"If you are lucky enough to have lived in Paris as a young man, then wherever you go, for the rest of your life, it stays with you, for Paris is a moveable feast"

Ernest Hemingway

To Paris 04

® Felipe Russo.

People come and go while i wait for my laundry..

To Paris 03

®Felipe Russo.
Photos from the margins of Canal de L' Ourcq. Also 10 minutes walk from my house...i had great Sunday afternoons by the these canal.

To Paris 02

®Felipe Russo

Saturday by Parc Buttes des Chamount.

To Paris 01

®Felipe Russo
Now i have 4 days left in Paris so i decided to show a bit of these city i learned to love. I'm posting a picture a day for the next 4 days... a picture of my Paris. But don't expect to see the Eiffel Tower or the Notre Dame.

To start a shoot of Quai de Valmy by Canal St Martin a 10 minutes walk from my house.

Libera Me - Alex Majoli.

I'm im my last days in Paris...will leave, to go back home, the 28th of November. I'm really busy! So just a quick post.... was now at Light Stalkers editing my gallery and saw these Magnum Inmotion feature by Majoli:

Its called Libera Me. Majoli but together some of his work in a slide show and exhibit discussing our condition as actors in the Life Theater..and our relationship with death. Its a great piece, and a good example of how ones work can keep transforming.

Shooting with Manu.

® Felipe Russo

Today a passed the afternoon giving a hand to a good friend in one of his photo shoots. I'm a big fan of his work...and its always great to watch and help someone shooting, especially when they know what they are doing. Check out his work:

Emanuele Fontanesi

VII Recontres Africaines de la Photographie

From 24 of november to 23 of December the VII Recontres Africaines de la Photographie will take place ones again in Bamako, Mali.
The festival is reconized by Photography Now online magazine as one of the top 5 photo festivals in the world. Was on its first edition that the work of Malick Sidibe was first discovered. In these year programme the photographers are:
Sammy Baloji (RDC Congo), Adama Bamba (Mali), Nadia Berkani (France-Algérie), Jodi Bieber (Afrique du Sud), Marie-Ange Bordas (France-Brésil), Nabil Boutros (Egypte), Mohamed Camara (Mali), Ali Chraibi (Maroc), Pierre Crocquet (Afrique du Sud), Emmanuel Bakary Daou (Mali), Harandane Dicko (Mali), Saïdou Dicko (Burkina Faso), Calvin Dondo (Zimbabwe), Mohamed El Baz (Maroc), Fakhri El Ghezal (Tunisie), Ghislain El Magambo Gulda (RDC Congo), Dimitri Fagbohoun (Bénin), Heba Farid (Egypte), Sal Idriss (Ghana), Fanie Jason (Afrique du Sud), Mouna Karray (Tunisie), Fouad Maazouz (Maroc), Edgar Marsy (La Réunion), Pierrot Men (Madagascar), Santu Mofokeng (Afrique du Sud), Aïda Muluneh (Ethiopie), Soavina Ramaroson (Madagascar), Sylvain Ralaivaohita (Madagascar), Sergio Santimano (Mozambique), Tsegaye (Ethiopie), Andrew Tshabangu (Afrique du Sud), Tsvangirayi Mukwazhi (Zimbabwe) Lolo Veleko (Afrique du Sud).

Sorry but a could not put links to all!!

I found some of the websites:

Jodi Bieber South African and member of the agency NOOR. Check out her work, Survivors, A Weapon of War and Between Dogs & Wolves.

Fouad Maazouz from Marroco.

Sérgio Santimano from Mozambique really called my attetion in these years catalog.He is part of the local agency Iluminando Vidas.

Check out also Aida Muluneh from Etiopia.

And here are two websites that are reference in African art and Photography:

Afrique in Visu
African Colours

Today i will check out Paris Photo, so tomorrow i'll publish something about it...
And please if you have something to add in African Photography and Bamako Photo Festival leave a comment.

Commission Adidas

® Felipe Russo/Adidas/Slip Stream
®Felipe Russo/Adidas/Slip Stream
These weekend i shoot a comission for Adidas and Slip Stream UK. They where launching the new Predator football shoes. They built a 8 by 11 meter shoe box at Trocadero, Paris with to 6 m shoes inside....thats what i had to shoot and off course take some press shoots of the opening of the shoe box on sunday. Adidas brougth together some of the worlds best football players (like Gerard) to open the box and try on there new shoes!! Was fun, specially convincing the security of the Eiffel tower to let me cut the line of tourists and go up to get a differnt poit of view...some different pictures!!

