Showing posts with label Editorial Portrait. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Editorial Portrait. Show all posts
Monday, April 16, 2012
Wednesday, March 28, 2012
Photographer Profile ~ Vladimir 'Boogie' Milivojevich
Boogie was born Vladimir Milivojevich in Belgrade, the capital of what was then Yugoslavia. His friends gave him his nickname because he reminded them of a cartoon character called the Boogieman. He recalls the Belgrade of his childhood as a peaceful place, where crime rates were among the lowest in Europe and a strong sense of community prevailed.
This sense of stability changed drastically during the 1990s, he said, as Yugoslavia was upended and Belgrade transformed into a violent and poverty-ridden city. The situation was so drastic that Boogie remembers a period where his mother’s entire monthly pension could only buy two pounds of onions. Bleakness and hopelessness permeated the city. A few of his childhood friends succumbed to heroin addiction. People ended their own lives to avoid dying of starvation. Boogie walked around with homemade dog food to feed abandoned pets. To support his family, he traveled to Bulgaria to smuggle paint and sell it on the black market. (His father painted religious icons, so he knew which paints and colours were in demand.)
His father was also an amateur photographer. He gave Boogie his first camera. Boogie walked the streets day and night, recording the degradation of his city.
“All the moral values in our society somehow disappeared or got twisted during that time,” he said. “I realized much later that I probably started shooting to preserve my sanity, to distance myself from the chaos around me.”
He developed and nurtured a style. He was never influenced by other photographers’ work. He could barely afford film, let alone expensive photo books. He now sees this as an advantage. He was not tempted to emulate anyone else. Instead, he was able to focus solely on creating his own raw aesthetic, which grew organically from his connection to the streets.
In 1997, Boogie and his friends decided on a whim to apply for the United States green card lottery. He had never planned to leave Serbia but it turned out he was the only one of his friends to win. He left Serbia a week before the war in Kosovo began.
In America, he continued to photograph incessantly on the streets, now focusing on the neighborhoods of Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Queensbridge. His pictures of heroin addicts and gang members are poignant and shocking.
[via NewYorkTimes]
“If I left my house without my camera, my heart would probably start pounding and I would get all tense,” Boogie said. “That thought freaks me out. I wouldn’t be able to take it. Maybe it sounds cliché, but I really do feel like I am one with my camera. I like to compare it to martial arts, when you practice some moves so many times that — when you need to use them — you don’t think, you just react. Thinking is the enemy.” ~Boogie
“The streets are larger than life, they are living and breathing,” he says. “Pictures are everywhere. They just come to you.”~ Boogie
“I don’t think my work is depressing — just real,” Boogie said. “My intention is never to provoke any specific reaction from the viewer. I can see how people think my work is dark, but I guess that is just a natural part of who I am. Maybe it is because I put my negative energy into my work. I don’t know. I just try to be honest and just observe.”~ Boogie
One of the most haunting photos in his book is of a woman chopping up meat on a park bench. Boogie is not sure exactly what she was doing, but recalls that such incongruous moments were commonplace. “I spotted the woman near Kalemegdan, the medieval fortress, and started taking pictures, moving closer and closer,” Boogie said. “At one point, she turned towards me, holding the cleaver. I backed away pretty quickly. I have no idea what she was cutting.”
“One’s work will always depend on the state of mind one is in, and I think I’m doing pretty good in that department,” he says. “I have a two-year-old daughter now and I like being a dad. I’m growing organic tomatoes in my backyard, so I can’t complain. I do feel more inspired then ever. It wouldn’t surprise me if my work looked more positive, although I have no idea. I don’t really stop to analyze it much.”
This sense of stability changed drastically during the 1990s, he said, as Yugoslavia was upended and Belgrade transformed into a violent and poverty-ridden city. The situation was so drastic that Boogie remembers a period where his mother’s entire monthly pension could only buy two pounds of onions. Bleakness and hopelessness permeated the city. A few of his childhood friends succumbed to heroin addiction. People ended their own lives to avoid dying of starvation. Boogie walked around with homemade dog food to feed abandoned pets. To support his family, he traveled to Bulgaria to smuggle paint and sell it on the black market. (His father painted religious icons, so he knew which paints and colours were in demand.)
His father was also an amateur photographer. He gave Boogie his first camera. Boogie walked the streets day and night, recording the degradation of his city.
“All the moral values in our society somehow disappeared or got twisted during that time,” he said. “I realized much later that I probably started shooting to preserve my sanity, to distance myself from the chaos around me.”
He developed and nurtured a style. He was never influenced by other photographers’ work. He could barely afford film, let alone expensive photo books. He now sees this as an advantage. He was not tempted to emulate anyone else. Instead, he was able to focus solely on creating his own raw aesthetic, which grew organically from his connection to the streets.
