Definition 021 | 39 Last Street

DSCF0866.jpg

Photography and words by Jonas Dyhr Rask

Camera slung across the chest, closing the door to the apartment behind me, getting hit by the pulsating life and sounds of the vibrant city life.

It was how I really started photographing those 9 years ago. I bought myself an X100 camera, and immediately hit the streets. It evolved from there, that’s for sure. Over the course of two years I got sucked in deeper and deeper. It was almost like an addiction. It was an addiction.

I would get lost in it for hours, days even. I still do.

Street photography has become such an integral part of me, that when I’m not able to practice it at least twice a week its like holding my breath past capacity. It feels like I’m choking.

It doesn’t have to be thematic. It doesn’t have to be documentary. It just has to be.

All the time, it has to be.

Today was the last chance to go shoot in the city before I turn 40 on friday. Looking back at my 30’s they contain all my photographic experiences. When I was 30 I shot my first street shots. It’s crazy to think about, so I try not to. I don’t want to dwell. I want to push forward. Look forward.

So today, I did what I do at least twice a week.

I drive to the city, camera slung across the chest, closing the door to the car behind me, getting hit by the pulsating life and sounds of the vibrant city life.

I breathe.

I photograph.

DSCF0848.jpg

(all shots shot during an hour this afternoon. Shot on the X-Pro3 with the XF35mm f/1.4)

Definition 019 | In Vino

By Vincent Baldensperger

Lui c’est Simon. Aujourd’hui je suis son hôte pendant quelques heures pour sillonner son vignoble, l’accompagner dans ses travaux quotidiens. Je fais le plus beau métier du monde, ça c’est ce qui me trotte dans la tête une fois encore à ce moment. Passion dévorante pour toutes les formes d’artisanat, là où la main de l’Homme sublime la terre et la matière, sans artifice. Fidèle observateur, attentif, émerveillé souvent et jamais rassasié.

Ce matin de mai, 8 heures, hautes pressions, azur jusqu’aux Pyrénées et petit café aux pieds du château avant de débuter mon reportage. Journée consacrée à l’ébourgeonnage, une petite équipe nous devance sur une parcelle de Merlot. Il faut suivre un sentier, longer les premières parcelles dans le silence, l’herbe pleine de rosée sous les pieds… descendre enfin vers un lac, saules pleureurs, grenouilles, aigrettes, et sur l’autre flanc du vallon quelques brebis. Décors sonore. Sur cette petite parcelle, 5 personnes dos courbés, à genoux, couchées parfois s’activent méticuleusement pour mener à bien cette étape printanière. Chaque pied de vigne est observé puis débarrassé de ses bourgeons et jeunes rameaux envahissants. Là encore j’observe et j’apprend, concentré sur tous ces gestes. Un seul but en tête, saisir au mieux et sans intervenir le sens de ce savoir-faire. Quelques heures d’observations, suivre l’un puis l’autre, chantonnant, sifflotant pour s’encourager sous le soleil jusqu’à toucher au but. Deux, trois rangs terminés et une pause avant d’y retourner. 11 heures. J’entends leurs voix faiblir. Aux côtés de Simon, petit tour de lac avant de remonter vers notre point de départ. Là, entre deux rangs de Syrah, deux ceps à déposer sur le bord du sentier…

Lui c’est Simon Gerber, vigneron bio dans le Sud-Ouest de la France, à la tête du Domaine de Ribonnet où se cache une cave d’exception créée par Clément Ader.

Definition 018 | Travel

012_CLARK_Definition18-Travel.jpg

PHOTOGRAPHY AND TEXT BY DEREK CLARK

Apart from not being able to see family and friends during this pandemic, the two things I miss most are street photography and travel. No matter if it’s trains, planes, or automobiles (boats too), I love the feeling of going somewhere! Of being on the move! It’s probably the possibilities of what might lie ahead, a blank notebook, memory cards to fill, miles to walk and explore.

