Keep Yer Coins

We are all aware of the proceedings which are taking place in Copenhagen at the moment. If you want an insight, Sunny F.16 will have a photographer reporting from the inside of the COP15. To view the new story on the conference click here. Also, if you wish to recieve image updates on the conference I suggest you subscribe to Sunny F.16.

The photographer making this possible is Tomas Cochello, I suggest you have a look at his work.

Pieter Hugo… he’s been around for some time, but only last year he managed to impress most of us with The Hyena & Other Men. An amazing series of photographs about the creolization between wilderness and urban, and the relation between man and other species.

His new book, Nollywood, is a mix of horrific characters from the film industry of Africa and reality. Some of his images were at the Paris Photo and he is currently exhibiting Nollywood at Galleria Extraspazio in Rome.

Hugo seems to be going in the direction of an amalgamation of visual, cultural and social elements which give a sense of the fantastic to the worlds he constructs, and at the same time documents.

Abdullahi Mohammed with Mainasara, Lagos, Nigeria 2007

This year at uni I had a lecture about Japanese Photography which I really enjoyed.  Unfortunately my memory is a constant dissapointment.  But thanks to the internet, today, I stumbled upon this funny little video of a lecture » Read the rest of this entry «

I rose from a nightmare at 6:30. The morning sun shone through the curtains and tainted the room of a pale orange. I reached for a chocolate cookie and munched facing the celing. My mind was blank, how long had i waited for this moment when one has no thoughts. I managed to rise and light up a cigarette, opened the curtains, and there it was. The sunrise over the misty city was something to admire. The scilence was loud and clear. I siped some apple juice from the tetra and stared out the window.

Finally awake I called a taxi to take me around the city. Today, the pain in my heel was unbearable. You could almost see the bone from the drilling the shoe had done.. I bandaged both feet, painfully put my shoes on and started downstairs. On the street I waited for the cab.
The first destination was the university. Not much to say about it or it’s façade. One the way we passed the library, it is like nothing I have seen before, and like nothing else in Pristinha. Of postmodernist architecture it stands behind an old christian church in perfect harmony.
We drive around the city for 1 and a half hours stopping were my eyes were caught.

After lunch I headed for Hotel Victory to reclaim the Liberty Statue standing its the roof. Today there was no problem and they took me up to the roof where I made some shots.
Now I sip my coffee at the Hotel restaurant and reflect on my experience here.

I forgot to mention earlier that the reason for sleeping only 4 hours was that I made a reservation at the hostel for the wrong date. By the time I arrived at reception there were no beds available for the night. I had met a spaniard earlier on Saturday that had gone mad trying to find a place to sleep as all cheap places were fully booked.. Knowing this and relying on the warm Bulgarian hospitality I asked if I could sleep on the sofa in the lobby. And that’s how I saved a few bucks.

Today I walked and walked. Sofia is a beautiful city. The architecture and the roads remind me of Berlin. Although everything here is raw. There are also very beautiful churches and palaces, I guess they have their own eastern soul.

After walking I had a siesta and got ready for another walk. This time with a project in mind. There are so many empty spacesbin the city which allow for a beautiful urban horizon line when using by 14mm on the 35mm.

Tomorrow I will venture to the nuclear power plant. I saw it from the plain yesterday, never seen one from so close before.

“All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real condition of life and his relations with his kind.” (Marx and Engels, The communist Manifesto.)