In January 2008 something “magic” happened. I featured Alin Ciortea, a great Romanian photographer, after I asked him for credits in private. He said “no problem” and there he was, on my growing website. After I published his works, a friend of mine, Alina Prodănescu, reminded me in a comment that I have to take care of the copyrights of the photos, because I’m only allowed to publish them with the written consent of the author. Otherwise, it’s illegal!!! I said “Don’t worry, he gave me the rights to do it!”, but dummy me, Alin Ciortea was the first artist that I’ve ever asked for copyrights. So I started a sending e-mails campaign to all the artists that I featured on oitzarisme until that day; some of them gave me the permission and some of them didn’t, and this explains the big gap that I’ve told you about.

Alina also said that the most beautiful entry on oitzarisme was Doru Yoana; too bad that’s written in Romanian and extremely bad that didn’t had some guts to take him some photos last summer when he was playing backgammon on the beach. On my little story about Doru Yoana I featured Vlad Eftenie photographs.

In March 2008 something strange happened on the Hywel Jones entry, starting with the first comment. Enjoy!

Something even stranger happened after I posted Elif Sanem Karakoç works on March 14th 2008 and I featured Michel Shapcott almost two years later. A few months ago I discovered this:

(source)

In April 2008, I found that Rob Gonsalves is the author of all those PowerPoint surrealism paintings that we all know since the beginning of the internet and I also found that his grandparents were Romanian Gypsies.

In September 2008 the first photo-project with a statement is posted. Vincent Bitaud tells us about his Sleeping Beauties and tells me that he quit his web-designer job a year before to go for professional photographing. Later he wins the 3rd place on Imagine 2009 European Prize, Creativity and Innovationand also becomes member of Young Photographers United.

In February 2009 I featured Carlo Gianferro with his Romany Interiors project, winner of the 1st prize on WorldPressPhoto 2008.

In June 2009 my girlfriend, Andreea Cioran, wants me to wear a mustache and take some shots with it. At 11 AM on a lovely Sunday I was walking down the streets with a funny vintage porn mustache on. All the modern men were envying me. Andreea is featured on oitzarisme with the Society series also, and one of the photograph is among the State of Creation contest winners.

In January 2010 I created my first project that I’m proud of. “Ten years among them” is a photo-story about my colleagues and their spare time. I spend some great time with ten of them and shared the results on an inside office exhibition with the photos spread on the walls. I wonder if I should take them off, it’s been six months since then…

In February 2010, celebrating my 3 years, I presented to you a useful (I think) project. United Artists of Oitzarisme wants to be a summary of all the artists featured on oitzarisme. I tried to create it on my own with my html knowledge, but a friend of mine, Flavius (what link should I put here, dude?) told me “You’re nuts!” and I agreed. He helped me put all the html in a simple php table and all I had to do is update, update, update! Last update: February 4th, 2010. Reasons: job, trying to fill them all, artists, love… I do have the data in an excel document and in a couple of weeks this data will be on that database. I promise!

In March 2010 inspiredm.com puts my website in an entry about indie photo-blogs that I really enjoy. I featured Denis Rouvre when the article was online and I’m very proud that African Digital Art and Creative Roots discovered my website.

Also in March I tried for the first time to be an agent. Featuring Bogdan Meseșan with his New ID project, I wrote about it to some websites and blogs that I thought could be interested in his work. And they were. With his powerful semi-political message in his project, Bogdan was featured on Osocio, the best social advertising website, on Sargasso.nl, a Dutch non-profit news website, and also on lots of other websites like crossmode.it, Humanitarian News, Mire Magazine or Unscathed Corpse, thank you all! I also wrote to Jonathan Cherry interviewed him for Mull It Over. I was very satisfied by the results and I’m trying to do this again with other artists.

At the end of March (what a month!) I discover that David Leventi has some great photos on his website, shot in Romania. I wrote to him to ask for permission for the Opera series and congratulate him for the photos taken here, in my country, especially for the one with the Samsung Building. He allowed me to publish his works and told me that he loves Romania and that he’s currently working on a book project/family history of my country. Both his parents were born in Romania, but left to the US around 1959 and after that there’s a long story that I hope to enjoy on a coffee break with him during his next visit in Romania.

Later that week, I enjoyed a coffee with Bogdan Croitoru and asked him live for permission to put his dirty miners/clean miners on my website. Great work, isn’t it?

