Picturegrid

Picturegrid, designed by Kieran Delaney is the newest addition to the blog. This Wordpress plugin acts as a the front end for your Flickr profile, showing up to 500 of your most recent photographs.

The enlarged size of the images is one technical aspects of the plugin that I’m hoping to still to improve upon. Other then that, Picturegrid is up and running!!

Links:
  Picturegrid
  Kieran Delaney

Warsaw Uprising

Today marked the 45th anniversary of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. The attempt was to liberate the Polish capital from German control before the arrival of the Soviet army. A liberated Warsaw was to demonstrate sovereignty in order to withstand the Allied devision of Eastern Europe. The uprising was expected not to last longer then a week, lasted for 63 days with a quarter of million lives lost.

To coincide with the anniversary of the uprising the exhibition Miasto Feniksa – War*Saw Everything is on view at Krakowskie Przedmiescie 64 for all of August. The exhibition contains 28 photographs that are montages of images from the Warsaw Uprising with images taken from the same viewpoint of present day Warsaw. A thoughtful project, but I have to admit after seeing the exhibition the end result is somewhat poorly executed. Snowy streets from 1945 combined with heels and miniskirts form 2008 doesn’t really seem to fit well together.

The image above, of downtown Warsaw was originally taken between January 19th and 21st 1945. While in the background most of today’s postwar downtown cityscape.

Links:
 + Miasto Feniksa – War*Saw Everything (the exhibition)
 + Warsaw Uprising (an overview)
 + Palac Kultury (about the tallest building in the photograph)

Jesse Burke – Intertidal

Intertidal, a new monograph of photographs by Jesse Burke has just been released by Decode Books. Intertidal is also availible as a limited collector’s edition, which comes with a signed 16″ x 20″ photograph. The book and the collector’s edition are available at: Decode Books and Platform Gallery "As young boys growing up on the shores of New England, Jesse Burke and his friends would spend days exploring and sifting through the rocks and shells of the intertidal zone—the area of land that exists between the high and the low tide marks. In his photographs in Intertidal, Burke explores the complexity of masculine identity, which is in many ways analogous to the intertidal zone. His images capture those moments "in between," with the idealized notion of manhood on the one side and actually being male on the other. His photographs of men and their landscapes hint at sweetness, but they also embrace the heroic idea of masculinity. Burke is drawn to the tension of vulnerability (be it a rupture or physical / emotional / metaphorical wound) and grit ("no pain / no gain"); to the space between strength and tenderness. Sometimes these images capture the fleeting moment between events. Sometimes they capture the concrete event itself. Always, the photographs are working in the ambiguous space of the intertidal zone." Links   www.jesseburke.com   www.decodebooks.com   www.platformgallery.com

Seven Weeks

During the last seven weeks I found myself bouncing from Poland to Canada and back again. And for the last seven(ty) minutes I’ve been battling with what delightful insights about the trip to post here. A couple of photos is a good start, but a helping hand from a friend only way to go:

Needless to say, it was great seeing Monika, friends and family. The seven week and seven city tour was amazing and flew by too quickly. For more photos can be found on: Flickr. Slowly but surely, I’ll be adding more images from the trip.

Now that things are settling back to normal here in Krakow, a couple of projects that will hopefully be done in the near future:
  + Michal Kowalczuk – Drawings
  + JK Fotografia
  + Budonis