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Post by pieter on Sept 10, 2006 14:45:06 GMT -7
I love Polish art and have created a gallery of the ones I like best (and could find pictures of on the web) here: www.pbase.com/scatts/artpolishOnly personal claim to fame is that we have a Dwurnik, but not one of the large ones. We have other stuff too, but not by anyone you will have heard of. If you hunt around the galleries you'll also find many pictures of Poland. Scatts, Welcome on board, this is the first time I saw you here and this is a very good start! Thank you for posting that interesting link of yours. I enjoyed watching it very much. Nice family, elegant, charming and beautiful wife and a very cute, enchanting daughter. I like the picture you took of her on the electronic stairs. Form the Warsaw images I liked the Warsaw Compass points, Metropolian 2/ Most Swietokrzyski, Centrum,the Metro and the Modern architectue photo's. Nice images from Paris (france) and Istanbul (Turkey) too. Ftom the Polish art I liked the Polish flag of Wlodzimierz Pawlak (reminded me a little bit of Jaspher Johns American flags ( www.allposters.com/-sp/Three Flags-1958-Posters_i856128_.htm ), Jerzy Nowosielski and Tamara de Lempicka. From the 20th century art my favorites are Lucien Freud, Edvard Hopper, David Hockney (a Bigger Splash, 1967) and Roy Lichtenstein ( I love Pop-art, Andy Warhol, Richard Hamilton - " Just What Is It that Makes Today's Homes So Different, So Appealing? 1956", Claes Oldenburg, Jasper Johns and Tom Wesselman). Pieter
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bujno
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 648
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Post by bujno on Sept 11, 2006 5:23:25 GMT -7
Pieter, I am moved by your words. You are so deeply and truly a humanist(ic) person! I have noticed also that you are 'the borderline' kind of personality, the borderlines are always the most interesting to my mind. You wrote about the right - or wrong - usage of dark energy, the hiiden side each one of us has, that is one borderline, the Polish heritage in you 'clashing' (too stronga word, but you know what I mean with) with the perhaps a bit puritan and strict Dutch one, then Dutch puritan and Dutch liberal, and finally the extravertism-introvertism constant fight, I too know very well. No wonder you are the artist, no matter what do you actullay do for living. Your openess to the word is dazzling, an let it be so! Here's a link to a very good site about Jakob Boehme , it is both in Polish and German, I remember yuo do know German (I don't) free.art.pl/euroopera/boehme/index.htmAs to Henryk Elzenberg - I don't know any good sites in English or German or Dutch. I don't know if his major "K³opot z istnieniem" work was translated into the language you know. I'll try too look into it some time later.
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Post by pieter on Sept 11, 2006 8:59:36 GMT -7
Pieter, I am moved by your words. You are so deeply and truly a humanist(ic) person! I have noticed also that you are 'the borderline' kind of personality, the borderlines are always the most interesting to my mind. You wrote about the right - or wrong - usage of dark energy, the hiiden side each one of us has, that is one borderline, the Polish heritage in you 'clashing' (too stronga word, but you know what I mean with) with the perhaps a bit puritan and strict Dutch one, then Dutch puritan and Dutch liberal, and finally the extravertism-introvertism constant fight, I too know very well. No wonder you are the artist, no matter what do you actullay do for living. Your openess to the word is dazzling, an let it be so! Here's a link to a very good site about Jakob Boehme , it is both in Polish and German, I remember yuo do know German (I don't) free.art.pl/euroopera/boehme/index.htmAs to Henryk Elzenberg - I don't know any good sites in English or German or Dutch. I don't know if his major "K³opot z istnieniem" work was translated into the language you know. I'll try too look into it some time later. Wojtek, Your reaction and opinion about me is very interesting and partly true and partly wrong. From a far going Holistic, Eclecticist and maybe altruïstic (humanistic-existentialist) point of view I could be seen as a " Borderline personality", if you use that expression in a Metaphysical way to describe an information overload, ambivalence, a dualistic antithesis in one person (inner person conflict), in the sense of a cultural identity, Utopic idealism, Messianic romanticism, or a cultural kind of (non marxist, and non-social-democratic) Anarchist-socialism (or Libertarian Culture socialism). From the psychiatric or psychological point of view I do not match the description of a Borderliner, because I have experiance people with a severe Borderline disfunction, who were extremely difficult to handle, and whose attitudes varied form self mutilation to Suicidal tendencies. If I would have a mental disorder or ilness I would think I would be more in the corner of Manic-depression, because I sense a very strong duality in me. The fact that