25.4.2015

 
Marten-Kuningas-Abstract-Portrait-red-reflection

25.4.2015
Mitte, Berlin

The sun that briefly stretches into the kitchen, for twenty glorious minutes each afternoon, as it cascades over the rooftops to pour in as a beam of light. Friends who come and go, who stay to say words before the city whisks them away into the days of their life, and I remain to sit and smile with each spark who shines.

 

 

 

ART CONNECT BERLIN

Artconnect Berlin recently featured me upon their blog, on the subject of 'Light vs Darkness', which ran with one of my portraits along with some words I wrote on this topic, which appears to be an ongoing obsession of mine, for good or ill.

Darkness and light... it is the oldest story of our universe, the very first narrative ever to be born as the big bang released light and energy and matter into the dark nothingness that proceeded it. Perhaps this is why so many of us are drawn to it, as it is, in a way, also our very origin, as we go from the darkness of non-being into the light of being, and are thrust into this transient existence that makes up our life. 

portrait of a man with a beard with light and shadow

EyeEm WORLD TOUR

 
Self Portrait-Matthew Coleman-Berlin Night

Over the last few months I have been embarking on a series of self portraits, during the quiet moments when alone in our apartment on Torstr. They have been moving into certain themes and feels, which was, in a way, born out of the 'Berlin Nights' series, which is still ongoing. 

I was recently informed that one of these self portraits is going on a whirlwind tour around the world, with EyeEm, through the cities of Tokyo, San Francisco, Austin, Miami, Paris and Berlin, though unfortunately I will not be allowed to join it.

 

TOM WOOD

There was something delightful in watching the British photographer Tom Wood in the BBC series 'What Do Artists Do All Day?', which can be seen in two parts, here and here. It was in his energy, his movements, his constant shooting and the way his eyes rove around the surroundings seemingly devouring it all with his eyes and his lens.

Tom Wood, Three Wise Women, 1989.

Tom Wood has been shooting for over forty years in and around Britain, where his projects would roll on year after year, documenting as he does, the British working class. There's an interesting intimacy that comes out of repeated shooting over extended periods of time, born out of gaining people's trust, which shows in the many pictures he has taken.

This documentary is a pleasurable and inspiring insight into the story of a talented photographer who never gave up doing what he loved, one who continued for over forty years before he was finally given the success he has long since deserved. 

MAGNUM CONTACT SHEETS

I recently had the pleasure of seeing the 'Magnum Contact Sheets' exhibition at the Amerika Haus, in Berlin, which recently opened its doors once more. It consists of each generation of the Magnum photographers, beginning in the first days when it hurled this collective into our insatiable world, the likes of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, George Rodger, William Vandivert and David 'Chim' Seymour, in 1947. Since its birth, it lists some of the greatest twentieth century photographers as its members, many of which are shown at the exhibition, as the viewer is confronted with over a hundred contact sheets, shown beside one or two of their final, and known, pictures. Little snippets of words, of memories, or recollections from the photographer accompany each contact sheet exhibited.

Rene Burri contact sheet for Che Guevara

At first, for me, it slightly dispelled Bresson's philosophy of 'the decisive moment', as his contact sheet revealed him moving around his subjects, snapping, looking for the right angle, snapping, sidestepping, snapping, trying to find the right position from which to take the picture from, which were many in number upon that roll of film (it was the picture of children playing in Seville, in Spain (1933), with a boy on crutches in the foreground). But the more one looked at it, and at the many others in this exhibition, one started to have the feeling of something so intimate being revealed by the photographers who were shown. It illuminated, however subtly, the thought and instinct that took place in those decisive moments leading up to that single point in time when it all happened, when it suddenly snapped together in an instant in which the picture was taken. Once this perception replaced my initial one, it became a whole other experience in which to view it all from, where it suddenly opened up other layers and thoughts in reaction to these photographs, and there were so many good ones.

