Soura Magazine | Issue 38 | 2014 - Volume 2 AED 35 QR/SR 35 KD/BD/OR 3.5 LBP 15,000 USD 10.00 UK 6.99 EURO 7.99
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CONTENT | ISSUE 38 12 Wes Naman Hilarious Contortion 20 Anelia Loubser To Choose Light over Darkness 28 Joel Parés The Smallest Details Matter 38 Jonathan Icher Human at the Center 46 Sandro Miller Paying Homage 54 HIPA Honors Industry Greats 58 Marie Hudelot Performance, Portraits and Identity 66 Noor Ali Rashid UAE’s Photographer of the Millenium 72 Iwajla Klinke Winter Birds for Peter’s Throne 76 Eisen Bernardo Taking Pop Culture Back in Time 88 Jane Long Preserver of the Self 96 Dita Pepe Self-Portraits 108 Hana Pesut Switcheroo 114 Martin Schoeller Portraits 116 Annie Leibovitz Big Big Book of Portraits 118 Till Könneker Scans of Reality 132 Electric Art’s Schick Project Quite A Hairy Situation
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Photography | Wes Naman
Wes Naman
Hilarious Contortion Wes Naman is an Albuquerquebased commercial, art, and portrait photographer who, since his Scotch Tape Series has become well known internationally. Naman has won the loyalty of many fans by mixing into his images a dark sense of humor with a dedication to creating images that make his clients happy —an element often missed in the photography world these days. Naman’s imagination is limitless, and, combined with his technical background and experience, allows each one of his images to be art, not just another picture.
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Naman has won the loyalty of many fans by mixing into his images a dark sense of humor.
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Photography | Wes Naman
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Photography | Wes Naman
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Photography | Wes Naman
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Sticking to Fun This series began only as a side project. After working on many commercial shoots, my personal work fell to the side and I hadn’t shot anything in a while for myself. So I dug through my notes, which contain tons of ideas and one popped out that merely said, “scotch tape”. In one evening, I gathered a group of friends and with a lot of scotch tape and a lot of vodka we shot this series. It was really just to have fun and play with distorting our faces. Much laughter was had and everyone had a blast. If you're not having fun at your job then you’re just working.
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In one evening, I gathered a group of friends and with a lot of scotch tape and a lot of vodka we shot this series. © All images courtesy of Wes Naman www.WesNamanPhotography.com
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Photography | Anelia Loubser
Anelia Loubser
To Choose Light over Darkness Anelia Loubser is a professional photographer based in Cape Town, South Africa. After completing her studies in Visual Communication (Pretoria), she started working on fulfilling her life-long dream of becoming a photographer. During 2009 she began specializing in portraiture, theatre, live shows and landscape photography. As her career began to develop, her creative spirit fell in love with the energy, charm and artistry of Cape Town - resulting in her moving from Pretoria to the Mother City in 2012.
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The space between the conscious and the unconscious, the madness and the power of the mind, fascinates her immensely. Loubser, one of identical twins, shares everything with her sister whom she acknowledges as a strong source of inspiration. Alienation is her first fine-art based work and has already received international recognition after her portrait series went viral in 2014. Alienation featured in publications such as The Huffington Post, The Times, Daily Mail UK, CNET US, HLN Belgium, La Repubblica Italie, The Bangkok Globe, Art Republic Singapore, Journal du Design France, The Blaze, Fubiz, and Woman You Should Know, just to name a few. Loubser has an acute interest in human behavior – the emotions, reactions, survival skills and coping mechanisms of the human being. The space between the conscious and the unconscious, the madness and the power of the mind, fascinates her immensely. Where one can travel with thoughts and the places one can visit with mere imagination. The obstacles and pain one can overcome when deliberately choosing to ignore and quiet down the inner critic and open the door to the true self. She believes it is a spiritual journey to choose light over darkness. Although easier said than done, it is possible. Loubser’s personal journey in life is the foundation beneath many layers of her inspiration. She is driven by the passion to understand and make sense of herself and the world around her.
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Loubser’s personal journey in life is the foundation beneath many layers of her inspiration. Loubser believes in an internal and pure connection with nature. To be in nature is for her to reconnect with the source of life. Nature is an integral part of her life and work. Her ultimate goal is to become a better person, and a better photographer, to tell more stories with depth, substance and understanding through her photography.
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The Lover
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Photography | Anelia Loubser
The Real E.T
The Grich That Stole My Heart
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The Warrior
The Lady
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Photography | Anelia Loubser
The Planet of the Ape
The Space Cat
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The Gangster
Buzz Lightyear
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Photography | Anelia Loubser
The Rebel
The Shark
The Mask
The Princess
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A Galaxy of Tales to Tell “If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. – Wayne Dyer The inspiration behind Alienation lies in the fundamental meaning of this quote. This was the reason why I pursued an idea that ultimately led to a search for the alienated being inside us all. And what I discovered left me astonished.
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A world of beauty opens up in the most ordinary things and it awaits us in the strangest of places. I craved change, but I simultaneously feared it - I didn’t really know how to implement changes in my life. However, to make changes became a necessary challenge in my life. I had to make a conscious decision to change the way I see the world around me, as well as how I see other people, and above all, how I see myself. What I found was overwhelming! There truly is beauty in everything around me; I only need to choose to see it! A world of beauty opens up in the most ordinary things and it awaits us in the strangest of places. My world collided head-on with a mysterious beauty.
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I became personally involved with each portrait, I understood and could relate to the emotion conveyed through their eyes and for me that is what art is about. Alienation became more than just a good example of the statement that if you change the way you look at things, every angle of what you see changes. For me, Alienation became an insight into unexplored inner souls. I saw eyes on unfamiliar faces, and in them a whole galaxy of tales to tell. In their eyes I saw happiness, sadness, excitement, pain, love, curiosity, wisdom and wonder - all these familiar human emotions on unearthed faces. This had such a tremendous impact on me because symbolically they summarized how I seldom feel living in a conflicting inner and outer universe with my own being. And it made my madness seem less messy. I became personally involved with each portrait, I understood and could relate to the emotion conveyed through their eyes and for me that is what art is about. Art is the most intense mode of individualism and it’s all about connecting to the viewer.
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I wish to invite you, to change the way you look at things. Making art is a personal journey of self-discovery. Through photography I strive to capture the reality that we see, but to express the reality that we feel. I want to convey a message that everything has a reason for existing, and through my photography I also resolve questions and struggles within myself. I wish to invite you, to change the way you look at things.
© All images courtesy of Anelia Loubser www.AneliaLoubser.com
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Photography | Joel Parés
Joel Parés
The Smallest Details Matter
Joel Parés is an internationally recognized photographer and digital artist based in Dallas, TX who specializes in advertising and composites. He grew up watching his father take pictures with his 35mm camera and listening to his mother tell stories of her modeling days in Puerto Rico. This combination of image and story led to the use of the narrative throughout his work. While serving in the U.S. Marine Corps, he traveled the world and discovered his passion for photography. The exposure to different cultures around the world has expanded his vision to endless storytelling possibilities. As a Marine, he learned that the smallest details matter, a principle that has helped sharpen his technical skills and creativity.
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Hybrid Series
Hybrid Series
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Photography | Joel Parés
Hybrid Series
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Hybrid Series
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Photography | Joel Parés
Hybrid Series
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Two Sides of One Life You’ve always heard every image tells a story, but for me it’s a little more than that. I don’t want to tell just any story, I want to tell the stories that inspire, motivate, and have a positive impact on the world. In my eyes photography is not only making great images, it’s my voice in hopes of change. What makes me happy is telling a story though creative imagery that sparks some type of emotion in the viewers. I want to be remembered for what I did for the world, not what the world did for me.
