477. Two women with a red dress

    I was recently asked by a student of photography from South Africa, how the advent of digital imaging methods had impacted the traditional perceptions of documentary photography. I offered to take up his question in one of our editorials.   Before you continue, please look at the images above and write down on a piece of paper, only for yourself, if you think that the image is documentary in nature or not.   I wanted the respond to our friend from Port Elizabeth, to further some ideas beyond the debate that we have already discussed previously, namely about the veracity of the image.   First it occurred to me that we should revisit the very notion of what constitutes a documentary photograph. I started by asking myself when is an image not a documentary picture ? hoping to find the answer by posing the question in reverse. To try and find an answer, I went to a catalog of a recent biennial of photography to check out all the pictures published there. As I perused the catalog, every picture I came across convinced me that what I was looking at was documentary in one way or another, irrespective of the style of the image. Even images that were clear digital composites ended up making a good case for being considered documentary as well, obviously following their own logic.   What stood out in all of these examples was that the photographic image worked it's magic of visual representation on the basis of our understanding of the real world as is perceived by the eye. Something we tend to call realism, even if that representation be out of focus ( just remember the last time you were drunk). I believe that we have also made considerable progress in understanding how digital composites need not be any less "realistic" with regard to the documentary nature of it's content as what had up to now been understood as "direct" photography.   The notion that "direct" photography somehow had the moral high ground for veracity has of course been proven wrong time and time again, and we need not revisit that debate any longer. However what has not been discussed, or at least not at great length, and I would like to bring up today, has to do with the boarder line when the representation has been constructed through other means which are not optical, although in the end it would end up becoming a photograph.   The image of the "two women with red dresses", is a case in point. The image is a composite of painting with real textiles. The point at which these materials became a photograph was when (a digital one at that) they were captured through the lens of the camera. One would then have to conclude that indeed what we are looking is a photograph. Yet their their origin is arguably not photographic. But then what about a picture of myself? I suppose that skin would stand in for the painting of the two faces, with no one questioning the validity of such a portrait taken of me with the aid of a camera as not being documentary in nature. So why would someone then consider that a picture such as "two women with red dresses" be less documentary than a direct representation ?   What we are faced with here are the visual challenges brought about by an ever changing panorama of what constitutes a photograph. As the digital tools we now have at our disposal enable us to cross barriers of what is possible to bring into the realm of the photograph, we have to remain vigilant to a prevalent predisposition for dismissing all that we had previously excluded as something that is non-photographic in nature.   Pedro Meyer March 2004 Coyoacan, Mexico   Please share your comments on this issue with us in our forums.         http://zonezero.com/editorial/marzo04/march.html    

Monday, 01 March 2004

479. Helmut Newton (1929-2004)

  Farewell to Helmunt Newton Photographer Berlin 1929 - Los Angeles 2004   Photographer Helmut Newton Killed in Crash   Los Angeles- Acclaimed fashion photographer Helmut Newton died Friday January 23rd after his car sped out of control from the driveway of the famed Chateau Marmont hotel and crashed into a wall, police said. He was 83. Newton, whose work appeared in magazines such as Playboy, Elle and Vogue, was best known for his stark, black-and-white nude photos of women.   Newton apparently lost control of his Cadillac while leaving the Hollywood hotel, said Officer April Harding, a police spokeswoman. It was unclear whether he became ill while driving. People were on the sidewalk in front of the driveway, and the car brushed a photographer heading into the hotel before crashing into the wall. Newton was taken by ambulance to Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, where he died a short time later, Harding said.   Newton was a trailblazer in the fashion photography world, exploring power, gender roles and an icy sexuality in his pictures. His trademark "Big Nudes" series featured larger-than-life, black-and-white images of women that portray them as dominating the camera rather than as subjects.   Among the beautiful and powerful people Newton has photographed were Paloma Picasso, Pierre Cardin, Naomi Campbell, Jean-Marie Le Pen and Claudia Schiffer. While Newton also photographed clothed celebrities and nature scenes, he favored photographing women, usually while they wore little more than high heels.   "He was a giant," said Playboy founder Hugh Hefner. "He was a major talent that pushed the boundaries in terms of photography and influenced many, many other photographers in following generations." The German-born photographer said in his 2002 autobiography that when he was 15, he told his father he wanted to be a photographer. The Berlin factory owner told him, "My boy, you'll end up in the gutter. All you think of is girls and photos."   Newton, who was Jewish, fled his homeland for Singapore in December 1938, a month after Nazi-led persecution programs began. He eventually settled in Australia and became a citizen, opening a small photography studio and changing his last name to Newton from Neustaedter. He later took up residence in Monte Carlo, overlooking the Mediterranean — a frequent backdrop for his nude images.   In the prologue to his autobiography, he said his fascination with women dated back to when he was a toddler and recalled seeing his nurse "getting ready to go out, and she is half-naked" in front of a mirror. He described it as a defining moment in his life. In October, he donated more than 1,000 pictures to a new gallery in Berlin, saying he was proud his work would now be on display in his hometown.   Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder called Newton's decision a "sign of reconciliation." "You can chase a man out of his home but you can't rip his home out of his soul," Schroeder said in a letter read at the news conference announcing the donation. Newton's coldly erotic imagery often alarmed feminists as well as those with tamer sensibilities.   A hosiery ad he shot, featured on a giant billboard in Times Square for a time, was banned from the side of New York City buses in 1998 because it was deemed to be too racy. It showed a rear-end view of a woman lying face-down, wearing only a pair of stockings. A side view of her bare breast also was visible. Newton is survived by his wife, June, who works under the name Alice Springs. She was also a favorite subject for the photographer. In one 1973 series of photos, she was portrayed as Hitler wearing a cropped mustache, with model Jerry Hall posing as Eva Braun. The Newtons had no children.   By Anthony Breznican, AP Fri Jan 23, 9:56 PM ET         http://zonezero.com/magazine/obituaries/newton/newton.html    

