Author Archives: Isaac

About Isaac

Curious photographer and blogger. Likes sci-fi, retrogaming, 80s music and coffee.

Cyber photographer Chayan Khoi returns to Geneva

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Remember Chayan Khoi? The cyber photographer extraordinaire is back in Geneva with his new exhibition Le Temps Suspendu (Time in Suspension). Here are some snaps and thoughts from Wednesday’s vernissage at Galerie Evartspace.

Chayan Khoi 11

Working with images, frames and scrapbooks (I love these!), Chayan’s new series is as bizzare and intriguing as his last. He keeps challenging our imagination, but the punchy steampunk is gone and everything feels – if possible – more suggestive and spiritual.

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Chayan’s work projects a journey through the past, the present and the future. It takes me to distant, futuristic, exciting, frightening and dystopian places. But it always leaves me with a feeling that I am exactly where I need to be at this very moment in time.

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If you happen to be in Geneva sometime between now and 30 November, I suggest that you swing by Grand-Rue 12 (not far from the St. Pierre Cathedral) for a visit. It is a great exhibition in a nice part of the town. Enjoy!

Sebastião Salgado’s penguins (and other social animals)

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I am in Sweden for a week. I go to see an exhibition by the Brazilian photographer Sebastião Salgado. Question: do I really want to see more images of penguins in cold sea and ice landscapes? Answer: Yes! If they are photographs taken by Sebastião Salgado. I stroll into the Swedish Museum of Photography. My jaw drops. I am simply stunned by the images. This is a masterclass in composition, story telling and developing. “Award-winning” is an inadequate description.

Salgado 1

Saunders Island is inhabited by penguins of several different species, notably the chinstrap (Pygoscelis antarctica), which number over 150,000 couples. South Sandwich Islands. 2009.

I take photos of the photos. My camera feels cold. My fingers feel cold. I shiver. How is it possible that these beautiful images take me to the most inhospitable part of the world, focus on a cute fluffy swimming flightless bird and yet somehow what arrives in my mind’s eye is the environmental cost of human over-population?

Salgado 2

Zavodovski Island is home to some 750,000 couples of chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) as well as a large colony of macaroni penguins (Eudyptes chrysolophus). The island’s active volcano is visible in the background. South Sandwich Islands. 2009.

Salgado 3

A colony of chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) at Bailey Head on Deception Island. Antarctic Peninsula. 2005.

Back home, I take a look at Sebastião’s website. I have an insight to the work of a truly great photographer but also a photographer whose mission involves putting his work to work. These extraordinary penguin images are part of “Genesis” started in 2004; it is a bigger project about a pristine natural world and invites consideration of human’s interaction with it.

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Chinstrap penguins (Pygoscelis antarctica) on an iceberg located between Zavodovski and Visokoi islands. South Sandwich Islands. 2009.

Sebastião’s concerns – and his projects – go further than the environment, his images tell of the dispossessed and injustices in all corners of the globe. They punch. Hence his photo essays carry titles such as “Coffee,” “Migration,” “Polio,” and “Workers.” He also runs a “Smiling Children Project” via his Facebook page. Too sugary? Maybe. But with this morning’s news screaming the awfulness of Iraq, Gaza, Ukraine and Syria, I’m happy to be reminded of a common attribute that binds us social animals together rather than the all too common brutality that pulls us apart. Question: Can images alone bring about change in the world? Answer: Yes! If they are photographs taken by Sebastião Salgado.

The Little Mermaid in Copenhagen

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She’s a celebrity. Dozens of excited people point and take photos. When I first see Edvard Eriksen’s “Little Mermaid” sitting serenely on a rock by the Langelinie promenade in Copenhagen, I feel I am encountering someone famous. The persona is very familiar. I expect her to move. Is that really her?

Little Mermaid 1

Photo: Isaac Griberg

Like many female celebrities, she is very beautiful. She is poised. Her skin is smooth. She was modelled after the ballerina Ellen Price who appeared in a ballet inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s 1837 fairy tale “The Little Mermaid.” Eriksen was commissioned to create the life-size bronze beauty in 1909 by local dignitary Carl Jacobsen (of Carlsberg beer fame.) The work was completed in 1913.

Little Mermaid 2

Photo: Isaac Griberg

As I train my long lens on her face I can’t help noticing the sadness that the sculptor has captured. Maybe because the story that inspired the sculpture is sad. Well, more than sad; it is tragic. There is even academic debate about how the story ends.

Like many celebrities, she has been copied many times. She also travels: in 2010, she went for five months to the Shanghai World Expo. But celebrity is dangerous. The bigger the celebrity, the bigger the bodyguard! It seems that the Little Mermaid in Copenhagen needs a big bodyguard.

Little Mermaid 3

Originally published by Spiegel Online. Photo: AP Photo / Kristoffer Eriksen

She has been painted many times. She has been dressed in burqas.

Little Mermaid 4

Originally published by DR. Photo: Brian Bergmann

In 1984, for reasons unknown, her right arm was cut away only to be returned by the vandals two days later.

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Originally published by DR. Photo: Ulf Nilsen

She has been decaptiated twice: in 1964 and 1998. On the first occasion, her head was never found. So the face I photograph was not the original!? Another tragedy! I wonder if Edvard Eriksen foresaw the dangers that have come with the Little Mermaid’s well-merited celebrity?