Fotokasty – A review / first edition of 2009
FOR AN EXCELLENT START
Workshops, presentations, open-air shows and a conference with the media people took place as part of a review of Fotokasty which was held in Kraków from 20th to 22nd May. The event attracted the attention of photographers as well as those interested in photography.
Two days of workshops were divided up into parts devoted to concrete problems connected with making multimedia presentations. Magdalena Wadowska, a reporter of Radio Kraków told us about how to make and record interviews and sound. She illustrated her description with numerous examples. The participants had an opportunity to make interviews in order to check in practice what they had learnt.
Magdalena Wadowska (left) and the participants of radio workshops. Fot. Magda Starowieyska
The film operator Tomasz Głowacki presented the principles of composition, timing and combining individual takes and stills in the context of photography or film camera. The differences were illustrated and analysed on the basis of sequences which Głowacki had prepared.
Tomasz Głowacki (left) leading camera workshops. Fot. Magda Starowieyska
The second day of the workshops was devoted to editing software: Final Cut Studio and Apple Podcast Producer. Specialists created a presentation to show and test numerous tools of basic applications. The practical part allowed the participants to discuss and solve specific problems connected with selected materials.
Software presentation. Fot. Magda Starowieyska
Two evening shows of fotokasty proved very popular: the first one was on a wall of one of the town houses of the district of Kazimierz, the second one took place in the inner courtyard of Galeria Camelot. The presented materials included fotokasty of acclaimed Polish photographers and important works of renowned international artists from the top agencies such as Magnum Photos and MediaStorm.
Evening show in Kazimierz district.
Evening show in Kazimierz district. Fot. Wojtek Matusik
Evening show in Kazimierz district. Fot. Magda Starowieyska
The third and last day was devoted to lectures and a panel discussion about new zones in communication. It was attended by journalists, columnists, photographers, photo editors and marketing specialists, including: Marek Drabik, Grzegorz Mogilewski, Jacek Pomykalski, Przemek Krzakiewicz and Jacek Szkwarek. The potential and opportunities for promoting the authors of fotokasty were discussed. Diverse opinions of the participants led to a heated discussion about such a form of multimedia presentation. It turned out that even the photographers do not share the same opinion. The key argument seems to be the fact that the appearance of fotokasty has given the artists an opportunity to make an autonomic, formal statement which supplemented by a journalistic aural explanation enrich the visual material by yet another artistic layer. There were also critical opinions stating that fotokasty are an indistinctive intermediate form between a classical photo story and a documentary. This opinion however met with strong criticism from the photographers, photo editors and publishers as well as other media people who participated in the discussion. There remains one open question of how such positive approach may help popularise this multimedia form with its potential end-users, i.e. mainly the Internet users. This issue is hoped to be solved during second edition of the Review scheduled by the organisers for next year.
The review accompanied the Photomonth in Krakow.