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.

East of the river Taff

As of late I've been shooting during the day around the neighborhoods of Cathays, Roath, Penylan and Splott. I like the chaos of the back alley.

Dr Karanka's Stravaganza - Cardiff

Tomorrow I'll be showing in my living room prints from a lot of photographers. I've been receiving these over the last month, and once they are placed in a box they will be sent to Bologna. Dates: tomorrow from 6pm in 41 Arran Street, Cardiff. On the 9th of May in XM24, via fioravanti 24, 20100 Bologna.

Some picks:





Cyril Costilhes




Joni Karanka




Vicky Slater




Ben Roberts




Jules Boast




Maciej Dakowicz

Travelling: London

I'll be in London from Friday till Sunday. On Friday evening I'll pop by the Tate British where one of my pictures will be shown. Part of the Street and Studio book by the Tate.

I wonder what it looks like very big:

Martin Parr - British Cities: Cardiff

Today with the Guardian comes a supplement shot by Martin Parr about Cardiff. The coverage is quite good. There's even a place I haven't been to: the Canton Liberal Club. Probably because I go to the New Park Liberal Club in Canton, but hey, this one he shot is posh. On the other hand, the photography is sort of average. No Martin Parr classics in this one, although it's not bad bad. Ash and Nick from Spillers are there, Ninjah is there, the Clwb is there.

I must have almost bumped into him with Maciej one day. He shot the Heineken Cup final in rugby, and writes "The city was very lively indeed that night, as Munster fans gave the Welsh a lesson in drinking and celebrating". He sadly doesn't include a photograph of the city at night, though, but one of the match. I took this one that night:





Ah, Munster fans...

Images: Albany Road

Albany Road is my closest shopping street. I have not taken pictures with any dedication for weeks. I'm writing up my thesis, and the only predictable time I leave home is when I go to drink coffee. I am getting into having a little half an hour stroll around Albany Road when I do so. There's not much going on. People shopping, Tesco eating and spitting people, Iceland all red and charity shops. Sometimes workers giving a new look to a shop or building. The brighter days, at four in the evening the sun starts to elongate the shadows along the pavement. Again at eight in the morning. It's strange to shoot in my neighbourhood as sometimes I bump into people I know (and I'm unable to really stop for a chat).

Life: going for film to Grangetown

-I was not sure what to write today. A male pagan poledancing? Why three midgets dressed like tomatoes are Marks and Spencer food? A paper about individual differences at different stages of visual processing?-

Today, this evening at twenty past six, I left to Grangetown to get film. Somehow Royal Mail had managed to not deliver it to me and left one of those notes saying "sorry, but you weren't home". I checked redeliveries and the website didn't find my package. So I had to walk to Grangetown, one of those dingy areas of town populated by big huge shops (IKEA, a supermarket, a car dealer), empty roads and ambar coloured street lights. Actually, I took a train from central. It left me in this train station with a small roof and bench in the middle of it. Some blokes run to the departing train shouting something about killing somebody. I walk down the stairs and into the road.

I get my film, unpack it and ditch it in my rucksack. Forty rolls of thirty five mill and thirty rolls of one twenty. Total, a hundred and twenty quid. Better this way than the last one, when my Amazon package of books was left outside the door and somebody had just opened it (sorry pal, it was not a mp3 player).

Back on the station some guys chat under the dim light. Two guys on the stairs smoke and one of them asks the other, "is he foreign?", "no, don't think so". The bunch of people on the bench make me look posh and stylish by comparison. One of them is a woman with a stray dog. Half of the group departs for a train. A man, small, without many teeth turns and asks "what's your names?" and they exchange a few names before he finally jumps on the train. And I still have to wait eight minutes there.

On the way home I stop in Subway for dinner. When I sit down a woman enters and orders her sandwich with double cheese and bacon. Wow, we still have higher classes. I check her out, but the additional money spent doesn't make her any less unattractive.