In 1997, Boogie and his friends decided on a whim to apply for the United States green card lottery. He had never planned to leave Serbia but it turned out he was the only one of his friends to win. He left Serbia a week before the war in Kosovo began.
In America, he continued to photograph incessantly on the streets, now focusing on the neighborhoods of Bushwick, Bedford-Stuyvesant and Queensbridge. His pictures of heroin addicts and gang members are poignant and shocking.
[via NewYorkTimes]
“If I left my house without my camera, my heart would probably start pounding and I would get all tense,” Boogie said. “That thought freaks me out. I wouldn’t be able to take it. Maybe it sounds cliché, but I really do feel like I am one with my camera. I like to compare it to martial arts, when you practice some moves so many times that — when you need to use them — you don’t think, you just react. Thinking is the enemy.” ~Boogie
“The streets are larger than life, they are living and breathing,” he says. “Pictures are everywhere. They just come to you.”~ Boogie
“I don’t think my work is depressing — just real,” Boogie said. “My intention is never to provoke any specific reaction from the viewer. I can see how people think my work is dark, but I guess that is just a natural part of who I am. Maybe it is because I put my negative energy into my work. I don’t know. I just try to be honest and just observe.”~ Boogie
“One’s work will always depend on the state of mind one is in, and I think I’m doing pretty good in that department,” he says. “I have a two-year-old daughter now and I like being a dad. I’m growing organic tomatoes in my backyard, so I can’t complain. I do feel more inspired then ever. It wouldn’t surprise me if my work looked more positive, although I have no idea. I don’t really stop to analyze it much.”
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
Photographer Nadav Kander Discusses His Approach to Portraiture
Nadav Kander is a brilliant commercial and fine art photographer. His work is the perfect balance of art and commerce. Kander is recognized as one of the most original and highly regarded photographers of our time. His work forms part of the public collection at the National Portrait Gallery and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London. In a sea of bland and banal photography his work stands out. Have a look.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Intriguing Portraits of Congolese Wrestlers ~ By Photographer Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse was in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) documenting conditions in copper mines when, returning to Kinshasa one evening, he saw a masked man perched atop a car, leading a procession of drummers and several dozen men and children.
Intrigued, the Belgian photographer began asking around and learned that what he had witnessed was the afternoon build-up to one of the city’s most popular sports: wrestling. In a country that, from 1998 to 2003, was the center of one of the bloodiest conflicts since World War II—8.4 million people killed from eight countries—one wouldn’t expect to find crowds clamoring to watch men pretend to beat each other up, Hulk Hogan-style. But influenced by broadcasts of American wrestling in the 1970s, the Congolese adapted the sport, bringing their own spin—parades, voo-doo and body paint. The sport is so firmly entrenched that even the president’s body guard is a popular wrestler, known as “Etats-Unis,” and one of Kinshasa’s district mayors even sponsored a match to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence from Belgium.
In the DRC, there are two branches of the sport. The first is the more recognizable WWE SmackDown-brand, villain vs. villain match, where wrestlers craft costumes out of spandex, wear masks and choreograph a physical tussle. The second, called fetish wrestling, involves opponents, wearing antelope horns or fake machetes through their skull, dancing, casting spells and using witchcraft to combat each other.
“The classic wrestlers consider themselves more important,” says Delfosse, of the group who have day jobs as taxi drivers or bouncers. “They train hard, lifting weights every day. The fetish wrestlers have more of a rock’n’ roll lifestyle—they sit around, drinking beer and smoking weed.”
Gaining his subjects’ cooperation took a while; it was months before Delfosse was able to ride with wrestlers to and from the matches (protection he was relieved to get, as in the early days he was roughed up coming home from a match in a dangerous neighborhood and his cameras smashed). But even with that access, photography is viewed with suspicion, and getting portraits of the wrestlers often took a few hours of negotiation. “They always think you’re going to earn millions from the photo. They’re reluctant and they want to be paid. So you drink a beer with them, and tell them no, you’re not going to get rich,” said Delfosse. “Sometimes four hours later, I can take their picture. You have to be patient.”
Working inside the wrestling scene changed Delfosse’s feelings about Kinshasa. He admitted he hated the noisy, chaotic capital—considered one of the most dangerous in Africa, with a homicide rate almost six times greater than the continent as a whole—when he arrived. While the violence that still pervades the society is just below the surface of the matches—Human Rights Watch documented a mass rape, abduction and torture in a couple of eastern villages just last year—the sport showed Delfosse a different side of the Congolese. “They’re surviving day-to-day. There are no jobs, no infrastructure. When they wake up they don’t know what they’re going to eat for dinner that night,” he said. “It’s hard and tough, but this is a way to show they kept their sense of humor.”
