Lottie Davies
“I can’t imagine what it would be like to live in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on an island where you can walk from one side to the other in just 15 minutes,” Kevin Faingnaert says to begin to explain his fascination with unusual communities. His sense of wonder led him to spend last February in the cold, beautiful and remote Faroe Islands, where he spent a month photographing the people he met and the places he visited there. The resulting series ‘Føroyar’ won the Zeiss Photography Award ‘Seeing Beyond’ in the Sony World Photography Awards and pride of place in the award exhibition at London’s Somerset House.
THE YOUNG Belgian has only been working full-time as a photographer for two years, dedicating much of his time to personal projects to build up his portfolio. With no art school or photography background, Faingnaert bought his first camera to record his friends performing skateboard tricks when he was a teenager, and has been shooting ever since. After five years as a school assistant, he quit his job and two days later dedicated himself to photography. “I had always dreamed about making a living from photography, but I thought it would be too hard, or impossible. Then I thought, ‘I’m going to try it,’ and I started photographing morning until evening.”
His dedication to professional photography is apparent in his work since. Projects include quietly understated images shot in an eco-community in Spain called Matavenero; beautifully spare travel work from Bolivia and Peru to Portugal; almost poetic photographs of banger racers at home in Belgium; and strangely calm portraits of cartoon-like wrestlers. His latest works, ‘Føroyar’ and ‘St Olaf’s Wake’, offer portraits of the Faroes and their people.
His first visit to the islands came about almost by putting a pin in a globe. “I was bored in Belgium. It was January, and I had no plans – I didn’t have a project. I thought perhaps I would just go away to try to find something while travelling. I was looking for islands, but I didn’t want to go to the other side of the
