In Search of the Unfathomable
14 October, 2009
I recently contributed an article about the photographer Anna Linderstam to 1000 Words Magazine. Anna is a young Swedish photographer fascinated by the moments of transformation that people pass through when under stress.
To read the article go to 1000 Words autumn/fall 2009 #06 issue (current at time of writing) and follow the links to Anna Linderstam.
In their latest major new exhibition The National Portrait Gallery asked ten prominent gay men and women to reveal the people who have inspired them?
And so I ask the question, with a degree, it must be said, of trepidation, whether or not one’s sexual orientation is relevant or indeed interesting to be used as a theme for an exhibition and what is it that the National Portrait Gallery is trying to say to us?
The ten people invited to contribute to the show include, a poet, two authors, a tennis player, a journalist, a rock star, an actor, a radio presenter, and two politicians. Their chosen icons span the worlds of entertainment, art music, literature, sports, politics and royalty. The photography is by a similarly disparate group. While Mary McCartney shot some [but not all] of the portraits of the selectors, the portraits of the icons are by a wide range of people, from family snap shots to Cecil Beaton. Something of a motley collection of people and portraits that seemingly have nothing bringing them together until the motif of Gay is superimposed.
Joe Orton
The NPG has chosen themes before; leading people in the fields of science and medicine with a series of portraits shot by Julia Fullerton-Batten, people of faith with portraits by Don McCullin and most recently an exhibition of the private space of artists by Eamonn McCabe. In each of these shows there was a cohesiveness that underpinned the reason for making an exhibition. Discussions could be had as to the merits of the portraits, critical analysis of the photographers commissioned to make the work and interest in the people chosen to represent their professional, political, cultural or religious outlook.
Ray Shannon from the Yorkshire Ambulance Service
But in Gay Icons there is no such rigour. The prominent citizens are not directly political or campaigning people who have made their name fighting for gay rights. Neither are the people selected all renowned for their contribution to the struggle to legalise homosexuality. So all we are left with is the fact that the ten people invited to make their selection are Gay. And this is simply not interesting in and of itself. The NPG have missed an opportunity with a lazy nod towards political correctness.
Virginia Wolf
They could have had a fascinating show basing it on Gay Rights campaigners, or presented cutting edge work that is being produced in countries where homosexuality is still illegal.
So just what is the point of Gay Icons? Is it enough of a triumph for Gay Rights that the NPG have used GAY in the title of their exhibition?
John Bulmer Retrospective
19 May, 2009
Just about to open, The Hereford Photography Festival has a long overdue retrospective of John Bulmer. I spent three very delightful days with John, going through his archive selecting the work for the show. If you get a chance to visit it is well worth the trip as this is a rare opportunity to see the 1960s in colour. If you can’t get there then we have posted the show up on the festival site where you can also read a transcript of an interview Carey Gough made and there will shortly be a video of John talking about his work on YouTube.
The mill town of Elland, Yorkshire
A pioneer of colour photography in the 1960s, photographer John Bulmer began his photographic career in Cambridge, where along with Peter Laurie Brendan Lehane and Adrian Bridgewater they founded Image. The magazine’s aim was to provide its photographers with experience to work as professional photographers in London and Bulmer duly joined the Daily Express in 1960.
Bulmer was a devotee of the new photographic technology and quickly embraced the 35mm format. This enabled him to work with greater flexibility and faster than his other Fleet Street colleagues who were still shooting on Rollei cameras.
From the Express, Bulmer started freelancing for Man about Town, later renamed Town, working alongside Terence Donovan, David Bailey and Don McCullin and it was here that he shot one of his most celebrated works on the North of England and in particular his documentary of the town, Nelson.
A pub in the northern town of Nelson
When in 1962 the Sunday Times became the first British Newspaper to produce a colour supplement, Bulmer was an obvious choice as a contributor to its first issue. Having experimented with colour early in his career, he was recognised for understanding and thinking in colour. This was in direct contrast to his peers who, dismissing colour as garish and cheap, argued that black and white produced images that had more truth and integrity.
Bulmer worked for the Sunday Times for the next 10 years and during his time at the magazine was one its most prolific contributors covering stories both in the UK and abroad.
Spread from the feature White Tribes, Sunday Times Magazine
With an end to post war austerity and the beginning of the swinging 60s Britain was a place of extremes. While Carnaby Street fashions, The Beatles and the Mini quickly became symbols of modern Britain, a divide was opening up between the north and south of the country. Novels such as a Room at the Top, and the film Saturday Night Sunday Morning highlighted a romanticism of the north, where life was hard but real. For Bulmer this industrial landscape, with its gritty cobbled streets and back to back terraces was exotic and although he found the voyeuristic nature of photojournalism increasingly problematic it is his extended project on The North, shot for both the Sunday Times and Town magazine that he has earned his reputation as a photojournalist.
