streetphotography
Zaar Riisberg // Streets of Aalborg
Bo Kenneth Sylvest Jakobsen // State of the World Visual Address // Two Blind, One Dead.
Caption on face mask reads: “Protect the weak”.
A few months ago I asked a bunch of people to produce or give me an example of how they saw this world right at this moment. Some replied, and the next few weeks, their offerings will be posted in an ongoing series.
The 7th one is by Bo Kenneth Sylvest Jakobsen. It is a provocative street art comment on COVID19. If you like this, do engage and leave a comment. We’d l ove to hear from you.
Caption on face mask reads: “I was lonely”.
The Newslarder #4
Edited mobile shot / random tunnel is Aarhus
First two contributions in State of the World Visual Address are out. Apparently, that has inspired others to jump in, so we might have an ongoing thing on our hands. That sounded almost dirty, if not oddly romantic too. There’s a possiblity that we might look into charity. Both me and MJS have a soft spot for youths in dire straits, so, why not?
We are still interested in contributors in general, but we are just not the kind of people to chase after you, beg you or kiss your ass. The idea of a collective and a synergy where we use each others circles to get further out without doing much SOME, is still a sound one. Too much art languishes in the dark because there is too little trust artists between. I am talking about artistry here - other photographers are still ‘a problem’, and unless you are a teacher leading students, I do not understand photo walks. But that is NOT to say artists cannot band together. They should - and we should be honest with each other. Way too many fence sitters concerned with ‘keeping up appearances’ ruin our chances of having a real, fruitful discourse. Just be fucking real instead of always trying to position yourself, or be something you are not.
That is my main grievance with people. Fly your flag, claim your divinity, but back it up with skills. Nobody wants to hear who your friends are, or that you had coffee with the 3rd cousin of Banksy in a London pub only three people know of. Seriously, cancel poser culture. And be interesting - not coy, not reserved, not arrogant etc. - interesting, suspenseful, confrontational, passionate, alive, awake, in love - be those things.
We will try and monetise this a bit, maybe for charity as well as the daily run of it. But there is still a lot of work to be done. I wish you all a nice weekend.
Remember to check the contributions for ‘State…’
Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // I am Special pt 1: Bland on the Run
I did some shots for a band my friend was playing in. Little did I know, that my friend was being fucked over by these twats. My friend is the most gifted guitarist I have ever met - a truly brilliant maverick musician. The band was doing old punk songs - in my opinion, something vastly below the skillset of my friend, but not the rest of the guys in the band - whom I really liked. Turned out they were doucebags. Small men as it were. I have met my share of them, trying to stab me in the back, sully my name in front of others, or just ganging up on you in a really vile manner. Why do the rest of us have to contend with other people’s insecurities?
Most shots were painstakingly done, initially run through Lightroom, Camera Raw, Photoshop and carefully finished with just the right offset - EACH AND EVERY SHOT. On top of this, I payed my own way at a one of their concerts and gave them the shots. Top dollar work, and the best pictures the band had - and they are still using them. It is good work, even though, it was pro bono or payed very little. Why? Because I work passionately for people I like and very professionally for people that pay. I value my personal integrity - after all, I have to live with myself.
So once again, people of mediocre talent are allowed to stifle those of real talent. This is a problem for this world - the envy of the truly bland. ‘I am special’ the individual seems to cry out. It always leaves me with a ‘prove it’ echoing through my brain. Instead, most will scale the body of others, until they reach the shoulders and then stand on them.
It is the same behaviour that made me hide, curtail my output or indeed control it a lot more. I have hated being an inspiration for others, and I have felt exasperated at times, when people more or less said ‘so inspirational, keep it coming’. Fuck you. I would rather not have an output than inspire people that never go out of the box themselves. The excitement for me is creation, exceeding boundaries - I want to look behind the veil, I want to be on the path to the palace of wisdom.
I do not know what path everyday farts like the ones that fucked over my friend are on. All I know is, that when the people of talent have had enough, everyone else is left up shit creek without a paddle but a ton of followers, either payed for or collected under false pretences. I am not even talking about ‘influencers’ - we all know they are a bunch of cock suckers - no, I am talking about people and artists of talent that chose to find a template for success, rather than being true to themselves and let the subconscious grab their aim and steer them in.
