ArchivesPosts Tagged ‘lisbon’

You finish a roll, you do the next one and so on … You keep piling them up, and if you are like me, you manage to develop (and scan!) it around a year later. Lots of memories come back from the film rolls on which you already forgot what is on them. So these are a few portrait shots from the Yashica Mat 124G (damn, i keep forgetting how cool medium format is!), mostly from Lisbon. I will post some more film shots briefly, enjoy!

There was not much activity on my website since I’ve returned back from Lisboa to Slovenia, but not due to the lack of projects, but merely due to the lack of time, because I’ve invested it on a project that this blogpost is all about. I want to shortly explain and present  the project, since lots of people are asking me details about it (and honestly, its really a pain in the ass explaining the whole story over and over again, hehe).

A part of my stay in Lisbon was a placement in Fábrica Braço da Prata, a cultural place which has a library, several concert venues and a restaurant. The agreement was that I do not have to actually do anything physical there (most students get a non-paid, usually long hour job in an office or a hostel), but to organise/bring a Slovenian group exhibition that would be a part of the Mês da Fotografia (Month of Photography) this November, with the theme of contemporary portrait.

In theory, I had a non (or at least a low) budget idea of calling a few friend photographers and collecting some prints and sending it there, but along the way my friend Nika Perne joined the project and then things got big.

We made a public call for artists which was well accepted (actually quite well) and we got more than a hundred applications. We wanted to also present some other organisations with it, thats why and we invited several galleries, photo mags and fan based mags (zines) to join the project and in the end, we connected with Revija Fotografija and Ena Rola Filma, which are also presented in Lisbon.

Jan Babnik from Revija Fotografija and Marina Katalenić from Galerija Simulaker helped us with the selection of the artists, and Nika did the final selection, which proved quite a challenge, since we had limited gallery space and an impossible task – to offer a brief overview of Slovenian Contemporary photography in one exhibition.

Hundreds of work hours later, we had 13 photographers and more than 50 prints and we also designed and printed an exhibition catalogue in three languages – Slovenian, English and Portuguese, which equals lots of work, since its was done more or less entirely by us from scratch (here I would like to say a big thanks to all of those who helped us with the translations and the proof-reading, it means a lot!).

After travelling back to Lisbon, buying more than 40 frames, carrying all the prints via the plane and spending 4 whole days in the gallery, we  successfully opened the first part of the exhibition “eurotrip” last week, on the 6th of November in Fábrica. We got quite some media coverage and mentions, including the VII photo agency, Getty Images, Público P3, Siol, RTVslo, and some more still to come.

We are really happy and proud on the end result; I think it looks fantastic and that it represents a nice brief overview of good Slovenian photography; from the classic portraiture to the new age gonzo-like approaches. Definitely worth a look if you are in Lisbon these days (the exhibition is open till the 1st of December).

We are hoping the exhibition will move to Oporto (Portugal) in the next months, but otherwise it will be shown two more times in Slovenia; first in Novo mesto ( June 2014) and later in Maribor (September 2014).

You can read more about the exhibition on the website slovenskiportret.tumblr.com and check out all 13 photographers we are presenting – Uroš Abram, Simon Chang, DK, Jošt Franko, Katja Goljat, Robert Hutinski, Ciril Jazbec, Juret Kastelic, Nataša Košmerl, Katja Kremenić, Borut Peterlin, Boštjan Pucelj and Matic Zorman. Also, you are more than welcome to take a look at the online version of the catalogue (the design of it is my work) right below:

Oh yes, and last, but not least important – I want to thank all the sponsors that helped us in the last second and made this whole thing possible. Without the funds this whole thing would never be possible at all. My wish is just that next time we manage to get the Slovenian Ministry of Culture on our side, It would be so much easier with some proper support behind it, I think projects like this are crucial for the sake of promoting Slovenian art around the planet. We are small, but we do have some excellent works to show!

