Wednesday, December 19, 2012

Seasonal Silly

It's the season of giving. Maybe readers have noticed that theme arise in certain posts here over the past week? I didn't even notice it myself until just today, but there it was here, here, here, and here. Unplanned, I swear. 

Actually a season of giving is silly. It's a fine time to give things away any old day of the year. In 2012 I received photo related objects from many quarters (mostly books and prints, plus the occasional blow up doll), and I want to publicly acknowledge all of them here, in no particular order. Hopefully I haven't omitted anyone.


Bobby Abrahamson
Steve Rockoff
Ori Jauch
Tom Griggs
Theo Stroomer
George LeChat
Bryan Wolf
Zisis Kardianos
Bob Gervais
Missy Prince
George Kelly
Lyla Emery
Bill and Marilyn Andrews
Tabitha Soren
Lisa Gidley
Pete Brook
Jewel Mlnarik
Joe Reifer
Joscha Bruckett
Peter Evans
Jerry Jump
Faulkner Short
Chris Hoge
Bruce Hall
Portland Grid Project
The Postcard Collective
Nick Haymes (2012 Gift King)

Thank You All! I really appreciate and value all photos and books that come my way, and I look very carefully at everything. 

I encourage all photographers to make gifts of your work. I'm not talking about giving away every photo, or ceasing to earn a living. And I'm not talking about handing out keepsakes as a marketing tool or with any ulterior motive. But here and there once in a while it's fun to send out freebies. Don't keep that stuff in the closet. Give it to another photographer! 

And of course if you have anything especially valuable or easily convertible to cash this holiday season, I'm ready and willing to receive it.





Monday, December 17, 2012

The trouble with people



John Gossage: ...One thing I’m very sparing with is photographing people. Once you insert a person into the work, he or she become the protagonist and a lot of my books are at such low intensity that it throws everything off. I want the viewer to be the protagonist in the book. Like in The Thirty-Two Inch Ruler – no people occur except for the viewer.

Lewis Baltz: I think this is one thing we have in common: that the subject of the work is the person looking at it. If you want to get a little more Zen about it, the subject is necessary for the completion of the work.

Yes.

And the intellectual or imaginative engagement of the viewer is what makes the work finally a work. And if you interpose another human in the work, then he or she becomes the subject, which I think is too simplistic.

I think it’s to be used incredibly sparingly and delicately.

Do you see yourselves as the first protagonists when you take photos, so that you are actually the subjects of the work?

No. The work isn’t autobiographical, at least not intentionally.

That’s another ‘chasing the tail’ thing. In a sense everything you do is autobiographical, even the decision to be objective is subjective and so on. But if you place us next to any kind of work that’s ‘subjective’ or ‘autobiographical’ you see immediately that we’re not about that. It’s not about our journeys through the world; it’s about a universe we’re trying to look into.

--Excerpted from this interview

Sunday, December 16, 2012

Pitch

I know Kickstarters are lame but...

Pretty much every Kickstarter pitch I've seen starts with that disclaimer, so I figured it was suitable here. The Helen Levitt movie Kickstarter expires in 12 hours (midnight 12/16). It's currently about $4,000 short of being funded.

Helen Levitt, from the book Slide Show
Honestly I have no idea who the people are behind this. Tanya Sleiman. Frazer Bradshaw. Kent Sparling. Strangers in cyberspace. They could be crooks or assholes or cyber aliases for all I know. But I have a feeling they're legit and that they're building something constructive.

Whatever. I can't control their end of things. All I can do is send money, which I've done, and which is rare for me. I don't fund many Kickstarters. The reason this one is different is that Helen Levitt's Photographs Kick Ass! Come on people. You know it's true. I know it's true. Her photos rule! I want to see a movie about them. Can you believe there isn't one already? Maybe this will help change that.

I know Kickstarters are lame but...

Give till it hurts. Good things will happen. Maybe.

(Addendum: 12/17: The film has been funded. Look for it in late 2013)

Saturday, December 15, 2012

Christos Kapatos: What Was He Thinking?

Christos Kapatos is a photographer based in Athens, Greece. More of his work can be found here and here.


