MIZA: 09th March

Mich Ihnen Zu Antworte_2
(me answering you)

Hello how are you (English) and then you reply:

fein danke ihnen und sie (German)

  Despite the banality of these 'spaces', what juxtapositions are evident?

What do the similarities and differences say about the Photographer? 

What conversations arise from this? 

 BANAL: lacking in originality/obvious/boring • JUXTAPOSITION: placing side by side/close together for contrasting effect

Liza

Fabian

buka lapha

(for introduction to this project)

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meet... Dena Churchman

THE AUTHENTIC SAGA 

Dena Churchman (DC) is currently in her third year studying for her National Diploma in Photography at the Durban University of Technology (DUT). In 2010, Dena participated in both exhibition's  Co-ordinates and Graffitti Gardening which were group exhibitions that showcased student works from the Photography Department. "The Authentic Saga" is a self motivated project by DC initiated last year.  I have been aware of her initiative for a while and been given snippets of it over the past year via email.  DC has not 'exhibited' it as yet.  I had a meeting with DC last week and asked if I could share this project on my Blog (and can't believe that almost a year has already gone by since we've been taking about this).  

Due to the fact that I am Blogging this now,  you must have already worked out that DC agreed. I am excited to feature this project and will be introducing the project in another blog entry, followed up by singular entries on ideas  and images from the project.

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This smacks of osmosis:

self portrait

I feel that this is type of project is extreemly inspiring as it promotes creative expression through collaboration. It moves notions of Photography outside of it's technical, didactic (only work with class assignments) and commercial domain into a 'space' where one individual utilizes conceptual and personal investigations from an inspirational moment into an idea and feeds it to a group of people. 

It is the collective of the group and its outcomes that inform and embody the project and produce the body of work.

Before I feature this self motivated "collaborative" project by DC, first things first, in typical osmosisSTYLE,  meet Dena and her views on Photography.

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I asked Dena 10 questions...
and this is what she had to say:

1. What does Photography mean to you?

It is the opportunity to create the memories of life, whether beautiful or disturbing.

2. What genre of photography are you passionate about?

I am most passionate about people, whether portraiture or documentary. There is always a story to an individual, many are overlooked but Photography can make someone and their story live forever.

©Dena

 
3. What aspects of Photography do you love?
The perfect captured moment that is able to tell a story, the way in which light creates mood, and that after feeling of a good picture

4. What aspects of Photography do you find challenging?

Sometimes the ideas in your head can be most challenging to successfully execute.

5. Where do you find inspiration?

Through other Photographers who share the same interests, even friends who have no real technical experience who are able to still create a brilliant image.  Those who are not bound by the rules.

©Dena

6. If you could share one thing with others who are also interested in Photography what would it be?
Do it only for the love of it, then you will be able to be your best.

7. Name Photographers that have influenced you.
[Click on names and images to learn more] 
 

Yann Arthus Betrand [IMAGES]

Andre Kertesz [IMAGES]

Mary Ellen Mark [IMAGES]


8. List  3 words that describe your experience as a student.
frustrating, independent, growth.
 

©Dena

9. List 3 words that describe how it feels to be engaging outside DUT.

nervous, experience, learning

©Dena

10.Describe how you feel about next year?

Slightly apprehensive but willing to work hard to do what I love. I know where I would like to be and am going to try and get there no matter how long it takes.

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MIZA: 25th January

Mich Ihnen Zu Antworte_2
(me answering you)

Hello how are you (English) and then you reply:

fein danke ihnen und sie (German)

  Despite the banality of these objects, what juxtapositions are evident?

What do the similarities and differences say about the Photographer? 

What conversations arise from this? 

 BANAL: lacking in originality/obvious/boring • JUXTAPOSITION: placing side by side/close together for contrasting effect 

Liza

Fabian

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introduction...Mich Ihnen Zu Antworte

Hello how are you (English) and then you reply:

fein danke ihnen und sie (German)

Around the 25th January...

I invited Fabian Pflaum (FP) via email to collaborate with me on this project. Most of the initial emails we chatted about the ideas and intentions of "Mich Ihnen Zu Antworte" (MIZA) project and FP asked relevant questions that 'forced' me to think, articulate and formulate my ideas and intentions. I am going to share these numerous conversations as one blog entry (edited and revised) hoping that they will provide an outline to this project... and then I will post our 'visual' conversations, one by one as they happen.

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THE INITIAL CONVERSATION

Where is this going too... anywhere!

 

LIZA: I am so excited by this exchange/project... keep the ideas flowing_ don't really know where this will lead me/us.

FABIAN: Please explain more about the aim of it.

LIZA: This project is initially inspired by the writings of Susan Sontag (SS) from her book On Photography. SS writes that Photography functions as "a vehicle to certify experience" and is a means of "converting experience into an image, a souvenir" (2002:09). SS also refers to Photography as "a grammar and even more importantly an ethics of seeing" (2002:11) and continues to state that "it would not be wrong to speak of people having a compulsion to photograph: to turn experience itself into a way of seeing" (2002:10).

