This exhibition, however, is different. It is the result of a long and leisurely project which I have thoroughly enjoyed working on. No work is staged, and all is the result of images captured live during a number of milonga sessions. It gave me the opportunity to learn and appreciate the culture of Tango, and the time to digest it and develop the images over several months.

The exhibition will feature 7 artists using different media, and although I have as yet seen very few of the works, I am confident that some very interesting concepts have evolved during this period.

Below is the banner for the event. If you would like to attend the opening, feel free to contact me to request an invite.

Tektika Tango Exhibition Banner (Click to view in full)

Thousands of images were received from 68 countries worldwide. The awards international Jury included captains of the industry from Magnum Photos, The Armory Show, Fratelli Alinari, Contrasto to Tate and Hamiltons in London who honored Spider Fellows with 84 coveted title awards in 28 categories. The judges reviewed the entries online for eight weeks before making their final nominations and Sergio’s “Just One Coin,” an exceptional image entered in the Photojournalism category, received a high percentage of votes overall.

“The Spider Awards celebrates photographers who operate at the highest levels of their craft,” said Basil O’Brien, the awards Creative Director. “Sergio’s work represents black and white photography at its finest, and we’re pleased to present him with the title of Nominee.”

You can view the 5th Annual Winners Gallery at http://bit.ly/aHUOUS

More black and white images may be viewed at http://bit.ly/cMTlGY

BLACK AND WHITE SPIDER AWARDS is the leading international award honouring excellence in black and white photography. This celebrated event shines a spotlight on the best professional and amateur photographers worldwide and honours the finest images with the highest achievements in black and white photography.

I brought with me a very famous book on photography (indeed aptly named ‘on photography’, written in the 1970’s by Susan Sontag). It is very well written and does have some truly inspiring words. It is clear that the writer had a passion for photography and spent long hours researching the content. As I read through it I find (rather disappointingly) that most of what she wrote is still very valid today, more than 30 years later. Has photography stagnated so much that we are still rummaging on the same ideas photographers created more than a quarter of a century ago? Many things have happened since then. Many photographers have come and gone, and left their mark. But is it a significant mark in the history of photography? Somehow I have my doubts. It is true, photography has changed, especially since the digital revolution, but I somehow don’t feel that photographers have changed too. Maybe I’m missing something but possibly the same fact that I’m missing it means it isn’t significant enough. I worry that maybe we’ve arrived to a stage where photography has come to the end of it’s development and it’s now about running around in circles effectively flogging a dead horse. Susan Sontag does mention it briefly in her book. Maybe she was right already 30 years ago.

I however refuse to believe this is entirely correct (although I’ve seen enough bad photography to believe this is not entirely incorrect either). I wouldn’t be doing what I do if I did. I might not be the key to the new generation of photography, but I guess every helping hand counts. I believe the key is in the way we perceive photography. Many perceive good photography as being equivalent to technically correct photography. While this may sometimes be a part of what good photography is, it is a very shallow view, and mostly a detrimental one. Again we have to take a step back and rethink in what context we are viewing photography in the first place. If we are looking at photography purely for photography’s sake – that is, just as a means of capturing something out there – then we are viewing photography as a craft, and in that sense, technique is certainly a pretty large part of the success of a photograph. If, however, we want to view photography as an art form, then the picture changes completely. First of all, the focus shifts away from photography per se, and moves onto the artist. This is a key element, and cannot be stressed enough. We need to start viewing photography as the means to an end rather than the end per se. It is an artistic medium which the artist chooses to make use of to achieve his or her goal, and not the goal itself. Secondly we need to shift our view away from the individual photograph and onto the bigger picture. The value of an artist’s work is the concept, and how it is presented. Judging an artist by looking at one piece of work is akin to judging a novel by reading one paragraph. While one piece of work can give an idea of the skill of the artists, and while some works tend to be remebered more, and may eventually become representative of the artist, it is the whole body of work of the artist that defines him or her. The body of work of artists is the translation of their values, thoughts and beliefs into something physical, and every part of that body needs to be viewed with the whole concept in mind. If we look at the greatest artists (including photographers) of the past century, it becomes clear that whatever they did was centred around a concept or passion they had, and which they represented through their life and through their work.