I love the feeling of being self-contained, only carrying what I need and only needing what I carry. Headphones, iPad, notebook and pen. Two or three small cameras and the bare minimum of lenses. I know when I’m in the right place because I don’t want to go home. But still - I could keep moving, exploring, discovering all things new.

Who knows what travel will look like in the months or even years to come. Maybe it will go back to normal, maybe it never will. Hopefully, we won’t feel like other humans are a threat for much longer. I for one miss being in a crowd with a 28mm or 35mm lens.

TO THE BAT CAVE. Depending on where you get your information - Covid-19 might be their gift to us…or their revenge.

Definition 017 | Seedling

By Patrick La Roque

Imagine a dot. It might symbolize a beginning, the flashpoint from which our universe expanded. Or it can signify the end—a period, in the last sentence of a diary. Every day is a dot right now. And I’ll be damned if I know which side of the timeline it represents.

The other day I saw a young child reunited with his grandpa, on the evening news. The scene had been shot in Italy, as the country slowly attempts a return to normalcy. I felt a lump in my throat. Sure, I can be sensitive...but this was odd.

Today’s my birthday—May 5. Usually the trees have turned a soft green, not yet full of leaves but a promise. Not this year. Like us, nature seems to be waiting; and there’s a frost warning for tonight. So as you may have guessed, the images in this essay are a trick of the camera’s eye: blown-up, even the smallest bit of life can fill our hearts.

Imagine a dot.
Let’s call it a seed.

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.

STEPHANI-45a-01.jpg

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 015 | WORKAHOLIC

BY DOMINIQUE SHAW

Since I started my studio at the tender age of 21 I don’t think I’ve ever gone more than 6-8 weeks without shooting a wedding.

Oddly enough, before the world turned upside down and inside out (well, inside inside really I suppose), I had actually planned to do just that - after what was due to be a hectic March of travel, speaking engagements and weddings my diary had been cleared throughout April and early May to take some time to do something I haven’t done for a long time - spend some time at home and in the garden just trying to relax a little. That said, committed to that stay at home goal though I was, I really didn’t expect it to be legally enforced.

So, after taking my first legally required holiday from weddings how do I feel? Well it turns out I really love my job! My “break” from weddings has so far involved not only completing the edits of the last couple of weddings that took place just before lockdown but then (prompted by a little project set by Fujifilm having become an official X-Photographer back in January) I found myself actively going back through all of my past weddings and seeking out images that had been forgotten or undervalued at the time they were taken - something that’s actually been quite an enriching experience and that I would never normally find the time to do. I’ve shared a few of my favourites here.

I did take some time out yesterday though to watch a movie and prove to myself that I can totally do this no-work relaxing thing! I mean the movie was terrible.… like really, really terrible, but I persevered and watched it nonetheless! Seriously: unrelentingly awful - I’m pretty sure I was actively less creative by the end of it … it was one of those movies where you wish you were watching it on good old fashioned terrestrial TV so that you get to experience the sweet release of a commercial break advertising incredibly exotic, bucket-list locations like Morrisons or discussing the new world currency now being manufactured by Andrex … I digress …

So really what this lockdown has taught me so far is that if I’m ever going to truly switch off from everything and not think about my work at all I may need to get myself incarcerated for a major crime or something … come to think of it hunting down whoever produced last night’s movie might be a good starting point if only I could leave the house …

I might as well face it,

I’m Dominique and I’m a workaholic.

Definition 014 | The Past Carries The Present

Definition 014 | The Past Carries The Present

My last essay, from February, seems like a postcard from a bygone age. Me, at home; a life in the arts; what different meanings those have now.

Two days after posting the essay, my father died; by the following week I was in Toronto with my family, putting him to rest on a windswept hill, as snow fell around us…

DEFINITION 013 | THAT WHICH MATTERS MOST

DSCF7402.jpg

BY JONAS DYHR RASK

In definition 005 I wrote about my day job as a medical professional. I’m an M.D. G.P.

