Interesting workshops from Cesuralab …

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A new decade is upon us and we want to make sure we start it well. This spring Cesuralab will host The Dutch Masters Series. 5 Weeks with 5 different photographers all coming from the Netherlands. We would like to give photographers (aspiring and professional) the opportunity to explore new boundaries through the teachings from some of world’s groundbreaking photographers working today.

Over the last two decades the Dutch soil has been raising a large breed of exceptional artists who use a camera as their medium. Every one of them having their own individual style and visual language. Five of them will be coming to Italy.

The Dutch Masters Series will start mid April and ends the third week of May. Art, fashion, portraiture, bookmaking, documentary photography, editing, and much more will be subjects of discussion and assignment. Each photographer will have their own specific way of teaching their workshop, but all will be promising and full of content and insight. Spring in this village in northern Italy is sunny, quiet and carefree, to be enjoyed with delicious food and wine.

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© Nacho Alegre

Nacho Alegre is a spanish photographer that works in the commercial world … usually I don””t refer much to commercial photography but I have to say that the aesthetics of his work is very captivating. The diaries are quite intriguing.

© Nacho Alegre

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The Musee de lElysee in Lausanne, a museum purely for photography run by the writer and curator William A Ewing, is currently showing an exhibition titled Lasting Impressions The Fine Art & Craft of the Steidl Book. In collaboration with the ECAL/University of art and design Lausanne, the museum organized an international colloquium on the future of the Photobook that took place last February … (via sevensevennine)

There are as many ideas of what constitutes the ideal photography book as there are photographers wanting to make them! This unique event brings together a wide range of highly experienced specialists representing all aspects of book production: publishers, printers, production experts, packagers, graphic designers, art directors, typographers, booksellers, historians, curators, critics, journalists and, of course, photographers! (pdf)

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Cesuralab: lots of interesting photography and workshops from a collective with the great Alex Majoli as the artistic director.

We are a photographers collective representing projects online. These projects include photography, video and art. The art director is Alex Majoli.

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Amadelio films is an independent film company working on documentaries about photographers, artists and inventors (more about them here). There are three documentaries already released. I have not watched them but they look quite interesting (there are trailers for each film). The also publish video interviews that you can see here.

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THE GALESBURG SERIES

© Chris Verene

The more you see something the less you actually see it. In ways, it is like sensory sensitization, similar to the process that eliminates the cutaneous mechanical sensation of wearing clothes over the body, you feel it at the start but very soon your brain ignores it. Visual information follows the same path, with a distinctive ability of the brain to reduce attention to the things you see every day, your common surroundings, your family, your lifestyle. It is challenging to find the amusing out of things that have become routine, it is like an impossible exercise to see what you see everyday in a different way.  For this reason I find remarkable when a photographer is able to create art out of his/her place or his/her people.

Chris Verene has been creating art out of his hometown and has been doing it for decades.   THE GALESBURG SERIES (1984-present) is is more than a wonderful series of photographs, it is an example of how to find beauty and charm out of mundane subjects.

THE GALESBURG SERIES

© Chris Verene

THE GALESBURG SERIES

© Chris Verene

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Take a look to the work of Marikel Lahana and you will find excellent portraits, among other work. Her work can also be seen here, in a page that is easier to navigate.

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Fujifilm Instax: this is not a new product as I think it was released to the market more than 1 year ago, but this first time I had seen it was last week when I stopped by at the PMA 2010 conference in Anaheim, California. It is basically like a polaroid system, instant film that comes out of the camera after you take the shot and develops within few minutes. The look and feel is quite similar to the polaroid, and the quality also is comparable, although the range of film types is probably limited.

by hey_juliek

There are a couple of camera and film formats, one that prints business card size images and a larger format that doubles that (see many examples at the flickr INSTAX group). The Fujifilm INSTAX 210, that is the camera that uses the large format INSTAX film, runs for $99 with a close up lens, not inexpensive given that the film cost is about $1 per shot. But for the polaroid fans, this could be al alternative until “The Impossible Project” comes alive … by the way I noticed that The Impossible project has a press event coming March 22nd, 2010 … maybe some great news will be announced then.

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Nathan Harger creates images that are simple in form but sophisticated in the composition of lines and patterns. I particularly like the combination of multi-images that replicate the same pattern with slight variations.

