Misha Pedan - coming exhibition

Read all about the coming exibition. Opens on 1 February 2007.












photographer ©Misha Pedan

invited guest: Mia Olofsson

I came across Mia´s pictures just recently. And it was like coming back to
what is is all about - the joy of seeing, the magic of making pictures.
- invited by ulf fågelhammar

"I am convinced that we are able to change the world. We just have to keep
on trying and fighting for what we believe in. I like to capture photos that feel
more powerful than what the truth is."
- Mia Olofsson

Check out Mia´s sparkling page at http://himmel.pannkaka.nu






I promise you that I will ask Mia to come back here soon
and share some of her energy! -urbano

invited guest: Piotr Walski

I know Piotr for few years already. First, I’ve seen his pictures on Polish photoportal – impressive portraits. We live close to each other, so we started to meet with Piotr, Marta and their cat Leon. Piotr was always full of doubts about his photography, always to shy his works in other places then this Polish photo site. After few years of his friends hard work on convincing him to share it wider, Piotr decided finally to present his works in real life. His exhibition was a great success. I hope it will give him courage to share more often with us his works.
Piotr is picturing his life, his family, workers of his firm, people he meets during his trips. No sophisticated philosophy, just documenting his every day life.

Photography allows me to get a right distance to surrounding me world. Thanks to photography I am able to domesticate my everyday life.

I adore photography. In both forms – passive, when I watch pictures touching to bones, and active – registering world by myself. I believe there is no need of talking more of my pictures – they should talk on their own.

Piotr Walski (1971) was born and lives till today in Sosnowiec. He studied in AGH University of Science and Technology. He works as civil engineer in his own firm. Besides photography he loves traveling.

More works of Piotr you can find on his website.

invited by Marcin Górski

Salvation, etcetera . . .

© Jeanne Wells

Post Hip-hop generation -- Dubstep

Today, well - right now - The Swedish radio program P3 Soul is about Dubstep, the new London-based music style of the post-hip hop generation.

Excellent program, meditative loops and a heavy sound! Go to the page and listen for a while, the whole program is there. You will understand more if you know Swedish, but the music is great!

-Christian

silence

Photographer: Mikael Jansson

This image gnaws at me like time torments a sinner. It is the itch one
can't reach, a book with the last chapter torn out.

A veritable enigma.

I study and I see another casket on a pedestal to the right of the tracks
as well, yet it seems open...though I know not what is within. There is
a candle and vague objects atop the closed one.

Is this a vigil? A protest? A memorial? And what purpose do these
funerary boxes flank the dolly tracks…tracks that end at a movable wall,
a docking bay, a shipping/receiving door?

I look for an answer to my questions within the letters upon the shade
above the plant…they are backwards, I think.

Tysta rum av tid

But I do not know the language. And the surrounding elements offer no
help. If only I could tap the lone figure on the shoulder, ask a few discreet
questions, share the Moment. Maybe there is a flier in the handbag. An
explanation on the lips. An understanding passed between eyes.

I am lost.
Hands & face against the glass.
An outsider looking in.

Silence, yes.
But a Roaring Silence, I think.
Matthew T. Joyce ( Silence)

Picture first published at the F blog: 11 November 2006

Suburban blues

photo: abeku

F-ers real faces

thanx Lina F-ers became recently less mysterious...

Invited guest: Oliver Heissner

CITY NORD

In the late 1950s the town planners of Hamburg (Germany) were looking for alternative locations for the new headquarter-buildings of the expanding oil- and insurance companies.

The northern part of the "Stadtpark", a huge common green park, was chosen to build this new business district as a "Bürostadt im Grünen".

In the respect of its monofunctionality, the spread-out solitary office-blocks and the consequent separation of streets for cars and pedestrian areas it got a nearly perfect example for the leading discussion theme on townplanning in these times: the so called "Charter of Athens" proclaimed by Le Corbusier 1933.

International architects took part in the contest for the planning and in 1964 the realisation of the first buildings started. It took over ten years until the whole "City Nord", the programmatic title of this new modernist "Gesamtkunstwerk", was finished.

Little more than 30 years old, the "City Nord" is already plagued by self-doubts and existential questions resulting from fast changing role models of urban development and the departure of many firms. Already some of the buildings stand empty or have even broken down. So it started a new discussion about demolition or extended and modified use.

At this point Oliver Heissner began a series of pictures in this area, following the visual themes of architectural style and design of the sixties and seventies but also having in mind the unknown future of this monumental "ideal city".










All pictures from 1999.
Color Prints, Diasec-Face-Sandwich, 110x144 cm, edition 3 (+ 1 ).

Shown in the exhibitions:
-- "City Nord: Denkmal, Lebensraum, Zukunft?", Galerie Cato Jans, Hamburg, 2000
-- at "senko" gallery (www.senko.dk), Viborg, Denmark, 2002 (solo-exhibition)
-- and "Stadt Natur" at Museum der Arbeit, Hamburg, 2005

Published in the "Jahrbuch 1999-Architektur in Hamburg", Junius-Verlag and the catalogue "Stadt Natur" Museum der Arbeit, Hamburg.


