| About Success and Fame in Photography |
| Written by Shantideva | | Tuesday, 02 August 2011 09:09 | All along my short way in photography I have had the opportunity to meet a lot of people. I think everyone has his own interests in photography. Those of us who cling very hard to their passion have a driving force that distinguishes them from the basic mainstream photographer. I have used the word 'mainstream' in a neutral sense and not in a negative pejorative sense. In my eyes the mainstream photographer is the type of photographer with the healthiest approach to photography. Most famous photographers become mainstream photographers after having discovered that fame and success are transient and therefore, inherently contain a source of suffering. What is the price of success and fame? I think it is clear that one must work hard for having some success or even getting famous in photography. There are so many amateur photographers out there and you are just one of several millions. After getting some small reward for some extremely hard and time consuming work as success, you learn that this success is so ephemeral as a shooting star in a dark clear night. An empty gap is what's left behind. And this gap is filled with the fear of loosing your hardly established position or image. And what do you do to fill this gap? You start over again to work even harder to reach at least the position you attained with your last success. And this behavior goes over and over again while life is passing by and you get older and older. But what is this fidgeting all about? Could it be that it is a lack of self assurance and self-esteem that needs to be filled? An Ego that needs to be caressed? I wouldn't go so far to pretend that this is the case for every photographer in the quest of success and fame, but I certainly do for all of us, amateur photographers, feeling aggressed by criticism. And a big amount of us that have the illusion of having themselves established in the world of photography (certainly a lot of those reading this feel so, or still striving toward this goal) do not like their work to be criticized. They have become their work and the work is now an integral part of their identity. Who wants to loose his identity? Nobody wants that! Loosing the identity is one of the most horrible things the Ego can be faced to. Who really wants his identity to be debased by someone else? What is the Ego? The Ego is a complex of uncountable illusionary bribes of identity parts. It is always changing and evolving because the identity parts it identifies itself with, are always changing. It is always grasping to fulfill a goal that it can never reach because the Ego is an illusion in itself.
My biggest wish would be that some of us amateur photographers aching for success and fame, out of reach, could get free of this Ego driven vicious circle and find real success and fame as mainstream photographers, without pretension of becoming somebody else as they are now. That's the way of success... the way of personal success in life.
And finally two quotes I really like: We all want to be famous people, and the moment we want to be something we are no longer free.
- Jiddu Krishnamurti Talent is God given. Be humble. Fame is man-given. Be grateful. Conceit is self-given. Be careful.
- John Wooden |
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| Written by Shantideva | | Monday, 01 August 2011 09:04 | I recently decided to add some historical pictures into the galleries to show the places I have photographed in their original state. Most probably I will add more technical information about some of the machines, but always keeping in mind not to reveal too much information about the locations themselves because these times decay photography has become too much trendy and therefore it is hazardous to tell too much details. And most of the young explorers don't give a damn about what they see or visit. I have visited some new untouched locations recently but the pictures will not be published here (even not in the restricted area). It is not important anymore for me to show my pictures publicly. I think a lot of us, longtime explorers have learned a lot about the mistakes we did in the past. The new explorations I have done recently will be shown in about 2 years. I think this is a good time frame. Meanwhile I'll show these pictures only on local exhibitions but not on the Internet. Here is an example of pictures I have received recently from a gas machine I have photographed several times. This machine has a very interesting history and it would be sad to loose the details about it. I am currently working on a description of the history, the functionality and the use of this machine. Today
1952 |
| Written by Shantideva | | Monday, 04 July 2011 00:00 | 
The fifth edition of the exhibition "Konscht am Minett" will happen this year, as always in the Paul Wurth Workshop in Fond-de-Gras (Differdange), organized by "Ville the Differdange". The exhibition can be visited between the 9th and 17th of July every day. The vernissage is scheduled for the 8th July at 8 PM. It will be a wonderful mixture of several types of art and, as always, every visitor will be able to find something that suits his taste. The opening hours will be 3 PM until 7 PM. I'll be happy to meet you there for the Blues Express Festival 2011. This festival is happening on the same place. So, don't miss this wonderful opportunity to listen to great music the whole night and enjoy a nice exhibition of more than 25 artists!!! |
| Journey to the Center of Earth |
