Order

I find myself sitting in my study, and all around me are papers, books, notes, pens, paint brushes, magazines, cables, envelopes, rulers, and boxes with strange stuff in. They are not neatly tucked away, but are scattered all around, on my desk and on the floor, even the printer became a surface handy to place stuff on. Sometimes I find this mess, as some would call it, quite liberating because everything is accessible immediately. But days like today I just wish I had an hour or two to just clean everything. The funny part is that I theoretically have an hour but that time is already planned for something else. What I'm trying to say is that normally we look for opportunities like these to escape from the actual things we need to complete. I believe the word is procrastination. But I am now experiencing quite the opposite, so does that mean the stuff that I actually have to do in that hour today is a form of procrastination in the context of cleaning my study?

Today I'm going to create a photogram, and I'm quite curious how it will be. And what the final result will look like. Theme for today: Take the old and make it new.

Stop Motion

This Stop Motion Animation was a recent project of mine. I am myself not 100% sure what it says, but I know that it expresses what I want it to.

I suggest you watch it in a larger size to get the intended impact.

Vintage Action

I browsed around and found some stunning actions for Photoshop that create an old vintage look similar to pictures taken years ago. I played around with some and they are in fact amazing.

Here and example of my favourite action:
Image taken by me (Karolina Rupp Photography)

Unedited Image

After Vintage Action

This should indicate that it is in fact incredibly easy to improve an image "just like that". You need no skill of colour nor of editing software. It's just automatic. I guess what makes me feel a little better about using these actions is that I understand what they do. This doesn't make it better but in fact just quicker. Welcome to the 21st century. 

If you are interested in this action I applied above just use the comment function below to let me know and I'll gladly share it.

Seasons of Creativity

After a rather restful time away, I realised that the posts on here either support my frustrations of being lost and uninspired or the breakthrough moments of enlightenment. This blog is missing the in between stages of how creativity is developed and explored again after a phase of blankness and how it feels when it flows out of you faster and faster just after a high of inspiration. I will try from now on to include these seasons of inspiration and creativity. Then analyse the pattern, and try to change it again to something that can possibly increase it. Or maybe not, maybe it will just be interesting to see. 

Writing this I realise a slight decrease in excitement over the last couple of days but with a good chance of recovery. Is creativity as unpredictable as the weather?

Today's shoot

A new time has come. A time of fine art photography that is expressive. Finding a style of shooting is really difficult as you want to avoid copying others but still find inspiration in work you find relevant. I guess that's the curse of a student. This year though I feel like I'm coming a little closer to my creative expression executed in the way of 'me'. How else would I define that inner pattern that is overlaid onto every image?

This image below is from today's shoot. It doesn't have a title yet. It deals with not wanting to realise that one is boxed in, but also the feeling of a possibility of escape.

By Karolina Rupp Photography

Olivier Culmann

"He travels the globe to take photos of people watching TV. Culmann’s mind-numbing portraits show each person transfixed by the telly, sometimes bearing hilariously dazed expressions. Taken out of context, you would think the images were a detailed study of worldwide ennui and existential angst. Culmann didn’t take snaps of his subjects until he was sure they had forgotten he was there."

All images and text from here.

Good Old Film

How many times have I opened the back of a film camera that already had film in it? Countless times and I thought I've learned from every one of these experiences... but obviously I didn't. I did it again today. That feeling is indescribable. It is a mix between stupidity, self-hatred, disappointment but also it questions your ability to be able to ever learn, in fact the trust in yourself thing is a little shaky for a moment. The good thing about it? At least I still shoot film and have not given up on it! And probably never will. Maybe it is exactly because of these risks and the uncertainty of film that keeps me coming back to it over and over again. It is just not that easy if compared to a digital system. I'm not saying I'm against digital cameras, what I'm saying is that don't shoot hundreds and thousands of jpg's or RAW's, keep it within limitations. If I give myself between twenty and thirty images that I can shoot for a specific brief, I end up with better images as I spend more time on them and compose them more carefully than if I would just be shooting away and later have to go through hundreds of files finding 'the one'. This works for me, it might not for you.

Maybe I should buy red tape and every time I load a camera with film tape it closed. Or should I feel that feeling over and over again? It might stop eventually? But am I really willing to loose so many images? No.

Here an image I took on a 35mm Rollei Redbird. Unedited.

By Karolina Rupp Photography

A thought. A metathought.

It amazes me how many people are on this planet. How all of them somehow make it happen. Make themselves happen, even if it is just surviving. I am thinking of all the people in so many different countries and landscapes and cityscapes somehow all living together intertwined. But one thought about this whole idea bothers me. Who does the world belong to? One would say 'It belongs to the people'? But frankly, it does not. If it would, I could visit any place on this planet tomorrow without having to get a visa etc. But this is not what I mean, what I am in fact referring to is the idea of does this world not actually belong to our minds? Because yes we can see bodies walking and talking but without a mind there would be none of the latter. Say we agree. This earth is cramped with minds, thus with thoughts and all these thoughts if they would be floating around freely could be seen as the collective consciousness. So imagine you have to give this bubble of thoughts a name that actually does not refer to what it is seen as (collective consciousness) but to what it means, to what the mother-thought is all about?! I believe it is tricky. Obviously. But the thought made from the collection of thoughts I would call 'The Metathought' for the purpose of this blog. Imagine you would be able to access this metathought and throw it around like a ball, swim in it, burn a part to see how it heals itself again and cut it in half to be able to say that you were the one who experienced half of it. 

