The Black Snapper and ILEX Photo Art Editions
July 31, 2009 | Filed Under Photography, Website | Leave a Comment
A brand new photo site The Black Snapper, thanks Keith, uses a guest curator to choose another photographer to feature. The first curator is Magnum photographer Abbas who chose to showcase Mexican photographer Maya Goded. Goded is represented by her photographs, a bio and selections from letters written while she was photographing. Goded, who spent several years associated with Magnum, won the W. Eugene Smith award for her five year project on prostitution.
The Black Snapper site was created by designer Frank Kloos and documentary photographer Diederik Meijer who are based in Amsterdam.
You can see more of Goded images here at ILEX Photo Art Editions, a site that sells prints and features a number of videos of various photographers talking about individual photographs. There’s also a link off the Black Snapper site.
Photographers Are A Threat Apparently
July 31, 2009 | Filed Under Photography, Photos | Leave a Comment
Photo District News blog PDN Pulse has this report and link to the FOX video of the U. S. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano asking people to report suspicious photographers. Here’s part of a quote from her : “One of the things that we ask people to do is when they see something unusual, if they see, for example, somebody continually taking photographs of a piece of critical infrastructure that doesn’t seem to make any sense, or a package left unattended on a bus platform, to report that to local law enforcement so it can be followed up on.”
And on that note, here’s a group you might want to join:
This British based group Not-A-Crime wants photographers to take self-portraits holding a sign saying either “Not A Crime” or “I am Not A Terrorist”. You can see the results on Flickr. An example of a portrait below from Ravel/Javi Valero and an appropriate t-shirt beneath that..
Or get the Fraxinus designed tshirt here.
Erica McDonald – Scribbling In The Dark
July 30, 2009 | Filed Under Interview, Online Learning, Photography, Website | Leave a Comment
Last week I mentioned how amazing it’s become online with all the great sites and posting where you can read/listen and watch posting/stories/videos about photography and photographers. A former student, Byron Fry thoughtfully sent me this link of interviews and talks that is quite extensive.
I’ve also taken a look at New York photographer Erica McDonald’s collection of her observations at photographer’s talks she’s attended. They’re different in that they are an interesting combination of straight reportage and quotes from the events combined with her own personal observations. She calls the series of reports Scribbling In The Dark as she’s usually taking the notes that will make up these postings in a darkened room as she listens to the presentations.
She’s also an excellent photographer, very nice stories and portraits to look through on her site.
Time Pays $30 For Photo Today – Robert Frank Got $50 in 1947
July 30, 2009 | Filed Under Careers, Photography | Leave a Comment
There’s been a lot of talk in the online photo world the past week or so regarding the fact that a recent Time magazine cover consisted of a $30 iStock photo (story here) and how it’s yet another indicator of the challenges of making a living in today’s media world.
I was reminded of this story while rereading the 1984 Patricia Bosworth biography of Diane Arbus last night. Here’s an excerpt from a section on the photographer Robert Frank….’In 1947 the Franks came to New York and Frank began photographing for Fortune, Life, Harper’s Bazaar. The pay was terrible ($50 a picture)‘.
Think about it, sixty seven (67) years ago the major magazines were paying $50 a photo (not a cover , a photo) and today a photographer is excited he got $30.
P. K Page in Reader’s Digest
July 28, 2009 | Filed Under Tearsheet | Leave a Comment
Poet P. K. Page in the June issue of Reader’s Digest
Learning Photography Online
July 24, 2009 | Filed Under Online Learning, Photography | Leave a Comment
Students often ask where they can go to add to their knowledge when classes are done and many online sites are obvious recomendations. The past few weeks I’ve had the opportunity to revisit some favourite sites as well as take a look at some new offerings.
Lens Culture hosts a great site but I’ve never checked out their collection of audio interviews before. I really enjoyed the talk by Stephen Mayes on the World Press Photo contest. I actually found myself scribbling notes on a nearby envelope as the lecture unfolded. At 49 minutes it’s a long but very useful, thought provoking talk.
Yesterday checked out the just posted interview with Danny Wilcox Frazier at Brian Storm’s MediaStorm and still have to go back for the rest of the presentation on Wilcox Frazier’s Driftless.
Over at the Lenswork site where I haven’t been in ages I found a whole series (400) of short podcasts from Brooks Jensen. These are all quite short and while you won’t want to listen to every one (well, maybe you will) there are lots to choose from . I’d actually gone there because I’d just read elsewhere about the death in May of Bill Jay, whose work especially his portraits of photographers I’d always found quite fascinating (I actually published a series of them in my short lived photo paper Deadline, back in the mid-nineties). Jay had been a long time contributor to Lenswork. Look at Jay’s images and/or read his essays at his site here.
