Thursday 23 October 2008

$&LATE NIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY SESSION?|

I took some quick photos last night after working at SMART. It was already something after 1am I think, but I just needed to take pictures of this graffiti on the wall of this tunnel just behind the building where I live. I didn't care about lighing, angle, taking a good shot as I was tired and wanted to crawl into my bed. But I just needed to have it photographed. So I took my camera and shot these while sitting on my bike. Next time I will try and take some more interesting ones and some that are less shaky. :D



$!MR. LYNCH HAS BEEN MEDITATING FOR OVER 33 YEARS|}

Last night I had to work at SMART cinema and got to watch my first movie there for free. Because my colleague Carina didn't mind me leaving early as all movies were already playing and those would be the last ones for the day, instead of leaving I asked if it would be alright to watch the movie that was playing in the big cinema. She was alright with that, so therefore I ended up seeing this documentary about David Lynch, called Lynch, or Lynch (One) by blackANDwhite. I have to say I feel so cool showing the movie for the people and then getting to watch the movie myself. It's so fun to work at this place. I love this job. So what I learned from the documentary. Well, firstly, Mr. Lynch meditates. Funny. He loves visiting old factories. And started making photographs dogitally. I already knew he shot his last film Inland Empire digitally, so nothing new there, but stil it was nice to see some footage of him at the set of the film. I learned how he works with his actors like Laura Dern, how he directs. I love him for the fact that he´s very involved and does a lot of things himself. That's something I can really appreciate. I love artists who are really in control of their work. I once again realized how it has to be like working on a film set as an actor and how fun it is to act and really be able to be busy with it and get directions from the director you are working with. It´s really fun. Lynch is also a sound engineer and used this old gramophone player to get some freaky sounds. The guy loves France and celebrates the 14th of July, Bastille day. I guess there was more, but so far this is what I could remember right now of all the things I found out about the guy. I also loved his appreciation of a good photograph, it's nice to see someone so passionate about something. And of course his hair, so fun this guy must be.

&$CRUSHING YOUR MODELING DREAM<"

Probably people reading this will think go and get yourself busy with things that are really important, like the news, stuff going on in the world, instead of writing a post about the modeling industry. As I mentioned before, I don't know what took me so long, but just recently I really REALLY became aware of how close photography and film are connected. So because of that I've been looking at photos everyday and over the months I've seen a lot of pictures, mostly pictures that will appear in fashion magazines, 'cause I like pictures with people and I guess I prefer those over just scenery and landscapes. I guess I like the interaction between the model and the camera/photographer. It works two ways and it's nice to see how on a photo a person can be really captured well. I must say that seeing all those pictures from editorials or campaigns and seeing those models I sometimes, like I guess a lot of people, forget that those models appearing in those are just a small group of all the models walking around there. I know that, especially since Doutzen Kroes and all those TV programmes about modeling, with the one most well known being Tyra Bank's show, America's Next Top Model. And now almost every country has their own version. But what most girls don't know and probably aren't really aware of is that it's a tough business. If you're not a supermodel, if you don't make it big, you will be struggling paying your bills. Of course it takes a while before you get noticed and become a supermodel if you ever become one. But there are always exceptions, girls/boys who make it big really fast, because they happen to be really distinct from everyone else. As a model you don't have to be the prettiest, everyone out there is like this flawless beauty. It's either those people who are incredibly beautiful who rise to the top or those who have this distinct quality, which can be anything, big weird looking ears, an immaculate walk, a gap between the teeth, short hair, real long hair etc. You have to distinguish yourself from everyone else. Of course everyone is different, but there are some people who look just as nice as everyone else. I guess at a certain point you get this hierarchy kind of thing with at its lowest a standard beauty where all models can be grouped into, and everything higher being those who are exceptional, including those kind of distinct qualities I just mentioned. When a girl gets discovered on the street, in the mall, a scout walking up to them telling them they should try and model, because the scout sees potential, it's like a dream come true kind of thing for some of these girls. It's like, wow, I got 'discovered'. Someone saw me and offered me this great opportunity, I'm gonna be a star, I'm gonna make it big. I will be out there with Gisele, Naomi and everyone else. But wait, this discovery is only the beginning. It's just your access card. It means you made your way in. And then even still it depends on your agency. You will have to wait and see if big agencies in New York, Milan, those big fashion capitals will have you as their client as well. And from then on you will go over to that agency and start seeing all these people who are looking for people to book for fashion shows or clients for editorial spreads in magazines or campaigns. You won't be the only one, but will be together with all these other girls/boys. You have to present yourself the best way that you can. But a lot comes from just being lucky. The person seeing you must think, yes, she definitely has 'it'. Whatever that may be. But still though you have to be at the top of your game, especially for those runway shows. You can be a great mix of a Gisele and a Doutzen and be a stunning beauty, if you can't walk, they will count you out. If you can't present the clothes well, you won't be in. And then there are the expenses, the costs. Your rent, grocery shopping, things like a ticket for the metro. And apparently, the prints these models need to have for their book with all their pictures can be extremely expensive, like a 500 dollars expensive! So all that money just for some great quality photocopies. And then if you finally scored a photoshoot for a magazine with a well known photographer and earn a lot of money you won't see a penny, 'cause you still had to pay all those other people you had a debt with, which for a great part include the agency your working for at that moment, plus your mother agency, the agency which discovered you in the first place. You have to pay them as they are your promoters. You try to be the best model you can and try to win over the big clients to book you. So the agency makes sure you can go see those clients, and because of that you have to pay your agency as they will look for jobs for you. They make an appointment for you with a certain client. And then you have to try and land the job and when you do in return as a thank you you have to pay your agency with part of the money you earned with the job. 'Cause afterall, if it wasn'r for them you never got the job, saw those clients. If it wasn't for them you had not been scouted and was still in school, studying, or working as a waitress/waiter. So yes, when you make it big you can make it real big and have a huge career like Gisele, like Doutzen. But if you never get to that point, you will be struggling. Plus, the modeling life is lonely as for most of the models they will be in a huge city all by themselves while their friends and family are in this entire different country. Sure, you make some modeling friends, but it's still a tough job and not the same. I don't know why I felt like writing this warning to all those aspiring models out there, but I guess it's to show that over these months I've learned a lot about the whole industry, damnit! I know names of models, agencies, photographers. It's crazy. I almost feel like I know as much about the whole thing as about the movie industry. I kind of brainwashed myself reading about all this every day now, seeing all the pictures etc. And now of course there's the question, what to do with all this knowledge? Is there a reason why I adopted all this knowledge? I guess I have to wait and see. :)

