by Grryo Community | May 18, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
After several years without taking pictures, I started to take pictures of the streets and people from my city. I have always been interested in street photography, but even if a lot of people tag me in this style, I don’t feel like a street photographer. I like to think that with the experience, I have reached an abstract world, without location or time, and what I like the most is to imagine the different stories that can hide in each photograph that I’ve taken.
Welcome to my world.
1- The King of Fools
For years, nobody has lived at the castle. Every resident, except one, the king, abandoned it leaving to its fate. Even so, every day at the same time, he goes out to the balcony to give a speech to a kingdom which tired of hearing him, which decided to leave the land, looking for another castle and a new king to hear.
2- Balcony
It’s been a long time that he has been looking out of the window, seeing people crossing… he waves, and when pedestrians look up, they only see a black figure, unrecognizable. They continue walking, ignoring the voice that calls them from the window.
3- The Cathedral
The Cathedral is full of windows.There, the people can do just one thing: wander around, lost in the long hallways, hoping that the light that shines through the windows can help them remember why they were spending so much time in a space in which they don’t even remember arriving.
4- Code Bar
At the break, every worker goes to the patio to smoke a cigarette. They don’t speak with each other; each one stays in a strategic place where they can’t bother one another. Surrounded by the bars that separate them from the exterior world: “a safe place”. Everybody thinks that.
5- Out of Frame
The paintings are there to be observed, but in my city, they are painted to be watched, you can’t keep your eyes off them, and in a small mistake, the figures run and jump off the paintings escaping to reality. As soon as they get out, it is too difficult to convince them to go back.
6- The Break Time
He is the best student in the school; in fact he is the only student left, since a long time ago. For him this is an advantage, the teachers pay extremely close attention to him; you even could say that he has become the favorite to everybody. Just one problem: play kicking ball by his own has its inconveniences.
7- Shy People
The people in my city are too shy, and to be recognized on the street is a primary concern. Lots of them, in order to avoid uncomfortable situations, have erased their faces, transforming them into simple shapes. Even so, there are moments when somebody recognizes them, and when they call them, they run quickly to the darkness, staying there until they are sure that those that recognized them left.
Farewell
Thanks to the people from Grryo Community for let me explain the stories that happened in my city of Barcelona. I hope you get as much enjoyment in reading them as I have in writing them. As you can see, my farewells are the same as my stories: short.
You can find me on Instagram as @serpiaka, or on my Facebook page as Sol y Sombra.
7 Historias cortas y una despedida, por Sergi García Gavaldà
Hola, mi nombre es Sergi G. Gavaldà y vivo en Barcelona. Tras muchos años sin hacer fotos empecé a fotografiar las calles y la gente de mi ciudad. Siempre me ha interesado la fotografía callejera, y aunque mucha gente me sitúa en este estilo, no me siento un fotógrafo de calle. Me gusta pensar que con el tiempo he creado un mundo abstracto, sin lugar ni tiempo, y lo que mas me gusta es imaginar las historias que se esconden detrás de cada fotografía que hago.
Bienvenidos a mi mundo:
1.- El rey de los locos: Hace tiempo que nadie habita el castillo. Todos sus habitantes, excepto uno, el rey, lo abandonaron dejándolo a su suerte. Aún así, cada día a la misma hora, sale al balcón para dar un discurso a un pueblo que, cansado de oirle, decidió marchar de las tierras en busca de un castillo y un rey nuevo al que escuchar.
2.- El balcón: Hace tiempo que esta asomado a la ventana, ve a la gente pasar, él los saluda y los viandantes al mirar hacia arriba lo uníco que ven es una figura negra, irreconocible, por lo que hacen ver que no lo han visto y siguen su rumbo ignorando la voz que desde la ventana les llama.