Colin Delfosse is a documentary photographer and a founding member of Out of Focus photography collective.
Colin Delfosse has published in Photo Raw, Eyemazing, VSD, La Libre Belgique, Le Soir, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Jeune Afrique, Polka, View, Time Magazine Light Box, Causette. [via outoffocus.be and Time]
colin@outoffocus.be
Intrigued, the Belgian photographer began asking around and learned that what he had witnessed was the afternoon build-up to one of the city’s most popular sports: wrestling. In a country that, from 1998 to 2003, was the center of one of the bloodiest conflicts since World War II—8.4 million people killed from eight countries—one wouldn’t expect to find crowds clamoring to watch men pretend to beat each other up, Hulk Hogan-style. But influenced by broadcasts of American wrestling in the 1970s, the Congolese adapted the sport, bringing their own spin—parades, voo-doo and body paint. The sport is so firmly entrenched that even the president’s body guard is a popular wrestler, known as “Etats-Unis,” and one of Kinshasa’s district mayors even sponsored a match to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the country’s independence from Belgium.
In the DRC, there are two branches of the sport. The first is the more recognizable WWE SmackDown-brand, villain vs. villain match, where wrestlers craft costumes out of spandex, wear masks and choreograph a physical tussle. The second, called fetish wrestling, involves opponents, wearing antelope horns or fake machetes through their skull, dancing, casting spells and using witchcraft to combat each other.
“The classic wrestlers consider themselves more important,” says Delfosse, of the group who have day jobs as taxi drivers or bouncers. “They train hard, lifting weights every day. The fetish wrestlers have more of a rock’n’ roll lifestyle—they sit around, drinking beer and smoking weed.”
Gaining his subjects’ cooperation took a while; it was months before Delfosse was able to ride with wrestlers to and from the matches (protection he was relieved to get, as in the early days he was roughed up coming home from a match in a dangerous neighborhood and his cameras smashed). But even with that access, photography is viewed with suspicion, and getting portraits of the wrestlers often took a few hours of negotiation. “They always think you’re going to earn millions from the photo. They’re reluctant and they want to be paid. So you drink a beer with them, and tell them no, you’re not going to get rich,” said Delfosse. “Sometimes four hours later, I can take their picture. You have to be patient.”
Working inside the wrestling scene changed Delfosse’s feelings about Kinshasa. He admitted he hated the noisy, chaotic capital—considered one of the most dangerous in Africa, with a homicide rate almost six times greater than the continent as a whole—when he arrived. While the violence that still pervades the society is just below the surface of the matches—Human Rights Watch documented a mass rape, abduction and torture in a couple of eastern villages just last year—the sport showed Delfosse a different side of the Congolese. “They’re surviving day-to-day. There are no jobs, no infrastructure. When they wake up they don’t know what they’re going to eat for dinner that night,” he said. “It’s hard and tough, but this is a way to show they kept their sense of humor.”
Colin Delfosse is a documentary photographer and a founding member of Out of Focus photography collective.
Colin Delfosse has published in Photo Raw, Eyemazing, VSD, La Libre Belgique, Le Soir, The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, Jeune Afrique, Polka, View, Time Magazine Light Box, Causette. [via outoffocus.be and Time]
colin@outoffocus.be
*click on images for a larger view*
Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
“The classic wrestlers consider themselves more important,”
says Delfosse, of the group who have day jobs as taxi drivers or bouncers. “They train hard, lifting weights every day. The fetish wrestlers have more of a rock’n’ roll lifestyle—they sit around, drinking beer and smoking weed.”
Colin Delfosse
“They always think you’re going to earn millions from the photo. They’re reluctant and they want to be paid. So you drink a beer with them, and tell them no, you’re not going to get rich, Sometimes four hours later, I can take their picture. You have to be patient.” ~ Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
Since there is no published schedule, wrestlers parade through the streets of Kinshasa to lead the audience to the match before each tournament. Here, classic wrestler Six Bolites spars with fans in front of a passing train in Kinshasa's Masina district.
Colin Delfosse
Colin Delfosse
“The classic wrestlers consider themselves more important,”
says Delfosse, of the group who have day jobs as taxi drivers or bouncers. “They train hard, lifting weights every day. The fetish wrestlers have more of a rock’n’ roll lifestyle—they sit around, drinking beer and smoking weed.”
“They always think you’re going to earn millions from the photo. They’re reluctant and they want to be paid. So you drink a beer with them, and tell them no, you’re not going to get rich, Sometimes four hours later, I can take their picture. You have to be patient.” ~ Delfosse
Since there is no published schedule, wrestlers parade through the streets of Kinshasa to lead the audience to the match before each tournament. Here, classic wrestler Six Bolites spars with fans in front of a passing train in Kinshasa's Masina district.
Colin Delfosse
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