kimmo_matias_personal blog: September 2007

Tuesday, September 25, 2007

My Photography: Details IV

Here is a small selection of photographs I took last weekend. I could only fit so much. This week it's details images etc. One of images is called "Beauty (You've Never Seen)" for this reason: while I was taking the picture I was ridiculed and laughed at - this goes to show that some people just cannot see what is in front of them. It also makes the point about how much of an idiot people can be. It's not always fun to take pictures - especially when you are classified as a freak doing it! But that won't stop me, even if it does irritate me. I go to any lengths to take a shot if I know the end result will be something I like. And I have the damn wounds to prove it, hahaha! So, nothing these little-minded people can say will make me stop doing this. This time I included some coloured photographs as well. I hope you like them.

***

Iron Door (Detail_1)

I Waited You A Long Time

Message For You

Reality Checks

Star Imprisonment

The F (Word) District

What Did I Tell You?

Memories of You

You Make Me Wet

Still Wishing (You'd Come Back)

Protecting Me

You Crack Me Up

Soft Spots

Beauty (You've Never Seen)

You Went With The Roses

Hold On To Me (Bridge)

Money Hunger

Poetic Death

Unhappy Happiness

Iron Door (Detail_2)

My Art: "The King"

The King (2006). Oil on canvas.

Artist of the Week: Peter Berlin

This week’s artist is Peter Berlin, the notorious gay porn star of the early 1970s. He is best known for his groundbreaking porn films. What is less known is that the countless covers and photos layouts of Peter Berlin in gay magazines through the late 1980s were all taken by Berlin who is himself a professional photographer. His assignments routinely took him to Paris, Rome and London where he photographed celebrities including Sophia Loren, Catherine Deneuve, Jean-Paul Belmondo, Brigitte Bardot, Alfred Hitchcock, Jeanne Moreau, Maurice Chevalier, Richard Widmark, and the clothes designers: Pierre Cardin, Karl Lagerfeld and Valentino. When Peter turned the camera on himself, he played each of two roles on different halves of the separately exposed negatives wearing his hallmark crotch grabbing costumes (all designed and executed by Berlin). Even less known, is that Peter Berlin is a gifted graphic artist. When the handling of black and white negatives in the darkroom occasionally resulted in prints that were slightly underexposed and grayish, he used his touch up pen and brush to darken the lines and increase the contrast. Soon he was using oils, acrylics and watercolors permitting him to enhance, embellish as well as colorize his black and white prints.The next step was the complete transformation or elimination of the backgrounds. He also started cutting up his photographs and creating collages with single or multiple self-images using different backgrounds from magazines including their covers and interior street and nature scenes. Berlin's talent as a graphic artist is perhaps best shown in his detailed pencil drawings which are well represented in this first exhibition of Peter Berlin's art.The body of Peter Berlin's creative work defies easy characterization. He challenges conventional notions of art and pornography and is perhaps alone with Tom of Finland in having created iconic images of masculine drag. For Peter Berlin's official website, go to www.peter-berlin.com.