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In my eyes photography is not only making great images, it’s my voice in hopes of change. The Hybrid series started when I wanted to tell my story as a Marine. Most people in the military have been through hard times and have memories that never go away. The very first image I shot in the series was a self-portrait of myself in my Marine Dress Blues and myself with just a tank-top. I do not have any tattoos but in this image I added a sleeve of tattoos to represent all of the pain and sorrow military members carry with them everywhere they go. When I finished that self-portrait, I then decided I wanted to make a series with the same style that told two sides of the subjects’ life.
Hybrid Series
The inspiration behind Judging America started when I was younger during middle school and high school. During this time, I watched my twin brother made fun of simply because of his appearance. That was only one instance; the second was when I was in the Marines and I had friends that originated from India. They are great friends of mine, even still today, but when we would walk around town in Savannah, GA there were times when people would either walk by or drive by us and yell “terrorists” or try to speak in an Indian accent just to make fun of them.
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I have seen people get judged solely because of their appearance or ethnicity; I express how I feel about being judged through my photography. Throughout my life, I have seen people get judged solely because of their appearance or ethnicity; I express how I feel about being judged through my photography. That is why photography is my voice, my way to escape the world, my way of trying to change the way people think. This series shows the categories some people are put in because of the color of their skin or ethnicity, and then in the second image it shows what they truly look like. For example, the “terrorist” doesn’t actually dress in the burka with an AK-47, she is actually a Nurse who loves America, but because of her ethnicity and color of her skin she is categorized as a terrorist. Although the stories told in this series don’t necessarily represent the models true name and occupation, it represents things that they have gone through in life. This series is my way of trying to positively impact the way people think and to hopefully influence people to think twice before judging someone.
Hybrid Series
© All images courtesy of Joel Parés www.JoelParés.com
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Photography | Joel Parés
Judging America Series
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Judging America Series
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Photography | Joel Parés
Judging America Series
Judging America Series
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Judging America Series
Judging America Series
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Photography | Jonathan Icher
Jonathan Icher
Human at the Center Jonathan Icher is a Paris-based photographer who has studied applied arts since the age of 15. He studied at the Parisian fashion school DuperrĂŠ where he specialized in fashion and trend for five years. In addition to his own photography series, Icher did fashion commercial work for brands, editorials for magazines, visuals for bands, and art direction for music videos.
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Icher enjoys creating creatures both sublimated and disturbing. He likes composing images where beauty and the strangeness mix in his world where fashion and art collide. We can feel the influence of pop culture in his work, particularly through his staging and color choices. The human is always the center of his work, but humanity not always central to it. Icher enjoys creating creatures both sublimated and disturbing. He likes composing images where beauty and the strangeness mix in his world where fashion and art collide. Icher manifests unusual environments through his photographs, featuring unexpected characters, he likes to represent what is not likely to cross at a street corner. These oddities represented in a pop imagery can often stir feelings of awkwardness or discomfort in the viewer of his work.beauty and the strangeness mix.
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Photography | Jonathan Icher
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Photography | Jonathan Icher
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Photography | Jonathan Icher
Hungry Flags I worked with Anastasia Parquet, a great make up artist, for my Fat Flag series. She painted all the flags on the models’ bodies; this is not a Photoshop effect. It took us three hours to create France, Japan and Italy, and six hours for the UK and USA flags. The hairdresser was Guillaume Simonin.
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I wanted to shoot the models with food in their mouths, but I wanted them to be glamorous, sexy and a little strange. At first, I wanted to make a fashion shoot with food. It was a challenge, I wanted to shoot the models with food in their mouths, but I wanted them to be glamorous, sexy and a little strange. I didn’t want it to be disgusting. I love pop culture, especially the pop culture of the 80s. I wanted to create simple, but impactful images. I also love primary colors and geometric things, Jean Paul Goude greatly influenced the French image. I decided to choose five countries, and their typical food. I wanted the food to be graphic and colorful too. That’s why for example, I chose eggs for the UK image, and not beans or fish and chips, it’s all about harmony.
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I wanted to parody fashion that turns the symbol of a nation to something purely aesthetic. There is humor in this series: it’s a kind of extreme patriotism. Flags are not especially beautiful, but they are often used in fashion. I wanted to parody fashion that turns the symbol of a nation to something purely aesthetic. I wanted flags and typical foods to become fashion accessories, like clothes or jewels. © All images courtesy of Jonathan Icher www.JonathanIcher.com
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Photography | Sandro Miller
Miller has a working relationship with the camera giant Nikon and is responsible for introducing the latest technology to the professional photographic world. He has worked on many award-winning projects with Nikon including a portrait session with actor John Malkovich in Croatia, a series of motorcycle racing shots in Brainerd, Minnesota, a still and video shoot of the roller derby team The Windy City Rollers, a video of the world-renowned high-wire artist Philippe Petit, and most recently, a short cinematic video entitled Joy Ride, featuring a motorcyclist racing through the early morning streets of Chicago on a mysterious mission.
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Miller has a working relationship with the camera giant Nikon and is responsible for introducing the latest technology to the professional photographic world.
Sandro Miller Paying Homage
Sandro Miller has been photographing people for over thirty years. He became interested in photography at the age of sixteen upon seeing the work of Irving Penn and has since devoted his life to creating expressive images. With numerous award-winning campaigns to his credit, Miller is one of today’s foremost photographers. He has photographed many national advertising campaigns for a long list of clients including: Allstate Insurance, American Express, Anheuser-Busch, BMW, Dove, Gatorade, Coca-Cola, Honda, Pepsi, Milk, Nikon, Microsoft, Miller/Coors, Motorola, Nike, Adidas, Pony, UPS, Champion, and the US Army.
At the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity in July 2011, Miller was acknowledged with a Saatchi & Saatchi Best New Director Award for his short video Butterflies featuring John Malkovich. In April 2014, Miller spent three days photographing and filming actor John Malkovich for a collaborative project that went public at the Catherine Edelman Gallery in Chicago in November 2014. This show features 32 iconic portraits and is titled Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters. On November 2, 2014, in Carnegie Hall, the Lucie Foundation honored Miller with the “International Photographer of the Year Award” for his achievements in photography.
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With numerous award-winning campaigns to his credit, Miller is one of today’s foremost photographers. In 2001, Miller was invited by the Cuban government to photograph its’ athletes. This project was the first US/Cuban collaboration since the trade embargo was imposed in 1960. Miller’s editorial work has been featured in The New Yorker, GQ, Esquire, Russian Esquire, Time, Forbes, Details, Stern, Wired, Newsweek, Vibe, Communication Arts, Graphis, New York Magazine, Eyemazing, and ESPN Magazine and has been exhibited worldwide.
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Andres Serrano Piss Christ (1987)
Andy Warhol Green Marilyn Monroe (1962)
Andy Warhol Self Portrait with Fright Wig (1986)
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Photography | Sandro Miller
Yousuf Karsh Ernest Hemingway (1957)
Arthur Sasse Albert Einstein Sticking Out His Tongue (1951)
Philippe Halsman Salvador Dalí (1954), 2014
Diane Arbus Identical Twins, Roselle (1967)
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Victor Skrebneski Bette Davis, Actor (1971)
David Bailey Mick Jagger “Fur Hood” (1964)
Dorothea Lange Migrant Mother (1936)
Irving Penn Pablo Picasso (1957)
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Photography | Sandro Miller
Herb Ritts Jack Nicholson (1988)
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Morphing Malkovich I began working with John Malkovich more than 17 years ago, when he was an ensemble member of the world-renowned Steppenwolf Theatre Company. I met John during a photo session, and we’ve been friends and collaborators ever since that initial meeting, creating 120 portraits to date. His belief and trust in my work is unprecedented, granting me many opportunities to work with him.
