Works Of Art (5)

..

Margarida Neto, "Coreografia", 2002 (8x10")

Mário Cesariny, "Penélope Corre ao Encontro de Ulisses", 1974-85 (8x10")

Mário Cesariny, Relógio, Lima de Freitas..., (9x12)

Paul Gauguin, "Nature Morte aux Pommes", (6x6)

Roberto Chichorro, 1994 (4x5")

Roberto Chichorro, 1996 (13x18)

Rogério Chora, "Embarcações no Rio Sado", 1994 (9x12)

Roland Topor, 1989 (6x7)

I would like to share with you once again a small selection of paintings that I had the chance of photographing through the years, on different occasions and using different cameras: Gandolfi 8x10 (sometimes with 5x7" reducing back), Sinar F2, Hasselblad 500 C/M and, for the last image, Mamiya RZ67.
Lighting as usual by Hensel Flash, Würzburg, Germany.

In this kind of post, I don't find it very polite on my part to say that I prefer this or that artist; I am sure that you agree...

Anyway, I think that nobody will dare to criticize me, if I admit that I found a very deep emotion photographing the painting by Paul Gauguin.
Somebody was not only lucky enough to own such a valuable work of art, but also made good use of it: that person had it hanging in the bedroom wall, right in front of the bed.

Imagine laying in your mattress with such a view...

(Please, don't bother to ask where, because I forgot it long ago!).

..

Studio Work (Sheet and roll film)

..

Some people have the rather erroneous idea, that the life of a professional photographer has a lot to do with easy-living and glamour.

While some certainly achieve such a wonderful status, I guess that the vast majority gets to know very little or no bright life at all.

Antonioni's "Blow Up" is a faraway mirage, continuously vanishing a little further away from our dreams and expectations. The girls just don't show up for a private dance, and very few of us drive Rolls-Royce convertibles...

Instead, we have every month to deal with our taxes and our costs, as any other business.

Crisis can take away all our wish to laugh and dance...

Beeing in a dark studio for endless hours, trying to make some ordinary objects turn to gold, can be a very frustrating and boring activity: "A little more light here, a little less light over there, a reflector here, that flash head a little further away, now that bottle just a little bit to the left, that shadow is too dark, the reflection is too strong", and so on and so on...

A shot looking simple and straightforward can take an eternity.
When you finally go back home you suddenly understand that it is long past midnight...

Sinar F2 + Horseman 6x12 back

Sinar F2 or Gandolfi Variant + Horseman 6x12 back

Gandolfi Precision 8x10 inches + 5x7 inches reducing back

Gandolfi Precision 8x10 inches

Gandolfi Precision 8x10 inches + 5x7 inches reducing back

Of course, if the products look good, you can have a lot more fun, even if the shots are relatively straight and simple.

Beeing a hi-fi and music fan myself, I did really enjoy doing these images.
Somebody made a review about the equipment for a magazine article, and I did the shooting. As I usually didn't get a lay out, I had the freedom to do as I pleased.

Nice, although the costs had to be kept to a minimum...

(You seldom can have the whole fun...).

Sinar F2 4x5 inches

Gandolfi Precision 8x10 inches + 5x7 inches reducing back

Watches can be something very challenging to photograph in 5x7 inches...

You really need a long bellows draw to be able to fill the frame with an interesting image.

Reflections can get you into serious trouble and you really have to master your lighting.

It is kind of funny to have a little watch facing a really big camera, surrounded by lots of lights...

You got to keep cool, or you quickly mess it up...

Sinar F2 4x5 inches

Sinar F2 4x5 inches

Sinar F2 4x5 inches

Sinar F2 4x5 inches

Sinar F2 4x5 inches

Now, glass can be rather tricky too.

It reflects your lights, your camera, your whole paraphernalia and yourself.
Maybe worst of all, it also reflects the dark corners of the studio.

In the examples above, and in the case of the "floating" watch, the background was also made with light.

Please keep in mind that all these photographs were shot with analogic gear, and that what you see is what the transparencies show.

All these images are not manipulated (except for some minor corrections like dust spoting, etc).

Basically, you see what I got in camera.

Gandolfi Precision 8x10 inches + 5x7 inches reducing back

Sinar F2 4x5 inches

The perfume bottle above and the two cameras below, were not shot on assignment. I just made them for myself. On the photograph above, I was experimenting with colored light to produce a background.

Sinar F2 4x5 inches

No, it is not a Leica, and the lens is not a Leitz Elmar!

It is just a fake Leica made by the russians, probably a FED or a Zorki I.

