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.

Showcase November 2013

Things have been quite hectic lately. The last assignments had to be handed in, preparations were made for my final exhibition, exams are coming up and finally I am starting an internship very soon. In these times I question how far I can push my stress levels. The only thing my mind is filled with is what still needs to be done or arranged and how I will possibly fit it all into my oh so busy schedule. 

But then again, is it just me who stresses? Some people seem to cope with so much work and just wing it somehow. They just do the things they feel are necessary and all seems to be working out fine. I will need to learn that!

But this post has a different purpose because as mentioned above my as well as my fellow students' final exhibition is coming up. Here the details:

Hope to see you there!

Edward Weston

Having to shoot in the style of someone is sometimes a little difficult. This time it was Edward Weston. Telling stories and triggering emotions by photographing objects such as peppers or shells is the key to his still life pieces.

The image here is my interpretation of his work as part of an assignment.


Title: The Mourning Sister

By Karolina Rupp Photography

NSPA Manifesto

What is happening around you? What are you doing? Where are you going? What is the meaning of life? 

Who are you? 

It is important to remember these questions and to attempt answering them throughout your life.

Guidelines to a manifesto that tries to free you and make you aware of or and become one with 

natural phenomenon.

Nutrition:

Be aware what you eat. Don't eat processed goods. They contain things that are harmful to you. And you might not even no why. Just remember, don't eat what you can't pronounce. Make sure you source organic produce and meats that are free range at the least, as we are not here to harm or make animals suffer but to embrace their presence. They are helping us out to survive. We should thank them for that. 

The Self:

Be strong and open minded. Embrace what you see. You were given to everyone and everyone was given to you. Some people might be 'bad' or 'good' but essentially you need to decide what that means to you. Start thinking and then do. But don't forget to do. The aim is to be a content human being, not by comfort but by exploration and the seeking of knowledge to in the end form your own opinion and reflect inward to finally understand yourself and most importantly like yourself while still staying humble. This is difficult, but doable. 

Production:

What are you doing with your life? What is your calling? Your aim? The aim is to make good art. To create something meaningful and unique, even that uniqueness is rare and is not a must. The most important thing is to express something that makes you feel fulfilled and that has no other purpose than to make others think or happy. Don't work for money. Money is needed but humans give it too much value. You as the human are the key, not what you have in your hands. If you create good art, you won't need to worry about survival, as you are fulfilling yourself and everything else will come. Don't believe, create. 

Aim:

The aim of this way of life is to live an inspired and curious life, similarly to the view of a child. Stay excited as everything will eventually come together and you will finally be able to say: 'I understand'. What this will be and how you will get there is your choice but if you practice self reflection and are open to creative and interesting thoughts and stimuli, you will hopefully arrive at the place of content sooner than later. Content in the end refers to becoming one with your surroundings, which includes mother nature as well as the unanswered world we don't understand, reaching from consciousness to spiritual phenomena. 

NSPA, being nutrition, self, production and aim becomes the motto: 

NOTHING SEEMS PARTICULARLY ABSTRACT

Foresting

Today's excursion:

By Karolina Rupp Photography

By Karolina Rupp Photography

And to end this post:

"Art should comfort the disturbed and disturb the comfortable." - Banksy (original variation by Finley Peter Dunne)

Start Playing

Traveling around without a digital camera is quite a strange experience which lead me to use a small point and click belonging to my mom. This camera has quite interesting auto functions I experimented with. Here some examples straight out of camera:

By Karolina Rupp Photography

By Karolina Rupp Photography

I found that sometimes it's a good thing to look away from your normal routine within the field or equipment and let go. I was surprised by the results obtained with a camera I would normally regard as... lets say a toy. But that might be the key... cut the seriousness and play again!

New Perspectives

Recently a friend and I went to Hartbeestpoort Dam visiting a dairy farm. We decided to take some shots to keep shooting and try some new things. Here an image I like:

By Karolina Rupp Photography

I think in this life one needs to find things that make you see why you are alive. This can be as simple as a beach holiday to putting a complex idea into practice. Once you know what you must do or experience, things become easier and better. 

As Roger Ballen said:

If an artist is one who spends his life trying to define his being, I guess I would have to call myself an artist.

Clutter or no clutter?

Sometimes it feels like my head is cluttered. Sometimes this is good and other times it is bad clutter. Sometimes you have the need to tidy up and other times you love living in a little bit of a mess. The key is though that everything needs to come together in the end as a whole to have meaning. Even if the meaning is the cluttered. I think...

This image above was taken at a psychiatric hospital in Gauteng, South Africa. It reminds me of the clutter I was referring to above. At the same time though it somehow makes me see a 'mentally unstable' person who must be experiencing more clutter in his/ her mind?! Or maybe quite the opposite? Maybe the 'sane' humans are the confused ones? How would you know?

Thrown Together

Take photographs from the past, for example your ancestors and reinvent them. Not re-shooting them but working with them to create something new. What an inspiration. 

Writing and writing pages over pages every morning is the key but only referring to things you hear and learn does not justify this post. It needs to be personal. 

Here a thought on individualism.  

In today's world we are taught that being unique is a great thing and that it will take you far in life. Unfortunately there a certain guidelines that we follow that supposedly make us more unique if compared to others who coincidentally also follow those same suggestions. This of course is a hypocrisy in itself which I tried to address. By using lace consisting of a rose pattern and a real rose from a rose plant, I would like to demonstrate that being unique or an individual is not as easy but at the same time effortless. It is the idea that others might be able to see you or your problems more clearly than you do or can as you are occupied with understanding the chaos of stimuli coming together between your ears. Thus breaking out of the norm can be either confirmed or disregarded depending who looks at it, you or someone else. What I mean here is that I might see myself as unique and as an individual but you see quite the opposite and fit me neatly into a box. It is this grouping of people that contributes to the limits we encounter in regards to conquering the fear of life. This idea is a way to allow the thought of individualism and its possibility to grow out of a person, flowering like a rose to create a beautiful and unique being, which still belongs. 

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