© Nathan Harger

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After all, sound doesn”t add contextual information that can be compared with the visual experience, assumed to be far richer than sound. Or perhaps it is not. Perhaps sound, and mainly some sounds, can cataput the mood of the viewer so to provide a different experience of the visual input. Why not using this approach to create more powerful exhibits, online and in the real world?

Read The 10 Most Addictive Sounds in the World, commenting on the new work by marketing guru Martin Lindstrom , author of Buyology (see Time video). It will make you think about it, perhaps with a different perspective, perhaps to create new blends of sound and images for your next show?

I wonder if anyone has used neuroimaging techniques to determine what defines a good photograph versus an ordinary one, or at least to define which type of subjects, patters, colors do have the largest influence in brain activity and so perhaps in our taste of photography?

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Dennis in Stockings: The first time I dressed as a girl, I was eight years old. I don’t want to be a woman. I am happy the way I am. I just enjoy the kick

Take a look to the work of Freya Najade, a german photographer living in London, specially an ongoing project with the name “If you are lucky you get old” where old people share retrospective thinking about their life. The images feel real and  intimate, a project that reminds the viewer that future feelings are being written by living today. The series has the emotional perspective to involve the viewer, not only from the photography side but also to think on its own story that will be.

© Freya Najade

Dennis in his Room: I have my own house, where I live half of the year. Sometimes I don’t talk for a week to anybody there. In the summer I rent a room in a gay retirement home. I enjoy meeting people of my kind

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I received an e-mail from Eliza Gregory, a photographer and writer that is a member of the core team at Photo Philanthropy, an inspiring organization that aims to enable and promote the use of photography to convey the challenges that communities and people face all over the world.

At their website they publish remarkable photo series from professional, amateurs and students as part of collaborative efforts with non-profit organizations so to inspire action and involvement to change the world. They organize the donation of used cameras to support workshops for children and also offer volunteer opportunties to collaborate with many non-profit organizations working for a broad range of social causes. They also blog about the impact of photography in social change.

Quite extraordinary, quite inspiring, indeed.

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Following the recent trend to simplify the process of photography by using the simplest camera, the iPhone, photographer Jeremy Edwards has created the project, The FROM THE POCKET, featuring images captured using Apple’s iPhone while keeping the editing to the use of various iPhone photography applications only. There are lots of interesting images in this series and this is a demonstration that even with a simple camera it is possible to create art as long as the photographer has the vision. Simplifying the process, having room to explore without the need to succeed has indeed wonderful rewards, at least for Jeremy.

Here he shares some tips for iphoneographers and here you can follow his work in a blog format.

The intention of the project was to highlight the beauty of the ordinary. The motivation of the project is to remain true to the authenticity of spontaneous subjects and minimize unnecessary processing that I’m convinced washes out the organic beauty of simple subjects. For the most part, as it stands today, the growing medium of iphoneography has yet to mature into a substantial art form that is respected by the entire art community. I hope my project will serve as a valuable contribution to the growth of iphoneography with artistic integrity. – Jeremy Edwards

© Jeremy Edwards

© Jeremy Edwards

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Perspectives, a new blog from the Center for Fine Art Photography . Worth to have it in your reading list.

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The first is “The Curator“, the search for outstanding and undiscovered fine art photography, organized by PDN magazine. It is open to anyone and has a deadline of March 8th (extended deadline – with higher entry fees – by March 22nd). The second one is “Image10“, organized by the New York chapter of the American Society of Media Photographers and is open only to photographers residing in the USA (both amateurs and professionals).

Both contests will provide broad visibility to the winners with exhibitions and printed images at PDN magazine and mailers to art directors and creative professionals that may be interested in the finding of new photographers.

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The work of Anastasia Cazabon is about telling stories. Stories that are no more than speaking about the real life as it is recreated from memories. The result is a sequence of images that relate to each other albeit each picture leaves you to wonder about the happenings, each photograph forces you to constructs the story that you like to understand. It is symbolic and it is direct, both qualities combined with exquisite aesthetics and compositions make her photography a craft of reality and fiction.

My images are based on my own childhood. Specifically the fantasy world I made up for myself. I’m the youngest of three sisters and by the time I was five my sisters were on their way to college. So I spent the majority of my childhood alone making up imaginary friends and adventures. My images are recreations of my childhood fantasies. Some are exaggerated and some are completely made up, but all are based on the feelings I had as a child.

