the day after the gravity slaves gig at joué les tours

the show of last night was really intense: i looked like a zombie after that.
the intensity on stage was really strong. i spent the gig filming with my super 8 camera and taking pictures. i was really focused on them and on what they were feeling, catching their emotions directly, i was totally connected to their music.
but i can't hardly remember the picture i took last night as i was really hypnotized: i was just shooting them frenetically, i just remember i saw stuffs and i shot them, but i can't remember really what it was... i am quite curious to see those images actually, i am sure it's gonna remind me this state the music put me in then. i felt completely empty after the show, as if i'd have played on stage as well.
thanks for that guys.
one graceful moment: my last super 8 film ended exactly at the same moment when they stopped playing...

pictures: Gravity Slaves, Pure Baballe Festival, Orléans 10th/11/1999: by noémie ventura.
these two images are some of the pictures i've re found in my archives a couple of weeks ago for the image bank of l'Oreille (see previous post). i took them 4 years and two months ago (!!!)... it's funny to see these images again.
thanks you for reading,

you can visit the gravity slaves website here

the big wednesday

picture:"crowd connecting with the ocean" by noémie ventura

the big wednesday...
yes i know we are on thursday, but maybe some of you do remember that movie: the big wednesday.
well i have been thinking of that movie for about 10 or 15 minutes... and i've been thinking a lot to the surf today, as i got a call from my friend séverine this morning. she and her boyfriend david are both surfers, following the waves all around the world. they share their time between the french atlantic coasts and indonesia, and they just got a baby. his name is Naturel (Natural) and i am very curious to see how amazing this little person's life gonna be: with these parents, he has to become someone, he doesn't have the choice! he just can't become some lame insignifiant guy, with david as his father and séverine as his mom... this kid gonna travel a lot, with his parents like a gypsy, and i am sure he'll be able to surf before he'd be able to walk! how amazing it must be to have that kind of childhood, you stay fare away from school and you connect young with the ocean.
and david is a huge fan of the big wednesday.
i feel i am starting to go into this "thinking about the surf" moment again. it's happened to me last year as well... last march when i was in nepal. i was down to the annapurnas and i couldn't stop thinking about my surfers family: simone and allan, from south africa, david and séverine...
last year this trip in nepal combinated with these thoughts and all these ideas which came up in my mind then gave me a lot of energy... it just gave me back the flame.
well i am not down to the annapurnas right now, i am really broke at home, in orléans... but tomorrow i am going to film and to take pictures of a gig of the gravity slaves, a very interesting band from here, who has just recorded their first album. their songs are really wicked, and the sound of this record is alrdeay huge and they haven't mixed it yet!!!!!
we have to leave pretty early tomorrow, as the sound check is at 6 pm at about 1 hours and half drive from here. the guys play at around 11pm, so i guess i have time enough to do some backstage footage and stuffs. i am gonna bring a lot of stuffs with me: super 8 video camera, my leica and a couple of lens and a medium format camera. it scares me actually: having too many different choices make me wondering too much.. and i hate that...
thanks for your attention,

noémie.

celebrating the most interesting things that gonna happen this year, a bump on the head....

