Sao Esquillon is a talented young production/set designer from the Philippines. As a kid, he hated school and dreaded Sunday evenings for school was less than a day away. However, he was a very active student, albeit one so involved in sports, arts and theater that he willingly neglected his other academic achievements, kept getting into trouble and was kicked out of high school 3 times.

He attended fine arts courses for a very short while and worked as a 17-year-old illustrator for the Philippine Sesame Street Project. It was a complete playground for Him. There he dabbled in stop motion animation, puppetry, costume design and art directing. That was the starting point of a career in production and set design.

His name means “warrior”.

Sao, why don’t you start by telling us a little bit about your early years, and what got you interested in art.

I grew up in a family of artists. As the youngest of 8 siblings, I was fascinated with what my father and brothers were able to create on paper or canvas.

How relevant was your education to what you do now?

I didn’t like school; it’s not that I don’t like studying. I loved science, history and the arts and read through our textbooks way before we were told to do so. I just don’t see the point of being told to study something you’re not interested in, can’t understand and then makes you feel like a failure, say algebra, for example. What I use and have been using in the arts or photography is based on instinct. Pure instinct. After all, you don’t send lions to jungle school. Someone said that but I can’t remember who.

What are your main goals as a photographer? By that I do not mean professional goals alone, but also artistic ones.

I actually do not know whether I have a main goal in photography. As long as I’m pleased by the final product, then I believe I have achieved my goal. Although sometimes I tend to stop and check whether I’m creating something original.

If I were to say to you, “all serious art is a protest against the banal, bland and vulgar,” what would your response be?

Whatever tickles your pickle. For me, it’s still a matter of taste. Pure art to some is sheer boredom to others.

How personal do you consider your work?

My personal works are like my journal. They’re how I express myself. I see them as a representation of myself even after I’m dead.

Can you describe the very first picture you took? (e.g., year, subject matter, equipment, back-story…)

My very first photo… it was a rose I planted. This rose bloomed when I was 10, that was in 1980. I wanted to paint it and was worried it would wilt in a few days. From there I started taking photos as reference material for my paintings. I still have a Kodak instamatic camera and an old, 1960’s Kodak Brownie I found at home. When I was a little boy, I would spend hours looking at the world around me through its viewfinder.

Do you have anyone you consider a mentor? Any heroes? We don’t have to limit ourselves to the arts.

My inspiration, I think, is Jim Henson. I have learned a lot from Sesame Street, Fraggle Rock, The Storyteller and The Muppets and from his other creations. Henson’s work also provided my introduction to puppetry.

What are the 3 words that best describe you?

A dreamer, an observer and the word “amber”.

Any advice to aspiring young photographers?

I am not as young as I would like to be but I think I’m one of those “young photographers”. As advice, you must always be true to yourself, never fear to express what’s really in you, experiment, study and look around with an open mind.

The images that illustrate this interview are © Sao Esquillon.

These, and many others, can be admired at www.flickr.com/photos/esquillon/

Luke Copping graduated from the Rochester Institute of Technology’s School of Photographic Arts and Sciences. Born in Canada and raised in the United States he has experience as a photographer, graphic designer and web designer.

Francesco Gallarotti (F): Luke, how does Buffalo, the city you live in, influence your shooting style?

Luke Copping (L): Buffalo has become a very large influence on my work. I often use the city’s architecture and the surrounding areas as backdrops for my work. I love cities and I love what they represent. But I never wanted to be an architectural photographer, cities are nothing without the people in them. That is why my on-location work tends to combine my love of photographing people and fashion with my love of the cities and the places in them.

F: What is that you like the most about Buffalo?

L: I especially love Buffalo because it is a city with character, there are a number of structures here which are in a state of decay or have a certain vintage to them. and I love to use these in my work. As much as I can enjoy working in the studio, it is shooting at these locations which I find most enjoyable. The work I do in Buffalo is unlike the work I do in other places. I photograph quite often in Toronto as well and could never get the shots there that I take in Buffalo, when I compare the two of them Toronto seems almost too modern compared to Buffalo.

I love cities and I love what they represent. But I never wanted to be an architectural photographer, cities are nothing without the people in them.

F: Do you get to work with other colleagues in town?

L: In Buffalo right now there is definitely a collective of young photographers to which I belong and we all help each other when we can either by sharing techniques, pooling resources, assisting each other or just in general being friends. Some of the members include Ron Douglas, Chris Brown, Joey Buczek, and a few others. It is a very friendly atmosphere in which we all compete, but all support each other as well.

Marie

F: What are your favorite photographers?

