Jevgenija Bitter @ FILTERED

• Jevgenija Bitter
• Photography / Art-Photo-Trash
• “I like to think of myslef like of an rising artist, but i never call myself a professional photographer. I have a passionate love affair with life, and I fully enjoy everything that life have to offer me. I am art active for about two years, and in this period all i am doing is trying to be better in creating my own reality.”
• “Photography is my favorite toy on time freezing since i remember myself. I started to play with images in more adult games when i found in them huge gaming platform for my imagination. I started generating my own world. Images of bygone days, old dark fairytale and dreams, clowns, noir divas, lunatics.”
• “I adore to portray the inner life of people to show them and to show others different sides of themselves. I see so many colors and shades that any Japanese would go mad and crazy… But anyway I prefer a black-and-white photography. A lot of my works taking inspiration from the 1960-1980’s black and white European cinema, films by directors David Lynch, Federico Fellini, Pier Paolo Passolinni and Almodovar.”
• “I am infinitely in love with analogue photo. Matchless quality of analog pictures, depth and spirit what they bear in themselves, will never be compared to electronic quality of Digital cameras.”
• “Human being in the biggest sense of the word. All kinds of ranges, appearances, colors, small or big, men or women. The main thing, open mind, open soul and big desire to start a game what i call “Photo Hunting”. We are – our photos. We simply flow in them gradually.”
• “I accept something or don`t accept, according to the concept of the work. Sometimes I don’t agree with something because I don’t like it. I don’t want to provoke people with anger or with ugly things, i want to express my freedom of thought and speech. I have no intentions in doing harm to people.”
• “I call myself – a self proclaimed genius. but true is – we all are. and i am just a tired from springs happy eccentric woman. My autumn is amazing, and I protect its light…”
• “My works are manifestation of life incredible passion, of love and sorrow, of melancholy and happiness, of madness and calmness, of a deep human soul. There is always a story behind them but, I always leave it open to the audience so they can make their own interpretation.”
• “I can get my inspiration from a ton of places and artists… David Lynch, Klimt, Fellini, Stanley Kubrick, Frida Kahlo, Tim Burton, Alfred Hitchcock, Hans Christian Andersen and The Grims Brothers, list can be endless… in other words i can tell – life is my inspiration. My thoughts and my visions sometimes go so mixed up, i am so absent-minded. Cinema and art influence my life a lot. Ideas come up and I often try to turn them into reality.”

You can find her at:

Deviantart / Daportfolio

Liene Rātniece @ FILTERED

LV

• Liene Ratniece / Stolentime
• Photography
• She was born in 1993 on august the 20 in Riga. Lives here all her life except rare moments in summer when leaving hometown to visit her grandparents in Saulkrasti. If someone would ask her if she would prefer living outside the city , in the countryside , she would say “No”. She got used to living in the city. She even loves the urban romance of noise from the  railway near her house, the cry of the gulls each at  sunset. “One can find melody in every noise”. Liene is quite musical. She can’t tell much about herself, for she is no different from others.. may be just a little. She says: “Of course each of us is a unique part of this world, which is like no other, yet we all have similar thoughts, and the survival instinct is inherited by all of us since birth. I am melancholic”.
• She says : “I am quite self-contained. There was one moment when there was no one I could really trust, but keeping all your problems inside of yourself not talking them over with anyone was too hard to handle. At this time I don’t have to keep it all to myself for i found people whom i can trust. My favorite colors are grey and pastel-purple. I am mostr attracted by alternative music and those slow parts are the best. I can’t stand people who are too sefl-concerned and selfish, who are not able to come down from their hights and look at themselves from the side to see how stupid they really are. Hypocrites.
• “People i respect more than others – are my friends. Not a contacts or acquaintances but real friends. Since true frinds are rare I am thankful for that i have such. It is like a second wind, like a second YOU, a person who understands you and is always ready to help. Things I admire are nature, art and music. Nature brings beauty, music – inspiration and inspiration brings art.  In turn art discloses a little about every person and shows the way this person looks at the world.”
• “People were given a lifetime and a memory. Though many of us have a bad memory, including myself. Photography – is a great way of memorising and treasuring moments which you wish to never forget.  When looking at an old photograph something alway pops out and you start remembering things. Of course come photographs also bring suffering and pain. Memories, which one day where and eye candy and today they are something that will never happen again. It something we can’t change, which is why it is very important to remember all the good things”.
• “Personally i chose photography, because it is my way of expressing myself in a creative and mentally developed way.  It is a tool to show off my world, my thoughts, a little bit of myself but just in an unordinary way. Some might never get the idea i have put in into the photograph. This is for all people are different. The one’s who think alike will see my thoughts. I do it for myself. I love remembering. I love expressing myself. I love photography.”
• “I dont remember when i actually made my first flick. May be when i was a little kid, i took my dad’s camera. He was using Zenit that time, and I loved that camera. My interest for photography had grown whe I was in the age of 12-13 and I started my attempts to create something. Up to this day I am still trying and learning”.
• “I apply black and white photography quite rarely. I don’t like depriving life of it’s colors. I guess dim colors are better than no colors at all. Or may be it is just that i can’t capture a picture that would look good in b/w.  It depends. I can’t think of a black and white picture of sunset. B/w takes all the depth away. B/w images are flat”.
• “Perfect model – person who understands me and my wishes. Gets the idea and does what is required from him to make final image look the way i want it to look. This is why children adn animals are the tough one’s when photographing. Model must be natural, the best photographs are those, where the model isn’t posing. When the image is just a moment i was able to catch. Though there are not many of these. Model must know at least something about photography as an art. I wouldn’t want to work in a photo studio. It seems to be boring. Model has to have a character which she could show with no words, just through modelling, through the picture i take. So to say, speaking with the eyes only”.
• “Each photographer differs from any other only with one thing – his style. If there is no such, than you are not a photographer who photographs for oneself, but only for others. It is like living without soul”.
• “I always get inspired by music, wonder if I could live without it at all. Melodies, lyrics and also something of own composition. I am thankful to Muse, my favorite music band, for they have always inspired me. Not in vain their band’s name is “Muse”.

