My Photographs

[vgonis]

I know that all of you, are here for MK's music and I guess it is going out on the ledge presenting them on AMIT, but since my recordings are only fragments and ideas, I would like you to see some of my more completed works, that are in another art form, Photography.

Any comments and opinions are welcome! It is in fact a way to communicate  a bit more, away from the faceless nicknames!


http://www.flickr.com/photos/vassilis_d_gonis/


And Season Greetings to everyone! May this season of love and sharing be only the beginning of a year in the same vein!

[dmg]

I only wish I had your creative eye and inspiration.

[vgonis]

dmg, no need to wish, you've already got them both!

[dmg]

dmg, no need to wish, you've already got them both!

 

As MK says, my photos are "just an attempt!"  I enjoy my hobby though, and that's the main thing.

[vgonis]

Christopher Small used to say that the end result in art is rather insignificant. The main thing of value is  the creative procedure, the actual experience. You should find and read his famous book. I, too, take  the ride hoping it will be joyous!

[Mona Dee]

Hi Vassilis,
wonderful photos ! I LOVE your street fotography ! Here is my flickr account...but I

[vgonis]

Thank you Mona Dee! I will go through your photostream and leave comments! I have recently removed all my photos from facebook     (I had more than my flickr account)  as a protest against the rules that were brought to my attention after the buy out of instagram.
After the sale of Instagram, I checked again the terms of facebook use. I found out that the photos, personal data, preferences etc.  of the members can be SOLD without their concent and without any compensation!
The user agreement states,

[dmg]

Hi Vassilis,
wonderful photos ! I LOVE your street fotography ! Here is my flickr account...but I

[Mona Dee]

@ vgonis...yes I heard about the problem with photos on fb...so I don`t have a lot photos there anymore. It`a shame what they can do with the photos !
@ dmg...I will have a longer look at your photos after christmas-time..it`s so much to do now...yes, grasse etc. is really wonderful...and I had my ice-tea-surprise in cannes: cold peppermint-tea with orange-juice in a very very small bar...delicious !

I think now, my photos of France and Italy and some more older photos are nice, but nothing more...now I try to take photos of the "not only nice" places...
And telling stories with photos is my big wish...but not easy to do...vgonis can do that perfectly !!!

[JF]

really great photos !
 

several ones made me think of Robert Franck's shoots (almost all the ones with people) :

"after the party is over"
"The old laughing ladies"
"Hi there baby!"
"Fast food blues"
..

I love them !

Your use of B&W is very well mastered : the light, the contrast, the focus, I like the way you manage to capture the moment.

I really like the contrast /shadow on your sel-portrait



it's a personnal taste, but I find that B&W suit more to portraits, urban scenes, than nature.
I prefer nature photos in color, that's why I'd say I like a little less the pics in the "nature" gallery, and also because they had less contrast, a bit "flat" to my taste

I love the 2nd Mark photo, the one with the pensa, Gleen in the blue background : nice composition and wonderful light atmosphere

don't know why but experimental body shoot #5 and #6 remind me the cover of Genesis' "lamb lies down on Broadway", by Hypnosis if memory serve

"Stairs" has also a storm thogerson touch, maed me think immediately to Floyd's Pulse


I saw that your photos have been showned at exhibitions, but do you have the project for a book ?
You could make it. I think very sincerely that you have a great talent for photographing.

[vgonis]

Thank you JF!  Your post was like an injection of something good(dare I say hope? )    Robert Frank is really one of my favorites, and I guess his best photographic book "The Americans" must be one of my first books of photographs.  So it is really a great compliment. But even though I am flattered I can say I don't have any photographer in mind (at least conciously) while I take photos. Only once or twice, but then I name the photos "homage to ..."  But yes, now you mention these 4, I can relate to some of Frank's photos. By the way, have you ever seen any of his films?

B&W photography is what I prefer, but the recent changes (the last 10 years) in digital technology has changed everything. The film cameras I use have became less practical in comparison, even to the cheaper, digital cameras. But I still have a film camera with Tri-X with me. The other thing is how expensive the films and papaers have become. This one is still a puzzler, because silver is getting more expensive by the day and experiments for new types of film have stopped.
I thing you can do everything with either colour or B&W, but it is a different approach. So if some photos don't work, they simply are not that good!

I took nearly 1000 photos from that concert and at least 250 were usable. I haven't uploaded them, but after I sort out the best 20 I will   upload them. The MK photos were not uploaded for aesthetic reasons, you understand.
I have many Genesis records, (sorry Dusty, childhood errors) but not this one. I saw the cover on the internet, clever! It may be Hipnosis. I listen regularly to Pulse. I like the Comfortably numb version, I think it is the best version ever. And I have been learning the basic riff of Run like hell the other days by listening to it. (I admit that I saw a youtube tutorial as well). The cover is fantastic!

As for the book thing, it would be great if I had the chance and money to publish one book with my selection of photos, but I know from experience (I have been working in bookshops and publishing houses since 1993)  that books from unknown photographers very rarely cover their expenses with adequate sales. That said, a book about Athens was published in 2004 from teNeues, in Germany.

[JF]

Yes I saw Candy mountain (with Dr John !) at the cinema University. A teacher talked about Robert Franck to us, and I felt in love with the americans book.
Then I discovered that he did the Exile cover and booklet.
I'm aware of the famous cooksucker blues film, but never seen it.