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I knew he was the only actor who would be willing to morph into the numerous subjects portrayed in the original images. Over the past 17 years I would approach John with various personal projects, ranging from short films to photographic stories. He has never said no, and has always been open to my ideas. For me, John is a beautiful clean canvas ready for paint. He is extremely open minded, never fearful and always willing to go to places most actors of his caliber would avoid. He is a genius willing to take chances, with a talent that allows him to become anything I ask. His willingness to play dress up, and become the subject of some of the most iconic images from history, is a true gift. It was after another one of our long days working together that I realized just what a genius John was. Two years ago I wanted to pay homage to Irving Penn, my mentor. I looked at John and it came to me that he looked a bit like Truman Capote. I decided to pay homage to Irving by recreating his photograph of Capote in a corner. The result was astonishing and the feedback on the work was so overwhelmingly positive that I decided it would be a wonderful idea to pay homage to all the photographers that have influenced me over my 40-year career. The seeds of Malkovich, Malkovich, Malkovich: Homage to Photographic Masters was born.
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You could see John working on his character, as makeup, hair and styling was being done. It was truly a joy to see such a perfectionist at work. I flew to France to see John armed with a package of 30 iconic images by 28 master photographers, and to tell him about my idea for a new project. After consuming two bottles of wine with John, I showed him my idea and he fell in love. I chose John because deep in my heart, I knew he was the only actor who would be willing to morph into the numerous subjects portrayed in the original images. My biggest fear was that people wouldn’t take this project seriously. I didn’t want these to be a parody. I was serious about paying homage to these photographers and photographs that changed my perspective on photography. These images inspired me throughout my career and developed me into the photographer I am today. I wanted and needed to
honor these great photographers. I needed the perfection of an actor who would put everything on the line. I watched John become a boy, girl, man, woman, Marilyn, Picasso, Hitchcock, Betty Davis and Che Guevara. Once John agreed to collaborate on the series, I spent eight months researching every detail of the selected photographs. I hired stylist Leslie Pace to help me with all the wardrobes. I also collaborated with Randy Wilder, a hair and makeup expert, and Angela Finney, who is a set builder. Together, we dissected each and every photo down to the last detail so we could accurately pay homage to the master photographers who created these beautiful pieces. It was their passion for perfection and their brilliance that gave me the wonderful opportunity to recreate these images with John Malkovich.
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Each of these images received every ounce of energy, passion and love that I had when I was creating them. It was important for me to give each master photographer his or her due.
John is a pop culture icon. John does opera, theatre, has his own clothing line, and is one of today’s most sought after screen actors. He is brilliant and confident and willing to take risks. He was very involved with the styling of each character, often applying his own make-up, and even made his own wax nose for the Salvador Dali and Picasso shots. He was very focused on perfecting the makeup for the Herb Ritts shot of Jack Nicholson as the joker. With makeup and styling taking at least two hours per shot, John would study the original photograph. You could see John working on his character, as makeup, hair and styling was being done. It was truly a joy to see such a perfectionist at work. Each of these images received every ounce of energy, passion and love that I had when I was creating them. It was important for me to give each master photographer his or her due. One image the particularly stands out for me is the Diane Arbus “Twins” shot in 1967. Arbus was brilliant in capturing these two beautiful twins one with the expression of wonder and fear while the other exposes a friendly excited state of mind. Both so different and unique. A bit eerie leaving the viewer wanting to know more of these two twins. John studied these two interesting sisters and became each of them. It was truly amazing to watch John morph from one to the other within seconds. Also the research that went into this particular piece was extensive. The dresses had to be made, the wigs need to be made to fit John’s head and had to duplicate the style that these little girls wore. If you look closely at the set that Angela Finney built it is so close to perfection. In every aspect the shot is recreated in perfection to honor Diane Airbus’s original photo. © All images courtesy of Sandro Miller and Catherine Edelman Gallery Chicago www.Sandrofilm.com and www.EdelmanGallery.com
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Photography | Sandro Miller
Edward Sheriff Curtis Three Horses (1905)
Gordon Parks American Gothic (1942)
Albert Watson Alfred Hitchcock with Goose (1973) 52  Soura Issue 38
Richard Avedon Ronald Fischer, Beekeeper (1981)
Carl Fischer Muhammad Ali (1968)
Alberton Korda Che Guevara (1960)
Bert Stern Marilyn Monroe, Crucifix II (1962)
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Special Feature | HIPA
HIPA Honors Industry Greats Upclose with Award Winners Steve McCurry and Ren Ng World-renowned photographer Steve McCurry and industry Pioneer Ren Ng were honored by HIPA (Hamdan Bin Rashed Bin Mohammed Al Maktoum Photography Award) and respectively received HIPA’s Photography Appreciation Award and Photographic Research/Report Award at its 3rd annual awards ceremony. For the 3rd season of competition, HIPA awards the winners of its special category Creating the Future. American photojournalist Steve McCurry has been presented with the Photography Appreciation Award for his services and longstanding commitment to enhancing the art of photography. The Photographic Research-Report Award was presented to Australian entrepreneur, Dr. Ren Ng, founder of Lytro, a company currently developing light field technology. Soura Magazine takes a closer look at the winners.
Dr. Ren Ng Creating The Future of Photography
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I am inspired by the work of HIPA’s photography competition to advance the culture of visual creativity and sharing.
Dr. Ren Ng is the Founder and Executive Chairman at Lytro, a startup in Mountain View that has introduced the first light field camera for consumers. Light field cameras provide many new capabilities, including the ability to refocus pictures after the shot is taken and obtain 3D pictures from a single exposure. “My passion for photography was the source of energy for beginning research into light field photography, founding Lytro, and working to bring this new imaging paradigm to market so that other photographers can benefit,” says Dr. Ng. Lytro’s technology is based on Dr. Ng’s Ph.D. dissertation on light field photography, which won the ACM Doctoral Dissertation Award and Stanford University’s Arthur Samuel Award. As a technologist, Dr. Ng’s research gave him the clear perspective that light field technology would eventually deliver the most powerful cameras we have ever seen. “Like digital photography eclipsing film, light field photography has the potential to eclipse digital and become the dominant paradigm for imaging in the world,”
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he says, “just as it took years for digital to grow in quality, resolution and application to the point of replacing film, so will light field photography take time to develop its full potential.” As an avid photographer, he also had a vision that it would fundamentally enrich the artistic possibilities of photography by making them interactive and immersive, “In the end, the promise of the technology is for cameras that exceed the power and capabilities of anything possible, and for an advancement of photography from static and two-dimensional to interactive and three-dimensional imagery,” asserts Dr. Ng. Dr. Ng founded Lytro with the dream of putting light field cameras in the hands of everyday people, and growing a company that would bring the full benefits of this photographic transformation to society. He grew and ran the company as CEO through shipping the first camera in 2012. He holds a Ph.D. and M.S. in computer science and a B.S. in mathematical and computational science from Stanford University. Dr. Ng has been recognized with the PMDA Technical Achievement Award, R.I.T.’s Imaging Hall of Fame, the Selwyn Award from the Royal Photographic Society, MIT Tech Review’s TR35 and Entrepreneur of the Year, Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, and Silicon Valley Journal’s 40 under 40.