i can coap with that is that I find my own way to direct this negative and positive sides into one Monotheism, my own individuality, personality or character, with a mind, soul, spirit, heart, rationality and emotionality. I would say these two last things are important in my being as a person and hopefully as an artist. The emotional me is the (abstract) expressionist), and the rational me is the one who uses Constructivism and Realism (at least I try to use them). Wojtek, there is also the battle between the Slavic soul (Catholic mythology and Jewish ehtical philosophy is part of that), and the Germanist (Dutch Calvinist pragmatic rationalism, secularism, functionalism) in me. It may sound strange, but the German and English parts of me are the bridge between me and the Slavian soul and emotionality in me. Why, because I spoke German with my Polish grandparents, and English with younger Polish family of my mother, and Polish friends of my mother. I am glad that you know the constant extravertism-introvertism fight, inside yourself too, because that is a tool for creativity and development. Nietsche called it the very important and indepth Inner dialogue with yourself. Pieter Jimi HendrixMANIC DEPRESSION LyricsManic Depression Manic depression is searching my soul I know what I want But I just don't know How to go about getting it
Feeling sweet feeling Drops from my finger's fenders Manic depression has capured my soul
Women so willing the sweet cause in vain You make love You break love It's all the same. when it's When it's over
Music sweet music I wish I could caress caress caress Manic depression is a frustrating mess
Well I think I'll go turn myself off and go on down All the way down Really ain't no use in me hanging around I gotta see you
Music sweet music I wish I could caress and a kiss kiss Manic depression is a frustrating mess
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scatts
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 812
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Post by scatts on Sept 11, 2006 11:27:01 GMT -7
Pieter, thanks for the kind words. Glad you found something you liked.
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Post by pieter on Sept 11, 2006 12:04:47 GMT -7
Pieter, thanks for the kind words. Glad you found something you liked. Scatt, You're welcome, I both liked it from the perspective of cosy family photography as from a psychological and architectural perspective. Because you have such a wonderful, passionate way of taking pictures I recognoze. My family got crazy of me sometimes. Especially when I observed them from behind my big Eos 1 Reflex, autofocus camera with Flaslight. I saw the family6 gathering as a sort of Photoproject, and can relax with a camera, because I have a function. Pieter
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Post by pieter on Sept 11, 2006 12:13:19 GMT -7
Scatt,
Continue taking pictures of your wife and daughter, of Warsaw, and foreign cities. I believe that your focus, view point, stady shot, improved during the years, and that taking a lot of pictures, and looking at photograpy of others improves your photography. Are you also a technical guy or do you just have the sight. Three friends of mine happen to be Photographers, so I am overloaded all the time with info and discussions or debates about new developments, new bodies, lenzes, technology. And I have an addiction, buying and collecting photobooks (art- and photojournalism), and cutting out photographs out of magazines and newspapers I like and putting them in a file.
Pieter
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Post by Jaga on Sept 11, 2006 20:01:37 GMT -7
I love Polish art and have created a gallery of the ones I like best (and could find pictures of on the web) here: www.pbase.com/scatts/artpolishOnly personal claim to fame is that we have a Dwurnik, but not one of the large ones. We have other stuff too, but not by anyone you will have heard of. If you hunt around the galleries you'll also find many pictures of Poland. Scatts, welcome to the forum. I saw briefly your gallery and it is very interesting. The only objection. I did not find Madonna from Czestochova to fit all the other pictures.
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scatts
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 812
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Post by scatts on Sept 12, 2006 0:32:02 GMT -7
Pieter, I am not terribly technical about my photography. I believe it does help to have good equipment but within reasonable boundaries. An SLR is for sure better than a compact although I've seen some incredible pictures from compacts too. But within the SLR bracket, is there really such a huge difference between one costing $1,000 and one costing $20,000? I suppose for professionals there is, but I'm not professional and my photos are not being printed in books or for advertising so the equipment I have is okay for now. I do want to upgrade to a D200 as soon as I can and I do need to invest in better lenses, but that will all have to wait until I have lots of spare money, i.e. never.
