PHIL THE PHOTOGRAPHER

My friend Phil [Mr Chips] has been using a camera to take pictures that I think Sanna got him from the charity shop. He has been running black and white film in it and I have been checking out his pictures with great delight. Every time he uploads a new set, his picture - particularly those of women - are just full of a nice magic.



It is true that 'reducing' everything to black and white can hide a multitude of sins and suddenly make things look like 'art' but I personally think what is the most powerful thing about Phil's pictures is the dialogue between himself and his subjects. These are not 'models' or just 'shitty friend snaps'.



I guess Phil is just lucky to have so many female friends who are comfortable in his company.



And because of that, he seems to be able to make all the women beautiful. And I find that all the other pictures of men - the pictures seem devoid of the same kind of commitment to the subject, or that subject is more disconcerted by the camera. I dunno what it is.

Compare this:


to this:


It just isn't the same.

The other thing I love about Phil's ability to engage with his subject and in turn tell a story with the image is how he can turn something totally inanimate into something magnificent







Anyway - I think Phil is my new favourite photographer. If you want to check out his other pictures, here is his Flickr. [rated - SFW].

THE BORING ONE

Dear Mathieu

In celebration of our conversation this evening, I have decided to curate a new Blog exhibition called THE BORING ONE with some of my favourite pictures from Valeria aka the 'boring' one. Who as you know, I prefer to your last girlfriend known as 'the boy'. As for poor Julie, I am sure she would prefer to remain out of all of this.

So, for the grand opening of THE BORING ONE, please scroll down to view the pictures I have selected. Which you have already seen a thousand times before.

On curating this exhibition:
I love the internet. I love that people post the post intimate things on there. The most public domain. And then, often in private, thousand of people look at it. Thousands of people could all be looking at it in private all at the same time. It is mind boggling. I love it. There is no privacy any more. I love looking for people's secrets.

Et Voila.

THE BORING ONE
Photographs by .valeria


fantôme
Taken on May 26, 2008


Tu as dit laisse-moi te mettre dans un taxi si tu rentres chez toi dans cette tenue tu vas te faire violer et tuer et on retrouvera ton corps au bois de Boulogne.
Taken on April 30, 2008


ce n'est pas privé c'est un portrait/ I need you to hold on while the sky is falling
Taken on September 8, 2007


Taken on January 2, 2008


laideur fascinante de la décoration des hôpitaux
Taken on January 11, 2008


DSC09767
Taken on January 11, 2008


DSC08439
Taken on November 30, 2007


that night I fell asleep with the light on
Taken on October 4, 2007

ACTIVITIES

Yesterday I finally got around to framing a lot of images I had been wanting to.


Here are two by Carlo Mollino. Actually he is an architect foremost, then furniture designer. He actually looks really scary if you ask me. But I love his polaroids.


Him.

POLAROIDS

less well known are mollino’s erotic polaroid photographs.
after carlo mollino died, his executors found more than 2,000 polaroid
photographs, made beginning in the 1960s, subjects are turin’s unpenitent magdalenes - most of them nude.
at one level they can be confused as little more than a genre of amateur
pornography with a disinterested will to artistic form.
the beauty of mollino's images resides primarily in the pathos and humor
of the incommensurability between the ordinariness of these women,
however lovely, and the artist's need to weave a fantasy around them.
‘every nude betrays its author’, wrote carlo mollino in 1959.

But his photography from negative was heavily retouched when printed - I really like that aspect - that the the medium of photography that is often considered documentary still isn't a finished piece yet. It is also disappointing though cause I always believe the fantasy of something. When I realise, it is a bit heart breaking.



F.Y.I. Those images I put in those Victorian ivory frames are from a book I pulled apart - they obvs aren't original! They aren't even the best reproductions - a cheap Taschen. When I realised my original Polaroids book was worth £100's I thought it best to keep it in tact...

I also framed this:



xx Lektrogirl