Victoria
You know how I love rocks, so you’ll know why I love with this amazing photo of
Victoria.
You are browsing the Blog for Photography Archives - Page 8 of 13 - Marja-Leena Rathje.
by Marja-Leena by Marja-Leena Burtynsky in Vancouver
Image on invitation: Edward Burtyntsky: Recycling No.20. Cankun Aluminum. Xaimen City, Fujian Province, China 2005. Chromagenic print, 58″ x 68″. Courtesy of Charles Cowles Gallery, NY.
I’m really looking forward to seeing the photographic works of acclaimed Canadian photographer Edward Burtyntsky right here in the Vancouver area. His exhibition ‘The China Series’ has been up for a while and runs until November 5th at Presentation House Gallery in North Vancouver. The artist will be in attendance at the reception Tuesday, October 10, 7 pm at the gallery.
Edward Burtyntsky will also be at the screening of the documentary ‘Manufactured Landscapes’ at the Vancouver International Film Festival.. Directed by Jennifer Baichwal, it follows the photographer as he travels the globe shooting landscapes transformed through commercial recycling, manufacturing and industry. That’s on Wednesday, October 11, 9:15 pm and on Thursday, October 12, 11:30 am at Empire Granville Theatre Cinemas #3.
Do read the exhibition statement at the Presentation House site and visit Edward Burtyntsky’s very informative website. Of course he’s been written about a great deal in the past few years, including in this blog. CBC recently wrote about the film, and so did Zeke.
P.S. I almost forgot, Gordon Coale wrote a review of the book Burtyntsky-China.
by Marja-Leena September 1st
Hey, it’s September 1st already! For much of my life it has represented a beginning of a new year, as a child going to school, then as a university student. Later I went to school as a teacher for a few years. Later still, as a parent I helped my children set off each new September with the same hopes and a little fear. I still think of this feeling every September and, of course, it feels like a fresh new beginning for me as I start planning to head back to the printmaking studio next week after the summer hiatus.
A while ago I wrote about the changing light of the season, and of course we are rapidly progressing towards the fall (or spring, depending where you are) equinox to come later this month. So it was timely for me to capture some images of morning light and evening shadows to share in this week’s Finnish Photo Thursday, the theme being Light or Valo.
Another bloggers’ sharing event, Festival of the Trees #3 is now up at Burning Silo. Bev, this month’s hostess, is a fabulous nature photographer and naturalist living in eastern Ontario, Canada, so do visit the rest of her fascinating blog while you are there.
Here at home, I’m busy getting ready for some visitors (family) from Idaho who are actually on their way home from a summer in Alaska. Posting may be light over the coming week. It’s also the start of the Labour Day long weekend, so have a good one!
by Marja-Leena Modern Finnish Ruins
Photo: Air raid shelter of Rettig, Turku, Finland – Tuomas Romu
Abandoned buildings, derelict factories filled with incredible old machines sitting alone in the dark halls with their power turned off for good, or nearly collapsed sawmills rotting silently away in the forest, being reclaimed by nature are the best, most authentic and interactive museums of industrial archaeology and local history.
For several years I have searched, explored and photographed these ruins of the modern world, the slow deterioration and decay of forgotten space. This site is a collection of information and photographs of such places.
These are not the scenes of the beautiful Finland I know. Each black and white photo of a ruin in Tuomas Romu’s gallery opens to a series of more exploratory photographs in colour. These gorgeous photos find beauty even in dying buildings and abandoned mines, even in their eeriness.
(Thanks to Finland for Thought for the link.)
by Marja-Leena that tree
Here on the south west corner of British Columbia, we are blessed with mild wet winters which in turn means we are blessed with enormous trees. The air is washed clean by the rains and filtered by the trees themselves. I’m amazed that the city’s pollution actually makes the trees grow bigger.
We’ve had a long love-hate relationship with this enormous tree in the front of our yard. We love its cooling shade on hot summer mornings, the privacy from neighbours across the street, and its prickly and tough character. We don’t know if it’s a cedar or a cypress, never having been able to clearly identify it. When it’s a young tree it has attractive thick branches of grey-green prickly needles. When it gets older like this one, the inner needles dry up at summer’s end into masses of rust coloured patches ready to break up on windy days for months after. Constant messes in the yard, deck, flowerbeds and eavestroughs keep us busier than we like sometimes. Immense roots are surfacing in the lawn and cracking the restraining wall by the driveway – reasons for the hate part of our relationship.
But we do love the summer morning sun filtering through the branches, thinned out to give us some view. It’s haven and battleground for lively squirrels, crows and bluejays. That tree and we continue to live with each other like some grouchy elders in an uneasy kind of peace.
(This is my submission for the Third Festival of the Trees. Go check it out and consider joining in.)
by Marja-Leena visitors
Things have been quiet here in blogistan lately while we’ve been busy with visitors. We’ve had a really heartwarming reunion with friends whom we haven’t seen in over 30 years. Naturally we’ve been showing them around our beautiful city. The weather has been perfect, sunny and not too hot. Here are just a few photos from the past few days.
Above is a sculpture ENGAGEMENT RINGS by DENNIS OPPENHEIMER, one of the installations of the Vancouver Sculpture Biennale. It was a pleasant surprise to come across this as we walked along the Stanley Park seawall by English Bay. (Note the tree growing on top of the highrise apartment!)
Our friends, being Japanese-Canadians, particularly enjoyed the Nitobe Memorial Garden, a traditional Japanese garden located at the University of British Columbia. It is considered to be the one of the most authentic Japanese Tea and Stroll Gardens in North America and among the top five Japanese gardens outside of Japan. Lovely play of light and shadow in here.
