X-OP

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Residency in Rijeka

Host: Museum of Modern and contemporary art (www.mmsu.hr)
Co organizer of X-OP project (www.x-op.eu)
Perod: from 26^th June to 10^th July 2010
Area: Visual art
Theme: Rijeka by nights
Location: Rijeka, Croatia
Selected Artist: Markus Doyle

Exhibition reception at Mali salon, Rijeka on 08.07.2010.

From July 8th the Gallery Mali salon in Rijeka will host the exhibition of artist Marcus Doyle: „Night photography”

During the X-OP Residency in Rijeka, Croatia (2010), photographer Marcus Doyle will produce a series of images in and around the area of Rijeka taken late in the day and at night. His plan is to explore key areas and some of the industrial heritage such as the Torpedo factory for which Rijeka is famous. Other industrial and urban sites will also be covered, as well as the surrounding beaches taking pictures at night like never before.

The end result would be a series of stunning Night images of Rijeka exhibited as large-scale prints.

During his residency in Rijeka he will give a lecture regarding his work, explaining in detail his techniques and motivation behind the images. The lecture will be followed by a workshop with other artists and interested parties, in and around Rijeka, so that they to can make there own interpretations using photography.

X-OP – eXchange of art operators and producers is a gradually growing network of artists, researchers, operators, producers and centers with the aim to establish European platform for creation of art and exchange. With its places, spaces and user oriented technological infrastructure it fosters mobility of artists, theoreticians and executives. It is built to strengthen pan-European and global collaboration, common production and interdisciplinary approach to art.

The X-OP project is multi-annual project, from 2008 to 2011, and is supported by European Commission – Program Culture.

Biography:

Marcus Doyle has been shooting landscapes professionally for the past twelve years. His work has taken him all over the world, from the Artic Circle to the deserts of Africa choosing to shoot on a large 10/8 view camera whenever possible. He spent three years shooting the American landscape out of California where he lived before returning to the UK.
Doyle’s work has been exhibited widely in the USA, Europe and the UK. He has recently signed with the Orchard agency in London and New York and now covers commercial assignments as well as producing more projects and archive material for galleries worldwide…

In November 2004 his first book Night Vision was published. His second Book Urban Safari is due out at the end of the year.

More on: http://www.marcusdoyle.co.uk/

There's great interview with Paul Graham over on Seesaw here.. Very insightful.

PG: One of the difficulties that I’m facing right now is that I’m pretty comfortable with shimmer – I think that it’s a really good piece of work, and that’s a scary thing, because I don’t know quite what to do next. How do I follow this up without it being the same? I think that comfortableness can sometimes be an enemy, and scaring yourself by finding a new way to practice is for people like me. But I’m not going to worry about it – like I said before, I just have to keep telling myself, ‘Relax. It’s everywhere and everything.’

Paul Graham

Is the photo-album giving way to the mixtape?

By eyecurious

I recently attended a ‘conversation’ at the Fondation Henri Cartier-Bresson in Paris on the impact of blogs on photographic criticism. A hugely disappointing evening on all counts, including an extended discussion of image rights and how many photos it’s ok to include in a single blogpost, however one idea did emerge which piqued my interest. André Gunthert an academic specialised in ‘visual history’ and the founder of the online platform, Culture Visuelle, referred to the fact that academic research in the field of visual studies has been transformed by the availability and accessibility of images through the internet. Gunthert’s point, if I remember it correctly, was that disciplines like history of art had quite limited access to images before the internet due to the expense of image rights and the basic difficulty of getting your hands on a decent reproduction. Nowadays papers are presented supported by a healthy stack of images of all kinds for virtually no cost and this has changed the framework of analysis as it provides an essentially infinite comparative potential.

This struck me as an interesting evolution and got me wondering about the impact of websites and photo-blogs on the way that we consume photographic images. One parallel would be the increasing obsolescence of the album as a musical format. Although artists still produce music in this way for the most part, only a small percentage of listeners are likely to listen to an album from start to finish anymore. The album has essentially been replaced by the mixtape, where music is consumed according to a style, mood, or that little iTunes robot that Apple mistakenly decided to call Genius and its ADD-ridden cousin Shuffle.

Something similar has happened to photography when it comes to the online world. With the proliferation of photographer websites, blogs, online webzines and, most of all, facebook posts, photographs get to us in increasingly fragmented ways and as most enthusiasts get their fix through a daily mix of all of the above (with an extra meta-layer courtesy of an RSS reader) this fragmentation just tends to get compounded. The most extreme example of this in my experience is probably Tumblr where ‘following’ 50 or so tumblelogs leads to a never-ending stream of single images for you to like, reblog, or simply choke on.

