by Grryo Community | Jul 7, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
Everyday I have to take the subway to go to work. During the travel period (approximately one hour), I have the opportunity to watch people who spend their time on the underground. Thousands of people, many differences between them: workers, students, children, elderly, girls, guys, policemen, homeless… any of them with their own approach, style or attitude, passing their time on the subway.
Sometimes for only a few seconds, and sometimes even for several minutes, we are obliged to wait for the arrival of the metro that brings us to the destination. Some wait, sitting, or some continue to walk back and forth to the quay. There is the person who is completely absorbed in his own thoughts; someone who reads a book or listens to music. Someone while waiting, is smoking a cigarette (even if it is forbidden). I am always intrigued by the attitude of the people. I like to take their expressions or their motion or their poses while waiting, with my iPhone. Of course I always do this secretly… it would be too embarrassing to explain the reason even though, I believe, maybe I just need a smile to remove any angry expression from the people who have been captured.
Some of them… so beautiful! I do not deny, I am sensitive to feminine beauty… Every day I cross beautiful women on the subway. I am always at the right distance but I like to think that by taking their portrait, capturing their image and editing with my smartphone, they can become part of my little magic world of mobile photography. Blondes, redheads, brunettes, skinny, tall, buxom, cheerful, sad, sentimental, fascinating, bewitching, provocative, grumpy… whatever their style or attitude, they are all to be portrayed.
They also are huge readers… … my daily one-hour journey to get to work allows me to sit comfortably and read a lot. There are so many people doing the same as me. Reading the email from their smartphones; the online newspapers on their tablet, paper books, or e-books on their readers. Many of them seem completely absorbed; some casual, others seem to be having fun. But perhaps, it highlights the fact that we are all lonely and instead of chatting together we isolate ourselves in our readings.
Often people appear thoughtful
Sometimes they look evanescent
They are complicit
…but not always!
but they are in love too…
it’s a community
time to go out… see you soon on the subway!
You can find Fabio on Instagram as @sikander63
by Grryo Community | Jun 21, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
I consider everything around me like cinema, novels or theatrical plays. Stories and scenes of life, trying to make sense in the world around me. Everyday poetry. My name is Efi Logginou. I am an actress.
I moved from Greece to Berlin over one year ago. I didn’t know the language nor the society. But I felt the need to come closer and to communicate. I always liked to photograph people, especially strangers, when they seem lost in their thoughts.
Germans have a very reserved attitude towards being photographed in public. Because of the colder climate, life unfolds more often inside coffee shops, stores, restaurants and bars; not outside on the streets. The light is more dim.
My photography changed. I started to take photos of people behind glass. Separated by glass, I could come closer to them and observe them at the same time. It is a transparent layer, like a screen, that is emitting a noise: the thoughts of the strangers.
Thoughts are painted on their faces. I don’t need spoken words to understand the expressions. The feelings are written there. Every day, I encounter these stories. Sometimes the moments are very brief, but to me, they can tell a whole life’s story.
A heart-broken young man; a woman contemplating; a lonely old man that might have lost his wife; a passenger daydreaming; a writer reflecting about his words.
The windows offer a setting to the narration of my photos. The reflections connect the silence of the thoughts with the vibrant life of the outside world. I only know from experience how to frame this kind of photo. I am not trained in photography.
Now, when I am travelling back to Greece, I realize that I continue to take photos of people behind the glass. Even though, in Greece, I could easily photograph strangers on the street, I am stuck on this topic. It has become something I enjoy every day; I am curious to see how people in my country appear in similar situations.
The sun is shining daily, the Greeks are definitely louder, and they don’t have as big an issue being photographed by strangers. I realized that street photography changes from country to country; because sunny countries often have street photographers that work with strong contrasts, colors and shadows. In more northern countries like Germany, the colors are more pale, and photographers tend to use black and white because it is easier to create a mood in low light situations.
Street photography is a challenge. Even more, with the changing light. When I frame one of the many scenes of everyday life, of the symphony of the metropolis, the photo can create a lightness of being. Like poetry. Everyday.
You can find me on Instagram as @efi_o or on Flickr
by Grryo Community | Jun 15, 2016 | Stories, You Are Grryo
To live in Varamin, Iran, enveloped by immensely polluted air, is to literally live in the midst of furnaces of fire. The poor and unemployed from different cities come to Varamin to work under horrendous working conditions inside the furnaces to make bricks. There are more than 40 of these brick kilns in the city, and in the past two years those desperate for work have immigrated to Varamin with their families to work in the kilns. Half of the workforce in furnaces are children and adolescents. Sixty four percent of the children are Afghan refugees. Pollution is more severe in these areas, as the dozens of furnaces burn in the city simultaneously. Many of the adult workers complain that their children are suffering from exposure to the pollution created in the furnaces. Despite these problems, the people all work and continue to live there. The majority of these Afghan children have lost their parents to war; killed or maimed from missile strikes. These children work in the brick kilns 11 hours a day, and they have to transport the clay bricks as well. Their walk is a distance of 7 kilometers, and they carry their bricks under the scorching sun in rugged terrain. These children rely on bread, potatoes and peas to sustain themselves to complete the extremely strenuous workload they endure day after day. These are the children of Varamin.