Pit ponies and miners from the series The North
In 1971 Bulmer was given a visa to travel to Burma, one of the first issued to a foreign journalist since the end of the Second World War. With The Sunday Times more interested in crime at home, than military juntas abroad, he went to the BBC where he was handed some money and told to go off and make a film and so his career shifted from photojournalism to film making.
Seen but Not Heard
24 April, 2009
Earlier this year I was asked to curate this year’s Hereford Photo Festival, and after much consideration I decided to tackle an issue which has concerned me for sometime; namely the increasing restrictions, both legal and moral, that society is placing upon photographers. Here is my introduction to the work I have selected.
“Few questions are more contentious in modern day Britain than those involving children” wrote Simon Bainbridge, editor of the BJP, in June 2005.
As new technologies make taking photographs easier, so too the social constraints that limit what we can take pictures of are expanding. The freedom photographers such as Roger Mayne, Henri Cartier Bresson or Dorothea Lange had to document children, playing on the streets, at home or school has gone.
Boys on a Lorry, Cowcaddens, Glasgow 1958 by Roger Mayne
Now photographers, both amateur and professional, have to negotiate the minefield of obtaining permissions, run the risk of being branded a pervert and counter our increasing prudishness of what is thought to be an appropriate image of a child.
Pledging allegience to the United States flag in 1942 by Dorothea Lange
Rue Mouffetard, 1954 by Henri Cartier-Bresson
For this year’s Hereford Photo Festival, I have selected the work of nine photographers, all of whom engage with this charged subject matter, each finding their own way to overcome an increasingly fearful sensibility that operates in our society.
Examples of the work of the photographers featuring in the Hereford festival 2009:
Vee Speers - The Birthday Party
Simon Wheatley - Don’t call me Urban
Clare Richardson - Harlemville
Wiebke Leister - Hals über Kopf
Michelle Sank - Interface
Ali Richards - Playground
Julia Fullerton Batten – Teenage Stories
Jan Von Holleben – Dreams of Flying
Edmund Clark – Baby Fathers
In making my decision about what to show I deliberately decided not to include anything that might cause controversy or be under threat of removal. My reason for this is simple. There have been many blank walls and empty galleries where work commissioned for exhibition has been taken down as a result of a complaint by a member of the public or an over anxious council worker. These removals are often covered in the media and we are made aware of the issues, but not the images.
For this show I want the work to be seen and for the discussion to broaden out into an understanding what our culture will allow to be seen. If we can permit ourselves to look at images of children, hanging on the walls of an art gallery, then perhaps we will also begin to discuss whether or not the act of taking a picture of a child is as dangerous as society seems to think it is.
Open all hours
9 April, 2009
So today I launched Troika Editions. Not quite single handedly it must be said.
Conceived of nine months ago, it has certainly felt at times like giving birth. A few hiccups in the last throws of labour have been overcome and today we made our first sale.
One of the most thrilling experiences I have had in the last few months has been meeting and talking to the photographers who have been brave and generous in agreeing to join in our adventure. Without any of them there would be no Troika Editions, so my very sincere thanks to them all.
The first week’s images come from Carolyn Lefley, Issa Randall and Hin Chua, all young photographers, who are quickly becoming established artists. Hin is due to have an exhibition this summer in Rochester New York State with his series After the Fall; Carolyn was awarded one of the coveted National Media Museum Photography bursaries in 2008 and Issa has just returned from showing his work at this year’s Quad Photo Festival.
Within #1 by Carolyn Lefley
Wild West by Issa Randall
A Mile from Zhang Jiang High Technology Park, Shanghai by Hin Chua
Fresh faced
5 April, 2009
Just in case you haven’t seen it or heard of it, this is a show worth trying to get your work into.
When you enter, just make sure you have thought about what and why you are submitting the work, ensure it has some visual coherence and show it to a trusted friend before entering.
It is always worth getting an independent opinion. In my experience photographers are often too close to their work to be able to assess it with the degree of detachment needed when entering competitions or portfolio reviews.
Good luck
I Should Have Put Money on It…
26 March, 2009
It is not always the case that I agree with the judges of competitions but the recent announcement that Paul Graham has won this year’s Deutsche Borsche prize is very welcome news.
Lawnmower, Pittsburgh, 2004 © Paul Graham
From the book a shimmer of possibility, 2007 © Paul Graham/ Courtesy Anthony Reynolds Gallery, London
See here for more details from the Photographers’ Gallery.