I wonder if your thoughts are still part of it if you're the one playing with it? 

This is it. A random thought for today.

 

John Baldessari

Knosing

The need to be creative is a wonderful one, but if you feel uninspired it is terrible. Sinful in fact if that is what you strive for. You start questioning things around you. An experiment one can do which fascinates me is the following: Close your one eye and look at your nose. It is in your sight from the top till the bottom but you can't see it in its full form or shape. Does that mean that your nose is only half a nose? Yes sure look at it with both your eye, squint, and you will realise that it is blurred and exists even less as a shape as it is not as defined. The point I'm trying to make is that your face grows out of your head, out of your mind, so if you interact with someone face to face does that mean there is only one face in the conversation or two? You are only able to see the one you are looking at, not your own. Also, within that interaction, don't you feel you are in the space between you and the person? You are throwing words at the other persons face which only start existing within the space between you and her/ him and then the other person takes them in.. or not. Your mind seems to thus not exist in your head but in the space just in front of you, hovering there, ready to interact and explore. Tough it carries a wall either to the left or the right (depending which eye you close) of your vision. Therefore we know that our nose can be observed from either side and that it is big, forming a little arrow pointing us in a direction. Let's call it the nosal compass of our mind. As someone pointed out, people are counted or seen as noses, for example 'there are ten noses in the room' or as one would say in the German language 'zwei Euro pro Nase' which translates to 'two Euro per nose(person)'. Does this mean that the reason we count or see noses is the fact that it is the closest thing to our mind (physically) that we ourselves can observe and thus we being there becomes real? 

Being led by our noses, exploring the world around us being aware of the nose in the corner of our eye creates a very different experience of our reality as it makes us perceive it out of a third party perspective. How wonderful! This allows us to observe the observed behind the shield of our physical being which is protecting our mind, for now. 

The conclusion here, what does facing yourself mean?!

Is choice good?

This is a very interesting talk by Barry Schwartz! It questions the idea of choice.

The Three Corners of Reality

By Karolina Rupp Photography

There are three layers to our mind, the good, the bad and the grey areas in between that influence our understanding of things and our reality. We can't escape them, they are part of us inherently.

This photograph, taken on 120 film with a medium format camera, explores exactly that concept of being caught within our own realities and that everything is subjective essentially. We are fixed in that position, and still are trying to think outside of the box and explore even more profound topics just to realise over and over again that the moment a new thought is explored it becomes a cliché. We never stop discovering things but once found, place them neatly into one of the three corners of reality. It is the restlessness of blindly searching for answers to everyday questions that freezes us in time until the hunt is over, for now, and the collection of thoughts and ideas within the mind has been expanded once again. This process continues throughout life and only ends with death, this library we carefully construct through everyday living, that helps us to survive and cope with the reality we are living (in). To draw the concept closer to the photograph, it is necessary to explain the visual elements within this image. 

Firstly, a woman is portrayed a little blurry in the just off-center of the composition with the sleeves of her jersey rolled up, ready to run and explore. Behind her head three different types of walls meet, which represent the three corners of reality by having different shades of grey as one of their properties. These walls hold her within the composition and thus shows her being stuck and caught in her own reality. On the left a door can be recognised which demonstrates the human need to escape and think differently every now and then, but also to show that it is not used (it is closed) for a reason. On the right towards the back of the composition of this photograph random objects can be seen. These show that not everything is explored within our thoughts but at the same time if you would move closer you would know what these objects are, which reinforces the concept of the cliché as mentioned above.The setting was chosen as it is a familiar structure, our reality we live in. The fear of knowing what is out there and the subjective interpretation of the latter is shown through the closed eyes of the woman. Also having to fight your way through this reality, but doing so with closed eyes (eyes are closed towards ideas and things of others because they can only be subjectively perceived and thus become one own's thoughts and ideas) plays a role within this composition. In addition, the woman is a little unsure of her position within this/ her reality which is another reason her eyes are shut as she is essentially hiding away. Through that feature, the viewer of this photograph has the ability to judge and see but the subject decides to not perceive being observed in order to protect herself, like many do within this reality.

This photograph of mine will be exhibited at the end of the year. Watch this space for more details. 

SINcere

It is interesting to note that once you believe you have found a certain theme for your blog things run smooth. But suddenly you are not sure anymore of what to write. This happened to me. These odd thoughts and things I normally bla out on here seem to have moved to a different space. Not one I chose, to be exact, I can't find it yet. But by sitting here and typing I am recalling things I wanted to share, not the wonderful ones that just scream at you but the more subtle creatures in my head. This in itself is a thought I had, the one about the creatures. 

