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Today was grey and cold, so here is a bit of brown for somebody I miss tonight.
While reading image/photo theory for my PhD (from now on referred to as “the bloody thing”), I came across some pearls of wisdom that I will randomly share. Consider the following one from 1614 encyclopedia entry on decoration of bedrooms. From The power of imagesby David Freedberg. Admittedly it is completely usless for “the bloody thing”.
If you have trouble reading text click here for a larger pic or here for other examples of the same belief.
I don’t know what is your take on the subject of graffiti. I am currently quite fond of them, particularly if they are not just some obscene sketches and mindless rants. It seems to me that Ljubljana is currently under graffiti attack (or is it just me noticing them more?) and a lot of them are really well done.
I have been photographing them for some time now and a recent post by Razzbuffnik spurred me into posting them. I mostly focus mostly on those that depict people as in a way, for me they represent a certain (though admittedly obscure) portrait of city’s inhabitants, a sort of a giant public photo album.
I am still fascinated by the documentary film Helvetica by Gary Hustwit that I saw yesterday. Yes, it is a documentary film about typography, about one of the most enduring and attractive types ever designed. One of the things that struck me was its pure omnipresence. Helvetica type is literally everywhere, you will find it on garbage trucks, subway signs and corporate identities of multinational corporations. And at the first sight you won’t even notice it is the same type. I for one consider myself to have an eye for obscure details and that kind of stuff but I was stunned. Since lots of shots in the film are from New York, I went through photographs of my this year’s visit to the city and sure, there it was, Helvetica, looking at me from more than a dozen of photographs. Hence the little homage pic.
In any event, the film is really worth seeing, it is well done, runs very smoothly and offers a brilliant interplay pro and contra statements from an interesting mix of interviewers of different generations, various styles and gradations of fame. And it is not just some wish-wash babble, its a bunch of people really contemplating about design.
Was a bit blue today, it’s at least 30 degrees Celsius outside and I am apparently catching a cold.
You can expect more photographs themed by colours in the near future.
Yesterday we passed a circus that has stirred a lot of interest among Kamnik’s smallest inhabitants. You should have heard Tamara’s excitement when she spotted one of the camels. Apparently, this circus was really made to make people happy regardless of their age - I for instance was thrilled to get an unexpected motif for my photo project on circus posters. Here are some sample images of the project.
I am still considering the possibility of doing a bit of hand colouring on the finalised prints, perhaps just a detail here (like on the last thumbnail) or there but at the moment, I’m leaning more toward pure black and white. Any comments on this are appreciated.
There is a peculiar courtyard building on Eipprova street in downtown Ljubljana. If you have the chance, it’s worth peaking because it will transport you to another time. Or place. Or medium. I always feel as if I had entered a scene from my favorite comic book Alan Ford. The place looks almost exactly like this, even the caption suits the real building. Be as it may, the peculiar place became an object of fascination and a photo project by a young Austrian photographer Anita Strasser who documented the building and its residents. The photographs of this “urban ethnology” project are currently exhibited on the spot and in Slovene ethnographic museum. I plan on using one or two vistas from the place for my own “urban ethnology” project that is about rural nature of Slovene capital, of its rustic residue. Like in the pic below.
My quarantine days are slowly coming to an end, at least I hope so. Although I have not been idle, the days of isolation have left me with little exciting things to share. Today I went over some older files and dug out this little tribute to W. Eugene Smith. Some of you might be familiar with his monumental and inspiring Pittsburgh project, part of which included photographs of the unusual street names of the city. The Gold-Water corner is in a run down part of Dumbo, NYC.
Come to think of it, Smith would have done it in black and white. I think I actually prefer it in black and white. How about you folks?
Just a little black-eye sight from my way to work - love love love love parking ticket love love.
It was about time my friends, for a little drowning by numbers. To tell you the truth, I would have taken the shot without numbers as well, I like the parallel colour planes and grids.