pictures: Near Death Experience by noémie ventura

i just made a bump on my head, it hasn't happened to me for a long time...
actually it's really silly: i had put this skate board on the top of this big mirror, and it just fall on my head... damn it!
now it's really sour: i had forgot how painful is a bump on the head...ouch!
it's been a quite quiet week: i've done with these pictures i had to select for L'Oreille, i've been reading this great book: "to the elephant graveyard" by Tarquin Hall, i've discovered aloe vera gelly (which is great, but not as much irreplaceable as shea butter :)), i got a new vegan shampoo, i've updated my Linux version in my computer, i went to the swimming pool, and i managed to get, at last, this big massive attack remix box (you know: with the limited edition packaging, which looks like it's black, but just turns into white where you touch it): i traded it at this second hand record dealer: i am used to go there once or twice a year, to trade the cds i don't listen to anymore with new stuffs: so this week i got some cool stuffs: this massive attack remix box, a NIN ep...
by the way: i've heard the new NIN album should be out before this summer, and it should be named: bleedthrough... i can't wait, i am so impatient to listen to it!
it's a really good new: this new year seemed a bit lame concerning new records released : excepted expecting the new beastie boys, the new Near Death Experience, the new album of my friend Matthieu Malon... expecting Collection d'Arnell Andréa new album (who should finish to record it this spring), the new Burning Heads (with Aleef Sound System), Poney Club who should record their first album in march, and the Gravity Slaves who have just done to record their 1st album which sounds huge... i don't expect anything else: without the beastie boys and my mates, this year would be so predictable, so a new NIN make it a bit more tricky.
but there probably gonna be a ton of good music this year, but how to discover it?? where is it?? as all the medias are occupied by the bull shits vomitted by big records companies... it's really scary!
the only solutions to listen to good music today are :
- or to do it by yourself
- or to listen to indie radios on the internet
Otherwise you're fucked up. there is no other way to discover new good music.
you can't listen to music properly in stores, as they let you listen only 30 seconds of three tracks of each record you wanna listen to... and the tv, the radios, the magazines... are all full of shit!
so, yeepee!! a new NIN, one of the rare bands to make an interesting music today, being very ambitious, always trying to put its own level higher and higher, rebuilding themselves albums after albums, inovating with this huge sound...
viva fugazi for doing what's they have done until today... but, we are waiting for a new album for a longtime now...
viva my very talented friends, i am very proud of them, they are doing such great stuffs!! Near Death Experience, matthieu malon, the burning heads, the gravity slaves, collection d'arnell andréa, poney club, devon miles... thank you guys, please don't give up the fight!
And viva indie radios on the internet: don't give up guys, people DO listen to what you do, you're doing a great job, you're saving us from becoming "little mtv's piece of shit"!!!! thanks!

and thank YOU for reading,
noémie.

beauty queens watching me sinking in the abyss of my binders

picture: "Kali and Mala", by Noémie Ventura

Here are my two beauty queens: the two most beautiful cats in the world... for years, they both thought they were the only cats of this planet ... but they've seen 2 others cats, a couple of years ago... so now they know the truth: there are 4 cats in the whole world...
i am sinking under a burden of prints to make... for some free works, for friends, zines... in a way it's funny to rediscover old pics from the depht of my archives... even if that's not the things that gonna make me eat!!
i am making prints of bands from orléans, playing gigs, for the free music fanzine "l'oreille".. actually they stopped to run "paper issues " of l'oreille some years ago, to become a ezine, a fanzine on the internet, but they have decided to come back to the paper zine... it's funny, i've wrote articles and gave them pictures years ago... i think my first published works were in l'oreille... i remember they used some of my pictures several times, when i was 17, 18... well it wasn't a big stuff: just pics i took with my small crappy compaq camera, but i was really proud of being in l'oreille.then.. it was a kind of myth here...
so this week end i am making new prints of some old bull shits i have ... and it's funny to go back in time... i think i am gonna bring back around here some epic moments...

noémie.

the pictures i took in the farm are on the internet...

picture : "locked" by Noémie Ventura

hey

a selection of the pictures i took in the farm, about the exploitation of cows and their calves is on line here
if you have read my previous posts on this blog, then there is nothing to add... you already know why i have been in there... and that you have the power to make this hell ends. so please, be careful, and think about thoses eyes when you go shopping... if you could avoid to buy any meat, fish, eggs, dairies, or leather... that would be really perfect... but if you can't, please don't buy anything from battery farms... and try to reduce your consummation of all these things... that's the only solution, really.

