by Grryo Community | Sep 23, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
I lived for a couple of weeks in the Cabanyal (El Cabañal), a neighbourhood and old fisherman’s village in the city of Valencia. Although the area is an historically protected neighbourhood, the coast is gradually being cemented over to drive a monstrously wide road through the middle of it. 1651 houses would be demolished. Some amazing buildings destroyed in the midst of political rubble.
Rita’s stripes where once there were houses; the plots have been walled up and painted with bands of brown and fawn.
Estate agents sell 60m2 flats at €25,000-30,000 in the Cabanyal area.
I was overwhelmed by the scenes in which I found myself. It was like a natural movie set. Sometimes I was part of the films talking to strangers in the streets, to the gypsies living in squats often with no running water, to the mother sitting on the side of the street with her child, to the pusher on the other side, to the young Romanians running happily through the streets pulling a bottle of soda around on string.
El Cabanyal has always had its problems, from the devastating fires of 1796 and 1875 to the cholera epidemic in the1860’s; from the Spanish Civil War to the major floods of 1957. I consider the stupidity of destroying the history contained in the neighborhood the worst epidemic that has occurred in the Cabanyal.
/ Mattia Giordano /
You can find Mattia on Instagram (@mattiagiordano) and Facebook.
(He doesn’t use any other social network. All photos were taken by mobile phone.)
/ www.mattiagiordano.com /
by Grryo Community | Sep 21, 2016 | Community, Stories, Susanne Maude
This article has been compiled by Jeff Kelley (@postaljeff) and Susanne Maude (@masusanne).
If you’ve been Vimpted, you know the feeling of holding a precious print in your hand, of experiencing this kind act from a fellow Instagrammer, a stranger. And if you haven’t been Vimpted yet, you’d sure love to be. Vimpt is a beautiful proof that art connects and that collaboration creates something unique.
The man behind Vimpt is Craig Austin from the UK. Every week Craig chooses nine Instagram images submitted to #vimptfreeprint, turns them into fine art prints in his dark room and sends them to the photographers. He does this all for free.
Not just thumbnails
Vimpt equals Very Important. “The name signals the importance of the images people are submitting and the importance of the print, that we should not forget the role of materiality within the digital.” Craig wants us to look at the images as physical objects and not just as thumbnails on our phones.
The idea for the project came after Craig taught Alternative Processes at the University of Westminster and collaborated with Jonathan Worth on Phonar Nation. Phonar Nation was a free online photography class, open to anyone in the world and run as a part of the Cities of Learning Initiative in the US. Craig produced free salt prints from smartphone pictures for the students to connect them to the historical, cultural and material contexts that are so often removed from the digital world.
The success of Phonar Nation led Craig to drop the same process into Instagram. He started the Vimpt account in November 2015 and has so far sent out 400 free prints. The project is growing fast; people from all over the world have submitted almost 20,000 images to Vimpt’s hastag.
“I have become part of a vast, engaged and creative photographic community that I didn’t know existed! The communities and individuals I’ve met through Vimpt are incredibly knowledgeable, driven, generous and gifted. I’m excited about where the project is going.”
Old school meets new technology
Craig uses historic processes such as Salt Print and Cyanotype, and combines them with digital technology and handmade paper to produce fine art interpretation of chosen images. “I use the title Alternative Processes for what I do as it helps to describe and give a broad context to this hybrid approach. The term itself is a subject of considerable debate, and there are a lot of different opinions about its meaning and what it covers.”
What interests Craig is how modern technology has made the historic processes more accessible. “A love of the physical print produced by these wonderful old processes and an excitement about how digital technology and social media are reinventing the cultural meaning of photography is one of the reasons I started Vimpt.”
What makes a good image
“There are a couple of things I look for when choosing an image”, Craig explains. If the image relies on a particular colour or if the image’s narrative is about colour, it won’t work as a monotone print. “It can become flat.” The same goes with images that are overly complicated or overworked with apps. “What a salt print adds can become a little lost.”
