X100V

(Blown) Away

BY BERT STEPHANI

The weather has continued to be sub par lately and we’ve been longing for spring. A couple of storms came through our little country and wreaked havoc but that couldn’t stop the two of us to escape for a little cycling trip to Holland.

This is what our garden shed looked like after storm Eunice passed through. We suffered some other damage but luckily nobody got hurt.

We rented a cosy cabin in the Dutch countryside to just be away for a couple of days. Despite the very strong winds we still brought our bikes to hopefully go out and explore.

On day one we managed to do a 35km ride through wind and rain. The parts against the wind were like cycling with flat tires and stuck brakes. The parts with cross wind in the open country proved to be hard to stay upright, but I felt like a pro cyclist when the wind was in my back.

A very challenging obstacle

On the second day, the winds were still crazy but for the first time in ages the sun was out. So we went for a long 72km ride.

On the third day we had obligations back home so we couldn’t stay long. But we couldn’t leave without a last short ride.

The last 3 kilometers of the ride were against that crazy powerful wind again (for the cycling fans: I was pushing between 250 and 300 Watts to reach only 12km/h). By the time we got back to our car the rain came back with a vengeance to mark the end of this little trip.

And this also marks the end of my #kage202202 project. I’ll probably let it all digest a bit and follow up with what this project ment to me.

Headless

This image, from Robert Catto’s essay Broken Threads was my starting point for this essay.

This image, from Robert Catto’s essay Broken Threads was my starting point for this essay.

Why is it that the head, and particularly the face, has so much importance in people photography? Convention states that the face should be the bright, in focus and get to be center stage in the composition.

A couple of Robert’s pictures of headless statues made me think about the importance that is generally put on the head/face in photography. While the rest of the body can tell the story just as well or even better. I’ve never been afraid to make a picture that doesn’t include the head but until recently I also never deliberately set out to not include the head in pictures.

So in the last couple of days I tried to do just that when taking pictures around the house.

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In the last few months, I’ve been also busy figuring out and creating a new body (pun not intended) of work. And one of the the aspects that I’ve been experimenting with is not including the face of the subject.

So what are your opinions on headless photography? Is it acceptable? Is it still portraiture?

Anything but the Highway

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND BERT STEPHANI

I chose this picture by Derek Clark from his essay Death by 74 cuts to use as my theme. I love the graphic nature of that image although I’m usually trying to stay away from highways. I had a busy week and very little spare time to get on my bike AND shoot a story, so I tried to combine both.

Anything but the Highway

I get the idea: the fastest way to go from A to B. It’s useful but the fastest way is usually not the most interesting one. Whenever I can, I take the backroads. And ever since I saved up enough money to buy my first mountainbike when I was 16, I’ve been attracted to the even smaller unpaved roads. For decades one after the other was asphalted for the sake of progress. But in the last few years, it seems like there’s a renewed appreciation of unpaved roads and paths. Even some new slow roads are built without concrete or asphalt.

It was only when I was brainstorming about this story that I came to understand that the unpaved roads serve as a metaphor for the ways I choose to travel in my life and career as well.

Death By 74 Cuts

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PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

I chose this picture by Patrick La Roque from his essay Puddles Are Windows and Fissures are Roads to use as my theme. I almost chose dogs, as I can see two dogs in the top left corner, but in the end I chose differently. The converging lines in that same corner reminded me of roads, and the top of the picture feels like decay. Possibly converging lines cutting through the underdogs?

Death By 74 CUTS

The city of Glasgow, like a lot of highly populated places, is going through constant change. The always present cranes across the city skyscrape erect building after building, rubbing out the old and redrawing the new. But this only makes the places that are being left behind stand out; a slow painful demise. Tradeston is one such place, an industrial area that has been neglected for years. Decades of decay joined with decades of graffiti and vandalism.

In 2011, the M74 motorway was completed. Although construction started in 1966, the M74 didn’t reach its intended destination until 2011. This monster of a road rises up on stilts as it cuts a path straight through Tradeston, barely revealing what lies beneath to the unsuspecting drivers. But still, I’m drawn to this place, and I will probably return to document it more before it gets torn-down in favour of luxury flats or offices.

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DEFINITION 42 | DARKNESS DESERVES BETTER

BY BERT STEPHANI

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I’ve always liked the night, dark clothes, dark images.
The association between “black” and “bad” doesn’t exist to me.
In the shadows I find simplicity, peace and elegance.
The darkness shuts out the noise and makes time irrelevant.
Darkness deserves a better rep ...

DEFINITION 39 | “They played colourful music LOUD!”

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Words and images by Jonas Dyhr Rask

Amidst the now normalised depressing news regarding the pandemic, the politics and the slow depressing spiral of apathy that follows suit, I read something that hit me a little harder than all of the above.

It started at around age 3, I think. My dad would put the record on and I would be completely mesmerised by the sounds that hit me.
That was to continue all through my childhood and by age 13 I had heard that particular album with 4 people bathed in bright multicoloured, yet shadowy mysterious, lights so many times that I knew it note for note.

It was the sole reason why my only wish for my confirmation at age 14 was a red electric guitar with a Peavey amplifier.
All I wanted to play the colourful, yet heavy sounds of that album. As danish guitar virtuoso Søren Andersen so delicately put it yesterday - “They played colourful music LOUD!”

It shaped my youth.

It shaped my life.

HE shaped my life.

May you forever R.I.P
Mr. Eddie Van Halen.

And just like their music, I now do my photography bathed in bright multicoloured, yet shadowy mysterious, lights. Just like the cover of that epic 1978 album “VH”

All shots on X100V and X-Pro3 | XF35mm f/1.4

Definition 016 | Forty-Five

BY BERT STEPHANI

Today is my 45th birthday. I don’t find that particularly old, nor young. For once having a brain that doesn’t understand numbers, is a blessing I suppose. Don’t ask me to come up with resolutions. Don’t ask me to look back onto the past 45 years.

I just want to be ... now ... in the moment.

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I’ve been working on lockdown-stuff on my blog, social media, YouTube and a webinar, but not today.

Today I just want to be ... now ... in the moment

Strangely, my birthday is probably the most normal day I’m having since all that virus-craziness started. I’m enjoying the attention from my family, friends and colleagues ... just like I did on any other birthday.

And that’s a blessing. You know, just be ... now ... in the moment

DEFINITION 005 | ALWAYS COMFORT

BY JONAS DYHR RASK

“To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always”
— Dr. Edward Trudeau

I knew since I was around 15 years old.
Because of my mothers occupation, the dinner table discussions always seemed to turn into discussions of healthcare issues.
It moulded me. It directed me.

It was different times back then. I could actually go visit my mother when she had her shifts. It was so fascinating for a kid like me. The Logistics. The sector. The staff.

But most of all - The patients. Their destined temporary habitat. Their transition from healthy to sick and hopefully into recovery.

I felt the need to help them. I wanted to be there for them. I wanted to hear their stories.

It was a long path to tread. Sometimes steep, sometimes bendy, sometimes downhill.

For 15 years it was life defining. My life. My present, and my future.

It was not only a path of education, but a path of developing my identity. During my walk along the path I became a father, a husband and a home owner. I didn’t look back. Only forward. I kept pushing.

I succeeded. I saw it through!

Not to be able to tell stories, but to experience them. To witness the absolute miracle of new born life. To experience the absolute horror of terminal illness. To experience everything in between.

I am a trusted firsthand witness to the life of many.

Always comforting.

Often relieving.

Sometimes curing.

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All images shot on the Fujifilm X100V