Yeah! Got selected as one of a few for the two-day Master Class with Roger Ballen at the Belfast Photo Festival, June 14-15. More below!

Here’s Roger Ballen’s wonderful music clip that he did for ‘Die Antwoord’:

……………………………………………………………………………………………..
And these were his paradox assignments and my replies:

Close your eyes, turn your eyeballs around, photograph what you see.’

eldagsen_roger ballen masterclass

Roger Ballen found this to be a strong image that fullfilled the assignment.

……………………………………………………………………………………………..

‘Photograph a still life that creates two opposite meanings’

DSCN0130
This was a tricky one. In the timeframe of 3 hours I was happy with the symbolic solution (a cross created by two snakes eating their way through two apples), but I couldn’t solve the image 100%. Roger loved the upper part with the big snake and the light, but agreed that the rest would have needed more time to solve.

Here’s how it looked working together:

Roger Ballen master class Belfast Photo Festival 2013

My favourite quotes from Roger:
“Don’t photograph somebody who is right, when the background is wrong.”
“If you would paint your photograph – will you leave some details out? Then the image is not right either.”
“Images explain themselves. Words aren’t images. That’s where you get mixed up.”
“Follow your intuition – for years and years and years.”
“What is contemporary art? Contemporary doesn’t matter. What is important in art is what lasts.”
“An artwork is timeless, it is something that lives beyond you, a different sense of consciousness.”
“The more it disturbs you, the better the medicine.”
“If you close your eyes you might come to the conclusion that a light comes from the dark.”

Thanks to Peggy Sue Amison for organising this, and to Jason Higgins that supported Roger and took the docu shots.