Author Archives: Isaac

About Isaac

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

Feedback from Katka

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Woohoo! We’ve got feedback from Katka Pruskova, whose incredible time-lapse of blooming flowers many of you liked last week. In an email, Katka explained why she made the time-lapse, why flowers, and what it meant to her. Voilà:

“I’ve been fascinated by the time-lapse since I first saw one and I decided to give it a try. I started with the typical things like clouds, just to see the movement, if it is really working. Well it was and I wanted more. It was summer and my mom’s garden was full of beautiful flowers and I started to think how to make a beautiful flower time-lapse, where to set up the little studio in my apartment to be able to shoot through day and night. Well after 3 nights sleeping on a couch in my living room while my first flower was occupying my bedroom (the only room with the drapes), I realized that was necessary 😉 But the first result, even not perfect, made me continue. It was very interesting to see something you cannot normally observe, how the flowers are moving when they bloom, the small movements of petals. I was shooting whole summer and finally during winter found some time to finish the whole video. It was a lot of work, you spend hours and hours of preparation, shooting, and then making the whole movie. And you end up with just 2 and a half minutes of final video. But what you see is amazing and I am very happy I could share the video and I appreciate so much all the beautiful comments I received. I hope to show you some more flowers soon ;)”

Thank you, Katka. Great work!

Katka Pruskova’s feeling for flowers

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Katka Pruskova is a Czech-born computer scientist and photographer. On her quest to show us the amazing colorful world we live in, Katka has made an absolutely spellbinding video of blooming Amaryllis, Lilies, Zygocactus, Rose, Gladiolus, Tulip and Gardenia. I wish my countryman Carl Linnaeus could have watched this masterpiece with us. He would have been supercalifragilisticexpialidocious excited. Sit back, enjoy.

To make this masterpiece, Katka has used a technique called “time-lapse photography.” In a homemade studio (a cabinet, black cloth and two LED lamps), Katka placed her flowers (carefully picked in her mother’s garden) in front of a Canon 5D Mark II and shot 7,100 photos over 730 hours. Once converted into a video, played back at 30 frames (photos) per second, time appears to be moving faster. This is not an exercise for the wilting weeds of the photography world! It takes serious planning and after the hours of shooting there are days of post-production. Bravo!

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French dramatist Jean Giraudoux once said: “The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.” I’m sure Katka would not disagree but with her time-lapse photography, she makes the flower luscious and sexy as well. Thank you, Katka!

Chayan Khoi: A cyber photographer extraordinaire

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Based in Paris, Iranian born Chayan Khoi is an artist known for his mysterious, futuristic, sometimes apocalyptic, images. He is an avid traveller fascinated by everything he encounters. This 50-year-old “cyber photographer” seeks to picture the beauty, diversity and unknown of the world. Below is “Return to the Jungle”, one of his most famous pieces and one of my favorites.

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Two recent works, unveiled at yesterday’s vernissage of Chayan’s latest exhibition in Geneva, remind me of Mad Max, Fallout and Mutant Chronicles. The submarine is docked to what appears to be a hidden, arctic research station. The mechanical sharks zooming around the l’arc de triomphe are bizarre and frightening. How intriguing!

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While I’m not sure what Chayan wants to communicate with these steampunkish pieces of beautiful stuff, I’m absolutely fascinated by how the frames, resembling some sort of command centres, leaves us with (at least) a remote feeling of being in control. Perhaps it’s a warning sign of what’s to come? Thank you for the heads-up, Chayan.

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And, what in the world is the silver bullet pictured above? Made out of what appears to be a surfboard, metal and electronics, this is the first thing that caught my eye when stepping into Le New Garage. I’m a sucker for science fiction. Chayan’s spaceship (or perhaps it’s the submarine?), blinking in sync with the rest of the room, makes me feel at home.

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I love scrapbooks. But I have never seen any like the ones pictured above. Reflecting his life as a nomad, traveling nine months each year, these piles of memories tell us the history of our friend and his sources of inspiration. In the days of social media, it makes me happy when someone goes beyond Instagram and 140 characters to tell their story.

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Chayan Khoi is a cyber photographer extraordinaire. A man of many talents, working with images, frames and installations. His out-of-this-world beautiful stuff gives us insight into the limits of our own imagination. If you happen to be in Geneva this weekend, you don’t want to miss this opportunity. Le New Garage is open 14:00-20:00 and located here: