FINE ART PHOTO - No. 33

Stéphan Gladieu

A trip to Romania with his family opened the eyes of the then twelve-year-old Frenchman to the world – to its contradictions, to the living conditions of people, to poverty and wealth. That was in 1981, and he continues to travel to Romania, but also to Iraq, Afghanistan, Sarajevo, Nagorno-Karabakh, Pakistan and the Middle East. » I come and go, I try to understand the horror of the world and I prefer to show it where it is not expected.« Borders can not stop him.

He increasingly combines the technique of reportage and the view of the whole with portraits and human figures, which he puts in the foreground. To do this, he uses flash and natural light.

During a stay in South Korea, with the North Korean border constantly in front of his eyes, the bold idea of photographing in the North was born. Five stays of fifteen days each were planned by Stephan Gladieu – he is in constant company and under observation. He learns how this »clan-like, ultra-hierarchical society« works. And understands what China‘s and Japan‘s domination of the country, the civil war, and the autarky that comes with the Kim family in 1948 does. »It would be presumptuous to say I understood everything about the North Koreans, but I think part of what they are is this pride, this very strong nationalism that is part of a collectivist culture where the individual in itself has no value.«

North Koreans, he said, sense that things are changing, but are very concerned about what they will lose compared to what they might gain. Individual freedom, he said, is an abstract concept. »However, it‘s not unusual to run into happy people singing in the street, picnicking on weekends, going swimming. Surprising because it doesn‘t correspond to the idea you have of this country and of life in a dictatorship in general.«

https://www.stephangladieu.fr/
sgladieu@yahoo.fr
Instagram @stephangladieu
 

Ivan Toscanelli

Photographer Ivan Toscanelli lives his vocation as a border crosser between two cultures, a positive tension that makes his creativity unique. His photos are full of intensity and thirst for life. They celebrate the extraordinary, the beauty, the exceptional or lift everyday life into timelessness. The aspects of his multi-layered personality, which deals with existential-philosophical questions, flow into each of his works.

With a high sensitivity for light and shadow, for the personality of the sitter, the setting, the situation, he sets out to find the best possible moment, a special angle of view or a dramaturgically exciting staging in order to visualise his statement and to bring a photo to the point, behind which there must be no return. Toscanelli photos are eye-catchers. They are meant to render speechless; they savour the power of the visual in all its fullness and opulence – completely bypassing concepts and penetrating the centre of emotion, they are touching. Toscanelli uses the camera as an instrument of enchantment and photography as an act of refinement or the preservation of the precious.

The works – whether photographic work or product photography – affirm the surface of appearance, but also seek the authentic, the good, the beautiful and the true, the eternally valid. Independent of the subject and yet with full reference to and attention to the respective theme, Toscanelli works his way beyond opinions, judgements and evaluations. »Material collection« is what he calls his ›collecting‹ of great or small fine moments, whose magic in the result gives the viewer the feeling of ›being there‹, of fascination or, in the case of the portrayed, of ›being met‹, ›being recognised‹.

For him, manifesting something experienced, staged or imagined as a photograph means passing on the torch of his fire: Inspiration and respect for the fragile beauty of the poetic moment.

tokyo3thousand1@yahoo.co.jp
72jap@gmx.de
https://www.ivan-toscanelli.com/
https://www.toscanelli-speed.com/
Instagram @toscanelliphoto
 

François Pache

Photography is a second life for Francois, intermingled with his career as an engineer. Having practiced in various photographic genres, François Pache pursues photography »because it invites to develop a different view of the world and stimulates creativity, which is a real tool for personal development«. His life and professional path tes-tify to his great attention to the human, which he deepens by working in particular on the expression of his figures.

These photographs deepen the theme of presence for the other in photographic encounters with men and women, inviting them to offer a personal and strong expression in a respectful and balanced relationship. A presence that mobilizes even more openness and discernment when the encounter takes place in a cultural environment far from ours.
His photographs capture the soul of the people he photographs, but also document the soul of Ethiopia. His images give a face to the faceless people, the minorities, and make us look at them in our humanity. Thus, a kind of tenderness develops looking at them, but witnessing the dignity of these men and women and what unites them all. Despite all the deprivation, the portrayed are deeply optimistic and show their energies and their buried potential.

https://www.francoispache.book.fr
francoispache@outlook.com
 
 
Erwin Olaf

In his latest photo series, Erwin Olaf does what he has always celebrated throughout his work: he praises and worships the naked human body. Born in Hilversum, Holland, in 1959, the artist initially wanted to work as a journalist, but his close ties to the Dutch gay and lesbian scene led him to his true destination early on and turned him into an internationally admired photographic artist.