Youtube offers up a number pf presentations on photography. I’ve paricularily enjoyed the videos on Magnum photographers, an amzing view of Bruce Gilden, focusing on his street photography techniques, and a nice interview by Michael David Murphy with Alec Soth.
Magnum Photos offers up essays and podocasts on their agency site. I really like Trent Parke’s Minutes To Midnight presentation and have watched it a number of times. Parke and his wife, the equally accomplished photographer Narelle Autio, spent two years traveling around their native Australia.
If you want a look at how some photographer’s set up their workspaces take a look at Andrew Hetherington’s What’s The Jackanory site for video tours of photographers’s studios.
Rowan The Strange Cover
July 23, 2009 | Filed Under Photography | 1 Comment
The cover for Julie Hearn’s book Rowan The Strange is a photo I took several years ago of my youngest son. It’s always great to get an image published somewhere different and while I’ve had my own books published and have had a number of writer portraits used for book covers this is the first book cover from a photograph of mine. The image was chosen from a British/Spanish agency I have some photos with, Arcangel. Here’s a review of the book from the Guardian a couple of weeks ago.
Ninety year old photographers, Photo-Snobism and more
July 17, 2009 | Filed Under From the Newspapers | 1 Comment
The New York Times has a feature on 92-year-old fashion photographer Lillian Bassman and an obituary for 98-year-old architectural photographer Julius Schulman.
Spacing Toronto on taking photographs of events from the photographer’s balcony.
A feature on Magnum’s Susan Meiselas at artdaily.org.
Interesting piece from Thoughts of a Bohemian on photo-snobism.
Dirck Halstead at the always interesting Digital Journalist revisiting the death of photojournalism
An important book pointed out by Jorg Colberg at Conscientious, The Last Days of Shishmaref by Dana Lixenberg. Say goodbye to the Arctic.
Check out the newly redesigned News Photographers Association of Canada site.
A day late but a nice piece about selling your own stock from A Photo Editor.
Timothy Findley – Portrait with a wine glass
July 17, 2009 | Filed Under Literary Photographer, Portrait | Leave a Comment
Sometimes you don’t need a face for a portrait.
I had photographed the late Timothy Findley for my first book First Chapter and following that photo session he sat down for an interview and lunch with then Calgary Herald books editor, now best selling author in his own right, Ken McGoogan. I joined the pair and Findley’s partner Bill Whitehead and continued to take a few photos but mainly listened in. What I was treated to was an entertaining hour and a half as Findley and Whitehead, the practiced tag team that they were, traded stories, memories, observations while eating, smoking and drinking wine. i think Ken just hung on and tried to get it all down. It was an incredibly enjoyable lunch and I think this image showing Findley’s hand, glasses and wine remind me more of that encounter than the other, more traditional, portraits I took that day.
Early Vancouver Punk Rock – Furies, DOA, Skulls, Dishrags, Subhumans and Rabid
July 15, 2009 | Filed Under Literary Photographer, Music, Photography, Photos, Portrait | 7 Comments
I came across a few prints and contact sheets I has tucked away in an envelope from the very early days of the Vancouver punk rock scene. Please send a note to correct me if I’m off on names etc. These were taken quite a while ago (1977ish? ) and I didn’t keep the notes I should have.
The Furies at the Japanese hall. I believe this was the second local punk rock show in Vancouver. My first. Tom Harrison of the Georgia Straight used the photo. If memory serves me, the bass player is Malcolm Hasman, now Vancouver realtor to the famous.
The Dishrags. I think they opened for The Furies although this photo was taken at a later date.
Detail from a contact sheet of the Skulls playing the Easter Be-In in White Rock. I remember getting whacked by beer caps the unnappreciative crowd was flipping at the band. The Skulls metamorphed into DOA.
Another details from the Skulls contact sheets. A number of stalwarts from later bands were in this group, Joe ‘Shithead’ Keithley, Brian Goble, Ken Montgomery, Brad Kent.
Early photo of the classic DOA line up of Joe Keithley, Chuck Biscuits and Randya Rampage
Detail from a contact sheet of another early DOA show or maybe they were still the Skulls at this point
Subhumans with Ken Montgomery playing guitar, Brian Goble and Gerry Hannah. Not sure of drummer.
Gerry Hannah of the Subhumans
Ken Montgomery of the Subhumans. No idea why he had the stocking mask on.
Rabid -Sid Sick and John Doe say my notes on the print