pentaprism m a g a z i n e
Ty | Nati Keren
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GRAPHIC DESIGN : ELENA BOVO
Pentaprism is born by a common idea of a group of friends who love good potography, a sort of a bet for many of us, because we knew the difficoulties to face opening a photocomunity in 2013 when the web gives a wide choice of sites to see photos. The porpouse was, and still is, to build an easy-to-use platform with a high quality view, open to all photographic and artistic expressions, using the most important social networks only as a showcase and not as final target: Pentaprism gives you the possibility to publish your images as well as they appear at the moment of upload, without any algorithm that reduce the resolution, the pure pleasure to enjoy a photo at the best quality chosen by the authors. Selected and invited authors are toghether with entry photographers, everyone with his dedicated space in a high level concept of photography. This magazine is an extension of the activity in the site to highlight and deepen some photographic argouments.
index
6 INTERVIEW WITH NATI KEREN
18 BLACK&WHITE
30 THE ART OF PORTRAIT
44 FINE NUDE
54 CREATIVE EDIT
66 CONCEPTUAL 76 STREET
88 ARCHITECTURE
100 LANDSCAPE 112 WILDLIFE
122 MACROWORLD 132 TRAVEL JOURNAL: HOKKAIDO, JAPAN’S GREAT NORTH
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interviEW nati keren
For the last few years photography has become my passion. My obsession! Everywhere I look I see photographs. I never get satisfied with what I have done. It’s very likely that my best work has not been done yet, I guess that my favorite shoot is the one that I am going to do tomorrow . Nati Keren
How long have you been photographing? I have bought my first Canon a few years ago. Since then photography take a huge part of my life. It is the way a I fell, the way I touch, the way I love. How did you get into photography? It’s all started as a hobby. In the years to come I started to push myself harder and harder in order to make timeless images, the most unpredictable pics I can only think of. Everything I know, I have learned following the hardest way: the one of self-taught. So far this method has paid off, although it’s probably isn’t the easiest route. What is the creative process that leads to the creation of your works? I usually create an image in my head of my next shoot. My next step and my biggest goal is to make it real. I just need to turn my imagination into reality. A great part of your work is pervaded by a concept of duality, in some of your works you resort to the use of religious symbols against female figures often in provocative attitudes, even the use of lights suggests a double key in reading the image, so all reminds our double nature. Would you like to talk
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about it? Provocative is the name of the game the more provocative the image is the more intention it will get from the viewers. Religion is very powerful the same I can say about females, when I use both of them in my photoshoot the result is incredible In your opinion how important is a photographer for the unexpected, the accidental event? I believe that a photographer can make his best pictures especially during unexpected capture. That could be the most tragic or the happiest image or even historical. You just need to be lucky enough to have your camera with you. What is your equipment and what is the lens you could not give up? I shoot with Canon 7D. I couldn’t give up on 50mm 1.4 and 70-200 f4. My favorite lens is the 85mm 1.4 in my studio most of the time I use studio lightings for the photosations. Which photographers do you follow? I don’t pay much attention to what others are doing. I usually concentrate on my own works. The only photographer I compare myself to is the one I used to be.
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It gives me strength to go forward. What is your inspiration? I can get my inspiration from anything I just need to leave home first. I can get it from people, colors, shapes from surfing the net or watching fashion magazines. After getting the general idea of my next shoot, I put together the rest elements such as make up, hair and styling. What advice would you give to people starting out in photography today? Buying Canon doesn’t make you a photographer, it makes you a canon owner. The doing is the main thing that matters. Take photographs every day, share them, pimp them, promote them like crazy. Get creative as hell!
