Dress

invited guest & e-talk with Jason Lazarus

Jason Lazarus: "Greg's Geronimo portrait for the road" from the living with a portrait series.

Joanna: I've noticed pictures from "Living with a portrait" series from Jason Lazarus somewhere in the internet. They suddenly became very familiar and important to me. This series started some new ideas and questions. I've found Jason and asked him to answer some of these concerning documentary photography.

Fblog: For me “Living with a portrait" is a double attempt: artistic one and documentary one. Do you agree? What "documentary photography and "artist photography" means to you?

Jason Lazarus: The distinction is not important to me...documentary work leverages the idea of truth without being truthful...good art is truthful to the artist's intentions.

Fblog: As far as i know - you also teach photography. It's more about practice or about theory?

Jason Lazarus: It's about practice practice practice as an artist. For me, the word 'practice' includes elements of a work ethic, theory, art historical knowledge, life experience, sense of curiosity and intellectual vigor.

Jason Lazarus "The top of the chestnut tre7e gazed upon by Anne Frank while in hiding (Amsterdam, 2008)"

Fblog: What have you used during your practice: which theory have made a big impact on your work? What special events can define it?

Jason Lazarus: There is no theory that made a big impact on this project. “The living with a portrait” series started off with the picture of JFK on the pink walls… I made that image and it was 'an orphan' -- it didn't belong to a project. I thought the image was evocative -- Who in the world had pink walls and a JFK portrait in their bedroom? I know the answer, but I thought the lack of an answer was more interesting and opened up a dialogue that could be continued in other pictures. It seemed ripe as a serial project...

Jason Lazarus: "Lindsey's bedroom" from the living with a portrait series 2007

Fblog: What gives you the inspiration to work?

Jason Lazarus: A great and complicated question... My undergraduate degree was in marketing. I grew tired of marketing/consumerism/selling/advertising/etc... I went to graduate school for photography, because I wanted to make things not from a sales objective standpoint but from a very personal, idiosyncratic place. The satisfcation from making a piece within this framework is the ultimate in human nourishment for me.

Fblog: Interesting answer and story! But currently? For example what have given you the inspiration - why choosing this or that theme to work with?

Jason Lazarus: To be more specific, I am interested in 'charged spaces'... Places that have public or private resonance or significance. The LWP series is an example of these quiet, privately charged spaces. I want them to feel intimate and as real as they are...

Jason Lazarus "The back of an Ad Reinhardt" wright commission series 2007

Fblog: Is there any photographer/artist who made a great influence of your work?

Jason Lazarus: ...Gerhard Richter, Wolfgang Tillmans, The Dusseldorf School, Hirst, Whiteread, Maurizio Cattelan, Baldessari, Ruscha. In terms of younger artists I am thinking about: Amanda Rossho, Erik Kessels, Joachim Schmid, Harrell Fletcher, Greg Stimac, Walead Beshty, Claudia Angelmaier... These guys I think about a lot. They all have very strong voices--they all seem to work with a burning inner logic.

Fblog: I see little photography here. And it's a question of impossibility of dividing art now from photography?

Jason Lazarus: Yes. As much, if not more inspiration comes from non-photographers...

Fblog: And a tricky question - have you seen all these pieces of art - I mean have you seen these artists' works by yourself in the museums, galleries, or in the magazine, book, internet? Which medium you prefer? It’s the matter of reproduction-age.

Jason Lazarus: Half I've seen in person, half either online, in books, or in journals. It's all about consuming work whenever I can...going to see something in person, if I like it, tends to affect me for years, so obviously that is preferred!

Jason Lazarus: "Spencer Elden in his last year of high school (Jan '08)" Spencer originally appeared as a naked baby on the cover of Nirvana's Nevermind record.

Fblog: I would like to ask for details on "living with a portrait". Please explain what's going on there?(apart from statement) how many pictures were made to have this series? is it already finished? would you try to extend this?

