Arles 2013
This is a post from the weareoca.com archive. Information contained within it may now be out of date.
Twenty of us went to Les Rencontres d’Arles. It was sunny (most of the time). We saw photography, a lot of photography. We talked about it, in galleries, over coffee, over ice creams. We ate a lot and were in turn eaten by mosquitoes. It was good – at least that’s my conclusion – it will be interesting to see student reactions – please post links to learning logs in the comments below.
Thanks are due to Jesse and Sharon for the insightful tutor input, to Amano for organising the student meal on the Thursday, to Brian for warning us of the mosquitoes in advance, to Eileen for organising the payment of the bill at Friday meal, to Vicki for organising the closing party, and to everyone else for making the event so pleasurable. Thanks are also due to Stan, John and Keith, who had gone ahead and sent feedback on exhibitions to see which was invaluable in the planning.
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Jealous! (except for the being eaten by mosquitoes part…)
Thanks Gareth. Just like to ‘ditto’ your comments, especially regarding the input from other students. We (Gareth, Sharon and myself) definitely felt that you took ownership of the visit in exactly the way that we had hoped for. I was especially pleased to meet new students, put faces to names and listen to the valuable contributions from overseas students.
Many thanks to you Gareth, and to Sharon and Jesse for this event. I got a great deal out of it and look forward to doing it again sometime. I’ve made an initial blog post here.
http://www.eileen-rafferty.com/2013/09/arles-in-black.html
It was beautiful, informative, lighthearted at times (Foto-Automat), emotional at others (Jean-Louis Courtinat), exhausting and entertaining all at once. A fantastic opportunity to learn and meet tutors and students for longer and more intensive discussions than on other study days I have been on…. Thank you Jesse and Sharon for your input – and of course thank you, Gareth, for making the visit possible. Meeting fellow students for good conversations and encounters made any rock star behaviour I might have been tempted to act out utterly unnecessary. Happy to have been there!
Am posting more than one blog about Arles …
re John Davies
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/09/09/arles-5-john-davies/
re Hiroshi Sugimoto
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/09/08/arles-6-hiroshi-sugimoto/
my first day in Arles before the OCA arrived here …
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/arles-day-one-penone-and-ufan/
some reflections on nature photography at Arles …
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/08/30/arles-nature-photography/
Many thanks to Gareth for going ahead with the this trip in the absence of Jose also to tutors Sharon and Jesse for providing insightful comment and the OCA band of happy students for making it an enjoyable visit … how many students did we get into that phone booth !!??
have posted my visit to the Tilmans exhibition …
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/09/11/arles-2-wolfgang-tilmans-new-world/
my experience of the Guy Bourdin …
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/arles-7-guy-bourdin/
My experience of Eric Kessels and the Arabian Studio portraits from Cairo and Beirut …
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/09/16/arles-8-straight-portraiture-and-more/
Yes, the sunshine of southern France certainly trumped the icy wind I had to endure at Derby Format! Good to see familiar faces again and also to meet some new faces. My blog will be developing over the coming weeks I guess, as I find the time to write up my thoughts on the different exhibitors – it will all be on my blog at http://www.iamrobtm.co.uk/blog2/stuff.php
And I’ve said it before, but a great big thanks to Gareth & co for pulling this off. It’s been invaluable to me.
“inspirational” was my experience … !
Looks like a lot of fun was had by all, looking forward to all the blog posts. Where’s the credit for the photo – assuming it to be Catherine’s?
Catherine had gone back to the hotel … not sure whose it is … Eileen’s camera as I remember!
Jeff’s better half had her finger on the trigger.
I’ll join Rob and the other students in their comments: it was indeed an invaluable experience. I came back full of inspiration, lighthearted.
The city was beautiful and even if it was hot and if the arlesian mosquitoes were a bit too friendly, I really enjoyed these long walks in the city, the inspiring exhibitions and the discussions with the other students and tutors. Moments in life when every conversation is full of meaning are very rare but it is how I feel: I have learned a lot from these 3 days, it was an uplifting journey.
Many thanks Gareth, Sharon and Jesse, and many thanks to all who were present. I really hope there will be an Arles study visit next year and I am ready to come back for these three days even if it means wandering in the city with a 7-hour jetlag, and ending at 9 in a crowded photo booth…
I’ll add a link to my post about the study visit as soon as it will be ready.
Here is my first post about Guy Bourdin: http://stephaniedhlearninglog2.wordpress.com/2013/09/14/study-visit-arles-1-guy-bourdin/
The other posts related to the study visit will appear on this blog too in the next days/weeks.
I would also like to echo the comments of everyone. It was good to put faces to names
Had a great time lots of discussion. Would like to thank Gareth and all at OCA for organising this. I to will be adding to my blog over the coming days/week.
Still travelling back to the Midlands at the moment, writing this on the coach 🙂 from the airport.
