Photographer Paolo Pellegri in the project "Time in Turkey" from the Turkish newspaper Zaman.

In the project "Time in Turkey" photographers has been joined in order to shot non-touristic images from Turkey.

• Time in Turkey: Turkey from a Global Perspective.

René Burri - on photography - The Economist.

René Burri was born 1933 at Zurich, Switzerland and is member of Magnum agency.

• René Burri (article at English wikipedia).

Shadi Ghadirian: Exposition "Unveiled: New art from the middle east" @ saatchi-gallery 2009.

A few weeks ago in London at Saatchi Gallery I saw the work of the Iranian photographer Shadi Ghadirian in the group exhibition "Unveiled: New art from the middle east" 30 Janurary - 9 May 2009:

Shadi was born in Teheran in 1974 in Tehran, Iran. She studied photography and she works in the Museum of Photography of Tehran.

• Shadi Ghadirian @ Aeroplastics contemporary Gallery, Brussels.
• Photographs from the serie: Qajar / Like every day.
• Shadi Ghadirian @ en.wikipedia.org.

1933 - HCB photograph in Italy.

Two days ago I was in a Sunday market in London and I found a kiosk selling photographs of famous photographers ie: Bill Bradt, Robert Doisneau, Annie Liebovitz etc.. Searching the photos I found this photograph that according to the labeling was shot by Henri Cartier Bresson, 1933 in Italy. The concept of this photograph is similar with the concept of a photo of mine that we have already seen in a previous post (August 2002: Dimitris - Samothrace):

4-Jun-2008: Yannis Tzortzis, ‘green project: phase 1′ photographic exposition at Tio Ilar.

More about the Green Project 2008 you will find in the link: http://greenproject2008.com. I made this video in the opening of the photographic exhibition of Yannis Tzortzis at Tio Ilar.

2005: "The Beauty Project" a short film by photographer Steve Gatlin and Cory Pampalone.

"With the darkness of night serving as his studio, an enigmatic photographer uses everyday places and the human form to create his version of beauty in the world around him. For the past few years Steve Gatlin has been shooting photographs of nude people in public places at night. The photographs encompass what he calls The Beauty Project, an exploration of light, motion and the human form." text by sfgatlin.The above short film is aesthetically excellent. Something that I didn't like in the film, is that the photographic work of Steve Gatlin we see it in some short scenes and only at the ending titles we can see some his work. In the web site of Steve Gatlin and the web site http://www.thebeautyproject.com/ you can see his photos: Some biographic details of Steve Gatlin:

"Steve Gatlin was born in 1974 and grew up in South Florida until he moved away from home at the age of 18.

His first experience in photography came when he was nine and won a disk camera at a birthday party for one of his classmates. Steve used that camera regularly and would often have film developed that he had shot around the neighborhood. Ever since then Steve has always had a camera in hand and seen the world through its lens."

25-May-2008: Interview with my friend / photographer Dan Turcu, Satu Mare, Romania.

Oveview of this 14minutes video (it is in English language): Dan Turcu is my friend since 1993. We were colleagues in the technical university of Bucharest. Today Dan Turcu works as a freelance photographer in Satu Mare, Romania (this city is at the boarders between Romania and Hungary/Ukraine). Dan Turcu has his own photographic studio and he makes photographic albums of students that they finished their high school. One of the "secrets" of Dan's work is that he modifies the photographs using a photo-editing software. In his modified photos, even an "ugly" person looks beautiful. The students like these modifications and they buy his photos.

Technical details of the video: We used the high definition camera του Dan, in his home on Sunday 25-May-2008. Unfortunately we didn't have enough time (just 2 hours because I had to rush and catch a train). Dan recently bought an HD-camera and a blue-ray recorder in order to make videos of weddings. We made this video together with Dan in order to explain to Dan how we make a video (shooting, thinking about story-telling etc).

We already saw in a previous post a photo of Dan from 1994:

Dan Turcu 1994 :-).

face2faceproject.com

As we already seen in a previous post March 2007: face2faceproject.com the work of photographers JR + marco in Israel, the face2face project (the site don't work with firefox, needs explorer ;-(). Their idea was to make funny portraits of Jews and Palestinians using wide-angle 28mm lens and expose them on the Palestinian wall and the in Israel.

