PhotoLove

Just a really sweet picture I found on a friend's blog and thought of sharing :)

24.2.11

Hello hello,

I haven't written here for a while now so I thought it was about time to start again.

This post won't be about any particular photographic group or exhibition, just a little chat between me and you and what I've been up to - of course in terms of visual art!

So, I have recently discovered and become part of the Lomography world: the other day I was waiting for a film (used with my Olympus OM10) to develop and I popped in one of the chain's shops by Spitalfields market. There I found so many of their amazing little plastic cameras of any color and just got lost in that world - until the saleswoman eventually came up to me asking if I needed any he

lp... I admit I was quite lost between all those kinds. Well, even though I promised myself not to buy anything, I ended up leaving the shop with a brand new Mini Diana which I love, it's just too cute and small, which enables me to bring it anywhere I want thanks also to its light weight. So far I developed only one film, it didn't came out too bad but I still need to work on it (I will eventually post some pictures one day).

Then, the day after, since I had to save money I had the brilliant idea of buying a flashgun for my Nikon D80. This is a bit different though, I do hope it will be an investment and that the expense will be paid off! In fact I have been talking to a guy who was looking for club photographers, and since I had some experience in it - and some extra money sounds quite nice - I should start helping him out soon. Hopefully everything will work out for the better!

I haven't visited any exhibition recently unfortunately, it has been such a busy period with work and uni. For one of my modules, me and my group had to shoot a short film - it has been an incredible experience that has really taught me a lot, if you'd like to take a look at it you can find it here. Don't be too peaky, we were all beginners :) Something that upsets me a little bit about the film is that we haven't been able to properly 'pass the message' we wanted to: what to us the film is about are the choices we make in life and how they affects us (and how no matter what we chose some things have to happen anyway). But unfortunately what many people got from it is a critique to those who do drugs, as if we wanted to show that 'drugs are bad and if you marry you have a happy life'. Oh well, overall as I said I had fun and we learn from our mistakes, right?

Finally, I think I will eventually start posting some of my pictures in here as well, although I should probably make a Flickr account - I still don't have one!! Anyway, in the meanwhile you can find some of my own 'work' in the blog Indipendent Photography: it's really nice and I suggest you to get involved, if you as well like to 'snap' some pictures every once in a while.

c.

AORTA

So, today I ran into these editorials on 125magazine and I thought they were quite amazing. They are from the Swedish duo AORTA, Marco Grizelj and Kristian Krän, whose trademark is its 'semi-documentary fashion photography'.

I strongly suggest to take a look to their website for some other great works.

Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010

First Place,
Huntress With Buck - David Chanchellor

Second Place,
Portrait of my British Wife - Panayiotis Lamprou

Third Place,

Tic Tac and Toots - Jeffrey Stockbridge

Fourth Place,

Untitled 2 - Abby Trailer-Smith

I have deliberately avoided to write any explanation next to these photographs (sorry if they are so small) because I thought that one must first look at the image itself and its composition, before being ‘distracted’ by its story.

(You can find the description of the winning photographs here).

This exhibition presented very powerful portraits shot in a familiar environment to which the viewer can easily identify. A mix between gifted amateurs, established professionals and photography students have participated to this year’s competition, with nearly 6,000 submissions. Only 60 though have been selected for the final exhibition, which I strongly suggest to go see.

Also, on Thursday and Friday the gallery is open until 21.00 with music and talks, which helps creating a nice and ‘cosy’ environment.

Here are a few other of the ones I liked most, although unfortunately I wasn’t able to find some on internet (one more reason to attend the exhibition).

Hockney and Ruby, Jonathan Root

Tagar with his three daughters: Asa, Diti, Prya, Kurt Hoerbst

Catharina #081, David Knight

Wafa, Felix Carpio

Not even Magic Stopped the Genocide, David Graham

For more informations: Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2010
The exhibition will run until February 2011.

Daido Moriyama etc.

In the past few days I had the opportunity to visit a couple of photography exhibitions in my own town Modena, Italy. They were both quite interesting and, to an amateur as I am, inspiring.

One of them is called Make History, a project that had ran last year and had big success, but to which the government has cut funds for this second edition. In fact, it was only present in Modena instead that in many other cities across Europe.

An international contest of photo-reportage, it was open to anyone who wanted to depict through photography an aspect of their own history. Out of 2,400 participants, only 101 have been eventually selected for the final exhibition, of whom one won €25,000 for the best picture (Downdance by a Spanish artist called Leidenfrost).

This particular image wasn’t my favourite, I found others much more provoking and realistic, but this is of course just my mere opinion.
Here are a few others:








The second one was dedicated to Daido Moriyama, an incredibly dark Japanese urban photographer. I don't have much knowledge on Japanese photography, but I must admit this exhibition made me quite interested in it and I will definitely attend some more.

Although I liked some of his photographs more than others - that I didn't find as much compelling - what I liked most was his 'philosophy' behind his work. After some internet research, I arrived to a japanese international online magazine called Shift, where it was quoted what Moriyama said: 'Photographs only capture a moment, but it is an attractive media that connects to others.'

Also, during a recorded interview he stated that all of his works don’t have any specific meaning: instead he makes the viewer finding one. This is great, because I am of the idea that photographic works (as painting and other forms of art) are very much subjective, and that giving them a definition would do nothing but harm the effect they have on the viewer.

Furthermore, he focused on areas and people that perhaps we don’t normally look at, this way forcing us to open our eyes to what is around.
Here are some of the ones I liked most:

And finally, my favorite: