BORUT PETERLIN in a rabbit hole of photography

Cultural Center Janez Trdina, Novo mesto, Slovenia asked me to exhibit an old project, A Gorjanci Fairy-tale. Reluctant to exhibit the same pictures in the same space few years later, I said OK, if you’ll fund a production of few more pieces. They said yes, and this is my first come-back after I finished the project in 2004. you can check my older pics on my site HERE. Back then in 2001 I was photographing with a Mamiya RB67 camera on middle format color negative film. You can imagine how hard it was, but now, with a digital camera, it’s easy. Really easy. I’m publishing my lightbox.
When I found a motif, I was checking a composition, by firing straight flash. I was comparing which angle work best. Then I started to illuminate part by part of the picture, checking in between if it’s illuminated properly. Then I stitched all the layers in Photoshop, mixing mode lighten. It’s as simple as preparing a pasulj dish.
Are you curious to see the whole work flow? I can make a podcast about it. Comment.

This is the first issue of new monthly magazine Global, issued by Mladina d.d.
Editor in chief: Marcel Štefančič
Graphic design: Zvone Kukec
Photo editor: Borut Peterlin

It’s a collection of best articles from all over the world. From New York Times, Guardian, Corriera della Sera, Die Zeit, younameit,… My favourite article is an interview with Fidel Castro. Amazingly, in retrospect Castro is very critical to some of his own judgments in the Cuban Missile Crisis and also very critical to Ahmadinejad. Not to mention when Fidel breaks few jokes on his role as a dictator. No doubt, you can not afford to miss it.

Today I haven’t photographed meeting of Prime Ministers of Slovenia and Croatia, I photographed something way more important. A virgin forest of reservation of Krakovski pragozd. I was playing around also with HDR technique. I haven’t overdone it. Just a tip if you’ll go to the forest, carry a compass with you (GPS doesn’t work in dense forest), because in that forest even locals do get lost. I usually go in there with a friend Hrvoje Oršanič, who is an active environmentalist, a forester by profession and a fantastic nature photographer. And even he got lost in it, time ago.

Here is a good article about that forest By Janez Božič (in Slovenian)
HERE is a Google Map of the place.

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DMP band will celebrate their 20th anniversary with a big concert at Kino Šiška and I had two photoshoots for that occasion. The brief was to build composition on faces, but this week I’ll make their portrait in my creative manner on a cemetery. I found a guitar in a trash bin on the street and I took it with me. I’ll destroy it for the shoot, but I still dont know how. For this shots I hired Studio Bomba (Aljoša Rebolj) and pictures on dark background I’ve shot outside at night.
Their concert is tomorrow, 20.9.2010 @ 20.00 @ Kino Šiška.

PS: for the first picture I used two 1500 Ws flashes for the background and four flashes with snooth grid on their faces. I shot them from outside the studio almost from the street with 200mm lens.

Festival City of Women is based in Ljubljana, Slovenia. As they said feminism is not their leitmotif, but they do want to shed a light on art produced by women. My idea was simple, to bet on stereotypical male aesthetic of lets say mafia gang, dress them black and finally ask them to draw mustaches. Does it work? In the Mladina weekly it’ll be printed across a half page so it’ll be large enough to see mustaches.

I illuminate them with Nikon SB800 and SB900. I used Nikon lens 14-24mm and Nikon D3.
Comment, rate…
thx,
B5

In my series of of Striptiz creative portrait I made this portrait of Tomato Košir. He is fantastic graphic designer and his work is embedded in our everyday. Just check his site and you’ll recognize stuff.

it’s not a photomontage, I just made a hole in a box and stack tomatoes around his head. I used a flash with softbox to fill in the light. I put it high above, so light spreads evenly on whole scene.

Where did I got this idea? Thank you for asking, I did some research around his work and I came to a shocking discovery that his first name Tomato means tomato, so I thought to build a picture on that. Literally!!!

Here is my new work that I’ve exhibited in Simulaker Gallery as a part of a group exhibition BombaStik together with Bojan Radovič and Boštjan Pucelj. This exhibition was a part of series of cultural events devoted to a 90th anniversary of beginning of avantgarde in Slovenia. Last post was devoted to it.

In this work I took real articles from Slovenian magazines and illustrate them with photo-montages of famous Slovenians looking as a Gypsies. Text is intact, as it was written and it’s dealing with usual national issues as for instance: arguments about border between neighbors, fraud, drug smuggling, Internet hacking, Roma intolerance, drink and driving, blackmailing, etc. My point is that if perpetrates of this acts would be anyhow different then majority in Slovenia, them and their families would be stigmatized. Side effect that I didn’t count on it at the beginning is how similar we are to Roma if we change the clothing.

Sorry guys, for not blogging for so long. I was working really hard. Successfully. I’ll blog more in next few days. Here are some pictures from last weekend where we organized a series of cultural events to honor a 90th anniversary of beginning of avantgarde in Slovenia. As a new Striptiz portrait I’m publishing a group picture of IRWIN painter group.