Invited Guest: Bogdan Zwir

Quotation from Magazine Foto&Video No 2 2006:
"What emotions does the word "absurd" evoke? A pragmatic will get confused. An analyst annoyed. A snob will feel contempt. An optimist will burst into laughter.

Perhaps only one category of people will admire the absurd.

First of all these are children who can turn the absurd into a fairy tale and breake the rules of logic. Then thre are writers who materialize absurd to collections of fairy tales for children or to complicated plots of sci-fi thrillers that would be equally appealing also to pragmatics, analysts and snobs. There are also artists and photographers. But their special type makes spectators linger at their "absurd" pictures. That makes critics feel awkward questioning themselves with the eternal issue "What should be done"? Should the creation be called a philosophic masterpiece bringing it´s author to Olympus downhill and should they enjoy their sagacity? Or should this "nonsense" be laughed at, unfornate artist scathed, and they would leave their trace in history most objective and just? But what if it´s talent after all? What then? Fame of a boring concervative, numb conceptualist, geniuses persecutor and butcher?....."

I discovered Bogdan Zwir once on a photosite and his photoworks left traces in my mind and memory. Please visit his site here
Enjoy his work and read the entire article as well...

Invited by: Jeanette Hägglund

Gruppo F inbox: Christmas lights

A Christmas gift from John, that I like to share with you
Christmas lights ©John Strazza
-urbano

invited guest: Mohammad Reza Shahroki Nejad

I am honoured to present you Brick Kilns project – series made by talented and sensible photographer from Iran: Mohammad Reza Shahroki Nejad

The 3 years old Kurdish little girl is standing between her family members. In the future she will be counted as a labor force and deprived of attending school.

The young man has cut his toe with broken glass during crushing the clay underfoot. The workers have no rubber boots and work bare foot.

Hossein has put his arm on his brother's shoulder while smoking a water pipe. He works with his two wives and eight little sons at the brick works.

The one year old girl has fallen asleep while her mother is working. Women don't have much time during the day for taking care of their children.

During the day at the brickyard, the children have nothing else to do than helping their parents by molding and making the bricks

Samira, the Kurdish woman works alongside her husband. They return to their province which is 600 kilometers west of Tehran as the rainy season begins.

Workers who transport mud-bricks to the kiln, have found time for a break during the day. They move 240 kilograms brick, around 50 times with their handcarts to the kiln.

The truck driver is waiting by the kiln for his brick load. The kiln's temperature rises to 1000º C. During transferring the bricks it is still 50 º C warm.

At sunset, the young man is sitting on the bricks, made by his own family during that day. They have to wait one more day for the bricks to dry completely.

Abbas who comes from Kurdistan, is going to his room after the working day. He makes 8000 mud-bricks a day together with his wife, two daughters and three sons.

The young man is embracing his little daughter. He comes 1000 kilometers, from Birjand (a city in east of Iran) to Tehran, in order to work at the brickyard.

By the end of the working day, the woman has cleaned and watered the front of her house and is resting while smoking water pipe.

Mohammad says about himself:

I was born on 1978 in Tehran / Iran.
At the time, I'm photographing for Hamshahri Newspaper which has the largest circulation in the country.
I studied painting at the university and i think it was important for me as i learned newer aspects of my mind.
And as far as photography is concerned:
I really like black & white photography, because I think that I'm facing my subject without any intermediates.
I wish I could place the camera between people's skin and heart, to be under their skin, so close, so delicate and unexpected. I want to be able to record their real feelings.
Sometimes I have to chat or smoke a cigarette with them, during those moments lots pictures pass in front of my eyes, but I prefer to communicate with them at first before taking the photos. It is my will to get to know their reality but after all I like the viewers to face this reality directly, when they look at my photos. That means to forget its being a photo. This is all my effort in photography.

A photo being artistic is not so important for me, although I always try to fix the best framing.

And for me the whole pleasure of photography is in these two points:
1-The human.
2- The reality.

thank you Mohammad for sharing your work with us, I am personally looking forward to see results of your ongoing projects.

invited by Marcin Górski