B-Mode

Matt Henry

2012-02-20T19:00:00.001Z

Excellent work from Matt Henry and a very intelligent, well written blog to boot..

Amanda Boe

2012-02-20T18:54:00.002Z

Beautiful series here from Amanda Boe here.
Nice to see good work from someone I have never heard of before.

2012-02-20T18:46:00.002Z

Unremarkable Stories
Work in Progress

By
Rob Ball

at The Burton Gallery, CCCU Broadstairs, Northwood Road, Broadstairs, CT102WA

Unremarkable Stories: 1st March 2012 6.30-8.00pm Private View
Public viewing from 2nd March 2012 - 25th May 2012

Far from unremarkable, Rob Ball presents an unsettling dislocation between memory
and actuality, presenting the past through contemporary photographic practice.
This publication and associated exhibition focuses on Ball’s 2011 return to the
modest Essex urbanscape of his teenage years. Neither tender nor critical,
Unremarkable Stories forensically documents the prosaic spaces of his youth.
Whilst his landscapes ostensibly might depict the banal, the specificity of
space nevertheless remains significant; likewise Ball registers the fierce potency
of memory when discussing his return:

…I feel it all coming back; building dens, sitting under the bridge smoking,
scouring the landscape for porno mags and most of all, hanging around because
there’s nothing to do here. The park was our haven – the only place where we would
be left alone.

In rejecting idealised versions of childhood,
we are instead reminded of endless hours spent simply occupying spaces empty of adults.
In Rob Ball’s photographs within the anonymity of the park’s hinterland or the
blandness of the Essex suburban architecture, we are treated to diminutive highlights
of hue. But these glints of colour, far from being generated by some sort of natural
beauty, are rather the consequence of careless youthful disregard. Litter litters each
photograph: the orange plastic shopping bag, the part submerged blue bicycle frame,
the flash of crimson from a discarded coca cola can. Rob Ball’s Unremarkable Stories
makes strange the everyday – the antithesis of ‘showy’, these works quietly insist on
our attention and contemplation.

Dr K.J.ShepherdsonProgramme Director: Photography,
Principal Lecturer, Department of Media, Art & Design
Canterbury Christ Church University

See the work here.

Ken Griffith.

2012-02-19T17:37:00.002Z

I remember printing some of Ken Griffith's black and white work back in the day but couldn't find any of it on line.
I love his colour landscape. Rich and pleasant...

PLACES STRANGE AND QUIET.

2012-02-19T17:11:00.006Z

I mentioned Wim Wenders new book 'Places Strange And Quiet' on here before, but that was before I actually got the book. Well now I have it (I rule) so its worth mentioning the work (and the book) again. The book itself is a really beautiful object and contains short amounts of personal text about some of the images. Small, unpretentious, and almost perfectly formed, apart from the pull out pages which I really don't like as some of them are already damaged.
I could be wrong, but I often get the sense from Wenders photography that there is only one image, or one shot so's to speak. I can't imaging ten frames of the same image with slight adjustments.
Anyway, the thing I like most about the book is it's title. Simple and brilliant.

ONE FOR THE ROAD..

2012-02-18T19:43:00.002Z

Broc Field take 2.

2012-02-18T08:27:00.005Z

Broc Field, UK. 2012
Broc Field, USA. 2006

I mentioned on here last week about returning to a certain themes and subject matter. Last weeks efforts were the haunting urban golf courses of my youth. This week I bring you the stinky Broccoli Field in all its smelly fullness. I have probably shown the Broc Field 2006 image on here many times, but it has done me proud over the last six years and is now in its final edition, so it deserves a little more web time.
The new Broc Field 2012 is not so much a vain attempt to recreate another best seller (for me at least), oh no. This one is a very British affair, made in grey, stormy, wet conditions, the Dark Cloth slapping in ones face together with a bit of bad language and a funny look from the locals.
The only similarities here are Broccoli, and even then the crops are probably very different types. Come to think of it; Can you even grow broccoli here in the UK.?

Well I like it, indeed I like the look of most crops and the uniformity they give in the contrasting landscape..

Conscientious Extended | Meditations on Photographs: Jacob Israel Avedon, Sarasota, Florida, May 15, 1971

2012-02-17T19:39:00.000Z

Conscientious Extended | Meditations on Photographs: Jacob Israel Avedon, Sarasota, Florida, May 15, 1971

2012-02-17T08:21:00.001Z

Photography teaches that how well you see has nothing to do with how well you see..

Working Title

2012-02-16T19:50:00.007Z

Tales From The Crypt 2012.
Dolls House 2012

The Flowery Room 2012

Here's a few wee snippets from my ongoing Masters Project. I really want to come up with a fabulous title, but as I have not awoke in the night with some kind of an epiphany induced heading I shall just go with 'Mercurial Memories Of A Wee Bugger' for now. Wee Bugger was apparently an affectionate term my Mother used when I was a bit naughty, like the time I threw a cantaloupe melon at my sister thinking she would easily catch it with her tiny hands, but instead became unconscious.

Based around childhood memory, we start with Tales From The Crypt, The Crypt being a cave located in the museum where one would hide on school trips and try and scare passers by with howls and monstrous sounds.

Then we have my sisters Doll House, once complete with working lights and a small electric fire (or should I say a red bulb). I decided to photograph the mini house as I found it rather than tidy the furniture and vacuum the carpet. This is simply the way I wanted to depict the subject may refer to my interest in abandoned places (all be it on a tiny scale). It does not suggest a 'broken home' as some have suggested.

Finally we have the Flowery Room. The place were I spent many hours looking up at the peculiar, but reassuring, light filled rectangle of glass while listening to Miami Vice theme tunes longing to be cool.

Now then, where's my tape player...

AFTER AND BEFORE.

2012-02-12T08:19:00.005Z

Pitch and Putt. Carlisle, 2006
Pitch and Putt. Carlisle, 2012

Once in a while I find myself returning to subject matter that I have dealt with before. In this case it was golf courses, shot at night (or in the case above very early in the morning) with long, long exposures and a frosty chin. It's probably fair to say I was obsessed with golf courses at night for some time. Without going into too much detail (around 2006 ish), after a long period of not being able to make any photographs, the firsts ones I made were of a golf course at night. In fact it was this very golf course you see before you.
When I began to shoot the Urban Sprawl, golf courses were a perfect combination of the elements I considered to be worthy of the subject. Artificial light played a big factor here combined with a man-made landscape which often bordered contrasting natural wasteland.
Part of my new work (the mighty MA) includes 'places' from my past and so the approach I had was quite different to the first time I photographed it. To cut a longish story shortish, this particular section of golf course bordered a small forest. As a youngster I would camp in the forest leaving early in the morning before the golfers arrived in there baggy pants.
This particular shot (2012) is in the same area as the one above it (2006). It's just made at a different time of day, with a different angle and no flood lighting, and not forgetting a very long exposure around the one hour mark.. If you look closely at the top image you will see the little flags, same as the newer version..
I would like to think of these images as a After and Before. The Before is an image with a specific purpose and idea in mind (2012), the After (2006) is an image where its reasoning and comprehension comes later. Or something like that.

2012-02-09T18:38:00.000Z

A lot of people like snow. I find it to be an unnecessary freezing of water.

Carl Reiner

Conscientious | Photography and Doubt

2012-02-09T18:37:00.000Z

Conscientious | Photography and Doubt

I LOVE YOU. I JUST DONT TRUST YOU..

2012-02-09T18:35:00.000Z

Kodak phases out digital businesses, keeps film alive
kodak-logo-2

Kodak has announced that, as part of its "ongoing strategic review," it will stop producing digital cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames, but will continue to invest in its film division

Author: Olivier Laurent

09 Feb 2012 Tags: Kodak

Less than a month after announcing that it would seek bankruptcy protection in the US, Kodak has announced that it will stop the production of digital cameras and picture frames, as well as pocket-size video cameras.

"For some time, Kodak's strategy has been to improve margins in the capture device business by narrowing our participation in terms of product portfolio, geographies and retail outlets. Today's announcement is the logical extension of that process, given our analysis of the industry trends," says Pradeep Jotwani, Kodak's chief marketing officer.

However, the firm has moved to reassure film photographers. "Kodak's continuing consumer products and services will include the traditional film capture and photographic paper business, which continues to provide high-quality and innovative products and solutions to consumers, photographers, retailers, photofinishers and professional labs," it says in a statement.

The news comes as Kodak is undergoing a wide-ranging strategic review of its businesses with the "commitment to drive sustainable profitability through its most valuable business lines." But Kodak is quick to point out that the move won't mean the end for Kodak-branded digital cameras. Instead, the firm plans to license its brand to third-party manufacturer - a move that mirrors Polaroid's action in the years leading to and following its own bankruptcy.

Kodak says that it has contacted its retail partners, and is working closely with them to ensure an orderly transition. "Kodak will continue to honor all related product warranties, and provide technical support and service for its cameras, pocket video cameras and digital picture frames."

Kodak also plans to focus its resources on retail-based photo kiosks and digital dry lab systems, consumer inkjet printers and the Kodak Gallery.

Two weeks ago, BJP's technical writer Jonathan Eastland argued that Kodak needed to refocus its business around its film division. "What make them think that digital printing will push their share price up? For Kodak to make digital printers their core business is laughable," he said. "Each time Kodak has discontinued a film, they used the excuse that it represented less than a certain percentage of their turnover, but it's still a percentage of a very large niche market. There are still millions of photographers around the world that are using film, and not hundreds as Kodak seems to suggest. Kodak's got to go back and crunch their numbers about the film market. All people want are these little yellow boxes of film, and that should be their core business, even it means reducing the company's size further."

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/news/2145203/kodak-phases-digital-businesses-film-alive#ixzz1luYVIBNi
Subscribe to BJP and save money. Click here to save 29% today.

2012-02-05T14:24:00.002Z

With the largest amount of snowfall in one lump I have ever seen in that there London, I felt it was my duty to don the long Johns and make haste into the suburban tundra in the early hours this morning. My weapon of choice was my Panoramic Beasty, perhaps not the most appropriate camera for this mornings endeavours, but I fancied a bit of a change from the old 5/4.

One thing I do have is a mighty pair of snow boots which reside in the downstairs loo and only come out on such occasions such as today's avalanche. 'Best thing I have ever bought' I thought as I trudged past an eight foot snowman with a big carrot nose and plastic cups for eyes.

Every year I write the same thing, be it snow, fog, or dramatic weather;
'What better than to explore the familiar which now looks a little different, or in some cases totally transformed'.
Today was no different and everything looked new. Shame my camera took a bit of a beating, somehow getting very wet and a bit tired...

2012-02-04T18:40:00.002Z

From the Road: an exploration of the contemporary landscape photograph

Above Rob Carter, Travelling Still, Tulip Fields, Holland, XIV, 2006, C-type hand print mounted to Diasec, 41 x 41 in / 104 x 104 cm, Edition of 3. (©Rob Carter/Courtesy of Eleven, London).

By Wayne Ford.

‘Landscape photography is the supreme test of the photographer,‘ wrote Ansel Adams (1902-1984), who went on to suggest it was also frequently ‘the supreme disappointment,’ yet the landscape continues to offer artists of every sphere with ‘endless possibilities,’ and forms one of the great reoccurring themes of photographic art, like that of the nude or the portrait.

In From the Road, at London’s Eleven Gallery, we experience the work of eleven very distinct photographers: Rob Carter, Harry Cory Wright, Rick Giles, Ken Griffiths, Paul Hill, Jane Hilton, Josef Hoflehner, Peter Newman, Sam Pelly, Wim Wenders and David Yarrow, each of whom present their own interpretations and experience of the landscape — from the manmade environments of our cities, to the unbridles terrain of the arid desert or icy cold tundra — and have mastered a genre in which Adams frequently found disappointment.

‘Travelling Still is an ongoing series of photographs I've been working on over the last five years,’ says Rob Carter, who works with a revolving lens camera to create his images entirely in camera. As the name of this series suggests, he strives to create the feeling and emotions of movement within the singular frame, and the experience of travelling. Marked by the powerful use of of colour and abstraction, Carter stretches the ‘moment’ both literally — in that the camera shutter is held open — and visually, as the details of his subject blur’s horizontally across the picture’s surface.

Above Harry Cory Wright, City of London, 2010, C print, 58 x 71 in / 148 x 180 cm, Edition of 3. (©Harry Cory Wright/Courtesy of Eleven, London).

