David Carson - L'Enfant Terrible

Hillman Curtis Interview

The End of Print

I met David Carson work last year, on the occasion of doing an essay on it for a class at the university.
It was mind blowing. Not just the work by it self, but the concept, the ideas behind it.
Is work is very raw, full of expression and experimentalism.
It started by accident, when he was art director of the Beach Culture Magazine, he had no academic knowledge on design, so he just started experimenting. The result was something that broke almost every rule set by design academists. The magazine only lasted for tree years but it made is first impact on the world. It was a new form os designing layouts, if building and applying typography. The next big hit, was a the Ray Gun magazine. It was hard to read, it needed exploration by the reader just to find the sequence of an article, since sometimes the page numbers were all out of order.
The idea, is that the presentation by it self is a message, and not just the words or the meaning of the words that are present.
Completely the opposite of the idea that the layout must be invisible to let the message on the text's flow.
After I’ve bought one of is books, the “David Carson trek” my mind suddenly felt a lot more free and relaxed, it was that feeling that sometimes there isn’t right’s and wrongs, and we can break barriers and explore without fear of looking “bad” or “stupid”.

David Carson Website: http://www.davidcarsondesign.com/

Romeo ✝ Juliet

This is one of my old time friends, if a movie can be called a friend. I think so, because friends are the ones that give good advices, advices that makes you smile, hurt, and even cry.
Eleven years have past, and it still touches me every time I see it.

This is one of the most told story, for years and years it as echoed in books, theaters, cinemas and TV’s, and I hope, in lovers lips.

Shakespeare really was a fantastic writer, not just by this tale I know, there are others as good or even better, but this one has a lot of charisma.
This movie captures that well. The story told in a world so close to ours, so familiar in is actions, in it's love and in it’s hate.
The scenes are presented with a beautiful photography, expression, colors and camera angles, and the music... the music wraps it all up in a sweet&bitter taste on the tip of the tongue that's impossible to forget at any time soon after seeing the movie.

This story is also intense in symbols, in hidden messages that foretell the dramatic ending, that makes a joy to see, and review many times the movie to capture them all. 
To not only ear, but to feel the words, to dive in there true meaning and make use of them in our own life. To me, it's like a little bright and colorful paint that I use to color my sometimes gray world.

I think it's never to late, or to old, to live a few moments of fairy tale.


Movie Trailer


Movie Musics and Slideshow

Jan Saudek

Jan Saudek is a Czech Art Photographer, with decades of work.
Is life surpassed nightmares with the nazi and the russian invasion, he saw death and hunger like we may never (hopefully) imagine.

Is biography is by it self very inspiring to me, and even so I may never ( I hope ) see the horrors that he saw, there are some fears that we have in common.
The photographs, that start in the 50’s, are amazing. They reflect raw feelings, in a strange and surrealist world. It's not a easy work to see, but for me, one that makes me feel and makes me think, and that's the most important aspect of any art work.

He also conveys a very personal and expressive touch to is images, by painting and doing some photomontage, that are pretty amazing to see, if we think all the intense labour that must have been, and the dedication needed to do it year after year.

Is site is: http://www.saudek.com/en/jan/uvod.html

Is book:

Perfume - Book and Movie

Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, is a literary master piece written in 1985 by Patrick Süskind, and latter (2006) became a movie, a very very good one.
I've always loved the story, since I've read it in my 18's ( that was 9 years ago ( gezz) ), I think the story has a very global feeling, not meaning, but feeling. And I say this, because, I think the meaning depends of the one that gets to know the story, but everyone that as some kind of sensibility will feel something strong.
I recommend everyone to read and then see the movie, and if possible the making off cause it's wonderful. The soundtrack is also amazing!

But since this is a personal blog, I will try to put in words what I feel about this story, but it won't be easy.
For me, the strongest issue, is the brutal quest of trying to grab and posses something that it's ungrabable and unpossessful, something ephemerous and at the edge of reality. And that is something that everyone does in life. For Grenouille it's the Perfume/scent, but I see it not just trying to capture a smell, but to capture the true nature of a person, that little something that makes a person unique, that is my quest.
I sometimes try to do that in photography, when I'm not in a commercial mind wave, because photography is the language I like to use the most, and that I know to use better than the others.I think I never got it, or if I did I can't steel see it.
But I feel the need, and the pain to do so. It's like when I'm with some I love, and in a particular moment, it seems that everything stops, and I really look to that person, deep in the eyes, in the skin, the tinny gestures, the smell, the sound, and fully realize that that experience is so delicate, so fragile, because, one day, I will remember that second, and that person will not be there, forever.

Another thing this story makes me wonder, is probably one of the oldest questions of mankind, what is our role in life, our meaning. Why do we, in a very personal and singular way, exist?
That's another thing that makes Grenouille suffer, he as no smell, no identity in the world he knows the best, and that also makes him invisible for everyone else, including animals has we can see in the story. And even when he gets the power to dominate everything, for him it doesn't matter, because it's not him, but something external to him, a scent that it's not his, but something he produced.
That seems to be one of the basics of our well being, to know that we have a place in the world, in someone's world at least.


