“When I see and take pictures, I lose all sense of time. Time is arrested, it stops: the moment you press the release, you no longer see. The aperture of the camera closes, the picture is taken in secret. It disappears mechanically. As soon as I press the release, I am acutely aware that this moment is past. What I observed withdraws unseen, moves away, becomes darker, sinks and dissolves. I am glad that I cannot see the photographs right away. It is enough to have the picture in mind and to know that it has left an impression on the film as a latent image that I can bring to light in the process of development.”
Simone Kappeler
Simone Kappeler (*1952, CH) started taking pictures at the age of eleven. Between 1972–1976, she studied German and art history at the University of Zürich, and during 1975–1979, she studied photography at the Zürich University of the Arts. During a three-month trip to the United States in 1981, Kappeler took her first pictures using cheap cameras, especially the Diana camera. Since 1982, she has been doing ongoing projects in southern France and the Grisons. In 1982/83, Kappeler had a studio in New York and experimented with conceptual photography and Super 8 films. In the period of 1983/84, she was a theater photographer at the Schauspielhaus Zürich. In 2009, she followed a six-week photographic study of Japan and in 2015 she went back to her studio in New York. Nowadays, Kappeler lives in Frauenfeld and works from home and while travelling. She makes use of various techniques and devices.