“LOOK3 is hosting an experimental two night event to present the work of 90 innovative photographers on a farm 30 minutes west of Charlottesville. This initiative, which we are calling LOOKbetween, is designed to showcase early-career talent and engage the presenting artists with media professionals on practices and trends influencing the direction of photography today. We want to turn the traditional mentorship model on its head and let the next generation of photographers, editors, publishers, curators, and media professionals share their vision for the future.”
At this point I want to thank the amazing organization team from LOOK3 for their seemingly supernatural efforts. It was PERFECT! Just as if practiced for many years – but hey, no: the event at the Deep Rock Farm was a first timer for everybody! Unbelievable.
LOOKbetween was a magical experience. And I am still a bit at loss for words – and images. So if you want to see more about the event, I encourage you to visit the LOOKbetween tumblr page and to take in the impressions.
I think I can talk for most of us that we were a little overwhelmed and that we would have loved 1-2 additional days to really fully unfold the potential of this awesome get together. And I think the connection aspect is one of the central ones of LOOKbetween.
I am immensely greatful to have been chosen to be in the first group to attend LOOKbetween. If anybody ever gets the chance, please do yourself a favor and attend! Regardless of if as an invited artist or as a visitor.
Below just a vage impression of mother nature watching our show … Huge insects in the projector’s beam of light, like erratic shooting stars, of which there also where many. Enough to make our dreams come true? We will see … and certainly do our share for it to happen.
I regularly get asked if I am still working on MEANING.
I am.
From time to time I have to bridge gaps that become as wide as the universe. Then I stop to think about what I am doing, which usually does not give me any usefull answers. There is a pattern in this experience: Like probably most of us, I do have a very specific image of myself and I often use this image to help me with my important decisions. This sometimes results in a nightmare in which I end up in some corner where I never wanted to go. Why? Because the image I have of myself seems to be pretty inacurate at times and it leads to the wrong decisions.
The gap between phantasy and reality amazes me. Not only in my own person but also in other people, in whole societies even …
This is what got me started with MEANING.
I began with this project a month after I seriously stumbled upon photography in 2008. There was a lot of turmoil in me in direct consequence of that. A world upside down. Very surprising really, to have your life concept shaken up by some event you considered “random” at first – a “simple”* photography workshop. Very disconcerting too. But totally fascinating at the same time!
And even though I actually found all my essential puzzle pieces that year, I still did not have the clarity of vision back then to finish this project. My sight was a bit muddy.
The last 2 years where full of experiment. Experiment with the medium and experiment with myself. Why was I so fascinated by this? What was it? Who was I? Different again from what I thought? Yes, different again.
So now I am putting the pieces together. I am sure it will not go straight. And I will be looking at some more corners before I am done with this. So be it.
That is just how it is with MEANING.
.
*Just to put that one right: I was no photographer back then and my point and shoot did not ask me to know anything about f-stops. I thought that a photography workshop in Tuscany would be a nice kind of holiday with some good talks at most – not unlike other workshops I had visited so far. How mistaken I was! And happily so! I had one of the best and most intensive times in my life. If it had not been this way, it would not have shaken me up as it did.
Here is the first book cover image. Even if I have not started officially yet with this project, I need some stepstones for my thoughts. This is one of them. There are others.
Still working on the detailed concept though – on the narration, which will have much more importance than usual. Still not sure if I will do it all myself or if I will include other people – I guess it means that I have not met the right people yet.
The overall concept of Overtone is clear since September 2009, when I visited Lobo and Marfa in Texas. We were driving through the desert at night, minds wandering, when it struck me out of nowhere. Guess that is how these things always happen.
It was the beginning of a long process of thoughts, of many hours of online research, and of a long list of books I went through. Overtone is going to take me into the music scene … somewhere I have never been due to my damaged hearing, that make me prefer silence over sound. I never bothered about it and I never felt that I really was missing anything. I just concentrated on the visual side of things. Now, obviously, I am totally curious about finding ways to translate sound into an additional layer of meaning for the images I want to do for this project.
I would love to put the project statement up here right now, because I am so excited about all of this, but it will have to wait. I would give away too much by doing this, because there is a relevant twist to the story in this project. And I do not want to spoil the surprise.
I set this project to officially start in 2011. Until then I will be busy with research and with the first part of MEANING, which I think will be a good preparation. A whole new world ahead of me! I love it!
Stay tuned …
first OVERTONE blogpost
blogpost Texas Roundtrip I
blogpost Texas Roundtrip II
blogpost Texas Roundtrip III
blogpost Texas Roundtrip IV
What do you do on the first day in New York? You go to the MoMA. Of course. This time I was eager to see the huge Hery Cartier Bresson exhibition. 
We got into the MoMA fast – cutting the line with our online ticket – which was great. Soon I found myself standing in front of the same railing that I always stand to take a picture of my bottom part. Why? Do not ask me because I do not think I know it myself. Anyway, this time it was actually not easy as the light was dim … it was raining cats and dogs outside – which was another reason why I loved the fact, that we did not have to wait in that enourmous line of people that was winding itself around the block.
