Commenting on a photo by Joel Peter Witkin, which shows a reenactment of Theodore Gericault’s La Zattera della medusa with (a fake) GW Bush and others, David Schonauer writes that “WitkinÂ’s image is one-sided and ruthless in its sarcasm.” and asks “Is it fair for an artist to take on such subjects in such a way?” Jim Johnson responds by asking “Are we supposed to believe that ‘real’ or ‘true’ artists don’t have political views (or, that they at least carefully segregate any such views they might embrace the from their ‘art’)?” And indeed, it’s very hard to see why artists should be apolitical. Artists are citizens of a country, and as citizens they have the right - and some might argue the obligation - to make political statements. If some people do not agree with that political statement that’s part of the process, that’s the essence of democracy. As is the ruffling of feathers.
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The latest issue (no. 70) of Colors Magazine deserves to be check out (and it seems most of it is available online). It “is the work of two young Chinese artists, Chen Jiaojiao and Peng Yangjun. A creative duo from Fabrica, they came up with the concept, photos, design and text for the issue.” (when I first came across the new edition, the website had a bunch of problems - it looks like it’s fine now, but if it doesn’t load properly come back later - it’s worth the wait).
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I’m not the biggest fan of Charlie Rose. I find it quite irritating how he often appears to be patronizing his subjects (when he’s not treating them like they are mentally somewhat challenged, which he did with Henri Cartier-Bresson). But I think this show might be of interest for many people, since it contains a segment with Taryn Simon.
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After I had a discussion with my friend Dylan about whether b/w would make a return or not and/or what the future role of b/w would be, over at Tim Atherton’s blog (which you should check out if you haven’t done so already!) I found a link to an article entitled The New Color: The Return of Black-and-White. It’s quite an interesting read.
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“It is an image of war that the [British] Ministry of Defence (MoD) never wanted to see published: an intimate family photograph of a British soldier killed in Iraq which, taken with nearly 100 others, forms the official portrait of the conflict by the Turner Prize-winning artist Steve McQueen. As the finished work, For Queen and Country, was unveiled in Manchester last night, McQueen said it had been completed in the face of two years’ opposition from the MoD, which had offered only a limited glimpse of the conflict, refused him access to the families of British casualties and asked why he could not produce ‘a landscape’ portrait instead.” - story (also see this story)
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“The World Press Photo of the Year 2006 shows upscale young Lebanese men and women visiting a bombed-out Beirut neighborhood like disaster tourists - or at least that’s what everyone thought. Bissan Maroun, one of those featured in the photograph, told Spiegel Online the true story.”
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Time and again I’ve come across someone saying that there was something wrong if a photographer was spending a lot of time and effort on a single, staged photo. I’m sure you’ve seen this kind of criticism, it’s typically brought up when people talk about Gregory Crewdson’s work, and it’s bound to come up again now that there’s a big Jeff Wall show at MoMA (see this most recent article to get some background about Jeff Wall).
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There’s a long article about Jeff Wall in this Sunday’s edition of The New York Times Magazine.
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“A federal appeals court affirmed a decision in favor of artist Jeff Koons, saying he did not violate copyright law when he made a painting that incorporated part of a photograph. Photographer Andrea Blanch sued for copyright infringement after seeing Koons’s painting ‘Niagara,’ which shows a pair of women’s legs similar to a photograph Blanch shot for Allure magazine for a 2000 feature on nail polish.” (story) For this very relevant topic (which, I believe, will get ever more important) also see the article “On the Rights of Molotov Man” in the February 2007 edition of Harper’s Magazine, sadly enough not available online. However, available online, a comment on this case by art guru Edward Winkleman, who himself points to this excellent article (I hope I got all my linking bases covered now - and then, in a few months, Slate.com will produce another feature about this, which, needless to say, will ignore all online activity).
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This time, the World Press Photo award didn’t go to a photo of a crying mother (see this post). When I saw the winner, I thought “Wait, I’ve seen that somewhere”, and in fact I have. Have a look at this photo by Lauren Greenfield. Funny similarity.