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Light field cameras provide many new capabilities, including the ability to refocus pictures after the shot is taken and obtain 3D pictures from a single exposure. “I am inspired by the work of HIPA’s photography competition to advance the culture of visual creativity and sharing,” says Dr. Ng, “[I] believe that this injection of energy and resources is an important, growing, positive force in photography. I am honored and grateful to be selected for HIPA’s Research Award for 2014."
Steve McCurry An Icon of Photojournalism Steve McCurry has been one of the most iconic voices in contemporary photography for more than thirty years, with scores of magazine and book covers, over a dozen books, and countless exhibitions around the world to his name. “Between high school and college I travelled to Latin America,” recalls McCurry, “that was the first time that I started wandering and exploring the world with a camera. I remember one image I took of a man sleeping on the sidewalk in front of a furniture showroom. The juxtaposition of the homeless man sleeping on the street and the comfortable sofa in store window was sadly ironic and painful to look at.” Born in a suburb of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; McCurry studied
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I want to thank His Highness, the Crown Prince of Dubai, for establishing this award, and for making Dubai a centre for art and culture.
film at Pennsylvania State University, before going on to work for a local newspaper. After several years of freelance work, McCurry made his first of what would become many trips to India. Traveling with little more than a bag of clothes and another of film, he made his way across the subcontinent, exploring the country with his camera.
Since then, McCurry has gone on to create stunning images over six continents and countless countries. His work spans conflicts, vanishing cultures, ancient traditions and contemporary culture alike - yet always retains the human element that made his celebrated image of the Afghan Girl such a powerful image. McCurry has been recognized with some of the most prestigious
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Although I often work in areas rife with conflict, the images I make are about the people themselves. awards in the industry, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal, National Press Photographers Award, and an unprecedented four first prize awards from the World Press Photo contest, to name a few. Perhaps his most memorable work was captured in Kuwait in the aftermath of the first Gulf War, which McCurry recalls “Was a surreal and unforgettable experience.” The photo-journalist still has a vivid image of his experience there, “There were 600 oil fields burning, panicked and starved animals were wandering about, and the landscape was dotted with dead Iraqi soldiers. It was like a vision of hell.” Despite his countless awards and accolades, McCurry remains humble and grounded, “It’s an honor to be given this award for my work. I want to thank His Highness, the Crown Prince of Dubai, for establishing this award, and for making Dubai a centre for art and culture.”
It was after several months of travel that he found himself crossing the border into Pakistan. “When I was in Pakistan in 1979, I met some Afghan refugees in a small village in the north of the country. They told me their villages back home were being destroyed and wanted me to help get the word out, so they smuggled me into Afghanistan with the hopes that my pictures would be able to tell their story to the world,” says McCurry, “it was an amazing experience to be continually under fire and documenting Mujahideen fighters and the streams of people fleeing from their villages.” Emerging in traditional dress, with full beard and weather-worn features after weeks embedded with the Mujahideen, McCurry brought the world the first images of the conflict in Afghanistan, putting a human face to the issue on every masthead.
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His work spans conflicts, vanishing cultures, ancient traditions and contemporary culture alike - yet always retains the human element. “The human drama in such areas can be difficult to comprehend. I think documenting these dire situations and giving a voice to the people who aren’t able to tell their stories is what photography does best. Although I often work in areas rife with conflict, the images I make are about the people themselves. For me, the goal is to find some sort of universality among peoples,” he says.
© Afghani Girl Photo by Steve McCurry
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Exhibition | Marie Hudelot
The “Legacy” of Marie Hudelot Performance, Portraits and Identity A Portrait of Two Worlds I made this series with the desire to build a set of symbolic portraits inspired by my background of double cultures; I'm French with Middle Eastern origins. I worked by using the pictorial tradition of still lives. I chose to put forward characters, where the nature and objects they carry come from different rites and customs.
“ Marie Hudelot was born in Toulon in 1981, France. After studying cinema she enrolled at the Université Paris 8 Master of Photography and Multimedia program. Hudelot is interested in performance, portraits and identity. Her work was recently presented in collective exhibitions and European Festivals such as Circulation, EmoiPhotographique in France, Fotowestival in Poland and for her first solo show in Paris at Riviere/Faiveley Gallery.
The Life of Still Lives The Legacy series is a group of symbolic portraits inspired by the family of Marie Hudelot: divided between the East and the West, between France and Algeria. This series contains masked characters where nature and various ritual objects take ascendency over the individual in a reinterpretation of transmission. Playing on accumulation, abundance even exaggeration and the proximity of these objects, the subjects turn into still lives, similar to totems showing the complexity of the family legacy.
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I chose to put forward characters, where the nature and objects they carry come from different rites and customs. The photographs can be grouped into three metaphorical categories: Firstly the "mark", with elements of uncultivated land, evocative of death and rebirth. Secondly, the "fight" with a reinterpretation of the various struggles and honors of war, as a tribute to ancestors, veterans, and the indifference of death or anonymity of war. And finally the symbol of "femininity" located in the context of two cultures, French and Algerian, sometimes felt as a dichotomy, sometimes as a sign of diversity. Here jewels, feathers, branches, flowers, hats, decorative ribbons become evocative symbols of seduction, femininity, youth, memory, struggle, life and death. Playing on the accumulation of symbols, profusion of accessories the subjects become still life-like totems or family crests. © All images courtesy of Marie Hudelot and Galerie Rivière Faiveley www.MarieHudelot.fr and www.GalerieRivièreFaiveley.com
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Exhibition | Marie Hudelot
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Photography Exhibition | Marie | BethHudelot Galton
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Exhibition | Marie Hudelot
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Exhibition | Noor Ali Rashid
Noor Ali Rashid
UAE’s Photographer of the Millenium A Life Less Ordinary Noor Ali Rashid (1929-2010) was the most notable and substantial photographer in the UAE. Rashid grew up in the Gwadar province, (then the Sultanate of Oman, now Pakistan), and relocated to Dubai in 1958 where he was sent by his father who hoped that being in the UAE would direct the young Rashid toward a more traditional career and away from his obsession with photography. Rashid first worked as a professional photographer at a Pakistani publication in Karachi called Vision in 1947.
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Throughout his formidable career he has garnered many an accolade including a plaque naming him the UAE’s Photographer of the Millenium. Rashid’s profound and historically significant photojournalism career has allowed generations to witness iconic moments through the narrative of his lens. Throughout his formidable career he has garnered many an accolade including a plaque naming him the UAE’S Photographer of the Millenium, among his 83 plaques and trophies, and about 20 certificates of achievement or honors. Most significant of the recognition he has received was being named “Royal Photographer” by the late former president of the UAE Sheikh Zayed bin Sultan Al Nahyan. Prior to his death in 2010, Rashid was the official photographer for the Al Nahyan family as well as the Royal families of the seven emirates. Documenting A Nation Rashid was pivotal in the photo-documentation of the incredible growth the UAE has witnessed over the past 6 decades. His lens captured key historically significant moments that had redirected the course of world politics and global economics, like the first discovery of oil in the UAE. He also had a formidable collection of more than a million photographs of members of the UAE’s Ruling Family, statesmen, celebrities and sports personalities. Figures like Nelson Mandela, Indira Gandhi, Jimmy Carter, Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton, among many others. Rashid’s special friendship with Sheikh Zayed began long before Sheikh Zayed’s ascension to the presidency of the UAE. As the UAE prospered and developed under the rule of Sheikh Zayed, Rashid was personally keen on documenting the growth of a nation, “I have taken (photographed) the golden era of the UAE,” said Rashid, in a past interview when speaking of Al Nahyan familiy and Sheikh Zayed, “he was my leader, my future, my everything.”
