About

Stephan Ferdinand

Photography, Painting and Interior Space: The Image as Object

The work of Stephan Ferdinand occupies a distinctive position within contemporary photographic practice. It resides at the convergence of three traditions: optical rigour, pictorialist aesthetics, and a conceptual commitment to the photograph as a physical, inhabitable object. Rejecting post-production entirely, Ferdinand works with vintage lenses that endow each image with a subtle, atmospheric signature. The result is not a digital capture, but a crafted visual artefact—resolved entirely in-camera, final at the moment of exposure.

A defining element of his practice lies in the manner of presentation. These are monumental prints on fabric, produced with archival pigment inks and conceived to exceed the traditional expectations of scale within photographic exhibition. Over the course of seven years, Ferdinand developed a singular format he has termed the Printed Frame: a unified surface in which the image, mount and frame are seamlessly integrated. The effect is disarming—neither photograph in frame nor pictorial simulation, but a new category altogether, where content and support are indistinguishable.

His use of colour is equally deliberate. Eschewing saturation, Ferdinand works with a restrained palette of pastel tones, calibrated to achieve visual harmony rather than assertive contrast. Combined with the softness inherent in his optics, the result is a body of work characterised by quietude, presence and poise.

These are not images that merely adorn; they are conceived to inhabit architectural space with elegance and precision. In this sense, Ferdinand’s work proposes a threefold synthesis: photography as vision, painting as atmosphere, and interior design as context. The outcome is not decorative but spatially articulate—images that exist with integrity, and that remain.