The vast majority of the shots I have on PBase are 'snaps'. I carry my camera around most of the time when I'm not at work, and sometimes when I am. That is the secret, to have a camera that feels right and you have with you most of the time. Most of the time it is set to 'P' (programme) mode which is more or less fully automatic and I just shoot as I go. I adjust the metering mode, the quality and use the +- exposure adjustment. I make minor adjustments like crop and sharpen in photoshop.
My photography goes along with my way of life at the moment. I don't have the time to wait for the best light, to stand and take multiple shots, to adjust the depth of field, use filters and so on. So I just take snaps and hope for the best!
Jaga. The 'Black Madonna" was not originally in the collection but then I started wondering why probably the most famous work of art in Poland was not included, so I added it. How you view the inclusion depends really on where you stand with regards to the Catholic Church or organised religion generally. I see it as simply a very significant work of art, significant because of what it means to so many people, not neccessarily because it is a great painting. I far prefer the religious work of Giotto, Rafael and Botticelli found in the "earlier" gallery. You could easily say that these also "don't fit" with the rest of the "earlier" gallery? The problem is that religion exerted such a powerful influence on art in those days, it's hard to avoid.
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Post by pieter on Sept 12, 2006 5:07:11 GMT -7
Pieter, I am not terribly technical about my photography. I believe it does help to have good equipment but within reasonable boundaries. An SLR is for sure better than a compact although I've seen some incredible pictures from compacts too. But within the SLR bracket, is there really such a huge difference between one costing $1,000 and one costing $20,000? I suppose for professionals there is, but I'm not professional and my photos are not being printed in books or for advertising so the equipment I have is okay for now. I do want to upgrade to a D200 as soon as I can and I do need to invest in better lenses, but that will all have to wait until I have lots of spare money, i.e. never. The vast majority of the shots I have on PBase are 'snaps'. I carry my camera around most of the time when I'm not at work, and sometimes when I am. That is the secret, to have a camera that feels right and you have with you most of the time. Most of the time it is set to 'P' (programme) mode which is more or less fully automatic and I just shoot as I go. I adjust the metering mode, the quality and use the +- exposure adjustment. I make minor adjustments like crop and sharpen in photoshop. My photography goes along with my way of life at the moment. I don't have the time to wait for the best light, to stand and take multiple shots, to adjust the depth of field, use filters and so on. So I just take snaps and hope for the best! Jaga. The 'Black Madonna" was not originally in the collection but then I started wondering why probably the most famous work of art in Poland was not included, so I added it. How you view the inclusion depends really on where you stand with regards to the Catholic Church or organised religion generally. I see it as simply a very significant work of art, significant because of what it means to so many people, not neccessarily because it is a great painting. I far prefer the religious work of Giotto, Rafael and Botticelli found in the "earlier" gallery. You could easily say that these also "don't fit" with the rest of the "earlier" gallery? The problem is that religion exerted such a powerful influence on art in those days, it's hard to avoid. Scatts, Ah, the Nikon D200, combines the newest Nikon-technologies with advanced functionality. This digital reflexcamera delivers you therefor high quality performance (as the Dutch camera test says). It has 3D-colormatrixmeting II measure, a fast user-response (usable in only 0,15 second, when you start), and 11-fields AF-system, high resolution LCD monitor, the magnesium housing makes it light, and adds to that the Nikon Capture Software , Total Imaging Systeem and the Nikon PictureProject Software. I don't know if Nikon has images stabalise lenzes as Canon does, but that would be advisable, if you could afford that. All in out not a bad choice, Scatts. I hope that my photographers friends do not hear my compliments for Nikon, because they are Canon freaks, and one of them hates the company Nikon, which he finds, a closed, Conservative (oldfashionate) bastion, while in his view Canon is an open, inovative, creative and "progressive" firm. He would for sure find me a traitor, when he would read this. Canon was revolutionairy with the introduction with it's autofocus system in 1989, with it's Eos series. My old Eos 1 is an icon for me, the first one. I have actually to much camera's, 5, ( 1) the Eos 1 with motordrive (analogue; photonotes.org/reviews/1-1N-3-1V/ ), ( 2) the Canon Ixus 400 ( the Warsaw pictures were taken with that