5000 pv

glop glop

many thanks !

You can find a selection of what I've submitted on dA in the gallery, as well as all the series seperate folders
Une petite sélection qui offre un aperçu de ce à quoi je me suis essayé est disponible en cliquant sur Gallery juste au dessus, ainsi que mes diffèrentes séries dans diffèrents dossiers.

News : Numbers

Some kind of update of some kind.

1. April the first saw probably the worst joke that has ever emerged (excepting my teacher setting a test for that day) since mankind domesticated fire : dA replacing all the avatars by a single one of a dorkemon.
A it is not funny
B it makes me in the mood for killing small and nice animals, which is the last thing I need at this time
C it's visually offensive
D Every single deviant whose friends would vistit his/her page today would have looked like a clown
E It's time consuming, til you figure the big joke out

2. I joined the (pretty large) club of the deviants with more than 4 000 pv. When you adds that with th number of viewed deviation, it's above 10 000 so hourray ! And I submitted my 100th deviation here last sunday !

hem

This is a time for thanking people : ~graffit (who's not there anymore) who made me discover dA, ~Smithereens for her advices, her good mood and her dad's camera, =rikausse because it wouldn't be the same without people like him, ~alecska for selling me her camera, all my models (Agnès, Claire, Emeline, Helena, Maureen) for their beauty, their good will, the time they lost while I was bouncing around them shooting pictures, the time they waited to get the edited pictures, all those things. Thanks to my faithful assistants and backup models ~DD44 aka Phil, ~nopretention aka Adrien, Simon, Alice, David, Thomas....
Very special thanks go to `junkster78 for his thoughtfull advices and analysis, and much more !

3. It's the big fat final straight line of my school year. The trouble is, it's a kinda long and intensive last straight line, the kind with two four hours tests a day for a month to begin with, and some more icing 'till the end of july. So I won't spend much time here.

Have fun, marzipan and good night !

A.

Series

Previously : Shadows, Evolution...

See the gallery for all the series in their folders

All works copyright Alexis Hafner, partial or total use of these works strictly prohibited without expressed, written permission.

Beware of the dog !

You can find a selection of what I've submitted on dA in the gallery, as well as all the series seperate folders
Une petite sélection qui offre un aperçu de ce à quoi je me suis essayé est disponible en cliquant sur Gallery juste au dessus, ainsi que mes diffèrentes séries dans diffèrents dossiers.

News : Pride & Prejudice

I'll begin when claiming for a minute of silence in memory of Jane Austen, who stands quite high in my personnal pantheon of writers. Such skills for depicting the english society of her time, such a delightfull writing.

If the mere idea of reading Pride & Prejudice gives you headaches, don't be ashamed, don't be sad, they did quite a good film with Keira Knightley based on it. It of course can't top Stephen Frears' Dangerous Liaisons, but still, it's a great movie.

Speaking of movies, let's speak of Chris Nolan and Andrew Niccol. Chris Nolan is best known for directing Batman begins, but he's also directed The Prestige, Memento (if you loved The Usual Suspects, you'll love that one), Insomnia, and Following ( merely a feature movie, no money, no professionnals, but a superb image, and a mind bending plot. Maybe a better film than the critically praised Memento. Quite hard to find so you see it, you donwload/steal/buy/rent it). A great director.
Andrew Niccol is the man who filmed Lord of War. Nothing more to say, you guess. Not quite : he also wrote the script of The Truman Show, which is the only film for quite a while who succeeded at bringing tears to my eyes. Even the most dramatic scenes of Moulin Rouge ! didn't get that from me. A great great movie. And as for Chris Nolan, I consider his best film to be his first one Gattace. So cold, so beautiful in the darkness of the near future it paints. A story about eugenism (hey ! lili, that's a flick for you !), some kind of mix of science-fiction and film noir. A masterpiece.

Back to the point, I'll make it quick.

You're an adult when you don't depend on your parents anymore : you have your own home, car, your own life as a whole. Kinda makes you think about what you want. Which car, which home...
For quite some time, when I thought about it, I saw the blue convertible, I saw the large flat in the Quartier Latin, the big tv screen, the luxury furniture.... And of course, my picture on the front page of the Economist as the new super tycoon. Lots of people who do the same studies as I do have those dreams

And yet the things I see are a small flat, a small car. Nice things, not to expensive, not to big. No picture of myself in the newspaper, neither as a tycoon nor as a photographer. A job I do the best I can, as a small wheel in a big machinery, doing my best for everything to go smoothly.
It's not humility, it's the vision of the future.

