N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A,
a blog about photography by Sofia Silva
I’ve been thinking about this documentary – Jonestown: Terror in the Jungle – ever since I saw it a couple of weeks ago. Some images just got stuck in my mind. Writing about it seemed like a natural thing to do, but I guess it took some time to digest it and today, while listening…
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caption (image above): Self-published box – The Memory of History, by Lewis Bush, 2012. I’ve recently arrive at Lewis Bush virtual sphere (aka blog) and am coming out with that feeling of content and surprise that is often too rare. A friend had sent me a message with a text about Don McCullin’s retrospective @…
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Caption (photo above: image from Kollar’s book Field Trip. Source: STET Photography Editions. More of Kollar’s work here. I’d say this is the exception and not the rule: sometimes authors’ statements about their work really add to it. I think this is the case: a brief and sincere text about the emotional experience that results…
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Campaign posters for the British Army (by agency Karmarama), targeting youth and using the same psychological strategies used in propaganda recruitment from extremists groups, making youngsters believe they need a higher purpose in life and offering the solution: to join the army. Image showing the installation of a photograph in the context of an exhibition.…
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caption: detail from Dioso Simões’ booklet in Propeller Propaganda. Deisgn by Paulo Arraiano. When we asked Diogo to collaborate with Propeller Propaganda, there was a lot of possibilities in the air and no pre-established idea of what he could publish. After some options were dropped, the series of photographs we then published was suggested, but…
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Dating from mid 90’s, Richard Billingham‘s project Ray’s a Laugh is still a reference to me and I always show it to students whenever we address the art of documenting intimate stories and domestic environments. Ray’s a Laugh is a project about Richard’s father Ray and his mother Liz and their life indoors. If what Billingham…
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In June a decade will have passed since I first started Nihilsentimentalgia, so I thought for the next few months I could make an effort to revisit some of my early posts, which were very poorly done. As fate would have it, it’s now confirmed that my obsession with the idea of authenticity is also…
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As is becoming ever more often, another student’s work sets ground @ Nihilsentimentalgia. Carlos was my student for the past year and the selection of work featured here, about his family, caught my attention. These images are part of a larger project about Carlos’ grandmother, Engrácia, with 84 years old, who lives with her husband, Alexandre, 81,…
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When I come across artists that lack ethics or artworks that scream opportunism I get very irritated, sometimes even a bit angry. Often the art world is just so perverse that I wish I didn’t know about that artist or artwork. I usually debate whether or not to write about these extreme situations, not because…
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I met Iñigo Sánchez‘s work because he was part of Hélice‘s comprehensive training program 2016/2017. Hélice’s team is the one behind Propeller, the magazine I became involved with, and it was just a matter of days before I ended up meeting the author of some of the photographs that used to be featured in a…
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Some years ago I was having a discussion with a friend about going to visit animals in enclosed spaces and as my friend was arguing for his position, he stated: how else can I see them? Somehow, I’ve never forgotten his argument, so maybe there’s something to it. At fist, it seems just a very…
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Before today, I didn’t know Terje Abusdal’s work and I confess I fell for it. I’m not exceptionally good at anything, except at falling in love at first sight and that’s what happened here. Sometimes, when I first encounter an author’s work, things look pretty clear. Specifically, what an author excels at seems to becomes…
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I’ve been meaning to watch this for some time, but was lacking the courage, until today. I knew I would be troubled and conflicted about the project, so I was struggling to decide whether I should even see it, to begin with. A friend’s description of the movie was what made me sit still, for…
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It’s a question students often ask: who’s your favourite photographer? I don’t have one, nor do I have a favourite director, a favourite musician, a favourite writer and so on. It varies. Having said that, what students usually want when posing that question is to understand what kind of photographs I like, so I usually…
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Somehow Max Pinckers‘ work has never excited me much. I though it was too neat, too contrived, too pretty, too arranged, too controlled… After coming across a feature of Magnum Photos Now about Finding Your Documentary Photography Style and reading the words he chose to describe his approach to documentary photography, I went back to some…
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Warning: most of the links have extremely violent imagery. I gave myself a task: to look at photographs of violent events for a period of more or less a month and to chose a photograph per day (which wasn’t manageable after all). I realized from this experience that I haven’t really been looking at photographs…
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I confess: as soon as I heard about this project I was sold. The history is so special, so out of the ordinary, that it would be impossible for whatever projects that went in contact with it not to acquire some of that originality, depth and playfulness. The Wolfpack, i.e., the Crystal Moselle‘s documentary, follows…
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Note: I chose to give the warning I missed to find when I came across the image that I’ll be referring to later on this post: a poor resolution image of the inside of the Bataclan after the tragedy that came to be known as the Paris attacks. The tragedy took place on a Friday…
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Inspired by the echos of the migrant crisis in his home country, hungarian photographer Norbert Baska has made a fashion shoot called “Der Migrant” with models in luxurious clothes posing as refugees in fake camp set-ups with barbed wire. ‘Lovely‘, some say. ‘What’s the problem‘, others ask. But the majority of us will immediately recognize…
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Trailer for Arne Birkenstock‘s documentary Beltracchi: The Art of Forgery about Wolfgang Beltracchi’s work and how he managed to fool the art world. Excerpts from the CBS interview with Bob Simon Bob Simon: Could you do a Rembrandt? Wolfgang Beltracchi: Yeah, sure. Bob Simon: Could you do a Leonardo? Wolfgang Beltracchi: Yeah, yeah, sure. Bob…
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N I H I L S E N T I M E N T A L G I A, 