The Cost of Competitions
17 March, 2009
I recently got through details for entering this year’s New York Photo Festival awards and it led me to ask whether such events are worthwhile in terms of the effort that is needed to enter and the cost of the fees charged. Such awards can be extremely helpful to photographers seeking to enhance their profile and in some cases their bank balance; but for those who don’t win, and of course there is only ever one winner, are they a bit of a lottery that increasingly costs significant amounts of money.
Starting at $30 per print and rising to $80 for a series of 2 – 15 images, per category, entering the New York Photo Festival can quickly become expensive. NYPH are not alone in charging for entries and while there are some important exceptions such as the World Press awards, BJP awards and the Sony awards, most competitions charge for entries, often arguing that the fees cover the cost of administering the competition. Over a year entries can add up to hundreds of pounds with no guarantee that your work will be seen by the final round judges.
Here is a quick survey of some of the competitions available to photographers which is by no means exhaustive. The BJP in the UK and PDN in the USA are very good sources of more competitions.
And this extremely useful blog.
Competitions in the UK:
Launched last year, the Sony Awards are free and have a prize of $25,000 for the winner of Sony World Photography Awards Photographer of The Year which was won last year by Vanessa Winship for her series – Sweet Nothings: Rural Schoolgirls from the Borderlands of Eastern Anatolia Turkey.
The AOP has a number of competitions for their full and provisional members, but they also have an annual event – the AOP Open, which is open to everyone. Winners take part in an exhibition with their work published in an accompanying catalogue.
Cost is £12 per image submitted
National Portrait Gallery Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize
Charging £16 per print entered with a limit of 6 images, this can be fairly expensive as in addition to the entry fee entrants also have to stump up the cost of getting their photograph printed, which can cost up to £200 depending on the size. The winner does however win £12,000 and is exhibited in one of the UK’s leading galleries, the National Portrait Gallery.
In the USA
IPA (International Photography Awards) Competition
With the lure of winning the title International Photographer of the Year and a cash prize of $10,000 this is one of the top photography awards. There are a large number of categories to choose from including fine art, advertising and editorial.
Costs are:
Single Image: $35.00
Series (2 t0 5 images): $60.00
Each Additional Category: $25.00
In France
The Prix de la Photographie in Paris has a number of aims which include discovering new talent and bringing the global photographic community to the attention of the artistic community of Paris. The winning images are exhibited in Paris and also published in the Px3 Annual Book and there is a 3000 euro prize for the Best in Show.
$30 for each photograph entered
$50 for each series (2-5 images with a unifying theme) or book
To enter the same photograph or series again into an additional category costs an extra $25 per category.
Non-professional and Student Photographers:
$20 per photograph entered
$40 for each series (2-5 images with a unifying theme)
To enter same photograph or series again into an additional category costs an extra $15 per category.
What makes photography an art form?
1 March, 2009
If you get a chance go online and watch Guardian art critic Adrian Searle’s review of the Deutsche Börse Photography Prize currently on show at the Photographer’s Gallery.
Searle is always eloquent in his reviews and what I admire most is that he doesn’t pull his punches. In this respect he immediately questions the legitimacy of an archive being included within a photography show. Searle is speaking about Emily Jacir’s work Material for a Film. His criticism is not that the work isn’t interesting and indeed there is a lot to recommend it, but Searle rightly questions whether or not it should be classified as photography and whether it should be short-listed for one of the art world’s most prestigious photography prizes. Jacir tells the story of the assassination of Palestinian intellectual Wael Zuwaiter by Israeli agents in Rome in 1972. She uses photographs, objects, texts and interviews to piece the story together, re-presenting found images and texts written at the time. There is no doubt that this is a moving and for Jacir a deeply political tale that needs to told. Zuwaiter was assassinated for what Israeli agents believed was a key role in the massacre of Israeli athletes at the Summer Olympics 1972.
Installation shot of Emily Jacir’s Material for a film
But this is an archival story rather than visual narrative. It is the collection of the whole, somewhat like a magazine pasted to the wall, that brings the story alive and this representation, whilst it uses photography to record the objects in order to display the story, does not have any visual language within itself.
