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Pascal Baetens
Summary:
In this FotoTV autobiography film, Belgian photographer Pascal Baetens gives viewers a special look at his work and heartfelt thoughts about his subjects and methods to his work.
Baetens loves being a photographer it was his dream and now is his passion. He has worn glasses since he was three years old so he always had a special thought and connection to vision and how it affected the way he sees things. Further learning in boarding school taught him to dream, something very useful as a photographer. After taking courses in University studies he set out to become a photographer. Not to makes lots of money but to share his ideas and perspectives with others. He put his heart into becoming a photographer along with a good portion of hard work.
Baetens tells compassionate stories and shares examples of his work where he chooses to photograph humble people instead of showing just a pretty body in his nude work. All his photography has a story to tell a background of deep reflection and real people who pose as his subjects. For example he tells of one of his subjects, Clair, whom he photographed only after visiting a psychiatrist because he didn't want to demoralize his subject. He consulted with the doctor to learn of the special needs and particulars pertaining to his model who had a wrenching story to tell of her tattoo that he photographed on her nude body.
He continually searches for meaning behind his work and what he shares with the world and he searches for riveting ways to communicate his photography as a healing effect and to tell stories of real people going through a difficult time or who have faced other hardships. Baetens further discusses his photography books as a means to express himself and to capture attention.
The Nightmares of Stefan Gesell
Summary:
Talk about your bad dreams? Stefan Gesell is a photo artist whose pictures seem to come from the subconcious.
On his night table you'll find a pad and pencil so if he should awake he can quickly record his visions. These vision will be realized later on the studio set and in Photoshop as a means of working through his visions.
These disturbing nighmarish works are reminiscent of the work of H.R. Giger as might be seen in on of his sets for the Alien quadrilogy. As a balance to this somewhat dark aspect of his work is his work in Glamour and Fashion photography.
We met up recently with Stefan Gesell and here he shares with us a look into his soul as well as his fascinating work.
An Introduction to Composition 2
Summary:
Jose Ruiz begins the second of his two video tutorials on composition with a discussion of DIRECTION. Where do the elements in our picture lead the viewer's attention? Do they go somewhere interesting, or do they lead out of the frame, losing the attention of our audience.
The triangle is an effective way to keep attention inside the frame. Using animated examples we see, for example, the different effects engendered by triangles with pointing up or pointing down.
Ruiz maintains that, "COLOUR is not important for 'survival', it's important for emotions. It is the last compositional element to be added." First we should know what message we want to communicate. Second we need know how to place the various elements in the image. Only then should we add colour. Despite this, colour is covered by in detail Ruiz and he ends his discussion with the interesting an unusual property of the colour yellow.
TEXTURE has a strong visual effect that gives rise to a tactile sensation. You feel it in your fingers. Texture also imparts rhythm to an image. It can be uniform texture across the whole frame or it be broken with a single element that then becomes a focal point.
Painters know what SCALE is. When they want to make a landscape look big they place small, black human figures in it to demonstrate, by contrast, the hugeness of the surrounding space. We can do this, Ruiz observes, by using any familiar object in an otherwise unclear picture.
Painters talk about DIMENSION, also known as atmospheric or aerial perspective. Objects in the distance display less contrast than foreground objects and tonal values become lighter as objects get further away. In general things get bluer in the distance, though of course in the twilight the tones are warmer. The position of the horizon is also significant. The higher it is the more foreground there is and the greater the sense of distance.
José B. Ruiz (born 1966) is an acclaimed Spanish nature photographer and passionate conservationist. He has worked all over the world but is mainly active in Spain, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. Examples of his photography can be seen here and on his homepage. The list of his accomplishments, publications and activities as a photographer, a naturalist and a teacher is, to say the least, very impressive.
Ahmet Ertug
Summary:
Ahmet Ertuğ is an architecture photographer and publisher based in Istanbul. He is deeply rooted in the cultural heritage of Europe and Asia.
As editor in chief of Ertuğ & Kocabiyik he has published 25 photographic and art books in limited editions. These publications are supported by traveling and stationary exhibitions of ultra large photographs. Their thematic spectrum spans from the advent of European and Eurasian cultures to historical libraries and the domes of some of the most important buildings in Europe as Ahmet Ertuğ's latest project. Architecture is their primary theme, but the works also include landscape references as well as defining artefacts and sculptures. Ahmet Ertuğ's Hagia Sophia photographs for example can be viewed in the upper northern gallery of the Hagia Sophia in Istanbul as a permanent exhibition.
