The Dark Side of Photography (Part 2)

Igor Posner

I recently came across the work of Igor Posner and more precisely his series ‘St Petersburg 2006-2009’. It immediately reminded me of Ackerman’s images. Igor Posner was born in St. Petersburg (Leningrad), Russia. He now lives between the US and Russia and I think this detail has a great influence or maybe is a great explanation to his work. Just like Ackerman’s Poland, Posner’s Russia is dark, moving, but also contemplative and sad. With portraits, street scenes, snapshots of landscapes, Igor Posner offers an amazing variety of photographs and techniques that form a coherent intriguing body of work.

Posner says that ‘this place has always been overwhelmed with hopes and dreams, thus any disillusionment here is only natural.’ And this is exactly what you feel when seeing his images. Despite the fact that they are personal blurred memories of his childhood he manages to engage us in his world. 

 

View his essay in Burn Magazine:  www.burnmagazine.org

 More on Igor Posner: igorposner.net

Antoine d’Agata

While the previous two photographers both illustrate and transcend reality in a powerful and partially autobiographic way, the photographer who takes his obsessive anxiety to the highest possible level has to be Antoine d’Agata.
Antoine d’Agata travels in the darkness of his stories, in his own darkness and fully lives the violent sexual life of his subjects. He lives at night and wanders like a phantom in dark streets and behind closed doors. The stories he tells are about sex, orgasm, love and passion. But they’re also about obsession, sickness, isolation, depression, brutality and death.

The images that he brings back from his experiences are unusual, vibrant, artistic but they explore limits that we’re not sure should be reached. His actions become his art, and in the name of Art he lives an unauthorized life between drugs, violence, and prostitution. With Antoine d’Agata we’re not sure if his extreme lifestyle is the result of his artistic vision or if photography is an excuse for his actions. The limits between apology and denunciation are blurred. But Antoine d’Agata had this life style when Nan Goldin picked him up on the streets of New York, so way before he even started to photograph. Does the fact that he photographs his own sexual relationships with prostitutes and his drug addiction make it worse? I don’t think so. And anyway the images that result from his actions are incredible, unique, moving. Of course the prude critics will cry out in scandal, but let’s stop judging the man and focus on his talent to really see the dark beauty of his work, that we could call Art.

‘A photograph is nothing but a lie. The space is cut off, the time manipulated. They are two uncontrollably false appearances of an image condemned to choose between hypocrisy ­ and good conscience ­ and being fake.’

‘I try to distance myself from a certain type of documentary photography that often avails itself of symbols that are too easy to read and assimilate in order to present a complex reality in a balance that is endlessly discussed over and over between photography as an instrument of documentation and photography as being completely subjective.’

Mala noche 1991-1997

Mala noche 1991-1997

Hometown (1998-2000) - Marseille

Hometown (1998-2000) - Marseille

Vortex, Tijuana 2000

Cambodge 2007

Aka Ana 2008

More on Antoine d'Agata: www.magnumphotos.com or documentsdartistes.org
Watch the trailer for The Cambodian room. Situations with Anoine d'Agata: www.youtube.com

Varanasi, holy city for photographers (Part 3)

‘  I am the taste of water, the light of the sun and the moon, the syllable om in the Vedic mantras; I am the sound in ether and ability in man.
  I am the original fragrance of the earth, and I am the heat in fire. I am the life of all that lives, and I am the penances of all ascetics.’
Bagabat Gita, 7 8-9

Life and death meet in the waters of the Ganges in Varanasi. There are around 100 ghats (series of steps leading down to the water) and from dawn to night they are bustling with activity. The holy river is the center of everything: morning prayers to the rising sun, purification baths, floating donations and immersed ashes. Beautiful, mystical, frightening, polluted, the Ganges is the perfect representation of our fascination for India and Varanasi. The following 2 series of photographs illustrations of its contractions. 

