Multiple Fernando Pessoa - Photo: Mário Pires

Yesterday was Fernando Pessoa birthday, so i made a little homage to his 3 best known heteronyms.

I used Camera+ to take the photos, of some book covers with his picture, processed them in Halftone and layered them in Photoforge2.

Sara Bettencourt - Photo Mário Pires

On the previous post, i talked about the genesis of this portrait series, but after the general theme i needed to narrow it down further, and decide who to photograph and where to find them.
The gender issue was clear to me, i’ve always loved photos of woman smoking, so that choice was easy. But i needed a way to find woman willing to smoke in front of the iPhone4 camera. Asking random woman on the street is not something i’m confortable in doing, i needed a different approach. Then i remembered that i already followed some woman that smoke on twitter, and figured that i could tweet them an invitation to pose. At this point i already made 4 portrait sessions, so this method turned out to be a good choice.

Sandra Gaspar / Photo: Mário Pires

Having left my Lumix in the closet, and relaying almost exclusively on the iPhone for all my photo needs, i wanted to put myself and the iPhone to the test. Thinking about possible challenges, i remembered that i never did a portrait session.
Portraits are a bit vague, how could i make a series that makes some sense and it’s within my reach ?
I also wanted to draw some attention to it, so it would need a element of defiance. I remembered some talks i had with fellow photographers about wonderful portraits of women smoking. Smoking has gained a rather negative aura in recent times, and because of it the defiance element would be smoke.
Having established portraits of people smoking as the main theme, i needed to narrow it down a bit in order to establish some logistics that i could master for some time.

• Where to find people to photograph ?
• How to ask them ?
• Which gender and age ?

Those questions will be answered in the next post

Henry Fuseli - The Artist in Despair over the Magnitude of Ancient Fragments, 1778

All artist’s can understand, this ancient colleague desperation. We all try to be creative giants, but when we face a true giant, we sometimes despair at our lack of achievement.

Yann Arthus-Bertrand - Being A Photographer

I just bought this book, and i recommend it for anyone who thinks that photographers have a easy life. It’s hard to do excellent work, it takes a lot of energy, determination and team work.

Palm tree, Photo: Mário Pires

In January 2010 i made a list of photo projects i wanted to develop in 2010, a year later it’s time to access the status of those.

Chiado Project

The “7 Visões no Chiado” project was successfully completed, It was shown in Lisboa, Vila Nova de Paiva and Coimbra (more dates coming soon). I made a series of blog posts about it. I wish to take it to Porto and back to Lisbon before the end of the year.

Prazeres Graveyard

I did three sessions on this project, and was unable to advance it further. But after i had Brenda Turnnidge review the work, i lost some doubts i had about the focus of the work. I expect to be able to schedule some more sessions in the spring.

MobileOne

I started this series with Nokia mobile phones, then i added a iPod Touch and iOS photo apps, and then the iPhone4. it’s no longer a series, it’s body of work that grows everyday! The iPhone is constatly with me and i haven’t used the Lumix in months. The camera is good enough and all the photo applications that i can mix and match give me endless creative opportunities. We can be mobile artists with nothing but this small device!

“T” Project

Postponed. Without a couple that knows how to T, it can’t be done right.

4 Cars…

I finished photographing for the project and then got some doubts about the whole series. It’s sleeping in the archives until i pick it up again and start editing it into the final form.

And for 2011 ?

Publishing some POD books is my goal, hope i can pull it off.

The Ghost of elections past.. (Hipstamatic; iPhone4)

Hipstamatic is a popular photo application for the iPhone, even photojournalist are using it, so i bought it to see what all the fuss was about.
After a very short time i found that this application doesn’t really suits my shooting habits. I take pictures with the iPhone just like any other camera i use, saving the “original” unprossessed picture first. I only run it trough the photo apps if i find it can give the photo a different meaning.
Hipstamatic just saves the processed photo, preventing me from trying other approaches without it’s mark.
But i can see why photojournalists like it though. The UI is build to make us think we are using a classic rangefinder 35mm camera, and if we stick with a lens/film effects combination in the app, we know how the result will be (just like real lens/film/developer in the analog world).

Before and After Science - Diptych (original and processed iPhone photo)

After roughly four months using the iPhone 4 i must say that for mobile photography it is clearly the best platform. The hardware is very good, but that’s just the base. It’s the wonderful applications that are part of the iOS operating system that raise it form good to wonderful. I take pictures with it everyday and the best part is that i can shoot, process and send it out into the world in a matter of minutes if i want it. A artist studio in my hand, a fantastic tool to create anywhere.

I highly recommend this book if you are interested in any form of art, it’s millions times better than a “how to be like anybody else…” manual.