O sensie Luna-grafii - wywiad radiowy z Adamem Lunarisem - Listopad 2011
only in Polish
Thursday, 22 December 2011
Friday, 25 November 2011
Monday, 27 June 2011
Luna-graphy in Exlusive Magazine 06.2011
White Rabbit
One day I received a phone call. I was asked to photograph a group of unique characters. A couple of weeks later we all went to the cliffs of Eastbourne in the middle of the night.
I asked Julie to describe what she experienced during that memorable night.
This is what she wrote:
Waiting was difficult, but getting to know each other during the boredom was a buzz. When I was fed up, getting off the coach and strolling around, in the middle of the night, on the cliffs of Eastbourne it all felt very safe and liberating.
The natural night of White Rabbit was rousing the silly, naughty and excited juveniles in us. Before long, we were transformed into eccentric, brazen and wayward faction of bohemia. White Rabbit was twenty-four hours of mixed, extreme emotions. Intensely vivid were those of getting to know each other. Long hours of waiting had magnificent benefits. Naughtiness crept in. Being dressed as an intoxicating, curious model from the 19th century was a way of releasing another persona. My Cain was utilized to it's full potential. White Rabbit herself wanted the policeman's truncheon. The Police stopped to check out our activities. They left laughing with bewilderment. We were only an unconventional bunch of artists roaming around the Sussex countryside in November being photographed. The natural, invigorating evening of White Rabbit was intensely enjoyable. Winding up naked in the countryside was even more liberating.
And the memories … well, they are always pleasing.
Wayward
Harebrained
Intoxicating
Thrilling
Eccentric
Radical
Animated
Brave
Bizarre
Invigorating
Terrific
A poem from the night in question:
Oh moonlight sky,
I love your moonlit eyes gazing down over us.
And the cold and mild sea breeze,
What an impish Autumn tease?
With space vast in heaven at last.
Out of our city, into our country and seaside pretty
It makes you want to be alive and wild.
Scream like a banshee even if you're a he
Then the inner child jumped out
Wanting to climb to the top of every mount and shout.
Some of us were curious to look over the edge
Nerves jangled and some were scared to death
In the old days they endured tall feats
Dressed like a Dickens character,
and letting go of anxieties.
Oh moonlight sky,
I love your calming light over our uncertainties.
Julie
Exclusive Magazine article in English:
Luna-graphy is an art which combines painting and photography. The images are created at night and only by the light of the full moon, which happens 3 or 4 days in a month. The sky cannot be cloudy and there cannot be any artificial light sources. The artist who created luna-graphy is a Polish photographer Adam Lach.
How did you get the idea to take pictures by the moonlight?
It was a coincidence. Five years ago I spent the New Year's Eve with some friends in Krynica Morska by the coast. The party, which took place in a small tavern, was pretty boring so I decided to go for a walk along a seashore with my wife. I was playing with my camera and took some pictures with a high sensitivity only by the moonlight: a few portraits of my wife, some landscapes. The images were taken by hand, without a tripod. It turned out you could see much more on these images than in reality. Even the light captured on them was amazing, truly magical.
Images can only come to life during these 3 or 4 days a month when the moonlight is
strong enough. So that first session happened exactly during the full moon?
Yes, it happened to be a full moon then. Afterwards I began to think more about it. I started working on improving the quality of the images. Photography is like maths, some things depend on one another. I started experimenting, playing with these rules. Initially the project was called “The 30 Seconds’ Exposure” as that is exactly how long the shutter is open. Later I came up with the name “luna-graphy”.
Can you actually see something when you are taking photos or is it completely dark?
I can see shapes or silhouettes of things but not the details like for example if the model is looking at the camera. I can smell some scents, hear some sounds and glimpse some movements. The idea is not to control everything which is within the camera’s scope.
Does it mean the images are only a result of a coincidence?
