Photo Blog

Marco Larousse photography blog. Read about current projects, documentaries, fine art print sales, gallery exhibits, workshops and speeches by Marco Larousse.

Poetry of Coincidence / Poesie des Zufalls - Marco Larousse photo exhibition

Poetry of Coincidence (Poesie des Zufalls in German) is a photo project that I have been working on for more than 10 years.

The ever increasing popularity of smartphones seem to make people less aware of the beauty and special moments that surround them every day. "Reality" is mainly consumed through instagram and facebook feeds that other people throw into their timeline.

In this series I focus on the unposed, spontaneous, and special moments that surround us every day and only last for 1/1000s.

These moments happen purely coincidental and tell a story. To me, they are like a single frame cut out from a film-reel of a Hollywood blockbuster. Not knowing what happened before, or what happened after that single frame, I would like for the viewers to explore the images and make up their own stories to the frames.

The series is exhibited at "erstereihe.hamburg" gallery between November 21st and December 7th, 2019.

Here is a quick video of the preparation for the exhibition:

Preceding the opening of a photo exhibition there is a lot of work involved. Image selection, editing, and printing should be taken care of long before the vernissage. But even when the frames and prints are delivered at the gallery there is still a lot of time involved in the framing and hanging process.

The exhibition started with a vernissage on a Thursday evening and was preceded by coverage from the main local TV station in Hamburg. And despite the rain and cold temperatures at the evening of the vernissage, the gallery was heavily frequented and the exhibition received a lot of positive feedback.

Vernissage opening speech by Marco Larousse - photo credit: Pasa Toskic

Time to enjoy the 30 prints of the exhibition - photo credit: Pasa Toskic

The audience takes time to discover each story behind the prints - photo credit: Pasa Toskic

Art needs to be discussed and enjoyed, too

At the evening of the busy vernissage, not all images could be thoroughly enjoyed and not all questions could be answered by me. Therefore we decided to offer an artist talk on Thursday, November 28th for those who wanted to find out more about the images and the photographer behind them. - photo credit: Pasa Toskic

The exhibition finissage is on December 7th between 15h - 18h.

Water is a human right - Millerntor Gallery #9

For the 9th time in a row, Hamburg’s second Bundesliga division team FC. St. Pauli turns their stadium into an art gallery and music festival for the good cause. The motto of this year's Millerntor Gallery is “Water is a human right” and more than 100 artists turned the stadium into a gallery with the goal that “Art creates water”.

The beneficiary of the art sale profits is “Viva con Agua”, a non profit organization founded by former FC St. Pauli Player Benjamin Adrion, that focuses on ensuring that all people worldwide have access to clean drinking water. The opening night art auction already spilled €270.000 into a new clean water project for Mozambique.

The Millerntor Gallery is an annual art festival and diverse meeting space that brings artists from many different nations as well as wealthy art buyers from the corporate world together. The spirit at the festival is positive and united for the good cause. It’s also a reminder that those of us who never have to think about clean drinking water, as it’s a seemingly unlimited resource and never more than the next water fauscett away, are very fortunate. But recent, hot and dry summers have also caused water supply issues here in Germany.

The dialogue about clean drinking water may eventually hit closer to home than many are aware of right now. Therefore, the artistic dialogue about this increasingly scarce resource may just come up at the right time for many of us as a wakeup call.

I would like to point you to the work of my good friend and brilliant photographer Stefan Groenveld who has documented some of the Viva con Agua projects in Afrika in recent years:

Wasser ist Leben (Water is life): https://www.stefangroenveld.de/2019/wasser-ist-leben/

Uganda: Kampala und der Norden: https://www.stefangroenveld.de/2017/uganda-kampala-und-der-norden/

My images of this very colorful event are reduced to black and white to give you a different point of view:

How a street photography photo is planned and created

In street photography, there is quite a complex creative process going on inside my head before I capture the image. But some people may still think that street photography is all about lucky snapshots.

