Photographya: 2004

1 de dezembro de 2004

23 de novembro de 2004

Bruno Bisang publicou um livro "Exposure" na qual apresenta "a record of women's radiance" que representa a crença em que "every woman possesses a fount of femininity and unique sensuality".

A sua galeria pode ser vista em BrunoBisang.com

Bruno Bisang was born in 1952 and spent much of his youth in Ascona, a picturesque little town in the Italian speaking part of Switzerland. When he was 19 he attended the School of Applied Arts for Photography in Zurich, wich was followed by a photographic apprenticeship. Since 1979 Bruno Bisang has worked as a freelance photographer, first in Zurich, and then for a time in Milan and Munich. Now he works between Milan, New York, Zurich and Paris for a renowned clientele.

The milestones of his carrier are marked by customers such as 'Officiel de la Couture', 'Femme', 'Vital', 'Cosmopolitan',' Madame Figaro', 'Vogue Homme', 'Air France Madame', 'Max', 'Photo', 'GQ', 'Amica', 'Deutsche Vogue', 'Parfum Rochas', 'Guerlain', 'Wolford', 'Swish', 'Chaumet', 'Sergio Rossi', Triumpf', 'Palmers', 'Ebel', 'Chanel', 'Givenchy', 'Cacharel', 'Vogue Gioiello', 'Chopard', 'Mauboussin' and many more.

8 de outubro de 2004

Helmut Newton

Este blog pecou, mas vai-se redimir.

Até hoje não falei do grande mestre da fotografia vulgar (segundo as suas próprias palavras). Aqui vai a minha homenagem.

HELMUT NEWTON (1920-2004) (German)

Now an Australian, Helmut Newton was born in Berlin on October 31st, 1920.

After fighting in the Second World War with the Australian army, he moves to Paris in 1957, where he begins working as a professional photographer.

As a fashion and female nude photographer, he appears in the most important magazines such as "Vogue", "Elle", "Queen", "Stern" and "Playboy". Since 1981 he lives in Monte Carlo.

Newton is a master of beauty and cultivates an extremely personal erotic vision. He says so himself: "I am superficial, my images aren't deep. Good taste is the anti-fashion, the anti-photo, the anti-woman, the anti-eroticism. Vulgarity is life, is fun, the desire for extreme reactions."

The prevailing scenery in his photos are beaches, fashion, or the halls and rooms of large hotels. Although his eroticism is superficiality, taken to extremes, the plasticity of the work is wonderful.

His models, cold, severe and disturbing are the exact opposite of Hamilton's - which are delicate and fragile.

His greatness lies in his unique vision of the ?erotic? in photography.

Among his published works, we can cite "White Woman", "Sleepless Nights" and "Big Nudes".

Died January 23, 2004 in an automobile accident in Los Angeles.

Cyberwomen 1, 2000

Cyberwomen 3, 2000

Domestic Nude VI and Art Dealer, Pacific Palisades, California 1992

David Lynch and Isabella Rossellini

6 de outubro de 2004

Adivinha quem voltou??

Life is back!

Agora só me falta arranjar uma maneira de a comprar aqui em Portugal :(

The photographic journal Life returns to US news-stands Friday with its backers hoping to restore its former glory. The photo journal disappeared from news-stands in 1972 and a short-lived revival in 2000 failed to match its heyday circulation which spanned from the 1930s to the 1960s.

However, a fresh bid to revive Life will see it hit news-stands as a supplement with over 70 newspapers around the U.S. Initial circulation is pegged at 12 million in its classic format, with the same red and white Life logo. Screen godess Monroe will not grace the cover on Friday, but the actress Sarah Jessica Parker, star of the popular television series "Sex and the City."

Informative and entertaining, humourous and serious, the original Life magazine employed some of the world's most renowned photographers whose pictures marked an era. Robert Capa snapped the Allied D-Day landings on the beaches at Normandy. Life's 1930s photos of immigrants are reputed to have inspired John Steinbeck's novel "The Grapes of Wrath".

Richard Avedon

Vendo estes últimos três posts, parece que este é um blog de necrologia, não devia ser o caso, mas este tem sido um mau ano para a fotografia...

Richard Avedon, the revolutionary photographer who redefined fashion photography as an art form while achieving critical acclaim through his stark black-and-white portraits of the powerful and celebrated, died Friday. He was 81.

Avedon suffered a brain hemorrhage last month while on assignment in San Antonio, Texas, for The New Yorker, taking pictures for a piece called "On Democracy." He spent months on the project, shooting politicians, delegates and citizens from around the country.

He died at Methodist Hospital, said Perri Dorset, a spokeswoman for the magazine.

