Friday, October 12, 2007
Disaster Capitalism
Are out there opportunities to produce visual outstanding works supporting a right cause for free? Naomi Klein's latest book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism represents such a right cause indeed!
I just begun to read the book, watched a lot of video interviews with Naomi Klein and read through all the pages of the book's official website:
In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein explodes the myth that the global free market triumphed democratically. Exposing the thinking, the money trail and the puppet strings behind the world-changing crises and wars of the last four decades, The Shock Doctrine is the gripping story of how America’s free market policies have come to dominate the world-- through the exploitation of disaster-shocked people and countries.
Naomi Klein's latest book is based on hard fact and probably a lot of historical research was needed before the writing process.
The short film aimed to accompany the book was the result of a collaboration between Naomi Klein, the mexican film director Alfonso Cuarón and his son Jonás Cuarón. Despite the film was first conceived as a promotional tool it now stands on its own because of its polical message strenght.
Everybody can pirate it, download it, give it to their friends, do whatever they want to do. It's not a commercial product in that respect.
Alfonso Cuarón.
Labels: books, economy, films, globalisation, politics
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
The equus project
Tim Flach is a British photographer whose passion for animal photography shows through his entire portfolio. Animals are often photographed by Flach during lenghty studio sessions in which all the details were carefully planned beforehand. He usually takes very close shots of his subjects using very unusual angles of view, framing and cropping.
Equus is the title of Flach's last fine art photography book, commissioned by PQ Blackwell Publishing in New Zealand.
All the photos published in the book differentiate themselves completely from the tradition of the equastrian photography genre. The aim of the book is to celebrate the horse in visual form. Flach exclude man from his last work choosing to show the horses alone or at least with other equines:
Historically equestrian art has essentially been a mechanism used to impose status upon patrons, what I’m doing is distinctive because it chooses not to show man with horse.
By separating the horse from man I am able to focus upon celebrating the horse itself.
Tim Flach.
In the first year of the project Flach moves to different continents across the globe to photograph horses against their natural landscapes: Mustangs in the deserts of Utah. Haflinger's high in Austrian Alps, Arabians in expansive deserts, Icelandic Horses against glacial backdrops and racing Thoroughbreds in the pristine confinement of their training environments.
Discovery’s Animal Planet channel accompanied him to Iceland to document his work with Icelandic horses. The documentary titled Through the Lens of Tim Flach Photographer was directed by Chris Purcell.
A preview of the documentary movie as well as his online portfolio are available at Tim Flach Photography.
Labels: animals, art, books, documentary, nature, photography
