What does it take to smile? Depth of the soul? Drunkenness in sarcasm? Or simply a brush.
colors
{Project "52"} Week 10
A weekend goes by - bringing the feeling of spring like a singing swallow with its red beak dashing color on its otherwise monochromatic self. And with that, the sunshine once again breaks apart in my lens, showing layers of warmth and color. And then I start looking for the couples - brushing their smiles off the sun rays and enjoying the freedom of the Sunday spirit.
Lent festival, Maribor
For more than a week, the street festival Lent has been collecting the crowds here in Maribor and although I made a few short visits through the week, I spent a more meaningful amount of time there only today. Leaving the house, I was equiped with a Leica M7 and its smaller companion. The roll of fill still needs to be developed but the few pictures with the digital are already here. The lightness of being able to take quick pictures with an uncomplicated camera cannot be understated in this case. When one deals with lots of action, and especially with children, it is difficult to predict the movements they are going to make, or the direction in which they are going to sprint to. They were such a joy watching that I wanted to reach out to those soap balloons and play with them myself (admirably, I restrained myself). And then walking around looking for those balloon hearts, I felt the thrilled every time I saw one across the field and pounced.
Love Parade, Vienna 2013
in Photography
Sometimes, I am just cursing my luck - I would go out, camera in hand with the great anticipation to take a picture, and another one, and another one, and another one - that fervent thrill of clicking the shutter and knowing that you've captured a moment in someone's like - a moment in one's own life - a moment. And then luck strikes out - streets are empty, streets are lifeless, streets are abandoned - because you've forgotten to check the event calendar of the city, or because the weather has decided to turn sour, or because you have simply decided to go to the wrong city.
And then, there are those times when luck not simply smiles but shows you its multi-coloured rainbow teeth - when you have a camera, when you are in the right set of mind, and when the streets are full - because there is a parade. I happened upon such a parade in Vienna - a love parade - where even the police officers had abandoned their typical gloomy black uniforms for a touch of colour on the lapels or a flower in the hair; where the austerity of the elegance was replaced by the frivolous nature of the topless divas; where the children had decided that they will give up trying to understand the whole discussion between the left and the right and they simply joined the side of "love and happiness" ("what is inequality, daddy?").
Project Silhouettes
in Photography
Today, Time Magazine Light Box featured a reflection on the calendar year with a series of 357 photographs of silhouettes. I felt particularly inspired myself by some of them and reviewed my street photography gallery to identify my silhouettes. Over the years, I've shot a considerable number of them but few really managed to stick transcending the moment and the location, whether it will be a mischiveous group of 20-year olds enjoying the late September sunshine at the lake, or the treasured autumnal sunshine of Berlin or the hot summer sun of Frankfurt refreshing from the fountain water, they all come together as a sharp cutout of their everyday reality.