In contrast to the abstract images of Carter, and reflecting the varying and diverse techniques employed by each artist in From the Road; Harry Cory Wright approaches his subject in what could be consider a more traditional form. Working with a large-format camera and exclusively in colour, he depicts the landscape that he see’s before him in intricate detail, in his series, Place in Mind, which reflects upon what he calls, ‘our perception of place, space and how we hold ourselves within it.’ Whilst Rick Giles, an artist attuned to the environment in which he lives and works, explores man’s ‘absorbing relationship with nature,’ in works that represent a form of social documentation as he questions the physical and atmospheric changes upon the landscape.

In the work of New Zealand born Ken Griffiths, who prints using the specialised Carbo print process, we experience an immense, almost overwhelming sense of depth and clarity in his images of the American west. A theme also explored by British photographer and filmmaker Jane Hilton, who has documented many aspects of American culture — from legalised prostitution to the fast food style wedding culture of Las Vegas — over the last 20 years. Here we encounter the Nevada Desert through the windshield of a classic Mustang automobile; in the framing of the barren, mountainous landscape, she presents a portrait of a society where landscape and automobile are at one, and that brings to mind the classic road trips of Walker Evans (1903-1975) and Robert Frank.

Above Jane Hilton, Mustang Interior, Nevada Desert, 2008, C-Type hand print, 23 x 28 in / 58.5 x 71 cm, Edition of 10. (©Jane Hilton/Courtesy of Eleven, London).

Like the work of Hilton, the photographs of German born film director and photographer Wim Wenders — many of which are created during his personal travels and whilst location-scouting for his many films — are firmly routed within the documentary genre of photography, with both presenting an ‘intimate portrayal of culture as well as setting’ in their respective work.

Reflecting upon the work of Paul Hill, one of the great masters of British photography, the American artist Lewis Baltz writes, ‘Hill’s photographs position him among those land artists, from Capability Brown and Humphrey Repton to Richard Long, whose special relationship with the land lie at the heart of their aesthetic,’ an aesthetic that is represented in From the Road, by Hill’s seminal work White Peak, Dark Peak, which explores his intimate and very persona relationship with the Peak District. Like Hill, Josef Hoflehner also works in black-and-white, capturing the breathtaking beauty and stillness of Iceland. In Red Morning, 2005, the viewer experiences the captivating contrast between between land and ice, in a graphic image that reveals the ying and yang of the natural world.

Above Wim Wenders, The Black Car, Havana, 1998, Lightjet print, 41 x 95 ½ x 2 in / 103.5 x 242.2 x 5 cm, Edition 6 plus 2 artist proofs. (©Wim Wenders/Courtesy of Eleven, London).

Exploring man’s relationship to the sky, Peter Newman works with photography, sculpture, painting and video, to explore his chosen theme. ‘Gravity dictates the earth contains a buried past of dinosaurs and archeology, the surface reveals the activity of present daily life, but what is above is an empty field of possibility, a space in which to conceive and live the future,’ he says. Working with a vintage ultra wide-angle lens, that captures a 180-degree field of view, adapted to fit a state-of-the-art digital camera; Newman records the view looking upwards, from different cities around the world in his on-going series of photographs entitled Metropoly, the resulting circular prints celebrating the variety of architecture, and the character of each city.

‘At a very young age I discovered cameras; magical instruments that could capture, like a child with a butterfly net, the beauty of it all,’ writes Sam Pelly, who works with large-format Polaroid negatives in his sensitive series Into the Quiet, that is marked by a ‘haunting’ almost ‘painterly’ quality. And in a new body of work, David Yarrow, who is known for his photographs made in often distant locations, explores football pitches in remote and isolated environments.

With their varying experiences and encounters the artists in From the Road, present a very personal and evocative reflection of the landscape which they document, revealing emotions of wonderment, adventure, solitude, and above all beauty.

From the Road is at Eleven, London, until 17 March 2012.

Swiped from Wayne Fords wonderful blog here.

The Classic Combination with Dan Burn Forti.

2012-02-04T16:58:00.004Z

Two nice pics by Dan Burn Forti.
Snow, Fairy Lights, and Night. What more could anyone ask.

I have always liked DBF's work from afar and thought these where just scrumptious.
What I really appreciate about his landscapes is the attention to composition.

More here thank you..

2012-02-04T16:41:00.002Z

As some will know, in between trying to fit an MA in my pocket and other photee related projects, I still find myself with a nice bunch of degree students at Canterbury University. Thursday was a brisk walk along the Margate Coast in what seemed like minus 20 degrees and so cold even my brain felt a bit chilly, even with a woolly hat on. Margate itself is undergoing a transformation of new shops and of course the Turner Contemporary, which is simply superb and promises, Art, Photography and a fantastic Cafe where the Margate Hash is a small revelation. The quality of light in this quaint seaside town, as Turner knew, its like nowhere else in the UK and makes for fabulous seascapes, perhaps with a Doyle Blue sky in there somewhere.

2012-01-30T15:51:00.002Z

Olivier Laurent

30 Jan 2012 Tags: Photographers’ gallery

After investing more than £8.9m in the renovation and extension of its gallery space in London, The Photographers' Gallery has said that it'll be ready to welcome new visitors from 19 May.

The news comes after the gallery faced multiple delays since it closed in September 2010. While initial plans announced a late-2011 reopening, the gallery was forced to delay the unveiling of its new space, which will include three dedicated galleries, an education floor and an "enhanced Print Sales, Bookshop and Café", to early 2012.

The Gallery now says that visitors will have to wait until May to discover the new space, which has been designed by Irish architects O'Donnell + Tuomey. "Providing a platform for an enhanced programme of exhibitions, the generously proportioned galleries will showcase established and emerging photographic talent from the UK and around the world," says the gallery in a statement. "A new environmentally-controlled floor will create opportunities to show more work from archives and museum collections and higher ceilings in the top floor galleries will provide dynamic spaces for large-scale and moving image works."

The gallery's inaugural exhibition programme will include Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky who will showcase more than thirty large-scale images from his Oil series.

The Photographers' Gallery will also show a display by Raqs Media Collective, which includes a silent, looped video projection titled An Afternoon Unregistered on the Richter Scale (2011). "The projection features a series of subtle alterations to an early 20th century photograph depicting a surveyors' room in colonial Calcutta," says the Gallery. "Also included in the exhibition will be a sculptural work entitled 36 Planes of Emotion (2011) that features an ensemble of emotional states printed onto book-shaped objects."

For more details, visit www.photonet.org.uk.

Taken form the BJP

Conscientious | Georg Aerni

2012-01-30T15:50:00.000Z

Conscientious | Georg Aerni

Don't you know who I am..

2012-01-29T18:43:00.004Z

It seems to me in photography (and perhaps lots of other things too) there is a constant repetitiveness regarding photographers. Mention the 60's and its Bailey, Vietnam and its Don Mucullen for example. Then there's the pioneers, Ansel Adams, Edward Weston and perhaps Irving Penn. Names everyone knows, and of course today it is no different with the same names mentioned and shown in the same magazines and in the same galleries. Of course these chappies have there place, but what bothers me is how much work is on par with, and very often better than these repeaters but never gets as much, if any press at all. Take for instance Stephen Shore. I love his work and of course without him colour photography like mine may not exists. But he wasn't the only one doing colour in the 70's. Adam Bartos and John Humble are just two photographers with equal clout image wise, but sadly few people are as familiar with these names as with Shore the mighty pioneering, silver haired photographic genius that is.
I have always found it interesting how a photographer can climb the social ladder. Sometimes they are pioneers like Weston and Adams, sometimes they are simply the best at what they do, and sometimes there work is far from worthy but the right people have placed them there.

Its a weighty topic and too vast for me to blog here. Just thought I would throw it out there.

Andy Sewell.

2012-01-29T09:22:00.002Z

Andy Sewell.

I never had much time for Andy Sewell's The Heath, although I did admire the tackling of what I considered to be a rather dull subject of a scruffy park I used to live next too. The work just didn't stimulate me visually, but that's not to say it is not good work. Sewell's Another Country, on the other hand, is just an orgy for the senses and I love it. Still ongoing, I look forward to seeing the finished project. It's really quite something and an excellent portrayal of a certain kind of Britishness. The work is consistent and fresh and on par with The Heath in that Sewell is not afraid to make images of the everyday mundane.

2012-01-27T14:48:00.003Z

I used to carry a small camera everywhere, but regrettably that doesn't really happen much now. It is true that I slate cameras-on-phones often, but sometimes you just have to.. (see above).

'Why hasn't anyone made a camera with a phone attached?'

CAIRO DIVIDED.

2012-01-27T14:40:00.003Z

A MEGACITY TURNS
ITSELF INSIDE OUT

THE PUBLICATION

An unique text and photo essay explores Egypt's sprawling metropolis as it undergoes one of the most dramatic transformations in its history. Released as part of a new project bringing writers and photographers together on in-depth works, it is available for free in a one-off newspaper format - order details are below.

For fourteen centuries, Egypt’s capital has risen within a pair of stubbornly-persistent natural boundaries – the Moqattam clifftops to the west, and the Saharan desert to the east. Now for the first time Cairo is bursting its banks, sending boutique villas and water-hungry golf courses tumbling into the sand dunes, and reshaping the political and psychological contours of the largest megacity in Africa and the Middle East.

Amid an uncertain tide of political change, the controversial ‘satellite cities’ project is dramatically transforming peripheries into new urban centres and consigning old focal points to a life on the margins. Against the backdrop of national revolution, photographer Jason Larkin and writer Jack Shenker collaborated for two years to produce ‘Cairo Divided’, a free hard-copy publication exploring the capital’s rapidly-mutating urban landscape.

THE AUTHORS

Jason Larkin is a documentary photographer and part of the Panos photo agency in London. Previously based in Cairo, his career has seen him shooting for international periodicals across the Middle East, Africa and Central Asia. His work has been recognized with multiple awards, including the prestigious PDN Arnold Newman Portraiture prize. He is currently based between London and Johannesburg - http://www.jasonlarkin.co.uk.

Jack Shenker is a London-born writer who has reported from across the globe, with work spanning Central Asia, the Indian subcontinent, Gaza and the Mediterranean. Since 2008, he has been Egypt correspondent for the Guardian, and his coverage of the 2011 Egyptian revolution won the Amnesty International Gaby Rado award for excellence in human rights journalism. He is currently based in London and Cairo - http://www.jackshenker.net.

English-Arabic translation provided by http://www.industryarabic.com.

HOW TO ORDER

Hard copies of ‘Cairo Divided’ are available at no cost beyond postage and packaging fees. If you would like to order the publication in bulk for hand-out at your institution please contact Jason Larkin directly.

Go here for the original site.

2012-01-24T19:18:00.000Z

Not a bad idea that.

A MATURE STUDENT AND THE KINDOM OF THE LEATHER SKULL

2012-01-23T19:30:00.003Z

Since I decided to do my MA project based around childhood memories (not the soft focus fairy type images mind you) I have been busy searching the windmills of my mind for ideas and inspirational thoughts of my past. The train ride North, with a third off, was an excellent place to begin my simmered broth of memories.
As soon as I arrived at the old folks house I was up in the loft like a squirrel, sifting through the countless bags of tatt-slash-potential photo fodder. After a bit of rummaging and wiping away of cobwebs, I stumbled upon the above; My sisters first pair of shoes. Most will see a lovely soft leather shoe, but not I. All I seen was a little skull staring at me, ready to bite my toes or nibble my finger. For a long time my Mum told me; "Denee be daft.." But after showing her this image she finally changed her mind (only took thirty years).
Why my mother kept this kind of thing is a mystery to me, but I'm certainly glad she did..

2012-01-17T20:31:00.000Z

‘We don't take pictures with our cameras. We take them with our hearts and we take them with our minds, and the camera is nothing more than a tool.’
Arnold Newman

WHAT TO DO.

2012-01-17T19:20:00.004Z

Shot on my iphone

As my studies take hold regards my new MA endeavours I have often found myself in conversation regarding cameras and the grand film verses digital debate, or as it should now be called; the digital verses what's left of film debate. Many students want to return to film, and of course I don't blame them.
The article below got me thinking about Kodak and how after they brought the first digital camera to the market place, everything started to go down hill for the company I now officially despise. A similar thing has happened in the compact digital market and the invention of the phone with a built in camera. I mean why would you take a phone and a camera on holiday when you could just take a phone, especially now the mega pixel is up and the lenses vastly improved (Schneider nailed that one).
So I think its safe to say that students may find themselves in a bit of a pickle. The production of mid range digital cameras are on the decline, the top end ones cost as much as a new car, analogue cameras may now cost peanuts, but film prices are on the rise with a box of 5/4 double what it was this time last year and quadruple what it was five years ago! and of course let us also not forget about films very wobbly future.
But there is an answer.....
Buy a new phone.