These are private moments in a young girls life, memories that usually fade over time. In essence I’m photographing and recreating these very distant memories to further their existence. I have tried to make them as universal as possible, so that people can relate to the images. (via my art space)

A very interesting interview with Anastasia was published last year at the blog “My art Space”. Anastasia is the co-founder of the collective “The Exposure Project” (see their blog here)

© Anastasia Cazabon

© Anastasia Cazabon

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Heidi Romano is a designer, a photographer and the editor of the fantastic photo-magazine “Unless you will“. Here I like to make a brief comment about her photography. There are photographers that have the ultimate goal to create images that are about beauty, not because the subject is beautiful or because the light is beautiful, but because the photograph itself becomes a piece of craft that is beautiful in itself. The excuse and the purpose of the photography is to craft beauty, no need to communicate anything else, no need to describe any matter. It happens often that designers use photography as a tool to craft beauty, and Heidi does so very well, indeed. You can follow Heidi at her blog, “Tales of light“.

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Rita Maas have very interesting work showed at her fine art website.  The series that I find most remarkable is Consumed (under the Recent Work Link). It is a great idea, and very well executed to make beauty of something that was trashed away and convey a strong message.

© Rita Maas

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Strong flash to overcome daylight or the night, bold colors and in your face compositions. The work of Lluis Artus blends the aesthetics of commercial work with the creative interest of personal projects, projects that intend to tell stories of people and culture. In his website you can find excellent series, including La Platja, Urban Culture, and Instinto.

Urban Culture © Lluis Artus

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In between still photography and video there is time lapse photography. In itself this is a difficult technology that challenges with the compression of time and the need to define a photographic sequence that flows well. Rarely the results are as spectacular  as this work of Vancouver. Something to note, is that the visual flow needs to partner with the soundtrack, as both become a necessity for the experience. Again, this work nails it.

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Jeff Seltzer. I love the simplicity of his work. It is about finding elegant patterns from mundane objects.

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$25K award for the audience winner

This was the competition organized by Nikon for videos, “Your day in 140 secs of less” for videos recorded with a DSLR camera. The prizes were quite astronomical ($100K for the judges winner and $25K for the audience winner), highlighting the interest of these companies to promote the use of DSLR cameras for video.

I personally find the trend quite interesting, as it can extend the reach and possibilities of both still photography and video. With multimedia devices now coming along (phones, tablets, etc) it should be easier than ever to mix exhibitions of both still images and video together to enjoy at galleries, museums and of course at home. If you like to peruse the videos you will notice that some of them – e.g.  the audience winner, as in this post-, look similar to video shows of still photography, where the composition, the color, the light and the sequence is as important as in a series of still photographs.

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Lay Flat 02: Meta brings together the works of contemporary photographers whose images are conceptually engaged with the history, process and conventions of the medium itself. Photographs by Claudia Angelmaier, Semâ Bekirovic, Charles Benton, Walead Beshty, Lucas Blalock, Talia Chetrit, Anne Collier, Natalie Czech, Jessica Eaton, Roe Ethridge, Stephen Gill, Daniel Gordon, David Haxton, Matt Keegan, Elad Lassry, Katja Mater, Laurel Nakadate, Lisa Oppenheim, Torbjørn Rødland, Noel Rodo-Vankeulen, Joachim Schmid, Penelope Umbrico, Useful Photography, Charlie White, Ann Woo and Mark Wyse are accompanied by the textual contributions of Adam Bell (Co-editor, The Education of a Photographer), Lesley A. Martin (Publisher/Editor, Aperture Foundation), Alex Klein (Editor, Words Without Pictures), artists Noel Rodo-Vankeulen and Arthur Ou, as well as an interview with James Welling by Lyle Rexer (Author, The Edge of Vision: The Rise of Abstraction in Photography).

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Of course the list have some remarkably influential photographers whose legend extends beyond a decade of influence to be photographers that are in the golden list for many. Of the top list at PDN, if I have to select one photographer, it would be Irving Penn, for his life and work, and for being one photographer that combined art with commercial work and new vision like few others have done. His photography was pure in ways that each photograph was about the essence of the image with the qualities that we all refer to aesthetics excellence , light, composition and interest. Irving Penn passed away in October 7th, 2009, and so it was hist last decade of life, it was an example of how at the old age a photographer with passion is full of creativity.