3.- La Catedral: La catedral esta llena de ventanales. Allí, la gente solo puede hacer una cosa, deambular perdidos por sus largos pasillos esperando que la luz que entra por sus ventanas, sea capaz de hacerles recordar por que llevan tanto tiempo andando en un sitio al que ni siquiera ellos mismos, saben como llegaron.
4.- Codigo de Barras: A la hora del descanso, todos los oficinistas bajan al patio central para hacer un cigarro. Allí no hablan entre si, cada uno se coloca en un lugar estratégico en el que apartarse de los demás. Rodeados por las rejas que les separa del mundo exterior. ¨Un lugar seguro¨ piensan todos.
5.- Out of frames: Los cuadros estan para ser observados, pero en el caso de mi ciudad, estan hechos para ser vigilados, no se les puede quitar el ojo de encima, en un pequeño descuido, las figuras corren y saltan del cuadro escapando hacia la realidad. Una vez fuera, cuesta mucho convencerles para que vuelvan a meterse dentro.
6.- La hora del patio: Es el mejor estudiante de todo el colegio, mejor dicho, es el único estudiante que queda desde hace mucho tiempo. Para él todo son ventajas, los profesores le prestan toda su atención, e incluso se podría decir que se ha convertido en el preferido de todos ellos. Solo hay un problema, jugar al kiking ball solo, tiene sus inconvenientes.
7.- Gente tímida: La gente en mi ciudad es bastante tímida e ir por la calle y que se les reconozcan es una de sus principales preocupaciones. Muchos de ellos, con el fin de evitar situaciones indeseadas, han llegado a borrarse el rostro, convirtiendose en simples siluetas. Aún así, hay veces en las que alguien les reconoce, y al llamarles, corren rapido hacia la oscuridad de donde no salen hasta estar seguros de que quien les ha reconocido se ha ido.
Muchas gracias a la gente de Grryo Community por dejarme explicar las historias que suceden en mi ciudad. Espero hayais disfrutado leyendolas igual que yo explicandolas. Como veis, mis despedidas son igual que mis historias, cortas.
Me podeis encontrar en Instagram como @serpiaka, o en mi pagina de facebook Sol y sombra.
by Grryo Community | May 3, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
This fictional piece is Bill Draheim’s second guest article for Grryo. You can read the first one here.
Forgiveness
When I saw it was Boris walking the median—that big loping stride, the buzzed head with the white scar at the heel of his skull—I pulled over. The Interstate this far away from town isn’t much, just two long lanes with rapeseed fields at either side, so he would have been safe if I’d let him be, but who drives by an old friend?
He said he would be glad of a ride, and I figured he couldn’t do me any harm anymore, so in he got and then it was the two of us like in the old days.
Boris looked toe up, worse than a beaten dog. He seemed to get worse every time I saw him. Dirt spattered his clothes. Flecks of glinting grit on his shoes. I didn’t ask where he was going or where he’d come from—a man is entitled to his privacy, as far as I’m concerned—and there wasn’t much to say that hadn’t been said before, so we rode in silence. Words would have just trod on the glory outside anyhow. It was that time of day when everything goes quiet and the light falls soft and slanted on the land.
Boris leaned his head back, eyes half open. After he sat like that for some time, I figured he must have fallen asleep. Though I always remembered him as a snorer. And here he weren’t snoring at all, though he seemed peaceful enough, for Boris.
I hadn’t finished what I’d set out to do that morning, so when we came to the little Lutheran church at the edge of town, I rolled the car under the white Ash and there we sat as the last light crept across the fields until only the bell-tower was lit.
“I’m gonna stretch my legs,” I said, in case he was awake. He had a way of doing that: playing possum. Sure enough, he nodded.
But I didn’t get out, not yet. The bough overhead cast a finger of shadow on the hood of the car. I watched as it waved, as though it were saying goodbye.
Boris lolled his head, gave me that evil eye of his: “I’ll stay in the car if that’s alright with you.”
“Yeah, sure,” I said. “I might be a minute. Gotta check out the church.” When he didn’t say anything, I said: “I could use a hand.”