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Exhibition | Noor Ali Rashid
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Exhibition | Noor Ali Rashid
Sharjah Museums Department Presents 5th Edition Lasting Impressions: Noor Ali Rashid, Major Retrospective of an Iconic Emirati Photographer Sharjah Museums Department is pleased to announce Lasting Impressions: Noor Ali Rashid, on view from October 22, 2014, through December 6, 2014. The exhibition, developed in collaboration with the Noor Ali Rashid Archives, is the first, extensive retrospective of Middle East’s pioneering photojournalist. Celebrated as the father of photojournalism in the region, Noor Ali Rashid amassed a collection of over a million images during his six decades of capturing the ordinary moments and the extraordinary events in the history of the region. Lasting Impressions offers a fresh perspective on Noor Ali Rashid’s lifetime of achievements by drawing upon both, iconic and never before seen images.
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Celebrated as the father of photojournalism in the region, Noor Ali Rashid amassed a collection of over a million images during his six decades of capturing the ordinary moments and the extraordinary events in the history of the region. The exhibition is organized into three thematic sections to showcase the breadth of Noor Ali Rashid’s repertoire. The section Life as it was, provides a glimpse of an era bygone where the photographer turns his lens to patterns of everyday life. Images in this section are an artistic and nostalgic documentary of a simpler life lived in the desert, on the water and in the souqs of 1960s. This section also has images selected from the Architecture series and from the Celebrations series. They depict his eye for capturing unusual perspectives.
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The section Building of a Nation spotlights Noor Ali Rashid’s deliberate sensitivity and his sense of responsibility in documenting and recording UAE’s history in the making. From the Trucial States, to the pre-Federation and Federation eras, and the years thereafter, these images are an important documentation of progress, accomplishments and momentous occasions in the young country’s life. As the Royal photographer of the UAE, Rashid had an unprecedented access to places and events that others simply did not. Hence, his photographs from the UAE Leaders series provide a unique perspective on the fathers of this nation and their relationships with each other. The third section, A Glimpse of the World, for the first time exhibits photographs from Rashid’s International series. A collection of images from his travels to 35 different countries around the world includes his observation of the streets around the world, important international events, as well as captured images of world leaders and celebrities. Reflecting upon the retrospective of her late father’s work, Shamsa Noor Ali Rashid said, “Our father dedicated his life to the country, to its leaders and its people. Preserving his lifetime of work was not only his wish but also our privilege and responsibility. At the Noor Ali Rashid Archives, we have dedicated significant resources and worked diligently for the last five years to preserve his work so that it can be enjoyed by all, for generations to come.” Lasting Impressions is an annual exhibition, which highlights important artists in the region with a significant body of work. Director General of Sharjah Museums Department Manal Ataya said, “Through this year’s exhibition UAE residents and visitors alike will learn about the country’s history and cultural heritage through the prolific work of the photographer Noor Ali Rashid. With his camera as his constant companion, Noor Ali meticulously documented the historic firsts and many significant moments of our country’s early decades. Anyone who visits Lasting Impressions will leave with a richer understanding of our history thanks to the legacy left behind by the region’s first photojournalist.”
© All images courtesy of Noor Ali Rashid and Sharjah Museums www.SharjahMuseums.ae 2014 | Volume 2 71
Exhibition | Iwajla Klinke
Iwajla Klinke
Winter Birds for Peter’s Throne Iwajla Klinke is a young photographer hailing from Berlin whose portraits taken at village festivals in Hungary, Austria, Sicily, Germany and Brazil are more than an aesthetically bountiful anthropological documentation. Her work is rich in narrative and offers a sincere glimpse into age-old timeless rituals during a time of fast-paced change and renewal brought about by the technological age.
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Like modern communication technology, Klinke’s photographs have a global reach that bridges gaps and connects us to ancient rituals that are fast disappearing. Like modern communication technology, Klinke’s photographs have a global reach that bridges gaps and connects us to ancient rituals that are fast disappearing. She explores diverse subcultures while respecting their tradition. Her work is respectful and not probing, celebratory and not exploitative, admiring and not dissecting. Her portraiture holds her subjects in high regard, giving them their due respect all while preserving the ritualistic sense as opposed to capturing her subjects while “posing”. Klinke’s work transcends dates and places and goes beyond that to a realm of intense humanness. After holding several solo and group exhibitions around the world in cities like Berlin, Napoli, Hannover, Istanbul, Jerusalem, Bologna, Basel, Tel Aviv, Sao Paolo, among others, Klinke held her first solo exhibition in Paris this year at Galerie Polaris. “The austerity of the setting and softness of the light are essential elements of these photographic compositions,” according to Galerie Polaris, “The children’s faces, expressionless, remind of tales by the brothers Grimm or paintings by Chardin.”
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Klinke’s work transcends dates and places and goes beyond that to a realm of intense humanness. “The richness and the care devoted to the making of each costume contrast with the austerity of the arrangement. Several phases are necessary to explore Klinke’s photographs. A piecemeal approach is necessary in order to appreciate the variety of details. The viewer must discover what’s hidden behind the masks, whether real or metaphorical. Masks, which conceal the subjects and reveal them at the same time.” “The secret of this exceptional as well as experimental work might be the freedom of expression Klinke gives her models. One feels the respect and humility of the photographer vis a vis her subjects. This distance allows the viewer to undertake a timeless travel, between pictorial tradition, ancestral heritage and outline of an uncertain future.”
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Klinke prefers to photograph children, a symbol of the future, to represent ancient and dying rituals, thereby connecting the past and the future through the notion of timelessness. It is interesting to note that Klinke prefers to photograph children, a symbol of the future, to represent ancient and dying rituals, thereby connecting the past and the future through the notion of timelessness. “One cannot conjure a future worth living in without a cognizance of the past that entails at least some engagement beyond the superficial,” says one reviewer. Her work is often positioned among the work of the Old Masters like Barbault, and Caravaggio. © All images courtesy of Iwajla Klinke and Galerie Polaris www.GaleriePolaris.com
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Art | Eisen Bernardo
Eisen Bernardo
Taking Pop Culture Back in Time Eisen Bernardo is a Filipino children’s book illustrator and graphic designer. A development communicator by profession, he works as a multimedia producer and writer at the Communication and Public Affairs unit of the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity. Bernardo has designed publications and produced audiovisual materials for local and international research organizations based in the Philippines. Bernardo is the illustrator of Asia Rice Foundation’s children’s book, The Adventure of Gabby Ghas, which is translated to other regional dialects. As a blogger, his graphic design blogs showcase his works with reference to music, movies, and pop culture. Bernardo’s Mag+Art project, which is a collection of magazine cover and classical painting mash-ups, has been featured in various online news websites and magazines such as the Huffington Post, Buzzfeed, Mic, MTV, Cosmopolitan, Rolling Stone Italy, Grazia France, Daily Telegraph, Interview Germany, among others.
