Meeting up in London

Can you guess where this pic was taken? (Paul, do not mark us on this!). And in case you wonder, from left to right are Silva, Mark, Anna, Rhian.

I must make a point to visit fellow students when in London (or wherever we happen to be together!)… I really enjoyed chatting with Lizzie at her place… and then meeting Anna, Mark and Rhian at LCC +pub. There is so much to talk about and time went so fast. I could not believe it was already 11 when I looked at the watch after only a few glasses of cider and chips! Not sure that the pub-on-line-session on Monday evening can ever have the same appeal than the real stuff (and it does not help that for one reason or another I always end up missing it…).

I feel that having a real group project (and possibly not only a large group project, but also smaller warm up exercises!) will really help to get in touch. So far I have been sooooo impressed with the people I met and I am really happy to be part of such a great group! And I can see a new generation of student already apprearing… Lizzie’s daughter is simply great at taking pics!

London is photo paradise...

London is another world when it comes to photography. Galleries and exhibitions, wonderful bookshops with tantalising choice…

[Bad luck. I was given a room at the Tavistock hotel from which I could access the wireless without going to the lobby… and today the laptop broke!! So all my hope to follow evening classes, do my homework and tutorials from the comfort of my room miserably failed… and, of course, broken laptop and slow replacement will mean BIG backlog of work…]

Ex 4b: Portrait of Nando at the Tate

I admit that asking a good friend to be the model for the second portrait session was a bit like cheating. But I had realised, in my first attempt, the importance to have the time to explore a face. Time, instead, is a bit of a luxury when portraying an unknown, busy person. And I feel incredibly clumsy and nervous when I pretend I am a photographer and ask people for their time… So it was good fun and a good laugh to take these pictures of Nando at the Tate. We probably looked quite credible in our endeavour: as we came back into the cafeteria from the terrace, several people said hello, just in case Nando was some sort of artist.

Having to think of portrait in a separate exercise from “activity” and “relationship” was very useful to make me understand what is in a portrait.

Looking back at the cook in Mombasa… I did not take many pics of the cook stirring in the pot because I had that feeling that these pictures said more about the verb, “to cook” and took focus away from the subject, the cook/chef. What I needed was less action and more context.

I also started to realize the difference between “taking a portrait of a person which is already set up to capture my attention” (e.g. in a particular moment, in a particular light) -which is the kind of portraiture that I had mostly done when travelling -…. and, instead, “taking a person as a starting point”, and act so that s/he can be put in a suitable context, in that good light, in that particular posture which captures and highlight something important about that person. So, not only I need to train myself to spot and capture these portraits which are already there, ready, in my face… but I must learn how to create that special context, to find that particular angle that makes the difference between a passport picture and a portrait.

London: with Rhian

No pics today... but a very nice afternoon. It was nice to discover that at least one of the people in the Wimba Classroom is a real and not virtual creature! I met with Rhian at the National Portrait Gallery (the Vanity Fair exibition was sold out, but the small Shutting Up Shop was really touching), we saw more pics at the Photographers' Gallery... we went to browse photography books in the shops in Central London.. And we had a fair share of hot drinks and chatting!

Ex 4a: portrait of the chef of Serena Hotel, Mombasa

The only exception to my commitment not to exploit locals for pictures was the hotel chef. Since the food was so good, I really felt I should go and praise him and, of course, try to convince him to be portrayed. I went across the kitchen, full of activity, and found him in his office.

I had expected he would be trafficking with pots and pans and instead he was busy looking at the internet to study trends and ideas in the tourist and food industry. Once I reassured him that my pictures were only a school assignment – and therefore I would not have to seek permission for the chain management - he agreed to be portrayed, and we set a time for the session. We had a good chat before, but the session was not long. I felt that he was happy to chat but had little time to spare with photos…

A few shots were taken in the office, while he was working, and then he agreed to go around the kitchen for a while. We took a couple of shots in front of a big pot, but they did not really work (he looked too much as a normal kitchen worker rather than the kitchen manager that I had known in the chat). I think that the shots that work best are those taken with him peeping from behind a pile of under red lights: an interesting feature of the kitchen that I luckily had spotted on my way in.

Mombasa

One week on a tourist paradise, but I did not see much of it. I spent most of the time in the conference room or in my hotel room in front of the laptop (but with a view of the sea).

I managed to take time for myself and to walk long the beach from 6 to 8… in the morning :-(

Even at that early time the beach was full of vendors, and of people willing to show crabs, octopus and little sea creatures to the few tourist in the hotels of the coast. Few indeed, as the Kenya troubles discouraged many to take their holidays on this beautiful coastline…which is the reason why we ended up there, in an upmarket hotel: desperate for business, hotels lowered the prices.

I could not avoid feeling guilty to talk about poverty in a luxury hotel, but on the positive side I was happy to know that lot of the friendly staff had been hired back because we showed in.

The troubled times seems to be gone now… hopefully these vendors will have plenty of clients again soon.

I had hoped to find “portrait material” for the assignment… but I was not very successful. I decided not to take portraits of the vendors on the beach, or hotel staff. I felt uncomfortable about being the “white tourist in a multistar hotel”, buying the time and the attention of the kind people along the beach for a few cents. It is not the kind of relationship I want to have when taking pictures of people.

I took tons of pictures of my colleagues during the workshop, which do not count as coursework… but I was happy to feel that even when taking these routine pictures I found myself thinking more, or waiting more for the right expression. I was pleased by the comment of a colleague, who observed me taking pics and said that I seem to take pics of interesting moments. I also experimented a lot with powerpoint and window media to put together the material for the conference in a novelty format. I had to present the result of an evaluation, and I manage to obtain video clips of the consultants engaging with them… multimedia work was a resounding success.

Roma: lentezza (3c)

As I wrote in the last post, street photography in Roma is challenging. On one side there is plenty of action in the centre, but in this hyper-touristic setting - where everyone virtually is using a camera - it feels harder to do something special. Of course I could have tried to go in the periphery or semi -periphery, but again I felt I would simply have fallen back in the cliché pictures of the “borgate”.

I somehow wanted to try to look at the centre with new eyes.

A blog gave me an interesting idea: I should participate to “Lentezza” (slowness), a collective/social art initiative. The event was aimed at rediscovering the town, pushing participants to look at it outside the touristic paths and with new eyes.

Participants were invited to draw a word linked to the idea of “slowness”on a map of Rome, and then follow the path they traced on the map. The starting point for each path was Piazza dell’Orologio, in a nice orange tree garden which I never had visited before. The arrival point was the Trevi fountain. Each participant was given a kit, comprising post it (to write notes and comments and stick them on the walls along the path), a pencil, a map and some instructions.

Instead of walking I took my bike. This allow me to be honest and ride (slowly!) through the streets composing my path (the word “slow”), but also to explore other alleys, and take some pictures of participants as they were walking by following their paths. In same cases I chatted with them before taking pictures… Other times I followed people, and I discovered that it is possible to follow someone for a long time without been noticed! It was not always easy to spot the other participants as everyone in the centre of Roma seems to hold a map. An additional challenge was that post-it were also very small, and written with pencil, so they were hardly usable in pictures taken with a 24 (equiv 35) mm.

At the end of the walk all participants wrote an “haiku postcard” and left it to a souvenir seller in Piazza di Trevi. Everyone exchanged a few comments about their walk, waiting for 7pm, the moment when we were all supposed to freeze for a few minutes as statues. I froze - of course1 - in a position which could allow me to take pictures of the fellow walkers looking as statues as tourists walked around them.