“Church got nothing to do with me, nor me with it.”
Well, that was a hell of a thing to say. Boris was infamous in those parts for a number of reasons, but I was no angel either. “Fine. Then watch the fucking road.”
He laughed, “You really gonna case it out? A church?” As if that was the worst thing someone could do. “Forget it. I got some thinking I need to do.”
“Thinking!” That tore it. “What the hell you talking about, Boris?”
“That’s why I was out walking in the first place.”
“Then why’d you jump in?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. Instead he rolled his big head front and center and closed his eyes. Soon he was asleep, or thereabouts.
I slammed the door as I left.
The sun was dead and gone. It’s amazing how quick it goes down in the end, as if the horizon’s grease and the sun, an egg rolling off it.
I climbed the steps and checked the door. What were these Podunks thinking, leaving the church open on a Wednesday night? Maybe someone was inside, a lonely old biddy praying in a pew. Maybe the Pastor himself. I knew he sometimes stayed late, to tidy up his meager things. I hoped to hell he wasn’t here. That would be all I needed, running into him and having to explain myself, why I was hanging around.
A wind blew. The leaves of the Ash tree stirred. I turned at the sound. Through the rear window I could see the back of Boris’ head, nodding back and forth. Thinking.
I remembered the salt-colored granules he had on his boots. It was Muscovite. I tried to think where it could have come from, the flats by his old house maybe? If he had gone there, it could only be for one reason but there was nothing to see, not anymore. Her folks had buried her in another part of the county, far from where he’d laid her down. Boris himself had been left where he lay. No one would touch him.
What the hell, I thought, let’s take a look, but the church was silent and empty and as usual, there was nothing worth stealing. But I figured I’d come back next week. Probably the week after that, too, just in case.
When I returned to the car, Boris was already gone. He would be heading back to his old house right about now, thinking about what he’d done, fading with each step, like how light fades at the end of day.
Bill Draheim inconspicuously documents the world around him using unassuming acquired vessels. It’s not the tool it’s the artist…
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William Gosline is a fiction writer, blogger and occasional screenwriter. He is pursuing an MFA in writing from Pacific University. He lives and works in Honolulu, Hi.
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by Grryo Community | Apr 26, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
My name is John Crawford, I live in New Zealand and am honoured to be invited to share my work with the Grryo community.
I would like to start my story back in the early 1980’s in the film days when everything seemed so simple, uncomplicated and straight forward. I began a personal project called ‘Aerial Nudes’. As a commercial photographer I spent hours flying from shoot to shoot in Helicopters. The vibrations and incredible rotor noise would send me into a trance like state of semi consciousness where I was able to block out all sounds, and look through the perspex floor and have a perfect birds eye view. Looking down without the distraction of horizon lines all shapes and patterns in the landscape became linear – clean and strikingly abstract with little sense of scale, and the thought came to me : plop a strategically placed nude within any of these graphic terrains, and bingo – there was the reference point for scale (a reference that also emphasised the point that we infinitesimal human beings so often totally screw our environment without regard for consequences) In those moments my Aerial Nude project was born. Between 1981 and 1986 I completed a series of 18 images. All were shot on 35mm colour negative, from a helicopter from about 1000 feet. Each image was meticulously planned and propped before jumping in the chopper. No post cropping or photoshop was used. I didn’t own a computer, everything was created in camera.
