Modart » NNE Guest Contributions

Analogue Boy in a Digital World

Maxi — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 09:00:42 +0000

They say the eyes are the windows to the soul. It is too easy to forget, or overlook the fact that those windows are also built-in lenses, 3D camera and extensive hard-drive that stores and catalogues almost every image we experience.

This month I was reminded of my growing dependence on digital technology as I lost my Cannon G11 camera. The G11 is a wonderful piece of equipment, and I have used it every day for over a year. The best/worst/most poetic point of this digital departure was that the camera had more than 200 photographs on its memory card.

I am now traveling back in time. I have dusted off my old Yashica minitec 35 mm camera, and if I am honest, I am very happy about it.

I love all things digital, however, the photograph is a special thing, an phpaide.com art form, the camera is a fixer of moments in time. Special moments, posed, and caught in a flash of blinding personal nostalgia. These days, however, that ‘special moment’ is overruled by an immediate recognition of what looks ‘good’, and “oh no, I hate that photo, take it again”, a luxury we have quickly grown accustomed to. Added to by immediate uploads, cropping, colour adjustment, artsy filters and social network tagging. The result: a small, low-resolution, prescribed and designed version of events.

Until I can afford a new camera, I am forcing myself to celebrate shooting from the hip, closing the viewfinder and winding on a real-life piece of celluloid film. Forgetting about the image until I can develop the roll and rediscover those forgotten moments, complete with imperfections, red eyes, and accidental blurry snap shots.

by DAVID SHILLINGLAW

To read the full article and view all of David”s analogue images visit No New Enemies.

Sharing a Secret with Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski

Maxi — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 09:00:24 +0000

Michel Szulc Krzyzanowski is a fine arts photographer born and educated in the Netherlands. Michel regularly publishes photo books and has exhibitions – count of a 180 since 1971. For over a decade, his work is internationally oriented and uses our world as his canvas and inspiration. Next to his documentary photography, he makes autonomous conceptual photography on deserted beaches in Mexico. His last finished project showed The Most Beautiful People in the World and he currently works on What the World Has Never Seen Before (WTWHNS). He makes the impossible possible: to show and simultaneously hide secrets of people from all over the world. The contradictions of privacy.

Can you tell me a bit about the origins of the project WTWHNS?
For over a decade I perform worldwide photo projects. Each time with a relevant social subject. This time it is about intimacy and privacy; issues that are becoming more and more important. The intention was to create a photo project that initiates a general discussion about intimacy and privacy.

You’re talking about a general discussion, but what does privacy mean in documentary photography?
That depends of the discretion of both the photographer, the photo editor and the publisher. It is first the photographer, who decides to take or not take a picture of a person in his or her private situation.

Then the photo editor and the publisher decide how to treat the privacy of the person in the image. Obviously, more and more conflicts arise between the commercial interests of the publication and the possible respect for the privacy of the person in the image. The world is becoming more and more materialistic, therefore money wins more often than not. In the end, privacy is less respected because making money is valued higher.

Are you criticizing this idea in the project? And how are you remaining respectful with regards to the privacy of your subjects?
People are documented in WTWHNS who show what nobody has ever seen. These results are published in a high quality large size limited edition photo book. In that way, only a few people will see what the world has never seen.

This is like sharing a secret among a small group of intimates. Meanwhile, an extensive PR campaign is performed informing the press and thus the audience about WTWHNS. Obviously this creates curiosity, but the message is that not everything that is intimate is available for general publication.

WTWHNS is a statement: what is private should remain private.

by VANYA PIETERS

Vanya Pieters is a young photographer and filmmaker based in Amsterdam. She will be accompanying Krzyzanowski to Istanbul to find people with secrets for his next project.

To read the full interview and view more photographs visit No New Enemies.

The City is a Monster

Maxi — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 09:00:13 +0000

The city of London is almost eight million different things to eight million different people. London can be both a fruitful land of opportunity, and a monster with big sharp teeth. I travel as much as possible, but find rich adventures can be had in your own backyard. I don’t have a backyard, as I live on the top floor, I do however have London.

I wasn’t born in London, but it is all I have ever known as home. It smells bad, it is expensive, and just a few weeks ago I went to sleep watching news unfold of riots just five miles from where I live. However, even with all its toils and troubles, London is a marvelous city. A handsome Devil, full to bursting with whatever detail you can imagine.

I have spent the best part of August setting up my solo exhibition with Cement gallery on Brick Lane. Brick lane is very much the heart, or at least a main ventricle of the East end. Brick lane, and its supporting neighborhoods, are an ever changing gallery of street art.

Home to a colourful spectrum of people, a crossroads for all walks of life, it is the perfect place to reach as many passing eyes as possible. The beautiful and the strange muster, accompanied by twenty-four hour bagels, curry houses, dim sum and then some, flea markets, gypsies, rude boys, transvestites; where the creatures of the night and day collide in an area that never seems to sleep.

Music, food and fashions dance with star gazing gutters from around the world. The East end is ripe, and ready at any given moment to strike sparks and burst into delicious action.

As I painted a wall on bacon Street next to my paint-splattered comrade Ben Slow, we both acknowledged the changing tides of this restless ocean of colours, textures, and people. If there is one constant, it is people. People in all shapes, sizes and disguises. It is a street painter’s paradise. With permission to paint you have a captive audience, epitomised by ‘street art tours’ of flash happy, graffiti loving fans of all things ‘urban’. Just short of a shop selling ‘I heart Banksy’ t-shirts, Brick lane is both a heaven and a hell for the London street art scene.