Most dramatic show-off destination is to take visitors on the gondola up to Grouse Mountain. We did this one evening for dinner and enjoyed the sunset followed by the sparkling city lights and a moon.
Monday is BC Day, so it’s a long weekend to relax! Have a good one!
by Marja-Leena morning meeting
A spell of insomnia had its sweet rewards yesterday morning. As the northeast sky behind the mountains began to glow in orange and scarlet, I stepped out on the deck to breathe in the fresh calm air, listen to the quiet and watch the changing sky. What a glorious way to meet the morning, imagining being the only person on this spot on earth.
Up the street, I see a car slowly approaching, stopping at some of the houses, then ours. Here comes our newspaper. It’s 5:15 in the morning, husband will be getting up any minute. Another work day ahead.
by Marja-Leena Cornelia Oberlander
“PICTURING LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE”
Projects of Cornelia Hahn Oberlander as seen by Etta Gerdes
Elliott Louis Gallery
West 2nd Avenue, Vancouver
June 6 – June 25, 2006 – Preview: June 6th & 7th
Opening Reception: Thurs. June 8, 6:30 – 8:30 PM
Touring Canada and Germany and presented by the Goethe-Institut Montreal, is an exhibit of photographs by Etta Gerdes detailing the work of acclaimed landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander.
Oberlander was born in Germany and lives in Vancouver. I recall reading articles about this fascinating woman and her groundbreaking work, particularly her visions of roof gardens on city highrises. Have a look at examples of her work on the gallery pages. Read more about her in Art Daily and about her work in the archives at the Canadian Centre for Architecture. (The same exhibition is being presented there until July 30th, with additional material from their archives.)
Above – Etta Gerdes photo: Lunch break, Robson Square, Vancouver
by Marja-Leena Arno Rafael Minkkinen
Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Self-portrait, Dead Horse Point, Utah, 1997, 20″ x 24″
I first became acquainted with Arno Rafael Minkkinen, an internationally known Finnish-American photographer through Art Daily some months ago. His works affected me deeply, and I bookmarked it for a future blog post. Now, many months later, I happened on it again, so now it’s time to share my admiration for his work.
Minkkinen was born in Finland, moved to the US as a child and now lives in Massachusetts. Since 1988, he has been a Professor of Art at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell. He has had numerous exhibitions around the world. Recently he was the subject of a mid-career retrospective at DeCordova Museum.
Saga: The Journey of Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Photographs 1970-2005 is a 120-print traveling exhibition accompanied by a new large publication.
Since the early 1970s, Minkkinen has been photographing his unclothed body in a wide variety of landscape and interior settings, from Finland to New England, from the American West to sites in Italy and France. These unmanipulated surreal and timeless black and white photographs are astonishing in the way Minkkinen maneuvers his body so that it echoes or seems to become part of the land formation. As A.D. Coleman, one of the curators of the exhibition writes, Minkkinen’s “…images comprise an account of an epic journey–both a physical adventure in the natural and urban world and a psychological voyage of the lone human spirit.”
I hope you enjoy browsing through Arno Rafael Minkkinen’s site as much as I do!
by Marja-Leena Steven Dixon: Spare
Steven Dixon: Desert Structure No. 1, 2006
Digital print on Japanese paper mounted on panel
The Art Gallery of Alberta, formerly the Edmonton Art Gallery, is featuring an exhibition of prints by Steven Dixon called Spare:
Steven Dixon’s large-scale works record the consequences of human activity, documenting the shift from a natural resource based economy to one focused largely on information and technology. This change has left in its wake a legacy of disused industrial structures: abandoned mines, mills and factories and related town-sites. Dixon has been exploring these ruins with a camera, photographing the traces of activity left behind by those employed in these industries, and tracing the detritus of past activity. This exhibition, Spare, features three new works, comprised of digital photographs printed on Japanese paper and mounted on panels.
Steven has worked in moderate sized photogravures for many years, so I was curious about his large scale digital work. In emails, I asked Steven about his new direction. He’s allowed me to quote his responses here.
I have gone digital with the latest work because of the scale. The largest piece in the show is 240 x 300 cm and I am making the files by scanning internegs in order to get the files large enough to work with. With the limitations of my scanner I needed to take that extra step. The file for that image was about 1.2 gigabytes. The smaller images are scanned directly from 4×5 negs.
At this point in time I don’t know anybody who is straight digital…..I just went to a lecture by Ed Burtynski and he has tested it but gone back to film because it is easier to deal with in the field. He said it is much easier and quicker to use a Polaroid back to check results than to lug around a laptop along with all the other equipment. The lens quality of digital cameras may never approach the quality of conventional lenses (at any reasonable price anyway).
What is an interneg?, I asked.
The interneg is just an enlargement on film from the original negative. In my case I guess it really isn’t an interneg because it is positive. What I did was make an enlarged positive transparency so I could scan it. I went from a 4×5 negative to an 8×10 positive, then cut that into 4 – 4x5s and scanned them individually and rebuilt the image in photoshop. That way I could get a larger file than just going from the 4×5.
Thanks for this information, Steven, and congratulations on your show, I wish I could be there!
Readers, if you are in Edmonton, do see Steven’s excellent work. The opening reception is on Friday, March 10th at 7 pm and the exhibition continues until June 10th, 2006.
Long-time readers might recall my friend Steven’s name – he is one of the artists in the Traces exhibition that Steven, Bonnie Jordan and I presented in Pohjanmaan Museum in Vaasa, Finland in 2002. We even travelled together to Finland and Estonia. I’ve also mentioned his show at the Lando Gallery, where you can see some of his earlier photogravure work.