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
Together with Avedon, Penn, Steichen, Strand, Arbus, Cartier-Bresson, Albert Watson and a few more, he is one of the truly great photographers. For me. They are all different and perhaps I should not compare them. So I don´t. Read the article from The Guardian, by Sean O `Hagan.
See the images and imagine the sound that he recorded. 😊 Pelle
Smith took many famous pictures, but also taped hours of audio of jazz greats, writers and artists of the day in his New York loft. A new book explores his strange world
Smith was perhaps the single most important American photographer in the development of the editorial photo essay. His visual narratives, usually published in Life magazine, were often brutally atmospheric. He evoked the horrors of the second world war in the Pacific, where he was injured by mortar fire, and chronicled the working life of Dr Ernest Ceriani in the small town of Kremmling, Colorado, in his 1948 series, Country Doctor, now recognised as the first extended editorial photo story.
In 1955, Smith became a member of the Magnum picture agency, travelling to Pittsburgh for his first assignment, which entailed producing 100 photographs in three weeks to mark the city’s first centenary. He worked on the project for three years, producing around 21,000 photographs. Today, his legacy is maintained by the W Eugene Smith Memorial Fund, which celebrates and encourages the kind of humanistic photography he pioneered, if not the impossible tasks he set himself and his beleaguered editors.
https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/aug/06/w-eugene-smith-photographer-record-everything
• Gene Smith’s Sink by Sam Stephenson is published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux on 22 August ($26)
This is a very interesting article about people who thought they could photograph thoughts. Whatever you think, and I, the images with the old hand writing are beautiful. It is artistic. Perhaps even art…?
http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20170116-the-man-who-tried-to-photograph-thoughts-and-dreams
Images courtesy of The Institute for Frontier Areas of Psychology and Mental Health (IGPP) in Germany. Article by Josh Gabbatiss in BBC.
😊 Pelle
The project is organised by Cafe Art, a social enterprise that hosts exhibitions of artwork by homeless people. Their first calendar was created back in 2012
Each photographer was first given training by the Royal Photographic Society, who have since been mentoring the photographers every two weeks to continue to develop their skills
Cafe Art says its aims are to empower homeless people, allow them to tell their stories and raise awareness of their plight
The images selected for the calendar were picked via a public vote in August
‘Painting, drawing, sketching, photography, sculpturing and craft making are some of the many activities that homeless people or those who are socially excluded are encouraged to do to help boost self-esteem, confidence and self-worth,’ Cafe Art say. ‘It is also therapeutic in that it acts as an outlet to channel their feelings, frustrations, anger, but also hope and optimism for the future’
A great idea with some great photos.
I found the article in The Guardian.
😊 Pelle
This time from BBC, and a look into the history of amazing sport photos.
About the top image:
“Bob Martin’s photograph is so beautifully composed, so structured, that it is only afterward the details come into focus,” writes Buckland. “This is the Paralympics. The rules of swimming are almost identical to the regular Olympics but no prostheses are permitted. Torres has left his legs behind.”
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160816-nearly-200-years-of-incredible-sporting-photos
😊 Pelle
The camera is a very delicate instrument. It can, in the hands of talented and sensitive people/photographers, make us see life and what is happening to us or our fellow beings. And more than that, photographs make us react and act. Good or bad, beautiful or ugly images do that. What would the world be without cameras? The thought makes me dizzy.