Jason Lazarus: The project explores, for me, the charged relationship people have with images that they live with...usually framed images or ones given some kind of objecthood and placement that gives them physical/emotional visibility. If someone is attached to an image, I am interested in this immensely. I think of it as creating a self-portrait of the owner of the portrait by only showing the portrait. Further, I try not to show too much else...I don't aim to make environmental portraits of portraits...the less info the better... It seems to focus the viewer more on the inexplicable and committed aspects of the portrait/portrait-owner relationship. This series is ongoing...I am working on it slowly and am currently prioritizing other projects...

Fblog(joanna): thank you Jason for the e-talk.

Jason Lazarus "Jenny Holzer, over and over again (long exposure)" wright commission series 2007

Thoughts on me, and photography #1
Photography is for me a tool that allows different kinds of exploration, stuff like various modes, things, places, emotions…

I think of the camera as sort of exploration machine, a vehicle with which I can travel to locations I have never been before. All too often it just takes me to the same old places that I already have seen a thousand times. I don´t like it when it is like that. But the thing is that the camera has the potential to go anywhere. That thought is a great motivator for me.

paparazzing myself traveling around

For me photography, and image making in general, is mainly an intuitive process. It´s not an intellectual activity at all, and I´m not concerned with aspects like that of a pictures “real meaning”. Actually, I do not believe in a meaning outside the language of the specific work of art. The meaning of an image is in the image, or nowhere at all I think.For instance, what´s the meaning with Ravel's orchestral work Bolero? Surely, It´s a great piece of music. But can you hunt down it´s true meaning using words? Of course you can´t. Isn´t it the same thing with images?

What?

Photography is also a totally egoistic act for me. I don´t work for anyone, I don´t have any agenda, I hardly sell any images at all, and my only mission is to examine things that interest me for the moment. When I´m tired of taking photos, I do other things! I like to read, play the guitar, pick berries, drink wine, take walks, et cetera. The image isn´t everything for me. Sometimes I get enough of pictures. You really can get too much of a good thing, like friends that don´t know when it´s time to go home...Music is a more charming art form in that sense I think: it starts and then it stops and disappears, and it´s over! I like that.

Different Trains (Title from a music composition of Steve Reich)

Usually I´m not that interested in opinions what photography should be, what´s important, or correct, or urgent, or whatever. I don´t want to take part in that kind of discussions. For me the camera is like a brush or a pencil. I do what I want with it. You can paint what ever you want. Let me do the same. It´s my brush!

(f-) apple

I never try to reach objective stuff, like the “truth”, or “reality”. Reality is for me like a chunk of wood, or something you can´t catch with your hands, like reflections on a wall. You can´t touch it and you can´t do anything with it, you have to process it first, maybe purify it, and you have to have proper tools, like reflection catching gloves!

It´s same thing with reality I think. Art is one tool to process reality and to make something of it. And, photography is an art form.

Another way to put it:

Art is reality as seen through a temperament

(Corot & Buse)

A funny thing with the “truth”, by the way, is that as soon as you take a closer look at it, it often changes to something else, or disappears totally. For me, truth too is like reflections on a wall, and without proper gloves, you can just forget about it. Let the dogmatics chase the truth, they need to exercise anyway!

Thin line between...

Frankly, I´m more interested in the lying side of photography, than the truth. When I listened to an interview with Sally Mann a couple of years ago, one phrase really got my attention:

It´s all a big lie.

She was taking about her images! I don´t know for certain what she meant, but I connect it with one thing that Anatole France once wrote:

Without lies, humanity would perish of despair and boredom.

Text & Images: Jan Buse

This Beautiful Day

© Jeanne Wells

For so many people in the world, today is a great gift. Let's celebrate!

Meeting Smoliansky

Being in the right place
– Gunnar Smoliansky and his photography
All pictures © Gunnar Smoliansky unless otherwise stated. Text by Anders Blomqvist.

Photo by Anders Blomqvist

Gunnar Smoliansky is just about to release his book One Picture at a Time. This past year the corresponding exhibition has been shown in both Gothenburg and Stockholm in Sweden. “I photograph the things I see” Smoliansky says humbly. Behind these words are 50 years of experience of active photography where the subjects vary but his personal signature of two-dimensionality and tonality is evident all the time. He shuns the word “project” and prefers to treat his pictures individually from the moment he exposes the negative until he has the judged the final print. This has given Gunnar Smoliansky’s work a quality characterised by originality and solidity.

