Marta Berens

Suiti

[ EPF 2014 SHORTLISTED ]

The history of the Suiti people goes back almost 400 years to a romantic story from 1623 when the ruler of the Alsunga region (Kurzeme, Latvia), Johan Ulrich von Schwerin, in order to marry a Polish court lady Barbara Konarska, agreed to re-convert to the Catholic faith. To distinguish residents of Alsunga from Protestants Johan ordered them to wear specific costumes. These have become an important element of identity for the Suiti. Nowadays, protecting their identity, brought by their ancestors through centuries is still important and makes this religious minority very special. Visiting Alsunga is a trip to a place where time passes slowly, people have a strong relation with nature and a romantic story from the past is still present.

 

 

Bio

Born in Warsaw, Poland.
In 2012 graduated from the Documentary Workshop with Michal Luczak, at Academy of Photography in Warsaw.
September 2012 – June 2013 member of Mentoring Programme lead by Sputnik Photos collective with Adam Panczuk as a mentor.
Since October 2013 student of Institute of Creative Photography at Silesian University in Opava, Czech Republic.

 

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5 thoughts on “Marta Berens – Suiti”

  1. Delicate fragments and I think you went with the right colors to visualise these , also the posed women ( ? or is it one woman ) works with that imo.
    Photo 2 and 7 are my favorit.

    The first photo and to end with a closer shot of her , maybe implies that we know more of her way of life , I am not sure I do but I somewhat got in the mood of it all , with some photo’s more than others .
    Are all these natureshots needed , I don’t know , it doesn’t really show how they are in touch with nature , I mean do they live of the land or am I too romantic now and is there some organic supermarket close by .

    What does show is that you could make contact , she opened her ( their ?) house for you and you see her pride and that is emotional .
    It’s a woman’s romance .

  2. I like this essay; particularly the pastel colour as found in the far north. Some of the photographs seem, to me, superfluous to the essay e.g. 3, 9, 10, as they tell me nothing about the Suiti people, although the colour and atmosphere of the entire essay is very appealing.

    I always want to learn as much as I can from any essay, so I would have liked captions that added to knowledge about the Suiti people.

    Apologies for the comments if they seem negative: they are not meant to be, I really enjoyed the photographs. Thank you Marta.

    One other minor point: should the C. K. Chesterton quote on your website be G. K. Chesterton (Gilbert Keith)?

    Mike.

  3. Exceedingly nice photos – there’s a couple that don’t quite reach me, but that’s okay. One thing that drove me a little nuts was the dust spots. I open up a picture and there, right away, competing with the image itself for the my attention are maddening dust spots.

    But I don’t want to get nit picky about it because Marta is obviously a talented photographer and maybe spotting materials are hard to get where she is. But she could improvise or take out the spots in the scanned images before she presents them online.

    On a personal note that doesn’t really matter at all, I was a little puzzled by Mike R’s statement about the far north. Being of the Far North, nothing in these images looks far north to me at all. North, but not far north.

    An irrelevant matter of perspective, I guess.

  4. Hi Bill,
    obviously my far north isn’t what you would call far north – hardly anyone has a north as far north as you (laughing). I was referring to the colour palette: it has a pastel feels to it as opposed to, say, the Mediterranean or Florida; where you get intense colour and very sharp light.

    Mike.

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