kristina_kraft

Today I still photograph alone. I'm studying by myself. I have a business mentor, not a photographer mentor. I see photo net as a one giant leading master.

Photographers from my home town often don't have an extra time. I talked with one wedding photographer, finding why he doesn't have an extra time to mentor me. And he said that he haven't been sleeping normally for the last 10 years. Because during the day he photograph and later during the night he then post processed them.

What to say then, except, "OK, I hope you'll find some time to rest well."

 

I often participate in domestic and foreign photography contests for exhibitions. So, now, I'm participating in my first group exhibition in Sofia, Bulgaria, with three bigger photos on billboards.

I'm going alone, that's for sure.

 

We all are part of this virtual community. It gives me a clear seeing of how much I am a social being. I agree with Dan. Yes we are all humans and sometimes I become too much emotional here.

I consider that truth is always personalized, at least from my point of view. It can't be taken only on academic level. The truth is what one can find inside of itself. Maybe one can find a universe, a world hidden inside of itself. Maybe then the person can be able to give a comfort to other, or others.

 

The truth can be a sensation that one can be able to feel about someone or something. After all, the truth you may find might not give you a comfort. It is so intricate.

Reading your story I've hardly believed in it. The experience is so unusual, unconventional from the woman's side. I think that your photo therapy helped her a lot in that moment and even later. That kind of moments are hard to forget. You made her happy, and you touched yourself with that unusual experience making her happy. And it doesn't matter whether it was only for a one day or an hour. I wish that people could be more touched by each other in a given situation where illness or bad things doesn't play a role.

About expression of individuality, I'd say from my experience that today art world is seeking a unique individual, because the new movement is "Individuality".

 

Recently I have applied in one project "All about him" for photo exhibition in Bulgaria. I found that I have enough material and personal experience to participate, and the jury have chosen me. The male portraits were nothing special, but my concept was the one that made a difference. The concept of homage that I gave to my best male friend made a story.

Thanks Fred.

 

Scientists in general shouldn't be religious persons working in the field of Evolution. But those scientists who are searching the robe of Jesus are driven by a religious and faith. The scientists who are involved in Egyptology are also driven by faith and religious. They believe they will find.

 

According the characters from fairy tales, I can only say that I believe in their symbolism as a reference of many things. Mythology is also the language of symbolism regarding our subconsciousness, state of sleep too.

Those characters are the product of our imagination and are very, very old. After all, they came from the folks of different folklores and cultures. Storytelling was an entertainment in those ancient days among masses.

 

Of course, I don't believe in their existence, but I believe in their meaning. Folks were wise in those times.

This is just great! I can't understand all of you, guys.

 

But I can make an example about how religion and science goes together. The story is about investigating the Robe of Jesus. On the robe there are a visible particles that forms his face. But scientists who are involve saying for the record that they can't tell what it is for sure, but they can tell what it's not.

After 20 years of researching this is the conclusion!

 

Researching the mummies is my the most favorite topic on that field. Scientists present us how they are doing the research, the methodology, the technology. So, they put the mummy inside of Siemens big X-RAY machine, and they can calculate age, apparently how the mummy died, seeing the wounds, and similar.

But of course, they can't disclose whether this mummy had a some kind of mystical or supernatural powers, simply being special in a way.

 

It is because the supernatural powers were the part of their souls and minds that doesn't dwell any more in our dimension. So the scientists can't find any kind of trace that might lead to that. I remember, in the tombs, in the beginning of researching in 20 ct., people died entering the tombs because during the past several thousand years, the quality of air changed dramatically into poisonous environment of god knows what kind of bacterias.

So people from outside thought it was the curse. But science said its own.

 

HOW CONSCIOUSNESS CREATES REALITY by Claus Janew.

http://free-will.de/reality.pdf

 

Thanks Julie for your links.

 

Fred,

 

Charles Sanders Peirce:

 

I like this chapter:

 

A Definition of Feeling

 

306. "By a feeling, I mean an instance of that kind of consciousness which involves no analysis, comparison or any process whatsoever...the feeling is simply a quality of immediate consciousness...But it must be admitted that a feeling experienced in an outward sensation may be reproduced in memory. For to deny this would be idle nonsense. For instance, you experience, let us say, a certain color sensation due to red-lead. It has a definite hue, luminosity, and chroma. These [are] three elements ? which are not separate in the feeling, it is true, and are not, therefore, in the feeling at all, but are said to be in it, as a way of expressing the results which would follow, according to the principles of chromatics, from certain experiments with a color disk, color-box, or other similar apparatus. In that sense, the color sensation which you derive from looking at the red-lead has a certain hue, luminosity, and chroma which completely define the quality of the color. The vividness, however, is independent of all three of these elements; and it is very different in the memory of the color a quarter of a second after the actual sensation from what it is in the sensation itself, although this memory is conceivably perfectly true as to hue, luminosity, and chroma, which truth constitutes it an exact reproduction of the entire quality of the feeling...