2012-01-16T19:49:00.001Z

Technological change

The last Kodak moment?

Kodak is at death’s door; Fujifilm, its old rival, is thriving. Why?

Jan 14th 2012 | NEW YORK AND TOKYO | from the print edition

LENIN is said to have sneered that a capitalist will sell you the rope to hang him. The quote may be spurious, but it contains a grain of truth. Capitalists quite often invent the technology that destroys their own business.

Eastman Kodak is a picture-perfect example. It built one of the first digital cameras in 1975. That technology, followed by the development of smartphones that double as cameras, has battered Kodak’s old film- and camera-making business almost to death.

Strange to recall, Kodak was the Google of its day. Founded in 1880, it was known for its pioneering technology and innovative marketing. “You press the button, we do the rest,” was its slogan in 1888.

By 1976 Kodak accounted for 90% of film and 85% of camera sales in America. Until the 1990s it was regularly rated one of the world’s five most valuable brands.

Then came digital photography to replace film, and smartphones to replace cameras. Kodak’s revenues peaked at nearly $16 billion in 1996 and its profits at $2.5 billion in 1999. The consensus forecast by analysts is that its revenues in 2011 were $6.2 billion. It recently reported a third-quarter loss of $222m, the ninth quarterly loss in three years. In 1988, Kodak employed over 145,000 workers worldwide; at the last count, barely one-tenth as many. Its share price has fallen by nearly 90% in the past year (see chart).

For weeks, rumours have swirled around Rochester, the company town that Kodak still dominates, that unless the firm quickly sells its portfolio of intellectual property, it will go bust. Two announcements on January 10th—that it is restructuring into two business units and suing Apple and HTC over various alleged patent infringements—gave hope to optimists. But the restructuring could be in preparation for Chapter 11 bankruptcy.

While Kodak suffers, its long-time rival Fujifilm is doing rather well. The two firms have much in common. Both enjoyed lucrative near-monopolies of their home markets: Kodak selling film in America, Fujifilm in Japan. A good deal of the trade friction during the 1990s between America and Japan sprang from Kodak’s desire to keep cheap Japanese film off its patch.

Both firms saw their traditional business rendered obsolete. But whereas Kodak has so far failed to adapt adequately, Fujifilm has transformed itself into a solidly profitable business, with a market capitalisation, even after a rough year, of some $12.6 billion to Kodak’s $220m. Why did these two firms fare so differently?

Both saw change coming. Larry Matteson, a former Kodak executive who now teaches at the University of Rochester’s Simon School of Business, recalls writing a report in 1979 detailing, fairly accurately, how different parts of the market would switch from film to digital, starting with government reconnaissance, then professional photography and finally the mass market, all by 2010. He was only a few years out.

Fujifilm, too, saw omens of digital doom as early as the 1980s. It developed a three-pronged strategy: to squeeze as much money out of the film business as possible, to prepare for the switch to digital and to develop new business lines.

Both firms realised that digital photography itself would not be very profitable. “Wise businesspeople concluded that it was best not to hurry to switch from making 70 cents on the dollar on film to maybe five cents at most in digital,” says Mr Matteson. But both firms had to adapt; Kodak was slower.

A culture of complacency

Its culture did not help. Despite its strengths—hefty investment in research, a rigorous approach to manufacturing and good relations with its local community—Kodak had become a complacent monopolist. Fujifilm exposed this weakness by bagging the sponsorship of the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles while Kodak dithered. The publicity helped Fujifilm’s far cheaper film invade Kodak’s home market.

Another reason why Kodak was slow to change was that its executives “suffered from a mentality of perfect products, rather than the high-tech mindset of make it, launch it, fix it,” says Rosabeth Moss Kanter of Harvard Business School, who has advised the firm. Working in a one-company town did not help, either. Kodak’s bosses in Rochester seldom heard much criticism of the firm, she says. Even when Kodak decided to diversify, it took years to make its first acquisition. It created a widely admired venture-capital arm, but never made big enough bets to create breakthroughs, says Ms Kanter.

Bad luck played a role, too. Kodak thought that the thousands of chemicals its researchers had created for use in film might instead be turned into drugs. But its pharmaceutical operations fizzled, and were sold in the 1990s.

Fujifilm diversified more successfully. Film is a bit like skin: both contain collagen. Just as photos fade because of oxidation, cosmetics firms would like you to think that skin is preserved with anti-oxidants. In Fujifilm’s library of 200,000 chemical compounds, some 4,000 are related to anti-oxidants. So the company launched a line of cosmetics, called Astalift, which is sold in Asia and is being launched in Europe this year.

Fujifilm also sought new outlets for its expertise in film: for example, making optical films for LCD flat-panel screens. It has invested $4 billion in the business since 2000. And this has paid off. In one sort of film, to expand the LCD viewing angle, Fujifilm enjoys a 100% market share.

George Fisher, who served as Kodak’s boss from 1993 until 1999, decided that its expertise lay not in chemicals but in imaging. He cranked out digital cameras and offered customers the ability to post and share pictures online.

A brilliant boss might have turned this idea into something like Facebook, but Mr Fisher was not that boss. He failed to outsource much production, which might have made Kodak more nimble and creative. He struggled, too, to adapt Kodak’s “razor blade” business model. Kodak sold cheap cameras and relied on customers buying lots of expensive film. (Just as Gillette makes money on the blades, not the razors.) That model obviously does not work with digital cameras. Still, Kodak did eventually build a hefty business out of digital cameras—but it lasted only a few years before camera phones scuppered it.

Kodak also failed to read emerging markets correctly. It hoped that the new Chinese middle class would buy lots of film. They did for a short while, but then decided that digital cameras were cooler. Many leap-frogged from no camera straight to a digital one.

Kodak’s leadership has been inconsistent. Its strategy changed with each of several new chief executives. The latest, Antonio Perez, who took charge in 2005, has focused on turning the firm into a powerhouse of digital printing (something he learnt about at his old firm, Hewlett-Packard, and which Kodak still insists will save it). He has also tried to make money from the firm’s huge portfolio of intellectual property—hence the lawsuit against Apple.

At Fujifilm, too, technological change sparked an internal power struggle. At first the men in the consumer-film business, who refused to see the looming crisis, prevailed. But the eventual winner was Shigetaka Komori, who chided them as “lazy” and “irresponsible” for not preparing better for the digital onslaught. Named boss incrementally between 2000 and 2003, he quickly set about overhauling the firm.

Mount Fujifilm

He has spent around $9 billion on 40 companies since 2000. He slashed costs and jobs. In one 18-month stretch, he booked more than ¥250 billion ($3.3 billion) in restructuring costs for depreciation and to shed superfluous distributors, development labs, managers and researchers. “It was a painful experience,” says Mr Komori. “But to see the situation as it was, nobody could survive. So we had to reconstruct the business model.”

This sort of pre-emptive action, even softened with generous payouts, is hardly typical of corporate Japan. Few Japanese managers are prepared to act fast, make big cuts and go on a big acquisition spree, observes Kenichi Ohmae, the father of Japanese management consulting.

For Mr Komori, it meant unwinding the work of his predecessor, who had handpicked him for the job—a big taboo in Japan. Still, Mr Ohmae reckons that Japan Inc’s long-term culture, which involves little shareholder pressure for short-term performance and tolerates huge cash holdings, made it easier for Fujifilm to pursue Mr Komori’s vision. American shareholders might not have been so patient. Surprisingly, Kodak acted like a stereotypical change-resistant Japanese firm, while Fujifilm acted like a flexible American one.

Mr Komori says he feels “regret and emotion” about the plight of his “respected competitor”. Yet he hints that Kodak was complacent, even when its troubles were obvious. The firm was so confident about its marketing and brand that it tried to take the easy way out, says Mr Komori.

In the 2000s it tried to buy ready-made businesses, instead of taking the time and expense to develop technologies in-house. And it failed to diversify enough, says Mr Komori: “Kodak aimed to be a digital company, but that is a small business and not enough to support a big company.”

Perhaps the challenge was simply too great. “It is a very hard problem. I’ve not seen any other firm that had such a massive gulf to get across,” says Clay Christensen, author of “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, an influential business book. “It was such a fundamentally different technology that came in, so there was no way to use the old technology to meet the challenge.”

Kodak’s blunder was not like the time when Digital Equipment Corporation, an American computer-maker, failed to spot the significance of personal computers because its managers were dozing in their comfy chairs. It was more like “seeing a tsunami coming and there’s nothing you can do about it,” says Mr Christensen.

Dominant firms in other industries have been killed by smaller shocks, he points out. Of the 316 department-store chains of a few decades ago, only Dayton Hudson has adapted well to the modern world, and only because it started an entirely new business, Target. And that is what creative destruction can do to a business that has changed only gradually—the shops of today would not look alien to time-travellers from 50 years ago, even if their supply chains have changed beyond recognition.

Could Kodak have avoided its current misfortunes? Some say it could have become the equivalent of “Intel Inside” for the smartphone camera—a brand that consumers trust. But Canon and Sony were better placed to achieve that, given their superior intellectual property, and neither has succeeded in doing so.

Unlike people, companies can in theory live for ever. But most die young, because the corporate world, unlike society at large, is a fight to the death. Fujifilm has mastered new tactics and survived. Film went from 60% of its profits in 2000 to basically nothing, yet it found new sources of revenue. Kodak, along with many a great company before it, appears simply to have run its course. After 132 years it is poised, like an old photo, to fade away.

CRISPY MORNINGS.

2012-01-15T08:24:00.004Z

Getting out early these past few crispy mornings has been a real joy. It can be a Zen like experience with just a simple camera and in this case a few sheets of film.
The simple mechanics of a large format camera are often overlooked by many, but the well oiled cogs of a bygone analogue age will always have the advantage over batteries that drain in the cold and over sensitive sensors that prefer to be in a studio with a cup of coco and a copy of Digital Monthly (I will leave it there).
Someone once told me that;
'Analogue should be a continual flowing movement and if you have to force it, you are doing something wrong.'
Although this referred to the mechanics of analogue, I also like to think of it as a way of approaching a subject and the actual picture making itself.
My photography is a lot more selective now, which I guess is something that comes with time. In the past I often preferred to shoot late in the day and into the night. The reason being that I wasn't trying to 'beat' the darkness before the sun came up, or as I would put it; 'Having to count backwards.' But I have grown to like the closure one gets when the sun does rise, some of those nights were very long and often filled with silly mistakes as the tiredness descended (think double exposures, forgetting to pull the dark slide, falling asleep in fields with cows in etc)... Of course that's not to say that the night is not calling, or a bright warm sunny day for that matter..

Exclusive: How are the UK largest museums investing in photography? - British Journal of Photography

2012-01-11T19:44:00.000Z

Exclusive: How are the UK largest museums investing in photography? - British Journal of Photography

And there off...

2012-01-10T20:13:00.002Z

And so it is that my first post as an MA student takes its place in the history of Marcus Doyle.
I am not even sure how I arrived at this junction in my photographic career, but that's not so important right now.

What looks to be an interesting twelve months ahead is about all I can say at the moment, so in the words of that Plato fella;

"The beginning is the most important part of the work".

I have also decided not to do a second blog as that would just be plain crazy..

2012-01-09T19:22:00.004Z

I was a little late in posing the article below, but having just read it again I thought it was worth posting anyway.
I love the idea of sitting on a project for so long before releasing the work and agree with old M that the images are more poignant now than they would of been nearer the time of the Oakland fire (see article).
And of course I have to add, What a studio!

2012-01-09T19:22:00.001Z

Richard Misrach: A focus on the after-story

August 1, 2011 1:00 pm by Tracey Taylor

Richard Misrach in his Emeryville studio where he has worked since 1976. Photo: Tracey Taylor

Richard Misrach is nothing if not patient.

When, in 1997, the renowned photographer moved into a home in the Berkeley hills and decided to capture his new view of the Golden Gate Bridge, he didn’t just take a few dozen shots and leave it at that.

