Klaus Fruchtnis is a young photographer from Columbia whose work features wide-angle scenes of people and situations that are not always what they seem. A closer look can reveal architecture merged into impossible angles and perspectives and repeating figures in a single scene. He has exhibited his work in group and solo exhibitions around the world. His latest collection, “360 Degrees,” can be viewed at Hu’u Gallery and will run until the end of April.

How did you get into photography in the first place?
I can’t give you one reason… I think I feel more comfortable with images than words. I can go beyond real feelings through my images because they are real to me.
I started taking pictures when I was 14 years old. Since then, I still feel it is a very interesting way to keep the magic of a moment and the purity of a second of life.

Where does your inspiration come from?
I have thousands of sources of inspiration. But one thing that helps my inspiration to come out is my curiosity. I like to spend my time looking around and waiting for an idea or a situation to come to me. I am very interested by the paintings of the Renaissance, especially by all the paintings that represent a traditional composition of the space or a particular and unusual way to see an image. I’m also very interested by all the Antonioni and Greenaway movies; also by architecture and urbanism.

What themes are explored in this exhibition?
The main theme of this exhibition is the space and its structure. The characters do not have much to tell. The viewer is in the image but somehow excluded from the scene. Each photograph has a different composition of floating conversations, light silences, triangulation of glances, and the same characters twice…in a few words it’s a scene to be contemplated.

You say that your photographs are not panoramic. Explain how they are not.
Well, I mean that my photographs are not conventional panoramic images. You can have a first feeling that it is a reproduction of the space, but it is not. Everything, even the composition, is false. I like to play with the perspective and the space, setting up my own strategy of vision of the reality. My pictures demand time to be seen. You can feel and find different things every time you look at them. They are like a puzzle.

What are you working on now? What are your future plans?
Last year, I started a monumental project called ‘360° to the sky’ (360 photographs taken to the sky with a ‘fish-eye’ lens). I’ve been doing this project in different cities around the world (Shanghai, London, Paris, Bangkok, Bogotá, …) where I think there are new territories as a thematic space of art development. I am still in the middle of this project and the results until now are amazing, I am very happy about that. I would like to show this project in future exhibitions in Bangkok, Bogotá and Miami where the gallery that represents me is located.