Ditto on all the positive comments posted here. It was a brilliant visit—my best student visit thus far—and I’ve done a few. So much to see, so much to talk about, great interaction with tutors. I’m there again if there is another one. BTW—can’t take all credit for organising party—think it was either Rob/Brian or both [after wine, the memory dims a little] who hatched the plan in conversation. I just did the nagging! Will try and get my blog post up early next week—as a trial run for my assignment on narrative [finally]! Thank you once again Gareth, Jesse, Sharon and all the other students for making it such a memorable experience.
Thanks to everyone for making it a great study visit. It was my first and it wont be the last either! I will definitely return to Arles next year for Recontres D’Arles. Having others around to give different perspectives on the work we saw was invaluable and we had a lot of fun too! it was hot, it was a shock to head north and start to feel cold afterwards! Almost had a rock star moment the final night with the TV, as in television, in my room. Thought about throwing it out the window but a flat screen just doesn’t make the kind if impact on impact as a cathode ray unit does.
Hi everyone. What a good weekend with excellent exhibitions to absorb and get head round. I want to thank the three tutors for their input and for the organising of such a great study weekend. Yes it was hot, and we did get eaten alive. Thanks to Amano for all the footwork that went into organising the group meal on the first evening. The weekend was an opportunity to meet others studying in the same manner and at various skill levels. For me it was such a good experience. I have so much to reflect upon before I write up a link to my learning blog. Looking forward to another study visit. Will be organising my trips to the UK to facilitate further participation in future study trips on offer.
You may like to try the photo festival in Sete which is beginning to rival Arles. An equally beautiful and inspirational location and earlier int he calendar so warm but mozzie free
Sete is free hence multiple visits to fav exhibits are possible & this year it had more than 2 women photographers! next year it is on from 28th May – 15th June. They also put on free special guided tours of particular exhibits if you let them know in advance that you are coming & would like a particular guided tour. They have one English speaking guide at the moment.
OCA student John Umney had his photograph of the entrance to Les Rencontres Des Arles published in this week’s ‘The Big Issue in the North’ as part of the partnership OCA has with the magazine. Here are links to his blog entries about his visit:
http://umneygm.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/les-rencontres-arles-2013/
http://umneygm.wordpress.com/2013/07/29/thoughts-and-reflections-from-rencontres-des-arles-2013/
http://umneydoc.wordpress.com/2013/07/
It was my first experience of a study visit, and I hope not the last one. Many thanks to Jesse, Amano, Sharon and Gareth for their interesting comments, discussions, questions and just chatting. There were numerous exhibitions and I have had a possibility to see numerous versions of the art of photography, which I am studing at the moment. I have been very glad to meet OCA students and tutors personally for the first time. After almost two years of my studies in OCA I have started feeling a bit lonely being the only OCA student in Moscow.
In many ways, it was quite an inspirational visit.
Stan, it was great to chat with u on the bench outside the hotel. never feel isolated. These group visits are what pulls us all together. Vicki (in england) 🙂
Vicki, thank you! Looking forward to coming to a new study visit, but I think it will be in the next year – I have run out of vacation days. Actually, there is much more live in this blog, in personal blogs and in flickr now, when I now some people behind them. I am following your blog, by the way, so we’ll keep in touch 🙂
It was great meeting you Stanislav …. come again sometime!
Thanks, Amano, I was very glad to meet you too! I will definitely come again. This time – to England and then it is going to be one more first visit for me.
Hi Stan, it was really nice to meet you too. I also feel sometime far from everything in Chicago. We started a small project with OCA students from across the world, you can see it here:
http://www.flickr.com/groups/ocarts/discuss/72157634844300249/
if you, or others, want to participate it is not too late, the project just left Japan for China, you could be the next stop on the journey… If you are interested just email me.
.
Hello, Stephanie! I was also very glad to meet you. Thank you for inviting me to the project. It is a great idea and of course, I would like to participate in it.
If you don’t mind, I would invite one more OCA student into the project, hopefully, it is not too late for New Zealand yet.
No problem Stan, it is never too late, it makes the project more and more interresting!
Send me both your postal and email addresses and I will update you on the project and how it works.
Thanks for joining us.
Stephanie, my e-mail is: abramchouk@yahoo.com
I will be waiting for the update.
I have sent information about the project to Mark. It is early morning in New Zealand now – we will have to wait for his reply.
It was good to meet with you too Stan and to have some time to talk with you. Do you have a blog? That can be a good way to interact with other students when you can’t meet with them. There’s also the OCA Flickr site as well. Hopefully meet up with you again on another Study Visit some time. Catherine.
Hello, Catherine, I am very glad to hear from you. My blog is here:
http://stas-decisivemoment.blogspot.ru
I think it was my fault that I haven’t been very active on the blogs and on flickr. Luckily, it can be cured and quite a push for it becomes the study visit and personal acquaintance with fellow students and with tutors.
Could you send to me a reference for your blog or web-site as well?