Here is a wonderful series of images that makes me react, and perhaps act too…
http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20151109-12-images-of-grief-love-and-lust
Text to featured image:
Christopher Anderson (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2009)
“In 2008, my first child was born. Up until that point, my photographs as a ‘war photographer’ had been about the experiences of others in far away places. Now, for the first time, I found myself photographing my own family,” says the photographer Christopher Anderson. His intimate portrait – far removed from the frontline – is included in a new project by Magnum. Up Close and Personal features the work of 68 photographers: some domestic snapshots, others glimpses of strangers in a moment of vulnerability. At the click of the shutter, one subject is caught crying, never giving the reason; another is lost in mourning. Strangers flirt; a father lifts his son in the air; a prostitute clutches her client’s back. Yet the images reveal as much about the people who took them as their subjects. “It didn’t occur to me that these photographs had anything to do with my ‘work’,” says Anderson, talking about his own family photos. “But I now realise that these images were actually my life’s work and that every photograph I had made up to that moment was just a preparation to make these photographs of my family.” Up Close and Personal features the most intimate images from Magnum Photos, as interpreted by more than 60 photographers and artists. Signed and estate-stamped prints for $100 will be available for a limited time, from Monday 9 November until Friday 13 November, on the Magnum website. (Credit: Christopher Anderson/Magnum)
Newsha Tavakolian (Tehran, Iran, 2010)
The act of photographing can itself induce emotion within the subjects. “I decided to turn my own apartment into a studio, and have neighbours and friends come over to have their portraits taken,” says the Iranian photographer Newsha Tavakolian. “Naghmeh is one of the most popular young women in Tehran, she’s beautiful, smart and funny. I took pictures of her in total silence. Suddenly, her face expressionless, tears started welling up in her eyes, as if she was trying to show me something. Afterwards she said goodbye quietly and left.” The power of the image comes through that spontaneity; Naghmeh’s unguarded look is a far remove from a posed portrait. “Later, when I had the image framed, one of the glass plates had a scratch on it and the framer asked if he could keep it,” says Tavakolian. “He hung it in his shop. Customers debated, wondering why she was so sad. ‘You could write a book with all the stories people come up with when they see this portrait,’ the framer told me. I never asked her why she cried.” (Credit: Newsha Tavakolian/Magnum)
Steve McCurry (La Esperanza, Colombia, 2004)
The photographer of the ‘Afghan Girl’ image, which ran on the cover of National Geographic magazine in 1985, believes that photography itself is an act of intimacy. “In this picture, the relationship between a father and his young son reveals total intimacy with each other, and intimacy with the photographer who records that moment in time, who then transmits this feeling of intimacy with viewers wherever and whenever they see this photograph,” says Steve McCurry. “This family was not rich in material things, but very rich in relationships, trust, and the kind of love that drives away fear. They are both at ease and completely comfortable in each other’s presence without any self-consciousness whatsoever. It doesn’t get any better than that.” (Credit: Steve McCurry/Magnum)
😊 Pelle Another BBC story
Or “Not So Glamorous Anymore”. That is what I have named this series.
No I don´t think so! You will have no peace and no Double Happiness just for smoking these brands. Not for smoking any brands, I think. Something sold by glamour that is not so glamorous any more. Was Gorbatchow a big seller and will there be a Putin? Gorbatchow also came as chocolate.
Thanks Irving Penn for the inspiration. Again.
😊 Pelle
This is something totally different from what I have written about here on my blog earlier.
Our son ( sun 😊 ) has dyslexia. A teacher noted that he had some problems reading and writing and he made tests for it. This was many years ago now. The tests confirmed that he had dyslexia. Good, the challenge was confirmed. He got all the different data programs the school had to help him, but he never liked to use them. He struggled on but he just wanted to be like the others that didn´t have dyslexia. It was possible for him to have more time for his examinations, and to go to a special room and sit together with others with the same challenge. That he used. As much as possible we try to help. Sometimes we read and record texts that he has to work on so he can listen instead of reading. I remember that he has never had any trouble making himself understood and he has always been the wordbook in his classes. Always good at words and their meanings. Good to express himself and to argue. I came to think of all this when I found this article by
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/oct/02/young-dyslexic-children-creative
My wife and I have never considered this a problem. We have always called it a challenge, and a challenge it is. But as it is so well written in the article there are ways to come around it and people with dyslexia always come up with solutions. Now our son studies in another country but there are ways to help through the internet. A friend of ours remembered that at the time their daughter studied abroad it did cost a fortune to make a phone call. Now it doesn´t and we are very happy about that.
He will not be a architect, but I am sure that he will find his way in life.
Writing this I had my own difficulties of finding the words, spelling right and pull it all together.
😊 Pelle
Friends, I hope you don´t expect me to publish a new blog every day. I can´t come up with that many ideas and I think you would think that was just too boring. I am happy to say that my absence has been because I have been busy with work. Something that is not too common among photographers these days. I am very pleased about that. Today I publish 3 images I made last Friday. We, a client and me, were reconoitering for a job on Monday. ( Hope that is the right word. I had to look it up. 😊😊 ) It was on a garden centre and it was heaven for me. Beautiful flowers, fresh and dated. I made these images very quickly but I could have stayed for much longer just to enjoy the surrounding. Lots of tools, wheelbarrows and much more that got my eyes, and cameras, attention. I hope to find more when we get there tomorrow to produce the images for the client.
Did I say that I got the best job there is? For me that is, anyway. 😊 Pelle
I saw this on the BBC News App and thought you should see it:
Ten steps to improve your photography
Lecturer Grant Scott offers advice on how to use your interests to produce better pictures.
” Every decision you make in your life from what you wear, what you eat, how you vote, how you decorate your home, where you visit, what you listen to, what you watch and what you believe are influenced by professional photography and professional photographers. They don’t just shoot weddings.”
Ten steps to improve your photography
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-33674327
On a photographers mind 