The two black-and-white series »Squares« and »Ladies Hats« from the 1980s show this interest in the physical in an ironic and witty way, often in provocative form. While these early photographs were still made with simple technology and in a gesture of spontaneity, Olaf‘s handling of technology in particular changed over the years. The series become more elaborate and highly sophisticated. However, in the early 2000s commercial works also characterize his work.

Explicitly Erwin Olaf turns to the naked body again with the »Skin Deep« series in 2015. This is followed a year later by a series »After Rodin«, which has hardly been appreciated to this day, in which the artist already deals with the themes of dance and the body by portraying the company of the Dutch National Ballet. From here, in fact, a straight path leads to latest series »Dance with Close-up«, which, it seems, resumes the focus from 2015 and 2016, but goes less into the pathetic and offers more space to the wit and lightness that we remember from the early black and white works.

Erwin Olaf always seems to be completely with himself where the body and its aesthetic presence are concerned. He proved this already on with his self-portraits.

 
https://www.erwinolaf.com/art
info@erwinolaf.com
Instagram @studioerwinolaf
 

Salvo Veneziano

The professional photographer and journalist Salvo Veneziano specialized in photography based in Sicily worked for a long time with various magazines and editorial projects including Il Fotografo, Gentedi Fotografia, Digital Camera, Photo Professional, Nikon Photography and Canon Academy mainly dealing with image language, new creative approaches  and  ancient printing techniques.

For some years he has been steadily collaborating with FP mag as head of the FPlab column, entirely dedicated to the world of analogue photography and artistic research.

Teacher of photography in the courses of Photographic Language and Ancient Techniques of Palermofoto®, in the didactic field and for his personal research he has explored over the years gum bichromate printing, cyanotype, manipulations in Polaroid and Impossible Project, wet collodion and any other photographic system capable of returning a unique photographic piece.

For his »Imperfekt« serie, Salvo tried to use the photographic imperfection to tell the human imperfection and of things, last steps in this research led Salvo to discover a printing technique so imperfect that it does not exist (at least until today), infact Salvo is currently experimenting, among the first in the world, with Oliotype over glass, a complex and innovative printing technique with which some among his works here published have been created, exhibited for the first time ever in »Casa & Putia«, last Palermofoto® exhibition that took place in Arles 2022.

All images composing this portfolio are reproductions of unique and imperfekt pieces hand realized in last ten years.

https://www.salvoveneziano.com
Instagram @salvoveneziano
foto@salvoveneziano.com
 
 
Francois Laxalt

Francois Laxalt s work is different. Driven by the idea that photography can also be about small things and private moments and the attempt to find beauty in everyday life, he photographs every-thing with the aim of re-enchanting the world. In doing so, he focuses on things from his own daily life, in which he seeks a recurring artistic appearance.

With the paintings of the series Senbazuru shown here, he wants to pass on the message of Sadako Sasaki. »I will write peace on your wings and you will fly around the world to deliver this message«.

The crane is a symbol of peace and longevity. In Japanese, »Senbazuru« stands for the art of folding a thousand paper cranes in origami. Legend says that whoever makes a Senbazuru will be granted a wish by the gods.

Unfortunately, Sadako Sasaki was not so lucky. She was two years old during the bombing of Hiroshima. Nine years later, she was diagnosed with leukemia. From her hospital bed, she began mak-ing paper cranes, hoping to reach one thousand so the gods would eventually heal her. She used whatever paper was available – notebook paper, wrapping paper, toilet paper – anything she could get her hands on. On her 644th crane, she died.

Her classmates decided to end her senbazuru and buried her with her wish. When they found her diary, they read this sentence, »I will write peace on your wings and you will fly around the world to deliver this message.«

Francois wants to make Thousand Cranes a unique photographic project and hopes that it will create a thousand worlds in the mind of the viewer, a thousand dreams that carry peace.

contact@laxalt.com
Instagram @francoislaxalt
https://www.laxalt.com

 
William Ropp

Describing William Ropp‘s work is difficult because he would be classified in many areas and in many categories of photography. For many years he was portrayed and seen as the greatest photographer of children. William Ropp, however, is more. It is visionary photographer whose images consistently move something mysterious and arcane.

He often focuses his art on portraits that magically captivate the viewer. The people photographed usually have an enormous charisma that only comes into its own through Ropp‘s photography.

