Black Dog Collective

“Someone else’s memory”

- Vancouver 2010

Check out more of Byron’s work here:

Website

Flickr

Blurb Book

And remember that all our Images to Go are from our flickr pool. So go join if you want in on the action it’s right Here

We just have to share this TED talk. It’s of Taryn Simon talking about two different projects of hers. We think that her approach to photography is really something unique. Enough said.

It’s time for an interview. This time with Photographer Debby huysmans; focusing on her project “Sibir” which has also turned into a great looking book which we will be reviewing in a near future. Debby has created some marvelous photography and I strongly suggest that you head over to her own website before or just after reading this interview. Enough of the rambling. Here we go:

“…Remainders of dreams of the past and signs of hope for tomorrow appear through the daily environment. The characters seem to experience an ‘old’ world under the impoverished conditions of a pre-capitalist reality. Nothing much seems to happen, the pace of life is slow and the images are fully quiet. They often expose undefined, lost spaces nobody seems to notice anymore.”

– quote from the project description.

When looking at your images from Sibir I sense a good deal of what the quote above describes; I was wondering if this project has been a slow paced and silent experience for you as well?

Yes, I was looking for another time experience in contrast with our own western time. The sense of stillness and slowness is very important to me. I’m affected by the poetry of small ordinary and daily things

Your work leaves a lot of space for the viewer to dream and imagine. Given that the subjects in this series seem to be stuck in a place where nothing really ever happens – do you think they dream of elsewhere or have they accepted this  way of life?

In one picture ‘Poster’ you can find the dream of a lot of people living in this forgotten areas. It’s a collage I found on a wall of a lady where we stayed for a few nights. The wall presented her dream; a wallpaper with a very idyllic landscape. On this landscape she placed an image of herself and her son, a treasure full of gold and a travel suitcase. The switch plug betrays the reality.

I imagine that you have spent a lot of time traveling in order to complete the project. How to get about this. Do you travel by car or by other means of transportation? And do you travel on your own?

For all my previous projects I always travelled alone and I mostly stayed in one village or one place. I stayed with one or two families who guided me. For ‘Sibir’ it was different. Because I didn’t want to stay at one place but wanted to travel through Siberia, a Russian speaker travelled with me. We often hitchhiked because of the absence of public transport but also because it’s so interesting to meet these people and be with them on the road sometimes for several hours.

In one of the pictures there’s a small wooden shelter in the middle of a forest. I like to think that you have stayed here during the project, but this might not be the case and really shouldn’t be revealed, but did you spent many nights away from home during this project? and if so – where do you usually stay?

I usually stay 3 or 4 weeks and always intend to do this a couple of times during the same project. Most of the time I stay with the locals because I like the experience. They can often show you new interesting places and introduce you to different people.

What kind of approach do you use when photographing people?

In my previous works ’ Elementarz’ and ‘Last Stop before Europa’ there was always a big confidence between me and the people in my photographs. I always spent a lot of time with these people, get to know them etc. The distance between myself and the people in my work became bigger because the scenery started taking a more important role. In my recent work ‘Sibir’ the people appear submissive to the landscape, the environment.

Are you a full time photographer? How do you go about making a living? (fundings, others jobs etc.)

I’m a full time photographer. I’m doing my own projects but I also do some social artistic projects and commissioned work and I also teach photography.

When did you realize that you wanted to be a photographer?

My mother was an amateur photographer and as a child I was always surrounded with cameras. So as a child I soon had my own camera to experiment. I started to study photography when I was 15 years old with the intention to become a filmmaker. As soon as I experienced the language of photography and the freedom of the limited equipment, in contrast with a medium like film, I quickly got convinced to be a photographer.

What kind of equipment do you usually use in your work?

During the analog period of photography I always used two cameras, a 35mm and a pentax 6 x 7 . Since four years I switched to digital photography and I always use my canon eos 5D.

Thanks a lot to Debby for participating in this interview. We love the pictures! Stay tuned for a review of the book.

Take care!

Kim / Black Dog Collective

Ulrike is a Belgian photographer who if you look at her pictures seems to lead a very strange life. She’s got a little bit of that vice kinda vibe but we dont care, cause she actually knows how to frame a photograph. And that in a way that sucks you right in to her universe. Needless to say this is one of her calmer shots.

“For hours these kids were climbing out of the water and jumping back in. From really high rocks that looked like they were made out of foam. I really like to stumble upon these small pieces of paradise, allthough I think there is a monster in the water. But I always think that.”

If you wanna see more of Ulrike’s work click Here and Here

The image in this post is © Ulrike Biets

Alongside doing posts, interviews etc. we also have a quite busy flickr thing going on. Simone is doing a great job filtering this ever-growing pool of photos and at this point it contains more than six hundred beautiful images.

We spent a lot of time looking at these images and cant help but feel a certain amount of love for the photographers who shares their work with us. So as a little tribute we hereby want to present a little selection of these photos, Set to music, lasting approx. 5 minutes.