Photo Quai 2

I been down to Quai Branly these afternoon, an despite the cold wind, it was very pleasing to see lots of good work from around the world in an open air exhibit.

One of the approaches of the festival is to show work done by collectives and agencies around the globe.

As Michel Philippot ( one of the curators) introduces it:

" Every minute of the day, in every part of the world, an event is taking place that will deeply affect everyone involved. This does not only apply to disasters with grave repercussions...... Here there are no special correspondents, just local photographers with the talent for getting us to experience in situ life both on a daily basis and in time of crisis. And by showing us these events through their eyes, these photographers attempt to break our often stereotyped visions of the outside world..."

So here are the links to some of these agencies and collectives presented at Photo Quai:

Africa: Afriphoto
Russia: Russian Tearoom
Cuba: Liudmila & Nelson
Central Asia and Caucasus: Patker Photo
Argentina: Sudaca Photos
Mexico and Latin America: Cooperativa de Fotographos
Bangladesh: Drik Picture Library
Brazil: Cia de Foto

Photo Quai

During all these month a big photo bienal is hapening for the first time in Paris. The Photo Quai is an International Photo Festival, these year a great number of oriental photography is being ehxibited. Whats great also about the festival is that its not only indoors. Some images are outdoors by the Seine River having Paris as a back ground.

I was happy to see some good work from Brasil, work i really like!!

João Wainer and his great work "Marginalia" about the Hip Hop and marginality in São Paulo.
CIA DE FOTO a great brazilian collective, working mainly with social issues. They got great visibility the last two years, especialy after one of its members got a World Press Photo Prize in Sport Story category. They have a great approach towards the collective...always working together and all the work is presented under the copyrigth ®CIADEFOTO. The collective has a very strong visual signature!!
Numo Rama and his strong panoramic B&W images.At photo quai he is showing his series "Humans".
Iatã Cannabrava "Uma outra cidade" or " Another City" a series his being working on for the last 6 years around the peripheries of São Paulo.
Luiz Braga and his Amazon colors.

So if you are in Paris go check it out, if not enjoy the websites and see some great work.

Switzerland...chill out!!

®Felipe Russo - Katerine and Palden chat in the kitchen doing breakfast.

I went to Switzerland for 5 days. Me and Palden, a good friend from Santa Cruz, went to Fribourg visit his girlfreind Katerine. Fribourg is a beautiful student city sitting in a river valley sorrounded by woods. At these time of the year the colors are amazing, all the vegetation turns red, yellow, white...its stunning...for me was really something different!! And the light there is incredible..

®Felipe Russo - Fribourg Woods at sun set.

I can say the 5 days i spent there where very much chill...Lots of street photography with Palden. And Katerine was an amazing host that introduced me to lots of the Swiss goodies ( the last nigth we had these underfull raclet with Californian white wine). Just to start, we arrived in the middle of a hallowen party at Katerines house...i still remember the taste of that Abysint Jelly. It was great fun!!
®Felipe Russo - After Party table in the morning sun.

We did some travelling also...

A day in Geneva where we visited a very nice space for modern art MAMCO.

And the day after we went to Zurich... an amazing city! But there we just walked around taking pictures and stopping for beer, playing cards and buying a swiss nife...so im sorry but no links and recomendations... Latter we met Raphael, Bjorn and Julia for a drink... Lovely Julia gave us a nice place to sleep....
Raphael and Bjorn received us for breakfast the next day in the new Gallery space they just opened in Winterthur ( a small city 30 min away from Zurich) Its a very nice and clean gallery with quite a lot of possibility's and freedom.....I will check there address and put a link here soon.
Winterthur is a special city for photography...theres the Winterthur Fotomuseum ...it has three gallery rooms and a good book store. The space concentrades specialy in Photography history. If you have the chance check it out.

I had great time, and could really relax...it was a very contemplative 5 days.... So thanks Katerine, Palden, Julia, Raphael and Bjorn!!