Contributed – Camera Obscura

Nowheresville, by Andy Prisbylla

Andy Prisbylla — Fri, 22 Jan 2016 13:24:38 +0000

Words & Pictures by Andy Prisbylla.

The tribal constitution is a key philosophy in the history of the home. Shelter, in all intents and purposes, is designed to provide security and comfort to those who inhabit it. Before the permanence of contemporary lodgings, dwellings existed in a more ephemeral nature. The nomadic tradition of early housing was dictated by the hunter/gather instinct, resulting in shelters that lasted only periods of days, weeks and months before being discarded and recreated in a different environment. As seasonal temperaments and agricultural needs began to shift, the idea of the home changed as well, becoming more intimate and fixed. Urbanization soon kicked in and families migrated from the rural land to more densely populated areas, creating societal norms and a sense of community. The home became much more personal. A place where you felt safe and secure. Your own immediate sanctuary from the harshness of the outside world.

Enough with the history lesson. I knew this was going to be a sad one as soon as I got in the car. I’ve been putting off this adventure for quite some time. My parents sold my childhood home four years ago and it’s been languishing in abandonment for the past two. Lurid stories have manifested of what’s become of the property since the previous owner couldn’t afford the mortgage and the bank foreclosed on the house. Strange tales of chicken coops overrunning the two acre property that blighted the market value and upset neighbors. Disgusting descriptions of multiple pets destroying the inside carpet with feces, urine and all the other wonderful byproducts that cats and dogs produce. The sump pump recently quit working and the basement was now flooded with over two feet of water, creating a biohazard of mold throughout the house. The last public auction of $93,000 took no takers. Seems like a deal for a multi-level three bedroom home with two bathrooms, but all buyers are responsible for repairs and the purchase of a new furnace, and the last time I checked money doesn’t grow on trees.

This unfortunate circumstance of lost homes and broken dreams has become a harsh reality for those in the household market, particularly in Jefferson County, Ohio, where my old stomping grounds are located. 20% of all residencies are currently in the pre-foreclosure stage with 56% on the auction block and 24% in the hands of the bank. Sometimes this is the fault of the homeowner, or in most cases, the dreaded eye of the economy. Regardless of the blame game mortgages fail and families suffer. It wasn’t like this when I lived there, and I try to remind myself of that as I pull off the parkway onto Route 22; that great connector of the tri-state area that unifies Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio in geographic harmony.

It’s the people who make the home and my parents were pretty good at that. $28,000 in 1976 could take you a long way, particularly on my father’s coal mining salary. My folks broke ground that winter after two years of marriage and surviving the rental market. The last place they lived in had rats and they would be damned if that was going to continue any further. The frame went up not too long after and by March of 1977 they had their first real home. The interior was barren and my mother spent the next couple of weeks painting the walls and staining the trim herself, an activity that she would continue to accomplish every year or two – just to keep things fresh. She was handy when it came to fixing things around the house, while my father loved the outdoors and made sure the two acre yard was always kept up.

I turn off 22 for a short bypass along Route 43 and make a left onto Highway 646. I drive up to the house for the first time in four years. Gone are those days of an unblemished facade and I welcome in the dysfunction. The landscape crew the bank employs has been lax when it comes to yardwork, and the lawn is overgrown and dense. The gravel driveway is no longer visible. I remember being twelve years old one summer and a mother bird of cuckoo descent laid her eggs in the middle of the driveway. My family and I took it upon ourselves to protect this nurturing brood, and whenever we had visitors we made sure to point out – sometimes rather harshly – that they needed to watch what they were doing when they pulled their vehicles in. At the end of the summer I noticed that the eggs had hatched. Not long after I sat down on the front porch with my mom. In a sign of gratitude the mother bird and her kids walked past us – as if to say thanks for the summer long service. Sometimes good deeds get rewarded.

I make my way past the overgrown brush that has crawled up the side of the house and is now feasting on the warm juices of the neighbor’s power lines and head into the backyard. The three septic tank pipes that protrude through the ground are now buried in the overgrowth, and I trip on one as I push further into the underbrush. As kids we used these tanks as bases, with the triangular setting of the pipes making an ideal baseball diamond. The same goes for the clothes line that my dad and I would use as a badminton net. He was always better than me and I was sore loser, but that didn’t stop me from asking him to play time and time again.

I pull out my camera and start snapping away, making sure to close my bag in fear of snakes. The shutter hits hard and one shot lands on the basketball hoop that we installed in the garden after the soil turned to stone. My dad’s work shed stands achingly nearby, now dilapidated and on its way out. I remember keeping the basketball in there amongst the tractors, lawnmowers and other tools of the landscaping trade, and having to endure the sweet scent of gasoline that would buildup in the unventilated structure. I still love that smell.

The crux of every family unit, regardless of blood relations, is love. It’s about who you let into your circle and the experiences you have. It’s all subjective. The sadness that comes with an abandoned dwelling is not due to any sense of ownership, but to the moments you shared within them. The conversations, the get-togethers, the quiet occurrences and the epic battles that families partake in all become the story of your life, whether good or bad. They inform who you choose to be and you take what you will and leave the rest. People become homesick not because of the physical loss of place but because of the emotional connection they have with the individuals who informed that place. Overgrown brush and dilapidated wood may signal anger or sadness upon viewing, but it’s the corruption of the past that it truly represents.

A cold silence enters the atmosphere. My gut tells me that I’ve overstayed my welcome and I place the camera back in the bag. I thought my childhood memories would be forever tainted by the atrocity of neglect that I would witness. Instead I remember it as it should be: a home where my family and I once lived and a place of refuge where I felt safe and secure. That feeling will live on in my head and my heart, and that’s where it shall remain. Robert Smithson said that nature is never finished and he meant it. The process of entropy – an object’s gradual decline into disorder and chaos – is very real in both aesthetic and spirit and is hard to reverse. This is the rule of unpredictability inherent in the process. Nothing is finite when it comes to the journey of existence and the idea of stasis is imaginary. The world is constant flux. We try to keep things the way they are out of pride and ego, but the universe has other plans. The trick is to keep moving forward. The physical has now become spiritual and belongs in a former time. I jump back in my car and leave the house in my rearview mirror. The past is predatory. Obscurity can be a virtue.

Nude in the XXI century, by Paolo Romani

Paolo Romani — Wed, 16 Sep 2015 12:05:21 +0000

Text and photos by Paolo Romani.

The “punctum” irrationally attracts the viewer to a particular detail of the photo.

The photographer, aware of the rules that govern the relationship between the ‘”operator” and the “spectator”, desperately tries to find the “punctum”.

Roland Barthes in “La Camera Chiara” explains, investigating the difference between the real world and its photographic representation.

Following these opening words, I will tell you a curious and fun story that saw me involved shooting a female nude. I carefully planned everything, and met the manager of the agency to select the right model. When the day came I was very disappointed because I discovered that a very important detail was missing.

The model was completely waxed, without any pubic hair!

I very abruptly ended the session. The agency director called me asking for explanations; Despite having paid, I apologized, my poor planning had unforeseen consequences. Given the style of my images and their erotic nature pubic hair was essential.

The Director laughed raucously, today they are all like that!! if you want a model with fur you must put your order in several months ahead…. And blah blah …. AHHAAHAHH !!!

We finally agreed to ask another model to prepare for a nude photo shoot three months later.

My “absurd” request circulated among photographers and models; there was a “crazy” photographer with who knows what kind of perversion… he wants a model with pubic hair.

A photographer friend of mine laughing told me all the rumors about me, and every story ended with a big laugh. A year passed since that episode, when the international press talks of a New York store that sells lingerie, on the occasion of Valentine’s Day has set up shop windows with mannequins wearing panties from which comes out a thick black pubic hair.

That pubic hair was a great idea!

Even Gustave Courbet caused a scandal in 1886 when he painted “The Origin of the World”, not for display of female genitalia, but because he represented a forest of black pubic hair in hyperrealist style. At that time it was considered pornography to talk about it or represent it. The pubic hair war continued… between Bob Guccione and Hugh Hefner. Guccione’s Penthouse magazine, promoting lush pubic hair vastly outsold Playboy.

I was eventually able to complete the photo shoot exactly as I wanted, and as we were wrapping up and the model started asking some questions, I told her about life in Italy after the war.

At that time we used to go to the beach with wool swimsuits, which were fine until you went swimming and got them wet… they would then stretch and droop, and big “mustaches” would show through. People didn’t use creams and perfumes, everybody smelled wild, and all that horniness helped repopulate the country!!

Now a nice shaved, perfumed, elegant, pussy, no longer has anything human or exciting–just like an over-perfumed lady sitting next to you at the restaurant will rob the taste away from the best pasta all ‘amatriciana.

Like all good stories, there is a moral here: “we were born to suffer and we succeded, so what are we complaining about?”

Photography is from the Moment, by Shaun La

Shaun La — Sun, 19 Apr 2015 13:27:01 +0000

Text and photos by Shaun La.

There is an energy in any given photograph. It could be the loudness, the silence, protest, wealthy, poor, happy, sad, the fashionable or nudity that addresses the onlooker into seeing while feeling the moment. What photography has that the art of painting, music, dance, sculpture, literature & acting does not have is the existence factor that is prevailing no matter what kind of photograph a frame may be categorized under. A photograph that takes on the abstract, let us say that a photograph captures a peeled orange & within the white coverings of this orange, you can see the letter “O” mysteriously shaped into this piece of a fruit. The orange & the “O” does exist. With photography, it does not sit on the same coasting zone that an abstract painting or sculpture could travel into, while the artist of either piece could say that the start of their creation is inside of their mind; furthermore, an abstract painting or sculpture could be a fantasy that does not have a physical location to track its creative inception. Yet, if you wanted to take a field trip to this proving thought from a painter or sculpture, you would not be able to visit its birthplace, because again, it is in their mind. Painters, sculptures, music composers & writers can always offer the world a piece of art, but they can also claimed that it is unfinished. A photograph is finished once that moment is captured by the pressing down of a shutter button.

Photography is from the moment, and it is a location that can be viewed, even if it is an old location where the buildings were deconstructed—the foundation of the ground is a physical existence. The high-fashion magazine photography sessions that uses conceptualization as a way to make a cover spread a fantasy has physical sets that were built. There are clothes, makeup & hair artists, studio lights, & while their concept is a fantasy, the location does exist. The storyboards for the set may be a path that explains what they are looking for visually, but nobody knows what the next moment will consist of, this is why photography has this factor that the unknown can be introduced to the lens, despite the notion that the highest level of professional preparations for a high-fashion magazine photography session is a cushion for contrived commercialism, the moment is what they all want.

Of course, the moment is not only conceptual. It is actually boundless. Every photograph has various degrees of the moment within it. Henri Cartier-Bresson (Decisive Moment), believed in being instinctively ready to see the moment. For Ansel Adams (Visualization), it was all about calculating the possibility of seeing the photograph within your mind, & giving strict attention to how you would print the photograph, because the print is were the merits stood out as evidence for good or great photography. Garry Winogrand paced with speed that life was passing by & that if you freeze it with the camera, when you took time to study your photographs, you would unfreeze new discoveries (the need to keep photographing without over-thinking). Neither of these photographers were right or wrong. What they all hold is a commonality that expressed a theory that made them function. All of these theories are related because it expresses the tangible fullness in the moment. Photography is an addiction that makes the photographer accept the right now, & not solely on an instant gratification level either, but on a lasting power level.

If photographers could make the moment, they would be right up there with musicians who can produce a musical note, or the painter taking the brush & letting some mental activity go into their painting piece. No, the moment is not controlled by the photographer in any sense. Nobody knows the path to a good or great photograph. What the photographer does is set their Eye on the sight, measuring time, light; thus fulfilling the most basic & powerful duty that they have as a visual artist.

