Dead letter on paper

We met as a professional. Even then, he was a famous photographer. We all knew his work and password: click. No review book about Slovenian photography art will be able to pass the name Dragan Arrigler.

We started as an acquaintance and eventually became friends. How many photographic campaigns we put through, it would be difficult to find out. How many of my artifacts have been perpetuated, I would have a hard time listing. For some photos, acquaintances and friends significantly remarked that they were nicer and better than the objects in the picture. Justified. Dragan then, earlier, and then skillfully juggling with light and shade for many. The listing makes no sense.

However, it is worth mentioning his collaboration with graphic designer and illustrator Radovan Jenko. I think they got incredibly captured and supplemented. Many are one of the star achievements of its species in Slovenia. The work of the tandem was also attentive to the picky foreign countries.

Photographer’s creation

Arrigler covered all photographic genres: reporter, travel, commercial, scientific, documentary, sports, studio and possibly, or, as he notes, « except pornography and photographs of politicians, which is almost one and the same. » He notes: « For photographers who deal with everything with everything, there is a beautiful Balkan expression of eater. »

However, he was the most powerful photographic photographs. What does that mean? Built photos are the opposite of reporter photography. Photographer Reporter is able to cure and capture important moments to the living and being of this world. Groomed photos are mostly about studio photographs of subtle compositions with distinct semantic accents. The photographer is the creator of what he will paint. Relations between artifacts are repeatedly unexpected. They are surprisingly humorous and even humorous. Many photos could be defined as surf. That he was a master of light and illumination is understood by himself.

Digital photos in the principle disliked. He repeatedly noted: « Any fool can be a photographer. » But he could not avoid the siren voices of repairing and arranging photos with a computer. Photoshop becomes an important tool and a means of photographic content manipulation.

Initially he was Dragan Arrigler A graduate lawyer. A reliable career in this profession was promised. However, Dragan did not like neat life predictability. After a few years, he moved from Yus to the unreliable world of the artist of the photographer. The decision was not accidental, as he, as a student, was germinating in the famous hatchery of Slovenian photographers known as the Schoolt Photogroup (student organization of folk technology). Not all members can be listed.

This is how it writes: « I contributed a picture here and there for Mladina magazine, and they noticed this from the Delo newspaper and invited me to the types of photojournalists of this then SZDL newsletter and, of course, a daily newspaper with by far the largest circulation in Slovenia. » Dragan Arrigler, Mouse Kranjec, Janez Pukšič, Marjan Zaplatil, John Zrnec and of course Joco Žnidaršič.

Speedway, Sunday

“I did not start the job at Delo on Monday morning, but one Sunday afternoon in mid -June 1979. This happened because some sporting events covered that day and the on -call photographer could not do all the work himself.

I got an invitation to paint Speedway in Šiška, and I was happy to respond. After the morning, the day is known, and from then until today, I have never worked any difference between weekends and weekends or even holidays, I have always been ready to do something, jump in, solve the situation or world in general and satisfy clients. A working day from 7am to 3pm was suddenly the past. This may not have been too smart, because of this, of course, I was abundantly criticized by my girlfriend, wife or partner; However, it was clear that such a business was not exactly for family people.

Some are able to do so or have to do with more patient passengers or passengers. My passengers have always left some station before, and of course it is true: I never succeeded in both of me to be a modeling family and father, and a good newspaper or (later) commercial photographer. « 

“The studio I hired after leaving work was the first of the five studios I had in rent from 1985 to 2016. I did everything possible in them that the clients wanted from me, and here and there something else. I quickly got tired of every topic – in the 1990s, for example, I was involved in architectural photography, but it started to get bored, the same thing happened with more or less every type of photo I got … In fact, I never had the right idea of ​​what to do in my life, everything was happening to me, whether I wanted it or not. « 

With life, Dragan was never in good relationships. He took and experienced this phenomenon with skepticism and humorous mockery. I think once, I don’t know, maybe even several times, sighed: « Optimists are badly informed people! » I agree. In these circumstances, he sometimes interfered with writing and literature. His book Dead letter on paper and other stories/Little Media Lexicon She is a very witty debate about the meaning and misery of this world.

