Destiny (is a very big word)

I am still marveling about the shooting session with Thekla that happened one month ago. The spirit of this session has lingered on as I have been processing and posting the pictures. And from that moment something amazing has been developing. I have been in touch with people that have helped me finding what I want to do in photography. Really, it is that big!

I have been looking around and searching for what I want to express in photography for the past six years. It has been a meandering through subjects, techniques, aspirations, disappointments and endeavors. And though I never had the feeling that I was really going wrong it also never felt entirely right, never complete, never as if I was on the path I wanted to be.

The first big step was that last year I started to shoot portraits. It was the first time that I worked with human beings and the first time that I dared exposing myself to them as a photographer. It was a huge step.

There was always the aspiration of working with people, taking their pictures and finding a way to develop my photography into that direction. I just did not have the courage. Accomplished portrait and nude photographers might smile about this impediment (or maybe some might nod as they know this feeling of fear from their own experience).

Whatever, for me it was the first time that I got in touch with people that were willing to work with me and that I felt comfortable to work with. I am really grateful to Io and her fellow musicians for this experience.

From there I shot more portraits and I gained some more experience. But it still felt sometimes clumsy and as if I was not doing quite what I wanted or should do.

And then two things happened. I met Thekla and had this amazing creative experience with her. And I also met Nanni. Nanni is an artistic photographer in Germany who I approached via Flickr because her pictures fascinated me. And via email we started talking about photography, about how our brains work and process information and reality and about what defines the core of us as human beings.

Picture from the photo shooting with Thekla in October. Picture processed with textures.

And all of a sudden it clicked. All this together starts giving me the feeling, I would even say certainty what I want to do and express and depict in photography. It is as if my photographic destiny is gradually opening up. I am not there yet. I will need to try things out. I know it is a path and not a place.

But essentially I want to explore what lies under the surface of us as human beings. What defines us, what makes us behave the way we do, what makes us human and what brings us together as human beings. And I wand to find the expression of this human essence in the faces and (nude) bodies of people that I depict.

Well, that’s kind of big, isn’t it? Very big. Maybe stupid. Maybe preposterous. And maybe hopeless and destined to fail. But it feels right! And I need to go there.

Thank you to all my companions over the past years, thank you to my new friends. Thank you to Thekla, Nanni, Marilena, Io, Tracy, Alistair, Frank, Jay (Vulture Labs) and Ioanna. Thank you for going with me, for your ideas, teachings, readiness and support.

And I will write more about this as it evolves. Who knows how the journey will be. And if it will be a journey at all. But at least I want to take the first few steps now.

The power of imagination

Take a picture. A real one. One that de-picts something. Something recognisable. Something that does not require imagination. A house? A car? A soccer field? A beach? And then you conceal it. Hide it from the view. De-construct it. De-materialize it. Change its appearance. Until nobody will see or recognise it anymore. Unless: you imagine it. You think about it. Feel it. Let it reverberate. Follow it on your mind. Re-discover it. Re-create it.

And then you start telling the story. The story of what it was when you could see it and what it became on your mind. And of what happened in between. The story on your mind. Your unique story. What you perceive. What you feel. What you imagine. Yes. What you imagine.

This is the miracle in art. We don’t need to see or to hear. Or we only need to see or hear once. Have something that creates a starting point on our mind. And from there on our imagination begins to write a story. We create. We imagine. We start telling a story that is uniquely ours. The power of imagination allows us to enter a space full of pictures, sounds, feelings. All things that do not exist in what we call reality.

And of course phantasies can even happen without an external starting point. We have pictures, words, ideas on our minds that just spring up, that just evolve, that create a world of our own. And we can use them to surf the wave, to enter the flow, to be happy and to thrive.

I see a difference between creative imagination and the on-going revolving door of the mind that gets concerned with every little aspect of our lives. Petty thoughts and feelings that we cannot control, things that occur to us and evoke a response that is nearly out of the control of our consciousness. That is how aggression occurs. How thoughts perpetuate. How things get murky and muddy. And this is not what I would call creativity or imagination. It is more the restless monkey of our mind that sits in its self-afflicted cage with the helpless desire to escape.

Imagination however is radiant. Imagination associates and develops something into and onto a higher level. Imagination gives us an opportunity to grow. It gives us the opportunity to transcend. Imagination makes us happy and it makes us smile.

Have a nice day dear reader. Surf on the clouds of your mind….

Shooting Musicians

In the past few months I got involved into taking pictures of musicians. Starting point was that I met a group of street musicians in the streets of Athens. I asked them if they were ok with me taking some pictures of them. They agreed and subsequently I met them again, attended some of their scheduled concerts and took some portraits of some of them.

