Caress me, please.

Well, kind of stuck without ideas on what to photograph on these days, because of that I will continue showing work done but have not been shown/shared anywhere.

I have been drawing lately, but those have been a decapitation and a head bean shot so they are not related at all with the images below which are from 2015. These were from the second photo session with a close friend.

Andrea and me 1.  2015. 30 x 30cm

Hurt me, if you can

As I was saying, I am not showing any face in these photographs. If the models remains anonymous they can be anybody. At least, anybody with slim bodies :D
These images were not planned, therefore any idea or emotion the viewer may get is are on his own experience. Sometimes art does not have to have an intention.

More or less the only direction I gave to the model was something like: " let's image we dance or fight but at the same time were stick to each other"
It was no as fluid as I would have liked, for each picture the timer was set to 10 seconds (the camera default). In many cases once I felt we had a good position we had to hold it till the camera fired.

Tattooed girl No. 1

They and me

Two bodies.
I have not written anything in very long time, just poems about a monster. Nothing related to photography. I have bought books which I don't read and I have not been eating healthy lastly. But I feel good.

I am not native English speaker and despite that I rather write in English than in Spanish. Not sure why.

During the last two months I have been working in old photos. I take photos, many photos but  I don't publish them on my Instagram neither Facebook page. The images in these social media are no appreciated as they should be. Anyway, I have a small series about two bodies interacting, that was the main idea. I never really developed it so I could not say it is concluded as it never actually was started.

I am not ashamed of my body but I don't like to show myself in photographs and as for the girls they had no issue in show their bodies. I will be sharing more of them during next days. Now is time to sleep.

Piercing in the navel. 2016. 50 x 50cm.

Day 41, Art lovers

Day 27, Ground and garbage

Remembering my old series Eart pollution I took these images today:

Day 18, burning staff

Day 11, A book by the window

Today I took the photo quite early compared with previous days.

The book is from the Peruvian photographer Billy Hare. I will prepare an article about him soon,as there little information about him online.

Day 8, Fears, illusions and happiness

It was 10:30 and still had no taken any picture for today. Honestly, I had a total laziness all day but I I have decided not to fail this time and make a picture a day, whatever it takes.
I did no want to go out to the street and try to snap some street scene, instead I did what I like the most and I needed to do, continue with my project The solitude of delirium so I took my book a little bird body and start to compose the scene. Then I took my camera and start to compose and try to find a good angle for it. Not an easy job, it may look easy have something photogenic and be sure good photos will come out but it is not.

Photography is more than just point and shoot, in many cases is a catharsis or self therapy process, in more simple words a way to express our fears, illusions and happiness and learn to live with them.

From the moment we decide to frame something and take a picture of it, we are granting some importance to that piece of reality over its surroundings. Why we choose that scene depends in our experiences and way of thinking. Why I choose a dead bird? because for me represent the end of an dream, the bird that never learnt to fly, a broken illusion. However tragedies are part of life and deal with them is what make us stronger.

The eternal dream.

The above image was taken specifically for this 365 project. The image below is a behind the scene of the shooting for the The solitude of delirium 

Day 1, so far it looks easy.

Well, here I am with my first photo of this 365 project. I will limit at the most per 3 images per day even I think there will be days I will suffer to make at least one decent photograph.
Not sure what you will want to I write about, the technical details? the reason why I choose that image or what inspired me to take it? But for now, I will write what come to my mind.

 After pick up my son from his summer class I saw this old woman on our way back home. I asked the woman if I could photograph her dog and she gently accepted. The dog was a good model.

This photo was inspired by many of the similar photos I have seen featured in photography online magazines, sometimes I found them boring and sometimes beautiful.

Same as before, I liked the shadows. Enjoying simple things now.

Trying to not f*ck it this time

In my way back to home after have photographed the concert I remembered that once I started a 365 project with my mobile phone. It started well as I was excited about it and was my first smartphone with a decent camera. However, after the initial excitement, I struggled to do interesting images without relying  on the effects or filter that all camera apps have. I did not want to make some pretty images just because of a stupid filter or app but somehow I started to like and wanted to take photos of a fake world, that one with always blue skies, perfect sunsets and nice tonalities but all thanks to a filter. That was not me, well was in part but was not the direction where I wanted that my creativity and art go. So I stopped it.

Now I am carrying my camera again with me everywhere and I decided to take the challenge again and even more, will do it in color. Yes for most of it I will not make any conversion to black and white. If you don't leave our comfort zone then I think you should not call yourself and artist or a creative person. Think about it.

A calm street.

Intimacy - the hidden side.

Intimacy -side B it is the second part of my series Intimacy in which I explore myself trough portraits  but instead of be me in them I photograph women.

In this part of the series, the subject is the back of the women. I wont publish the statement, better make your interpretation of them. If you have any question about them, use the comment section or the contact page.

Karolina, 23 years old.

About sisters...

I made theses portraits of these two sisters specially for the portrait category of the Samsung NX200 contest Feel and share.

I had just a basic idea of what I wanted: a portrait of them looking each other seriously but as the photo session started and more photos were taken it lead me to other kind of pictures as you can see. I took approximately 90 shoots and these are my selection. The 7th photo is my favorite, it give me that feeling of mixed emotions, followed by the 3rd of the faced being hold by hands which can have many interpretations.

