Carte Blanche Photography: Summer

Showing posts with label Summer. Show all posts

Thursday, October 20, 2011

It’s always Summer… somewhere (Part 3)

Third and last part of my investigation into ‘Summer’ photography. Entertaining, sunny, relaxing, crowded, popular, we love it or we hate it: the beach is an inspiration for many photographers. It attracts everyone everywhere on the planet and its universality makes it an interesting and unavoidable social phenomenon to observe and analyze. So far we’ve been to Italy, France, China, Czech Republic, Spain and Brazil. To finish our around the world trip, let’s see what going to the beach means for people in Holland, the UK and the US.

Isabella Rozendaal

As a kid in France I used to travel every summer with my parents to one of the French or Spanish coasts to enjoy a month by the sea. Like a ritual, every year we would pack the car and drive south to reach a new and sunnier destination. It was not about the road trip but more about the stay: the tent, the swimming pool or the beach where all the kids would meet everyday, the lunches and dinners outdoors, my dad listening to the ‘Tour de France’ on his radio and my mum reading a book and gossiping with our campsite neighbors. In a book called ‘En masse, how Holland holidays’ that is exactly what Isabella Rozendaal depicts with humor and honesty. Of course I also remember the Dutch “invading” French or Spanish campsites every summer. It was for us a good way to practice our English!

Isabella Rozendaal

More: http://www.isabellarozendaal.com/en-masse/

Chloe Dewe Mathews

A quick glimpse at Chloe Dewe Mathews images and you might think you’re somewhere in Israel. As much as Gilian Laub’s images of Tel Aviv (that you might have discovered last week on Time: http://lightbox.time.com/2011/10/10/israeli-beach-gillian-laub/#13) might shake up a few clichés about Jewish people and could have been taken in Spain or Rio, Chloe Dewe Mathews’photographs reveal a totally unknown part of England. ‘Hasidic holiday’ is about the small seaside town of Aberystwyth in Wales. Every summer for the last 20 years it has become the meeting place of the British orthodox Jewish community looking for a peaceful retreat far from the noisy partying British crowds. Chloe’s images show us once again how aesthetic and artistic beauty can transcend a documentary style and reveal the power of photography.
You should also check out her compelling series Caspian, where she introduces us to life near the Caspian Sea, the world largest inland sea, between Asia and Europe.

Chloe Dewe Mathews

More: http://www.chloedewemathews.com/

Nguan

When you think about American beaches, what comes to mind? Miami, Hawaii, Venice beach, Santa Cruz maybe. Most foreigners and tourists don’t know that there is a beach in New York. And here it is: Coney Island, Brooklyn, New York City. It should probably have a sign at the entrance that says ‘Not for tourists’ because that is how it feels when you look at Nguan’s photographs. Nguan takes pictures at the beach as he does in the streets, sometimes invisible, sometimes with people’s approval. Candid, spot on, humoristic, colorful, his photographs show life and humanity.

Nguan

Friday, October 7, 2011

It’s always Summer… somewhere (Part 2)

Summer is already over in SF. The days are getting shorter, the rain has started, but the good thing about San Francisco is that it’s never winter either… Anyway, after viewing the beach from a distance, I wanted to get closer, to get to know the people, to put a face on those vacationers that we often to easily accuse of participating in mass tourism. Guess what? It’s everyone… You, me, us. Everyone, everywhere. Isn’t it the beauty of the beach? It’s open, it’s free, it’s there for us to enjoy. Have you noticed how the beach is probably the most multicultural place? How for once no matter your age, your nationality, your sex, your race, your political or religious views, you can all enjoy an activity together, or should I say next to each other?

Evzen Sobek

In Life in Blue, Evzen Sobek started to document the vacations of groups of people, who spend weeks and sometimes months on the banks of a reservoir in the southeastern tip of the Czech Republic. He tried to understand why they go there and regroup in a not particularly attractive environment. He is now taking a step further as he is pursuing his ongoing ethnographic project throughout Europe, ‘Europe in Blue’. With the same curiosity, he uses his Hasselbald to approach and make contact with people. Raw, with humor, sometimes with irony, his images depict the faces of Europeans enjoying time together and explore the reasons behind this local yet universal social phenomenon of beach vacations.

