still enchanted...

Two years ago I put together a post called 'enchanting'  which featured images from the camera of a French man called Jeff from his blog 'Life is beautiful'.

Jeff wrote to me the other day... so chuffed I had liked his photos... a little time lag... and I realised I still loved his images for the fact they somehow allow me to feel i am walking in the midst of these places he has shot. I find them honest somehow... they completely drew me in because of an innocence and freshness...something very alive in his seeing!

I struggle with a lot of photography. I dont want it to be too perfect and too contrived. One part of me can 'ooh and aaah' over the perfection of brilliant work but feels left out of it... not drawn in. These on the other hand make me feel like I live in this world and I know it... and in case I've forgotten about the inherent beauty of small things in nature here is a reminder.

The camera moves , we move...its filmic I guess! If you visit his blog remember I took the photos from his blog in 2010... so you might need to trawl around.

I have been writing a little post on my header...long story... I tried about 8 times since friday to get a header image right. I was laid up for 4 days with a nasty cold and caught up with crucial computer tasks.

Dont know why it became so laboured a task to change the header... seemed my fluey head was not at  its most organised... yet this header, the result of a last ditched scan of my images to find something, anythng... seemed to be 'the one' for the moment...and when I started writing about this image I realised a whole lot of things were on my mind that are embodies or symbolised by the equidistant cross. So next post on that. Visual eclectic it most certainly is!

And now to the enchanting world of Jeff!

Do go see what you find over there...
may your week be filled with promise  and all good things,
Sophie

ps read about OPEN STUDIO WEEK here for info on the weekend event coming up ... much to do in preparation ...but an interesting time indeed!
x Sophie

more words worth pondering...

well, I'm all out of images today... 
too busy of late! Have not been around at all for days... wanted to leave a sign of life at my blog....so very quickly ... I happened across Risky Wiver blog and these words decided to come with me to my blog...
words are good.....especially a few brief ones that get you thinking...hope you are all well... I'll be back when I can...
Sx




Wherever I am, the world comes after me. It offers me its busyness. It does not believe that I do not want it.
- Mary Oliver


Nietzsche said that one of the best days in his life was the day when he rebaptized all his negative qualities as his best qualities.
- John O'Donohue


Every day we have around 6,000 thoughts; most of them are repeats.
- Patrick Holford


We're fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance.
- Japanese proverb


Don't be concerned about being disloyal to your pain by being joyous.
- Pir Vilayat Inayat Khan


There are plenty, younger than you or less young, who live in the expectation of extraordinary experiences.
- Italo Calvino


So much universe, and so little time.
- Terry Pratchett




oh I did find some photos over at this wonderful blog!!!!!

TED Prize - Wishes big enough to change the world

JR : Winner of the 2011 TED PRIZE - the title above is TED's slogan.

This story from the TED blog today just grabbed my attention ...with good reason if you wish to read on! Click on the link above to see the excellent TED video and read more!

Reached by telephone on Wednesday morning on a bus in Shanghai, where he was headed to work on a largely unauthorized photo-pasting project to draw attention to the city’s demolition of historic neighborhoods, J R said that he had learned of the prize only two weeks ago and that he had not yet had time to think of a wish.

But he said that it would undoubtedly involve his kind of guerrilla art, which he has been creating with the help of volunteers in slums in Brazil, Cambodia and Kenya — where the outsize photographs, printed on waterproof vinyl, doubled as new roofs for ramshackle houses. “I’m kind of stunned,” he said of the prize. “I’ve never applied for an award in my life and didn’t know that somebody had nominated me for this.”

Randy Kennedy of the New York Times got an interview with JR, winner of the 2011 TED Prize, for the Times. From the story:

I have rather quickly posted these images and links ... I realised I'd been looking at his work here and there for a while ... this was the first time the story came together for me. You're possibly better informed about this artist that I was ...his story seemed well worth sharing ... just in case!

WOMEN - project. After his first visit in 2007 JR comes back in the slum of Kibera in Nairobi (Kenya). He set up 2000 vinyl square meters on the rooftops figuring the portraits of the women who are living in. He pastes also a whol train with eyes to create an anamorphosis with the faces set ont the railway slope through the slum - january 2009

WOMEN - project. JR comes back in Cambodia (Phnom Penh) and in India (New-Delhi and Jaïpur) for pasting actions in the streets. In Jaïpur he pastes huge white and sticky stencils to catch the dust and the colors within the context of Holi fest. Then eyes and gazes are reaveled - march 2009

WOMEN - Rio di Janeiro exhibition. 4 video installations in the Casa França Brasil, including the China House one unbuild the past year in the Morro da Providência. Pastings on the Arcos de Lapa, the teatro Joao Caetano and the Salla Cecilia Mireiles. Free exhibition from the april 24th to the june 21st 2009

WOMEN - project. JR launches the "Casa Amarela" Cultural Center in the Morro da Providência who set up with the community. A photo exhibition by the kidz is presented. - april 2009

ARLES, Rencontres de la Photographie - participation to the symposium the tuesday 07 july at 12.00 am. Theme : JR and the Participativ Art. http://www.rencontres-arles.com/A09/C.aspx?VP3=CMS&ID=A09P806

Text: website - http://jr-art.net/

Text here from jr-art.net

JR owns the biggest art gallery in the world. He exhibits freely in the streets of the world, catching the attention of people who are 

not the museum visitors. His work mixes Art and Act, talks about commitment, freedom, identity and limit.