L: As far as other photographers and artists whose work I enjoy I should probably name Nick Knight, one of Britain’s most innovative and influential photographers and image makers. Also I like Rodney Smith, whose images convey a dream-like, otherworldly sensibility. The extravagant compositions and the surreal arrangements of Can Evgin’s work are also among my favorites.

Their work is the photography that I constantly go back to look at for reasons of enjoyment more than any others. And though it may not show a lot in my work I really get inspired to create by asian cinema. I enjoy Akira Kurosawa, Chan-wook Park. Shinya Tsukamoto, and Kar Wai Wong. I find that they have a very different visual language that appeals to me.

F: You say you are inspired by the asian sense of style and art. Have you ever been in Asia?

L: Not yet, but I would love the visit Japan, specifically Tokyo, and photograph the microcosm of distinct subcultures that exist there set against the backdrop of this teeming metropolis. India is another country I would love to travel to.

F: What is your shooting style?

L: I tend to jump back and forth a lot between my studio and on location work. I love the look of a simple portrait, but sometimes I want to get out these in the streets and explore. I have a lot of fun just heading out with my models and exploring an area to see what we can find. I suppose a lot of my work focuses on the juxtaposition of age/decay vs. youth/vibrancy. Placing young and usually attractive models into environments that most people consider an eyesore and many would like avoid or eradicate altogether. As far as stylistic choices go. I am just as likely to photograph someone in mainstream designer outfits like as I am to incorporate elements from alternative clothing lines. I also like to incorporate that persons own wardrobe and style and throw in bits of punk, goth/industrial, and rockabilly subculture as well. I photograph what is around me and I am surrounded by friends and colleagues from all different paths of life and interests.

F: How do you post-process your work?

L: I try to get what I can in camera when I can, but If a particular image is not where I envision it being I am not ashamed to manipulate it to be what I want. For me it is about creating an Image, not being a photographic purist. One of my instructors when I was the Rochester Institute of Technology told me “The only reason we learn the rules is so that we know how to break them” And that always stuck with me.

F: What is beauty for you?

L: Beauty can be found in anything. From the intricacies of a person’s face to the stonework on a building. I find a lot of beauty in unusual places. A decaying factory can be absolutely entrancing to me. Seeing the wear of years in how the windows have broken or how the walls have collapsed says a lot more about nature to me than looking at a pristine forest. These are our ruins, the skeletons of these buildings contain details that can really capture your attention. Rather than being the ruins and remains of a culture that might predate ours by hundreds or thousands of years, we are looking at the ruins of mere decades. These buildings tell part of our story and history and hold more interest for me than speculating about the use of more ancient structures.

A PDF file with the pages of the article as it will be published in the first issue of the Green Tea Gallery Magazine is available for free here: lukecopping_greenteagallery_spring_2008.pdf.
Please notice that all the photographies in this article are owned and copyrighted by Luke Copping.

You can find Luke’s work online on his website at www.lukecopping.com.

Some of his clients are Dungaree Dolly’s, Faces and Places Agency, Brutalitees, Inked Angels, Precision Process Equipment, Inc., Precious Plate Inc.

When I discovered Tim Gallo’s photographs, one of the most recent images on his Flickr photo stream was the one on this page. For me, it was an immediate connection to Kar Wai Wong’s movie “Duo Luo Tian Shi” (1995), better known in the western world as “Fallen Angels”.

This is one of the movies that possibly better represents the moody photography style typical of the most recent Hong Kong cinematography, taking the viewers in the darkest alleys of the city’s soul.

“Many people say that my photography looks like stills from a movie. I think this is because I usually create a story before I shoot anything.”

Ironically neither Christopher Doyle, the award-winning photography director of “Fallen Angels”, nor Tim Gallo, the author of the photographs in these pages, are from Hong Kong. Doyle, Australian by birth, has directed the photography of several dozen of asian movies and has become famous for his extreme angles and for the overly saturated bold colors. Gallo, Russian by birth, in the past few years has lived in Tokyo, Japan. “I believe my passion towards photography starts from my passion towards Tokyo. Sometimes I feel like it’s this city that decides in which direction I should work” he answered when we asked whether the place where he lives influenced the images that he produced and his personal style. “I believe – added Tim – that Tokyo is the only city where Life and Death, Eros and Thanatos are so close to each others that you can almost physically feel them.”

Tim’s describes his photographies as movie stills. “Many people say that my photography looks like stills from a movie. I think this is because I usually create a story before I shoot anything.”