Evzen Sobek, Life in Blue

Evzen Sobek, Europe in Blue

Friday, September 30, 2011

It’s always Summer… somewhere (Part 1)

When I moved to the US last winter, I had this idea of California as year round warm and sunny place. And to be honest, it’s true if you think about LA or even about the Silicon Valley, but I decided to move to San Francisco, and that’s a completely different story! I guess in a way it reminds me of my native French Brittany with warmer winters, which is not a bad thing…
Anyway they say it’s never summer in San Francisco and that’s partly true, but the last couple of days have been so hot and sunny (some say too hot for the locals!) I guess this is finally our Indian summer. These few bright days gave me the desire to explore the world and enjoy a few vacation days at the beach… So here we are, embarking for moments of pure sunshine and touristic entertainment…

Massimo Vitali

To get into conditions for our summer trip, there is no better way than immersing in Massimo Vitali’s work. Click on the link to his website and you’ll hear the movement of the Ocean and the waves running against the sand… (Yes, I mean it literally!) Scroll through his portfolio and you’ll feel the sunshine on your body, the brilliant Mediterranean light in your eyes, you’ll hear the laughs of people playing in water, the shout of the ice cream seller…
But Massimo Vitali’s images are much more than pretty beach images. The saturated shores and other vacation spots disappear to reveal their occasional inhabitants. In a décor where the sand is so white and the water so turquoise, the intrigue is in the critique of the role played by the crowd. An anonymous crowd that surely reveals itself to viewers lucky enough to see these amazing photographs printed as large-scale murals. But also a crowd that transforms these naturally beautiful landscapes in overwhelming, maybe even claustrophobic environments… What does it reveal? Maybe the necessity to be surrounded by our peers? Maybe a certain non-sense in our ability to follow normality at the expense of our freedom and space?

Massimo Vitali

Also check out his other projects (pools, discos, and more…) on http://www.massimovitali.com/

Zhang Xiao

Through his project ‘Coastline’ Zhang Xiao offers a new perspective on China by confronting us to unusual photographs of Chinese’ leisure activities. In a way, he brings us closer to a population not that different from us. Many Chinese leave their countryside to search for an easier life by the coasts and we see them here having fun and practicing usual beach activities.
Zhang Xiao describes the coasts as ‘beautiful and painful’ and I guess we can say the same thing about his photographs. There is a beautiful melancholy in his images created by both the impenetrable foggy landscapes and the people’s attitudes. And there is something beautifully soft, gentle, humble in the way he photographs his compatriots. But there is also something painful in the sometimes-deserted landscapes, in the construction sites that represent the speed of Chinese development, on some sad faces. Maybe a feeling of quiet loneliness, of nostalgia that makes us uncomfortable because we’re not sure we’re allowed to smile to some situations that have a definite sense of humor…

Zhang Xiao, Coastline

Watch a video presenting the project here:www.youtube.com

More on Zhang Xiao: http://www.zhangxiaophoto.com

Patrick Smith

Did you know that “65% of the French population gathers together during 2 months on 3% of the territory”? This stat seems extremely exaggerated, but what it tells is a reality. And obviously a similar phenomenon happens in many countries around the world. This is this phenomenon that Patrick Smith has decided to capture in his series called 'leisure territories'. Of course he depicts the amusement and enjoyment of the holidaymakers but also he questions our relationship to tourism and the irreversible damages that it causes to the environment. Mass Tourism changes the face of the planet leaving permanent scars on the coastlines: a tall building to welcome the vacationers, a new shopping mall right by the beach, a man-altered beach to replace rocks by sand… Our leisure and pleasure is the priority, the impact it has on the environment is too often a secondary consideration. France is not the worse country when it comes to preserving its coastlines, but the effects can be subtle, and by showing us our ‘industrial’ intrusion on natural environments without only showing the damage Patrick Smith asked us to just think about our exploitive interaction with the environment. For how long can paradise beaches stay paradises?