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
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.
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.
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.
Friday, September 10th, a press conference was organised, at 1 o'clock PM, just before the opening of the long awaited Vernissage Saint-Petersburg 2010 Exhibition. The official opening and vernissage was at 2 o'clock PM. This day turned out to be very eventful. There were a lot of journalists and the exhibition was a real success since the opening. There are a lot of prominent photographers exhibiting their work and giving Master-Classes. This was a good occasion for me to personally meet some of these photographers I really appreciate by their excellent work. The first evening we went together for a boat trip on the Neva river. Thanks to Marina, the Head of the Department of Contemporary Art at the Central Exhibition Hall "Manege", and her crew, the organisation of the exhibitions and the Master-Classes was a real success.
My Master-Class was today at 4:30 PM local time (2:30 CET). It has been translated by an Interpret in Russian while I held it in German. I changed the content very often during the last days and I decided to go much deeper into philosophical reflections rather than technical explanations (70% to 30%). I got some difficulties to finish on time but it was a real success.
This exhibition and the Master-Class is also the reason why I didn't post any new pictures. I was really busy preparing my trip and collecting the information about the topics I had to cover during the master-class. Finally I can return back to normal life and plan my next trips to gather some new pictures. This experience here in Saint-Petersburg has really motivated me to go ahead and make some new photo sessions.
I am currently doing a series of night shots from Saint-Petersburg. This is not really the type of photography I am usually doing but I love this city, and especially by night... This is a shot of the museum by night:
Destruction of the relics of the past and closure of the mines leads to the end of an era here in Luxembourg. This evolution has not begun recently. For many years now our industrial patrimony is being destroyed and closed. Having lived my life in a region of Luxembourg that shaped the whole image of this country and the whole greater region, it is very sad for me to see all those relics being closed and destroyed, that gave testimony of the hard work that our ancestors have achieved for our prosperity.
Many associations have fought to preserve some of these industrial monuments, but the politicians don't seem to be interested to pay homage to our grandfathers and grandmothers that worked hard for this country. Our neighboring countries are still working hard to preserve some of these souvenirs and to convert them to industrial museums as a testimonial of those years that gave us the prosperity and quality of life we enjoy to have nowadays. But exactly this prosperity has brought us to forget about those of us that worked hard and sacrificed their lives for us. But this behavior seems to be limited to the country of Luxembourg. The politicians in Luxembourg spurn these monuments and convert them to vulgar decoration objects for megalomaniac developments as it has been done in Esch/Belval. Sad... but true...
The latest news I got is about the closure of the iron ore mine called "Flora". The last load of iron ore left this huge underground world called the Montrouge in 1997. It was iron ore that went from the french part of this wonderful underground labyrinth. I do not want to say that it is important to keep those places accessible but it is sad to see the entrances buried under a pile of rocks and earth. Therefore I have now decided to show the pictures from inside this huge mine publicly. I didn't have done so before because I didn't want to incite inexperienced spelunkers to visit those places.
The pictures (and a small captivating movie) can be found under Mine Montrouge in the Industrial Speleology section.
Being bound to stay at home due to some unfortunate circumstances, I have decided to process some more pictures and make some research about the new "Urbex-Trend", to post a new article about this trend in the FAQ on Urban Exploration and to make some minor updates to the layout of the website.
As already mentioned, I have processed some more shots I have taken in ECVB. And.... as always... don't forget to get back regularly because I am always processing older shots from my unprocessed pictures that are still waiting their turn to be added into the galleries. One of the latest pictures I have posted on Flickr dates from August 2008.
The exhibition "Konscht um Bau" was a big success. The artists were very happy because there were permanently visitors all along the whole week-end. That's why I would like to thank all the people who went to this event because everyone has participated to its success. A lot of art has been sold by this occasion and I think the buyers are all very satisfied about their purchases.
subscribe to LuxUrbex Newsfeed