Comments on: Rossella Nisio – Estranged in Iceland https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/ burn is an online feature for emerging photographers worldwide. burn is curated by magnum photographer david alan harvey. Sat, 18 Jun 2016 11:44:55 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.2.4 By: RS Nisio https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-315724 Thu, 24 Apr 2014 21:04:18 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-315724 Choosing a treatment over others can mean something on its own or it can mean absolutely nothing for the viewer. In every form of expression, you can communicate the same in many ways and the concept will be received differently if you use this or that style. Even the absence of apparent style is a style and it has supporters and detractors. So, for you scratches and dirt are distracting, for another they are just an irrelevant gimmick, for a third person they may be evocative, and so on and so forth. The same goes for any style, and it really is nothing new, is it? Still, it’s up the the person expressing this something to choose a way to say it that will meet his or her needs. The viewers are free to see nothing in it and they are entitled to say it if they wish so, but this doesn’t detract from the intentions of the creator.

I want to add a brief reply to those who mentioned Provoke and Moriyama. I admire some of Moriyama’s photos, but I didn’t really look at his work in the course of my own development. I did look at the work of many cinematographers from the past though, so I suppose it’s natural that I may have absorbed a few notions from them.

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By: Chairman https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-315705 Thu, 24 Apr 2014 19:44:46 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-315705 I do not think that grainy and scratchy equate with significant and meaningful.

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By: RS Nisio https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-314588 Tue, 22 Apr 2014 15:41:47 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-314588 Jim Powers, I can only say that what looks like “a string of rejects” to you may be significant for someone else. As for what the photographer intended to say, it’s there in the statement. If it’s still obscure, perhaps it just means your sensibility lies somewhere else.

For those who expressed some doubt about the treatment, yes, it may look overpowering. All sorts of treatments and post-processing to an extent are invasive, and so is the act of the fine artist who throws a bucket of paint on his otherwise perfectly fine artwork when it’s finished, or the one that cuts the canvas or pastes seashells on it.

Lightwood, I am glad this brought back memories. In the 80s the country made a huge leap, as you recall, and the hard life of struggles they went through for decades really started to pay off at that time. Of course I wish the country all the best, and I hope they can satiate their thirst at some point, before they exhaust their resources. It’s always hard to make an estimate of your own richness, but too much validation from the outside can eventually lead you out of your own ways.

Thanks all for the comments.

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By: mw https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-313062 Sun, 20 Apr 2014 06:06:23 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-313062 I enjoyed the essay though I confess my enjoyment was mostly on the level of “pretty pictures” and had I not known where they were taken would have probably guessed “Arizona.” I especially liked #5 and #9.

And I thought the statement was interesting, one of the better pieces of writing I’ve seen here from a photographer about his or her photographs. I was also impressed with Lightwood’s comment. I think that said a lot about the power and emotional accuracy of the work.

I know I should probably stop there, but occasionally I can’t help but piss into the wind. I’m totally down with the protest against “flashy pictures of waterfalls and rainbows over lava fields,” but kind of feel the same way about grainy black and white photographs employed to communicate feelings of estrangement. Sure, it works, but it’s been working for so long that it’s become tired. The trick I’d like to see is using flashy pictures of waterfalls and rainbows to communicate estrangement. Or something more like that.

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By: Lightwood https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-312712 Sat, 19 Apr 2014 03:33:36 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-312712 Dear Rossella, from a lifelong migrant worker that used to live in Iceland in the late 80s, I do understand what is behind those images. Many times I felt at home and at the same time wonderfully alone on those northern shores and in the eerie, magic landscapes. But even back then, the country was changing fast, and life in the city proved to be very different from what I had expected. And yet all the noise could not cover that magic darkness that even in the long light of the summer months is always lurking below the horizon. The trees in number 5 and the view on the sea made me tremble with the heaviness and beauty of those endless winters. Thank you for the trip back in my and your memory. Please do more.

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By: Frostfrog https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-312586 Fri, 18 Apr 2014 20:40:15 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-312586 Some quite excellent and moody photos that somehow seem to fit the image I already had of Iceland even though I have never been there and never seen it portrayed quite this. For me, there is one serious drawback on some, but not all of the images. I know it has become more popular to leave or even add dust to the final images. I have seen instances of this having worked very well. On some of these images, I find the overwhelming dust to be a major distraction that takes away from my experience with the picture. I experience the dust more than the picture. Living in a place where volcanoes now and then erupt and spew volcanic ash all over everything, it strikes me that maybe you want to give that kind of feeling.

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By: michael kircher https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-312558 Fri, 18 Apr 2014 19:53:58 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-312558 Wonderful stuff. The entire process, it looks to me, was clearly thought out and executed. What more could you ask for? Brava!

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By: m.avina https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-312530 Fri, 18 Apr 2014 18:47:25 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-312530 I respectfully disagree with Jim. When I see these I think that the visual tools of the Provoke era are still alive, and that is a good thing. The processing and choices enhance the sense of melancholy and invite questions rather than telling us everything.

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By: Mitch Alland https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-312439 Fri, 18 Apr 2014 16:03:57 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-312439 Having looked at these photographs a few times number 7 strikes me as the most interesting one — I would say, “almost interesting” — but it doesn’t express nearly as much as some of the shots by Moriyama Daido that are in this vein. While I agree that the sort of exquisite photographs that one often sees of Iceland are essentially “pretty pictures of beautiful landscapes” and ultimately boring, I don’t see this series differently from what Jim Powers writes above, that is, they “certainly distracted me from whatever the photographer was trying to say.”

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By: Thomas Bregulla https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-312343 Fri, 18 Apr 2014 11:17:42 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-312343 I like the calmness and the consistency of the pictures. They take me to a place I don’t know.
Back to a present, I never saw.
Nice.
Thanks!

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By: hharry https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-312287 Fri, 18 Apr 2014 08:44:16 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-312287 interesting treatment of a wonderful country.

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By: Jim Powers https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2014/04/rossella-nisio-estranged-in-iceland/#comment-312246 Fri, 18 Apr 2014 07:32:25 +0000 http://www.burnmagazine.org/?p=22126#comment-312246 Hmmm. I guess the P/N 55 test shots picked up off the studio floor esthetic was an artistic decision, but I’m just not getting it. Just looks like a string of rejects to me. Certainly distracted me from whatever the photographer was trying to say.

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