la poesía – a story

do you remember the cafe la poesía, that magic night in san telmo? buenos aires devised our meeting, so romantic and sweet, lulú

horacio ferrer, lulú

i have blogged this image before but recently i submitted it to shutter sisters’ one word project through flickr and they published it on the blog the other day. i was quite chuffed as i admire all the images i see on their site and find them inspirational.

the word of the month for shutter sisters was ‘story’ and of course you can see why i thought it perfectly fit. my talented and lovely friend nicole wanted to hear more about it and thought i should blog the story.

la poesía was a cafe i went to daily when i spent a month in buenos aires. it was beautiful and atmospheric … and had great coffee and food. i knew that there was a story behind it and thought that it must be a story out of 19th-century buenos aires bohemia, but it was only when i got home and researched it that i did find out that story at wander argentina.

it is a 19th-century building although the cafe la poesía (the poem) was only established in 1982 – but it was a bohemian enclave of musicians and poets at the time. it closed only six years later but lived on in the hearts of those who inhabited it. as the wander argentina page says:

it was here that the uruguayan poet and lyricist, horacio ferrer, mostly known for his work with astor piazolla, met the woman who remains his wife to this day, lucía micheli. The meeting is immortalized in his 1992 song, lulú

the cafe reopened in 2008 – only one year before i visited! being there i could have sworn that it had been open and trading for 100 years. this place was steeped in the history and atmosphere of 19th-century bohemia even though it did not exist as a cafe at that time.

inhabited

just a quick little post for the weekend! i’ve showed you some of the colour film images that i took in south america, including several from buenos aires that i displayed in my feria exhibition at sonido! cafe. i loved the beautiful soft light and colours that my canon tx captured during my time there. but i also shot with black & white film while i was there. it’s interesting to reflect on the difference in feel between images produced with colour film and those made with black & white, on the same camera in the same area of buenos aires at around the same time in similar light. 

to me the colour shots seem whimsical and dreamlike with a vintage feel. in contrast the b&w shots are sharp and defined with a simplicity that that lends itself to particular types of urban scenes that i so love to shoot. the images that i shoot in b&w are often simpler in their composition than my colour shots; they usual emphasise the built environment and, although the people that inhabit that environment are present, they are almost incidental to the scene. of course the contrast between these people and the solid structures surrounding them only serve to highlight their humanity and perhaps their fragility.

sometimes this is deliberate but, more often, i think it’s actually an unconscious process when i’m shooting b&w. my composition changes to this more simple style, with architectural forms and lines often the driving force, starkly contrasting with the people in the images.

i hope you enjoy these images – all shot in buenos aires in 2009. for those of you in melbourne you can see these four particular images in real life at brunswick street gallery in the photography 11a group show, on until 3 february.

feria

hello! i am back. i have been wanting to post for a bit but have been so busy with hanging & preparing for upcoming exhibitions that i haven’t had time to breathe. another big thing that’s been happening, which has nothing to do with photography but is worth shouting about, is that i’ve also been editing my friend’s phd. this took up some time but was such a great experience to work on. not only because i’m a bit nerdy & really enjoy the editing process but it also because it’s a really fascinating topic & i was so glad to be able to help out & be trusted with such an important task. now she going to hand it in within the week. congrats kate!

so back to what this post is about mainly! my first solo exhibition has been up at chiquitica gallery at sonido! for three weeks now &  it closes next friday, 3 december. lots of people have seen it – even friends from sydney who have been down for a couple of days have popped in! i’ve received lots of great feedback and, although i haven’t sold anything (yet!) the whole thing has been fabulous. for me it’s more about getting the courage up to get my work out there and it’s motivated me to do several other shows coming up over the next few months, as well as plan for future projects. for those who are in melbs, i really hope you can get there, but for those who can’t or are interstate or overseas, here’s a peek at the images. before it closes, i’ll take some in situ shots & post them, but you can see already see some shots of the show on both the sonido! & my facebook pages. i’ll also write a little more about the subjects of the photos over the next few days.