Irving Penn

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Sometimes the most interesting photographs are the ones that should not be interesting but for reasons that are difficult to explain they turn to be beautiful. Perhaps it is their enigmatic nature what makes them be special, maybe it is the sense of wonder.

Daniel Freytag has many of these images, they are subtle beautiful, and it is difficult to explain why.

© Daniel Freytag

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Don”t miss the report “The Long Haul” and photographs by  Lucian Read on the war in Afghanistan that was posted at the Digital Journalist in the edition of December 09/January 10.  I love this portrait, it is captivating. At his website there are several multimedia series that are very worth to survey. Here is the link to the photographs.

I have been to Afghanistan eight times in the last 18 months. My apartment is slowly taking on the look of a caravanserai. I have more friends in Kabul than Manhattan. My mind is full of snippets of Dari, counterinsurgency strategy and half-remembered warlords, major and minor. My son – not yet quite born – will have a Pashto middle name. I make no claims to being an expert on the place but, God knows, I seem to love it. – Lucian Read

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For the last few months I have been inviting people to visit my apartment and allow me to photograph them in a very intimate space, my bathroom. I have also been inviting them to take a shower as I continue to shoot them. I noticed that once the warm water runs over my subjects bodies it often relieved them from some of the awkwardness the camera brought about. Once they were relaxed, the bathroom, formerly a beauty parlour, now turned in a confessional and I the hair dresser … [Manjari Sharma]

Manjari Sharma is an iIndian born photographer that now resides in New York City. During the few years after her graduation in 2004 her work has received significant attention, something that it is not surprising given the skill and consistency of her photography.

The new series “The Shower”, combines a number of qualities that make it exceptional. It is about people, it is about moments of intimacy and introspection that arises when the subject is taking a shower. It is the light, gently focalized to enhance the gesture of the moment and conveys a sense of intimacy that enrich the impact of the portrait.

If you like to follow her work in the future, you can also take a look to her blog.

© Manjari Sharma

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Sometimes browsing the web leads to the finding of images that suddenly grab my attention because I feel they have something very special, they are elegantly beautiful, well crafted, interesting and more, they are enigmatic.  This happened to me yesterday, while browsing the new upcoming contest by PDN, Faces (curiously the image presented by PDN is cropped and losses a lot of the impact of the original image). The image, that looks to come from the series Mad Men, is from Benjamin Reed,  a commercial photographer located in Los Angeles. Exploring his portfolio I found really excellent work, very creative, with impact, diverse and interesting.

The series Afar Man (read more on the series at his blog) and the Seven Deadly Sins, where each photography represents one of the seven sins, a very creative series, each crafted to perfection. I am quite impressed on how eloquently the images of The Seven Deadly sins display a visual representation of each sin.

from the series Afar Man © Benjamin Reed

from the series The Seven Deadly Sins © Benjamin Reed

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Today I share with you the work of Marcia Jan Bronstien, in particular the series Illuminating the Negative something quite different. This series has three parts and is the result of 9 years of work blending painting with photography but using the negative image as the canvas. The results are quite intriguing and certainly the images look even more stunning when printed and framed. Marcie has published a book that you can preview and purchase at her website.

The following is a conversation between curator Suzette Lane McAvoy and Marcie that gives you the perspective for the inspiration and purpose of her work.

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Illuminating the Negative:

A conversation with photographer Marcie Jan Bronstein

For more than nine years, beginning in 2000, photographer Marcie Jan Bronstein has been exploring the negative image in an ongoing body of work comprised of three series—Infinite Horizons, Dualities, and First Light. In November 2009, Bronstein sat down in her Belfast, Maine studio with curator Suzette Lane McAvoy for a conversation about the origins of the series, her working methods, and her approach to photography.

SLM: What first inspired the negative series?

MJB: The seeds for the series were planted at least 25 years ago, when I was fourteen or fifteen years old, in high school, and working in a darkroom. The darkroom really became my refuge. I loved being there, and I loved working with negatives. I have such strong memories from that time of looking at negatives on a light table. I was never really as interested in looking at contact sheets as I was in looking at negatives through light. So that was probably the beginning, and then the fascination with negatives just kind of lingered in my mind for a while, until years later when I tried to make negative photographs in the darkroom.

SLM: You tried to make your own negatives and print them?

MJB: Yes, I would make a print of an image and sandwich that print on top of a piece of photo paper, so essentially you’re making a contact print, similar to the early practice of using paper negatives. That’s really what I was doing…you take your positive and then you sandwich it onto a piece of fresh paper and then you shine the light through it and you expose it to create a negative print.

