More reasons than you will ever need to be in Paris this Autumn

September 1st signals what the French call la rentrée, it's when life returns to normal after the lengthy August holiday break. Schools start their new year and galleries present their new shows. 
Centre Pompidou, or as Parisians call it Beaubourg, (I don't think they liked M. Pompidou all that much) has just released their programme for la rentrée. Amongst many offerings there are shows featuring Baudelaire, Elina Brotherus, The Duchamp Prize, André Derain, Harmony Korine, William Kline plus a new presentation of their contemporary collection.

On top of all this there is Paris Photo! So, rendez-vous à Paris du 9 au 12 novembre 2017 au Grand Palais pour découvrir la première foire mondiale dédiée au médium photographique.

David Gaberle - Metropolight, an urban dystopia

 

Street photographer David Gaberle, resident of Prague and London has just produced his first photobook - Metropolight. With images made in Tokyo, London, New York, Hong Kong, Shanghai and beyond, the work is uncanny and unsettling. The reader is transported to some other dark place, an urban dystopia. The pictures present a Blade Runner sort of world, in endless motion with seemingly desensitised people going through the motions of being human. Coping, surviving. The work is Paul Graham on speed.

David says this about himself and the Metropolight project:
5 years ago, at the suggestion of a friend, I realised that carrying a camera around really eases the experience of the sensory overload that comes with living in a big city. The camera's a therapeutic tool. Paradoxically, it gives me the illusion that I'm in control of what I'm doing while at the same time making me realise that things are continually getting out of my hands. 
I'd like to think that the experience of taking photos helps me grow over time. Especially in street-photography, getting a good shot requires patience. In my personal life, I often have too clear an idea of what I want and how I should get there (frustratingly, I hardly ever do). Shooting out on the streets is a pleasant antithesis to that as it requires an openness to experience and a willingness to let go of a whole lot of preconceived ideas. In that way, it's a balancing act to my life outside of photography. 

Metropolight is a stunning book. You can get a copy from David's website and see more at the same time, HERE.

Ron Jude - his take on the photobook sequence

In a recent post in Photo District News Ron Jude talks about his approach to photobook sequencing... “The tricky part,” Jude explains, is to use these visual cues to bring viewers from one picture to the next “without it becoming clear on the surface exactly what you’re doing…. I think if anybody really studies [Nausea] or any of my books, you start to pick up on those things…but you don’t want to overplay that hand because then it just becomes a little trick that you’re doing and then suddenly that’s what the book is about.”

Below is a sequence from Ron's book Nausea made from images he shot 25 years ago.

You can read the complete PDN piece HERE.

Color palettes in film and photography

In a recent post from OPEN CULTURE the business of color palettes in film was discussed. Film makers have long used color to underline the emotional thrust of a movie. Different colors are loaded with distinctive psychological meanings and are powerful signifiers. Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is associated with energy, war, danger, strength, power, determination as well as passion, desire, and love. Yellow is the color of sunshine. It's associated with joy, happiness, intellect, and energy. Blue is the color of the sky and sea. It is often associated with depth and stability. It symbolizes trust, loyalty, wisdom, confidence, intelligence, faith, truth, and heaven. And so on...

The site Cinema Palettes, shows examples of various film color palettes, it's not difficult to see how these color choices contribute significantly to the take out from a film.

Lost in Translation (2003) dir. Sofia Coppola

The Shining (1980) dir. Stanley Kubrick

The Revenant (2015) dir. Alejandro González Iñárritu

American Beauty (1999) dir. Sam Mendes

Mad Max: Fury Road (2015) dir. George Miller

In my recent photobook - THE LAMENT (Dewi Lewis UK)  I made a decision to go for an almost monochrome color palette using grays, dark blues and greens and ochre. I  punctuated these colors with strong reds. After all a lamentation is about loss and sadness and I wanted the overall look of the book to reinforce that. Below are some of the spreads from THE LAMENT, I think you can see what I'm on about.

If you are interested THE LAMENT is available from Dewi Lewis Publishing HERE or The Book Depository HERE. This hardback book has 96 pages with 83 photographs.