publié le 06.04.2012
Portraits of Donovan King I made for the latest issue of Maisonneuve. This is their 10th anniversary issue and, as usual, it’s loaded with good reading and beautiful art. So BUY IT!
Maisonneuve went with the wide-angle portrait (last one) on a full page to illustrate the article. I explored different frames and angles, brightly lit and from the shadows but this one, I think, works well for the subject.
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
As for Donovan, he is an actor and an activist. He founded the Infringement Festival and Optative Theatrical Laboratories. He wrote an interesting thesis on revolutionary theatre, and just plain revolution, titled “A Critical Theory for Challenging Oppression and Spectacle”.
publié le 30.06.2011
Dominique (a good friend) asked me if I would be willing to make a few portraits of her recently, which coincided perfectly with my looking for an excuse to have her pose for me again. She studied photography before moving on to another career, she’s visually savvy and knows what works without needing much direction, perfect since I hardly give out any.
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
As usual I went for a more serious look but since Dominique can fool around with the best of them I quickly had her wearing the rock & roll shirt and giving me all the snooty attitude she could muster.
© Patrick Alonso
Quite obviously, these portraits are all about Dominique performing for me (you) and my inciting that performance with little nudges … makes me wonder if it’s possible to produce a portrait without either myself or the subject acting on our perceptions of the moment and trying to convey those to the image, a concept of which I was aware of prior to reading this essay but which as been rattling inside my head since.
publié le 22.03.2011
A few portraits of Rachel.
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
Rachel is a musician and composer whom I discovered this winter. You can listen to some of her work here. She is currently putting together an album that should come out late summer early fall, looking forward to that. Until then, get some of her music via bandcamp.
The last picture above is one I had envisioned from the very beginning. Other than the fact that it is a rather wide-angle portrait, which fits into some of what I’ve been exploring lately, I think a more direct influence was the cover of Neil Young’s new album Le Noise, another bit of music you should most definitely check it out if you don’t know it.
Looking forward to summer here in Montreal. It feels like the city is bursting at the seems with culture (music, literature, photography etc.) …
publié le 20.01.2011
My grandfather and his buddies at a local bar, unofficially named El Jubilado, in Aldeanueva De Ebro where they meet at three o’clock every afternoon. Mixed emotions here, which I won’t really go into except to resume them with three words, fear, hope and inspiration.
@ Patrick Alonso
@ Patrick Alonso
@ Patrick Alonso
@ Patrick Alonso
@ Patrick Alonso
The pictures where taken with a little Olympus Pen (no not that crappy plastic crap that was launched with much noise last year) that was lent to me during the holidays. The available light combined with the abilities of the little camera and film I was using made it hard to get anything really clear in that particular setting … but in the end I think it works, works better then what I would of instinctively done with my SLR I think. Shooting with film brings on so many limitations, I wouldn’t want to deal with them all the time (i.e. when doing commercial jobs) but when I’m in a wondering mood I find that they focus my mind.
If I had a million dollars, I’d buy my own little half-frame, a shit load of HP5 and a car. I’d ride until I found myself, hopefully never, and in the end I’d have like 990,000$ left … I’d buy El Jubilado. I don’t now what I would do with the remaining 989,000$.
publié le 29.12.2010
I took the long road to Hendaia, a Basque coastal city in the mountains, to catch a train bringing my sister from Paris.
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
publié le 20.10.2010
Eve is a writer, she writes mostly poetry, mostly in french. I made this portrait of her one late afternoon this summer.
© Patrick Alonso
publié le 12.10.2010
Back in August Maisonneuve Magazine asked me to shoot a few portraits for an article in their fall issue.
As part of the article, which mentions various artists who took matters in their own hands when it came to the diffusion of their respective arts, I had the chance to meet Sebastian and Alex Cowan, two brothers who founded and managed the now closed Lab Synthèse. They have since went on to start the record label Arbutus. It was inspiring to meet and chat with the people involved in this article, they have a great frame of mind, if you want to be creative and achieve anything, don’t wait around for someone or something to come along, take chances and create your own opportunities.
The first two shots are some of my favorites with the third being the one that was selected to run in the issue.
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
© Patrick Alonso
If you like literature, arts and opinions and well written magazines (getting to be rare these days), you should definitely do yourself a favor and pickup a copy of the magazine.
Direct link to the article on Maisonneuve’s website.
publié le 14.06.2010
I’ve been experimenting with very wide perspectives in portraits, integrating the subject into a larger context, for now, mostly urban. It probably goes against all rules of portraiture, especially if viewing on a screen, but I think it could become very interesting once printed in large format.
© Patrick Alonso
This one is of fellow photographer JF, and its particularly fitting considering that he’s been working on a very cool project called « Espaces Utilitaires » in which he explores mostly urban areas that we’re constructed to serve one single purpose with little regard for design or aesthetics.
© Jean-François Hamelin
Go to Jean-François’ website, then click Portfolio and then the last series « Espaces Utilitaires » to view the ongoing project.
publié le 12.04.2010
This portrait came from a series of test shots taken earlier this year. I hadn’t payed attention to it until recently, it has that mug shot quality that I like and of course that « Just get on with it » stare from JF (my main guinea pig) that I’ve come to appreciate.
© Patrick Alonso
On the subject of portrait photography, I attended a lecture by Gabor Szilasi this weekend, very interesting stuff. He went over a career’s worth of portraits from various projects and shared some of his thoughts about them and the whole process of portrait photography (from his point of view). Made me think about my own process, it also made me think about what constitutes a good portrait by yesterday’s standard, today’s standards and my standards.
So much of what I see in portrait photography out there feels like such crap to me. I look at pictures in magazines, ads and all these other places you get bombarded with portraits these days and I ask myself if they were all taken by the same guy, everything looks the same, all of it soulless photoshop grotesquerie. I wonder why I keep seeing so much of it and why so many photographers get paid to produce it … I must be abnormal.
Check out some of Gabor Szilasi‘s work over on Slightly Lucid which posted quite a bit about him.
publié le 27.01.2010
I enjoy making straight forward portraits in available light, the whole creation process feels more relaxed and natural to me with this method. Lately light as been on the dark side of great and its forced me to delve into wider openings and slower speeds than what I usually prefer. The first portrait in the diptych is the result from one of those darker days, I like the whole blurriness of the image (probably hard to see at this size).
© Patrick Alonso
