JOEY FISCHER

I was born in Guatemala City in the early 80’s, just a few years after my father, a bright Austrian engineer, met my mother, the youngest daughter of a large, cheerful family of Ladino coffee plantation owners. I spent much of my childhood traveling due to the nature of my father’s work.

We got to experience life in diverse places during strange political times. To name a few: Saudi Arabia in the late ‘80s just before the start of the Gulf War, Germany during the fall of the Berlin Wall, Romania a few years after the Ceaușescu regime, and Guatemala at the end of the long and bloody civil war.

Since early childhood, I had always been drawn towards the visual arts more than any other subject. This fascination with imagery led me to pursue a career in graphics, which I later dropped in favour of architecture. I spent my uni years with my grandparents who were generous enough to take me in during a time that I had no one else to support me.

Architecture was fantastic, but it just wasn’t right for me. I absolutely loved everything about the design aspect of it, but the reality of the career just didn’t seem appealing to me.

It wasn’t until I stumbled upon photography in my mid 20’s that I truly believed I had found my calling.

The first time someone handed me a “professional” camera was when I was very young. My dad was a big photography enthusiast and had the best of the best in 1980’s enthusiast gear.

The second time someone gave me a “professional” camera was in the late ‘00s, when a friend of mine hooked me up with an events photography job at a weekly lifestyle publication in Guatemala City. Not only were the next six months of the most thrilling and fun I’d had in a long time, I had also found an exciting medium that I wanted to desperately keep exploring.

During that time I got to meet the most exciting people from all kinds of scenes, went to wonderful places, skipped queues, crashed backstages, dated jet setters… and all while getting paid to party and learning about photography. Life was wonderful. I eventually grew out of the job and left it to try my luck in corporate jobs.

Shortly after, I found myself getting stuck in a tedious routine that consisted of sitting in traffic for hours on end just to get to a cubicle that was designed to make you feel more statistic than human. The money was okay, and the weekends were all mine to go on adventures around Guatemala with all my new wonderful and weird creative / party friends, but the truth is that that job made me absolutely miserable. I was ready for a change and needed a plan.

I decided to save up all I could, fix up and sell my car, buy a camera and head out on a one way ticket to Berlin, which at that time was the city was taking over as coolest city around. I had no further plan, and was open to whatever adventure was waiting for me. There were many.

I arrived in London in early 2014. It was on a whim. I had never even considered London until I met a gang of girls on the Canary Islands that invited me over to couchsurf for a while. I was blown away. London was exciting and fun and full of energy.

My fistful of Euros was about to run out when I found a job. Of course, it was a soul-sucking cubicle thing again. My first address in London was a rundown Romanian doss house in Woolwich which was advertised as a cheap hostel.

My roommates were about two dozen eastern european alcoholics. It was winter. I had no money. My friends lived three zones away across the river. But still, I was having the best time ever. It was me against the world. It was exciting.

Five years in and counting, London is now truly my home. I found my dream girl and we’re getting married later this year. We live in a placid corner of East Dulwich surrounded by friends. This year is turning into the best so far.

I worked as a professional studio photographer for about a year before I quit. Sometimes I take on freelance work -you can see some of my commercial work here- but it wasn’t until I bought the old Leica that I really started to find my own style. It’s a no-nonsense instrument that lets me forget about all the non-essentials.

I develop my black and white film to be grainy and gritty. I think the aesthetics are great and cohesive but it also allows me to shoot under all kinds of lighting. I like shooting out in the real world, as opposed to be confined to a studio. In a city as interesting as London, why would I shoot things in a white room? Also, black and white film just looks timeless. A b/w print will look great in thirty years, a colour one will look dated within a season.

I’d like to think that I’m influenced by architecture, politics, scale, urban archetypes, geometrical composition and emotion through light. I love meeting people and placing them against an urban scenery. I like comedic juxtaposition. I’m my biggest critic and it has taken me years of convincing to finally to get me to publish these.

My biggest pride would be to one day pay my bills through selling my prints.

I’m currently curating my first exhibition, Familiar Strangers (see below).

CONTACT

hello@thisisjoey.com

FAMILIAR STRANGERS

Familiar Strangers is the title of my first photographic series on black and white film. I intend to expand on it for as long as I remain in London.

The photos intend to portray an honest perspective this city feels like to me. It’s a respectful nod to at all the lonely, overworked, brave, proud, and resilient souls of London living in uncertain times.

I’ve been trying to make an exhibition happen for a while now.

Pop up exhibition: London, Autumn 2019 - For invites please sign up here.