I am very happy to showcase the second edition of the weekly feature. Thanks to everyone who submitted their images using #wasteoffilm and make sure to keep entering your images during the next weeks.
Here are my five favorite images submitted this week:
Please consider supporting this blog and also my YouTube channel by either getting some stickers through the wasteoffilm shop or by using my Amazon Affiliate links. ( US / UK / DE )
This is the very first blog post about the new weekly format. To find out how to enter, please check out this blog post. I have been a big fan of these features for a long time, because it's great to showcase and talk about other photographers work and also a great chance to find out about other peoples work and to find inspiration. Furthermore, I would also like to thank each and every one who has shared his or her images using #wasteoffilm and contributed to the community. There were nearly 1,000 images entered this week! If you want to find out more about the individual photographers, all of their Instagram pages are linked. So now sit back and I hope you enjoy finding out about these five amazing photographers and their work! The images are in no particular order.
Please consider supporting this blog and also my YouTube channel by either getting some stickers through the wasteoffilm shop or by using my Amazon Affiliate links. ( US / UK / DE )
wasteoffilm was always aimed to create a community of people who love and care about film photography. My goal was to build a place for people to share their work, exchange ideas and get to know other interesting photographers. Therefore I have decided to introduce #wasteoffilm.
Now I would like to take this to the next level. Each and every week, starting now, I will pick my five favorite photographs submitted with #wasteoffilm via Instagram and share these in a blog post. You can submit as many images (please only images shot on film, as this otherwise would defeat the purpose of this format) as you would like to and of course you can enter each week. So make sure to tag your next images with #wasteoffilm and I will pick my top five photographs each week. Make sure to subscribe to the mailing list to never miss a new blog post!
I have decided to make this an extra and more regular format compared to the featured projects, as there were so many people reaching out asking how they could submit single images or that they didn't have some sort of project ready but wanted to participate and share their work. To be quite honest, I am sometimes a little overwhelmed with where everything is going and would like to thank each and everyone for showing their continuous support towards what I do. This really means everything to me. But those are enough sentimental thoughts for now, make sure to share your next images with #wasteoffilm and spread the word about this!
Thank you for your submissions and contributions!
Evan Maragkoudakis - "Woodkids"
" 'Youth is happy because it has the capacity to see beauty. Anyone who keeps the ability to see beauty never grows old.' ― Franz Kafka
Evan Maragkoudakis was born in 1992 in Athens, Greece. Having lived in Greece, USA and Belgium, he returned in Athens in 2009 to study law in the University of Athens. Captivated by the Athenian surroundings, he started documenting the world around him combining his love for skateboarding and the streets. Upon completing his law degree, he had already exhibited and published work in Greece and The Netherlands regarding skateboarding, the refugee crisis of Mytilene and several other projects. His style is a mix of contemporary and documentary photography, heavily inspired by the founding fathers of street photography. Besides exhibitory work, Maragkoudakis works as a freelance photographer/ filmmaker for several advertising agencies as well as creating corporate content.
One could unarguably state that the streets hide more dangers than they hide beauty. It would take a madman to only extract the beauty from the unending pavement and concrete, the lack of natural traits and the excess amount of chaotic waveforms, yet there is a group of people who praise the pavement as their own land. Skateboarders.
Throughout the years, most child-centered pedagogics urged parents to enroll their children to some short of activities that focus on developing both the spirit and the body. For example piano lessons, drawing and ballet classes are on top of the list when it comes to child development. What happens when a child decides to break free of the norm and go out on his own exploration on a chipped wooden board?
What differentiates skateboarding from all classic activities is the lack of mentors, the lack of teachers and the lack of a judgeful system. Skateboarding has no rules. On top of this, a skater’s field is an entire city contrary to a football field or a classroom. Thousands of stairs, neverending streets, steep roads, rusty rails and harsh concrete is where it all comes down to. Take all of the above and hand it freely to the youth.
I honestly felt like I was transparent from times to times. Being out there with people who freely expressed themselves as nothing more than they really are makes them forget you’re around holding a camera to your eye. The streets and their culture is really an empty page. What’s so special about it is that you will shape them, the streets won’t shape you. The youth is full of emotion, they are turbulent and rebellious. When you pass these traits down to the streets, you shouldn’t expect anything less than the streets rebelling back at you. This why probably it’s not a very hostile environment for the youth. The youth will definitely be the one to strike first and the streets will answer back.
'Woodkids' focuses on the characters and the surroundings that make up the Athenian skateboarding scene. I’m sincerely not trying to sensitize anybody on the hardships and difficulties that young skater has to go through. It’s all part of what we do. Skateboarding is supposed to be raw, it’s supposed to make you bleed and give you bruises, it’s meant to be tough and risky.
As far as photography goes, I couldn't have possibly interpreted the feeling and the emotion digitally. Shooting these in film has really helped me to clearly envision the moments that were of an actual essence and contributed to the whole vibe. Heavily inspired by photographers such as Elliott Erwitt, J Grant Brittain and Yorgos Depollas, I was really caught between shooting these in the styles of both documentary and contemporary.
There is no guide into interpreting these photographs. Skateboarding has no rules thus neither do these images. 'Woodkids' documents the moments and the surroundings of the modern day street nomads, rattling in the Athenian asphalt. No role models, no rules, no schedule, no mentors."
When you grow up you start to get taught that you can't do this and that. Of course a functioning society needs rules and frameworks, but isn't it beautiful to just go out in the world, do your thing without anyone standing there, pointing with their finger and telling you that you can't do a certain thing? I guess we all long for a place without rules from time to time. Where we can just express who we are, without anyone telling us how to do it and where to stop. Evan and his fellow skaters have found their place to do that in skateboarding. There are so many other ways we can express what we deep down in us really want to say and do. Take for example art and more specifically photography (in my opinion photography is both at the very same time, art and not art). Surely there are certain ways a photograph can be taken so that it generally looks well composed. The rule of thirds is a good example for that. I mean it is called "rule" of thirds, but I'd like to call it a concept for composing your image rather than a rule. Simply because you don't have to do it. It's just a way photographs seemingly works better for the viewer's perception. Is a photograph bad just because it is out of focus or blurred?
And for me this phenomena is perfectly reflected in Evan's photographs and overall project. Some photographs are out of focus, some blurry. But exactly through this they achieve something much more intense. They convey the feeling as if you were almost there with them. Out there skating and doing your thing.
I would like to thank Evan for his contribution and strongly advise you to check out his online presence: Instagram | Website
We need your contribution now too! If you have created a project or body of work you would like to share with the wasteoffilm community, send an email with a selection of the images as well as a short description of the work to info@wasteoffilm.com. Thank you for your submissions!
Support the blog
Please consider supporting this blog, my photography and also the YouTube channel by either getting my new book or some stickers through the wasteoffilm shop or by using my Amazon Affiliate links. ( US / UK / DE )