A good photograph can create a kind of harmony within the frame that we look into, and can, on rare occasion, steal  our breath from our exhaling lungs (harmony through form, composition, placing of people, subtext, history, meaning, metaphor, and everything else that goes with a good picture). And we know these pictures, many of them, for they have become immortalised, in a way, within the collective psyche, part of that canon of pictures that seem to resound no matter how old they are or in what country they were taken in. They can speak a sort of truth, of what it means to be human and alive and filled with hopes and fears, of horror, but of beauty, also, which can sing amidst the chaos of this earth in which we walk within. And so we search for these types of pictures, consciously or unconsciously, looking for the ones that can stop us dead, that can speak to us and say something about the human condition, of our place in this mad, mad world. It has been with us for around 32,000 years, that intrinsic need to make art, to communicate with the world outside of our selves, as was once done in the Chauvet Cave, in southern France, which contains some of the oldest images painted by humans.

And then, almost halfway through the exhibition, and bringing me, momentarily, out of my reverie and into a smile, were the words by Abbas, which were written onto the wall opposite a contact sheet of Margaret Thatcher (shot during the 1980 Conservative Party conference):

'A contact sheet reflects not only what the photographer sees and chooses to ... but also their moods, their hesitations, their failures. It is pitiless.'

EyeEm FINALIST

 

Out of 100,00 pictures submitted for the EyeEm photo competition, I was shortlised to the final 100, which was a pleasure to be a part of. Their full listing can be seen here.

 

INSIDE OUT: THE PEOPLE'S ART PROJECT

'In 2011, French street artist JR announced his TED Prize winning wish to connect people worldwide through a collaborative artistic action. He launched INSIDE OUT, inspiring thousands of people — from South Dakota to Iran — to collectively transform their personal identities into public artwork. From Moscow to Tunisia, citizens have turned more than 120,000 digital portraits into bold posters covering everything from city walls to trains.'

​- TED

JR Insideout Project.jpg

THE AFRONAUTS

 
'The Afronauts', by Cristina De Middel.jpeg

The highlight for me at this year's Deutsche Borse Photography Prize was the project 'The Afronauts', from Cristina De Middel. It is based on the remarkable, and pretty unknown, story of the 1964 Zambia space program, which wanted to send the first African astronaut to the moon.

 

LEICA PORTRAIT: JOEL MEYEROWITZ

An award-winning street photographer who has been creating memorable images in the great photojournalistic tradition since 1962, Joel Meyerowitz pioneered the use of color in this slice of life genre, and his classic book on Cape Cod, “Cape Light” was instrumental in changing the prevailing dismissive attitudes toward color photography. Within a few days of the 9/11 attacks on The World Trade Center, Meyerowitz began to create an archive of the destruction and recovery at Ground Zero that consists of over 8,000 images of the aftermath of the tragedy. In this latest Leica Portrait video, Joel shares the story of his transition from junior art director to legendary photographer. Read our interview with Joel on the Leica Camera blog: http://bit.ly/HOOADs Shot and Edited by Trevor Bayack Video Assistant Brian Butnick

Joel Meyerowitz, one of the great street photographers of the twentieth century, talks about his time watching the photographer Robert Frank taking pictures ("and it was all so physical, balletic and magical"), to his own time, shooting for over 50 years, with most of his work being shot in New York. He explains his views on photography as well as his need to get into Ground Zero, after 9/11, to document the wreckage of the Twin Towers being cleared, where he shot for nine months.

A FILM BY WILLIAM KLEIN

An experimental meditation on Times Square marquees and iconic advertising, Klein's first film captures the concurrently seedy and dazzling aspects of New York's Great White Way. Illustrative of Klein's transition from photographer to filmmaker, Broadway by Light was declared by Orson Welles to be "the first film I've seen in which color was absolutely necessary.

A hypnotic, evocative film of Times Square, in 1958, as shot through the cinematic lens of the American photographer William Klein, titled 'Broadway by Light'.