compact camera), ( 3) the Canon 300D/ Digital Rebel, ( 4)the Leica C1( www.camerapedia.org/wiki/Leica_C1 , I have the black version) and ( 5) the Yashica T5 ( a very nice compact camera, with a Carl Zeiss 3,5/35 lens, it gave me some great snapshots in the ninetees and the early year of this century). I can't help it I have a photography, camere and art photography book addiction. I see more photography than I see paintings and sculptures. In Amsterdam you have the great Photography museum, Foam ( www.foam.nl/index.php?pageId=35 ), which I even like more than the museum of Contemporary art (Het Stedelijk Museum), because of the high quality of the exhibition, the good selection of books in their bookstore, and the phantastic building on an Amsterdam chanal. I am not very technical either, but like to make of every vacation or trip a project, actually going on a journey is work. You have to make series, a sequence or photo essay of a trip, so that it was worthwhile (for yourself) having been there. Pieter www.kenrockwell.com/nikon/d200.htmwww.letsgodigital.org/en/camera/review/83/page_2.htmlwww.mir.com.my/rb/photography/hardwares/classics/eos/EOS-1/index.htm(This is how the Godfather of the Eos-family looks like with the motordrive, I love him).
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bujno
Cosmopolitan
Posts: 648
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Post by bujno on Sept 12, 2006 7:55:34 GMT -7
Hi Pieter, I naturally meant the artist's personality, the cultural backaground etc. I have had put it in the unclear manner. As to Nietsche - you are right that his three metamorphoses are worth thinking of. But I am not very fond of him as the first to be the 'trendy iconoclastic', if you know what I mean. I find too much notions which I treat as aimed just at' impressing' the public.
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Post by pieter on Sept 12, 2006 8:55:33 GMT -7
Hi Pieter, I naturally meant the artist's personality, the cultural backaground etc. I have had put it in the unclear manner. As to Nietsche - you are right that his three metamorphoses are worth thinking of. But I am not very fond of him as the first to be the 'trendy iconoclastic', if you know what I mean. I find too much notions which I treat as aimed just at' impressing' the public. Wojtek, I understand that, I commented on that because in reality a lot of (female) artists really have the psychiatric Borderline disorder. I nearly lost a very nice and beautiful girlfriend, because of that. I started visiting her in the psychiatric department of the hospital where I worked in. Electroshock helped to cure her disease, and we (her friends) are very happy that she is back, healthy and a well functionating lady in our society (she is an organiser in an art organisation now, a PR woman). It is amazing how life can go. Nietsche can be pompous, exaggerating and irritating, in the sense that you spit him out. At an open philosophy college in Nijmegen a few years back the Nietsche professor told his students, Nietsche is demanding, he wants to be accepted and thouroughly read and digested, or he wants to be rejected. And that is how people react on him, or they hate him, or they kind of like him. I never got the totallity of him since I only read parts of his " Also Sprach Zarathustra". I did not manage to read the whole of it. Sometimes I think that his mental breakdown on that mountain where he lived and wrote his, had their toal (influence) on the philosophy. I don't know if he wanted to ' impress' his public, because I do not know if that was his purpouse. His correspondence with Richard Wagner seems to be interesting. I even heard classical music composed by Nietsche. Pieter
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Post by pieter on Sept 12, 2006 12:52:40 GMT -7
Scatts,
In my last post I got taken away by my exitement about your plan to buy a D200. Back to reality. You don't have to be very technical about your photography to be a good photographer. The benefit of modern camera's is that it is easier to make good images, because of the advancement of technology. Exactly, " it does help to have good equipment but within reasonable boundaries," you said that just right. Within the SLR bracket, there is only such a huge difference between one costing $1,000 and one costing $20,000 if you are a professional, let's say commercial photographer (like my free-lance and full time Photographer friends), because the more expensive one has more tools, more pixels, more advanced technology, and is better when you use let's say huge format prints or high quality productions (publications, billboards, advertisments, art exhibitions, fashion shoots and etc.). But I am very happy with my 6 megapixel Eos 300D and even my Ixus 400. And look at your photo's, they are sharp, bright, have good color and fit their purpose, being part of series or sequences on your website. I would prefer to invest in a new Canon lense with image stabalizer, than for instance invest in a new Camera for a few more pixels. So you are absolutely right in your lenses remark.