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Black&white Curated by ROBERTO BON
“It has always been my desire to receive, from an observer, the big question: “Why?”. It implies an interest to my mind, to my way of thinking and interpreting photography, life, and reality. It raises a question of artistic nature and demands profound answers that leads to debate or simple exchanges of opinion. Unfortunately, the recurring question I hear is “How?”, which is much more obvious and relegated to mere technical choices. As an artist I am inexorably degraded, with a simple word, to the status of a artisan. An equally worthy profession but without the faintest ambition. The few times that this wish has come true, I remember that my choice was determined by the technique of using black and white.” (Max Ferrero)
I feel compelled to share and expand on the thoughts of Max Ferrero; photography in black and white can not be improvised it should not be “chosen after”, you have to see the photo in its original form, by excluding color from the brain, already in the early stages of framing. Greater attention to the content, the form, the direction of light. Lights and shadows have more influence in adding or removing “importance” to the image. No longer just a reproduction of reality, but immersion in creativity and search for what you want to express. Let me be clear right now that I’m not talking about rules, far be it for me to suggest a unique way and a dogmatic approach to photography in bn (I still have my doubts), I just try to introduce one aspect, my vision of a love for photography in general and a small, continuous, obsession with photography in Black & White.
Here I propose a few images on the site that I consider “worthy” of note and a particular attention.
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High Tide | Roby Bon
Up | Julian Escardo
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One step forward | Joe Tyel Chan
Audace | Sergio Demitri
FWD | Tatsuo Suzuki
Traces | Gianni Grattacaso
THE ART OF PORTRAIT Curated by RICCARDO ROSSINI
A look, an expression, the light, a concept. The capability to merge all these elements and obtain a synthesis of them can make an image of a visage more than a simple photo. A portrait should create a relationship between the subject and the observer, so you can see the point of view of the photographer, his way to interpret the moment, actually, he becomes the hidden subject of the image and his presence should be tangible. Here is a little selection of our best portrait images, for all I said, some tributes to the human feelings.
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No7 | Andy Lee
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Untitled | Maciej Grochala
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Summer Ice | Simone Conti
Gwen | Philippe Booch
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Untitled | Paul Apal’kin
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Untitled | Tuna Akรงay
Осень | Sergey Smirnov
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fine nude Curated by AMEDEO FRAGIACOMO
Since ancient times, artists have used the representation of nude to express ideas and feelings, although history has changed the ideas and expressions, the nude must appear without showing, must merge the form and the beauty as natural as possible to not cross the thin threshold that conduce to eroticism. “Art is never chaste” Pablo Picasso said “when it is chaste is not art anymore”. The secret of a good nude imageis the simplicity. A concept not easy to achieve.
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Maru | Kenneth Davie
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Untitled | Dmitry Chapala
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Untitled | Александр
La se単ora con el perro | Eugene Reno
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Pearls | Photographyves
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CREATIVE EDIT Curated by ELENA BOVO
Elements and ideas of Romanticism blend to a dreamlike vision of reality to generate surreal locations. A genre in continuous evolution that opens the door to research, experimentation, new perspectives on the representation of man and his environment. The man changed in appearance from its spiritual content, the space becomes anthropomorphic and dialogue with those who inhabit it. The feeling of grandeur that nature arouses in its human viewers. The imagery of Friedrich and deformations of De Chirico. Romanticism and Symbolism condensed into images so far removed from reality as to be faithful portrait of its essence.