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Much can be said about the art of photographic portraiture, and - as always - it’s probably best to look at photos instead of spending a lot of time on theory (even though there should be - and, time and opportunity allowing, hopefully will be - time for that, too). This past weekend, the New York Times Magazine contained a section entitled Great Performers, which was/is noteworthy because of the photography. When you look at the images, you’ll see quite an interesting mix of portraiture, with some quite amazing work and some that is.. well, gimmicky and thus quite forgettable. Have a look!
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You’ve seen it here first (hey, this is a cutting-edge blog after all!), now at Slate.com: Can Photographers Be Plagiarists?
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“Nearly two decades after their first collaboration launched a 14-year-old Kate Moss into fashion super stardom, Corrine Day’s challenge was to present a fresh portrait of one of the world’s most photographed women.” - story (It would be quite interesting to discuss what is really meant by “fresh” here, and what misconceptions might have been involved here.)
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“The World Press Photo of the Year has followed some predictable patterns. Typically, the judges choose an image that symbolizes a crisis or disaster by showing a lone suffering individual. A look at the World Press Photo 50-year gallery of winners shows that certain motifs have won numerous times. Child (in distress, in danger or dead): 11 prizes; Mother with child: 7; Grieving woman: 6” - story
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Chris Jordan invited people to comment on his new work “Running the Numbers” over at the Large Format Photography Forum. You should probably look at the ensuing errr… “discussion” yourself (and if you want to comment, do it over there); for me, it was interesting (and sad at the same time) to see how many people would either write “fantastic” or something like “just predictable liberal dogma”. Are there any nuanced opinions left?
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On his blog, Todd Deutsch discusses photography books, especially self-published one. Check it out!
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Last month, I went to a photography show at the Netherlands Architecture Institute with dozens of contemporary photographers’ works shown (unfortunately, weirdly omitting many North American photographer who should have been in there, but that’s another issue). With a few exceptions, the prints were all huge (and by huge I mean literally huge), and I noticed how we’ve almost come to expect something like this from shows now. However, I also noticed that many of the photos did not work very well because they were too large (just for the record, Hester Keijser and Norman Beierle, who were with me, agreed; btw, Hester is the fabulous Mrs Deane).
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The “Photographers of the Year” part of this blog has become a bit of a tradition here. Even though it is quite popular to compile lists like this one, I have never thought of them as something that people should take too seriously, because - I’m sure - someone else’s list will look quite different. But since this blog is quite biased towards what I like or, at least, find interesting, I think there is nothing wrong with me picking the photographers whose work has impressed me the most over the past year (oh, and that’s really it: one juror, you can’t submit work, no prize - what kind of lousy competition is this?). So without further ado, here they are, in alphabetical order. As you will see, if you want to find out more about the photographers, there is an interview with each and every one of them (and that tells you something how I look for people to interview and not how I compile the list).
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Around this past Christmas, the Boston Globe featured a story about ailing veterans (bug me not) on its front page, and I found the image they used quite remarkable. Unfortunately, the version online is a bit small, and in print, the colours looked somewhat different, too. In print, the room has a reddish glow from the lights inside the room, and both the TV and the open door are brightly offset from that. The interesting thing about the image - at least for me - is that it is a confluence of individual images, with the veteran in his wheelchair, whose pose and obvious suffering strikingly resemble those seen in classic religious paintings, in the center, and left and right, almost like panels used in the past, you see a decorated Christmas tree, whose colourful cheerfulness feels out of place, and a TV showing an still that uncannily evokes the images produced by Richard Prince from cigarette ads (like, for example, this one). I couldn’t stop staring at the photo.
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No, this is not an entry about the conference I went to last week (even though that was about Cosmic Voids). Instead, this is something that I have come across quite frequently, unfortunately way too often. For example, today I was looking for links to the work of Corinne Noordenbos, a Dutch photographer whose portraits of Alzheimer patient deserve wider exposure. I did my usual Google search and came back empty-handed (and lest I get emails, yes, I do look at more than just the first page of results). Maybe I should add another category here, namely the category of people I’d link to if there actually was at least a single web page to link to.
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“I was so drunk I could barely stand up […] My organs were so messed up from drinking I was in physical pain. I couldn’t zip up my pants because my stomach was killing me. I didnÂ’t even realize I wasn’t wearing underwear until the magazine came out. […] I had to explain to my grandmother that this was the definitive photographer of the 20th century.” - Chan Marshall about that infamous photo by Richard Avedon.
