Help me help you :)

Why is art so expensive?

This is an interesting question I ask myself as I find myself on both sides of the argument. On the one hand I am an artist selling my work and I need to cover my costs as well as make a profit that puts food on the table amongst other things. On the other, I am not shy to buy art that I like. The limit here is that it needs to fit into my budget, which again depends on my own profits I make from selling artwork.

So how do I take a photograph and sell it for as little as possible in order to make it available to everyone who is interested in having it against their walls? 

Lets break it down:

- Buying the film

- Developing the film

- Scanning the film

- Printing the scan

- Framing the print

This obviously excludes the use of my film cameras and their maintenance costs as well as other things such as fuel to get to and from the places who offer the services I require. 

An option here is to print on non-archival paper which is a lot cheaper and sell unframed prints.

The point of this post is though that I really want my art to be accessible to the people who enjoy it. Being someone who buys art as well, I understand the financial limits as well as the costs involved in making it. 

This is why I decided to do a little survey to find out how much potential buyers are willing to pay for my work.

Please fill in the form here.

More and more and more...

by Karolina Rupp Photography

Finding space in you life for the things that actually matter, matters. Keeping them cold does not keep them fresh.

New Series

As promised, here an explanation to my new series:

"How did your face look, before your parents were born?" Zen-Koan

A mask can look inward and outward, it looks at the person wearing it and changes his or her expression but at the same time it also impacts the audience creating fantasies in their head of what is behind it. It stands between the I and the world.

In this series I am creating masks that are made from people, from faces just to become something they are not and never have been.

Oscar Wilde mentioned something really interesting, he said "give a person a mask and they will tell the truth". Imagine a masquerade of truths.

These are just pieces of information, but I will update this post once the series is complete.

The making of fashion photos...

I recently had the chance to shoot male models again. We took the morning of a public holiday and went to the really empty Pretoria University campus. We were 3 photographers, Jessica, Etienne and myself and 2 models which seemed to be a winning combination!

Here the making of:

And here the newest images:

Vincent photographed by Karolina Rupp

Michael photographed by Karolina Rupp

Information

"It’s happened. Facebook, aka the free marketing platform we have come to know and love, now wants businesses and organizations to pay to engage with their own fans and followers. If you’ve noticed your reach and “likes” declining lately, you’re not alone.

Back in December, the company acknowledged that the reach per post — in other words, how many of your followers see your post in their News Feeds — has declined. Various studies have confirmed this, one showing a drop in reach from 12% of all followers to 6% over the course of 4 months. And, another blog is reporting that reach will decline to just 1% of your total followers eventually.

With the number of friends and pages that each person follows having increased dramatically, they chalk it up to competition and the need for greater relevance. Of the average of 1,500 possible stories (or posts) that are available to show to each person, Facebook selects 300 to post in your News Feed per day. They do this using an algorithm that’s based on clicks, timeliness of the post and a variety of other factors. In essence, your post has a 20% chance of being shown to any one of your fans — less if it’s not what Facebook considers “relevant.”

So, what does this all mean for you? At PhotoShelter, we’ve continuously recommended that photographers use  Facebook ‘pages’ rather than their personal profiles to promote themselves. And, it’s true that there are still advantages to using pages, including analytics to gauge your return on investment (ROI) and targeted (read: paid) advertising potential. We even have a guide to help you figure it all out. Now more than ever, though, may be the time to re-evaluate your overall social media strategy."

Will this market system collapse?

 

A theory

The future is unknown and thus might appear to be loaded with fear and uncertainty, but on the other hand it might just be something wonderful that is waiting for you. I find that the decisions we make to secure good times ahead are sometimes clouded by fear itself which seems problematic. Someone very dear to me once said: "Schau der Furcht ins Auge und sie wird dir zuzwinkern." This translates roughly to the idea of looking fear into it's eyes and it will wink at you. I think that this is a very good example of how this uncertainty can be handled.