There is a subjectivity that every photograph owns, no matter the outcome of what society or a single onlooker may see. This is why photography takes on the objectivity of an iconic photograph, this is why photography is argued to the edge about its artistic merits. Photography has a consequence that alleviates both the subjective & the objective; especially, when it come down to the times of today that carry trendiness that comes along with the instant gratification in digital cameras & mobile phones being an accommodation that modern society uses to present their visual grip on how they see things. Other artists outside of photography have protested or shoved to the side, the artistic contributions of photography because of this erratic imbalance of not being devoted enough to choose an artistic foundational movement (subjective or objective). There basis is that anyone can point the camera, hit the shutter button & see what is already seen by the naked eye. From Peter Henry Emerson, Oscar Rejlander to Henry Peach Robinson, all the way to the group of photographers who championed art in the Linked Ring when photography within its first 100 years, the bracket of it being inviting to an artistic philosophy was there in the early stages. Alfred Stieglitz was a forerunner for photography being an art in the early part of the 20th Century & of course Group F/64 would come with their steam in the 1930’s, hoping to let the art world know about this photography is an artistic medium. Even though the debates within these various photographers & organizations met disagreements on passionate levels, they were all in one pool of agreement & this was that photography had the depth to be an Art. The water in photography is the moment, it shapes & frees itself into traveling wherever the visual messages, questions, answers, mysteries, easiness, & complexities, naturally wishes to flow.

There is no other art form that pauses life at an exact time under unique lighting conditions indoor or outdoor under an exact degree of weather, all which defines that no matter what, every second is different than the previous or future second. That moment absorbs itself in being able to be a conduit to let recollections fit into its frame of a photographic print while time goes ahead. Some people & tribes in countries won’t even allow a camera to be aimed at them. The notion that the Soul can be removed from their possession & given to a photograph can place enough of a balance in their logic to understand that photography is a pondering visual expression that can take their precious Soul.

Photography is an art-form, may I add, it is a very young & innocent but bold art-form. The moment is the oxygen that connects its element into the atmosphere called the Arts. With a 180 something year old age, photography does not have the classical history of its older relatives, painting, sculpture, music, literature & acting. But it does have a placement, because there is something culturally important when we see in a photograph, a smile, fashion, the sun, moon, stars, an animal, cold or hot wars, ceremonies, events, a space-shuttle driving up into the sky, an individual, nature & so many things that life offers to the visual senses that we can see, feel, & know as living minds that need to understandingly see living as well as our universe. After all, is this not what art is consistently seeking to be about? Photography is from the moment, because art wants to be in photography.

Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai

Alessandro Niccolai — Tue, 16 Sep 2014 19:04:20 +0000

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

Text and photos by Alessandro Niccolai.

My project titled “Secret Affinities” is focused on Journey, and in particular on my experience of life and work in Japan that was fundamental to my education. It’s divided into three collections of images (one of them taken in Fukushima), since especially 3 are the sojourns in Japan that have left substantial changes in my way of relating to the concept of travelling and… and no… I don’t think I can satisfactorily explain what should be observed and “perceived” in first person. What I can report are the sensations that I feel now, taking advantage of the opportunity to prowl, anonymous, between the works and the visitors. It’s like showing up at the dining table, a table full of food that I have cooked. From starters to coffee nothing is missing. It took time and introspection. I did what I could and I did it in my way. Now I’m here as a mere commensal to capture impressions.

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

Art always influences me and not at all in a literal form… I mean… I see exhibitions and collections and meet artists, then all this information seems to disappear but I think that everything one feels in his/her life shows up later in the creative process, in some way. Then, if a particular exhibition is too much argumentative and brings issues to life in a way that irritates me who want to see works valued for themselves, I can go home.

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

Visiting an exhibition of my own creations is completely different. I don’t interpret, I don’t feel… I just remember. I’m curious to understand if what I did is comprehensible or too dense and impenetrable for the viewers, even if, in any case, I’ll not attempt to persuade them… I simply do whatever it is I’m driven to at the time of creating a project. My desire is to communicate not alienate but I can’t pander to the taste of one particular kind of viewers.

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

Anyway, I was talking about “Secret Affinities” and this day that finds it hard to disappear below the horizon, and it does it with that typical slowness of the summer days, while I wander around looking at the reflections of the lights on the glass picture frames and reconquer step by step my own company. So, together with my rediscovered presence, I stop in front of a photograph, an eruption of light on black ground, a ghost that stretches and jumps on the buildings to take them by surprise. I make a few steps and I see clouds collapsing on me from the soul sky, as if they themselves might have been caught unaware by the emotional strength of which they are guardians and masters. I get away from that land of reflections along a road that leads to a city that immediately turns out to be more colourful, composed of fragments almost immutable, of natural creations. Here the memories seem more vivid, the colours still moist. As I pass, the leaves still seem to tremble on their aqueous double and I think I can hear the sound of the wind through the web of branches on which I fixed (when I took that photo) my gaze and lens in the uncertain light of a twilight. I limit myself to listening… listening to the words of the public. “Have you seen the eyes of this child?”, “What a beautiful backlight!”, “This Niccolai is a visionary!”, “But this is not photography! No detail, white is burnt and black is absolute.”,”This is delicate!”, “I prefer the titles to the works. They are deep!”, “I’m not an expert, but is photographing two shoes art?”, “Look? I hadn’t noticed this detail!”, “But this person vituperates the rule, the norm, the classic. He should go back to study photography and respect the form and the past!”, “Did you hear that man? Should one ask permission from some buried luminary of the industry to create? He should take leave of preconceptions and let the dead rest!”, “Do you think this is also analog? Or is it digital?”.

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

What most intrigues me is to listen to those who came to give proof of their critical knowledge and ability, and then I try to imagine them busy with the story of a dinner that certainly could not be, in their report, of fish and peas but of noble proteins and fiber. They use words that are incomprehensible, and give my photos bizzare meanings that I myself don’t understand… and what’s more they keep involving my name in their meaningless discussions.

Sometimes, on the other hand, something puts a smile on my face. A great smile. I’m talking about when I get the impression, possibly wrong, who knows, that in someone a photograph of mine is arousing a start of poetry, the impression of a story, the feeling of a past and, on a detail that I had not even noticed, the vision stops to interpret a reality spurred by something that has nothing to do with intelligence and logic.

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

Now I see in front of me a line of questioning heads, and, behind, other lines that chase and merge each other to get to new questions that arise more and more numerous, as if they had no end. Above, the ceiling enlarges and, on the sides, points downwards enclosing all this thinking. Behind it, stands another head which is a little balding. One moves when I pass and approaches to a photograph to see the details. The flow of the observers focuses on some images more than on others, but anyway seems to divide the spaces with good sense and showing their personal inclinations.

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

“Ladies and gentlemen, please, on this side some works of great refinement and”… and for a moment I’m tempted to start to afflict the visitors with the usual erudition recited in that typical instructive tour guide voice which often lies on people’s distracted fantasies.

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

Instead, I keep silent.

I like the silence of the museums. It’s a silence of buzzes. Every now and then someone makes a comment that sounds like a scream in a muggy Sunday of cicadas.

Please visit Secret Affinities by Alessandro Niccolai for the full size image.

Visit Alessandro Niccolai website to see more photographs.

Unseeing, by Julianne Nash

Julianne Nash — Sun, 10 Aug 2014 20:21:01 +0000

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

Text and photos by Julianne Nash.

I began working on the series “Unseeing” over three years ago. This body of work is simply just a visual artist attempting to understand what it would be like to completely lose ones vision, ones major tool of communication, love and passion.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

I can recall a distinct moment in time, while sitting across the room from my grandmother many years ago, and becoming infuriated with her for continually asking me the exact same question within a moments time. Given, I was preoccupied with something I was reading and simply just nodded my head “yes” to her question. Little did I know, her macular degeneration had progressed so rapidly, that my head motion was simply a blur to her. She could not decipher my visual accreditation to her statement, rather presumed that I was simply ignoring her.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

As a young girl, my grandmother assisted my single mother in raising my siblings and myself a great deal. Seeing the woman, of whom I never thought would approach her own mortality, unable to decipher my facial features from less than five feet away was traumatizing for a teenage artist. My initial response was to take as many images of her and my grandfather as I possibly could while they were still gracing me with there presence. I chronicled their home, and their life as much as I possibly could. I spent many weekends of my college career, skipping the fun parties, and sleeping over their house, in hopes of finding something indicative of their new life.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

However, with the progression of this project, my own “Catholic guilt” set in; I felt responsible for being able to see. I was scared of flaunting my ability to see to her, by creating images of her. I was extremely hesitant to offend her in any way. I began visiting for days at a time, and leaving with more unexposed film than ever before. I grew uncomfortable behind my ground glass in their home, because I started to register our shared mortality.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

 Macular Degeneration is a inherent condition. Meaning, there is a large chance that I will slowly lose my vision, too.

Nan Goldin once said:

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

“I used to think that I could never lose anyone if I photographed them enough.
In fact, my pictures show me how much I’ve lost”.

This is essentially why I begun to physically degrade my negatives; in oder to somehow absolve myself of the guilt I felt being able to experience the world, and to battle with my own fears of absolute darkness. I compiled a stack of over 20 negatives that I cherished of my grandparents; images of us together, of adoring glances, and of treasures within the home. I doused them in bleach, cleaning solutions, salt and sugar, boiled them, burnt them—destroyed them in every way I could think of. In my own freaky way, this helped. I was able to understand the loss my grandmother was experiencing an a very personal manner; and was able to diminish my anxiety over losing myself, too.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

With that, I broke barriers within my own photographic process, and was capable of creating much different work. I stopped fearing the camera, and it’s ability to render the seen and unseen. I took advantage of it.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

First off, I began to make many images using a simple pinhole camera. I was interested in breaking down my visual elements to it’s purest form—abstract color and shapes. I decided to place the pinholes in front of the moments in life that I cherish the most: sunsets/sunrises, snowstorms, stargazing, ect. The results were essentially the most abstract form visual relation I could accomplish at that time. Essentially, I was creating images that my grandmother could also enjoy. There were not details that she missed, or spots of darkness obscuring focus—they were simple enough for her to also enjoy.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

Within that year, I also created a few large format 20×24” Polaroid images that further articulated my idea. The two most successful images were plays upon the idea of a “self portrait”, but through the eyes of my grandmother looking upon me…

 For the first image I combined my mother’s face with my own. My grandmother has been confusing our faces from across the room ever since I hit puberty — and, to her benefit, we have strikingly similar features. Essentially, I covered half of the lens and exposed my mothers face on the film, processed it, retracted it and exposed half of my face on the opposing side. To the naked eye, there is confusion upon seeing it because our skin tones are deceivingly seamless.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

For the second image, I wanted to destroy an image of myself. Much like the degradation of my physical negatives, I chose to degrade my “one of a kind” 20×24 polaroid image, by creating a transfer print. To accomplish this, I over exposed my negative (in order to have enough sustenance to the negative to be able to remove the emulsion), and placed the emulsion upon a damp sheet of coarse watercolor paper. I used a printmaking roller to essentially “push” the emulsion off of the negative and onto the paper. The results are an almost terrifyingly obscure view of my face; seemingly melting and disappearing from the paper itself.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

My hope with this work has always been apathetic. I have always wanted to bring light upon the fear of macular degeneration, in my own extremely personal way. I have always wished that the viewer would immerse themselves in the abstract images and question what they are actually looking at: to feel as if they are inside of a retina, or to understand the physicality of the “dryness” in her eyes everyday; or, to just feel, as an able viewer, to understand another’s struggles.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

And, most importantly, I wanted to pay homage to a woman I love and respect. To bring honor to her, for all that she has accomplished, and all that she will accomplish in her final days of coping with her sightless condition.

