© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
I have only one friend who likes baseball and he’s always busy, and five months out of the year you can’t play baseball in Montreal, and the city lost it’s team eight years ago … I miss baseball.
© Patrick Alonso
While walking the shores of the St-Lawrence river where it meets the gulf in Rimouski … it’s on the tail end of that little august getaway that I picked up the quote « No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. » from Samuel Beckett. A reminder, that failure isn’t wholly without rewards.
Fortune cookiesque wisdom no doubt, but in this case simplicity doesn’t invalidate the thought, I think Mr. Beckett would agree.
(en français suivant les photos)
My Aldea book project is finally completed, printed and ready for viewing. As you might of guessed from the title, this book, actually a forty page booklet, is a collection of photographs from my Aldea series.
Like the village at the origin of this project, this booklet is rough. Printed on an average print paper (slightly heavier than copy paper) from a local print shop and saddle stitched, the basic premise for this project was that it shouldn’t last or at least stay in pristine condition for very long if handled in a cavalier manner. The only thing that will make these a limited edition is time itself.
The methods used have added their own ingredients to the overall look of the photographs and the completed product is exactly what I wanted these images to “feel” like when I started editing this series way back in January.
I printed a small number for now which I will be selling for 7.50$ + 3.00$ shipping a piece (that’s Canadian dollars). Mail me if you would be interested in getting a copy.
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
Mon projet de livre Aldea est enfin terminé, imprimé et prêt pour votre visionnement. Comme vous pouvez le deviner d’après le titre, ce livre, en fait un livret d’une quarantaine de pages, est une collection de photographies de ma série Aldea.
Tout comme le village à l’origine de ce projet, ce livret est rustique. Imprimé sur un papier d’impression moyen (un peu plus lourd que du papier copie) à partir d’un imprimeur local et agrafé à la main, la prémisse de départ pour ce livret était qu’il ne devrait pas durer, ou du moins rester en parfait état pour très longtemps s’il était manipulé de manière cavalière. La seule chose qui va faire de ce livre une édition limitée est le temps lui-même.
Les méthodes utilisées ont ajouté leurs propres ingrédients à l’aspect global de la photographie et le produit fini est exactement ce que je voulais « ressentir » par rapport à ces images quand j’ai commencé à éditer cette série en janvier.
J’ai imprimé un petit nombre pour l’instant que je vais vendre pour 7,50 $ + 3,00 $ d’expédition. Écrivez-moi si vous souhaitez obtenir une copie.
© Patrick Alonso
Father and son playing football at the foot of Mount-Royal and l’Université de Montréal.
My little Aldea book (booklet) project is finally off to the printers today … I’ll talk about it more next week.
Scene during a rooftop picnic from a few Sundays ago …
© Patrick Alonso
An alternative from urban parks, which are inundated with fellow late weekend dinners thus counteracting their usually relaxing properties (if like me, you frown upon the concept of relaxing in the middle of large crowds).
I was on my way to blogging a couple of recent street photographs on Wednesday when the news hit about Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros losing their lives in Lybia … and then it just kept coming and coming and coming … social networks.
Obviously, like most, I’ve never seen combat. The closest I’ve come to it is by striding some land whom as known war in time past.
Juno Beach @ Patrick Alonso
Juno Beach @ Patrick Alonso
I admire those who put themselves in harm’s way in order to gain some level of comprehension about that historical constant which is war in the hopes of sharing with others and perhaps curtailing it for a little while.
“Under the arc of the sky they are unsafe.
What’s never known is safest in this life.”
- Dylan Thomas
As promised, my portfolios are back up for viewing. Showing work in the form of portfolios as had me torn for the past months, I guess I still am. There seems to be such a finality to work once it’s presented in this format … as if I would never again in my life walk the streets of so and so city or revisit one particular edit.
Nevertheless, here they are in the form of individual galleries in the right hand column of my blog (Portfolios section), totally bypassing the usual website. Some old stuff with new one edited in (both streets series) and one brand new series titled “Aldea” which I produced last December in Aldeanueva de Ebro (Spain) and had mentioned in part here.
Aldeanueva de Ebro © Patrick Alonso
Including beautiful introductory words by Eve, the brief text at the beginning of the “Aldea” series describes my feelings towards these photographs. I am very attached to this particular work. While walking the streets of my grandfather’s village I felt very lucid, very focused and admits the decay, badly planned industrialization and dirt I came to the realization that the only beautiful thing about that place is my grandfather himself. Once he’s gone, any love I have for that particular place will be as well. That pushed me to document parts of it before everything changed too much … nothing was forced, everything was photographed on instinct without over thinking, never more than one frame per subject.
This is a view from the Parc des Buttes Chaumont in Paris’ 19th arrondissement.
© Patrick Alonso
This particular photo which was submitted with a few others to a magazine was described by it’s editor as “not very interesting in a purely visual sense”, “obvious” and “lots of people would have similar pictures on their digital cameras from walks in parks”.
That came one day after I attended a talk by Alec Soth in which, amongst many other things, he stated that he wasn’t so much interested in visually great images anymore as in images that carry a deeper (more personal) meaning. Mind you, he was displaying a rather stunning photo while making that statement.
The photo above is part of a series on urban parks that I have been working on for the past year. Other than the juxtaposition of leisure and nature in the midst of our urban environments, it doesn’t differ much from my usual street photography. Nonetheless it’s a subject I feel like exploring for personal reasons; whether it works or not is another a question I’ve been asking myself, especially after that little rebuttal and that talk.
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
J’adore les tempêtes, j’adore voir comment le petit monde de certaines personnes est complètement bouleversé par chaque nouvelle bordée … ça me fait toujours sourire. Il n’y a surement pas beaucoup de choses aussi futiles dans ce monde que de se plaindre de la météo … faut apprendre à vivre avec, c’est tout.
San Sebastián dans les Pays Basques du nord de l’Espagne. J’aimerais y être ce matin … être l’une de ces deux personnes qui marchent sur la plage.
© Patrick Alonso (cliquez pour agrandir)