Friday, 23 January 2004

481. Does Size Matter?

    Have you ever opened your e-mail to find in your inbox several e-mails with the subject: "Does Size Matter?" I think you might have. I read somewhere that around 250 billion of such spam e-mails have been sent all over the world.   In the prestigious Journal of Photographic Arts, CAMERAWORK published in San Francisco, Vol # 30, this past winter, I came across an interesting article by Geoffrey Batchen, under the title "Does Size Matter?" making reference to the intimacy between the viewer and the size of the photograph questioning through the size of the image presented the photographic experience. The title of the article I perceived as essentially being a teaser, however, it never got to humor me through out the entire article. I wondered how can someone who I assume receives email and is part of modern society, not have been the recipient of at least two dozen penis enlargement offerings claiming that "Size does Matter" and thus made the connection between the title of that piece and the spam mail which has inundated all mailboxes from Argentina to Zambia and all the countries in between in the alphabet soup, by the billions, literally.   As I read the article in further detail, I soon discovered why the author probably never made such a deliberate connection and the title simply wasn’t even an intentional pun. It turns out that in his rather well documented article the existence of the Internet as a source for viewing photographs is totally ignored. It would seem according to the examples presented by the author, that the only public places one has the option to look at pictures is in the context of either museums or gallery spaces.   Strangely enough, even one of the photographers Mr. Batchen makes reference to, Seydou Keita from Mali, in relation to the various sizes of how his images were exhibited in the recent past, is a photographer we have featured in ZoneZero (here on the internet) for the past six years, yet the author seems not to be cognizant of this fact anymore than he is of the internet in general. I am sure that if he had included the existence of the pictures on the computer screen in his considerations of image size, his analysis would have benefited greatly.   Geoffrey states, “Of course putting a big photograph on a wall doesn’t in itself preclude the viewer from a potentially intimate experience of it. But it doesn’t help either. Photography places all its subjects firmly in the past [*] and this temporal distancing is repeated by larger photographs in spatial terms, literally pushing us back from the print as well as from those subjects. But going miniature is not necessarily the answer either, for intimacy is not quite the same as physical closeness (you can have sex with someone and not be intimate with them). The problem here is that intimacy remains a hard thing to define. You know it when you feel it- that sense of personal, private involvement with another person or thing, of a shared emotional investment in that relationship - but it remains a nebulous, not-quite-describable kind of experience often measured at the level of the body (in the gut) rather than the intelligence."   If one considers that alone in ZoneZero we have over two million page views being seen per month (mostly with one image per page ) the number of images that are being reviewed in this manner is a high enough number that a serious writer simply can not ignore such new viewing habits. So when the author of "Does Size Matter" uses such a title without so much as a colluding wink one gains the impression that he probably doesn't “get it“ when it comes to experiences outside the realm of his spaces of reference. The reasonable statement about intimacy mentioned above is most certainly shared by an ever increasing number of people who are populating the internet, otherwise the exponential growth we have experienced would have never taken place.   If the issue is the dissemination of images, no museum or gallery can compete with what is available to be seen on the internet, not even remotely. As such, the Internet is already the largest museum in history. And according to my friend Chip Simone, the internet, is probably the best thing that has happened to museums and galleries since the di Medici family.   Interestingly enough when alluding to large scale prints, Batchen’s only references are images presented in museum or gallery spaces, such as those by Andreas Gursky, Richard Avedon, Thomas Ruff, Cindy Sherman, yet somehow the large scale pictures delivered via Bill Board advertisements ( Times Square or Sunset Strip, Picadilly Circus, Ginza, for instance) or those that appear on the large screen of Cinema Houses simply become ignored as does the world of the internet, as if the influence of photographic culture coming from these corners of the world did not play into the decision making process of the size of the print.   Interestingly enough no mention is made in this article that the size of the prints has increased because of a very simple fact: Because today we can print larger with the same relative ease that we used to print an 11 x 14 print. In the past I could not even dream of printing to the sizes I can print today, my darkroom simply did not have the size to accomplish such a task, neither the height of the room for the enlarger, nor the size of the trays, for prints that would go, for instance, to 44 inches wide. For most of my life as a photographer, I never printed larger than 11x 14, because the papers were all too expensive and we simply did not have the facilities to make larger prints, like are so readily available today through digital technology. By the way, the cause we are mostly doing color today is essentially an extension of the same reasons. We were limited in the past by the technical complications all of which have been superseded in the digital age. With the ink jet printers available today, you can accomplish what ever your imagination leads you to do. There simply never was the possibility for me to do color with the same relative ease of black and white, much as I tried.   What I find so amusing today is that collectors are all of a sudden jumping on the bandwagon of buying up “vintage” silver based prints, discovering all of a sudden that the prints we did in the past which were always put down as not being an artistic and unique product, were indeed what we had sustained all along. Prints which could have been bought for a few hundred dollars are today getting between ten and twenty thousand, because in fact there were never printed more than just a few of them with all the scarcity of materials and the limited time to print them. I had always maintained we had a built constraint in our potential to produce large number of prints but then the idea did not take hold.   In conclusion, I really don’t know if size matters, but I do know that facts do, and I am constantly reminded how these are being ignored very often either by those who write about photography or those who collect images, and they do so to their own detriment.   As I was writing these last sentences, my in box rang and I received an email, with information that to some degree I had been expecting for a long time, Kodak was announcing that they had stopped selling traditional film based cameras, I suppose the impact of such news will have serious repercussion all over the photographic world as people will inevitably have to come to terms now with the facts we have been discussing here in ZoneZero for years.   Pedro Meyer January 2004   * [ I would take exception to this affirmation that photography places all its subjects firmly in the past. In the early part of the 20th century, Albert Einstein saw through nature's Newtonian facade and revealed that the passage of time depends on circumstance and environment. He showed that the wristwatches worn by two individuals moving relative to one another, or experiencing different gravitational fields, tick off time at different rates. The passage of time, according to Einstein, is in the eye of the beholder. I thus wonder the photograph of which watch would be in the future relative to the other one? ] (back)   Please share your comments on this issue with us in our forums.       http://www.zonezero.com/zz/6/Pedro-Meyer-s-Blog/does-size-matter.html    

Monday, 05 January 2004

483. Photographs

  PDF download Photography by Aníbal Angulo Text by Gustavo Sainz   i quote, from my new novel “fantasmas aztecas”: “...women are imaginary beings, related to the manticore, the hypo griffin, the amphisbaena and the catoblepas, women do not exist, what exists, at any rate, is the space that the woman would occupy (if she existed), it is a series, it is a succession of ideas about the woman, of what a woman should be.” or as jaime sabines puts it: ” in the edge of air (what to do? what to say?) there is a woman still”. anibal never falls into photographic shutter-print naivety.  

