It gives me enormous pleasure to announce that our new collaborative book, ‘Green Economy Reader‘ written with some of the most important sustainability thinkers of our time will be officially launched at the United Nations UNFCCC COP23 meeting in Bonn. State of the art in sustainability thinking, inspired by interdisciplinary ideas of ecological economics. This…
Category: Positions and Practice
1M views on @Flickr
Exciting news today is that my new environmental and travel photography website has been launched: http://stanislav.photography/. At the same time this week my Flickr blog has reached a psychological threshold of 1.000.000 views: https://www.flickr.com/photos/environmentalartist/albums Thank you all! As a special treat the 10 most thoughtful and engaging comments on Flickr between 12 September and 01 October…
Rencontres d’Arles
Rencontres d’Arles is full of amazing personalities: famous and not-so-famous photographers, gallery owners, museum curators, journalist, photography enthusiasts, contemporary art aficionados, bloggers, journal editors, professors of contemporary art history and book publishers. This year the OFF programme (those exhibitions that didn’t get to the official selection of the Rencontres d’Arles festival) or off OFF programme…
Landscape into Art
It was an incredible experience to discover an old classic, the book ‘Landscape into Art’ written by Kenneth Clark in 1949, based on his series of lectures given as a Slade Professor in Oxford (https://www.amazon.co.uk/Landscape-into-Art-Kenneth-Clark/dp/0719536103). According to a contemporary Cambridge Review, ‘The importance of this book to art criticism and to the history of art…
Rencontres d’Arles
Continuing my Rencontres d’Arles photo series featuring art directors, gallery owners, photographers, collectors and members of the public enjoying the sunshine in Arles. Founded in 1970 by the Arles photographer Lucien Clergue, writer Michel Tournier and historian Jean-Maurice Rouquette, the Rencontres d’Arles Festival became the longest-running and most famous photography festival in the world. Exhibiting…
Vilém Flusser
Vilém Flusser is one of my recent discoveries. Hugely engaging and a very powerful text re-contextualizing the photographic practice and our relationship with photography. Flusser considers images ‘mediations between the world and human beings’. He describes the nature of photography as a practice of magic and considers the invention of photography an event of a…
Rencontres d’Arles
First, some impressions. Arles is amazing for people watching. One could find movie characters not dissimilar to Don Corleone surrounded by the penetrating yellows of Cafe Van Gogh, the famous terrace depicted by the master painter himself. After meeting and discussing photography with one of the Magnum members I decided to focus more on people…
Rencontres d’Arles
Visiting Rencontres d’Arles is always a moveable feast. Portfolio reviews, exhibitions, talks, discussion forums, meetings, cafe life, private views, film screenings, the list goes on. In the next few posts I will be sharing some of the images made during my recent trip to Rencontres d’Arles capturing the spirit of the festival, the festival goers…
Jouer contre les appareils
While in Arles at the world famous Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival (https://www.rencontres-arles.com/) I came across this wonderful new book by Marc Lenot. Written as a PhD thesis under the guidance of Michel Poivert, professor of art history at La Sorbonne in Paris, this book explores experimental photography from 1960s to the present day. A…
MA Photography Project 2017
(c) Stanislav Shmelev
Joel Meyerowitz at Les Rencontres
At the recent talk held at the world famous Les Rencontres d’Arles photography festival, Joel Meyerowitz, a celebrated American street photographer said something fundamentally profound about his practice. “People are spending years to learn the art of choreography to make sure ballet dancers create dramatic and visually exciting composition on stage. My job as a…
The Photographer (1948)
I have found this little gem of a film about Edward Weston, one of several amazing artists who formed a group named f/64, by accident. Seeing unique footage of one of my most favourite photographers at work in his native California, working with a large format camera should bring a lot of joy to all…
Eco Art Gallery 