Ten years after “Fallen Angels”, director Kar Wai Wong worked again with Christopher Doyle creating anoother masterpiece of Asian cinematography. “2046” is the title of the movie and the photographer who took the still images on the set was Wing Shya. So, when we asked Tim about his main inspirations, it came with no surprise when Tim said that his strongest inspiration so far has been the work of Wing Shya and Nobuyoshi Araki. “I hope to be able to combine the plastic and moody feeling of Shya with the passion and sincerity of Araki’s work in my photography.”

Gypsy Kiss - Tim Gallo

A PDF file with the pages of the article as it will be published in the first issue of the Green Tea Gallery Magazine is available for free here: timgallo_greenteagallery_spring_20081.pdf.
Please notice that all the photographies in this article are owned and copyrighted by Tim Gallo.

The Green Tea Gallery magazine is a project that wants to promote and publish some of the greatest photographers that have joined the gallery since its opening. This project is entirely no-profit. The magazine will be available in two different formats:
-a free lo-res PDF will be downloadable from this website;
- a printed copy will be distributed through Blurb.com at printing+shipping costs.

The latest news from Blurb.com is that they now finally print also from Switzerland and they ship from there to any European and Asian location. Check out their website for more information about shipping and pricing.

After a few early different designs that were all based upon a square format, I decided to change the magazine format to a more standard 8″×10″ format. The number of pages should end up to be around 100-120 pages and it will be published in a soft-cover version.

After I started editing the inside of the magazine in the new format I realized that the old cover would have been strongly compromised by the new format. Here you can see the new cover, which is a dreamy portrait made by the incredible Japanese photographer Shinji Watanabe.

We are going to feature some very talented artists. Among them:

Shinji Watanabe: www.flickr.com/photos/dos-chin/
No para Innita: www.flickr.com/photos/innita/
Jingna Zhang: www.flickr.com/photos/zemotion/
Vanessa Karol Thomz: www.flickr.com/photos/vanka/
Tim Gallo: www.flickr.com/people/85885445@N00/
Irene Antonopoulos: www.flickr.com/photos/7153354@N04/
Luke Copping: www.flickr.com/photos/luke_c/
Gary Isaacs: www.flickr.com/photos/garyisaacs/

There will also be a few articles on photography techniques and a showcase of some of the most beautiful images chosen from the gallery Flickr pool.

Here are a few of the pages that are already in the final phases of design… Come back often to this page for a sneak preview of some other new pages!

In 2005, having realized his childhood Maltese dream of holding two artistic exhibitions in Paris, Michel D’Anastasio decided to direct his creative energy toward Hebraic Calligraphic Art.

Michel had long admired the squarish Hebrew letter. His journey to Hebraic Calligarphy also pays direct homage to Michel’s familial roots, Sephardic Jews expelled from Spain in 1492 who found refuge and home for generations on Gozo, in the Maltese Archipelago.

Michel’s interest in Hebraic Calligraphy was re-triggered by an inspiring trip to Israel in 2004. During Michel’s trip, Michel found that his appreciation of Hebrew calligraphy grew and this initial admiration provided inspiration, leading to a journey of artistic renewal and enlightenment.

On his return to Paris and inspired by the trip, Michel began to learn and experiment with Hebrew Calligraphic works. He discovered in the Hebrew letters qualities of both vitality and liberation.

By constant study and attention to the calligraphy, Michel first mastered the contours of the Hebrew alphabet and then experimented with modernizing it. This diligent study and awareness bought about an artistic expression that released a new oeuvre of artistic work; a universe created by a fresh palate of forms and signs. Michel has since produced works which he feels artistically far surpass his past work with the Latin alphabet.

Today, Michel D’Anastasio continues to work from Paris, immersing himself in the fascinating culture and history and traditions of the Hebrew alphabet. His work brings light and meaning to the shapes and forms created by his handiwork.

“Michel D’Anastasio is an artist like no other and his use of calligraphic form to express spirituality and nostalgic emotion is impressive and touching. His color palette is rich and diverse with pristine clarity with forms which come straight from the soul. An enlightening tour through his photo-stream is an absolute MUST!”

Marco Brown-Maltese

I have been following Michel’s work for a long time on Flickr. His relationship with inks and colors is so intense and lyrical that every stroke is like a poem. Michel has recently accepted my invitation to prepare a logo study for the Green Tea Gallery. Today he has finally sent me a large pdf presentation with the beautiful results of his study. I was so happy when I started browsing through the pages of the document and I wanted to immediately share this study with all of you… If you like Michel’s work, don’t forget to visit his beautiful website at www.script-sign.com!