After he found a camera in the Paris subway, he did a tour of European Street Art, tracking the people who communicate messages 

via the walls. Then, he started to work on the vertical limits, watching the people and the passage of life from the forbidden undergrounds 

and roofs of the capital.

In 2006, he achieved Portrait of a generation, portraits of the suburban "thugs" that he posted, in huge formats, in the bourgeois districts 

of Paris. This illegal project became "official" when the Paris City Hall wrapped its building with JR's photos.

In 2007, with Marco, he did Face 2 Face, the biggest illegal photo exhibition ever. JR posted huge portraits of Israelis and Palestinians 

face to face in eight Palestinian and Israeli cities, and on the both sides of the Security fence / Separation wall. The experts said it would 

be impossible. Still, he did it.

In 2008, he embarked for a long international trip for "Women", a project in which he underlines the dignity of women who are often the 

targets of conflicts. Of course, it didn't change the world, but sometimes a single laugher in an unexpected place makes you dream that 

it could.

JR creates "Pervasive Art" that spreads uninvited on the buildings of the slums around Paris, on the walls in the Middle-East, on the 

broken bridges in Africa or the favelas in Brazil. People who often live with the bare minimum discover something absolutely unnecessary.

 And they don't just see it, they make it. Some elderly women become models for a day; some kids turn artists for a week. In that Art 

scene, there is no stage to separate the actors from the spectators.

After these local exhibitions, the images are transported to London, New York, Berlin or Amsterdam where people interpret them in the

 light of their own personal experience.

As he remains anonymous and doesn't explain his huge full frame portraits of people making faces, JR leaves the space empty for an 

encounter between the subject/protagonist and the passer-by/interpreter.

This is what JR is working on. Raising questions...

JR currently works on 2 new projects: Wrinkles of the City which questions the memory of a city and its inhabitants and Unframed, 

which reinterprets in huge formats photos from important photographers taken from the archives of museums.

jr

a splendid surprise...

Today was one of those astonishingly busy days when everything seemed to be happening at once... but

despite the seeming madness of it all boxes were ticked and it was exceptionally social at the same time. Funny that!

The day was very bright and sunny ... warmer and dryer than of late (oh how we've been collectively cherishing the unsually cool weather for this time of year) ! Starting with toast and coffee at the fav local cafe -  this photo's been posted before  - but the good old standard vegemite sourdough toast with coffee never goes astray!

After this it was off to the Gardens (Brisbane Botanic Gardens) at Mt Coot-tha to meet firstly with the wonderful volunteer guide Bettina who offered to share some of her prized spots in the gardens to aid the search for some particular seedpods (of course) ... she was the perfect person to have asked! That tricky camera is not behaving again... that and the intensity of light + wearing sunglasses and not reading so well in them...perhaps the photos taken could have been better but do forgive!

Bettina with banksia pods

Kangaroo Paws

wattle seedpods

We made some excellent discoveries before parting company... and off to check books back into the Botanical Library, saying hello to some familiar faces in admin and making my way along to see the guys from the Seeds for Life program. There seemed to be lots of good news today ... or at least promising ideas being discussed. The new Restaurant/cafe is opened and the gardens are filling up with people coming for lunch and a stroll around! Spring is out...all round it was buzzy!!

And the splendid surprise you ask?

Out of the blue...

blogger from Montreal

 the lovely Nathalie 

had sent ....

this 

package

all the way from Canada

4 of her gorgeous photographs mounted on quality watercolour postcards

in homage to the seed...

her tribute to the Postcards from the Blogosphere Mail Art show from July!!!!

These blissful images 

had to be photographed 

tonight to post here

 to tell you all about it 

so I could then 

write to Nathalie 

and say

Fabulous Nathalie ...

clever and wonderful you! 

Thank You!!!!

And you may appreciate that given my tendency to camera troubles I am completely enraptured with these images...  Just stunning!!!

Ok ...Im going to finish with some images  took yesterday at home!  By the way Nathalie...if you guys are not too busy over there in Montreal ... you'd always be welcome here!

from the garden

ooh.... have forgotten the name of this ... it is quite delightful dont you think!

Now Im posting these ones of my back verandah which quite caught my eye by surprise when I walked out there around 3pm yesterday with a new painting I wanted to photograph in the light... the shadows were so strong. The 4th image - the painting - is eerily connected to the first shot below.... or is this just me!

the back verandah

dint you just love that light

it was way t bright to sit out there and paint yesterday!

my latest painting (1 mtr sq) ... hanging on the wall of the back verandah

Think its time for someone to visit the land of nod! 

ciao,

Sx

ps ...one more photo from Nathalie's blog ...Ok... so she's a photographer who also paints and works as a graphic designer and I saw her graphic work some months ago and was so impressed ...Graphics for Science and all kinds of interesting genres... smart cookie she is! And I suspect she can really cook...Ive seen the photos at her blog!