There are limits to the comparison of course as these online media don’t just shuffle images into a random order and we still tend to consume photographs in a more-or-less intended sequence. However, although they remain essential, it does seem that photobooks and exhibitions represent a steadily decreasing slice of the photographic pie.

So what impact is this all having on photography? On the positive side, we could hope to see new connections being made between photographers and groups of work that may be geographically remote but linked through their approach or their subject matter. I think it is also safe to say that it is a lot easier nowadays to get a more general sense of what is happening in photography around the globe. At the risk of stating the obvious, on the negative side we are all at risk of drowning in a sea of images from which it is very difficult for anything to stand out for more than a brief moment.

From my perspective, I find it quite difficult to identify any major trends emerging from the chaotic growth of photography online. In terms of blogs, I think that posts involving an image or two and a ‘thumbs-up’-style comment linking to the photographer’s site are on the decline and are being replaced by a cluster of interesting hubs with some kind of dominant flavour which you can count on for a little stimulation. Following on from Andy’s discussion on whether Facebook is replacing photo-blogs, despite the astonishing explosion on that platform in recent months, I certainly hope not, as Facebook is a pretty inflexible and ugly way for presenting photographs. Apart from resurrecting old work and giving it a new audience (cf. American Suburb X) one of the only positives I have seen on Facebook is Blake’s example of Craig Hickman who has been posting photos at a daily rate on his Facebook wall from his series Fictional Photographs. This strikes me as a genuinely new way of building and disseminating a series of photographs.

To return to my earlier analogy, it could be interesting to see photography going the way of music where the mega-stars of the 1960-2000 years have been replaced by an incredible range of cross-bred music of every imaginable form and provenance, and where it is fairly easy to completely ignore anything overly commercial or mass-produced. That world may be some people’s idea of hell, but I’d definitely be keen to pay it a visit.

Its all about coffee.

Coffee, like photography, can be made in many different ways and comes in many different forms, with many different labels.
Instant coffee, like Digital Photography, can be quick and easy and looks the same as real coffee. But no matter how much you try, instant coffee will never be as good as ground coffee beans brewed in a pot. Brewing real coffee takes time. Its messy, expensive, and a lot of effort for one drink. But always worth it. Some people have only ever drank instant coffee and wouldn't even know what good coffee tastes like.
The only time I will drink instant coffee is when I have no other choice.

M. Doyle 2010

Will Govus (take two)

Love that green (of course) Will Govus image

I mentioned the work of Will Govus some time ago in a very early post. In fact I think I slagged it off a bit if I remember rightly. But you see the thing is with these very young photographers is that some of them get better and better. There's some really superb work on Will's website now and I think this is one guy who continues to STAY HUNGRY!
There are sections however that reek of Todd Hido's House Hunting and perhaps a few others that have gone before, but hey, my website reeks of Richard Misrach. Doesn't mean its not good work.
His Blog is also rather fine.

This ones for you Mr Shore. (see last post)

Green. But what does it mean?

Images MD 2010

I tire of people trying to tell me this colour means this and this colour means that, and you've probably read on here before that I think its nonsense most of the time. I mean, who came up with :"If you sit in a red room you will go nutty".Or "Yellow makes you sad". Or "Yellow makes you happy" (Which is it!)
Photography is a 'made up medium' like most mediums so lets not give it rules. If I want to put red in my picture I will, so stand aside Mr Shore, your talking fairy cakes.. (a statement Stephen Shore made about not having red in your photographs, sadly I have forgotten where I seen this. Anyway, I always thought that Shore was, and still is, over rated amongst his peers. For me his genius stopped after American surfaces..)
Basically as I work solely in colour I am often drawn to things because of there colour. Take the three images here. I love the colour green, its my favourite. It used to be blue (now known as Doyle Blue in small circles). I'm not even going to look up what people say about the colour green, mainly because I don't care. For me, a certain type of green reminds me of factory walls and the smell of oil, or the moss on an old stone wall, or my parents old sofa. This is why I like the colour green..
Sometimes colour IS the subject...

You can now purchase this wonderful book directly from me. I am offering the editioned hardback limited to 100 copies with a slipcase and signed editioned print (front cover image) for £200.00. This will be for a limited time only as the price will increase as the editions sell.

You can also purchase the paperback version for £25.00 which is so cheap people have been known to cut out the prints and frame them..

I will include special delivery on the hardback and recorded on the paper back.

Please contact me by via email if interested or use the PayPal link.

I have also posted the original information below.

