Sevil Egeli - copyright
Monday, April 27, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Afrika
Afrika, kontinenti i zi, i zi ne dhimbjen dhe ne pasurite e tij atje ku s’duam te shohim por jemi te detyruar te kthejme koken nga thirrjet per ndihme.
Si ju duket, i vecuar …?
Violeta Lleshi
Monday, April 6, 2009
Bisede me Bevis Fushen nga Daniele Mattioli
Conversation: Bevis Fusha
I am posting another conversation which I had with Bevis Fusha recently. Bevis Fusha is one of the most interesting photographers of so called “New Europe", coming from Albania Bevis has witnessed and reported the slow and complicate change of his country. He has focused his work in different social aspect also experimenting concept topics. He also is represented by Regina Anzenberger Agency. Again as for Max Sher I do like to speak about photographers who can develop and see something different in the countries they are born, something that is for many photographers quite challenging.
Here is the conversation with Bevis:
DM: You are perhaps one of the few who could translate the last historical period of your country into photographs although you were born in a photographer's family. What were the most difficult thing to face when you start to take photos?
BF: I grew up in the dark room of our small apartment in the center of Tirana. I spent my childhood in the corner of the room, under the pale red light impatiently waiting for my father to finish his work so I could leave and play outside with my bike. My interest in photography started in the adolescent years. Actually, during that year, photographing people seemed boring and very ordinary for me, something that anyone in the world could do. Our house was always filled with ORWO films, Kodak slides, 35 mm cameras, medium format, large format, photo papers, dryers, solvents and everything else that was in the function of the image. My father, Besim Fusha, was one of the best and most valued photographers of his time and I would like to add that he was one of the most intelligent who had the ability to unintentionally serve the communist regime this way providing for his family by using a 50 mm objective and a Practica ML. During that time I found my self looking at images more, and looking means a lot, more than technically viewing the camera. What I can say is that around 1995 I started using Canon F1 camera and I found no difficulties getting used to it, meaning technically. It was part of the family. Taking the camera in my hands, professionally, was natural and happened very quickly.
DM: I believe you have a good numbers of projects done; my favorites are "A slow motion death", Isolation although I do like your "color" approach. What make you "think" in black and white and in "color"?
BF: Photography is a multi dimensional and flexible generator of my life. My educational relationship has been connected to the camera. It has taken many years for me to create a powerful visual language. The camera itself has become an expressive tool these last 10 years, to present events that are connected to the society I live in and are of genuine interest of mine. In my beginnings I used color film because I felt that with black and white I had already created a close relationship to the point that it had become personal and familiar. Coloristic memory was very important as a shortcut of humanistic association.
DM: How you see photojournalism these days?
BF: In a way it is interesting. I believe that the collective interests of the photographers have been transformed in an uncontrolled organic process. Personal and individual interests are those that attempt to keep photojournalism unaffected. There will be advancements in the technical distribution of information in a world that’s getting smaller and there will be attempts to break away from regulations set by the predecessors. There won't be any vanguard changes unless the old system can be infiltrated. The difficulty is in the fact that all media is influenced, it is very obvious. Almost all publishers, authors, amateur or professional have an agenda, a mission. There are no more people who do something with naivety. It seems that naivety has been buried in primitive centuries. Any agenda is spiritual, religious, political or corporation, or a complicated combination of these elements. The worst scenario is when it is all the above, where photography many times willingly or unwillingly becomes a manipulated servant. I think that a triumphant formula for the future would be a sensitive subject presentation with a perfect esthetic-visual storytelling. Photography has always been a good way to allow the viewer to interpret the inside of what he/she sees. Each person takes what they want from an image and in successful cases; all of us take away what we should. The goal will be achieved by hyperbolizing the core.
DM: I would like if you speak more about Albania and how mean to work there and what is going on.
