I WON!

Remember, I told you I was in competition with Marco, among others, for last week's Photo of the Week.
And this time... I won!
In fact, it is the first time for me, so that is why I am so happy about it.
I called this photograph Creacion (Creation in English), and I actually did it for my I.P.
For losers that cannot see what it is: it is the belly of me step-brother's girlfriend when she was pregnant and it is juxtaposed to a photograph of the sun appearing through the trees.

I Am An Alcoholic Baby

I am only four months
And I sit alone at the dinner table
I am only four months
And I wanna drink wine
Red wine, White wine
I wanna drink wine

My parents are monsters
They drink all this wine in front of me
And leave their empty glasses on the table
These glasses in which there are still
Some wine drops

And I just wanna taste it
But my arms are too short
And I can't reach this f*!!ing glass
So I keep looking at it with envy
Waiting for milk time

P.S. for ParAnOs: Please, do not call the DPJ, this child is not alcoholic, but the most beautiful baby in their world.
P.P.S.: If you have not understood it yet, this photograph is mine.

Cute Little Things

Here are some of Marco's photographs again. As you can see, he is really good to capture Winning things as this cute little boy and these kittens. The last picture I posted a few days ago was a winner because it was mysterious, but these are winners since they are cute little things...

In fact, he brought these cute creatures (I mean, the kittens) in our Photo II class, but unfortunately I wasn't attending the class that day.
See what happen when you miss class!!!

Finally, he submitted the last one for last week's Photo of the Week, but I still don't know which one won. Maybe I beat him this time...

Dawson Shooting

This photograph was taken at Dawson College, Montreal, the day the shooting occured. It is Devon, in my Photo II class, who took it and seriously, I think it is a very nice shot since we can see very well people's expressions: they are all very serious, all talking and they don't care and even notice Devon.

Moreover, it is also a special shot because of the presence of the politician in the middle (I don't know who he is precisely), and because of all the media around him. In fact, I like a lot the composition of the picture: how the t.v. cameras are all at the back and how some of them seem to look at Devon's camera. I also like the fact that he got very close of the situation. All these things make the photograph very journalistic.

Sally Mann

Sorry for the technical problems... but here are some of Sally Mann's Immediate Family photographs. They SCaNdaLiZed a lot of people who said they were pornographic and showed violent and morbid obsessions. But when I looked at them, even if I found them a bit distabilizing, I figured out that it was because the children in these pictures where intimidating, like if they had more power than us and were keeping some secret about life that we have forgotten.
The first one is named The Horrible Photo(1989), the second one Jessie at 5(1987), and the last one Jessie at 6(1988). It is the last one that inspired me the ideas in my essay and here are also some parts of it:

About naked children: "The relationship between adults and children is often tricky. In fact, it is most of the time a problem of perspectives. Precisely, when photographs of naked children are taken they are only pornographic from the perspective of some adults. The children, when they pose for the photographer, are not thinking about provoking desire or to expose their intimacy. Because they are only little bodies still growing, they do not have to fear the look of people or to try to be desirable. The fact that they neither have to stimulate desire nor to escape it brings them power and confidence. The bodies of children, boys or girls, are all not developed and so, they can confront the world without thinking about women and men identity’s issues. For this, photographs of them are not nude pictures, but naked ones."

About children's ephemeral character: "Children seem magical because they are only in a temporal state that changes everyday. This is why everything they do seems amazing to adults’ eyes and why it is always worth a photograph. All this powers and advantages children have over adults give intensity to the children behaviour and so, to their images on photographs since they are things we cannot hold, they are things that gradually go away. Photographs of children are precious memories full of mysteries about children personalities. They bring us more and more questions about our own adult personality and behaviour, comparing us to these amazing creatures that are so more imposing than we actually are. So, family albums are also tools parents are giving to their children as future adults who will lose their magical powers."

About freedom: "Children are the magician of our world, they have the wisdom to let us think we are the more powerful when they are actually the ones who have the more enjoyable powers. If we really look at them, we can see that there is nothing really violent or pervert in these photographs, but only the powerful energy of childhood’s freedom: the freedom of discovery, of playing with their body and to express themselves as they are without caring about identical issues. Finally, we know that all this is ephemeral… or maybe we think. In fact, a lot of adults say they are “eternal children”, and maybe this will be a better way to be…"

Children Are Powerful

Usually, I don't really like color photography since I feel the colors distract us from the essence of the image.

However, for my Camera & Society Class, I had to develop a thesis looking at some photographer's pictures and then, realize some color photographs to present my own ideas. I chose Sally Mann and my thesis was that "Children are Powerful Magical Creatures that do not share our own InSecuRity."

So, the B & W photographs of the next post are Mann's ones while the colors ones are mine and represent my little nephew, Isaac, and my niece, Naomi.

In fact, I tried to show, among other things, how we should not be scandalized by pictures of naked children (since a lot of people called pornographic Mann's photographs of her own kids!) since children do not try to provoke desire & do not have to care about men and women's identity issues.

Marco's Special Picture of The Week

Each week in Vanier, we vote for the Photograph of The Week, and actually, this picture was last week'one.
First of all, I have to say that Marco, who made this excellent photograph, won more than half of the weeks since the beginning of the semester and now, everybody is getting angry at him.
But I guess he is winning since we vote for him, and actually I vote for this photograph last week... I found it so ghosty...
In fact, Marco told me how he did this one...

But, unfortunately, I won't tell you.

And I am now thinking of trying it, so you will see later what's gonna happen...

A Week-End in Nature

These are pictures given by my friend Patryk. Actually, he took all of them when he did this survival week-end course in nature, something that might have been odd for some of the students since as Montrealers, we do not have big relationship with nature.

I believe he did this course as an intensive PhysEd one… In fact, he told me that he loved it, and personally, I just love the photographs he did during this week-end. Especially the one with the hands and the fire.

However, I think that all of them are very good, and they seem very special to me since they are free of any technology… In fact, looking at these photographs, I could think that they had been taken sixty years ago… or even more.

I also feel a kind of serenity looking at them… it may be because of nature…Ironically, Patryk send me other pictures that I will post here later, and a lot of them represent city landscapes…

Some of my Own Previous Works

For my first post, I thought it would be a good idea to present you some of my previous works. Actually, these are photographs I made last semester when I was just starting to do photography. As you can see looking at them, I like to photograph people and I specially like people that I am close of and more than anything else, children.