If you saw a man drowning and you could either save him or photograph the event...what kind of film would you use?

Bang, bang, woosh, woosh, bark, bark, woof, woof, shut up, bang, bang.....

Heres something appropriate from the wonderful Kenny Trice. Who I will come back to at some point.
Via Almanac magazine.

Smile and you 'll get a slap..

So last night was the 'Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize' (Swepps, Portrait Award, John Kobal etc.) held at the olde worlde National Portrait Gallery. Now a portrait extravaganza like this would not normally appear here on the Mode That Was B, but my interest in the event was a little different this year as my mediator/map reader/bench press spotter/dog walking companion/food taster/cinema buddy/someone to rant at/you cant buy that we need to feed the boys and pay the bills/wife was in the show this year so I naturally got a little interested.

The problem with such an event like this is that when you have only one images to represent a photographer is says very little. The image (especially a portrait) is often taken from a series (as we are often told here), but on its own next to lots of other images on their own creates nothing but a messy jumble a bit like a jigsaw with no matching parts. Basically its a mess. If the photographers where able to show a series of images this would be a whole different matter as it would boil down to talent rather than luck of the draw, which lets face it from seven thousand entries this has to be the case up to a point.
As for the winner, I can see why it won and well done Paul Floyd Blake. Its the typical safe picture with a nice story behind it from someone who no one knows which is usually the case. Nothing wrong with that, but I think these competitions with the big prizes should be aimed at people who have really achieved something in photography and not just picked up a camera and produced a few nice shots (my opinion so dont get shirty)..
My wife's picture Lambs (not the one shown above) stands out a mile, why, because it was a comission. It was shot with a decent size budget and is what she does. She is a professional photographer making her living this way. This kind of image doesn't win prizes (and not because its not a great image), it goes back to what I was trying to say in my last post about how commercial photographers have a hard time being taken seriously in the art market. People always want the story of the struggling artist winning the prize, not the successful one.
Anyway I am starting to rant so I will draw to a close and end by saying this;
Like everything else in the world this competition (whatever its called) is all about the money. People enter it for the prize. they do not enter it to show case their work, you cant do that with one image, neither do they enter so they can show along side other photographers (who wants to do that). They enter it for the 12 k prize so they can buy a new Hassalblad.
Well thats what I would do..

MONEY CANT BUY YOU.......

After looking over Nadav Kander's Yangtze River work again last night and posting the piece below I couldn't get the images out of my mind. It seems obvious now why he won the Prix Picket prize. I mean this series shows environmental issues, documents how people harmonise with their surroundings, is visually stunning (mainly due to the big smog factor,again another environmental issue), consistent from start to finish, and forms a historical document which will stand the test of time. Wether or not this body of work will be regarded as much as say Robert Frank's The Americans in years to come I am not so sure (the prints may not last that long). But there is no doubt in my mind that this is an important body of work.
There are of course a few issues which may deter Kander's work from getting the recognition in years to come that he may or may not deserve. Firstly there is Kanders career, its vast, and he has to be one of the worlds most successful advertising photographers of his generation. This guy has won so many awards he has a whole area filled with trophies and plaques in his studio (yes I have seen it). Due to his huge success Kander has been able to pretty much go where he chooses and do whatever is necessary to produce a series of images. But people dont like this, they dont believe that a photographer can spend twenty years at the top in advertising and switch to fine art funded solely by his earnings. But why shouldn't he? He may have won a hundred thousand euros for his Yangtze River, but how much did he spend on it (5 trips to China, retouching fees, equipment etc). Again people seem to have a problem here that if a photographer can pay to do what they want it is somehow unfair. Misrach, Eggleston, in fact most of the big American photographers (with the exception of Robert Frank who was skint) had money. But they didn't earn it from photography like Kander, so whats the problem. I have been in this fine art game for a while now and have to admit it seems like a rich mans hobby most of the time (and no I am far from rich, or comfortable for that matter!). We can all complain about the 'photographer' that drives round in their Bentley getting out to take the odd snap and producing exquisite prints, but this kind who stand the test of time usually do so not because of there money but more so there talent. Yes it may be easier to stay at the top in these circumstances, but we can always find excuses as to why others have succeed before us, a lucky break here, a friend there, slept with him/her etc. And then theres the whole grants thing which drives me potty. Personally I have not recieved a bean from any one (establishment or otherwise), and even if I did I would probably spend it on sweets and magic beans..

And so my friends, what is the point I am trying to make, well simply put, YOU CANT BUY TALENT. Its as simple as that.

Kander triumphs in Prix Picte

© Nadav Kander

Nadav Kander has won this year's Prix Pictet photography prize for environmental sustainability, receiving a £60,000 cheque from former Secretary General of the United Nations, KofiAnnan.

Kander's win was announced at an exclusive ceremony in Paris last week. The London-based photographer was nominated for his Yangtze, the Long River Series, 2006-07 project.

It documents the rapidly changing landscape and communities of China's longest river, from its mouth to its source. 'I was trying to photograph how I felt, which was somewhat lonely and uneasy,' said Kander last year in BJP.

The Israel-born photographer made five trips to China for the series, which featured in BJP last year. 'The river of legendary beauty has been devastated by industrial and agricultural pollution, and irrevocably changed by the massive Three Gorges Dam project, which involved the forced displacement of some three million people,' BJP wrote at the time (23 July 2008).