When I went to Kenya in 2006, I saw all these women in Nairobi with the most magnificent braids … each and every hairdo seemed unique, like a signature. It was so beautiful I thought that I would do a portrait-session there that focussed on hair. I remember I spent quite some time thinking about how to best go about this and how the pictures should be done and look like … I wanted to start the project in Mosocho, where I knew I would spend some time. But what was my surprise when I got there to see, that most women there just had their hair cut short like men. That was unfortunate.
I did get some snap shots, like the above, but that was not what I had planned to do. Next time maybe?
In the MoMA I found this piece of artwork from Lorna Simpson (Wigs (Portfolio), 1994). Not necessarily what I would have done but quite intriguing prints of wigs on light felt. I really liked the texture of it … after all felt is made out of “hair”.
The photograph above is from Diane Arbus and one that I had never seen before despite being a huge fan and knowing most of her work.
Even though it was allowed to photograph the images, it was not easy to do so without capturing the whole room – the same problem occured if you simply wanted to look at the images – you found yourself dancing in front of the frames to help separate the room from the picture. There is magnificent non-reflective glas around and I truly wonder why it is not used for these beautiful collections of photographs.
The HCB exhibition was exquisite (no cameras allowed in there, though) and despite of my promise to myself to not increase the weight of my already heavy backpack … I simply had to buy the hardcover catalogue. It is really worth it – have you ever seen an HCB contact sheet?!
20×200 is offering a beautiful edition from the artist Roger Ballen. It is selling out fast, so if you are interested (like me), hurry up to get one here!
(Image shown with permission of the artist)
Robert Morat Gallery is announcing a 3 day workshop “Das Fotobuch” (probably in German language) from August 27th until 29th, 2010. It is the first time that Peter Bialobrzeski and Andreas Herzau offer a joint workshop that deals with the preparation and production of photobooks. So it will probably we extremely interesting.
There is a restriction to 12 participants.
The location will be somewhere between Hamburg and Berlin, Germany, and the workshop fee is 400 EUR (excluding accomodation).
For more information please write an email to Robert Morat Gallery. And hurry up!! The info just came in a second ago …
I almost did not make it.
I was not late, my luggage was not to heavy, I did have my ticket, I did have my passport, I did not forget to do anything … BUT somebody changed my name in the system of Miles&More. So when I printed my ticket, I was not I but I was sort of different. Too different.
Calling Miles&More they confirmed that I would not be able to fly to the US with this ticket, but that there was no way to get a replacement in time for the flight and that I probably did change the name in the system myself. That was an interesting argument, because I cannot do that in an existing account without someone from Miles&More typing the stuff in. Very, VERY bad problem management, I thought. So I went up the ladder of responsability and after talking to the boss there they managed to sort things out. And I got my ticket and my name corrected in time to take my plane. But I admit I did sweat a bit. That was close.
I still wonder who changed my data, though … I have this account forever and never had problems with it. But data just does not seem to be safe anymore these days. Too many humans involved.
The good news were: I had a wonderful flight. Just slept right through it.
Overload.
When my brain starts to feel like above … then it is time to do some vacuum cleaning, ironing and gardening.
I think, I might clean the windows, too.
I am busy, busy, busy and my to-do list is getting longer and longer nonetheless. I think I might have to look for assistance soon.
But yesss, nice stuff ahead. Been invited to a festival in the US this summer. A first timer for me and I am totally curious and looking forward to it! Next I will have to decide on what to submit for the event. I have a couple of things ready to go but I might try to do something new for it – if I manage to find the time. So this morning at the coffee table I started yet another to-do list, to check if and how I could possibly come up with a specific new project until next month. Unfortunately the idea I have in mind is a little complex and dependant on more than one person’s schedule, which might be the reason why it will not work.
So it goes.
This is an old image, from my pre-photography time so to speak, made with my very first point & shoot, a Nikon Coolpix with revolving monitor and a whoping 1200×1600 pixels. I remember stumbling upon this lonely chocolate bunny in an otherwise empty window of an internetcafe while walking to my T’ai Chi classes one night in January (!). It was freezing cold with a harsh wind and my icy hands had a hard time using the camera, which back then still had a metal body (!!!!). They do not make Coolpix like that anymore … Oh well. I took about 12 pictures to get one more or less decent one as it only had an autofocus which did not work too well under the circumstances of bad light and a smudgy window … The one above was the best one I could get.
I had that camera for many years until it fell asleep at a certain point – reacting slower and slower before stopping altogether. I still have it in my cupboard. I grow terribly attached to these objects.
Interesting though … I have always, even back then, taken the same kind of images. I remember all my friends and family constantly complaining: they said they would like the pictures, if they were not that dark and depressing.
I never thought of my images as being depressing.
If I passed this bunny today, I would not react differently than in 2005.