The other three artists are more straightforward in their use of photography in their art. Taryn Simon in her work An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar offers us a view of an unseen America. On the surface the imagery is familiar. It has the feel of an advertising campaign. High-end production values and the large format brings an almost relentless detail to her pictures. It is her choice of subject that makes this work more interesting and here I part company with Searle who says he finds it rather dull. The photograph of a woman in a surgery about to or having just undergone an operation to repair her broken hymen is both shocking and beautiful. The composition, lighting and concise presentation of the content drag the viewer in closer, making us wonder what precisely is going on in this clean and clinical environment. We want to look but are made to feel uncomfortable as this is obviously such a private and personal scene. It is this tension that Simon invokes in her work that is its strength.
from Taryn Simon's An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar
Paul Graham has been nominated for his publication A Shimmer of Possibility. Large format scenes of America have become almost ubiquitous since we all rediscovered Stephen Shore and Joel Sternfeld. But Graham brings a different sensibility to his work. This isn’t road movie material. Rather his work is less about him and more about what he sees and what he sees as a common humanity. He has been described as poetic, quiet without hubris. All of which is true, but for me it is the humanity he brings to his work and fills his subjects with. You can see his work on his website. But it is this picture below that I think in itself is worthy of the prize.
Lawnmower, Pittsburgh, 2004 © Paul Graham
The fourth artist is Tod Papageorge who has been short listed for his exhibition Passing Through Eden – Photographs of Central Park and Searle is in no doubt that this is the work that should win the 2009 prize..
Central Park, New York, 1991 © Tod Papageorge
Papageorge is a veteran, producing work that is easy to recognise as photography. There I agree that it should be applauded for its skill. Having been brought up on a diet of Henri Cartier-Bresson, Don McCullin and Diane Arbus, it is clear that Papageorge should be acclaimed and that his work fits within the canon of documentary photography. Shot between 1962 and 1996, Papageorge steadfastly observed people enjoying their decisive moment in the park. There is humour and as with Paul Graham there is a humanity shown in Papageorge’s subjects.
I think it is worthy of the prize, but I think Graham should get it.
Deutsche Börse Photography prize is at the Photographer’s Gallery from 20 February to 12 April 2009.
A Survey of Photography Magazines Online
12 February, 2009
As the Internet increasingly delivers our every cultural need, I am more and more turning to the web for photographic magazines. I still get the printed word and image via the BJP, PDN, foto8, Next Level and Portfolio, but there are some very engaging sites in cyberspace that showcase interesting and diverse work.
Here are three of my current favourites:
Purpose is a French site that takes themes and presents us with a curated show. The current issue is on childhood and is rich in its inclusion of fairy stories, superheroes, family snaps and old archive black and white images from the Musee Carnavalet.
As you turn the page you can choose to hear music picked to accompany each work, making this a very multimedia site.
Here are some photographs from the Childhood Issue:
Doug Dubois:
My sister’s bedroom, Ithaca, NY, 2004 by Doug Dubois
Samantha Contis:
Bathroom, 2005 by Samantha Contis
Wolfram Hahn:
Untitled, 2006 by Wolfram Hahn
Amy Stein:
Watering Hole, by Amy Stein
Joakim Eskildsen:
Seraphin and the Rainbow, 2008 by Joakim Eskildsen
Thekla Ehling:
From Sommerherz, by Thekla Ehling
Dulce Pinzon:
Bernabe Mendez, from The Real Story of the Superheroes, by Dulce Pinzon
Musee Carnaualet:
Anonymous circa 1900
Seesaw magazine is an inspirational site edited by Aaron Schuman. Schuman is a lecturer at the University of Brighton and also a freelance writer. I am impressed by the fact that he finds time to make this site so interesting alongside his other occupations. Schuman has a keen eye and great contacts; it is worth delving into his archive to find interviews with many of the superstars of the photography world such as Alex Soth, Roger Ballen and Tod Papageorge.
The current issue has a fabulous set of drawings found by Suzanne Mooney that illustrate how to take porn stills.
Take a peek into the back issues and there is a wealth of great photography from both established and emerging photographers. Some that I liked include:
Claire Richardson:
Sylvan, 2002-6 by Claire Richardson
Terminus Riga, 2007-8 by Iveta Vaivode
Reiner Riedler:
Artificial Holidays, 2004-8 by Reiner Riedler
Seat of Power, 2000-4 by Jason Oddy
Jan von Holleben:
Adventures in Neverland, by Jan von Holleben
Esther Teichmann:
Viscosity, 2003-4 by Esther Teichmann
A new magazine on the scene, now into their third issue, is 1000 Words. It launched last year and is the brainchild of Tim Clark. Clark is not new to the photography world and as a freelance writer he has contributed to a number of high profile publications including Next Level. With an impressive array of photographers and good solid writing this is a site worth bookmarking.
Here are some highlights from the three issues so far:
Richard Learoyd:
From The Ghost in the Machine by Richard Learoyd
Indre Serpytyte:
From State of Silence by Indre Serpytyte
Li Wei:
Li Wei falls to earth, 2002
Mathieu Bernard Reynard:
From TV by Mathieu Bernard Reynard
Thomas Demand:
Kitchen, 2004 by Thomas Demand
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