Die Ghul Show with TANJA1983!

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:icongawrilaghul:: Welcome to my humble show, :iconpippa-pppx:!
Do you enjoy being here? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: Right till now, I'm enjoying it, yessir!


:icongawrilaghul:: A good start!

Introduce yourself to our noble audience, please! Who/what are you, exactly? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: well then, lend me an ear! after being a well-behaved pupil through all my school times in
Lisbon, I went to germany, to study at the university. More explicitly: chemistry. But after a very short time, I saw that what they were presenting me there wasn't modern chemistry at all, rather bloody Lavoisier (eighteenth century) toiling in old labs. So, I changed to philosophy. Yeaahh, that was way better. After two years, I changed again to physics. Hahahah, that was like a marriage between philo and chemistry. After the second semester, the course was almost mathematics-only. Lagrange equations, Nabla operators in electrodynamics, then the whole matrix operators in quantum physics, well...after some three or 4 years I left that faculty too.
Somewhere in that time axis, I managed to have enough $$ to buy me secondhand a camera. And since that time, the only thing that I've NEVER EVER left, was photography. We're speaking about ca. 1998 or so. Analogue times. Manual focus lenses. Slide films. Hitch-hiking to paris (some 700 km away) to visit the fine photo galleries there. And asking beautiful French girls to pose.
That's, in fact, what pleases me most: to portrait beauty.
For a living, I teach maths and physics and chemistry (hahahah, da capo) and portuguese and french. I must say: the "apprenticeship" level of German pupils is very very poor! But perhaps it's only the pupils who seek my help...


:icongawrilaghul:: Ok, so I do get that you are quite SMART! :nod::thumbsup:

What ELSE are you?

For example, when it comes to your art?

kiss-a-frog by Pippa-pppx   write her a letter full of pink love by Pippa-pppx   sweethearts aplenty by Pippa-pppx   green is my Golgatha by Pippa-pppx

Because the ways of "portraying beauty" you show in there, are actually quite different ones… :nod:

:iconpippa-pppx:: do they?
trying to understand your point-of-view: way back before I possessed a camera, I was always looking at everything in cities I lived in or visited. Exploring the general atmosphere as well as the details of everyday-life was, for me, beautiful. Exploring the moods and characters of models as well as their intrinsic female beauty, too, is beautiful.
Marriage of both of these worlds (the city-space and the human factor): one could argue that I am just looking at spots that may be used as interesting backdrops for shooting people.


:icongawrilaghul:: Let's talk some PLACES first!

For you seem to be quite a travelling person…

plakativ by Pippa-pppx   Frankfurt am Main by Pippa-pppx   standing firm and cold by Pippa-pppx   yellow lions of the night by Pippa-pppx

What's the story? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: I'm not at all what you would call a "world-traveler". Last winter, indeed, was the 1st time I ever left
Europe. I was in Rio de Janeiro for a fortnight and it was very very informative: let's say, I've seen things and spoke to persons in a way I had not expected to beforehand.
Since I was born & grew up in Portugal (that tiny towel-like atlanticshores part of Iberia) and am living now in Germany, I've till today got 2 poles where most of my pictures are created. And since I use (alas , for my gusto, a lil' bit too seldom in the last years) also film material , my pictures do get very different styles.Well, that's my opinion. Perhaps one reason you may think I do a lot of travelling is: everywhere I go, I'm not going there naked...I mean without a camera. And I use that camera. Haha, I even take it to my everyday job, just in case I see something that can make an interesting picture.
note: most motifs I find interesting are for sure not THAT interesting for other people.


:icongawrilaghul:: So what's the special ingredient in your perception? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: very simple: just be curious. You may find almost everywhere graphic patterns; interesting curves; classical Beauty; street beauty, the world (nature as well as man-made things) can show you a huge palette of colours...<you have only to frame  and capture it>


:icongawrilaghul:: Talking about, "curiously framing and capturing..."

What about PEOPLE?

Guardian by Pippa-pppx   ''mean and lean'' by Pippa-pppx   don't you ever again try to hide a tree ! by Pippa-pppx   let's do something outrageously attac by Pippa-pppx  

Just when do PEOPLE look good? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: Well there you've picked up some nice examples of my putting the girls posing on locations I'd previously chosen/discovered


:icongawrilaghul:: So, PEOPLE do look good, whenever they appear in the locations YOU CHOSE FOR THEM? :)

Also, HOW did you choose just these locations for just these people?

Also, how did you find all them GIRLS? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: Hey, it isn't as straightforward as THAT. Model A + Location B = result C. Naaah. Sometimes you want a girl in opera robes to pose in a scrapyard: for the contrast. Here, and many other situations, one cannot possibly foresee the result (at least I can't). Perhaps it's me, who, standing on a location, will let the vibes of the location interfere with my photography? What I like, and all my models till now, is the amount of improvisation needed (well, some times it sucks too) to tame both the location and the girl.
Normally, when a model proposes to get photographed, I ask "indoors or outdoors", and they may chose. Indoors means flashes and tripods and -I'm talking of home studio arrangements at the model's flat- me carrying that paraphernalia on bicycle (I refuse to own a car) to a given adress. If we meet outdoors, I make proposals: the models get a description of possible locations. If the model wants to pose during noon, I need someone assisting with a reflector because of harsh shadows, but in Germany, there's 300 shitweather days a year, so the problem of outdoor locations is rather where to shoot without getting wet. And so on...
So, I've AGAIN no precise answer to your 2nd question.
as for the 1st one: I believe "my" models will look good everywhere, it is not my merit when they look good in those locations. The models are all (almost all) amateur. Most of the times, I'm the first person they ever have worked with. The reason is simple: when I see someone that catches my attention, it's hard for me not to ask to pose. This is specially annoying my friends when we are sitting in a café or so. I can always feel their apprehension, like "there it is again, that silly mania of talking to starngers"
I've NEVER used any modelmayhems to get my models.