LIZA continues: What interests me about these writings are the words "experience", "grammar" and "ethics of seeing". I think of images like/as 'text'_ what they include and exclude (more important) speaks... but more specifically I question: Do they 'speak' more of the the experience of the photographer? 

Of course this project is about that investigation... I don't know the answer.

FABIAN: What is the intention behind it?

LIZA: You sound like a supervisor_ which is a good thing. I intend to use the collaborations in an exhibition sometime next year, which also forms part of my Masters. I want to 'show' how the Photographs  'tells/speaks about' our experiences_ the private made public. I hope that these photographs will exhibit the 'juxtapositions' of our lives, our culture, preferences and even our gender_ same things taken at different places, similar photographic structure/language/composition, but the objects inform our male/femaleness, SA/German_nessness (as Bwalya would say) etc. These images will probably also test our Photographic abilities_ the ability to appropriate, and use a 'prescribed' or 'copied' photographic language.

FABIAN: Do you want me to do the same Photo in my world?

LIZA: Yes definitely. What I am thinking is this. I take a photo here in South Africa via my BlackBerry and email it to you directly after it is shot. You 'copy' it in your context, trying to keep similar objects and composition but defined by the objects and places around you... something like that! I also want the camera device to be readily available and 'non-technically' focused .

FABIAN: I don't have a cell phone with a camera, but I guess it can be compact cam as well? Do you want me to re-connect the content in my surroundings.

LIZA: Yes please as much as you can. Compact anything will work_ lets just try it.

FABIAN: Do you want to see the different cultural influence? Do you want to focus on cultural connotations? Style? Colour?

LIZA: Yes Yes Yes_ as much as you can without being self consciously so_ I am curious_ I think that this will 'happen' anyway.

FABIAN: Or is this about individual non verbal communication?

LIZA: Yes. It will in a sense be non verbal but will communicate a lot about each other.

FABIAN: How are you going to evaluate the results.

LIZA: I love your questions... that's exactly what I hope to address and feel the evaluation will come as I go along. Don't have a set criteria. I know I want to exhibit them and eventually put them on my Blog_ as a way of sharing our on going conversation with others and hope (always do, because it doesn't happen freely) that the readers of the blog will comment and create more conversations around our visual dialogue. Thinking it is as if I am saying in English: "Hello how are you" and you reply in German: "fein danke ihnen und sie (fine thank-you and you)"

FABIAN: I will try not to think much about the content and reflect the pictures your going to send from my point of view/part of the world. Do you still share breaks with Bwalya, eating couscous with avo from your white microwave?

LIZA: Nowadays Bwalya and I share cooked meals from the new staff Cafeteria at the Campus. See Image 25012011(011).jpg_ Sent via my BlackBerry from Vodacom - let your email find you.

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meet...Fabian Pflaum

 FABIAN PFLAUM  

Image:Liza 2010

Fabian Pflaum (FP) currently lives and works in Hamburg, Germany.

 FP completed his 4th year, here @ the Photography Department in 2010. 

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Amoungst other projects, Fabian was involved in the photographic documentation of the re-roofing of City Campus. His images now form a valuable historical account of this DUT project_  

I will make another blog entry on this.

(click below to links on FP from osmosisBLOG)

buka lapha 1

buka lapha 2

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I have been communicating with FP with images. 

We don't talk or verbally explain ourselves. 

I usually email him an image via my Blackberry and he responds to it, attempting to duplicate it from his context. Over the past few months we have had many interesting 'visual' dialogues that make commentaries on the *juxtaposition of our personal lives.

*  Juxtaposition means placing things side-by-side. In art this usually is done with the intention of bringing out a specific quality or creating an effect, particularly when two contrasting or opposing elements are used. The viewer's attention is drawn to the similarities or differences between the elements_ http://drawsketch.about.com/od/drawingglossary/g/juxtaposition.htm

I would like to share these with you but before I introduce that project_
Mich Ihnen Zu Antworte (me answering you_ translated by Google translate),

I would like to introduce you to some of Fabian's views on Photography.

•

I asked Fabian 10 questions...  
and this is what he had to say (unedited):

1:   What does Photography mean to you?
Greed for aesthetics and the peace of viewing.

2:  What genre of Photography are you passionate about? 
 > Social Documentary: I like the stories our world offers. They have to be told. 
> Landscapes: It gives me peace and let's me be what I am. Time is soft on it!

>  Portraiture: I like to take portraits specially of people I know. It always brings out a new angle of a person.

3. What aspects of Photography do you love?
It fascinates me to reduce visual information into one 2-D still. But for me photography is a lot about the aesthetics: A photo is
frozen everydays aesthetics with a lot of information on several layers. My first approach is always an aesthetic one and then I read or try to read all the information it transports. I attached two pictures I found in a german online news magazine (spiegel.de) as an example - it might be easier for you to understand what I mean. These pictures are so beautiful and intense - I love them!