James Hervey   

The images of James Hervey (an English photographer and traveler who lives in Paris) perfectly reflect the quiet and impenetrable beauty of the river. For him his images are an invitation to the country rather than a way to describe it. However I feel that they describe the atmosphere, the fervor, the relationship between the pilgrims and water with precision. They are moody, soft and peaceful but also intense, enigmatic and spiritual. James Hervey takes part in the local traditions with empathy and respect and offers a wonderful immersion in Varanasi while creating true poetry.

More on James Hervey:

His website: www.hervey.co.uk

His flickr gallery: www.flickr.com/photos/jameshervey/

A video in Le Monde (French only): medias.lemonde.fr/

Giulio Di Sturco

Giulio Di Sturco is a 30 year old Italian photographer working for the VII photo agency. As a photojournalist his approach to India and of course Varanasi is very different than an artistic vision of the place. As mentioned in the introduction to his series “the great mother’, ‘the recent report of a U.S. agency forecasts, by 2030, the death of Indian sacred river because of global warming, water pollution and construction of dams along the river. Ganges death not only will ravage the economy of that area but, moreover, it will affect deeply the local people’s spiritual life, with its ancient rituals and traditions.’ His striking images take us back to a sad reality. While we can still feel the spirituality of the place, we start to notice details of pollution and to understand the tragedy taking place behind the religious fervor. Here we discover the other face of Varanasi devastated by the negligence and tradition of its country and its people. Accumulation of garbage and landscapes of desolation leave us with a taste of bitterness and a real fear for this place that we believed timeless and eternal.

  More on Giulio Di Sturco:www.giuliodisturco.it

Varanasi, holy city for photographers (Part 1)

Varanasi, also called Benares, Banaras or Kashi, is the holiest city in the world for Hindus and Jains. It’s also the place where Buddhism was founded. Every year countless pilgrims visit the city by the Ganges to remit their sins or to die and release their souls for eternity.

City of Shiva, City of lights, City of temples. Varanasi with its labyrinth streets, its ghats on the river shores, its poetic fog, and its mystical spirit is also the destination of pilgrimage for many photographers visiting India. And of course every person who has crossed this place once in their life can understand. There is something magic about Varanasi. Not just something that you see but something that you feel. And that’s where the real challenge for photographers is.

In a way it’s easy to take good pictures there, there is so much going on, the place is so extraordinary that everyone can capture incredible moments and unbelievable scenes. But how do you describe its strange beauty and celestial energy? How do you give a new vision of a place that has been photographed so many times that it became its own stereotype? How do you show its soul?

Many photographers have tried; here are a few who succeeded in creating their own story about the city of thousands histories and faces.

The Magnum Photographers and Benares

Marc Riboud, 1956. After bathing in the Ganges.

Over the years many Magnum photographers have given their own interpretation of Benares. From Italian photographer Ferdinando Scienna with his contrasted black and white or subtle color images to Steve McCurry with his vibrant vision of the world, they have contributed in building the universal image of the city. This couldn't be done in one visit only. They had to come back several times to start understanding the essence of this Indian world. Steve McCurry has been to India 75 times and he admits to have only scratched the surface. Benares feels like the place where all "Indianity" comes together. It feels like a theater where every subject - pilgrims, children, dogs, cows, gods and death - are on stage. Year after year Magnum photographers have managed to make their way back stage to tell the true story of the holy city. 

Bruce Gilden. Varanasi. 1998. Dog on Banaras street curb.

Steve McCurry. Varanasi. 1996. Floating offerings.

Steve McCurry. 1996. Astrologer.

Steve McCurry. 1996. Boatman on the Ganges River.

Steve McCurry. Varanasi. 2010.

Ferdinando Scianna 1972. beggars

Ferdinando Scienna 1972

Ferdinando Scienna 1972. Dog on the ghat.

Ferdinando Scienna 1997

Ferdinando Scienna 1997

Ferdinando Scienna 1997. Cremation on the ghat

 

In 1985, 86 and 87, photographer Carl De Keyser has also traveled India to give his own interpretation of this incredible country. He chose to travel during the Monsoon with the objective of producing ‘artistically responsible images’. The images he brought back from these trips revealed him before he joined Magnum agency. Of course he spent some time in Varanasi, and his pictures give a new perspective of the place where movement and lights create an intangible environment between dream and reality. He reveals images of a complex society, of a profound belief between optimism, resignation and mysticism. Carl De Keyser ‘wants to question the images that are in our memory. There is always a double level in [his] work; what [we] see is true and at the same time not true.’