SLM: So when was this, that you first began making negative prints in the darkroom, what year was this?

MJB: That would be maybe fifteen years ago, but it was something I kept coming back to. I remember playing with the idea of making negative images when I was living in Italy during the early 1990s. I was using slides, which are positives, and putting the slides in the negative carrier of my enlarger so that I could print the positive slide as a negative image.

(read the rest of the interview after the jump)

SLM: Is part of the challenge then how to display the negative image in a way that the viewer can experience something of that same moment in the darkroom?

MJB: I think that’s a great way to put it, though it was probably more of a challenge than I realized. Because I think for a while the work was received with curiosity but uncertainty, and even discomfort. I saw that when people looked at my early negative images, that there was often a hesitation, perhaps because the look of the image was unfamiliar… For me, the look of the negative was what was entrancing. It seems to glow, and it has a different palette, especially in the mid-tones, it has a hard, crisp line on the highlights and then where the mid-tones and highlights meet you have a softness.

SLM: In A.D. Coleman’s essay, Negative Capabilities, which he wrote in 1999, he describes photographers as often working “in another perceptual dimension” because they spend so much time looking at their own negatives. Do you identify with that?

MJB: Absolutely, yes. You are in another perceptual dimension when you are looking through a camera, framing the world, creating images, and then viewing your negatives…you”re looking at a special kind of record, an imprint of light.

SLM: He also writes that “one could argue that there’s nothing more purely photographic than the negative image.” Do you agree?

MJB: Yes, that’’s perfect. Because the negative holds all of the details that produce the eventual positive, yet oftentimes, information is lost in the journey from negative film to positive print. For me, working in the negative reveals qualities and details that are often unseen in the positive. And it takes me back to the source, which is—light.

SLM: So working with light is what inspires you?

MJB: Absolutely. I think it’’s an exciting and inspiring notion. I”m working with light, directly and palpably. After all, the word “photography” means “drawing with light.” Photographers are attracted to the world of the camera for all sorts of reasons. Some really love the technical side, the equipment, but I’ve never really been a camera lover… for me it’s more elemental or primal—it’s about light and time and images. Early on I worked as a newspaper photographer, printing my own work and that of others—I must have spent nearly fifteen years solid in the darkroom. Anyone who has seen an image rise up out of a bath of chemicals knows that the darkroom is another world—it’s a magical place to be.

SLM: We’ve talked a lot about the darkroom experience and how that contributed to your interest in the negative, but in fact, your current Illuminating the Negative series would not have been possible without digital photography. Can you speak to that?

MJB: Yes, it wasn’t until I moved into the digital darkroom about nine years ago that I could actually start making these photographs. When I was working in the traditional darkroom, making chemical prints on silver paper, and trying to make negative prints, I wasn’t able to get the range in the mid-tones that I was looking for. I wasn’t able to print an image that had the kind of clarity and crispness and wealth of detail that you see in a negative. I just couldn’t do it in the traditional darkroom. So when I went digital—which was a fairly easy transition for me as I was already computer literate—I was finally able to get the definition and detail that I was striving for; I could get the range, I could coax a sense of light from the image, and I could also selectively add color.

SLM: And hand-coloring your prints has been an ongoing practice in your work, hasn’t it?

MJB: Yes, it has. Even in art school, I was often trying to interact with the photographic print somehow; I rarely took straight photographs. I was always trying to do something else with the print afterwards. In the early years, I played with chemical toners, and then, soon after, I started using liquid watercolors to selectively colorize an image. I started out studying painting and sculpture—the focus on photography came along later—so painting and bringing color into the print by hand is something that goes back to my earliest work.

SLM: So you don’t necessarily embrace Ansel Adams’s statement, “the negative is the score; the print is the performance.”

MJB: Well, for Ansel Adams and his work that statement is perfect. For me and my work, the print is more like a painter’’s canvas. I admire a beautifully printed image, but for me it’s never been quite enough, it’’s a starting point rather than the goal. It may be because my art heroes have always been more painters than photographers—Paul Klee, Karel Appel, Matisse, Bonnard—mostly European painters. There are some photographers that have really influenced me, Roy De Carava, for one was a really important early influence, but it’s the way painters approach what they do that is closer to the way I approach what I do.

