6 days to Intimacy

I think I know you, that...

... I know your secrets...

War Photographer, Jamens Natchwey.

Finally I could find it and complete the documentary about the photographer James Natchwey, directed by Chrisian Frei. It is English and have Spanish subtitles. This movie is a must for anybody interested in journalism and documentary photography.
Enjoy and think about his message.

a poem - Princess of the Balkans

She

a perverted goddess

of milky sinful skin.

She

a forgotten soul

in a snowy forest.

She

a crystal knife

of shimmering beauty.

xxx

My corrupted muse,

don't cry on my dirty hands

don't caress me under gray skies.
Just be there, down in the ground
blessing all creatures that dare look at you.

Extras 8 - Jana

After a long break, I am back with Jana, as with my previous models, I tried to get different looks from the same person but keeping one style. With her it was not exception, I think that is a good way to push your creativity and your model skills to give you more interesting images.

Enjoy them.

Extras 7 - Lenka

Continuing with the "extras" series now is the chance for Lenka, a czech girl student of laws, as well from my city, Brno.

She was a very versatile model, as you can see I was able to get different looks from her with a very simply lighting style, a small flash trough a shoot trough umbrella. This time I have made some diagrams to show my setup and as you can see, is very simple. Enjoy them.

 

For the next ones, I took off the black clothe, leave my wall be the  background and add a reflector. The wall obviously did not come out pure white, it was light gray that was easily whiteout in photoshop.

For this image I remove the umbrella, lower it and shoot it straight, simple, then some post production in photoshop and that was all.

How to be creative?

 

Every photographer/artist  have those days when there are no new ideas or simple there is no mood to "create", to pick the camera, the brush or pencil to take photos, to paint or draw.

If you are in those days, maybe you are waiting for the ideas to come to your mind, waiting for the magical spark that will bring you an original idea for a new series or project. You may be as well surfing the web looking at blogs, stories, others artist work in order to get inspired but is all this worthy?

No, you may get motivation but no inspiration. Inspiration comes from work and more work; not from magic.

You want ideas? Go and look for them. Make what you most like when you most dislike it. If you want to take photos but have no idea of what, the only way to find out is taking photos of everything (portraits, landscapes, still life, etc) only in that way you will discover what you don't like and what give you more pleasure or you are better. After that, you will have to narrow even more. Let's say you choose on work landscapes, now what kind? urban or nature? color or black and white? they will show loneliness or they will be cheerful? etc, etc. In this way after a while you find your theme for a project or series and only after a long period of time you will discover your style.

Creativity is spontaneous for many and for others no at all. Those who lack of it must cultivate it. There is no shortcut or easy way. They must push their selves to think out of the box and don't be afraid of failure. Failure and mistakes are sources for ideas. If something does not work, twist it and you will have a new concept, then keep working.

Extras 6 - Linda

After a while I come back with the "extras", the photographs that did not pass the final edition process for my project "Intimacy". This time my model is Linda, as well from Brno, Czech Republic.
Hope you like them, two different looks for the same person. 

 

The Bratislava portfolio review

Last weekend I attended the Bratislava portfolio review as part of the month of  photography. It were two fantastic days were I had the opportunity to show last work to a a series of gallery owners, curators,  art researches, art critics and photo editors.

This was my first time in this kind of events and it couldn't be better. The chance to hear what other "specialized" people think about your work is invaluable. Obviously, you must be prepared to hear from: "I don't see coherence in what you say and your photos show", "something is missing here,"  "looks commercial" to "I think your work is good". You cannot make everybody happy and to some you will make concessions and to others you will only remember theirs words as wise advices but you won't apply them in to your work because as many of them said carefully before criticize your work: "this is just my opinion". And portfolio reviews are for that, to hear opinions from "experts in the field", make contacts and to tell to a little part of the art world that you exist.

This event take place in the faculty of film and television, a nice place but not the best. The rooms are OK, but it will be better if for next years a place with bigger rooms can be used.

About the reviewers, they a have a good selection: Regina Maria Anzenberger from Anzenberger Agency, Daniela Billner, editor of Camera Austria, Joanne Junga Yang, director of Y&G Art Global Contemporary Project, Horst Kloever, curator and writer from photeurblog.de between others. There were around 25 reviewers and I personally could show my work to 17 of them and the feedback is invaluable.

The cost of this portfolio review is very affordable, only 49 euros for two days. Compared with others that usually goes at least 200 euros is a great deal.

So I hope to see you next year there.

A portrait from the series I presented at the review and I was going to make public this week, but after all the feedback I will "reorganize it" to make it more consistent, stronger and solid. So be patient if you want to see more here soon. :-)

Photographs that inspire me.

Everybody has his own heroes and paradigms, from family, work and pop culture icons, everybody always admire someone, his work or personality. If you say no, "I just explore my inner world I dont need to see other people work" you are a liar and stupid. The great masters admired older great masters and always has been like that.

When it is about artist, it is hard for some admit theirs influences because everybody want to be original, the first one!.  From my side, today I am sharing with you some of the photographs that made a big impact in my life and inspired/push me as a photographer to keep trying new things and explore /see the world in a different way.

One of favorities from all the time: Jan Saudek: the photo of the hands, so simple, so tragic and so many ways to be interpreted.

Joel Peter Witkin

Currently there is an exhibition of  photographs of Joel Peter Witkin  in Brno house of arts as part of the project Decadence now! which take place simultaneously at the Rudolfinum Gallery in Prague.

This is the first time I have the chance to see a complete exhibition of him, so kind of a dream made reality plus the fact that next day after the opening there was a small presentation about his work with him in person!

I saw his work  first time in a classroom back in 1997 in college and immediately I liked his work. Those dark photograhs showing deformed people, corpses and all what was outside the "normal" but in such a way that you could see and feel the complexity of live. The impression of his work was such that one of my series during college, influenced by his work, was about death and respect to the animals we use for our feeding (Animals of the paradise) with which I got a very good qualification. :-)

The  photographs of Witkin are powerful and disturbing. They have a lot of symbolism from Greek mythology and christian religion but something I have realized is that his recent work is lighter or better said no so dark and shocking as his early work. Now many of his images have a surrealistic atmosphere and lighter tones, pretty women and nice bodies. His paintings are present in many of them as well as part of the background and some of them are including text on it (and in Spanish)

During the small seminar that was held, he explained how she started with a  camera that could take two scenes into one photogram, his period of photographing fetuses when his first son was going to be born, his experience as a war photographer and his love for beauty and live which of course for many people is hard to understand due to the nature and subjects of his work.

a poem - Birth of an insurrection against profanes gods

I opened my heart with a silver knife
let my blood pray to evil gods
let my sins clean confused hands
and dreamed deep into purple nightmares
in whose lands
there won't be sunrise to forgive me
either no hands to warm my pain

Poor my penitent soul,
sleeping in unknown regions
will face greedy heavens
and will curse their sacred power.
                                        Carlos Lopez 2010

SEO - Search engine optimization for photographers

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