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This interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson is worth watching, and, I’m sure, every viewer will find his or her own reasons why (this is, of course, taken from Alec’s blog, but I wouldn’t have watched it (I have little - if any - patience with the medium of TV - if Alec hadn’t mentioned it again, in an email - thank you!).
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In a recent post, Alec Soth discusses why he prefers to see people in photos, instead of looking at deserted land= or cityscapes or architectural interiors (Alec, there are people in Gursky’s 99 Cent, though!). The reason why I personally disagree is neatly summarized by Simon Norfolk in the interview that I linked to just a couple of days ago, while discussing photos of radar installations: “I think people kind of gobble up the photograph. They become what the photograph is. For me, people just aren’t that important; it’s about this panoptic process, it’s about this kind of eavesdropping, it’s about this ability to look into every aspect of our lives. And I think if you put people into these pictures, I don’t know – it would draw viewers away. It would draw viewers into the story of the people.” (emphases from the original, not mine)
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There’s an excellent interview with Simon Norfolk over at bldgblog: “The thing that pisses me off about so much modern art is that it carries no politics – it has nothing that it wants to say about the world. Without that passion, that political drive, to a piece of work – and I mean politics here very broadly – how can you ever really evaluate it? At the end of the day, I don’t think my politics are very popular right now, but what I would like to hear is what are your politics? Because if you’re not going to tell me, how can we ever possibly have an argument about whether you’re a clever person, your work is great, your work is crap, your art is profound, your art is trivial…?” Also check out the feature over at lensculture, which also contains samples of a conversation with Simon. (updated entry)
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I usually do not advertise individual shows (because otherwise, I would be quite busy only doing that), but here, I am going to make an exception, because a) the exception proves the rule, b) the photographer (Brian Ulrich) is a really nice guy, and c) the work shown (Thrift) is quite dear to me (I am mildly obsessed with the mirror Universe of consumerism, thrift stores). The show is at Rhona Hoffman Gallery in Chicago IL, from December 1, 2006 – January 6, 2007, with the opening reception (go and meet Brian!) on Friday, December 1st, 5:00 – 7:30 p.m.
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Seen on Metafilter: How extensively are professional modeling photos retouched? Highlights (if that’s the word to use): FluidEffect (under “portfolio”, then “before/after”), Brian Dilg’s work, Glenn Feron’s work (especially recommended for those males who still think those android women in magazines are real) and - yes, you will have nightmares tonight! - Becky Carter’s work.
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The November 30, 2006 edition of The New York Review of Books contains an article by author John Updike about Robert Polidori’s newly released After the Flood. Given my unease about the flood (no pun intended really) of fine-art photography from the region affected by Hurricane Katrina I was hoping that maybe someone like John Updike would be able to help me out a little bit. Unfortunately, I am not so sure that actually happened.
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If you’re curious who won the Hey, Hot Shot! competition this Fall, check out the list of winners here.
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Having just learned of Duane Michaels’ Foto Follies: How Photography Lost Its Virginity on the Way to the Bank, I have all kinds of thoughts going through my head. Since I haven’t seen the book, I will stay mum about what I am thinking (if anyone at Steidl is reading this, yes, I would like a review copy).
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I’ve talked about this earlier, but the topic is just not going away. On the contrary, as there is more and more photography from New Orleans emerging, it seems to me that the aftermath (or maybe more accurately aftermess) of Hurricane Katrina is slowly turning into a photographic cliché. I have the feeling that - for a large variety of reasons - that’s the last thing anyone needs (least of all those people in New Orleans whose houses are still in ruins and many of which have been permanently displaced). It would be unfair to single out anyone’s work, because on its own, most of the photographic work I’ve seen is quite amazing (and actually provides a very interesting example of how fine-art photography can supplement standard photojournalism, which - in part - has long turned ago into a cliché producing machinery itself); but the cumulative effect of looking at beautifully shot photos of destroyed houses, exterior and interior, and everything else that goes with it is making me feel a bit uneasy.
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Following up on one of Alec’s posts about photo books, I remembered an interview I had read (in a book) the other day. Luckily, it’s also available online: “I think there’s something aesthetically very satisfying about these books and some of that may derive from my past experience with other books. There’s the way the image sits on the page. There’s the intimacy of looking at the book. There’s simply the experience of seeing the images in a book as opposed to, say, a portfolio: it recalls past book experiences; it is a cultural object. And, in these small (short) volumes, there’s the mind’s ability to hold the whole book at once. The book becomes a single, unified work.” (Stephen Shore). And that’s really quite an important point there: “a cultural object”, and add to that the sheer tactile component.