Please visit Unseeing, by Julianne Nash for the full size image.

Quanta, by Michael Taylor

Michael Taylor — Wed, 07 May 2014 04:56:09 +0000

Text and photos by Michael Taylor

“Photography is Light Architecture.”

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy¹

“Light is beautiful in itself, for its nature is simple and all of it is there at once. Wherefore it is integrated in the highest degree and most harmoniously proportioned and equal to itself, for beauty is a harmony of proportions.”

Grosseteste²

Introduction

I first explored photography as a child taking photographs on film using ‘box’ cameras. In 1978 at the age of fifteen, my parents bought me a Praktica camera: I shot a roll of 35mm film and was hooked for life! A few years later I made a small darkroom in the loft of my parents’ home and loved watching the magic of black-and-white images emerge before my eyes. This experience will never leave me. I still have a good darkroom.

Although I loved drawing and art I always favored photography. After my two science degrees at Queens University I completed Design BA and Fine Art MA degrees.

Light has always fascinated me throughout my life.

The qualities of light that excite me most are purity, harmony, paradox and unpredictability. Light is “pliable” and can be merged, moved and shaped. However, there is always feedback: light reveals its own inherent possibilities.

Quanta (2014)

Quanta is a subset of the life-time Lumen series that I started in 2010. My ultimate aim is to mediate the properties of light via photography.

The abstract photographs shown here were created using long exposures of light in a fairground in Southern France. The images were all taken at night:

“…even the purest light, lacking the robe of darkness, would be without expression”.

Mary Oliver³

Choreographed camera movements recorded the energy of moving light. While wandering around reacting to light and choreographing camera movements during long exposures I lost track of the activity around me and felt like I was dancing with light. The experience was immersive. There was a mixture of both planning and spontaneity.

Moholy-Nagy’s earlier vision was that of an orchestrated painting with light:

“The work of the future lies with the light engineer who is collecting the elements of a genuine creation.

…just as one paints with brush and pigment, in recent times one could have “painted” direct with light, transforming two-dimensional painted surfaces into light architecture.

I wanted a… light-symphony which follows exactly the composer’s score.”

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy⁴

Quanta involved a more direct and spontaneous orchestration involving a choreographed recording of variations in the intensity, chroma, hue, line, movement, texture and depth of light.

Continuous experimentation is the engine of the creative process. In the words of

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy:

“The enemy of photography is the convention … the salvation of photography is the experiment.”⁵

Both staged and found light patterns are equally important to me. Unpredicted moments where light reveals itself are gifts of grace.

My basic approach is to keep focused on one area, observe different aspects and look deeper. I never try to force anything: what I love defines the style.

Vision usually precedes execution: imagination is primary but focused discipline, planning and craft skills are vital to translate a latent image into a real one. The key priority is always attention to interpreting light.

These Quanta images were very intuitive and instantaneous: vision blurred into execution. I was at play with light and instinctively knew in advance which images would remain.

The light patterns are also metaphors pointing to events beyond their creation.

For example, the embryonic life inherent in Quanta 004 and human presence in Quanta 003:

A key aspect is transformation. The emphasis is not on the figures/objects but on light and its modulation:

“Objects are chosen for their light-modulating characteristic; their reality and significance disappear.”

Laszlo Moholy-Nagy⁶

Fairground rides now become new worlds.

The formal qualities unique to photography as a medium are vitally important. My aim is not simply to document reality but to reveal hidden aspects of the world, especially of light and photography. By using these unique qualities, the referential / indexical aspects of photography are now so abstracted that the images no longer convey as-seen reality.

When the “object” is light itself, abstraction is pushed beyond the photographic transformation observed by Barbara Savedoff :

“In the case of painting, the forms refer to objects … In the case of photographs, the forms are the objects (or more precisely, the forms are those of the objects before the lens): the image is both record of the object and abstraction. There is a sense in which we see the object transformed.”

Barbara Savedoff, Documentary Authority And The Art Of Photography.

((From: Wladen, Scott (ed.). Photography and Philosophy: Essays On The Pencil Of Nature. London: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., 2010, p.122.))

A constant theme in my work is a quest for simplicity and minimalism.

These studies of light also emphasize transcendence:

“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is: infinite.”

William Blake⁷

Abstraction involves going beyond precise recording of seen objects – from seen to unseen, from objective to subjective. It is a highly selective and partial disclosure of reality. Abstraction also encourages the viewer to participate in creating their own meanings. As Aaron Siskind observed:

“When I make a photograph I want it to be an altogether new object, complete and self-contained, whose basic condition is order…

The object has entered the picture, in a sense; it has been photographed directly. But it is often unrecognizable; for it has been removed from its usual context, disassociated from its customary neighbors and forced into new relationships.”

Aaron Siskind⁸

Lyle Rexer describes abstraction in photography as:

“… novel seeing, a vision of things that have not been seen – investigative or undisclosed photography rather than abstract photography. At its most extreme, it offers objects defined by their concrete, material existence, referring to nothing outside themselves.”

Lyle Rexer, Introduction: Undisclosed Images.⁹

There are several methods of photographic abstraction involved in Quanta such as the selective framing of reality and time exposures revealing unseen worlds within reality.

Influences include Goethe, books on cosmology and science, art films and theatre (especially the lighting), abstract photography and movements in paintings ranging from Renaissance to Abstract Expressionism.

I am fascinated by the work of artists such as James Turrell who create environments in which the qualities and properties of light are replicated and enhanced in front of the viewer. This is revelatory:

“Light is not so much something that reveals, as it is itself the revelation.”

James Turrell¹⁰

Photographers with abstract visions of the world appeal to me. Examples include Moholy-Nagy, Minor White, Man Ray, Alexander Rodchenko, Frederick Sommer, Paul Strand, Brett Weston, Aaron Siskind, Hiroshi Sugimoto, Tokihiro Sato and Alvin Langdon Coburn (Vortographs).

An entire series of light-related experiments is planned for the future: hopefully images from the different series will show cohesion.

My final advice is to keep focused on one main area, stay open to all the possibilities and always keep going.

The greatest inspiration for photographers is the inexhaustible reality of light surrounding us.

We just have to look deeper.

Moholy-Nagy, Laslo. “Fotografie ist Lichtgestaltung”, Bauhaus, 2/1, 1928, p.1
From: Eco, Umberto. The Aesthetics Of Thomas Aquinas. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. 1988, p.109
From: A Certain Sharpness In The Morning Air, in Oliver, Mary. New And Selected Poems. Volume 1. Boston: Beacon Press, 1992, p.41
pp. 155&156, Moholy-Nagy, Sibyl. Moholy-Nagy: Experiment In Totality. Cambridge, Massachusetts: MIT Press, 1969.
From: Vision in Motion; quoted on the frontispiece of David Travis And Elizabeth Siegel (eds.). Taken By Design: Photographs From The Institute Of Design, 1937-1971. Chicago: University of Chicago Press (74th edition; 6 Mar 2002).
p. 71, Kostelanetz, Richard. Moholy-Nagy : An Anthology. New York: Da Capo Press, 1991.
From: Erdman, David V. The Complete Poetry And Prose of William Blake. New York: Anchor Books, 1988, p.39.
From: Credo. In: Aaron Siskind: Photographs 1932-1978. Oxford: Museum Of Modern Art, 1979.
From: Rexer, Lyle. Photography’s Avant-garde: The New Wave In Old Processes. New York: Harry N. Abrams Inc., 2002, p.11.
From: Zajonc, Arthur. Catching The Light: The Entwined History Of Light And Mind. London: Bantam Press, 1993, p.324.

Deconstructing the American South-West, by Marco Annaratone and Hanni Cerutti

Marco Annaratone — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 12:11:38 +0000

Moab 05© Twelve-Tone Photography
Please visit Deconstructing the American South-West, by Marco Annaratone and Hanni Cerutti for the full size image.

Marco Annaratone and Hanni Cerutti

Text and photos by Twelve-Tone Photography.

Sometime the production of artwork follows convoluted if not downright bizarre paths. This is the recount of one such artwork, that we have organized as a four-stage process, because it developed and reached completion in four distinct phases over a period of six years.

Rocks in Five Parts© Twelve-Tone Photography
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Phase 1 – The Subject

All our visits to the American South-West were profoundly emotional. We have lived for almost two decades in the US and this gave us the opportunity to explore the area in some depth. We have seen it at different times of the year: from the searing hot August days in the pink sand dunes of Yuma to the blooming season in Death Valley. The American South-West is all but a monolithic visual experience: Monument Valley and Moab, or Bryce Canyon and the Valley of the Gods, have little in common from a sensory perception. In spite of these significantly different sceneries they all impressed upon us similar emotions: a fundamental sense of disorientation, vertigo, lack of mooring, a compass gone wild. Mind you, this experience was not unsettling, it felt like a suspension of time and peaceful relinquishing of one’s comfort zone.

The Valley of The Gods 01© Twelve-Tone Photography
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One particular place was instrumental in making us feel this way. The first time that we visited the Valley of the Gods these emotions overwhelmed us. This is a place out of the classical tourist routes — one can be alone there, and we mean totally alone, with the surroundings. Afterwards we were able to experience the same sensations elsewhere as well, although in a less dramatic way. Once this “symphonic fortissimo” was played for us in the Valley of the Gods we were able to experience it — although at a lower volume — in the Grand Canyon, in Moab, or Bryce.

Of course we took lots of pictures, but later we were not totally satisfied: looking at them did not evoke the same sensory experience. The disorientation, vertigo, suspension of time, lack of mooring were simply not there. The pictures were silent. Yes, they faithfully depicted what we had seen but did not resonate.

Bryce Canyon 01© Twelve-Tone Photography
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Phase 2 – The Intuition

We share a passion for contemporary classical music. It all started in our college years when we were living in Milan, Italy. At the time the city, in cooperation with the local Music Academy, was organising yearly concerts as part of a program entitled “Music in Our Times” (MiOT). For several years the program offered concerts of all the major contemporary composers, from Stockhausen to Berio, from Penderecki to Ligeti. Some attention was also given to American composers out of the classical mainstream: first of all Cage, who gave a memorable performance, but also Steve Reich and Terry Riley. These concerts were the spark that set in motion our personal journey through contemporary classical music: we attended workshops in computer music at CNUCE in Pisa (Boulez’ IRCAM in Paris opened shortly thereafter), became familiar with minimalism, and even visited some musicians whose music impressed us. We still remember a young Gavin Bryars opening the door of his London flat and looking both puzzled and amused at this couple of Italian students telling him how much they loved his “Sinking of the Titanic.”

