Keep Yer Coins

I like to meet people who don’t really give a flying fcuk about current mainstream siht.  The last couple of sundays I’ve been hitting the Sunday Up market in search of the fantastic De La Panza meat club.  A couple of “buena onda”, laid back Argentinian fellows cooking meat sandwitches and “choripanes” with lots of love.  

Today was my third visit there, I was doing some photos in exchange for food…  Definitely worth it.  Getting to know them I discovered they are both musicians.  Great ones I must say. Tongas dribbles between Tango, Afro-beat and dub, producing music largely based on percusion, and a back track with a scent of Piazzola.  A pleasent and mellow beat to sit back and take a moment for yourself.  On the other side of the river, Pabs & the Frogcats mixes new-disco, house and arcade sounds, great for the transition between a lounge afternoon to a hard night of mayhem. 

I’m not talking about any mainstream glamour-disco-trash; everybody is spinning that right now in the clubs around London (and worldwide).  I’m talking here about true musicians who believe in what they do.  I was quite surprised because the first thing I’d expect to hear from music makers or music takers is :  ”I’m a DJ…” and after, a silence to which one is supposed to be impressed or something (never judge a book by it’s cover, not that I had, at least in that way, but sometimes the content of a book might surprise you with an unforseen variety of subjects).  Unfortunately not many people keep such a humble low profile and are good at what they do.  Anyway, Pabs gave me a demo to play at home, and Tongas (between the lines) sliped a paper with his myspace.

Pabs and the Frogcats

Tongas

Enjoy..!

This diptic is from a series of photos about the urbanization of south west Copenhagen. It recently won it’s place in the Harker Photography Center at the University of Westminster, and will be displayed on the walls of the HPC, amongst 11 other winners.

København, 2009. (Click to Enlarge)

The utopian urbanization which is going on follows the general line of Copenhagen, and respects the straightness and minimalism of Danish Architecture, a reflection of a wonderful society that seems to be years ahead from any other place in the world.

To see the full series click “Urban Concept” in the top menu of my web site

TAH, January 2009

There is light, there’s a lens, and there is also light being reflected from the subject to the lens.

Be aware.

Wake up.

It’s no joke.

Let’s imagine how light is reflecting on us.

Inocence is lost. I was blinded.
All of that is behind. Now I see the world as it is. I am blind, for what I see comes from inside, not from outside. We see from the inside out. It is a process of discrimination. Like a photograph, it is not real.

Yet we see a hole in a wall and go through it because we naturally know that it will take us to the next room.

And thats how we go about.

There is no such thing as objectivity, only a human need to believe it’s possible in order to excuse ourselves and attain redemption.

The project started with the idea of photographing what I could not see.  Usually the process of photographing comprises a series of steps in which the photographer first contemplates that which he wants to photograph with the purpose of creating a “good” image.

When I started the project I was in a fight with myself about why I should photograph things that were there to be seen, why not simply take them in and use my own memory instead of having to record everything with the camera.  The act of photographing had lost all importance at the moment and had even become banal and idiotic.  The camera was obstructing my eyes and impeding me to see the city and the turn my life had taken when I moved to London.

So I decided to photograph what I could not see, and remember what was really important.

This completely new process took over.  The act of photographing what I could not see but the camera could, brought with it ideas of its own.  The simple process of reviewing the images of things I never saw made me question reality, society and individual existence.

There was no trial and error (for there could be no error in this type of photographing act).  After the images were reviewed there was a careful act of selection, subjective act of selection, and an unconscious act.  Something (more than that of subject and composition) united these photos.

 It was striking to find a similarity in all of the images.  They all had something in common.  They were forgotten realities, or better said, latent realities for they had never been perceived.  Even so they seemed familiar.

The camera gives us the possibility to experience an infinite number of times, things that are otherwise not visible to us.  Either through long exposures or a flash, it aids our eyes and expands our world.  The world is real only to us as individuals, it exists only through our senses.  We have an individual view of reality.  A personal reality.

The camera makes the individual reality everybody’s reality, for as long as we posses a physical imprint of light (through a light sensitive emulsion or a electronic sensor). 

In this project I explore no ones reality.

No ones reality because the camera photographs latent realities which have not been previously perceived, or granted a moment of contemplation to sink into ones memory.  Therefore, they do not exist until they have been photographed.

My experience with them is no different that your experience with them.  I have only seen them as images on screen and paper.

Duane Michaels wrote:  “To photograph reality is to photograph nothing.”

When I photograph nothing, reality is revealed.  A disturbing revelation, for everything is real, but so is nothing.  Familiar images which seem to be hidden in our psyche. 

Images are very rarely presented without an accompanying text. A title, caption, and sometimes even an essay accompany images in most cases. Moreover, we can say that photographs always come in the hand of language. There is no need for the language to be written by the photographer (or editor, or writer), the viewer will always put words to an image. Whether in a descriptive manner, or in the form of semiological critic, language always appears in the context of imagery. » Read the rest of this entry «