Here it is Stan – http://catherinebanks.wordpress.com. Now that you’ve met some of us I’m looking forward to hearing more from you on the forums.
Catherine
It was great to meet you Stan – hope to see you at another study visit soon.
Hello, Eileen! I was very glad to meet you in person. I have really liked this study visit and I am quite intended to join more of them. Just have to sort out my impressions from Arles 🙂
Thanks for making the visit possible, very challenging and really informative José, Gareth, Jesse and Sharon. I thoroughly enjoyed renewing acquaintances, meeting new wine lovers and sharing an intimate moment in the photo booth with so many others. I have posted a very brief first blog although the original was much longer & I found myself researching deeper and deeper into the roots of various organisms that my curiosity was leading me to investigate. Could it be that I am procrastinating because I have an assignment to hand in? Blog: http://www.annagoodchild.blogger.co.uk)
The link to your blog doesn’t seem to work Anna. Best of luck with the assignment.
Thanks, Catherine. It should read http://www.annagoodchild.blogspot.co.uk
I’ve just about re-surfaced from the long journey and the heat. It was wonderfully worth it and the photography gave me much to think about. My initial blog post is here
http://catherinebanks.wordpress.com/2013/09/13/oca-visit-to-arles-photography-festival-september-2013-part-1/
Thanks to Gareth (including taking pity on me and carrying my case up and down those worn old steps), Sharon and Jesse for their presence and guidance. Thanks to Amano for organising the first evening meal and providing pre-trip advice, plus shepherding me back to the hotel when the heat got too much for me. Also thanks to Vicki for the inspiration for the party (and much else). What a group we were; so much talking and discussing. I won’t forget that meal in the evening rain in a hurry.
Arles was certainly an experience in every sense of the word and I’d certainly go again. Hmm Sete sounds promising……………..
Catherine, your prose sum up our visit so beautifully.. What a wonderful form of expression, love it. A creative writer in the making………..
Spent some time looking at the links to the Sete festival, looks interesting and again inspiring. Not on the same scale as Arles me thinks, therefor would be more manageable.
I too am unable to connect to Anna’s link to her blog.
Onwards now, working on Assignment 4.
That’s nice to read Sue.I’m increasingly finding that words are important to me in my photography as ,so far, they often seem able to express my thoughts and way of looking at the world more vividly. I suppose it’s a case of practise, practise, then the images can speak for themselves ore often! Was great to meet you. Maybe we should plan a trip to Sete.
Thanks to all for this info. Here I am in Provence, with intention to go to Arles tomorrow, as it is the annual European Heritage weekend, when all museums are free to all. I was so excited by the Sugimoto pics, that I am hoping the exhibition is still on. It might have to be two days…. Or more
Pat Hodson, textile tutor.
Visited Arles this week. No mosquitoes and temperature 24 deg. Will have to go away and think what I felt about what I saw so different from those reported by fellow students. Time to Blog!
look forward to hearing from you Cedric !!
Me too! Then we can work out whether we were just lucky; or whether a visit as part of the OCA body was as important/valuable as we all seem to think it was.
Thanks everyone for making the Arles event such a success. As people have already said, it was most informative and enjoyable weekend, thanks to the OCA for organising it. I was lucky enough not to have been bitten by the mosquitoes but did succumb to a Ryanair cold a couple of days ago. Look forward to future study days 🙂
My Bourdin blog is up – it took for ever – so much post-visit research & self-analysis! Much of it probably Freudian! Don’t look, Mirjam!
My bourdin is also up. Did a major deviation into fashion photography as art—then scrapped it for the post—although intended to
no idea what happened to rest of my comment…!
Meant to say I intend to follow the fashion as art research up when I have more time; and here is the link to my Boudin post: http://vickifoto.co.uk/2013/09/18/guy-bourdin/
Sorry, Vicki: my blog: http://www.annagoodchild.blogspot.com My Bourdin blog is up, just below my (boring) pre-assignment exercise. An interesting aside: boudin is French for ‘black pudding’ – so very appropriate here, I think!
I have never really looked at fashion photography before! Bourdin was interesting (link already posted) as was Sassen …
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/09/17/arles-9-vivien-sassen/
If you are interested Amano, I could send you some readings?
Hi Vicki Why not do that … thanks Amano
Will do!
I’ve just put an image from Bourdin and a question in a post: http://vickifoto.co.uk/2013/09/20/asking-help/ on my blog. If anyone has the time; or if they took a photo of the same set—does the shadow exist in yours? Thanks in advance!
Just posted a blog of what was probably my favourite exhibition at Arles (existentialist surrealist humour) …
http://amanostudy.wordpress.com/2013/09/21/arles-10-gilbert-garcin/
Just posted a short post on my blog at http://jeffhurst66.wordpress.com/. Some of the John Davies images will form part of ‘all that is solid melts into air’ Manchester Art Gallery from 11 October 2013 to 19 January 2014, curated by Jeremy Deller. I feel another study visit coming on!