Me and Tanja were leaving Lisbon for a short trip back home to Slovenia and since we had some time before we left, we used a warm (cloudy) summer day to make some quick pictures on the scenic stairwell of Assembleia da Republica. And she bought a new dress too, haha 🙂

Bad weather went away, we somehow skipped spring here, which is not a bad thing at all, with the beach being half an hour away … and there is nothing better than reading a book and having the sea in the back for the soundtrack, its the ultimate cure and an escape, even if just for a few hours. And I realised that if I do move somewhere in the future, the city has to have the sea nearby, thats a big luxury. On the other side, I’m still doing some research and trying to get some new projects up and running and experimenting with some already. Anyway, the pictures below have more or less nothing in common, consider it as photo diary 🙂 The only thing worth mentioning is the WRC stage of Rally de Portugal which took place on friday. Its a thing I always wanted to see live and close-range and now it finally came true. I only regret missing the offroad stages in Algarve, but one step at a time, right?:)

A short but a very much needed easter get-away from Lisbon to the beach in Parede on a semi-sunny day with Lisa. I even managed to be shirtless for an hour, thats a good start of spring I guess! 🙂

Ok, since these demonstrations are quite an important topic, I decided to write it in English. As I expected, the demonstrations in Lisbon ended with violence and chaos on the streets, to which the police responded with even greater violence which even the journalists and photographers could feel on their own skin! Everything started with a peaceful protest march from Cais do Sodre to Rossio and then to the Assembleia da Republica, where the masses joined together for the demonstrations. From what I saw, the events started to go bad after the official demonstrations were over and some dockworkers started tearing down the fence in front of the Parliment. The people went crazy and now the police were the frontline of the Parliment. And soon the same scenario happend as in Slovenia two years ago – somebody threw a rock from the sidewalk and then it went sideways! Because there was no obvious plan and goal of the protest and the CGTP syndicate already left the place, crowded with angry people, you knew that it can just end in one way …  You could see young & old protesters throwing rocks to the parliment and also women were participating. At first, there were a lot of protesters in the front and most of the rocks and bottles fell on them (and even I was hit by a flying bottle in the head), which was really stupid and a threat to others. Some people tried to stop the rock throwing by peacefully sitting in front of the police, but that didn’t help and they soon fled because of the debris. And so the throwing and demolition continued for a hour or two and you could sense that the police is gonna respond back – and they sure did, precisely at the moment when I tried to change my lenses. The police started running towards the crowd and I had to run with my lenses and the camera in the hand, and most of us photographers raised both arms not to get beaten. Others were not so lucky though. The special police squad went in with the dogs and randomly started hitting protesters (also the calm ones), old people by the side of the street and women also, it did not matter, because they seemed pretty pissed off and they delivered their anger on the people.

After the crowds fled, most of the people went into the small streets in the near of the Parliment and started to set dumpsters on fire, so pretty soon all the roads closeby were covered in smoke and there was fire everywhere. The thing is also that the firemen are also on strike, so they did not put out the fires until last minute or they didnt at all – you could see people with buckets on the street trying to put the fires out. That is when things became chaotic. I was lucky to have an old PRESS card with me back from Slovenia, so I could pass the police barricades, but some weren’t – a friend of mine had to format the whole card on the camera, because she was not press and she took pictures of the police baricades. And sometimes they did not let anyone through, so we were always trying to get around the barricades to get to the main avenue. Continue Reading

Frišne žemljice, fotke z današnjega shoda proti Angeli Merkel, ki se je mudila na obisku v Lizboni. Trenutno je ena najbolj osovraženih žensk tukaj zaradi pritiskov nad Portugalci k novim reformam (troika), ki so tukaj trenutno v procesu sprejemanja in vplivajo na veliko večino prebivalstva in še dodatno režejo sredstva in višajo davke obubožanemu narodu. Za sredo je napovedana še splošna 24 urna stavka, ki bo pravtako potekala tudi v ostalih mestih po Evropi. Se pa tukaj zna zgoditi, da ne bo tako mirna, saj se  protesti dogajajo precej pogosto, skoraj enkrat na teden, tole pa zna biti vrhunec vsega tega, ali pa šele začetek. V sredo bo mesto najverjetneje popolnoma obstalo, saj javni prevoz ne bo deloval, napovedane so odpovedi letov, stavkali bodo tudi delavci v dokih, pošta, ni da ni, tako da pričakujem kaos. Update sledi v sredo ..