Marcus Doyle
Night Vision: Intimacies of an Unblinking Eye
2005
Chromogenic print (Kodak Ultra Endura) hardbound book in slip case with limited edition print
9-1/2 x 12 in. (241 x 305 mm)
Twenty-six photographs by Doyle are reproduced in full color and are accompanied by an essay by Matt Damsker. This 32-page book is a special edition, which is cloth hardbound (plus dust jacket) and slip-cased and comes with an 8 x 10 inch signed photograph and is limited to only 100 copies (ISBN 0-9771415-1-9). To quote Matt Damsker's essay: "The photographs of Marcus Doyle transform the familiar spaces and landscapes of the modern world into twilight zones--nearly surreal, almost alien, yet always recognizable for what they are…Doyle's large-format approach, with saturated colors that result from exposures as long as three hours, turns his unstaged tableaux into visions of exalted expectancy amidst man's tendency to trivialize. Indeed, it is as if these easily overlooked spaces are awaiting the arrival of nothing less than an intergalactic mother ship. But Doyle doesn't strive for any rhetorical or ironic effect, although his photographs are rich with aesthetic ironies. Photography, after all, is fundamentally about light, yet for the most part Doyle photographs darkness, painstakingly capturing the fugitive illumination that is always there yet often invisible to the naked eye. Just as ironic is the rigorous absence of human figuration, yet all of Doyle's deserted landscapes have been impinged upon by human development, urban sprawl or feeble gestures that aim to reincorporate the natural world where man has more or less rolled over it."

Joel Meyerowitz

JOEL MEYEROWITZ

Dear Marcus



Thank you for your comments and long time support. We are a community. So we all share histories

with each other. Robert Frank was for me the spirit guide that led me into photography and ultimately

provided me with an argument that helped me to define myself, sometimes we have to make our way

around our masters. That is the way it's meant to be.



I am still engaged in making work and trying to understand this remarkable medium, even as it goes through

major changes right now.



As much as I love Cape Light I have always felt that the St. Louis book was a big step forward for me,

one that has led me, many years later to the World Trade Center work, so it's all a process, and if we do it

whole heartedly we stand to gain consciousness, which, frankly, is all I can hope for.



My best to you.



Joel

TALL POPPY SYNDROME.

We all know how the Brits love an underdog, but we also know how once they reach the top we love nothing better than to watch them fall. Of course not everyone is like this, just most of us..
I certainly wasn't aware that there is a term for such awfulness, but 'Tall Poppy Syndrome' is rampant here in the UK and probably no more so than amongst photographers. In fact, I would put photographers right up there with actors, writers, and club singers..

I bet you've already made a list..

Do you remember this...

Doesn't this sound wonderful..

Provincetown and the Outer Cape

Instructor:	Joel Meyerowitz
Dates:	One-Weekend Workshop 9/11/10 - 9/12/10 Saturday and Sunday
Code:	10MPROV

Course Description

Two ways of seeing are at the heart of all photographic activity: walking the streets anywhere in the world and being out in nature. This travel workshop incorporates both. Participants photograph with Joel Meyerowitz in the streets, waterfronts, and crowds of Provincetown as well as the sand dunes, woodlands, marsh areas, beaches, and ponds of the "Outer Cape." Discussions center around work by the instructor and the participants, particularly photographs taken during the workshop. Participants gain a better understanding of how instinct on the street or the desire to capture the mystery and magnitude of nature play a role in defining artistic identity.

The workshop fee is $1,000 which includes two nights lodging (single or double occupancy), Friday and Saturday night, at the Outer Reach Resort, and all meals through Sunday lunch including a cocktail reception Friday evening. The Outer Reach Resort http://www.outerreachresort.com is a picturesque hotel located on 12 acres of the Cape Cod National Seashore with panoramic views of Provincetown and Cape Cod Bay. If desired, when registering ask for a room with a view for an additional $30/night. Registration for the workshop is through ICP, either online or by phone 212.857.0001. A non-refundable $500 tuition deposit is required upon registration. Full payment is due by August 9, 2010. Students wishing to spend Sunday night at the hotel may contact the Outer Reach Resort directly and make reservations.

The Itinerary. Students should arrive Friday, September 10th by 3 pm at the latest. Joel will begin the workshop with a portfolio review at 4:30 pm followed by a cocktail reception and a group dinner at Adrian's restaurant.

Saturday morning workshop participants will have breakfast at Adrian's, and then head out for a morning workshop with Joel. Participants will be given a brown bag lunch and will spend the afternoon photographing with Joel. They will finish the day with a group dinner. Saturday evening after dinner students should plan on editing the photos taken that day for Sunday's review.

