Thursday, January 31, 2013

Taryn Simon: A walk into the secrets places of America

As I'm spending this week in Goteborg and the weather is not that good for spending late hours roaming through the gloomy streets of the downtown and the wind shaken river docks in search for unexplored images to take (or make, as I use to say, getting inspiration from what Ansel Adams used to say), I'll treat myself with a visit to the Hasselblad Center where American artist Taryn Simon is showing her Secret Sites photography. I found this presentation from herself o TED conference that explains, better than any critics report, this young artist's vision and investigation results.

[Link to a Video, Removed]

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Galleria

A (supposedly) lost sample of Franka. taken last summer during a walk in Milan Galleria. Not the best of the captures made during its long life. You have to make recourse to your best imagination, I think.


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

The undiscrete eye

Yet another picture stolen while walking through the narrow streets of the old citadel of Tivoli. last Christmas. Cats are good friends, of course but put their human care takers some daily challenges to face! :-)
Unfortunately I can't report here words and sounds of this old lady as she cleaned up her door ingress and complained with the annoyed feline walking by after her arrival. It's a matter of being there. But ... wasn't photography meant to say everything with a shot?



Monday, January 28, 2013

Biding my time

This is expected to be a photographic blog. Therefore, no posts without images should be allowed or, put in a different way, I should take care not to write posts that don't show any picture. Yet, I committed myself to unveil some of my "deepest" thoughts when I started it and, to wit, I feel the urge to take some notes from time to time, even when I don't have pictures to present. This is partly due to a sense of dignity that still wonders inside my veins. I actually refuse to present pictures for the sake of making the engine work, just to let the blog look like alive.
Perhaps I set myself standards too high when compared to my equipment and time left. Facts are that I'm stuck into a hotel room right now with nothing else to do but sitting at the desk and let the time fly while reading news and surfing the web. I would have preferred doing something else but outside the weather is weary, inside the hotel gym is crowded and in the second biggest town of Sweden everything closes after six in the evening. So what should I do before my colleagues start ringing my phone to understand where to meet and have our dinner?
Let's do like this. I must have some good ol' pictures left resting in some folders of this cranky laptop for some time. It won't be like opening an old seasoned red wine from a cellar. Consider that an "aperitivo" before better times.



Sunday, January 20, 2013

En tour - II


Same place, different days.



En tour


It's stronger than my will. Even when I'm pushing hard on my mountain bike pedals and heavily breathing to recover after a steep slope, if what surrounds me has something worth to be noted down, I stretch my arm on my back, pull my mobile out of the pocket and, still pedaling, take some snapshots. Most of the times the result are strongly tilted, blown, light unbalaned and shaken pictures. In few other cases, as in those I'm going to post in the following days, the result is surprisingly good. It's worth being written that I'm not owning one of the latest fully equipped smart phones. These are still taken with my old Sony Ericsson. That's the funny thing.

It's snowing this evening. I won't probably have the chance to ride tomorrow. Good weather for reading and processing some of my latest shots.




Sunday, January 13, 2013

Stretch Projects


591 Spring Exhibition 2013



This year's 591 Spring Exhibition will be about Time - namely about days passing by and it's split into four main sections:

Morning
Afternoon
Evening
Night

Nothing easier after all. We just need your little contribution to renew once again the magic of a world wide collective experience as the 591 Spring Exhibition.

We would like you to submit pictures capturing the essence, the shifting moods of the 24 hour cycle. You can submit max 3 pictures to each category. The pictures should be max 1000 pixels on longest side, 72 dpi. Important - please write in your email what category your pictures should belong to.

The address to submit to is: daysgoby591@gmail.com

Deadline for submissons is 3 March 2013

The Spring Exhibition will premiere on 1 April and it will be a permanent exhibition. We will select 30 pictures from each category - in total 120 images.

Saturday, January 12, 2013

Let's wait and see

I think this picture depicts very well most of my current feelings. It's the beginning of a new year. Forecasts are still uncertain, there will be as usual highs and lows. The economic downturn that affected us is still far to be a memory and I fear something bad could happen. Fifteen years of technical and operational excellence are a handful of dust when your employer, however strong and well positioned on the market, is no longer able to make you feel safe. I'm stranded by doubts about which way to go. Should I attempt to walk a new way? Should I keep crossing fingers instead? I actually feel the need of a change in my professional life. Lack of progress in my career is the only thing that does not make me feel completely satisfied and complete as a man. Some would argue that work is not all and that I'd better relax and focus on something else. There are good chances they are right. So, waiting for something to happen, I sit on the windowsill and watch how the things go.


"Uhm ... If it wasn't that the sun is still low, I'd pick another place and stretch myself to soak with sunlight."