Carl de Keyser - 1986

Carl de Keyser - 1985

Carl de Keyser - 1985

Carl de Keyser - 1985

Carl de Keyser - 1986

 Check Magnum website for further details on these photographers: magnumphotos.com

An evening with Leah Gordon… in Haiti.

Once a year for Mardi Gras, as in many places around the world, the town of Jacmel (South coast of Haiti) dresses up and goes to the streets. But what makes it so special in Jacmel is that Kanaval here is a way for the people to relive their own history - the History of the people of Haiti. 

With their papier-mâché masks, charcoal and syrup painted bodies, and traditional home made costumes, the people of Jacmel transform into these grotesque, mystical, intriguing, sometimes frightening characters to retell their story and to remember. From generation to generation they keep the tradition alive. They tell about slave revolts, political history, aids, economic issues, natural disasters and of course Vodou. Rather than a parade with loud music and sexy dancing, it’s chaos and creative improvisation with groups of performers and little theatrical stories in every street corner.

Every year since 1995 Leah Gordon has taken part in this chaotic experience to give her own very personal testimony. Kanaval is the book that says it all.

Far from trying to capture the live effervescence of the streets and the perfect moment of craziness, she walks the streets with her 50 year old Rolleicord and asks the participants to stop for her in Creole. Her camera is totally manual, the process is slow and when people accept to have their portrait taken they have to be patient. In a world where everything goes fast, where snapshots of street life became so easy, Leah Gordon makes time stops around her. She sets up a little old fashion street studio.  This creates a gap between her and her subject, a moment of silence and mutual examination during which the characters step out to reveal their souls. Far from all the images of Haiti published by the media since the earthquake, her photographs make us understand the humanity, the suffering and the pride of these strong people. They show the reality behind the masks.

I met Leah Gordon last week at a book-signing event at SF Camerawork. Over a glass of wine we had time to share a few words about the rain, London, Rock & Roll in the 80s, The Arcade Fire, Carnivals, her intimate passionate and nearly mystical relationship with her Rolleicord, film photography and the people of Haiti.

"... if you scrutinize reality closely enough, if in some way you really, really get to it, it becomes fantastic. You know that it really is totally fantastic that we look like this and you sometimes see that very clearly in a photograph."

- Diane Arbus (as cited in Kanaval)

 

Kanaval by Leah Gordon is published by Soul Jazz Publishing.You can also get the book on amazon.com. 

Learn more about Leah Gordon on  www.leahgordon.co.uk

An unusual sports photographer: Thomasz Gudzowaty

You might have already heard of Thomasz Gudzowaty, a photographer from Warsow (1971). He has won 2^nd prize again this year in the World Press Sports stories awards for his essay ‘Mexico’s Car Frenzy.’ And it’s already the eighth time that he wins a World Press Award!

 

He has the talent to transform sports images into social documentary essays. Using traditional black and white his images tell the stories of people in love with their sports. Not celebrity soccer or basketball players but non-famous everyday people engaged in atypical, intriguing sometimes mystical sports. Through his work and the proximity he creates with his subjects he draws strong portraits of modern heroes devoted to their arts: hard work, sweat, strength, willpower, self-control, passion. It’s a lesson of life to learn from these people from around the world.

It’s also a lesson of Fine Art Photography. The Art of creating amazing elegant sport images, the Art of telling stories of our times in black and white, the Art of sharing emotions by capturing moments of life. 

Wuqiao Acrobats

Wuqiao Acrobats

Shaolin Temple

Shaolin Temple

Freerunning - The Art of Movement

Freerunning - The Art of Movement

Urban Golf in India

Urban Golf in India

 More amazing images and incredible stories on: www.gudzowaty.com