i intended to hang six images but in the end didn’t hang the first one that you see below. they all fitted but, spatially, five looked better. i still wanted to include it here as it’s part of the series,  so I wanted to show you it as well. also in the exhibition is that lovely girl in the yellow dress that i showed you in my first post so many weeks ago. this is what i wrote in my artist’s statement for the show:

The images focus on the feria de st telmo, a vibrant street market that comes to life every sunday in st telmo, a bohemian inner city barrio of buenos aires, argentina. here both locals and visitors come together once a week, taking over the streets in a riot of colour and music. these images document a typical market day by observing some of the characters who are at the feria every week: antique dealers, musicians, stallholders, artists, dancers, restaurant staff and roving advertisers for the businesses surrounding the market. They are integral to the life of the feria and seem somehow to belong to these streets. the visitors to the feria, most of whom are tourists, are also essential participants. there for only a short few short hours, they usually leave never to return, except through the memories that they have captured in their photographs.

i shot these photos over a couple of weekends on a 1975 canon tx that i bought at an amazing antique camera shop, which is on one of the streets at the heart of the fair. it was an unplanned, enforced purchase &  it changed my photography forever … but that is another story for another day. meanwhile enjoy the results of that very fortunate occurrence …

chiquitica

remember my first post and that girl in the yellow dress and how she was part of something really exciting?

well it’s all happening now! i’ve just hung a solo exhibition at a new gallery space called chiquitica at SONIDO! cafe on gertrude street in fitzroy (in melbourne, australia).

i’m exhibiting five of my images from the san telmo market in buenos aires that were shot on film last year. i’ll do a longer post after the exhibition with all the images but you can read about the show on the chiquitica gallery page.

the pola shot above shows the front of the cafe & is the last of my ’roid week shots that i promised to show you in my last post. the cafe opened on gertrude street several months ago & is owned by columbian couple carolina & santiago. SONIDO! is an oasis on gertrude street with fixtures, great tunes on vinyl & amazing coffee all sourced from south america. they also have great arepas & empanadas, inca kola & other south america goodies for those missing the continent’s fabulous food or wanting to discover it. 

they’ve had some great reviews & mentions since they opened, including from the age, fitzroyalty, agenda, opulent, fat belly club & pieces of victoria wining & dining hotspots. SONIDO! has fast become a gertrude street fave & they are a saviour on sundays when no other cafes along that west end strip of the street are open. (try the arepa with huevo if you’ve had a big saturday night!)

for a while they’d been wanting to open a micro gallery space along one of the cafe walls, featuring artists that focus on south america in their art. after a conversation about my photography one morning they asked me if i’d like to exhibit first. yes please! soon after they also asked me to manage the gallery space, which i’m very excited about. i’ve lined up artists for december 2010 & january/february 2011 & am now considering artists proposals for the rest of 2011.  it’s all very exciting & i’m sure i’ll write more about it in the future!

you can keep up with both the cafe (& gallery) news on facebook & twitter.

that indefinable something: south america

    

some of those indefinable something images i mentioned in yesterday’s post. these are a selection from my trip to south america in 2009 and were taken in argentina, uruguay and chile. enjoy!

girl in the yellow dress

 

girl in the yellow dress, san telmo, buenos aires, argentina, 2009 © nicole davis

Oh so here I am with a blog. I am not a complete stranger to social networking, tweeting and facebooking regularly and sometimes writing posts for my work blog. But my own blog is somewhat scary.

This is a photography blog in essence and I started it as a way to share my photography projects and the pieces that were most important to me. It’s also somewhere for people who are interested in my work to visit without having to trawl through the gigantic  amount of images on my flickr account. Enjoy!

This image is going to be included in an exciting project that’s coming up very very soon (scarily soon in fact) in Fitzroy, Melbourne. The working title at the moment is San Telmo. I can’t tell you much more at the moment. but soon I will be able to!