A week ago I went fishing with friends in Norway. Not a rod in sight. I am usually not going around with a camera just in case, but this was different.
😊 Pelle
Category Archives: Freedom
“a man with the camera of an artist, the pen of a poet and a genius for the impossible”
Said by Harrison Salisbury about David Douglas Duncan. A life in photography. This is fantastic reading from Washington Post with many great links for more interesting material.
Top image, Marine Capt. Ike Fenton during a Korean War battle in 1950. (© David Douglas Duncan/Harry Ransom Center)
😊 Pelle
I admit
That I don´t often get too impressed by photography that I see. But this is just wonderful. I think! 😀 Pelle
From Washington Post
Timeless tintypes of the world’s most photographed subjects
At Sundance Film Festival, photographer Victoria Will had just minutes with some of Hollywood’s most famous actors and directors — arguably, some of the most photographed people in the world — but she chose a process that at its core is imperfect: tintype.
The 19th century wet-plate photography process predates film. There are no negatives, no large digital files or multiple frames, and no do-overs. Each image is one of a kind.
It starts in the darkroom, where each plate must be coated by hand with light sensitive emulsion. The exposure starts with a comically blinding amount of light, which is reflected off the subject into the camera lens and onto the aluminum plate still wet with emulsion. Any dry patches will remain undeveloped. It is an unforgiving medium. It also makes each image undeniably unique.
“I love that when you make a tintype you are making a thing, a physical photographic object — one that you can hold and experience in a different way,” Will told In Sight. “But I also love the finicky nature of the chemistry. Each plate is one of a kind. In the digital age these two aspects of the medium really inspire me.”
On one of the last pages of the book is a quote from Walker Evans: “The eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.” When asked, Will said it sums up what she loves and why she is so drawn to photography. “A successful image for me is one that makes you feel. It needs to touch you in some way,” she said. “I think unconsciously, and clearly articulated by Evans here, photographers are moved by emotion. That’s what is actually pushing the shutter.”
Now I wish I lived in London
The top 10 photography exhibitions of 2017.
I picked this up in The Guardian. 😊 Pelle
About the top image: A still from Incoming by Richard Mosse. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York and carlier|gebauer, Berlin.
Perhaps the most widely discussed exhibition of the year, Mosse’s vast three-screen video installation was not strictly photography, but addressed all the issues that the medium is freighted with as it negotiates the post-truth world. Shot on a hi-tech military surveillance camera that registers body heat from as far away as 30km, Incoming reimagined the contemporary refugee crisis as a Ballardian dystopian drama populated by spectral figures moving slowly through an alien landscape. Beautifully observed moments of heightened intimacy – a lone figure praying to Mecca amid the tumult around him – provide breathing space in an almost overwhelming audiovisual installation.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/dec/13/top-10-photography-exhibitions-of-2017
Snow is coming down. Tiddelipom…
A few tips for your camera excursions as winter is coming and snow is painting the world in white. Or gray and brown as it is in some places… I found it in on BBC.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/article/42310311/how-to-take-the-perfect-snow-snap
I went fishing
Something that I don´t often do. However, with my dear friend Knut, his brother Asle and their wonderful friends in Norway it all went well. We caught lots of fish. Fishing is very relaxing. Also taking care of the net after is contemplative. We had so much of everything and nothing to talk about. First time I managed to photograph fishing as well.
Thanks Knut for letting me borrow your camera!
😊 Pelle
Read this!!!
This is just a wonderful, moving story about love of photography. Read the article and see amazing photos from great photographers. By Ceri Jackson, BBC.
😊 Pelle
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/idt-sh/david_hurn_photographer_swaps_magnum
Swaps – Photographs from the David Hurn collections runs from 30 September 2017 to 11 March 2018 at the National Museum Cardiff
All you’ve got is a box with a hole at the front. That’s what we’ve all got and that’s all we’ve ever had since photography was invented.
“All that happens is the image of life out there goes whizzing through that lens and goes bang onto some material or other and you get a trace of that life on the back of the box. And you’ve got once chance at it, unlike painting or writing you can’t go back and edit, in photography the moment’s gone and will never happen again.
“So, all we have is this box with a hole in the front. So how come if there was a sheep dog trial for instance and Cartier-Bresson, McCullin and Bruce Davidson were there, they are all photographing exactly the same thing but if you showed me 10 pictures from that event I would be able to tell you who had taken what picture?
“It’s the signature of someone which can’t be contrived; it’s the purest thing to their real personality, the world seen through their eyes. The pictures are stamped with the unique style of the individual who shot them.
“But what is necessary for the authorship to come through is an impeccable command of the technical side. The best photographers might say ‘Oh, the technical side is unimportant’. Well, the technical side is staggeringly important but it has got to the point with them that they don’t have to think about it. That only comes through hard work and incessant practice.
“I always stress this point… you’re not a photographer because you are interested in photography.
“The picture is out there, you don’t make the picture, you just have a good visual eye and press the button at the right time. For that you must have an intense curiosity and tenacity, not just a passing visual interest, in the theme of the pictures. This curiosity leads to intense examination, reading, talking, research and many, many failed attempts.
“The idea that there’s no future in taking pictures is nonsensical. If you go to Smiths in Paddington station there’s 3,000 magazines for sale and they’ve all got pictures in them, they’re on websites.
“Everybody’s floundering a little bit as to how to make any money from it but those sorts of problems will be solved, clever people will find ways. Pictures are going to be needed there and the skills are still going to be the same.”
It is a measure of the force of the medium of photography that a picture that probably took a 60th of a second to shoot continues to fuel the life of another man 62 years on.
All smiles
Some like to get their faces dirty. Like some jockeys. Yesterday was an evening on the dirt track, and though it was really dirty there was a very friendly and good atmosphere. Many of them realised the situation and my interest in their dirt covered faces. I think they really enjoyed it. However the evening races are tricky with the flood lights. I am looking forward to another day race soon.
😊🏇😊 Pelle
My first view of China
On my first trip to China recently I took some personal photographs. Very much street photography. China is a very interesting graphic country. What the signs say I don´t know, but I like the looks of them. The images below are mostly from the streets and I can imagine keep right and left…
😊 Pelle
Same same, but always different
I see mostly the same jockeys and the same horses, but it is never ever the same. The weather changes, and my angles. And everything else. Some of my images are not about racing but still lifes/details from the horses or jockeys. It is a colorful and very exciting sport! The owners and trainers often pimp their racing darlings. Now I am looking forward to a dirty dirttrack, AND a couple of exhibitions with my images. Exciting! From yesterdays races at Bro Park. 😊🏇😊 Pelle
On a photographers mind 