SLM: Can you describe how you use color in your work?

MJB: There’s a quote I like from Miro—“I try to apply colors like words that shape poems, like notes that shape music.” I start with my image as a base, usually black and white, and then I selectively colorize areas so that with the color, I”m pulling parts of the image forward, and sending other parts back. I”m emphasizing spaces and details, and de-emphasizing others, creating an image that directs a viewer’’s gaze. I never want my images to appear fantastical—I always want them to have at least one foot in “reality”—so the colors I choose, my palettes, are always grounded in some kind of physical reality.

SLM: Let’’s talk about First Light, you”ve said that of the three series within Illuminating the Negative, that this was the first to come together.

MJB: Yes, the First Light series started around the year 2000, when my son Noah was in elementary school. I photographed him and his friends constantly in those days, in the years before adolescence, when their worlds were rooted in play. It’s the transience of childhood, the ephemeral nature of it that the series is about. And really, that’s what photography is about at its core—it’s about transience, about capturing that fraction of a moment. For me, the negative image communicates this idea, very deeply, very poignantly—the idea that life is here, and then it’s gone, that every single moment is here, and then it’s not.

SLM: You mentioned Paul Klee as an influence, and also the world of a young child being rooted in “play.” I know that children’’s art has been a big inspiration to you. Can you speak more about children and their art and this idea of playfulness?

MJB: The art that a child creates, beginning with the sublime act of laying down a line, is uninhibited—it has a purity, an innocence, an unselfconsciousness. Children have no internal editor so that what you see is a “first thought.” This is what Natalie Goldberg, a great teacher of writing and Zen talks about, and it’’s a concept that is key to play. Jung wrote about how children are constantly in touch with other levels of consciousness, especially the sub-conscious, which is where we create and experience our dreams—this really resonates with me.

SLM: Along these same lines, I know that your longstanding study of yoga has had an influence on your work. Can you say something about that?

MJB: The study and practice of yoga has had a big effect on my life and my art. Even the words that infuse the yoga world are the words that interest me in my art world. The idea of being filled with light and air, or moving from the inside out—these are beautiful, metaphorical ideas and images that are at the heart of a yoga practice, and they are the ideas that inspire and inform my image making.

SLM: This focus on the realms of light and air seem to be especially reflected in your Infinite Horizons series.

MJB: Yes, and these images have been the easiest images for me to make. They do speak very directly to the spiritual world, the world outside of us and inside of us—which is of course the same world. The images in this series are meditative. The focus is on the sea and the sky, the wind and the light, and a number of them are titled Meditation.

SLM: And the Dualities series? This is the series that is the most recent of the three, can you talk about how it came to be?

MJB: It started with the image Only Connect, and that’s still the image that is the keystone of the series, or the model for it. It’’s the image that showed me that I could create a kind of journey between two worlds, that I could bridge the negative and the positive, and in effect create a third world. As a series, Dualities has been difficult for me. The images come slowly and I”ve created maybe only a dozen that I’m happy with. Perhaps it’’s because I’m always wary of the pitfall of technique, where an approach to making an image can become a formula, or a method…which is what makes cold art.

SLM: So what makes a good photograph for you?

MJB:

Well, the first word that comes to mind is transporting. Just as in a good novel or a beautiful piece of music, a work of art should take me someplace. When I”m looking at a great work of art, there is the sense that the artist was fully, utterly present in the making of it—and at the same time, sliding out of the way, so that the art can happen. So it feels like it came through the artist, there’’s a sense of channeling. When I”m in the presence of a great work, I always feel a sense of mystery, like “how could this have come to be?” Not in the technical sense, as in “how was this made?”—but way beyond that, to a place of wonder. When I look at my own work, when I come back to it and I can”t really understand how it came to be, then I know that something special happened—I know I was in the groove.

SLM: Let’’s finish by talking about your most recent image, Viaggi nei colori. I see more patterning, a more complex use of color, and a different kind of fusion between the negative and the positive image in this work than previous images in the Dualities series. Is this an indication of where the series is going? Or do you think that your negative work is coming to a close?

MJB:

No, I don’t feel like it is coming to a close. If anything, it may only just be beginning. Viaggi nei colori could certainly be an indication of where the series is going. It’’s more a merging or an integration of the two images, the negative and the positive, so that you don”t travel so distinctly from one realm to another. They”ve come together with color and pattern, and seem to coexist. I like that idea—visually, as well as metaphorically.