On the top plate a swastica is also engraved with the word "Bildberichter" (photo reporter).

Looks nice, but the shutter doesn't work...

Gandolf Precision 8x10 inches

My lovely Rolleiflex 3.5 F, that you should already know by now.
It graces my profile, and you also can see her around my neck in the portrait I posted some time ago.

Now you can watch her in all her beauty...

The images on this post were shot in my former studio in Lisbon, using flash equipment from Hensel Studiotechnik, Würzburg, Germany.

My cameras were equiped with Schneider and Rodenstock optics.

Light meters/Flash meters from Sekonic and Gossen.

..

International Worker's Day - (Gandolfi Precision 8x10)

..

I dedicate this post to all the immigrants
 

"I Pity the Poor Immigrant" - Bob Dylan

I pity the poor immigrant
Who wishes he would've stayed home,
Who uses all his power to do evil
But in the end is always left so alone.
That man whom with his fingers cheats
And who lies with ev'ry breath,
Who passionately hates his life
And likewise, fears his death.

I pity the poor immigrant
Whose strength is spent in vain,
Whose heaven is like Ironsides,
Whose tears are like rain,
Who eats but is not satisfied,
Who hears but does not see,
Who falls in love with wealth itself
And turns his back on me.

I pity the poor immigrant
Who tramples through the mud,
Who fills his mouth with laughing
And who builds his town with blood,
Whose visions in the final end
Must shatter like the glass.
I pity the poor immigrant
When his gladness comes to pass.

(From the album “John Wesley Harding” - 1967)

 

 

The above photograph was shot in the studio with a Gandolfi Precision 8x10 inches on Fujichrome Velvia film.

.

 

..

Landscape Photography

..

All photographs shot in Portugal on various occasions along the years.

Canon EOS-1n + 17-35mm f 2.8, Almograve

Canon EOS 1n (crop), Castro Laboreiro

Horseman SW612P, Meadinha, Serra da Peneda

Canon EOS 1n, Pitões das Júnias

Gandolfi 8x10 inches, Branda da Aveleira

Sinar F2 + Horseman 6x12 back, Serra da Peneda

Horseman SW612P, Branda da Aveleira

Horseman SW612P, Branda da Aveleira

Canon EOS 1n + 17-35mm f 2.8 (crop), Castro Laboreiro

Horseman SW612P, Castro Laboreiro

Horseman SW612P, Serra da Peneda

Horseman SW612P, Castro Laboreiro

Gandolfi Variant + Horseman 6x12 back, Serra da Peneda

Minolta XM (?) + Rokkor 21mm, Vilarinho das Furnas

Gandolfi Variant + Horseman 6x12 back, Rio Sado

Canon EOS 1n, Almograve

Me and my trusty "Defy", celebrating my birthday a couple of years ago.

Since several years now, she helps me travel to such beautiful places.

Good to mount a tripod or lay a sleeping bag...


..

Álvaro Siza - Casa de Chá da Boa Nova (1958-63)

..

Of all the projects by Álvaro Siza that I had the chance to photograph, the Boa Nova Tea House quickly gained a special corner deep inside my emotions.

Maybe it is it's rather small scale, maybe it is the nearness to the light house and the ever presence of the ocean, maybe it is this constant interplay between the rocks and the horizon, I don't exactly know, but the whole site possesses something kind of magical to me.

When approaching the Tea Room, you never see it or understand it totally, the architectonic volumes and shapes melt with the rocks and the blue color of water and sky, forming a kind of sculpture.

You are tempted to forget that you are walking towards a space that was built for a very clear purpose: to be a tea house and restaurant.

I remember beeing a small kid and spending holidays every now and then with my grandparents in Porto.

On occasion, if she was feeling courageous, my grandmother would sit at the steering wheel of "Boguinhas" (their Fiat 600), and would drive us to the beach in Matosinhos or Leça da Palmeira. Really not very often, as she was a terrible driver...

Some other days, my grandfather would take me on his Vespa and we could go for a ride along the coast, maybe stopping in Leixões looking at the harbor cranes loading cargo on the ships.

You may well understand that this whole region evokes some grateful memories for me, relics of a long-gone era...

I ask myself if in a couple of years I can recognize the place...

The first photograph on this post, was shot in 13x18 (5x7 inches) with my Gandolfi Precision 8x10, using a reducing back. I am not sure about the lens I used, but I think that it must have been the Apo-Sironar W f/5.6 210mm, from Rodenstock.

All other photographs were done with a Horseman SW612 Pro, also with Rodenstock lenses.
Obviously, I used a 6x12 roll film back on these ones...

..