Thomas Pirot • Cape Coral
Please introduce yourself: what’s your name, where are you from, what do you do?
My Name is Thomas Pirot. I was born in Mainz, Germany and I somehow ended up right here again for now. I’m a photographer.
What is your relationship with photography? How did you get into it & and what keeps you interested/ motivated?
My brother gave me his film SLR for my first trip to Israel when I was 16 years old. That was the first time I consciously chose angles and focal lengths I think. At that time the Second Intifada was very present on our TV screens as well as what I remember of the 2003 invasion of Iraq and that’s exactly where I drew my inspiration from: images of war. My first visit to Israel and the occupied territories and the pictures I took there were most probably what gave me a first, superficial idea of what I wanted do do a few years into the future.
Over time I went from wide angle lenses and a journalistic, sometimes sensationalistic approach to a more distanced, calmer stance using medium format cameras and a tripod trying to separate myself from what I wanted to capture. That’s basically what i did when I concluded my studies with a final project on the influence of ‘the situation’ on the Israeli landscape.
Photography takes me to places and confronts me with people and situations I probably wouldn’t ever have the pleasure to deal with. The urban spheres we live in are something that never seems to cease motivating me to go out there with a camera – though my biggest interest lies, ultimately, in humans. That’s why I chose to finally make the plunge into portrait photography in January 2017.
What are you currently working on, and – if there is – what is your next project/ journey?
I’m still baffled by the fact that I’m able to make a living by working as a photographer and I can hardly express how much I appreciate this. Besides that I’m putting every vacant minute into a documentary film project that deals with male sexuality.