 

...the entire consciousness at any one instant is nothing but a feeling,"

Antonio, don't analyze too much because you will never experience the feeling "This is it" during the very act of photographing.

Can you hear the music or can you compose while making a photographs? Can you peak up the photo from your portfolio and say, "This one is different among other. Or I can recognize myself."

 

Building an identity is the same as searching for your own self. Behind my every photo there were different kinds of my moods. Today I can still remember what happened to me then, what I was thinking and how I was feeling.

The big difference is when I photograph, I don't search and chase any more. The subjects and objects are coming to me, in front of my eyes and senses.

The story or your life has the biggest influence on your future photograph.

The difference is YOU, Antonio. Not the outer object, or outer world.

 

My style is changing from time to time because I'm changing. I'm searching and I've been rewarded by "getting".

When I'm capturing a scene I see one reality, one sense. But when I see the same photo once again in my digital darkroom, I see another reality through different kind of sense. I'm starting to visualize, more than on the field, a various interpretations. And I'm satisfied with the outcome because it's easier for me to find and express it on already common background. Because when I see the scenery in real I can somehow previsualise the last outcome. Of course, when I finally open my digital darkroom, I know what I'll create. I recognize the concept. Today I find myself more open to changes and I can freely say, "This is it!"

I like the idea of showing more photos at once. But still I am not used to this new design. The previous version was much better to me.

 

Today when I opened the site, it fell apart vertically.

I like the notion of his methodology and the way how he implemented into this huge boards. It is innovative and refreshing. I wish I could see that in live.

I like the most a board about breast - a picture is filled with barbies. This one is speaking so clear about artificial beauty under plastic surgery.

It is very brave initiation, after all. He is so flexible about the whole message that he wants to present in a such a original way. The picture inside of another picture that is inside of yet another one. And it can go forever, as an endless loop.

I like to search. I like to hear my inner feeling when I want to make BW photos. I usually use color, but there is a moments, the situations in which I can feel that BW would be much more appealing, sensitive, passionately too. Specially if the structure and texture are of a valuable mood.

Seeing the word "goals" it suddenly remind me of the ultimate thing I would like to achieve. To professionalize more - getting academic knowledge from history of art, specializing photography.

 

Being more commercially available on a global market - with calendars, framed photographs, in galleries. Being recognized at internationally photo contests. Having a good manager, although I have one.

There is so much to persuade to.

On Robert Frank:

SICK OF GOODBY'S, 1978.

I like these concepts. (He created it after his daughter died in an airplane accident.)

 

HOLD STILL: KEEP GOING.

 

"Memory helps you--like stones in a river help you reach the shore." - R. Frank

 

Julie, do you have a photos from that collection Hold still, Keep going?

 

http://www.tate.org.uk/tateetc/issue2/sixreflectionsfrank.htm

 

"Sick of Goodby?s is a picture of emotional exhaustion. The date is scrawled in reverse at the bottom, but what does it say in the top corner? You take a mirror to try to read it. ?I am...?? Still not clear. A photograph is a mirror. In it you might examine yourself for signs of emotional wear and tear; to see how life is leaving its mark. In this picture is all Frank?s weariness. Too much has gone. He said: ?I have a lot in back of me ? of what has happened in my life ? and that?s a tremendous pull backward. And in front of me I love the sea.?

Very interesting documentary photos. Having one more insight in this ideology makes me wonder what they accomplished in the end.

 

"Seven years in Tibet" is very unusual movie, showing a much sensibility.

 

Those who seek, they will seek no more. My quote.

"They are rare, unconscious, but persistent: the incongruity of man and what he has constructed, the ritual of letters and signs, and a certain indefinable fright hidden in these plain and architectural shadows."

 

This is wonderful description. I'd like to see the photos.

Thank you Fred.

Yes I know about that book. I had been reading it twice.

I think that artist has to live his own art work. He should be his own work of art, representing everything what he is - his beliefs, emotions, sensibility, mentality, character. Even if he misses some of that.

 

I wonder how Duchamps was feeling when he made "Fountain". I can see his mentality and character, but other I don't.

I have found myself surprised watching about "Expelled". What a playful documentary movie it is and at the same time it is deadly serious.

It remind me of what Vatican had asked from the science community - not to search what had (been) happened before Big Bang. I don't know what happened then. I know one thing that prof. Stephen Hawking talk openly about extraterrestrial intelligence and that we are not alone in the Universe. Is it a propaganda? I don't know.

Julie, thank you for posting this kind of article. I find it very useful. When I sometimes write the concept of my photo work for applying to different competitions, I really try hard to express what lies behind my work. But usually I refer to aesthetics than philosophy. Maybe I am an old fashioned.

 

Our contemporary art is very popular, it has been financed very much too. So, higher explanations are need it. The philosophy which can be found in it looks to me as one giant loop. See, the header of the article at first looks as a loop.

