BORUT PETERLIN in a rabbit hole of photography

Here are pictures of worker’s protest in Pohištvo Brežice on 21.2.2011. For some reason none of them were published by Mladina weekly, in spite that I was the only photojournalist there. Or perhaps because of that. But I’m not complaining, I do my work others do other’s work. Here they are for readers of my blog.

Tu so fotografije s stavke delavcev v Pohištvu Brežice, dne 21.2.2011. Zaradi meni neznanega vzroka ni bila nobena objavljena v Mladini, kljub temu, da sem bil edini fotograf prisoten. Morda pa prav zaradi tega. Ampak se ne pritožujem, jaz delam svoje delo, ostali ostalo. Tu so za bralce mojega bloga.

Manfred Willman is having an opening of his exhibition tomorrow 25.2.2011 at 18.00 in Dolenjski muzej, Novo mesto, Slovenia. He is one of the most important figures in photography in this part of the world. Beside his influential photography work, he was also a founder and an editor of the magazine “Camera Austria“. Don’t miss the first solo exhibition opening by this author in Slovenia and author’s talk on his work that will happen on Saturday 26.2.2011 at 11.00 in the gallery.

Manfred Willman ima otvoritev razstave jutri, 25.2.2011 ob 18. uri v Dolenjskem muzeju v Novem mestu. Gospod Willman je eden najpomembnejših figur v svetu fotografije v tem delu sveta, saj poleg njegovega vplivnega fotografskega opusa je bil ustanovitelj in urednik revije Camera Austria. Ne izpustite prve njegove solo rastave na slovenskem in avtorjevo vodstvo po razstavi, ki bo v soboto 26.2.2011 ob 11h.

Here is a new cover page of today’s Mladina weekly. Anybody who is photographing news photography in Slovenia knows how difficult is to caught J.J. off guard, to catch a gesture that is expressing something more, then just a straight portrait from a news event. It was a split second moment and I had to avoid a flag on a table. I’m attaching a light-box.
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Goran Bertok is a controversial artist / photographer. On Thursday 17th of February 2011 (that’s tomorrow) he has an opening of an exhibition in Simulaker Gallery, Novo mesto, Slovenia, EU. The exhibition is entitled Dead Nature and it’s a selection of photographs from his series Post Mortem and Red. Last year he won a prize as the best exhibition at Month of Photography 2010 in Slovenia. You can read more about his work on this links: Mladina on an art performance of burning cross (with coauthor Dean Verzel), RTV SLO, Visoka šola za umetnost, Revija Fotografija.

Before I’ve called him to ask him for a portrait, a colleague warned me that once he already declined a portraiture, since he hates to be photographed. One of his statement is even more specific: “I don’t like photographers“. I called him anyway. He said, yes, of course I’m always up for a good artistic portrait, although I hate being in front of a camera. Then I said, like I would know what I’m doing, “if you could have closed eyes, will that make you more comfortable?”. So we agreed. I mentioned that in the past I’ve made portraits on a graveyard, at a morgue, but he said, no, no, nothing morbid.

So I decided to build a picture on color red, since that’s the color that dominates on all of his contemporary works. I wanted to recreate in my own way a tension in calmness that I see in his photographs of corpses in a morgue, of dead infants, corpses during cremation,… My first concept was to make a picture of him being illuminated by a red light (SB900 with a softbox) and in the back pedestrians crossing the street. As you can see we were trying hard, but I wasn’t satisfied with the composition. Pedestrians were randomly scattering behind and in spite of many tries I wasn’t comfortable with the whole feel of the image. It was too open. I couldn’t fill the frame with lines of the crossing, pedestrians were so, so…

When I got home and I was looking at images I noted one that I really like! It was a test shot of a Goran with passing traffic. Traffic closed the lines on the left and buss fill up the frame. This is a close, claustrophobic shot properly interpreting my feelings for his work. I love calmness of his expression and tension of the traffic. I’m not so sure about the wheel of a bus above his head, but it’s so centered that viewers will think “Uau, the wheel is so centered that it must be an artist’s intention from the start”. On the end of the day the wheel does add a tension to the picture and that’s perfect unplanned detail that goes along with the concept. I’m attaching a lightbox for you to see also other frames. I’m publishing also an awesome picture that I’ve made while testing an equipment. I might make an exhibition of this kind of unintentional off shots.

This morning I thought on a subconscious motif of the picture and why I’ve chosen the portrait with traffic instead of one with pedestrians. Few weeks ago my dearest friend was hit by a car and he had an internal bleeding in his head. He was in coma for 20 min, close to death, but he recovered and he’s alright now. I never thought on that while preparing or during a shot of Goran’s portrait. In the morning I looked at the picture again and it was too obvious. Strange how our subconsciousness work…

Katarina Avbar is a singer-songwriter and I made this portrait for Mladina weekly. Yesterday morning I got an assignment and in the afternoon we met and I decided that I’ll do a portrait right away. Today is a holiday in Slovenia and I was reluctant to go to Ljubljana again. We met in chambers of Slovenian Writers Association, since she is collaborating with them. So here we were without a good concept how to make a picture. I like the room, since it looks like a room from The Shining film at Timber Lodge Hotel. So first I took a picture as a sketch and I loved the symmetry of the room, just there were way too many elements. I wondered how can I get rid of everything and focus only on fabulous sculptures of Slovenian writers and on beautiful Katarina.

I’m publishing work in progress pictures. You can see the first picture with initial view of the room. I decided to flip the table, but composition was way too predictable and sculptures didn’t play a meaningful role in the picture. I took a picture then I tried to even more reduce the elements on the picture and focus on only four sculptures with Katarina behind. When she stepped behind the sculptures the doors were not seen and as you can see from the first picture I loved the doors and I wondered how can I keep them in the picture. I asked Katarina to stand on a chair and hold a guitar. The guitar didn’t had a strap so she just hold it by her legs. P.E.R.F.E.C.T. That vertical position of a guitar goes perfectly with a perspective. On the end all I needed is to light it accordingly with a composition, so I used two flashes Nikon SB 800 and SB900 triggered by SU-800. Flash above sculptures had a softbox, flash lying on the floor in front of Katarina was set on 35mm zoom, since I wanted to have shadows going along the perspective. You can also see how I was playing with the light above the sculptures figuring out what combination of shadows works best.

I’m really pleased with the result. I’m describing all this because many photographers are discouraged to start doing a photography since they don’t have a clear, detailed concept. Let me tell you a secret. Even God doesn’t have a concept, so stop worrying and just do the picture.