But I don’t want to write about my profession again. I did that already, and nothing has really changed. CoVid19 is just another disease, another problem I need to solve, another task I need to complete. It is, as they say, business as usual. 

But something else has changed. Something unrelated to my profession, yet so intimately linked to it. 

The world around me has changed. CoVid19 prompts for swift actions on a global scale. They are not medical actions, they are social actions, and as such they have social consequences rather than medical. 

These lockdown periods are sweeping away the feet on which many people balance their livelihood as photographers and creatives. 
It’s not the disease, it’s the means by which the world has chosen to try and stop it. 

It’s definitely the right path to tread, but that doesn’t make it less filled with sharp rocks and spiky thorns.

This disease will end up costing more than we as a global society can possibly fathom, but it will also bring us something that a lot of us have possibly forgotten about in our race towards our-end-of-life.

I cannot remember the last time I have felt so intimately linked to my wife and my children. I cannot remember how long it has been since I had such a deep worry in my gut regarding the health of my parents.

DSCF7358.jpg

I’ve always prided myself as being a family man, but this past month of lockdown have shown me that there’s a layer above this. A layer of absolute intimacy in every moment spent with those that you love. A true appreciation of what I am so fortunate to have, and what can so easily be lost. 

Economies will crumble, jobs will end.
But that which bring meaning to my life is right here, right now. Right beside me. 

And that’s really all I need. 

DSCF7465.jpg

Definition 012 | STAY AT HOME

GFX15957.jpg

PHOTOGRAPHY & TEXT BY KEVIN MULLINS

“Sometimes I get to feelin’
I was back in the old days, long ago
When we were kids, when we were young
Things seemed so perfect, you know?
The days were endless, we were crazy, we were young
The sun was always shinin’, we just lived for fun
Sometimes it seems like lately, I just don’t know
The rest of my life’s been, just a show”
— Queen
We’ve had quite a bit of this

We’ve had quite a bit of this

Well these are the days of our lives, for sure.

This event will certainly affect my business as a professional wedding photographer massively (no work for me from the end of February to at least September), I’m reminding myself constantly that, I’m in a far better position than many.

Whilst governments around the world use this to score political points, and I’m cocooned in my house, there are people with no roof over their head, no access to water or medical care. I consider myself lucky in that respect.

I don’t have any client work to do, so Neale James and myself have decided to publish our Podcast daily in an attempt to bring some normality to our listeners days. Do listen if you can – you can find it on all good podcast networks by searching for The FujiCast.

March 22nd 2020 - Not Going Out

March 22nd 2020 - Not Going Out

It’s not just a case of staring at the wall

It’s not just a case of staring at the wall

As many have discovered, spending time at home with the family has been rather therapeutic. I’ve been spending this first week or so rearranging weddings and sorting out mortgage holidays and fighting with the government over my [not happening] business grants.

And because of that, I’ve not had the inclination to document this time. I just haven’t felt the passion for it. However, I have forced myself to take a few snaps. Albie and I have played about a bazillion games of chess – which I adore.

100F6106.jpg

Gemma and I have been amazed at how well our two are playing with each other and celebrating the time together, rather than fighting in any sense at all. It’s difficult, of course it is, but as a family, I feel like we are stronger.

100F6061.jpg

We are not on the coalface, like the Chinese were, or my European brothers in Italy and Spain are now, nor like the USA are about to be.

I’ve also taken a few moody portraits of the kids as I pretend to be David Bailey.

GFX15979_1.jpg
GFX16003.jpg

We are lucky, again, in that respect.

This series was meant to be about our definitions and one thing is for sure, we are all, every person on the planet, being defined somewhat now.

This will end, soon enough. When it does, let’s not forget the love.

In the meantime, here’s a picture of my whippet. She doesn’t seem to be affected at all.

KM.

Breezy the Whippet

Breezy the Whippet