I am writing this post with a certain motive in mind, as I feel sick to my stomach of having people around me who I love and who don't seem to be grabbing life by the horns. I am aware that it is not everyone's choice for being and that I sometimes even fall within this category, but I find after having learned it, that it makes me happier. I do understand that it might not be the same for you.

Here a video that might clarify my point:

(Please understand that I am aware that many theories to life exist and that this one, like all the others are essentially subjective views)

Audacity

"We all fear death and question our place in the universe. The artist's job is not to succumb to despair, but to find an antidote for the emptiness of existence. "

by Gertrude Stein in the movie 'Midnight in Paris'.

The most interesting duality or should I rather call it choice that is currently offered to me by the universe (for the lack of a better word) is firstly the idea of hard work and structural thinking, following recipes to success and succumbing to reason. On the other hand, that which got me here in the first place, call it passion, call it talent, call it expression still remains the main focus of this expedition. Or does it really? The main focus initially was to just be able to be and to better one's being and find creative ways to do so. It is a constant wrestle between focusing all your efforts to find a place in this social structure that you as artist are comfortable with (what a contradiction) and fight of the nostalgic and bizarre indulgences that make you aware of your unusual presence within this existence, playing with life as if it was a puppy dog dressed in pink latex busy killing a bird. You are the bird.

How do I have the audacity to call myself an artist. It was a description I gave to myself. No one confirmed it or labeled me. 

We are taught in today's academia that throwing together some words and phrases of what label:important people have said gets you to a well rounded conclusion. It is essentially reordering and re-quoting information about a topic and receiving credit for finding it. An interesting phenomenon: Research. But how about the inner knowledge that gets lots? The ideas we wondered about that are unstructured. Yes some of us find it again and possibly understand it better but feel it less. An example is appropriate: A very talented young boy plays piano without having lessons. He is self taught. He composes songs in his head and plays them. His parents decide to give him the opportunity to receive formal lessons which he takes. Years later the boy is a master of his instrument. But everything he composes is based on a structure that he was taught is right and he understands. What happened with the untrained, unfiltered intrinsically felt knowledge he had before?

This post is not supposed to be about what is right and wrong as these things can not be defined in the amount of space I have available here. It is opinionated and might offend, and I am sorry if it does.  But what this post is all about is trusting your intuition for a change, that funny tummy feeling we experience. I know that mine is pretty spot on in 70% of cases as I would not know if it would be all the time as I only listen to it 70% of the time. It feels that sometimes we are blocking calls from the inside, and how rude is that? You would never willingly and/or without reason reject a phone call by a dear friend who just wants to say 'hi'?

But does it get me there? No, but definitely somewhere if I can decide!

New Website

I am happy to announce that my new website is live!

www.karolinarupp.com

I hope that it makes browsing easier and of course it has been updated. 

Thank you for all the support so far and I am looking forward to a great year even though it's all ready March :).

The ghost who is following me

by Karolina Rupp

It's a Sunday and it's raining.  The perfect time to play around in Photoshop and create something new.

Exhibition

 

I hope to see you all there! 

Nicole Dextras

I stumbled across this wonderful series by Nicole Dextras. She froze flowers and dresses in huge ice blocks, lit them and photographed them at night.

“This frozen wardrobe acts as a metaphor for the multilayered affinities between the self and the environment,” Dextras explained. “On a deeper level, the mercurial aspect of ice alludes to the transient nature of the environment and of the inherent poetic beauty of the ephemeral.”

All images by Nicole Dextras.

Of Writing Lists

The 'To do' list seems to be a creation of the 21st century. I write them often, possibly to often. Have I been socialised into this pattern? Is life in the 21st century so rich in possibilities that the mind can not keep track anymore? Or is it rather that we need a sense of achievement that we can monitor as every time we tick of a completed activity we feel less anxious about the fear of not achieving or forgetting something. The funny part is that people who don't write 'to do' lists seem to be doing fine. 

I guess what it comes down to is that worry in itself is the culprit. Trying to survive today is very different to the previous centuries, as now a malfunctioning cellphone or not being able to buy the right ingredient for a specific dish at the supermarket creates worries of strangely high proportions. The point that I am trying to make is that whether you worry or not, it does not seem to make any difference to the situation you find yourself in. The most important part is to continue, because survive you will anyway.

