Hello everyone, I am Gabriele Lopez and this is one of my few yearly newsletters to be in direct touch with a group of people.
We are in may now, I started to write something several times but I always ended up deleting everything just shortly after starting. Why?
It looked too much like talking about me, or better, I had nothing really relevant to say.
Silence is a gift in a noisy and crazy world, seeing the times we are living in.
By the way here we are, now. If you are here as a mistake, or bored, you will be able to unsubscribe at the bottom of the page. Of course I hope you will not.
Mario Giacomelli, MUFOCO
If you haven’t still done it and you are here in North Italy, there’s a really nice curated exhibition on Mario Giacomelli “questo ricordo lo vorrei raccontare” that really deserves a visit. The Mufoco is doing again a great service to the love of photography and the human aspect of Giacomelli is strongly present there. You can really feel, photography apart, the man behind the camera. Fear and sensibility, love and longing.
Photo ©Archivio Giacomelli
Really, if you have a chance, go there. He is always been important to me on many levels…
Workshop with Michael Ackerman. “Half-way”
We ended up succeeding in the organization of the workshop with Michael in Milan. I am so happy about this because it’s something we tried to plan years ago before things way bigger than us happened and everything got delayed.
13 people Joined, and it’s been intense and deep even more than expected. Now people will work on several assignments before our second meeting in October where the circle will be closed and a small publication will happen.
People met, unexpected connections happened…it just went great.
Several days after I discovered a podcast with Michael in a really interesting set of interviews that are hosted in this project that immediately took me back in those days… all this refreshed me many ideas on what photography can be and give you in life. Maybe it’s a resource for who will want to listen…
Old school web
Photo ©Machiel Botman
Some letters ago I was into Machiel Botman’s wonder on his works and just after I found this interview on a blog…other than interesting it became clear how Internet used to be an interesting place to learn and look at. Every page or website had a different character and mood. It’s not about complaining how the old used to be better since it’s obvious that things change but let’s think about how we see (or maybe we are among those) people that complain how much Instagram or any other Social media world is lame, every page looks the same, the algorithm and bla bla bla, but we keep going there…
Even Flickr shows the “groups” sections where last discussions are from years ago…it’s more about placing likes in different shapes: heart, star, smile, dick…whatever, but real communication is sadly left apart.
It used to be different, I made great connections on the web. It still happens, but really not as often. But a personal website and go back in using time differently is really crucial.
This picture is just one of the many Flickr groups where answers are dated in years since last one. Now mostly of communications are emoticons or not even.
SSF Festival 2024
Last year at the 2023 SSF Festival a friend asked me to show my “Skateout” zines from the ‘90s and this year we prepared a selection of some color slides from those years. If you are in Milan during this year edition there’s a chance to meet us there and see many others people’s work.
I went back to use my board more, it’s a fun model that’s something different from an usual board, something between a street board and a cruiser I have seen the first time under the feet of Tommy Guerrero in some video somewhere. There’s the Gonz brain behind this shape, as often happens with genial skate things…
Of course nowadays I am totally uninterested about tricks or whatever.
You never really forget it, it just hurts more when falling down. And I love to fall.
A friend that never fails in pointing me to interesting chances showed me this photography workshop chance. It looks really a good program for anyone that is interested in this kind of experience.
As for me the process of slowing down from the daily grind of the last year that I wrote and discussed with many of you (thanks) went deeper. Of course like every important thing does not come free, since stopping forced me to realise how much involved in many things I have been and how hysteric all this is.
I am slowly recovering from this photography business thing.
It will take time to be back open again and ready to feel, and to see and manage a new balance when attention or empathy is hard to find around.
As a result, I almost stopped taking new photos at the present moment, I prefer to work on printing and editing what it’s already done and focusing on other activities and projects that hopefully will become something real soon…but not immediately.
I will be 50 soon, not that bad. But I need a new direction that goes off from last years photocopy of working alone in a direction I lost interest for. We’ll see.
“We consume, as we produce, without any concrete relatedness to the objects with which we deal; We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.”
— Erich Fromm, “The Sane Society”
“My life has 3-4 major things on the list, everything else I'm relaxed and or indifferent about. Short lists are best.” — Hugh MacLeod
Let’s stay in touch!
Gabriele