JR + marco's 28 millimeter project: Using a wide-angle lens (ie. 28mm) you have both barrel and perspective distortion. So JR + marco are using 28mm lens in order their portraits to look funny but also like caricatures. The above photograph is from Paris where they recently exposed their portraits from Israel. More photos from this exposition you can see at the post: JR + marco from the blog BEE-ZEE.

The next video is about a previous work of photographers: JR + marco. Using 28mm lenses they shot funny portraits of immigrants living in ghetto areas in France. Note: When you shoot portraits using a 28mm lens you have to be very close to the face as you can see in the video.

The following video is from the project face2face project at the wall of Palestine.

The following video is from their exposition in Paris.

Aug-2007: 2 photographers in Guča/Serbia, different aesthetics - Crhristo Lamprinidis.

A few days ago I received a comment in the Greek version of this blog in the post: "Guča - Serbia Aug-2007: Black & white images, part 5/5 from Christos "I think that we were photographing togehter..!"

Looking to the photos of Christos from Guča I see that both of us we were at the brass band festival in Serbia and in 2 situations we were photographing together without knowing each other. Since we didn't met in Serbia, we finally met through internet ;-).

The photographs of Christos from Guča (and a short biography of him) there are in his web site http://www.photofolio.gr/ (unfortunately in Greek language only):

Lets see some of the photos that we shot together: Do you remember the following photo from my post: "Guča/Serbia Aug-2007: Black and white images, part 5/5."?
Here are 2 photographs from Christos from the same dancer. Some differences in the photos (also aesthetically) is in the way that they have been shoot. I used normal/standard lens but Christos used telephoto/zoom-lens.

Do you remember the following photo from my post: "Guča/Serbia Aug-2007: Black and white images, part 2/5."?

Here is a photo of Christs of the same subject. My photographs are with normal/standard lens but Christos used wideangle lens. Here are 2 photographs that you can see also me doing photoing ;-), shooting the above images ;-).

The photographer: Mimi Chakarova.

Guguletu township, South Africa, 2000.

When we enter to the personal web-site of Mimi Chakarova we see this photograph with the following interesting dialog:

Can I take you a picture?
For what?
To show others how you live.
Will they come here and make it better?
I don't know.. Probably not.
Why you want to shoot an old man anyway?
Because history is written on your face.
Go ahead if it pleases you.
What pleases you?
I don't remember.

Mimi Chakarova is doing documentary photography, but she has very nice aesthetics in here photographs. The following photographs are some of her photographs from the personal web-site.

Beijing, China 2005.Moldova 2004.

Moldova 2004.

Psychiatric ward, Srinagar, Kashmir 2003.

Delhi, India, 2003

Ghana, 2002.

Cuba 2001.

Port Maria, Jamaica, 1999.

From this screen shot from the video: Dubai Night Secrets we see Mimi Chakarova (right).

A short biograph of the photographer Mimi Chakarova is from here personal web-site:

Mimi Chakarova has been teaching photography at U.C. Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism for 10 years. Chakarova is the recipient of the 2003 Dorothea Lange Fellowship for documentary photography and the 2005 Magnum Photos Inge Morath Award for her photo work on trafficking in Eastern Europe, which she has reported on for the last four years.

Looking to Mimi in the photograph I was curious to find out her age which is not mentioned in her biography. Searching to internet if found also this biography:

When Mimi Chakarova's family left her native Bulgaria and migrated to Baltimore in 1989, the teenager felt alone and out of place. Desperate to find a niche, she saved her money, bought a simple point-and-shoot camera, and started taking pictures. "Baltimore was a very segregated town, both economically and ethnically," recalls Chakarova, now a lecturer in the Graduate School of Journalism. "My family was both poor and foreign, so we struggled. Since I couldn't speak English, I used the camera as a way to communicate." Her unique ability to communicate through photography has earned Chakarova the 2003 Dorothea Lange Fellowship. ...

So we read that Mimi was Bulgarian and in 1989 was teenager, thus today is around 30-35 years old. Also she has been grown up in the ex-communist regime of Bulgaria.

Watch the video Dubai: Night Secrets but also the amazing slide-show with photographs from Moldova (very beautiful photographs). The photographer combines excellent photographs with documentation.