The Valley of The Gods 06© Twelve-Tone Photography
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Our love for contemporary music made us think in recent years about the reasons why some parameters are kept invariant in artistic expression, often for no reason other than tradition. We asked ourselves what would happened in photography if one denied this invariance, the consequences one had to face and what could be found at the end of the tunnel that one enters when these invariances are simply made variable. Our natural point of reference was atonal music. The destruction of the invariance of tonality that contemporary music produced from Schönberg onward has been a driving force of much classical music (albeit not all) of the last century. Much could be said about it — there is an extensive literature on this topic — but one thing is certain: the jury is still out. What has happened in the 20th century may turn out to be — once filtered by time — nothing more that a cataclysmic event in the progression of musical development that has left traces — more or less profound — but few memorable compositions. Conversely, it may leave lots of masterpieces that audiences worldwide will enjoy listening to for centuries to come. Steve Reich seems to believe in the former outcome, when he says:

The reality of cadence to a key or modal center is basic in all the music of the world (Western and non Western). This reality is also related to the primacy of the intervals of the fifth, fourth, and octave in all the world’s music as well as in the physical acoustics of sound. Similarly for the regular rhythmic pulse. Any theory of music that eliminates these realities is doomed to a marginal role in the music of the world. The postman will never whistle Schönberg. This does not mean Schönberg was not a great composer — clearly he was. It does mean that his music (and the music like his) wlll always inhabit a sort of “dark little corner” off by itself in the history of all the world’s music.¹

Whether atonal music will inhabit a dark little corner in the history of world’s music is outside the scope of this article and we certainly do not have the competence to provide any significant contribution to the topic. This notwithstanding, we became curious about the similarity to photography, now that digital photography (remember computer music?) has potentially broken some technical constraints. There are two major invariants in photography: color temperature and exposure. They are kept constant across the whole image field. We have found our “musical key,” therefore, and applied it to photography. The next step was to ask ourselves what would happen if we made both be variable. We expect many agree about the invariance of color temperature, while many will strongly object when reading about the invariance of exposure. Yes, yes, we hear you saying: “and what about dodging and burning? And what about HDR?” Indeed, they change the exposure in selected places (the former) or across the whole image field (the latter). But these are tools to address (perceived) visual issues, not a methodology to free the parameter of light intensity reaching the sensitive surface from an imposed, specific initial value. We stand by our statement that dodging, burning or HDR are something else.

Moab 06© Twelve-Tone Photography
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Phase 3 – Applying the Intuition

We called this process of imposing variability to color temperature and exposure photosequencing. While we never forgot even for a moment what Reich said above, and without having the arrogance of comparing photosequencing to atonal music, we do believe that the former will certainly occupy some (very) little dark corner. We do not think it is a new way of picture taking, nor will it ever become one. But Twelve-Tone Photography’s mission is also about carrying out visual research applied to photography, and this is one of the many experiments we performed. We discuss it here since it produced artwork and solved a specific problem at the same time, and hence it is worth reporting.

The process of modifying color temperature is rather straightforward: we considered a range from 1000K to about 14000K. In fact, the sensitivity of the eye to color temperature variation is not linear with Kelvin degrees but with mired. We therefore converted Kelvin degrees into mired and divided the latter in twelve segments. These are the twelve color filters we applied to our pictures. After much experimentation we also decided that the best shape for each filter was a rectangle. Before we tried with circles, or various irregular shapes, but the results were visually unconvincing. A similar (even simpler) process has been applied to exposure, subdividing the EV space into twelve. In this case a rectangle has also turned out to be the preferable shape.

Moab Triptych© Twelve-Tone Photography
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Phase 4 – The Result

The next step was to decide where and how to apply photosequencing. This is when we focused on our project about the American South-West. The rationale behind it was quite pragmatic: we loved these places and longed for the emotions we had experienced, but as we said above the pictures did not embody them yet.

The results intrigued us. The pictures were finally resonating. The emotions we had felt on location could be at long last be felt by looking at the photographs: disorientation, mild hallucination, a crazy compass, time distortion and a sense of suspension were all there in front of us. These pictures finally spoke to us. We called this project “Deconstructing the American South-West,” for rather obvious reasons.

The Valley of The Gods 09© Twelve-Tone Photography
Please visit Deconstructing the American South-West, by Marco Annaratone and Hanni Cerutti for the full size image.

Photosequencing forces time into a picture by its own very characteristics, i.e., modulating exposure and color temperature, hence mimicking the day passing by (though in a fragmented way). Sometime this can be useful, as it was in this project. So far we have used photosequencing in another project where make-believe is a primary goal and its application appropriate and justified. We may not apply it anywhere else in the future, though: when its presence is clearly justified — as we believe was the case of “Deconstructing the American South-West” — the benefits largely outweigh its extremely strong visual signature; the latter in fact — if not carefully managed — can initially attract the viewer with its chromatic abundance yet also hide shapes and forms too much.

We champion non-visual sensations in our photography as a way to expand the viewer’s experience to include more than what is visible on the surface, and to suggest other intangible, non-visual elements that inhabited the scene being captured. In “Deconstructing the American South-West” the searing heat, the fuzziness, the breeze, the flickering before one’s eyes, the subtle feeling of unbalance, and ultimately the possibility to feel either happily lost or happily immersed in this immensity of space were integral part of being there. Thus, we felt that our project was now complete.

Monument Valley 01© Twelve-Tone Photography
Please visit Deconstructing the American South-West, by Marco Annaratone and Hanni Cerutti for the full size image.

Steve Reich, Writings on Music 1965-2000, Edited by Paul Hiller, Oxford University Press, 2002, p.186-187.

Why do Chinese love photography

Michele Galeotto — Thu, 20 Mar 2014 17:47:15 +0000

An engaged couple on-set
© Unknown
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If you’ve ever been to China you should know how Chinese are crazy about photography. It’s not just a stereotype depicting Chinese tourists in Europe snapping thousands of photos in a day; it is the truth.

It’s a fact that photography often happens while traveling, especially when abroad. It is not a case that the photography market in China exploded right after the middle-class reached the possibility to visit foreign countries. When in the late 20th century the Korean and Japanese tourists floods overwhelmed Europe, we were amused by the thousands of photos they were able to shoot in a day; nowadays we are surprised by the number of cameras and lenses Chinese tourists can bring along with them. There are some differences. Japanese tourists have usually a more introspective approach to their photos, they are mostly shooting at themselves, and this is why they prefer compact cameras. Their Chinese counterparts live instead photography as a tool for ‘sharing’ their experiences within their circle and community, this is why besides the status symbol of owning the flagship camera of the range, Chinese choose (D)SLR cameras: it adds value to the photos they share. In this Chinese tend to show the behavior of a social collective mind.

Tiananmen Square in the 1960′s (Via Weibo)
© Unknown
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In my college years in Tsinghua I was amused by the number of SLR cameras my classmates had, all of which costed at least twice the country’s average per capita income. With my 400 euros Olympus I was their joke. A few years back a meme appeared on the Internet: “摄影穷三代，单反毁一生” literally “third poor photographers generation, reflex cameras ruin lives”, and a photo of a beggar-looking middle aged man looking into the viewfinder of his expensive camera. These memes testify a real passion Chinese share about photography, and how they wish to spend a lot of their income in order to purchase professional cameras with good lenses.

The average Chinese amateur photographer strives to reach formal perfection. Blurred images, which are common in fields such as street photography, are not easily recognized as good shots in China, even tough they might be very expressive. This is also a reason why the average middle-class photographer alway tries to buy the best lenses and the best accessories.

Family Stuff 家当
© Huang Qingjun
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I have been wondering for a while now at why is photography such a big thing in China and I came to the conclusion that since China is a fast changing country, people feel the need to fix their memories and stop for a bit the impetuous flow of time. Without time for reflecting, only with the dry sound of the shutter mirror. And this must be the reason behind the huge request for wedding photography in China. The 798 art district, the Shichahai Lake, parks like the one of the Summer Palace or Beihai, kitsch architectures like the european style Chateau Changyu, are among the most popular backgrounds of beijingers’ wedding shots. In the past thirty years the working and living pace has been growing faster and faster, and with speed a sense of precariousness comes along.

Everything is fading away. In Chinese mega-cities friends move in and move out, most of the young Chinese must themselves often relocate for college, far from their parents and childhood friends, and then most likely move again after graduation. Here comes the need to stop the time flow. Back in 2011 while I was doing a workshop with some students from Swiss EPFL in 798, Beijing, (here andhere) to understand people’s behavior within that area I had to conduct a small series of interviews to some couples that were going to marry and have a wedding photo-shooting in there. All the couples I interviewed stated that they wanted to keep a memory of their youth. Of course, this is the reason behind beauty and wedding photography in every culture, but the proportion of the phenomenon in China has reached a proportion that is well described by LVMH, the world’s biggest luxury goods conglomerate, investing in a Chinese wedding photography company.

Panda Zoo
© Xu Bing
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When everything changes so fast photos can be reminiscent of a long forgotten past. This is what happened when an old color photo of Tiananmen Square was uploaded to Weibo, a Chinese Twitter-alike social platform. This is why many Chinese photographers felt the moral duty to go to the countryside and capture the last faces of a rapidly disappearing rural China.

But besides the need for recording today’s memories, in a country where pollution, savage industrialization and wild urbanization are threatening the concept of beauty, there is also the need to (re)create a forgotten beauty. Like in Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities Marco Polo says (quite ironic isn’t it), “The inferno of the living is not something that will be; if there is one, it is what is already here, the inferno where we live every day, that we form by being together. There are two ways to escape suffering it. The first is easy for many: accept the inferno and become such a part of it that you can no longer see it. The second is risky and demands constant vigilance and apprehension: seek and learn to recognize who and what, in the midst of inferno, are not inferno, then make them endure, give them space”. This second way can be pursued through the lens of a camera, leaving all the daily ugliness outside, while only keeping what fits the viewfinder, maybe further improving it through postproduction.

New Landscape
© Yao Lu
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Chinese leaders have always put a big emphasis on photo retouching, from Mao’s era to the 18th National Party Congress, and so do Chinese youngsters. The market for selfie-retouching apps has grown so big that real-life make-up companies have started to market themselves after them. If life is memories and we rely on photos to remember, photography can be a powerful tool to dramatically change our lives.

All this can be real fun, but sometimes reality suddenly comes back, slammed on our faces, and photography can still be there, reminding us not to believe what we see at first glance, but to dig deeper. The panda-looking pigs of Xu Bing’s Panda Zoo (熊猫动物园, 1998. 徐冰) and the Chinese-traditional-landscape-looking trash of Yao Lu’s New Landscapes are here to remind us that everything is a mere illusion, but we must cope with that.

You can find a shorter version of this article on Michele Galeotto blog.

Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev

Sergey Yeliseyev — Sun, 16 Mar 2014 19:03:28 +0000

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Little fifteen”. Silver print colorized with Acrylic 40x30cm. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. March 2003.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

Text and photos by Sergey Yeliseyev.

As a fact almost every artist-photographer time to time working with naked model and I am no exception.

I began to seriously pursue the photo in 2000, when, after the father’s death, I found his analog camera Zenith EM.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Dance” Self portrait with nurse”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Aniline 60x50cm. My own studio, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. July 2013.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

I took pictures of everything in the beginning as done all photographers. I took pictures of the architecture of St. Petersburg, people on the street, birds and dogs on the street.

In a year it has bothered me and I started doing my own projects.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Red summer”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Acrylic 40x30cm March 2003 Studio in House of Artists. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. March 2003.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

I rented a small studio and began to take pictures of nude girls.

I found models in the street, in the subway, on an Vernissage in galleries or museums.

If somebody attracted my attention, I come to her and asked if she wanted to be a model. Some of them immediately asked me:- “Naked?”

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Girl in Red Boots before the Isaac Cathedral”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Acrylic 40x30cm. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. May 2005.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

The first time I took pictures of young girls, aged 15th to 20-25 years.

In 2002, I began photographing fashion and asked models after Fashion show, if they want to be photographed naked or in underwear as done it Helmut Newton.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Butterfly”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Acrylic 40x30cm Taxi station. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. August 2005.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

I used black and white film. I developed the films by myself and made gelatin silver prints by myself as well in my Darkroom (as I do it till now). I have colorized mat black and white prints partly with acrylic in my studio.

In 2003 I came to the conclusion that I should be engaged in my own projects, because I had good ideas and imagination (as I wrote the music and lyrics for the songs playing in the Rock-Band in the past). And I began to invite my former acquaintances models for the new projects.

