Interior

Untitled, Nuno Vieira Matos, 2010 (polaroid) – click to enlarge

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Baltimore, MD (USA), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

FOCUS: A Wide View of a Hellish World, by Bruce Jackson

Using a Widelux (panoramic camera that makes 24 x 59 mm negatives), Bruce sarted to take photographs of an Arkansas prison which he described as "hell in Arkansas". Some of those pictures can be seen here.

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Baltimore, MD (USA), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

Goodbye Gérard

Gérard Castello-Lopes, one of the best known Portuguese photographers died yesterday in Paris. Thanks to him, we now have a good illustration of the 50s in Portugal instead of the regime approved pictures. Some people called him the Portuguese Cartier-Breson. I prefer to say that Castello-Lopes was able to bring an European style to our endogenous country.

Thank you Gérard.

Away

Due to some projects happening in simultaneous requiring my full effort I've paused posting here. However, please be informed that the return is imminent.

Cheers

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Baltimore, MD (USA), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

motion pictures: Bruce Gilden

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Baltimore, MD (USA), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

motion pictures

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Baltimore, MD (USA), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

Large Format Camera with Paper

Yesterday Ricardo brought his Large Format camera to the lab. We took a 24x18 RC paper and placed it in the negative holder. Four minutes of exposure at f4.5 gave a dark negative print. This is the positive image from the digitalized negative. After this session we were happy like small kids. Can you blame us?

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Vila Viçosa (Portugal), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

EROS: Robert Demachy

Study (Nude), Robert Demachy 1906

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Baltimore, MD (USA), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

‘SCAPE: Josef Koudelka

France, Josef Koudelka 1987

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Vila Viçosa (Portugal), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

FOCUS: “Chica Barbie” by Carl Bower

“Set against a backdrop of poverty, crime, and the hemisphere’s longest running civil war, nowhere are the contests more ubiquitous and revered than in Colombia.  In these carefully scripted shows of fantasy, beauty as a concept, commodity and singular goal is stripped to its raw elements.  There is no ambiguity or pretense that anything else matters.

The queens are celebrities.  Many of the roughly 400 contests a year can shut down a small town for days as thousands jam plazas and parade routes for a glimpse of them.  Icons of a rigidly defined ideal, the contestants highlight the conflated relationship between beauty and attraction.  Many of them seem familiar, stirring recollections of the same perfect features seen elsewhere, along with the identical flirtatious laughter, mock surprise and relentless optimism.  In their quest for adoration, they erase all traces of individuality.”

Carl Bower’s website.

Away

See you in two weeks…

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Vila Viçosa (Portugal), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

EROS: Robert Demachy

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Douro’s region (Portugal), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge

‘SCAPE: Mitch Epstein

Omaha, Nebraska, from the series “What is American Power?”, Mitch Epstein 2008

Return

It is been a while since I do not post here. Time constraints along with the fact that I am in serious need for some vacations are the main reasons. However, another reason was preventing me to post more often. I was able to get a space to assemble my own printing lab. It is a small space but has an interior room, a living-room/kitchen and a bathroom with a shower cabinet, and best of all: is near my house. It’s perfect. I’ve painted the interior room mostly in white (matt); the part where the enlargers will be placed (about 1/3) was painted black.

The installation is still temporary; in the second semester I am planning to have something more permanent, including two workstations.

Some pictures to show you (taken with my mobile so ignore the low quality):

The enlarger (Opemus) with two safety lights (for now placed on the table), all the necessary accessories and a fan (Portugal weather); you can see the black background.

Here you can see the white and black paintings; I have decided to not paint all the room in black because that would decrease the lighting capacity of the safety lights.

 
Because I want to have low start-up and wrap-up times, the trays are covered with wood panels to prevent evaporation and oxidation; this way I just need to remove and place the panels which takes less time than transferring the chemical between the trays and the recipients. Let’s see if this works. This is the part where I realize that I am not young anymore; I definitively need to have a table there.

 
This is the shower cabinet. I bought a smaller shower cabinet floor to use as a washing tank; it is built with a polymer which makes it lighter and cheaper; my next challenge, to place it higher.

Finally, my first print being washed; 24x18 FB paper of a street scene needing some serious mask for the sky.

I’ll post more pictures when a more definitive installation is set up.

 

I want to thank Ricardo Canelas and Cristina for all the support.

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Douro’s region (Portugal), Nuno Vieira Matos, 2007 (gelatine silver print) – click to enlarge