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Mr Fall | Mojebory
Sailor | Leszek Bujnowski
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The Wright Stuff | Dave Urwin
Friends | Adamix
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Health Insurance | Volker Birke
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Time pressure makes Headless | Ilayda Portakaloglu
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Conceptual Curated by LAURA ZAMBELLI
The concept photography is correlated fairly close to the concept art of the seventies.Today, the approximate quality of that time it is replaced in favor of very elaborate works in which a concept or an idea very specific , are developped through symbolism and metaphors of great originality . The photograph concept therefore is a kind of expression in which the basic concept is thestarting point in the creation of the image.More and more photographers today, through advanced manipulation software , are able to illustrate their message with an elaboration of very high quality, where the final visual quality of the image has often a strong communicative impact . The concept is closely related to advertising photography from which it inherited the specificity of the expressive content transmitted with maximum visual effect . ”In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art , it means that all the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a superficial affair . The idea becomes an engine for the art” . Solomon “Sol” LeWitt
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I Belong To You | Martin Marcisovsky
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Time Waits for No One | Mario Grobenski
Crack | Erwin Sugito
Family portrait | Richard Johnson
Open | Jorge Miguel Blazquez
STREET THE MOMENTS OF WORK Curated by MARCO NOSIGLIA
Talking about street photography is like to talk about the birth of photography and at the same time of the desire to document or stop a significant moment , where we can find a person or a lot of people , rather than bring moments of private or public interest , to represent static or dynamic elements of a place , to tell the dramatic events and sometimes even violent scenes ... simply all you can see, provided that the fact refers to an environment mainly for towns , where scene before described meets or collides , realizes or destroys , where man is present , absent , passing or where he lives or where we feel his influence . So many great photographers of the genre have left an indelible mark on the history of photography, examples that can only give a cue but never copied due to the fact that the basic characteristic of the street is to be unique , having its essence in the unique moment . The secret of a good street ? able to see and , better yet, anticipate situations. Here are some wonderful photos on Pentaprism sections, urban, street, reportage .
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Urban Survivor | MarieLouPeree
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Step by step | Akira Ota
In the spotlight | Andrea Marcantonio
Mirrors | Melvin Quaresma
Istambul | Simone Zarotti
Chilli Bearers | Prateek Dubey
ARCHITECTURE Curated by MIHAI FLOREA
Some might ask why photographing architecture? At the end of the day, it’s just steel, glass and stones, it’s not natural. Most people can connect with a tree, an animal and people, but not with a building or a bridge. I would like to quote here the great Le Corbusier: “Architecture is a thing of art, a phenomenon of the emotions, lying outside questions of construction and beyond them. The purpose of construction is to make things hold together; of architecture to move us”. It takes a special kind of photographer to perfectly capture that emotional intensity which is the soul of all great architecture and to evoke the true character of a building. The images selected here are perfect examples of architectural dream like visions created by some of the best fine art photographers.
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Bogen von 124,5째 | Andreas
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Divide | Dennis Ramos
Dream city | Sandra Sachsenhauser
InfiniteEnlightment | Klaus-Peter Kubik
Lines of light | Dragos Ioneanu
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Vitra | Pygmalion Karatzas
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landscape LONG EXPOSITION Curated by DAVIDE GIONGO
What I actually love in a landscape photo is the location, it couldn’t be different. This photographic genre inspires me the desire to travel and see new places, two indivisible elements for who likes this kind of photography and even most inspiring is the challenge to catch of the atmosphere of the moment. In the following pages a short selection of images that explain what I mean for lanscape photography.
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Sunken II | Jose Beut
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Oblivion | Christian Lim
One | Jonathan Bengtsson
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Silk hair | Santiago Pascual Buyè
Sunken Dreams | Mihai Florea
Reynisdrangar’s Cliff | Sylvain (SC Pictures)
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wildlife Curated by ASHLEY VINCENT
The most simplistic definition for ‘wildlife’ is wild animals living in nature. A broader definition, though, encompasses all living things (except people) that are undomesticated, which includes everything from vegetation, plants and flowers to all creatures great and small found on land and in water whether in their natural habitat or in captivity; as far as animals go, the line is drawn to exclude those that have been tamed as pets, raised as livestock, or work on a farm. For the purpose of this introduction the focus is on wild (as opposed to domesticated) animals, and I have been asked to select three photos that for me are examples of great wildlife photography, which has not been an easy task seeing as there are many fine examples to be found on the Pentaprism website. As a wildlife photographer, I tend to focus mainly on capturing something of my subject’s personality, whether that be by way of a facial expression or something that shows them displaying natural behaviour. In either case what I attempt to do is capture a frame that others will find themselves drawn primarily to the animal subject in a way that they will hopefully feel some connection on an emotional level. The following three images are for me great examples of this, though as suggested above there are many more to be found on Pentaprism.