Art has changed greatly throughout the past decades, and if we are to understand art in the way it deserves to be, we must first of all remove preconceptions about artistic media, and then start asking the right questions when viewing a work of art. It is certainly not about aesthetics, and whether this would look nice hanging in the room with the new persian rug, but about the connection which the work creates with the concept, and eventually, with the artist.

During the year, I became ever more involved in the local photography scene, and helped the MIPP, one of the local photography organisations, to get through a pretty tough year after some radical changes. It was hard work but greatly inspiring. I can now start giving back some of what I have received, helping those who love photography immerse themselves into the art.

Throughout this period I was working on a new set of architecture images which eventually were presented for the Associate qualification. I was greatly encouraged by the judges’ comments which I will treasure for a long time to come. This was a goal I needed to achieve, and it helped me gain more confidence in my abilities.

I am now ready to move to the next step – a step further into the direction of art. It is important for the artistic community to understand that photography is not about creating technically perfect images. Photography is just another medium for the expression of art. It is a very particular medium in itself. It is a tool which allows us to manipulate reality, and show only what we want to show, the way we want to show it. No wonder it was, and still is, a favourite medium for the surrealists. When looking at a photograph, viewers cannot help but associating what they see with what they know, and that is a very strong manipulative tool in the hands of the artist. It takes time to master this technique of distorting reality, but when we manage, the whole world flips upside down. It becomes a dream – rooted in reality, but free of reality’s constraints. I look forward with excitement to the moment I will manage to master that. This is the path I will be taking throughout the coming years.

This coming year, I also plan to participate in some exhibitions. It is time to expose myself once again to the world. I will be doing this through a few collaborative exhibitions – at least that is the plan. I will not reveal details as yet, since they are still on the drawing board, however I can say that there will be some experimentation involved.

The coming year promises to be a very exciting one ahead. I plan to make it so. I have been encouraged greatly throughout the past years, and it is thanks to this continuous encouragement and support that I am able to keep ploughing through. So I keep ploughing through – one day there will be a harvest to collect.

Finally, I wish you all a successful year ahead, full of joy, success and unrestrained creativity.

The nominated image is one of my first works to be exhibited, and is entitled “Beach Shop”. The image portrays the common and generally unnoticed as glamorous and imposing, creating an impact through the realisation that whilst most of us have seen this or similar scenes before, we never really gave it such importance. Beauty is also in the simple things, and it is up to the photographer to realise this and portray it.

My father is a photographer. It is the only thing he has done since he was 14, and I can say he’s pretty darn good at it. But it was his work, he had been doing it for over 40 years, had been disillusioned by this island’s aversion to change and new things, and ended up hating it. I could never dare follow in his footsteps. I was directed towards the sciences, which I did enjoy thoroughly. Today, I understand that they fascinated me because of the workings of nature, and when I chose to move into IT, it was because I was fascinated by the creative aspect, and the control it gives you over the creative detail.

I had always been playing with cameras, since I was a kid, and a little more seriously since I was 16 and got my first Minolta SLR. During university photography took second stage, but the key moment arrived shortly after graduation, when I decided it was time I tried digital. There came a day in my life, when I realised that I could express myself,  communicate through a photograph. At that point, it wasn’t photography any longer. It was art. The medium takes second stage – the end justifies the means. Finally, what you use to achieve your goal is irrelevant – in my case, it was simply the fact that I felt comfortable within this medium; it fit in with my character, and my existent skill set.

It took a few years, and a lot of experiments gone wrong, to get to a point where technique took second stage, but it it something which every artist should achieve. I learn new things every day, and will do so for the rest of my life, but these are simply new tools which are used to achieve what I want. I am no photography guru – far from it. Coming to think of it, one of the key difference between an artist and a craftsman is that the artists learn what they need to achieve what they want, while the craftsmen achieve what they need with what they know. It is “the end justifies the means” vs “the means justify the end”.

This brings to mind an eternal battle which is raging all over the Internet (and beyond, if there any such thing), between the “film” and “digital”. This brings me back to my point. There is no such thing as film or digital. There is photography, or actually, there is just art. I would use film if I thought that it would bet the right medium for me to create what I needed. Until now, digital has served me well, but who knows what will boil up in my brain tomorrow?