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| (c) Michael Borek |
MEG member Michael Borek shares his fascination with old cemeteries and what he found on a recent trip to Buenos Aires.
I am fascinated by old cemeteries, but I am scared of places that are overrun by tourists. I am from Prague, Czech Republic, and I used to love to go to the old Jewish cemetery in downtown when it was still behind the Iron Curtain and hardly any visitors set foot there. However, that cemetery changed immensely after the fall of Communism and going there now feels like being at Times Square. Even though the scenery is still nice and pleasantly bizarre, it is impossible to enjoy it quietly with the never-ending stream of tourists.
When I was preparing for my trip to Buenos Aires, many people and guidebooks recommended visiting the Recoleta Cemetery. I usually don’t like to visit “must-see” and touristy places, so I was hesitant. I am glad that my curiosity prevailed. The cemetery covers 14 acres, and, if one steers clear of the tomb of Eva Peron and several other luminaries, the experience can be quite private. The whole necropolis feels like a city within city and there seem to be even little “neighborhoods” with their own atmospheres. It is a true memento mori with grandiose tombs with beautiful Art Nouveau and Neogothic architecture in various stages of disrepair, interspersed with rotting flowers or always fresh plastic flowers, dust, spider webs, and condensation on the windows, rendering everything even more mysterious.
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| (c) Michael Borek |
In most of these pictures, I tried to capture the sense of transience I felt there. However, there is one photo that is quite different. I became fascinated by a photograph on a tomb of a woman who died in 2010. Next to her traditional black and white portrait that one would expect on a tomb, there is a color picture of her and what I suppose was her car, a Ford Edsel, taken in 1958. There is no question that the car is the most dominant part of the
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| (c) Michael Borek |
picture. And in case some viewer did not understand what he was viewing, there is a caption under the photograph with the woman’s name and the model of her car. Even though this photograph is visually different than the rest of the pictures I took at this cemetery, it seem to complement the others with its postmodern suggestion that a person should be remembered by her beautiful car.
MEG member Blake Stenning shares the story behind a signature image and his transition from film to digital photography.
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| (c) Blake Stenning |
In the summer of 2009, my wife and I had the opportunity to travel to Malaysia to visit friends living in Kuala Lumpur. During the several weeks that followed, we explored the country’s diverse cities, lush jungles, and exotic islands, and discovered a land rich in history and culture. It was a truly inspiring journey for me, both personally and as a photographer.
At the time, my primary camera was a tripod-mounted, medium format Mamaya 645 film camera. While the picture quality was vastly superior to 35mm film, it required a deliberative process of manually adjusting focus, aperture, and shutter speed, based on exposure readings I made using a hand-held spot meter. The equipment was bulky and heavy, and I was concerned that it would be too cumbersome for overseas travel. However, I had recently purchased a digital SLR camera and began to consider whether I should take that instead. While the image resolution could not compare to my Mamaya, it did seem to be an ideal travel camera as it was both smaller and lighter, and could be used sans tripod. It also featured programmable exposure settings that would allow me to react to situations far more quickly and intuitively. In addition, a single pocket-sized CF card could hold the equivalent of 20 rolls of 120 film. The decision was made, I would go digital.
Over the next 17 days we encountered a vast array of unique and unusual landscapes, cityscapes, people, and cultures – and I photographed them all! While it would be impossible to capture my entire experience of Malaysia in a single image, there is one I made that came close. The scene unfolded outside a small Buddhist temple in the ancient port town of Malacca. I was drawn to the large carved circular portal on the exterior wall and began to compose my shot. As I raised the camera to my eye, a small woman hurried past down the darkened corridor that led to an interior courtyard. As I watched her, it occurred to me that when she reached the end of the passageway her figure would become a stark silhouette framed against the brightly lit background. The result would make a far more interesting photograph, so I paused and waited for the precise moment when all the elements within the viewfinder would align, and made this photograph.
“Passageway” became the signature image for my exhibition, Malaysia Journeys, which hung at Multiple Exposures Gallery in February 2011. To me, it captures the duality of this magnificent land; ancient and modern, foreign and familiar, religious and secular. But it also represents a transition of sorts: from darkness to light, and from film to digital.
A selection from this series will be on display this fall at the National Institute of Health in Bethesda, MD. For more information, please contact Blake Stenning at: blakestenning@yahoo.com.
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