unlike the Vanity of Grief that envelops all of Monumentale in Milano, the vanity at Cimitero Monumentale di Staglieno is quite contained. in this sense, Milano‘s Monumentale offers an edge over Genova‘s. this is because the significant statues are confined to the building in Staglieno, with “regular” headstones graveyards dominating the field. in some ways….
Author: fernand de Beauvoir
the vanity of grief
a second visit to Milano’s Monumentale, and this phrase still rings as the best description. the first visit was 6 hours, until I got kicked out, and this one was still 3 hours. the impact is still there, and unlike appreciating all the statues at a museum like the Louvre. for obvious reasons, despite the…
when Kertészian goes towards Leiter-ism
I have been pursuing a project in Instagram, under Kerteszian, to bring simplicity onto a photograph with a sense from André Kertész‘s The Polaroids. a kind of emotional Haiku in a simple photo, be it made to look like a Polaroid or BW. the main thing is to reduce the visual noise when looking, before…
hedges or trees? hedges of trees?
« […] Colonel Aureliano Buendia was to remember that distant afternoon when his father took him to (discover**) get to know the ice. » — Gabriel García Márquez‘s first sentence on 100 Years of Solitude. this came to mind as I took my daughter to get to know the French garden trees, which are manicured…
venetian projections
Venice has re-kindled some ideas on photography. there was a philosophical view that Venice developed in a very different way to the European cities that I have been able to visit— or let me say, any cities I have visited outside of Japan. there is also the sentimental search for a replacement to Old San…
park conversations about grey goo
being an autodidact in the age of L’internets is quite interesting. mainly, the outlets are photo-social networks, and the development is quite influenced by what one sees there (to accept or repel), and the urgency to acquire the social currency— such as comments and likes. when I think back on the days of flickr, and…
Alex Webb: « The Suffering of Light »
the appeal of Street Photography still alludes me, and while I truly admire some of the work/ideas from Henri Cartier-Bresson and Brassaï, I do not find much that captures my appreciation**, never mind the “I wish I could do that”. then there are two books from Alex Webb that hold my attention, and appreciate that…
Czech Photographers: Jaromír Funke
at least the way that I manage to find out about photographers, the Czech contingency is quite the blind spot. luckily, because of first discovering Josef Sudek, and the instant connection it made with me, then I was suggested to look at the work of Jaromír Funke. surely, there is a feeling of German Expressionism…
shadows in portraits
one advent of digital photography, mainly as shared online, seems to indicate a love for no-shadows photography. this is also very apparent in the candy-coloured photographs found in modern «New Topographics». yet, obviously, shadows can be embraced and forget about “expose for the shadows” suggestions. one classic example of embracing the shadows right away is…
portraits: people as lyrics to a song
there are so many ways to take a portrait: fill the frame, or face on center, and they can all be the best way to photograph the sitter. yes, photography should not have a formula, and just have a sense of the sitter and a language that each composition provides. Richard Avedon worked with a…
Deborah Turbeville & subversiveness via integration
like many industries, it is difficult to accept changes in fashion photography. yes, fashion is about quarterly/yearly changes to the clothes, though we can see that fashion photography was pretty stale for many years— and that stale view can still be found today. it seems that that Deborah Turbeville was not a fan of the…
Sibylle Bergemann & Polaroids
there seems to be a flood of Polaroid books in recent years, and I personally, have been lowering my threshold of what is a good book to buy. it is not a “pass”, rather, it has to do with an attempt to understand a distortion/transformation (or two). that is, there is the transformation that Polaroids…
Box of Fallen Leaves 
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