grey || a black and white photobook | issue 16

grey a black and white photobook

OCTOBER 2015 / #15

Curated and designed by Constantinos Andronis [www.c-andronis.gr]

www.greymagazine.gr | grey@greymagazine.gr

All rights lie with the artists. No part of the material published in grey may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording or any other information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the artists.

grey

Ρυθμίστε την οθόνη σας, έτσι ώστε να βλέπετε όλες τις διαβαθμίσεις του γκρι Adjust your screen settings, so that you can see all shades of grey

DIMITRIS MYTASSeen World

AnDReW JAnJIgIAn Untitled

DIng Ren Phantoms of Lost Time

eTIenne C.L. van SLoUnReflections

RoSSen KUzMAnovSofia, Bulgaria

ADeLIYA AgzAMovA Skye

FRAnK KoSeMPA The Effect of Certain Causes

JULIe van Der WeKKen Untitled

JoSePh o’neILL Untitled

This issue is a small treatise on the intrinsic and extrinsic value of the photographic subject.

The featured artists keep a question recurring: “What does the interwoven entity created by a reflection tells us about the subject? Is it really its reflection or does the reflection itself bear a totally seperate existence?

The intrinsic value of the photographic subject is seen in the work of Dimitris Mytas, Andrew Janjigian, Etienne C.L. van Sloun and Frank Kosempa. In Mytas’ portfolio, there’s a clear - yet deeply layered - distinction between the seen world, as he puts it, and the artifical context in which the reflection is created. This is further evident in Janjigian’s work on mirrors and reflections: the inverted reality of the mirror questions the integrity of the frame and, in turn, the fictional nature of the image. Van Sloun’s images - geometric and succumbing to form - often makes us ponder about the boundary between reality and (its) reflection(s) and finally, Kosempa’s “temporal narratives“ offer the viewer a duality of the real, which in his work, is surfaced beyond the clear and set forms of the seen.

The extrinsic value of the image, on the other hand, is evident in the works of Ding Ren, Rossen Kuzmanov, Adeliya Agzamova, Julie van der Wekken and Joseph O’Neill. Ren claims in her statement that “it is not the photographs that are creating [...] sentiments, but the human condition”, a thesis overly manifested in his portfolio. Kuzmanov’s images are realistic, existent, tanglible while the stillness of the Agzamova’s work is inviting the viewer to distill it’s meaning. Van den Wekken’s set attempts to touch upon the fluidity of the reflection while O’Neill’s portfolio - dim and dark - attempts to focus on the details while being inside a wider context.

Constantinos Andronis, editor (www.c-andronis.gr)

Ιδωμένος κόσμοςΑυτή η θεματική ενότητα προτείνει όψεις μιας κατασκευασμένης πραγματικότητας που προκύπτει από επίπλαστες εικόνες-αντανακλάσεις του “ιδωμένου κόσμου”. Εδώ, οι φωτογραφικές εμμονές αναζητούν συμβολικούς συνειρμούς σε κοινούς καθημερινούς τόπους. Το σύνολο των συγκεντρωμένων εικόνων αποσκοπεί στην πρόκληση εσωτερικών μονολόγων ικανών να εμφυσήσουν “ψυχή” σε μια πόλη με όψη κατά τα φαινόμενα απρόσωπη. Seen WorldThis thematic unit proposes aspects of a constructed reality arising from artificial images-reflections of the “seen world”. Here, the photographic obsessions cast about for symbolic associations in common everyday places. The group of collected pictures aims at inducing internal monologues able to instill “soul” in a city which in appearance is deemed impersonal

DIMITRIS MyTAS

UntitledAs a child, I would often hang my head over the side of my bed and observe the inverted bedroom with a kind of joy: Where had this unfamiliar space been hiding all this time? Mirrors do this too: Fold light and space to render them novel and strange. When they fill the field of view, they invert the world and our own image; when they appear as objects, they pull the outside in, degrading the integrity of the frame (or—more accurately—revealing it to be a fiction).

Cameras are mirrors too, turning light, space, and also time back upon themselves. (Another inversion: mirrors were once manufactured by the chemical reduction of silver nitrate to deposit a thin layer of metallic silver on glass, a reaction nearly identical to the fixing of an analog photographic image onto a substrate.) And—obviously—many cameras rely on mirrors to divert the image to the eye for framing and composition. The best of them (twin-lens reflex cameras and others with waist-level finders) allow for the camera to be held at a distance from the eye, so that the face in the mirror(s) remains unobscured.

All of which is a roundabout way of saying that I have discovered in my work a previously unrecognized fondness for mirrors.

AnDReW JAnJIgIAn

Phantoms of Lost Time Ongoing series of analogue photographs (2014-ongoing)

What you see is not what you see. A photograph is not a memory. It cannot fully capture what we experience and what we remember. Photographs, in the end, are scientific records. They are scientifically calculated levels of light that enter the camera— a machine that adjusts itself with moving parts that open and close. The emotions and memories we attach to these photographs come from a human level. It is not the photographs that are creating these sentiments, but the human condition that is. The photographs are meant to shift between tangible and intangible structures, visible and invisible moments, and the perception of nostalgia. Reflections, frozen puddles, ever-changing cloud formations, glowing sunsets that evoke far away mountain ranges—they are phantoms of lost time, elusive glimmers of light and specters of memory.

