Remembering Geocities bookmann 2004 – Lamps and Illumination

A Series of twelve backbit photographic plates hand tinted with Japanese paper and assembled with texts

Mr. Bolai has spent several years as a photographer documenting places of decay but of a certain beauty. This year he decided to explore a project that he and Adele Todd discussed about creating a book titled Trinidad Aesthetic. (What is Trinidad and Tobago Style?)

He has photographed a series of images from cemeteries and places of worship focusing on decay, the expressivemarks of wanderers and. graffiti. But he takes the photography further, by asking himself how could one explore what he learnt in Japan about paper lantern making, along with what he does in his day to day life, book making. These unusual juxtaposition of styles and techniques have led him to produce Illumination.

The images shown here are individually sized at 8”x10”, and show details of the lamp on and off position. Exhibition space at CCA7 Trinidad West Indies – Adele 2005

Minami + Carnival + Bore + Photographs

A series of carnival individuals photographed as portraits at the Softbox Gallery, Port of Spain, Trinidad

The Japanese photographer, Shizuka Minami has taken her 35 mm digital camera and snapped sixty large, medium and small photographs during the carnival season from 2005, 2007 and 2008 respectively. The exhibition at the Soft Box gallery in Port of Spain was well attended to see an aspect of Trinidad’s carnival interpreted by a Japanese artist. Soft Box gallery proclaims she is the first Japanese photographer to show in Trinidad. Guests had wonderful things to say over the exhibition, uttering her work as Great…..no more no less.

A Fancy Indian taking a smoke and drink

Ms. Minami’s subjects may have seized the opportunity to be snapped as portraits in a commonly fashion of just posing, and posing it is without any fanfare, spirit or feeling. Her stills taken at the Jean Pierre Complex or the Queen Park Savannah stage had more artistic resonance due to her focus of capturing a moment on subjects whose Trini posing was not on their agenda.

Shizuka Minami’s gentleness and appreciation of Trinidad and Tobago though her photography at Softbox Gallery, Port of Spain, Trinidad

It should be noted that these digital photographs are printed precisely, they cost from $6000.00 to $900.00TTD. Minami + Carnival runs until 29, January, 2009.

Projectile in (mein Herz) – the bookman self studies

Specimen IV: Look at the feather, look beyond the mirror’s reflection

Specimen V: Lies, all lies, my past and my immediate future. Truth lost somewhere to my present

Specimen VI: My strengths, my identity, mein Herz holds a burden to a being who is part of me, but not entirely. It is a language that separates our birth

Abigail Hadeed returns to Adam Smith’s Square

Abigail Hadeed is back at Adam Smith’s Square in Port of Spain documenting carnival individuals. This is the tail end of a day of the Traditional Mas characters who began their parade much earlier than expected. By 12 noon, the venue had ended. Yet, in the park, a paparazzi of photographers seized every opportunity to capture the perfect shot with the aid of her cloth backdrop and by the participant’s enthusiasm in the frenzy.

Above: Both photographer and masquerader discussing the best approach to be photographed among a group of pushy photographers and onlookers.

Lapeyrouse Wall

Sometimes you come across a moment that stirs your senses from a image that seems so important. And as you capture it, it is in the capturing that a memory is stirred that leads you to another image painted on canvas. This is when a thought occurs that you have seen it before. It is the impact. It stops in you tracks and in its recognition is what makes art important. It is the moment of the experience that can last for a lifetime. It may be small or large but art is impacting.

This is the wall of Lapeyrouse cemetery in Port of Spain, Trinidad and a figure of a person is caught in a heavy down pore, protected by a light pink umbrella. What is unique about this photograph is that the likeness and composition has been captured before by a renown artist. The painting, Lapeyrouse Wall hangs within the walls of the Moma in New York.

See Mr. Doig painting under What brought me here post

British Petroleum’s environmental scheme

A secondary school exhibition display on farming

In the atrium of the BP Building in Trinidad and Tobago, in front of Jacki Hinkson’s mural, an exhibition is set up in a typical fashion. Plinths are covered with a black mat tarp and from a quarter off the floor, a decorative pattern runs along the edge. Distracting as this may be, it is also cluttered with matted photographs. These are the photography winners from the BP competition on the theme of the Energy for Life in Trinidad and Tobago.

But one wonders if truly the winners reflected particularity on the theme. The photographs encompassed images found in farming and the natural environment. These included animals, details of flowers, birds and photographs capturing the sun as the source of life, perfectly composed in the centre of the photograph and not neglecting the flare off some individual. Some photos looked doctored and others seemed staged including the first prize winner, Ronald Chung with his photograph of a farmer sprinkling beads of water on a plant. Second and third place winners captured Pigeon Point at dust and a child running with a fish, respectively. The winner of the amateur level, Brian Batholomew snapped a candid portrait of children and the overall photograph attempted to reproduce a Karen Sylvester moment with light permeating through a bamboo patch. images quite apt for an annual report cover and for their archive of over 500 submissions to which they have the rights to.

This exhibition could have been reduced to only five pieces, and the winner should have deservedly been awarded to Mr. Batholomew for the warmth and human element from his work. Otherwise, the exhibition showed an overwhelming degree of literal meaning, void by the theme itself, Energy for Life, and the pun on Energy/ BP/TT was never explored. Photographs were reduced to clichés and photographers romanticized the notion that all is well in this never ending flow of oil in picture-perfect-moments. BPTT Photographic exhibition at the atrium of the BP Building, Port of Spain runs till 29 July, 2007.

Fuel of the future: Hydrogen /Water. And when the oil reserves are depleted, the island will sustain it self with the abundance of hydro-liquid called, We Sea.

thebookmann All Rights Reserved 2007

A journey to the past – Hamburg part 3

I surrender, I unconditionally surrender for my atrocities against mankind, and for a society that accepted it.

 

This day marks the victory of Europe over Germany in 1945. It is an ominous reminder that the intoxicating drug to have supreme power is short lived with its consequences outlasting the annals of time. The animosity against Germans still exists, not matter how apologetic and remorse they have been.

In the city of Hamburg, the Ohlsdorf cemetery is Europe’s largest . Established in 1877, the grounds are also known as the Garden cemetery. These photographs were taken on a bleak day in 1994. the park is so large that you need a car to commute to end to end.

 

A journey to the past – Berlin part 2

In time of penance, the devil raises his head

This is the inner ceiling of the Emperor Wilhelm’s Memorial Church in Berlin photographed in 1994. The Mosaics recall the life of Emperor Wilhelm I, and it is restored at best to give you a sense of the detailed beauty and workmanship in the tiles, amidst the physical scaring. In 1943, the church was destroyed by the British bombing campaign on Berlin. At Breitscheidplatz, only the tower and fragments of the church remain.

 

A journey to the past – Berlin part 1

If I knew my future to be so grim, I would have acted my life with compassion

If you look closely at the wall behind the heaps of dilapidated cars and trucks, you will notice some graffiti spray painted onto the concrete slabs. The wall in question is the west side of the Berlin Wall.

It is strange when you lack a history of a place or its customs how insignificant things appear to be. If your were able to see the other side, there is a clear pathway or the death strip between the fence and concrete wall where once Germans were shot trying to escape by the blood of their very own kind.

These are photographs taken in 1994 and at a time the united cities of East and West were in a feverish hast to reform a New Berlin to somehow erase their troubled past. The marking that once controlled and divided both cities are lines seamlessly drawn.