LVA

"LVA" short form of "Landesversicherungsanstalt" is the German public law insurance corporation. One of their buildings used to be located in the "City Nord" of Hamburg, described above. Some days before the building was knocked down, I had the opportunity of taking some pictures in the rooms. The employees left all the furniture and the plants behind. The whole scenery was quite astonishing. It seemed to be a perfect installation of an artist. Where could you find this typical furniture of the seventies and all these plants?

The empty shelves and tables tell their own story of bureaucracy and monotony.












All pictures from 2002.
Color Prints, wooden frame, 80 x 100 cm, edition 5 (+1).

Shown in exhibitions:
-- "remember this place", Kunstverein Harburger Bahnhof, 2004
-- "index 05", Kunsthaus, Hamburg, 2005


My interest in both series is equivalent in form and in content. The aesthetical beauty of the buildings and the interiors come together with a subtle sadness and the reflexion about the way of giving up buildings and leaving them empty, because nobody can use them anymore.


Words and images © Oliver Heissner.
Invited to the F blog by Joakim Sebring.

just east of eden...

According to some
sometime in the beginning
man was expelled from paradise
tasting the forbidden fruit. And Adam
blamed it all on Eve. And Eve blamed the snake.

According to others
the genes rule our life,
decide how we act, how we live
and how we die.
Changing the genes will cure deceases,
make us live longer.
And above all be happier.
They blame it all on our messy DNA.

Then we have those that blame the constellation of stars,
The ones that blame the west, the east, the white, the black, the red, the yellow, the green ones from mars, the weather, the companies, the parents, the kids, the government, the media….

We humans seems to be very good at that,
pointing fingers.
Blaming someone else.

According to the evolution theories,
the human hand was an adaption to the extensive use of tools.
And the benefits those tools provided in the natural selection process.

I rather suspect
our hands and fingers is a natural consequence
of all that blaming-by-pointing.


photos and thoughts: christofer grandin

Emotional photography (2)

Diminished

Blessed work

Well, here are a few more, a continuation of my previous posting here.

-C

The flute player

This is not a new portrait...but i went through some negatives lately. This guy is a "crazy" violin player...anyone guessed? It was really fun to work with him.

Miss Melancholy's Collard

I don't know what's to be done with people like this. Maybe send her off on a holiday, or a cruise, or a trip on a space shuttle, or a spin around a skating rink, or to the doctor, some doctor, anyone but Tarkini, anyone . . .

I saw an angel

Image Caption:Pola Negri.
[Cigarette cards] >
Cinema stars (circular cards).
Library Division:
Humanities and Social Sciences Library
/ George Arents Collection
Specific Material Type:
Photomechanical prints
from NYPL

Let there be light

lost and found (5)

negatives found in forgotten darkroom in my job, continuation

uknown author, uknown person portrayed, uknown place and date (somewhere in Upper Silesia, perhaps in Gliwice, early 1970s?), uknown material (maybe Orwo?), pentacon six

Monuments - an exploration of modern Stockholm

Exhibition in Stockholm
Vernissage Thursday 1 February, 17.00-20.00
Introduction of the exhibition by Ingela Lind 18.00

Photographer Misha Pedan and writer Ingela Lind in a dialogue about
contemporary monuments

Gallery open Wednesday-Friday 12-18, Saturday-Sunday: 12-16
Centrum för fotografi, Tjärhovsgatan 44, Stockholm
http://www.centrumforfotografi.se/

Invited guest: Stefano Bernardoni

photographs from the series: Visual tresholds / Soglie visive, 2000-2006 © Stefano Bernardoni

Stefano Bernardoni (1968; Italy) is interested in photography since the early 90's. Works in b&w. Stefano says: "this method, as far as I'm concerned, is the fundamental way of the message's construction in photography. Every part of the photographic process should be controlled by the author, as I do in my own, only this way could make the final message true". Stefano Bernardoni with Massimo Bersani are founders of Terzoocchio in 2004 - multinational photogroup (the third eye). He has several individual exhibitions and dozens of group exhibitions, mainly in Italy, but also in Finland, Russia and Japan. Take a look at his portfolio here. And stay tuned for the next Terzoocchio events...

invited by Joanna Kinowska

my meetings with Ryszard Kapuściński…Sweden

those meetings were multidimensional, sometimes I wasn’t even aware I was meeting him in a way. Somehow I was following his way, also in geographical aspect. During a week in March 2006 while Gruppo F organized F12 exhibition in Stockholm – Mr. Kapuściński was just there. You may find some marks of his visit in Swedish papers from this time ie in SvD and in DN.Kultur

 

people at work, Gruvön

Anneli Lundberg sent me some excellent pictures that I am happy
to share with you. She was our invited guest 3 October 2006.
It´s good to see you again at the F blog Anneli! -urbano

"These pictures were published in a book printed in 2006, celebrating
the 75th anniversary of a branch (Gruvön) of the Swedish Paper
Workers Union. I was asked to contribute with ten pages of photos
presenting my view of Gruvön. It turned out that I was finally asked
to illustrate the entire book. It was a very stimulating project since I
was free to chose my way of creating the pictures. I was glad that
I didn´t have to do a documentary because it´s not quite my way
of photographing"













photographer©Anneli Lundberg