Now on to the present time and my beautiful obsession with smartphone photography which kicked off with the first iPhone in 2007. At present all of my personal work is created on the iPhone. Late last year I completed two large budget commissioned corporate projects on my iPhone 6s. Everything is easy again. Using a variety of cleverly designed in phone apps (particularly Hipstamatic and Snapseed) I can create a better range of different but still believable effects than I can in photoshop on my mac. On average I shoot twenty thousand images a year on my phone. I always shoot square, which is refreshing after years of composing in a rectangle, and brings different compositional dynamics into play. Shooting in this format has reignited my passion for shooting images, it’s difficult to not be inspired or be creative and challenged. There’s a beautiful visual feast in front of our eyes 24/7 if we disregard the noise and nonsense and clutter of life around us. Street photography has been reinvented. Approaching people on the streets, whether they be homeless, pretty, weird or whatever, is much simpler when all that is between your eye and the subject is a 7.1mm thick piece of reasonably unobtrusive high technology rather than an expensive looking SLR and an array of more expensive looking lenses in an expensive branded camera bag. I dress down when shooting on the streets. My strike rate is about 95%, and it’s exciting and rewarding taking time out to roam looking for interesting characters to shoot, either on the spot or ask them to shift to somewhere close by with a cleaner or more dynamic background. It’s a wonderful way of seemingly wasting time and nurturing the soul.
Social media today has made it easy accessing a wealth of outstanding images that are being created daily around the world, Instagram in particular, used by 75 million people each day! I’m a self confessed IG addict, posting my favourite image most days and following 300 like minded photographers, many of whom are absolutely inspirational. It’s like a close knit family of creative souls sharing personal visions. I personally photograph pretty much anything that moves; people, animals, and landscape. I subconsciously look for symmetry of composition when I shoot.
Check out my other works on Instagram (@jonniecraw) and the web (www.johncrawford.co.nz)
Here is a selection of my recent iPhone images, each with a small story. (click the photo to see full size)
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Selfies are a strange concept, hanging over the edge of my kitchen table upside down with iPhone gaff taped to shoe box with 30 second timer on.
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The little bird was tiny and timid but seemed to trust me. Passers by seemed it strange that I lay on the road talking to a sparrow. Stranger things have happened.
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The house was old and decayed and Oscar saw his half brother in the bathroom mirror.
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As a young pup Zooey quickly found what it was like to be a dog when Ricky went for a surf.
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Dogs always look bigger from pavement level.
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She had beautiful long lily white legs.
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Sometimes you find a spot and wait for someone to walk by. Often it doesn’t happen.
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Ruben loves ink and is passionate about the art of tattooing. I ran into him next to the pub. Quietly spoken and modest he had no problem letting me photograph him a month later.
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Josh was proud of his tattoos but not too keen on being photographed at the supermarket where I saw him by the checkout. His girl friend though talked him into it saying ‘isn’t he just beautiful’.
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57 year old Samual doesn’t suffer fools lightly, he’s spent a few years in the can for gang related trouble but all good now. Under the facade of early Black Power tattoos which cover most of his body and face is an academic side, he is a bachelor of Maori studies with honors. I met him in down town Auckland.
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Dion loves horses, all his family from Te Kaha were bought up riding bareback … to school, to the beach, and later in life to the pub.
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the badge tells the story
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Garth is 101 years old and his wife Nan 95. They’ve been married 74 years, have three daughters, 25 great grand children, and still live in their own house. Nen (bless her) drives the car almost every day, and each evening they sit together and drink a straight gin with just a touch of water. They are a beautiful couple, both remarkably sprightly and on to it.
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Bruce loves fishing and takes it very seriously
by Grryo Community | Apr 21, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
Instagram can be a curious thing. I’ve found it can be alienating as much as it can connect, harsh and unwelcoming as much as warm and embracing. I’m still not very adept with it, still cannot get my head around it and I always feel I’m a latecomer – it took me a year just to realise what hashtags were used for, another 6 months to somewhat grasp communities of Instagram, and yet another few months to register that if somebody who is not on your contact list sends you a private message, the little orange icon will not show up. (I have never changed the settings either). Well, incidentally I pressed the inbox icon for no reason and I’m glad I did – there was a message from someone. He called himself Jazz Devil. “Hello my name’s Barry I’m a music guy and I wear hats” he said “I like your work – would you shoot me in your street/portrait style”?