I choose the setting and set the camera. I have a vision of what might happen. I talk to the model about the luna-graph we are about to create. I explain the boundaries and the rules and leave the rest to him or her. The choreography is not decided before, the models may dance, walk or even disappear from the scope of the camera. I do not interfere with this. The time set for each image is thirty seconds. The model’s movements are saved in a very particular way. I would say it is like painting with a camera.
You do not say “to take photos” but “to create luna-graphs”. What is the difference between luna-graphy and the traditional photography?
It is all a kind of game with reality. Photography is usually quite realistic. It is difficult to invent alternative stories about photographs. A photographer is capturing the reality as it is seen by him. He shows the reality as it is, even though it has been filtered through his emotions. Luna-graphy on the other hand is a next step forward as it allows to somehow create the reality. It is an art which combines both photography and painting.
You have photographed some Butoh dancers (a Japanese contemporary dance - ed.)
in India. How did this happen?
One of the dancers, Jean Daniel Fricker, came once to my studio in London with a friend of mine. He stayed one hour and during this time he did not say anything. He was simply observing. When he was leaving, he said that he had been touched by one of my photos - a portrait of a woman which hanged on my wall. He asked if I could send it to him. I usually do not do this but this time I felt it could lead to something in the future so I sent him the photo. After two years I received an e-mail from him from India where he was finalising on a new project. He suggested I should come to India and work with him and his group of dancers. I planned my trip so that I would be there during a full moon. In India I explored the area and chose settings for the dancers to perform at night. We did some tests and I finally asked them to dance naked. The colour of their skin was similar to the colour of the Indian stones so it was easy to create some unrealistic ghosts on the images. Some time later we also worked together in Cambodia, in Angkor Wat. Some kid spied on us, the local police came and cancelled the images. They claimed we had offended their sanctity.
Is it easier to create luna-graphs in exotic landscapes?
Not necessarily. I have also created luna-graphs in Poland or in the UK. The sky in Asia is usually cloudless and the moon and the stars are clearly visible. On the other hand you can do a lot of fascinating things even if they are clouds on the sky. They are interesting because they shift colours and make the moonlight less intensive. I have done for example a fashion editorial on a beach in Leba, in Poland.
And in the English countryside?
This was a rather special project. I photographed people with mental health problems. It was a shooting for a calendar which was commissioned by a charity which helped these people. We hired a coach and drove to the Seven Sisters Cliffs near Eastbourne. This place is very popular among those who want to commit suicide. It in the middle of November, so it was quite cold. Obviously, it was a full moon. The clothes came from a young designer who owns a shop called Prangsta in New Cross in London. Strange things happened there. One of the girls was very brave. She undressed herself and provoked the others to follow her example. Somebody bought some alcohol. Suddenly there was a naked party going on in the coach.
Has nobody had the idea to take photos by the moonlight before?
It is true that people put a camera on a tripod and take photographs of landscapes at night, but nobody has decided to record movement. I think it was simply impossible before the digital photography was invented. The process of developing a negative usually takes a couple of days so the photographer would have to wait quite long to see the picture. When you take pictures with a digital camera you can see the result immediately. You can have access to the image you have just created. In this way you know directly if the image is good or if it requires more work.
Tuesday, 8 February 2011
Definition of Luna-graphy
Kambodia, Mekong 2008
Luna-graphy
Luna-graphy is a theatre where the lights went out ... A shiver of strangeness
while being conscious of all these invisible things happening over there ...
The light of the darkness.
But let's start from the beginning: what luna-graphy is and how it is created. This technique uses only the light of the moon which as we know reflects light from the sun. Luna-graphy may indeed come to life only during 3 or 4 days in a month when there is a full moon and only in places where some different light such as city illumination does not appear on the horizon.
The light is only the beginning, however. A luna-grapher can choose a place but is not able to plan what will be visible on the picture. The only way to see the image is with the eyes of the imagination. In other words, luna-graphy is formed by intuition when one subjects himself to the light, place and time. It is not a game of blind chance, though, but only a type of chance. It is the luna-grapher who decides upon scenery and models but the final effect of each motion cannot be predicted due to long exposure.
Therefore it is intuition and choice, the exact moment of pressing the shutter which is crucial in the process of creating the image. Eventially the night becomes the luna-grapher‘s magical darkroom.
Each luna-graphy is like a night cinema, where images are shown not in a traditional way but with extraordinary illumination and innovative palette of colours. Seemingly visible details disappear when we try to focus on a them. Lunagraphy is like a text written with a yet unknown font. The images are palpable, but to interpret them remains a mystery…
Marek Mak-Gołowacz
Luna-grafia
Luna-grafia to teatr, w którym zgasło światło... Dreszcz niesamowitości, poczucie dziania się rzeczy niewidzialnych... Światło mroku.
Ale zacznijmy od tego czym jest luna-grafia i jak powstaje. Jest to technika wykorzystująca tylko i wyłącznie blask Księżyca, który jak wiemy świeci na nocnym niebie światłem odbitym od Słońca. Luna-grafia może bowiem powstać tylko podczas pełni czyli przez 3 lub 4 dni w miesiącu, oraz tylko tam, gdzie na horyzoncie nie pojawia się inne światło, takie jak na przykład luminacja miast...
Światło to jednak dopiero początek: luna-graf może wybrać miejsce i przestrzeń, nie może jednak zaplanować wizji obrazu. Nie może go zobaczyć inaczej jak tylko oczyma wyobraźni. Luna-grafia powstaje więc dzięki intuicji, poddaniu się światłu, miejscu i czasowi. Nie jest jednak grą przypadku, a jedynie jego rodzajem. Wybór scenerii oraz dobór postaci należy co prawda do luna-grafa, ale efektu ruchu nie można przewidzieć ze względu na kilkudziesięciosekundową ekspozycję. Ogromne znaczenie ma zatem intuicja i wybór, moment wcisnięcia migawki. To właśnie ten moment, sam wybór obrazów wieńczy proces twórczy: noc staje się dla luna-grafa jego ciemnią, w której zamyka się koło magii.
Każda luna-grafia to seans nocy, przedstawiony nie w sepii czy technikolorze, tylko w zupełnie nowych barwach i iluminacji. Pozornie dostrzegalne szczegóły znikają po zatrzymaniu na nich oka. Obrazy są jak tekst napisany nieznaną dotąd czcionką -wyraźne, ale ich odczytanie nie jest jednoznaczne...
Marek Mak-Gołowacz
Monday, 17 January 2011
Luna-graphy in printed media - Zwierciadlo '02.2011
An article about Luna-graphy and collaboration with Jean Daniel Fricker&Celine Angele
Translation of the article about Lunagraphy in ZWIERCIADLO February 2011
The Influence of the Moon
Page 1
The Butoh dance is a way of expressing emotions, presenting the relationships with our body and the universe, exploring our subconsciousness. Two French artists: Jean Daniel Fricker and Céline Angele explore the Butoh dance in their exceptional performances. Thanks to the lunagraphy, a new way of creating images by the moonlight, we now have an exceptional record of their art.
Page 2
Description above image 1&2:
Lunagraphies, or in other words images captured by the moonlight, showing Céline Angel (1, 2) and Jean Daniel Fricker (2, 3) while performing the Butoh dance in India and Cambodia. The inventor of this original method of creating images is Adam Lach (Lunaris).
Text:
They meet at the festival in Avignon. They do not come here by accident. It is a meeting place for theatre groups which seek new means of expression different from the traditional theatre. This is where Jean Daniel Fricker, a performer who works with juggling, acrobatics and dance meets Angela Celine, an actress and a judo athlete who devoted herself to the Butoh dance after cooperating with several theatrical companies in Paris. They are joined by the common interest in Butoh. They both perform in the same play directed by Japanese choreographers. And this is how it begins: for the next three years Céline participates in workshops and shows organised by Fricker. They travel around the world together visiting Italy, Croatia and Slovenia. After a while Céline starts helping organizing workshops and performances.