4. What aspects of Photography do you find challenging?
For me it is challenging to deal with my own expectations and often, to fall short on them.


5. Where do you find inspiration?
In the motive.
 

6. If you could share one thing with others who are also interested in Photography what would it be?
Maybe my favorite picture. At the moment. This record cover:

http://public.blu.livefilestore.com/y1pjwNgxGQkgUIPf9Yd6xblCkjjWKSkIft3WiCJtPJmAZf0dKkYQgFtrJ9F8b09KewnUKw8WylADcymTBXO1gRu_Q/Dee%20Dee%20Bridgewater%20-%20Atlantic%20original%20sound.bmp?psid=1

7. Name Photographers that have influenced you.
Uli Prechsl; Xavier

8. List  3 words that describe your experience as a student.
Interculturality, Friendship, Patience

9. List 3 words that describe how it feels to be engaging outside DUT.
-

10. What advice would you give students who are embarking on studying to become professional Photographers?
Go out and shoot! Build your own opinion, don't listen too much to others and do not try to copy your role models style! Travel, see places and meet people and take your camera with you.

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travelling blues and shoes

I find myself ready to leave before my Mother continent eats up my passion and spits me out...

 Gareth (GB) has just returned from an Operation Smile assignment in Madagascar and has recently updated his BLOG with images and a wonderfully personal/ descriptive account of how he is feeling right now...

SNIPPETS and images from GB's blog:

Gareth Bright

"I don't know how many damn flights in the last few months. I just put down the most recent of my I have no idea finished books, turned off the I pod that's been plugged into my brain to provide silence from the heavy, uncomfortable, breathing from the strangers next to me, and realized its time to provide some sort of brain fart of words to update this Blog I have been neglecting of late."

Gareth Bright

"These are pictures of people on the move in a very confusing place, the World.I guess we are all the same, and that's why we have got to keep moving forward where ever we are going, whatever our situation. So have a look and keep moving, I will be..."

I left a comment on Gareth's blog that said.  

osmosisliza:  "Hey Gareth_ fully feel your blog post... going somewhere where all eclectics roam... and that is in the comfortable space of nowhere coz in nowhere there are the possibilities of anywhere... and you thought you were confused :)

 

I am finding the images on his blog to be graphic, they look like charcoal drawings, and have the gritty, moody and tenacious marks and textures of a drawing, yet they feel transient... lasting only for a short time_ impermanent_ creating tensions of pushing and pulling.

Is this just me relating to Gareth's feelings... can you see it too.

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a Diptych

Chillies (Noxolo Zwane) emailed me some images today, with a short simple BLURB...

"Felt inspired on my way back from NN. Hope it inspires some1."

  I chose to publish only these two.

WHY? Because I see a strong connection between them.

Placing two images next to each other is called a Diptych.

  When you see images side by side you tend to make associations or observe contrasts and make a story from the relationship between the two_ they inform or speak to each other/against each other. 

I am curious... what story do you see?

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aftermath...food for thought

I thought my 'readers' may find this website www.theaftermathproject.org interesting. MAKES me THINK in relation to Gareth's conversation in the previous post about the relevance for photographers to tell stories of the consequences, aftereffects and repercussions of events and conflicts, as these provide new perspectives with a new stories. Often in Documentary photography images and stories are sensationalized and heightened by the present effects of the event, the current turmoil and the prevailing tragedies... but this website leaves me questioning (and it seems Gareth is too) and wondering what happens after  tragedies and conflict, when the world no longer looks or cares and people have to pick up their lives and begin again...

THEIR  MISSION The Aftermath Project is a non-profit organization committed to telling the other half of the story of conflict — the story of what it takes for individuals to learn to live again, to rebuild destroyed lives and homes, to restore civil societies, to address the lingering wounds of war while struggling to create new avenues for peace. 

Download a free pdf here to view other images 

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Is everything as it seems on the surface?

Reflections from Gareth 

as he forms a new perspective of a 'past' previously portrayed.

Email from Gareth: Hey I am back..and staring at piles and piles of text and gigs of images for post editing...but funnily enough I have managed as I always seem to do, found something else to work on while I was there... something I am looking at going back to explore more, I am astounded at the state of Rwanda 17 years on... and how effective and efficient the country appears, the keyword 'being' appears...Here is a small group of images I put together in between the actual work I was doing. The 'Operation Smile' work still has to be edited and I have to add loads of text to it, which I still have to be inspired to write.

 "Recently returning from Rwanda I found myself going though images that I shot, just walking about or whilst driving from place to place. In doing this I found my self amazed at the state of the country 17 years on. Having seen footage of the genocide and having gone to some of the memorial sites I find the transformation from what was literally a bloody mess astounding.

 Exerts from Gareth's vii visionaries page: 
(click link above to go there_ read and see more_ buka lapha)
 

What I saw was this beautiful, clean country... with beautiful proud people... carrying the weight of the past on their shoulders"

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