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.
5.2.12
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...
4.2.12
From the Road: an exploration of the contemporary landscape photograph
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.
The Classic Combination with Dan Burn Forti.
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..
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.
30.1.12
Olivier Laurent Taken form the BJP
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
