BORUT PETERLIN in a rabbit hole of photography

I’m honored that I could photograph Svetlana Makarovič for Striptiz creative portrait, a rubric of Mladina weekly. We’ve met in old part of Ljubljana in pub Pri zelenem zajcu and I had a concept to build a picture on a cigarette smoke, since she is know as a passionate smoker and loud critic of anti-smoking law. I thought she’ll puff a smoke straight into the camera direction and I’ll caught a moment of smoke, expression and a light. Unfortunately there was a mild wind and that idea was not working at all. I had to figure a new idea on the spot and I build the concept downwind (pilot’s expression).

Thanks to Tomica for organization and Alenka for assistance.

Today I covered antifascist demonstration in Ljubljana. On my newly established photoshelter account you can see a broader selection of images. Click HERE.

Last weekend we had a Gong Fu (Kung Fu) and Chi Gong seminar with Shifu Shi Yanzi. He is a disciple of main monk in Shaolin temple in China. He become a champion of Shaolin temple only after four months because a Shaolin monk challenge him for a fight, but on surprise of everybody, he won. He was eight times champion of China and two times world champion in Sanshou. But he has a great sense of humor as well. He was describing how monks were training in the middle of the night in the woods, but then he added but be careful here in downtown of Ljubljana, because I heard you have bears. Those days a wild bear was caught in downtown of Ljubljana. For Mladina weekly (16/2009) Jure Aleksič wrote two pages article about Shifu Shi Yanzi. The seminar was organized by his student Shifu Shi Heng dao and Shaolintemple.si. On the end of the seminar several students successfully passed an exam of Gong Fu.

I love Gong Fu and Chi Gong because it’s perfect antidote to cult of conformism that our culture is promoting and I love Chi Gong as slow relaxation. I was doing for 7 years Tai Chi, but I prefer to do Gong Fu to fully push my bodily limits and Chi Gong to control my Chi. I really see the progress after every training.

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PS: here is Shifu’s demonstration of Iron shirt.

Cover page of Mladina weekly 15_2009. Creative director Robert Botteri, Graphic design Ivian Mujezinović Kan, photography Borut Peterlin
I love the white and typography of the cover page and of course it’s a pleasure to have my picture along side it.

Two weeks ago I bought a 14-24 f2,8 lens I’m starting to like it. Here are two picture of my yougest daughter Brina. As you can see my wife and I are passionate in documenting intimate moments of family happiness. And this picture is taken 50 seconds later:

This is a new version of the picture, after Gregor Kervina on Facebook left a comment that it might look better if I woyld use radial blur and it is much better! THX!

Next Striptiz portrait for Mladina weekly is Jean-Christophe Couet , a photographer who just had a show in Galerija Vžigalica, produced by MoTA. I guess every reader of my blog knows JC. The keywords for this picture are camouflage and suicide. The portrait surely isn’t reflecting his work, but since we’ve been studying together I knew he would not mind if I make the picture my way. So, camouflage and suicide.

HERE you can watch an interview on Slovenian national TV, show ARS 360 on 11.4.2009

I finally used my new super-wide zoom 14-24mm and just detached flash. in post production I added flash from the camera, lights on the train and motion blur effect. For motion blur effect I made a new layer and set opacity 85%, so you still see shape of the train and the motion effect looks much better. Here are some images of a torch and a camera flash and before / after effect. On the bottom there are few images from the opening of the show.
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Shaolin master Shifu Shi Yanzi is coming to Ljubljana for two days seminar and that’s Saturday 18th of April and Sunday 19th of April 2009. It’s open for everybody. More information on http://www.shaolintemple.si/. Here is also an amazing demonstration of his skills.

My main man Jean-Christophe Couet have an opening of his project Camouflage, Suicide in Slovenia TODAY, 9th of April in Galerija Vžigalica, Trg francoske revolucije 7, Ljubljana at 20.00. In collaboration with Codeep Media-Art Society and MOTA – Museum of Transitory Art Ljubljana.
Looking forward,
Borut

My next Striptiz creative portrait commisioned by Mladina is Domen Lombergar. Domen Lombergar is an artist that is dealing with photography and strong post production photo montage. His images are surreal and since he have an exhibition Cyber Punk:Posthuman in Metelkova citym, I decied to do something in this direction. I wanted to do his portrait with his feel, but without digital manipulation. Actually I don’t have nothing against digital manipulation, but I prefer to manipulate pictures in an analog way. So I decided that I’ll wrap whole room in an aluminum folio, to create a cyber-punk feel. Luckily his computer room was a perfect set to make a picture. He is working on three screens simultaneously so that was perfect for me. It took m something like three hours to do the picture, although it felt like an hour. Luckily Domen was a patient model and we did several scenarios. I even tryed to wrap him in aluminum, but that felt a bit too much, like a cheap masquerade, so I decided that black coat and leather glows would work much better. Here are few more pics in the making of…
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Here is a website evolutionezine.com with a presentation of my work HERE. I’m glad to be a guest in a site that is motivating people to actively steer their life. The site is very well visited and is allowing comments and rating.