A distinctive feature of this photographers' work and personality is his complete commitment to his subject's aura. He has the will to control the prints, reproductions and distribution of his work to the last detail to convey the specific aura of a historically important building or artefact to the spectator of his works.
In addition to maintaining a tight rein on his art, he chooses enduring subjects - very likely none of them will wither away in the next centuries. His work will maintain their importance as a visual legacy as their subjects will continue to be available to coming generations.
Gerd Ludwig II
Summary:
An Introduction to Composition 1
Summary:
In this, the first of two videos by an acclaimed nature and landscape photographer, Jose Ruiz builds up for you the visual alphabet that a photographers needs to be able to understand and use composition.
Composition is the art of putting individual graphic elements together to create an effective picture. The right arrangement of points, lines, shapes and colours make the difference between a snapshot and an aesthetically pleasing and sophisticated image. The photographer who knows how to use symmetry, fore- and background effects, perspective and vanishing point, and all the other elements of good composition can capture the attention of his viewers so that they linger that little bit longer, spellbound.
The basic elements in all visual art are the POINT, the LINE and the SHAPE. We learn here to recognize these elements and to use them to get our message across to our audience. Ruiz demonstrates each step using animated examples in which the element in question is highlighted.
Points are small areas of particularly strong graphic impact. Lines can be seen as a series of connected points or as a moving point. Ruiz makes insightful comments on using these elements. And on shapes he discusses in more detail the SQUARE, TRIANGLE and CIRCLE as well as the significance of vertical and horizontal AXES.
This first video ends with a discussion of THREE DIMENSIONALITY, PERSPECTIVE, VANISHING POINT and the related area of TONAL VALUES.
The second video extends the discourse on composition by focussing on Direction, Colour, Texture, Scale and Dimension. Watch both videos to deepen your intuitive feeling for composition with a better understanding of the graphical devices that painters have long studied and used.
José B. Ruiz (born 1966) is an acclaimed Spanish nature photographer and passionate conservationist. He has worked all over the world but is mainly active in Spain, where he lives with his wife and two daughters. Examples of his photography can be seen here and on his homepage. The list of his accomplishments, publications and activities as a photographer, a naturalist and a teacher is, to say the least, very impressive.
Gerd Ludwig I
Summary:
Renowned documentary photographer Gerd Ludwig was in Zingst. We had a chance to talk to him about his craft and his current Exhibition: Peace on Earth and Earth to Pieces.
We get some insight to his attraction and affinity for Russia, and his long association with Chernobyl.
Growing up in post-war Germany, Gerd first learned of Russia through the stories of his father's experiences there. He explains here the journey to be able to see Russia in the social critical eye-of-the-camera. He briefly mentions a current work in progress "Russia Never Sleeps" and his search for a publisher.
In a nod to young photographers, he talks about how he came to work for National Geographic, and their preference for photographers which have a relationship to the subject.
In a second part he discusses some of the specific photos from the exhibition.
Lucien Clergue - Interview
Summary:
Lucien Clergue is the grand seigneur of the French photographic world. Elegant, white haired, sporting a trimmed white beard and rimless glasses, he belongs to the crème de la crème of the cultural establishment there. But this was not always so. As a young photographer wanting to follow his own star he bravely refused offers to work for Paris newspapers and even for Vogue in New York. Later he had to crop the heads off his photographs of nudes to avoid going to prison in the draconian censorship of the 1950’s.
Born 1934 in Arles in the south of France, Julien did photography because there was not enough money for him to go to the to Paris School of Music to continue the music studies that he had begun. Beginning with a Roleiflex he took good pictures, but to make ends meet he worked as well in a factory until he was 27.
Gradually he became well known, meeting and being helped by Picasso at the age of 19. Picasso introduced him to Jean Cocteau, who also helped by writing articles about Clergues’s photographs. Influential friends indeed!
Inspired by the great American photographer Edward Weston, Lucien began taking photographs of nudes, and of sand and seascapes. But differently, with a typically Mediterranean eye, making photographs in magical places, like Point Lobos in Carmel, California.