Avedon's influence on photography was immense, and his sensuous fashion work helped create the era of supermodels like Naomi Campbell and Cindy Crawford. But Avedon went in another direction with his portrait work, shooting unsparing and often unflattering shots of subjects from Marilyn Monroe to Michael Moore.

"The results can be pitiless," Time magazine critic Richard Lacayo once noted of the black-and-white portraits. "With every wrinkle and sag set out in high relief, even the mightiest plutocrat seems just one more dwindling mortal."

As a Publishers Weekly review once noted, Avedon helped create the cachet of celebrity -- if he took someone's picture, they must be famous. His fun-loving, fantasy-inspiring approach helped turn the fashion industry into a multibillion-dollar business.

AP

Michael More, The New Yorker

Charlize Theron and Patty Jenkins, Actress, and Director of Monster, The New Yorker

29 de setembro de 2004

Russ Meyer

Este é um nome que me faz recordar a minha juventude, tinha eu 13 anos e estava de férias na Alemanha e um canal privado (Sat1 ou RTL) decidiu apresentar os filmes de Russ Meyer, Vixen, Supervixens, Up entre outros, dos argumentos (se existiam) pouco restou, mas a voluptuosidade das actrizes é lendária...

Russ Meyer, obrigado pelos ENOOOOOORMMEEES SEIOOOOOSSS que mostraste ao mundo.

RUSS MEYER, Un erotomane abbondante

Russ Meyer, Realizador de Culto de Cinema "Trash", Morreu em L.A.
Por VASCO T. MENEZES
Público, Sexta-feira, 24 de Setembro de 2004

O realizador americano Russ Meyer, uma das figuras mais importantes do cinema "trash", morreu sábado, em Los Angeles, aos 82 anos, vítima de complicações causadas por uma pneumonia.

Responsável por uma série de clássicos de culto, o seu nome convoca imediatamente imagens de mulheres com seios gigantescos. Uma vez, quando lhe perguntaram se conceberia a hipótese de avançar para outro "tema", respondeu não estar interessado...

Realizador, argumentista, director de fotografia, montador, produtor e distribuidor, Meyer foi o epítome da independência cinematográfica. Se há um autor no universo "trash", terá de ser forçosamente ele, dono de um dos universos mais pessoais do cinema americano. Nesse sentido, os seus filmes colocam em cena uma visão peculiar da América profunda, feita de homens graníticos e mulheres avantajadas até ao limite do (im)possível, uma colecção de grotescos que em nada desmerece Fellini. E além destas obsessões, existiu sempre outro elo de ligação entre toda a sua obra: a inegável qualidade técnica, visível na montagem trepidante ou nos esquemas cromáticos elaborados, por vezes próximos do experimentalismo.

Depois de ter sido operador de câmara no exército americano durante a II Guerra Mundial e de uma experiência profissional como fotógrafo (trabalhou com a "Playboy", o que faz todo o sentido), Meyer fez em 1959 o seu primeiro filme, "The Immoral Mr. Teas", peça essencial na formação de um cinema "softcore" de que foi pioneiro.

Carregando ao máximo no factor erótico, mas sem nunca entrar pelos terrenos da pornografia (com a qual não queria nada), continuou a apostar no sexo como elemento central da sua obra, ao mesmo tempo que foi acrescentando à equação outro dado, cada vez mais importante: a violência. Uma evolução bem patente no confronto entre as produções dos anos 60 - "dramas" rurais como "Mudhoney" (1965) ou o imortal "Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!" (1965), provavelmente a sua obra-prima - e os objectos vertiginosos que assinou na década seguinte, como "Supervixens" (1975) ou "Up!" (1976), próximos do desvario de um "cartoon" e a prova acabada de que em Meyer, ao contrário de tantos outros, o "trash" é uma questão voluntária e auto-consciente.

Entre uma e outra fase, o realizador abandonou os orçamentos minúsculos e viveu um "flirt" com Hollywood (do qual saíram duas obras, entre elas outro título mítico, "Beyond The Valley of The Dolls", em 1970) que cedo terminou.

Tal como a sua carreira no cinema, suspensa - muito por culpa dos avanços na representação cinematográfica de "temas proibidos" e do fim dos "drive-ins", onde Meyer reinou - desde 1979, o ano de "Beneath The Valley of The Ultra-Vixens". Até hoje, os seus fãs esperaram em vão por um regresso.

22 de setembro de 2004

Eddie Adams

"You try to be invisible.... [If they] can accept you, the pictures happen."

Eddie Adams, a photojournalist whose half-century of work included countless magazine covers and striking pictorial essays but was defined by a single frame (an Associated Press photo of a communist guerrilla being executed in a Saigon street during the Vietnam War) died early Sunday. He was 71.

