videoblog by Felices

MELANCHOLIA. When I visited the cemetery of ‘La Fontanella’, in Naples, I didn’t feel any fear being surrounded by hundreds of skulls. I knew how artificial it was to create respect among others. But once I was in the Herculano ruins, after visiting Pompeya, only one skeleton was enough to me to feel all the fear of the human being. It was the body of a woman who embrace a child and a man is under her legs. The child is not possible to see in the video because of the situation of the cabinet and the crashed skeleton. Looking at her the music came to my mind: Tristan und Isolda, Wagner’s Prelude used by Lars von Trier at the movie Melancholia. I was terrified by the idea the movie is not been fiction at all, it’s been lived by some people as a very similar experience in the Earth: The eruption of Vesuvio vulcan at this time had to be like the arriving of Melancholia planet.

THE CHOOSING QUESTION. To wear or not to wear a hiyab, niqab or burka it’s becoming such an incredible issue of discussion in some regions of spain… young girls going to school are the center of this stories, too young to choose with enough freedom, and this issue become a politized issue. The young girl becomes the center of such a bigger story that I shame for her. Here it is an image taked in the Istambul muslim market of Fatih, where women just buy hiyabs to wear as natural as any other clothe in some regions of the same world. I think the individual freedom of young girls had to be respected by adult people. First is to ensure the education (some are loosing this oportunity by not being allowed to go to school with burka, what I agree must be hard, but it was also hard for some to share with gipsies), and once they can choose to wear or not as adult, they will.

Lately I would like to have the time to explore edition with just photos. And I’ve remembered my first experiment: It was with over 9.000 pictures taken by Rafael Vargas during the construction of Torre Agbar building in Barcelona. I was deeply in love with the opening credits of the movie Soylent Green. We tried some similar ways with editors but they failed, so I decided just to do the exercise of selecting the proper images from this big archive and simulate the same effects (zoom out, zoom in…) over the same music. This was the result. The video was exhibited in Fundació Vilacasas (Palafrugell)

CANADIAN CARGO SHIP II- First time I took a camera, after 10 days in a cargo ship I realised I just was shooting landscapes. I was very very hungry to myself because it was evident I was not interacting enough with sailors and the crew maybe. But later I’ve seen there was something very nice in this landscapes: we were a very very important picture for the landscape, anywhere we where, as a big ship we were, crossing through Niagara’s locks and sometime very narrow rivers. Canadá - USA. Music by Stefan Levin. JVC Camera.

LA MUERTE TENÍA UN PRECIO. Famoso tema de Ennio Morricone que me ha servido para hacer algo de sarcasmo y westernirizar unas imágenes captadas en la francesa Colliure, donde se encuentra un hombre clavado en una cruz mirando épicamente al mar cortando el viento y el vendaval. 

BECOME A FEATHER. Three years ago, one day just like any other day, suddenly a house is burning in front of us. After this you cannot come back to work indifferent. Next day we read in the newspaper that in fact a man fell down. He throw himself when the situation became complicated inside, but her girlfriend survived. After this maybe his soul did fly like a feather. 

PORTRAIT. A turkish man. 

One more time intuition made me zoom-in while I couldn’t notice if there was a real man there or if it was just a masculine fashion advert because of the light back. What story can you imagine?

PORTRAIT. It was waiting for a train, in the bar of the station. Between Spain and France, in Portbou.  

This video mostly won a prize in a Photoespaña Click&Rec videoart competition. I was very happy of this unexpected. I like shooting by intuition, some feeling is telling you that there is a great movie in your camera. Once you go for editing you realize how big is it. Be patient and wait to see a beautiful natural pause. Filming with JVC.

If you wanna see other videos in the Photoespaña channel click over.

Luis Elorriaga explica en qué consiste ‘Ésta es una plaza’, un espacio ocupado de forma comunitaria y legal en Madrid. Cámara Harinezumi en mano.

NOLLYWOOD. I met first Fred Amata in the Tarifa film festival. He and his colleagues were going to visit a friend in Barcelona. So I though it was a great opportunity to share with some good journalist and talk about the Nollywood fenomenon. To know more link the interview in El País newspaper.

Amata is actor, director and producer in the 3rd world largest cinema industrie, from Nigeria. Shooting with JVC and a ‘guerrilla’ microphone.

This is a tribute to Café Royale and night club culture. 

Café Royale friends came to the screening of the video tribute. Many people complains about the situation in the city where good music had more and more a poor presence. Clubs were really closing. People is missing good places to meet and enjoy best music as here it was. To see some of these testimonials link here. 

I specially love the Lucellino lamp by Ingo Maurer. What a nice idea: a bulb with wings.. let the light fly! 

PICCOLA PEEP SHOW. Porcelain kamasutra’s in giratutto. This was not a find in Japan, but it was a find in Barcelona: an art installation by Ingo Maurer, light artist. Exhibited in Santa&Cole for an especial event time ago.