Archive for the ‘writting on photography’ Category
Wet Plate Collodion project on current recession
short 4 minute video.
longer version 14 minutes.
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Ladies and Gentleman, let me introduce my new project, Great Depression 1912-13! I have been thinking for a long time to make a project that would incorporate wet plate collodion technique beyond the technological and aesthetic fascination. I wanted to make a concept where wetplate process would be a foundation of the concept, not a picture effect in the sense “geee, that looks so cool…”
And this is it. Project Great Depression 1912-13 is a documentary photography project where in wet plate technique I’m documenting state of a bankrupt companies with an emphasize on things that people left behind after they have been working there for decades.
Why the title Great Depression 1912-13? My aim is to make a picture series that would look old, ancient, as a document of an event that happened long, long time ago. I want that viewers will get the feeling that this sort of events happened like hundred years ago and since then society has learned the lesson and this sort of things can not happen to us, to a modern man in 21st Century.
The old bellow camera and wet plate technique is perfect to embed in pictures emotional detachment from the event. To prove my point, just think how great does it look a mugshot of Lewis Powel, the Lincon’s assassin photographed by Alexander Gardner and compare it to a contemporary mugshot of a murderer. It’s not (solely) the photographical technique that makes you feel different looking at a contemporary mug shot in comparison to a historical mugshot, it’s the knowing that murderer from a 19th Century mugshot is harmless, whereas a mugshot of a contemporary murderer is scary, since you can easily imagine that it could hurt you.
Of course in my picture series Great Recession 1912-13 I’m not hiding that this pictures are contemporary, just the opposite. I’m emphasizing the tension between the title and aesthetic elements on one side and documentary features on the other side.
I started the project in company Novoles that is about 500 meters from where I grew up. For me it’s important to start small, local and now I want to go to photograph larger stories. I have a wish list of international companies that I want to photograph, like the airport of Ciudad Real in Spain and of course Kodak company in Rochester, NY.
Let me finish with an anecdote. I’ve been photographing the entrance of Novoles and although I liked my first plate, it was full of mistakes. I’ve been working for another hour to make three technical nearly perfect photographs, but then I picked the first one. It’s perfect just as unperfected it is! And that happened to me many times!
Large images you can see on my site www.borutpeterlin.com
A creative portrait inspired by a dream – Blaž Porenta
Blaž Porenta is an illustrator that has an exhibition in Grossmann festival of fantastic film and I was assigned to do his portrait for Mladina weekly. I’ve been doing this kind of wacky portraits for five years now, every week (at least) one and I’ve done dozen portraits of illustrators and frankly I didn’t had a concept how will I photograph him. I was hoping for cataclysmic clouds that actually happened during the weekend, but on this Friday it was sunny time. I was thinking whole Thursday, but no good concept came along.
Before I woke up on Friday I had a dream where I saw the image exactly how I’ve done it later the day. He is doing his illustrations with computer and I thought to use a mouse as a jail ball and make his face as a tattoo on his leg. I’ve done it just the same way as it’s described in this tutorial. Although I knew the technique, I love to check youtube to see how other people are doing it. I recommend this approach. You learn a lot.
Don’t forget to rate and comment. I was told it’s good for your skin and my ego! Not to mention SEO!
PS: Fotopub Festival of Documentary Photography is starting today and I’ll do some reports from there. See you!
Jazz Slovenia 2011 with my portrait of Igor Lumpert
Last week I received a CD of Jazz Slovenia 2011 compilation and in a booklet is my portrait of my friend Igor Lumpert. It’s great to see a portrait with a time distance of four years (link), that I even forgot that I’ve made it and judge it again. I’m pleased with it, it’s great, I love it! I’m overwhelmed when I meet pictures that I deliver them, but now they are grown ups, living their own lives 
Working on a DVD Nikonschool.si
Dear JC, Igor, Leopard man and other readers of my blog. I’m sorry for haven’t been posting much these days, but as you know that only means that I’m working even more, not less. Now I’m working on a DVD that will include a basic course of photography and user manual for Nikon D7000, D5100 and D3100. I hire few friends to help me with this enormous job and we’re few days from the final stage, that is a recording of a video. I’m really excited far more than you can imagine. I love the keynote and all the animations that is capable of. I know it does sound strange, but I love to do all the basic tests with equipment. Like I did a test at which aperture my lens 50mm f/1,4 is the sharpest and I realize it’s not the middle value 5,6, but it’s one before the last, f/11!!! Shocking I know…
I’m even more excited because the next stage is to start an on-line magazine on photography. That will be a perfect mix for me as a photographer / journalist. At the beginning it’ll be not be written in an imperialistic language, but later who knows…
Snapshot for Alexander Rodchenko
On Friday I’ve made this picture. I love this kind of spring / autumn light, so I take this kind of pictures. It reminds me a little on Rodchenko’s picture Girl with Leica (1934), but of course his is way better. This Rodchenko’s photograph it used to be the most expensive photograph in the world. In eighties if I remember correctly from Famu’s lessons 15 years ago. I remember that history professor asked me when did Rodchenko bought his first camera and I answered correctly. I’m not sure now, but I think it was in 1924. Rodchenko is without a doubt my role model and once I participated in a group exhibition in Berlin’s Martin Gropius Bau and in next room Rodchenko’s pictures were hanging. That I consider definitely a personal highlight of my career.