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Art | Eisen Bernardo
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Art | Eisen Bernardo
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Art | Eisen Bernardo
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Art | Eisen Bernardo
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Art | Eisen Bernardo
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Classic-Contemporary Mash-up For the Mag+Art project, I just felt that magazine covers (like other contemporary art forms) were inspired directly (and/or indirectly) by classical paintings. The similarities and references can be observed. I just really wanted to compare and contrast modern and classical aesthetics.
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Mag+Art is my way of giving homage to the magazines – as venue of human artistic expression and vehicle of popular culture. Also, in an age where, “Print media is dead,” this project is a way of promoting the print medium to the Internet generation. I was a former part-time college instructor teaching print media and layout courses in a private university in the Philippines. Mag+Art is my way of giving homage to the magazines – as venue of human artistic expression and vehicle of popular culture.
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I tried to look for magazines and paintings that can produce visual puns or can establish more meaningful connections (not only visual but conceptual). Most of the initial feedback I received for my first Mag+Art productions was that my work is filled with humor and irony. So, when I started working on the second batch of Mag+Art images, I tried to look for magazines and paintings that can produce visual puns or can establish more meaningful connections (not only visual but conceptual). Like what I did with Van Gogh and Robin Williams (both suffer from depression), Penelope and Picasso (both are Spanish), Christian Grey in chains, Miley Cyrus covering her body, etc. I just wanted every piece to evoke a humorous or fascinating effect on the viewer.
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Many say that my work is parody of current culture, that what society reveres is celebrity. My work is really open to interpretation. Many say that my work is parody of current culture, and that what society reveres is celebrity. Some even expressed that the work says something about feminism/ objectification of women in the arts/media. And some don’t even see this as art at all. I’ve had feedback from viewers who really hated my Mag+Art project, saying that I just copied existing works and pasted them using computer software. © All images courtesy of Eisen Bernardo www.facebook.com/Eisen.Bernardo www.magplusart.tumblr.com
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Art | Jane Long
Jane Long
Preserver of the Self Photographer and digital artist Jane Long was born in Melbourne, Australia in 1970. Currently based in Brisbane, Australia, she combines photography and photo manipulation to create slightly surreal images that straddle the line between reality and fantasy.
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Deciding to move into the fine art market earlier this year, her first series Self-Preservation has received several accolades including several images being listed as finalists for the Macquarie Prize. Her image Cured was announced as a semi-finalist for the Moran Prize, both prestigious photography awards in Australia.
Long has spent most of her career as a graphic designer, entering the industry over 20 years ago and establishing her own studio in 1996. Her work as a designer influences her style and enhances her compositions, with strong use of negative space, particularly in her portraiture work. Completely self-taught, she has worked with Photoshop since 1994, both commercially and for personal work, and is proficient in most of the Adobe Creative Suite, using this to her advantage when creating her images.
The images from this series feature Long in various forms of food preservation, cleverly put together in Photoshop. It’s a series she describes as very introspective and has an underlying tension that belies the lighter interpretation of the images. Her next series Dancing with Costica shot her to international exposure with features on over 40 prominent photography and general interest websites including ABC News US, Daily Mail UK, Daily Mail Australia, SLR Lounge, PetaPixel, Bored Panda and BuzzFeed as well as a number of photography magazines and Romanian TV!
Her work as a designer influences her style and enhances her compositions, with strong use of negative space, particularly in her portraiture work.
Long’s entry to digital art was through working with stock images from sites like DeviantArt, where she spent a lot of time advancing her skills. Eventually she came to want more control over the stock images she was using, both from a creative and copyright point of view, and developed an interest in photography. Initially working with friends and family, she used an old instamatic or borrowed equipment for several years until her first DSLR purchase a little over two years ago.
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Since then she has delved wholeheartedly into photography, concentrating on conceptual portraiture. However digital art remains a passion and forms an integral part of her work.
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It’s a series she describes as very introspective and has an underlying tension that belies the lighter interpretation of the images. It is her unusually realistic coloring technique in this series that brings the subjects to life and creates a point of difference to her work. She is currently continuing her work on the Dancing with Costica series as well as a charity series featuring drag queens that she began some years ago.
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Art | Jane Long
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Art | Jane Long
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Art | Jane Long
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Breathing New Life The Dancing with Costica series was initially unplanned and came about when I decided to brush up on my retouching skills. I went looking for antique images with expired copyright and found the Costica Acsinte Archive on Flickr. I was fascinated with the images in the archives, everyday people living out their lives in one small town in a time of poverty and hardship. I downloaded an image of what appears to be a mixed-race couple, restored and re-colored it; but I wanted to take it further. This couple was so serious and I wanted them to be carefree, happy and whimsical. They are in love, they should be happy! So I decided to replace the background and put them in a different scene, artificially creating a fanciful story for them.
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This couple was so serious and I wanted them to be carefree, happy and whimsical. They are in love, they should be happy!
I had a great response to this on social media and was feeling like I was only scratching the surface of what I could do with these images so I went back to the archive looking for something that would give me a bit more of a challenge with the coloring. Picking a woman with a patterned dress allowed me to indulge in hand painting the details and work with lighting ideas like rim lighting and different light sources. The process is much the same for all of the images. First I clean and restore the original image in black and white. Then I adjust contrast and work out how to fix really badly damaged areas, then a general dodge and burn to give the image more depth. After that I start with the color, masking out the areas that I need and using multiple layers to create the depth of tone. Some colors are hand painted, some are solid colors and some use other patterns or images to create the color.
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Once I’m happy with the main characters I start looking at suitable backgrounds and complimentary pieces, often shooting these to fit.
Once I’m happy with the main characters I start looking at suitable backgrounds and complimentary pieces, often shooting these to fit. All of the images have required additional images and/or a new shoot to complete the scene. Sometimes I will see an image in the archive that immediately gives me an idea, like the boy in “Gun Shy”. Other times I’ll have a concept in mind and go looking for images that suit my purpose, like “Tall Poppies”. Once the images are colored they can look a little “too real” and could (at a stretch) pass as a modern portrait! I like there to be ambiguity in my images. Things that are almost real or not quite right. That’s why I like to place my subjects in a slightly surreal context. It’s up to the viewer to determine if the characters in my images are good or bad, light or dark.
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It’s up to the viewer to determine if the characters in my images are good or bad, light or dark.
This is in many ways is a collaboration, albeit one with a photographer I have never met (and never will) and the man who has taken it upon himself to conserve the archive. It is through the work of Cezar Popescu in restoring and digitizing these images that I am able to draw on such a rich source of inspiration in Costica Ascinte’s work. © All images courtesy of Jane Long www.JaneLong.com.au
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Book | Dita Pepe Self-Portraits
Photographic Therapy When I was about 19 I did not know what to do with myself. At the age of 18 I ran away from home – I lived at my friend’s house. My schoolmates from grammar school went to university and I went to Germany to work as an au-pair. I met many interesting people there as well as my first husband Francesco Pepe (he was 14 years older), at that time student of psychology. I think he was the one who helped me get back on my feet. Subconsciously, I was still looking for female ideals to inspire me, so I took pictures of myself in different disguises. It was at around 1999 when the first series of selfportraits came to light.
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Subconsciously, I was still looking for female ideals to inspire me, so I took pictures of myself in different disguises.