Rather, over the course of three years, he shot hundreds and hundreds of photographs. The result was Golden Gate [Aperture, 2005], 85 beautiful meditations on the iconic bridge seen through the seasons from a single vantage point on his front porch.

Similarly, when Hurricane Katrina swept through the Gulf Coast in August 2005, Misrach took his time before making the journey to New Orleans to document it. He waited until October, after the turmoil and drama had abated, to capture images of a post-storm calm that were no less dramatic.

The Oakland-Berkeley hills in the aftermath of the 1991 Firestorm. Photo copyright Richard Misrach

But the most striking evidence of Misrach’s self-discipline must surely be his decision to wait 20 years before revealing the fruits of one of his major photographic projects. It is only now that the photographer is unveiling – in some cases printing for the first time — the photographs he took in the aftermath of the 1991 Oakland-Berkeley Firestorm.

His images will be shown at two exhibitions opening in October — at the Berkeley Art Museum and the Oakland Museum of California – scheduled to coincide with the 20^th anniversary of the devastating fire.

“I didn’t want to release the photographs straight away,” Misrach says, speaking in his studio, a cavernous space in an artists’ cooperative in Emeryville where he has worked since 1976.

“The meaning of photographs changes over time,” he says, explaining that he aims for his work to be the opposite of reportage or journalism. “Photographs can be really exploitative and I don’t want to be part of a media circus. History shifts the meaning.”

Misrach concedes it’s a gamble to wait for so long before unearthing work from storage. Out of the some 40 images in the upcoming exhibitions, and the book that will accompany them, only five have been exhibited before, in 2005.

“It’s interesting: I don’t know what I’ll see. And I’ve forgotten the logistics – was it three days after the fire when I took the photos, or four?

“But it feels right,” he continues. “The photographs are more poignant now.”

One of the images that will be on show at two local exhibitions this Fall. Photo: copyright Richard Misrach

Misrach speaks in the same vein about the images he created of the eerily empty streets of New Orleans two months after the hurricane had careened though.

“I am attached to Louisiana and didn’t want to be part of a spectacle,” he says.

Granted a press pass by The New York Times Magazine, Misrach took a small 4MP Canon Powershot digital camera and shot most of the photographs almost on the hoof, a far cry from his trademark approach of using an 8 x 10 camera to produce painstakingly composed photographs that emerge as large-scale prints.

“I took 2,000 photos on the fly – sometimes from the car. It was the after-story, and it was post-apocalyptic,” he says. A number of images taken with a bigger camera have yet to be released.

The photographs, published in Destroy this Memory [Aperture, 2010], show the messages that officials and homeowners spray-painted onto houses, cars and scraps of board after the storm — whether to record the extent of the devastation or in reaction to it. The scrawls — warnings, pleas, even jokes — show a very human response to ruined lives.

This photograph, of a melted tricycle, will be presented in Misrach's signature large-scale format. Photo: copyright Richard Misrach

“I am here, I have a gun,” reads one; “Help! Help!” another; “Looters shot – survivors shot again,” is written in capital letters on a piece of plywood propped up against a tree; “RIP Thomas Burke, aka Tab,” is marked in blue chalk on a boarded-up garage.

“They are like primitive text messages,” Misrach says. “People’s graffiti showed both anger and humor and together they built a narrative.”

Misrach gifted full sets of the New Orleans prints to five museums and donated royalties from the book to the Make it Right Foundation.

He has also donated two full collections of the Berkeley-Oakland firestorm images to the Oakland and Berkeley museums that are exhibiting them this fall.

Misrach’s Berkeley roots go deep. He cut his teeth working with photographer Roger Minick at the ASUC Studio, a student arts facility at UC Berkeley from where he graduated in 1971.

“The first time I saw photographs as art in the studio I knew that’s want I wanted to do,” he says. “Roger held my hand. He was 22 and I was 19 but he seemed ‘so old’ to me. I looked up to him like a father figure.”

Misrach recalls how he started by working as a lab assistant at the studio – “a glorified janitor” he clarifies — mopping floors and cleaning up chemicals so he could use the facilities for free once the lab was empty at night.

“I would work from 11 p.m. through the morning,” he says. “They were lean times, I was house sitting and living in a van.”

Misrach captured the devastation caused by the Firestorm. Photo: copyright Richard Misrach

Misrach’s first book “Telegraph 3am” [Cornucopia Press], black-and-white shots of street people taken on Telegraph Avenue, was published in 1974.

He went on to produce a highly regarded body of work — shooting in deserts at night, on the parched Bonneville salt flats, and in Mississippi’s Cancer Alley – his lens always focused on man’s relationship with nature, and bringing a socio-political edge to all his images

Misrach is considered one of this century’s most acclaimed photographers and is work is represented in more than 50 major museum collections around the world.

These days, the huge prints propped up around his studio and stacked flat in layers, like so many outsize millefeuilles, bear testament to the fact that he is experimenting. He says he has not used film for the past three years, and is working with digitally scanned negatives. “I’m moving from representational to experimental. I like the kind of work that always stretches me.”

The politics and culture of Berkeley, where he lives with his wife, the writer Myriam Weisang Misrach, have affected him profoundly, he says. Some of his earliest photographs were taken while he was being tear-gassed at anti-war riots on the Cal campus in 1969.

“Being in Berkeley was critical. My interest in aesthetics and politics merged and have been fighting each other ever since,” he laughs.

“If it weren’t for Berkeley I would be doing pretty landscapes.”

“1991: Oakland-Berkeley Fire Aftermath, Photographs by Richard Misrach” is at the Oakland Museum of California, October 15, 2011 through February 12, 2012, and at the Berkeley Art Museum, as well as a companion exhibition, “Richard Misrach: Photographs from the Collection”, from October 12, 2011 through February 5, 2012. An accompanying exhibition at OMCA will allow visitors to share their memories of the Firestorm.

The complete set of “Telegraph 3 a.m” is on view at Pier 24 in San Francisco. Many of the images from “Destroy This Memory” are currently on view at SF MOMA in its “Face of Our Time” exhibition.

2012-01-09T19:12:00.000Z

Some photographers have vision, and other photographers have a vision. In other words, some photographer’s work is about seeing, while other photographers have a particular vision.
Stephen Shore

2012-01-08T19:24:00.002Z

If truth be told I have been waiting for a frosty morning since October 2011 here in that there London and it just hasn't happened. And so this morning I made my way in the dark of the early hours armed with my big tripod and 5/4 camera. Its been many moons since I was last out in the dark, but the senses were as sharp as ever, may be even super sharp.. I guess the combination of workshops and tutorials over the past year has made me practice what I preach. That and may be the twenty odd years using the same techniques.

Character is what you are in the dark..
Dwight Moody

NIGHT/SHIFT. PHOTOGRAPHS BY LYNN SAVILLE.

2012-01-06T10:29:00.002Z

NIGHT/SHIFT. PHOTOGRAPHS BY LYNN SAVILLE.
Introduction by Arthur C. Danto. The Monacelli Press, a division of Random House, New York. Clothbound;142 pages; 85 color plates. ISBN No. 978-1-58093-21906. Information: http://www.monacellipress.com , or http://www.lynnsaville.com .

This compelling and beautifully reproduced collection of New York city nightscapes places photographer Lynn Saville in heady company, and not merely that of the Weeges or Arbuses who once codified the modernist dark side of Manhattan. As Columbia University professor and The Nation's art critic Arthur C. Danto writes in his introduction, Saville is "the Atget of vanishing New York, prowling her city at the other end of the day, picking up pieces of the past in the present, just before it is swallowed by shadows."

The comparison is apt if inverted, since Atget chronicled an early-morning, near-deserted Paris, while Saville has specialized in nocturnes, pitting familiar objects against a luminous night sky, and now turns a color-saturated, ambient-lit style toward a similarly deserted New York, just as evening falls. The peaceable moodiness of these urban meditations conveys a near-religious radiance. It belies the urban, quotidian emphasis on industrial sites, elevated train trestles, a garish Nathan's hot dog joint against the undiminished azure sky. Meanwhile, the slick streets, multi-level parkland, classical archways, steel girders, raw facades, glaring lampposts and illuminated windows of the city are enriched for us, as Saville's camera frames them with an eye for fascinating detail and Renaissance perspective--the Bethesda fountain, for example, glimpsed in blue winter twilight from beneath a far arcade, or a view of the Manhattan skyline from behind New Jersey's iconic waterfront Pepsi-Cola sign.

Saville's "Night/Shift" may well bear comparison to past masters, but it also evokes the contemporary night vision of another photographic artist, Marcus Doyle, who likewise deals in ambient light, long exposures, unpeopled locales and saturated color. But where Doyle's images are often so far removed from urban iconography that they take on the aura of alien shrines, Saville's remain doggedly devoted to revisioning the familiarities of the city. And yet one photo, of the sterile corners of Wyeth Avenue, feels otherworldly, and is bisected down the middle by a lamp pole, all of it echoing a Doyle image that similarly breaks the modernist rule against symmetry in framing a foregrounded vertical element.

Indeed, Saville is part of a photographic vanguard, one that drinks deeply of the possibilities of available light, hyper-real color and evocative yet unromanticized subject matter. And just as her work may inspire comparison to photographic pioneers such as Atget, they also remind us of painterly masters such as Edward Hopper, who found a visual vocabulary that bespoke modern isolation without indulging in cheap effect or overstatement. Lynn Saville's photographs are in such a grand tradition, yes, but their real strength is that they seem to be establishing a new tradition as well.

R.I.P Eve arnold.

2012-01-05T15:37:00.004Z

I was saddened to hear that Eve Arnold passed away this week at the ripe old age of 99.
The image above has been on my wall for many years having come by the print in my early days of printing. It has survived five house moves, one of which was to the USA, and has long been a favourite image. What few people don't know is that the entire roll of film that this image is from has a scratch running all the way through it. A challenge to spot if ever there was one (no Photo Shop back then).
Such timeless and touching images may never more be created thanks to publicists and the like guarding their ten percent..

LET US BEGIN..

2012-01-03T19:59:00.004Z

Despite getting the feeling that I have lost my entire readership, I will continue to write due to my delusions of grandeur in thinking that I am an inspiration to those young upcoming photographers who like to make landscape images.

If I never read the papers, watched the news, and listened my neighbours, it would appear that the future is quite bright for the one they call the Doyle.

A new year with promise of change and direction began with an entire overhaul of my printed portfolio, a mini retrospect if you will. So after removing the cobwebs, books piled on top of, tax returns, love letters and a pair of squashed sun glasses, I got under way.
I had forgotten just how exquisite a hand print can be and it was a joy to ponder through a mountain of images fuelled only by 'Mr Espresso' and a new found enthusiasm. The old was mixed with the new and after a day of editing I had the 96 page, grey cloth bound beast ready for viewing.
So now I say to you all;

LET US BEGIN...

During my edit orgy I found this rather nice image of an old dried up leaf which makes a nice 6/4" postcard should you wish to print out a copy for yourself..

AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS to you..

2011-12-22T20:04:00.003Z

Well it's about this time of year when bloggers write some meaningful piece of blob about how we should all be kind to one another with peace on Earth and all that. Very nice that may be, but writing it it won't change the world. But what do I know..

Make sure to check out my new blog (One Elephant) which will run along side this one (in theory) and will commence in January. It's sure to be full of fun, angst, and may be the odd fight with a student or an unsuspecting tutor as I study for a Masters in photography.

So Stay Hungry, Get Fat, and remember the boy who got everything he ever wanted.

He lived happily ever after...

2011-12-19T10:06:00.000Z

THINGS WE LOST..

2011-12-17T07:31:00.008Z

Red Cardigan. Military hospital Germany.
Shoe. Salton Sea 2006
Shoes. Auschwitz Memorial. Anon
Chris Jorden. Katrina's Wake.

Seeing David Zimmerman's excellent series 'Last Refuge' (see below and here) reminds me of just how moving, and at the same time disturbing, images of discarded clothing can be. My first guess is that we always think the worst if we stumble upon something not easily discarded, like a pair of pants, or an undergarment, or heaven forbid, a small single shoe (gloves, hats and scarf's don't count). But why wouldn't we think automatically of a disastrous scenario when often the pictures we are presented with are just that (see above).

As so much photography is about story telling, it comes as no surprise that so many photographers make projects on such strange and mysterious subject matter as that of a rotting pair of pumps or an old string vest.