Suzette Lane McAvoy is an independent curator who writes frequently on the art and artists of Maine; she is the former chief curator of the Farnsworth Art Museum in Rockland.

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© 2009 Bronstein / McAvoy

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After a long journey and hard work, Tim Briner opens today his series Boonville at the Daniel Cooney gallery in New York City. The opening will be today Jan 7th from 6 to 8 pm, and the exhibition will close on February 27th. I wish I could be in new york to attend as I have followed the making of the project for a long time. Boonville is an interesting photosocial series finding the commonalities across america by photographing 6 different towns with the same name, Boonville.

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This is an interesting contest, and it is free to submit one series of photographs (up to 16 images). If you look at the past winners, the quality of the work is indeed very high, so it may be an interesting opportunity if you like to showcase your work. The deadline for submission is May 31st.

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New York – January 5, 2010 – Hearst Corporation today announced the 2011 international biennial competition to recognize and showcase the professional work of talented young photographers.  The second Hearst 8 X 10 Photography Biennial will recognize eight winners and feature their work in two exhibition spaces in the atrium of Lord Norman Foster’s Hearst Tower, the company’s acclaimed New York City headquarters.  The tower’s Alexey Brodovitch Gallery and Hearst Gallery will showcase approximately 100 photographs beginning in January 2011 through May 2011.  Hearst will publish both digital and print catalogues showcasing works chosen by 10 judges composed of editors, creative directors, curators, and renowned photographers. (read submission rules here)

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I just returned from a short trip to the Salton Sea and it reminded the wonderful photographs from Stephen Tamiesie.  If you visit his website you will find that all his pictures share a common style, photographs that are simple, well composed and remarkably beautiful. Visit his blog for additional work.

© Stephen Tamiesie

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Isabel Tallos is a photographer from Spain. Her work deals with the relations between the human body and the space, both by confining the person to unusual relations with the surrounding space and by altering the perception of gravity. The results are photographs that are elegant by simplicity but have impact.

© Isabel Tallos

© Isabel Tallos

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Steve McCurry speaking about his work and using ink jet printers.

Epson has posted short videos with a number of artists and photographers describing the use of their Epson 900 series printers. Although the videos are certainly a marketing tool for Epson, they are quite interesting and it is a great opportunity to listen to Steve McCurry speak about his work and the printing of the iconic image “Afghan Girl”.

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Jorge Miguel is an amateur photographer from Spain that utilizes digital manipulation to create striking images. Although I am not a big fan of digital manipulation I have to say that I found his series “De cabeza” quite stunning … although the set is not fully cohesive it is nevertheless quite intriguing work.

© Jorge Miguel

© Jorge Miguel

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How do you live with yourself if you know you have done some truly awful things? This man has killed thousands but is on a mission to redeem himself. But does forgiveness and redemption replace justice?

I recently saw the talk by Ryan Lobo at TED and I wanted to refer t his work here. One trend in photojournalism today is to bring into focus the stories that drive the news, the tragedies, conveying most times a sense of despair and human suffering that leaves us with the thinking of impossibility, the feel that things can”t improve. Ryan Lobo usually takes a different perspective. He focuses on the hidden stories, the small stories that are ignored by many other documentary photographers but that represent the texture of the lives of people surrounded by tragedies. These stories provide context to understand and provide a view that is focused on a sense of hope and possibilities, the chance to build up better futures for the people. These are the stories that are ignored but these are the stories that speak loud to the audience and connect the storyteller with the reality of life.

The story of the Redemption of the General Butt Naked is a story where the unimaginable turns reality because of the greatness of the people and the power of forgiveness. A story that speaks about change but also about the irony of justice in places where there is not.

Listen to the TED talk and see his work. It is genuinely uplifting.

Joshua listens to people fighting over food in a slum, some are his former victims

© Ryan Lobo

Children were warned during the war that the general would eat them if they behaved badly

© Ryan Lobo

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Photographers are the producers. The result of their work are the photographs that depict all kinds of subjects and in all kind of styles. And yet, it is so rear that we get to see the photographers as the subjects of the photographs, and yet it is always fascinating to see who is the person behind the work. It is intriguing to learn about the personal story that brought the photographer to become who he/she is, to know about the experiences of doing the work.

