Hollywood Portraits - Inspiration

I went through a lot of pictures and ideas today and I think I know where I am going with it. Seems like this upcoming week is going to be very busy. Good.

Cooltural Pick of the Week 9 - Arno Rafael Minkkinen

Something about his way of seeing human body gives me chills. It is somewhat Dali-like surreal yet very auteur and personal. See the website for more work from the artist. http://www.artnet.com/awc/arno-minkkinen.html

Cooltural Pick of the Week 9 - Taschen's Polaroid Book

Urban Outfitters sell The Polaroid Book which contains a selection of 254 pictures by 203 different authors. It is a decent selection for those who are looking for some ideas in instant photography. I liked the picture by Ton Huijbers the most, since his technique really puzzled me for a while. He does some impressive stuff with the light and exposure.

Cooltural Pick of the Week 8

I love the light on some of the faces in this video. Extremely addictive music, so watch on your own risk.

Evolution of the Thesis - Thursday's Assignment

Keight and the light

Cooltural Pick of the Week 7

Being here in Yosemite made me think of a photographer I met in Guatemala couple of years ago. His name is Sean Fitzgerald and what I really like about him is that he was brave enough to introduce a change into his life. READ his bio to learn more but also, you may want to read it just to see how you can start preparing your own bio. I thought it was one of the best informal bios I have ever read and I noticed that very often good photographers cannot write about themselves to save their lives.

Painting With Light in Yosemite Assignment

I had two small led flash lights with me and I tried to put the light on the objects but the only good one I made is the picture of the masc on the Giant Sequoya, and maybe you can tell that there is some light on the rock on the second picture from the Glacier Peek. I wish I could carry all my equipment on American but they are not really heavy-bag friendly. Sigh.

Visions of Light

I think this movie is a must-see for everyone who is interested in any form of art. I am a big fan of Vittorio Storaro's cinematography in Bertolucci's movies and I certainly recommend The Conformist and The Last Emperor. My favorite scene from the first motion picture is the last scene of stabbing which happens in the forest. I was really impressed with the light among the trees and with the overall use of natural light in the movie. Bertolucci plays with shadows, modulated light, he uses different forms while framing his subjects and appeals to our imagination, so that after seeing a visual cue we are able to tell ourselves the rest.

Roman Polanski mentioned in the documentary really creeps me out due to his recent legal problems and weird aura around him. I enjoyed Mia Farrow in Rosemary's Baby though, and The Fearless Vampire Killers is one of my old time favs.

The documentary we watched today also included movies like: Birth of a Nation, Citizen Kane, The Killers, Eraserhead, Blue Velvet (both by David Lynch), Apocalypse Now, Picnic, Graduate, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Blade Runner, Grapes of Wrath and some other spectacular motion pictures which I don't remember anymore because I am so tired now that I am about to pass out on my keyboard.

8 Artists from Art 21

William Kentridge's work reminded me of Ilana Yahav and her Sand Painting. it is fascinating what you can do by observing different things and then trying to "repeat" them by means of props and various materials just to get the feel of reality. Well, see for yourself and tell me if it is not just fantastic.



Cao Fei - Avatars

I came across Second Life about a year ago during some CLiC training at the Library. Craig Wheeler was really into it and he said you could do pretty much anything while in virtual reality. I have heard of attorneys opening their law offices in Second Life and charging money for professional advice. Darn!

Cao Fei talks about avatars and again, she mentions that people tend to be different while being in disguise of an avatar - they are often rude, cruel and careless and that kind of behavior is easily observed in Second life. The clip reminded me a bit of a scene from Gamer, an absolutely horrible movie which still got me thinking on our future. I mean, people hiding behind beautiful avatars while being trapped and sad entities who don't even realize what is real and what is not. Sigh.

Kerry James Marshall: Being an Artist

This clip reminded me of my own movie made exactly a year ago which was trying to answer the question who was an artist and how photography may be understood. Well, I think that artists often use different features to either hide their personalities or overexpose them. I am not sure what I think about using race to convince people that what I am doing is different because of it, but as they say - whatever works!

Below is my home-made movie from one of my exhibits in Dallas from last October.



Racial conflicts are pretty new to me since we don't really have it in Poland. I take people as they are and I think everyone is important and everyone deserves a chance. Therefore, I really enjoyed the conversation between Carrie Mae Weems and David Alan Grier who talked about race, current events that moved history forward ( like the elections of Obama) and black art as it changes and develops nowadays. Grier said one thing that I absolutely understood - he said that for an artist it is important to break away from what you are normally associated with and do something new. That is what I want for myself and true - it would be nice to have some work that is easy to recognize, but at the same time, it is somewhat scary to be dumped in a shelf and thought of as a one-way-street-artist.

Cooltural Pick of the Week 6

Polish animation that almost won an Oscar.

Dallas Theater Center

I went there yesterday to see the play Henry the IV and it was really good! Therefore, I got the tickets for the whole season and I am looking forward to the next performance. They had some famous people there - Randy Moore as Sir John Flagstaff and Steven Walters as Prince Hal were just some of them. The former was on Prison Break, A Mysterious Way and Friday Night Lights. See the clip below to know who I am talking about.


A Mysterious Way from Steven Walters on Vimeo.