Story by René Delbar, participant of the Brussels KAGE Temporary Collective Workshop
Feel the pulse of the modern metropolis: vibrant, restless and chaotic. Always in change, buzzing with activity. Constantly fighting decay and rebuilding for the future.
Meanwhile we mortals, nothing but shadows and dust, go on with our everyday lives.
Mostly oblivious to what transpires below the surface.
X-Pro2, 23/1.4, 35/2, 56/1.2
Story by Helmut Puellmanns, participant of the Brussels KAGE Temporary Collective Workshop
Our theme was surface(s). A surface is a border between inside and outside. A Surface can be opaque or transparent so it shows or hides. Reflections on a surface gives you different views of the same thing.
You can see through a transparent surface to the layers behind, feeling like an agent (spy). A surface can be what people show the world to hide their emotions.
Story by Patrick Dricot, participant of the Brussels KAGE Temporary Collective Workshop
(Just) Take a few seconds.
To think about.
That woman (that man) everyday.
The same train.
(Everyday) The same stairs.
Sometime, just too tired.
Even in the day, but she (he) knows.
That in the light, She (he) is.
A giant on the surface.
Story by Peter Ortmann, participant of the Brussels KAGE Temporary Collective Workshop
I love the complexity of the different layers of this series. Shot free hand and in a very short time while people are rushing from one end of the Brussels main train station to another one. The wall was built of clean white and reflective squares where some where printed with images I presume have been taken in the train station. We see people moving up and down, photographed in black & white and with a very slow shutter speed. We cannot recognize them but feel the rush. Without the context, the lines formed by the squares are unintelligible. We think we understand at first before realizing that we did not understand and stay superficial. Unfortunately, I forgot to look out for the photographer’s name.
Then another layer comes in. The bypassing people were also photographed in their movement. They could be part of the initial frame, but they are not. They do destroy the visual harmony of the grid lines and join the scene in color. At the same time, the formal, straight angle of view, reduce them visually to the initial two-dimensional canvas.
At the end we stand there with very few information and nearly no depth, no perspective, no visual details, no moods. Like every encounter during a rush hour, we stay superficial.
Story by Guillaume Lebur, participant of the Brussels KAGE Temporary Collective Workshop
At the most basic, fundamental level, photography is about collision.
Light hitting an object, bouncing, and being gathered.
I like the intersection of planes, the crossing of lines, the meeting places between people, between objects, or just between constantly shifting, fading shadows.
Surfaces. Textures. Light, shade.
That's all we have.
Stepping out. Stepping in. Stepping into memories.
This month, as we open the edition up to guests, I want my post to be brief and to the brief.
Surface:
I scratched around for two hours. Took shots of tables, grass and sleeves.
Ultimately, I didn't need to look too far. These are the faces for me, sir (tenuous, I know...I'm trying).
I asked them to think of something for me to photograph. Something related to "surface". And they both closed their eyes, lost perhaps in childhood ideas and ambitions.
My job, then, was done.
Surface.
An estimated 28 million passengers pass through Glasgow Central Station every year. From locals to tourists, business professionals to immigrants, old married couples to brand new couples meeting for the first time. I met my wife on the concourse (above) of this amazing station. Although we were born 7200 miles apart, fate (for want of a better word) brought us together 12 years ago in this station. In a sea of travellers on an extremely busy afternoon, I saw a rucksack move through the crowd as though it was floating on air. Then I saw her black hair swaying from side to side under the weight of her heavy rucksack and the rest, as they say, is history.
Central Station was opened on the 31st of July 1879 and is the largest building in the city. The glass roof is the largest in Europe and consists of 48,000 panes of glass. During the first world war the dead would be brought down below the platforms for relatives to identify and collect. It was then up to the deceased’s love ones to carry the body up the stairs and to get their husband, son …etc home.
The gate (above) and railings nearby are painted red because this area was dedicated to the Royal Mail. In August 1963 the regular mail train left from Central Station to deliver mail and a vast sum of money to London. A gang of 15 robbers tampered with signals on the track, attacked the train and got away with 2.6 million pounds (equivalent to 50 million today). In the course of the robbery, train driver Jack Mills was beaten with an iron bar and was unable to work again. He died 7 years later. This is known as The Great Train Robbery, one of the most infamous crimes in British history.
A tour beneath Central Station is now available HERE which I highly recommend taking if you visit Scotland or even if you live here. A huge thanks to Paul Lyons for his vision, wit and enthusiasm. Paul is one of the best story tellers I have had the pleasure of listening to and delivers his fantastic knowledge of history with tremendous passion.
Returning to old textures from a new life is a little discombobulating.
Was this couch always so slouchy, that serving bowl quite as large?
"When I was a kid the tractors were harder to drive."
Random memories fall out of boxes; an old rifle emerges from the top of a bookshelf in a cloud of dust. Old pictures in an assortment of rectangularity suggest something about life when their subjects were 10, 15, 32, 45.
And around them, the dwelling that holds these suspended memories breathes in its collective of rough-weave drapes, linoleum flooring, smoothed old leather, and the cheeriness of approaching Christmas.
Outside, lichen, a luminous green, clings to the bark. Trees sway in the winds of the shifting seasons.