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Wolf | Jim Cumming
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Baby Eyes | Nick Kalathas
White tail eagle in tree |Tony Andersson
Ready, set, goooo! | Alessandro Rossini
Charging black rhino | Tom Coetzee
macroworld Curated by ALBERTO CARATI
Macro photography is a photographic technique that allows you to reproduce on the sensor very small subjects. These subjects could be insects, butterflies, flowers, water droplets everything that our own imagination can create. In macro photography we talk about the relationship between the size of the subject that we see in the viewfinder of our camera and its actual size; so, we can talk of macro photography when that ratio ranges from 1:10 to 1:1.
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Macaon | Ivo Pandoli
Air Lane | Heri Wijaya
Fire and water | Dimitar Lazarov
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Il palloncino | GianPietro Medaglia
The pinwheel | Mauro Maione
travel journal
HOKKAIDO JAPAN'S GREAT NORTH Curated by MARCELLO LIBRA
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The island is virtually a legend for photographers and naturalists, an icy treasure in which countless bird species find the perfect habitat with a fairytale atmosphere. The very air quivers with the cries of whooper swans and sea eagles cross the sky, ever in search of food. During the region’s long, cold winters this ornithological paradise is home to the extremely rare Japanese crane, whose frenzied mating rituals are a prelude to springtime.
Hokkaido is the northern most of Japan’s four main islands. The second-largest after Honshu, where the capital city, Tokyo, is situated, Hokkaido represents approximately 20% of the Japan’s land area but is inhabited by no more than 5% of its total population. Because of its low population density, the island has managed to preserve some of the few wild areas left in Japan. The island’s mountains and volcanoes, the immense lakes dotting the territory and the enormous number of birds that migrate from the north to winter here have made it a legend among photographers and naturalists. In winter, temperatures plummet due to the cold ocean currents from Siberia and the lack of natural barriers, transforming the island into an icy landscape covered with a thick blanket of glistening snow. Night has already fallen by the time I get to Kushiro, a town on the eastern side of the island. It is snowing heavily and the roads are already covered. It feels more like Siberia than Japan and, interestingly, Russian-style buildings are the first structures I notice. Tancho-no-Sato, where tomorrow I will finally see the world’s rarest crane, is about 45 minutes from here by car.
TANCHO-NO-SATO It snowed all night, but by morning the sky is clear. The thermometer reads –10°C. Tancho-no-Sato is a true sanctuary for the Japanese or red-crowned crane (Grus japonensis). This splendid bird with black and snowy white plumage owes its Japanese name – tancho (redhead) – to a patch of red skin on its head. About 139 cm tall and weighing nearly 13 Kg, it has an astonishing wingspan of more than 2,50 m. and is the largest crane in the world. The symbol of happiness, love and longevity, this elegant and stately creature has become the emblem of endangered bird species. By the 1950s, there were only about a dozen red-haired cranes left, due to hunting and urban sprawl. Thanks to a conservation plan and the efforts of the people of Tsurui, who began