DINg REN

ReflectionsEen ongewone picturale kijk op de alledaagse werkelijkheid, geabstraheerd tot een krachtig vormenspel. Net de discipline van de fotografie werd vaak toegedicht een waarheidsgetrouwe representatie van de werkelijkheid te kunnen bieden. Met de serie ‘Reflections’ zet hij deze zekerheid om in een mogelijkheid; tevens om daarvan af te wijken. De werken roepen vragen op. Is een weerspiegeling van de werkelijkheid ook zelf een onderdeel van die werkelijkheid? Welke werkelijkheid zouden we moeten zien? En met Plato in gedachte: is de werkelijkheid überhaupt te kennen?

An unusual pictorial view of everyday’s reality, abstracted to a powerful form game. Just the discipline of photography was often ascribed to provide a faithful representation of reality. With the series ‘Reflections’ he puts these security into an opportunity to create a different view. Is a reflection of reality itself a part of that reality? What reality we should see? And with Plato in mind: reality is to know anyway?

eTIenne C.L. van SLoUn

Louvre, Paris

gare du Nord, Paris

ground Zero, New york

Empire State Building, New york

Empire State Building, New york

Coney Island, New york

MOMA, New york

Madelaine, Paris

glass facade, Chengdu

Cleaning, Chengdu

Louis Vuitton, Chengdu

Shopping, Chengdu

Sofia, BulgariaThe project is focused on the city of Sofia, Bulgaria and its inhabitants. The aim of the project is to document the city in a personal and subjective way, creating images with a dreamlike quality that reflect the nature of the people living there, as well as their environment. The photographs are taken in the period 2011 - 2015 in the capital of Bulgaria and more specifically characteristic places like train stations, flea markets, desolate suburbs and crowded central spots, bringing out forms and scenes which might be invisible for the casual onlooker

RoSSen KUzMAnov

SkyeReflections were always calling my attention. They create some magical world, some fantastic reality full of strange combinations and overlays that you can see but you cannot touch. It inspires me and feeds my imagination. Once I got so impressed with Ernst Haas pictures of reflections that I decided to create my own series of photos.

City creates a lot of reflections: windows and vitrines of the buildings, puddles and fountains, we are so used to see them that we stopped to pay attention. With this series, I wanted to show a very simple but very poetical beauty of reflections of the city. All the pictures were taken in the city of Medellin, Colombia, where I currently live.

ADeLIYA AgzAMovA

The Effect of Certain CausesHow does one view the sun during a total eclipse? Indirectly. How did Nemisis punish Narcissus? Decisively at a pool of water. Reflections have always offered for me a parallel view of something we imagine as the underworld. Sometimes we get a glimpse beneath, above, beyond or behind a familiar surface space. Sometimes they collide as well. For the most part, they connect two or more temporal narratives gathered from different points of view. Those are the effects of this general cause: reflections.

FRAnK KoSeMPA

The Effect of Certain Causes: Japan 1.2.0

The Effect of Certain Causes: growth 1.2

The Effect of Certain Causes: Echo 5.1

The Effect of Certain Causes: Loss 1.2.2

The Effect of Certain Causes: Echo 6.1

The Effect of Certain Causes: Echo 9

The Effect of Certain Causes: Echo 7.1

The Effect of Certain Causes: Echo 3.1

The Effect of Certain Causes: Echo 4 (Scarlatti K30, L499)

The Effect of Certain Causes: Science 1

The Effect of Certain Causes: Cinema 1

The Effect of Certain Causes: Echo 8.1

Untitled“It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see.” – Henry David Thoreau

This series of reflections is part of a bigger portfolio that also includes shadows. I think of reflections as the yang (bright) of light and shadows as the yin (dark). The former lets light shine through and the latter blocks it. The lines are blurred sometimes when a reflection is also a shadow and vice versa. As it is with life, most things aren’t as they seem, and if they are, they can quickly change. The truth always changes, things are fluid just like the light when taking photographs.

JULIe van Der WeKKen

UntitledAlfred Eisenstaedt proclaimed: “The important thing is not the camera, but the eye.” Reflecting this bold credo, my innovative “Third Eye” photography skillfully illuminates sites and scenes that the normal vision easily overlooks. Across a monochrome arcade of life, my masterful black and white urban photography encapsulates the aesthetics of a modern romantic and mirrors the irrepressible energy of the world as I celebrate the possibility of the unexpected in urban life. Urban and industrial in tone, I begin with a nocturnal photograph of an ordinary building or street scene or beach scene and offers a close-range, almost intimate view of scenes of the environment. Rather than offering a wider view of an entire edifice, my sharp lens synthesizes every detail and is unerring – the work constantly demands that the viewer go outside and see their “ordinary” surroundings with better eyes.

JoSePh o’neILL

Dimitris Mytasdmytas@yahoo.comdimitrismytas@gmail.com www.dimitrismytas.com+30 6936938650

Andrew Janjigian alveoliphotography@gmail.comhttp://www.alveoliphotography.comhttp://instagram.com/alveoli_photography

Ding Rending@dingren.netwww.dingren.net+31 629138496

Etienne C.L. van Slounetienne@vanslounfotograaf.nlwww.vanslounfotograaf.nl +31612505595

Rossen Kuzmanovrossen.kuzmanov@gmail.comhttp://rsnk.tumblr.com+359 888124959

Adeliya Agzamovaadeliya.agzamova@gmail.comhttp://adeliyaagzamova.wix.com/photo +57 3002284874

Frank Kosempa fkosempa@gmail.com

Julie van der Wekkenlensmatter@yahoo.comhttp://www.lensmatterphotography.com18016498299

Joseph o’neillJoeiamone@yahoo.comwww.Jotog.nyc

grey is an online bimonthly black and white photography magazine. Its purpose lies in presenting portfolios of artists who express themselves through black and white photography. grey is free for anyone to download.

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