Snapshots are often nice, because they are made instantly without posing, so that you get natural environments and people who aren't artificial (forced in a happy pose when they are serious, melancholic or whatever). Good that you carry your camera around all the time. Once I read in a magazine for professional photographers an interesting comment from a photographer; he said "It does not matter what camera you use, what circumstances or light there are, or what equipment you have with you, important is that you work EVERY day, you have to shoot let's say every day 1 hour, it's about doing it." He also said that it helps when you have a good camera, good lenses, and good equipment, but that the most important thing is doing it every day (when you are a photographer, or dedicated to photography, your photography).
Scatts, when I am photographing it depends what setting I use, if I have a lot of time I like to use manual, so that I can choose my own diaphragm (small, medium or large aperture), shuttertime, sharpness, and +- exposure adjustment (if that is needed). When I have to take for instance photo's of a colleage of mine who is an opera singer in a semi-professional Sextet (she is a soprano and her husbant a bariton, next to other voices in their group), I set my 300D inn the AV mode, and my lense on AF (Auto focus), and my external Metz flashligh on TTL. When I had a quick gathering on my work at the office then I often use the 'P' (programme) mode, because then as you say I can more or less just shoot as I go fully automatic. I in photoshop I use Levels, Curves, sometimes color balance and unsharp mask.
That's the best way of working in my opinion, because with little light and a small aperture and the right shuttertime (with or without flashlight) you can make great photographs too. It depends on your experiance and enthousiasm. And you have lots of that, so that's not a problem. Photographic is literary Positive!
I agree with you, for me there is no differance between religious, enlightened, humanist or secular art. Because you have to see it in it's time. In the past there was no such thing as "Free" or "Autonomous" art, all art served a perpouse, the three power meganisms of feudal time; (1) The absolute faith (everybody believed, and so the only art was christian), (2) Absolute rule (the Monarch or nobel man; and they were interwoven with the Church hierarchy which granted their power), (3) the Power of the Clergy (the institution of the church). Everything was dominated by the Roman Catholic church and faith, and so the only art was Catholic. And an important part of art history and our heritage. You were right placing it under art as part of the artistic development of Poland. Even if it was in contrast with the rest of the work. For me the Icon is first of all a piece of art made by an artist, for others it is a holy image.
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Post by pieter on Jan 13, 2007 21:16:25 GMT -7
Wojtek, Scatts and others,
Have you seen or experianced any Polish art, exhibition, photography or movies lately.
I am just curious!
Pieter
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Post by pieter on Jan 24, 2007 9:37:57 GMT -7
AN EXAMPLE OF A POLISH CONTEMPORARY ARTIST WORKING ABROAD Pawel AlthamerBorn 1967, Warsaw, Poland Lives and works in WarsawPawel Althamer's Real Time Movie consists of a performance of a 30-minute segment of daily life, and a one-and-a-half minute film trailer created to promote that performance. During the performance, which is set on a busy corner in front of the museum, actors will assume the roles of typical Pittsburgh passersby, crossing the street, waiting for a bus, or idling in a car at a traffic light. If Real Time Movie is devoid of drama it nonetheless has an epic quality. The fact that Althamer chooses to remake with much pain and labor a bit of the world in real time is not only a tour de force of artistic craft akin to the creation of a photo-realistic painting, but also a gesture of belief in the power of an individual to re-envision society. We are all actors Althamer seems to say, and it is up to us to figure out how we want to change the world through our daily performance. Link: www.cmoa.org/international/the_exhibition/artist.asp?Althamer#void
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Post by pieter on Jan 24, 2007 9:45:31 GMT -7
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