BF: My photography is not specifically connected with the geography of places, even though my major contribution is in Albania, the place of my origin and where I currently live. I have been and still am an outside vision of reality, a wanderer. In each journey photography flows as an element of my presentation. My id is untouchable. It remains with me and exist as a
result of my logic. In journeys photography holds a second place. First of all there is my facing of the world, and then what I learn, which feeds my photography. Distances and spaces fill me with fear, photography helps me familiarize myself with what I learn and leave behind. Such photographic observation comes instinctively to me. It is traces of my childhood that come back in more mature steps, as the years go by. In the beginning, when I entered the media market, I was looking for my fame and name, but nowadays, my motives are different. I am a spectator, a messenger, a murderer of the moment that tries to give life to eternity. I feel that my duty as a messenger is to continue forward and be asinvisible and unimportant as possible. Motivation, determination, patience, curiosity and the truth are some elements that keep you attached to the photographic image. The photography that I capture is often anti-television in its structure, in an attempt to oppose the enormous indoctrination that TV is feeding our lives, by transmitting to us news and images that have a superficial meaning. Albania has a small number of photographers; therefore "my war" takes on a sublime meaning. Also, I prefer to believe in the uniqueness of things in life. Nothing can be repeated in a photo, even when moments are recreated. I don't discover the importance of the photo at the moment of capture, but after, while I feel it as it is. What photo can be created as absolutely perfect? On
the contrary; what is not photographed is what contains the DNA of the absolute and perfect! I have doubts of the rightful moment of an image. I think that values in time are clearly understandable in the hundreds of seconds and achieve their importance in their solitude. Of course there are cases when I go back to subjects and follow them for some time, for other interests, and I never find the same situations, there is always a continuous movement. Also, it should be kept in mind that I use photography to document something, I do not attempt to be an artist and I do not worry to find the specifying category. I don't believe in the elite, but the individuals. The Albanian society has surprised me with its paradoxes, with completely medieval phenomenon that would make it noticeable in all Europe. I think that it is a good place to further study what awes me. I want to be a witness of what I see and all this is also a question to myself and to what I share with my photography. I worry of what I will leave behind to the coming generations, I don't know how to respect the present but the future and I am a fanatic visionary. Photography has the most universal and primary role in communication, something I use and want to go deeper in. I still have faith of the value of photography and always will. I would like to be absolute in this.
DM: What is your next project?
BF: I am working on a project that will be quite boring and will have also a boring exhibition. It will be the capturing of very ordinary, unimportant places for anyone, almost places where nothing happens, but hide a dimensional path, a gate toward death. This is a project that is distant and I have overcome some difficulties that have forced me to slowly work on it. Maybe I won't be able to finish it in the time I have set for myself.
(P.S. Per te pare edhe fotografite, vizitoni http://mattiolidaniele.blogspot.com/2009/04/conversation-bevis-fusha.html. Projekt 5.6)
I am posting another conversation which I had with Bevis Fusha recently. Bevis Fusha is one of the most interesting photographers of so called “New Europe", coming from Albania Bevis has witnessed and reported the slow and complicate change of his country. He has focused his work in different social aspect also experimenting concept topics. He also is represented by Regina Anzenberger Agency. Again as for Max Sher I do like to speak about photographers who can develop and see something different in the countries they are born, something that is for many photographers quite challenging.
Here is the conversation with Bevis:
DM: You are perhaps one of the few who could translate the last historical period of your country into photographs although you were born in a photographer's family. What were the most difficult thing to face when you start to take photos?
BF: I grew up in the dark room of our small apartment in the center of Tirana. I spent my childhood in the corner of the room, under the pale red light impatiently waiting for my father to finish his work so I could leave and play outside with my bike. My interest in photography started in the adolescent years. Actually, during that year, photographing people seemed boring and very ordinary for me, something that anyone in the world could do. Our house was always filled with ORWO films, Kodak slides, 35 mm cameras, medium format, large format, photo papers, dryers, solvents and everything else that was in the function of the image. My father, Besim Fusha, was one of the best and most valued photographers of his time and I would like to add that he was one of the most intelligent who had the ability to unintentionally serve the communist regime this way providing for his family by using a 50 mm objective and a Practica ML. During that time I found my self looking at images more, and looking means a lot, more than technically viewing the camera. What I can say is that around 1995 I started using Canon F1 camera and I found no difficulties getting used to it, meaning technically. It was part of the family. Taking the camera in my hands, professionally, was natural and happened very quickly.
DM: I believe you have a good numbers of projects done; my favorites are "A slow motion death", Isolation although I do like your "color" approach. What make you "think" in black and white and in "color"?