Well I have to say his name rang a bell – it really did – I just could not put my finger on where I heard about him – but hey ho – hail almighty Google and Wikipedia. I must admit, since my days now mostly consist of changing nappies, wiping noses, school runs, photographing my kids (and an occasional creative selfie) – I was rather excited – not everyday you get to meet a celebrity (although I prefer the word artist) of such calibre. Let me briefly tell you who Barry Adamson is – a prominent English musician – active in the music and movie industry since 1977 – working with artists like Buzzcocks, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, just to name but a few. Contributing to many soundtracks, among which are The Lost Highway, Natural Born Killers and The Beach.
And so we met – in a coffee shop in Brick Lane – him looking cool and dapper and me with my old camera and admittedly quite shaky hands, after all – the guy has closely worked with David Lynch – who is my all time favourite movie director.
I would love to say that we spent the whole day shooting, trying different locations, moods etc, but the whole thing merely took maybe less than an hour: after exchanging some niceties, a half drunk cup of decaf coffee (I was shaky enough without a boost of caffeine) and discovering mutual love/hate for some photographers – I just started shooting him – he laughed and said: oh you’re quick… straight to work, let me put my sunglasses on – he wouldn’t be photographed without them – his trademark.
It was a very dull and overcast day, and being inside a dark cafe did not help either, since there was no flash involved. In my frenzy, and on autopilot, I suddenly had a sort of tiny Eureka moment – I jumped outside in mid sentence uttering “stay here!” oh, rather rude I know – I really really have bad people skills (leaving Mr. Adamson rather perplexed) and started shooting him from the outside in window reflections. He realised what was going on and started posing. Good. He was a lovely man and a fine gentleman -if he thought I was a tiny bit weird and scatty, he absolutely didn’t show it.
You know how it goes, we’ve all been there – you take a hundred photos and you come home and you realise that only maybe 3 (if you’re lucky) out of a hundred are any good. Luckily Mr. Adamson was pleased with a handful of shots, of which a few of them were “killer” in his own words. Ah, such a relief I tell you! What a lovely albeit short experience, these things do boost your confidence in many ways.
So there – that was that – and now – back to the nappy changing duties. Thank you for reading…
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All images © Jonė Reed
by Grryo Community | Apr 14, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
Photos by Nicolas Petit / Words by Gabriella Zanzanaini
There are old men with birdcages and women in pleather trousers with poodles; children asleep over their homework on a temporary table set up streetside as a night tram trundles by, the neighbourhoods still alive with the breath of the night.
There is chaos to Hong Kong’s order and harmony in the clutter that fills its pavements, the steaming baskets of food, the heavy rolls of animal print fabric rushing by on a trolley, the pile of green vegetables on sale for ten dollars a kilo. The trolleys race around throughout the day, pushed by strong young men, fragile old women, sat on by children. A city that is constantly in movement, from its secluded South China Sea bays, to its dense cigarette chimney buildings. Its people negotiating their way through thick traffic and empty alleyways, through busy restaurants and quiet home cooking, through horse races and Louis Vuitton shops. There is time to lie down and look into the eyes of a lover, to lie down by the pool and soak in the sun, to flip around on a skateboard, to smoke an old bamboo pipe. When it is quiet, the light in the temple shines through for the meditative soul, or the sun lights up a makeshift bench just in time for the music listener dozing off under his hat.
A game of Chinese chess or Mark Six lottery, this city’s people are ready to gamble, to gamble away the chance that nowhere is better than here.
There is a name for those who have chosen this place as home. The Hong Kongers.
My name is Nicolas Petit and I am a freelance photographer currently based in Hong Kong. The above text was written by Gabriella Zanzanaini.
The HongKongers Project aims to go beyond Hong Kong’s skyline and tell a contemporary tale of the city through its people. All photos here were shot between October 2015 and March 2016.
Find Nicolas on :
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