I am happy to hear that my submission was chosen to be included into Slideluck Potshow Nairobi, which will start tonight, January 16, 2010.
It was a very spontaneous idea from my part to submit some work and it definitively had to do with the fact that I still have so many nice images from Kenya on my harddrives, images that I did not include into that one exhibition in the European Parliament in 2007. So I felt this was a chance to show some more work and I am glad it worked out.
Special thanks to Tony Hunt for diving into the adventure of producing a sound for me. I know it is not easy to work for someone who knows too well what s/he wants but cannot do it her-/himself – especially if you just have one day for it. I loved the outcome though – fantastic job! :)
And many thanks to the never tired Slideluck Team! Congrats to all of the participants – I wish everybody a fantastic party tonight!
Wish I could be there.
___
The image above is not in the selection of work that I submitted but I had it already on the server and it belongs to the same body of work: a documentation of a cross coutry drive from Mosocho in the West of the Kenya to Nairobi. I did a lot of images during that extremely long car drive, and I do have various edits, some comprising people, some landscapes, some only showing painted fassades – some in color, some in b&w …
I am switching computers right now and backups onto external harddrives are currently running. I have about 12 of those lined up here and on the 4th from the right are the Kenya images that I submitted. If I do not forget, I might put up a little slideshow next week or so.
On my search for examples of work that uses photography alongside illustration, I recently acquired a book by Guibert, Lefèvre and Lemercier, called The Photographer: Into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctores Without Borders.
On the jacket I found this short description of the project:
“At the end of July 1986, Didier Lefèvre left Paris for Afghanistan. He barely returned to tell the tale. It was his first major assignment as a photojournalist, documenting a Doctors without Borders mission. Camera in hand, Lefèvre traveled with a band of doctors and nurses into the heart of Northern Afghanistan, where the war between the Soviet Union and the Afghan Mujahideen was raging.
The mission affected Lefèvre as profoundly as the war affected contemporary history. His photographs, paired with the art of Emmanuel Guibert, tell the story of an arduous journey undertaken by men and women intent on mending what others destroy.”
The book starts with an historical overview and introduction by Alexis Siegel, who is also responsible for the translation. The story itself is made out of a combination of the available contact sheets from Didier Lefèvre and – where there was no photographical material – illustrations from Emmanuel Guibert. Knowing how difficult it is, to successfully combine both photography and illustration, I was impressed to see how well they were married in The Photographer . Emmanuel Guibert did a good job contrasting the the richly detailed black and white photography with very simple looking (!) artwork with thick blotted lines, that go extremely well with the darks in the photos without competing. To set the illustrations further apart, they are held in subdued colors, filled in by Frédéric Lemercier, who was also the designer of the book.
The Photographer: Into war-torn Afghanistan with Doctores Without Borders was originally published in three volumes in France.
The testprint is on it’s way to two online print services to see which one will do the best job. BLURB is by far the least expensive one, so I really hope it will make the run.
Above one of 8 chapters of each 6 double pages. I am writing the artist statement right now.
I am not sure if you have ever heard about a “cookbook dilemma”, I have not, at least not officially. I came up with this term to describe a very personal issue I have with cookbooks: either they have no images inside, which makes them useless to me, or they have images inside and I then get totally sick on my stomach by looking through them. And by saying “sick on my stomach” I mean exactly that – right to the ultimative consequences!
My mom tells me that cookbooks or cooking recipe sections in magazines have had this effect on me since I was a kid. She dragged me to all kind of doctors but no cure was found – other than to stay away from cooking books.
I found that the explanation for the cause is quite easy: when I see a picture of food, I actually taste it in my mouth. So if I turn the pages of a cookbook and am confronted with all kind of dishes, this is for me, as if I would be eating them, regardless if they go together or not. Mostly my stomach announces that by the forth recipe something comes up that definitively does NOT go together with something seen previously. And then I turn greenish.
So far I have only found one exception to the rule. My much loved Italian cookbook from Lorenza de’ Medici, with its abundance of original recipes from all over Italy. Somehow everything in this book works together like a good symphony: the introductory texts to the regions, the pictures, the food … simply perfect! Oh yes, and the recipes are really great too.
Good for the eyes and good for the stomach.
The link on Amazon is a little tricky – there seems to be an illustrated version of it, too. Unfortunately, I have to say.
Why this post? One of my personal projects is driving me into the food area. So you will probably hear more about food from me in the months to come.
Looking closely at the digital images for Pink Lobo, these little “friends” of mine are all over the place. It is like chasing mice! Have not had this on my Nikon yet, but my Canon seems to be more animal friendly here …
By now I know where they are but it is making me need so much more time to prepare the dummy book for Pink Lobo!
After my breakthrough a couple of days ago it actually was so easy to finish the edit, that I wanted to send the files to the printservices this weekend. The only thing that left me a little sad was that some of the images I personally liked the best, did not find their way into the final selection. But that is just how it is with edits: things have to fit together.
Continue reading ‘Digital Pinholes’
“Riley and his story.
Me and my outrage.
You and us.”
I got this book via mail today and to say it in only a few words: it is one of the best photobooks I have ever held in my hands. If you get a chance to still purchase it at onestar press — because it is only an edtion of 1000 copies — please do so and I guarantee you will not regret it.
I am currently and for the next couple of days busy finishing the edit of Pink Lobo. Just had my breakthrough today so I am going to put my copy of Monica Haller’s 480 page book away for the time being – I cannot use too many distractions right now. But here is one more amazing detail about the book:
When I first saw this detail (above) I thought that the book came damaged, but no, it looks this way because the pages are not of the same size! Monica Haller explains it like this: “These particular pages are different sized, some shorter than others. They are designed to mimic the nature of memories — overlapping and intersecting.” And this twist really does it for the book, which, as I mentioned before, is one of the best things I have had in my hands for a long time.
If it is still available, you can buy it at onestar press. And maybe you will still get a nice little card from Melanie, wishing you a happy new year 2010. Even though I do not appreciate the catalogues from onestar so much — because they come as posters, which I just find extremely unhandy — I loved the little handwritten card … :)
Also I saw that Alec Soth has written about it on Little Brown Mushroom, his new blog. He even included a video of an interview he did with Monica Haller. Check it out.
Last but not least, here is the link to the project’s official website.
I have been asked several times, what the project “Overtone” is all about, that is listed without a link in my Work In Progress section.
“Overtone” is a project about a guitarrist/ a band. It is as much about dreams, as it is about “the market” that commercializes these dreams. It is very much about … today. It deals with the question of how success and failure can be defined within the smaller frame of an individual person as within the larger picture of today’s westener society. And with this I think it touches a theme that most of us are to a certain level familiar with. I certainly am.
The idea for “Overtone” sprang at me while I was in Texas last September working on “Pink Lobo”. In between shooting sessions I did some pictures of Tony with his new old Gibson guitar, more as a favor, really, but through this favor and the observation of what music and the act of playing can do to a person, I have started to observe this scene that I have never been too much into, since my day to day world resides in silence rather than in music.
With “Overtone” a door to a new room has opened up some inches for me. A room so big that I decided to postpone the intensive shooting for this project into next year, feeling that I have to do so much more research before starting, so I can get this right.