You can find her at:

Deviantart / Jpgmag / Myspace

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Elvi Soulsystems @ FILTERED

• Elviss or Elvi Soulsystems
• graphic design / motion design / photography / writing / music producing / disc jocking / creative direction
• “i’m the owner of a social and catering space called the META-KAFE (http://metakafe.lv is all in Latvian but you might find it useful to look us up on Facebook) – a cafe, an almost slow-food restaurant, a bar, a reading room and bookshop and a space for creative games of all disciplines located at the new so-called creative industries area of Riga – the Spīķeri; and i used to be a poet too – back in the day poetry was still a relevant medium (though i feel that maybe through the collisions of the world we live in the past couple of years the need for poetic expression could make a come-back)”
• “i cannot imagine life without creativity and my parents pushed me into art school at an early age (which i didn’t graduate) and i found out very early that music is an essential part of my being and because i found that when you combine various elements of the creative discipline – be it music, still life, life in motion, storytelling, poetry – you can come up with things that make not only yourself but also others… tick! creative means makes you think and makes you develop yourself (your self) and makes you feel things beyond the material world and it also makes you connect to other people and God in a far more intense way than the you would if you’d go and just live on your for your own sakes… yes, i do think that creative means are only relevant when they’re put on a level of communication rather than just self-expression (self-indulgence)”.
• “. i think the first seriousness came back in the day we created the free hip-hop collective called Ritmiņš Unltd.; we were very young and were destined to go our seperate ways but we did get to have a few shows that featuring many disciplines and took courage and lots of work – musically, wordsmith-wise and visually; my first serious experience of communicating my poetic writing was when participating in a Latvian Writers Community seminar and getting my work to be discussed with lots of big poetry people (i was frightened); my first real video jocking performace worth mentioning took place just this year – i was providing the visual language part for a concert of modern folk music by the project Lidojošais Paklājs (the Flying Carpet); as for disc jocking – i guess the whole thing started when i took up the proposal of playing weekly at the now closed club/restaurant called Casablanca in Old Riga – it was really long ago… i can’t remember!”
• “i’m now more into a little tilt-shifting of the image and i’ve noticed that most of the stuff coming out of me recently is kind of low-saturated (sometimes to a degree of almost black and white); but if i’d take the topic on a philosophical level… i guess it’s all about the contrast! it could be that the pinnacle of this is the design of the Blue Note records – the photography was usually black and white but the graphic was bright and saturated!”
• “could be that it’s the discussion – i like to observe the process of discussion and create a direction to it; the perfect subject is that of continuity… i sometimes like to leave out the conclusion just to admire the beauty of the process!”
• ” i try to be different! as much as i try to stay subtle and do not create “l’art pour l’art” i do try to create something of originality and novelty to myself as for the rest of the world… originality is a part of creativity i think – it’s something to strive for at least!
• “i’m not much into shock – i do appreciate work that provokes in the time of need and context at times but i think i wouldn’t like to be one creating it! not much into violence, shock and conscious ugliness”
• “i get inspired by the sky, sound, music, vision, air, colour, texture, literature, people, my soon-to-be wife, my kin, artists, film, other places, other spaces, travelling… all the things!”