Sunday everyone will enjoy breakfast together and then off to spend the morning shooting with Joel. The afternoon will be spent reviewing work and editing it into a cohesive body of work from the weekend. The workshop will conclude with a slideshow of the students' work. Students should plan on a 4-5 pm departure. Students are free to stay the Sunday night if their schedule allows but, if not, a locked room will be arranged so that after Sunday morning check out, all belongings can be securely stored for the day.

How to get there. Transportation is not included in the workshop but there are some very reasonable options for travel to Provincetown. We highly recommend renting a car as all shooting locations are several miles away from the hotel. For further travel information and recommendations, please contact Ember Rilleau, Joel's Studio Director and the workshop coordinator, at 212-666-6505 or ember@joelmeyerowitz.com.

Recommended.
Students should bring a computer, a thumb drive and a 35mm lens. Joel recommends that students read Looking at Photographs by John Szarkowski.

Eighten Percent Grey...

I wanted to mention the Blackpool and the Flyde end of year student show not because I will be going (I am washing my hair), or that I have decided to gate crash the event for free booze and a can of Red Bull. Oh no. The simple reason was the title, that is, Eighteen Percent Grey.
Nineteen years ago after my modelling career fell apart the due to the onset of male pattern baldness and a dislike of local fashion, I was a student at Blackpool, young and clueless..
The first thing we where taught (and the only thing I really remember other than 1p a pint night at somewhere along the seafront) was how to use an 18% grey card. No matter what the subject matter was, when you placed that grey card in the frame, it was always a grey card. 'A grey card is a grey card, is a grey card..' Thats what Gordon used to tell us. Meter off that grey card and you knew that you would have shadow and highlight detail no matter how busy the image appeared to be.
Simple, brilliant and full proof.

I wonder how many students these days are aware of such practices as the art of the grey card. My guess is very few. Of course these days I tend to point at a slab of concrete or the back of my dirty hand..

Info on the show can be found here.

What is the artist trying to do?
Does he do it?
Was it worth doing?
Henry James.

It struck me the other day how often I seem to come across chairs when I am out with my camera. It doesn't matter where you are in the world, there they are. In the desert, by the sea, up a mountain, in a cave..
I always like to try and imagine the life of the chair and how it ended up in a particular place, but the more I think about it the more I realise, everyone needs a seat now and again, even if you are in the desert!
I have always warmed towards objects that are out of context, the chair in particular. I think I have enough for a future book, or at least a portfolio or small exhibition...

TAKE A SEAT.

The TB Wards.
M. Doyle

The Attic.
M. Doyle
666.
M. Doyle

Far too much writing talk lately, so here's a few from my trip to Berlin a few weeks ago.
The images should speak for themselves, but safe to say I rather like them..

I JUST KNEW SOMEDAY YOU WOULD COME KNOCKING ON MY DOOR..

So you come up with an idea. Its not ground breaking or particularly unique and to be honest anyone could do it. A simple idea of travelling round the entire coast of Britain making lovely photos with a personal interpretation of the British Coast by yours truly.
Having spent a good eighteen months on the project the salty air is now in my blood and I often look forward to the days when I can get to the edges of the island in search of treasure. But for a moment last night all that ceased as I came across a photographer who has done what looked like, the very same project! My usual quote; 'SOMEONE HAS EITHER DONE IT, IS DOING IT, OR IS THINKING ABOUT IT' stood no ground as I erupted like a toddler with turrets throwing my daily measured bowl of pistachio nuts northward, nutty spit covering my laptop screen.. Well it had to happen sooner or later, but later would of been better as I gazed blurry eyed at my work prints spread across the office floor looking for some kind of comfort. But after a good half hour my blood pressure dropped and my pulse returned to forty eight beats per minute (that's right I am an athlete). It was at this point that I started to see a new value in my work. It did not matter that someone else had had the same idea as me. This was my interpretation, not theirs. Then I looked deeper. The photographer in question, who shall remain nameless but not hard to find, had simply visited these places and taken a picture. They where nothing special at all. There was no waiting for good light or a particular creativeness involved. In fact they where really quite dull and rather boring.
And so there I was, calm and collected, strangely inspired by the situation. In fact I was so calm I decided to have another look at the photographer in question. 'Oh yes' I thought, 'I can live with this..' But then I saw another section on the website I had missed due to rage and despair. I right clicked.

The bastard had gone global...!

Doyles View..

I was glad to see that someone with a bit of weight came forward and let rip regarding the Photographers Gallery (see quoted post below). I totally respect Chris Steele Perkins, his work and his opinions on such matters as galleries.
There's not a lot I could add that C.S.P hasn't already mentioned here, but I've never thought the Photographers Gallery was ever any good, even when it was considered good. So now I think its totally crap instead of just crap and its just as well that its hidden down that dirty backstreet.
Shame really. It has all the potential to be something great like the ICP in New York, but I have my resources and believe you and me, it will only get worse...