From there on it snowballed and I got deeper involved in the scene with a few musicians being interested in me taking their pictures. A week ago I could attend a radio contest show with the blues guitarist and singer Tom Yosi and his band. I could take pictures of their preparation for the concert and of the event itself. Here is the link to Tom’s Facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/thanasis.klabanos

Taking pictures of musicians is special. It is artistically satisfying. And I will tell you why. Musicians live their passion. They love what they do. They love their music and they love the social interaction that ensues from it. And all this shows in their faces. Musicians are people that are ‘easy’ to shoot because they have a lot of expression on their faces.

Tom Yosi in concert at red fm in Athens

I have made the experience that during concerts musicians live their music. They dive into it. And every twist and turn of the music often shows in their faces. So it is an adventure to follow them during a concert and to capture what the music does to them and to their facial expression.

Ηώ Δάδα singing at Dafni café in Athens

Shooting during concerts in cafes and bars (and that is what I do mainly at the moment) is photographically a big challenge. The light is crap (as you see in the picture above), most of the time there is no stage light at all and you can be glad if you find a ceiling light that illuminates the scene in a random way. Not easy to shoot good pictures that way.

With the radio concert it was a little different. This happened on a stage at the broadcast centre where they had professional equipment and also stage light. However the lighting was actually far away from anything you could call professional. This was radio and not a TV show.

Anyway - the experience of getting involved into Athen’s music scene, of having the opportunity of taking pictures of musicians on stage and privately and of encountering their love and passion for their art is providing big joy to me. I hope that this will continue and that I will be able to expand on it. And I also hope that the interruptions by me working (I need to earn money, and I can’t do this with my photography) will not have too bad an influence on this development.

I have been waiting for this kind of photography for years. Now it is happening and I am very happy.

Flickr Kills Art

For the last year and a half I have been one of the curators of ****Contrasted Gallery. ****CG is an online project, founded more than 10 years ago by Manuel Diumenjó. He and his co-curators invite on a monthly basis interesting artists to exhibit a collection of their Flickr pictures at ****CG.

Technically ****CG is a Flickr group where only curators have the right to ‘admit’ pictures. We invite artists, discuss with them their work and ask them to chose up to 50 pictures that they want to exhibit for one month. After the show the pictures remain in the gallery so that interested people always have the opportunity of reviewing artistic work that has been accumulated in over 10 years. So it has become a fascinating place where artistic photography is shown.

And now comes Flickr. And threatens to delete all pictures above 1000 of all its members that have not become Pro. Do you have an idea what that means? According to Manuel’s estimation between 60 and 70% of all pictures that have been accumulated at ****CG over the years will be deleted. Gone! Forever!

So Flickr is not only urging people to decide if they want their own collection of pictures to be deleted if they don’t pay the ransom, they also destroy pro-actively art and the work people have put into this over the last decade. This is a scandal!

Art needs to be protected from barbarians of all kind. Art cannot be “deleted”. The attitude behind this is awful. This is close to fascist behaviour. A company that is deleting art has not understood its responsibility.

Here is the link to ****Contrasted Gallery. If you click the links on the left han side you get to the respective exhibition of an artist. https://www.flickr.com/groups/contrasted_gallery/discuss/

If you think that Flickr’s new policy needs a change, particularly in order to prevent the destruction of art, write them, swamp them with requests! Here is the link to the Flickr help page for this topic: www.flickr.com/help/forum/en-us/72157702923034264/ 

About Re-Interpreting Art in Photography

You have a walk through an art exhibition. Let's say the big documenta14 exhibition in Athens. And graciously they allow you to take pictures. "No flash lights!" Of course.

And you take some pictures of work that you find interesting. You take pictures the way you think it represents this art the best way. You chose the POV (point of view), the angle, the exposure to complement the oeuvre.

The Chess Society by Bili Bidjocka  documenta14, Athens School of Fine Arts

And whilst you are taking these pictures the piece of art is doing something with you. It makes you aware of its presence. It occupies your mind. You start thinking about the meaning of this piece of art. You start asking how the picture that you are taking interacts with this piece of art. You start interpreting this piece of art by taking a picture. You are getting involved into the process of creating a little piece of art yourself. You create art about art. With the help of photography. With the help of your mind and your camera. So it becomes a little piece of your own. Your own creation.

Does it? Is this picture your own? Do you become the creator of art? By just taking a picture of a piece of art? Can you call yourself an artist because you interpret somebody else's art? I am not sure.

I personally feel that I am changing the perception of this particular piece of art by taking a picture my way. I get into a dialogue with this piece of art. I try to find answers to its message. So from that perspective I regard myself as the creator of a new piece of art.

But am I really? I don't know. I will leave this to you to decide. And maybe you comment on it and tell me your opinion.