bk1970
Well-known
It is persistently rainy lately so I decided to use this time to look through the series I’m doing. I call it “I was Here”.
I must have at least some 80 photos by now, and I made a selection of the ones that I like best. The project is far from finished and so I thought I’d use this thread to add new pictures as I make them.
I shot the first photo (this one above) from the series by coincidence. I rarely shoot anything outside of my more or less pure abstracts, but there was something about the decayed face on the wall that made me look at it again and again. So I decided to search for more and pretty soon I was in the midst of doing a project.
As I tried to understand what it is that attracts me to these fading people, I started to realize that these pictures share a lot with the abstracts. When I take a partial picture of a container, for an example, a detail formed by passing of time and exposure to weather conditions and dirt, I remove the context of the container and so it becomes something completely else.
Similarly these pictures of people – once, I imagine, a new shinny faces for ads - in time became less and less part of their initial reason for being and more and more part of the wall or the pole to which they were glued. Somehow it seems that is as if with the decay all of their artificiality, all the posing diminished from their faces and a certain personality, whether their true one or not, came out on the open. The textures around them helped make the individuality more visible.
But I think there’s more to it than just capturing the decaying faces on the walls of Berlin just before they would forever disappear. Maybe it’s because I was never good with names and my memory tends to be very selective. There are a number of those who I knew but whose names I’ve forgotten. And when I try to picture them in my mind, even their faces often remain incomplete and deformed. For some I can’t even remember the circumstances in which I got to know them for a while. All that remains printed in my mind is a certain detail, an impression - a characteristic look, a specific gesture or an expression, and sometimes just a feeling. Everything around that is chaos, a decomposed mess of fragments too small to make any sense out of it.
In a way, to me making these photos feels very close to photographing memory of those that are long gone from one’s life. The faces are different, but everything else seems the same.
I must have at least some 80 photos by now, and I made a selection of the ones that I like best. The project is far from finished and so I thought I’d use this thread to add new pictures as I make them.
I shot the first photo (this one above) from the series by coincidence. I rarely shoot anything outside of my more or less pure abstracts, but there was something about the decayed face on the wall that made me look at it again and again. So I decided to search for more and pretty soon I was in the midst of doing a project.
As I tried to understand what it is that attracts me to these fading people, I started to realize that these pictures share a lot with the abstracts. When I take a partial picture of a container, for an example, a detail formed by passing of time and exposure to weather conditions and dirt, I remove the context of the container and so it becomes something completely else.
Similarly these pictures of people – once, I imagine, a new shinny faces for ads - in time became less and less part of their initial reason for being and more and more part of the wall or the pole to which they were glued. Somehow it seems that is as if with the decay all of their artificiality, all the posing diminished from their faces and a certain personality, whether their true one or not, came out on the open. The textures around them helped make the individuality more visible.
But I think there’s more to it than just capturing the decaying faces on the walls of Berlin just before they would forever disappear. Maybe it’s because I was never good with names and my memory tends to be very selective. There are a number of those who I knew but whose names I’ve forgotten. And when I try to picture them in my mind, even their faces often remain incomplete and deformed. For some I can’t even remember the circumstances in which I got to know them for a while. All that remains printed in my mind is a certain detail, an impression - a characteristic look, a specific gesture or an expression, and sometimes just a feeling. Everything around that is chaos, a decomposed mess of fragments too small to make any sense out of it.
In a way, to me making these photos feels very close to photographing memory of those that are long gone from one’s life. The faces are different, but everything else seems the same.
bk1970
Well-known
bk1970
Well-known
bk1970
Well-known
bk1970
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bk1970
Well-known
hac
Established
very good series!
bk1970
Well-known
bk1970
Well-known
Rodchenko
Olympian
Good stuff. I'm drawn to this kind of image myself, though there is less of that sort of bill-sticking in the UK.
jesse1dog
Light Catcher
Great to see all these images in the same thread.
Liked the initial 'explanation' too - provided the context and rationale.
Hope to see the thread continuing.
jesse
Liked the initial 'explanation' too - provided the context and rationale.
Hope to see the thread continuing.
jesse
Keith
The best camera is one that still works!
Good to see so much of this project in one body of images Blaz. 
robklurfield
eclipse
Blaz, you already know what I think about this series. Glad to see them all in one place (and unrestricted, at that). I would love to see these in frames on wall sometime, somewhere.
shadowfox
Darkroom printing lives
I am so amazed how God has blessed certain people with a certain way of seeing.
Blaz, you are an exception to most photographers. You definitely are able to see things in such consistency that is quite scary (in a good way ).
Blaz, you are an exception to most photographers. You definitely are able to see things in such consistency that is quite scary (in a good way
).bk1970
Well-known
Thank you very much for the support and feedback, guys!
Shadowfox, I'm blushing...
Shadowfox, I'm blushing...
oftheherd
Veteran
Very interesting series. Look forward to seeing more.
daveleo
what?
You know that I love your color abstracts.
These have the added layer of faces (abstract again) and I am certain to love this thread.
Keep rolling.
I promise to move through the images slowly and enjoy each one.
These have the added layer of faces (abstract again) and I am certain to love this thread.
Keep rolling.
I promise to move through the images slowly and enjoy each one.
sparrow6224
Well-known
These are tremendous and should definitely be both published and exhibited when you're done and ready. It's a beautiful grayscale world of ghosts. What are you shooting, if I may ask?
hausen
Well-known
Very nice, love the tones. Be interesting to see what this series would look like in colour?
rhl-oregon
Cameras Guitars Wonders
Glad to see these collected, Blaz. You are an image collector par excellence in these and in the abstracts. And quite tenacious in conceptual focus. That in itself is an esthetic worth practicing in the same way others talk about confining themselves to the zen of one camera/lens--oh wait, you're exemplifying that too at its best with the Merrill!.