Photography and Video in Costa Rica » Personal works

Week of Life interview of Toh Gouttenoire (part II).

Toh Gouttenoire — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:15:21 +0000

I have been interviewed by week of life in order to be included in their remote places part of the website.

First part is here.

Here is the second part:

4) One thing is for sure: you have good light at your disposal during work, as the sun is the best source of light for photographers. How does the climate in Costa Rica suit your needs?
For sure the light here can be really good, but I’ll define it more like powerfully—strong and moving really quickly. Basically we have two seasons, rainy (people in tourism call it the “Green season”) and dry, I have to be precise and state that I’m talking about the pacific coast where I’m living and mainly working. The Caribbean has a different climate. So the green season has a lot of clouds, mist, and rain with a violent sun behind, so we have a beautiful diffuse light, slightly colored at the end of the afternoon; or those clouds can give the opposite effect with some really dramatic storm light with a direct sun passing black clouds, giving intense contrast. The summer (dry season) is a constant blue sky with a punishing hard sun half of the day, but beautiful mornings and sunsets. The main inconvenience is that all year long the sun is setting from 5:15 to 6:15, and lowering in the sky really quickly. The perfect Blue hour (perfect for a real estate shot) just stays for 10 to 15 minutes, so you have to be ready. I sometime miss those long European evenings that have twilight for 2 hours.

5) Since the European Union was established, there have been increasingly more debates on politics in Europe. The situation is similar in the United States. What is the situation in a place such as Costa Rica? Is anyone preoccupied with politics at all?
Well, Costa Rica just passed through a presidential election campaign, and they elected their first female president, so there was a lot of talk about national politics, but honestly as a non-voting resident, I just stayed on the surface of the talks; I’m more interested in local activism.

6) Where did you learn about the Week of Life project and what do you think about it?

I learned about it through a post on reddit.com, I browsed the website and quickly found the concept really interesting. Not long after that I registered and made my first week.
It is, as a viewer, a great way to travel through time and space; giving me the possibility to spend one week in the life of a a Tcheque photographer, a Chinese student or a designer in Samoa. From my computer screen in Costa Rica I have all these people sharing their life, their everyday life, in a beautiful way. I love it.

As a photographer or participant to the project, it gave me a subject to concentrate on for a full week, to express one day in 9 images, a morning in 3 photos. that’s an interesting challenge, it is also, as a human being, a good way to reflect on what my life is, what am I doing with it, how am I spending my days… my time… my life.

7) What would you say about awareness in your country – newspapers, magazines and information in general? What do the media focus on?
Costa Rica is a small country, so the local magazines offer a rather small output. One magazine is quite interesting, there is also, in my opinion, one interesting newspaper, doing a good job on national news: la Nacion (www.nacion.com). Sadly a lot of people here are buying cheap (in every way) tabloids full of sensational stories, graphic photographs and almost naked “models”. I get most of my news on the internet.

8 ) What would you say about Costa Rica to attract the attention of people who would like to visit this country and know nothing about it?
The classic thing would be to say that the country constitutionally abolished its army permanently in 1949, it has had 60 years of uninterrupted democracy. Maybe more important to people wanting to visit the country—Costa Rica is ranked 3rd in the world, and 1st among the Americas, in terms of the 2010 Environmental Performance Index, it plans to be the first carbon neutral country by 2021, and According to the New Economics Foundation, Costa Rica ranks first in the Happy Planet Index. It is
is the “greenest” country in the world. That says a lot about it. Another important stat is that while the country has only about 0.25% of the world’s landmass, it contains 5% of the world’s biodiversity. Around 25% of the country’s land area is in protected national parks and protected areas, the largest percentage of protected areas in the world. Everything is not perfect here of course, but it is the best I have found around the world.

The whole interview is here.

100 Faces photography project, Looking for models…

Toh Gouttenoire — Sat, 22 May 2010 00:13:42 +0000

Bidrop.com is participating to a fund raising photography project and is looking for local models

The project is a book in which sale proceeds will be donated to The Hunger Project.

Dynamik Media is collecting an array of portraits from different photographers around the world. The goal is to portray the idea of beauty in women within different cultures.

I’m looking for 10 models, women between ages 18-32 which are considered to be beautiful in their local culture. So if you think you are or you know someone don’t not hesitate…

Contact me for more information, I’ll send you a copy of the model release and FAQ.

Week of Life interview of Toh Gouttenoire (part I).

Administrator — Thu, 04 Feb 2010 20:18:19 +0000

In front of the computer at the pulperia of Canafistula.

I’m currently been interviewed by week of life in order to be included in their remote places part of the website.

Here is the first part, I’m waiting for them to send me the other questions.

1) First of all, could you tell us something about yourself and your relationship to Costa Rica? Do you come from Costa Rica or did you move there? Your name suggests that you are not Spanish.