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to distribute grain during the winter (a practice still followed today), the species has now survived. Today the estimated population of Japanese cranes is 1500 individuals, half of which in Hokkaido. Tancho-no-Sato has an ultramodern visitors’ center with a projection room, conference room, permanent photo exhibit and all kinds of information about the bird that has become the symbol of Japan. Dozens of cranes flock to a large snowy field nearby, thanks also to the daily distribution of corn by the staff of the visitors’ center. These elegant white birds move about slowly, most of them looking for food in the snow. A small group walks in single file and then suddenly the cranes rush off on the dash that precedes their flight. Other cranes flock to the field, announcing their arrival with shrill cries. Suddenly, something happens. On one side of the field two cranes face each other and, bending their necks back and turning their beaks skyward, they start to screech. Elsewhere a male chases his female and then both stop and bow elegantly to each other, grazing the ground. Their movements are contagious and soon all the other birds are rapt in their frenzied mating rituals. Beak to beak, a pair commences its dance, starting with little leaps that progressively become higher and more excited, and all the other cranes around them follow suit. The red-crowned cranes dance year-round, but their courtship rituals occur most frequently in mid-March, the mating season. Every day at exactly 2 p.m. a park worker enters the field with a bucket and dumps live fish on the snow. The cranes, busy pecking at corn, do not seem to be enticed by this new source of food, which instead attracts white-tailed sea eagles (Haliaeetus albicilla). Seemingly arriving from nowhere, a dozen eagles begin to swoop towards the field and fight furiously over the fish. Most of the cranes observe them indifferently, but some of the more quarrelsome ones try to drive the raptors away from their territory, sparking great disputes. Within about 30 minutes not a single piece of fish is left on the field. Peace reigns among the cranes once more and everything returns to normal. I leave the center in the evening and drive a few Km. to one
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of points where the cranes can be observed as they fly back to where they nest for the night. Watching them fly into the fiery sky at sunset is the perfect way to end the day.
SHIRETOKO PENINSULA Shiretoko Peninsula, along the northeast coast of Hokkaido, extends into the Sea of Okhotsk and is one of the wildest and most beautiful parts of Japan. In the Ainu language the name Shiretoko means “the end of the earth”, a fitting title, as most of its territory can be reached only by boat or on foot after days of hiking. The forests that cover the inland part of the region, dominated by the Rausu volcano (altitude 1661 m.), are home to Japan’s largest population of brown bears, foxes and an extremely rare owl species, Blakiston’s fish owl. In winter the shores of the Sea of Okhotsk are the southern most point in the Northern Hemisphere in which it is possible to see massive ice floes. These dazzling “rafts” of ice reach the area in late January, peaking in about mid-February and then disappearing between the end of March and the middle of April. They are followed by hundreds of Steller’s sea eagles (Haliaeetus pelagicus) from the Bering Strait and the Kamchatka Peninsula, which fly to the coast for the winter. The largest sea eagle in the world, this bird is distinguished by its black and white feathers and its huge yellow beak. These enormous raptors, which have an extraordinary wingspan of nearly 2 m., gather by the hundreds on the forested slopes along the coast. By day, they search the sea for food. The eagles often follow fishing fleets on their expeditions to the Nemuro Channel. When the fishermen heave in their nets, many of the fish that manage to wriggle out inevitably become the prey of gulls and eagles. The discards, which the boats abandon on the ice floes, offer the regal Steller’s sea eagles a delicious banquet, laid out on these white “tables” at the mercy of the ocean currents. Every morning, boats leave from the port of Rausu, which overlooks the Sea of Okhotsk and is about halfway down the peninsula, to reach the ice floes where the Steller’s sea eagles gather. Here, just meters away from the dozens of birds that feast on discarded fish, circle above the boat or are poised statuesquely on spurs of ice, the spectacle is breathtaking.