Anyway, the most important is that they, Lenka and Kristyna, my wonderful models are happy with the results :-). I know these portraits are not the typical or expected photos of sisters, in which they would be smiling and looking happy but I think fall into what I would dare to call, even I don't like the term of "artistic portraits" because there is something more intimate in those eyes when you look at them. So no more words and enjoy them.

We can change the future..., actually not.

One of the hardest categories for me to send photos was Future, mainly because the way I see it is more technological, like robots, cyborgs, flying cars, etc. and make some images based in those ideas is pretty hard. However as the deadline was approaching, the pressure made me make diamonds:

Think too much about the future is useless, and this is a common phrase we hear when things are not going well in the present: We can can change it! but we can?

As the phrase sounds nice and optimist I decided to make a photo of it. I collected some leaves from the street and place them on a note book, some basic arrangement and done! but after few minutes to take this photos I realized that it was wrong, we cannot change the the future because it has not happened yet, therefore what we can do indeed is change our present so our actions can shape, up to some point, the future. And that idea lead me to the second image The future is not written yet.

Simple , effective and nice don't you think?

 

 

The next images are more from my idea of a technological world. As i did not have any of the objects i needed to make the images I wanted, a small twist in my ideas push to these with the Christmas light. The one with my son is titled: "Cyborg" and the other one "Artificial hand"

 

And to finish a picture titled "You and me".

Other world

Long time ago, during my days as a staff photographer for cruise line I used to travel around the Caribbean, surrounded by beautiful beaches, white sand, palm trees and an eternal summer, I took these photographs. Instead of the traditional Caribbean landscapes and sunsets, sexy girls in the beach, wild parties or some exotic attraction/place I was taking blurry photos (in purpose). 

Something was not going ok. My mind was "out of place".

I like darkness. Most of my portraits are done in my studio, and in a 95% I use a black background, I like black metal, small spaces where I can control all, artists like Joel Peter Witkin and John Santerineross. So all these sunny days and prettiness were too much, obviously I enjoyed it, but it was not good for the kind of images I wanted to create until I realized that the solution/escape was very simple.

As artists, we are always looking to make something original and different, not always happen but we still try. In this case if I did not want to take landscapes or people as they usually are taken in this kind of environment why not simple distort it. I have no need of glasses and have a pretty good sight, therefore have to "see" the world in this way to be able to express myself was really challenging. I like the results, hope you too.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life in PORNO VILLA

This is an amazing animation video from a group of  artist from Prague. It was made in what they call "Porno Villa", the place where they live and work. There is a web site too (Czech only), a bit clutter to my taste, with more images and interesting content that make it worth visit it.

The video is about a crazy journey, transformations (or mutations) and rebirth  of a "porno lover" by the logo in his t-shirt trough different environments of the house. Enjoy it.

 

Živé sochy - The winner.

Following the story from my previous post, Živé sochy - Living statues in Naměstí Svobody, the winner was the one I called The unemployed. This post is just for him.

He thought it is time to change his life.  

He looked for a job.

Thinking about one add found. 

Decided and in the way to the interview.

Sadly, he did not pass the interview.

Life is like that, keep going.

You can see all photographs in the Živé Sochy gallery of my website.

Živé sochy - Living statues in Náměstí Svobody

Last Sunday there was a contest of  living statues or živé sochy, as it is said in Czech language, in the main square , known as Náměstí Svobody, in the city of Brno.
When I was informed about this event I asked my self, uhm... now how I do I take it? The options I had were:

A) Go and snap the "statues" in a journalistic style. Try to catch how the people interact with them, uhm....  no.

B) Simply portrait them in full body with the buildings, people, etc as a background and in post production change the colors to give them a "sculpture look". Uhmn.. no either, It would had not worked because a good photo of that kind depends on factors I cannot control as the background (it could be ugly or do not match  the statue look), people waking around, etc plus the idea that it would look very similar to many other photographs out there with the same subject.

C) Last one, take a reflector or diffuser, place it behind the subject, as a background, to isolate it from the context and make the photo so I can have just the statue and nothing else to distract.

I liked the last one the most, however it would not be so easy. I did not have anybody to help me to hold the reflector behind the model so I would had to do it. How? carrying with me a tripod or stand like this. Uhm...backpack with camera equipment at my back plus a bag with a tripod and a reflector on the hand, heavy package... no other option, when you really want to do something, you do it.

So I went for it. The square was crowed because there was too a marathon competition. The statues were quite close to each other by a stage where there was a show and me trying to walk between the people to reach the statues. I think I must had been a kind of show, someone just appearing between the people setting a tripod with a reflector, pick a "big" camera with a "big" (my 70-200mm) lens, move around and start to shoot a person pretending be statue.

Everything was going fine until I realized there was another photographer, pretty, by the way, and  I think was a serious hobbyist for the kind of lens she had that was taking taking "advantage" of my setup and making her own photos, I don't mind if someone just snap some shoots but she was doing it with every statue where I set the reflector! so where is her creativity I tough, I mean  if  in any kind of art the goal is to try to be original or come out with something unusual why "steal", I don't mean I am the first with this idea but in that context was my effort to carry and set-up all by self. At the end I did not say anything, being a street show actually give to everyone the freedom to take photos whenever and however of what they want. The good part is that, her action lead me to change my original idea. If at the beginning I had tough with the reflector make a frame inside the photo to isolate it from the environment I decided to avoid it completely simply  extending the reflector edges with the magic of Photoshop.

The results are these, hope you like it.

The cyclist.

 

The flautist.

A virgin or saint?

 

Another flautist.

The musician.

The unemployed.

Who do you think was the winner?