It’s easy to forget that photographing people requires a lot of communication. Whether it’s capturing an enrobed graduate for the family mantelpiece, or convincing a model to shed a few threads, or even papping Russell Brand as he minces down the steps of the Dorchester, photographers need to be clever with their words in order to get the shot they want from their subject.

Portraiture tests this discourse between photographer and subject most severely and it’s the medium Martin Zähringer chose to explore in Mute Shoot, the results of which you can see at the Print House Gallery private view on Wednesday.Unable to speak after the removal of a polyp in his vocal chords required him to go under the knife Zähringer shot his flatmates, friends and then strangers, including YBA Tim Noble, in his east London home-studio over six days. A music video director and emerging photographer Zähringer’s debut solo show features fifty low-contrast black and white portraits taken over this period. Was Mute Shoot an experiment, an antidote to boredom, a more measured investigation into the relationship between model and photographer, or perhaps all three? Intrigued by the logistical issues as much as the shoots creative significance, I darted Martin a few questions.

Where did the idea for the shoot come from?
Six days of unproductivity scared me a little. I guess I could have read, watched TV and kicked back but it dawned on me there was an opportunity to do something interesting with my little predicament.

How was your approach practically and creatively different to your usual way of working?
It was a bit of an uncomfortable setup. I was really quite close to people with my camera and on top of that, I couldn’t speak to them, which made most of them feel a little lost and awkward. I hoped this would help to extract a part of them that wouldn’t come through under normal circumstances.

How did you initially ask people to get involved with no voice?
I set up a group on Facebook and emailed them directly. Once they had seen a few of the images on the group page more and more people got interested and contacted me.

What was the process when you got them into the studio?
I had a very intimate portrait setup with a very soft light on people. I just put them in front of the lens and let it happen really, normally taking about 15 shots per person and then picking out the one that really stood for that person. When I wasn’t shooting people I used stickies on my Mac, the letter size set to huge, in order to communicate with them outside the shoot.

Was there any particular effect you were aiming to create or were you simply experimenting?
It started as an experiment and turned into a project.

Are there any themes in the collection, which shed any light on your relationship with your models, or teach you anything about them?
There are no themes as such, all images have the same importance and feel to them in reference to the whole body of work. I guess that each image I picked for the show explains something about that person to me, a feeling that is probably subjective. So in essence, all images to me are a metaphor of that person as a whole, if you like.

How did the Tim Noble image come about?
Tim happened to come by the flat one night via a mutual friend who explained the whole setup and concept to him. It wasn’t easy to get him in front of the camera at first, but he did it in the end. I saw him a few days ago at his show in Berlin and he said he thought that night was a dream and wasn’t sure it actually it happened. I reassured him it did happen. He’s coming to the opening on Wednesday.

Martin Zähringer website