Dita Pepe
The Search for the “Self” Born in Ostrava (former Czechoslovakia) in 1973, Dita Pepe graduated from the Silesian University in Opava where she majored in Creative Photography in 2003. Since 1999, Pepe has been working on her most extensive project Self-portraits, starting with self-portraits of women, and later of men and families. Her portraits span many countries like the Czech Republic, Italy, Germany and this year in South Africa. In cooperation with the literary documentarian Barbora Baronová, Pepe successfully published the acclaimed photographic and literary documentary books Slečny (Misses) and Mej ráda sama sebe (Love Yourself) and the two have been working on their project Intimita (Intimacy). The pair is now preparing for their new project to be carried out in Japan. Pepe is the recipient of several Czech and international awards, including Personality of Czech Photography 2012 for the book Autoportréty (Self-portraits). She has received a Czech Culture Ministry and Museum of Czech Literature award and an honorable mention in the Art Books Wanted international competition for the publication Slečny (The Misses). Pepe has two daughters and lives with her husband in the Beskydy Mountains.
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I first heard the phrase “Love yourself” in Germany when I was 19, when I went there as one of the first girls from the Eastern Bloc. I think I explained it to myself as something negative or vain. I was incapable of seeing the context, or the consequences that an unhealthy relationship to one’s self brings. For me it was very important not to let those around me down, for others to see me as good, clever, industrious. Why? I guess I wanted people, not just my nearest and dearest, to like me. So I always tried my best. When I started getting into photography I had the chance to get to know a lot of interesting people. I realized that new encounters were reshaping my previous opinions. And that photography could have a therapeutic effect.
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I realized that new encounters were reshaping my previous opinions. And that photography could have a therapeutic effect.
After meeting Jana Drexlerová from the organization Mammaphelp, and influenced by Zygmunt Bauman’s book The Art of Life, I decided to share my experience of the therapeutic form of photography with other women and in so doing to remind myself once again of the “Love yourself” theme. I am now preparing for a work trip to Japan where I would like to take photographs of Japanese women. © All images courtesy of Dita Pepe www.DitaPepe.cz
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Book | Dita Pepe Self-Portraits
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Book | Dita Pepe Self-Portraits
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Book | Dita Pepe Self-Portraits
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Book | Dita Pepe Self-Portraits
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Book | Dita Pepe Self-Portraits
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Book | Hana Pesut Switcheroo
Hana Pesut Plays Switcheroo colorful. The other was wearing black jeans and a black T-shirt. I thought it would be fun if they switched outfits and I decided to take before and after photos,” says Pesut.
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The result is a playful series that invites discussion and reflection on gender norms.
The result is a playful series that invites discussion and reflection on gender norms. Some of the couples accentuate the switch by matching each other’s poses in the before-and-after shots.
“ The Little Moments Hana Pesut is a self-taught photographer currently living in Vancouver, Canada. Her main focus in photography is the “little moments” that people sometimes miss and later wish they had captured. Pesut hopes to inspire others to take more photos in their day-to-day life. Switcheroo is a dual portrait series where couples are photographed twice, once in their own outfits and again wearing each other’s outfits against the same background.
Gender-Bender Since embarking on her Switcheroo series in 2010, Hana Pesut has traveled around the word to shoot her series, which resulted in the publishing of her book. Some of her photos where featured in the Japanese magazine Ginza. The idea behind Switcheroo was born on a camping trip when Pesut decided to photograph two of her friends who were dressed very differently, “One was wearing tie-dye, sequins, leopard print, lots of silk scarves. Everything was very bright and
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I think the project shows how far we’ve come in regards to what is acceptable for men and women to wear.
“I think the project shows how far we’ve come in regards to what is acceptable for men and women to wear,” says Pesut who noticed that photographing each pair of subjects was a different experience and generated varying reactions. Some people were quite uncomfortable in their partner’s clothing and wanted her to be quick with the process, whereas others wanted to walk around even after they finished shooting. © All images courtesy of Hana Pesut www.sincerelyhana.com www.switcheroo.bigcartel.com
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Book | Hana Pesut Switcheroo
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Book | Hana Pesut Switcheroo
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Book | Martin Schoeller Portraits
he has explained, involves taking many, many photographs until he manages to catch his subject at an honest moment, ideally when his or her guard is down—and he thereby exposes in them something viewers would not otherwise witness. “The pictures that survive over the years are ones where you see something of somebody that they normally wouldn’t share so easily,” he says. “Something intimate, honest. I don’t believe you can capture the soul of someone, but there are pictures that are more honest and ones that are less honest.”
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The pictures that survive over the years are ones where you see something of somebody that they normally wouldn’t share so easily.
© Photography by Kathy Ryan
Martin Schoeller World Portraitist
Martin Schoeller (b. 1968) in Munich, Germany is known for some of the most iconic photographic portraits today. He has captured such famed faces as Jack Nicholson, Cate Blanchett, and Angelina Jolie, political figures including Bill Clinton, and President, Barack Obama. Schoeller began his career as a photographer by assisting Annie Leibovitz from 1993 to 1996. After working with Leibovitz, he then focused on his freelance career by shooting portraits of people he met on the street, which he quickly became known for. Since 1998 his images have been published in such esteemed publications as GQ, Esquire, Rolling Stone, National Geographic, and TIME, among many others. In 1999 he began working for The New Yorker as a contributing portrait photographer alongside Richard Avedon. Schoeller has previously published two books, Close Up in 2005 and Identical in 2012. Now his most recent book, Portraits, Schoeller’s most notable editorial portraits are compiled.
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Schoeller’s distinct method for creating his striking large-scale portraits involves getting up close and personal with his subjects.
Schoeller’s distinct method for creating his striking largescale portraits involves getting up close and personal with his subjects. His photographs, often presented in larger than life sizes, offer raw and revealing glimpses into his subjects, exposing them in a way that feels almost unforgivingly truthful. With blaring studio light facing his models, Schoeller’s method,
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Born in Germany, the artist has lived in New York for many years and has worked as a contract photographer for the New Yorker, allowing him access to many of his subjects. His rigorous and systematic approach to image making echoes the grand tradition of German typographies pioneered by Bernd and Hilla Becher, and he often exhibits his photographs in neat, orderly grids that belie the human content they contain. Although he has photographed musicians, Olympic athletes, world leaders, scientists, war heroes, celebrities and even presidents, Schoeller maintains that his favorite kind of work is to document people who have not had their pictures taken countless times—and perhaps to even take their first ever photograph. In that vein, a 2008 series of images depicts members of the Amazonian Pirahâs, a rarely depicted indigenous tribe of hunter-gatherers whose current population is numbered at a mere 360, placing them dangerously at risk of vanishing. There is a rawness and an excitement to the almost anthropological experience, he says, of capturing the image of little-known peoples and cultures, which produces the most evocative, compelling images.
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I don’t believe you can capture the soul of someone, but there are pictures that are more honest and ones that are less honest. Schoeller’s photographs have been exhibited all over the world and are included in the permanent collection of the National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Numerous monographs of his work have been published, including Portraits (teNeues, 2014), Identical: Portraits of Twins (teNeues, 2012), Martin Schoeller: Stern Portfolio (teNeues, 2009), Female Bodybuilders (Pond Press, 2008) and Close Up (teNeues,2005).
