25.4.12

Perjalanan & Perhentian

Perjalanan & Perhentian: Foto perjalanan Banten-Flores
Oleh: Tommas Titus


1. Jogja


6. Banten


15. Bali


Perjalanan dan Perhentian

Merenung Singkat Bersama Foto-foto Tommas Titus Kurniawan 

Hidup bisa dimaknai sebagai perjalanan. Dari awal sampai akhir, kita bergerak. Kadang, dalam perjalanan itu kita berhenti, seolah mengungkapkan naluri yang tertanam sedemikian dalam pada alam bawah sadar kita, bahwa kelak kita akan benar-benar berhenti. Perhentian-perhentian kecil dalam perjalanan hidup memberi kepada kita kesempatan untuk berefleksi guna memaknai perjalanan yang telah ditempuh dan meneguhkan hati untuk melanjutkan sisa perjalanan yang masih harus ditempuh. 

Kedengarannya, hidup sebagai perjalanan, juga perhentian-perhentian kecil yang mewarnainya sangatlah serius. Memang. Sebab, bukankah ini soal pemaknaan hidup dan dengan demikian sarat dengan rona eksistensial? Tapi perhentian-perhentian kecil dalam rangka refleksi tidak harus mengambil bentuk yang serius. Bisa juga santai.

Teman saya Mas Tommas senang jalan-jalan. Piknik. Mungkin itulah saat-saat baginya untuk melakukan perhentian kecil di tengah perjalanan hidup yang berliku dan panjang – dan melelahkan. Potret-potret keseharian, yang nampak biasa, dari para abdi dalem yang sedang mengaso (foto 2) sampai bocah kecil yang sedang memegang parang (foto 5). Ada juga foto komodo (foto 26-29), juga “sekadar” kaki bersandal di atas pasir putih (foto 47). Semua diambil dalam suasana yang santai, cerah, dan sumringah, yang dinikmatinya dari Banten sampai Flores. Tapi siapa bilang yang biasa, santai, cerah, dan sumringah di saat-saat perhentian kecil tidak memberikan makna apa-apa? Siapa bisa menyangka bahwa justru dalam suasana santai dan wajah cerah sumringah justru di situlah refleksi menjadi begitu hidup, karena mengafirmasi perjalanan yang telah dilalui bukan tanpa arti dan perjalanan yang masih harus ditempuh menjanjikan makna baru sehingga hari-hari ke depan lebih mempesona dan menggairahkan?

Lanjutkan perjalanan hidup Anda, Mas Tom, dengan menikmati setiap perhentian kecil di sepanjang jalan!

Temanmu,
Rudolfus Antonius

Padepokan, April 2012


27. Pulau Komodo


34. Pulau Rinca


41. Lombok


250 Foto Perjalanan Banten-Flores akan dibagikan Gratis di 5 Kota,
Semoga ini kota anda
Kendal, Bandung, Yogyakarta, Trenggalek & Denpasar., :)


Poster

Jump Philippe!!!

'Of the thousands of people, celebrated and unknown, who have sat before my camera, I am often asked who was the most difficult subject, or the easiest, or which picture is my favorite. This last question is like asking a mother which child she likes the most.'
(Philippe Halsman, 1906-1979)


 
Professor J. Robert Oppenheimer, 1958

Dali with three girls, 1949

 Philippe Halsman was born in Riga, Latvia and began his photographic career in Paris. In 1934 he opened a portrait studio in Montparnasse, where he photographed many well-known artists and writers -- including Andre Gide, Marc Chagall, Le Corbusier, and Andre Malraux, using an innovative twin-lens reflex camera that he designed himself.

Halsman began a thirty-seven year collaboration with Salvador Dali in 1941 which resulted in a stream of unusual “photographs of ideas,” including “Dali Atomicus” and the “Dali’s Mustache” series. In the early 1950s, Halsman began to ask his subjects to jump for his camera at the conclusion of each sitting. These uniquely witty and energetic images have become an important part of his photographic legacy.


Duke & Dutchess of Windsor, 1956

Edward Steichen, 1955

Richard Nixon, 1955

Jump was born in 1952, Halsman said, after an arduous session photographing the Ford automobile family to celebrate the company’s 50th anniversary. As he relaxed with a drink offered by Mrs. Edsel Ford, the photographer was shocked to hear himself asking one of the grandest of Grosse Pointe’s grande dames if she would jump for his camera. “With my high heels?” she asked. But she gave it a try, unshod—after which her daughter-in-law, Mrs. Henry Ford II, wanted to jump too.

For the next six years, Halsman ended his portrait sessions by asking sitters to jump. It is a tribute to his powers of persuasion that Richard Nixon, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Judge Learned Hand (in his mid-80s at the time) and other figures not known for spontaneity could be talked into rising to the challenge of…well, rising to the challenge. He called the resulting pictures his hobby, and in Philippe Halsman’s Jump Book, a collection published in 1959, he claimed in the mock-academic text that they were studies in “jumpology.”


Brigitte


 "Most people stiffen with self-consciousness when they pose for a photograph. Lighting and fine camera equipment are useless if the photographer cannot make them drop the mask, at least for a moment, so he can capture on his film their real, undistorted personality and character. "
 (Philippe Halsman, 1906-1979)



Philippe Halsman died in New York City on 25 June 1979.



Philippe Halsman

 

The Photography Post : JUMP with PHILIPPE !!!


22.4.12

Richard Avedon and His Portait

My portraits are more about me than they are about the people I photograph. 
Richard Avedon (1923-2004) 



Born in New York on 15 May 1923, Richard Avedon was in possession of a Kodak Box Brownie camera by the age of 12



Richard Avedon shot the Paris collections for almost 40 years, and was staff photographer for Vogue from 1966 until 1990


From the start of his career, Richard Avedon's name became synonymous with fashion as well as portraiture. He photographed everyone from Charlie Chaplin and Buster Keaton to Marilyn Monroe, Dorothy Parker and the Duchess of Windsor as well as a lot of "unknown" people. Known for bringing the fashion models of the day, including Suzy Parker and Sunny Harnett, to life, Richard Avedon injected a previously unseen vibrancy into the medium of fashion photography.


 He died in 2004 of a brain haemorrage.



Richard Avedon


Richard Avedon biography (Vogue.com UK)

 

THE RICHARD AVEDON FOUNDATION

 

10.4.12

Li Wei in Love

“I want to tell people that NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE,”
-Li Wei-

 
 
Love at the high place

 Arrow of love

Beyond Gravity 2

Love meets 15m

 
Li Wei is a contemporary artist from Beijing, China. His work often depicts him in apparently gravity-defying situations. His work is a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a sometimes dangerous reality. Li Wei states that these images are not computer montages and works with the help of props such as mirror, metal wires, scaffolding and acrobatics.


 
 Harness Li Wei

 
 Loss of impulse
 
 
Love at the ribbons


 "Whether photographer or performance artist is not important to me. The feeling and the thoughts of doing art are more important. And I’ll also do art between these two medias, too. After each live performance I’ll shoot a photograph for it."
 -Li Wei-



Artist Liwei

 

 

Li Wei (artist) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

50 Impossible and Amazing Action Art of Li Wei - Quertime