2011-12-17T07:21:00.001Z

Clothing as Artifact: David Zimmerman’s ‘Last Refuge’

David Zimmerman

Untitled (last refuge 194), 2011

Though he’s spent over a decade photographing at-risk landscapes, some of the most unique topography photographer David Zimmerman has seen is found in the folds of fabric.

Zimmerman, a landscape photographer based in New Mexico and New York, began his project Last Refuge, in which he photographed piles of clothing and remains from an off-the-grid community, almost by chance. As the economy took its toll on broad swaths of American life, Zimmerman increasingly saw groups of people who had either lost their jobs or houses, and were, as the photographer describes, “increasingly desperate to survive.” These aren’t drifters who might be expected to live a transient lifestyle, he says, but teachers, firefighters, musicians and other blue and white-collar professionals.

Though sleeping on out-of-the-way dirt roads and parking lots is nothing new for Zimmerman—he’s lived and worked out of his camper truck while on the road, throughout 15 years of making images—the increasing number of people doing the same thing caught his attention. ”It really startled me, to be honest with you,” Zimmerman says, despite having read countless stories of similar communities who were often functioning without electricity or running water. “It didn’t sink in entirely what [was] going on out there, until I saw it for myself.”

As Zimmerman spent time talking to and even photographing members of these marginalized communities throughout the American southwest, it wasn’t their portraits or their poverty that resonated with him in a visual sense. Rather, it was their clothing. ”Whether it’s [being] homeless, or lacking a car,” Zimmerman says, “the clothes end up being the very last thing that you and I and they will own. When it absolutely becomes desperate, that’s the final thing that we will own.”

And so the piles of leather jackets, sweaters and coats—found at a 20-person community in northwestern New Mexico—form a descriptive landscape of their own. The entire series is actually shot on the roof of one man’s house, a retired firefighter in his seventies that came to live out in the desert about 25 years ago. He built his shelter underground, and used abandoned clothing to insulate the “roof” of the structure which now litters the desert floor.

Isolated from their surroundings as well as their former owners, the images of clothing are stark reminders of life on a subsistence level, and seem to encapsulate the difficult trajectory of the lives of their owners in their tattered seams and frayed edges. So what began during trips to photograph the natural landscape morphed into a project spent documenting its human counterpart—“the human aspect of the landscape is just as important for me as the physical landscape itself,” Zimmerman says. Last Refuge becomes a sort of typology of different textiles representing a human “dilemma,” as the photographer calls it, as well as a visually isolated reminder of what’s left to lose. ”That’s how it spoke to me, as opposed to just being about one person,” Zimmerman adds. “It was a very big problem, a nationwide problem.”

Last Refuge is on display at Sous Les Etoiles Gallery in New York from Dec. 8-Jan. 28.

David Zimmerman was recently shortlisted for the Terry O’Neill Tag Award, and won the Sony World Photography Awards L’Iris D’or Grand Prize in 2009. More of his work can be seen here.

Related Topics: color photography, David Zimemrman, documentary photography, Last Refuge, New Mexico, photography, Topography

THE MODERN ALTERNATOR.

2011-12-15T20:01:00.004Z

So I have once again been nominated for the Prix Picket award this year (more info here). It really is the biggest deal for a photographer like myself even to get nominated. The competition is fierce and it may be easier for me to Wrestle a Rino than win the prize. The good news is that this years theme is Power, and that's something I have been looking into for the past several years. You can see a little of the project here.

Tuscany B Side.

2011-12-15T19:53:00.003Z

Very interesting work by Filippo Brancoli Pantera which you can see here. I love the mix of urban and man made, well I would wouldn't I..

His Tuscany's B Side is quite excellent and its about time someone stepped away from the misty vineyards and pointy trees..

Stay Hungry..

2011-12-11T10:15:00.003Z

As the weather grows colder and everyone gets sick, its so very easy to cuddle up and hibernate. But the air is crisp and clear making it excellent for night work. The simple process of night photography can bring with it some problems. After chatting with a student the other day hungry for the night all the little tricks I have picked up over the years started to pour out and I thought I would list three of my top tips here for you all to enjoy over your crumpets.

1. Don't take a camera out of a warm place and into the cold ie, a house, or a car. Always have the camera the same temperature as the outside (along with film if you are shooting it). This way you wont be wiping condensation from your lens which may also leave smears and give you flare on the lens. You may also get condensation on the rear element and may not see it. Of course this also works the other way around (hot to cold). That lens has to be spotless..

2. Despite night photography being quite popular since its creation (think Aget, Steiglitz) no camera is designed to work at night. An open shutter facility is often an afterthought for most cameras and never intended for ultra long exposures. A mechanical film camera will always be the best choice for long exposures, period.

3. There is no magic formula for night photography and a lot of it can be trial and error. But with a little practice you can develop a technique of sorts. But that my friends is up to you..

A bit of a random mix I know. But I haven't got all day, just the night..

2011-12-07T19:25:00.000Z

2011-12-07T19:19:00.002Z

Not a planet, but my left eyeball from today's eye test.
Long sighted with a astigmatism. Very common amongst the best photographers apparently..

2011-12-07T19:17:00.002Z

Not a planet, but battered up frying pans by Christopher Jonassen's Devour series.
Love these..

2011-12-06T18:22:00.000Z

Memories of a fat idiot..

2011-12-05T20:19:00.003Z

Memphis, TN.

A simple image which reminds me of the time I drove 1600 miles from Los Angeles to Memphis
in two days having only eaten power bars and Almonds. This was the only image I made at the time and was taken shortly after my arrival. After that I spent most of the night in a Waffle House drinking coffee and eating pie.

2011-12-05T20:06:00.001Z

Fujifilm takes diversification to new levels with its latest introduction, the Astalift beauty care range.

2011-12-03T20:15:00.000Z

Charles Saatchi: the hideousness of the art world

Even a show-off like me finds this new, super-rich art-buying crowd vulgar and depressingly shallow

A super yacht moored in Venice for the art biennale. Photograph: Chris Helgren/Reuters/Corbis

Being an art buyer these days is comprehensively and indisputably vulgar. It is the sport of the Eurotrashy, Hedge-fundy, Hamptonites; of trendy oligarchs and oiligarchs; and of art dealers with masturbatory levels of self-regard. They were found nestling together in their super yachts in Venice for this year's spectacular art biennale. Venice is now firmly on the calendar of this new art world, alongside St Barts at Christmas and St Tropez in August, in a giddy round of glamour-filled socialising, from one swanky party to another.

Artistic credentials are au courant in the important business of being seen as cultured, elegant and, of course, stupendously rich.

Do any of these people actually enjoy looking at art? Or do they simply enjoy having easily recognised, big-brand name pictures, bought ostentatiously in auction rooms at eye-catching prices, to decorate their several homes, floating and otherwise, in an instant demonstration of drop-dead coolth and wealth. Their pleasure is to be found in having their lovely friends measuring the weight of their baubles, and being awestruck.

It is no surprise, then, that the success of the uber art dealers is based upon the mystical power that art now holds over the super-rich. The new collectors, some of whom have become billionaires many times over through their business nous, are reduced to jibbering gratitude by their art dealer or art adviser, who can help them appear refined, tasteful and hip, surrounded by their achingly cool masterpieces.

Not so long ago, I believed that anything that helped broaden interest in current art was to be welcomed; that only an elitist snob would want art to be confined to a worthy group of aficionados. But even a self-serving narcissistic showoff like me finds this new art world too toe-curling for comfort. In the fervour of peacock excess, it's not even considered necessary to waste one's time looking at the works on display. At the world's mega-art blowouts, it's only the pictures that end up as wallflowers.

I don't know very many people in the art world, only socialise with the few I like, and have little time to gnaw my nails with anxiety about any criticism I hear about.

If I stop being on good behaviour for a moment, my dark little secret is that I don't actually believe many people in the art world have much feeling for art and simply cannot tell a good artist from a weak one, until the artist has enjoyed the validation of others – a received pronunciation. For professional curators, selecting specific paintings for an exhibition is a daunting prospect, far too revealing a demonstration of their lack of what we in the trade call "an eye". They prefer to exhibit videos, and those incomprehensible post-conceptual installations and photo-text panels, for the approval of their equally insecure and myopic peers. This "conceptualised" work has been regurgitated remorselessly since the 1960s, over and over and over again.

Few people in contemporary art demonstrate much curiosity. The majority spend their days blathering on, rather than trying to work out why one artist is more interesting than another, or why one picture works and another doesn't.

Art critics mainly see the shows they are assigned to cover by their editors, and have limited interest in looking at much else. Art dealers very rarely see the exhibitions at other dealers' galleries. I've heard that almost all the people crowding around the big art openings barely look at the work on display and are just there to hobnob. Nothing wrong with that, except that none of them ever come back to look at the art – but they will tell everyone, and actually believe, that they have seen the exhibition.

Please don't read my pompous views above as referring to the great majority of gallery shows, where dealers display art they hope someone will want to buy for their home, and new collectors are born every week. This aspect of the art world fills me with pleasure, whether I love all the art or not.

I am regularly asked if I would buy art if there was no money in it for me. There is no money in it for me. Any profit I make selling art goes back into buying more art. Nice for me, because I can go on finding lots of new work to show off. Nice for those in the art world who view this approach as testimony to my venality, shallowness, malevolence.

Everybody wins.

And it's understandable that every time you make an artist happy by selecting their work, you create 100 people that you've offended – the artists you didn't select.

I take comfort that our shows have received disobliging reviews since our opening exhibition of Warhol, Judd, Twombly and Marden in 1985. I still hold that it would be a black day when everybody likes a show we produce. It would be a pedestrian affair, art establishment compliant, and I would finally know the game was up.

2011-12-02T19:54:00.001Z

The four artists shortlisted for the Photography Prize 2012 are Pieter Hugo, Rinko Kawauchi, John Stezaker and Christopher Williams.

This selection showcases diverse approaches to photography, from portraits taken in the toxic waste dumps of Ghana, to exquisite images of everyday moments and the conceptual use of found imagery.

The artists have been nominated for the following projects:

Pieter Hugo (b.1976, South-Africa) is nominated for his publication Permanent Error, published by Prestel (Germany, 2011).

Rinko Kawauchi (b.1972, Japan) is nominated for her publication Illuminance, published by Kehrer (Germany, 2011).

John Stezaker (b.1949, UK) is nominated for his exhibition at the Whitechapel Gallery, London, UK (29 January – 18 March 2011).

Christopher Williams (b. 1956, USA) is nominated for his exhibition Kapitalistischer Realismus at Dům umění České Budějovice, Budweis, Czech Republic (5 May - 12 June 2011).

The annual award of £30,000 rewards a living photographer, of any nationality, for a specific body of work in an exhibition or publication format, which has significantly contributed to the medium of photography in Europe between 1 October 2010 and 30 September 2011. Find out more about the history of the Prize here.

The members of this year's Jury are: François Hébel, Director, Les Rencontres d'Arles; Martin Parr, artist; Beatrix Ruf, Director/Curator, Kunsthalle Zürich and Anne-Marie Beckmann, Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany. Brett Rogers, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, is the non-voting Chair.

ONE ELEPHANT.

2011-11-28T14:15:00.002Z

And so in January I shall begin my MA in photography at the London College Of Communication. It was a hard decision to make as I don't particularly want to be a student, but the positives out way the negatives and its a future investment kind of thing (think more teaching and the fantasy role of Indiana Jones).
What is exciting for all my three readers is that I will be adding another blog to my repertoire entitled 'One Elephant' (taken from the fact that I count in Elephants which is basically a second) which will follow my life as a student for one year.
Nothing much will change other than the fact that I will be able to concentrate on a twelve month project without distraction (hopefully), and that my friends can only be a good thing..

2011-11-22T08:25:00.004Z

Working as a freelance Fine Art Photographer is often a two edged sword. You may do what you want, when you want, but this is a often determined by cash flow (or lack of it). You may shoot what you want and how you want, but this is determined by the market and the people actually buying the work, which, at the end of the day is the only thing that will keep you going, not fantasy book sales or some rich Texan billionaire who happens to like your work and buys a print a week..
Then there's the long gaps of nothing. Swanning around thinking about photography, sipping espresso's, reading books and thinking about the good old days when you just drove around looking for things to photograph. these gaps can be long, very long, especially at the moment.

So what does one do when the works dries up, the print sales decline and apparently no one has any money to spend....?

Become a student of course.