| Written by Shantideva | | Sunday, 08 May 2011 13:12 | | Thanks to your great guides, Tycha and Danny, we could organize a wonderful journey to the center of Earth yesterday. I was the third time that I went to the same quarries in Belgium. We were a group of 6 underground explorers doing a 8 hours underground walk taking pictures and enjoying the great underground landscapes and the "almost" serene, peaceful and quiet world that only got disturbed by our own chattering and the countless bats that kept us company. Although I have seen these quarries 2 times before I have found some really nice new spots and took some pictures you can find in the industrial speleology gallery (last 6 pictures). This was also a great opportunity to correctly measure the height of these amazingly high galleries, I could only estimate until yesterday. |
| Salon de la photo Villers-la-Montagne |
| Written by Shantideva | | Sunday, 03 April 2011 09:40 | With the assistance of the Cultural Committee of Villers-la-Montagne, the Collective Image presents his finest achievements of the year. Free entry from 14.00 to 18.30 for the exhibition including studio animation and photographic projection. I am very happy to announce that I'll hold a lecture about expressive language in photography and image composition in architecture photography for this event and I have kindly been invited to exhibit some pictures as a guest. So, don't miss this nice exhibition that is held in the "Salle Polyvalente de Villers-la-Montagne" (36, rue Gaston Dupuis F-54920 Villers-la-Montagne) First day schedule:
11:30 - Vernissage
20:00 - Lecture and debate about the philosophy of photography |
| Written by Shantideva | | Friday, 10 December 2010 22:18 | | Finally I have finished processing the last pictures from an abandoned farming house. I had a lot of studio shots to process the last weeks so I did not find the time to process those pictures. They can be found in the member area by following this link. I hope you enjoy the latest additions. |
| Written by Shantideva | | Thursday, 09 December 2010 17:35 | Due to the latest evolution in urban exploration photography, as a trend, and the fact that a lot of newbies in this type of photography only seem to be interested in copying the work of other photographers, I have decided to close the Decay Gallery. This gallery is now password protected and only members have access to the pictures of the latest locations visited. I hope this will encourage some photographers to be creative and to develop their own style instead of doing plagiarism of other photographers work. I would like to thank all the people that have contacted me recently after my last post on this subject matter. I really appreciated your feedback and as a compromise of all suggestions you have made, I have chosen to limit the access to the whole gallery only to registered members. I am not sure yet if I'll post updates here on the frontpage and the members will have to log in to the system to see the pictures and the description or if I send a newsletter regularly. Every membership request from people I do not know personally has to be fulfilled over the contact form with a link to their photography. Thanks a lot for your comprehension and I hope you'll continue to enjoy the pictures I'll post regularly. |
| Bookcover for the brothers Leistra (NL) |
| Written by Shantideva | | Wednesday, 01 December 2010 11:16 | I am happy to announce that one of my pictures has been chosen for the latest crime novel from the Leistra Brothers (NL) called "Bloed op het palet" 
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| Written by Shantideva | | Sunday, 21 November 2010 17:52 | Since I have been a victim of stalkers and counterfeiters over the last months, I have recently decided to cease posting messages about my latest explorations and my latest pictures. I'll send the latest updates by email to everybody I trust. I'll create a mailing list, like some of my fellow longtime explorers do already for a while. This will prevent that such scammers indiscriminately produce plagiarism of my pictures. I'll not mention any name here. The people that are concerned will know from whom I am writing here. Probably the pictures will not be shown publicly anymore and you'll need a login for the latest updates. I apologize the inconvenience to all the fellow photographers I meet regularly, but this measure must now be taken to protect the places I visit and my artwork from plagiarism. |
| Written by Shantideva | | Friday, 29 October 2010 16:52 | 
I have uploaded some pictures from the ARCELORMITTAL production site of Belval, formerly called ARBED Belval. The pictures can be found on the same page where I have put the pictures of the old part of the site that is still in reconversion. Here is the direct Link to the pictures. I hope you enjoy the contrast between the active and the abandoned parts of the site. |
| Feature in Revue Technique Luxembourgeoise |
| Written by Shantideva | | Wednesday, 13 October 2010 17:05 | 
I have been kindly asked by the staff of the Revue Technique Luxembourgeoise to provide two pictures for their web page and their latest quarterly newspaper. The Revue Technique Luxembourgeoise is edited by the A.L.I.A.I. (Association Luxembourgeoise des Ingénieurs, Architectes et Industriels). In this issue I have been featured as the photographer of the month and a picture from Belval is running double truck (two page spread 30-31) in the magazine. I am very thankful for this request. |
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