Martina Hoogland Ivanow's Near Monochromatic "Speedway" As Inspiration

[Kevin von Duuglas-Ittu]

Not fight photography, but Martina Hoogland Ivanow's Speedway offers keyholes for us was we struggle to get away from "get the strike!" photography - which, if we are honest about it, it just sensing the fight, having a decent lens, and machine-gunning the shutter. It's just gorgeous, see the series here: Martina Hoogland Ivanow's Speedway. A few screen caps below:

 

Here we instructively have a subject which one would think would involve capturing "Speed" - just as we are challenged to capture the "fight", but instead are presented with lunar reality, the superb isolation, the "way of life" even of the track racer, depicted in so many textures, grits, "near monochrome". It is radient. I came upon this in this article on cinematography, telling of the inspiration for the film Arrival:

Quote

One source of inspiration for Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi film was Scandinavian photographer Martina Ivanow, specifically her nearly monochromatic Speedway series about speedway racing. "The photographs are stylized in some ways, but very subdued and natural and dark and mysterious. Not darkness as not seeing, but darkness as pathology. The darkness is deeply psychological," Young has said, adding that he and Villeneuve wanted Arrival to be "dark in a way that makes us a little uncomfortable." Color was used strategically as a contrast to that darkness. "It was never really a striking palette — like, these are the colors you're working with," said Young.

read it here

As a sidenote, I stumbled upon this reference studying cinematographers to inform my photography, where here the cinematography is inspired by the photography. A swimming dialectic. I'm truly moved by what I see in film, it makes me want to press my shutter.  

The first photo in the series, the suited up portrait, is just amazing. Damn. That steely palette, the solitary oranges that they took for Arrival. In this, I think we can learn - open our eyes really - to all the tools we can use to bring to bear on what fighting IS. It's not strikes landing. In fact, it's probably much more strikes missing, than it is strikes landing. Posted here as reference, and for discussion.