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THE NEMURO REGION
There is another area in southeast Hokkaido that is very important for numerous wintering birds: the Nemuro Peninsula. There are no cranes in this area, but countless other birds thrive here, from sea eagles to whooper swans. As I drive to Lake Furen, I am astonished by all the Ezo deer, a subspecies of Sitka deer, that are looking for food on these snow-covered fields. Lake Furen is an enormous natural body of water with an abundance of fish, and in winter most of its surface is frozen. Consequently, fishermen must make large holes in the ice to cast their nets. White-tailed sea eagles and a few Steller’s sea eagles swoop down to the icy surface to examine the holes left by the fishermen, looking for fish that have escaped the nets or were discarded. Although they are much larger in size, the Steller’s sea eagles are quite shy and keep their distance, leaving the field open to the more enterprising white-tailed sea eagles. The birds start to squabble, locked in furious battles midair, but unfortunately everything is too far away to take good photographs. After leaving Lake Furen, I follow the coast to the village of Odaito, whose small bay is partly frozen over. The scenery here is extraordinary: hundreds of whooper swans (Cygnus cygnus) and pintails (Anas acuta) are poised on the ice. Thousands of these swans winter at Hokkaido, attracted by bays whose ice has melted and by volcanic lakes that do not freeze over completely. Amidst the deafening din of their cries, which sound like blaring trumpets, some of the swans run off in small groups and then elegantly fly away as others land, grazing the ice. Every so often the pintails suddenly fly off by the dozens. Dusk is falling and it has started to snow, slowly at first and then coming down thickly, turning into a blizzard. The swans and ducks have already left the bay. As I get ready to go, I see two solitary swans standing still, facing each other in the snowstorm. The stillness is incredible, the atmosphere enchanted. And I finally snap the picture that conveys “my” magical Hokkaido.
www.natureandwildlife.it
PENTAPRISM CONTEST In the following pages the winners photos of our latest contests chosen by our members
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NightPoem | Bragi Ingibergsson - BRIN 1st Classified contest: ‘Round midnight
Mt. Rainier | Matt Sahli 2nd Classified contest: ‘Round midnight
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Waiting | Shinichiro Yamada 3rd Classified contest: ‘Round midnight
White Canvas | Anne Worner 1st Classified contest: Sophisticated lady
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Eyes | Rafael Scheidle 2nd Classified contest: Sophisticated lady
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Стройка | Sergey Smirnov 3rd Classified contest: Sophisticated lady
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Projet 192 - 11 M - Madrid Project 192 merges life, death, pity and accusation. 192 photographs and 192 names: those of the Madrid commuter trains passengers bombings on March 11th, 2004. A very recent past, on which every day a veil descends, the most dangerous veil, that of oblivion, slow and subtle. I will not forget, and I can’t. The world of commuter trains is a thriving microcosm; full of life, on the move, noisy. Thousands of persons, different from each other yet similar in their feelings, in their motivations. And then the visible life made of gestures and movements is overcast by the invisible one, that made of silences and thoughts. And a photograph is born. Trains have it all. Our life is there, a sum of many things, those we want, those we don’t want, things we seek, things we don’t find, things we do because we have to; our work, our encounters, the occasional passing by. There is us. Alive and real. Every day, all day. Each day same to any other, day after day. March 11th, 2004 was different. Death entered those trains, blind, violent, evil; carried by a blind, violent and evil hate. 192 persons are not anymore, and beside these lives lost in an evil fatality there are the ravished lives of their families and friends. A few days of chaos, feverish searches, of heartbreaking mourning cynically portrayed all over the world by the medias, and the many acts of heroism and solidarity, all the more sincere and true as they were spontaneous and driven by a sense of wounded and offended humanity; and then slowly life took its pace again, with its eternal and unavoidable laws. We go on, another ride on the roundabout. Our lenses capture gesture, movements, voices and noises, and then thoughts and silences. Behind its continuous flowing life hides its double: fear, terror, and death. 192 Black and White photographs. One photograph for each victim, and each name written “inside” the picture, on a piece of paper, on a hand, on a stai- step, on a chair, somewhere else. The photograph will decide each time, the name itself will ask for it, will inspire the capture. Sometimes with the help of some unknown stand-byer which will act as the prosecutor’s witness and pitiful mourner. Because we share and we bear other’s grief and pain: it is our path. From the project it is born “Association projet 192” of wich Prota is the president.
Photo Book M11 www.ciroprota.com
PENTAPRISM www.pentaprism.ning.com Pentaprism-photocommunity pentaprismphcommunity@gmail.com
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In the next issue interview with
MARIO GROBENSKI