"This one is one of my favorites. It was taken last June in the center of Athens. I was commissioned by a local newspaper to create some images for their "summer in the city" issue. This one was caught when I was trying to create an image for the "heat wave" subject. During summer I use to go out for photo walks with my friend Costas who is the main character. I was desperate as I had 2 days left for my deadline but I thought I should relax this morning and make some shots for me. It was a very hot day and we got exhausted after an hour's walk. We stopped for some water and there it was. I usually have my flash on triggers or on wire when in the street. When I saw the scene, I just thought to frame him with the Asian tourist girls. He was so big and they were so little. Street Gods were kind enough to me to offer the color match of the cars and the clothes, the pole stuck in the man's brain and the weird creature with the sunglasses. I had a great street shot and a worthy one for my editorial. They finally rejected the picture though."


"Athens and Piraeus where I live have ugly buildings and too much optical noise. At the period I made this shot, I was looking for strange characters against the clear sky, giving them strange light with my flash. This is a friend of mine and we were walking together along with other friends in Piraeus in an industrial area with not many people walking around. There were those trees with low branches and I was 3 to 5 meters ahead of the others, trying to create urban landscapes framed with flashed leaves of the trees. As was framing this one, the other guys caught up with me but they stopped walking trying not to get in my frame. Keeping my eye in the camera and the flash low in my left hand, I said "Ok guys, go on" and this guy just popped into my frame unaware that he was the subject. The light pole is another gift. I never noticed it before viewing the images on my PC. "



"This is another favorite shot of mine. I was actually following the man on the suit,  walking by his side on the street but there were cars parked and I couldn't get anything out of it. When we got to the corner, the man gave the junkie the meanest look he could. He found his ID card on the pavement and started looking at it. The junkie had just dropped it but he couldn't find it. He had just sniffed some heroin and he was somewhere else. As he was holding himself from the pole I imagined that everything in this world must be wrong and that he was was trying to straighten everything by pulling the lever. That's why I tilted my frame. I wanted to show the junkie man straight and the world around him wrong."




"Another dull day in the city. There was no light, people were moody, we were walking for a couple of hours and nothing interesting had shown up until those guys just turned the corner. My reaction was instinct. I raised the camera to my eye and the left hand with the flash on wire and just hit it. The left guy bumped on my wire after the click and he apologized. I am not sure if the guys were identical twins or even brothers or just models that looked alike. The fact that I was late to see them, resulting in the chopped face was good after all. I love the mystery."




"This one belongs in a series I'm working on about people that work in the sex industry and the perception of them by their customers. I was at an erotic exhibition with girls walking and performing all around and the place was crowded with photographers. What struck my attention was the way men like carnivores were looking at the girls. The man in the background must be their "manager". His gaze could kill you and after the shot he asked me if I had shot him and if so, I had to erase the image. I had to go on preview and zoom a bit before showing him that I had only caught the girl's legs."




"I shot this during a wedding reception. I was assigned to capture the event on video. The wedding was held on the beautiful island of Hydra and in order to cut on my budget, I had arranged to leave the island on the first boat early next morning without renting a room for the night. So after finishing with my video shots at about 3 or 4 am, I got in the crowd with everybody dancing and started taking shots for fun using long exposure and hitting them with my flash pilot. That's what happened here. I went for the flying hat and when I lowered the camera I saw the ecstatic girl and flashed her just before the shutter closed. "




"This old lady was about 4 feet tall.  I always look through my viewfinder when I shoot and when I saw her she was smoking. Actually sucking the cigarette. I bent down and framed her in a second, but she saw me and turned away. I had to shoot instantly. She was blinded by her smoke and that's why she had her eyes half closed. This shot always intrigued me but I only showed it months after I shot it. I love how the street wires are above her and the traffic light red and the signs prohibiting left or right. She seems caught in the city madness but in her own majesty. "


"This was shot on a square in Athens where the buildings are not that ugly and they are far from the people allowing me to frame them with less optical noise. I rarely wait on a spot for something interesting to come by. If and when I do, it's never more than a couple of minutes. This lovely old man was so short but his body and movement drew my attention. I locked on his path, lowered, found my frame and just waited for him to come. He was so short that I had to be on my knees, and put my left hand with the flash on the ground. His open jacket, long neck and weird look made him look like a goose flying above the city. I just love him. When I took the shot he said 'Don't take my telephone'. He meant 'picture'."

