Archive for May 2008
Street – part 3
I’ve selected some weekend reading, listening and viewing. From fine art and rock to street photography.
The New York Times | Sony Taps Into Photo Archive as a Resource During Hard Times
“Last year the company started Icon Collectibles, a boutique business that sells art-quality reproductions of these photos online, for prices from $300 to $1,700, and through various partners (including the News Services Division of The New York Times). Now it is expected to announce Thursday that it has made a deal to sell its photos through the Morrison Hotel Gallery, which specializes in rock imagery.
Rock imagery ?
hmm, I thought that my photos from rock carvings and the granit(e) coastline were called rock images…
Reuters | News | Pictures : strange and unusual
En voor de nederlandstaligen heb ik deze : 29 mei | de Journalist : Hollandse Hoogte gedaagd om ‘hardloopfoto’
The latter an interesting article about a law suit in NL concerning portrait right and street photography, with many reactions. One of the comments included this :
Joel Meyerowitz | On Street Photography
Have a look… I can admit that this is not how I made my photographs in the street. See my street photos on my Flickr account.
Street & Fashion & Flash
updated 13 June 2008
My street photography try outs will never become projects as Garry Winogrand’s or Eugene Smith’s. (See my previous post). My god, the size of their projects and devotion… truly amazing.
Article Nuts & Bolts – the digital journalist :
about W. Eugene Smith’s silver printing technique
It seems that I can’t dedicate myself to just one facet of photography, as there are so many fascinating dimensions and I’m constantly drawn from one into another.
These two photo’s were made in the street, an alley, but are about fashion and glamour. I made them when I attended a masterclass lumedyne flash technique in Amsterdam. An interesting exercise.
The demonstration with portable flash gear and glamorous models made me think about the photographer that I met in March at a photo event : a fashion photographer. We talked about his work, photography in general and Robert Mapplethorpe. He gave me his new booklet “HB photography” (NL) with pretty things in it. We discussed and agreed that I should assist him one day at a photo shoot, so I could learn about fashion photography (and photo retouch). After the Amsterdam demo I am keen to do so and to find out more about fashion photography. Although I’m a bit intimidated (handling complex gear+model+location/spot+shot), I would like to investigate more. It seems hard work a shoot in the street, on location, but I guess a fashion shoot in a studio is hard work too.
These summer months however my focus will be on leisure street-snaps.
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Streets of Gothenburg on 30 April | Chalmers Cortège Committé(CCC)
Street photography : inspiration
updated 25 May 2008
When I was in Sweden, already two weeks ago, I took the opportunity to visit the Hasselblad center in Gothenburg. To my surprise and delight the exhibition was one of a Swedish photographer, presenting black and white work only : fine art baryte prints. Yes, nostalgia and poetry at the same time.
Here’s the link to the current exhibition ‘En bild i taget’ by Gunnar Smoliansky and here’s a link to Mr Smoliansky’s website.
“Hans bilder visar vardagliga händelser och de små detaljerna vi andra oftast missar. Även om bilderna är geografiskt lokala har de ett allmängiltigt budskap med en igenkänning som gör dem universella”.
Some work on the website is showing at the Hasselblad center, but at the museum one can also see fine portraits and self portraits. The exhibition is about street photography too.
And street photography happens to have my interest at the moment. My first try outs took place in Gothenburg (before I saw the exhibition 
) and in the streets of Liège, last Saturday… But more about that in a following post…
A “street photographer” (personally I would say documentary photographer…) that you might know is Garry Winogrand. Interesting reading and inspiration for me.
“Garry Winogrand with Bill Moyers, Creativity, WNET, 1982
When I’m photographing, I see life. That’s what I deal with. I don’t have pictures in my head. I frame in terms of what I want to include, and naturally, when I want to snap the shutter. And I don’t worry about how the picture’s gonna look – I let that take care of itself. We know too much about how pictures look and should look, and how do you get around making those pictures again and again. It’s one modus operandi. To frame in terms of what you want to have in the picture, not about how – making a nice picture. That, anybody can do”.
Garry-winogrand-with-bill-moyers/
photo.net/learn/street/intro
“Volume, Volume, Volume. Garry Winogrand is famous for having exposed three rolls of Kodak TRI-X black and white film on the streets of New York City every day for his entire adult life. That’s 100 pictures a day, 36,500 a year, a million every 30 years. Winogrand died in 1984 leaving more than 2500 rolls of film exposed but undeveloped, 6500 rolls developed but not proofed, and 3000 rolls proofed but not examined (a total of a third of a million unedited exposures).
This is the kind of dedication that you need to bring to a street photography project if you hope to achieve greatness”.
http://www.photogs.com/bwworld/winogrand.html
Garry Winogrand/street photographer
WNYC Street Shots: Bruce Gilden
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Streets of Gothenburg : 30 April 2008 | Chalmers Cortège Committé (CCC)
TV evening with two programs about photography
Yesterday evening (8 May) I saw two interesting tv programs. A documentary about a French photographer who’s project is in line with my previous post : the will to set about change -or at least create awareness- through photography.
Let me share this with you :
“Holland Doc | Faces. Documentaire. Israël viert in mei zestig jaar onafhankelijkheid, terwijl Palestijnen de vlucht en verdrijving van honderduizenden Palestijnen herdenken. Het einde van het conflict is nog niet in zicht. In deze documentaire onderneemt de Franse fotograaf en straatkunstenaar JR samen met zijn vriend Marco de grootste illegale fototentoonstelling ooit. De omstreden ‘veiligheidsmuur’ in Israël wordt door JR voorzien van enorme posters met lachwekkende portretten. De vervormde gekke bekken, alle van Israëli en Palestijnen met hetzelfde beroep, duiken ook op in acht Palestijnse en Israëlische steden, pontifikaal in de openbare ruimte. De posters hangen zij aan zij, Face2Face, met als doel de menselijkheid terug te brengen en de gelijkenis van de geportretteerden te tonen. JR probeert zo op een luchtige manier de complexiteit en absurditeit van de situatie in het Midden-Oosten ter discussie te stellen. Regie: Gmax (Gérard Maxim)”.
Also from JR is his 28 millimètres project.
The other program (adapted broadcast Canvas tv) was the first in a BBC serie : Genius of photography. Part one, fixing the shadows, was about the history of photography. Fascinating viewing for me. Camera obscura, daguerreotype, carte de visite and tintype etc.
carte de visite : alexander seik (1869)
See also my post ‘photo collection / old photographic processes’.
WPP : Can photographs change the world?
updated 19 May 2008
Interviews with the winners : the story behind the photographs
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“Can photographs change the world? Not many pictures even provide definitive answers to our questions about the world. Photography is too often a simple channel for information and the four basic “W’s” of the picture caption are the cornerstone of photojournalism: Who, What,
Where and When. But to this the ambitious photojournalist can hope to add the fifth element, Why.
The jury of the 2008 World Press Photo competition put special emphasis on this last component and in their judgement the very best of last year’s photojournalism went beyond giving us plain facts or of attempting simplistic answers.”
Read more, see the full speech by Pieter Broertjes, chairman of the Board World Press Photo
World Press Photo 2008 exhibition tour kicks off : see the calendar
Related readings :
“In one click of a photographer’s shutter,” writes Mazur, “the anti-busing claim that the movement was not driven by racism and that protestors were patriotic defenders against tyranny, came undone”
- Reading Archives | the story of a photograph
- my post about James Nachtwey | share a vital story with the world
- The New York Times | Picturing the Conflict: Perspective Versus ‘Balance’, NYT | Other Voices: War and the Power of Photographs