Craig looks for sharpness and details. “If it’s not sharp but looks like it should be sharp, or if the shot is a portrait and the face is in shadows without enough details, then it won’t work well as a monotone print.”
Yet there are exceptions. “Some images do fall outside this rough guide, and I know they will be difficult to print, but I do them anyway as they are such great shots.”
Craig tries to vary the style of chosen images, and he does not usually print images of drawings or paintings.
The Future of Vimpt
Vimpt is a self- funded project and free of charge for photographers. That makes it unique. Craig tells that photographers have requested purchasing prints, and he’s trying to set up a service that could at least supply prints for exhibitions, but Vimpt as such will always continue to give away free prints. Selling prints was never its goal.
However, Craig, who sometimes produces same images twice in order to replace the ones lost in the postal service, admits that Vimpt is approaching a time when he needs to raise funds to be able to keep making and giving away prints for free. He is planning to establish a donation page on the website. “But it’s difficult to know how to ask for money to continue something that is free.”
Craig himself takes mostly pictures of his loved ones. And no, he does not have any personal account other than Vimpt. “I don’t have much time outside Vimpt and my family, and I much prefer collaborating with other people, it’s more inspirational. For me, photography on social media is about conversations, collaborations and sharing information but in a beautiful and unique way.”
Because of Vimpt, Craig spends a lot of time online, and he is a huge fan of digital art. Yet he is an even bigger fan of physical print.
“Seeing Hiroshi Sugimoto’s prints or the work of Stephen Gill or Masao Yamamoto, or even leafing through a great photo book makes far more of an impression on me than seeing work on a screen.”
You can find out more about Vimpt, the photos of the chosen prints and videos by the happy recipients at www.vimpt.com and you can check out Vimpt on Instagram.
by Grryo Community | Sep 16, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
My name is Anuj Arora. I am a Delhi based contemporary photographer. I have been doing it for four years. It is not only a hobby for me; it’s more of a way out or a vent which helps me to connect with my surroundings. It keeps a part of me alive inside, like a new purpose of life. Basically, I try to capture moments through which I can describe a particular action.
Actions like daily people rushing in busy lanes, preparations for festivals or a religious activity; the human element adds more power to the frame. There’s a story in this picture. I waited for someone to come out. I waited for more than 15 minutes then suddenly, as I was leaving with an empty frame and lost hope, I heard “Mummy, going for tuitions!” She jumped and I clicked.
In the Shade
Before photography I was introvert; less open to people around me. But, after getting into photography more seriously, I became more open. Well, I had to because taking portraits without permission is hard for me. I can’t make candid frames. This picture was hard to take as this guy was already feeling irritated because of the saturation of photographers in the area. I had to convince him by cracking jokes and sharing information about each others’ lives.
Making motion frames is what I love doing in this field, like stopping time just for a second, so that a viewer can see and feel that particular moment where I get a moment which can never be re-written.
We are imprisoned in the realm of life; like a sailor on his tiny boat on an infinite ocean. Everyone can have their own opinion about the deep thought that the subject is thinking in this photo.
“Seas shore love” is what I call this one.
Hands of Blacksmith
This was a series I wanted to do for a long time, inspired by a French photographer. It was the harshest environment I’ve ever been in. No oxygen, I was breathing in the chemical air, then I asked this boy who just turned 12 to show me his hands. Then, I thought how this environment would be to them.
FLARE
Cold Sunrise at Red Fort, Delhi. One of the serene scenes is seen here during winters. It was the warmth that attracted me to this scene and the rays falling from the tomb. I waited for some people to stride by.
UPRIGHT
I followed this lady for at least 16 minutes in order to align her with the peak of the background. Rajasthan, India is full of color full frames and moody environments – you just need to look for them. Such frames are always lovely to shoot and create an analog mood as though shot straight from film.
