Interview with Henrieta Haniskova

When Hanrieta Haniskova moved from Czechoslovakia to work in Canada as a nanny, she decided to spend her first paycheque on a camera.  Gradually she managed to shift her career to photography. Today she infuses her documentary work with a fashion photographer's aesthetic, bringing people's personalities to the fore in her images.  Over the past three years, she's applied this style to shooting the Collingwood Elvis Festival, striving to capture the men behind the sideburns.  Her pictures have appeared in Report on Business, En Route and Eye Magazine and were recognized with a featured exhibition at the Scotiabank CONTACT Photography Festival.

		PHOTOGRAPHER Henrieta Haniskova On a weekend trip to Collingwood, Ont., in 2007, Haniskova was "sucked into a rabbit hole of jumpsuits and sideburns."  By chance, she'd stumbled onto the largest annual Elvis gathering outside of Memphis.  She has returned to photograph The Kings every year since. To see more of Haniskova's pictures, check out the July/August issue of Canadian Geographic.  Her other work can be viewed on her website.
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Q What is the atmosphere like when you get to Collingwood's Elvis Festival?

AIt's exciting. Collingwood is not a very big town and the festival attracts about 10,000 people every year, just for one weekend. Most of them are really psyched. They know a lot of the performers because they go to different festivals and see them again and again.

The Elvises are welcoming and friendly to their fans, because Elvis was. I can't say "imitate", they would give me a really hard time if I said that. The guys I've photographed are Elvis tribute artists. One of them has a nine-piece band. He lives in Moncton, N.B., travels around and fills up 3,000 seat venues. It's his full-time job, and he's an incredible performer.

He won first place last year in Collingwood and went on to Memphis to compete for the the title of "ultimate Elvis tribute artist." Another one of those guys lives in Elliot Lake, Ont., which is a tiny place, but he organizes an Elvis festival there because he loves it so much.

Q What is your most memorable experience from attending the festival so often?

AMy sessions photographing the Elvis portraits in one little room. Each Elvis gave me personal performances, just for my camera. A lot of them are amazing singers, so it was really fun to have an Elvis tribute artist sing just for me.

QAre you an Elvis fan?

A I guess I'm turning into an Elvis fan. I didn't grow up with Elvis. I'm sure his music was on the radio, but in Czechoslovakia we only had one radio station and a few TV channels, and those only worked between 5 p.m. and midnight. I never knew that Elvis made movies until I saw one last year. I didn't really know much about him, and it was a total coincidence that when I first went to Collingwood that it was on the weekend of the festival. I was shocked to see the scale of this thing. It's the largest Elvis festival in the world, and they have about 200 performers that compete.

QYou didn't know there was going to be a festival?

A I had no idea. I've been here in Toronto for more than 15 years now and the most I've seen of Elvis' presence is a couple of busts in the corner store. So going to Collingwood, seeing ten Elvises on every corner and then a parade of Cadillacs with Elvises in them, waving at people, was a bit of a surprise. I wanted to see more of it.

QSo was this more of an impromptu photo shoot?

A I wish the universe worked like that. No. That would have to be an enormous amount of luck, and that's the difference between making a photograph and taking a photograph: to make a photograph you have to create the opportunity. If you just happen to walk somewhere and snap a shot, you can be very lucky, or you can end up with a million pictures that are not really all that exciting.

So, no, the following year I called up the organizers of the festival and asked them if I could come set up a studio and photograph people. They gave me space in their city hall, in the same room where the Elvis tribute artists were registering, so it was really easy to get their attention. They lined up! I photographed about 50 people that day, but there was still a lineup waiting for me to shoot them. It was exhausting.

Read Henrieta Haniskova's tips on fashion photography.

QThat sounds like an amazing experience.

AYes, they're becoming my friends now. I don't know if I'm an Elvis fan, or more of an Elvis tribute artist fan. I love the music; I think there are very few people in the world who don't. Elvis had that effect on people because his message was so positive. It's amazing to even watch the little kids get so into it.

QThat was a great shot, the one with the older man in Elvis attire, and the little kid dressed up too.

AThere was a lot of that. The kids love it, just because they get so much attention from grown-ups at the festival, and it's a way of really connecting with their relatives. I photographed a boy that was eleven years old a few years ago. I asked his parents: "did you motivate him to do this?" They said: "no, he just loves it. He has fun with it; that's why he's doing it." And he performed really, really well.

Q How does the Elvis project relate to the rest of your work?

A I started photographing Elvis tribute artists because I love the care with which they present themselves, but I soon realized that they're also fascinating individuals. At this point I want to know who they are, where they came from, how Elvis has permeated their lives and why. I have this curiosity with people around me.

Interview by Scott Berdahl