Street photography is very difficult. The number of really good images that you get is very small in comparison to the number of pictures taken. With that in mind, I think you’re better off letting your intuition completely run wild.

Walk the streets without destination, turning left or right on a street corner or staying in one place, as your gut instinct tells you. Listen to your feelings.
Bend low and shoot up to make one shot, or stand very tall and shoot down for another;
Look thru the viewfinder when you can, but still shoot when you can’t…..Blur motion at 1/60th of a second, or shoot at 1/500th…..Mix it up…..experiment. Look for subject matters that pose more questions than answers. Look for enigmas more than cliche’s.

Even when you find interesting subject matter it is still hard to make a good picture, because the formal arrangement is also a huge issue and people are moving and things are moving, so it’s a lot to orchestrate; that’s why i say that street photography is the perfect medium for obeying your intuition.

For me street shooting is very much like meditation, in the sense that you’re in the moment and responding to it.
I try to eliminate extraneous thoughts when i’m shooting. Staying mentally focused is always a wonderful psychological and diaristic exercise… at best you get a compelling image, and when you don’t,
at least you have had the experience being ‘in the moment’ all day long, and that’s a very good thing… and like any art form, it reveals your subconscious.

– Richard Sandler

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Title: LEAVING TODAY. 44 pages in postcard format.

Contents: 41 street scenes from New York City in black-and-white and color.
Price: 7 euros (plus dispatch). Order email send to: info@holger-biermann.de

oslo8 – contemporary photography

www.oslo8.ch

We are looking forward to see you all at Jiri’s opening in Basel. He is showing images from New York. At the same time, it is the book launch for his new book “From the Island”.

On this evening Jirka is also dj – ing with DJ M.B.Un. To celebrate this night, Jiri’s friends and brothers will bring fresh beer from Prag!

Opening: thursday june 6 2013, 6 pm
exhibition june 7 – august 24 2013

opening hours gallery
friday/saturday 2 pm – 6 pm or by arrangement
summer break july 14 – august 8

opening hours during art basel
monday june 10 – saturday june 15, 10 am – 7 pm

oslo8
contemporary photography

kunstfreilager
oslostrasse 8-10
postfach
4053 basel

+41 61 272 58 58
www.oslo8.ch
contact@oslo8.ch

Czech-born Jiří Makovec arrived in New York City in 2002 and embraced his new environment with an intense curiosity, never leaving its confines until 2009. From the Island represents his body of work from a five year period (2004-2009).

Makovec is an outsider, but he is not the street photographer of old, looking in at his subjects. He is not entirely observing from a distance. Instead he is like someone who is contemplating joining, and is maybe just on the brink of stepping into, the group. But this new shared realm of subject and photographer is not always what it seems to be. In Makovec’s work one senses that he is uneasy with the ugliness and chaos before him, and yet he also sees an undercurrent of strange beauty, and is attracted by it. In his imagery he seems to be looking for the liminal spaces between many realities and for that which might elevate himself and those around him.

Investigating the mystery of the island and playing with its uncomfortable harmonies comes naturally to Makovec. What he sees on the street are many pieces of evidence that teach us something about the nature of the City and its inhabitants. Makovec’s imagery is often playful and surreal. He is a brilliant technician with the eye of a cinematographer, and his images often have the look and feel of being painstakingly lit and staged shots. But they are not staged. They are, in fact, authentic moments instinctively captured as he makes his daily explorations in the island.

Makovec applies a careful sensibility towards his subject. There is nothing exploitative in his work, nor does he have a calculated agenda. He wants the viewer to participate with him and make the connection: “See, this really isn’t so strange. We are all a little odd at times. Yes, those cars are on fire, and yes, for a moment there, I felt frightened too”. All seems a little chaotic on the island and there are a lot of people–even an elephant lying on the ground, seemingly trying to find some comfort and respite. But at the moment before we feel the possibility of despair, Makovec offers us the solution of imagination.

Matthew P. Carson
Librarian & Archivist
International Center of Photography

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– exhibition at gallery oslo8 in Basel
Opening: thursday june 6 2013, 6 pm
exhibition june 7 – august 24 2013

- Support Jiri Makovec
photobook FROM THE ISLAND

TAKE TWO: The Post-Sandy opening of the South Street Seaport Museum. Tuesday, January 15, 2013 from 6:30 to 9:30 pm

“A poem compresses much in a small space and adds music, thus heightening its meaning. The city is like poetry: it compresses all life, all races and breeds, into a small island and adds music and the accompaniment of internal engines”. – E.B. White, Here is New York

I am more interested in poetry than fact, in the ever-so-slight transformation of reality achieved through a lyrical gaze rather than a supposedly “objective” depiction; I aim to inspire and move, not just to inform.

Yet, by being “poetic” I don’t mean taking liberties with reality. My approach to photography is a very straight one, shunning any kind of manipulation or distortion through technical or other means. My photography is founded on respecting and accepting the external world as encountered. The conjunction of my photographic gaze with chance and happenstance is essential to my approach, as is an emphasis on the evanescence of the encountered poetic moments I photograph.

I am interested in fleeting gestures and glances, the momentary field of interaction between passing strangers, the ephemeral dance of light and shadow and street life. I try to visually organize the chaos of the streets just enough to contain it in the photograph, but hopefully not much more than that. I aim for understated pictures that can demonstrate how the ordinary and mundane can be transformed into something mysterious and enchanting when photographed; pictures that pose rather than answer questions, and that evoke the magic immanent in everyday reality.

More than anything, what moves me is capturing the infinitesimal outward signs of an inner emotional life, the interiority of people even in the midst of the most public spaces.

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I’ve been walking many miles and years there.
You won’t see any signs of gentrification or other
politically relevant issues in these photographs.
It’s famous Midtown Manhattan.
The very busy business and tourist district.
It’s easy to photograph there.

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