This the last of my archiving projects for a little while.  It all started with the finding of my color analog prints that I made after hurricane Andrew and published on the 20th anniversary of that terrible storm.  It led me to redux my Broken Windows book.  Now I decided to take a new look at the project that I completed before Broken Window, and was only published as an artist’s proof.  I have decided to call it Tampa Friends, Tokyo Tomodachi (tomodachi means friends).

These images were all taken in 1991 with a Nikon FG mostly with a heavy flash.  I was photographing what was around me, my friends.  I spent so much time with all of them that I wanted to capture those moments.  It was my way or participating in life as both an observer and participant.

The book is split into two halves.  The first half is filled with my Tampa family of Jahn, Christopher, and Elizabeth.  We spent all of our free time together exploring life and the land around Tampa.  The second half of the book comes from two different trips to Tokyo and the time I spent with Tetsuya, Yoshinori, and Masami.  The two halves show a version of my life as it was in 1991.  A time when my friends were my family.

By 1991, I rediscovered my love of photography after having a passion ignited in my soul from cinema.  I wanted to go one step further and enrolled in a photography class.  A whole new world opened up before me.  I learned about photographers I never knew before.  I was eager to discuss the deeper meanings of photography, and that passion that was reignited by my teacher Beth Shields never has diminished.

I wanted to look at these old photographs of mine to see where I have been as an artist.  I wanted to know if the images that I were producing in my youth were still valid to my critical eye 20 years later.  The answer, for the most part, is yes.  It has been a process of learning and self discovery with my camera as my means of expression.

The PDF file can be downloaded here for free. Tampa Friends Tokyo Tomodachi PDF

the book can also be purchased online via Blurb.

Lastly I want to give a extra special shout out of love to all those whose images are contained within the book Tampa Friends, Tokyo Tomodachi.  All of you made my time as a young man some of the most interesting and heartfelt years of my life.

This summer was the 20th anniversary of hurricane Andrew slamming into my home of Miami, Florida.  When I wanted to write a piece about the hurricane’s aftermath I led me to open up an old portfolio of mine.  Looking at some of my old hand printed images got me thinking about some of my past projects I completed in my early 20s.  The first one that came to mind was the project Broken Windows.

Broken Windows is a collection of work that I completed in 1992.  All of the photographs were taken using a single use panoramic camera (disposable camera) that had been reloaded and taped up with black gaffers tape.  All of the 35mm images were developed and printed in a wet darkroom.  I took all the images that I had printed and composed a book.  It was limited to an edition 35, and was compiled and printed at my local Kinkos.  At the time that was the only way that was feasible to be able to print, and distribute.  I had always wanted to print a higher quality book, but that was just out of my means at the time.

As we jump forward to 2012, I thought that it was important to revisit this work.  I wanted to understand the photographer that I was in order to navigate the artist I am becoming.  I found my original prints from 1992 and scanned them into my computer.  Thanks to the wonders of Blurb, I was able to print a book that showed the details within each photograph.

the ebook can be downloaded for free from Blurb, Broken Windows ebook

Broken Windows by Jacob Schere

to purchase a book for your library you can follow this link to the Broken Windows on Blurb.

Back in 2007 I submitted a COLORS Notebook to FABRICA’s international Notebook Project.  I have wanted to share the complete notebook, but I haven’t found a platform until the other day when I came across issuu.com.  They made it easy for me to share my COLORS Notebook with the world.

click the link below to view the the Lucid Communication Notebook

Jacob Schere’s COLORS NoteBoook

I am so thankful for the people over at FABRICA and across the world who participated in the COLORS NOTEBOOK project.  I like others got their blank template in my post box, and thought about what to put in this notebook of anything I wanted to be, and then sent it off.

A good few months later, I find out that it had been selected to be shown in some of the FARBICA exhibitions of the Notebook Project.  Including Shanghai, Tokyo, Europe. Later I was contacted by Carlos, over at Fabrica that they were using my images from the magazine in a collection of the book FACES.  I was one of the many artist to be selected in the publication.

A special shout out to to Carlos and Isotta at Fabrica for opening a beautiful relationship.  For my brother Frederic in Paris for helping get the French right.  And my brother Brimstone127 for providing one of the inspirational portraits and pieces in the my colors notebook.  A beautiful blog that was created with notebookers from all over the By the Rest of the WORLD.

the can be ordered here Colors Notebook Faces

I came across another publication of mine that had been put aside until I unearthed it while doing my end of the year cleaning.  This one is from Japan Scope Magazine and was published in March 2008 Vol. 17.  It was a feature issue that focused on a glimpse of Japan through foreign eyes and lots of fresh photographs to go with it.  I don’t think the magazine is still being published.  It is kind of nice to find something that I had forgotten about for so long.

Enjoy my view on the Guns & Peace society of Japan.

In Japan there is a tradition of pre New Years house cleaning, so I was going through my closets today and tossing out a year worth of collected nonsense when I came across this newspaper from May 1, 2008.  It was an photograph I had taken of the super fresh Hip Hop beat making duo of Hifana.  I had met Hifana a few weeks when doing a photo shoot and an interview for the French Blackpool Magazine prior to their dope set at the Apple Store in Shibuya.  Hifana rocked a super set, and I snapped up a bunch of pictures of Juicy and Keizo Machine.  A few weeks later Yuya, their manager, sent me the newspaper which my photograph had been published in.

Hifana puts together a great show.  They have toured the world and provide live beats across the globe.  Check them out.

check Hifana mixing it up live

an Okinawian flavored track

My friend, Brancolina, over at the Red Square Gallery has curated a collection of my Geometrical Wabi Sabi images. Red Square Gallery specializes in curating shows around the theme of photographing architecture. I am honored to be a part of this collection.  In addition to the images there is a short interview where I go into some of the theories behind the images.

