Photobooks

I have been reading more recently about photobooks. I like the idea of having the chance to get a message/theme across in a series of photos that flow from one to the next in photobook format. The concept is quite different from trying to produce photographs for an exhibition for example, or a single image for the 'art market', whatever that means these days. Photobooks have been made since the start of photography and cover such an amazingly wide range of topics and subjects.

A photobook I bought last year is Andre Kertesz 'On Reading', which is a delightful small hardback with all photos containing some reference to books/reading. The diversity of the images is inspirational and shows how incredibly observational Kertesz was. This particular book is a reprint and the preface is by Robert Gurbo, Curator Estate of Andre Kertesz. Curiously he proposes that printed books are in demise with the current digital age. I disagree with his statements and believe that since it is now easier than ever to print a book (without even going to a publisher) that more and more photobooks will be printed. For example, the Blurb website, which also hosts the photobooknow competition which continues to raise awareness of the medium makes it incredibly easy to print your own photobook. However, the topic that Kertesz covered in his book is for sure on the demise, as now people are seen 'reading' their phones, laptops or tablet computers instead of books, or not reading at all but listening to music through their chosen device. The world that is captured in this book is indeed going or already gone. Perhaps that is what Gurbo is actually commenting on...

Online Art

I discovered  last year that the Tate Britain has its entire collection online! That's amazing. (link here).
There is just so much art online now, it means that even people in remote parts of the world (I don't actually think Australia is remote, even though it does feel that way occasionally) can view excellent art. Virtual tours such as the fantastic google art project make art really accessible - and as 3D imagery (ie 3D screens etc) improves this will mean we can almost 'walk' around art galleries from anywhere in the world (and the quality of the reproductions are really excellent).

This, combined with the growing number of blogs means that we can access a world of inspiring photography and art from anywhere. Now the problem is finding the time for this and balancing it with spending time working on my own art. I attempt to do this by alternating reading of blogs/books one evening and working on my own photography the next (although sometimes the balance changes if I have a particular project I'm working on). If my own work is getting a bit staid, then I do more reading of blogs or books.

Picturing New York

Picturing New York. Photographs from the Museum of Modern Art.

I have just checked out this book which I found at the local library. It provides an interesting history of photos in a place which has been heavily photographed for most of photographys history! The emphasis is on the MOMA, which has supported photography for many years, and includes work by 'famous' photographers, and also a few news photos and unknown photographer shots. I found it to be really enjoyable to look at. There are a couple of beautiful Alfred Stieglitz photos (Flatiron Building, 1903 in particular) - I quite like the soft focus and dreamy character. The early shots of 'skyscrapers' are great, and I also really liked some of the clever cropping and unusual lenses used in the 1920s (eg Bernice Abbott and Ralph Steiner). A real minimalist photo that I liked (particularly in it's B&W nature and strong geometric design) is Charles Sheeler 'United Nations Secretariat, 1951. The range of subjects is incredibly diverse, the 1940s section in particular - from shopfronts, to subway portraits (Walker Evans), abstract unusual views (Lisette Model, Times Square, 1940), blurred lights & distorted focus & double exposures, studio portraits (Irving Penn), and a couple of real comedy shots - such as Helen Levitt (New York. c. 1945 - a shot of a woman bending over with her hed in her childs pram, the child is grinning hysterically!). Also Weegee's 'the critic', 1943 is a classic comedy shot of three women, two dressed quite smartly with a third caught looking on with a look of criticism - fabulous capture! The range of photographs seem to capture every aspect of life in the city, and the photographers whos names we (mostly) now know very well appear to have grasped something of the soul of the city. A few more favourites: Lee Friedlander, 'New York City, 1966' - a street photo of a womans head from behind (in fur) with the shadow of a man on the top - it looks like the man is wearing her head as a hat!! This is a fun book and I'm really glad I picked it up for a look.

Published by the Museum of Modern Art
ISBN: 978-0-87070-763-6

Inspiration

I recently visited the Photographers Gallery in London. We were lucky to see the exhibition 'fresh faced & wild eyed 2010', which is work by recent graduates - an incredible range and variety if images. Most were sets, from two or 3 works up to about a dozen photos. All were inspirational and thought provoking and some were particularly clever and original!

I was particularly taken by the work of Simone Koch (http://www.simonekoch.co.uk/wahl.html). Her piece 'But we must cultivate our Garden' was really excellent - quirky images, mixture of people and place, closeups and abstracts; it really made me think about what made a set of images clever. I hope to be able to do something vaguely similar with my final assignment for TAOP, not in terms of including people in so many images, but taking photos that are not obvious and making them interesting.

We also saw Briony Campbell talking at the Friday lunchtime talk. Her work 'The dad project' was moving and impressive, though I thought the photos didn't tell enough of the story - the captions were needed which I think is a bit unfortunate. I have seen similar works, both online and at a visit to FOAM gallery in Amsterdam. To take such a personal experience (a relative with a terminal illness) and photograph it takes some guts, and she said that it had helped her grieving experience. I'm not sure it's the most original piece of work however, though it certainly was very touching.