Photo session was held in the museums, on the square, in abandoned taxi stations in open air, in village,and even in the studio of outstanding Soviet sculptor Michael Anikushin.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Symbol”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Acrylic 40x30cm. Country side, Saint-Petersburg, Russia. August 2005.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

All the previous works were created by me from 2003 till 2007.

Every artist is constantly looking for the new forms of creativity to realize his ideas. And when he feels that long time he does the same and nothing new, it comes a Depression and Stagnation.

He dropped his hands, and he did not do anything for a long time.

And time has come to think about the work done.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Musicians” Self portrait with 20-y.o. prostitute by name Nastja”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Acrylic 30x30cm. My own studio. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. March 2012.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

He thinks “where to go” and in what way.

What new forms to apply.

What techniques to use.

Sometimes in a dream come new ideas as a result of hard and constant brain’s activity.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Chains - Self portrait with nurse”. Gelatin silver print 60x50cm My own studio. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. July 2013.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

Sometimes it happens by accident (as it may seem at first sight).

But there is nothing accidental in creativity does not happen.

Master’s Brain constantly fueled from outside – during a walking around the city, meeting with friends and colleagues, visiting restaurant, party, travel to different countries, information from the Internet.

As a result, there comes a moment when the artist finds a new direction in creativity for himself and he begins to create new work with inspiration and high energy.

And finally I invited a young prostitute to my studio in spring 2013.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Gas mask test” Self portrait in gas mask with nurse”. Gelatin silver print 60x50cm My own studio. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. July 2013.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

My series “Self portrait with prostitutes” has begun in particular from this photo session.

One composition replaced by another, and suddenly I do not know why, I asked her if I could stand beside her and make a joint portrait. She gave me positive answer.

Practically all models who agreed to be photographed naked were not against shooting with me in a pair.

Usually, before the photo session, I’m writing a script – what composition should I create, what objects have I to use during the session, whether to use underwear, whether to use a mirrors or something else.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Kosi and Zabivai” Self portrait with 50 y.o. prostitute”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Aniline 60x50cm My own studio. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. July 2013.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

Often the scenario is changing during a photo session and some compositions are born directly in the process of shooting.

For example a model saw a flag in my studio and started to play with it.

Or the model had a good mood and started to dance in the pause between the compositions.

Next time a model was tired and started to walk in my studio. Suddenly she stopped at a table with a chessboard and became rearrange figures in meditation.

This is almost the same as improvisation in jazz. And it’s very familiar and close to me, as I was a rock musician in the past.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Chess - Self portrait with nurse”. Gelatin silver print 60x50cm My own studio. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. July 2013.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

My studio is like a museum. Time has stopped in my studio. Everything in it reminds the Soviet Union time. There are many things in it such as metallic bed, brick oven for cooking and heating in rooms, old semi-ruined toilet, rusty sink, antique three-leaved mirror, a large number of mirrors of different shapes and sizes, vintage floor lamp, a samovar, cast iron, old ventilator, gas masks, wooden abacus etc. I also have a collection of women’s clothes and underwear of the Soviet period, shawls and scarves, corsets and glasses, shoes, masks and different accessories for women. And I also use it in my work.

I am also in good physical shape, as I training in swimming and karate all my life.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Me Lying on the floor under the standing model”” Self portrait with nurse”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Aniline 60x50cm My own studio. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. July 2013.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

And it also helps me during photo session when I create self-portrait with a prostitute.

The age of the models was different – from 20 to 50 y.o.

I am planning to expand the age range of the models up and down in the future.

Since the summer of 2013 I began to colorizing my black-and-white prints format 60x50cm with aniline dye, as did our forefathers 100 years ago.

Thus I inspire renewed interest to the tradition of the classic photography.

© Sergey Yeliseyev
“Castle” Self portrait with 50 y.o. prostitute”. Gelatin silver print colorized with Aniline 60x50cm My own studio. Saint-Petersburg. Russia. July 2013.
Please visit Self-Portrait with prostitutes, by Sergey Yeliseyev for the full size image.

Chaos Reigns: four years in the punk underground, by Darryl Reid

Darryl Reid — Tue, 11 Mar 2014 09:41:47 +0000

Text and photos by Darryl Reid.

The basement is so suffocatingly hot and humid from the sardine-packed writhing bodies that the walls are dripping with sweat. The music from the amps is loud enough that it becomes less like hearing and more of a physical sensation in the brain pan. I struggle to keep my place front and center when the lead singer, a rail-thin man covered in bandages and writhing on the floor, latches onto my pants and attempts to pull them down. I grasp my pants with one hand and snap a picture with the other. The flash barely goes off when, like a coked-out acrobat, the singer flips off the ground and kicks me right in the face.

I’m in the bowels of Scum House, a tiny, barely finished room that is about to see a rapid descent into disrepair. Later this same night while doing a band photo-shoot I will get threatened with stabbing by a couple of crack-heads and have a toenail torn off in a mosh pit. And it’s just another night for a punk photographer.

I’ve been kicked in the head several times by wayward stage divers, and had my camera kicked, shoved, and dropped. I even had a drugged out punk try to steal it right out of my hands. I’ve taken pictures in dank, mold filled basements that are so crowded with sweating bodies that one can barely move. I’ve lost a good portion of my hearing, tinnitus is an almost constant part of my life. Above all I never make money, I am constantly running at a loss. At best the person putting on a show will be a fan and let me in for free, but most of the time I have to pay to play. I avoid thinking about how much I have spent on this over the past four years and I sometimes question why I even do it. The answer I always come up with is this: because I am obsessed with music and photography and the space where these two obsessions meet.

I am a self taught-photographer from Ottawa, Canada. My mother was an amateur photographer who passed on her love of the medium to her children. Unfortunately I never actually picked up a camera until about four years ago when I stole my sister’s old Pentax to bring with me to a punk show. I was bitten and I’ve been shooting the local underground music scene ever since.

In my work I use both digital and analogue cameras to capture a purely subjective experience. Many music photographers attempt to depict an objective experience, they want to show what band played where and when. I initially tried to do the same but it became frustratingly clear to me that it is nearly impossible to capture an objective experience with a camera, as both the photographer and the audiences experience or create and interpret the image. Who is playing and where is secondary to what it feels like to experience raw noise and aggression. In my best work the image is unstable and seems to be on the verge of collapse, as if the raw sensory data cannot be contained in a simple image. The truth is, without the chaos, the movement of the crowd, the constant aggression of both performer and audience, a simple objective picture bleeds off a huge amount of information. I realized this problem early on when my work failed to match what I had experienced while being in that particular space.

I solved this dilemma when I realized (from analyzing my hero’s work) that not everything has to be in focus, that the image and even the subject can be unstable, that the black edges of the world can encroach onto the image, that the subjects can disappear into blinding light or murky nothingness and that shadows can threaten to eat the entire picture. This instability of image has become a popular concept in punk photography of the past few years.

More than other music scenes, punk has had an obsessive need to record its existence through amateur photography. I believe that this is an outgrowth of the genre’s marginalization. Most bands could never afford professional photographers and most music journalists were too busy ignoring smaller local scenes, so a cottage industry sprouted up of punks picking up cameras and shooting the scene around them. It was these photographs of the early punk scene that inspired me both to get into punk and to pick up a camera. Like me, most punk photographers will never make a dime off this passion, instead giving their work away for free in exchange for some records or t-shirts or the occasional a few bucks the bands can scratch together.

Most importantly in punk music, the performer and the audience are one. Between me and the musician there is no stage, no line of demarcation. I often shoot on the stage or so close I can often have my camera mere inches from their faces. Punk music is best experienced in person in shoddy, illegal, thrown together venues, where audience and band can become a nebulous whole. The best punk photographers are the ones who engage in this milieu, who brave being kicked and spat on and who have developed the ability to shoot a band, dodge beer bottles and hold their pants up all at the same time.

Today’s punk landscape can seem fractured and closed off, and to a degree this is true. There are dozens of genres, sub-cultures and cliques. Through my photography I attempt to cross all genres, classes and cliques within punk culture to create a through-line that highlights the commonalities of punk/Hardcore Culture.

The punk scene is transitory, bands will come and go with the rapidity of a decaying isotope. New bands are pushing themselves into a scene that is constantly reinventing itself. I want to capture this transitory movement and somehow make it permanent. I want these bands to be remembered for a little while at least.

A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra

Madhur Dhingra — Sun, 15 Dec 2013 18:57:43 +0000

© Madhur Dhingra
Bandar Poonch Range- Tapovan-Garhwal- Indian Himalayas. I had treked alone to Tapovan accompanied by two porters, who carried my equipment, tent & rations. It was a terribly exhausting trek via Bhojbasa and then walking across the extremely dangerous Gaumukh glacier. Being prone to altitude sickness it was all the more worse for me.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

Text and photos by Madhur Dhingra.

This photo essay is a very personal journey of mine. The quest started very early in my childhood. I clearly remember buying my first book on Buddhist philosophy at the age of sixteen. This search has continued till date. I come from a family which has been fairly religious all through. In our house Aarti (A Hindu prayer ritual with butter lamps & devotional songs) was performed regularly both morning and evening by my grandfather. This practice was continued by my father all through his life.

© Madhur Dhingra
Dawn at Shivling Peak- Tapovan-Garhwal- Indian Himalayas. The first night en route to Tapvan I stayed at the Lal Baba ashram at Gaumukh. I was provided with meals and hot refreshing tea by the ashram authorities free of cost. The conditions were very severe and night temperatures went down to -6 To - 8 degrees with snow all around. I had reached early, in the first week of April, the snows had not melted yet. In this image one can easily see the knee deep snow conditions at Tapovan. Shiving Parbat is a photographer's delight and one gets to view this peak right from the base to the very top from Tapovan.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

I have never been religious in the orthodox sense. My search has always been more spiritual in nature. The medium through which I began my quest was a camera. I must state here that I have always equated light with God. I am of firm conviction that the darkness of the human soul, (represented as black in my images) finally becomes alive by the play of light (God) on it. This play of light and shade you will notice all through in this photo essay.

© Madhur Dhingra
Zanskar- Ladakh-India. This image was taken while travelling somewhere in the Zanskar region. The sun had set and evening winds were blowing strong, bellowing and raising the sand as they blew along. I saw this old Buddhist monk returning home with his yak in tow. One of my favourite images this one because somehow relate myself to the intense loneliness in this image.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

Initially I started wandering in the Himalayas. This wandering first took me to places like Tapovan and Nandanvan in the Gangotri region of Garhwal. Camera in hand I saw God standing right in front of me in the form of these beautiful mountains. The play of light on this majestic abode of Shiva (Lord of Creation & Destruction) was an ethereal sight.

© Madhur Dhingra
Somewhere in Leh- Ladakh - India. This image was shot by me inside an unnamed monastery in Ladakh. Many of these monasteries are centuries old. There is a beautiful calm prevailing inside them. I used to sit inside them for hours, watching light filter in through doors and windows. The occasional eco of the prayer gong would seep deep inside my soul.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

My wanderings now took me to Ladakh & Zanskar regions again in the Indian Himalayas and also the land of Dalai Lama. I was mesmerised by the landscape, monasteries and people of Ladakh. The quiet prevailing inside these monasteries which are centuries old, acted as balm on my taught nerves. Light filtering in from the windows and doors was indeed beautiful. There was an embedded laziness prevailing in the atmosphere. Everyone and everything seemed so relaxed and poised. I would sit inside these monasteries for hours at a stretch soothing my distraught mind. I would watch quietly people go in and out of these temples. Occasionally someone would sound the prayer gong and its echo would seep deep inside my soul. Through my images I have tried to bring back to you the beauty, serenity and peace I found there.

