First of all thank you very much for your contribution to our project. Can you please introduce yourself for us?

Thank you for giving me the opportunity to share this project with you. I was born and raised in the very south of Germany as the fourth of four daughters of my parents. I grew up in a very small village where everyone knew everyone else and my uncle had more cows than there were people in the village. I moved away in my early twenties to study special education in Stuttgart and Freiburg. I graduated and moved to Basel, Switzerland, with my husband. Two years ago we decided to leave our comfortable life behind for a while and moved to Ghana for a year. Back in Basel, I started working again as a special needs teacher at a local school, enjoying and questioning this life at the same time. I try to spend a lot of my free time hiking in the mountains. Wandering around the city, revisiting places, taking my time. I love to just be. And documenting the simple things in life with my analogue cameras.

How did you start in photography?

As a child, I loved watching my mother take pictures of us as a family and our life in the village I call home. I cherish the moments she captured when we went on holiday once a year. She gave me my first camera when I was very young. I started to make my own photo books to resemble the ones she made. As I got older, she gave me her old film camera with which she had captured all those memories. And my love of capturing moments developed into what it is today. All these years later, I'm still making my own photo books, printing my photos and manually placing each one. I started making photo books with my nieces and nephews, with memories of our time together, as my husband and I don't live in the village where I grew up, but they all do.

What is ‘Barfuss' about?

‘Barfuss’. An adjective that describes my childhood in this small village of no more than 65 people. A village on a dead-end street at the edge of a forest. What a place to grow up in.

For me, being home means being barefoot (barfuss). To know every square meter of our property by the bare feeling of my feet on the ground. A feeling I will never have again except at home.

This series is an attempt to make my memories come alive in my pictures. Watching my father cleaning the stable of our horses. Singing out loud in fear as I walked to my uncle's farm with our milk can in hand, winter darkness surrounding me. There was only one streetlight in those days. Helping my mother clean the bathroom. Picking coloured grape leaves with my sister in October for our mother's birthday decoration. Ice skating on the tiny frozen lake in the middle of the forest.

What was your motivation behind this project?

When I moved away, I realised how important this reliable place was for me. I became this adventurer because of this place that gave me deep and strong roots. When I come back to see my family and spend time in this place I call home, I see small changes here and there. Houses have been painted, shacks demolished, more lanterns on the streets, my cousin is having to give up his dairy business. I realised that my nieces and nephews would grow up in the same place, but they would have a different experience to mine. So I started documenting the places and people that shaped my childhood before they disappeared. But I'm also following my nieces and nephews as they move through the seasons in this place that I call home. And now it is their home. A new generation. A new set of eyes and ears. A new perspective for me to see home not just as I saw it, but as they see it now.

In general, what inspires your work?

Some might say it's ordinary. But for me, it's simplicity that helps me make sense of the complex chaos of our lives. And it is simplicity that inspires my work.

My sister holding my niece's hand on a walk in the woods. Looking back during a hike to see what I've accomplished so far. Watching a thunderstorm in the Kalahari, hoping for rain. Looking up in a big city like Hong Kong, where I feel so lost among so many other people. A teddy bear in a washed-up garbage patch. My father smiling proudly as he hugs his eldest grandson.

All intertwined. Simplicity and complexity. Nostalgia and the future.

Who are your favourite photographers / artists?

Over the years, I have come to realise how much Basel and its opportunity to showcase exquisite work by artists has shaped my view and the way I photograph. I am drawn to scenes and colours that feel and look like paintings. Artists who inspire me from this perspective are Georgia O'Keffe, Edward Hopper, Claude Monet and Wayne Thiebaud, to name a few. I admire Vivian Maier's work and the fact that she has never shown it herself, Andreas Gursky with his extremely large formats and Willem Verbeek for his simple and timeless photographs.

What is your favourite photo book?

I love holding a photo book in my hands. The feeling of turning the pages and the feel of the cover and the print. So this is a difficult question for me to answer, because there are so many factors at play. My current favourite photo books are probably 'On the sunny side of the street' by Willem Verbeek and 'House hunting' by Todd Hido.

Thank you very much for your time and contribution to analog magazine.

Thank you for featuring 'barfuss'. You can see more of my work on my website: rebecca-suur.format.com

All images © Rebecca Suur