Monday, 22 December 2003

485. Vanishing Evidences

  Photographing at night in Mexico City     // QuickTime 6.4 plug-in is required   I had just been surrounded by 15 police cars. Their red and blue lights flashed, blinking all over the landscape at 1:30 in the morning. Surrounding my car, there were no less than 80 policemen, some of them boasting heavy duty machineguns that made the “Terminator” look like, well, just a governor of California. I must say that, if it had not been quite so real, this scenario looked pretty much like something out of a bad movie. What I am about to tell must be one of the most colorful stories told in a long time, combining the crossroads from analog to digital photography, sex, accidents and a lot of unforeseen twists and turns, that will prove to be quite worthy of an end of year finale.       I was comissioned by one of our main museums in Mexico City to produce a body of work for a permanent exhibition to be shown during the forthcoming five years. I would photograph the activities that take place in the city from 8pm to 6am. The inducement to cover those hours proved two fold for me. Not only did I find what went on during those hours very challenging, but I also knew that taking pcitures under poor lighting conditions and with digital technology would certainly be an interesting experience. Compared to what could be shot on conventional film, capturing images in weak lighting is quite something else. I have found that my digital cameras are much more responsive to low light than the counterpart cameras using film. And now, having a new Nikon lens, supported by a vibration reduction motor, I would be able to add 3 f stops. The new technology would offer amazing results.     However, I would have to confront one major problem. Going around the city during those hours of the night and in the rough neighborhoods I was to visit was not precisely what anyone would consider a safe situation, either for myself or for the photographic equipment I was to take along. I had absolutely no desire to be mugged or of being separated from my digital cameras. For this very same reason, I asked the museum director if the Police Department of the city would be able to provide two undercover agents that could offer me assistance and protection during the week I would be taking the photographs. The Police Department showed great understanding and straight away offered to help me out because the project seemed quite interesting. I was thrilled. The project would begin the forthcoming week, all the pieces falling into place very neatly. Yet, for all the precautions I had taken, I was unequipped to deal with an unforeseen turn of events. Just before the project got underway, I suffered a major accident right in my own studio. As I was setting up some sound equipment on the rear side of a G5 Mac that had just arrived, my foot got caught between some wires as I was leaving the back-side of the desk. I fell down, with a broken Achilles’ heel which now would have to be operated on. The ripped tendon would have to be stitched back together again. My foot was placed in a cast so I would not be able to move it or to even step on it. I was constrained to a wheel chair for the forthcoming three months. This scenario did not seem promising at all for the type of photography I had planned. However, after feeling sorry for myself during a couple of days, I decided I would not let this accident derail me from this project. And so, I started to view the problem from a different perspective. I knew now that the images would necessarily have to be different from those I would have been able to shoot under normal conditions. I did not quite know what this meant, although I could imagine some of the probable images. I would have to rethink the angle and height from which I would be photographing now, under these new circumstances. I could easily imagine that the dynamics of what could happen in any place I would visit, would also have to change due to the fact of my arrival in a wheelchair, surrounded by a whole entourage of people. Instead of being the unobserved photographer, I now had to accept that I would be the focus of attention anywhere I went. Thus, I would have to re-plan everything. Naturally, this transformed the ideas I initially had in mind.     Taking into account that my activities would require new strategies, I invited various friends to join me in the realization of the project. To begin with, I asked one of my colleagues to take pictures of me during the process of photographing from a wheelchair. I asked yet another colleague to make sound recordings of the places we were to visit shortly. Thus, we would later be able to create audio-visual material of this experience. Other friends came along just for the fun of it and also to suggest places we could visit and in which I would be able to take photographs. All in all, sometimes our entourage consisted of up to seven people. As I could no longer drive for obvious reasons, I had a chauffer to drive my car who would also lend a hand pushing my wheelchair. Besides my own automobile, our entourage consisted of another car, an unmarked police vehicle driven by one of the two cops assigned to protect both me and my equipment. The other policeman came along with me in my car. Thus, we rode in a two-vehicle convoy. Obviously, owing to the wheelchair and the amount of people surrounding me, every time we entered to a place people would start asking who I was. It wasn’t hard for anybody to understand I had people ‘protecting’ me. I suppose I must have seemed kind of enigmatic for most people: There I was, sitting on a wheelchair, several cameras hanging from my neck. My friends offered different explanations to the locals once they struck up a conversation with them.     According to each particular situation, they would say I was either a famous movie director looking for sets for his next movie, a politician who was enjoying a voyeuristic experience having a night out in town, or a T.V. journalist filming a story for one of the television networks. Paradoxically, the one and only thing I was never accused or suspected of being was a straight and simple photographer: a fact which tells us something interesting about our profession and about how dull we are perceived to be. The first night out, we “tested the waters”, driving around to see what sort of situations I, as a photographer, would be interested in capturing. And, as soon as I would see something that would make sense to me, I would ask the driver to stop the car and have the wheelchair brought to me so I could get out and start taking pictures. It soon became clear to me that I was trying to emulate, in a very dysfunctional manner, that which I would have ordinarily done under normal conditions: getting out of the car and walking up to a situation that would have caught my eye. Only now, all that was involved in taking a picture seemed so cumbersome that I had to rethink everything altogether. I discovered I had to come up with several new strategies of how to work more efficiently. One of these new plans was that, instead of getting out of the car myself, in the future I would allow someone in my crew to explore the possibility of my being allowed to take pictures. As it turned out, at the first place I got out of the car I was forced to confront an entire team of threatening-looking kids who were bent on not letting me take any pictures at all, notwithstanding my vulnerability at being constrained to a wheelchair. Upon understanding the situation, the cops who accompanied me spoke to some of the menacing young men confronting us. And in less time that it takes to write this, these threatening young men changed their attitude and started to lift my wheelchair, making sure I would be raised on to a rather high sidewalk and, thus, be able to move towards the particular store I wanted to photograph. Everything had changed suddenly, as if struck by a magic wand. I had no exact idea of what had happened and neither did I have a clue as to why on earth someone would object to my taking pictures there. One of the cops later explained to me that the owners of this particular store, which sold Christmas ornaments wholesale, working night and day catering to other vendors who, in turn, would sell their smuggled chinese wares all over the city, did not look upon my photographic endeavour as a cultural manifestation of sorts, but rather as an intelligence gathering of evidence against them. In one of those strange twists and turns that would continue to happen during the whole week, it would be the cops themselves, the ones accompanying and protecting me, who would make all these different people feel they had nothing to worry about my picture taking. I am sure the irony is not lost: it would be the cops who would put their fears to rest, instead of making them dread the consequences concerning any evidence of their smuggled merchandise. I discovered another strategy that seemed to make sense under the circumstances: it consisted of taking pictures from within the car itself, rather than getting out. The people in my entourage and myself discussed a new issue that actually modified who would be the designated driver of my car. My driver was no longer in charge of the vehicle during our nightly excursions. One of the two assigned policemen had offered to become my driver, for he had been trained in surveillance techniques and knew quite well how to drive the car in such a way that would enable me to take pictures.     The scenes we encountered cruising from the car would of course be very diverse, from prostitues lighting up a small bonfire in order to warm up their behind in the bitter cold nights of Mexico City, to soldiers being arrested for urinating on the sidewalk, or people collecting discarded materials to make a living. In some ways, all representing very basic human needs.           The nightly escapades went on daily. We were politely turned down in many nightclubs, table dance places as well as transvestite clubs. The main reasons we were always given actually made sense.The managers wanted to protect their clients. They felt concerned that my pictures could compromise them, as they didn't know if the pictures would be eventually published, even though we had the very best intentions in mind. The more elegant and upscale the establishment, the less amenable they were to let me photograph it. However, not everyone turned us down.     In one of the beer-halls we went to, we sensed trouble almost as soon as we got into the establishment. The undercover cops came up to me and explained the exit strategy we would follow in case things got rougher. They told me they would only concentrate in rushing me out of the place in my wheelchair, leaving the others to fend for themselves as, surely, they would be able to manage a lot better on their own. Besides, their assignment consisted in protecting me and no one else. The whole trouble started when a lovers’ brawl flared up between a transvestite and his/her lover. Some beer bottles started to fly. The owner of the place was a fellow who, in spite of being a deafmute, had a keen sense of all that was happening around him. He had a strict control over his own people. His waiters knew exactly what he expected from each of them, as I overheard one of them explaining to our group. As soon as tempers started to flare, I was pulled out of the direct line of fire by my bodyguards. This was quite the contrary of what I would have actually wished. I would have much rather prefered to walk up to the scene and taken shots of the whole ordeal. But, then, I was not much in a position (no pun intended) to decide differently. The men who had orders to protect me did not mess about with any other options. They just did what they had to.     Later on, one of my friends told me that, as we were leaving the place, he observed that the people across the table from us seemed quite uncomfortable with us being there, as they were distributing among themselves under their table, the whole loot they had obviously taken in during that day: watches of all sorts and odd jewelry. I must admit I never saw any of that. From my vantage point and with all the things I had to deal with, noticing such fine details surely had escaped me, not only at that moment but at other moments as well. Sitting on a wheelchair was evidently taking its toll on my photographic radar screen.     Taking pictures from the car started to work out quite nicely. The policeman who drove my automobile actually did have a sense of what I required as a photographer. This included the angle of vision, the speed in relation to subject matter, and last, but not least, the issues concerning my personal security. This theme would become crucial in our next to last day of shooting. One of the nights among the sites we visited we went to a gay club. There we met a good number of friends who had gone partying that night since the next day was a holiday. No sooner had I settled down there and ordered a drink, I was run over by this beautiful young girl (who I later would find out is an actress) and when I mean run over, it's literal. Although I had never met her, she sat on my lap on the wheel chair as if we were old friends and began to crawl all over me.     She then told me in no uncertain terms to place my hand on her breast. My friend Rogelio in the right hand corner expresses very well the surprise I guess we all felt. In fact the photograph is an excellent example of how pictures are such inefficient tools with which to convey "the truth" so many photographers search for so desperately. For instance, the image does not explain anything of what really went on. For instance, the fact that her date or boyfriend was standing to a side telling her, "come on...let's go", and she was probably trying to make him jealous, is not seen here at all. As so often happens, what lies out side the frame of the image, is often as important as what is within the frame itself.     