© Madhur Dhingra
On route from Kargil to Padam(Zanskar-Ladakh-India). While travelling from Kargil to Padam. I saw this family sitting on the roadside. Penniless and tattered but happy.
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My next visits were to Banaras (also known Varanasi or by the ancient name of Kashi). Now this was going to be an experience that will remain with me for the rest of my life. Banaras is one of the oldest living cities of the world. Mark Twain the English author once wrote” Banaras is older than history, older than tradition, even older than legend and looks twice as old as all of them put together”. I would get up very early in the morning much before daybreak and go and sit on the banks of Dashashwamedh Ghat. Activities on these ghats would start that early too. Sitting there I watched sadhus, pujaris, devotes, pilgrims take their morning dip in the river Ganga. The morning Arti reminded me over and again of the Aarti that my grandfather and father used to perform at our home. Those fading memories suddenly had become alive.

© Madhur Dhingra
Haridwar - Uttara Khund- India. The year 1998 brought about Purn Kumbh the largest of all Hindu congregations. The word Kumbh denotes the shape like that of a pot or pitcher. Kumbh signifies Creation or Shrishti. ‘Shrishti’ or the creation is of the shape of a pot. Kumbh or Creation is eternal, the form may have been different before. there were hutments built for sadhus in general by the kumbh authorities across the river bed. I would visit those and sit with some "real" sanyasis , listen to their discourses and hear them sing bhajans(devotional songs). this was a very nice and peaceful experience.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

The ghats of Kashi are a riot of colour and activity. People from all over India come to these ghats to perform rituals, in such colourful attires. On the other hand I saw sadhus, sanyasis, pujaris and widows dressed in spotless pure white clothings. This mixture of colour and pure white in their attires was enchanting. Small temples can be seen in hundreds all along these ghats. I would sit inside these temples waiting for my chance to get my perfect shot. Nowhere in all my travels up till now have I found light as beautiful as in Banaras. I will not hesitate for a moment to call it divine. Rituals right from the birth of a child, mundan (first hair removal ceremony of a newborn), marriage, birthdays, anniversary death, and also later to perform rites for their safe passage to heaven, all are being performed on these very banks for centuries.

© Madhur Dhingra
Haridwar - Uttara Khund- India. One day while spending some time with these sanyasis in the Kumbh ,I saw this young energetic sanyasi performing some Tantric rites. I stood there watching him perform for quite some time. His concentration was total.
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In the meantime the Purn Kumbh (the largest Hindu congregation held every 12 years) was on at Haridwar. This again has become a very interesting event to relate. I was aghast to see the completely naked so called Naga sadhus, storming the streets of Haridwar. It was here I came to know from the local inhabitants of Haridwar that this whole show was a complete farce. Most of these so called ascetics only stormed the streets during the Kumbh and neither did they live in the remoteness of the Himalayas leading a renounced life. On the contrary they lived in air conditioned lavishly furnished Akharas (Akhara means literally the “place for practice for the protection of Hindu religion”) in Haridwar itself. They were a weird sight. Here in Haridwar I saw them fight pitched battles with the police a day before the main procession was to start. Downright criminals to the very core most of them.

© Madhur Dhingra
Dashashwamedh Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. This beautiful image I captured on one of the ghats of banaras. i would get up early in the morning and go and sit inside these small temples spread in hundreds all along the ghats .people would come and go, oblivious of me sitting in one dark corner with a camera.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

On the day of the main procession I got up early in the morning and positioned myself on the roof top of a house near the Niranjani Akhara(Niranjani is one of the prominent Akharas in Haridwar). This was very early in the morning and I was testing the auto focus of my telephoto 300mm canon lens when I saw a group of Nagas in gathered in the Akhara compound. I was taken aback when I saw one Naga fiddling with the genitals of the other Naga, “and I took the shot” (later to appear on the first page of the Indian Express Daily). Promiscuity is commonplace with these so called Naga sadhus.

© Madhur Dhingra
Dashashwamedh Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. The ghats of Kashi are a riot of colour and activity. People from all over India come to these ghats to perform rituals, in such colourful attires.Rituals right from the birth of a child, mundan (first hair removal ceremony of a newborn), marriage, birthdays, anniversary death, and also later to perform rites for their safe passage to heaven, all are being performed on these very banks for centuries.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

There were hutments built for all visiting sadhus in general by the Kumbh authorities across the river bed of the Ganges. I would visit those and sit with some real sanyasis, listen to their discourses and hear them sing Bhajans (devotional songs). This was a very nice and spiritual experience.

© Madhur Dhingra
Dashashwamedh Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. These two brothers had come to the dashashvamedh ghat after performing the final rites of their father at manikarnika ghat. it is believed by the hindus that a dip in the ganga purifies them of all sins committed during their passage of life.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

Now a special reference to the Manikarnika Ghat “The Burning Ghat”is needed. People from all over India come to Kashi (ancient name of Banaras) to cremate their dead at Manikarnika. It is believed by Hindus that a cremation at Manikarnika Ghat gives the human soul an unhindered passage to heaven. Pyres are being lit here continuously without getting extinguished for the last 3000 years. But it was on this burning Ghat that my worst nightmare was to begin. I would visit this Ghat daily looking at the activities. It was not very long before I realised that whenever a body of a poor person would come in, it would be cremated in a bizarre manner.

© Madhur Dhingra
Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. People from all over India come to Kashi (ancient name of Banaras) to cremate their dead at Manikarnika. It is believed by Hindus that a cremation at Manikarnika Ghat gives the human soul an unhindered passage to heaven. Pyres are being lit here continuously without getting extinguished for the last 3000 years. This image shows the continuous gloom prevailing over Manikarnika Ghat.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

It required two ‘muns’ of wood at the least (mun is an Indian measure of weight equivalent to 20 kgs) to cover a human body completely for cremation. But the persons accompanying the dead body did not have that much money in their pocket. So only that much wood was purchased in which only the torso could be covered by wood. The legs and head were left hanging out and the pyre lit. The head would get burnt in a horrific manner with the head and feet falling away from the torso partially burnt. Then these torn away parts were picked up and put into the pyre or thrown into the Ganges. It was literally making a bar-be-queue of the mortal remains . This whole sequence was so bizarre that I decided to get it on film and show it to the world. Man really was meeting his god in Kashi in a very bizarre manner. Tantriks (Aghoris) also hound this Ghat eating human flesh and making love to a dead woman on a full moon night.

© Madhur Dhingra
Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. The beautiful morning light of Banaras is equally kind to both living and dead. I visited the manikarnika ghat one early morning to find it more busy than usual. The light filtering in from the rising smoke and ashes was both beautiful and eerie.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

One interesting image I shot here is of some dogs copulating right on where the pyres were being burnt. I saw the eyes of the people more interested in watching the dogs copulating and found them giggling, whereas right in front of them burnt the pyre of somebody very close to them. Hedonism co-existed strongly amidst death.

© Madhur Dhingra
Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. This was a chance image while I roamed around the Manikarnika. According to Hindu tradition, people who die under unnatural conditions like a snake bite or accidents, sanyasis & infants, their bodies are not burnt but are given a water burial .I saw this lonely body on the banks of Ganga with nobody visible in sight. A herd of buffalos had gathered all around it as if waiting to take the body away. Incidently the vahan (vehicle) of Yamraj (Lord of Death ) is a buffalo.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

My final image is of a lonesome skull lying amidst blue burnt wood and ashes, staring right into the eyes of the onlooker, as if asking some unanswered questions. All hopes ambitions fears loves hates affections had died down into a cold blue colour. “Man had finally met his god”?

For more photos and story please visit Madhur Dhingra website.

© Madhur Dhingra
Manikarnika Ghat-Varanasi (Banaras)-India. This final image is of a lonesome skull lying amidst blue burnt wood and ashes, staring right into the eyes of the onlooker, as if asking some unanswered questions. all hopes ambitions fears loves hates affections had died down into a cold blue colour.
Please visit A quest for the eternal, by Madhur Dhingra for the full size image.

We’re all just collecting memories… or It’s all back to Plato’s, by Derrick Santini

Derrick Santini — Wed, 11 Dec 2013 13:55:53 +0000

© Leunig
Please visit We’re all just collecting memories… or It’s all back to Plato’s, by Derrick Santini for the full size image.

Text by Derrick Santini, illustration by Leunig.

An inert desire in all mankind is to prove that we existed, and in a way Photography could have invented to do just that. Thus creating a tool that eventually became so commonplace, affordable and easy to use, that now, we all partake in this masscult, mass suicide of sorts…

It’s like Plato’s cave and the flickering illusions of life thrown onto its dark walls, with folk too scared to go outside, content to observe the projection of life going on, but not getting sullied in it. Then there was a period of enlightenment when man stepped out of the darkness, of our primordial past. Potentially living in the ‘first person’ and basking in life and all its magnanimous splendors, over time one huge mass awakening… Yet all the while, constantly reminded of history (His- Story) and its irrevocable horrors. To the point now, where we seem to be getting drawn back into the cave, once again to live a vicarious life, all be it, light years ahead, but as bovine as before. One consumed with narcissistic self-parody, obsessively documenting ones existence, chasing the shadows of our lives, instead of actually living our lives, truly parallel realities…

…

Back in the day I remember some friends in Scarborough, moaning at my persistent stopping to take a photo. They would say to me “Why cant you just chill out and live things instead of always photographing it?” I was like ‘yeah right’… but that was then, who would say that now? If you are not participating in this activity, then you are now the odd one out.

Taking pictures, documenting our lives, collecting memories could be Photography’s epitaph. But who’s memories are we re-appropriating. It’s Like in “Blade Runner” when Decker is rifling through Rachel’s family photographs, with the knowledge that these are implanted memories of a childhood she never had… How eloquent, shocking, and ‘real’ for Rachel, and ultimately a real maelstrom for Decker who has fallen in love with her. My heart yearns when he stops at the image of ‘her’ mother, sat on the family porch of someone else’s memories, and for that subliminal spit second the image come’s to life, as the shadows shudder and sway in the long winters sun. These fragile real / imagined memories are what binds us as species, displaying the power and universality to unlock very personal memories seen through someone else’s memories, and unrelated photographs, images.

I realized a long time ago that as a Photographer, one was indeed a collector of memories, not just my own, but of all the people I photographed. The combined weight of all these memories is huge, and something I truly cherish and treat with the upmost respect. Re-appropriating peoples’ memories or indeed something way more profound was laid bare many years ago when on location in a foreign land, way up a mountain. I was shouted down by an old hag with crooked cane who caught me trying to take her picture, believing I would take her soul if I photographed her, I didn’t argue with her, and walked briskly away but always remember the look of horror on her face. It’s these illusive and mystical qualities so inherent in photography that are a big part of its enduring nature and constant fascination. To capture (steal) fleeting moments, to mediate reality, compose and freeze time and space.

I love the idea of a Photographer being a ‘Shadow Catcher’ with a maniacal honed sense of seeing and reaction. Finely tuned, almost Zen like in arresting these shifty forms and sub subservient shapes. The shadow… our life long companion, there one second, gone the next, they touch you, chill you, and for sure seduce you.

When I started taking pictures I had no idea of these thoughts, or indeed what actually compelled me to start doing it, just seemingly the un-questionable desire to do it. I certainly wasn’t interested in taking pictures of my family or friends or the places I was visiting. I don’t really know what I was searching for through the frame of a camera, but what ever it was I found it. Indeed looking back at my early pictures they seem very naïve and straight. But the dialogue had began and I was hooked, and from then on, in a way nothing else mattered, because I had a reason to be, and would never be alone or wanting again. Ultimately I feel no real artistic expression can come from a conscious desire to do this or that, it has to come from within, and not from the mind – ego. One can’t go to college to learn how to become an ‘artist’, you cant download the program or get the app. The cogs need to be turning and the questions need to be there for any profound answers to be found. Further education and technology all help in this endeavor, but are just a part of the means.