2011-11-21T17:12:00.000Z

2011-11-17T19:48:00.000Z

I used to try to figure out precisely what I was seeing all the time, until I discovered I didn't need to. If the thing is there, why, there it is.
- Walker Evans -

2011-11-16T19:53:00.000Z

With photography, everything is in the eye and these days I feel young photographers are missing the point a bit. People always ask about cameras but it doesn't matter what camera you have. You can have the most modern camera in the world but if you don't have an eye, the camera is worthless. Young people know more about modern cameras and lighting than I do. When I started out in photography I didn't own an exposure meter - I couldn't , they didn't exist! I had to guess. - Alfred Eisenstaedt -

Conscientious | an unbalanced but self-replicating chain

2011-11-16T19:39:00.000Z

Conscientious | an unbalanced but self-replicating chain

1000 Posts..

2011-11-15T17:36:00.003Z

Well actually its 1004 and I missed the celebration. A book, several projects, an exhibition, and a few tantrums later and I am still here, although now I tend to type with both hands.
I haven't interviewed any photographers, or run competitions with prizes, or done anything on here of particular merit really, but that's never been the purpose of the Mode that is B. After all this is a blog, not an occupation...
So here's to more ranting, opinion, narcissism, and perhaps a little photography.

Conscientious Extended | How much are photographs worth? (And why are we talking about it?)

2011-11-14T17:06:00.000Z

Conscientious Extended | How much are photographs worth? (And why are we talking about it?)

2011-11-13T13:56:00.001Z

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space | Fly Over | Nasa, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

2011-11-13T07:57:00.002Z

2011-11-12T11:58:00.001Z

Andreas Gursky's Rhine II photograph sells for $4.3m

Sum paid for sludgy image of desolate, featureless landscape sets new world record for a photograph

More From The Border..

2011-11-08T12:11:00.003Z

The Hand of Death.
Carlisle Cathedral.

Church opposite the Top Shops.

There's so much reminiscing to do these days. Perhaps its the fact that this time next year I will have reached 40 and may be on the verge of a mid-lifer, or maybe its just that time in life we all go through at some given moment. I don't often question why I went into photography because its something I love, but I do ask myself the question; What if I hadn't? almost every day.

When I was a wee boy I was a Chorister in the city's Cathedral (hence the Hand Of Death image). I was never recorded singing 'Where walking in the Air", or broadcast on breakfast TV. But I did meet Jimmy Savell (RIP) and Noel Edmond's who both visited the Cathedral and heard my sing. I remember being quite good and would often sing for my Granny and her friends as she played the piano in her front room. But of course the day came when the voice began to break and it was a case of either becoming a Tenor or give up the singing altogether. I chose the latter, but would like to think had I gone on singing I cold of been a contender, or heaven forbid, a contestant on X Factor.

2011-11-07T17:13:00.001Z

"Security guards have no right to prevent street photography," says Home Office

The Home Office and the British Security Industry Association have published a new set of guidelines for security guards confirming that photography in public places is legal and cannot be restricted

Author: Olivier Laurent

07 Nov 2011 Tags: Street rightsStreet

More than a year after Home Secretary Theresa May launched a review of the UK's counter-terrorims and security powers, a new set of guidelines have been published for security guards, who, in an increasing number of cases, have been accused of preventing professional photographers from working in public places.

May's review, whose findings were unveiled in January 2011, called for the "guidance provided to private security guards be reevaluated to ensure that it sufficiently reflects the right of the public to take photographs."

The new guidelines are the results of meetings between representatives of the UK's photographic industry and of the Home Office. They were first revealed, earlier today, by Amateur Photographer magazine, who also participated in the meetings.

The guidelines reaffirm that "the fact that an individual is taking a photograph does not in itself indicate hostile reconnaissance or other suspicious behaviour." The Home Office adds that "the size and type of cameras are not, in themselves, indications of suspicious behaviour. Large cameras, lenses and tripods should therefore not be viewed as being more suspicious than other types of equipment."

More importantly, the guidelines say that "if an individual is in a public place photographing or filming a private building, security guards have no right to prevent the individual from taking photographs," and that "security guards cannot delete images or seize cameras, nor can they obstruct individuals from taking photographs."

Security guards are advised that, if they have suspicions that an individual in involved in hostile reconnaissance, "all approaches should be made in a courteous manner."

Earlier this year, five photographers embarked on a project to show how security guards were restricting street photography in public places. The resulting documentary, Stand Your Ground, will be shown at BJP's Vision event on Saturday 19 November.

The new Home Office guidelines end with a reminder of police powers, which reads: "The police have a number of powers relevant to the use of photography for terrorist purposes, however these cannot be used to stop people legitimately taking photographs. It is not an offence for a member of the public or journalist to take photographs/film of a public building. They do not need a permit to photograph or film in a public place, and the police have no power to stop the photographing or filming of incidents or police personnel."

The guidelines have now been distributed to members of the BSIA's Security Guarding, Police and Public Services, Leisure Industry, Crowd Management, Close Protection and Security Consultancies sections, and the Training Providers group.

To read and print the guidelines, visit the British Security Industry Association's website [PDF].

2011-11-07T12:39:00.004Z

John Bulmer
John Bulmer

John Bulmer was a pioneer of colour photography in the early 1960’s working for the Sunday Times Magazine from the very first issue till the 1970’s

More here.

Format Thinking..

2011-11-07T09:09:00.003Z

As this is a photography blog, with landscape as my choosing subject matter, it seems appropriate to draw attention to the fact that I keep noticing all these photographers that once used the mighty 10/8" View Camera are now to be seen with a Digital Hassleblad in there hands. Think of any big hitter; Burtyinsky, Soth, Misrach etc, etc. They all use them now.
But here's the thing. I am not againgst using such a fabulous (and crazily expensive) camera like a Hassleblad with its super sensor and lens more valuable than a diamond encrusted Rolex. Far from it, I would love to own such a beast. But what happened to the large format thought process. The thinking mans camera. We were once told that by using a large format camera the photographer had to slow down and be methodical. So what now? Does this mean photographers are not thinking about the image so much? I cannot help thinking the thought process must of changed, I mean, how could it not..

My other pondering question would also be; Why a Hassleblad. There are far more suitable cameras for outdoor photography (Alpa for example). My only guess is that a deal has been struck. A bit like the old ink jet HP printer nonsense (on here somewhere). With a far few photographers being given a nice big printer in exchange for a false promise (I know as I had the same thing happen to me). But that's another topic for really cold day when the camera won't work..

So could this be a false revelation within the photographic industry. I don't know. But one things for sure, the whole ethics of photography are changing, and not necessarily in a good way..

2011-11-07T07:26:00.000Z

At What Age Do Photographers Do Their Most Influential Work?

2011-11-05T17:55:00.000Z

2011-11-05T17:34:00.001Z

Dear Ms. Dunn,

I'm writing you because I wanna make a very nice gift
to a young lady that I've fallen in love with.

She's a huge fan of Benedict Cumberbatch and, in my opinion,
you've shot a brilliant picture of him, that is sadly only available
in a very low resolution.

These are my two requests:
I would like to use this photo to produce a fridge magnet and can you therefore
please send me a digital copy in a higher resolution, in at least 710
x 475 pixel?

Julia, that's her name, bought a new fridge two days ago...;-)

Thank you very much in advance

Conscientious | Words before pictures: Philip Roth

2011-11-05T09:54:00.000Z

Conscientious | Words before pictures: Philip Roth

2011-11-03T20:23:00.004Z

It's now twenty six years ago since I made the above image.
On the 26th of October 1984 I set out on my birthday to create what was to be the start of my photographic career. Over a quarter of a century later I met a very good friend of mine with whom I shared some early photographic outings with. As it was my birthday I was handed a gift wrapped box which I promptly opened. And there it lay, my first camera, the mighty Canon AV1 in all its finery 26 years later (pictured above). I had completely forgotten what had happened to the little Canon I received on my twelfth birthday and was rather overwhelmed by the whole situation as memories of the camera took hold, like how chuffed I was to get a motor-winder that did five frames a second!
Great!

The Great border City..

2011-11-01T18:46:00.003Z

Dinosaur and Truck
Mel's Flower Arrangement.

It had been a while since I added more images to my ongoing Border City project, but a little time up North soon sorted that out and I was awash with new material.
To be honest, its about time this bad boy was wrapped up as it started way back in 2005. But these things take time and it seems the more I do, the more I see..

2011-11-01T18:39:00.003Z

Britain's photographic revolution

The big art institutions here are finally catching up with their American counterparts, with a new photography gallery at the V&A, increased prominence at the Tate and exciting plans elsewhere. We asked four leading curators about the state of the art

Sean O'Hagan
The Observer, Sunday 30 October 2011
Article history

Snap happy: leading curators (l-r) Martin Barnes (V&A), Brett Rogers (Photographers' Gallery), Simon Baker (Tate Modern) and Charlotte Cotton (the Media Space). Portrait by Suki Dhanda for Observer New Review

The September issue of the art magazine Frieze ran a glossary of "keywords" in contemporary art and culture. Under "Photography" the compilers wrote: "The first photograph was produced in 1826. In 2009 Tate advertised the following job for the first time: Curator (Photography and International Art). Discuss." The question invited was: why had it taken so long for photography to be viewed as a serious art form in Britain? The Museum of Modern Art in New York, for instance, appointed its first curator of photography, Beaumont Newhall, in 1940.

There are wider cultural and historical reasons why America embraced photography so enthusiastically while Britain did not. The relatively new, technologically driven medium was ideally suited to the fast-forward momentum of American life in the early-to-mid 20th century and to capturing the country's vast natural landscapes and the towering architecture of its cities. Britain's relationship with photography was less open-minded, more suspicious, more retrospective. We tended for too long to look back, acknowledging photography's masters, from Atget to Cartier-Bresson, Bill Brandt to Robert Frank, in celebratory exhibitions that were staged in Britain long after they had been safely canonised elsewhere.

Major London galleries such as the Whitechapel, Barbican and the Hayward have hosted monographic and group photography shows over the past four decades while both the National Gallery and National Portrait Gallery have extensive collections and regularly hold exhibitions pertaining to their remit as historical institutions. But for far too long, photography in this country was on the outskirts of the art world, dogged by the accusation that it was too instant and effortless to be real art. That began to change in the early 1990s with big groundbreaking London shows such as the Barbican's William Eggleston retrospective, Ancient and Modern, but it's worth remembering that the Tate's first major photography exhibition was the group show Cruel and Tender, in 2003.

In the past decade, though, things have changed dramatically. In 2000 Wolfgang Tillmans became the first photographer to be nominated for the Turner prize, which he subsequently won. Since then, photography has become big business on the global art market. In 2007 Andreas Gursky, the master of high-end, epic, contemporary landscape photography, sold a single print, 99 Cent II Diptychon, for £1.7m at Sotheby's in London. It displaced Edward Steichen's The Pond – Moonlight, made in 1904, as the single most expensive photograph. That record has since been broken twice, first by the conceptual artist Richard Prince, whose Untitled (Cowboy) fetched just over £2m in November 2007, and then by Cindy Sherman's Untitled #96, which sold for almost £2.5m at Christie's New York in May this year.

A host of new private galleries dealing in contemporary photography has sprung up around London, including Brancolini Grimaldi and Diemar/Noble in central London and Michael Hoppen in Chelsea. Both Flowers galleries (Kingsland Road and Cork Street) regularly show photographers, as does Timothy Taylor, Riflemaker and Haunch of Venison, while Victoria Miro has recently shown work by William Eggleston and Francesca Woodman.

Two of the most critically acclaimed and well attended shows of this year have been the Whitechapel's retrospectives of Paul Graham and Thomas Struth, two photographers who have worked quietly and determinedly on their bodies of often difficult works over the past three decades.

The culture around photography – festivals, book publishing and selling, workshops, websites and prizes – has grown exponentially, making London a centre of contemporary photographic practice. Finally…

Inevitably, if belatedly, the major art institutions have responded in kind. Last week the Victoria & Albert unveiled its new Photographs Gallery, a permanent space to show highlights from its extraordinary collection, chronicling the history of photography from 1839 to the 1960s. Ironically, the exhibition harks back to a time when London embraced what was then a revolutionary new medium that threatened to make painting a thing of the past. The V&A was the first museum to collect photography and, in 1858, to exhibit photographic prints. The oldest photograph on display in the new gallery is a daguerreotype of Parliament Street from Trafalgar Square by an anonymous photographer, and many of the pioneering giants of photography, from Margaret Cameron to Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray to Irving Penn, are represented. What's more, the exhibition will be re-curated every 18 months to show off the scale of the museum's archive of original prints.