The covers of the book is Ervin Hladnik Milharcic wrote: “The newspapers are the maps of the world. But what do all those numbers, colors and words that make up? And where did they come from? Dragan Arrigler He pose a word and artistic language of this fantastic world in pieces and re -asserted it into a fun and very surprising book for a moment. « 

In the introduction of the book Arrigler, he writes: “Everyone who deals with a written or printed word today understandably strives for the diversity and diversity of his appearance. To the greatest extent, he wants to avoid overdoing words, while also wanting to add sincerity and wit to the text.

In particular, sports journalists in increasingly yellowed media are often in severe trials – their job is such that they have to report monotonous events.

Responsibility to the reader, however, to offer him a journalist -recognizable and interesting, perhaps even humorous colored text, forces them to ingenuity. They are looking for new synonyms, phrases, syntagms, phraseologemes, which are humorous and fun, and eventually begin to repeat, then become repetition and end up as extremely boring twilight, phrases. « 

I think that Dead letter It stalls for at least two thick and deep philosophical/linguistic tract. For tasting*, feeling and tasting some lexemes from this book:

African American – black, Črnuh, zumba, politically correct. Like Gypsy/ROM, Chefur/Bosnian/Neslovenec, Jew/Jud, Penzionist/Elder Citizen/Senior, etc.

But never: the Euro -American for all those who settled beyond the puddles after the run from hunger, war or something from the old continent, even though they drove with a Mayflower ship. The question is, of course: why is the black man today, but the white man is not? And except that: why was the word black or gypsy all right, until someone declared it a cursor? And finally the projection: in a few years, it may be incorrect to call an aphro -American or ROM and make a new word that will basically say the same, it will only be much more complicated.

steel hobby – a car, a bit of a joke, but as a rule, in relation to bad news. Often, for example: “Ljubljana A. Ž. was left without his steel hob … ”(typically, the injured party in such a case has a hard time understanding the joke tone of the news.) However, bad news should not be too bad or even tragic. Therefore, « two people died in the collision of two steel horsemen and five were seriously injured. » The joke in such a case is by no means in place. Not even in economic news; « Therefore, in Germany, 5.5 percent of steel hobbies were made less than last year in the same period. »

Queen of Sports – Athletics, of course. And running in 100 meters, as proclaimed by national radio, the royal discipline of the Queen of Sports. All you have to do is add an enthusiastic exclamation of the excited listener: “Matic is Emperor!” We already have the outlines of the monarchy.

Dead letter on paper – on a quick and superficial, and especially for political reasons and stubbornness, a law or a different regulation that cannot live in practice.

best friend, best friend – It was imperative to use a male and female version here, because it was a significant semantic difference. The male version (especially if we add a word of human and the phrase is extended into a person’s best friend), of course, marks the dog. The female version, however, is by no means a bitch, but a book.

submit – Another incredible invention of poetic inspired sports journalists. As a rule, it is not a description of the start of the five -year route around the world on the Bicycle, the commentator does not describe the trips of Marca Polo, Columbus, Captain Cook, Amundsen, Darwin or Dr. Livingston, but announces the skier start on a few hundred meters long slalom track, where the competitor at the finish line for a bad minute.

Slovenian eagles – our ski jumpers, but only when they are doing well.

Ksenja chair from John Suhadolc’s workshop

Letter

A bad year ago, I got Dragan’s letter. It is a kind of vital will. He wrote this way: “This is difficult for me, but today I thought a lot and got to the next conclusion: if possible, I would no longer cooperate with you. The reason is simple: I look healthy, but everything is wrong with me. I will list the problems as a doctor. « 

Then it lists the omnipotes from the top down, from the rustle in the head, the cardiac arrhythmia to the varicose veins on the legs. He is somewhat offended in the letter because he has not used his knees, as he has played basketball for decades. He continues: “I will generally stop with a commercial photo that requires a whole person. I will only paint here and there for joy when I feel it. As he said Jacques Henri Lartiguethe famous French photographer: ‘I have never taken a photo for whatever reason, except that it made me happy at any given moment.’ I will try, at least in the old years. I do not understand everything, last but not least, and in my opinion I lived quite healthy. You probably noticed that I have been writing about myself in the past time, as if it were already dead. « 

He wanted glittering loneliness. Click. Nothing is more painful than fraudulent hope. Click. Nothing is the way it seems that it should be, and vice versa. Click. And really: click, shadows thickened, click, curtain fell, click, colors faded, click, words are gone.

As Dragan went to the kingdom of the shadows, I told him quite quietly: « My shadow is longer every day, and our shadows are relentlessly longer! »