Today a portrait from Myanmar just before leaving to Barcelona.

Happy easter days to all the blog visitors!

Today, I present a slide show of a Moustache Brothers live performance.

The Moustache Brothers are a comedic trio from Mandalay, Burma. They are well known for their live performances and specially for their sharply satirical criticism of the totalitarian Burmese military regime.

Have a look at a home performance of the brothers and listen to Lu Maw talking about three generations of comedians and what happens after a performance at the home of Aung San Suu Kyi.

Elections have been held today in Burma... We hope there is more no more "old wine in a new bottle" as Lu Maw said at the end of the slide show. Currently it looks a step into the right direction.

More slide shows can be seen in the galleries selection of the website.

A (short) reportage with 7 portraits of women at work in a silk workshop in Inle Lake (Burma).

This man is one of a series (wo-)men at work, one day I will publish the full gallery.

In Mrauk U (Burma) the woman in the past got their faces tattooed, this was a sign to show to which village they belong. Today this does not happen anymore there, you find only elderly woman with this.

A good friend said to me recently, your portraits are better when the people don't smile. This often in some countries is difficult, I checked my stack of photographs to be processed and found this one... hope you like it?

Sittwe (Burma) was an amazing place, there was a special atmosphere. We arrived there January 2010 just a few hours after the eclipse. This portrait still was sitting on my stack of images to be processed.

nothing but a moment..

Some moments from the Shwedagon Paya temple

End of last year I was in Brazil. In Rio I had to hand over my camera to some unfriendly robbers with knifes. All what was left was the small camera of my wife. In São Paulo I took this self-portrait...

My minimalistic response to yesterday's post with a photo by Montse.

Here I hesitated, my wife (Montse Villarij) took my camera... and made this one... what should I say... A GREAT IMAGE!!!

I met this boy in a Park in Vlora Albania, he was playing with his ball and looking for some friends. Even when I am not a big sports man, I decided to put the camera away and play with him. After that a happy face...

Three impressions from my favorite street in Tirana.

I am back from a trip to Albania and as usual, I had a camera with me. Besides some captures from the streets and some portraits I took the chance to experiment. An experiment to explore things I normally not do when taking and making photo's.

Some long exposure photo's, all @30 sec and low ISO. Something new, not to change my style I think.

So, what do you think?

From time to time we visit Maria, she lives in Barcelona in a residence. Daily life takes place around her table in the living room. The table is shared by three other ladies. During our resent visit I took some portraits...

Do have all images to be sharp, I don't think so...

Bad weather, rain... not a reason not to take some photos. During the trip to Greece in Thessaloniki it was raining, I bought a cheap umbrella and took some photos. This one is my favorite.

A somewhat unconventional self portrait from the Acropolis in Athens...

The blog has been updated and is up and running again.

Today some first impressions from Greece and a promise that I will post more frequent here!

There currently are no planned Exhibitions. To send proposals use this contact form.

From June 30th till July 10th some of my work can be seen in Palau Robert in Barcelona.

Details here (sorry only in Spanish)

After a long time of absence today a post in the Blog with a set of 8 photos from a railroad trip between Yangon and Mandalay.

Lu Maw is one of the famous Moustache Brothers who have a daily "political incorrect" show in Mandalay.

This portrait is made after a show during an interview which, soon will appear on this website.

This woman on the Mandalay market in Burma was selling onions. She had problems with her skin but was confident that the cream will do the job. So confident that she was proud to pose for a portrait.

This couple (see the couple by clicking on the image), a physician and his wife where sitting in their garage while having lunch. They had a wonderful preserved car which definitely was part of the family.

From Mrauk-U it is possible to go by boat on the Lemo river to small Chin Villages where the elder women have tattooed faces.

In the first villages other travelers where visiting and it was more a show than an authentic feeling. We made our guide clear that we prefer to see more remote villages and met people there. After navigating upstream we arrived at a small village where just a few locals were at home. Houses were on poles and it just was a wonderful place. We had a chat with a friendly man, he said his mother is the only one woman with tattooed face left in the village. We visited the woman while she was laying on the floor, she was old and fragile. She was not able to stand up anymore, her family took care of her and her son just had done her hair.

She was completely aware there were visitors and was obviously happy about that attention. The grandchildren knew she was old and suffering, they where quiet and with great respect.

The images in the blog where too small for my taste, I changed the layout and now a bigger image (or a small slide show) is available.

Click on the image to see the new layout and blog slide show. Please let me know if something does not work well in your browser.

