family album: view from a Fiat 600

My father, a passionate photographer, used to shoot with a second hand Agfa Silette (that has been my first camera when I was 10-12 years old). No light meter and focusing by guessing distances. It’s 1963 (one year before my birth). Two couples went for a trip in a winter day with my father’s second hand Fiat 600: my father Gian, his sister Anna Rosa, my mother Marilù and my uncle Franco.

During that trip he shoot two funny “portraits”. In the countryside downhill a big stone is put under the car wheel… an escaped danger for my mother, trustfully smiling looking outside the car-window. The picture of my aunt Anna Rosa strike me for her beauty almost like a movie star, but in that weird location looking at the wall (but… was her husband Franco hidden there?).

In both cases: one unattractive location, the car, a lonely woman inside looking out. It’s a scheme with quite a distance mood… but funny isn’t it? - Text: Paolo Saccheri, photos: Gian Saccheri

Ladies in the park

Photographer © Thomas Håkansson

untitled photograph

Photographer: © Rebeca Martell

lilla landet (the small country)

From a reflective photographic project. The photos depict current Sweden and will soon be released in a photobook called "Lilla landet".
photographer © Thomas H Johnsson
www.thomashjohnsson.se

Meeting two unknown, but well-known

photo: abeku

meeting photographers

The F Blog is continuosly working on strengthening the bonds between the "virtual" and the "physical" world. Well, sometimes it´s hard to keep them apart as our "real" lives seem to get more and more integrated to the virtual world. But the world is one..and why not have a look at some great photographers that we have met...in real life ( well...or interviewing via email)

Meeting: Graciela Iturbide
Selfportrait with fish © Graciela Iturbide

Micke Berg on Cafe Spuntino
Photo: Mikael Jansson

Meeting Elsa Dorfman
we actually met her via email, but it felt like for real!
self portrait

Meeting Markus Andersson
Photo: Ulla Larsson

Meeting Martin Parr
Photo: Joanna Kinowska

Meeting Angèle Etoundi Essamba
Photo: Mikael Jansson

Man and Plane
Photo Marcin Górski (from Meeting Marcin)

Manhattan story

When I am in Manhattan, I usually go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Saturday morning, then go to a good deli--Marche on Madison--and get some food to take to the park. Somehow, it seems, I always end up sitting on the same bench. A couple of years ago, as I was finishing lunch, I looked across Central Park and saw a tall building with two towers. "That is where Mia Farrow lives," I thought. I remembered that Woody Allen lived directly across the park and that the two of them would talk on the phone looking at one another through telescopes. "This must be Woody Allen's building that I am sitting in front of," I ruminated as I got up to throw away my trash. And as I stood, I bumped into a small fellow walking on the sidewalk. It was Woody Allen. I am a fan, of course, but I do not like to bother people, so I said simply, "Oh, sorry." He looked at me through those heavy glasses, mouth slightly ajar, moving away without speaking. He was with his daughter/wife, Soon-Yi.

The next day, Sunday afternoon, I was going back to the apartment in which I was staying on the Upper East Side. Manhattan is beautiful then, like a quiet museum, like a movie set without a crew, lonely, deserted. I had crossed Park Avenue and was heading east, and as I turned a corner, I ran into a lone couple. We three were the only people to be seen. It was Wood Allen and Soon-Yi. They remembered me, it seemed, and began moving away like crabs stranded on a beach. A stalker, no doubt. "No, no!" I wanted to shout out, but I only moved along.

I told that story for years. This weekend, it received an update. It was Sunday, and I had just finished a visit to the Met (not Saturday, I know, but this was a holiday weekend), and had just finished lunching in the park. And walking back to my subway stop, I once again ran into Woody and Soon-Yi. I had a Leica M7 slung over my shoulder, and I thought about the F Blog. Still, I do not like to bother people and am not enamored by simple fame. Suddenly, though, I turned and followed to snap some photos as they walked. I felt creepy, like Paparazzi, but it was only from behind, I told myself. As I walked along, however, I had the impulse to photograph them face to face. Just as I caught them at the corner, however, the batteries in my camera went dead. I thought of all the purist who buy only mechanical cameras like the Leica MP. - text and photo ©William Schmidt

family album

My father, born 1943, used to develop and print film when he was younger. He told me this self-portrait was printed using an adapted bellows camera (which is his way of saying he screwed a perfectly working bellows camera to make his own enlarger). Years later, he taught me about the darkroom process. I had my own semiprofessional Durst enlarger and everything but I never was able to get a print as amazing as this one. - Mirko Caserta

from the Family album

My mother was a wonderful photographer. She died very young, but made quite a chronicle of our lives. This is my eldest sister, Betty, with a lamb, who has obviously gone around the tree a few times . . .