You can find him at:

Behance / Flickr / Vimeo / Facebook (Elvi) / Facebook (Elvi Rich Pich) / Facebook (Elvi the Tech sapiens) / Facebook (Seventh Floor) / Facebook (META-KAFE) / META-KAFE

http://www.behance.net/elvithesoulsystem/Frame

Edgars Kaplers @ FILTERED

• Edgars Kaplers
• Analog photography/ alternative photography
• “I’m a studying civil engineering at Riga Technical University and I’m in my third year of studies. Basically it’s building and constructions. I dislike staying in one place for a longer period of time, so I try to get out of Riga for some 3 or 4 days to go to the East. Riga has dirty air other things to avoid. I would describe myself as a stiff-necked or stubborn person, because I have my own very strong opinion of things and facts. I like to reject the reality and substitute my own.”
• “Well photography has always interested me as a substitution of classical art. I would be bored to death If I had to make an oil painting of highly detailed object and in the end it still would be wrong. So I use photography. It’s simple – for me it is evidence that I have seen it with my own eyes.”
• “At the beginning I thought that all my images were art, but then very soon I realized that it is not. And I live with that. It is definitely creative, but it is not art when compared with painting and all those old forms of art.”
• I like both color and black and white photography, and I still don’t know why. Color for me works as description, but black and white seem to be more responsible for form. These photographs are made using cyanotype process.”
• “I like to photograph different subjects: architecture, landscape, social and environmental portraits, self-portraits. I don’t stick with one subject.“
• “I like to work with alternative photography that was well known already in the 19^th century, ant that is simple and easy to handle. I was quite disappointed by digital photography some years ago, so I started analog photography.”
• He will never photograph Weddings.
• He gets inspired by street life, “the ability that I can do what I consider being good.”

You can find him at:

Flickr

SKAŅU MEŽS FESTIVAL @ FILTERED

“SKAŅU MEŽS” FESTIVAL

It is a Latvian festival for adventurous music. It is being organized once a year.

Artists:Battles, Radian, Wolf Eyes, Liars, Apziņas parazīti, Avarus, Jamie Lidell & Geoff Johnston, Amorālā Psihoze, Charles Curtis, BJ Nilsen, Blindsnakes , 2OT, Antireality, Spunk, Ilzegohome, Kaffe Matthews, Error, Christina Kubisch, Ari Benjamin Meyers, Carl Michael von Hauswolff, Stillupsteypa, Santa Ratniece, Kristaps Pētersons ar ansambli, Ballet Rachitis, Lucinda Dayhew, Keith Rowe, Ieva Parša, Pēteris Ķimelis, Gas of Latvia, Fe-mail, Andres Loo, Gustav, Thomas Ankersmit, Katrīna Neiburga, Gonzo, Arturas Bumsteinas, Hecker, General Magic, Tina Frank, Bernard Parmegiani, Dun Dun, Mira Calix, dj Miks Pētersons, Evelīna Deičmane, Rudens Lapas, Jacob Mandell, Russell Haswell, Michael Trost Depedro aka Kid 606, Gert-Jan Prins, Palinckx, dj Drazza, Gold Chains, dj Fett, Vladislav Delay, Ester Poli, Selffish, dj Neon-B, Voldemārs Johansons, Tujiko Noriko, Phill Niblock, Circle, Atis Vintuks, Aleksandrs Jalaņeckis, Altera Veritas, Andris Dzenītis, Gus Gus dj’s, Mona de Bo, COH, Francisco Lopez, ad_OS, Jeff Surak, dj Ned Beckett, Michael Gendreau, Raimonds Tiguls, Fritz Ostermayer, Jason Forrest, Kevin Blechdom, Felix Kubin, Darba dienests, Woodpecker Project, Cobra Killers, dj Ned Beckett, Tim Exile, Flat-E, Palace of Pleasure, Arm, Alog, Charlemagne Palestine, Thomas Koner, Cellule d’Intervention Metamkine, oloolo, Oskars Poikāns, my-ym, Volokno, Terre Thaemlitz, Kārlis Auzāns, Alexandroid, Christian Fennesz, Jacob Kirkegaard, Claustrum, Tommi Gronlund & Petteri Nisunen, Max Eastley. Eliane Radigue, Volcano the Bear, Martin Wheeler, Kaspars Rolšteins, Muschraum, dj Tim Tetzner, Keiji Haino, MoHa!

More info at their official web-site.