Brian Ach created “The Photographer Project” inspired by his colleague and mentor, photographer Paul Hawthorne, that became affected by health problems and unfortunately passed away. Brian set to create a portrait series of over 60 fellow New York City-based celebrity, event and paparazzi photographers at his Brooklyn studio. The portraits were combined with a list of questions that would reveal the stories of the photographers.

The result of this work is a self-published photobook by Brian who will donate a fraction of the proceeds to help Paul Hawthorne’’s family. You can see and purchase the book here.

It is admirable how Brian cared for and supported a colleague, and his family, while producing a fantastic and original series of images. See other references to this project at PDN photo of the day and at Stella Kramer’’s blog.

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The most recent podcast release by Daylight Magazine covers the extraordinary series “Faith” by Christopher Churchill. Don”t miss it, it is really worth to listen to the podcast while looking at the stunning photographs.

Made throughout the United States, the photographs exhibit the diversity of a nation and the ways in which individuals strive to understand their place in the world.

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I learned about the work of british photographer Edmund Clark while reading Lens Culture, describing his intriguing photo assay “Home from Guantanamo” where he photographs locations and details of prison camps at Guantanamo Bay and then later he photographs the homes of some detainees while they have returned home. As interesting the topic is, when you visit his website you will find more photo series with also very interesting topics, and in all cases the quality of the photography is as good as the subject is interesting.

from the series Home from Guantanamo © Edmund Clark

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© Associated Press Photographer Alexandre Meneghini.

Reading the news at LA Times online I found a series of extraordinary portraits of children from Pakistan, by Associated Press Photographer Alexandre Meneghini. Alexandre is an AP photographer that covers news all around the world although he worked in the past most extensively in Latin America. These days he is shooting in Pakistan and Afghanistan and these are a series of portraits of children he meets in Pakistan. These images are touching, they reveal the beautiful essence of children, children that may have their potential broken by lack of opportunity, many of them living in very poor areas or in refugee camps.

In ways these images remind me of the iconic picture by Steve McCurry, “Afghan Girl“, their eyes shout the intensity of their lives. I hope Alexandre completes a larger portfolio and they are published in a photo book. It can be a terrific visual record for many to feel more empathic with the wonderful people of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

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Sarah Roesink is a London based photographer that has the appreciation and ability to find and photograph small details , to capture the gestures that convey the feel of the moment, the atmosphere of the location, the expression of ordinary life.

I love simple, unassuming photographs, that due to their own simplicity they have a presence that connects with the viewer, they are the visual language of the beauty of everyday life. Sara Roesink’’s work is about that, and I like it.

© Sarah Roesink

© Sarah Roesink

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For two years Williams travelled the South, capturing the faces and souls of these men and women. Through the Music Maker Relief Foundation he connected with these musicians, with their pasts and their monumental talents …

The result is a nice series of photographs that connect visually the music with the soul of these artists. Don”t miss the nice video/narration of the series where you can also listen to the songs by the artists, a very nice blend of music and images that conveys very effectively the charisma of these people. For more images visit his site.

© Jimmy Williams

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They grow no food, raise no livestock, and live without rules or calendars. They are living a hunter-gatherer existence that is little changed from 10,000 years ago. What do they know that we”ve forgotten. – National Geographic

See the stunning head shots of the Hadza by Martin Schoeller here and read the incredible article at National Geographic.

It is remarkable how Martin Schoeller has created a “brand” by keeping the same close up format to take portraits of people, with smooth lighting and shallow depth of field each image is made similarly but each picture becomes an example of the amazing diversity of people and the commonalities between them. Close to the camera all individuals are interesting, and all share a feel of humanity that is unifying.

Mustapha (in Swahili) © Martin Schoeller

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And so what did the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, ask the photographer before the shutter clicked? “Platon,” he said, “make me look good.”

This past September, when nearly all the world’s leaders were in New York for a meeting of the United Nations, Platon, a staff photographer for this magazine, set up a tiny studio off the floor of the General Assembly, and tried to hustle as many of them in front of his lens as possible. For months, members of the magazine’s staff had been writing letters to various governments and embassies, but the project was a five-day-long improvisation, with Platon doing his best to lure the likes of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Hugo Chávez, and Muammar Qaddafi to his camera. (fromThe New Yorker)

Listen to the very interesting interview with Platon (iTunes, New Yorker Out Loud Podcast) where he refers to this project as the most grueling work he has ever done in photography.

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