Regrovy Sady Park. Prague, Czech Republic.
Photographs by Stefania GurdowaOne could tell hardly anything about an author of the plates at the first look, although there was her name on them. Yet deepened research of the group of photographers gathered in Visavis.pl and Imago Mundi Foundation shed more light upon the person which appeared to be unusual: an independent, consequent, gifted woman whose workshop remained far away from grand cultural capitols and who performed her art while taking ordered portraits of her neighbors: shopkeepers, craftsmen, peasants, priests and Jews.
Gurdowa, the distinguished artist, died in 1968. The flat was cleaned after she had passed. The immense photographic archive was disposed and wasted. Only a fracture of her art lasted, together with a question without an answer: who hid a collection of glass plates behind a wall in the attic of her workshop in Dębica? Perhaps was it her own decision to preserve them this way. As a responsible professional she must have obviously been aware of the rule that “negatives are to be stored”.
The "Stefania Gurdowa: Negatives are to be stored" project web-site: www.gurdowa.pl
West Oakland BART station.
I finally had a chance to update my website and showcase a few images from my current project. It is still a work in progress and I find that completing it is quite a slow process. I have been having this debate in my head whether it is appropriate to show them at this stage or not. I have posted some images in the blog. However, it is difficult to view them altogether. I think the website allows me to see the project's progress and to evaluate whether the body of work is cohesive or not.
The President returns a chair after a meeting at the Oval Office.As chance would have it, the first photos she ever took of him were when she was on assignment to photograph somebody else. It was 2004 and Time had sent her to follow the John Kerry campaign. It was in a holding room at a rally in Chicago that she came across the then little-known senator. "He was just there as one of the speakers. But you couldn't not notice him. He was very funny, very good-looking, very well spoken. He just seemed at ease with the world around him. He had everything. And people in the room really reacted to him.
"It also happened that he was standing in a much better light than John Kerry and so I did portraits of him and sent them in and my editor was like, 'Who's this?' And I'm like, 'He's this guy from Chicago but I think... I think he's more than just your local Chicago politician.' And then he made the speech at the Democratic convention and we all knew who he was from that point."
Shell lobbied to do a story on him in 2006 which eventually became a cover piece, and it was the rapport she built up during that time that has stood her in such good stead. She got to know him before the campaign madness and its attendant security requirements took over.
When it kicked off in earnest, she went back on the road with him and the result is perhaps one of the most intimate set of portraits there is of the president elect - catching a quick nap on the campaign bus, relaxing with his children, snatching a moment alone with his wife, Michelle.
Carol Cadwaller
©Stella Kalaw
MacArthur BART station.
South of Market. San Francisco, CA.
Hakone Japanese Gardens. Saratoga, CA.
©Stella Kalaw
De Young Museum. San Francisco, CA.
De Young Museum. San Francisco, CA.
© Stella Kalaw
© Stella Kalaw
© Sebastiao SalgadoI can't believe it has been a year. After all, I was skeptical when I started this blog. Then a few months later, I realized that I enjoy writing even though it does not come naturally to me.
I want to take this time to say thank you for taking the time out of your busy life to visit every so often. Thank you also for introducing yourselves and for sharing your thoughts and words of encouragement with me. I hope you will continue to stick around as I journey through this photographic life.
A few years after moving to Boston, I read in the papers that Isabella Rossellini was making an appearance at a local department store downtown to promote Lancome. I remember seeing her ads from the fashion magazines my mom used to bring home from her trips abroad while I was a teenager growing up in Manila. I went with a co-worker to the event. Several flash bulbs went off as she smiled in front of journalists and the crowd. She was beautiful! However, I was quite taken aback by the stark difference between the ads as I remembered them and seeing her in person standing a few feet away from me. That was probably the moment I realized that fashion advertisements were just an illusion. Seeing these images at We Can Shoot Too blog triggered the memory.
Photographs by Pete Souza/White House
© Stella Kalaw
Saint Tropez, France.
© Stella Kalaw
Photographer: Natalie Jeffcott
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