Konrad Langa @ FILTERED

• Konrad Langa / enok
• Digital art / Photo manipulation / Drawings
• “i am very calm , but still emotional.  very talkative. i am trying to find my place under the sun.”
• “i got inspired by some great artist and started making my own things”
• “i drew a circus when i was 7 :D but really i made “even gold breaks” about 2 years ago .”
• “psychedelic is the best for me “
• “i think i’m like everyone , but everyone is different so …”
• “i have started doing photo manipulation about 2 years ago. before that i was drawing . i am inspired by my own mood and the people around me”

You can find him at:

Deviantart

FILTERED @ Halloween (evil)

Concert: Snobrand; Blindspot; Apofeoz; TAKMODNO; Nepilngadīgā Anna; Vinchester; A.R.T.; Tabea Thoren

(list may update)

Funk & Jazzy afterparty by Get Fished

Also! You will have an opportunity to become a listener.

Free badges available through-out the party!

Visit official listener’s website to get the idea listener.lv

Gundega Deģe @ FILTERED

• Gundega Dege / Sundew
• Photography / Digital art
• She says : “Its very difficult to tell something about me- I am very different, I dont like to be the same – I like to surprise people around with my difference. I am very energetic and emotional.  I like to tell the truth.”
• “After finishing university ( I got BA in English language) , I  worked as a translator, and later as a public relations specialist and photojournalist in a local newspaper where  I discovered the world of photography. I  had been taking pictures during her schooling on a casual basis, but in 2004 i  got involved in photography seriously and  I  bought my first digital camera. Her first experience was taking photos of children. She self taught photography through books, photo magazines, and workshops.”
• “Definitely black and white photography more, because I like to see how color images change when you make them in bw- you start to feel rhythm, forms, contrasts. BW is more emotional.”
• “My perfect model – open, free, exciting, emotive, good eye contact, willing to work with photographer. Not always with perfect body. I work more with ordinary people, than with Professional models, they are more natural.”
• “Sure thing i am different. I hear it since my childhood. Everything stared in my childhood, I got very light skin color and natural very blond hair color, I looked different , and felt like a „white bird”among the rest. Nothing more has changed now when I am 37, I still feel the same l- standing aside and looking on what is happening in the World, trying to Express my emotions with my images….”
• “The world around and inside of me inspires me. Once I took photos about what I saw; now I take photos about what I feel… You shouldn’t be afraid to show people the world from the other side, and remember that it’s one thing to wish to take photos, but you must have the power and sense to take them! No matter what camera you have, the main thing is what you have in your mind and soul. Sometimes people say they are crying when they look at my images. I think I have put much of myself in them, as well as my daughter Linda who is the main model here.”

Maksim Kalanep @ FILTERED

• Maksim Kalanep / also known as iHc
• Photography / Video
• He is getting up late, goes to sleep late at night, does not like to be late, loves order. Prefers classical Kellogs as his breakfast’s meal.
• He says : “We are all different, words can’t even describe it”.
• He has always been into video shooting and editing. Started photographing when enrolled university.
• He says : “The shooting process in both video and photography is really specific and expensive. In both photography and video i prefer fish-eye lenses, which are really costly. They are used to get a qide view from below, due to shooting from above usually leads to not seeing the trick itself or position of legs which is really important in skateboard shooting. They are also used when shooting several tricks in a row, which is called “a track”. Additionally, sometimes storyboards are being shot for magazine’s or web review. In these cases, DSLR of initial level are not good, due to their FPS is usually only 3-5 shots a second. Miminum FPS for such shooting is 8. Furthermore, an additional lightning is required for photo shooting. Such as pulsed light, for “freezing” action. For usually existing light is not enough for needed shutter speed. So we usually use 2-3 external flashlights. So as you see it’s quite costly, though it does not mean that you cannot photograph skaters without all these tools. But as i may know,  many photographers, who don’t use them have no knowledge in skateboarding, which is essential, and capture the wrong moments.”
• Maksim says : ” Of course this sport is quite traumatic for both sportsmen and the operator. When photographing it’s usually uncertainty in where is the deck going to fly if the trick fails. When filming it is : pedestrians, high speed, deck under my feet, that can find a dimple or a pebble on a road.  Majority of skaters are happy to be filmed or photographed, but usually only when doing  a trick. When it comes to portraits or so,  opinions vary. Some are okay with it, others just hide.”
• He chooses soundtrack according to his mood, the speed of tricks and montage, and of course his own preferences.
• He gets inspired by clean works of other talented artists and art scenes. He loves travelling, although doesn’t travel as much as he wishes. At this time, he moslty likes visiting Barcelona, but he would also love to visit other countries, out of the EU.

You can find him at:

maksimkalanep.info / flickr / vimeo

And i advice you to visit the LINK and watch the “3 & 1/2 minutes of happiness” – it’s a real masterpiece!