Whether it is a certain type of hair or the special shape of an eye, Ropp always succeeds in showing the viewer the seemingly unportrayable and drawing him into the persons he portrays with extreme expressiveness.

His pictures manage to portray the sitter as innocent, vulnerable, unspoiled, and yet it is recognizable that the protagonist is more. The viewer‘s expectations are heightened, his thought worlds opened. None of his pictures leaves indifferent and everyone of his pictures tells a story. The associations are necessary and yet his work is obsessed with the truth that confronts the viewer.

To cliché Ropp is difficult. His images, while not distorting, ask more questions than visible at first sight. He himself sees himself as searching for the fascination of the imaginary.

w.ropp@free.fr
Instagram @ropp.william
https://www.galerie-stp.de/künstler/william-ropp

Joep Hijwegen

Bright colored lights in the darkness, reflections and silhouettes in a rainy city. The work of Joep Hijwegen exudes nostalgia, love, mystery and terror. For the photographer, the colors each have their own emotional meaning.

However, this meaning is ambiguous: there is a duality between positive and negative. For example, blue represents peace but also depression, red represents love but also danger. Through the context in which Hijwegen applies the colors in his work, he gives them meaning. His photographs are expressions of feelings that cannot be described in words, but can be felt through images.

He started taking photographs to overcome his fear of »drowning« in modern life. He felt that he had no connection to anyone or anything, which combined with his daydreamsled to a kind of intimate distance from strangers. A voyeurism expressed in both an appreciation of observing life and a frustration at not being able to connect with it.

Hijwegen‘s photography quickly aimed at capturing he spirit of a place or a feeling in order to tell stories that are more psychological and universal in nature.

Joep Hijwegen can be seen at Haute Photographie Rotterdam in February 2023. He sells his work through kahmangallery.com.

me@joephijwegen.com
Instagram @joephijwegen
https://www.joephijwegen.com


Emmanuelle Bousquet

Born in 1979 in Nimes, Emmanuel Bousquet began photography at the age of 10. Influenced by various fashion designers, she first photographed relatives and increasingly considered photography as an independent form of expression in its own right.

Since 2004, she explored all facets of self-portraiture following a suggestion of a photographer she highly estimates. Since then she has tried to use her body the way a painter uses his colors. Fascinated by the idea of confronting the agonies of self-observation, she discovers femininity as an explorer. She describes her series »Illustration« herself as follows:

»The words don‘t come out, the writing is painful, my speaking is confusing. My images appeal to the past and heal in the present. Each woman carries the memories of a little girl trying to grow amidst uncertain landmarks. The mirror effect has become my only point of reference. Like a painter, my flesh is my gouache, everything that clothes or surrounds me is my color palette. I go the way of the self-portrait to speak of the woman. A sensitive, complex and profound being who has the illusion, the distorted feeling of having liberated her femininity in a world where appearances are king.

Being alone without loving myself drives me to self-destruction and being in a relationship without loving myself leads me to emotional dependency.

Being alone in front of my goal leads me to be Emmanuelle.«

http://www.emmanuellebousquet.com
contact@emmanuellebousquet.com
Instagram @emmanuellebousquet


Thomas Gerwers

»Basically, as a photographer, you have to connect yourself with what you‘re photographing.« Thomas Gerwers also gives that advice to couples who want to work together on a series. »Musa Erato« is the name of the unusual project presented in black and white by Gerwers and his partner Petra, who is also his muse and model. The title refers to Erato, patron goddess of the arts, a mythological being who inspires people to be creative.

Thomas  Gerwers has been active as a journalist, expert author, juror, curator and publicist for the international photography scene for some 30 years. He neglected his own ambitions as a photographer.  Only his partnership with a female photographer helped him to find his way back to photography.

The joint project is not primarily about nudity for the photographer. »My photos are not meant to show what something looks like, but how it feels at the moment the photo was taken.« He wants to tell stories, he says, to capture being. Just as important to him as what happens in front of the camera, he says, is what takes place behind it and how the photographer engages. »For us, it‘s always about staging in space.«

Petra Gerwers adds, »Seeing myself like this in these photos helped me reconcile a bit as a mature woman. We‘ve been a couple for ten years, and the first photos were taken rather casually. It was this loving look at me that I noticed in the photos. I liked myself in the pictures and so the process towards our joint project wasn‘t a jump in the deep end, but rather the result of a joint development process.«

The model and photographer have published a book of pictures from their project, of which only a small remaining edition is now available as an artist‘s edition.

https://www.musaerato.gallery
t.gerwers@buero-grg.de
https://www.strkng.com/de/fotograf/thomas+gerwers