:icongawrilaghul:: Well of course I could be a prick now, and ask you just where the fuckin' DIFFERENCE is between talking to strangers, and using modelmayhems...

Yet since I absolute and perfectly am not that, but rather a really NICE God-Ghoul (with a mission): I will ask you about your models themselves, instead! :hooray::thumbsup:

Are there any general characteristics, that one must have to meet in order to catch YOUR eye?

If so, which ones? For example, in the ones featured here?

If not: How do you choose them, then?

:iconpippa-pppx:: ...aaah but what, if I still want to say sth about modelmayhems? at the beginning of my photographic craze I tried to, but the girls that I met then put on some stupid facial expressions, things that were taught to them by "photographers"  or even "model schools". I found them sort of blasé...that was reason 1. Reason 2 is perhaps the most important. We Portuguese folks still love to make discoveris in uncharted territories....

As to the characteristics a person, normally a girl, must have to catch my eye? I don't know exactly. It's not the bust measurement, it's not the length or colour of the hair (although in the last months I felt specially attracted to redheads), it's not the existence of a ring-in-the-nose. There are days when I don't have the guts or courage or howdoyoucallit to talk to a girl, and it sucks because this can happen precisely when there are A LOT of Venuses walking around . In my perception, of course. And then, sometimes, when someone passes by, and I feel a thump in my stomach without even having looked with attention at her (length of hair, bust measurement, legs, eyes, hahah), well, in that moment I know I've just got to try it again. That said, it doesn't mean they react as you'd love them to do. My personal statistics tell me: talk to twenty, and one will react and give herself a chance to pose for me :D


:icongawrilaghul:: So, where would YOU localize the very ROOT of this problem?

Also, what role do you think are "photographers" playing right there?

Also, this kinda sounds somewhat as if you don't like "photographers" – so, what about THAT? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: I just don't like those photographers with whom those ladies have worked in the past, ASSUMING THAT IT WERE THEY WHO TAUGHT THOSE AMATEUR MODELS "how" to produce "interesting" poses. I don't want to postulate any natural Law upon this bad experience!
And as for the "root" of the problem, as you call it, there may be more than one explanation: a) the desire of the amateur model to attain some vogue-ish look b) the model is insecure and accepts such ideas and perhaps some more, but these two are, methinks, the preponderant ones.

:icongawrilaghul:: What do you think, makes an INTERESTING POSE? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: well, the poses in themselves are , nowadays, more-or-less standardized: I mean: everyone looking at pictures has seen A LOT of pictures in his life and should therefore be acquainted with the photographic vocabulary. So, it is very difficult to achieve anything "new". Myself, I get often the sad impression of quoting myself ever and ever again , or pressing the shutter release knowing the cam will capture an n-th version of something already existing. It is somewhat exhasperating...
But, in general, I would say a picture that catches the eye of the beholder must have some intrinsic individual quality to it: be it the location (we talked about THAT), the lighting, the accessoires, the model in itself (we talked about THAT too).
At those times when I did much more girl posing work than nowadays, I tried -most of them didn't understand what I was trying to achieve, or didn't want to, or just were to lazy to try it- to talk them into baroque poses.


:icongawrilaghul:: Do you have any special relationship to baroque poses?

Also, what exactly do you mean when talking about baroque poses? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: In my opinion: everyone who wants to depict the human forms should have a relationship to baroque poses.
Look for example at Bernini's statues, and you'll know what I'm talking about.
Or look at some little Madonna figure in any Italian, Spanish, Mexican etc etc church, by any lesser artist than Bernini: there too you'll "read" hips and waists and curves through the fabrics.


:icongawrilaghul:: That sounds poetic! :hooray:

So, what do they tell you? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: when I tell them something about "baroque", or even "madonnas" that are depicted a little bit like corkscrews, they just gaze at me as if I were some lunatic. Afterwards they try to make that corkscrew thing, but since most of them are completely nescious about Art (they come just to get "some beautiful pics", and no-one told her it's THEIR goddam show and as such it's them who have to DELIVER hahahha), in some occasions I get the feeling I'm asking a hippo to dance a menuet. Of course it depends a lot on the model's culture.
Well, when the face is super-cute and so on, you get nice pics warranty, but you might do want to get MORE than that, right?


:icongawrilaghul:: Well...

May be right, may be wrong!

I'm afraid our time for this interview is up now! :hooray::thumbsup:

So, do you have any last words left for our noble audience? :)

:iconpippa-pppx:: of course I have!
perhaps some nice words like "persevere with your model search", fruits start ripening after some time.
perhaps "do not think and speak as negative as I do about them"
perhaps "try to decelerate and use your old analogue camera once-in-a-while"
all above while drinking a deep red portuguese Alentejo wine, and saying "cheers!" to all of you!


:icongawrilaghul:: Ladies and gentlemen, :clap::iconpippa-pppx:!

Up close and personal, for the very first time! :hooray:




Last 3 previous episodes:
Benedikt Polzer: dasghul.deviantart.com/journal…
:iconateist-kleranty:: dasghul.deviantart.com/journal…

:iconbyrdseyephotography:: dasghul.deviantart.com/journal…




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pearwood's avatar
Thank you, DasGhul and tanja1983!
Steve the Knave