"I really dislike projects" says Gunnar. “I try to avoid being involved in one if possible. I prefer to just take one picture at a time.” – Hence, the title was set for his latest exhibition and book. It says a lot about how Gunnar Smoliansky works as a photographer.

I am sitting with Smoliansky at a café at Söder in Stockholm. There are lots of people around us and the traffic is busy. His latest exhibition One Picture at a Time has been shown this summer at Kulturhuset in Stockholm and the book is expected to be released in the first quarter of 2009. It is not an ordinary exhibition and book Smoliansky is serving us: All the pictures have been selected in collaboration with his colleagues Jäger Arén, the curator of the exhibition, and Henrik Nygren, who has made several of Smoliansky’s earlier books. Gradually, in discussion with Arén and Nygren, the numerous prints for the book have been reduced from 1000 to 285, and the exhibitions have shown even less pictures. The selected material spans over the time period between 1952 and 2008 and the prints are shown neither chronologically nor in a thematic order. Consequently, as a viewer, one jumps between decades and motifs in this retrospective exhibition.

The pictures ripen with time
”Topicality has never been my thing” says Smoliansky smiling when he says that his pictures need to ripen before they can be shown. By the years, Gunnar has developed a working method that suits him perfectly. When he’s just about to expose his negative, he will just follow his gut feeling. “Today I’ll just pick up the camera, take the picture, and then just walk on…” he explains. Once he has the developed negatives in his hand, he studies them over and over again, and lets an intellectual interpretation take place. The negatives and the prints may sometimes need a week or even a year to be approved by Gunnar. Once enough photographs have been accepted, Gunnar considers compiling the achieved material for an exhibition and even a book. Sometimes this process may happen quickly, like it happened for the exhibition Sotbrand (Eng: “chimney fire”) On the other hand, sometimes it may take decades as it did for the prints of the exhibition of “Waldemarsudde” (a part of an island in central Stockholm).

The idea behind Sotbrand emerged suddenly when a friend’s apartment was ruined by a chimney fire. Gunnar received a call from his friend suggesting he should come over and take some pictures. When Gunnar arrived the flat was covered with soot, like a fine mezzotint layer covering everything. It was in the middle of the summer and very hot, but opening a window was not an option – even a tiny gust of air would have ruined the delicate layer of carbon. “I stepped in to the apartment… took off my shoes, my clothes, and put them on a fresh newspaper next to the entrance door” he tells me and continues “There I stood, in my underwear, looking down in the focusing hood of my Hasselblad and I could feel how the sweat was dripping down on the focusing screen!” Altogether, he spent a few hours in the apartment during two days. “I couldn’t stand it any longer!” he says. Nevertheless, the pictures were taken and the material finally became an exhibition and a book.

On the other hand, the material for “Waldemarsudde” required a longer time to develop. Originally, Gunnar met up with a friend at Waldemarsudde very early on Sunday mornings. The walked around independently of each other and took pictures. Year by year, Gunnar returned to Waldemarsudde and expanded his collections of pictures from that area. After 12 years, Gunnar finally decided to show the images at the art museum on Waldemarsudde.

Personal style arrived early
Smoliansky started to take photographs in the early 50’s by using a Rolleiflex. “The viewing screen and the square format of the camera turned out to be perfect to learn how to photograph and compose pictures” Gunnar remembers. He never strives to achieve a depth in his pictures. He prefers to regard the subjects as a two-dimensional surface and he composes them very strictly and simply, if possible having parallel lines and no leaning lines.

Already after six or seven rolls of film, he had gotten a grip on what his personal style was. “I was all settled when I started in Christer Strömholm’s photography school” Gunnar says calmly.

Gunnar Smoliansky’s prints very seldom have the pitch black tone many photographers are striving for these days. He prefers to be in the tonal range between black and white “I want the viewer to sense something in the darkest parts of a print” Gunnar argues. Also, in contrast to all the large prints photographers make these days, Gunnar prefers small prints. As a viewer, you are forced to take a step forward in order to see the details. “It should be a close meeting between you and the photograph” Gunnar explains. He doesn’t hesitate to frame a small contact print measuring 9x9 cm (approx. 3.5”x3.5”) and he avoids making larger prints than 24x30 cm (10”x12”). “Larger prints than that would be something completely different” – Gunnar’s photography feels sublime and contemplative. It doesn’t yell for attention – rather, it invites the viewer into a whispering dialogue.

