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A couple of weeks ago it was still Movember, when beards and mustaches were growing on most of the male chins an under most of the male noses. The mustache we are writing about today however is not temporary but one that is here to stay. Bert De Jonghe and Bruno Roels, both photographers, launched their own online photo magazine SNOR in May 2011 and will present their fifth edition on Friday 14 December. The incredible Belgian talent, women, friendship and how to buy art are just some of the topics in this interview. Enjoy!
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Let's start from the beginning: how did you end up with the name "SNOR"?
BERT DE JONGHE (SNOR): At first we thought of a very ordinary Flemish familyname such as Vandenberghe, a name for a bakery or something, but the disadvantage was that it wouldn't have been been pronounceable in English or any other language.
BRUNO ROELS (SNOR): Our name had to be both readable and commercial.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: How did things begin? When did you decide you were actually going to do it?
BRUNO ROELS: We got the idea when I sent in a picture to an Australian photo magazine. I was so happy with that, partially because I hadn't graduated yet and didn't have any network. I thought: "if we could give this feeling to others, why not?"
Moreover there wasn't any online photo magazine in Belgium yet and it's exactly the online aspect that made it so easy to set things up: it allows you to go from nothing to something in a week. And the fact that it's for free contributed even more to our "why not?" feeling.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Are there other advantages of managing things through the web?
BRUNO ROELS: The fun thing is that you can track and follow everything: you can perfectly see who your followers are and who is connecting to what you do. In the beginning it was just about putting a decent edition together. Now we also look into some possibilities for the future.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Does it have anything to do with the digital revolution which completely changed photography as well?
BRUNO ROELS: Photography is very popular right now. Eight years ago a photograph of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes was sold for an enormous amount of money. Eversince photograpghy is taken more seriously. Photo museums are more attractive and popular. Photography has an important role in our culture where no one is reading anything anymore. It's a very fast medium.
BERT DE JONGHE: That might be the dangerous side as well: that it’s only seen as a fast, perhaps even superficial medium and no one takes time for it anymore.
BRUNO ROELS: By the way, it might seem contradictory to this digital evolution but photo books are a very good investment these days.
BERT DE JONGHE: Not the classical photo books which are heavy, large and expensive, but books with an original approach. People don’t wait till "best ofs" anymore and smaller books come out.
BRUNO ROELS: And in a very democratic way: either they have a very fair price, it’s a limited edition, they sign it or add a print to it. A lot of things are moving nowadays and that’s far more important than the fact that Instagram is destroying real photography.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Does that mean that if SNOR was a paper magazine, it would generate more pressure? Would you ever even consider going for a paper version?
BRUNO ROELS: We get this question quite often... We would have to ask money for it of course. We currently have a semi-costless operation: no sponsors, no funding. This means we don't have to justify ourselves to anyone or any institution. If there would be a paper version of SNOR, things would for sure be different. Which doesn’t mean there is no pressure now: we cannot afford to lose our credibility and neither can the photographers appearing in SNOR.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Do you focus on Belgian talent or can international photographers send in their work as well?
BERT DE JONGHE: We focus on Belgian and Dutch photographers. Not because of nationalistic reasons but because there is so much talent here. The audience can be international, but not the photographers.
BRUNO ROELS: In the beginning people asked themselves whether we would be able to highlight four photographers in each edition. But we soon realized that this wouldn't be a problem. Every year new young photographers graduate for example and, as Bert said, there is a lot of talent in our country anyhow.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Did you launch your magazine because you were missing something on the market? From which idea or ambition did you start?
BERT DE JONGHE: One of the reasons is that the Internet and Ikea are full of bad pictures. Everyone with a digital camera just puts it all on the web, but I would never hang these photographs in my living room. It’s partly some kind of “education” ; we don’t necessarily want people to follow our ideas or opinions, but we do want to be clear on these kind of things.
A second reason is that we want to give photographers an audience and a network. There wasn't any step between graduating and the newspaper or the gallery. Perhaps we're trying to fill in that gap. And the essence of art is that it’s created to be shown to and seen by others. With SNOR we want to push the artists out there.
