I came across Dutch photographer Marjolein Martinot’s Riverland project via an interview with Ben Smith, A Small Voice podcast and when I searched for her online, I immediately felt as though she visually ‘spoke my language’. Her latest book “Riverland’ is highly evocative of the time spent at the waters edge for me and my family. Not only for the photographs that I have taken for this final project but in countless other examples, from sea and mountain holidays abroad, visiting family in France spending time in wild spaces. The themes are so closely aligned, the difference lies in skill or at least, stage of career. I believe I can create work at the same meaningful, awe inspiring scale.
Martinot is great friends with Vanessa Winship and credits her with being a significant inspiration. I can see the similarities especially from Winships project ‘she dances on jackson‘. However, I think that Winships photography is more journalistic in style, Martinot’s is more personal and poetic. I don’t think its overly sentimental as there is a depth to her images beyond this. I also see a Sally Mann influence in her broader body of work and she discusses this influence in in the Smith interview. She reflects on her creative practice as a mother of 6, she explains the difficulty with balancing her time and energy and that she has to take herself off to be creative, I find this relatable. If I am home, I find that the other jobs seem to win my attention. It is a discipline to gather equipment up and head out, its certainly something I need to do much more.
The black and white images I show above are from Riverland. The colour images are from a different projects and I have included them to illustrate the aesthetic quality that I admire. Riverland is an analogue project, using a Rolleiflex camera, that she started in 2020, when much of the world was in some sort of lockdown. The body of work consists of portraits and landscapes from rivers and waterways in France, where she lives. She regarded the river as a metaphor for life in the way it meanders and flows along.
The portraits above are reminiscent of some of the photographs I’ve taken myself, these below at the lake in summer, technically there are of course vast differences but I’ve shown my photographs below to illustrate my point in terms of theme.
It is of course a different experience to take a photo of a stranger. She discusses this saying that she finds that aspect very difficult. This surprises me because she has so many beautiful examples of portraits in her catalogue and I would assume this would be something to avoid if its not a process you enjoy, however, I realise that the point here is to overcome this, to prevent it being a barrier to her own development. This is quite a realisation as I consider the ways in which I restrict my own development because of fear. Martinot talks about how she feels like she needs to rush because she has a sense of imposing on people, this is what I feel too but she explains that by talking to people as she works this removes that fear and it is becoming easier. I am mindful of this and I feel determined to challenge myself in the future when potentially creating photograph
This is a great article which is at the core of my subject: https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2025/jun/11/down-by-the-river-a-meditation-on-mental-health-in-pictures
Lucinda Taylor 