olechko

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During the last warm weekend this fall we took Romy out to Pyrogovo - lots of windmills, traditional huts and miles of ground to cover by foot. That did not stop a very drunken wedding party to shlep there for the photo shoot while we were there.  Spending a day there is a great outdoorsy thing to do without leaving the city limits (read: you can cab there!). The restaurant/coffee service there is substandart. The churches, pig stalls, little nooks, and all other kind of constructions are amazing to explore! The territory is broken down into distinct ethnical regions to cover the whole country, just like the botanical gardens.

Two extremes occur when it comes to the opinion of how much should the country’s arts be organized. On one side it’s bold and pragmatic social engineering, on another one - total cultural fragmentation. With the democratization of art and advent of information revolution the shape of artistic tendencies became much fuzzier to pin down. In some way the government already can have little say over what the cultural tendencies are. Over are the times where Moscow would dictate what magazines to read and what movies to watch. These days the information airwaves are much more polluted with information. Our attention span got much shorter. The cultural satisfaction became very much more short-term. And even if the government makes a very clumsy attempt to push an envelope (see “Mamo, chomu ya urod” ads) it reaches little to influence the mass.

What is it in Ukraine like today? It’s hard to say because of the spontaneous and erratic nature of our government’s efforts - to be mild, but let’s say the arts are let go to be at the mercy of the Market these days. TV stations and glossy magazines define those things…

so frustrating: planning another visit to Eternal city - got to get a visa like a any good Ukrainian citizen; it’s two months away from the planned trip date and guess what: it’s too late! The private firm that is subcontracted by the Italian government to issue visas in Ukraine suggests using personal contacts to expedite the process! I am surprised the country is making the progress it does economically if we still get offered solutions of this type from an embassy!

Come to think of it: there are so many beautiful places inside our country to explore -I don’t need no visa to go to Odessa! All of Crimea in the winter must be very serene. Volyn lake region, the Castle region in the West, Lviv and much more… Also, Georgia and Russia do not require visas for Ukrainians I recon.

Viktor Ivanovych Maruschenko held a talk at RA gallery on the state of the modern photographic art as part of KievFotoCom festival events. His talk shed light on Ukrainian photographer’s career and the discontents of Ukrainian culture.He called photo technique and a dozen of tricks that makes photo work - a language - which was kind of cute.
Professional is one who earns money off photography, not necessarily trained in the craft. They always separate their art from their earning activities. Known authors always display a signature thing (Blue Dog). Ability to sell one’s art is important, as well as circulation in the crowd. Individual shows at the right places and articles in the art media help. Photographer has to have something to say. He has to have an individual point of view. Lots to shoot, lots to see and to know is the key thing to do. Technique, photo-vision and visual culture is the key thing to have. Successful photographers were either pioneers or revolutionaries of the craft.

Photography split up onto documentary and staged. Although documentary photos can be staged to some extent. The photographer these days is not more then the author of a concept. Presentation is just as important as the concept. Photos live within a concept of a project. This concept is more important then the image. Electronic media took over 40-60% of the Venice biennale exhibit items. Concept ideas are either self-sufficient or need additional information. A cut of social circles staring at the camera in its native interior is a common trend. General content of the art work shifted towards marginality away from the beauty, else called anti- aestetization. The artist engages viewers not visually but emotionally.

Only newspapers continue  using single shots. There single shots are either capture an interesting moment, presents with a contrast or complementation of subject to background or cover significant events. Moment, proximity to the subject, and an advantageous vantage point form which to shoot compare single-picture photography to hunting.
In portrait photography a rapport with a model is essential to creative intelligent pix.

The evils of good photo - formalization (perspective, experimentation with shot angle) and cliche’.

lately had to get my hair cut - looked to recommendations, since as we already learned - highly priced does not mean well done.. Several phone calls brought me to Obolon to discover a decent salon.. Anyway, so striking is how uniform the haircuts are for people belonging to same social circles: bleached white - looks more beached if worn with all white - on “devushka”s- frizzed “zavyvka” on middle aged middle class; and long beautiful tresses, sometimes braided - on interesting-looking chicks around town. All other haircut types are not so culturally prominent. You see plenty of globally fashionable layers, plenty of highlights, occasional asymmetrical cuts and even goth-looking black dos..

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The curious street Passage now turners into what it was intended to be by it’s architect Horodetskyi- an open-air street lined with posh shops. Horodetsky hiself sits in bronze, sipping coffee on a side. He modelled the street by Milan’s Galleria Vittorio Emmanuel. Today here came Gucci, Bally, Burberry, etc, (more…)