Friends and a beautiful, loving wife. A good house with two cars in the garage. Money and a healthy lifestyle. Happiness. It should end there, right ?
There's something quite mysterious, why do I now feel that I have something to do, a responsability ? (Nothing big, of course)

Why do we care for other people lifes, for the humanity, for the the future generations ? Why isn't life's true goal earning enough money as quick as possible to spent the rest of our lifetime sunbathing and drinking SWY in our luxury penthouses ?

It's not like the poor polar bear on his lonely iceberg beacause of global warming : it plays on emotion, you like the bear's figure, so you'll be concerned by his fate and as a consequence by global warming.
It has nothing to do about celebrity. I don't want to do somethin of my life in order to become famous.

Maybe becoming adult is just this : turning his dreams to dreams of things we can achieve...

Sorry for this mystico-philosophical thing. I doubt a lot of people went that far anyway.

Take care

A.

Serie : Shadows

Some kind of journey without taking the camera out of my flat. Something more conceptual than my portraits were.

January 08

Status : just backed up

Serie : Evolution

Models : Agnès B. , Roxanne, Claire, Nena

Studio portrait, at home, november 2007

Camera : Canon EOS

Status : it's going to take some time

The series are now grouped within the gallery page

Pour un aperçu global de ma production, la gallerie [link] contient un panachage de mes photos, mèlant les plus récentes à certaines plus anciennes

News : 3000

3000 pageviews, nearly 4000 viewed deviation. That's some achievement. It's only number as Giovak pointed it. Still. 3 then 3 times 0. It's... It's big. I'd like to thanks everyone. They'll recognize themselves.

It has been quite a long time. I mean, it looks like a long time to me since the last journal entry. Perception of time is the first thing you lose anyway, when you look back, even yesterday seems to be so far away. Anyway. I managed to speak about photography in the last entries, I should keep it that way.

Evolution is my second studio session to date. I received a lot of comments on the first one, Heartbeats, in the real word or in this one, and I tried to build something based on those comments. The support of Adrien, aka ~nopretention, did a lot for Evolution, which is a name he found after I named Natural Selection the first picture of the serie. His version of this picture is to be seen on his page, go and see it, I love it !

Also, the support I received from my first models did a lot. It makes me so happy, so.... so "humbly" proud of what I've done to see how happy and proud the feel about their pictures. That's the only thing that matters on Heartbeats, it was my first time, and I just wanted to picture them as beautiful as they are, as they deserved to be pictured.

A lot of my friends, relatives, family members congratulated me, but Claire, Maureen, Emeline, they were the one who did a difference. It's thanks to them that I threw myself on the road again for that new session.

Jesus Christ ! It was 3 weeks ago ! Damn, who would have thought ?
The point is when I finally backed up the files on my external hard drive, there were 885 pictures. You really need a system, and plenty of time to get over it. I had neither. Which explains why there's only a hanfull of pictures out yet.

I spent the whole day taking pictures. It started... dunno, maybe at 10 AM, ended at 7:30pm. 4 models. Agnès, Roxanne, Claire, Nena. I terraformed the office room, my parents being gone for the week end, into a "studio", basically a white wall, a white sheet on the floor, and 4 abslutely not meant for photographic use lights. Two so-called reflector, home-made style. That's about it.

I may have been a little ambitious. At about 5 PM I collapsed. Tired. I spent about half an hour on autopilot before I got back to it. The whole day, it's just too much. As for the pictures, I was willing to do something different, not as classical as Heartbeats was. I probably neglected a few points while I tried to do something more creative.
Anyway, it's really hard for me to have an opinion on the serie : there's too many pictures, it's awful !

Though there's some nice things, in my opinion, it's not all totally rubish. That's the biggest issue when you handle lots of pictures. You only see the missed ones, you don't realize that there's however nearly as much good things. It was the same at the SL Night in May. I had that feeling, and unfortunatly, the guys who organized the party had the same idea.

Anyway, that's it for tonight, it will take quite a long time for me to process that serie, so stay tuned, don't go away, wait and see, sayonara, good night, and good luck

A big huge thank to the models
And one for Adrien for the "material support" and for the "creative advising"

Love you all !

A.

Serie : Evolution

Models : Agnès B. , Roxanne, Claire, Nena

Studio portrait, at home, november 2007

Camera : Canon EOS

Status : in a slow process

[link]

The serie are now grouped within the gallery page : [link]

News : Blow up

I've seen Blow up last week. Helluva of a movie. Said to myself : I wanna be that guy. David Hemmings' character. I've got the pants, the shirt, the shoes, the camera. I'm not blond-haired but I've gotta cool glasses with tainted glass, and I can dye my hair anyway ! What's missing ? The Rolls... yeah well, first I need my licence Edit : I've got my licence !. And models.