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There’s an article in LA Weekly that I saw and then decided not to link to, in which the author claims that (fasten your seatbelts) “I couldnÂ’t name a single photographer subsequent to Arbus (and Frank and Winogrand and Friedlander and Eggleston and the other greats of her generation) who ranked on anywhere near the same level, which is to say, who thrilled me near as broadly, deeply or consistently.” I guess I can close shop here and do something else? But then, what might be true for that author is not true for other people (incl., very obviously, for your truly); and haven’t we heard similar complaints (“things today just aren’t as good any longer as they sued to be!”) in the past? In any case, Alec Soth decided to post the piece on his blog, and there’s a bit of a discussion about it over there. Check it out.
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I mentioned Jen Bekman’s Hey, Hot Shot! competition earlier, and for those who missed the last one, there’s the Fall 2006 one, with a deadline on November 7, 2006 (check the website for details, also see the blog). Jen asked me to be a member of the panel this time, so if you decide to participate I’ll probably look at your work.
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Alright, I do realize that this post might tick off quite a few people, but here’s my question anyway: Am I the only one who thinks that HDR photos mostly look like old colour postcards? (sorry for the probably non-ideal link to old postcards - if you know a better site, let me know) You basically get the same effect: The colours look gaudy and artificial, and the scenes look somewhat unreal, the only difference being that HDR photos look crisper. PS: Alright, I do realize I’m being somewhat unfair here. However, in my defense: Most of the HDR photos that people have linked to (and that I thus stumbled upon) look like the ones that I am talking about above.
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What happens when fine-art photography is subjected to the kind of critique that’s so ubiquitous in photography forums online? Well, have a look at what people had to say about one of Alec Soth’s photos. Unlike the parody that I linked to earlier, this is the real stuff. You just can’t make this sh## up! Enjoy!
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After all that heavy theory, here’s something lighter. For those interested in celebrities and what it must be like to take their photo, have a look at this story. Quite entertaining.
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As I mentioned before, I am noto all that much into photography criticism or theory. To make an utterly silly comparison, if I was given the choice between two extreme choices, the first being the Wittgensteinian going into a museum/gallery, looking at a single photo, and then leaving, the second being to spend a long time looking at each and every photo and then reading a ten-page in-depth discussion about the photography, I’d opt for the former, and this is not because I’m lazy (have a look at what Wittgenstein actually is trying to say to find out more). Having said this, when I read the following, the rules of gravity suddenly didn’t seem to apply for my eye-brows any longer: “Put most bluntly, for the past century most photography critics havenÂ’t really liked photographs, or the experience of looking at them, at all. They approach photography - not specific photographs, or specific practitioners, or specific genres, but photography itself - with suspicion, mistrust, anger, and fear. Rather than enter into what Kazin called a ‘community of interest’ with their subject, these critics come armed to the teeth against it. For them, photography is a powerful, duplicitous force to be defanged rather than an experience to embrace.” (story) Since I haven’t read many of the texts referred to in that article, I’m not going to disagree too strongly (even though these days not knowing what you’re talking about usually doesn’t prevent people from having a strong opinion about it). As usual, you want to read the article yourself and see whether you agree or not.
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Isn’t it interesting that many people who have no quarrels with seeing the most gruesome war photography - and who would argue very vehemently that war photography was actually useful - have a completely different attitude with respect to photos that show the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11? For another example - apart from the one seen here just yesterday - see this post. Key quote: “More sophisticated viewers should be on guard against confusing the picture of something or the act of taking it with a definite stance on the part of the photographer toward what the picture shows.”
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You might have seen bits of this already, but since the article offers such a nice brief summary, I might as well post it here. Those who don’t want to pay to read Frank Rich’s article need look no further than here - always helps to know the full story. What I find most interesting in all of this is that this is such a prime example for how photographs (in general?) do not have a meaning by themselves, and often you see what you are able to see or even what you want to see.