"We play to our strengths," says curator Martin Barnes, "which, in photography, is the fine print. We are not showing the history of photography, nor charting a chronological story with examples along a linear trajectory, but nevertheless the collection is deep enough that the historical reach will always be evident in the exhibition."

Over at Tate Modern, photography curator Simon Baker's remit is perhaps more tricky, not least because it's a contemporary art gallery rather than a museum. Since his appointment in 2009 he has overseen last year's big group show, Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance and the Camera, as well as recent shows of new work by the young American photographer Taryn Simon and Britain's Simon Norfolk. Next year, William Klein and Daido Moriyamo will face off in a big show that traces their overlapping approaches and influences.

Currently, Tate Modern has three rooms devoted to Diane Arbus, and five of new documentary work by the likes of Boris Mikhailov, Mitch Epstein and Luc Delahaye. Here, contemporary practice in all its forms would seem to be the defining strand, alongside an ongoing appreciation of more recent masters.

"It is important to say that we are not trying to build a photography department that is separate," says Baker. "We try to keep the photography displays integrated with all the other media, but also keep our ideas integrated. I'm always working on a broader context, which is that we are a contemporary art gallery."

Baker's appointment, he says, was part of "a bigger strategic decision by the Tate to engage more with photography. But it's also a reflection of the fact that the old distinctions between art photography and conceptual art are increasingly hard to maintain. In the 80s, the Tate tried to make that distinction. It bought photography by artists such as Cindy Sherman or Richard Long but didn't buy art by photographers. That distinction no longer applies. It's impossible to maintain and it should never have been there in the first place."

Britain has caught up with photography at the very moment that the nature of photography, as well as curatorship, is being questioned by digital culture. "People engage with photography in every aspect of their lives," says Brett Rogers, director of the Photographers' Gallery, currently closed for renovation but open again in early 2012. "Photography has become a very natural, even compulsive thing with the coming of the mobile phone camera and relatively cheap, hi-tech digital compacts. The democratisation of photography and distribution of photos via social networks has changed everything, and we, as curators, cannot simply stand back and ignore that."

Her response is to reopen next spring with not just an expanded gallery space for contemporary photography in print form, but with what she calls The Digital Wall For All. "People still need a quiet space to look deeply at photographs and to reflect on their form and content, but there is also this tsunami of images on the internet and we, as a contemporary gallery, have a role to play in somehow making sense of that." The Digital Wall, says Rogers, "will reflect the new ways of curating, editing and re-imaging" that the internet has spawned, and "will involve the public as co-producers of some of the work".

Perhaps the most intriguing new space for photography will be the Media Space, due to open in spring 2013 behind the Science Museum in Kensington. Linked to both the Science Museum and the National Media Museum in Bradford, the Media Space has seen British-born Charlotte Cotton tempted back from the Los Angeles County Museum of Art to be its creative director. Having served for 12 years at the V&A and then, briefly, at the Photographers' Gallery, Cotton's new job is an intriguing one. "We are at a point where everything is up for review," she says, "including the idea of what a cultural space should be doing at this moment of what you might call exhilarating crisis."

To this end, Cotton envisages the Media Space as more "a kunsthalle than a museum" and describes it most animatedly when she lists all the things it will not be. "I don't think anyone is waiting for the history of photography according to the National Media Museum." The Media Space, she says, will have private rooms and workshop spaces as well as exhibition spaces, and will view its audience as contributors to the vision rather than passive viewers. "It will be a place to discuss the new media in creative technologies in a non-institutionalised way. And it will be about how photography fits into that discussion rather than a photography gallery per se. I'm not particularly interested in fighting the battle to legitimise photography as an artform. That battle has, to a great degree, already been won."

It took an inordinately long time for that battle to be won in Britain. How curators now make sense of the brave new digital world, this unprecedented shift in our collective way of seeing – and mediating – reality in a world drowning in images, will be a defining question of the next decade.

Doyle's View

This is hardly a British Photographic revolution. Where's the rest of the British talent.

SOMETHING FROM NOTHING..

2011-10-25T09:48:00.003+01:00

Photography projects these days are like going to the gym, it just doesn't get any easier. I have often mentioned before that I have always found the hardest part of any photographic project to be the ending, not the beginning. But that's not to say its not difficult coming up with new ideas, in fact sometimes it feels impossible.
My old saying; "Someone's either done it, doing it, or about to do it.." Has never been more true (or so it seems) and I often catch myself thinking; 'bugger beat me to it!' every time I pick up a photography book in Foyles.
I had an idea the other day which just popped into my head without warning and I immediately began to doodle in my notebook like a crazed scientist on the verge of an invention breakthrough. After twenty minutes there it was. My idea was to pick various points along the coast (sound familiar), but this time point my camera out to sea in the dead of night and leave the shutter open for long long time. Basically my idea was to make photographs of nothing. No content, no light, but a long enough exposure would, in theory, pick out small details unseen by the naked eye along with the odd star and perhaps a passing plane.
So there you have it, all the beauty and interesting things in the world and I come up with this.
I have to admit, the idea is intriguing although probably not original by any means...

In Search Of The Miraculous.

2011-10-25T09:43:00.003+01:00

Steve Eiden

A really fantastically observed series by Steve Eiden here.

2011-10-22T19:14:00.002+01:00

Know Your Rights: Photographers

I often get asked by students about taking photographs in public places so thought I would put this on here. Its American, but still relevant. I have another somewhere pasted from the BJP but this one is pretty good.

Taking photographs of things that are plainly visible from public spaces is a constitutional right – and that includes federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police and other government officials carrying out their duties. Unfortunately, there is a widespread, continuing pattern of law enforcement officers ordering people to stop taking photographs from public places, and harassing, detaining and arresting those who fail to comply. Learn more >>

Your rights as a photographer:

When in public spaces where you are lawfully present you have the right to photograph anything that is in plain view. That includes pictures of federal buildings, transportation facilities, and police. Such photography is a form of public oversight over the government and is important in a free society.

SPECIAL FEATURE

> Article: Law Enforcement Harrassment of Photographers

> Learn More: Filming and Photographing Police

When you are on private property, the property owner may set rules about the taking of photographs. If you disobey the property owner's rules, they can order you off their property (and have you arrested for trespassing if you do not comply).
Police officers may not generally confiscate or demand to view your photographs or video without a warrant. If you are arrested, the contents of your phone may be scrutinized by the police, although their constitutional power to do so remains unsettled. In addition, it is possible that courts may approve the seizure of a camera in some circumstances if police have a reasonable, good-faith belief that it contains evidence of a crime by someone other than the police themselves (it is unsettled whether they still need a warrant to view them).
Police may not delete your photographs or video under any circumstances.
Police officers may legitimately order citizens to cease activities that are truly interfering with legitimate law enforcement operations. Professional officers, however, realize that such operations are subject to public scrutiny, including by citizens photographing them.
Note that the right to photograph does not give you a right to break any other laws. For example, if you are trespassing to take photographs, you may still be charged with trespass.

If you are stopped or detained for taking photographs:

Make a Difference

Your support helps the ACLU defend free speech and a broad range of civil liberties.

Give Now

Always remain polite and never physically resist a police officer.
If stopped for photography, the right question to ask is, "am I free to go?" If the officer says no, then you are being detained, something that under the law an officer cannot do without reasonable suspicion that you have or are about to commit a crime or are in the process of doing so. Until you ask to leave, your being stopped is considered voluntary under the law and is legal.
If you are detained, politely ask what crime you are suspected of committing, and remind the officer that taking photographs is your right under the First Amendment and does not constitute reasonable suspicion of criminal activity.

Special considerations when videotaping:

With regards to videotaping, there is an important legal distinction between a visual photographic record (fully protected) and the audio portion of a videotape, which some states have tried to regulate under state wiretapping laws.

Such laws are generally intended to accomplish the important privacy-protecting goal of prohibiting audio "bugging" of private conversations. However, in nearly all cases audio recording the police is legal.
In states that allow recording with the consent of just one party to the conversation, you can tape your own interactions with officers without violating wiretap statutes (since you are one of the parties).
In situations where you are an observer but not a part of the conversation, or in states where all parties to a conversation must consent to taping, the legality of taping will depend on whether the state's prohibition on taping applies only when there is a reasonable expectation of privacy. But that is the case in nearly all states, and no state court has held that police officers performing their job in public have a reasonable expectation. The state of Illinois makes the recording illegal regardless of whether there is an expectation of privacy, but the ACLU of Illinois is challenging that statute in court as a violation of the First Amendment.
The ACLU believes that laws that ban the taping of public officials' public statements without their consent violate the First Amendment. A summary of state wiretapping laws can be found here.

Photography at the airport

Photography has also served as an important check on government power in the airline security context.

The Transportation Security Agency (TSA) acknowledges that photography is permitted in and around airline security checkpoints as long as you're not interfering with the screening process. The agency does ask that its security monitors not be photographed, though it is not clear whether they have any legal basis for such a restriction when the monitors are plainly viewable by the traveling public.

The TSA also warns that local or airport regulations may impose restrictions that the TSA does not. It is difficult to determine if any localities or airport authorities actually have such rules. If you are told you cannot take photographs in an airport you should ask what the legal authority for that rule is.

The ACLU does not believe that restrictions on photography in the public areas of publicly operated airports are constitutional.

Little rant..

2011-10-19T10:08:00.005+01:00

Scotland/England Border.
2-1 ratio. Hand built Panoramic camera.

You would think that in this day and age you could pick up medium format and large format cameras for a few pence considering the planets dwindling supplies of film and rising costs. But no, in fact some of these camera go for more second hand than they did when they were new. Who is buying them? And is anyone using them?
I remember the time when one would buy an analogue Hassleblad for £1500 and it would last your entire career. Nowadays you buy a Digital camera for four times more and need to up date it six months later. Then there's the cost of a computer and all the other gubbings you never needed before.
When will it end?

Remember my friends, an image should be what you see, not what the camera sees..

2011-10-14T09:23:00.001+01:00

Pylon design competition winner revealed

Organisers called for entries that were both "grounded in reality and beautiful"

A T-shaped design has scooped a £5,000 prize in a competition to find the next generation of electricity pylons.

Danish engineering firm Bystrup beat 250 rivals to win the Royal Institute of British Architects contest.

It set the challenge to replace the familiar "triangle" design - in use since the 1920s - in May, although there is no commitment to build them.

An increasing number of pylons are expected to be needed to connect new wind, nuclear and hydroelectric plants.

Bystrup's architect Rasmus Jessing said he aimed for a more positive shape than the traditional "grumpy old men" design, as they are known in Denmark, to carry new forms of renewable energy.

"Hopefully in the next couple of years it will be time for T - the T-pylon," he said.

Six entries shortlisted in the competition, organised with the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the National Grid, have been on show in London's Victoria and Albert Museum. The five runners-up received £1,000 each.

'Transform landscapes'

The jury - which included Energy Secretary Chris Huhne, leading architects and energy officials - rated entries on design quality, functionality, and technical viability.

After calling for entries to be "both grounded in reality and beautiful", the judges took into account the public response to the designs and the teams' abilities to create them.

The five runners-up were awarded £1,000 each

Mr Huhne said: "The idea was to... see whether we could produce something which was more attractive, less obtrusive in the landscape, easier to live with, easier on the eye."

Organisers say the target of reducing carbon emissions by 80% by 2050 will lead to electricity playing an increasingly important role in the UK's energy mix.

A subsequent proliferation of pylons and underground cables "have the potential to transform our landscapes for good or bad, and for generations to come", they said.

Campaigners frequently complain that pylons blight the countryside, while Lib Dem MP Tessa Munt described damage they cause as "beyond belief" in a Parliamentary debate in July.

However, it is 10 times as expensive to lay underground cables which are also more difficult and costly to repair.

And the 1920s pylons retain some fans.

Flash Bristow, from the Pylon Appreciation Society, said they were an "elegant engineering solution".

"Existing pylons I appreciate because they're a lattice design, so when you look at the pylon what you see, a lot of it, is actually the background coming through."

I like Pylons, always have. I also like wind turbines and water wheels. Those who don't should live in a barn without electricity and hot water..

My earliest photographs were often images of majestic Pylonia in green pastures on a misty morning..

