Misrach in the Herald Tribune

There is a long and fairly interesting article on Richard Misrach's work in the Herald Tribune today. By the way, another good piece on the internet is this conversation between Misrach and John Paul Caponigro.

Those interested in Misrach's work should not pass up his recently published monograph: Chronologies. It is a sober and very imposing work. For me it was a real discovery.

The Rollei still rocks

So I am back from an adventurous trip through West-African Gabon. After our workshop in the isolated town of Gamba, we explored the western part of the country in an 800 km jeep ride which brought us to via Mayumba, Tchibanga, Mouila and Lambaréné to the capital Libreville.

The adventurous part was only partly due to the horrible condition of the roads at the beginning of the rainy season. In fact we were duped by a countryman of ours, who was responsible for the organisation of the trip. His jeep - a 30 year old, beaten Land Rover - kept breaking down and as early as Tchibanga the guy disappeared (with our money). Left to our own devices, we switched to a taxi brousse to cover the remaining 500 kilometer to Libreville.

During the whole trip I clutched my camera bag as a little baby (our Gabonese driver called it mockingly my "bagage fétish"). I just took my trusted Rolleiflex 3.5F and 20 rolls of Efke/Adox 100. The camera works wonderfully on these kinds of rough trips. It is compact and sturdy. And with its large, luminous Maxwell Hi-lux screen it is a great pleasure to work with. Perhaps its greatest asset is the fact that as a photographer you do not disappear behind your camera. Hence it is much easier to stay in contact with your subject and keep them at ease whilst you are focusing and composing a shot.

The Rolleiflex is often considered a stand-alone camera. But it is actually more adaptable than you might think. I really like the Rolleinar close-up lenses which allow for great flexibility at close distances (I had two with me on the Gabon trip). If you are lucky enough to find a Mutar 0.7x or 1.5x tele-converter, you can turn your Rollei into a wide-angle or telephoto camera at a moment's notice. There is a host of other interesting accessories, such as filters, prisms, film format converters (Rolleikin), etc. So, although it falls short of being a real system camera, the Rolleiflex TLR really is more versatile than it looks.

I have two Rolleiflex cameras: a 3.5F with a Carl Zeiss Planar lens and a grey Baby Rollei with a Schneider Kreuznach Xenar. The latter works with 127 fim - again available from Efke - and yields 4x4 negatives. For a short while I worked with the newer 2.8GX but, despite its built-in light meter and more luminous lens, I really prefer the older 3.5F.

The picture above was taken in Tchibanga, Gabon, with the Rolleiflex 3.5F on Adox/Efke 100.

African Portraits

Soon I will leave on a 10-day trip to Gabon. We are involved there in a regional development project in the Gamba complex. The aim is to develop a masterplan, supported by all key stakeholders, for a region that wants to diversify away from its sole dependence on oil exploration activities.

I have travelled numerous times to Central-Africa over the last years, always in the framework of professional assignments. I never fail to take my trusted Rolleiflex with me. In addition to documenting our work, I am building up a series of "African Portraits". The picture here shows the mayor of the city of Abidjan in Ivory Coast (taken on Efke 100 with the Rollei 3.5F). He was one of 30 participants in a mediation effort we facilitated six months ago. I made a portrait of all people involved in that process. Two years ago I was lucky enough to be able to photograph a series of 20 Burundese women, all working at a community centre in the country's capital Bujumbura.

I hope that our upcoming trip to Gabon will offer fresh opportunities to take beautiful portraits of local people.

Rangefinder Perspectives show has opened

Last Friday the exhibition on our "Rangefinder Perspectives" book opened at Bert Verlinden's Gallery Corso. On display are around 60 photos by 9 photographers. All of the images come from the rangefinder book we jointly made.

We welcomed around 120 visitors at the opening night, which is not bad for an event of this kind. Sadly we were only able to sell an additional 5 copies of the book.

The show will continue until end of March. So there is plenty of time to go and see those pictures.

The photo accompanying this entry shows my good friend Willy Robbeets , 2 days before the opening, with one of his pictures (in the back is a giant portrait from Toots Thielemans by Marco Mertens). Taken on Efke 100 with the Olympus OM-10 fitted with a Zuiko 55/1.2.