My personal big awakening did happen when I moved to London to do the BA in Photography and Communication at LCP (London College Of Printing) now LCC. Back then regarded as one of the premier Photography degree courses in England. Now Photography degrees across the land are two a penny. Though costing significantly more, are a seemingly endless sausage factory, merry go round of further education, especially in the ‘arts’. LCP’s agenda and ideology back then was Feminist Socialism, and extremely contextual. Peddling concepts and trains of thoughts I shockingly had precious little knowledge of, but it was a defining time, and a much needed call to arms, but at the beginning I was like… ‘What the… have I signed myself up for?’

I love Photography now, as I did back at LCP, where I met and collaborated with other such devotee’s. Together we galvanized a strong resolve within our hardcore crew of ‘actual Photographers’, all fighting the post modernist status quo, with our flagrant displays of ‘purist photography.’ But the course, with all its context had started me thinking.

Photography today is a double-edged sword. On one side we have this near universal medium to communicate with, a visual language that we are all encoding and decoding on mass, and increasing our awareness and connectivity. The other is the potential fallout from this Istagram generation, and its demeaning or belittling effect on traditional Photography. Many people voice these concerns to me, I hear them but don’t necessarily agree, its just part of the process. In my mind, Instagram with its nowness and its aesthetic, has defined its well-earned place like old Polaroid’s and Lomography defined theirs. Instagram and the like have potentially lowered the bar by making it totally accessible to all, but invariably has raised it. The sameness and generic look of all Instagrams (no matter who shoots them) is pushing people to want more, be different and ultimately stand out. But most importantly a photographic eye, and the curiosity in this visual discourse was initiated through the smart phone camera lens, spurring on many to evolve the Photographic dialogue.

I see this bolt back to Plato’s as a momentary loss of faith, understandably mesmerized by the glowing lights and moving shapes of this very intimate, and infinite virtual world that lies at the heart of our computer screens. Yet noise and stupidity abound online, so we have to filter all this information, ‘cant see the wood for the tree’s’ springs to mind. Focus… no pun intended, is a key requirement to success on any level and any context, indeed obsessively so. Access is one thing, stepping in and closing the door behind you is completely another.

Technology is the ultimate leveler, and as Nike said it ‘Just Do It’…

It’s only what’s in the mind that makes anything interesting, and now there’s no excuse for any one not to get involved and get your ideas out there. And through this amazing technological introspection, back once again onto our reflections, will culminate in a return much stronger, wiser and ultimately more Humane, and Photography is the catalyst for this profound change.

Please visit Derrick Santini website for more stories.

White Crane Spread Wings, by Gráinne Quinlan

Steven Nestor — Sat, 12 Oct 2013 09:40:27 +0000

Photos by Gráinne Quinlan, text by Steven Nestor.

In many ways the roots of Gráinne Quinlan’s White Crane Spread Wings are to be found in her earlier very successful Irish work, Strawboys. In that body of work her subjects were captured and conserved as though Gráinne Quinlan were recording the very last traces of a near extinct group of people for a museum of ethnography. Of course it would be a mistake to conclude that the Strawboys were on the edge of 21st century extinction, but the precise, methodical and still visual treatment is reminiscent of the works of photographers like Milton M. Miller or Imogen Cunningham, which came to be records of disappeared worlds.

As an extension and evolution of the latter work, in White Crane Spread Wings Tai Chi enthusiasts were chosen for observation, engagement and recording. Most striking in Gráinne Quinlan’s work is that while she is out of the controlled lab-like environment of the studio, the theatricality more closely associated with the indoor space is still very present. While there are few if any “props”, there is a continual sense of the alluring invisible presence of something essential via the stance of the Tai Chi practitioners. I see echoes of Howard Schatz’s work in Caught in the Act (2013). However, unlike the access to famous actors in Schatz’s work, the people of White Crane Spread Wings are anonymous, everyday elderly citizens of Hong Kong. Nor can we consider this work as an attention catching promotional performance. There are no famous faces here to distract and act as crutch to weak or confusing images. Thus, for me words like ‘authentic’ and ‘original’ might be more readily applied to Gráinne Quinlan’s work. I don’t see a reason for the tag of ‘western photographer’ in this work. While the tradition of the Strawboys may be in decline, the enthusiasts of Tai Chi are in the final walk of life, with an art that currently remains strong. Whether the current globalized youth would wish to practice or be associated with the ancient art is another question.

With their shades, visors and grimaces, the subjects are also given individual identities and character rather than being blended into some amorphous “oriental” mass or condescending reverence. Where so often so much of the formal photographic world leans towards profundity and earnestness, a strength in Gráinne Quinlan’s work is her hint at the surreal and humorous. A man seems to have trapped his head in a railing, another appears to have come up against an invisible wall, and a visor-wearing lady looks to be mixing Daft Punk with Beastie Boys. But none of the people look ridiculous or odd in their ritual performance of Tai Chi. Their clothing, hair styles and urban surroundings are, to an extent, imprecise. That is to say, we know that they are in in Hong Kong, but in some frames they might also be in New York or Sydney. There is something of a diaspora to these people. Is it something unique to the citizen’s of Hong Kong or a misreading?

They command their space and, to an extent, the viewer. Indeed, in such a densely populated city as Hong Kong the individual has been drawn out from the masses. These are uncompromised subjects, without the passivism so often found in those studied and photographed, especially by photographers from afar. In Gotthard Schuh’s Insel der Götter (1956) we are invited to marvel — and lust — for the orient ( Java, Sumatra, Bali). It is a brilliant, though classic and oft repeated approach to the ‘other’. Predictably “primitive”, the subjects seem distant, out of reach, unaware of the camera: a puzzling curiosity. I would argue that this – often unavoidable – approach and view is still quite prevalent today no matter how much the photographer or editor attempt to bridge the obvious gap. However, as an outsider (and westerner) Gráinne Quinlan, who has previously allowed herself to be distracted by the “otherness” of HK, has managed to narrow the divide both between herself and the subjects and between the potentially exotic viewer and subject. Perhaps aiding her is the increasingly universal practice of Tai Chi, though that is by no means a free pass to successfully engage with strangers.

Gráinne Quinlan deliberately sought to avoid the group activity nature of Tai Chi and instead concentrate on the individual. As she stated in our correspondence, “group shots tended to lack the visual bite of individual shots”. In fact the group shots she did take have more of an air of cityscape than the practice of Tai Chi. However, changing tack was not a simple decision in terms of execution and her approach to individuals was met with a mixture or flat out rejection and reserved acceptance. The key to making such a convincing work lay in the time spent with her subjects. One can always get lucky once, but the deliberate and consistent nature of Gráinne Quinlan’s work reflects the dedication to her subject and subjects through repeated visits and contact. Describing the practical side of her work to me reminded me of an interview I had heard with Mary Ellen Mark where she talked about how by continually walking the street she managed to become an attractive curiosity herself and was so gradually able to gain acceptance and so create intimate images of the prostitutes of Falkland Road (1981).

As any serious practitioner of photography knows, getting access to strangers, even for the most innocuous subject, can be exceedingly diﬃcult both in terms of overcoming one’s own shyness and getting your potential subject to trust you. “Who are you?” and “what do you want?” are probably the first defensive, self-preserving and reflexive questions asked by those approached in the public space. The public is also far more aware now of the power of photography and potential exploitation and cynicism of the photographer. Clearly Gráinne Quinlan’s dedication and honesty has paid oﬀ. The seemingly eﬀortlessness of the images belies the great eﬀort that was needed to successfully execute this work. What we as consumers of her work are left with is a series of photographer-free portraits of interesting people who don’t stare out at us blankly and enigmatically. That would have been cheap and formulaic. Looking at these images and reflecting on the individuals can lead you to quietly conclude that you just might expect to informally meet these people some day and say “I saw you …”

For more photos and stories, please visit Gráinne Quinlan and Steven Nestor websites.

What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff

Loretta Ayeroff — Wed, 11 Sep 2013 05:36:05 +0000

Text and photos by Loretta Ayeroff.

I was invited to write about my work, over a year ago. I was asked on July 13, 2012, 3:44 AM, for a thousand words. I froze up. Asking me to write about my work seemed overwhelming, let alone, intimidating. I couldn’t do it. A few attempts led nowhere. Probably 150 words, then nothing. Yes, I’ve done artist’s statements, technical articles, syllabi and course descriptions, but this essay seemed impossible. I wasn’t stymied so much about the length, as by the content. What could words reveal that my photographs didn’t? A few months ago, reading the chapter on “Writing” from Why People Photograph by Robert Adams, I felt exonerated:

“The frequency with which photographers are called upon to talk about their pictures is possibly related to the apparent straightforwardness of their work. Photographers look like they must record what confronts them – as is. Shouldn’t they be expected to compensate for this woodenness by telling us what escaped outside the frame and by explaining why they chose their subject? The assumption is wrong, of course, but an audience that knows better is small, certainly smaller than for painting. Photographers envy painters because they are usually allowed to get by with gnomic utterances or even silence, something permitted them perhaps because they seem to address their audience more subjectively, leaving it more certain about what the artist intended.”

From “Writing” by Robert Adams.

Nonetheless, here I am, giving it another try. I’d like to use this opportunity, to answer a question I’m frequently asked: “What do you like to photograph?” Lately, I seem to be conflicted on this point, even posing the question to my own psyche, what DO I like to photograph? How can I answer “everything.” How do I describe what LIGHT means to me, falling on faces, buildings, land and urbanscapes, or, just in its own state of being? Complicating this desire to document light, is my love of photographing without light, seeing how close I can get to the edge of darkness. As I mature, this exercise becomes even more urgent, passing through my lens, what I see in my heart. Perhaps, it is also my changing eyesight, my points of focus seem insignificant. So, this essay, is an attempt to record, in a thousand words, my evolution from “subjects” to “moments” in my photography. Currently, that’s how I answer the question, “I like to shoot moments.”

A long time ago, when I was an editorial photographer, I would mostly be assigned to photograph people. I shot portraits, street-work, and journalistic coverage, like my personal project, the “Vietnamese Refugees at Camp Pendleton” now part of the permanent collection “’Nam and the Sixties” at St. Lawrence University:

Vietnamese Refugees, Camp Pendelton, 1975
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

In 1978, Petersen’s Photographic Magazine published a large portfolio of my photographs of men. The Men Series was also exhibited in two exhibitions, with this review, by William Wilson, Art Critic, the Los Angeles Times:

“Loretta Ayeroff stands out from a trio of photographers because she seems to like men without harboring any illusions about them. It’s hard to like any aspect of life without illusions. It’s even harder to feel that way about one’s opposite gender. And then there is the sticky business of getting your feelings on film. Miss Ayeroff’s pictures of men seem to pull this off by simply allowing her subjects to be themselves in front of the camera. (Have you ever tried to be yourself in front of a camera?) One’s admiration goes up and up. Anyway, here are all these chaps being stupid, macho, tender, defensive-dignified, thoughtful, gay or antic like the nude fellow with a potted plant between his legs. Extremely likable pictures.”