V petek sem naredil to fotko na seji občinskega sveta. Obožujem spomladansko in jesensko svetlobo in včasih ujamem to veselje v fotgrafiji. Pravzaprav takoj, ko sem videl motiv, sem se spomnil na Rodchenka in njegovo fotko Dekle z Leico (1934), a seveda je Alexandrova veliko boljša. Če se še prav spomnim lekcij s Famu akademije, je bila ta fotka v nekem trenutku osemdesetih let najdražja fotka na svetu. OK, to je bilo 15 let nazaj, tako se morda / verjetno motim. Profesor me je na izpitu vprašal katerega leta je Rodchenko kupil svoj prvi fotoaprata in odgovoril sem pravilno. Leta 1924, če se prav spomnim. Rodchenko je brez dvoma moj vzornik in za enega mojih osebnih dosežkov si štejem, da sem so moje fotke visele v berlinskem Martin Gropius Bau, v sosednji sobi pa so visele fotke Aleksandra Rodchenka.
Katarina Avbar – creative portrait for Mladina weekly
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.
Single pictures from single moments
When I started with photography I was, like everyone, photographing everything that caught my eye. From nature, portraits, car, girls, parties, buildings, flowers, animals, younameit,… Then I become a professional and I was photographing on assignments, projects, themes, clients, younameit,… and a decade later I realized that most of spontaneity and excitement is gone. I’m overflooded by commercial and professional assignments, so in my free time I don’t think on photography any more. And that used to be my main, most fun, most exciting, most inspirational occupation. I remember I couldn’t sleep at night because I was to impatient to wait for a dawn. Now I’m all stressed out from photography.
But this is normal. To be sure your lens is in focus, you need to go over the best focused point into unsharpness and then move focus back a little. I’m happy I crossed the point when my talent was in maximum focus and now I’m in unsharp area. Time to readjust my settings
Here are few single pictures from single moments, without any great concept to save the world or to sell it to someone. This pictures are just for fun.
New book 5am available @ blurb.com
OK. After two weeks of hard work I’ve finished with my 5am book. You can see the whole content on my site just click HERE. Let me know what do you think.
I uploaded pdf to blurb.com and ordered two versions of the same book. One will be with classic paper and soft covers (arround €20) and second will be with hard covers and premium paper (€36,95). It has 144 pages and it’s 18 x 18 cm format. For first twenty copies I’ll charge no fee (just Blurb’s production and shipping). I’m discussing with few publishing houses and it might be that they’ll ask me to stop selling the book via blurb. But until then, twenty copies are at your disposal.
PS: Yes, soft cover is still in process of Blurb’s preparation. It takes unusual long. It should be available in the evening. Sorry for that!
Credit card thieves targeting photographers
I received an email where a person wanted to hire me to do a wedding photography in Barcelona and asked me for a price of my service. I said OK and I’ve sent a price and they said OK but they wanted to pay in advance + 5000 EUR for their agent.
WTF!!!!! I guess guys from Democratic Republic of Kongo changed their tactic and now they are aiming at photographers! I’m attaching my frozen credit card that I’ve photographed recently for a magazine. How appropriate.
Here is their email. I guess they will not sue me
B5
Hello Borut,
I and my wife appreciate your acceptance in assisting us greatly actually it’s my first time visiting your great country though my wife has been there before.meanwhile your email content is well accepted by me and we would like to make pre payment with my credit card to enable you handle the services efficiantly before the date for our wedding.
Note that we want to give you the advance payment of your total service costs.Please in a situation you do not own a P.O.S machine, kindly notify me to discontinue with this booking arrangement for the safety of my credit card.
I have also contacted an Agent who will help us secure Accomodation,Transportation for the quest and they said it will cost them about *****Euro for their services.
However, upon the receipt of my credit card, confirm if you will charge as follows,Deduct Advance payment of your services *********** will be for printing advance + 100euro as the credit card processing fee/transfer fee and 5,000EUR as pre payment for our Agent as they demanded.
I really need you to make the charges for the Agent,They does not have a P.O.S machine and more over they are not yet a credit card merchant therefore can not process credit cards.
Please we need your extablishment name for the credit card Authorization and also your direct phone contact for easy comunication ok.
I awaits your kind accptance response.
Best Regards
************