Well said that man (Chris Steele Perkins)

"I am delighted my comments, made in passing, have evoked a lively response. I stand by my remarks of course, but for the sake of clarity I outline my position in a bit more detail.
I was around when the Photographers’ Gallery was started by Sue Davies, and it was exciting and showed, mainly, great shows and inspired people. It had a buzz!
A lot has changed. When I talk to people, from photographers to others in the arts I never, really, never find one who has a good thing to say about the Photographers. Gallery. The response is from a disdainful shrug – that’s what we are stuck with, to an explosion of anger that the promise and hope that Sue Davies brought to the place has been so profoundly betrayed.
I care about photography, in its richness and complexity and I am angry at the way the possibility of the Photographers’ Gallery has been strangled over the years leaving a limp corpse requiring vast funding from the public purse to maintain its mediocrity.
I am angry that there are many more exciting, relevant galleries that are starved of funding because the money goes into maintaining this vegetative-state-gallery. Places like Side, Host, Open-Eye to name but a few.
I am angry that Photographers’ Gallery has become a misnomer. It is not about photography or photographers, it is about a narrow thread of photographic curation that is frequently dull, and/or poorly conceived. I also admit they do have a few good shows, but far too few, and across far too narrow a spectrum of the medium
On the web-site it states “we are the place to see photography in all its forms.” This is a grotesque claim and so patently untrue. Why lie? If it indeed was fulfilling that claim, with the caveat – at its best – then it could claim the name Photographers’ Gallery, and it would not be betraying the initial ambitions of the project.
I am angry it makes no attempt to support or promote British photography
Someday I will write more about this, but I am sorry that the quality and relevance of the PG is not publicly debated in forums like the BJP and RPS Journal, and the Guardian Arts Page and the national media. This is a publicly funded institution (40%) and should be a beacon, but is an irrelevance; an expensive one.
People seem to be scared to speak out, I am not sure why. One thing is for sure, more money is going into it, and it will get bigger, and a larger corpse does not stop rotting.
I leave you with this from their web-site “the Gallery has developed a reputation as the UK’s primary venue for contemporary photography.” So sad, so untrue."This debate has been going on over on duckrabbit. For what it's worth my view is that The Photographers Gallery is probably no better or worse than most Arts institutes in this land. A lack of imagination, too many self serving individuals connected to said places, too many conditions applied by the funding bodies, community this, and community that, galleries these days are spending more time doing social work and functioning as community centres/creches and not enough exploring new ideas/artists. The same safe bet photographers who the establishment have deemed worthy doing the circuit of galleries. What's the answer? Fuck knows........ there probably isn't one.

A frog and a scorpion met at the bank of a stream. The scorpion, unable to swim, begged the frog to take him across on his back. "How do I know you won't sting me?" asked the frog. "But why would I?" said the scorpion. "We'd both drown!" The frog agreed, but as they were crossing the stream, he suddenly felt the pain of the scorpions sting. "Why did you do that?" asked the frog. "Now you'll die too!" Resigned to his fate, the scorpion replied, "I couldn't help it...it's in my nature."

Number 21.

There are few photography blogs I have any ounce of respect for. This is mainly due to the fact that they take themselves far too seriously and are usually written by people who are the worlds authority on nothing.
Manchester Photography is one of the only few blogs in my very short list that I have any oodle of time for. Well written and not too serious Mark's view always hits the nail on the head and then some, no messing about. His latest post from his Clichés In Photography (see here) got me thinking;

Why, oh why do people still insist on producing large bodies of work on what has gone before, and more so; why oh why do they get such credit for their re-worked achievements.

I was faced with a difficult task last week when I was commissioned to shoot a large warehouse (The Torpedo Factory in my last post). The obvious thing to do in these circumstances is to shoot the interior with everything symmetrical, just like anyone else would. But I really struggled with this and wanted to do something different. I switched my camera to a panoramic format which although against my instincts did give me a different perspective and feel from a large view camera and I think I may have pulled it off. I believe a lot of photographers (myself included) tend to shoot what has gone before in the first instance. Its a security blanket of sorts, you know you have something. Then and only then can the photographer go on and spend the time (if they have it ) to produce a more unique body of work. This is why its so important to sit down on a dusty chair and give yourself time to think allowing the dust to settle before embarking on the shoot which will produce the best images.

Anyhoo, back to Mark's post. I think Detroit (the place in question) is one of those places where photographers cannot help but shoot what has gone before. I have seen countless projects, particular within the once enormous car industry, on Detroit (almost as many as the likes of Chernobyl or the Salton Sea for instance) and to be honest they all look the same. But this will never stop people from re-hashing the work and producing a Cliché.

