Hamish Blakely

Artist Hamish Blakely counts Caravaggio, Degas, and Velázquez as a few of the painters he is inspired by. And for anyone who has studied art, you can see similarities between these old painters and the work of Blakely. But he doesn't copy his inspirers. He takes a bit here and there, mix it on his palette, and creates his very own style on the canvas. He says that "Each bare canvas brings enough self doubt and nerves to keep me on my toes every time. I splodge the paint and hope that I win the battle as sometimes the brushes and paint have their own peculiar ideas about how things should look.". Well, I think his "splodges" turn out wonderfully in the end. Here is some of his work. For more, please visit his web site here!

Venus Disrobes

Autumn Glow

The Rehearsal

Duel

The Swan

Encore

Into The Night

Three Graces

Old Fashioned Girls

Debutante

Soliloquy

A Face In The Crowd

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Vadim Stein

As I love both dance and photography, I simply love the work of Vadim Stein! And I think you might too... Stein was born in Ukraine, but now works as a photographer, sculptor, and stage designer in St. Petersburg. Here are some of his amazing sculpture-like dance photos!

For more, check out Vadim Stein's Facebook page!

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Fredrik Gille

When you work as a model, you get to see the work of a lot of photographers. And the more you see, the easier it gets to sort out the good ones from the bad ones. And believe me, it's frightening to see how many people out there think they can just pick up a camera, take a few pictures, get a web site, and then call themselves photographers... Don't get me wrong here though. Photography is a wonderful thing, and it's nice to see so many people are interested in it. But if you want to become a "real" photographer, please learn how to do it, practice a lot, and try to understand that the world looks different looking at it with your eyes from looking at it through the lens of a camera... But of course we all like different things, so just because I, for example, think something looks really bad, it might look good to somebody else. I'm not trying to be an "all knower" here...

Sometimes you come across one of the really good ones though. I just met one of them, and his name is Fredrik Gille. He works as a freelance drummer, traveling around the world, playing with people who needs his rhythm. During his travels he also takes pictures of people and places, and this post will be about his pictures. So, without babbling any more, here are some of my favorites. I hope you appreciate them as much as I do...

Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

Small village in the Mekong delta, Vietnam.

The Blue Mosque, Istanbul, Turkey.

Children looking from the slum on their wealthy neighbors. The Koreil slum in Dhaka, Bangladesh, is the largest slum in the capital city and is home to more than 40.000 people. Just on the other side of the small lake is the wealthy neighborhood Gulshan.

Children in a small school in the Korail slum, Dhaka, Bangladesh. The school was established by Mr. Aminul Hoque "Babul", who himself grew up in the slum, and is part of the Glory Friendship Social Welfare network. 

Tea maker in Algeria Sahara. Tamanrasset, Algeria. 

Hanoi, Vietnam.

Egyptian dancer Mohammed Shafik.

Canadian dancer Leon Feizo-Gas.

Los Andes, Bolivia.

If you want to see more, visit Fredrik's web site, or his Facebook page - which is were I got all the photos and picture information for this post.

Loie Fuller

Born Marie Louise Fuller (January 15, 1862 - January 1, 1928) in Illinois, Loie Fuller was to become a pioneer of both modern dance, and lighting techniques.

Loie Fuller, 1900. Source.

She started acting as a child, and later choreographed and performed dances in burlesque, vaudeville, and circus shows. Fuller created her own way of moving freely, and often combined her choreography with flowing silk costumes, illuminated by multi-colored lighting of her own design. She became famous in America, but later moved to Paris, where she often performed at the Folies Bergère.

Her experiments to produce stage lighting, such as chemical compounds to make color-gel and the use of chemical salts for luminescent lighting and garments made her a holder of many new patents. It also gained her the respect and friendship of many French artists and scientists, such as Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec, Auguste Rodin, Stéphane Mallarmé, and Marie Curie. She died in Paris of pneumonia in 1928, aged 65.

I first noticed Loie Fuller by seeing some photos of her dancing, surrounded by flowy fabric. Here are a few:

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Here is also a video, made by pioneering film-makers Auguste and Louis Lumière, of Fuller's "Serpentine Dance". According to Wikipedia it's not Loie herself dancing in the video though...