Leibovitz Love

One of the first photographers whose work I started admiring was Annie Leibovitz’s. Then Richard Avedon, Robert Doisneau, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and many others.

When I discovered that there was going to come out a book with Annie Liebovitz work – A Photographer's Life 1990-2005 – I was super excited about it. The book was receiving great reviews, everyone loved it, everyone was eagerly waiting for the book… and then I find out the price. 76 €. OH MY GOD!! My heart almost stopped. I mean, the book is huge and amazingly beautiful, but, seriously … 76 €? No thanks.

(A Photographer's Life 1990-2005)

So, yesterday, I went to FNAC, one of the favourite bookstores (they aren’t exactly a bookstore; it’s more a commercial establishment that sells books, CD, DVD, computers and related stuff) and discovered a book called “Annie Liebovitz At Work”. It was a true finding! The books comes with hundreds of Leibovitz’s photos, with texts written by her explaining the photo, the context, something funny about it. It is a very complete book and it only cost me 25 € (minus a discount that I had, I ended up paying 18 € for that masterpiece)

(Annie Leibovitz's At Work) (the masterpiece)

So, if you love her work and couldn’t afford “A Photographer’s Life 1990-2005”, my advice is: LEAVE YOUR HOUSE RIGHT NOW AND GO AND BUY “AT WORK”.

NOW.

Beauty Quotes

Quando já não se faz parte do universo sexual - quando se é suposto ser demasiado velho, ou gordo, ou se deixou simplesmente de ser alvo desse tipo de pensamentos - aparentemente, surge toda uma nova onda de reacções masculinas. Uma delas é o humor.

É do género, uma família já não funciona quando todos os que fazem parte dela estão mais infelizes do que estariam se estivesse sozinhos.

O tempo não é o que é, mas sim o que se sente [...].

Eu não pergunto a mim própria para que é que vivi [...]. Isso é uma pergunta de homem. Pergunto para quem é que vivi.

Não foi a primeira vez que numa reunião de Faculdade, Howard desejou estar tão sensorialmente deficiente como a própria [Helen] Keller.

Uma Questão de Beleza, Zadie Smith

Gaffiti Urban Art Gallery

Lisbon's Municipal Council did something really nice.

They arranged for this really cool space for graffiti artistics to do their thing. The artsy graffities, not the tags and other scribbles.

They say it is a "Garrifit and Street Art Galley supported by the Câmara Municipal de Lisboa and dedicated of creative freedom as expression of urban art."

These are two of them. Great colours.

More information here.

Manjerico

This little 'plant' is associated with the festivities of the City's Saint - St. António - and during the month of June and July, they sell them like crazy.

It comes in a little pot, with a small paper flower and a rime. They're a tradicional item to purchase, and the best thing about them is that, in order for you to smell them, you don't stick your nose into it. No, you pat it once or twice and them you smell your hand.

Dancing with myself

About a month ago, I went to the downtown area of Lisbon, Baixa / Chiado, for a walk and started hearing this great music someone was playing. It was this really jazzy, alive music, and people were just standing there, listening and taking pictures. I though it was strange that people were taking pictures of a couple dancing, and only after I looked closer did I noticed that the couple wasn't human.

I mean, the woman was, but she was dancing with a puppet. She had one hand inside his hat, her other hand was on his back and their shoes where attached. So cute!

(look at the man/puppet's legs, near the shoes)

VF's Bodies Swayed to Music

Vanity Fair magazine is amazing.

They publish daily new contents online, which everyone can consult for free. They include photos, interviews, magazine articles, and many more things.

Today, I was amazed by their photo gallery of dancers. Truly beautiful/ funny/ moving/ artistic picutres here. No login/ payment/ subscription necessary.

Ⓒ American Ballet Theatre stars Ethan Stiefel, Jose Manuel Carreño, Vladimir Malakhov, and Angel Corella, photographed by Annie Leibovitz in New York City. From the December 2002 issue.

I too love NY

I first gave this news a while back, in April (go here for more details or info)

For all of you Paris, Je t’aime fans, here’s good news: the NY version of the movie, New York, I Love You, will be premiering in Portugal in 5 November 2009.

YES!

Hope it is as good and the French one.

Furnishing books

Books not only furnish a room, to paraphrase the title of an Anthony Powell novel, but also accessorize our outfits. They help brand our identities.

"What’s a Culture Snob to Do?", by James Wolcott, Vanity Fair Magazine on-line, August 2009.

Complete text here. Worth reading.

How books got their titles

Do you wanna know how books get their titles? Click here.

Really funny and interesting.

Book wizard

I like to read. A lot. I always liked to read. I remember being very young and my father reading to me and my sister the Enyd Blyton books – The Five, The Twins, etc. Them I started reading on my own. I read again the entire The Five collection and many other Portuguese collections. To be honest, I think I devoured books.

I later managed to choose the books I wanted to read my myself and have been ever since.

However, there are times when I don’t know what to read next (ring a bell, father?). I read a really good book and them I think “What shall I read next? I really liked this book and I want to next book I read to be as good as this one.”

I am glad to inform you that help is coming. (To be honest, it’s already here, but the sentence “help is coming” is way better than “help is here”.)

Just go here and write the name of the book you’ve just read, and the author and then you’ll get suggestions from 2 bookstores – Amazon and LibraryThing – whether from the same author or with a similar thematic or genre. Very helpful and fun. I think it only works for English titles, but write the English title of the book you’re reading and BAM! You’ll get a suggestion.

Work, translations, Zadie Smith

I am reading Zadie Smith’s On Beauty and I am loving it - the Portuguese translation.

Because I’ve been working during the week and weekends as well, I haven’t had time to go around and snap photos of strangers. I’ll try and get around to it this weekend.

Now I have to get back to work.

No title good enough

Life is too important to be taken seriously.

Oscar Wilde

Moments (Salamanca Exhibition # 22, 23)

No words necessary.

Reading in the sun.

No human was harmed during the performance of this stunt.

Reading Habits

A must read right here. I’m sorry but it is in Portuguese.

Even though I 'm a translator this is a very VERY translation of the abovementioned article:

I like to read what Isabel Coutinho writes because she is an enthusiast of the new literary technologies without loosing her passion for the old ones. A wise attitude. The physical mediums don’t get lost nor replaced: they multiply. When the technology is updated, the traditional ways of bookmaking are even more valued. The only danger is that we’ll end up with nothing to read – and that danger doesn’t exist.

In yesterday’s juicy newspaper article in P2 newspaper supplement, Coutinho writes that 12 % of American book buyers read an eBook over the last month and 6 % read one eBook on a cell phone. Coutinho qualifies this percentage as “only”, when she should have used “already”.

I already have an eBook reader, BeBook, for almost one year now. After the second day, I couldn’t go without it. It’s very light but can store up to 4 GB in books, magazines and texts – enough for more than 40 thousands hours of furious reading capacity. All we have to do is charge its battery every five days. It never overheats nor blinks.

It’s easy to read under the brightest of sunlight due to its black screen on gray background, without tiring the eyes. All of this cannot be achieved with laptops and cell phones. BeBook can only be used for this, reading.

It’s similar to reading photocopies in black and white in half an A4 sheet. It blurs out the pictures, but we can replace and increase the font size. It doesn’t have beauty, cuteness nor ink smell. But reads very well. When we get absorbed by what we’re reading, we forget what we are holding. Isn’t that is the idea of reading?

Sara, the yogurt maker, part 2

Yes!

The yogurts came out delicious. A bit warm, but still, for a first trial in over 10 years, not bad.

Photos to follow.

The Market (Salamanca Exhibiton # 20, 21)

When Hugo invited me to do the exhibiton, I almost freaked out because I didn't have many photos with the themes of 'multiculturalism', 'imigration' and something else.

So, I decided to go to a local market near my mother's house. I later came to realise that that was a huge mistake. People didn't want pictures taken, they looked away, and one woman yelled at me. She yelled her lungs out at me! So, all in all, not a very rewarding experience.

I did manage to snap 2 (out of 43) (yes, 43) photos which I tought reflected the market people.

The market people are usually older people (older than me, not old), in their 40-60 years of age, who never move very far away from their area. They protect their produce and are nice to the approching people they can detect will buy something. The other are shooched away with sideway glances. I also noticed, while there, that they were always rubbing their hands and keeping them in their apron pockets. Don't know why.

They were very simple clothes, in plain fabrics, usually with a plaid pattern on their shirt or scarfs, many with (once) white plastic aprons.

I managed to snap a photo of a (not very mentally sane) woman, who was walking around the different market sections, advising people on what to buy. When they picked something up that she didn't think was good enough, she would insult them and then pick the right produce.

This was taken in the fruit section. The woman on the right is the not vey mentally sane produce advising woman. I think the pinapples give it a funny flare.

Butchers. Enough said. I love the eyebrows on the man on the left, very full. His apron is a little spotted with blood, but that's ok.

Sara, the yogurt maker

I remember being about 9 or 11 years old and making homemade yogurts. It took forever to make them, but the result was amazing.

The entire process was almost an adventure: we had to go and buy powder milk, milk and yougurt, them mix everything and cook in a light simmer, the pour into the glass yogurt cups and turn the yogurt maker on. Them the yogurt maker worked during the night, for about 8 hours and in the morning we had homemade yogurts.

The only problem is that the yogurts were still warm and we had to wait until the next day to eat them cool. I mean, we could eat them once they were made, but they tasted better when cool.

Tonight, my father and I have decided to try and make some more yogurts, after a 15-year break. Future postings on the result, due tomorrow at 6.30 a.m. (the yogurts, not my feedback).

(I am sorry, but I don't have any pictures of my yogurt maker. Maybe in the furture...)

update: for some reason, I can't seem to be able to separate the paragraphs, which is annoying.

Loneliness (Salamanca Exhibition 17, 18, 19)

See the person sitting with their legs crossed smoking a cigarette? The one with a hoody? Boy or girl? Boy or girl? Can you guess?

This one is in downtown Lisbon, to the left of where I was standing when I took this one. One the wall there are some writting with the translations into several languages of the sentence "Lisboa, Cidade da Tolerância" - Lisbon, City of Tolerance. The English one is right under the Portuguese one, in the middle, also close to the Spanish one. As it so happened, someone wasn't very tolerant - the first letters of the Portuguese word 'Tolerance' as graffited over.

I took this picture at the entrance of a boat terminal in Lisbon, where people take the boat to cross the river. It was pretty much 'snap and run', because the security guard had already told me twice that I could not take any pitures. This is (luky) photo number 13.

Lord of the Rings

What is the best this about the Lord of the Rings trilogy?

a ) all the easily spotted mistakes

b ) the detail of the production

c ) the Orcs

d ) Legolas and Aragorn

e ) this.

A foggy day in Lisbon town (aka Salamanca Exhibiton photos 14, 15, 16)

These are all pictures of the same place: Praça do Comércio (Commerce Square, literally translated) in Lisbon.

Crazy homeless man who cursed at me and threatened me to leave.

I find this photo to be very artistic. Almost magic. The person walking in the background, the fog/humidity, the lamp posts...

This picture is very grainy, due to humidity. I took this one around January 2008 when I was going home. I was standing on a bench and someone took a picture of me taking the picture. If you see a cray girl on a bench during a day/night with a lot of humidity, the chnaces are that it is me.