BRUNO ROELS: Some are lucky and already have some kind of a network, but you don't hear anything about some others and that's often not fair. Top galleries in Belgium don't focus on Belgian work anymore; other galleries would like to promote it but don't know the portfolios.
BERT DE JONGHE: The selling part just popped into our minds half a year ago. In the end it's not only about showing your work, it's also about selling it.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: In Ghent we have some initiatives in this direction: Happy House for example welcomes people in their living room and shows and sells art there.
BRUNO ROELS: That's a great idea but it often stays within the same social circle. Unfortunately it’s often nothing more than throwing a rock into a pond: the ripple effect is just not that big. The photographers appearing in SNOR can reach six thousand people.
To come back on what Bert was saying about educating people: instead of an Audrey Hepburn on canvas for 49 euro you can buy an amazing picture from a photography student, but for some reason people don’t do that. Or they don’t even know it’s an option. We’re not that far yet, but perhaps SNOR might evolve from its current curator role to some kind of education and sensitisation of what is possible. We might for example give guidelines on the price or tell people what they can do with 400 euro.
Another attitude that should be changed is that people buy something, put it on the wall and leave it there for the next fifteen years.
BERT DE JONGHE: Yes! My collection is large enough to change all the pictures in my house every year.
BRUNO ROELS: I don't have walls enough at home.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: About photography itself now. How different is it compared to other art forms?
BERT DE JONGHE: It's less well accepted since everything is reproducible. The attention is a lot smaller. It’s often not seen as an equivalent art form. Only now the attention is starting to increase, but if we would express this evolution in money, we would never reach the level of paintings for example.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: How do you select the pictures which will appear in SNOR?
BRUNO ROELS: First of all, we ask the potographers to send in a series. It should tell something. And making a series implies effort, vision and ambition. We look if their fire is burning and if we have the impression they will achieve things in the future.
BERT DE JONGHE: Drive is very important. For the rest it's very much intuition-based. Of course we have seen a lot of series and after a while you start recognising the good ones. Other criterias are: would we want to have this hanging on our wall? Is the story interesting?
BRUNO ROELS: If there would be a book of it, would we buy it? Is it copied from someone else? Is it very much copied?
BERT DE JONGHE: We don't distinguish digital from analogue photography. There is one genre however we are having difficulties with and that’s conceptual photography.
BRUNO ROELS: That’s a grey zone between photography and art. It has to be really good then. Would I hang it in my living room? No. Can I appreciate it? Yes.
What is nice is that, in a strange way, we see that people appearing in SNOR pop up at other places afterwards as well.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: That might be a confirmation of you having done a good job.
BRUNO ROELS: On one hand it’s good for us, on the other hand it’s good for the photographers since they prove they’re not standing still. We wanted SNOR to be some kind of quality label so we could say that something is SNOR proof.
BERT DE JONGHE: Without wanting to sound arrogant.
BRUNO ROELS: Well, in the beginning it was arrogant since we hadn’t proved anything yet.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: You’re both photographers. Why photographs?
BERT DE JONGHE: It’s a very accessible medium. The learning process is perhaps shorter and you can see an evolution quite fast.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Since SNOR is not a commercial project, can we assume your motives are truly altruistic then?
BRUNO ROELS: It’s definitely the most altruistic thing I’ve done in my life.
BERT DE JONGHE: It's 100 % altruistic.
BRUNO ROELS: I don’t believe in 100% altruistic motives.
BERT DE JONGHE: But we do create SNOR for the photographers, don't we?
BRUNO ROELS: That’s true.
BERT DE JONGHE: The only non-altruistic motive is…
BRUNO ROELS: The women!
BERT DE JONGHE: … that we are creating something that is there. It’s our inheritance for the next generation.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Do you get appreciation for your work and energy?
BRUNO ROELS: Too little I guess. We put a lot of time in it and people don’t always realise that. But in general the photographers are grateful.
BERT DE JONGHE: Even honoured.
BRUNO ROELS: One of the nice things about SNOR is that we got to know a lot of artists which we wouldn’t have noticed if SNOR hadn’t existed.