Before the integrity

The time in Strömholm’s school was a very social time where contacts and friends were made but also his technical skills were improved: ”We could be 25-30 people sitting around a table” Gunnar says and remembers occasions when Christer Strömholm could ask someone to hand over his Leica to him. Once receiving it, Christer changed all the settings on the camera and handed it back. Once returned, the photographer had to set a given aperture, time and focus without looking. Gunnar could practise this when he was strolling on the streets of Stockholm, he measured the light, adjusted the settings of his Leica and was prepared to just aim and shoot before the “decisive moment” disappeared. If it was a portrait of a human being, Gunnar always made eye contact with the person and exchanged a greeting – “… back then, it was no problem: The word “integrity” wasn’t invented yet and people were not worried”. It was simply easier to photograph people during the 50’s and the 60’s.

His own path
A more negative attitude towards photographers emerged in the late 60’s when Japanese cameras became everyone’s property. All of a sudden, everyone was taking pictures and more and more people were disturbed by this crowd of photographers. This was a signal to Gunnar to move on, to do something else. He bought a SLR and a macro lens and started to focus on details, things that were connected to people.

There was also a change in the technical routines he had acquired in the photography school. “Everyone was using the same type of film, the same developer, the same paper and it all ended up with very similar images” Gunnar describes the feeling of uniformity that grew stronger and stronger during the 70’s.

When he visited London in 1975 in order to see a Paul Strand exhibition, this was also his first contact the American photography – the break with the Swedish photography became very obvious. “You could see qualities that you hadn’t seen before […] you were wondering: why is that? Do they have better stuff to work with? Do they keep the better photographic papers and send the litter to us? It took some time before one understood it was a matter of larger negative sizes!”

Once he had realised that, Gunnar adopted the large format too. The change of format also created a curiosity of learning more about old techniques. He then realized that much of that knowledge was forgotten among other photographers. “Once you adopt a new technique, you tend to forget about what has been learnt previously” he remarks. Thanks to his colleagues, he managed to get his hands on old handbooks and recipes, and eventually he bought his own chemicals to make his own developers. He also ended up collecting and using old photographic papers. On his travels northbound, he would stop in small villages and ask every single photographer if they had any old papers to sell. “It still happens that I make a print on old Gevaert paper” says Gunnar when we discuss the qualities of these papers, but he does not express any nostalgic loss of these papers: he just states the fact the papers available are just fine. Today, he even lets a local photographic store do the processing of his films. Being 75 years old (in year 2008) he would rather spend his time doing prints in his darkroom.

About being in the right place

“To take good pictures is just a matter of being in the right place – everything else is just a way to mystify the procedure,” says Gunnar. A place full of objects asking to be photographed will usually be rejected by Gunnar. “That’s probably the most sensible thing one can do” he adds. The expectations and visions one may have when being there are easily turned into great disappointments when the prints are made. Instead, Gunnar prefers to identify something novel in common daily life objects and situations. Such subjects are easily neglected and therefore not readily seen in general. A fine example is Gunnar’s work on buildings and the play of shadows and lines.

Even when looking at his early work from the 50’s, the distance and the clean compositions feel right and wear the typical signature of Gunnar Smoliansky. He never cleans up things around the object when he takes the photograph, nor does he retouch his prints afterwards (with the exception of dust etc), such a thing would be entirely foreign to him. When I see Gunnar’s artwork, I smile when I see familiar objects being interpreted in a new way: like a can flattened by a car wheel or a picture of a drainpipe in slush. All of a sudden, I understand why he says that you need fresh eyes and not experience when you are about to take a photograph.