You can find Soheil on Instagram
by Grryo Community | Jun 12, 2016 | Stories
Russia has a special aesthetic, one which is uncommon, and I try to keep at least one element of this aesthetic in each of my works. My view of things is fragmentary; it’s that way with everything… from the ideas to the material, and so I have a lot of pictures that highlight just one fragment. It can be anything: a fragment of a person, or a house or a plant… even one piece of the whole; it generally interacts with another piece, and so this is the story already.
The story is not told in the sense of cause and effect, but rather in a metaphysical sense. I have always been attracted to street photography, because only the circumstances and events create the composition, and you just watch and collect fragments of these “stories” in the form of photographs. I don’t have a strict rule to shoot only using iPhone; it’s just that it’s always at hand and I have no prejudice against photos with poor quality if I’m fascinated with what has been captured. Most of my photos are the photos taken in Moscow, in the most ordinary places.
I love to walk (and this walk can reach 6 hours in a day). A walk cleans and refreshes the mind; in this state it is easy to pay attention to those little things that are not usually seen. Generally, the photography takes up most of my time even though it’s not my profession. I’m a make-up artist, which I think promotes the expansion of the sense of color and texture. However, the sense of composition: when you find out what surrounds you, and in those few seconds when you take a shot… those few seconds are very precise seconds for me, and that time is so alive! To shape that sense is what inspires me, and it could be from literature, painting (Rothko, Magritte, Manet) and the work of photographers (Bresson and Kertesz). I’m sure everyone has a favorite artist or a photographer that gives them something useful for sure, besides aesthetic pleasure.
While my work can be found only on Instagram, this space is enough for me at the moment. In the end, all I want to say is that communication with a camera becomes a sort of act of philosophizing, and this in turn makes our lives more full.
Find Victoria on Instagram
In Russian :
Привет,меня зовут Виктория и я из России! Россия имеет особую эстетику,которую не везде встретишь и я каждый раз пытаюсь уловить ,хотя бы , один элемент этой эстетики в своих работах. Моё видение вещей очень фрагментарно..так абсолютно всем,от идеи до материального ,поэтому у меня много фотографий которые выделяют какой-то один фрагмент. Это может быть все что угодно: фрагмент человека ,дома или растения..даже одна маленькая часть чего-то,как правило ,взаимодействует с другой частью ,а это уже история. История не в смысле причины и следствия ,а в более метафизическом смысле.
Меня всегда привлекала уличная фотография, потому что только обстоятельства и случай создают композицию ,а ты всего лишь наблюдаешь за этим и коллекционируешь эти истории посредствам фотографий. У меня нет принципиальной позиции снимать исключительно на IPhone, просто он всегда под рукой и у меня также нет предвзятого отношения к фотографиям с плохим качеством, если меня увлекает то, что там изображено..
большая часть моих фотографий сделаны в Москве в самых обычных местах. Я очень люблю прогуливаться пешком ( эта прогулка может достигать до 6 часов в день) Прогулка..она очищает и освежает мысли и в таком состоянии легко обратить внимание на те вещи ,которые обычно едва заметны. Вообще,говоря о себе ,скажу что фотография занимает большую часть мой жизни ,хотя это не моя профессия. Я гример( визажист) и скорее всего моя работа также расширяет моё чувство текстуры и цвета, а вот чувство композиции( то когда вы видите ,что вас окружает и за пару секунд понимаете – “вот это оно”) формировать мне помогают просто книги, картины( Ротко,Магритт, Мане) и просто работы фотографов( из любимых : Брессон и Кертеш).. Наверняка у каждого есть любимый художник или фотограф и он обязательно вам даст что-то полезное , помимо эстетического удовольствия.
Пока мои работы можно найти только в инстаграм, этого пространства мне достаточно на данный момент.. И напоследок я хочу сказать ,что коммуникация тебя и камеры становится, своего рода, актом философствования, а это в свою очередь делает наши жизни более наполненными..
by Grryo Community | Jun 9, 2016 | Stories
HTC10.
Looking at the stills I shot for the new HTC10, I realized that there was a lot of detail in the camera and wondered how that would translate to video, so I set out to challenge the camera in a multitude of places around the country.
The project started to grow and the images started to feel very personal. As a relatively quiet person there was just something about them that felt very private. They said just a little too much about me. As I started to string the images together, I realized, they started to tell the story of all the capabilities the HTC 10 has. Cloud based, music, speed, power and a sense of calm.
Taking the daring step, I realized the very personal route was the way to go, even if it’s a little scary. I asked my daughter to talk about the video. What she thinks is beautiful, what is nature to her, what she thinks about the world and how she feels about the phone. Every word is hers, I didn’t write any of it, but realized that I’ve thought the same things in my life.
Enjoy. Please feel free to comment and ask questions.