In May 2010, ArtClue wants to publish an online Contemporary Art Magazine and I’m ready to help with layout and design. The first issue was under my expectations but the second one was much, much better. I’m proud of my work and I hope I will be getting better and better.

I hope I’m getting better and better with this website, too. I’m starving to fill it with quality content, to share projects that you have to see, photos that you have to feel. Until my projects will pass the “written on paper” phase, I’ll comfort/disturb/cuddle/embrace you with others’ projects.

Thank you all,
Constantin

“This photo series has been a great adventure in the Sámi world for the past 5 years and my most important photo project so far.
This book is: hardbound, 22×26cm, 80 pages, 52 photographs, edited by Photolucida. Inside you will also find an essay written by the talented Awen Jones.

Price is $40/32€, and if you order HERE and mention the secret code “AMAZE”, shipping fee will only be $6 Worldwide, and free for US buyers!*
This book was shortlisted for the New York Festival Book Award 2010.
*Reindeer skin not included

• Ryohei Hase has new limited edition prints that will be available next month! For further details on the prints, please visit this link.

• New work from Kate MacDowell and updates regarding her new shows are posted on her website.


Ants ate all my sugar


Badgered

• Paul Barbera has an update on his beautiful Love Lost project. Meet Olga.



more on his website.

• “Punctum țîșnește din fotografie ca o săgeată, străpungîndu‐te. Cuvîntul vine din latină și desemnează rana, incizia, semnul lăsat de un instrument ascuțit. Punctum‐ul unei fotografii este întîmplarea aceea subtilă care te rănește și te pătrunde.” – Roland Barthes

www.punctum.ro

• “MOSSLESS has reached an important milestone! As it turns out, we’ve been doing interviews for a year now. We’ve done 181 to date, and that’s quite something. To celebrate, we’re going to take a month off while we’re working on the magazine (mind you, we’ll still be posting on mossfull). In the meantime, we’ve compiled a selection of some of our favourite interviews! So fill up your cup of Earl Grey and enjoy these puppies, because they’re great. This is our ‘best of’!“
• Bogdan Meseșan about his new project : “I tried to show, how one idea comes to life by everyone’s original contribution. The concept of “idea” is materialized by a bottle of milk that gradually fills. How Magritte would have said: “Ceci n’est pas une boutteille de lait.
  I want to thank, again, all the Imago Theater members that took part at this project.”

Milk

• Ryan Schude’s new work : The Promised Land

www.ryanschude.com

Banning’s new book deals with one of the common byproducts of war, the rape of women, by focusing on “comfort women” in Indonesia during World War II. Tens of thousands of “comfort women” in Asia were forced into prostitution at military brothels. The brothels were part of the Japanese military’s sex slavery system, aimed at providing relief for its troops. In addition, many girls were abused sexually in railroad wagons, factory warehouses or night after night at home. Most of these women have suffered physical and emotional consequences ever since.

With author Hilde Janssen, Banning visited Indonesian women who during the war were victims of forced sexual labor. In this book, 18 of them break the persistent taboo against speaking out on the issue. Presenting their portraits and voices in combination with Japanese war posters, the book shows male and female sides of war, and propaganda versus reality. Short narratives depict the fate of these and other former comfort women, painting a gripping picture of this hidden history.

Jan Banning’s earlier books include Traces of War: Survivors of the Burma and Sumatra Railways and Vietnam: Doi Moi. Among his many awards is a World Press Photo Award. Banning has exhibited throughout Europe, the United States (NY Photo Festival and OSI’s Moving Walls, among others) and elsewhere. His work has been published internationally and is in collections worldwide, including that of Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum.

Hilde Janssen (b. 1959) is a journalist and anthropologist. For the past 15 years, she has lived and worked in Asia. From her base in Jakarta, Janssen traveled the Indonesian archipelago for two years searching for comfort women.

Ordering the book:
Comfort Women (ISBN 978-90-77386-07-1) is a co-publication of Ipso Facto (IF, The Netherlands) and Seltmann+Söhne (Germany). The book can be ordered via:
ipso-facto-order@solcon.nl
For information about renting the exhibition, contact Tina Keck at mail@tinakeck.de.

• Amira Fritz has some recent work on her website.

• Michael Shapcott has a new website.

• It’s called “Dirty Blond” and it’s a Slingerland from the 1920s with birdseye maple veneer on the sides. – Amy Crehore about her new work.