When it comes to inspiration
When it comes to photographers that inspire, Gunnar mentions established photographers like Eugené Atget, Bill Brandt, Walker Evans, Aaron Siskind, Harry Callahan , and Lee Friedlander. ”You will get a lot from these photographers… Bill Brandt is perhaps the greatest of them all, he really grows” Gunnar remarks, but I can see that he is not entirely satisfied with the answer. He ponders and then smiles; he mentions a book by Jeffrey Fraenkel, The Book of Shadows. The book contains pictures made by amateur photographers who have photographed their own shadows. With enthusiasm he tells me about the power of these photographs taken by unknown photographers. “The photograph itself is a greater inspiration rather than the (name of the) photographer” Gunnar concludes and now looks satisfied with the answer.

The time runs out and Gunnar excuses himself, the opening of an exhibition is waiting and he needs to run. A bus is stopping for us when we are just about to cross the street but he waves to the chauffeur to drive on. “I would never allow a bus with 50 people to stop just because I’m crossing the street” he says humbly and naturally. He asks me to join him for the opening exhibition, but I choose to thank him for the valuable time he has given me and decide to make my way home. I pick up the camera, and stroll along the streets, thinking “one picture at a time”.

More about Gunnar Smoliansky

1. Gunnar Smoliansky’s website
2. Gunnar Smoliansky’s book One picture at a time on amazon.com or adlibris.com
3. Leif Matsson’s article about Smoliansky (in Swedish)
4. Kulturhuset in Stockholm about Smoliansky (in Swedish)
5. Carl Abrahamson’s article about Smoliansky (in Swedish)
6. Hasselblad foundation about Smoliansky

The F-blog. January 16th, 2009. © Anders Blomqvist

Acknowledgements: The author wishes to thank Jeanne Wells, Lina Nääs, and Fredrik Skott for linguistic revision of the article.

mixed relations

last orders by Joni Karanka /pt.2/

Photographer: Joni Karanka
/F's invited guest - here/
They are all from Cardiff, the name of the series is Last Orders and they are the ones taken during 2008. part 1.

invited by joanna

Polaroid inbox: JÖ

Warsaw

Paris

See JÖ's earlier contributions to the Polaroid inbox here and here

Perhaps you'd like to make one yourself?

Bredäng on paper

last orders by Joni Karanka /pt.1/

Photographer: Joni Karanka
/F's invited guest - here/
They are all from Cardiff, the name of the series is Last Orders and they are the ones taken during 2008.

A Polaroid from Morgan Asplund

What a great thing to find in the in box today! Morgan sent us more Polaroids but I loved this one all by itself. I was really feeling like I wanted to see something totally different, and here it is! You can see more of Morgan's work here.

Gruppof inbox: Gena Morgese

www.wonderlandexit.com

F-Tools for Jan

Welcome!!

untitled

Up or down? Down, please

Welcome Jan Buse!

© Jeanne Wells 2004

Welcome to the F Blog, Jan -- so happy you're a member!

Docu 09: American Consumerism

As Americans we are told from the very beginning that we should always be purchasing products. Generations are raised on the principle that what you own determines who you are. People are constantly shopping to fill this need for merchandise in a materialistic society. Big box corporations realize this so they house massive amounts of goods for the consumer to purchase. Stores sell items from soda to shotguns, basically anything a consumer might be tempted to buy, and most of these products are not a necessity.

American Consumerism shows the locations that influence American shoppers to purchase vast amount of products. These companies know what methods to use that will influence a person’s decision to buy their products. These methods include specific height placement of goods on shelves. Companies place the products they want people to buy at eye level so they can be seen easier. They also know the products use eye-catching labels that grab the shopper’s attention. The heavy repetition of products is also used through out the store. Shelves are constantly stocked and faced with goods that make the consumer feel that there are unlimited amounts of products to purchase. Companies also barrage the consumer with the vast size of the store and the specific arrangement of store isles. Products people purchase the most, like milk, eggs and bread are usually placed in the rear of the store. This forces shoppers to walk through the entire store and be prone to the company’s persuasion to buy their products.

With my photography I hope to pull people away from the company’s persuasive grip. I want them to realize the kinds of places they spend so much money and time in. Maybe then will people start to change their buying habits and give more thought to where they go shopping.

- Keith Yahrling






All photographs and text by Keith Yahrling. Please check out his highly interesting homepage.