• Dubai: Night Secrets, The oldest profession in the newest playground.
• Moldova Price of Sex: Slide Show with narration.
• Moldova Price of Sex: Slide Show without narration.

An interesting quote of the interview of the photographer about her silde show "Moldova Price of Sex" is:

"To be successful, my photos must not only educate people, but motivate them to take action." Mimi Chakarova

Inside the video Dubai: Night Secrets we can see the film camera of Mimi Chakarova. It is a Leica M series (we cannot see the exact model).

This is an example of Leica M7 film camera. The body of this camera cost around 2.708€ and a lens for that body, ie. SUMMILUX-M 50 mm f/1.4 cost around 2550€.

27-May-2007: Abandoned house in Agridia (Tepeköy ), Gökçeada, Turkey. Form and content in photography, Nikos Economopoulos.

Lately I was discussing with a friend what is form in the photography and what is a formalistic photograph. These two photos are examples of formalistic photographs. These photos are from an abandoned house in Agridia (Tepeköy), in Gökçeada island, Turkey. Let's see the aesthetics of this photographs:

Form:

The interesting point in that photographs are the shadows/lights, the general composition and the texture of the abandoned house. So you say that the content in these photos is missing and they are interesting mostly for their form.

Angle:

Both photographs has been shot from the same point but with a different lens. In the first photo a 24mm (wide-angle) lens has been used and in the second photograph a 50mm (normal) lens. We can see the different aesthetic result. Personally in my pictures I like a lot the aesthetics of the 50mm (normal) lens, but here I think that is more interesting the composition made with the 24mm lens.

Form + Content:

Probably a good photo should have good form with content (and of course shot from a good angle). A good formalist photographs can be impressive only in first views. The next photograph is from the Greek magnum photographer Niko Economopoulo (shot in 1993 in Epirus). This photo combines both good form and interesting content (= it is an excellent photo ;).

When I look in good photos like this one you realize how average photos I make ;-). More about the photographer you can find in the link: http://www.ontheroad.gr/ and to the link http://www.magnumphotos.com.

March 2007: SiXT Advertisement, in airport in Germany.

Last March (2007) I was travelling in Germany and these photos are from an advertisement of car-rental company SiXT in the airport. We see several police officers from different countries/uniforms.

I find these photographs very interesting, and I like most the expressions of the portraits in these photos. All the photographs have a sense of humour. ;-)

The large grain in the photographs is because of my black & white film that I have used. General speaking the large grain in the portrait photography is a nice effect.

Update 3-Jul-2007: The translation from German language of the advertisement is "Natural enemies of our customers. (And how they become friends anyway)".

Update: 13-Sep-2007: The advertisement as it is presented by the web site of the SiXT company.

March 2007: face2faceproject.com

FACE2FACE: An interesting photographic project by French photographer JR and African Marco. The following text is from the project web site:

When we met in 2005, we decided to go together in the Middle-East to figure out why Palestinians and Israelis couldn't find a way to get along together. We then traveled across the Israeli and Palestinian cities without speaking much. Just looking to this world with amazement. This holly place for Judaism, Christianity and Islam. This tiny area where you can see mountains, sea, deserts and lakes, love and hate, hope and despair embedded together.

After a week, we had a conclusion with the same words: these people look the same; they speak almost the same language, like twin brothers raised in different families. A religious covered woman has her twin sister on the other side. A farmer, a taxi driver, a teacher, has his twin brother in front of him. And he his endlessly fighting with him. It's obvious, but they don't see that. We must put them face to face. They will realize. We want that, at last, everyone laughs and thinks when he sees the portrait of the other and his own portrait.
The Face2Face project is to make portraits of Palestinians and Israelis doing the same job and to post them face to face, in huge formats, in unavoidable places, on the Israeli and the Palestinian sides.
In a very sensitive context, we need to be clear. We are in favor of a solution for which two countries, Israel and Palestine would live peacefully within safe and internationally recognized borders.
All the bilateral peace projects (Clinton/Taba, Ayalon/Nussibeh, Geneva Accords) are converging in the same direction. We can be optimistic. We hope that this project will contribute to a better understanding between Israelis and Palestinians.