Kander received his award from the hands of the former UN General Secretary. 'Only weeks separate us from the decisive negotiations on climate change in Copenhagen,' said Annan. 'We are confronted with the vital need to prepare the political momentum necessary for a fair and effective post-Kyoto agreement. The images in front of us remind us of the fragility of our planet and the damage we have already done. When we see these photographs we cannot close our eyes and remain indifferent. Through our actions and voices, we must keep building the pressure to secure urgent action at Copenhagen and beyond.'

It's a second major award win in less than a week for Kander. On 19 October he won the International Photographer of the Year prize at the Lucie Awards for his editorial work portraying members of President Barack Obama's administration-elect, in what was dubbed the editorial commission of the year by The New York Times Magazine (BJP, 13 May).

The 11 other photographers selected for the Prix Pictet were Chris Steele-Perkins, Edgar Martins, Darren Almond, Christopher Anderson, Sammy Baloji, Edward Burtynsky, Andreas Gursky, Naoya Hatakeyama, Ed Kashi, Abbas Kowsari, and Yao Lu.

Kashi won a commission with the UK-based charity and Malagasy-registered NGO Azafady. He will be visiting Madagascar in order to produce 'a series of photographs that will highlight many of the issues that Azafady are focusing on in this unique and endangered environment'.

To complement the touring exhibition, teNeues will be publishing Earth, featuring the work of the 12 shorlisted photographers as well as from other photographers who entered the competition.

For more information, visit prixpictet.co.uk.

Frozen River, Qinghai (c) Nadav Kander, courtesy of Flowers Gallery/Prix Pictet, 2009.

The above is taken from the BJP.

What can I say the work is just brilliant. Well done Mr K.

THE ARCHIVE OF DELIGHT.

For those of you who may remember the sorry tale of when I managed to trap myself in a cupboard under the stairs only to escape after an hour of sweat and dust using a sheet of 5/4 film and some cunning. Well today was a similar set of affairs only more bloody and could easily have escalated into a scene from Casualty. But alas here I sit sipping tea with fingers bandaged the only real injury being my damaged pride.
So picture the scene as I enter my climate controlled (I kid you not) garage/ storage facility to prepare a couple of prints for framing from a recent sale (yippee). For reasons I will not go into I moved a six foot mirror to one side near the entrance to my storage facility as I made room to un-roll a couple of 30/40" masterpieces.. Some time later with my ready prints I stepped out of the Archive Of Delight and proceeded to pull down the garage door, all be it with some Doyley force. Then with the help of the six foot mirror I had placed there (and forgotten about) previously, I managed to; Break the mirror, bend the garage door, and, wedge a splinter of mirror glass in between my index and middle finger. Undeterred by my actions I placed the mirror to one side deciding to clean it up nearer bin collection day, but as I went to close the door it stuck about half way. So again undeterred I dipped back into the garage/ storage facility with climate control and pulled down on the door handle with a mighty force. Job done I thought, that was until I tried to re-open the door from the inside.. Thanks to a combination of several forces, the door was now wedged in place tighter than elephant in an inner tube. There was no lock to pick and no gaps to slip a note to the neighbour. I was a prisoner in my own storage facility... I couldn't pull it, and I couldn't push it, so in the words of Keanu Reeves in Speed; "What do you do?". I was acclimatized, that's for sure. I was dry unlike last week, but I was hungry and graving a cup of tea and perhaps a penguin biscuit. I did think of trying to bend the door inwards, sure I had the Doyle strength, but the door would never be the same and I would loose the seal I had created for my climate control device (thinking about it more I dont know anyone who has bent a garage door with their bare hands!). I could shout, but I would still be stuck and may cause a panic in the hood. And so I pulled my toolbox from beneath my desk and waited for the answer. It took about twenty minutes before I came up with the idea of removing the garage door with the help of my toolbox contents. No easy feat I have to say as I began to undo the bolts on the right side of the door, but I soon got those blighters off and started to feel quite pleased with my inventiveness. To be honest I wasn't sure what would happen once the door bolts where undone and in fact nothing did happen, still stuck like a ripe turd. By this time I had been in that hole for over two hours and was starting to loose my patience. And so in a last bid for freedom I kicked the bottom part of the door, again a not thinking of what would happen, and again nothing did happen. 'Right then, I will barge this bugger down' I thought as I turned and gained momentum. The next thing I knew the door had come crashing down on my badly heed leaving me blooded and angry. I was broken as was the door which was now beyond repair in its twisted, bits missing, sorry state.
So there you are, a door-less storage facility open to the elements and passers by. But the door will be fixed and my wounds will heal. And if your thinking of helping yourself to some of my work, well I have taken out the good stuff and set a few traps in the form of a large 40 kilo door that comes crashing down on your head....

Give me Morelingus..

An incredibly diverse and excellent body of work from Christopher Morlingus of which more can be seen here.
I have always liked Chris' work, but he wouldn't know that as I have never met him.
Its nice to see someone really think about their website layout and the follow on from each shot is very fluid.
I believe Portfolio 4 is my favourite and appears to be one of a new series from the last time I had a gander at this wonderful work.
The only negative thing I can think of is that there's too much work on there and you do get a little bombarded, but my websites a bit like that only more so as my colours are like sucky sweets where as Morlingus is a little more fruit pastel.
Anyway check it out and be inspired..