i did a dfilm (with the elements they gave me...) you can watch it here

noémie "scarrie bear" ventura

2134

picture: "2134" by noémie ventura

hello, this is 2134
he just wanted to grow
he just wanted to play
to play, to play, to play...
to run after the wind, all summer long,
to see the sun, in the fields until night
all summer long...
running, jumping, turning, and the wind... the wind.
but he was locked since his birth instead
just allowed to watch, from the bottom of his jail,
the hill in front of him:
the fields, the trees, the grass
the grass...
he just wanted to grow,
to become strong enough to jump over the barriers, to run to the hill
to smell the wind
to play, to play, all summer long.
but 6 days after his birth, 6 days observing the hill, the shape of the trees and the grass,
the truck arrived, to pick him up.
on his way to the battery farm
he watched his hill for the last time... the hill... (this view of the hill he knew so well)
bye trees and fields...
he wished he didn't get the chance to feel the grass, to smell the wind, and to play, to play, to play...
to jump, to turn, to run, to play all summer long...
2134 will never know what summer is
he was born too early, 6 days old that's already done
another jail, a smaller cage
he just had to eat, to eat, to eat....
from the hell he was in, he remembered the hill, trying to figure out how the wind smells like...
he has always obeyed, eating... and thinking how great seemed to be the grass, the trees and the space from the jail to the hill... to run, to run, to run...
he spent 3 months thinking of this very moment, the moment between the jail and the hill, running, running, running...
3 months spent eating, and eating... and dreaming
3 months and the truck came back, to give him a last lift
in the truck he passed by fields, he tried to make his nose reach the wind outside, to smell it, but he couldnt... so he wondered how it would have been to play, to play, to play... and he started to feel the fear and he cried.

please, dont forget 2134... you have the power to end this. think about it.
thanks for reading,
noémie

thank you mr jean rochefort

picture: http://www.oaba.asso.fr/

i would like to thank the french actor jean rochefort, for his choice of talking for an hour about the horrible conditions animals are treated in today's farming, for the human meat consumation. actually he is the special guest of today on the national french public radio channel "france inter", and he's picked up this subject for this one hour show he was in this morning. it was interesting and that's really great that a famous person feel concerned and uses his celebrity to make people know the truth about animals suffering, specially animals people buy and eat everyday! consumers have a big part of responsibility in those horrible suffering : if you wouldn't buy it, they wouldn't sell it!
so, once again, thank you mr jean rochefort for having spent this hour talking about animals suffering, with the president of this organization, oaba (oeuvre d'assistance aux bêtes d'abattoirs).
if you do understand french, you can listen to this program here

thanks for reading,

noémie.

some exclusive images to thank you for coming here...

picture: "michael campbell" by noémie ventura

hi again...
i promise, i am going to put the images i took of the surf world championship tour in hossegor last october, on this website soon... but it not only depends on me, but on my webmaster as well...
to be honest, these pics were already on the internet, but on a secret page (that's the way i make my submissions to all the surf mags i know...)
To apollogize for having make you wait that long, and to thank you for spending some of your time reading my blog, here is a link to see this page where these images are at the moment:
to see them, click on the link below :

http://www.noemieventura.com/quikprofrance2003/

enjoy!!!

few words about what's going on:
i have some pictures in the new zig zag magazine, in south africa (and i was told i have one on the cover!!);
if you speak/read french, you can read an interview and my summary of 2003 on this website:
http://atticawebzine.chez.tiscali.fr

thanks for reading,

noémie

on edge

picture: "on edge" by noémie ventura

hey... i get some news from my friend gina, she is in oz, she is doing good, and it seems she's happy. i am glad to know that, as i didn't get news from her for some times. Gina is the second girl from the left on this picture... skating girls, skating during the days off of the quik pro france, last october in seignosse...
i took this picture on the terrasse of the flat i used to share with gina during this event... you know a kind of "holidays family bungalow", without heater

from left to right: varina from germany, gina the pommie, mellissa the kiwi, and rachel the pommie n°2...
as you may have noticed, skater girl gina is able to skate without shoes, just wearing socks... yes she really rocks!

thanks for reading,
noémie.

some consum'acting to start the year...

hey,

here are some cool links you should check out, it's really interesting...

http://www.downhillbattle.org/

http://www.downhillbattle.org/reasons/

http://www.magnetbox.com/riaa/

and...

http://www.whatacrappypresent.com/

thanks for reading and happy new year

noémie