... crop and grain...

time to post another portrait from the last trip to Burma / Myanmar:

Not much to tell about these images, except that this was where the man in the previous post was looking at.

Compared to yesterday's post this image is closer to technical perfection. It also is transporting a moment of emotions and feelings.

...who cares about technical perfection? Photography sometimes is nothing more as transporting a moment of emotions and feelings.

Dreaming of the new collection for this autumn...

A wonderful graffiti on a corner in Barcelona...

... taken outside of Barcelona Airport

I am playing already a longer time to try some black and white film... in a dusty box I store my work from 25 years ago and this Sunday afternoon I installed the scanner and scanned some images from that time.

Found those negatives and scanned a few... to get from a technical point of view reasonable results out of them was so easy. I remember hours and hours in the dark room, now just some levels and curves that's it.

With this image as a young student, I won the first price in a competition, it still has some charm to me therefore worth to share some of my very old work here.

Today some images quite different from my usual style. It is good to experiment from time to time and leave the comfortable path where you know what you do. These have been made in the hospital were my wife had to stay a few days (she is fine again now). After long looking at the light I decided it was worth a try..

one more from Barcelona, some highly artistic gratify...

I have been traveling last days and just returned home... no exiting long trip far away... to compensate my silence a first impression from Barcelona Airport.

Originating in 1975, Paducah Photo has grown from a fledgling contest to the Mid-South's most prestigious annual photographic event.

This year's juror is Michael Johnson is a Professor of Art at Murray State University and Director of "Magic Silver", one of the largest international juried photography exhibitions. Johnson has been teaching photography at MSU for 37 years.

The Paducah Photo '10 Exhibition will be held at the Yeiser Art Center, 200 Broadway and will run from June 19 through July 24.

My contribution:

More information on: http://www.theyeiser.org/

... it took me some time to post this image. For me the image does transport a decisive moment there however is no motion, no person.

What makes it possible to feel a decisive moment without those elements?

One part can be found in the light... the light here is something like the saying that you can not step in the same river twice...

On the other hand we're left alone with the question if there is someone out there in the light. Will the person show up in the image in a moment or did someone just disappear... you never will know what I saw.

The decisive moment solely exist in our imagination, we see something what is not there: an imaginary decisive moment!

I was not 100% sure about showing this one, the distortion is a bit disturbing but after all it has some magic feeling I think...

Syria - Deir Samaan (Monastery of Simeon) - May 2009

We arrived in Sittwe in the west of Burma late afternoon. During the daytime there was an solar eclipse and the street was full of emotions and excitement. I took an incredible number of images of the people in the street, this girl has been following me and definitively wanted to pose as well.

This portrait definitively is more soft and less intense as the previous one.

The girl wears traditional Thanaka face paint which is worn as decoration and sun block.

.. one year ago in Aleppo, another moment, another street.

Enjoy!

Another decisive moment or 3 and a half.....

A decisive moment from Aleppo (Syria).

There still are images from Syria in the pipeline, this one is just a preview from the trip to Burma earlier this year.

I met this homeless boy on the fish market in Sittwe, it seems he was not really welcome there... He was shy, afraid of the adults, isolated. It took me some time to convince him to pose for a portrait at this unfriendly place. He was standing there with some dignity, showing a difficult life. Besides some friendliness he got some money, at least that morning he must have had a good start in the day.

I worked hard on my b&w technique, my target was to not have such a clean digital image with just good tones. The final image has some (digital) grain, toning and I am happy about the sharpening result.

Normally I am not the one to talk about technique but I found some great hints last days:

- The sharpening workflow is described at Earthbound Light.

- The (digital) grain was taken from Nikos Kantarakias.

- The concept for toning I found in the blog of George Barr.

Grain was applied after the sharpening, I think grain should not be sharpened.

Thanks for the inspiration!

During the Syria trip I visited a small village with Beehive houses (one on the background of the building), it was empty and nobody seems to be at home. Then the girl showed up and waved to come in for a tea.

Streets in Syria were too full for me, I did manage some portrait (see previous posts) but I just have a few shots from the streets. Today a first one:

maybe I am going to make a series of the "men at work"... at least I am going to post a bit more in the blog.

The images from Syria are quite different from the images from Cuba. Less street work but more portraits mainly from men at work.

I am back home now from our last trip to Burma. The images are stored on hard disk and look promising. Before showing work from Burma I first am going to continue with images from Syria.

Last days some work from Syria, we are leaving now for next trip. Today we're leaving for Myanmar.