Sunday 19 October 2008

+#WHO IS HEDI SLIMANE?"]

I didn't really know Mr. Slimane and still don't really, but I do know the photos he makes are great. Going through sites featuring lots of pictures from fashion photoshoots, his name was often mentioned making that I felt it necessary to find out a little bit more about this Hedi Slimane of whom I first thought was a woman! :) Turns out he's born in Paris to Brazilian parents and I believe apart from a photographer he's also a fashion designer of some sorts (I should check Wikipedia again to be really sure about all this). But one way or another I ended up on his official site where he posts a lot of images in this diary section, as well as images from some of his exhibitions. I must say I got excited mostly because he apparently shot some pictures of Mr. Van sant during the time of the production of his upcoming film with Sean Penn called Milk, which can be found on Slimane's site. Well, here are some of the great black and white images shot by Mr. Slimane. He's great in capturing youth.

P.S.: Smoking is bad, but it looks oh so cool. Hunger has a scene filled with smoke as well. Especially in cinema they make it look so beautiful. I love the smoke slowly making its way up, circling and eventually disappearing into air.












"}FURTADO + MORRISON = HIT SONG)_

I have completely fallen for this song called Broken Strings. It's a duet between the always lovely Nelly Furtado and James Morrison coming from Morrison's latest album Songs For You, Truths For Me. You would think it's a ballad, but it's very up-tempo and I can easily imagine this song being remixed into a club song. It's incredibly addictive and I wouln't be surprised if they end up releasing it as a single.


~*HUNGRY FOR HUNGER>"

