Vetter photographs the overlooked periphery of European cities: the ring road, the substation, the retention basin nobody has ever photographed on purpose. We talked about what a centre hides, and about the patience required to photograph an absence of events.
Why the edges of cities?
The edges of a city tell the truth its centre hides. That is where you see how a place actually works — what it needs, where it puts what it would rather not look at, and who it forgets.
Your images are very still.
I wait for the moment nothing happens. Stillness lets the place speak instead of the event. If a bird crosses the frame I have to start again, which sounds precious until you see the picture with the bird in it.
How long does one picture take?
Between two visits and forty. The basin above took eleven, over two winters, because the water level was never twice the same and I had decided in advance what it should be.
The edges of a city tell the truth its centre hides.
The work so far
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2016
First periphery pictures
Made around Leipzig, initially as studies.
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2019
Moves to large format
Fewer pictures, longer waits.
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2024
Paris begins
The southern and eastern edges.