MUFFLE
It was covert. I look for interesting subjects with unusual features like clothes, eyes and expressions. Most importantly, I wait and look for their gaze. When I get that perfect gaze, the shutter goes down from halfway.
BEAM
I saw the rays falling on the floor and the contrasting shadows, hiding from metro guards. It was a perfect moment. I was anxiously waiting for a person to move to a more desired position. It was indeed an ecstatic time-lapse.
So far through my journey as a photographer, I have seen a variation in my style. Every time I go to shoot, it gets more complicated because I see similar frames in the city. I try to make new compositions and change the angles of the same frame. That’s what keeps me going; the reason why I keep clicking. One day such a perfect frame will come and it will fulfill my destiny. But I don’t really want that moment to come so that I will still have a reason.
Lately, pursuing commercial work in photography has made me lose my street sense and spirit. I don’t want to do that for much longer, because it cannot be like that. It’s not just me. Everyone should give priority to the personal side of their photography. It can be any genre: street, abstract, portraits. Whatever makes you feel more comfortable and less pressured.
Anuj Arora is a contemporary photographer specialises in street portraits and travel based photography. A graduate from University of Delhi with a bachelor degree in commerce. He is pursuing a degree in 3D animation and motion graphics.
Find Anuj Arora on : Facebook | Instagram
by Grryo Community | Aug 31, 2016 | Anne Closuit Eisenhart, Still Life, Stories, You Are Grryo
“I should perhaps make it clear that in speaking of love of the past, what I really mean is love of life, for there is so much more of life in the past than in the present. The present is of necessity but a fleeting moment, even when the fullness of that moment makes it seem eternal. When one loves life, one loves the past, because the past is present insofar as it survives in human memory.”
― Marguerite Yourcenar
I have never had any grandparents other than in the first pages of the family album, right before my parents’ wedding photographs. Among the dated portraits from that gallery, there is one I know better than the others. It is the sepia picture of a young lady wearing a black velvet hat: my grandmother, who passed away when my father was 4 years old. He could only keep memories of her, indistinct as shadows, and never talked about the unfillable void her death had left. On my part, as far as I can remember, I have secretly carried inside me what I was fancying as his pain, certainly mixed with my own anxiety of losing my parents. I have questioned time and time again this photograph without a legend. And the album gets heavier and heavier with each time I put it back on the shelf.
It was my first contact with photography. It taught me, what would be for me, the essence of it. That a photograph is a guardian of memory, that it is the fabric on which one can embroider one’s own story, and yet that it is also a kind of lie, as it tells of a present that no more exists.
I have in me an artistic sensibility that was all along thwarted by ten clumsy fingers. Therefore, I worked to develop my artist’s eye by studying the history of art. I learned to recognize what I liked, as I could not create it. I intuitively integrated many compositional rules. But mainly I understood the importance of light; how light can ennoble everything, even the vulgar.
I photograph essentially still lifes and landscapes. Since the birth of my children, I hunt through flea markets looking for a patrimony I did not receive, but would like to pass on to them. I always bring back the same treasures: mildewed mirrors, bottles with the glass turning opaque, moth-eaten cuddly toys, shattered vases glued back together, old drawers. Simple objects with no particular style, that have survived over the years, bearing the signs that they were useful and that they were loved.
I never know in advance what my next photograph will be. I pick objects, a flower languid in a vase, and I nudge them into a relationship. I make them talk to each other. I place them a certain way and then another. I circle around. I wait for the right light. I try to create a tension or a harmony. I am not looking to establish a symbolic meaning, just a visual emotion that moves me and that maybe will touch somebody else as well.
It is the same thing when I photograph landscapes. I am not interested by the picturesque aspects. Most of the time they are familiar places and I have previously charged them with emotion. Excess details that merely distract are often erased by mist, by night, or by speed when taking pictures in the car. I wander and suddenly something calls me, something I can relate to, something I recognize. This is precisely what I try to capture in my photographs. And if that feeling is not present enough when I develop the pictures, I heighten or diminish the light, I play with contrasts, I add dust or scratch here and there, in order to find back my initial vision.