Cesar Millan
George Clooney
Martin Schoeller’s Latest Book: Portraits
Tony Hawk
Building on the success of his previous titles, Close Up and Identical, Martin Schoeller’s Portraits is cause for celebration. The book includes a range of images of varying scale that Schoeller made over the past decade and a half, all of which confirm his position as a maestro of his craft. The illustrious photographer’s full range of expression is on display in this unprecedented gathering of editorial images. With an impressive amount of variety and scale, Schoeller shares his signature compositional imagination alongside the wry wit that animates his work. Schoeller knows how to make a globally recognized face captivate viewers anew—as if seen for the first time. Whether political leaders, Hollywood stars, business entrepreneurs, or contemporary music royalty, Schoeller’s mesmerizing portraits are as daring as they are exacting, playful, and precise. Regardless of the subject and setting, Schoeller’s photographs seemingly come to life. While Portraits will surely thrill devoted fans, it will also attract new admirers with images they’ve noted in top magazines. Every frame in this expansive volume is touched with Schoeller’s distinctive flare for creating meticulously realized worlds—and confirm that he’s a talent that consistently resets the limits of photographic portraiture. The book Martin Schoeller’s Portraits (€ 98) is also available as Collector’s Edition. © All images courtesy of Martin Schoeller and teNeues Publishing www.MartinSchoeller.com and www.teNeues.com
Steve Carell
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Book | Annie Leibovitz Big Book of Portraits
Big Book of Portraits
Annie Leibovitz Legendary portrait photographer Annie Leibovitz has been working for years compiling her best, and some never-beforeseen portrait work in a book. Published by Taschen, the book is a reflection of over 40 years of work, starting with the viscerally intimate reportage she created for Rolling Stone magazine in the 1970s and extending through the more stylized portraiture of her work for Vanity Fair and Vogue. Annie Leibovitz was able to present some of her famous group portraits in a format that proves that she is the master of the genre. Her pictures are at once intimate and iconic, wideranging stylistically and also uniquely hers. In the book are portraits that make up a family album of our time: actors, dancers, comedians, musicians, artists, writers, performance artists, journalists, athletes, businesspeople.
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Performance and power are recurring themes. A supplementary book contains essays by Annie Leibovitz, Graydon Carter, Hans Ulrich Obrist, and Paul Roth and short texts describing the subjects of each of the over 250 photographs. The Collector’s Edition is available in four different dust jackets: Whoopi Goldberg, Berkeley, California, 1984 Keith Haring, New York City, 1986 David Byrne, Los Angeles, 1986 Patti Smith, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1978 The book is available in Art Space Gallery, United Arab Emirates. © All images courtesy of Annie Leibovitz From Annie Leibovitz (Taschen, 2014) www.Taschen.com
Ellen Degeneres
Whoopi Goldberg
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Making of | Till Könneker
Till Könneker Scans of Reality
Till Könneker’s My People - My Reality 1:1 series is comprised of thirteen life-sized fullbody scans of friends and family members, printed on photographic paper. With a special scan technique people are shown frozen in time, creating an imaginary space of the artist’s immediate personal reality.
Till Könneker was born in 1980 in West Berlin as the son of writer Marie-Luise Könneker and artist Gernot Bubenik. He lives and works in Bern, Switzerland. After school he studied graphic design in Zurich and Basel. This passionate collector of useless and beautiful things experiments with many different mediums. Könneker develops his work in an explorative and playful manner, always ready to trust chance. Ideas and the images from his mind are the origins of most of his works, however, it is the interplay of these images with the laws of nature, chaos and chance that truly are the foundation for Könnekers final creations. Könneker is founder of the mobile application company Apps with love and inventor of Living Cube Furniture.
The Watcher With my scanning technique I created a really unique look with people frozen in time. In the project My People - My Reality 1:1 I created 13 life-sized fullbody scans of my closest friends, girlfriend and family members. This series shows my perspective on reality and creates awareness of a situation in which we are all surrounded by millions of people but will only know and get close to very few of them. I scan those who are or were close to me, step by step. With my scanning technique, I try to develop an imaginary space of my immediate personal reality.
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With my scanning technique, I try to develop an imaginary space of my immediate personal reality.
I'm a watcher. I try to give my attention to each detail. The scanner is probably one of the most exact ways to reflect the reality but it also looks surreal. I want to share this close and also strange view of our environment with other people. In my next scan project Close Encounters I will take the scanner to the garden and give my attention to the small and inconspicuous things. If you watch closely and with patience, you see the beauty in almost everything. Sometimes you just need to change the perspective a little bit to discover a whole new world.
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The scanner is probably one of the most exact ways to reflect the reality but it also looks surreal.
I think in all directions and categories now, wherever I can bring a new idea in or improve something. It goes beyond graphic design - from art design to social culture, events, up to new political order for old political systems, etc. I have a lot of new ideas coming now but the difficulty is in picking the right one, where to invest time and what’s really worth investing in. At the moment I’m working on an online exposé about my father entitled The Rediscovery of Gernot Bubenik with photos and stories (discoverbubenik.com). I’m also working on developing a grand late night show in Switzerland. © All images courtesy of Till Könneker www.TillKoenneker.com
Making of | Till Könneker
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Making of | Till Könneker
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Making of | Till Könneker
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Making of | Till Könneker
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Making of | Till Könneker
128 Soura Issue 38
Making of | Till Könneker
130 Soura Issue 38
Making of | Electric Art’s Schick Project
Electric Art’s Schick Project Quite A Hairy Situation Schick shaver recently elicited the help of Electric Art, a creative production studio, for their latest image campaign, based on an idea so wild and so hairy, only Electric Art could have combed through it! “We loved the concept of this brief and knew it had the potential to look amazing,” says the EA team on the website (www. electricart.com.au). “Several test comps were done initially to explore the size, type, color & position of the animal. We settled on a mixture of ferrets for the limbs, face & tail & rabbits for the softer fuller fur of the body.”
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We settled on a mixture of ferrets for the limbs, face & tail and rabbits for the softer fuller fur of the body. The “models” were cast off the street, “a range of hipsters,” as they are referred to on the website. Troy Goodall, the talent photographer shot them in Auckland, while Stephen Stewart, the animal photographer recreated the portrait lighting to shoot the furry critters in poses to match the models. The animals consisted of 6 ferrets and 9 rabbits, all various colors. “The rabbits were the best looking of the bunch although the ferrets had all the personality and a rather unique smell about them.”
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The rabbits were the best looking of the bunch although the ferrets had all the personality and a rather unique smell about them. Agency: Y&R New Zealand Executive Creative Director: Josh Moore Associate Creative Director: Tom Paine Art Director: Mark Tallis Copywriter: Cam Dowsett Senior account manager: Mike Keen Agency head producer: Christina Hazard Agency producer: Marique Knight Talent photography: Troy Goodall Animal photography: Stephen Stewart
132 Soura Issue 38
About Electric Art Electric Art is a Sydney based, globally recognized creative production specialist leading the way in Creative Retouching & 3D, Motion, Interactive & Augmented Reality. Founded in 1993, over the years EA has worked with some of the biggest brands, ad agencies & photographers around the world. EA outputs assets spanning traditional print, web, animation & interactive.In short, we love to take on challenges & occupy brand new spaces. EA has forged a unique culture focused on creating beautifully crafted, award winning work in a relaxed and fun environment.
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EA has forged a unique culture focused on creating beautifully crafted, award winning work in a relaxed & fun environment. EA’s campaigns have won many awards including gold, silver & bronze at Cannes, gold & silver at The New York Festivals, gold at the Clio Awards, silver at The John Caples International Awards, gold at Adfest as well as a swag of local AWARD awards. Their work has been selected to appear in Luerzer’s Archive, Communication Arts, American Photographer, Advanced Photoshop, as well as in Luerzers 200 Best Digital Artists Worldwide 2013/2014, and 2015/2016. © All images courtesy of Electric Art, Stephen Stewart & Troy Goodall www.ElectricArt.com.au, www.TroyGoodall.com and www.StephenStewartPhoto.com
2014 | Volume 2 133
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