Caps continued

Meanwhile the Capitals continue to demand attention. Writer Nancy Allison - who got in touch via friend Marko in Chemnitz - has dedicated a most kind entry about the book in her blog. 

Ag Magazine has asked for a couple of images to print along with a review of the Capitals book in their April issue.

Tropismes, one of Brussels' best loved and most exquisitely designed bookshops, has been so kind to put a nicely framed print (the "Budapest" elephant) in their shopwindow along with the book. Just next to it is Carl de Keyzer's "Trinity". Quite an honour! 

And I have sent in a copy of the book to PhotoEspana 2008 for their Best Photography Book Award. Let's see what comes of it ...

Hunting

Picture courtesy Johan Doumont 

Another snap from our outing on Saturday: Johan caught me whilst hunting on the train back home. (A case of the hunter being hunted, really ;-) Well, I remember Lorenzo Castore last summer stealing upon his prey and attacking it like a genuine predator. It was an impressive sight: very instinctual, very visceral. Something of this hypnotic energy and of the shock of surprise carries over in his work, I think. (Araki is another photographer who comes to mind). 

XIX!

Today we had 19 people in the house. Pffw! This stretches our infrastructure really to the limits. I managed amidst all the hubbub to take a few shots, this lovely portrait of father and daughter amongst them. Taken with the 5D with the Zeiss 85/1.4 wide open.

XIV

Johan and I had a brief outing today to test drive the D3. We had to deviate from our original plan as the city centre was closed and the bus had to take a different route. We jumped off in another, rather prosaic part of town, right in front of one of the universitary colleges (Leo XIII). We spent a good hour right there and then exercising our photographic eye on a 100m2 spot. A shower sent us looking for refuge in one of the cafés near the railway station. Above a selection of my modest harvest, all taken with the 5D, Zeiss Planar 50/1.4. I will choose six of them for our next installment on our Dubruk photographic scrapbook. 

D3 in action

Johan Doumont in action with his brand new D3 ... 

Pictures taken with my 5D, Zeiss Planar 50/1.4, wide open. 

La Royale

"La Déesse"? "La Grande Dame"? Let's stick to "La Royale" for Johan's brand new Nikon D3. An impressive camera, this full frame digital SLR. I like the extremely brilliant viewfinder, the rapid responsiveness and the easy handling. Despite the amazing technology package that Nikon engineers have put in this body, the camera is not intimidating but seems to be organically conceived around a "pro" vision. The combination of full frame with 12 Mp (similar to the D5) promises excellent results in terms of final print. Johan seemed quite happy with it and there seemed to be plenty of chemistry between the camera and its owner. To be continued, no doubt ...

Dusk

Another series from the last couple of weeks. On my way to the hotel whilst on assignment in The Hague. Not my favourite place. But that February evening offered a marvelous spectacle with a most velvety, seductive dusk spreading over the city. As usual, I had the Leica CM loaded with Neopan 1600. A 2 km walk, a time window of barely half an hour and it was gone ...

645/220

I'm happy to be able to do some shooting again. Nothing earth-shattering, but that doesn't matter too much. These were taken over the last two weeks in Brussels and further afield, with the Bronica RF645. Shot on a 220 roll of  Tri-X 320 (exposed @ 320). With 220 one has more than 30 frames on the 6x4.5 which is great. Nice emulsion. I like the looks. I will certainly take it to Pakistan. It will give me 15 shots on the Fuji 6x9, which might last me a full day.

Pecha Kucha

I've been invited to speak at Pecha Kucha Brussels on March 20th. Pecha Kucha, which is Japanese for "the sound of conversation", is a series of show-and-tell events for all kinds of creative people. What is peculiar is the strict format: every presenter needs to stick to 20 images which can be discussed for only 20 seconds each. Presentations are therefore, by the rules of arithmetic, limited to 6' 40". The format was launched a few years ago in Tokyo and has now spread all over the world. The two previous editions in Brussels attracted a crowd of more than 300 people. 

I had the choice to present myself as a professional scenario planner/futurist or as an amateur photographer and I chose the latter. Not without trepidations, however. The first edition featured Paolo Pellizzari as a photographer and, to be honest, I don't know whether there is much more to tell about photography than he did. 

I'm going to try and tell something (very simple) about my "mountain photography" portfolio.

The aim will be to make the mountain "visible" again. This I will do by a) not talking about mountains (I am planning not to use the word "mountain" once), b) by showing how photographers today (Axel Hütte, Sonja Braas, Micahel Schabel, Walter Niedermayr) play a hide-and-seek game when showing us these geological phenomena (hence dodging the issues), and c) by showing how I am trying to get them back into the picture (quite literally). 

I hope it's going to work ...  

Maelstrom

Again we emerge from the maelstrom of professional obligations. I have been travelling up and down to London, Geneva and The Hague over the last two weeks with hardly any time to think photography. As usual I had an assortment of cameras in my backpack but hardly anything came of it. 

I got the Bronica RF645 back from Robert White with the viewfinder realigned. Very nice camera, by the way. 

I also purchased a minty Fuji GW690 III from a Dutch photographer. I had a GSW (superwide) version of this camera before, which I sold. The version with the slightly faster normal lens (90/3.5) might do the trick in Pakistan I think. I need to do some side-by-side comparisons of  4x5" with 6x9cm taking into account the enormous gain in convenience by working with a very portable, sturdy, batterly-independent rangefinder camera as opposed to the tripod-confined field camera. 

The exhibition at the Berlaymont building is now well under way and I got some favourable reactions and sold some extra books as a result. One of the buyers told me "the book is better than I expected", so you wonder what people actually expect!

Millennium Images accepted my first batch of final scans, sealed the contract and also selected 20 additional images from my second submission. About half of those are pictures "préparation maison", with scratches, dust specks and halos, a number of which I have shown on this blog. 

That's been the news of the last two weeks.