I saw Hunger today, a film by Steve McQueen and winner of the Golden Camera (Camera D'Or) at Cannes earlier this year. First I wasn't all that interested to go and see it. But then they paid special attention to it on De Wereld Draait Door, that Dutch show I mentioned before, and knowing that it won the Golden Camera and reading about its great cinematography on this Oscar site called Awardsdaily, I became much more interested in seeing it. So today I went with my parents and I can say that it's definitely a must-see. At times though it can be a very tough film to watch. McQueen isn't afraid to show violence nor bloody imagery and at the end Michael Fassbender's starved body, the actor who plays Sands, makes for some very disturbing scenes. Seeing his body in this state, so fragile, you become much more aware of your own body, suddenly being afraid that your body might break as well. You're so into it that you come to completely identify with the body on screen through your own body. Fassbender's body, like that of Christian Bale in The Machinist, recalls those disturbing and eerie images of Holocaust prison camp workers. Hunger definitely is far from an easy film to watch, but even though some of the images can be disturbing at times because of what they show, it's how they are shown which makes the film a real triumph. I loved the use of camera angles, its close-ups, the long takes. It's a very artistic film which is due of course to McQueen's background as an artist making films which have been exhibited in art galleries. Hunger is his first feature length film. What I also loved was the way he introduced Sands. This film is about Bobby Sands and at the same time it isn't, or at least it isn't just about him. Other characters are given some good screen time as well. McQueen manages to, even though eventually putting much of the focus on Sands, give a much broader view, being able to really depict a sense of what all IRA prisoners were going through in the Maze prison. It's a very affective film, very realistic, and beautifully shot. Some of the compositions had me holding my breath for a moment and the film, mostly bleakly coloured, ends with some nice green images situated in the woods. The film really succeeds at every level and should be able to really reach a large audience.

Thursday 16 October 2008

*&FIRST NIGHT AT THE CINEMA>"

Just wanted to say that last Tuesday I was working at SMART cinema for the first time. Last week I helped out at the reception and had to close off their exhibition space, but this time I really got to be an usher. One film wouldn't play, though. It was already programmed in advance, but nothing happened. The film before that one worked fine, but this one didn't show. So the five people who attended were given back their money and received two free tickets. But it's so much fun to do. I didn't know that apart from going to the cinema myself I would really enjoy to let people in and present a film to them. It's so cool to be working at a cinema and have this feeling to be real part of it. My colleagues are nice as well. I worked together with this girl who is from Portugal, so again, speaking English. But it's fine. Got back from a job interview not too long ago to work at a call center and I got accepted so from Monday I will start working there as well. This time we'll do it for the money! :D

Monday 13 October 2008

^@PLEASANTLY SURPRISED">

There's this Dutch TV show called De Wereld Draait Door (The World Keeps On Turning) which is about all things newsworthy, like stuff going on in politics, media etc, etc. And last night my parents and I saw something funny on TV so my mum send them an e-mail hoping that they will check it out and show it. They always show clips from TV programs which viewers might have seen and which were funny and then they show them. So because my mum send them an e-mail I thought lets check out the website to see who's going to be on the show tonight. One of the name's was Sabrina Starke, a singer/songwriter who I wasn't familiar with, not until some minutes ago. I thought lets check her out and I must say I'm pleasantly surprised. She's from Rotterdam but sounds as if she came straight from the US. Her first single is called Do For Love and it's a really good song. Normally I don't really listen to soul/R&B stuff, even though I really like Jill Scott. But this girl she's real talented. This song can get her real far. And it makes me proud that she's from the same small country I'm from. After supermodel Doutzen Kroes and actress Carice Van Houten who will play Tom Cruise's wife in the upcoming Bryan Singer (The Usual Suspects, X-Men) film Valkyrie, we now have Sabrina Starke. Keep an eye out on her, she might be real big at the end of this year.

*#SLOWLY FALLING FOR DEATH CAB + MR. SMITH)(

I never really liked Deatch Cab For Cutie, at least, not until somewhere this past week. I just decided to play their album Transatlanticism again and all of a sudden I was like, hey I liked this song before. I guess I never paid too much attention. I just clicked on one of their videos on Last.fm just randomnly. So I guess I finally got to the point of really falling for them. Maybe I just didn't want to like them, because they're one of those bands that everybody seems to like, even the ones who normally don't really listen to this type of music, and I always found their name to sound a bit cheesy. Still I always was a bit surprised I never seemed really into their music, 'cause I do like The Postal Service which is a side project of Death Cab's lead singer and I definitely enjoy listening to his voice. But Transatlanticism, listen to that one, it's good. I don't know whether it's their best one or they have other records out that are even better, but I think it's a good one to start with.



Same can be said about Elliott Smith. I never understood what people found so amazing about his guy, but last week after seeing Paranoid Park again I went to search for his song Angeles, 'cause I did happen to like that one when I first saw the film at the Gulbenkian (good old times :)) and thus decided to look for it again. I accidentally then happened to download the wrong album that doesn't have that song on it, which is called XO. I did find the song eventually and I decided to keep that one album and started listening to it and I've played it a lot ever since. I like him now and I finally understand why everyone else before me already did.

