street corner / warsaw

i don't think anyone would like to make an appointment in this district and this particular corner, despite it's shape and warm welcome feeling. would you?

warsaw / olszynka / from suburbia series / xpro

Who is delighted with...?

A summer day in 1973

Street corners - invitation to participate

There is something special about street corners, don´t you think? People make appointments to meet there, unexpected things happen around the next corner. So dear reader of The F Blog - go and have a look in your archives or shoot some pictures from street corners.

Please add information about the corner for example ; Regent's Street-Oxford Street, London...well you get the idea. If you don´t remember exactly where - just write London, UK or Planet Earth. If it is beyond that - well...

The picture above is back from the 1970s - a street corner in a small village, just to give you an idea of that it doesn´t have to be a corner in Tokyo, New York or Paris.
(picture by Urbano, Gotland, Sweden 1979.)

Camera Work once more

We have published some posts here about Alfred Stieglitz and the legendary journal Camera Work.
Please also have a look at the beautiful site www.photogravure.com to find out more.

Street portrait of 1916

Blind, 1916
Paul Strand (American, 1890–1976)
Platinum print; 13 3/8 x 10 1/8 in. (34 x 25.7 cm)
Alfred Stieglitz Collection, 1933 (33.43.334)
© 1997, Aperture Foundation Inc., Paul Strand Archive

"In 1916, Strand made a series of candid street portraits with a handheld camera fitted with a special prismatic lens, which allowed him to point the camera in one direction while taking the photograph at a ninety-degree angle. This seminal image of a street beggar was published in 1917 as a gravure in Stieglitz's magazine Camera Work and immediately became an icon of the new American photography, which integrated the objectivity of social documentation with the boldly simplified forms of modernism."
"Paul Strand: Blind". In Timeline of Art History. New York: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2000–.www.metmuseum.org.

One camera, one lens, one film, one developer

"Most of the time, from 1959 - 2007, I have used one camera body with one lens. Different cameras of course through the years but it´s the M Leica with a 35 mm lens that have served me best. The Swedish photographer Christer Strömholm once said: "one camera, one lens, one film, one developer." And my understanding of that statement was: be sure to master the tools you´ve got completely - and you can focus on the act of creating pictures. My approach to photography nowadays is very much this: one camera, one lens. Straight ahead photography, straight photography or whatever you may call it is another. Just think about all the pictures we have seen through the years from Julia Margaret Cameron´s portraits of the 19th century to pictures by Bruce Davidson, Vinogrand, Robert Frank - just to mention a few. Almost all of them were pictures of people - and the photographers were close to their motifs in more than one way. The cool and fancy pictures that you find in many photo magazines will probably guarantee the future of the photo magazines and their contributing photographers. But will these pictures prevail and be recognized in the future? I don´t think so. There is something lacking. That is why I believe in straight ahead photography or straight photography and a photography that is close to the people, to the activity of humans. This is the photography of the future in my point of view." - Bengt Björkbom























I value the words of Bengt. He is an experienced photographer and his conclusion is somewhat challenging. How about dedicating the F Blog to some straight ahead photography the coming weeks? I have noticed an interesting approach by my coeditor Anders Blomqvist, who has published the series "Colour Box Scenery". Pictures coming directly from his cell phone camera. No editing, no post processing; "Devoid of flim-flam; devoid of trickery". I also come to think of Sally Mann and her work. Wow...this could be an interesting journey. Beginning today with some pictures by Bengt Björkbom. To be continued.../ulf

La Cumbia del Mole - Lila Downs

Lila is coming to town!

On 1 - 2 December Lila Downs will perform in Stockholm. Isn´t she just what we need in a deep and dark December? Lila...te quiero! /ulf

For program check this out.

So what´s the connection to photography. Well Frida Kahlo to start with. Lila is singing on the soundtrack of the film about Frida. And as you, dear reader of the F-blog, already know there are many small, but beautiful things to find in our archives about Frida. Check out Nickolas Muray and
Manuel Alvarez Bravo etc. The story continues...

Advent

Stieglitz about Paul Strand:

"... The work is brutally direct. Devoid of flim-flam; devoid of trickery and any 'ism'; devoid of any attempt to mystify an ignorant public, including the photographers themselves. These photographs are the direct expression of today..."

Straight photography was born.

Read more about Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Gallery 291 and Camera Work on the F Blog. Just type the words in the field up left saying "search this blog"

educational aids

work of the lecturer of structural engineering is not really linked strongly with artistic photography. During preparatory works for new lectures of water tanks I realised, that those two of my passions are connected by two persons - Hilla and Bernd Bechers. Their typology of industrial buildings may serve till today for the SE lecturer as the base for the general characteristic of advanced industrial structures.
It's also the memento -even for making inventar I should take LF with me :)

pictures by Bernd and Hilla Bechers.

regarding hunting seasons and other delights...

The annual elk hunting season has just passed.
This is the time when we men pretends to be real MEN,
go out in the woods drink vodka and shoot things.

Sometimes even elks.