BF: Photography is a multi dimensional and flexible generator of my life. My educational relationship has been connected to the camera. It has taken many years for me to create a powerful visual language. The camera itself has become an expressive tool these last 10 years, to present events that are connected to the society I live in and are of genuine interest of mine. In my beginnings I used color film because I felt that with black and white I had already created a close relationship to the point that it had become personal and familiar. Coloristic memory was very important as a shortcut of humanistic association.
DM: How you see photojournalism these days?
BF: In a way it is interesting. I believe that the collective interests of the photographers have been transformed in an uncontrolled organic process. Personal and individual interests are those that attempt to keep photojournalism unaffected. There will be advancements in the technical distribution of information in a world that’s getting smaller and there will be attempts to break away from regulations set by the predecessors. There won't be any vanguard changes unless the old system can be infiltrated. The difficulty is in the fact that all media is influenced, it is very obvious. Almost all publishers, authors, amateur or professional have an agenda, a mission. There are no more people who do something with naivety. It seems that naivety has been buried in primitive centuries. Any agenda is spiritual, religious, political or corporation, or a complicated combination of these elements. The worst scenario is when it is all the above, where photography many times willingly or unwillingly becomes a manipulated servant. I think that a triumphant formula for the future would be a sensitive subject presentation with a perfect esthetic-visual storytelling. Photography has always been a good way to allow the viewer to interpret the inside of what he/she sees. Each person takes what they want from an image and in successful cases; all of us take away what we should. The goal will be achieved by hyperbolizing the core.
DM: I would like if you speak more about Albania and how mean to work there and what is going on.
BF: My photography is not specifically connected with the geography of places, even though my major contribution is in Albania, the place of my origin and where I currently live. I have been and still am an outside vision of reality, a wanderer. In each journey photography flows as an element of my presentation. My id is untouchable. It remains with me and exist as a
result of my logic. In journeys photography holds a second place. First of all there is my facing of the world, and then what I learn, which feeds my photography. Distances and spaces fill me with fear, photography helps me familiarize myself with what I learn and leave behind. Such photographic observation comes instinctively to me. It is traces of my childhood that come back in more mature steps, as the years go by. In the beginning, when I entered the media market, I was looking for my fame and name, but nowadays, my motives are different. I am a spectator, a messenger, a murderer of the moment that tries to give life to eternity. I feel that my duty as a messenger is to continue forward and be asinvisible and unimportant as possible. Motivation, determination, patience, curiosity and the truth are some elements that keep you attached to the photographic image. The photography that I capture is often anti-television in its structure, in an attempt to oppose the enormous indoctrination that TV is feeding our lives, by transmitting to us news and images that have a superficial meaning. Albania has a small number of photographers; therefore "my war" takes on a sublime meaning. Also, I prefer to believe in the uniqueness of things in life. Nothing can be repeated in a photo, even when moments are recreated. I don't discover the importance of the photo at the moment of capture, but after, while I feel it as it is. What photo can be created as absolutely perfect? On
the contrary; what is not photographed is what contains the DNA of the absolute and perfect! I have doubts of the rightful moment of an image. I think that values in time are clearly understandable in the hundreds of seconds and achieve their importance in their solitude. Of course there are cases when I go back to subjects and follow them for some time, for other interests, and I never find the same situations, there is always a continuous movement. Also, it should be kept in mind that I use photography to document something, I do not attempt to be an artist and I do not worry to find the specifying category. I don't believe in the elite, but the individuals. The Albanian society has surprised me with its paradoxes, with completely medieval phenomenon that would make it noticeable in all Europe. I think that it is a good place to further study what awes me. I want to be a witness of what I see and all this is also a question to myself and to what I share with my photography. I worry of what I will leave behind to the coming generations, I don't know how to respect the present but the future and I am a fanatic visionary. Photography has the most universal and primary role in communication, something I use and want to go deeper in. I still have faith of the value of photography and always will. I would like to be absolute in this.
DM: What is your next project?
BF: I am working on a project that will be quite boring and will have also a boring exhibition. It will be the capturing of very ordinary, unimportant places for anyone, almost places where nothing happens, but hide a dimensional path, a gate toward death. This is a project that is distant and I have overcome some difficulties that have forced me to slowly work on it. Maybe I won't be able to finish it in the time I have set for myself.
(P.S. Per te pare edhe fotografite, vizitoni http://mattiolidaniele.blogspot.com/2009/04/conversation-bevis-fusha.html. Projekt 5.6)
Friday, April 3, 2009
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