Dr Karanka's Print Stravaganza: LONDON - 9th of October

The next Print Stravaganza is going to take place in The Others, in East London on the 9th of October as part of the London Photomonth. Samuel Bedford is the main organizer of this one. You're still on time to submit your work. Also, I have finally figured out how to use paypal to process donations for the Stravaganza. Yes, the Stravaganza is as close to free as it gets, but everybody is running some costs. Now the main one is submitting the accumulated work to the next venue, because we have several kilograms of prints. Samuel has been doing a great job, and the event in London will have promotion such as fliers, which incurs in extra costs. If you wonder whether your donation will be well spent, check the photographs of the events that you can find here.

Anyway, there's the donation button:

Mirroring

It's fun when photographs mirror other photographs. This is mine, from some night out in Cardiff not that long ago:





And this one is from the Ma'alot massacre 35 years ago:





(Thanks to nir kristal for noticing.)

Paintings and stuff

I was feeling a bit bloated about photography and I wandered into the Martin Tinney Gallery. This is a private art gallery I've heard of pretty positive reviews, and it's a nice large space. It's strange to check out paintings when what you do and see most of the time are photographs. It's a bit like surviving a year on documentaries and then watching two musicals in a row. I do wonder, though, how much the bluntness, and the twisting of reality that photography provide influence my taste in painting. Most of it was tremendously boring: landscapes, more landscapes, some portraits, a nude. Very few non figurative work actually, and of the little there was, I could not judge on its merit (didn't really make an impression).

I did really like some work, though.

Darren Hughes had up a number of very bleak landscapes. The dark tones, and often the extremely large fields of view resembled panoramic photographs. They were a depressing but beautiful view of the valleys. Lots of rain and fog on top of the hills.







Kevin Sinnott was my favourite, though. Interesting compositions of town life with some contemporary twists here and there, like a painting of a chap free running up a bus stop with some girls watching, or a country scene by a house that randomly happens to have naked figures in one of the groupings. I've not been able to find either one of these online, so I'll show some other of his pieces. Once again, I'm afraid I could see the first one of these being a scene shot with a Mamiya 7.







To further dig into the paralelism with the photography world, I thought that the work of Sally Moore deeply resembled things that you could find in Flickr Explore. Some sort of pop crowdpleasing. Maybe I'm just a very boring guy.

Mindfist

Slowly, mindfist is growing and developing. We're a collective of photographers with intentions. I think we got together because we know how we can do things, not really knowing what things to do. Maybe I'm tired, but it's a bit like those Pistols lyrics of "I don't know what I want but I know how to get it". It's a melting pot, a small one, but the good thing is that we're all motivated. Not the best photographers or curators, but hopefully we are aware of our limitations and stick to small pieces of work that are achievable with our limited talent. Well, maybe not that limited.





Mat Newton drives his photography sideways, I think. When things start to work, he'll get interested in something different and bring it to a visually finished point somehow. He has his urban growth gallery on mindfist. Cyril Costilhes is stuck in a small town. He dreams of travelling but all he has to shoot is a corner of the French riviera. A sunny but dark town which walks the line between being empty and overcrowded, where the elderly come to die under the sun. His Down the Riviera gallery is on mindfist. Gareth Jelley is chasing the dragon. The subject of his photographs seems to have just disappeared at the blink of the eye or be at some distance in the future. Often, they are fragments of diaries to which the viewer has no access. Other times, they are stories that draw from cinema. He has been working on several series on mindfist. Then we have Philip Koch and Diada. Diada is pure photography. So pure she's not had time to put the camera down to stop and show what's going on inside her head. I've seen the stuff, and I know it's coming up soon. There's some faith you need for the waiting as there's some faith you need for getting into her images. Philip is mad, and will prove it too. He's sort of both the black sheep and the ingenious mastermind of mindfist. I have two sets in mindfist. Each tries to be presented in its own fashion, the way that resembles the most the way they would be presented in a physical form.

Into the mainstream

I shot a handfasting (sort of a wedding) last weekend. In nice sweet 220 colour film in square format. It's kind of fun to give a go to what is the ultimate breadmaker of the professional photographer. I got the film processed pretty fast, so I'm already making a dummy of the book. This is misleading in the speed, as I only got low res scans of the film, and the final copy will need rescanning of all the images that are bound to be printed.





Anyway, a truly enjoyable experience.

Shortcuts in photography: nudity = intimacy

It's quite surprising how bad photography is for capturing certain things. The lack of narrative of single images and even sequences is a large handycap compared to mediums better suited for such things (as literature or cinema). One of the main 'cheap tricks' that this has led to, I think, is the equation nudity = intimacy in photography. As soon as we have somebody naked in a remote location (tree, lake, desert) or in an enclosed space (hotel room, house), there is this tendency to give intimacy to the shot. In some cases this is the case, as with Sally Mann's Immediate Family, where the artist photographed her own children for years. But more often than not, just an illusion of closeness is created. The nudes of 100th East Street by Bruce Davidson comes to mind. I like the work, but, what's their purpose and how did the photographer get there? It's not as clear cut as Mann's work.

Anyway, if you like the nudity = intimacy equation, you might want to sign up for the newsletter Nofound(secret). It's limited to 5000 subscriptors.

Fuck, let's do it, and cheap

For me one of the main problems I have with photography is that there's not much for show where I live. Yeah, we have the ffotogallery that's cool but it's a) miles away, and b) very small. When I look at prints (and I've seen loads), I don't see them as extremely expensive items. Of course, with speculation some pieces might go for ridiculous prices, but if I asked a photographer mate of mine to send me a dozen of 8x10'' prints, it wouldn't cost him that much. That's why I set up the Dr Karanka's Print Stravaganza, which is now on a world tour. I mean, come on, if you love photography you can move your butt and send a few cool prints. And I can do my part and stick them up somewhere. And you, lurker, pop by and have a beer. Seriously, that simple, and with good results.

First I had it at home. It was pretty cool, but there wasn't that many people. The space was ok, but to make the most of it everything worked by blue tack and no attempts of framing:





Then I found a social club that gave me a room to show in. Again, very few people, but a pretty cool place to show with nice atmosphere and good beer. The show was further smartened up by using frames:





Then the whole lot of prints went to Bologna, Italy. We had a whole social house in an old market to work in. I mean, it was massive. Luckily the guys of Fotografi di Strada (twelve, fifteen of them?) were around for a good six hours of work sorting through prints, editing, sticking, gluing, making panels, hanging stuff. This time we had so much space that we arranged some 'solo' walls. On top of that there were three bands and two dj's. The whole thing carried on till 7am.










What I'm trying to say is, if you love photography, it's time to stop complaining and starting to do stuff. It doesn't need to be expensive, you don't have to do it every week, but let's just fucking throw a ball every now and then. If I get any kind of random invitation I'll most probably accept than decline, and most probably promote it too. I must say I'm quite busy, though, trying to get the photography collective I am part of into an organization that can also promote some shows. But also trying to sneak some vans displaying photography into Rencontres d'Arles. I must say this last idea is by Laura Rodari, but it's too cool to not think about it.

(Photographs, in order, by Joni Karanka, Maciej Dakowicz, David Wilson and pizzafellas.)