I don’t get out much these days, as I usually stay at home to take care of the kids.
Having finished a few paintings in the “War is Coming Home” series, something got me thinking about the lives of the Talibans or talibs if you will.

What are they like, and what’s the deal, you know – really… Some light research ensued and, tadaah!

So here goes – The top 10 list of things you probably didn’t know about Taliban:

10: The Taliban consists mainly of Mujahideen and as it were, former allies of the West.
9: Many Talibs actually do smoke, regardless of what Mullah Omar says,
8: The majority of the Taliban movement is made up of Pashtun tribemembers practicing the moral code “Pashtun Wali” which has hospitality as one of it’s cornerstones.
7: The Taliban established an Ombudsman in 2009.
6: While not in combat, the Taliban enjoy a good game of rock-throwing.
5: The Taliban numbered roughly 45.000 in 2001, 11.000 in 2008 and 36.000 in 2010.
4: Ahmad Shah Massoud (Leader of the opposing United Front/Northern Alliance) stated in 2001 that without help from Pakistan, the Taliban would not be able to sustain their military campaign for a year – Since 2001 Pakistan has received 11,5 bln. USD in military aid from the United States.
3: On october 4 2001, Pakistan refused an offer from the Taliban to have Osama Bin Laden handed over for trial on the grounds that Pakistan could not guarantee his safety.
2: Few Talibs have ever read the Koran, but rather learn it by heart verbally.
1: Since 2004 the Taliban has been known as the “Islamic Insurgency”.

I find myself just a tad better informed now, hope you do too.

The painting below “Forever after Silent” is the third in the series “War is Coming Home”. If you’re from anywhere around Copenhagen you might recognize the backdrop.

Enjoy!

I have been a fan of Trey Ratcliffs for some time now. Trey is one of the pioneers of HDR photography, and he has been instrumental in making this sort of photography popular and known by the masses.

For a while HDR has been regarded as a sort of artificial or unrealistic school of photography.
It was frowned upon by the photography establishment and until now not seen as a legitimate form in its own right. Many such photographers thought that the extreme dynamic range possible with HDR made the photographs “unrealistic” and not true to reality.

Until HDR emerged, everyone was used to the fact that a taking a photo meant committing to a certain exposure. Anyone who has tried photographing outside from whithin a building knows that the final photo either shows a proper lighting of the interior OR the exterior. That is, either the interior darker details are visible and the outside is a white blur OR the outside bright details, clouds etc are visible and the interior details of the room are a dark blur.

Traditional photography means you have to chose. But in real life we don’t have to chose. The eyes adjust to the proper sensitivity according to where we focus. The combined experience is that we can see BOTH the details in the clouds outside AND the darker details of the interior room. HDR works the same way – you get the best of both worlds, and a photo that is closer to the experience that you actually had when you were there.

Trey is a nice guy with a mission to promote HDR photography. He runs a blog at stuckincustoms.com that has tens of thousands of visitors every day, but decided to help other HDR photographers spread their work and generate traffic to their sites. So he created HDRspotting.com which works as a traffic generation engine. It’s a community by invitation where members can upload and share their work.

I have posted numerous HDR photos to HDRspotting.com, and as a result thousands of people have now seen my photos of the fairy tale castles and landscapes that are so common in Scandinavia it’s almost hard to spot them. Here’s an example of what I mean: the lake pavillion in central Copenhagen. Visible from a unique angle this winter because of the prolonged frost that made walking on the lakes possible.

Enjoy!

I went exploring in Kings Gardens the other day, and found a nice view of the castle Rosenborg built by King Christan IV in 1606-1607.
Today it houses the crown jewels and the nearby barracks of the royal life guard.

Go see for yourself!

Yesterday afternoon i was out strolling with the kids in the pram and happened to pass by the gardens of the danish university of agriculture. A cafe has been set up in an old derelict greenhouse. I decided to have a local pilsner in the shade while the kids slept. Of course they woke up before I was finished standing in line. Classic.

As i leaned to lift the cover from the pram my beer spilled unto my pants. I had managed to drink one sip. Again classic. Todays HDR is from another more successful day in the palm house of the botanical gardens. Enjoy!

Todays soundtrack during work in the Studio:
Simple Minds
Talking Heads
YES
The Cult
Alice Cooper

I guess I’m still living in the 80s…
Enjoy!

Pillory
Pronunciation: \ˈpi-lə-rē, ˈpil-rē\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural pil·lo·ries
Etymology: Middle English, from Anglo-French pilori
Date: 13th century

1 : a device formerly used for publicly punishing offenders consisting of a wooden frame with holes in which the head and hands can be locked
2 : a means for exposing one to public scorn or ridicule

“Ørestaden” is a newly built part of Copenhagen that used to be a desolate field on the island of Amager. That was before they built the Bridge of Øresund connecting Denmark and Sweden. At the time the idea behind Ørestaden was to create a huge area of urban dwellings for the growing population of the combined Copenhagen/Malmö region.
And so they built. Each new housing project more ambitious than the next. Each architect had his own idea of a magnificent building. Every square meter of allowed retailspace was jammed together in “Fields” – The largest shopping mall in Scandinavia. No cafes, no restaurants, no cosy little places to hang out. No-one thought about the urban area as a whole and what it takes to create what James Kunstler calls a place worth caring about.