  

Andreas Bitesnich

This is a one all time favorite for me. Andreas Bitesnich is a fantastic nude photographer, that is able to compose amazing human sculptures very well lit.
The bodies them self's are amazing, but the overall feeling of the images is for me very powerful.
Many of is pictures are used in commercial campaigns exactly because of that.
Another thing I like about him, is that he only started photography at the age of 25, and that didn't stop him to reach so far.


Check is site on: http://www.bitesnich.com/

   
 

Dave Hill

Dave Hill is a kick ass commercial photographer, with a wonderful style in is images. The pictures usually have a wonderful production, and a really nice focused light setup, and then they get a post production that makes them look like illustrations.
The result is really cool, and very inspiring.

I'm training that post process look my self to see if i can come up with some nice images.

Check is site: http://davehillphoto.com/

Dies Irae - Giuseppe Verdi

Dies Irae is a part of the "Messa da Requien", a Funeral Mass, and today, I feel like this music!
In Wrath!



Dies irae
dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla:
Teste David cum Sybilla.
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando judex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus!
Dies irae
dies illa
Solvet saeclum in favilla:
Teste David cum Sybilla
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quatdo judex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus!
Quantus tremor est futurus
Dies irae, dies illa
Quantus tremor est futurus
Dies irae, dies illa
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quantus tremor est futurus
Quando judex est venturus
Cuncta stricte discussurus
Cuncta stricte
Cuncta stricte
Stricte discussurus
Cuncta stricte
Cuncta stricte
Stricte discussurus!


English:

Day of wrath and doom impending,
Heaven and earth in ashes ending
David's word with Sibyl's blending
Day of wrath and doom impending
Oh, what fear man's bosom rendeth
When from heaven the judge descendeth
On whose sentence all dependeth.

(http://www.nomorelyrics.net/song/175758.html)

Yanni - One Man's Dream

Yanni is a greek pianist and composer, with a very sucessful career world wide. I will not talk extensibly about this, but if you feel curious about it, you can read about in his site http://www.yanni.com/biography.asp.

I will say however that one of the things that I like in him ( besides the wonderful music he does ), is that he was self thought pianist. And with this and don’t what to be negative to the fact of others have classes and tutors, but that being self thought in something, and reach such perfection is something that I admire very much, because I understand how hard that battle can be, a battle of self determination, self esteem, and willpower.

Another artist I also admire for that and for the amazing work is Andreas Bitesnich. But that, I will talk on another post.

Jacques-Louis David

Marat Assassinated (1794)

I'm not a huge fan of Neoclassic painting,( in that particular moment in art history I prefer the romanticism, that was a parallel art movement ) but I do like some of the paintings.
This one, makes my eyes travel silently trough the image, grasping the details, the mood, the light, the meaning.
Marat and David, were close friends, and both were active performers in the French Revolution. Marat was seen like a cruel man. He was one of the leaders of the Jacobins, a faction of the French Revolution, that had part on the blood bath that was the period called “Reign of Terror ( la Terreur ) “, a period of 10 months of mutual radicalization between opposing factions, with mass executions by the guillotine.

This was in the end of XVIII century, and was a sign of what totalitarianism and tyrannism could do, and how the power of words ( the power that Marat used so well ) can be so effective on both good and bad things.

Yet in the end, David portrayed is last moment, with a good attention to detail following the police report, in a heroic and beautiful moment, a man that gave everything for is beliefs.

Klimt, Gustav

The Kiss ( 1907/8 )

Gustav Klimt was a lover of the women figure, and made some beautiful portraits of women, some heavily charged with erotic meaning.
But this one, "The Kiss - 1907/8" is the one that makes me tremble. Me and thousands of others. But I think that we always put a bit of us in the things we see, so I feel I have a personal attachment to this picture.
I have a huge poster of it on my bedroom, because of the way it makes me feel.

Chase Jarvis

This is a one hour video of a talk show that Chase Jarvis did on NYC on 14 of September 2007. This was a photoshelter event.

But in case you don't know, Chase Jarvis is a very successful commercial photographer, and part of the Hasselblad and Nikon Master award. The good thing, is that he also seems to be a great person, and helps the photography community a lot, by sharing a butch of tips and tricks, and also being very motivational.

Seeing this and other of is movies ( check youtube and do a google on it ), and seeing is work, helps me to believe that everything is possible, and that i just need to keep on going and push it further.




His Blog and Site are great places to check out.

As a personal opinion, I always believed that if one wants to be the best, must see and be around with the best. That's one of my main motto's, and that will reflect a lot in the stuff I will put in this blog.

Keep in touch.

Jean Paul Gaultier - Erotic Touching

This is a advertisement directed by Jean-Baptist Mondino for a Jean Paul Gautlier Perfume.
I love every bit of it, the models, the light, the gestures and the composition of the frames.

The music is also fantastic, it a music by Maria Callas, called Casta Diva.

This one inspires me the feeling of seduction and passion in it's raw form.
It doesn't feel real, it's more like a fairy tale, but that's my ideal form and way of passion.
A non racional, non real feeling.

Prelude

Hello.
This blog has the main purpose to be a collection of things that inspire ME.
But, I will share it with the world, because what inspires me, may inspire others.

This can also be a place to share, if you feel you have something inspiring and what
to share it with me, please do so.

English is not my main language, but I will use it to make this blog more accessible
to everyone.

Enjoy the ride.

Victor Martins