With this, I open the floor to others - past and present contributors or indeed readers - to enter this theme ‘I am Special’ - would you like to write part II or III? I have more instalments myself, but I do so love the yumminess of concerted and collaborated efforts.
Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // The Plastic Flower
Plastic flowers. What's left unsaid lingers. Untold memories of restraint and ambiguity with a dash of stupidity. The usual suspect everyone knows is never guilty. The character you toss aside. The man you all like, but do not understand. The divider, yet the leader you congregate around. The loser you bar from accepting his defeat. The lover of light and the bringer of darkness, the voice of the silent, the anger of the vocal - the calm AND the storm. It is time to rise again.
(text first published on FB)
Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // Easter Promises
Do not look for a fight with the enemy. Beg God for peace and security. But if you do end up facing the enemy, then show endurance, and remember that the gates of paradise lie in the shadow of the sword. - Muhammad
Does this sound like a religion that goes looking for a fight to you? It says what every other ideology has spouted, what every national state has imbued in their citizens. Protect your loved ones, seek peace and only fight if you must - and then reminded them that there is honor in defending those that cannot fend for themselves.
Suicide bombers are suicide bombers, terrorism is terrorism and radical is radical - they are not married to one ideology, and are, rather, just examples of how broken we are as a race. We just celebrated Easter, a Christian holiday for a man that Islam recognises as a prophet. So what is the problem really? Same as in what we have just seen in respect to the (former) conflict in Ireland. Some people just want to see the world burn. In Denmark we have an idiot wrapping the Quran in bacon and BBQ’ing it. You can have one guess as to how our media handles it. Exactly, it is all they talk about. A piece of shit provocateur with no following to speak of, but he gets a ton of media coverage.
So here is my message for Easter: pull you head out of media in general and make up your own damn mind - chances are, that you are smarter than journalists anyway. Sod media personalities, journalists and ‘celebs’ - do not let them define your outlook.
Truth is not out there - you have to take life from instance to instance in constant analysis.
Zaar Riisberg (Zaarchasm) // Puddles
I had been dumb enough to register a desk at this place called ‘Grisk’ to be in an environment with other creatives. Trouble with modern creatives is their greed and willingness to exploit others, even harvest them, for their own gain. Grisk was just another place with people that were less than genuine - and in the end, not very creative.
But this story is not about them. Grisk was close to where the homeless hung out, and in the months I was there, I saw things get progressively worse - and now we are even passing a law, so they can be removed from places so ‘good people’ do not have to look at them. This law would serve better if it stopped ‘event marketing’ in the streets - you know the assholes who stop you and want money for a cause or indeed wants you to change phone company or some other trivial crap, so a CEO somewhere can make more. Those, apparently, need to be here, as they are important to society.
One day when leaving Grisk, I checked out a reflection as I sometimes do. This time a fresh puddle of rain. As I experimented shortly with perspective and distance, I started getting looks - anyone that shoots street and abstract know what I am talking about. You will get people trying to see what you are seeing, looking at the same place or in the same direction - and they see nothing. Which always makes me chuckle. This is what I saw:
I hear a voice behind me ‘you should take a picture of me’ - I go ‘sure’ and turn around and click to see a rather surprised man. He was clearly homeless. He could not grasp why I was pointing the lens toward a puddle. I asked if all he saw was the puddle and not the reflections in it. He looked a bit befuddled, then smiled - I am sure he was not used to people reacting to him this way, which is just heartbreaking. Sometimes it is the simplest things that opens a whole new world for someone - and we need reflection - we need to reflect on why some people end up on the streets, why a lot are poor, why we let fat cat CEOs run away with it all and why we elect the people we do. Now, I, in all fairness, did not open a new world to this guy - but I interacted with him, I ‘saw’ and ‘heard’ him and I gave him a little bit of myself. I hope he gets off the streets.
…well, you kind of asked for it ;)
Both shots are unedited if memory serves. I normally have qualms about shooting the homeless or destitute. It seems invasive to me and as an empath, I do not find it very easy to depict people in squalor - because my brain screams ‘why’ at me. If you are not an empath, I do not know how to describe it to you.