Guy With Camera » Argentina

De Usuahia a la Quiaca

Andrew Brauteseth — Tue, 29 Jun 2010 18:10:52 +0000

The closing scene from one of my favourite movies, The Motorcycle Diaries. The movie plays out with some beautiful portrait photographs of Argentinians with music by famous Argentinian composer, Gustavo Santaolalla

Notes on Buenos Aires

Andrew Brauteseth — Thu, 27 May 2010 08:42:31 +0000

Buenos Aires International Airport is old. Airports can make the worst first impression. Like dirty fingernails. The City is so big. Too big to swallow in a week. Too big to swallow in a month. Like an overdone steak. You chop off bits and stomach it piece by piece. Calle Florida is one big chunk of people and movement and noises and footsteps and hagglers and shoes and fashion and pamphlets and leather handbags. And nobody speaks English. Nobody knows where Cape Town is. Table Mountain? What? Nobody knows who you are. The world according to the Latin Americans is very different. They have their own concerns. The earth is shaped like a Fútbol. Boca Juniors is its Capital.

I love Cities. The warm black silhouettes passing. Block by Block. Every street I’d want to own an Italian Renaissance apartment in. I’m walking down 23 blocks of Avineda Sante Fe. For days I had Subte Fear. Fear of the Subway. Fear of losing myself underground in a Spanish Catacomb. But now I’m rushing to catch the train, and then rushing out to the exit. For no reason. Everyone else is rushing. Everything points to Salida. I’ve had my cultural roots pulled. I feel like I’m in the second chapter of a Satre Novel. Nausea. I’ve been shooting all day and I’m starting to see things in 70-200mm f2.8 with that soft focus in the foreground. Maybe it’s the Jet Lag.

You think you’re going to Argentina to capture the Authentic. You use big words like Culture and Street Life as if everything is supposed to look like a 1920’s Parisian suburb. Or something out of Borges story. On day one you discover a McDonalds in the city’s main Plaza. There’s gaucho’s with Toyota 4×4’s. They’re cantering on suburban streets. Graffiti on the walls. There’s the Cardboard people collecting pieces of the night. There’s the grey city girls with their folders. The city girls love to carry folders. Every city girl needs a folder. The best coffee was from Starbucks in Galerías Pacífico on Florrrriiiiida. Is this what I came here to capture? The City comes to me in a mess. My shots are a mess. They have too much distance. And now I don’t take out my Camera in public so liberally. You think about that guy who got beaten up in Plaza St Martin. It’s still a City remember.

Walking through the galleries. The contemporary collection of MALBA and the Futurism from PROA. God I love prints. Maybe I should have a gallery. What are the economics of being a Famous Artist? After one week, the City opens up to you. Or maybe your eyes open. There is the beauty, yes. Streets and Streets of beautiful buildings. You’ve eventually worked out how to use the @ sign on a Spanish keyboard. Every second Porteneo woman belongs in a modeling agency.

By day 10 I missed Cape Town. My morning rituals. The Single Lattes. The Surf. The pool at Virgin Active in Wembley. My friends, my girlfriend. My Nerves are frazzled. Sick of the overdubbed American movies you’ve seen before. Ugly Betty sounds better in Spanish. Caught a Train to Tigre and got lost in town for 3 hours trying to find either the River or some free WIFI on my Blackberry. It’s time to go home.

The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams

Andrew Brauteseth — Wed, 26 May 2010 07:46:56 +0000

Buenos Aires is a hugely cultural city. There are dozens of galleries around the city, drawing massive crowds of locals and tourists. Galleries aren’t limited to the ‘Art Crowd’. On my first night out in the City we visited a Gallery in Recoleta, Centro Cultural Recoleta, which at 11pm, was throbbing with families, grannies, children, aunties, hipsters and one Guy with Camera. While in the MALBA (Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires) gallery later that week, I stumbled on very interesting book by photographer Alessandra Sanguinetti. It was about two Argentinian cousins growing up in the countryside which she photographed over a 5 year period. The two cousins were nine and ten years old when Sanguinetti began the project. She wanted to to portray the psychological and physical transformations of these girls as they matured into adults. As opposed to a more traditional documentary style of shooting the project, she focused instead on the desires and dreams of their active imaginations.

“I have attempted to interpret the ending of their childhood by entering their imaginary spaces. The time when their dreams, fantasies, and fears would fuse seamlessly with real day-to-day life are ending, and the photographs I have made intend to crystallize this rapidly disappearing very personal and free space.”

Shapes Editorial

Andrew Brauteseth — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 19:21:32 +0000

“We’re looking for something Fresh and we like your shapes Idea”. Giselle Hon, fashion editor of one of South Afica’s biggest circulating Womens magazine explains her massive 24 page editorial. It’s the May issue. Which is their September Issue. Her dog, Coco, pants warm doggy breath on my toes under the table. Track 13 of the Official Vida CD plays over our conversation. I’ve memorized but not yet deciphered the lyrics. “Are you sure Rooi Rose is my style?” I ask timidly. Rooi Rose is an Afrikaans Womans Monthly which has been in the Caxton media stable for over 65 years with 850 000 monthly readers.

I don’t sleep the night after the meeting. The 6mg of Melatonin sleeping tablets from Wellness Warehouse doesn’t kick in between 2am and 4am. It’s impossible to come up with an idea, a treatment, a location, do a casting and source the clothes for 8 DPS’s and 8 ‘looks’ by next Thursday. I’m pouring my soul into this. My girlfriend will witness the effects of this stress in later weeks when she discovers me sleepwalking around the holiday house ‘looking for shapes’. In the morning I start location scouting. Scouting is less fun than it sounds. I’m in the trokkie, I’m up the mountain, I’m talking, I’m phoning, I’m mobile googling, I’m sweating. By 4pm I find MacSteel in Belville. I can tell no location scouts or photographers have even stepped foot in this part of Industria. I’m charming the secretaries with my glam fashion industry stories. MacSteel is a shape paradise. Piles of steel wrapped in hexagons. Rolled aluminum stacked to the roof ready for pressing in to pixels.

It’s 10am on day one. Our Argentinian model Estefania clicks into automation. She’s good. She laughs at my pose stetches. “They’re so cute”. Giggle giggle. She’s standing between 9 foot plates of raw steel while a curious crane loader hovers overhead like a bot from The Matrix. Mirage, the MacSteel stock manager, sticks to my side throughout. Fashion photography is much more interesting than loading pipes. Mirage strikes me as the the type of employee the company can’t live without but will never be promoted. He’s wedged himself under an industry machine and he’ll prop it up for the next 50 years. The factory workers mingle around the set during breaks. Between poses I hear “yeah, that’s sexxeeee” in that cheeky South Belville drawl.

Here’s the gallery of images from the shoot.

Some behind the scenes shots were taken by my Assist, Renier Botha:

On the Factory Floor

Our Audience of Steelworkers

The Curious Hovering Bot

Fashion Editor Giselle making sure