Why we want to look for congruence in incongruous situations. I don't know, but I am aware that it is about HARD WAY of looking at things in life.

 

(Usually when I read an essay or critics, I have to re-read it because I don't want to forget anything, but rather to learn.)

Under the notion of human evolution I was thinking about emotional intelligence - a pattern which leads to our own development and growth.

I am always impressed by the people - biologists, photographers who are doing the research outside in the field with animals. It takes a lot of knowledge except the ones from the book. One has to be talented, has to "use the tools" for communicating with them. I'm referring to the capabilities which comes from one's sensibility, feeling, intuition.

When one's communicate, for example, with monkey or even gorilla, he or she might be able to sense them and in one point, one's can gain the notion of being connected to gorilla.

 

http://www.masters-of-fine-art-photography.com/02/artphotogallery/photographers/jill_greenberg001.html

Looking the photos of Jill Geenberg, I'm simply speechless.

 

Or the famous biologist who was killed by a spotted ray while he was wondering about her existence. He was stabbed in the heart.

Regarding his intelligence and abilities to communicate with the animals, the animals were being able to understand him? Because he knew how to speak emotionally to them.

 

In the end, if one is a self-conscious, then he is also conscious about other beings, right? Can one might be able actually to chasten a wild animal? Because if we all have the same ancestor, then we still have a capability written somewhere in our code to communicate with any animal that we desire.

This is how I see an evolution.

I believe in human evolution. I believe that people from time to time becomes more self-conscious and self-aware and passing through these kind of transformations are able to become conscious about other people and animals. But their mind is able to use that knowledge in order to hurt others but not opposite, I'm afraid. So our evolution is getting pretty slow. In the end, where are we heading? All religions are giving a different answers. Scientists are giving different too.

 

I find hardly to believe that I came from an ape. I believe I had transcended the notion of ape ancestor.

 

Some theories brings to a light how humans were developed from a reptile breed.

 

"Lorenz helps to show that there is inherent chaos or unpredictability in life." - I can only say that I agree totally with that cognition.

I have built my life through many unpredictable situations. And I like to follow this line from the past till now, finding myself more conscious, recognizing the role of other people too. Sometimes it is hard to pass through unpredictable situation, chasing the chain of events. But I like it. It is an adventure, in the end.

I hope you will post here a photos of exhibition. I can't imagine how the photos would look like. Or maybe even before installing. When you done one of the photo-collages, post it here.

Modern yellowish tick paper:

I can only recommend these kind of papers for Inkjet: From "Mediaware" Digital photo GB330 Gallery Board (330g);

Digital photo BP 220 Buttenpapier (210g)

Digital photo Canvas Pro Plus CPP 340

 

"EFI" for Inkjet and Laser print:

Efi Photo paper Water Color paper

 

I think you cannot find them in art shops, but rather in a Digital studios where you might print it.

"Girl with a Pearl Earring" - the movie about Vermeer's life. The photography simulates a Holland life style from 17 century. Here is original: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Jan_Vermeer_van_Delft_007.jpg

 

http://girl-with-a-pearl-earring.20m.com/Girl_with_a_Pearl%20Earring_image1.htm

 

And a photography: http://www.imdb.com/media/rm3626997760/tt0335119

 

http://www.girlwithapearlearringmovie.com/

 

I thought this kind of analogy might give you some ideas of how to create your own photographs that would simulate 16 century. Of course you can find something similar from 16 century.

 

A maps:

http://www.blupete.com/Hist/NovaScotiaBk1/Part1/Maps/MapCan1600.gif

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/images/vc004344.jpg

 

http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/treasures/trr009.html

 

"...The question is, how can one evoke past times (and events) through modern images?

 

I want the images of today's landscapes to evoke 400 years ago, how the land might have appeared to the explorers and to the indigenous inhabitants..."

 

You have visited the locations, right? It might be interested to use sepia toning and in B&W. You can install the red and dark yellow filters on a lens when shotting in B&W mode or using film. In this case a film might be better option. PhotoShop is necessary. Printing can be done on a modern yellowish tick papers.

As for ancient objects, I'd recommend you should try to visit a History museum and see how can they help you. Maybe you could photograph a pictures from their books on that theme. And later you could make a collage in a PS.

 

Nice project!

John,

Conceptual art works are popular today very much. But every work of art has to have some concept. Of course, one of these ideas presented here in Slideluckpotshow, shows the continuity of one situation - sequential ordering. Is it only a conceptual work, than? A conceptual performance?

 

Does a war photographer (from Magnum) perform conceptual work on a war field?

No, I couldn't get it. It is my primary philosophy of how to photograph profoundly.

Maybe you Zach or Bob could make me some copies and send it to me via my address. What do you say?

 

The quote of Ansel Adams:

?I usually have an immediate recognition of the potential image, and I have found that too much concern about matters such as conventional composition may take the edge off the first inclusive reaction. Recognition and visualization are often blended in a single moment of awareness.? (Adams, 1983, p.125.)