Surely my photographs speak about another time. A time that is not today. A time when one took one’s time. When one valued the sustainability of things. When the world didn’t feel so big.These are nostalgic photographs. Namely they are bearers of memory. Witnesses at the same time of permanence and of fragility.One does not escape one’s own story.
Anne Closuit Eisenhart is @lesfifoles on Instagram
Photographie et Mémoire – par Anne Closuit Eisenhart
“Quand on parle de l’amour du passé, il faut faire attention, c’est de l’amour de la vie qu’il s’agit; la vie est beaucoup plus au passé qu’au présent. Le présent est un moment trop court et cela même quand sa plénitude le fait paraitre éternel. Quand on aime la vie, on aime le passé parce que c’est le présent tel qu’il a survécu dans la mémoire humaine.” – Marguerite Yourcenar
Je n’ai jamais eu de grand-parents ailleurs que dans la première page de l’album familial, juste avant les photographies du mariage de mes parents. Dans cette galerie de portraits démodés, il en est un que je connais mieux que les autres. C’est l’image sépia d’une jeune femme avec un chapeau en velours noir : ma grand-mère, morte quand mon père avait quatre ans. Il n’en gardait comme mémoire que quelques ombres et ne mentionnait jamais le vide qu’elle avait laissé. Moi, d’aussi loin que je m’en souvienne, j’ai porté secrètement ce que je m’imaginais être sa souffrance avec sans doute aussi la peur de perdre mes parents. Cette photographie sans légende, je l’ai questionnée à maintes reprises. Et à chaque fois que je replaçais l’album sur l’étagère, il pesait un peu plus lourd.
Ce fut mon premier rapport avec la photographie et j’y ai appris l’essentiel. Qu’une photo est gardienne de mémoire, qu’elle est un tissu sur lequel chacun peut broder sa propre histoire et qu’elle ment aussi un peu car elle dit un présent qui n’existe plus.
J’ai en moi une sensibilité artistique que depuis toujours dix doigts malhabiles s’acharnent à contrarier. Alors je me suis faite un oeil en étudiant l’histoire de l’art. J’ai appris à reconnaître ce que j’aimais à défaut de pouvoir le créer. J’ai emmagasiné intuitivement certaines règles de composition. J’ai surtout compris l’importance de la lumière, comment elle peut tout anoblir, même le vulgaire.
Je photographie essentiellement des natures mortes et des paysages. Depuis la naissance de mes enfants, je parcours les brocantes à la recherche d’un patrimoine que je n’ai pas reçu et que je veux leur transmettre. Je rapporte toujours les mêmes trésors : des miroirs piqués, des bouteilles au verre devenant opaque, des peluches mitées, des vases recollés, de vieux tiroirs. Des objets simples, sans style particulier, qui ont survécu aux années et qui portent sur eux des signes qu’ils ont été utiles et qu’ils ont été aimés.
Je ne sais jamais à l’avance quelle photo je vais prendre. Je choisis un objet, une fleur qui traîne dans un vase et j’instaure entre eux une relation. Je les fait parler. Je les place, les déplace. Je tourne autour. J’attends la bonne lumière. J’essaie de créer une tension ou un accord. Je ne cherche pas à donner une dimension symbolique, juste à créer une émotion visuelle qui me touche et qui va peut-être toucher quelqu’un d’autre.
C’est la même chose quand je photographie des paysages. Le pittoresque ne m’intéresse pas. La plupart du temps ce sont des lieux qui me sont familiers et que j’ai déjà chargés d’émotions. Le surplus de détails qui distraient est souvent gommé par le brouillard ou alors par la vitesse quand je prends des photos en roulant. Je me promène et soudain il y a quelque chose qui m’appelle et fait écho en moi, quelque chose que je reconnais. Et c’est cela que j’essaie de photographier. Ensuite lors du développement, si ce sentiment initial n’est pas assez présent, je pousse certaines lumières, je joue avec les contrastes, j’ajoute quelques taches pour accentuer ma vision initiale.