P.S.: I just found out that one of the Death Cab For Cutie songs I really like isn't on the Transatlanticism album, but one one called We Have The Facts And We're Voting Yes. The song is called For What Reason.

Sunday 12 October 2008

"{THE MOURNING FOREST%^

It's playing at the Filmmuseum and I need to see it. These two film stills look very intriguing.


|"LIKE POLAROIDS(&




I took these last night just playing around with my camera and I don't know what I did exactly, or well, I put on the night-time portrait option, and then for some reason the photos I took started to look like Polaroids. Nope, there's no Photoshop involved in this! Landscapes can be nice to photograph I guess, buildings and stuff, but sometimes I feel they all kind of look the same, unless you get the chance to really shoot some interesting locations, or you just have a really good eye. But I like pictures with people in it, which is why I have been looking a lot at all these editorials kind of pictures which appear in fashion magazines or which are used for big billboards for famous brands. They always look very artistic which I like. Of course I have noone here at my place to photograph but myself, so here I am being my own model, trying all these different body poses and looks in my face. :) Crazy! Must say it's not easy doing all this when there's noone behind the camera and its just flashing away. 'Cause I have no idea what it looks like I'm doing, so all I can do is cross my fingers and hope the pictures turn out nice or at least interesting. But I think I managed pretty well. I like the colour, very crispy! I think I did pretty good for a beginner :D I'm a photographurrrrrrr!





Saturday 11 October 2008

(}PHOTOGRAPHY AND FILM><

This last week everytime I didn't know how to spend my time I started taking photographs. Last Saturday I received the Canon EOS 450D which I ordered, YUP, I bought one! Why save your money if you're not going to spend it? So spend it! That's exactly what I did. Or actually you have to look at it as an investment. Spending sounds like I just wasted it, burned my money, and I didn't. So ever since having my new camera I've been taking a lot of pictures of the most random things, just to practice and somehow I ended up taking this one of me, which I like. My eye seems slightly red and a bit swollen or puffy. It looks interesting to me.


Not too long ago I signed up to compete in this small film competition in my town which is organised by the best cinema in town (de Filmschuur!). The theme is 'free' and you're free to interpretate that theme in whatever way you want. Only rule is that it can't be longer than 5 minutes. I already know what my film will be about, It's all set and it's really me, but I need help! It's still a little bit early, we have officially started from Thursday. But I need to arrange everything myself. But basically all I need is a camera and two other people. A girl to play the girl and another person to hold the camera at those moments I have to appear on screen myself :) It's not much, but at the same time it is. I am getting msyelf pretty busy lately. But there's always so much I want to do and feel like I need to be doing. There are just way too many things you can do in this world!

P.S.: Cloud Cult are much cooler than I thought, also love M83 more and more! I'm talking music for everyone who didn't understand.

^\I'M GETTING MORE AND MORE CONFUSED~?

I feel that this is something that has been going on for months. It's all a mixture of photography and the use of things like photoshop, film and the whole digitalization etc. etc. I was supposed to work on university stuff, but I lost my focus. Right now, someone explain me please what exactly is the real exact difference between shooting a film on film or doing it digitally?! Or wait, I think I know very well what the difference is, I just don't seem to really know what the kind of camera is they use for most films. Here you will find a clip of the greatness that is mr. Gus Van Sant who apparently edited Elephant by hand! He's what you call a 'splicer', someone doing all the editing by cutting up the filmstock, instead of using all these editing software programs which exist for the computer. I found this clip at YouTube and one person replied by saying, I didn't know it was shot on film! But then I think, aren't all films, except for e.g. David Lynch's Inland Empire, shot on film? But then they just digitalize it to be able to cut? So I'm all confused, maybe I do know the difference and everything, but I still feel this is something I just can't truly get my head around. The photoshop thing in photography is another issue, something I'll one day bring to this blog as well. ;)

Friday 3 October 2008

)^NOBODY'S EVER READY FOR PARANOID PARK+=

I just watched it again for the second time. Wednesday I earned 20 euros with providing information to students about studying abroad and as a reward I bought myself the Paranoid Park DVD (!) which also features Mala Noche, which I still have to watch though. Seeing Paranoid for the second time I loved it even more, which I can't say 'bout all films. Every shot is just so refreshing and I love its pace. Van Sant just sucks you in into this mind of this kid and this guilt he caries round. It's both heavy and light at the same time. I could swim in it forever.