23 July 2009
Media Release
Mindaugas Kavaliauskas, F Gallery

F Gallery - Aerial Photography of the Lithuania That Travel Guides Don’t Tell You About

Kitaip pamatyta Lietuva (‘Lithuania seen differently’), an exhibition of aerial photography by Vidas Kaupelis and Algimantas Deikus will commence on 24 July 2009 at F Gallery (Kaunas Žaliakalnis funicular, Aušros Street 6, Kaunas).  This is an exhibition of the work of two aviation enthusiasts, which charms the viewer with its search for beauty in places where most aerial photographers would not point their camera lenses.  Meet the creators of this art on Wednesday 29 July at 18:00 (6 p.m.) at F Gallery.  The exhibition will be open daily from 9 am to 19:00 (7 p.m.) until 23 August 2009.

Bird’s eye photography is like an enchanted space that attracts photographers.  An interesting tone was set by Gaspard-Félix Tournachon (1820–1910), who went by the pseudonym of ‘Nadar’.  He was a forerunner of extreme photography, the first to do photography underground and from hot air balloons.  Photographers mostly did their photography on the ground, while aerial photography was begun by aviators, who were so impressed by the intense views from the air that they studied photography.  It has been a similar story for the Flyfoto.lt duo Vidas Kaupelis and Algimantas Deikus.  The photographer Vidas Kaupelis was experienced in flying, while the pilot Algimantas Deikus was experienced in photography.  They decided to fly and do photography together.

Our two adventurers have written: “Scenes that we see every day become boring; the road we travel daily becomes annoying.  The city, pavements, noise. Routine. It is easy to overlook the fact that right alongside all this is a completely different World, with completely different scenes and different forms and colours.  If you want to see this different World, it doesn’t take a lot: all you have to do is get up early, before the mists of the night have cleared, just as the first rays of sunlight peep over the horizon.  As the wings of an early flight’s airplane dissect the sky, the Earth starts to shimmer in various hues.  An otherwise uninteresting hollow can become a remarkable sea of morning mist.  An ordinary field can be an unexpectedly exciting discovery.” 

Aerial photography is also an interesting field in that it has been dominated by one or two ‘big names’.  The heavens have almost become a restricted photography zone, monopolised by a select few.  We all know about the Frenchman Yann Arthus-Bertrand, and here in Lithuania we have learned Marius Jovaiša’s name.  But what about some other names...?  Maybe the fact that so few names of other photographers practising aerial photography are known is evidence of a cultural watershed whereby aerial photographers that are inspired in their cultural endeavours by enthusiasm and an eagerness to discover part company with those who cater to popular tastes in commercial projects, the products of which are bought by people who have spotted images of their own town in them.  In the photographs of the Flyfoto.lt duo you will see views of Lithuania in which the locations would be hard to identify, and which it would serve no purpose to identify: places that are never mentioned in travel guides and that never attract curious visitors.

The duo began flying more than 10 years ago, bringing along their cameras more and more often, and a couple of years ago they began dedicating their flights to artistic aerial photography.  This is an ongoing project, one that develops without the help of pre-planning.  The photographers are constantly rejoicing in their visual discoveries: “You will be amazed how beautiful a frozen lake can be, or an industrial gravel pit, or even a waste depot.  We fly often.  We see many interesting things.  We want to share these with others.”

*Gallery F* is a photographic gallery, established in 2004 in the top station of the Žaliakalnis funicular as a result of the successful inauguration of the first ‘Kaunas Photography Days’ festival.  Gallery F is a space for first exhibitions.  It features mostly exhibitions by the rising stars of photography.  Over the 5 years it has operated, Gallery F has been the venue foer exhibitions of a whole range of photogarphic artists whose work is now known and valued all over the world: Marja Pirila (Finland), Simon Roberts (UK), Xavier Zimbardo (France), Graham Miller (Australia), Dave Anderson (USA), Mauro Fiorese (Italy) and others.
Lithuanian photographers that have shown their works here are Aurelijus Madzeliauskas, Gediminas and Irena Tamulynas, Ieva Kubiliūtė, Gintaras Česonis, Algirdas Pupkevičius, Tomas Tumalovičius, Romualdas Požerskis and others.