At the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 Jean Daniel Fricker decides to create a theatre group. Along with Celine and five others performers they stay for three months in the southern India, in Hampi, where they work on the performance entitled ‘The Prayer’. They invite one of their friends, a Polish photographer Adam Lach, to come and stay with them. Adam has a chance to observe how this unique project develops. The final effect is amazing as the performance continues without a break for six weeks and four additional nights. It is a form of pilgrimage from one village to another. Each day a new dance begins while the residents watch the shows with surprise. Even the local children sometimes join the performance, jumping over the balls. During one evening Adam talks about a special method of capturing images by the light of the moon which he once discovered during a night walk on the beach in Krynica Morska in Poland. The lunagraphy may come to life only by the light of a full moon during three or four days in a month and provided that there are neither clouds nor any source of light apart from the moon visible on the sky. It's not the end of difficulties. When capturing an image, the author cannot predict the final outcome. Although he chooses both the scenery and the models, he has to accept that it is his intuition and even partly coincidence which will shape the image in the end. As the exposure (the time when the shutter is open and the picture is being taken) lasts for around thirty seconds, it is virtually impossible to predict
the final result.
Page 3
Description above the images:
(1) Jean Daniel Fricker (first from the left) and Céline Angel (sitting in the middle row) during their stay in Cambodia became friends with the inhabitants of surrounding villages. They organised workshops for the locals and still keep in touch with some of them. (2) Members of the Jean Daniel Fricker’s Theatre with whom he worked in India on the performance ‘The Prayer’, 2008. (3) Céline Angele at the workshop for mine and polio victims, Cambodia, 2009
Text:
Dancing in the dark
Butoh, which is called the dance of the darkness, is the search for one’s own expression free from social or cultural masks. Nothing is for show here. There is no story to be told, it is all about emotions. The dancer tries to express the relationship with the body and the universe while exploring the darkness of his subconsciousness. That is why each Butoh dance is completely different as it is a dance to one’s inner rhythm. It is not the performer who is dancing, it is him who is being danced. Instead of choreography the Butoh offers the unity of body and mind, a kind of meditation in motion. Therefore Jean Daniel and Celine have no doubts: they want to become central figures of the lunagraphy, to express all what is hidden in the darkness of the night in their performance, to dance in the moonlight. As Lunagraphy does not allow for full control of the image, it seems an ideal medium to capture the Butoh dance. The effects of the collaboration with the photographer are so interesting that the next year they all travel to Cambodia together. Adam Lach again has the opportunity to see how the dancers work on a new performance entitled ‘Ghost Stories in Cambodia’. Jean Daniel and Céline organise workshops for the local population, especially for victims of polio and landmines. The latter are souvenirs from a 30-year civil war which finished in 1998.
Butoh is not based on any dance technique. The fact that everybody can dance allows to cross the boarders between being disabled and fully fit. Jean Daniel and Celine teach their students body awareness and how to follow the body’s natural rhythm. And at night they both dance: among the ancient trees surrounding the ruins of Angkor Wat, in a river near a small Cambodian village and in the woods among the mined fields. They work on new images together with the lunagrapher. They move in the darkness relying only on their own intuition, with no arranged choreography. In harmony with the philosophy of the Butoh dance.
Translation of the article about Lunagraphy in ZWIERCIADLO February 2011
The Influence of the Moon
Page 1
The Butoh dance is a way of expressing emotions, presenting the relationships with our body and the universe, exploring our subconsciousness. Two French artists: Jean Daniel Fricker and Céline Angele explore the Butoh dance in their exceptional performances. Thanks to the lunagraphy, a new way of creating images by the moonlight, we now have an exceptional record of their art.
Page 2
Description above image 1&2:
Lunagraphies, or in other words images captured by the moonlight, showing Céline Angel (1, 2) and Jean Daniel Fricker (2, 3) while performing the Butoh dance in India and Cambodia. The inventor of this original method of creating images is Adam Lach (Lunaris).