Friday, December 14, 2012

daily cumulative internalized


My review of the new Paul Strand monograph The Garden At Orgeval was posted on Photo-Eye yesterday. I used some fancy words and tried to sound authoritative, so if you go for that sort of thing I think you'll find the review interesting. But if you're like me and value confusion, absurdity, and the accidentally poetic, you may like the following translation better. As with my previous review of Retinal Shift, I've sent my review around the world via Google Translate, this time English > Esperanto > Hebrew > Tamil > English. An article in the soul slow your vehicle and speed bump the smell of roses feel like the spring is just the corner allows.


Paul Strand effect is well established. Among other achievements in the early decades of the last century, the change probably directly responsible for modern than any other film. Perhaps deathblow Photo - retirement - June 1917 The latest issue of camerawork photos Strand has almost completely. He was a man movement.

These pens are each cap. But at the end of a brake. Photo after a globetrotting career, his legacy secure, Strand Orgeval, France, was established in 1955, and became a kind of a homebody. He, Expat 65 is. In the last 21 years of his life he was in the garden and the garden became the subject of his photograph. He plants his shot all ages and different perspectives, but especially in the spring, and very soon.
"Page a picture, photo title, without tricks. That the design did not match the images. There is nothing virtual about them. Of visual perception, however, they do not show in the near genius or a simple irony. Only a clear view of branches and leaves. If something garbled about them, that they will be clean to dirty."
Garden for the first time in book form in the short Orgeval collect images. Simply and without images will be garbled. Page a picture, photo title, without tricks. That the design did not match the images. There is nothing virtual about them. Of visual perception, however, they do not show in the near genius or a simple irony. Only a clear view of branches and leaves. If something garbled about them, that they will be clean to dirty.

At first glance, this book may seem like a relic. In fact, Orgeval surfing on the set of a system like that in a bit. It's 1974, and we moved slowly through the roots and snails are looking to stand in court. Cindy Sherman has not happened. The New Topographics. Black and white is still the dominant aesthetic, and shot by a camera. Images, colors, and images are not in control of the entire canon. And in the world of photography, and more remote, usually according to a conservative print design and content. Gene Orgeval feel at home here.

I printed a photo of the flowers now and 2012, the time, the style and type of imagination. Of course, the other side of the coin, a book, one at a time right now is that the individual can not stand. Perhaps more importantly, be able to prove that the film moves currents. Reminder: It's not always like that.

Joel Meyerowitz Orgeval the introduction of these changes and proposed a unique trends. All photographic work is known as the Strand Meyerowitz, but do not really appreciate. Until recently he was also a deep understanding. Leaves Why do some shooting on the side? Now in his sleep at 70, he knew he would eventually. A new test that it works Strand Strand Orgeval is no coincidence that this happened when the adult Meyerowitz. Meyerowitz link to reconsider his earlier ago, and readers can assess their aesthetic choices about how to vary. We choose the time and, in addition to our opinion, this is not about social change is not such a big step. Strand modern approach a film before his retirement, as can be dry, but they are perhaps the inevitable rebirth, such as toy cameras, high process, and Instagram recently identified by popularity.
"The bile, the body is due to defects. Bodies and subjects them to close. But age is an aesthetic preferences change, efficiency and satisfaction are updated daily cumulative internalized."
It's not always like that. Trends come and go, it certainly reflects the fiber itself. Outside the immediate vicinity of the world-wide attention to the camera is a popular method. In later life, Joseph Sudek, André Kertész, or Ruth Orkin, shooting out all that is in their area. Or Robert Frank or Larry Towell and domestic scenes photos after the hearing. The bile, the body is due to defects. Bodies and subjects them to close. But age is an aesthetic preferences change, efficiency and satisfaction are updated daily cumulative internalized.

"Unlimited is a master of the world," Strand is mentioned in the book. "He was a few feet away, or at the residence. Always on his doorstep, can be found everywhere." Orgeval gene, the record can show readers