Adams died at his Manhattan home from complications of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Diagnosed last May, he quickly lost his speech and had become increasingly invalided. Despite that, he remained alert, working into his final days at his photo studio in Manhattan's East Village.

Born Edward Adams on June 12, 1933, he served as a Marine Corps combat photographer in the Korean War and became one of the nation's top photojournalists with newspapers, the AP from 1962-72 and again 1976-80; and with Time-Life, Parade and other publications. Along with 13 wars, he covered international politics, fashion and show business. His portraits included U.S. presidents from Richard Nixon to George W. Bush and such world figures as Pope John Paul II, Deng Xiao Ping, Anwar Sadat, Fidel Castro, Mikhail Gorbachev, Indira Gandhi and the Shah of Iran.

In addition to a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for the Saigon execution picture, Adams's more than 500 honors included a 1978 Robert Capa Award and three George Polk Memorial Awards for war coverage.

Adams in 1988 founded the Eddie Adams Workshop "Barnstorm", an annual gathering at his farm near Jeffersonville in upstate New York, where established professionals and promising newcomers take part in photo shoots, lectures and instructional clinics. More than 100 teachers and 100 students attend the event each October.

In 1965, AP sent Adams to Vietnam, where by his own count he covered more than 150 field operations over three years. But fame resulted from a single photo taken Feb. 1, 1968, the second day of the communists' Tet Offensive, in the embattled streets of Cholon, Saigon's Chinese quarter.

Drawn by gunfire, Adams and an NBC film crew watched South Vietnamese soldiers bring a handcuffed Viet Cong captive to a street corner, where they assumed he would be interrogated. Instead, South Vietnam's police chief, Lt. Col. Nguyen Ngoc Loan, drew a pistol and shot the man in the head. Adams caught the instant of death in a photo that made front pages around the world. It would became one of the Vietnam's War's most indelible images, winning the Pulitzer, shocking the American public and used by critics to belie official claims that the war was being won.

In later years, Adams found himself so defined and haunted by the picture that he would not display it at his studio. He also felt it unfairly maligned Loan, who lived in Virginia after the war and died in 1989. "The guy was a hero," Adams said, recalling Loan's explanation that the man he executed was a Viet Cong captain, responsible for murdering the family of Loan's closest aide a few hours earlier.

"Sometimes a picture can be misleading because it does not tell the whole story," Adams said in an interview for a 1972 AP photo book. "I don't say what he did was right, but he was fighting a war and he was up against some pretty bad people." He was prouder of a photo of "boat people" fleeing postwar Vietnam that helped spur Congress and the Carter White House to admit 200,000 Vietnamese refugees to the United States in the late 1970s.

Eddie Adams, 1968

O que há de errado nesta fotografia?

A sério que não entendo, esta fotografia (para mim) representa um momento de descontracção, um pai com os seus dois filhos having a good time, pode-se ver que o riso não é forçado, a "prova" de como eles se dão bem, mas não, o The Sun disse que parecia um dodgy holiday snap

Mario Testino

Reuters:

Britain's Prince Harry was captured in fits of laughter in a picture released Monday to mark his 20th birthday this week. Taken by photographer Mario Testino, the picture shows Harry leaning forward with his face down, while his father Prince Charles and 22-year-old brother Prince William are facing the camera and smiling broadly.

A relaxed Charles, Britain's heir to the throne, sits between his sons with his arms over their shoulders in the black and white photograph, taken at Highgrove, his countryside home in Gloucestershire.

"They were not laughing at anything in particular," said Testino. "It's just the way they relate to each other. They seem to have a uniquely close father-son relationship."

The Sun tabloid was not impressed. It said the photo looked like a dodgy holiday snap and attached a quality control sticker, saying: to improve your pictures make sure subjects look at camera. Harry, second of Charles's two sons from his marriage to Princess Diana, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997, turns 20 Wednesday.

Peruvian-born Testino became a household name following his portraits of Diana, and has worked with her sons and Charles several times. He took the official pictures for Harry's 18th birthday and William's 21st.

20 de setembro de 2004

Arte ou pornografia?

Deparei com esta foto num site the crítica fotográfica photosig.com e soube imediatamente que era o exemplo perfeito para a "polémica" até onde é arte, até onde é erotismo, a partir de quando é que se torna pornografia? e a pornografia não pode ser arte também?

Para mim esta imagem é arte, representa a luxuria, é o sinónimo de erotismo, mas um erotismo e uma luxuria fria, o tom azul (dualtone) torna a fotografia asceptica, tirando a vulgaridade que a mesma fotografia a cores representaria.