I wrote this post to hear myself say it. Or rather write it. To remind myself of it. And to write fearless 'to do' lists... or none at all.

Moving Forward

It seems things are slowly but surely moving in a direction, a good one. My images are being published and soon exhibited as well. All the details will follow closer to the time. 

I would like to share a quote by Steve Pavlina who seems to have the right idea:

Head directly towards the peak until you reach an obstacle you can’t cross. Whenever you reach such an obstacle, follow it around to the right until you’re able to head towards the peak once again.

Sometimes I forget that.

As artists we seem to hover over a project or concept not noticing any progress and only when it all comes together we suddenly forget how lost we felt before.

Shooting Fashion

Recently I shot a couple of fashion images. The last time I took these kind of photographs was quite some time ago so I felt a little nervous, but in the end it turned out great. A big thank you to the wonderful models, Michael and Vincent.

By Karolina Rupp Photography

By Karolina Rupp Photography

Waking up in the Mind Palace

Recently I started experimenting more and more with image reflections and photo manipulation as you can see here. I found it to be necessary to explain myself with regard to these images in a little more detail as they seem to slightly resemble kaleidoscopic imagery and odd combinations of visuals, but they in fact are built on a system of meaning which I will explain here. 

We all find ourselves in situations where we look inward and feel a little or very confused about ourselves, our actions and the outside world. Being aware of these thoughts and actively trying to understand and analyse them in order to better one's 'beingness' sometimes seems like an incredibly overwhelming and difficult task. This effort of realising what these thoughts are and the serious inner stroll amongst the pillars of ideas and the big open mind palace with high ceilings and intricate paintings and pattern on the walls, is what I am trying to capture in this new series of images. Instead of looking at results and answers I am trying to capture the middle or in between stages of actions that develop from thoughts. 

I hope that this makes things a little clearer, even though it deals with confusion.

Tribal Forest Daemon

Today I photographed mountains covered partly with snow as you can see here.

I started admiring trees that look like skeletons against a white pale backdrop consisting of fog and clouds hiding nature. After playing around with the images I realised that within them natural creatures or faces can be discovered as they might also be in fact hiding away. I decided to enhanced them. 

The result as you can see below is no photograph anymore but rather something else, a forest creature. 

by Karolina Rupp

Question

Seeing or being in a different environment is always inspiring! I am planning on shooting quite a bit of film in the following days and weeks but will not forget about my digital camera either. It's exciting! This is the first time where I feel absolutely no pressure shooting, it's just fun. What an amazing feeling! 

In the next couple of days I will try and post some new images on facebook.

And the question for the day: Do you wake up or open your eyes first?

Liminality

I find myself in a transition phase as this year is nearly over with lots of things that I've done and a new year to come with more things to do and conquer. A perfect explanation for this phase (that I continue talking about) is the concept of liminality.

It is an "intermediate state of being "in between" in which individuals are striped from their usual identity and their constituting social differences while being on the verge of personal or social transformation." Reference.

I find that this concept itself would be a great exploration in terms of a photographic series, possibly in black and white film as artists themselves are viewed as 'edgemen'.

And for some inspiration, here some infrared portraits by Nir Arieli.

Change

After many years of being torn between joining or not, I finally did it. My photographs, or rather some of them, can now be found on facebook.

This it seems is quite the step as next year will be the start of something I don't yet understand. In about a weeks time I will have completed my studies. Exciting on the one hand, but also nerve wrecking on the other. I have so many plans but at the same time non at all. I have so many ideas, but question all of them. I am confident about the future but struggle to fully believe my own thoughts. It feels like at this particular moment I just am here. 

I think a very good description of how I feel is a photograph that I took recently. I must add though that I do find it being applicable to many feelings or ideas which is relieving. I hope that others can also identify with it. 

by Karolina Rupp Photography

It is over

Today everything is quiet. After exhibiting my work yesterday, I feel that I can finally rest!

Click here for a link to the showcase.