Sans doute mes photographies parlent-elles d’un autre temps. D’un temps qui n’est pas aujourd’hui. D’un temps, où l’on prenait son temps. Quand on valorisait la durabilité des choses. Quand le monde n’était pas si grand.
Ce sont des photos nostalgiques. C’est à dire porteuses de mémoire. Témoins à la fois de permanence et de vulnérabilité.
On n’échappe pas à sa propre histoire.
by Grryo Community | Aug 22, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
U N E A S E
Collaboration between Clara de Bertodano and Caroline de Bertodano
Photography, whether selfies or self portraits on social media, especially Instagram, have become increasingly ‘intimate’ & ‘provocative’. But what is the effect on young children & teenagers between 10 and 19 years old?
By Clara de Bertodano (16yrs old)
“I hate myself, I hate my life and everyone in it. It seems as if I can never please everyone or even anyone, and just need someone to agree with me, approve of me, or just pretend they do. I despise my character and my looks, and my mind, body and soul seem to be united by a sole hatred, my own”
These are the (narrowed down) thoughts I think many teenage girls, such as myself, have to fight against. Each one of us has a different way to deal with them, which might be defined as depressive or just part of life itself, by suppressing them, ignoring them, trying to find solutions if we choose to call them problems or just accepting them and trying to modify them in order to feel well; the latter being the one I hope I apply in life.
Nevertheless, these thoughts can take over your life and even start controlling it. They can lead a person resorting to the Internet, in particular Instagram, just to get approval while hiding behind a screen, an ideal, imagery. They can start obsessing over the amount of followers, likes and comments they have and start basing their success in life on numbers.
Some “instagrammers” start showing their body, parts of it or a bit too much of it, seeking for attention and approval, without evaluating the cost and consequence that this might have on their lives. This could affect them physically because they may start searching for a perfect body that doesn’t exist and getting frustrated over it, and mentally because all they care about is what is shown through pictures, as if they described who they are.
Furthermore, although they might get positive and encouraging comments to pursue this “vocation”, in real life people won’t take them seriously, may consider them sluts or worse, and make their thoughts known. They might even get to an extreme point where they shut down the real world and lock themselves in a room with a screen in front of them, thinking that this will make them happy.
And it all comes down to that – doing what you think will make you happy. If it does then I say keep doing it, but I am absolutely convinced that showing your body to complete strangers and basing your happiness in life on numbers can’t possibly make anyone happy, at least not in the long run. The happiness that matters is the one you can share with your loved ones and cherish throughout your entire life, during the good times and the bad times.
“I feel like there’s so much freedom, that the limit has vanished. They no longer distinguish between defending a woman’s body and looking sexy.” – Camila, 17, Argentina
“I don’t think that the women that post those pictures are insecure, but I do think that they make other girls insecure. They show what a body should look like and make other girls unhappy about their own body because it might not live up to society’s expectations, and that’s where all the illnesses and food disorders come to life.” – Clara G., 16, France/Argentina
“Personally, I wouldn’t post those kind of pictures, but I believe that everyone owns their own body and Instagram account, and they can do whatever they want and post whatever they want. I find it wrong that people call these women “sluts” just because of a picture, because in that picture they don’t show who they actually are. And very often, when a person uploads those kind of pictures it’s because they’re missing things in their lives (love, attention, etc.), and the last thing we should do, is judge them” – Ines, 16, Argentina
“I think they need attention and they use their sexuality to get it, and in some way they want to improve their self esteem, “overpower” or feel superior to everyone else” – Dominga, 17, Chile
“I think everyone should be free to do whatever they feel like doing. Instagram being what it is you don’t have to follow people, if you don’t want to follow someone you just don’t… In my opinion, there’s no difference in a girl showing off her body or a mom showing her child or someone their house decoration, their holiday blablabla” – Camille, 22, France
“I think the amount of sex in media and stuff has spiraled so far out of control that loads of girls are becoming prostitutes to some extent, and what is deemed as appropriate is getting more and more inappropriate. It’s more sickening that girls are hurting themselves to be objects of physical pleasure rather than human beings.” – Louis, 16, UK
By Caroline de Bertodano
Photography on social media, especially Instagram, whether selfies or self portraits, has become more ‘intimate’ and ‘provocative‘. Women either doing repeated coquette player poses or doing full nudity on feeds alongside pictures of their children. Some men are beginning to do similar things. Whether for social reasons or so called art, it is increasing.