BERT DE JONGHE: This being said, we also get friendship from it.
BRUNO ROELS: That’s right. You can write down we are friends too.
www.snor.it
www.facebook.com/pages/SNOR
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Let's start from the beginning: how did you end up with the name "SNOR"?
BERT DE JONGHE (SNOR): At first we thought of a very ordinary Flemish familyname such as Vandenberghe, a name for a bakery or something, but the disadvantage was that it wouldn't have been been pronounceable in English or any other language.
BRUNO ROELS (SNOR): Our name had to be both readable and commercial.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: How did things begin? When did you decide you were actually going to do it?
BRUNO ROELS: We got the idea when I sent in a picture to an Australian photo magazine. I was so happy with that, partially because I hadn't graduated yet and didn't have any network. I thought: "if we could give this feeling to others, why not?"
Moreover there wasn't any online photo magazine in Belgium yet and it's exactly the online aspect that made it so easy to set things up: it allows you to go from nothing to something in a week. And the fact that it's for free contributed even more to our "why not?" feeling.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Are there other advantages of managing things through the web?
BRUNO ROELS: The fun thing is that you can track and follow everything: you can perfectly see who your followers are and who is connecting to what you do. In the beginning it was just about putting a decent edition together. Now we also look into some possibilities for the future.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Does it have anything to do with the digital revolution which completely changed photography as well?
BRUNO ROELS: Photography is very popular right now. Eight years ago a photograph of a pack of Marlboro cigarettes was sold for an enormous amount of money. Eversince photograpghy is taken more seriously. Photo museums are more attractive and popular. Photography has an important role in our culture where no one is reading anything anymore. It's a very fast medium.
BERT DE JONGHE: That might be the dangerous side as well: that it’s only seen as a fast, perhaps even superficial medium and no one takes time for it anymore.
BRUNO ROELS: By the way, it might seem contradictory to this digital evolution but photo books are a very good investment these days.
BERT DE JONGHE: Not the classical photo books which are heavy, large and expensive, but books with an original approach. People don’t wait till "best ofs" anymore and smaller books come out.
BRUNO ROELS: And in a very democratic way: either they have a very fair price, it’s a limited edition, they sign it or add a print to it. A lot of things are moving nowadays and that’s far more important than the fact that Instagram is destroying real photography.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Does that mean that if SNOR was a paper magazine, it would generate more pressure? Would you ever even consider going for a paper version?
BRUNO ROELS: We get this question quite often... We would have to ask money for it of course. We currently have a semi-costless operation: no sponsors, no funding. This means we don't have to justify ourselves to anyone or any institution. If there would be a paper version of SNOR, things would for sure be different. Which doesn’t mean there is no pressure now: we cannot afford to lose our credibility and neither can the photographers appearing in SNOR.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Do you focus on Belgian talent or can international photographers send in their work as well?
BERT DE JONGHE: We focus on Belgian and Dutch photographers. Not because of nationalistic reasons but because there is so much talent here. The audience can be international, but not the photographers.
BRUNO ROELS: In the beginning people asked themselves whether we would be able to highlight four photographers in each edition. But we soon realized that this wouldn't be a problem. Every year new young photographers graduate for example and, as Bert said, there is a lot of talent in our country anyhow.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Did you launch your magazine because you were missing something on the market? From which idea or ambition did you start?
BERT DE JONGHE: One of the reasons is that the Internet and Ikea are full of bad pictures. Everyone with a digital camera just puts it all on the web, but I would never hang these photographs in my living room. It’s partly some kind of “education” ; we don’t necessarily want people to follow our ideas or opinions, but we do want to be clear on these kind of things.
A second reason is that we want to give photographers an audience and a network. There wasn't any step between graduating and the newspaper or the gallery. Perhaps we're trying to fill in that gap. And the essence of art is that it’s created to be shown to and seen by others. With SNOR we want to push the artists out there.
BRUNO ROELS: Some are lucky and already have some kind of a network, but you don't hear anything about some others and that's often not fair. Top galleries in Belgium don't focus on Belgian work anymore; other galleries would like to promote it but don't know the portfolios.