Van Dyke Parks, Men Series, 1974
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

The “Men Series” is a collection of portraits, both self-assigned and taken for magazines that I worked for, shot in black & white Tri-x film, with a Pentax Spotmatic Camera. Earlier this year, I was asked to shoot, in the “Men Series” style, for a portrait commission, to be published next month. I pulled out the Spotmatic, replaced the battery, used my favorite 28mm lens, Tri-x film, to much success. I do miss the whole experience of working with the lab, even the waiting period, to see what came out, while the film is being developed. I stopped processing my negatives, decades ago, and my last darkroom was in the late 1980’s. I just gave away my darkroom equipment last year – I wish I hadn’t. There are over 150 portraits, maybe more, in The Men Series. They are regularly requested: a book-cover, and a CD insert, were published last year. I thought I was finished shooting this subject. Recently, however, I realized that I had still been photographing men, in color, using film and digitally, for several years. Surprisingly, I am now accumulating “Men Series II” images:

Solomon Terringer, Men Series II, 2012
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

Still, let me be frank. I stopped shooting portraits, after a reflective moment, twenty years ago, when I told myself that as an “older” lady photographer, I might not be assigned to shoot portraits.

I decided to become proficient at some other subjects. That’s when the concentration on buildings, urban and landscapes began in earnest. “California Ruins” were published in California Magazine, 1982, and one image will appear this year, in an upcoming book by Geoff Nicholson, Walking in Ruins. “The Motel Series,” shot on Kodachrome 64 film, was first exhibited and published, 1987. Last year, four images, from these two series, were included in “Backyard Oasis: The Swimming Pool in Southern California Photography, 1945-1982,” the Palm Springs Art Museum’s response to The Getty Trust’s initiative “Pacific Standard Time: Art in Los Angeles, 1945-1980.” In the exhibition catalogue, Daniell Cornell, Curator, Palm Springs Art Museum, includes my work with artists I greatly admire, Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal:

Orange Umbrella, Motel Series, 1981
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

“Suburbia: “As the dream of a placid lifestyle unravels in the 1970’s, social photographers such as Loretta Ayeroff, Lewis Baltz and Joe Deal began presenting more ironic images. Their frequently wry depictions captured the mundane, sometimes debased, quality of life in suburban developments, for which abandoned or derelict backyards and pools became a poignant symbol. In a photograph of a California tract development by Deal, for instance, the house is pushed to the side and the image is dominated by a kidney-shaped grass yard surrounded by concrete, which mimics the iconic backyard swimming pool even though it is probably beyond the family’s economic reach. Ayeroff and Baltz create strongly formal images that reference human absence.”

Expanding further, I concentrated on the subject of Los Angeles, my hometown. Although I’ve always photographed my surroundings, with several moves since 2006, a pattern began to emerge. Each new environment, starts with a window, with the light of that window, and what it foretold. There is a “mountain view” from most of the buildings or neighborhoods. This immersion in un-private space, smaller accommodations, un-familiar communities, gave me a seventh sense in adapting to my surroundings. The mandatory interiors, the neighborhood walks, time of dawn and dusk, my checklist for visuals. The documentation began with my studio window on Edris Drive, the last series I shot in film:

Mountain View, Edris Drive, 2006
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

“This picture reminds me of a 1978 exhibition by John Szarkowski, who was then director of the photography department at the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Titled “Mirrors and Windows,” it distinguished between two types of photographers: Romantics interested in self-expression and Realists focused on objective reality. A photograph was either “a mirror, reflecting a portrait of the artist who made it, or a window, through which one might better know the world.” The distinction can prove slippery, though. Loretta Ayeroff’s photograph is both window and mirror an image of a window as a mirror. Three-quarters of this view from her studio show us the bright landscape we recognize as L.A. But the other quarter, in the sash at lower right, turns dark, moody and mysterious because it is part reflection of a view through the adjacent sash that we cannot see directly. We are looking right at the banister rail in the foreground, but where is the faint third banister we see beyond? The dim, illogical relationships in this part of the picture are typical of the subjective experience Szarkowski ascribed to mirrors. That the aberration should occupy only one-quarter of the view is about right. Mirrors have always been the minority report in photography.”

Colin Westerbeck, Los Angeles Times

The windows get progressively darker, culminating in “Fifteen Backyards, The Story of a Relationship” shot from one window, over a year, sunrise to sundown:

Citrus Avenue, the first studio of two, around the corner from a former Raymond Chandler residence, contains the red light from our annual, September, fire season. Chandler said, “There was a desert wind blowing that night. It was one of those hot dry Santa Anas that come down through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump and your skin itch.”

Window, Citrus Avenue, 2007
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

Reading the novels of Chandler during this period, my work grew progressively darker, with an omnipresent “noir” quality:

Fairfax Avenue & Third Street, 2007
From “Los Angeles, Dedicated to Raymond Chandler”
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

Perhaps the studio window from Smithwood Drive, presaged my interest in “moments.” To shoot LIGHT, one has to be quick. There is no time to really check exposures, or carefully frame the scene. The photographs are produced almost like a “grab” shot, quickly before the light changes, or disappears altogether:

Window, Smithwood Drive, 2010
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

So, in my mind, I achieved the goal of expanding my subject matter. My portraiture had become portraits of my life, where I lived, and what surrounded me. Some of the family artifacts that I could no longer keep with me, during this odyssey, I documented. “Body of Evidence” is an ongoing project, becoming the proof that makes the case, my family once existed, despite the deaths and departures:

Body of Evidence: My Mother’s Green Gloves, My Father’s Cigarette Case, My Grandfather Frank’s Pipe, 2009-2010
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

“Moments” can include all. It’s how I think and see now, no longer restricted by subject, resulting in a panoply of choices… still-lifes, faces, rooms, vistas, corners, branches. An unexplainable mystery, an un-written story, like this, illustrating a Jane Vandenberg column, in the Huffington Post, next week:

Nighthawks, Child, 2012
© Loretta Ayeroff
Please visit What Do You Like to Photograph, by Loretta Ayeroff for the full size image.

I know the result of my shifting perspectives is an un-recognizable style. Whereas my portraits have an Ayeroff “look” I don’t think this is true with my current work. I’m letting the moment, speak for itself, un-encumbered by recognizable framing, or forcing a certain design element. As the photographer, the “mine” fades into the light, only to reveal better, what is in front of me.

For more photos and stories, please visit Loretta Ayeroff online portfolio.

Faces of Cystic Fibrosis, by Kyle Monk

Kyle Monk — Wed, 04 Sep 2013 05:51:05 +0000

Text and photos by Kyle Monk.

Moments after reviewing the image I instantly knew I created something powerful, beautiful and moving. This particular photograph of Michael Lawrence would steer the direction of the shoot. Initially I planned to photograph each subject three different ways. First a close up portrait of each face, next a full body frame incorporating a personal item and finally a portrait with the medical equipment. After photographing Mikey with his nebulizer I made it a point to focus my time and effort photographing the children with their medical devices which consisted of nebulizers, high-frequency chest oscillation vests, inhaled bronchodilators and antibiotics.

This memorable photograph was taken of four year old Michael Lawrence, a young child affected with Cystic Fibrosis. In the image Mikey holds his fish nebulizer Bubbles and takes a breath to help his lungs breathe through the thick mucus his body forever produces. In an attempt to making breathing treatments more appealing and less threatening for the kids, there are a variety of pediatric masks – dinosaur, elephant, etc for the different nebulizers.

Nebulizers break down liquid medication into aerosol mist producing treatment which helps clear the airways. Freeing the airways of mucus is vital to maintaining good lung function. If the mucus is not removed from the lungs, these children and adults may have more infections, decreased lung function, shortness of breath, decreased activity level and more.

Within the vast darkness surrounding Mikey you see his connection with Bubbles. You get the sense he has done this countless of times before and will continue to do so just like so many others with this heart wrenching disease. During this moment the world appears to be still, but is surrounded by silence and darkness. The only sound is that of the shutter clicking as Mikey’s heart beats and hands delicately grip Bubbles. His eyes focused and in tune with the moment that I am deeply moved. I wonder what Mikey is thinking? Can he make sense of what is happening? Is he mesmerized by the endless routine of combating cystic fibrosis? I don’t know, but I can see in his eyes familiarity and innocence, and also the courage young Michael has. This was a genuine moment for me. Within a split second the truth and reality of fighting Cystic Fibrosis was in font of my eyes and I felt deeply saddened. At that exact point in time I would have done everything I could to cure Cystic Fibrosis.

Michael’s journey is harder than most but he still continues to move forward as the happy 4 year old that I know. This intimate act of survival is what I find most empowering, haunting and inspiring. Understanding the severity of Cystic Fibrosis motivated me to bring awareness, honesty and silent beauty to my photographs.

I believe that Michael, like so many other young children, cannot quite comprehend what cystic fibrosis is, nor what the future holds for their lives. They do know however, that they must engage in several breathing treatments a day to stay alive and healthy. This includes inhaled medicines, and wearing a high-frequency chest wall oscillation vest to break apart the mucous. Along with hours of treatments, vitamin supplements, therapies, doctor visits and more, it’s sad to know there is still no cure and no end to this life threatening disease. I’m saddened and happy when working with the children and their families. Knowing that these young lives are threatened by Cystic Fibrosis brings me down, yet their courageous personality, positive attitude and fighting spirit are uplifting and comforting.

I really felt a connection with these kids taking photographs that day and I believe this bond with the children and families was a key role in the success to creating these images. I had time to sit, talk, listen and see. Most importantly I tried to be aware and ready to capture those subtle honest moments. Michael’s image moved me that day and everything made sense and I felt even more passionate and inspired to continue this series.

I’m troubled and amazed with what these young kids must go through on a daily basis. As I continued the project I had also interviewed the kids and wanted to share what Mitch Russo had to say about living with CF. “I hate to do the vest! It hurts underneath my arms and I get lonely being hooked up in my room so many times per day… having CF is the worst!” says sixteen year old Mitch Russo when the doctor told him he would have to use a machine called the vest everyday for the rest of his life in order to combat cystic fibrosis. He finds having Cystic Fibrosis very challenging. Mitch tries to be a normal kid, but it’s hard when you have to plan every day around treatments, surgeries and hospital visits. “CF affects me emotionally and medically and the uncertainty of the disease makes me scared I might die,” he says.

As a kid I worried about simple and practical things like auditioning for the school play, what girl I would be square dancing with and homework. I did not have to think about my health in a very serious manner or even worse that I might die. I cannot imagine having such thoughts during my youth. Genetic diseases such as cystic fibrosis are unpredictable. Simply put, luck of the draw. It’s not fair, but that is life and working with these kids reminds me of how delicate our existence is. I was humbled and awakened when I photographed these strong spirits. I realize the importance of family, friends and loved ones even more.

My senses were heightened and my intentions became pure.

Sadly I dislike saying this but these feelings eventually fade away into the daily grind. Work, family, and life gets the most of me and I forgot about Mikey and Cystic Fibrosis for some time. I hope my images will resonate with people. I want the viewer to feel something. Emotion is the goal. If you have truly felt anything from this series then I believe I have done my job. An emotion strong enough to create conversation, ask questions, raise concerns and promote action in the fight to find a cure and improve the lives of people with CF is what I want.

Cystic Fibrosis is a rare disease, but today many people with CF are expected die before their adult years are now living much longer. In order to help extend these years and find a cure we must first bring awareness and increase funding to advance science, research and support.

I now feel part of a close community through my work with the CF Foundation and the families who volunteered to participate in my project “Faces of CF“. It is the thank yous, hopeful smiles and warm feelings of appreciation and dedication to life, and family that make it all worth it for me. I want to help these lives through my passion for photography. Working with the CF foundation has been a unique, memorable and uplifting experience. I felt a genuine purpose behind the lens, a feeling I rarely have. My vision has matured as I have too.

Please visit Kyle Monk website for more stories and photos.