TORPEDO.

On route to the factory.


Torpedo factory 2010

If you managed to decipher my Croatian clipping from yesterday you will have realised that I am to do an exhibition/workshop/lecture in Rijeka (Croatia) next month. I had gone out to the birth place of the Torpedo in order to take exhibition prints for the wonderful museum there and also to scout for locations and of course, to make some pictures.
I knew nothing about my destination Rijeka before hand and so had taken to the internet to unlock its secrets. I soon found a city full of surprises built on large industry, some of which like the ship yard or 'The Old Paper Mill' being the biggest in the world during their hay day. But I was most interested in the long abandoned Torpedo factory (of course) and wondered if I could get inside....
And so together with my team of Croats (Sabina, Ivo and Big Kruno the sculptor), we headed for the factory located on the shores of Rijeka.
The once Torpedo Factory is enormous and the grounds are now a popular destination for the locals who sunbathe by the rocky shore. Although I had pretty much been given access to most of Rijeka (as all the images will be placed in the museum collection). The factory was still in litigation from a recent new buyer so I am not even sure if I should of been inside, but as there was as there was no one around to ask, that's right, I was in like a cat and quite as a mouse while my team waited for me outside. Actually they had to take Ivo to the hospital who had jammed his finger in a door and had a funny turn..
Few words can describe what I felt upon entering this giant chamber which up to some thirty years ago had been producing shiny large phallic objects. It was like entering that Chocolate Room in Willy Wonka for the first time with warm evening light shinning through the dirty glass roof and bouncing off the emerald green walls. Evidence of a bygone age filled this massive space with mechanical machinery, big chains, and a fascinating amount of random chairs. As the light was fading I had to work quickly and moved through the factory floor like a some kind of hunter armed with a large panoramic camera. The further I entered the factory, the better things seemed to look and it was soon evident that I didn't really bring enough film, but in a way I was glad as it stopped me from shooting way too much. I sat down on a rusty old barrel, reached for a protein bar, and planned my photographic attack knowing that the opportunity, and indeed the factory itself, may not present itself in this way ever again.
And so I spent the next hour ducking, diving, climbing, and even managed a few Rocky pull ups on an old rusty pole before making what I hope will be a wonderful series.

Of course its not haunted!

So it all started about ten days ago when I headed for Berlin armed with my Gaffa-taped 5/4, a bag of film, and little else. The area I had planned to photograph in Germany fell through but I still decided to go for adventure and any chance to cry 'Ick Bin Twit Bitte' to all the locals.

I found Berlin to be a wonderful place with its cafes, mixture of modern, old and odd architecture and of course the laid back Berliners. But rather than spend all my time grazing the city I decided to take a train ride to the old now abandoned military hospital in the Beelitz district. You can probably tell by now that I speak no German whatsoever and so Matha, a keen photographer, was my guide.
Delighted that Matha had brought her Hassleblad, which I insisted she do to relieve the boredom of following the likes of I around all day, we made for the old hospital and soon realised that if I had attempted the journey on my own I would of ended up in Austria.

I had known about the hospital for some time and whilst trolling the internet and although I had seen images of the place, I still wasn't sure what to expect.

Its hard to think of anything more spooky than an old run down abandoned hospital complex last used during WWII and then for a while afterwards by the Russians. But lets not go to deep into the history of things, important as that may be..
So after a 45 minute ride on an enormous triple decker train through lush green forest we stopped in Beelitz and quickly got off before the ticket inspector seen us.. Martha led the way and we soon arrived at what can only be described as; 'If its not haunted, it bloody well should be!' Hospital. These once beautiful buildings lay in a huge state of disrepair, with vines and ivy sprouting up from its mossy foundations. Buildings like these are dotted all over Berlin reminiscent of a different time, laying in limbo like some kind of forgotten gigantic allotment. Safe to say though that we had arrived..
Straight into the first building, power bar in mouth I immediatly knew this was going to be no easy task. There was between 10 and 15 rooms, perhaps 20, and then another 5 buildings like the one we were in. The problem with places like this is that there is simply too much to photograph and like a man lost on a mountain, one needs to sit and think about what they should and shouldn't do.
And so from room to room we went, and my, what photographic gems where to be found. But after about an hour of tripping over chair legs, stepping on broken glass and screaming at the sight of discarded shoes. I knew I faced an impossible task to photograph the hospital in all its entirety. So having decided to look through all of the buildings I thought it best to concentrate on one, rather than the whole place, knowing I could always return at a later date providing I didn't end up in Switzerland.
And that's basically it. There was no getting trapped, or lost, or falling through trap doors, or encounters with one eyed hunchbacks. It was all quite straight forward and we were back in time for sausages and sauerkraut.
Images to follow soon....Of course.