But then this bit about the jealousy is also an assumption I have no idea how truthful it actually is, because another possibility would be that she was just attracted to a certain limelight, in seeing me arrive (she apparently knew who I was) with my crew of people, and with the flash of pictures snapping she might have been prompted to become part of the "show" herself (after all she is an actress). The truth is that nothing of this was more real than a film scene. A fiction that people believe in because it's supported by an image, a photograph which I don't even know who it was taken by, it simply appeared on my camera... someone must have picked up my camera and simply snapped the moment. So not only is the veracity of the content in the image quite suspect but the author is unknown as well. However if you want to imagine that I am a ladies man, go ahead! Just remember, the evidence is only a photograph. After this fleeting encounter, a young artist sat next to me and began to tell me about his career. A very nice young man who spoke to me with great pride about a tattoo he got not too long ago and all the money he saved in order to afford having such a great piece of art etched into him. He offered to take his pants down to show it to me as soon as he realized that I would not be offended by him doing so.     The conversation was interrupted by another young lady who introduced herself as a student of mine.     She asked me if I wanted to photograph in the club, she would be glad to wheel me around the place. And she did, she pushed me around the aisles as if I was a kid sitting in one of those supermarket carts, to finally bring me onto the dance floor were she left me sitting at a table where she had the waiter bring me a pitcher full of beer. Before this, she took my wheel chair and drove me straight into the men's restroom, or at least she tried to, thinking that I would get some great images there. The wheel chair gut stuck in the entrance, as the door was too narrow. My self-appointed guide, was just explaining to anyone who wanted to listen why she was pushing me into the mens toilet, that I was a voyeur and that they should not worry. Not that there was anything to see, so I went along (what else could I do?) with the parody. I was quite taken a back that everyone was so incredibly polite and friendly, there was no aggression in the air. I told one of my friends, I had been to kid parties where there is more tension and aggression than there was to be perceived that night in this club. Here was another one of those myths about "those places" people are scared of going to.       Street prostitution was one of the main topics I wanted to photograph, as it is a thriving activity in Mexico City. We headed towards several areas where you can find some of the more fanciful ladies of the night. I was hoping to catch glimmering images from the window of my car. There we were, driving along in our two-car convoy, just as we had on previous days. The people in the second car were coming along just for the run ride, as we were planning to go someplace else afterwards.     I was taking pictures when, all of a sudden and out of nowhere, five characters started to pound on the window of my car, demanding me to turn my camera over to them. I just waved them off, while the cop driving my car suggested we should better move on and get out of there. It wasn’t worth the hassle to confront them directly. So, the driver veered to the left with great expertise, speeding away into the traffic. We thought we had been able to evade the confrontation when, all of a sudden, two blocks further we were cut off by two cars. Out of these cars descended the same thugs that had threatened me earlier. They rushed towards us with the clear intention, written all over their faces, of breaking into the car and grabbing my photographic equipment. They began stomping and kicking the side door of the car. At this point, the cop driving my car flung his door wide open, pulled out his gun and pointed it clearly in the direction of the thugs while, very calmly, he began telling them to get the hell out of there. Meanwhile, the cop in the other car had by now made a special manoeuver. He had come out of his car and was pointing his gun at these same characters from the other side.     Seeing themselves cornered, the thugs withdrew. All the members of my entourage, still sitting inside the two cars and watching the events from within, sighed with relief on seeing that nothing worse had happened. It all could have easily turned into a shooting gallery, worthy of a B movie. The cops got into the cars once the thugs had left. We drove off, hoping this would be the end of it. But this was not to be. As it was, we were intercepted again a few blocks further on, only this time by patrol cars. At first there was one, then another and another, and soon we were surrounded by fifteen units. It seemed strange to be stopped by the police, especially when the driver of my car was precisely a policeman on duty. So if anything, I felt intrigued as to what the next episode would hold in store for us. The night seemed to be filled with the pulsating lights projected by each of the turrets of all the police cars, with their red and blue lights streaming and bathing everything along their path. Reinforcements started to come in from all directions. It seemed as if they were preparing for an invasion. They bore machineguns of every caliber you can imagine. They also had what seemed to be missile launchers, grenade launchers and tear gas launchers. However, I did not see anyone with sniffer dogs trained for detecting drugs or explosives.     We all decided to remain calm within the safety of our vehicles. All of a sudden, the commander of all these police agents peered into our driver’s window. He demanded our driver to identify himself and was taken aback when he discovered that now he had on his hands a far bigger headache than he had bargained for: the people he was pursuing were policemen themselves. Each of the policemen started to make calls on their cell phones to their respective higher-ups, asking what they should do and how they should deal with this particular situation. Each of the patrol car units were ordered to cool down and to de-scalate the whole thing. The main problem was that the “Chief” was obviously protecting the prostitution Mafia. Thus, he could not so easily tell them to get lost and forget about the whole thing since by that moment they (the pimps -the five guys and two women-) had already arrived to the place and began to yell at us with false accusations. So, he discreetly whispered into our car: “At the very least, these people want you to hand over the roll of film you took.” On hearing this, I explained, “I am sorry, there are no rolls of film in these cameras. These are digital cameras.” I must admit that with great astuteness and candor, the police Chief responded: “Well, then, I will send one of my men to buy a roll of film someplace. I will then hand it to you, so you can pretend you are taking the roll of film out of your camera. Maybe we will be able to end this whole matter once I hand the roll of film over to them. All right?” I said: “that’s fine with me”... While waiting in our cars, I observed the arrival of still more police units. Only this time, they were reinforcements sent by the department to which our two undercover policemen belonged. They acknowledeged each other ever so discreetly, as no one was supposed to know they were actually allies. I began to learn about such matters as my companion in the car started revealing all these layers of information about which I had no clue of who they were. He went on to tell me what they were planning to do: They would disarm the cop in the other vehicle and then bring his gun over to my car. The other cop’s gun was handed over through the window, to the undercover policeman driving my automobile. He slid it down the side of his back while leaning backwards and handed the gun to me so I could hide it in my camera bag. I placed it at the bottom of my equipment, underneath all the cameras and lenses. Then the policeman who was driving my car took his own gun out of its holster and handed it over to me as well. I now had two guns, in addition to my own cameras and lenses. I only feared what would happen if one of these two guns went off unexpectedly while laying on my lap. I could only wonder if the shot would blow off my balls or my stomach. The vanishing evidence acts, were going on all over the place, the newly arrived roll of film which was all blank, replaced the actual digital images on the memory discs. The hidden guns were now replaced with fictional stories in which no guns ever existed. I had become a government official whose bodyguards were abusing their powers according to our accusers. The pimps in turn never even came close to bothering us in our car. The cops who came to help making the guns disappear were in turn acting out their part appearing not to know the cops in my car. The cops who were protecting the prostitutes were allegedling just doing their duty in responding to charges brought by some innocent civilians. Not a single person ever told the truth about anything. By now, even I was lying, saying I did not know anything about any guns. As I sat there, I could not help thinking of all those stupid debates around the “truth” surrounding photography. I was wondering, how in the midst of such a sea of lies, anyone could dare to take a picture and offer it as a representation of “the truth”. Bush and his make-believe Thanksgiving Turkey in Iraq, also came to my mind.     The Mafia wanted blood, but by now there were no guns to be found anywhere. Police officers came swarming down upon us and started to inspect both cars. They checked underneath the seats and also under the car as I sat there with my camera bag sitting on my lap. I looked on nonchalantly. The “Chief” all of a sudden eyed my equipment bag and asked "what's inside?" to which I responded. “My cameras and all the different lenses. Would you like to see?” I said while beginning to remove most of the equipment. He felt satisfied with the quick search.       I asked one of my two undercover agents to explain why on earth, if what they were doing was legal, why did they need to hide their guns. They explained that the most important thing under the circumstances was not to let the issue escalate further, because it could slowly develop into a legal and political embarrassment for some senior officers. So, the more one could do to defuse and erode it all, the better. No sooner was that said, that all of a sudden we had T.V. cameras and their lights streaming through the windows of our two cars. There were also radio reporters and people from the Commission of Human Rights coming to defends us. After all, with all the bells and whistles that must have gone off on one of the main thoroughfares of the city, it was just a matter of time before the press arrived in full regalia to find out what was going on.     At this point, I had had enough. It was now way past five in the morning. So when the press reporters came and the people from the Human Rights Commission made their appearance, I explained to them the full story. After all, I had every right to take pictures from my car, given that I was on a public street and not within any private property. Also, I was taking photographs for a museum and I had all the credentials to prove it. Besides, the two policemen protecting me were on active duty. So, bearing all this in mind, I prompted the Human Rights people to please ask the women, who were still yelling at the top of their lungs about their alleged grievances, if they truly felt they had any complaints pending against me. By now, they had all realized I wasn’t the high government official they imagined me to be and from whom they could extort some sort of benefit. So, with incredible politeness, they waved me off as they had now discovered I was in fact in a wheel chair, saying they had nothing against me. I should leave by all means, “but those two cops and that other guy”, (meaning my personal driver, who had been sitting in the other car and who had gotten out of it with his cell phone in hand, and who was now mistakingly being accused of allegedly holding a gun instead of the cell phone), “they will all have to be taken to the Police station to stand charges” they demanded. I said, “Fine. Get one of my friends to drive the other car and another one to drive mine (remember, I was unable to drive myself). Please enable us to depart as soon as possible.” I was actually thinking that those guns in my camera bag had to leave the place as soon as possible. And so we drove off. No sooner had we arrived home, that I received a phone call from the police station. The woman who had wanted to press charges against us was willing not to do so if we paid her off $3,000 pesos (approximately 300 USD). She explained that this was the cost of the medical bills she would have to pay in order to overcome the grief she had had to endure, as she now had these terrible pains in her chest. I obviously said yes and therefore the three guys (the two undecover cops and my driver) were able to leave the police station straight away, without being booked. What I did not know at that moment -one of the cops explained this to me later-, was that all this was settled so fast and easily because the officer in charge of writing the complaint all of a sudden realized they did not have any guns or cars as evidence. This officer asked the plaintiffs, “So, if you don’t have the cars, are you going to tell me then these people arrived by foot?” Well, without the cars and without the guns as evidence, the situation seemed quite ludicrous and hilarious. So much that I surmise this could only have been a premeditated and slow degradation of evidence of a situation that, to begin with, no one wanted to know anything about, except for this woman from the prostitution Mafia.     For me and for the people who accompanied me that fateful evening, the night had been full of very interesting issues concerning our different perceptions. In fact, it all had to do with each person’s assumptions and beliefs. It was a dance of distorted fields of reality and vanishing evidences. Pedro Meyer December 2003   Please share your comments on this issue with us in our forums.       http://zonezero.com/editorial/diciembre03/december.html    