Clergue says that his work has had three main components: death, life, and the four elements. At first he photographed cemeteries of dead animals!
Nudes, as symbols of life, came after the death pictures. This was because because his friends were so shaken by the images of death that they stopped visiting him. “So”, he summarises with a wink, “I took pictures of nudes to keep my friends”.
H was 22 when he started making photographs of nudes in the sea. They were an immediate success. He illustrated some of Paul Eluard’s poems with them, but the censors were not amused: It was forbidden to show a woman’s sex if her head was also in the picture. So he cut off the heads to avoid going to prison!
Bulls and bullfights are also constant themes in Clergue’s photography. In fact he claims that since he was 22 there hasn’t been a year when he didn’t photograph a nude and a bullfight. The bull fighting images are, as he says, intimate. But this could also be a consequence of being shortsighted: He had to get close to take the pictures!
In a photography festival that he and others initiated (“Rencontres de la Photographie”) he included an international competition for the best book of photographs of the year. In this way he was able to collect thousands of books that now grace the library of the School of Photography in Arles. Not a bad idea…
Julien Clergue is a member of the Académie de Beaux-Arts de L’Institut de France. And he cannot hide his pride in being the first of two members to be elected to Section VIII – Photographie. The other being Yan Arthus-Bertrand.
The academy contributes some of its members to help run the Casa Velasquez, an art school in Madrid which now has photography students. Looking after these is now one of Clergue’s main activities and, he says, a great responsibility.
A central and revealing statement on his work emerges when asked about travelling. “It is not important to me. I photograph what is offered and try to bring my own world and background into it. My world is in me - I carry it around!”
See also the FotoTV Video of Lucien Clergue making nude photographs on the beach.
Nadav Kander 2
Summary:
Photographer Nadav Kander sits down for this second interview with FotoTV to share some of his work and stories surrounding his stint of photographing in the USA, while showcasing sleek images of individuals of political power he has had the honor of photographing, including President Obama. Kander is a quiet photographer who shoots based on creating accurate portrayals instead of ingratiating Hollywood style imagery.
Kander discusses his approach to lighting and how he captures the slight nuances of the individual and it is that of a contemporary almost "non-lighting" style. His lighting effects are not liken to Irving Penn or Albert Watson, but bear the his signature of unique, individualistic style frozen in time. It was his recent works of American landscapes that gave him time to reflect on "God's Country" as he puts it. He views America as a religious country, which possibly explains his ethereal collection, "Color Fields" a photographic work of simple tonality and atmosphere and unnatural landscapes.
His work is harmonious and credible alone due to what the viewer feels when they see his images as opposed to a intentional statement that could possibly influence others thoughts about his work. His approach is always simple; look, feel and photograph. It is a humble way of thinking for such incredibly precise and insightful imagery. His photography is unpretentious yet stark in reality, mood and exactness.
Nadav Kander 1
Summary:
Photographer Nadav Kander sits down in this interview with FotoTV to share some of his work and stories surrounding the start of his career, while showcasing sleek images of the iconic artists and personalities he has had the honor of photographing. Kander is a no-frills photographer who shoots based on his feelings as opposed to idealistic thoughts. People react differently, though often to the same thing and that is a fact that Kander takes into consideration when photographing, always trying to maintain that level of connection to his viewers.
After serving in the military in South Africa, Kander left the troubled land of Apartheid for the opportunity to work as a photographer in an environment free of aggression, hatred and exclusion, a move that would prove very fruitful for his uncomplicated and honest rationality. Devoting four years as a photographer's assistant in London gave him the necessary skills and confidence to branch out for himself with the immediate purpose to take on projects as a successful commercial photographer.
When it comes to taking photographs Kander does not consciously formulate ideas, as an artist would paint a prepared picture, rather he disconnects himself entirely from the thought process and focuses more on his inner feeling--his true desire for visual satisfaction. Notably it is the sense of sentiment and melancholy of his subjects, which he finds a vibrant and interesting appeal for his motifs. Never being one for many words, Kander does not do well to describe his work in an elaborate sense. His work is harmonious and credible alone due to what the viewer feels when they see his images as opposed to a intentional statement that could possibly influence others thoughts about his work. His approach is always simple; look, feel and photograph. It is a humble way of thinking for such incredibly precise and insightful imagery. His photography is unpretentious yet stark in reality, mood and exactness.