BORUT PETERLIN in a rabbit hole of photography

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This are four versons of cover page of Mladina weekly 08/2009, which theme is devoted to analyze of depression by former finance minister Dušan Mramor. Slogan "počilo bo" it means it’ll burst!
Which one is best for you? Cover page is printing already, but I want to know your opinion.

BOTTOM RIGHT VERSION WON!!! My favorite was upper right version, because in the bottom right version there was a hand, that I had to retouch out, but it wasn’t perfectly executed. In the morning I was told bottom left was chosen because on that picture balloon didn’t burst yet, but aesthetically it the weakest so I was kind of disappointed. Their explanation was exactly the same as Žan’s comment that the slogan “it will burst” suits the most bottom left picture. My main criteria is that cover must look good, so I was relieved that editors changed their mind and chosed bottom right version. THX FOR ALL THE VOTES!
Creative director: Robert Botteri
Design: Damjan Ilić
Photography: Borut Peterlin

PS: Before JC will ask how I did it… I bought water balloons for 3 EUR, fill it up with water and hang it on a rope that I tied on the balcony. I thought stronger the flash lite, shorter is the flash burst, but no. My Balcar 1500Ws made all blurry pictures, so I used Nikon SB 900 and that was perfect. I had a flash in left hand and spike in right hand. I was shooting at night and during exposure of 2 sec, I burst the balloon and fired the flash manually. It’s not that difficult, but it does need some training. I was not satisfied with my first try and next day I bought more balloons and redo the shoot. On the second try every image was perfect. Few small tricks: Use telelens and with your body you can cast shadow on the lens, so it’s perfectly illuminated. I did also pictures so flash was behind the balloon, but then picture was too flat. From side I got this kind of beautiful 3D illumination.
PPS: Oh… AND DO USE PLASTIC BOOTS NOT RUNNING TRAINING SHOES!

This are today’s pics from Sanader / Pahor meeting in Mokrice castle. And under is a picture of Slovenian president Danilo Turk, former president Milan Kučan and major of Zagorje Matjaž Švagan after layed down flowers on a grave of late president Janez Drnovšek. This is a picture I love my job as a photojournalist, because you have to react so fast, that sometimes you make a picture without thinking what it means, but then you realize it’s a really mean, insulting picture. Like the one under. When I saw the picture on my computer I thought “shit” that’s too much even for Mladina! I know if I would work for some other magazine or newspaper I could loose my job. A photographer himself told me a story of how he uploaded an unflattering picture of J.J. to their site and he had a call from their director. Anyhow the picture bellow I did send it to Mladina and guess what… They did publish it on their website. So I said what the heck! I just take pictures… and we are all to many times directed by PR-personal, being just executors of their press release… And if I insulted anyone with that picture I apologize, but a little J.J. is sleeping in anyone of us!

Samo Rovan is a wedding photographer who won Emzin’s Photography of the year contest in Slovenia. When I started to think how should I do the picture, I thought on the famous picture of Arthur Trees, The Actor, 1973 From the beginning I wanted to remake a chaos and ridicules situations that occur on all weddings. I had several variation of the idea and even in the morning of the shoot I simplified the scenario.

So this are two results. Which one do you prefer?

I thank Samo and Kaja for their patience, Krinolina for the dresses and MOL for letting us photograph in their wedding hall.
Here are some pics from the shoot by Samo & Kaja.

PS: I was asked how did I made a montage that they are holding their hands. If you carefully plan, it’s really easy! I used my hand and I marked exact the spot where hands meet and where the arm should be.

Here are some more funny pics.

This days my schedule got a bit loosen up, so I used the time for some marketing fine tunning. I needed new visit cards and first I wanted a visit card with a hole in the middle and an embossing, but that was just too much complicating and also quite expensive. Decided to simplify it. I wondered how much info can I strip out of visit card and on the end I decided for just a telephone number and a webaddress. My good friend Jure Kocuvan liked the idea and helped me out with typography.
This is the first – unrealized version.

Second small fine tunning I did with a help of Jure was a favicon icon on my site www.borutpeterlin.com/. It’S really difficult to make an icon that makes sense and that the message comes across in the size of 16 x 16 pix. This is the first version, but the number 5 was blending too much with background so we did a surrounding white space in a shape of a shield. I love this small almost unnoticed fine tunning, although without a question I don’t devote enough attention to them, especially on this blog.

Last but not least I have still few more new years gifts on my shelf and they are for sale @ recession prices Small one 20 x 30 cm is for 50 EUR, panoramic picture 100 x 30 cm is for 90 EUR. Posting cost is not included, but it should not be more then 10 EUR. They are printed on archive inkjet print, plasticized and mounted on Dubond / alumount. The plastic wrapping is just for temporary protection. The plastification of the print is a standard archiving procedure, but that is not the wrapping that is seen on this pics. All inquiries on my email borutpeterlin@hotmail.com

Tomaž Kosmač – KOSMO is really great literate from Idrija. He is one of four finalists of Fabula and on Friday there will be announced who is the winner. I bet it will be him, although I’m purely speculating.

Anyhow when I did a research about his work the title of the book Punk is dead caught my attention and I asked Kosmo if we could do the portrait in the morgue. He was up for it and I organized everything and today we made the picture. Before we start to work we had a look around the crematorium and we even took a peak into a crematorium where a body was cremated. They cremate 40 – 50 corpses every day 24/7.

Now when I’m looking at the picture I’m wondering if it’s recognizable that guys in the back are moving a coffin? I wanted to have a portrait that will refer to a process as Punk and nihilism, then solely to a writer.

RTV SLO je prekršil embargo na novice in na facebooku je to stara novica, zatorej TUKAJ so rezultati Emzinovega natečaja fotografija leta. Zmagovalca staSamo Rovan za avtorsko in Maja Hitij za reportažo! Rokinroll od srca!

Igor Lumpert Trio had a great jazz concert in club Lokalpatriot. With Igor we’ve went to secondary school together. He was going to be chemist and I was going to be a carpenter, but we never made it there. We hang out in the art field and in year 1993 we went together to U2′s Zooropa Tour in Munich. Now he lives and works mainly in New York. Igor was always a maverick and that reflects so much in HIS MUSIC.

I love the first image of a drummer. Still cymbal in the middle of the picture and vibrating drummer in the back. When I noticed the picture I thought how great composition and then I expected every second that a drummer will hit the cymbal and I was nervous will I capture what I saw. So unpredictable situation, just like jazz, just like Igor…

Today I was photographing a show basketball game between Slovenian Ministers Gregor Golobič and Igor Lukšič and Croatian Minister Dragan Primorac with their team made out of veteran basketball players, famous singers, young basketball players, teachers, etc… The most interesting pictures I’ve did when Minister Lukšič was covering the tank Franjo Arapović He was very persistent that’s for sure and it was very photogenic buzzing around the tank!

Dan D is the best rock group in Slovenia and their new record is about to be launched. I did this picture for Mladina‘s creative Striptiz portrait rubric.