, I'm happy!

'a real gem'

'silence'

'Somewhere in France'

'the Gardener in Love'

'little box"

'Harlequin'

'Beach games'

'The point of no return'

'Oasis I'

'Autumn of Life'

'Miss Autumn'