The Village

What a surprise!.

After watching the awful Signs movie I told myself I would never go to watch any other Shyamalan movies. It was a pity because I thought Shyamalan was very talented but movies went more and more bad since The Sixth Sense.

So, when The Village started in USA I read the bad critics from everyone and I supposed it was really a bad movie... just what I was thinking.... no surprises.

BUT!, the story looked so good I couldn't resist. This Friday the movie started in Spain (amazing translation for the movie title...., "El Bosque" (which means "The Forest")) and two days later, there I was.... prepared for a really poor movie...

...but this is the best crafted movie by Shyamalan. From the technical perspective, camera use, photography, music, everything is absolutely perfect. The slow motion of the movie is something I really appreciate in this times of mindless-fast-pace-stupid-movies... so for the first 15 minutes I was just amazed with the photography, music, and the almost fairytale mood of the movie.

Then it goes better and better, as everyone realizes the truth behind the village. I think the important part is not the typical signature final surprise of the movie (every Shyamalan movie has a final trick). In this case the real chilling comes much sooner the end of the movie.

To get the real beauty of this film you have to dig deep in the story. Lots of similar things are happening just in your world today so it's amazing how MNS "translated" the essence of contemporary problems (specially in the USA and their current politicians) to a fairy tale kind of story.

I also like the almost independent European style of the film... the way every scene has been shot.

The bad point is the advertising campaign in Spain.... in the trailer it seems you're going to see a really scary terror movie. Of course this was not the intention of the director, but the only rule of distributors is to earn more and more money, and everything is valid for them. That means lots of disappointed people at the end of the movie...

Happily (for me), the movie was not what I was expecting, it's much more beautiful!!!!!!!.

Well done Mr. Shyamalan. Keep this way, pleeeeease!!!!.

9/10.

foto-si Madrid dinner 23·09·2004

Yesterday I went to my first dinner with the spanish photography group "foto-si". The group is based in a mailing list and their members post photographs usually in www.photo.net.

I had a really good time yesterday, and I'm happy I found these photo passionate people. I invite you to review the work of my three fellows yesterday:

Charo Diez
Marina Población
Alberto Conde

You'll be surprised!.

And sorry for the bad quality of the pictures. They were taken with a PalmOne Zire 72, filtered with Neat Image, and slightly corrected with Photoshop.

Charo, Alberto y Curra


Alberto y Curra, Curra y Alberto


Curra, Rafa y Charo

Storm over Wien

An amazingly big storm was forming over Wien. The dark clouds and the old building remind me of that anticipation feeling... something inminent is just going to happen. To give more mood to the shot I changed my ISO setting to 400, to get all that "noise" in the air and get the grainy mood in a more natural way. Desaturation and duotone made with PS.

Time is the Enemy

Taken in the Kunsthistorische Museum of Vienna. I took this photo after more than 26 hours of continued work. I was really tired and a little bit upset about some aspects of my life. I saw this big cafe inside the museum, so old, so empty... and recurring thoughts of how short life is, and how fast we should live it to squeeze as much hapiness as we could emerged in my mind. I was listening an amazingly poignant melody of Paul Mounsey, The Bridge.

Summer Ends....

You know, after the big bunch of images I took during the summer it seems I've arrived to a new creative deadlock. No ideas for new photographs, no inspiration, no feel like going to take photographs.

It's not the first one and surely it won't be the last one. It usually happens after an intense period of photo taking. In the past these deadlocks made me upset, but now I've learnt to live with the feeling and just wait for "inspiration" to come back.

This time the deadlock it happened to come just when the summer is coming to an end in Spain. No more blue skies, weather becomes more cool... and inspiration goes away.

Funny enough, when I was coming home yesterday after work, and I was thinking about all these things I realized some amazing clouds starting to cover our ending summer sky. When I arrived home I quietly went for my digicam, went out home, looked for a nice spot and fired a couple of shots. Nothing stunning, but a record of a summer that will never come back, summer'04 is almost exhausted.

A portrait...

I'm always lurking for a portrait opportunity... my couple was having some deep thoughts while relaxing in a cafe in Alton Towers... available light was just perfect... I set the metering to spot and just fire. No digital touch over light or colours, just sharpenss filter applied because of the resizing. At least a portrait I like :).

Hulk Coaster @ IoA

Taken in my last birthday in the Islands of Adventure Theme Park. This is the incredible Hulk Coaster... seven thrilling inversions and an amazing catapulted launch.... grrrrreat!. Just cleaned in PS. Comments are welcomed! :). And please, don't move your arms and legs outside the train during the ride :).