2011-10-12T18:59:00.002+01:00

I came across this on-line magazine completely by accident and thought it was all done by the same photographer.
I do have a soft spot for this kind of photography and in fact it was this ND filter/ long exposure technique (see link) that I applied to my By Coastal series, only I used colour.

2011-10-12T18:45:00.004+01:00

Frieze Art Fair 2010 in London's Regent's Park.

Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin discuss photojournalism's relationship with art with photographer Taryn Simon at Frieze Art Fair, 1.30pm on 13 October.

Author: Katherine Waters, with Diane Smyth

12 Oct 2011

The annual Frieze Art Fair opens this week in Regent’s Park, including art galleries from around the world exhibiting fine art and photographs by Paul Graham, Robert Mapplethorpe, William Eggleston and Wolfgang Tillmans.

The fair kicks off on Thursday at 1.30pm with a talk chaired by Christy Lange, the associate editor of Frieze, bringing together photographer Taryn Simon and photographic duo Adam Broomberg and Oliver Chanarin (who are shortly publishing War Primer 2, a 21st century response to Bertolt Brecht’s classic book). The talk is titled Shooting Gallery: The Problems of Photographic Representation, and aims to investigate the relationship between photojournalism and art photography.

Frieze Art Fair isn’t open to galleries that only sell photography (as detailed in BJP) in October 2010, but it does include a number of galleries which sell photographic prints alongside other art works, including: Sadie Coles HQ, which represents Hellen van Meene; Yvon Lambert (Candida Hofer and Idris Khan); Anthony Reynolds Gallery (Richard Billingham and Paul Graham) and David Zwirner (Philip-Lorca diCorcia and Thomas Ruff). The fair runs 13-16 October and entry for one day costs £29 (including booking fee). More information can be found at www.friezeartfair.com.

2011-10-12T18:39:00.001+01:00

Adriatic Coast 2011

2011-10-10T09:30:00.003+01:00

Tamara Beckwith and Ghislain Pascal, Directors of The Little Black Gallery, request the pleasure of your company at ART LONDON, from 6-10 October 2011.

Free admission for 2 visitors if you print this email and hand in on arrival.

The Little Black Gallery (stand 21) will be exhibiting works by Sue Callister, Lisa Creagh, Mike Figgis, Luke Foreman, Chris Levine, Annabelle Nicoll, Anja Niemi, Alistair Taylor-Young and many more.

The Little Black Gallery will also be curating and exhibiting a series of photographs (stand 22) by some of the greatest names in contemporary photography including Bob Carlos Clarke, Terry O'Neill and Sebastiao Salgado for sale in aid of Survival International . For full list of photographs for sale click here .

Entrance: London Gate, Royal Hospital Road, Chelsea, London SW3
Opening times: Thurs, Sun & Mon 11am-8.30pm, Fri & Sat 11am-8pm
Underground: Sloane Square
Further info at www.artlondon.net

The Little Black Gallery, 13A Park Walk, London SW10 0AJ
Tel: 020-7349 9332. www.thelittleblackgallery.com
Opening hours: Monday-Friday 11am-6pm, Saturday 11am-4pm
* London's boutique photography gallery

2011-10-09T08:32:00.000+01:00

2011-10-09T08:26:00.002+01:00

THERE'S NOTHING HARDER IN LIFE THAN BEING GIVEN YOUR CHANCE.

2011-10-07T13:12:00.001+01:00

2011-10-06T05:58:00.002+01:00

"I DRIFTED INTO PHOTOGRAPHY LIKE ONE DRIFTS INTO PROSTITUTION. FIRST I DID IT TO PLEASE MYSELF, THEN I DID IT TO PLEASE MY FRIENDS, AND EVENTUALLY I DID IT FOR THE MONEY."

PHILIPPE HALSMAN

2011-10-05T10:11:00.002+01:00

Who Says the Camera Never Lies

Sarah Dunn

Daniel Radcliffe

Today we introduce beauty and portraiture photography from Sarah Dunn:

“The motivation behind my photography is and will always be the ability to improve on my past works. The more you shoot, the more experience you gain and the more opportunity you will have to build your skills. This is what moves me forward, always wanting to better my work.

“It is both a blessing and a curse!

The image above is “shot for a Potter portfolio celebration in New York on my Canon 5D. The shot is completely comped, the location is in London, who says the camera never lies…

Hardy

“An older image, but one I still love. The cheekiness of his face always makes me smile. Shot on my Hasselblad on Kodak Tri-X film in London if I remember rightly.

Silence of the Lambs

“Shot for an Icons portfolio chosen by Steven Spielberg, location LA shot on a Canon 1DS.

Hayley Atwell

“My favourite beauty shot right now, a complete fluke as we snapped it quickly at the end of the day. Shot in London with my Canon 5D for Captain America. I love the spontaneity of it, the wind, the light, her expression, everything …

Dominic Monaghan

“Shot only last week in LA on my Canon 5D. We were shooting a moving photograph and I saw this still and snapped it, love the atmosphere and the shadow .

“In the future I intend to make the transition in to film making, basing all of it on the theories of my photography, moving photographs if you will…”

To see more of Sarah Dunn’s fantastic work here is her website sarahdunn.com.

2011-10-04T19:37:00.001+01:00

A PHOTOGRAPH SHOULD EITHER ASK A QUESTION OR GIVE AN ANSWER.

Objects Of Consequence.

2011-10-04T16:35:00.002+01:00

Image Andrew Emond

Very nice series here by Canadian photographer Andrew Emond here.
Yes its all been done before (and so what if it has), but I see a bit more thought behind this series.

2011-10-04T10:05:00.003+01:00

Image MD.

Autumn is coming and the nights are closing in. Time to dust off the old 5/4 and maybe purchase a new torch for night time outings and perhaps a woolly hat.

2011-09-29T15:49:00.000+01:00

STAY HUNGRY. STAY BUSY. STAY ALIVE...

2011-09-28T17:37:00.002+01:00

Fruity Net Curtain
California 2010
Ballet and Mustard
California 2010

SHOOTING PLEASURE..

2011-09-24T11:36:00.004+01:00

I was talking with an old college friend the other day about the importance, and difficulty, of continually making pictures in these uncertain times. My issue was mainly the cost of shooting with film, processing, printing, travel. These were costs I may not be able to recoup for some time so I often found it hard to justify my camera outings. My friend on the other hand had gone the digital route some eight years ago had recently purchased a high speck digital camera for the same price as a small house. He was finding it hard to find the time to go out and shoot and had discovered that the processing and getting that image how he wanted took far too long. He also had to pay off his camera so needed some kind of return.

We both came to the conclusion that in the eighteen years since we were at college together our work had matured to the point that it was not just a case of going out and snapping away, but it was more about going out and producing something that could either be sold as a fine print, or it had to be something you were getting paid to do. In other words the days of shooting for pleasure were over...

2011-09-22T18:11:00.001+01:00

All Over the Map
By Peggy Roalf Thursday, Sept. 22, 2011

The Americn road trip photo essay has been a mainstay in photography that goes back to Walker Evans in the 1930s, with Robert Frank, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld, and more recently, Alec Soth updating the genre. Soul searching through closely observed, but not lived scenes of banality and hardship, combined with an "I drive ergo I exist" ethos, is probably the most American form of existentialism, with the ubiquitous crummy-motel-room-with-tv view outpacing the crossroads-with-gas-station in image hits per project.

A visit to North South East West, an exhibition of road trip images by Richard Benson, at Pace MacGill Gallery, left me wanting to know exactly how he makes “multiple impression inkjet prints,” but little more. These formal compositions, often with an element such as a tree or a telephone pole in the middle of the scene, and more often shot under shimmering blue skies, made the few images with threatening gray skies seem more interesting than they are. But the color and the print quality is extraordinary, making this show a must for anyone who makes, appreciates, prints, or collects photographs.

Left: Detroit, MI, 2009. Right: Dallas, TX, 2008. Copyright and courtesy Doug Rickard.

Back at my computer, I immediately started looking at Doug Rickard’s A New American Picture, from 2010, which in book form is currently unavailable. The work, which was recently on view at Stephen Wirtz Gallery in San Francisco, has developed something of a cult following for several reasons. Rickard has subverted the road trip photo essay genre in particular, and photography in general, by collecting and re-photographing Google Street View images from down-at-the-heels locales across the country.

Because there are people in many of the views, the work brings up some serious questions about the benign intention of the program as claimed by Google. The picture quality, not so good to start out with, is further degraded by being re-photographed, using a large-format camera, off a large-scale monitor. There should be nothing notable about these pictures as photographs, but they are mesmerizing and troubling. Selections from A New American Picture by Doug Rickard can be seen in the upcoming New Photography 2011 show, opening September 28h at MoMA.

2011-09-21T20:54:00.005+01:00

Photography - New Documentary Forms

Akram Zaatari + Mitch Epstein + Luc Delahaye + Guy Tillim

Wednesday, 21 September 10:00 - 18:00

Tate Modern, Bankside, Southbank, SE1 9TG

Exhibitions: , Art, Photography, Gallery

How Much: £15.50 (Admission) , £13.50 (Concessions) , £0.00 (Members Free)

Five rooms at the Tate will house photographic works by five contemporary photographers exploring the power of the camera as a documentary medium.

Themes range from conflicts in Iraq, elections in Congo and power production in the US.

Until 31.03.12

Don't forget to check out the new Diane Arbus exhibition too...

Naked people standing around.

2011-09-19T19:30:00.001+01:00

PRICELESS..

2011-09-13T18:41:00.002+01:00

I am almost at the end of my photography shooting break and shall soon be dusting off the old battered 5/4 to venture out again in search of photographic treasures. Now that the days are getting shorter and the nights longer, darker and often more clear, I look forward to producing some new Night Visions, something I have not done for some time.
I happened to be in the gallery today delivering some prints when a couple walked in browsing the current group show of which I have a couple of pieces showing. It was clear that they liked my work and I offered to show them some of latest Doyles fresh from the darkroom. Its been a while since I talked passionately about my own work, my inspirations and reasoning for shooting this that and the other, but its something I always tune into if someone is shows a genuine interest.
Of course it will be nice if that lovely couple come back and purchase something, but the passion for my work has been ignited and that is simply priceless..

B-Mode

Matt Henry

Amanda Boe

Ken Griffith.

PLACES STRANGE AND QUIET.

ONE FOR THE ROAD..

Broc Field take 2.

Conscientious Extended | Meditations on Photographs: Jacob Israel Avedon, Sarasota, Florida, May 15, 1971

Working Title

AFTER AND BEFORE.

Conscientious | Photography and Doubt

I LOVE YOU. I JUST DONT TRUST YOU..

The Classic Combination with Dan Burn Forti.

Conscientious | Georg Aerni

Don't you know who I am..

Andy Sewell.

CAIRO DIVIDED.

A MATURE STUDENT AND THE KINDOM OF THE LEATHER SKULL

WHAT TO DO.

Technological change

The last Kodak moment?

Kodak is at death’s door; Fujifilm, its old rival, is thriving. Why?

CRISPY MORNINGS.

Exclusive: How are the UK largest museums investing in photography? - British Journal of Photography

And there off...

Richard Misrach: A focus on the after-story

NIGHT/SHIFT. PHOTOGRAPHS BY LYNN SAVILLE.

R.I.P Eve arnold.

LET US BEGIN..

AND A MERRY CHRISTMAS to you..

THINGS WE LOST..

Clothing as Artifact: David Zimmerman’s ‘Last Refuge’

THE MODERN ALTERNATOR.

Tuscany B Side.

Stay Hungry..

Memories of a fat idiot..

Charles Saatchi: the hideousness of the art world

ONE ELEPHANT.

Conscientious | an unbalanced but self-replicating chain

1000 Posts..

Conscientious Extended | How much are photographs worth? (And why are we talking about it?)

Andreas Gursky's Rhine II photograph sells for $4.3m

More From The Border..

"Security guards have no right to prevent street photography," says Home Office

Format Thinking..

At What Age Do Photographers Do Their Most Influential Work?

Conscientious | Words before pictures: Philip Roth

The Great border City..

Series: Sean O'Hagan on photography

Britain's photographic revolution

SOMETHING FROM NOTHING..

In Search Of The Miraculous.

Know Your Rights: Photographers

Make a Difference

Little rant..

Pylon design competition winner revealed

Related Stories

Who Says the Camera Never Lies

Objects Of Consequence.

SHOOTING PLEASURE..

Photography - New Documentary Forms

Exhibitions: , Art, Photography, Gallery

Naked people standing around.

PRICELESS..