BERT DE JONGHE: The selling part just popped into our minds half a year ago. In the end it's not only about showing your work, it's also about selling it.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: In Ghent we have some initiatives in this direction: Happy House for example welcomes people in their living room and shows and sells art there.
BRUNO ROELS: That's a great idea but it often stays within the same social circle. Unfortunately it’s often nothing more than throwing a rock into a pond: the ripple effect is just not that big. The photographers appearing in SNOR can reach six thousand people.
To come back on what Bert was saying about educating people: instead of an Audrey Hepburn on canvas for 49 euro you can buy an amazing picture from a photography student, but for some reason people don’t do that. Or they don’t even know it’s an option. We’re not that far yet, but perhaps SNOR might evolve from its current curator role to some kind of education and sensitisation of what is possible. We might for example give guidelines on the price or tell people what they can do with 400 euro.
Another attitude that should be changed is that people buy something, put it on the wall and leave it there for the next fifteen years.
BERT DE JONGHE: Yes! My collection is large enough to change all the pictures in my house every year.
BRUNO ROELS: I don't have walls enough at home.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: About photography itself now. How different is it compared to other art forms?
BERT DE JONGHE: It's less well accepted since everything is reproducible. The attention is a lot smaller. It’s often not seen as an equivalent art form. Only now the attention is starting to increase, but if we would express this evolution in money, we would never reach the level of paintings for example.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: How do you select the pictures which will appear in SNOR?
BRUNO ROELS: First of all, we ask the potographers to send in a series. It should tell something. And making a series implies effort, vision and ambition. We look if their fire is burning and if we have the impression they will achieve things in the future.
BERT DE JONGHE: Drive is very important. For the rest it's very much intuition-based. Of course we have seen a lot of series and after a while you start recognising the good ones. Other criterias are: would we want to have this hanging on our wall? Is the story interesting?
BRUNO ROELS: If there would be a book of it, would we buy it? Is it copied from someone else? Is it very much copied?
BERT DE JONGHE: We don't distinguish digital from analogue photography. There is one genre however we are having difficulties with and that’s conceptual photography.
BRUNO ROELS: That’s a grey zone between photography and art. It has to be really good then. Would I hang it in my living room? No. Can I appreciate it? Yes.
What is nice is that, in a strange way, we see that people appearing in SNOR pop up at other places afterwards as well.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: That might be a confirmation of you having done a good job.
BRUNO ROELS: On one hand it’s good for us, on the other hand it’s good for the photographers since they prove they’re not standing still. We wanted SNOR to be some kind of quality label so we could say that something is SNOR proof.
BERT DE JONGHE: Without wanting to sound arrogant.
BRUNO ROELS: Well, in the beginning it was arrogant since we hadn’t proved anything yet.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: You’re both photographers. Why photographs?
BERT DE JONGHE: It’s a very accessible medium. The learning process is perhaps shorter and you can see an evolution quite fast.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Since SNOR is not a commercial project, can we assume your motives are truly altruistic then?
BRUNO ROELS: It’s definitely the most altruistic thing I’ve done in my life.
BERT DE JONGHE: It's 100 % altruistic.
BRUNO ROELS: I don’t believe in 100% altruistic motives.
BERT DE JONGHE: But we do create SNOR for the photographers, don't we?
BRUNO ROELS: That’s true.
BERT DE JONGHE: The only non-altruistic motive is…
BRUNO ROELS: The women!
BERT DE JONGHE: … that we are creating something that is there. It’s our inheritance for the next generation.
ROSIE & THE RABBITS: Do you get appreciation for your work and energy?
BRUNO ROELS: Too little I guess. We put a lot of time in it and people don’t always realise that. But in general the photographers are grateful.
BERT DE JONGHE: Even honoured.
BRUNO ROELS: One of the nice things about SNOR is that we got to know a lot of artists which we wouldn’t have noticed if SNOR hadn’t existed.
BERT DE JONGHE: This being said, we also get friendship from it.
BRUNO ROELS: That’s right. You can write down we are friends too.
www.snor.it
www.facebook.com/pages/SNOR
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