Genesis records from trespass to Wind and wuthering are rock masterpieces, surely not childhood errors ! 
My friend drummer made me discovering these music (and then after I came to King Crimson, Yes, Oldfield APP...) while I was more a basic blues-rock fan, and I realized why I liek so much DS/MK : I thinks it's the perfect "symbiosis" between country-blues-rock roots and prog-etheral-melodic-epic pieces.

In Alchemy, I hear prog influences blended with blues flavour, or vice versa 

funny how we always comme back to our main subject... did I say I was trying to "zoom out"...

[vgonis]

I managed to go through "Cocksucker blues". It was a peculiar film and I had to force myself not to fast forward it. I guess I am not that thrilled with the stones, or their life and tour manners. 
It the mid to late 90ies vinyl was thought so passe that people from all over the world were getting rid of heir collections, probably replacing them with CDs. It was a heaven in Greece back then , because you could find all these mega selling albums for 50 cents! Even now you can get many good records for 1 Euro. The standard price for used in VG+ vinyl records, that had sold healthy when released, is around 3-6 Euros. I bought most of Yes albums with less than 50 Euros, Genesis as well, Oldfield too even though he was a bit more expensive, and my only problem has been King Crimson. Apart from 2-3 records, the rest are quite expensive, usually starting from 10 Euros, in VG. And it is a pity because I find King Crimson the best of the prog/experimental groups.  And your thoughts about Alchemy are spot on! http://www.alibris.co.uk/community/review/10931959/Setting%20the%20bar%20higher%20for%20live%20albums

Well it seems that we have a similar music background! Any new groups you like?

[dmg]

I am a strong advocate of film photography but as you say vgonis film is becoming expensive both to buy and process.  Choices are also becoming more limited as companies like Kodak are decreasing their range.

In comparison to digital where one would mere snap away readily taking many multiple shots of just about everything and just discard 90% of them, when working with film one tends to be more considered in the photos one takes more time and effort upon each one.  That's not to say they'll be any better mind you!

I recently bought a Leica M9 (after saving for about a year ) which is their digital rangefinder, to go alongside my M6 film camera and at the moment I still find myself taking "considered" shots.  It is the worlds first full frame digital camera, meaning when you put on a 50mm lens you get a 50mm shot and it isn't cropped.  I wonder how long it'll take me before I start pointing at everything and just start snapping away!  The M9 takes the ranges of fabulous Leica M lenses that I think (and others too) are the best in the world.  Each one has it's own character that enthusiasts call the "Leica glow!"

Does b&w on a digital really work?  I mean the sensor is developed to be receptive to light for colour primarily isn't it and post processing is cheating.  Photography is the power of observation, not the application of technology.  Leica have developed a camera called the Monochrom which takes only b&w digital photographs presumably because other sensors aren't good enough and they don't compromise.

Favourite directors now.  Michelangelo Antonioni is one for a start.  That shot through the hotel window in The Passenger is now legendary.  I also loved the cinematography of Geoffrey Unsworth, Jack Cardiff and Christopher Challis.  Very many 60s films had innovative shots.  A great one is the Stanley Donen's Arabesque with Gregory Peck (in a role tailor made for Cary Grant I've always thought) and Sophia Loren.  A fine film too I might add.

[vgonis]

dmg, you are so right on almost every point! I had to buy one digital camera early on, (Canon because I already had the lenses that fitted) but the aspect ratio (1.6x) ruined my whole perspective. I never got used to it, that is why I always had a film camera with me, as well. Early in June I bought an Eos 5d mark II (had to sell part of my cigarette packs collection and some books and records, as well) and now this problem is solved!! But the film camera stayed on!  I was lucky to be given in 2007 an Eos 1V Canon film camera, and it was really 100% full frame, water resistant and absolutely enjoy working with it!   For the ones not aware, most film cameras had an issue. What you saw in the view finder was the 95-98% of the image that was depicted on film. Then most of the digital models -up to semi pro- could use the some lenses as the film cameras, but there was a 1.6 crop factor. see: http://www.kenrockwell.com/canon/1-6x.htm

I buy the 30m roll, usually from the USA and load it myself, so it is a bit cheaper than buying a single roll at a time. 

I used to take photos all the time, and yes, knowing that you have a film limit of frames to take, was a good way to get into the photograph, discipline your eye and finger and try to do the best out of every frame. But everybody has to make his mistakes. It is not working by seen other people's mistakes. So you take photos just to see how it looks, and after years you can say, "what a load of crap". But the seeds are there, you can't avoid taking these photos. Now it is a bit easier and a lot cheaper to take photos, and the only limit I have (and it is working) is the time I have to even see the photos I take! So knowing I will have to spend hours on ending just filing my digital photos, make me hold back from taking just snaps!

Even though I use it rarely to have an opinion, from what I hear from other photographers, they shot in RAW (which is by default colour) and then they turn it into B&W and it works OK. There are many programs around (some new cameras have it on as well) that can give your photo  the look of almost every film there is! I haven't tried it, but I have seen some results and they were convincing! I saw the M camera but I really don't get the idea behind Leica's Monochrom, but if it gives results, who am I to say anything! I mean all films and cameras (even b&w) are panchromatic. This means that they can capture the wave lengths of the colours, and the b&w films translate these wave lengths in grey tones. From the view finder you see colour, so it is a mind thing, trying to see things in b&w, or even imagine how they would look in b&w.

I saw The passenger when it was re-released in the late 90ies, and I paid attention  especially on the well known seen. I still prefer the Blow up film, and I was a bit disappointed with Zabrinski point.  Still have many Antonioni films to watch! I will look for the other ones you mention!