I put this in the translator but it hasn't quite worked. But you get the idea. I think I am telling a joke here, or trying to speak the language...

Photos of the legendary Lee Miller coming to Rijeka

Središnji događaj prvog Foto festivala bit će izložba »Legendary Lee Miller« s retrospektivom od 96 fotografija jedne od najpoznatijih fotografkinja 20. The central event of the first Photo Festival will show "Legendary Lee Miller" with a retrospective of 96 photographs of one of the most famous photographer 20th stoljeća c.

U Malom salonu publika će vidjeti fotografije iz umjetničke kolekcije Marina Cettine i izložbu Marcusa Doylea In Mali salon audience will see photos from the art collection and exhibition Marina Cettina Marcus Doyle

Radionice i edukacija Workshops and training

Marcus Doyle održat će radionicu na temu noćne fotografije za petnaest polaznika 9. Marcus Doyle will hold a workshop on the subject of night photography for fifteen students 9th i 10. and 10 srpnja. July Fotografi zainteresirani za njegovu radionicu moraju, uz kotizaciju u iznosu od 300 kuna, imati i vlastitu opremu. Photographers interested in his workshop must, along with registration fee of 300 kuna, have own equipment.

Kao edukativan dio programa manifestacije 2. As part of the educational event second i 3 srpnja bit će održan i dvodnevni seminar na temu »Fotografija« na kojem će londonski kritičar, kolekcionar i galerist Michael Deimar iz galerije »Deimar/Nobile« održati niz zanimljivih predavanja o povijesti, kao i aktualnim pitanjima suvremene fotografije. and July 3 will be held and a two-day seminar on "Photo" on which the London-based critic, collector and gallery owner Michael Deimar from gallery »Deimar / Nobile," held a series of interesting lectures on history and current issues of contemporary photography. Kotizacija za sudjelovanje na seminaru iznosi 50 kuna, a prijave sudionika primat će se u MMSU od 14. Registration fee for participation in the seminar is 50 kuna, a registration of participants will receive the Celebration of 14 lipnja. June Seminar će se održati u Gradskoj vijećnici, na engleskom jeziku, a kao poseban gost na njemu će s predavanjem o svojoj majci sudjelovati i Antony Penrose, sin legendarne Lee Miller. The seminar will be held at City Hall, in English, as a special guest on it will lecture on his mother to attend and Antony Penrose, son of the legendary Lee Miller.

RIJEKA - Rijeka Foto festival naziv je nove manifestacije koju Muzej moderne i suvremene umjetnosti pokreće u suradnji s Helenom Srakočić Kovač, nekadašnjom londonskom galeristicom, s nakanom da to postane redovno ljetno događanje. RIJEKA - Rijeka Photo Festival is the name of the new events that the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art runs in collaboration with Helena Srakočić Smith, formerly a London gallery owner, intended to become a regular summer event.

Program prvog izdanja festivala obuhvaća četiri izložbe i prateće edukativne sadržaje, a središnji događaj bit će izložba »Legendary Lee Miller« s retrospektivom od 96 fotografija jedne od najpoznatijih fotografkinja 20. Program of the first edition of the festival includes four exhibition and accompanying educational facilities, a central event will be the exhibition "Legendary Lee Miller" with a retrospective of 96 photographs of one of the most famous photographer 20th stoljeća. century. Kao jedna od najljepših žena svog vremena, Lee Miller se najprije proslavila kao model visoke mode u New Yorku 1920-tih godina, da bi se potom u Parizu uz Mana Raya i sama počela ozbiljno baviti fotografijom, te postala važnim sudionikom naderalističkog pokreta. As one of the most beautiful women of his time, Lee Miller was first celebrated as a model of high fashion in New York, 1920-ies, to be followed in Paris with Man Ray and myself began to seriously engage in photography, and became an important participant naderalističkog movement.

Riječka izložba nudi presjek njezina stvaralaštva u svim fazama, od modne fotografije, preko portreta slavnih prijatelja poput Pabla Picassa, do fotografija nastalih za vrijeme Drugog svjetskog rata što ih je snimila kao ratna reporterka američke vojske i jedna od prvih koja je ušla u koncentracijske logore Buchenwald i Dachau. Rijeka exhibition offers a cross-section of creativity in all its phases, from fashion photography, to portraits of famous friends such as Pablo Picasso, and photographs taken during the Second World War, which he recorded as a war reporter U.S. Army and one of the first state to enter the Buchenwald concentration camp and Dachau.