Read the full article on No New Enemies.

by DAVID SHILLINGLAW

Dennis Duijnhouwer on the Road

Maxi — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 09:00:07 +0000

The photographic diary of Dennis Duijnhouwer

“Searching for a subject to shoot, is like trying to catch a butterfly”

When Dutch photographer Dennis Duijnhouwer (1976) returned after spending five ‘lost’ years in Hollywood, most of his friends didn’t believe the bizarre adventures he had been through. From that moment on, he decided to capture everything; his life as a photographic dairy. Taking pictures became an obsession.

After the success of his first published book The Road to Rabat – which he shot while traveling along with the young filmmakers of Habbekrats – Dennis is more in the picture than ever. Not only for the crew & cast, but also for his photography, it was a journey. Because of his style of raw analogue snapshots of mostly youth, people compare him with names like Terry Richardson, Nan Goldin or Ryan McGinley. But I wonder, isn’t this comparison too easy to make and the line more refined?

You are a photographer with your own method. How did that influence the way you took on-set photographs of Rabat?
When Jim & Victor of Habbekrats asked me to come along to Morocco for a month I felt I just had to do it. I had never done any long term projects for which people are expected to ‘give up there lives’. I really trusted them, they are guys that are ‘fans’, in that they always want to see people deliver good work.
I started to take pictures of the set, but I wasn’t used to the waiting and the posing of the actors for the camera. It was not the way I am used to take pictures. After one week of shooting a maximum of

2 rolls per day I felt very confused. Could I live up to their expectations? What did I shoot? I took a picture of the tree where I had withdrawn myself. That was a turning point for me. From that moment on I decided to take a different turn. I took pictures of the hotel rooms. While waiting, I took a walk around the block. Because the guys trusted me, I could follow my intuition and it paid off!

How was it to edit your first book?
Everything in the book is in chronological order. It was quite some work to edit it, because I didn’t keep every film in order. 66 rolls in total and I developed five at a time in random order. Victor criticized me a bit for that, haha. It was different to edit all the pictures in one book, where the importance of the story is cut out above the individual images. My style is also developing that way: less externals more content.

Did you have to kill many darlings?
Yes, sometimes a favorite had to be cut for one that told the story better. I’ve put the ‘killed darlings’ on my blog. Victor had made his selection and I had made mine. It was a great learning process for me to listen to his explanation and argumentation. I liked that we could be very open about it.

So, your style had changed to more story-based series in this period?
From 2003 on I was obsessed with one fixed style. I shot with only two camera’s – Yashica & Contax 92 – using the same 35mm lens and film rolls – Kodak Portra 400. I always shoot analogue. It's a style I love, not a nostalgia thing. I take pictures of things that happen NOW, how can that be nostalgic? So the subjects change as I’m getting older, but the whole oeuvre is cohesive. When I started out I was the only one, so I created my own stage where I can be the best. I don’t have any ambition to be innovative; my works have to be original and honest.

Read the full interview on No New Enemies.

by VANYA PIETERS

NNE feat. Vanya Pieters

Maxi — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:00:02 +0000

Vanya Pieters is not only a promising young photographer and film maker, but also our newest contributor. While she studied at three different universities in Amsterdam and Berlin she taught herself the art of photography by copying others and experimenting as much as possible.

Vanya prefers to take pictures with a storyline and is a sucker for digital cameras

In the past years she has been producing for Lemming Film, photographing and writing for 3voor12 and NL20, and editing for GUP magazine. For NNE she will be writing about her favorite subjects: photography and film.

Tomorrow we will present her first article; an interview with the Dutch photographer Dennis Duijnhouwer about his new book The Road to Rabat.

Teufelsberg from Vanya Pieters on Vimeo.

This is just a taste so check out her website to see more from Vanya and stay tuned.

Business or Pleasure?

Maxi — Fri, 26 Aug 2011 09:00:40 +0000

Choose your own adventure….

I enjoy flying. But I’m not very good at it.

First starters, I’m no good at sitting still for too long. Then there’s the whole thing about just sitting in a chair watching a movie… traveling at crazy speeds…at 35,000 feet!

But I always go with it. The excitement and free alcohol overrules. I associate getting on a plane with a sense that a real adventure is about to happen. Once you’re up, you’re up. You can’t just get off. You can’t turn around. In the words of the great Hunter S. Thompson: “Buy the ticket, take the ride.”

We were on our way to New York from London. My manager and I, while taking full advantage of the complimentary Bloody Marys and discussing World Domination, were handed slips of paper to fill in at our convenience before landing. All the usual details plus a multiple choice survey to check the reason of our visit (and to check if we had ever been arrested, involved with espionage, sabotage or terrorist activities).

The purpose for this mid-July trip to New York was to paint. I was taking part in a few group exhibitions and also had plans to paint walls, canvases, and any other objects I could find along the way. The question was, which box should I tick?

Business, tourism, or other.

The truth was, I didn’t know. The fact is, I never know. As a full time artist, I am ‘never not working’.

Read the full article on No New Enemies.

by DAVID SHILLINGLAW