Thursday, 11 December 2003

487. Enrique Bostelman (1939-2003)

Mexican Photographer 1939 - December 3rd, 2003   We are sad to inform you the decease of our dear friend and photographer.   Enrique Bostelman.   Was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco (Mexico) in March, 1939. In 1958 he received a scolarship for studying a Master's degree in Photography at Bayerische Staatslehranstalt der Photographie in Munich, west Germany.   In 1960 he got initiated as a professional photographer and he later taught at the Instituto Paul Coremans in Mexico City. From 1983 to 1986 he was vicepresident of the Consejo Mexicano de Fotografía (Mexican Photography Council). He has been through the years a member of the jury of different photography events like: Bienal de Artes Gráficas and Bienal de Fotografía del Instituto Nacional de Bellas Artes, Kinsa prize in Rochester, E.U.A., Geomundo prize in Mexico City, Casa de las Américas prize in Havana, Cuba, between other more.   He was a member of the Sistema Nacional de Creadores del FONCA (National System of FONCA Creators). He participated in multiple collective expositions in Mexico, Europe, the USA and Southamerica.     INTERVIEW TO ENRIQUE BOSTELMAN BY ELISA RUIZ FROM CONACULTA, AUGUST 22, 2003   Oaxaca, Mexico. - Next o a hot cup of coffee, a small city map is explored by Enrique Bostelmann’s hand. He comes back after thirty years and fins that things have changed. “When I came to Oaxaca there were no museums or galleries, and getting around was easy” he says, taking his coffee cup as he stands up.   He was born in Guadalajara in 1939. He has won several International awards such as the Casa de las Américas, the Geomundo and the Kinsa awards. Bostelmann belongs to the generation of Mexican photographers who, during the 50’s and 60’s, made pictures of the Mexican rural areas walking them inch-by-inch. Due to his German ancestry, his blonde hair attracted the attention of the townspeople. “People who used to want to pay for getting their picture taken now asked for “one dollar” , and called me names like fucking gringo, straw head, corn hair, everyone thought I was not a Mexican”.   After 30 years, Bostelmann comes back to Oaxaca for a conference on visual arts and the opening of the “Silver on Zoology” exhibition -with ten other artists of the National creators fellowship-held at the Santo Domingo cultural centre. This show included pictures of Manuel Álvarez Bravo and Mariana Yampolsky who, like Bostelmann, traveled throughout Mexico “looking for the light”   Photographers traveled because the world is light, we searched for the light. Now life takes place in the evening, in poky little rooms, while smoking marijuana cigarettes. Photographers do not go to the sierra of Puebla anymore, they go to Cancun or Acapulco and at the most take the picture of someone’s backside”.   “It not easier because of the airplanes or cars, but it used to be safe, if you went to the Huasteca region, people did not allow to be photographed because photographers used to charge them. Now it is the other way around, they want ‘one dollar’. The further away you were of the so-called ‘civilization’, the safer you felt. People were very hospitable, we would arrive by foot -sometimes we had to walk 50 kilometers in a day- and people wouldn’t let us leave; ‘Stay’ they said’ we’ll kill a lamb for supper”.   “Man had a closer relationship with nature in those days. I belonged to The Explorer’s Club of Mexico, it’s members knew every mountain in the country and every language. When we visited a place we would write down the directions to get to it in a little book. Photography was an adventure”   With images from those days, Enrique Bostelmann has prepared an exhibition for INBA (National Fine Arts Institute) “Recovered Time: A cartography of Imagination” and a retrospective exhibition in Mexico City on September.   Though he makes it clear that his photographic work is not over yet. Despite not traveling as frequently since “one makes up one’s world according to the age”, he is currently working in Mexico City with several artists such as writers, painters and sculptors in multidisciplinary projects.   “The eye becomes very sharp with time. Nowadays, I am drawn to the small nameless objects that express a man’s way of being. After taking pictures of so many people one starts to feel repetitive, we see the same expressions of joy, sadness, amazement in everyone. These gestures are universal even reiterative. I wonder, How can I talk about Mankind through its objects? I try to interpret everything through a different media”.   Bostelmann, who has had exhibitions in Europe, Asia and South America is currently working in the book “Post No Bills” which will compile150 images from several photographers. This book will be published by Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana of México.   “Elena Poniatowska gave me the spoon used by his father in prison. I came up with a concept, so I looked for the right lighting and cast a bar’s shadow over it . Luis de Tavira gave me a tiny music box; Carlos Monsivais owner of quite a few cats- his studio reeks of them -, gave me a Garfield doll; Carlos Montemayor , who writes about guerillas, gave me a bottle with land from Crete; Vicente Leñero gave me the original copy of one of his writings and a tiny toy typewriter his daughter gave him as a present; Emilio Carballido gave me a lilac typewriter given to him by Salvador Novo, which is so old you can not see the letters anymore. These objects, when seen I detail , are a universes revealing their owners. A small key or a shoe cease to be objects and become landscapes”.   This project keeps him quite busy, not only because of the photographic work , but also because the texts that each artist has to write for the book, he has to be in touch with all of them and that means he has to get around all over Mexico City everyday.   He has no intention of retiring . “When one gets involved in something, it becomes life itself. That's what happened with Alvarez Bravo, Yampolsky, Nacho López. Picasso died working at 95, Rossini and Verdi died writing their music. Retirement is for people with day jobs. Those of us who work for fun for the joy of it all never retire”   I take this opportunity to give a word of advice to photographers attending courses at the so-called “active” photography schools, participating in contests with portfolios that are full of diplomas and course certificates but hardly have got any work in them. I honestly say to you that I have little communication with other photographers because photography is like a funnel, small on top, wide on the bottom, we all can take pictures, there are automatic cameras, but there are only a few that use the camera like a sculptor uses a chisel or a painter a brush, very few are interested in art in general. They go to “active” photography courses to get a little diploma. I have been a judge in these contests and I received portfolios thick as telephone books filled with diplomas and course certificates, but when you look at the pictures…it doesn’t make any sense. I say this to you: Work harder and forget about the diplomas!!         http://zonezero.com/magazine/obituaries/bostelman/bostelman.html      