Today I was in a conversation that triggered a thought. The discussion was a funny one, me having to, as a result of joking around, make coffee for the other person as a way to 'pay' for my "sin" I just committed (obviously the word sin was used in a funny manner which refers to me making a joke about the person I was talking to). The important part here is that if I would not know what coffee is, would that mean that I am unable to pay for my sin because I have no reference to the demand!? I know this is very far fetched and turns the humorous event into something serious, which not as some may believe is the topic of religion, but rather human interaction. To take it further, as was added by the person demanding coffee, if you don't know how to say sorry, can you be sorry? The 'how' here does not refer to a situation such as the inability to speak or a fear of the consequence of saying something and so fourth, but to truly not knowing the concept in a form of expression. To clarify, imagine you have never heard these words before: 'I'm sorry' etc, would you be able to feel sorry because you don't have a verbal connection to it? Does the association of speech with concepts make them real? And if yes (if you could feel sorry) would it be connected to the words 'I'm sorry' or would other words be used? (Obviously language plays a role I'm not going to go into here)

The point of this little exploration into space was to take something completely out of its context and question its validity through that. At the same time it also explores connections made that might or should be analysed further, here the verbal and emotional, or at least reconsidered with regards to its authenticity. Ok fair enough, it probably is and was discussed for centuries. For me though it should be taken into the arts (again), in my case photography, and explored.

I will leave this post with another thought I picked up along the way that might fit as the inverted version of the above:

"You can be sincere. But you can be sincerely wrong."

Fashion Shoot

I recently did a fashion shoot.

Here one image I'm quite happy with.
Thanks Priscilla for being such a wonderful model. 

By Karolina Rupp Photography

Mixing the Old and New

Taking images with a medium format camera on film is such a different experience within photography than your average point and click. And taking these images into Photoshop just opens up even more options. I decided to go against my usual ethic of keeping 'doctoring' to the minimum and went all out by using a photograph taken on 120 film and editing the . out of it.

Mona Hatoum

Recently visiting the Tate, I stumbled across this specific photograph by Mona Hatoum:

Mona Hatoum - Performance Still 1985

Concept thinking again it would seem. Again and again my path leads me past this concept of conceptual thinking. The concept here is to conceptualise ideas and thought into concepts that speak and talk. Concepts. 

In conceptual art the idea or concept is the most important aspect of the work. When an artist uses a conceptual form of art, it means that all of the planning and decisions are made beforehand and the execution is a perfunctory affair. The idea becomes a machine that makes the art.

This quote by John Suler illustrates exactly what I'm experiencing lately. But to take it further, does that mean images can be ugly but still attract an audience if the concept is right? I think that this is the debate here, ugly versus pretty photographs. Everyone likes pretty (pretty here is aesthetically pleasing) visuals, but is it not so much more important to also find your way to at least appreciate the ugly? 

So am I doing a good thing here?

I don't even know how to start this entry, my head feel like it is surrounded by clouds, I struggle typing fast and accurately and knowing that so much needs to be done, typed and justified, not only here. I find that for the last couple days photography became just a thing for me, and it's not a good thing. I am not seeing the beauty in it or the deeper understandings but I see it as effort, of hopeless ideas which transform into burdens. And yes I am again not inspired and after looking at ideas and images I feel that I don't appreciate them anymore, they become useless and purely skill driven, having nothing to do with thought. That was never my aim, my aim was to create art that speaks, how cliche it might sound. 

Fair enough, I didn't get enough sleep the last couple of days which might have a massive impact on all this, but I feel angry because I want to feel creative and motivated again. 

This is to much information that has nothing to do with photography but unfortunately this post will be just that. Moaning. Because sometimes we just have to moan. And no-one want's to hear it because it creates unpleasant atmospheres and feelings but maybe sometimes it must be forced to take the audience out of their comfort zone. So am I doing a good thing here?

Over-share

I'm scared, scared to write something again because it was so long ago. It's like I see this entry window where I am writing this in for the first time and it feels strange, but I can't decide who is the stranger of us two.

In the last couple of weeks I had some great and some pretty studpid ideas and thoughts and will try to give a quick run down of some of them here:

Before I start, I must say I was a little reluctant to post my ideas in such a free giving manner where everyone has access to them, and I still think it's a little silly, but I realised that today I want to inspire people and give them ideas for their own ideas.

 

Please understand that all ideas and rough drawings above are my personal work (and thus fall under my copyright) and the concepts depicted will be completed by photographing them as part of an exhibition series.  

What I'm saying is please don't steal, be inspired!!!

Keep shooting

That's the key, to keep shooting images.. not to get lazy but to remember the medium and to go on.

Today was such a day where I took the camera and tried some stuff again. Instead of thinking about concepts and ways to execute them, a simple portrait was the result of playing around with my camera... a portrait of my dear sister (visit her blog here).

Planning an exhibition

Planning an exhibition is a quite a task. But I find that by starting with a theme things might fall into place.

At the moment I am still conducting research with regards to the artists I would like to showcase who fit the theme, who would enhance the visual experience of the audience and so fourth. The theme here I won't mention yet but I will showcase a video that might underline the ideas I have. And forget the dolls, feel how you feel.






And to add to this post, a further video that has the same effect, or rather affects us in a certain way. That feeling we get when watching it is what is important!