Fjärde världen (fourth world)

A Swedish hip hop group.
Photographs by © Saga Berlin

Saga says: " My idea for the pictures is based on the group´s lyrics and the band members every day life. They are three very different persons, the only thing they have in common is their background and their great love of music. I built a living room that could belong to each one of them. They could bring things from their own living rooms. Things that should tell something about their personalities including other random things. I fixed some furniture and the lighting. The idea was that all three of them should be able to feel at home in that room although it is very different from their own places.

The title of their new album is "World´s end" and I felt like I wanted to make it less dramatic and visualize the fact that "world´s end" is closer to our living rooms than we realize."

round trip (leaving Copenhagen)

Photographer: Benny Persson
Swedish title: På returbiljetten

invited guest: Mike Peters - Coney Island 2007

Coney Island 2007
Photographs © by Mike Peters

For me, Coney Island in 2007 was an easy choice, in what was reportedly the final year of Astroland before being demolished to make way for something a bit more homogenized. Rubbing elbows with the hoi polloi of Coney Island is preferable to being in the presence of the hoity-toity of any other place.
I was well aware of the images created by the many photographers that preceded me to Coney Island over the past 100 years. I felt confident that I would simply work as usual and make myself ready to receive the images that presented themselves to me. In my days of shooting, I met many other photographers working this same small patch of ground. In the end we all put our own signature on what we do and make different images that will appeal to different people.
What you read into the images I present is based on who you are, where you came from, and the sum of every experience you have ever had up to the moment of viewing the image. What you bring to the experience matters a great deal.
As an observer of the scene, I can only photograph what I see. Expressions, body language, sartorial presentation, and a relationship to foreground and background are the raw materials that I have to work with. In the moment of pressing the shutter, I don't have time to judge or think, only to react to the geometry of the frame and the feelings that compel me to make the exposure.
Every image I make is a subjective impression of what I see. I choose a subject that I respond to on basic emotional level, and in the end by the choices I make at the moment of exposure and through the process of scanning, I’m really saying more about myself than I am about who I am photographing. I do not pretend that any of my images give any insight into the people or places that I photograph. There is always more going on than anyone can ever realize.

more pictures of Mike you may find at his web site.

invited by Marcin Górski

travellin'

Steam

General view of one of the yards of the Chicago and Northwestern railroad, Chicago, Ill.
Delano, Jack, photographer.
CREATED/PUBLISHED 1942 Dec.
See more color pictures by Jack Delano and others at Library of Congress

Journey

Picture by Darren Hepburn

invited guest: Terje Hellesø (part two)

Small Tortoiseshell (nässelfjäril)

Seagull

Malva alcea (rosenmalva)

"I find my personal landscape in nature. That is where I have to be. Whether in the forest, by the coast or in the mountains – I have to be in a real landscape to get a sense of not being there. Looking for interesting motifs is not important, my main object is to reflect my own being through the images I always carry with me. It is a process of transformation. I am looking for signs in nature, signs that I need in order to create my own, personal pictures."
/Terje Hellesø

weed

toilet on the mountain side

Arctic Tern (silvertärna)

Red-throated Diver landing (smålommen landar)

Terje Hellesø homepage (in Swedish)

gruppo F inbox - Bill Schmidt

literature and photography

A couple of weeks ago at the library I stumbled upon these books written by the Swedish author Ivar-Lo Johansson (1901-1990). I guess they are almost forgotten and unknown by the public in these days, but the books had a great impact when they were published, especially the book about old people´s homes (Old age,1949)

In the introduction to this volume containing all four books, the writer describes the cooperation with the photographers. Yes, these books could also be seen as books of photographs with text by Ivar Lo-Johansson. Many of the photographs are truly unforgettable and my guess is that they will be remembered even longer than the text. In any case, it was a brave and progressive project. The author tells about visiting over 1 000 old people´s homes in all of Sweden, travelling 3 000 km with the Swedish Romanies (gypsies) to Camargue in southern France or living with "les clochards" of Paris. The book about the landless peasants was part of his own life - he was brought up by parents that once were "statare".

Find out more about Ivar Lo-Johansson

Photographer: ©Gunnar Lund (from the book about the landless Swedish
peasants known as "statare") - 1949





Photographer:©Sven Järås (From the book "Old Age", 1949)





Photographer:©Tore Johnson, from the book "Unknown Paris"-1954- the picture
shows firemen carrying a young woman drowned in the river Seine.






Photographer: ©Anna Riwkin-Brick from the book "Road of the gypsies" -1955.

invited guest: Terje Hellesø (part one)

Swift

self portrait

Malin

Terje Hellesø has been working as a nature photographer since 1983. His wife, Malin Hellesø also works as a photographer. Terje has published several books with his photographs and thoughts about Nature photography. One of his latest projects is ”My Year” – containing 365 pictures – one picture each day of the year. The project has been presented in a major exhibition already visited by 70 000 people. Terje Hellesø has published over 5 000 pictures through the years in various magazines all around the world. Just one word from me: Respect! invited by ulf fågelhammar

Roe Deer

Mushroom

European Ash (Fraxinus excelsior)

More pictures by Terje Hellesø on www.helleso.com
and stay tuned for part two of the pictures Terje selected for the F Blog.