Wednesday, 03 December 2003

489. Davida Kidd

  Date: November 21, 2003 12:46:55 PM CST   My name is Davida Kidd   I am a photography based artist from Vancouver BC CANADA   I will be submitting work to your web site. I have an MFA and have a solo exhibition coming up at PLATFORM Centre for Photographic and Digital Art in 2005 in Winnipeg Manitoba CANADA.   I also have a solo exhibition in 2006 at the National Museum in Krakow Poland.   I look at your site regularly and am glad to see that all methods of photography are represented and mixed together in the exhibitions that you curate. I worry sometimes that photography that is digitally manipulated becomes segregated as "Digital Art". I am leery of putting my work into any strictly digital art context, at least at this point as I feel this work often gets labeled as illustration. dominated by photo-shop effects. Of course this is only my opinion! These issues are always interesting to discuss as catagories for work are still freshly being created for various new technology-based and influenced art.   Cheers, Davida Kidd.  

Friday, 21 November 2003

491. The Utopy of Being: An Interpretation of Alessandra Sanguinetti's Sweet Expectations

      Ernst Bloch, a German philosopher from the beggining of the 20th century, was who purified the concept of utopia of all its metaphysical meanings. For him, the utopia is a project of life; a disposition of someone that lives to construct, in the world, a specific future. That is to consider utopia as an ethos, a way of life oriented to an end. So, we can think on utopia as something that is being realized on each moment, as long as is possible to live according to that project.   I think that is possible to think about Alessandra Sanguinetti’s Sweet Expectations as an affirmation of utopia, if this concept is understood in this non-metaphysical sense. To tell that Sanguinetti’s photographs are images of children would be a simplification, almost a disfiguration; its main theme must be searched on the gazes, gestures and hopes that we can see in her images.   Why is it so important? Because today, the photography of children, by itself, has become something ordinary, even trivial – almost a copy of Carroll’s work.   © Alessandra Sanguinetti   That’s not, obviously, the case of Alessandra Sanguinetti’s photographs. I would rather say that she takes photographs of time, because this is the essential element of her images. In every photograph of Sanguinetti, what we can see is that she places children in a non-contemporary time – the time of the world-to-be. There’s an internal dissonance on each image, born in this simultaneity: the present time – when the photography was taken – is side-by-side with the future time – to where we’re sent by all the wishes contained in the look of the children we can see. But there’s more. The use of black and white and the old-fashion look of some photographs places a third dimension of time: the past. So, there’s a double dislocation for each moment – and, how in everyday’s life, there isn’t a possible equilibrium.   Now, the already mentioned concept of utopia can be more directly introduced, when we think that those three dimensions of time are internalized in a single life. That’s a fact: the children we can find in Alessandra Sanguinetti’s images are living according to their dreams, are lost in the contradictions of time – even if they don’t know this. Their sailing in the ocean of being has a secret purpose, and every moment in their existence is guided by unconscious wishes.   But this is not a choice; it’s a necessity. What can we say? Maybe Walt Whitman verses: "Tenderly – be not impatient, Strong is your hold O mortal flesh… Maybe someday we’ll can be as strong as they."   Henrique Marques Samÿn: Philosopher and essayist. Rio de Janeiro, Brasil. Contact h_samyn@yahoo.com.br.       http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/utopia_of_being/utopia_eng.html    

