Besnik Mehmeti, Born: 1971
Living and working in London
Exploring the inner layers as they unfold across a single, living surface.
My current approach to experimental photography explores how time and memory can be distilled into a single image. Through the use of multiple exposure techniques, I construct compositions from fragments of everyday life, on the streets, within landscapes, or in the studio. While the main subject remains recognisable, overlapping layers spill into one another, creating a sense of the persistence of memory and enriching the mood.
My background in the motion picture and television industry, where sequences unfold through duration and rhythm, has shaped my interest in expressing time within a still image. The final stage of my process involves building the physical surface and bringing each piece to life. I often refer to this stage as sculpting the surface. Every sheet of paper is handmade, individually crafted rather than taken from a uniform stock. I stabilise it with multiple layers of emulsions, coatings, and textures, all applied by hand. Once prepared, the paper acquires substantial weight and density, onto which I print the final image directly on the textured surface. The surface holds a subtle depth and irregularity, and as light shifts throughout the day, these variations interact gently with the image. Time appears to move across the surface, quiet, gradual, and almost imperceptible. Each work is then retouched by hand if needed, varnished for protection, and displayed without glass so that the surface can be seen and felt directly. It has taken me years to refine this process, and I continue to evolve it through new subjects, photographic experiments, and an ever-deepening engagement with it. To be fully appreciated, the final pieces need to be seen in person. Their subtle textures and slight three-dimensional qualities are difficult to convey on a screen, where their depth and presence are inevitably lost. Viewers often remark on how much more alive the works appear when encountered in real life.
From a Twenty Second Image to Everything After
His path began with a single failed photograph, an image that survived only twenty seconds before fading to black. That moment turned photography into a challenge he refused to abandon.
His relationship with the medium took shape in the early 90s in London. He converted his bathroom into a darkroom and spent long hours trying to produce a print worth keeping.
In 1994 he returned briefly to his hometown, Skopje, Northern Macedonia, where he spent some time documenting the city and the surrounding towns and villages. The mood was grim; a few hundred kilometres away, the war in Bosnia was in full force, and that weight pressed into the images he made, direct, subdued, and unembellished. When he returned to London and developed those rolls, he understood that photography would not be a passing phase. In 1999, with no hostile-environment training, no field experience, no commission, and only an entry-level camera, he travelled to document the Kosova War. That decision led him into news, current affairs, and documentary filmmaking for major UK and international broadcasters. Photography always remained something he returned to and his passion for it has only deepened over time. After Kosova and later Iraq, he realised that conflict photography was an addictive space it pulls you in and can leave you lurking in the dark indefinitely if you’re not properly prepared and supported. Yet he has always admired those who step into a realm where the line between sanity and madness is almost nonexistent, risking everything to keep the public informed and document atrocities around the world.
Over time, his photography has shifted to something more personal, an escape from the factual demands of news into a more imaginative and reflective space. In 2020, his image Silent Covid Morning, created during the first UK lockdown, was awarded UK Landscape Photographer of the Year. The recognition reaffirmed his connection to photography and pushed his practice further.
What began as a search for clarity has evolved into an acceptance of the unexpected, and a commitment to keep pushing the image forward.