As you correctly guess I’m not a native Costa Rican… Neither from Latin America, I’m born in France. I firstly heard of Costa Rica a little more than 10 years ago, the brother of a friend was leaving on a little beach town in this country, After my cinematographic studies I wanted to travel and I headed there in 2000, I then traveled through Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, And stopped a few months in Guatemala, from there I rushed to chiapas in order to shoot the Marcha Zapatista (leaded by “el Sub” comandante Marcos). I had to get back urgently in France where I stayed a fews months before getting bored of Europe again… I flight back to Guatemala with my current wife and install a restaurant on the south pacific cost, close to El Salvador, after 3 years we bought a van and headed south without any goals… just traveling… After something like 6 months on the road (through the same country) we entered in Costa Rica… Fall in love of the Tamarindo bay and the local and expat community, We’re living there since…

2) Costa Rica is said to be the place with the happiest people in the world. What do you think about this? Do you agree with it?

Well, that’s a difficult thing to measure… But I will say that’s people looks happier of what I know of Europe and the States and as for me just saying that’s this is the country I choose to leave in, build my house and mainly to have my daughter born in (she ha now both nationalities…) is saying everything…

3) You state that you‘re a photographer. Is it difficult to earn a living as a photographer in such country?

I’m not sure it is easy in any country of the world to earn a living as a photographer… and I have no point to compare the difficulties, but what I can say for is that the recent crisis made the things more difficult, I was shooting a lot of architecture and Real Estate photography, that part of my revenue went very low in 2009… I had to re market my services and the property management took a big part of that loss, contracting me for house shooting. The wedding photography also suffered from that crisis because most of customers are from the US and Canada coming down to Costa Rica for a tropical wedding. The press (magazine and newspaper) had tough times too with loss of advertisement, I saw a few publication that totally disappeared last year…

Anyway this year looks better… So I can earn a living from my photography adding it videography, but as everywhere I guess it’s stressful and you never know if you’ll have a contract in the next months… But I won’t complain, it’s one of the best job in the world, honestly…

Here is my first week of life.

Week of life.

Administrator — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 00:51:59 +0000

Week of life is an interesting website I discovered 2 months ago on the my preferred news agregator page: reddit.com. Here is how they present their project:

“Week of Life is a unique internet medium for all citizens of the globe. Everyone is invited to take part in the largest documentary project of all time! A photo archive of humanity! Show how you live and see how others live.”

The concept is simple every participant has for one week (7 days starting any days you want) to upload 9 photos per day, resuming or showing the whole day. The result giving a general idea of what your life could look like.

I decided to give it a try, the result is here, I didn’t try to make individual shots great photos but to document a whole day, as lame as some days are… Anyway, the editors liked it and included me in the editor’s choice, with quite a nice presentation:

Costa Rica was recently declared the greenest and the happiest country of the world. When looking at Gouttenoire Toh’s week of life, one no longer wonders why. His sunlight-filled set breathes incredible peace and ease and in our pre-Christmas rush it charges us with new energy. In addition, Gouttenoire Toh is also a great photographer, whose photographs highlight the magical power of Costa Rica.

I’m now working on a new week…

Where they live… (3)

Administrator — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 03:05:46 +0000

I recently post on my Flickr account a new set of a work in progress, that is called “where they live.”

The principle is really simple, it’s photography, it doesn’t need so much words.

This one is “Where they live (sometimes) – Margueritte & Jacques – Retired – Cassis – France – 2009″.

I wish to have the project moving more now, It is for me a different way to look at the places where people lives in a totally different way as I do it for Architecture or Real Estate photography, this approach is less sterile and means to show more the human being than the building hosting them, even and mainly if they do not appears in the shot.

So, If Anybody around is interested in me coming scrutinizing your nest please contact me… I’ll, for sure, give you all the photos Hi-Res…

You can check those two others from the same serie:

“Where she Liv(e)d – Marianne – Artist – St Etienne – France – 2005″

“Where we live(d)… Mandy, Toh y Lucie Luna – Canafistula – Costa Rica – 2008″

Where They Live… (2)

Administrator — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 16:50:33 +0000

This is the house we lived for almost 5 years, I think there is a little nostalgia in it…

“Where we live(d)… Mandy, Toh y Lucie Luna – Canafistula – Costa Rica – 2008″

It is for me a different way to look at the places where people lives in a totally different way as I do it for Architecture or Real Estate photography, this approach is less sterile and means to show more the human being than the building hosting them, even and mainly if they do not appears in the shot.

So, If Anybody around is interested in me coming scrutinizing your nest please contact me… I’ll, for sure, give you all the photos Hi-Res…

Where they Live… (1)

Administrator — Fri, 26 Aug 2005 16:38:27 +0000

Here is the first one that initiate the idea:

“Where she Liv(e)d – Marianne – Artist – St Etienne – France – 2005″

So, If Anybody around is interested in me coming scrutinizing your nest please contact me… I’ll, for sure, give you all the photos Hi-Res…