BORUT PETERLIN in a rabbit hole of photography

Prime Minister Borut Pahor enters University Medical Centre Ljubljana and above him there is a sign no exit. Ljubljana, 29.3.2010.

Do you still remember my picture two months ago of Minister Mitja Gaspari, who is one of the motor of governmental “exit strategy” from recession? Reality does transcend imagination.

Mladina weekly, photo of the week:
Prime Minister Borut Pahor, Foreign Minister Samuel Žbogar and Minister of Justice Aleš Zalar are waiting for the publication of the opinion of the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Slovenia, establishing that the Arbitration Agreement between the Republic of Slovenian and the Republic of Croatia on resolving the border dispute is not inconsistent with the Basic Constitutional Charter on the Independence and Sovereignty of the Republic of Slovenia and the Constitution of the Republic of Slovenia.

Photo: Tit Košir / Večer

Have you watched a film Big River Man? You have to! It’s amazing film. Martin Strel is famous in Slovenia for a long time. He holds successive Guinness World Records for swimming the Danube river, the Mississippi River, the Yangtze River, and the Amazon River. But In Slovenia everybody (that I know of) were making jokes about his character. My impression was that Martin Strel is a person who constantly brags about his achievements and in the same time negate achievements of top athletes like Peter Mankoč (Mankoč is most known for being the only swimmer with 9 consecutive gold medals in one discipline of European Championship short course events). And that’s what I thought I’ll see in the movie Big River Man directed by John Maringouin, but I was so wrong… OK, in the first third part of the film you laugh your guts out, since Martin is in many ways surpassing Borat, but then he starts to swim in the Amazon river… Jure Aleksič wrote in today’s issue of Mladina weekly that Big River Man is a film as you would merge Borat and Apocalypse Now and he is so right! Anyway I’m not a film critic…

When I was commissioned by Mladina weekly to do his portrait I wanted to do something like in the movie when Martin is holding a camera near his face and then falls into the Amazon river backwards. As you can see in the podcast I’ve tried and it looks good, but Martin would need to release the shutter in the right time, while keeping eyes open, while water splashing,… I estimated it would be hard to catch a perfect moment, so I decided to make a different frame. In Big River Man movie, Martin is repeatedly saying he’s in forth dimension while swimming the Amazon and that it’s beautiful. I thought to make a portrait of the face that would be reflecting from the water surface and did all the tests. Light is coming from a flash that was synchronized with Profoto radio Air-Sync. And I can tell you it’s right name, since they do not work under water. They work only 10 cm under water. I used Ewa Marine underwater housing. Do I need to mention that pictures were made with Nikon D3s and Nikon D300s? With assistant Tjaša (grazie mille) we were waiting for more then an hour and in the mean time I figured all out how I want to make a portrait. I hope you’ll enjoy the picture and the film Big River Man.

Just one more last note. I got an idea. Since I’ll move to Dolenjske Toplice in few months and I’ll start to swim everyday… I was thinking…. to redo his first swim from 1992 and swim down the river Krka (105km). Then I was thinking that there must be more recreational swimmers like me and we could swim all together. I suggest to Martin that he and his son Borut in few years could make an international competition of ultra marathon swimming down the Krka river. It would be great event for sure. No, I’m not going to become a second Martin Strel, but I do understand what his swimming is all about.

I’m testing this new service vodpod and if you can read this, I’m impressed. WordPress.com platform does not allow flash galleries, but I hope VodPod is my savior. This is a selection of my Striptiz editorial portraits from year 2009/10

You can check tutorials on VODPOD & wordpress on youtube .

This is a short film about Bosnian and Serbian workers that were working for Zoran Perkovič / Prenova construction company and they didn’t received a salary for more then a year. In Slovenia there is a law that a foreign worker (outside of EU) must work for two years for the same employer and only then he can receive a working visa that allow him to change his job (in Slovenia). If employer cancels the working permit for a day, they lose working visa and they need to return home. This modern slavery law was abused (among others also) by Zoran Perkovič, who employed foreign workers and then in a year, he payed them one or two monthly salary per year and after their yearly visa expired they had to leave the country. This scenario happened to 120 workers of Prenova. Last dozes workers claimed their right for a fair payment and they started a hunger strike. They were sleeping in a shed under freezing temperature and snowy weater. After 8 days they came to Ljubljana to Ministry of Labor where they claimed their right for fair treatment and support.

This is a short film with my images shot for Mladina weekly. I used Nikon D3, Nikon D300s and a dictaphone to record the happening. I hope the message will get accross even if you don’t speak Bosnian or Slovenian.

For this issue of Mladina weekly, Striptiz rubric I’ve made a portrait of a film crew of a movie Prepisani with Jonas as a driving force of the project in front. Director of the film is Klemen Dvornik and it’S shot in co-production of Vest, Filmservis and Nuframe.
Jonas wrote a really excellent post on Kubrick’s stare (HERE). Hi-Res image in my archive

Jaka Tomc is a writer who just published his first book entitled Kdo je David Locke.

He established a Publishing house Manični poet.

The inspiration for this portrait was snow (it’s snowing even today) and Klevevž thermal spring. It’S a beautiful thermal spring in the middle of the forest with constant water temperature of 24 C. We often go and swim in the winter, but we jump also in an icy stream nearby like you can see HERE. Anyhow I had an idea of him as he is in the picture and books would be floating around with candles burning. We put many books in the water, but the water stream flush them behind the camera. It was getting dark really fast, so I discard the floating books idea.

Check the video Jaka made. And then he made also interview with me for Vest.si on-line magazine (in Slovenian).

Advertising for a T-shirt campaign to demilitarize Slovenia done by Mladina weekly.
Illustration: Tomaž Lavrič,
Graphic design Damjan Ilić,
creative director Robert Botteri, photography & fake blood by Alenka & Borut Peterlin.
Homage to Oliviero Toscani & Benetton
You can buy a (clean) T-shirt on www.mladina.si

In one before last issue of Mladina we had an interview with Katarina Kresal, Minister of Internal Affairs of Republic of Slovenia. She is very beautiful lady and that characteristic was photographed many times and for this interview I was thinking to make some different portrait. I turn off studio light with soft box and set a flashlight with a honeycomb (or how is it called) in far left position. I wanted to make a silhouette kind of portrait. I frame her against a window with curtains that vaguely remind on a prison. I love the expression. Very predator like. The best thing about the picture is that different people interpret it on different ways. You can interpret it in positive or negative way – your decision.

In my on-line archive you can see more portraits of Katarina Kresal. Here is also one video with Katarina Kresal, that you might appreciate it.

Garry Winogrand is one of my favourite photographers and if I catch an ambiguous street photograph, it feels good.