Text:
They meet at the festival in Avignon. They do not come here by accident. It is a meeting place for theatre groups which seek new means of expression different from the traditional theatre. This is where Jean Daniel Fricker, a performer who works with juggling, acrobatics and dance meets Angela Celine, an actress and a judo athlete who devoted herself to the Butoh dance after cooperating with several theatrical companies in Paris. They are joined by the common interest in Butoh. They both perform in the same play directed by Japanese choreographers. And this is how it begins: for the next three years Céline participates in workshops and shows organised by Fricker. They travel around the world together visiting Italy, Croatia and Slovenia. After a while Céline starts helping organizing workshops and performances.
At the end of 2007 and the beginning of 2008 Jean Daniel Fricker decides to create a theatre group. Along with Celine and five others performers they stay for three months in the southern India, in Hampi, where they work on the performance entitled ‘The Prayer’. They invite one of their friends, a Polish photographer Adam Lach, to come and stay with them. Adam has a chance to observe how this unique project develops. The final effect is amazing as the performance continues without a break for six weeks and four additional nights. It is a form of pilgrimage from one village to another. Each day a new dance begins while the residents watch the shows with surprise. Even the local children sometimes join the performance, jumping over the balls. During one evening Adam talks about a special method of capturing images by the light of the moon which he once discovered during a night walk on the beach in Krynica Morska in Poland. The lunagraphy may come to life only by the light of a full moon during three or four days in a month and provided that there are neither clouds nor any source of light apart from the moon visible on the sky. It's not the end of difficulties. When capturing an image, the author cannot predict the final outcome. Although he chooses both the scenery and the models, he has to accept that it is his intuition and even partly coincidence which will shape the image in the end. As the exposure (the time when the shutter is open and the picture is being taken) lasts for around thirty seconds, it is virtually impossible to predict
the final result.
Page 3
Description above the images:
(1) Jean Daniel Fricker (first from the left) and Céline Angel (sitting in the middle row) during their stay in Cambodia became friends with the inhabitants of surrounding villages. They organised workshops for the locals and still keep in touch with some of them. (2) Members of the Jean Daniel Fricker’s Theatre with whom he worked in India on the performance ‘The Prayer’, 2008. (3) Céline Angele at the workshop for mine and polio victims, Cambodia, 2009
Text:
Dancing in the dark
Butoh, which is called the dance of the darkness, is the search for one’s own expression free from social or cultural masks. Nothing is for show here. There is no story to be told, it is all about emotions. The dancer tries to express the relationship with the body and the universe while exploring the darkness of his subconsciousness. That is why each Butoh dance is completely different as it is a dance to one’s inner rhythm. It is not the performer who is dancing, it is him who is being danced. Instead of choreography the Butoh offers the unity of body and mind, a kind of meditation in motion. Therefore Jean Daniel and Celine have no doubts: they want to become central figures of the lunagraphy, to express all what is hidden in the darkness of the night in their performance, to dance in the moonlight. As Lunagraphy does not allow for full control of the image, it seems an ideal medium to capture the Butoh dance. The effects of the collaboration with the photographer are so interesting that the next year they all travel to Cambodia together. Adam Lach again has the opportunity to see how the dancers work on a new performance entitled ‘Ghost Stories in Cambodia’. Jean Daniel and Céline organise workshops for the local population, especially for victims of polio and landmines. The latter are souvenirs from a 30-year civil war which finished in 1998.
Butoh is not based on any dance technique. The fact that everybody can dance allows to cross the boarders between being disabled and fully fit. Jean Daniel and Celine teach their students body awareness and how to follow the body’s natural rhythm. And at night they both dance: among the ancient trees surrounding the ruins of Angkor Wat, in a river near a small Cambodian village and in the woods among the mined fields. They work on new images together with the lunagrapher. They move in the darkness relying only on their own intuition, with no arranged choreography. In harmony with the philosophy of the Butoh dance.
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