Life: last night

Yesterday I joined Maciej to help out in a shooting for Kruger magazine. He shot this one guy, Scott H Biram on the middle of a not-busy-enough road in the center of Cardiff. I tried to reflect light from the headlights of a car while one of the fellas from Kruger lit the other side of the face with a torch. It's not like the setups made by Crewdson, but it already puts you off about shooting arranged scenes. (Scott seems like a nice chap, even if we managed to almost kill him a couple of times and basicly kidnapped him for half an hour of torture... he earned his pint really)

After the disappointment of the shooting I went to watch the France - England rugby match. France lost, so I ended up at Mathieu's drinking half a bottle of cheap LIDL vodka. While we drank and listened to something similar to Daft Punk but that's not Daft Punk (I couldn't tell the difference, really) we left the slideshow of hardcore street photography in the background. I'm happy. The pool looks coherent and it has enough single hits as for keeping people's attention for a while and make them wonder what comes next. Good job.





I then went to town to shoot (maybe the time was about 1?). These two blokes were staring at the sky and pointing at it, hugging each other. I shot. The flash went off and I thought they wouldn't see me. One turned around:

- If I see any shit published about Cardiff City I'll beat you up.
- I don't work for Cardiff City.
- We're Cardiff City supporters. We don't want any more shit about us in the newspapers.
- Oh, I see, I don't work for a newspaper, it's my project, I shoot at night. A lot.
- Cool! Were are you from? Give us a hug!

I should have never said that I prefer rugby to football. The thing kept on going on. They wanted to keep on drinking and I said that the Great Western is still open. It's a pub after all. Some girls were walking past, with short black trousers. One of my new friends shouts to them if they want to be in a picture. No way, I think. This guy is so drunk that nobody is going to get at range from him. The girls walk to me and one holds me. The other guy takes the camera. I have never seen so many framings crossing somebody's head in a second. It twists and bends in his hand, from forty five degrees to one side to the opposite, he barely is able to put it at his eye and even less to keep it level. I have the other guy at my right and this random girl at the left. She's fit and I put my hand on her left shoulder. I should do like Anthony and put it on her arse. Never going to see her again anyhow. God, sometimes I wish I was Welsh. And half a bottle of vodka is not enough. The flash goes off.

Later, when a police truck crosses the street I end up at the other side of the road. I decide to leave. I eat chips with curry and cheese. On my way home I see a bunch of girls with boxing gloves. I pass them. I keep an eye in case something happens. Up in the Hayes a car slowly passes them and stops. Two guys inside start a chat with them. You can smell the moment. I turn around and walk towards them, take out the XA1 and wait. I shoot. Two girls were talking with the guy in the car, with boxing gloves hanging from their necks. The third girl had the boxing gloves on, was fed up of them and walking towards the camera. I call that a moment to shoot, come on.

- You freak! she shouts.
- Hi. That was good.
- Delete that picture!
- I can't, it's film.
- Give me the camera!

The other girls come towards me.

- I can't, I think it's private property. It was a good moment, car stopped with two guys, lots of girls with boxing gloves. I don't see that every day.
- Freak. Keep on walking!

I keep on walking back home. They tell me to walk the other way. I don't listen, I walk faster. At the end the shot will be crap anyhow and fall out in an edit, I think. I chat in a corner with some people about photography. This one guy tells me that he has a relationship with his friend. Obviously they don't have one, but he leeches on his neck. I cross the church, some girls stare at me. I should talk less with my subjects.


Picture: Advantages of the roman dresscode - Cardiff. J. Karanka.

Life: at the Staff Club

It's a bit over half past five, on a Wednesday here in Cardiff. Already one hour ago Maciej texted me that he had had three pints at the Staff Club. This place is our Mecca. It's also Maciej's Paris. I would say that it's Maciej's Doisneau's Paris, but I'm not sure if the English language can strech words and sentences so far. Like any place that you know as well as your childhood neighbourhood, the whole life is represented there. It's also a great place to chat, meet people (or should I say wonderfull characters?), drink very cheap beer and sing in the karaoke. At least I sing in the karaoke till they take the microphone from my hands.



Enjoy life. That's the message in pictures that could be told of the Staff Club. Some other day the rest of that will be in the spotlight over here. In the meanwhile I think about how important is to have one of those meeting points, a secret cave, house on the tree or haven where everything is comfortable and feels like at home. You know everybody and everybody is accepted. Where do asses go?

I'm now off to enjoy myself, chat about things that matter, have a beer and later on go to my own small private Paris.


Picture by Maciej Dakowicz.