There is a lot of talk amongst kids between the ages of 12-25 years old about this. With a view that it is out of control on social media, especially Instagram, giving rise to anxiety, inadequacy and feeling pressurized. Many young children, especially girls, have started copying these poses and feeling the need to remove clothes in order to fit in.
It is now commonplace to see people walking around looking at their mobile phones. Many on social media. Every photo uploaded is viewed by countless strangers. Likes & comments have become approval ratings. It is a fake world that has been accepted as a transient reality.
However, these images are labelled by adults; children have not yet learned to categorize them accordingly. The NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) and the Children’s Commissioner commissioned a report on how pornography impacted on children between the ages of 11-16. Full report available www.nscpcc.org.uk “I wasnt sure it was normal to watch it” 2016.
In summary, explicit images are desensitizing young people. Most have been exposed to some by their early teenage years, many girls feeling under pressure to expose themselves and many boys treating the girls like the images or films that they see. Many young people themselves concerned.
“I feel like pictures can sometimes be exposing and girls can get a bad reputation, and girls are judged by what they post. Generally, if someone of any gender uploads something exposing I judge them, but it’s only when they have a bf or gf when I see it as wrong.” – Josh, 16, UK
“I think they’re ridiculous in thinking that those pictures make them prettier and get them actual real attention from other people”. – Gaston, 13, Argentina
“They should do whatever they want, it’s their life, if they want to expose themselves in that manner and it makes them happy, then it’s fine. Nevertheless, I pity them a bit because if they upload those pictures, they do it for everyone to see, even people that don’t know them and will therefore only see them as objects or bodies, and not as an actual person. The problem would appear, if they didn’t realize people saw them in that way.” – Tamara, 16, Argentina
“It’s porn” – Rhea, 17, Lebanon
“To be honest, I feel like it’s as if they didn’t have a personality of their own and needed to get attention. It’s a matter of insecurity” – Catalina, 15, Argentina
“I think everyone has the right to show whatever they want of their body, and there’s no reason to make someone feel bad about themselves for it. Then there’s the subject as to why they do it. If they’re looking to compete with other people, are insecure or need someone to tell them they’re pretty, then that might not be the best solution for the problems they’re having. But because that’s each person’s issue, I’m not going to judge anyone for posting a picture on Instagram.” – Antonia, 16, USA
Clara & I did our own small survey to find out for ourselves how opinions varied. Not a single person, both in images and quotes, turned down the opportunity to affect change on this subject. I am all for free will and an advocate of artistic license but I personally would hate to be the cause of young girls’ descent into dark emotions & behaviour. The question remains, is it for the individual or social media to take responsibility & offer some protection for the vulnerable? All identities have been protected.
© Caroline de Bertodano 2016 2 CdeB’s © Clara de Bertodano 2016
Caroline de Bertodano is a documentary & street photographer that believes in truth in all its forms and no labels. Trained in music and Art History & worked in Modern Art for 12 years. Became a photographer at 37 whilst living in Japan for 3 years. Raised a family. Her work is in collections worldwide. “There is a place I go behind a lens where I disappear. I have no real idea of how or what I do, I just know there is untold peace & courage in that space”
Find Caroline de Bertodano on Instagram | Facebook | Twitter | Eyeem | Google Plus | Steller
