Les Rencontres Arles 2010 – A Photo Stroll to the accreditation point and HQ – Day 3

More photos for today, as I catch up with everything that I left behind. This is my walk from my hotel across the river to Point A where the press office, accreditation and the outside debates take place during professional week.

These photos were taken at 8am in the morning, hence the lack of people. I thought that it would make a change to show part of the festival in the morning. Later in the week, some random press photos from some of the shows, photos of photographer Brian Griffin taking a Rencontres D’Arles team shot – 60 people or so – plus a post on the photographers I bumped into. Till then, enjoy the stroll.

Les Rencontres Arles Photo Festival 2010 – Day 1

It’s sweltering here, the mosquitoes are out in force as are the photographers, and there’s lots to report over the next few days.

It’s professional week at Les Rencontres D’Arles – now in its 41st year – and I have been battling with the internet connection in the hotel. The system is probably on overload this week so things may be a tad slow uploading.

The HotShoe team have been here portfolio reviewing, but I am taking an alternative approach to seeing work. I am letting serendipity and chance lead me to photographers and their portfolios. When I had to change seat on the tin-can Ryanair flight coming over here from Luton airport in the UK, it turned out that the woman I sat next to is a stylist (interiors) who is moving into interior and food photography – so I took her card. The, when I couldn’t get a connection in my room, someone helped me fix the problem. I asked if he’s a photographer (highly likely) and he said yes, so I asked him for his card and said that I would look at his work.

Later at the press office in the courtyard I sat next to a Finnish photographer Henrik Malmstrom and got chatting. It turns out that he has recently self-published a book, On Borrowed Time, documenting the final five months of his sister’s life last year. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 1999 when she was 20.

After looking through the book, I asked self-taught photographer Malstrom for a quick interview to find out about his motivation to produce the book as well as some of the challenges he faced in producing the work. Henrik Malmstrom audio interview.

Even if you don’t want to listen to the audio interview – it is 15 mins long – I urge you to take a look. The audio is rather quiet (settings too low – my fault) so you may have to turn up the volume. The interview is recorded on-the-fly with no editing.

It’s a subject that is close to my heart – something that I have mentioned in previous posts. Follow the links to Malstrom’s website and sample PDF pages from On Borrowed Time. The book is €25 plus p+p.