Riječka će publika izložbu moći pogledati od 1. Rijeka's audience will be able to view the exhibition from 1 srpnja do 14. July 14th kolovoza u MMSU-u, no tome će prethoditi još dva izložbena programa u Malom salonu i Muzeju grada Rijeke – najavljeno je na jučerašnjoj konferenciji za novinare. August in the stereo-in, but it will be preceded by two exhibition program in Mali salon and Museum of the City of Rijeka - was announced at yesterday's press conference.

Kao uvod u cijelo događanje, u Malom salonu će 17. As an introduction to the whole event, in a small salon to 17th lipnja biti otvorena izložba fotografija iz umaške kolekcije Marina Cettine koja obuhvaća značajna imena međunarodne i hrvatske suvremene umjetnosti. June will be an exhibition of photographs from the collection of Umag Marina Cettina, which includes important names of international and Croatian contemporary art. Među njima su autori poput slavnog Andresa Serrana, Zoe Leonarda, Jacka Piersona, uz još dvadesetak domaćih i inozemnih fotografa i likovnih umjetnika, kao što su Ksenija Turčić, Igor Rončević, Ivan Kožarić, Mladen Stilinović i drugi autori iz Hrvatske, Slovenije, SAD-a, Brazila i Italije. Among them are the famous authors such as Andres Serrano, Zoe Leonard, Jack Pierson, along with twenty local and international photographers and artists, such as Ksenija Turcic, Igor Roncevic John Kožarić, Mladen Stilinović and other authors from Croatian, Slovenian, United States a, Brazil and Italy.

Muzej grada Rijeke u manifestaciju se uključuje izložbom »Riječki fotografi 1950-1980« na kojoj će od 30. Museum of Rijeka in the event includes an exhibition of "Rijeka Photographers 1950-1980," which will be from 30 lipnja do konca kolovoza biti prezentiran izbor radova protagonista riječke fotografske scene, od Maksa Peća, Ervina Debeuca, Viktora i Egona Hreljanovića do Ranka Dokmanovića, Rina Gropuzza, Rudolfa Zambelija... June until the end of August will be presented to a selection of work protagonist Riječke photographic scenes, from the maximum Peca Debeuca Ervin, Victor and Egon Hreljanovića to Ranka Dokmanovic, Rina Gropuzza, Rudolf Zambelija ... Zastupljeno je ukupno 16 autora koji su u navedenom razdoblju pretežno istraživali i razvijali crno-bijelu fotografiju, u žanrovskom rasponu od dokumentarne i reportažne, do umjetničke i eksperimentalne. Represented a total of 16 authors who are in this period mainly researched and developed black and white photography, ranging from the genre of documentary and reportage, the artistic and experimental.

Nakon kolekcije Marina Cettine, u Malom salonu će 8. After collection, Marina Cettina, in a small salon will be 8th srpnja biti otvorena i samostalna izložba britanskog fotografa Marcusa Doylea, majstora noćne fotografije. On July opened, and the solo exhibition of British photographer Marcus Doyle, master of night photography. Doyle se petnaest godina bavi fotografijom, a interes mu je usmjeren na urbane pejzaže i okolinu koju čovjek mijenja i eksploatira. Doyle fifteen years now the photograph, and his interest is focused on urban landscapes and the environment by man changes and exploits. Njegovi pejzaži pokazuju mjesta koje su često zanemarena, bez ljudi, ali s ožiljcima koje ostavljaju okolišu, a noćna fotografija otkriva svijet posebne atmosfere gdje se ono obično pretvara u neobično i nestvarno. His landscapes show places that are often ignored, no people, but the scars left by the environment, and night photography reveals a world of special atmosphere where it usually turns into a strange and unreal. To postiže fotografijom velikog formata i dugotrajnim strpljivim čekanjem na onaj pravi trenutak i pravo svjetlo, što katkad traje i danima. To achieve large-format photography and long patient waiting for the right moment and right at the light, which sometimes lasts for days.

Većina Doyleovih fotografija nastala je na području SAD-a iu Velikoj Britaniji, a radi pripreme izložbe ovih je dana posjetio i Rijeku, obišavši neke od napuštenih industrijskih zona koje su ga posebno fascinirale. Most Doyleovih photo was made in the USA and the UK, and for the preparation of the exhibition was visited on the Nile, having sailed some of the abandoned industrial areas that are particularly fascinated him. Ponovni dolazak u Rijeku iskoristit će i za fotografiranje grada, a dio tih radova donirat će MMSU-u. Re coming to Rijeka will use for photographing the city, and some of these works will be donated to stereo-in.