Is there anything more polarizing in contemporary photography than cell phone photos? (Maybe Google Street View photography.)
“1197 Conference” is a whole day of talking about it. You can attend in person in SF or via the Web. Oct 22.
1197 Conference. iPhoneography and Mobile Photography.
Book Review: Saul Leiter: Early Color
Interesting to see equipment site dpreview.com doing photo book reviews. Shocked to find this out-of-print book going for $250-800. Happy to have a copy on my shelf. Leiter’s work is so inspiring, a fresh vision of street photography.
“If you go to the supermarket and buy a package of food and look at the photo on the front, the food never looks like that inside, does it? That is a fundamental lie we are sold every day. Part of the role of photography is to exaggerate, and that is an aspect that I have to puncture.”
— Martin Parr in an interview with the Telegraph
#fotochat with Miki Johnson, Aug 23 (transcript)
If you missed the tweetchat last night with Miki Johnson, here’s the transcript. We were discussing the new models available for funding photography projects, particularly emphas.is which has successfully funded a number of photojournalism and documentary photography projects. Terrific participation from the Twitter photo community and Miki was an engaging and knowledgable guest. Next scheduled chat is Sept 13 with Larissa Leclair, founder of the Indie Photobook Library.
“Car as medium … rotating motorized camera … a series of contiguous horizontal images of buildings and the street on which they are situated … Did Ed Ruscha invent Google Street View?”
— Rob Walker: Ruscha Vs. Street View: Observers Room: Design Observer
Heroes & Mentors: Stephen Shore and Gregory Crewdson
Crewdson: Were your pictures making a commentary of any kind or was it more of a formal investigation?
Shore: Any artist can deal with both content and structure at the same time and have two paths of exploration, so I think they were both going on. In formal terms I wanted to make pictures that looked—the way I put it at the time was “natural.” Today I might use: “less mediated by visual convention.” What was it like to look? What was it like to see the world? And how is that different from the way people photograph? This was part of my interest in snapshots. Every now and then one would come across a snapshot that had this raw, unmediated spontaneity and I wanted to use the form of the pictures to refer to that. At the same time I was also taking pictures that you would never see in a snapshot and so it plays against the form.
(Source: ninaperlman)
Brain Pickings: Photography Speaks: 150 Photographers On Their Art
I’ve been reading Photographers on Photography edited by Nathan Lyons and originally published in 1966. Photography Speaks is in a similar vein, but with contemporary voices.
When you go back, back, back into photo writing from 40, 50, 60 years ago it give you perspective. Photographers in those times struggled with all the same issues we do today, irrespective of technology. I find that comforting, that strive as we might to answer the fundamental questions, our shortcomings are an indication of just how difficult the questions are.
FRESH 2011: Skott Chandler, Harold Ross, Donna J. Wan and Ahron D. Weiner
Curated by W.M. Hunt and Darren Ching
Through Aug 13 at Klompching Gallery
111 Front St, Suite 206
Brooklyn, NY
(212) 796-2070
I don’t know if I’m just more attuned to it, but I seem to be seeing more and more calls for entry popping up all over the Web. One that caught my eye was FRESH 2011, curated by W.M. Hunt and Darren Ching. The results of this competition are now on display at Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn. Having just viewed a number of shows in SF, I realize reviewing from afar, looking at jpegs, is no substitute for seeing prints on the wall, but its better than nothing at all.
The curators’ stated goal was to find new photographers who “fully employ the medium of photography within the context of contemporary photographic practice.” So, this puts the range of potential entrants within a particular scope (a context that, frankly, would preclude my own work, I think.) There is a reasonably vigorous war of words and thoughts about the limitations that the art world conventions impose on photography, excluding certain approaches to the medium. Paul Graham’s essays are the strongest argument for migrating what’s acceptable as art photography away from its connection with conceptual and artificial approaches. The FRESH selections - Skott Chandler, Harold Ross, Donna J. Wan and Ahron D. Weiner - are a counter argument, supporting the non-documentary approaches to photography and championing photgraphers who are grappling with the nature of the medium itself.
Of the four photographers on display, Skott Chandler and Ahron Weiner’s work is the most compelling. Chandler’s time lapse photographs of domestic scenes, shot from an overhead perspective use techniques that deviate from straight photography in almost every dimension. Figures are blurred, perspective is skewed, subjects are demystified. And yet, these deviations from conventional practice combine to represent an authentic view of middle class American life.
Weiner’s project is a clever hack, Bible verses illustrated with compositions created from peeling and shredded advertising posters. These photographs represent repeated actions over time (applying ad posters over one another again and again) within a single moment in time and with a framing to add meaning - through Weiner’s intent and captions - completely divorced from the subject matter visually represented in the posters themselves.
FRESH 2011’s competition approach to the typical group shows held in summer months is a refreshing development. One can only rummage through the archive for beach and pool photos so many times.
David Bram has presented FRESH 2011 in a special Fraction Magazine showcase with an essay by W.M. Hunt.
New Mexico State University 2011 Project: Postcard. Deadline is Aug 19
(Why is the cowboy’s identify censored?)