Sadly Ørestaden now looks to become yet another ghetto. It’s simply not a place that anyone want’s to visit because it doesn’t speak to us. It’s bleak and inaccessible. From an architectural standpoint many of the buildings in Ørestaden are succesful. VM bjerget – “Mountain Dwellings” is an example of this, having won 4 international awards. Blame it on the recession, but apartments in VM -bjerget are now being offered for rent at reduced prices.

Art has many of the same characteristics as architecture, Not coincidentally the Danish School of Architecture is housed in the Royal Academy of Arts. So what makes some art more popular than other? Technical prowess, Depth, Originality, Visual aesthetics? Art may possess all these qualities yet still not hit home with the audience.

Whether we like it or not, the brand of the artist as well as the accessibility of his work is a deciding factor.
I feel comfortable owning a piece by an artist whose story and background I know, whose reputation is well known in general, whose art appeals to me and is easily accessible.
Does accessible mean that the art is shallow and has no depth? Ask David Hockney

The value of art has historically been closely linked to the story of the artist.
The new paradigm of art is really not new at all – The artist is responsible for maintaining and increasing the value of his art. Though storytelling, through promotion and any other means possible.

I am committed to this task, blogging is just one tool.
Enjoy todays Mirror Mirror (top).
Buy it here:

Mirror Mirror 3

Signed original artwork: Acrylic paint and watercolor. A3 sized archival 285 gsm Hahnemühle Torchon paper.

Photographer Bent Rej opened his exhibition of Rolling Stones photos at Martin Asbæk Gallery yesterday. Bent shot his photos of the Stones back in 1965-66 when they weren’t yet renowned as one of the worlds greatest rockbands.

A few years ago I received 6 limited edition prints from this series as a gift. They now adorn the walls of my apartment and I can’t walk to the kitchen without getting a cheeky grin from Mick.
I think the great quality of Bents photos lies the intimacy they possess. They feel private, much different from the usual ad smiles I see on every billboard. They feel like the family portraits that also hang in the hallway of my aparment.

Intimacy is hard to come by as a photographer. But when the photographer turns subject and snaps a photo in the mirror, things start to get intimate. There’s something else present – that which escapes the photographer. A moment of solitude and privacy. When published, this kind of photo reveals what the subject wishes, not the photographer. This is true exhibitionism.

I moved into my new studio on April 1st. this year.

It’s located in the Meat Packing district of Copenhagen. Some of the district is now inhabited by artists, and I have my studio in a shared space called “Slagtehus 40″ (Slaughterhouse 40) which opened only last summer.
As a former slaughtery it’s a rough space – walls covered with tiles, floors with epoxy to make it easy to clean off the blood from the cattle and swine being butchered here..
The place still smells like an animal. Partly from the traces of blood, partly from the catering firm housed downstairs. I have no idea what they’re making, but it doesn’t seem mouth watering.

My space is in the corner of a larger shared room, edges marked by tape on the floor.
It’s not huge, but I have enough room to work and store some of my previous pieces.
In the corner I have my desk on which I draw, sketch, blog and communicate using my mac.
My windows face the courtyard where in the summerevenings the hip young crowds gather in front of the bars “Karriere” and ” Jolene”.
The floor and walls is where I paint my acrylic works.

I like it here. It’s my space.

“No more cubicles” from Artworks by Carl Frederik Waage Beck

When it comes to worklife, I figure there are 2 kinds of people:

Type 1. Those that work the punch-in/punch-out job, and prefer it this way.
Type 2. Those that work the punch-in/punch-out job, and want to leave and be their own boss but feel they can’t.

Who feels more pain? Probably type 2. Pain comes from wanting what you cannot have.

There could be a trillion reasons why you might feel quitting just isn’t an option. Some common reasons are:

a. The mortgage due next week.
b. No time for moonlighting on my escape.
c. Fear of the unknown.

These are absolutely valid reasons, don’t get me wrong.

a. The mortgage is due, and if you’re like most people are, it has been due ever since you landed your first job. And as your paycheck increased over time, so did your mortgage. Net result – higher turnover in your household economy, but about the same level of free funds.
The constraint is the same as it has always been.
If you’re looking to change this, what you need is some more wiggle room in order to gain momentum for your escape. That means reducing your mortgage.

b. No time for moonlighting? Well, that’s why it’s called moonlighting – put in the hours if you’re serious about escape. Reducing time constraints is another option, but this may not be possible for you in your current job. Maybe the solution would be to switch to an interrim punch-in/punch-out job that is less demanding on your time. Going from 80 hours/week to 40 hours/week makes a big difference in your time schedule, but most likely won’t cut your paycheck in half.

c. But what’s on the other side? That’s for you to decide, but you probably have an idea, otherwise you wouldn’t feel this longing. Help yourself visualize the other side by describing what you’re aiming for. Most important – What is that you want to give to the world? What is it that you can do, that will make someone elses life better/easier etc?
What will your time schedule look like? What will your work environment be like? – a desk in a shared office space or working on the fly at the local café?
The more detailed, the less frightening.

Plan your escape and you will find the resolve to execute it.

best regards, Carl