Behind Blue Eyes

I have always thought that self-portrait is one of the most difficult art expressions to create. Nevertheless, here is one of mines. I made it a week ago, when we were shooting a promotional video with some friends of mine; I just thought I would try to do something with the light we set.
I do not know as much as I would like to about self-portrait nor portrait itself really. But I do think that you know that something is good when you take a look and you say: "this is it".

This is me.

Marcin, Girona, October 2009

But my dreams
They aren't as empty
As my conscience seems to be
I have hours, only lonely
My love is vengeance
That's never free
- "Behind Blue Eyes" Pete Townshend

Majorca

Another month of journeys. This time with Majorca as a destination. I has been three years since I had been there last time - and the first time, as a matter of fact. And it was a trip full of memories and deeper thoughts for me.
There are some places you see once and when you see them again, you feel like they aren't as you remembered them; that something is different; that you don't feel the same vibration as you felt in the past. And that is the kind of sensation I got from Majorca this time. It was like sitting in a café and seeing a beautiful girl that passes by: the whole situation happens in a blink of an eye, but yet, you will remember the girl for a long time. And one day, when she passes by again, she stops for a minute to talk to her friend, and you can take your time to watch her carefully - than you see that she isn't that pretty, that she is not your type.

Sant Salvador Sanctuary, Mallorca, September 2009

It brings a Baudelaire's poem to my mind.

A une passante


La rue assourdissante autour de moi hurlait.
Longue, mince, en grand deuil, douleur majestueuse,
Une femme passa, d'une main fastueuse
Soulevant, balançant le feston et l'ourlet ;

Agile et noble, avec sa jambe de statue.
Moi, je buvais, crispé comme un extravagant,
Dans son oeil, ciel livide où germe l'ouragan,
La douceur qui fascine et le plaisir qui tue.

Un éclair... puis la nuit ! - Fugitive beauté
Dont le regard m'a fait soudainement renaître,
Ne te verrai-je plus que dans l'éternité ?

Ailleurs, bien loin d'ici ! trop tard ! jamais peut-être !
Car j'ignore où tu fuis, tu ne sais où je vais,
Ô toi que j'eusse aimée, ô toi qui le savais !

Nevertheless, I had a really great time with myself there.

I dedicate this photo to Miquel, Maria Àngels and Joan.

Okupas

It has been a really long time since I've done some journalistic photographs. Last month I had an opportunity to work on the kind of photography I put beyond the others: a documentary one.

I met a homeless man. He lives on the streets because he is convinced to do so. A "revolutionist" - as he says - that chose this form of life, although his family didn't have to recur to it. He is an anarchist and so called "okupa": Spanish term to define people who occupy empty buildings against the law. During a long walk though Girona he showed me some of the places he used to live in and some empty buildings that could be occupied but they are not. As he explained, there are various obstacles for "okupas": the neighbors, the police, the robbers, to name a few.
On one hand, they act against the law - which, being anarchists, is not very strange. On the other, there are abandoned buildings that stayed untouched for years and that could be made a good use of by homeless; or any non-profit organization or association.

Bricked up door of one of the buildings in the city center. ("Long-live God")
Girona, 28th August 2009

Just to show-off a little bit, I have arrived to the finals and gained an "Honorable Mention" in International Photography Awards this year for the photograph I published in the first blog. Even if you cannot measure art's quality, it is always nice to know that someone appreciates what you are doing.

More news: this week we will be converting one room in our flat into a darkroom, so I am hoping to have some quality prints and exhibit them soon. Stay tuned for more news.

Zakopane

This is a special post. I decided to give up on the newsletter on my website and send one message every month about the new entry on this blog which will contain information about news from the website. So here it goes...

Zakopane, Poland, August 2009

Last week I was to Zakopane, the capital of Polish Tatra Mountains. It has been a really long time since I had been there.
I talked before about the travel photography so I am not going to repeat myself. I was trying to capture these landscapes in some other way. In some point - and you may say it is because I cannot make nature pictures - I decided to focus on geometry. I hope you enjoy the results.

Marcin Świostek Photography: Stories: Tatra

Omnipresent

Photography is omnipresent. It looks at us from every sidewalk, it hides behind every corner, it lurks from every newspaper... It attracts, it judges and it inquiets us. And it makes us lose our faith in it. It's like the air that we know of but we don't care about it. It's like God...

Girona, 2nd July 2009