The fall Newsletter
Hello everyone, for the new subscribers (thanks for your interest) since the last one it's time for a little introduction...thanks everyone for any interest.
I am Gabriele Lopez and this is one of the few yearly newsletter I use to keep in touch with friends around and create some exchange opportunities. I hope this is something you love, if it’s so just enjoy and maybe send it to someone that could be interested, otherwise you can easily unsubscribe at the bottom of the page.
First time seeing this? you can subscribe for future letters here.
It passed a while since my last newsletter, more than usual, but there's no hurry...
A lot of work and new projects took away all the time.
If there's a project I really want to work on this year, is to manage time and priorities better.
It's been a busy year, but we all learn by mistakes...and we do what we can.
Books/Inspirations
During these months I had less time to shoot new things compared to the past, but I have worked more on looking at what was done, printing, experimenting, imagining new things.
Usually these moments lead to observing other people work for inspiration, in a kind of exchange or contaminations of ideas.
Two things captured me, the first is actually a re-discover. I got a missing book from Machiel Botman in my library (Heartbeat) and I am once again totally captured by that simple poetry in everyday life he gets.
It looks like beauty and deep importance is often closer than we think. His book opened up possibilities for me since the early photography days. I think I found Rainchild as one of the first books I loved deeply.
It brings me back to a more simple and direct approach of finding things outside my home door, or even inside rather than pretending to find them far from where you are.
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The second one is not photography. Is better than that actually :) Danijel Žeželj is a graphic novel artist that I happened to find in a library that was clearing out for retirement years ago. Stray dog was the accidentally found novel and...I was trapped. Only recently I got three new novels, which one is just something I can't stop to look at. I always said that I would have never touched a camera if I could draw like this, because I could have realised many of my visions, thing that I can only partially attempt to do with a camera.
Since I have always been attracted from the Japanese Provoke movement this perfectly matches, and it was the Stray dog title that got me that morning in a confusional forever closing library in Milano.
If you love novels hopefully you could discover something good, something new. For sure something beautiful.
It's crazy then how people background stories find way to connect and find each other, like an invisible thing that keep realities connected...
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Third one is not a book but an Exhibition (where a book will be present of course) by Max Vadukul that will happen in Milan at Gallerie d'Italia from September. I have never been into fashion photography, but I love projects made on the side of fashion photography. I started something years ago I hope I will finish one day, but never found the keys or contacts to finish it, we'll see...I think this exhibition may be an interesting project to look at, and it promises to be beautifully printed, thing that is not for granted today...
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Last one is another exhibition in Milan from FARNAZ DAMNABI: UNVEILED for those loving a more photojournalistic approach. I still have not been there but it looks like an interesting point of view on Iran daily life and women...
Broken Poems: Projects, possibilities.
During this last year, I have tried to work as consistent as I can on my red room space.
This included especially meeting people that had desires in their mind, in the form of a DIY publication.
Together with Paola and her project we decided to open the possibility of creating handmade/small editions of projects, or helping people in the process of doing so.
We partner with some local libraries and distribution places to sell them.
We like to think at it as a friendly micro-project that cal lead to create something .
The idea can be the chance to organise meetings with other photographers, too.
There are space(s) printers, darkroom, tables, walls. May these be used to create something?
We know it's not going to be easy but it may be good and interesting.
I have new things we just did to show, but not now, it's too soon still.
But if you are someway interested in this world you may consider to know more about.
Still about inspiration, this is something that inspires a common vision.
Summer
Summer has been refreshing for some weeks, I have found some time to go underwater again and just enjoy some quiet vacation time both sea and hiding for days with Alessia in some mountain areas...reading, taking time, looking, feeling wonderfully little in giant landscapes.
Just before this I took some days in Norway to visit a friend, so these moments together really added value to life.
The strange thing after all these recent years was to totally switch off any work communication. My inbox showed a line that suggested to leave a voice memo in my voice mail for real urgencies.
I just got some friendly greetings, so probably those are the only important things.
In the last years I was never completely off, I just kept an eye for an estimate to send, a client to please or work to finish, so I was constantly going home in my head several times each day, often interrupting the things we should value more, like talking with a friend we don't see often enough.
This time i really ignored all the requests.
I am nor rich or even comfortable with my finances to say this but I am aware I don't want a life I want to run away from constantly for examples with always new big destinations travels to fill emptiness. Small things may be as precious.
More work it may be seen as a positive thing: more money, more chances...but even more trouble, less time, more worries. It all goes back to the same old concept of balance.
I will be 50 soon, so the use of time (that always obsessed me) is a big priority now. So it will be probably a busy September, then some months with less pressure will come.
I'll better be aware and ready.
"The real difference between amateurs and pros in art tends to be the difference between independence and dependence. I'm more excited for the art created by the independent.
Neither side needs bashing".
Austin Kleon
See you around, G