I invite you all to come on by.

the link to the gallery is below.

jacob schere: geometrical wabi sabi

Also please browse through the other collections at Red Square Gallery

there is also the Flickr Group Red Sqaure Gallery

And lastly, please take a browse through Brancolina’s Flickr Stream

２Shirts, Squares and Rectangles

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John Walford has blessed me with some beautiful words as inspired by one of my images of flowers.  He has got a beautiful gift for the words that he selects in harmony with the image.  I cannot thank him enough for the kind words, and the time he takes out of his life to livicate these words for me.

Check out his works on his website Only Connect for more interesting postings.

“No Fresher Possible”

So lusiously, luminously fresh,
So well placed within the frame,
Such sensitive seeing – no less –
Ensures Jacob Schere his fame!
— JW, June 26, 2011
Also blogged @ nowonlyconnect.blogspot.com/ , as post for June 26, 2011.

I am fortunate to know Fernando Prats of Y SIN EMBARGO magazine for a few years now.  He was one of the first curators I had met by way of online networking that liked my photography and my work debuted in Y SIN EMBARGO magazine 4 years ago in March 2007.  My work has appeared in several issues, and I support the world wide movement that Y Sin Embargo has created for the world.

Please take some time to check out the curated work, and see some of the great work, by my friends from all over the world.

Ver la muestra en pantalla completa / Watch it, please: YSExhibition slideshow

[Featuring]

fernandoprats “Leonie Polah” “Oriol Espinal” “dou_ble_you” Azurebumble Kozology “Françoise Lucas” “Wilma Eras” “Manuel Diumenjó” “jef safi” “Alicia Pallas” Brancolina “Zep Wernbacher” “Simon Fröehlich” “Augusto Rosa” “Bill Horne” “Thomas Hagström” “Jacob Schere” “Lawrence Roberts” “Natalia Osiatynska” “Lisa Kehoe” “Susan Wolff” htakat “Sabine Portela” “Gabriel Magri” “Olivier Gilet” Ezook “Alain Vaisierre” “Rosa Delia Guerrero” Mensaka “Julian Gomez” “Jose Javier” “Lucky Clov” “Ron Herrema” “Mara Carrion” “R Galan” Yanomano “Nacho Piedrola” “Barbara Stumm” “Jurek Durczak” “dba lehane” “Patricia Gil” “Doris Stritcher” “Yves Moreaux” “Inga Melnikova” “Teng Tan” “Alba Escayo” “Louise Mann” “Francisco Neto” “Thomas Zicola” “Victor Obrist” JPCandelier “Nigel Christian” lonah “Mark Valentine” “Enric Leor” “Sam Javanrouh” Boris. battles and “Mucha Paciencia”.

http://ysinembargo.com/uebi/2011/06/10/yse-mag-at-contrasted-gallery-a-hard-selection-of-some-ysefots/

A hard selection of some YSEfots published at Y SIN EMBARGO magazine in a unique event. Curated by fernandoprats for the benefit of ****contrasted gallery

I am pleased to have had a lament for Japan by my friend John Walford.  I will let the image and the poetic words speak for themselves.

“Fallen Leaves and a Solo Broom”

How time can change the way we see,
Familiar things from another year.
This lone broom, waiting to sweep
Some scattered leaves from yesteryear.

Ivy drooping over a green-stained wall,
The sloping road, and red-paved path,
Waiting in innocence for a passer-by,
To take the broom, and sweep the leaves.

Who could have known, July last year,
It might not be a gentle hand that seized
The broom – nor that the earth would shake,
The sea would roar, sweep all away – but fear.

— A lament for all lost and suffering in Japan,
and a prayer that time would witness the country
return to the graceful beauty of the single broom.
–JW, March 26, 2011, and in admiration of
Jacob Schere’s poetic vision of Japan.

Thanks John for such beautiful thought provoking words.

Originally posted at John Walford’s blog Only Connect on March 26, 2011.

Bodiiin over at MyKriteek.com has blogged another audio critique this time of the image Brick Deep Beauty.

Check it out, and the other critiques and images at MyKriteek.com.

A big shout out to Bodiin over at myKritteek.com for dropping some verbal words on my image Asleep and Awake, A reminder, which was taken earlier this year.  When you get a minute browse through his other critiques and enjoy the one that accompanies this image.  You can find the audio here

Big time respect!

John Walford blessed me with another poem inspired by one of my images.  A big shout out to john for taking the time to use his senses and see anew.

Thirty-three little blue faces turn
To catch the rays of the unseen sun.
One grey dish it’s face too does turn
Towards unseen beams, airwaves
Bearing from afar sights and sounds
That in turn make our heads turn.
And your head, your eyes, which way
Will you turn, and what will you absorb?
–JW, for Jacob Schere, October 24, 2010.

Flower Satellite Wall

please take the time to visit Johns blog here, originally published on Nowonlyconnect Blog.

Bodiiin over at MyKriteek.com put up a 90 second critique of one of my image.  It is refreshing to have a quick and concise critique of my work.  Big time respect to Bodiiin over there for thinking to put it on his site.

http://mykriteek.com/the-banana-peel-by-jacob-schere-here-and-ther

I am honored to have had one of my images critiqued by the art historian John Walford.  He wrote an interesting critique of my image “Five Windows, Two Pipes, and a Vent”.  I will repost the the text and the image below.  Be sure to go and take a wander though his writing and his flick image stream.

I must give the biggest respect shout out to Brancolina.  She has put together a curation of some of my geometrical images and titled them Urban Haiku.  If you haven’t already go out and check out her blog at Brancolina. You can also peep out Brancolina’s Flickr Stream.

All always inspiring images on Antwerp to be found on her site.  And the musing of a creative mind.