Mad Alice Ordinary Photography

          Due to a growing distinction between my work, a distinction between my artistic photographs and my more everyday ones, I’ve decided to start another, separate blog. That’s why I created a new blog, Mad Alice Ordinary Photography. 

          The main reason to run this photographic blog was of course the difference of aestetical criteria of my works. The aesthetics I prefer to use in my artistic works at Mad Alice Photography are more planned and highly controlled by me. It’s not about how things are but about how I see them. Yes, it’s highly egocentric. My ordinary photography is quite the opposite. In some kind of way I let my photo camera capture the images by itself. Framing, exposing, etc. is less important. It’s more about showing everything as the human eye sees it. Rapid glances, careless framing, suddenness. My role is restricted to pressing the shutter button. I let the things happen without my intervention.   

          It all started when I found my first photo camera ever in a drawer some time ago. It was Olympus Mju II. It was a spontaneous gift from my uncle at the airport, when he was on his way back to NY. He asked "do you want it?" and I said "sure, why not?". It was quite expensive and good camera at that time. It's cheap now but it still takes good pictures.

          I’ve remembered about it when I got tired of all those big photo cameras that you need to pack and unpack all the time and you can’t take photos fast enough. Mju is perfect. It’s small. It’s light. It has great optics. You can act fast. And it’s so discrete that the most people don’t even notice when you take a photo.

And it what photography is about, isn’t it? To be some kind of spy, spying people and their lives, not intervene in any way at the same time. If you don’t want to be an intruder, you need to be invisible. Just hide and shoot. It’s an opportunity that a small photo camera gives you. People don’t get scared. You don’t need to point at them or ask to not to move or wait for a minute.             

          So, after bringing my Mju to life after years of sleeping in the bottom of a drawer it was natural I’ve started to take it everywhere with me. It keeps me company over a year now.It has a small defect. The lens makes light leaks and creates a vignette. But honestly, I don’t care about it. It makes the photos even more authentic. Things like unsharpness, “wrong” exposition or neglectful framing doesn’t matter as long as you can see what the photograph is about.               

          With a time this manner to take this careless pictures started to transfer from my Olympus to my Canon camera. It isn't as surprising as with Mju but the manner of taking rapid shoots stayed the same. But Mju II is my main photo camera with which I shoot most of the pictures published in this blog.

          The images shown on Mad Alice Ordinary Photography, as you can already guess, won’t be perfect. They will be surely very raw. Maybe it’s because the way I see things or maybe it’s because the things around me are imperfect and raw and need to be shown it that way. Haven’t answered it yet. 

            Anyway, there’s some kind of deep need inside of me telling me to take as many pictures as fast as I can because these moments and faces won’t last forever. And only photography can keep them alive for a little bit longer. The form doesn’t matter as much as the subject.

Enjoy my ordinary world.

Mad Alice