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“Across the River is a project of German and Polish photography students who examined the changes, dreams, and realities in the border area between Germany and Poland over a period of one year. The 16 photographers depict the living conditions and circumstances in a region at the periphery of two countries from a very personal point of view. They have experienced an area which is often enough simply passed through hurriedly but whose history is richer and more varied than that of many large cities.”
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You want to take a photo of some location, yet there are always people walking in and out of the scene? No problem - simply use the tourist remover tool. I haven’t tested this, though.
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“He was the Führer’s most favored photographer and cameraman. Walter Frentz was the man Adolf Hitler trusted to put him in the right light. Now a new biography has uncovered pictures of the Nazi leader never seen before.” (story) Unfortunately, Walter Frentz’s website is available in German only; it would be quite instructive for non-German speakers to see how his past is glossed over in a sickeningly nonchalant fashion, with leading Third Reich figures presented as “personalities”. You might not be familiar with the name Walter Frentz, but it’s very likely you have seen a photo of him. In this photo, showing leading Nazi propaganda photographer/filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl (center), with Walter Frentz operating the camera.
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This post addresses a topic that I have been thinking about for a while, and I have had the occasional discussion with other photographers about this. The main question might be posed as follows. When do similarities between photographs end, and when does plagiarism begin?
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It has lately become quite popular to decry the tampering of photography appearing in magazines or in the news, so here is a collection of such manipulated (and unmanipulated) images. Note the mix of examples that are quite serious and of examples that aren’t even worth a second look.
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If you like listening to music that is a bit older than a few years, you have probably come across the phenomenon that at one stage or another, you find a “remastered” “new” version of your favourite album in stores. At the time of this writing, the latest trick is to add a DVD that contains the very same album, albeit in a different format, supposedly sounding much better, but - and this is really the only interesting bit for the record company - the whole thing costs you $20 or more. Usually, those “remastered” CDs sound just like the old stuff, maybe a bit more sterile, and typically with the volume cranked up quite a bit. Turns out that something similar has now invaded photography, too. In an article in the New York Times, Michael Kimmelman reports on the photographic equivalent of “remastered” CDs, in this case, digitally “enhanced” photos originally taken by Walker Evans. Go and read it - before they start to hide it behind their electronic firewall. Needless to say, this is one of those issues from which endless discussions can (and will) be created.
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“Hurricane Katrina deeply affected the journalists who lived through the crisis, and lifelong New Orleans resident John McCusker took the strain especially hard. McCusker, a staff photographer for The Times-Picayune, was arrested Tuesday after leading police officers on a chase and trying to get them to kill him, his newspaper reported.” (story) “New Orleans Times-Picayune photographer John McCusker was released from the hospital this week and will face four criminal charges related to his confrontation with police two weeks ago, according to his editor.” (story)
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“The Midwest Photographers Publication Project (MP3) series, produced in collaboï½­ration with the Museum of Contemporary Photography (MoCP), Chicago, presents the work of three new emerging talents: Kelli Connell, Justin Newhall, and Brian Ulrich”. (source) Information about the show at MoCP can be found here.
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Watch a new documentary at Magnum in Motion by Chris Anderson.
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If you want to ignore the bizarrely weird caption, in The Guardian, David Smith discusses how Flickr user Rebekka Guðleifsdóttir became an internet photo star. Now, when browsing through her photos, have a look at how many of them have “comment” boxes (or whatever that’s called on that site) around her breasts (example).
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BBC News website’s picture editor, Phil Coomes explains how they handle news photos. Lots of interesting and important points in there: “All the pictures we use are checked for any obvious editing - the easiest to spot being cloning of parts of the image [like in the Reuters example - JMC] […] To some extent the presence of a camera will alter the event, but itÂ’s up to those on the ground to work around this and present us with an objective a view as possible. Digital photography has altered the landscape of photojournalism like nothing before it, placing the photographers in total control of their output. All the news agencies have photo ethics policies, many of which are rooted in the days of film. The standard line is that photographers are allowed to use photo manipulation to reproduce that which they could do in the darkroom with conventional film. […] All this sounds fine until you look at the reality - one manÂ’s colour balancing is another’s grounds for dismissal. By definition a photograph is a crop of reality, itÂ’s what the photojournalist feels is important. But it doesn’t equate to the whole truth, and perhaps we just need to accept that.”
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