If you make yourself a cup of coffee, turn up your speakers and make sure to watch this video in full screen, you’re in for a treat

Best regards

Kim & Simone

So of course we know that you are dying for your next fix of photographic goodness, thats why we put together this package chock full of inspirational goodness especially for you. Insert it directly into your veins:

We first heard of  Kickstarter back when we were writing this post and have since then been spending quite some time browsing through projects and wishing we weren’t dead broke so we could give some support.

Stan Engelbrecht / Nic Grobler

But before we get ahead of ourselves maybe we should explain how Kickstarter works: It’s basically a website where creatives can get funding for their projects through an all or nothing system. Meaning that people  pledge to give a certain amount and if the project reaches its goal they get the money.. if not they get nothing.

People are given part of the project if they pledge; you could for example be given a print or the book you’ve pledged to support or maybe even a good recipe, this way people aren’t just pouring money into something, they are actually buying a piece of art as well as supporting the continuation of the project.

So far we’ve come across a lot of projects that we like besides Molly Landreth’s excellent one. For example Rachel Sussman who is making a photographic catalog of the oldest living things on the planet, Brandon Schulman who’s making beautiful landscape photographs of a kinda desolate America and these Two guys who are biking around South African making portraits of people and their bikes

Brandon Schulman

We’ve been a little obsessed with watching documentaries on photographers lately.

We discovered the brilliant french docu series called “Contacts” which is basically 15 minutes concentrated info on a single photographer, usually with their own narrative… Except for when they are portraying somebody like Koudelka, he doesn’t like to talk about his images, so instead they brought in a some kind of flutist/Mongolian throat-singer. Actually it kinda works!

There’s 3 seasons and they explore everyone from Cartier-Bresson to Jeff Wall to Sugimoto to Tillmans. How can you not love that?

Unfortunately you can’t really get a hold of them anywhere, but we’ve heard that it’s possible to download them somehow…

Wolfgang Tillmans

We also found this great film about the awesome Australian photographer Narelle Autio and her equally awesome photographer hubby Trent Parke.

Not only do you get to see their work, you also get a very good insight into how they work, how the business works and who they are, both as people and photographers. Definitely the best kind of entertainment if you just happen to have half an hours free time and a cup of tea in your hand.

Rob Spicer’s emotionally charged Polaroids is to us a perfect visualization of this summer; Even though they are beautiful to no end, they still display this kind of eerie, menacing warmth which is almost claustrophobic.. and maybe a little hypnotic as well, cause we could keep looking.

Give Rob some love and check out more of his gorgeous work here

The image in this post is © Rob Spicer

“His name is Sailor Hank. I’ve known him since he was born, and I took this photo of him on the day of my mom’s wedding last year. He’s a star.”

See more of Christian’s work Here

The image in this post is © Christian DeFonte

We are back with something we feel we need to share with all you guys – our identity. Black Dog Collective is run by Simone Alexandra and Kim Catton.  We are both students from Fatamorgana, School of art photography and are now busy doing personal projects. We are aware of the shear amount of photography blogs already out there but feel that we can add a great deal of passion to the scene. Also, this blog is just the beginning. Soon the dog will bark in real life and give all of us the chance to meet up, share ideas, look at photos, talk and basically make sure that the most important thing for us photographers, the community, stays alive.

We are running Black Dog Collective in our spare time and don’t make any profit from this, it’s all love, an therefore any help is much appreciated. If you are a photographer yourself do send us some stuff. It might get showcased. If you are planing an exciting event, please let us know so we can tell everybody. Perhaps you’ve heard of some photo festival that needs some attention, tell us, and we will spread the word.

Comments are now working so leave some feedback when you read posts on the site. We feel that the interaction between editors and readers are very important and comments could be the gateway. In the future, if possible, a forum will be added to the site.

That’s it for now! Take care

Kim & Simone // Black Dog Collective

Regarding the pictures of yours truly; Kim is excited…he just received a Roger Ballen print. Simone is…well…not always wearing this outfit. It’s for special occasions only.

Well…here´s a little update. On most blogs the authors make sure to tell the readers when they take some time off writing posts …we on the other hand, it seems, don’t. Sorry for this. We have been very busy doing a lot of projects but don’t worry, it’s all in the name of photography. A list follows:

- Being photographers ourselves we headed out for a week of exciting portrait/landscape work on Roskilde Festival, Denmark. This project is funded by the festival who was kind enough to grant us access to most of the areas at the site. Also supporting this project is Lomography who contributed with a panoramic camera. When we get the rolls of film back from processing we will make sure to upload samples for you to see. These will be located at www.simonealexandra.com and at www.catton.dk (our personal websites).

- Simone have been granted the great opportunity of running a small gallery in Vesterbro, Copenhagen. She will be filling the walls with wonderful photography! Stay tuned for more.

- Simone went to Cairo, Egypt on a cultural exchange programme together with a great bunch of fellow photographers, DJs, chefs and street artists. She did a good amount of photography, a lot of eating, a bit of dancing, some sleeping and A LOT of sweating. Meanwhile Kim stayed in Denmark and for two weeks achieved…absolutely nothing.

Now we are both back in Copenhagen and ready to feed this blog with news, interviews and new features. Woop Woop!

Cheers

Kim & Simone