Admittedly, a bit of luck does play a role in street photography because we rely on interesting subjects that are around in the same place and at the same time where we are. And this coincidental factor has kept me going in street photography for the past 25 years - and it has never been boring for me.

But the most important factors that I would attribute to my best street photos are based on exploring a scene and narrowing down the options of a place and the timing. Once you have reached this clear focus and pre-visualization of your image, you are on your way to capture the decisive moment that tells a story in your images.

My friend Steve Brazill invited me to his “Behind the Shot Podcast” and allowed me to take you along the creation process of one of my most famous street images. I share the decisions that I have made before the shot that lead me to narrow down to the final location, timing, and the story that I saw in front of me.

Please take the time to watch and listen to this inspiring interview.

Hamburg's Streets Unstaged - A Photo Project

At the end of 2016, I've decided to start a street photography project in Hamburg for 2017.

The goal of the project was to document the beauty of the unstaged daily life on Hamburg's streets throughout the year from an artistic and classic street photography point of view. During the project, I've captured more than a thousand photos and walked hundreds of miles on Hamburg's streets.

On December 31th, 2017 I've created a short video with a selection of 4 images from each month of the project that you can watch below.

I'm currently in the process to decide how this project will be shared from here on: Maybe a book, an exhibition, or a fine art print series..?

PPN - Photo Podcast Network

I have been producing photography related podcasts for many years now. And 2017 was the year I teamed up with Scott Bourne and founded PPN - Photo Podcast Network with him. Our mission is to inspire, educate, encourage, and entertain our listeners in the field of photography. We publish different topical photography related shows each month in one single feed. So you can think of PPN.fm as an audio version of a photography magazine.

Our shows cover photograph news, interviews, inspiration, mirrorless photography, photo gear and listener Q&A. The shows have been extremely popular and we have already hit the #1 spot on the iTunes charts in this segment in different countries.

I want to thank all current listeners for their support and would like to invite everyone who is interested in photography and not a listener yet to subscribe to our free PPN podcast channel here:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/ppn-photo-podcast-network/id1225034740

Google Podcasts: https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cDovL3Bob3RvcG9kY2FzdHMubGlic3luLmNvbS9yc3M%3D

Or search for "PPN" in your favorite podcatcher app.

You can also visit the PPN Photo Podcast Network website by clicking here.

G20 Summit 2017 in Germany - Hamburg Under Siege

Germany is the host of the G20 summit talks in 2017 and Chancellor Angela Merkel asked Hamburg’s first Mayor, Olaf Scholz, to host this event in Hamburg. Olaf Scholz agreed and assured safety to the public. He even claimed that: “On July 9th, some people will be surprised that the summit is already over.”

Hamburg is known to be an open, diverse and international city due to its large and 828 years old harbor. And because of this, Hamburg also carries the nickname "Gate to the World."

But when it comes to hosting the G20 summit in Hamburg, most residents are opposed to having this event in their metropolitan city. While there is general support for the idea that leaders of the world should talk to each other and try to effectively tackle the urgent inequity and environmental challenges of our planet, the majority also thinks that this event should not have been hosted in the middle of our metropolitan city, but rather in a more remote place where the implications and security concerns would have been much less to worry about.

Additionally, the event takes place in the most alternative part of town that had a long history of, let's say, not reacting well to gentrification, turbo capitalism, and inequality of minorities. To these residents, it's seen as a blatant provocation to host this event tight in the middle of their “hood” and adds fuel to a G20 summit event that already has a long history of protests and violence.

With this photo series, I documented the "under siege" area with my camera just days before the G20 summit started on July 7th & 8th. Many residents of Hamburg foresaw the riots, but the first mayor, Olaf Scholz, did not. Or at least he found that the benefits of hosting the G20 in Hamburg outweighed the potential harm.

Update: Did the misjudgment of the G20 in Hamburg hurt Olaf Scholz politically? Not really: In March 2018, Olaf Scholz was elected minister of finance and Vice-Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, next to Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Update 2: On December 8th, 2021 Olaf Scholz was elected as Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany…