If someone asked you what photography’s big deal was, all you’d have to say is that it has something to do with “the gaze,” and then show this photograph. Of course, photography is not just this image. There is a lot more - or, if you’re a curmudgeon (there seem to be many these days) a lot less. But there is a lot to be said for talking about the most outstanding examples of any art form to get an idea of their power - instead of focusing on the detritus. Thus, when talking about photography we’d probably want to talk about photographs of the human form, and out of all those we might want to talk about this particular photograph. Its title is “A woman sits for a final photograph with her dying mother,” and it was taken by Eduard Méhomé (the photograph can be found on page 41 of Life & Afterlife in Benin - make sure to view the slightly larger version of this photograph first by clicking on the icon on the side before reading the rest of this article). (more)
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As a photographer, you won’t get around bringing your desire to photography, just as a viewer you do the same thing. You have no choice. As I have argued before, photography must fail if that desire is denied. But desire does not automatically create good photography. An equally crucial factor is trust. As a photographer, you have to trust your photographs. You have to trust that they say what you want them to say. Or more accurately, you have to realize that your subconscious mind is bringing more things to photography than your conscious mind might realize. (more)
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At the core of all photography lies desire, our longing to connect, not to forget, to express love, to reach out to someone else (even if it is just our future selves) and say “Here, look at this! I want you to see this!” (more)
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A recent work related trip took me to San Francisco, where I saw an installation of Jim Goldberg’s Raised by Wolves at Pier 24. Earlier this year, I had already come across an installation that was part of the Deutsche Börse exhibition in Berlin. I had one big impression that I took away from these two exhibitions. Here is a photographer who is really struggling with the medium photography, trying to make it tell the story he wants to tell. To make this clear, by “struggling” I mean a very creative struggle. Maybe “wrestling” would be a better word (if a grown man could wrestle with an abstract concept): Trying to make the medium express something, by bending and twisting and augmenting it. (more)
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The latest auction record for a photograph was set by Andreas Gursky’s Rhein II1. Gursky is no stranger to being in this position. Previously, he held the record for a while with 99 Cents2 - photography, one could argue, that was surely worth more than the value given in its title. Several million dollars felt a bit like a stretch. But it was and still is magnificent photography, the artist’s signature achievement. (more)
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Still in his mid-twenties, Matt Eich has an impressive list of achievements under his belt already. I had a general sense of curiosity about his work, and I figured the best way to learn more about it - and the person behind the camera - was to ask some questions. Find our conversation below. (more)
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Yaakov Israel’s The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey, complex, multi-faceted project, featuring portraits and landscapes, was my personal pick as a winner of this year’s Conscientious Portfolio Competition. For me, the project captures seemingly disjointed moments in time, offering many hints and as many red herrings. The viewer is invited to come back and re-look at these photographs, to find a slightly different world each time. New details reveal themselves, while old details change their meaning ever so slightly. Instead of pointing at something and saying “This is the way it is” the photographs ask their viewers to discover what is to be found and to ultimately come to their own conclusions. Find my conversation with the photographer about his work below. (more)
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Mirjana Vrbaski’s Verses of Emptiness was picked by Caroline von Courten as one of the winners of this year’s Conscientious Portfolio Competition. About the work, Caroline writes “These very simple and yet dense complex photographs invite me to look more closely and to have a conversation in my mind with these photographs and the persons portrayed.” and “Here the limitation and the concentration of the photographic medium reveal themselves at once in an extraordinary way.” I talked with Mirjana about her work in a conversation that you can find below. (more)
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Nigel Bennet’s Silence Has an Echo was picked by Michael Mazzeo as one of the winning entries to this year’s Conscientious Portfolio Competition. Michael wrote: “This portfolio offers enough information and ambiguity to elicit countless narratives. Nevertheless, the mood of the work is certainly unsettling and, I believe, very appropriate given the current state of the world.” I talked with Nigel about the series in an extended conversation that you can find below. (more)
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I remember then when I saw portraits from “Mona Lisas of the suburbs” by Ute Mahler and Werner Mahler for the first time, I was blown away. Seemingly very simple photographs, the portraits reveal enormous depth, while at the same time they are incredibly beautiful. To make a long story short, there had been some plans to make a book, so after some discussions Ute and Werner decided to do it with Meier & Müller, the photobook publishing venture I’m part of. The book is now out (in Europe, US copies are in transit), so I asked the photographers some questions about this very special project - their first together, as a married couple, after each being a photographer for almost forty years. (more)
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I have long been thinking about the art of the remix and about seeing it applied to photography. I have also long been griping about photobooks, about edits or sequences, occasionally done badly, but often just done in ways that I think could be done differently. Not better, just differently. Thing is, even though we’re living in a culture that has long embraced the remix in many different ways, the world of contemporary fine-art photography has proven to be solidly conservative. Maybe there is a good reason for that. Maybe I’m just too attached to a silly idea. Maybe not. (more)
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“I had heard about the mummies of Guanajuato in Mexico, mummified cholera victims from the 1830’s.” writes Steve Pyke. “The reason for the condition of the corpses was said to be minerals found in the soil locally. The bodies were of men, women and young children, including one stillborn foetus. I had seen photographs but wasn’t prepared for the initial encounter… Walking into the small dark museum I saw rows of glass specimen cases containing atrophied yet completely mummified figures. Some were arched over as if in death throes, whilst others seemed at peace and holding books. Others I saw were standing as if soldiers on sentry duty. There was the faint, musty smell of mothballs in the room. It felt like a church in there, but with a frozen congregation. I felt a hushed reverence to these figures. I’m sure they would have been recognisable if I had been able to see photographs of what they looked like when alive, but when these people died photography was only just being invented.” (more)
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Benjamin Lowy’s new book Iraq | Perspectives is due to be released later this year. Given photojournalism has been in the news (again) recently, I approached Ben to talk about his book, his work in general, and about photojournalism. (more)
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Ever since writing about at what stage some photograph might be too similar to some other photograph (also see this follow-up), I have been thinking about how to approach the topic in a more productive manner. In part, this is for slightly selfish reasons: I’m a bit tired of these kinds of debates (“Did photographer X rip off photographer Y?”), and I’d love to have a better answer when asked. So I thought a good approach might be to start from the idea and not from the images. (more)
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I don’t remember where or how I came across Alia Malley’s 2009/10 Southland, but I do remember the photography stayed with me for a while. There was something about those landscapes that struck me. Recently, someone pointed me to Alia’s new series A Cavalier in Sight of a Village, for which she was (in fact at the time of this writing is) raising money on Kickstarter. So I got in touch with Alia and asked her whether she’d answer my questions about her work. (more)
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Is there anything that has not been said about the analog-vs.-digital debate? With every passing day, the debate looks slightly sillier, as digital photography is firmly replacing analog photography. Just the other day there was another report about plummeting film sales. Those numbers are dominated by “amateurs” - people who take their snapshots now with their cell phones or digital point-and-shoot cameras. But of course, there are many who still shoot film (incl. me) and will continue to do so (at least as long as it’s possible). Analog photography is here to stay in the realm of fine-art photography. So what’s left to talk about? (more)
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OK, I’ll admit it: That’s not the actual question from What’s Next? The actual question is “Why do my students think that working with analogue techniques is more ‘real’ than with digital ones?” I took the liberty to re-phrase the question because I think there is an underlying, more general issue here. If I’m correct, dealing with the (slightly) larger issue will also answer the original question. (more)
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A few weeks ago, I had a bunch of discussions with various people - including a group of students at MassArt - about photojournalism. Inevitably, the various problems (or “problems”) were brought up, and at some stage someone asked why any of that mattered. It’s a good question. But I think there is a good answer. Unlike pure art photography (whatever that might be), photojournalism is more than “just” photography. We use it to get informed. At the time of the discussions, unrest in Libya had erupted into what started to look like a civil war, and several NATO countries were urging the rest to get involved. Were we going to be in favour of that or not? At the time, news from Libya filled the news, and a large fraction of the news consisted of photographs taken by photojournalists. There now is a new pitch up on emphas.is by Michael Christopher Brown, entitled The Libyan Republic - if you want to support a photojournalist specifically working in the country, which still torn by war, check it out. (more)
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Aperture has long been a - maybe the - beacon of American photobook publishing. It’s pretty much impossible to talk about photobooks without at some stage running into a book that was done by Aperture. Lesley Martin, Publisher of the Aperture Book Program, has worked on a huge number of those books, often pushing the envelope in unexpected directions. A few weeks ago, I sat down with Lesley to talk about Aperture and about the history and future of photobooks. (more)
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After a short break, it’s round 6 of my ongoing series of conversations with Michael Itkoff, this time about art fairs and art bubbles. (more)
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“Rape is horrifyingly widespread in conflicts all around the world,” writes The Economist, with a focus on Congo. Besieged is a collaborative project by photographers Ying Ang, Agnes Dherbeys, Sarah Elliott, and Benedicte Kurzen, intended to put a spotlight onto this situation. (more)
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One of the first projects featured on newly launched emphas.is is Aaron Huey’s Pine Ridge Billboard Project. Find Aaron’s pitch below. (more)
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The work of Nadav Kander has always fascinated me. My curiosity only grew when seeing Obama’s People and later working on the review of Yangtze, The Long River. I finally approached Nadav and asked him whether he had a moment to talk about his work. I’m grateful he did. Find our conversation below. (more)
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If one wants to think of photobook making as a spectrum, at one end, there are commercial publishers. At the other end, there are artists literally making their own books: Printing the pages, binding them etc. Raymond Meeks has produced a variety of such artist books, and I approached him to talk about those. (more)
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Designer Hans Gremmen is actively involved in creating some of the most cutting-edge Dutch photobooks. I wanted to find out what it is they put into the water that makes those books so different, so I approached him to ask him a few questions about photobook making in The Netherlands. (more)
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Late last year, I had the opportunity to teach a class on the contemporary photobook with Alice Rose George, as part of the Hartford Art School Photography MFA Program. Even outside the classroom, Alice and I spent a lot of time talking about photobooks, where things were, where they are now, and where they’re going. As an independent photography editor and curator, who has worked extensively with private and corporate collections, book publishers and magazines, Alice’s knowledge of the photobook publishing world is almost limitless. Among the publications she worked on/was involved in are Hope Photographs, 25 and Under (whose exhibition she also curated), Andrew Moore’s Detroit Disassembled, Adam Bartos’ Yard Sale Photographs and many more. As one of the four founders of Here Is New York: A Democracy of Photographs (see the book), she has helped to create one of the most remarkable tributes to the people and events of September 11, 2001. Alice also served as the Director of Magnum New York and the Publisher of Granta in England. The following is a conversation I had with her about Here Is New York, photobooks in general, and ebooks. (more)
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If you happen to come across a photobook showing you images of chicken filets and images from furniture ads, it’s like you’re looking at one of Erik Kessels’ products. Apart from owning and operating an ad agency (make sure to reload that site several times) and various other activities, Erik runs KesselsKramer Publishing, which is responsible for gems such as the In Almost Every Picture or Useful Photography series. To find out more about the ideas behind the work, I sat down with Erik on a sunny late-November morning in Amsterdam to ask some questions. (more)
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This is the first conversation in a new series focusing on photobooks and their makers. I’m talking with photographers Richard Renaldi and Seth Boyd of Charles Lane Press about what photobooks mean to them and about their experiences with their publishing company. (more)
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It is one of those coincidences that around the time I published my posts about German photography right after the war (part 1, part 2), I came across the work of Helena Schätzle, The time in between. Of course, I was curious to learn more about it, so I approached Helena and asked her whether she would be willing to talk about the work. Find the conversation below. (more)
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Oksana Yushko is one of the winners of this year’s Conscientious Portfolio Competition. About her work, juror Susanna Brown wrote: “Oksana Yushko’s project Kenozero Dreams reveals both the beauty and banality of life for the inhabitants of Kenozero in Nothern Russia. We glimpse a place that has remained relatively unchanged for decades and an atmosphere of longing, of waiting. The landscape and portrait images are equally evocative, but for me the most memorable photograph in this series depicts two teenagers in a field, collecting flowers in the twilight haze. Dressed in modern clothes they carry out an ancient pagan rite. The boy’s gaze is transfixed, balancing a delicate wreath of flowers on his baseball cap he stares into the gloaming, and perhaps into his own future.” In the following conversation, I talk with Oksana about her work. (more)
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A little while ago, Benjamin of duckrabbit fame sent me an email, telling me about Ivor Prickett and his story about Abkhazia. I like Ivor’s work very much, and since there currently is so much talk about how photojournalism is presumably dead (or maybe not) and about the relationship between photojournalism, documentary photography and what we call “fine art” photography (for a lack of a better term), I approached him to talk about his work. (more)
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I’m just back from visiting the New York Art Book Fair, and I’ve been thinking about what I like about photobooks so much. Individual books might appeal to me for particular reasons, but as a whole, as a species, photobooks have become incredibly dear to me. Why do I spend so much time looking at them, thinking about them, even making them (Meier & Müller’s forthcoming books are currently being conceived)? (more)
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A few days ago, my wife and I went to look for a dresser at a nearby shop that we had never been to. I will admit that shopping for furniture probably is not very high on the list of things I enjoy doing. But that is not the reason why it took me considerable time to actually enter the store once we had arrived. In the little room one had to walk through to get into the main showroom there were a couple of baskets filled with old postcards and photographs. In fact the whole store was selling more than just furniture. Of course, I had to leaf through the entire collection of postcards and photographs, to see whether there was something of interest. There was. (more)
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Lydia McCarthy is one of the winners of this year’s Conscientious Portfolio Competition. About her work, juror Elisabeth Biondi wrote: “In the course of a week, a month, a year I view many many photographs & much of it good photography. I always keep my eyes peeled for a surprise, either in content or style. Portraiture is an important part of my work, or better the work that I assign. It therefore is important in what visually I pursue. These portraits are different from anything I have seen before. They are impressionistic in a contemporary way. Looking at them puts me in a reflective tender frame of mind. Perhaps this is so because we always are looking for picture that might work for the fiction we publish. We try to pair pictures to words that express a mood rather than edge features into the reader’s mind. We want to let the mind wander. This is why I like these pictures.” In this following conversation, I talked with Lydia about her work. (more)
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Dalton Rooney is one of the winners of this year’s Conscientious Portfolio Competition. As I wrote earlier, what struck me about Outer Lands is how engaging these landscapes are if you spend time with them. Seemingly simple, they are deeper than they seem; seemingly messy, with their tangle of branches, they are clear and beautiful. They offer space for contemplation, without pushing an obvious message. Outer Lands shows the contemporary landscape - with various human traces - photographed most beautifully in a contemporary way. In the following, I am talking with Dalton about his work. (more)
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