So I saw Blow Up ten days ago. Realized I needed models.
Yesterday I spent a few hours in the dark room. Realized I needed models.
I went back home, chatted with a friend, about portraits. Realized I needed models.

And here we come to today (nearly, since it's nearly 4 PM )

I didn't think about models for the day. Went back home, prepared for the birthday party I was planning for the evening. A few friends came by to help me, and managed to get me do some shopping (mostly booze and pizzas). When I came back with booze and pizzas, they had closed the curtains in the living-room, had put a white cloth on one wall, had set lights and all...

My birthday present was that : a shooting session with 3 lovely girls I know. And I do mean it (as they're not on dA, it's unlikely they'll read this) : lovely !
And a digital SLR, thanks to wonderful and her wonderful dad.
My father even bought photo floods for the day, I used them with a home-made reflector.

I stand pretty shy at first. It's not easy : it's their beauty I can turn wrong ! Okay, it was a birthday present, but I was uneasy with three girls taking turns in front of the floods for me to be happy. I wanted them to have some cashback (héhé DVD in store btw !) : nice pictures.

To start with something, they put some make-up. Casual dresses.I warmed up by shooting during that time.

First to go was Maureen. Blue laser eyes. She's already done some modelling before, and was a great help. She simply knew how to stand, how to look... I basically ordered the two others to stand as she had !
Then Claire. Very simple make-up. First time. Always smiling. Nervously smiling, took me some time to make her feel a little bit more at ease, enough to make us both happy with her pictures.
Last but not least, Roxanne : the hiding one. Black make-up. I have enough fingers to count the number of portrait of her I managed to take in 3 years. Kind of a challenge. So having her standing there, letting me took dozens of pictures was... something I wasn't prepared for.

Though I think i was able to cope. Damn, they look so beautiful on some pictures, it's just... Gosh ! You get the point. And I think they were also happy with their pictures, which makes over-happy.

There's so much difference between so-called spontaneous portraits and "studio" : you don't simply "freeze time" on a picture : you model is frozen. It goes far beyond !

So a very huge thanks to my three models, Maureen (your laser blue eyes do sparks !), Claire (who needs to be a little more serious, uh ?) and Roxanne (aka Rox. who got a wonderful necklace).
An also huge thanks to ~Smithereens (you should have come ! ) and her family.
Then Dad for the floods who really helped me get the best.
Also to Phil "Dieu du Stade", for being my reflector-carrying slave during the entire session.
And David (hope you get the piece of luggage back) and everybody who maked this happen.
At last, a very special thank you to Mister Shad(JCIF!), for helping me in the edition of those pictures.

Love you all !

Serie : Heartbeats

In my view you cannot claim to have seen something until you have photographed it. Emile Zola

session in studio, Sept. 07

Heartbeats. Why heartbeats ? Because you still can feel it. A picture is a snapshot, a moment stolen between two heartbeats. That the girl is standing still for you to take the picture doesn't change a thing, you can't stop that beat. What you've got on the picture is an enveloppe. An enveloppe in itself is lifeless. But you know that there's something under, there's blood waiting to rush again, waiting for you to press the shutter. It's warm, and an enveloppe is not warm, it's as cold as it is lifeless. It's much more than an enveloppe. Just look at their eyes

Camera : Canon EOS Status : finished

Serie : London errand

London, New Year 07.

Film : Ilford HP5, Delta 400 & 3200 Status : in process

13 out 18 to go : [link]
Knowing : [link]
No gateway : [link]
Requiem : [link]
Fire : [link]
A brief history of Romania : [link]
London's Skyline : [link]
No witnesses : [link]
La mouette : [link]
Run : [link]
First Sea Lord : [link]
Clock strikes 6 : [link]
Meet Mr.Kint : [link]
Jump : [link]
La nuit américaine : [link]
Time travel : [link]
Power lines : [link]
The shadow Cabinet : [link]

Other series :

SL Summer Night 07 pictures taken during a student party [link]
The Devmeet day : 20.01.07 exterior and portrait [link]
America 2005 [link]
La Baule 2006 portrait, exterior, landscapes [link]
LLG 2006 portrait [link]
Night : Paris 2006 night photography [link]
Studies novels, advertising, abstract [link]

Copyright Alexis Hafner, partial or total use of these works strictly prohibited without expressed, written permission