Friday, 24 October 2003

493. Being a photo-reporter in Venezuela: Trying to define the concept of the profession.

  Part 1 Part 2 Part3   …“Being a photo-reporter is not easy. It goes beyond image composition and the pushing of a button. A good press photographer must have a series of qualities: You have to know how to see; you must have the tact and the empathy when relating to other people; you have to study and to be informed; you have got to have quick and agile mind and body; you must also have persevearance, luck, courage and team spirit” says Carlos Abreu, a Venezuelan specialist, in his article “El reportero gráfico: testigo ocular de la historia”, (The photo reporter: an eyewitness of history) published in the book: El estallido de febrero (1989) (p. 51).   However, all of these virtues have not been enough to grant some prestige to the profession. In that same article, Abreu defines the photo reporter as the most underestimated professional of the communications area and reckons that over the last hundred years they have been deemed as mere assistants of the writing journalists, when in reality their work is as –if not more- demanding.   The derogation towards photo reporters is evidenced by the fact that most professionals in the Venezuelan press did not complete their studies and started out by mere chance, without any photography background, and had to learn in the streets.   “It has been said that journalism can hardly be taught in a school or faculty” says Miguel Ángel Bastenier (2001) on his book Blanco Móvil, Curso de periodismo (Moving Target: A journalism course) (p.17).   In Venezuela is not a requirement to have any social communication studies to work as a photographic reporter in a newspaper, and there are no regulations whatsoever regarding this matter, it is a question of finding out about an opening in a newspaper through word of mouth. Even to take a portfolio of your work is an optional practice that only a few people do.   Journalist Jose Pulido tells a story about Luigi Scotto -one of the most important photo reporters of Venezuela-. Two months after his arrival from New York in 1947, when he was strolling along Plaza Bolivar with a Leica around his neck, he was approached by a stranger “Are you a photographer?”, he said, “Ultimas Noticias is looking for one.” Luigi’s response was “What is Ultimas Noticias?” When he found out it was an evening newspaper, he went there and got the job (pg.8).   This tells us something about the informality of this trade in Venezuela, which is probably one of its most noticeable features. However, such informality does not take away the importance of the work done by these people on an everyday basis. The pictures taken on October 14, 1936, on October 18, 1945, on January 23, 1958, of the “Porteñazo” in 1962, on February 27, 1989, February 4 1992 or the Coup of April 11, 2002 and the events of those days until the return of president Chavez on April 14 have all made history.   As a matter of fact, the pictures taken on the early morning of April 14, 2002 by Hector Rondon made him the first-ever Venezuelan to be awarded a Pulitzer prize. This contradiction between the importance of the photographic work and the scarce professional education of its authors, was a feature of the Venezuelan photojournalism during the 20th century.   But, what is a photographic reporter? In Venezuela, there is no such career in the University nor it exists a specialization on this field as part of the communications program, it is barely an optional course of the program of the communications major.   We know that the photo reporter is mainly a photographer, since his job is to take pictures, but in addition to being a photographer, he is -at least to some- a journalist. Hence the variety of names this profession bears: photo journalism, graphic journalism, press photography. The diversity of skills required by the profession makes it difficult to define.   top     On this regard, the Venezuelan law of 1994 refers to these professionals as “graphic reporters” and states that they are able to work without being members of the National Association of Journalists. We gather this means they are lesser journalists than their writing colleagues.   Nevertheless it is possible that the confusion of the exact definition of the profession is due to the phot-journalist concept used by magazines such as National Geographic in which the photographer is also in charge of the texts. In this case, texts and images form a unit that is almost indivisible. Photographs are not complete without the text and vice versa. A photo reporter in Venezuela cannot be compared to a photojournalist as we just described it.   The Spanish writer Joaquin Estefania in his foreword to the book of American author David Randall “The Universal Journalist” said that journalism is the first draft of History. It is in this relationship between journalism and history that photographic journalism finds its spot, since photographs have -since the beginning of photography- served as a tangible evidence of the facts.   If written journalism is the first draft of history , then photography-all photography but specially press photography- is a frozen moment of history. Thanks to photography we are able to see the changes in urban structures, in customs, in garments, and we can put a face on those anonymous or transcendent characters of an ever-evolving society. Even though photographs by themselves do not inform in a strict sense of the word, it does present evidence, something that the written word is unable to do.   El Porteñazo © Héctor Rondón February 27, 1989 © Tom Grillo   Luis Brito recipient of the 1996 National Photography Award of Venezuela, commented that the graphic reporter “…is an historian as much as any history scholar, the filmmaker or even the television. Furthermore, the image remains, that is what is happening out there, that is history and that is what is being captured by the photo reporter”.   In February 2001, another recipient of the National Photography Award of Venezuela, Jose Sarda agreed with Brito saying that the photo reporter is “like an historian” and added that ”the graphic reporter is the man that somehow stops time. It is the man that can take an instant of something that will become part of the history of a country”. Even though a photo reporter’s job is to look for images to illustrate history, this is a possibility shared by any photographer or even anyone with a camera on their hands.   Sarda himself tells an anecdote. He was sent to Puerto Ordaz to cover the boat accident that caused the death of 36 teachers in 1964 at La Llovizna Park. He and the writer that was with him, found a man that had taken pictures of the accident and he agreed to give them the film. One of the photographs showing the picture of a teacher holding on to a tree root with the water up to his chest was on the front page of the newspaper El Nacional the next morning. So, perhaps the graphic reporter is much more of a photographer than a journalist. We shall say that he is a specialized photographer but not a limited photographer since working in photo journalism does not mean you can not do other kind of photography, on the other hand he is a limited journalist since, at least in Venezuela, his journalistic work is limited to taking photographs.   top       When we look back to the history of photography, its origins in Venezuela, its relationship with the press and the further development of the photographic language from a journalistic point of view, we realize that the relationship between photography and journalism has been very close for over a century. This relationship has not restricted the development of either one of them. Going all the way back, the press has fed from the photographers’ work without them complaining about their work being subordinated to the interests of the publications.   In the beginning the photographer was independent from the medium in which he published his work. He made a living from his studio work. The confusion appears when the photographer starts to depend on the money of the publications. The development of the journalism industry pushed the photographer to join the newspapers teams. That thwarted his creative freedom. However, in time, this freedom has been recovered little by little.   More than ever, this is why we believe that photo reporters are not journalists, even though they have to deal with journalistic concepts. This is partly caused by this specialization of capturing news worthy images. Neither we believe that is a good idea to call them ”graphic reporters” which we consider a label that diminishes their importance. This is a term that has put them on a professional limbo, marginalized from both journalism and photography and without the respect of their colleagues on either field.   We think that, above all, the photo reporter is a photographer. His job is to produce photographs, some times this is done with a full creative autonomy. This kind of work is sustained by its credibility, the power of the image is conferred by the belief that the camera can not tell a lie. The specialty of the photo journalist is to exploit the credibility of photography for journalistic purposes. This mission can not be accomplished by mere intellect. It is the coming together of technique, emotion and reason. As Cartier-Bresson puts it: “Head, eye and heart are at the same level”.   This specialized kind of photographers, from now on called ‘press photographers’ are generally freelancers, the scope of their work is both endless and precise: to get news material. There is also an element determined by the periodicity of the publication. Just as the advertising photographer has to be up to date and know the latest trends, to be better at his job, the press photographer has to know the facts and the people he is photographing, he has to master the technique and be up to date in the usages of the the journalistic photographic language.   Sometimes, the job of the press photographers is to make a simple record of the facts without any aesthetic value. Their specialty is to sum up an event or a situation in a single image, this is the greatest achievement of a press photographer, that is why Robert Capa, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Jose Sarda are on a same level.   If a picture is first published in a newspaper, that does not mean it can not be exhibited on a galley or published in a book. A good picture is a good picture and that’s that. And a good photographer is a good photographer on the street, in a studio or in a house. Some good journalistic photographs may lose part of their value when taken out of context, but will remain transcendent for being a unique document, like all photographs.   BIBLIOGRAPHY:   * Bastenier, Miguel Ángel: "El blanco móvil, (Curso de periodismo)", España, Ediciones El País, Grupo Santillana Editores, S.A, 2001, pp. 260 * Randall, David: "El periodista universal". España, Siglo Veintiuno Editores, 1999, pp. 266   OTHER SOURCES:   * Compilation 1989 "El estallido de Febrero. Un país más cierto y más dramático". Ediciones Centauro. pp. 134.   JOURNALS:   * Pulido, José- 1992. "Con Luigi Scotto muere un poco el amor fotográfico: Viajó por el mundo con sus cámaras, buscando almas retratables". -With Luigi Scotto died a little love for photography: he traveled around the world with his cameras, looking for portraitable souls.- pág. 8, Ciudad- El Diario de Caracas, viernes 16 de octubre de 1992.   Send your comments on this review to: pedro.ruiz@sympatico.ca   top       http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/fotoperiodismo/venezuela_en.html    