I think those students who chose just a few images to present often resulted in stronger impact for me - sometimes it's difficult to make a choice between 'favourite' images, and I think this is actually a very important part of the process of photography (something I myself struggle with at times). But it also distills down the piece of work into the key images and it you can't get your message across in those images then perhaps the work is not strong enough? Another photographer whos work was very impressive and memorable was Anna Linderstam, who had her subjects hypnotised and then photographed them in that state. The massive triptych that results is visually stunning and very effective.

Francesca Woodman

At a recent exhibition at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art, entitled 'Artist Rooms', with works by Damien Hurst and other big names, I came across a photographer who tragically died quite young, who's work I thought was very inspiring. Her name was Francesca Woodman, 1958 - 1981. Her photos are B&W, often of young nude women, often blurred (sometimes quite ghost-like), often the faces are not shown. The movement softens the line of reality, and softens the body - creating often feminine, sensual shots. The prints we saw were small, and soft around the edges. They seemed quite experimental. I've done a bit of reading online, and looking at more photos, and if you are interested, the wikipedia page has excellent links to her photos. It's fascinating seeing some of her early shots, which she took when she was a young teenager.

Links to some of my favourites: Space, untitled 1976, Space2, angel series,

In fact, the more I look at her photographs, the more amazing I think she seems.

Another interesting photographer I discovered while reading about Woodman is Duane Michals (b. 1932), whom she may have been influenced by. This site has an interesting analysis of his work & art. I like his mix of surrealism and obvious sense of humour evident in some of his photos. I also like his attitude of not following the pack but trying to be different in ones photography, something I would like to strive to do more as I develop my own style.

Wildlife Photographer of the Year (Adelaide)

Those of you living in little old Adelaide, I highly recommend a visit to the SA museum... they have the wildlife photographer of the year winners on display at the moment, yours to see for a mere $5! I would love to go! Don't worry, I think it comes to Edinburgh later in the year so I should manage to see it. The photos are brilliant, I can't decide on my favourite, but they are all beautiful images, very inspiring. The kind of images I can only dream about making...

http://www.samuseum.sa.gov.au/page/default.asp?site=1&id=1967

Stills Exhibition: Close-Up

Open Mon-Sat 11am–6pm Sun 12noon–5pm
The Fruitmarket , in Edinburgh, is possibly my favourite gallery. The exhibitions are normally compact, certainly varied and always thought-provoking. Also the food is excellent!! I recently went to see Close-Up which has finished but there is always a good exhibition on there.
Closeup was great - it was mostly (but not all) old b&w photos - from people like ManRay (his 'Dust Breeding' photo was there as a contact print), Karl Blossfeldt (lovely detailed photos of plants showing fabulous design structure), a very cool surrealistic film by Dali called 'un chien andalou' (actually directed by Lois Bunuel) which is famous for the opening scene which is a close-up an an eye being slit open - which would have been quite shocking when it came out in 1929!! Simon Starling did an interesting series of shots zooming in progressively closer on a ManRay photograph, getting deeper and deeper into the molecular level of photography - a different take on 'close-up'. I also really liked some of the other more modern (1970s) photographic series, such as close-ups of various body parts, often of the photographer him or herself! Eg Carolee Schneemann, "Portrait Partials", 1970. All in all it was a fascinating exhibition, with a wide range of mediums (film, slides, photos, books) all with the 'close-up' theme. It was great to be refreshed with different ways of looking at everyday objects and by extensive use of black & white (or monochrome) to look at light and texture carefully. I really enjoyed this exhibition and went back for a second visit!

John Hilliard, "The most plausible Theory". This is 3 photographs, each of the same pool of water, each with 3 different focal points. Fascinating photos! Stand back and taking in the scene, the 1st is detail, near ground, sticks in water - some shapes in mid- and back-ground not identifiable. 2nd - we can see the light object in the water - a watch under water, now foreground is blurred, as is background. 3rd photo - we now see the background - it's the reflection of a tree (with a man's body hanging in it!), and a cloud. We still see shapes in the foreground that match up to photos 1 and 2. A very (very?) large aperture with extremely narrow DOF for each photo. Project 2 done very well!!! The story is about a man falling with a parachute or something, but the execution is amazingly good! I really like this! I put a photo below for my own record. Also here is a link to some of his other work at the tate. And a talk that looks quite interesting.

Photo taken at the Fruitmarket Gallery Edinburgh, John Hilliard, The most plausible theory, 1976.

From the Fruitmarket website:
The latest in The Fruitmarket Gallery’s series of group exhibitions curated by eminent scholars, writers and artists, Close-Up explores the defamiliarising effects of bringing a camera lens very close to its subject. Trans-historical and cross-generational, the exhibition brings together selected experiments in close-up film and photography from mid-nineteenth century microscopy; avant-garde film and photography from the 1920s and 30s; post-war conceptual art; and contemporary art from the 1990s and 2000s.