Thursday, 09 October 2003

495. The Heart of Zeros and Ones

  Bless me Father for I have sinned. It has been thirty-five years since my last confession and this is my sin, I bought a digital camera, a five magapixel digital camera. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.     This is a meditation on the state of photography in the digital age.   The advent of digital imaging has given rise to heated discussion and rabid debate. Photographers who are invested in the traditions and ways of the past feel threatened. And well they should. Digital technology has changed everything.   For most of the 20th century the entire notion of what a photographic image is was never in question. It was seen as a straightforward process that followed cardinal rules toward a fixed conclusion. At the beginning of the 21st century, however, the photograph has been reincarnated. A digital capture is not a singular thing. It is a starting point, a point of departure that can go off in many directions at the same time. The photograph as artifact has been transformed into an electric chameleon with a throbbing heart of zeros and ones.   More than thirty years ago futurist Alvin Toffler rightly predicted that it will not be the inevitability of change that will challenge our culture but the ever increasing and telescoping rate at which change is occurring. Those that, for whatever the reason, can't or won't keep pace are destined to find themselves on the side of the road grumbling at the train whizzing past.   But there is a point that needs to be made about photo-technology and the rate of technological advancement, especially digital technology. The rate at which change is occurring today must be seen in its own light and not presumed to be happening at the Jurassic pace that silver-based materials evolved. All indicators suggest that silver materials have de-volved. The number of silver-rich films and papers that were once readily available has shrunk to a handful. There were once 120 kinds of printing paper. In my career I have seen the demise of Opal, Medallist, Brovira 111and Portriga Rapid, to name a few. The quality of the remaining products are generally sub-par compared to earlier products, though we have come to view them as acceptable in the absence of comparatively richer materials. Fine papers will soon be made by boutiques and costs will soar. Film choices will eventually exclude black and white. Black and white images will be extracted from color film via digital process. It is an economic inevitability.   On the other hand, it would take a blind photographer not to see that research and development in the digital sector is advancing at a dizzying rate. It is a computer based technology and, as such, it moves in the sweep of the atmosphere in which it was born. Change is essential nutrient of technology.   It is clear that the digital arena is sensitive to the needs of both the marketplace and traditional photographic values. Tonality, fidelity, longevity are areas where digital technology has made profound advances in a remarkably brief period of time in response to market place concerns. Who will argue that in the very near future ways will be found to equal, mimic, or surpass, the virtues and perceived qualities of any desirable photographic method. Technology is not static and neither is the market place.   I worked with an 8"x10" field camera for a decade. Today I find it easier to justify the use of digital technology than I do the provincial and quaint 19th century practice of setting a cumbersome camera on a stand in order to photograph stationary objects. Perhaps more importantly, I resent the amount of time that it steals from my life. Dilettantes like to busy their hands but artists look for the most appropriate and expedient method of expressing the creative impulse.   I am not impressed by the argument that because digital output isn't made of silver that it is therefore an inferior form. That is simply bigotry. Digital is what it is and it has immense expressive capability. The realization of its inherent potential is all that matters. A remarkable number of dedicated, accomplished and masterful photographers, spanning several generations and representing the full spectrum of styles and methodologies, have embraced the digital realm and continue to proclaim its creative potential. Many extol its ability to exceed the limitations of traditional methods and find liberating the digital tools that, while seemingly simple at first blush, clearly demand as much finesse and artistry as any other expressive discipline. The passion, excitement and reinvigoration of the profession in light of this unfolding technology is, to me, the strongest evidence of the significance of digital photography.   The camera has been my lover for forty-three years. It has brought me pleasures and sensations beyond the physical realm. It has been my teacher and my mistress, a teller of stories, a third eye, and a spinner of truths. It sees an amazing world and shows it only to me. Without it I am just another blind man.   In all these years my love for the camera have never wavered, but the camera itself has undergone remarkable transformations. It has become more refined, more intelligent, more sophisticated. What even the most sophisticated camera doesn't do, however, is something that cameras have never done. The camera doesn't define what photography is. Neither does the lens, the film size, pixel count, or the type of final output. Photography isn't a noun. Photography is a verb. Photography is what I do. It is a deliberate and willful act. It can be an expression of hope, an act of faith, or fear, or lust. It can be joyous or excruciating. But photography is not a camera.   Which brings up the last point, the lamentation of change, the fact that many people see the rapid rate of change as a bad thing, a marketing scheme designed to keep us panting breathlessly for the next toy. True, with the speed of advancement and change many products will have much shorter lives. But where should we tell them to stop? Where should we cap the inventive mind? Should imagination have boundaries? Where would we be if Medicine figured that it had gone far enough with sterile surgical tools, or x-rays, or bleedings, or leeches?   No, bring it all on I say and let artists not yet born determine what beauty next becomes.   Chip Simone Atlanta       http://www.zonezero.com/magazine/articles/heart01/heart01.html    

Sunday, 05 October 2003

497. Ramón De Pool

  Date: Sat Aug 16, 2003 12:59:33 PM America/Mexico_City   Saludos al amigo Pedro M.   Me llamo Ramón De Pool de Maracaibo Venezuela Soy fotógrafo profesional   Tu página la consulto permanentemente para mis clases de fotografía digital en la universidad Rafael Belloso Chacín. A los alumnos les encanta, por los foros, una manera de estar actualizado a nivel internacional sobre temas del momento. Uno de los puntos que tiene mi programa es La ética y estética en la fotografía digital como también, la vanguardia en lo que a fotografía digital se refiere. Es interesante la polémica del fotógrafo Brian Walski que altero una fotografía sobre la guerra de Irak como también tu muestra Verdades y Ficciones, la cual analizamos a profundidad.  

Saturday, 16 August 2003

499. Our Tenth Anniversary

"From analog to digital photography: a decade"   During this past decade our theme at ZoneZero has been "from analog to digital". No work that we have brought to our pages during this period could better epitomize this idea, than the work of Ken Merfeld. His wonderful imagery made on glass plates, through the process of wet collodion which in the end would migrate to the digital domain, would therefore allow us to bring you his work over the internet. No other photographer that we have published would span such a spread in technologies while still remaining true to his own style.   We hope to bring a degree of clarity through Ken Merfeld's work, to an issue that all too often has been a source of total confusion, in that digital photography is not a specific style of photography but only a technology with which you can produce any style that you wish. In this particular case it has been from wet collodion to digital portraits.   To my dismay I have seen contests sponsored by some of the better known photographic brands which requested images for categories such as "digital photography", as if they were a specific style of photography, thus only creating the present confusion. Some have imagined then that digital photography has to do solely with images that use every filter in the tool chest to produce a sort of "lava lamp" effect, in order to become digital. Well, if you enjoy doing those kind of images, fine, but know that this is only one of the many styles that can be produced digitally. In fact, any style can be produced by digital means.   During the first years of Zone-Zero's existence, we had to struggle to convince our photographer colleagues to trust us, that nothing terrible would happen to their work if we published it over the internet.   Fortunately we can say that it all went well and we all benefited from this experience in a positive way. We certainly thank all the photographers who gave us their valuable work, without their contribution this site would not be possible.   Digital technologies certainly have evolved during this decade, both at the level of software and hardware. What we can do over the internet today, only a few years ago was only a dream. The quality and speed of cameras has improved so much and so fast, that we tend to forget what it was only yesterday. When things change so fast, it is hard to have a sense of history of where we were just a few days ago.   I would venture to say that over this coming decade, one of the big transformations for the photographic image is going to be the addition of sound. As photographers become more familiar with sound and the tools become more effortless to use, the presence of sound, either voice or music, or both, is going to become an ever more integral part of the image. Also the delivery mechanisms are easier with each passing day, so that it will become a much smoother structure to deal with.   As I was leaving Madrid this past summer, one of the students from my work shop, did something quite astonishing, at least to my eyes. She handed me a CD ROM, and told me, "I did not know what to give you as a good-by present, so I just went to my computer and copied you all my pictures I had there". I took the CD ROM with me, and opened it later on the plane going home, and found the most compelling array of imagery, there were pictures of babies being cleaned of their poop, or being bathed, or fed, or crying, picnics with friends, dancing in nightclubs, trips, close ups of objects, landscapes, portraits, snapshots, in short, all the most tender imagery one would find in any family album, even a lot of small videos. What she had given me, was for practical purposes, a copy of her family album. Something that no one could have done before. After all our family albums have always been unique pieces that were not even possible to reproduce to share among siblings, let alone with strangers. Begoña had created something that was in my experience quite unique, she had literally reproduced her personal family album, and decided to share it as a gesture of her good will.   The coming decade, is obviously going to bring us untold new possibilities both in creating the images as well as in sharing them, I am sure that the excitement is only going to increase as the technologies become both more accessible and flexible. Still one thing will remain constant, the stories being told will be the same ones that have captivated our imagination over the ages, there will be stories of love, of passions, wars, fears, joy, sorrow, aging, mortality, birth, health, pain, in short all that makes us human. The stories are the same, only that they will be re told in different new ways.   Pedro Meyer August, 2003 Coyoacan, Mexico   Please share your comments on this issue with us in our forums.     http://zonezero.com/editorial/agosto03/august.html  

Friday, 01 August 2003