Portfolio Reviews in Brasilia, Brazil: Foto Arte 2007

Foto Arte 2007 is a lively, well-established international photography conference, festival and series of seminars that attracts great talents and photography lovers from South America and from all over the world. As an important component of this event, photographers can meet there with well-respected photography professionals (international museum curators, gallerists, publishers), to show their portfolios during intense, scheduled formal reviews. Over a busy period of four days (October 18-21), these emerging and established photographers get creative feedback, constructive criticism, business advice — and hopefully an exhibition, gallery representation, or broad exposure through publications in print or on the web.

This year, Lens Culture is thrilled to be part of Foto Arte. If you are planning to attend, please stop by to say hello!

Visit the web site for more info: www.fotoartebrasilia.com.br/

120 Preview Picks for Paris Photo 2007

Delphine Balley, Série Histoires vraies, Courtesy galerie le Réverbère, Lyon, 2006

Lens Culture is delighted to be able to share 120 preview picks for the upcoming festival, Paris Photo 2007 (November 15-18, Carrousel du Louvre, Paris). The show promises to be an overabundance of visual stimulation and delight. It's probably the world's best international photography fair, and it's in Paris!

Enjoy.

Richard Barnes: Rome's Starlings

From the series, Murmur, by Richard Barnes

Photographer Richard Barnes is one of those rare photographers who seems to find beauty wherever he looks. And it is impossible to peg him with a "style". He is perhaps best known for the photos he made inside a huge, otherwise empty US Military warehouse, of the Unabomber's rustic cabin — as it looked after it was transported there, completely intact (inside and out), for further forensic research. But his work streches far and wide. He also self-published (I think) an elegant, slim, large-format book of photographs he made over a period of many months while a former 19th century "pauper's cemetery" was exhumed and moved to make way for expansion of San Francisco's Museum of the Legion of Honor. On the few occasions I have had the pleasure to talk with him in person, I have been taken by his quiet, humble manner.

So, it was a delight to discover this wonderful narrated slideshow about his work about migratory starlings in The New York Times online version.

You can discover more about Richard Barnes at his web site.

And special thanks to Alec Soth's always interesting and provocative blog for pointing the way to this gem.

San Francisco Photo Lectures and Self-Publishing

San Francisco's PhotoAlliance kicks off its superb Fall lecture series this evening with slideshow presentations and talks by two photographers who use photography in similar yet uniquely different ways: Terry Evans and Michael Light. Highly recommended.

More info is here: www.photoalliance.org.

Photo by Terry Evans

Photo by Michael Light

Also, coming up at the San Francisco Art Institute, on September 29, is PhotoAlliance's one-day seminar on "Digital (Self) Publishing Your Photographic Book". Lots of experts and experience. Well worth it. Details at the same link, above.

Nicholas Hughes: In Darkness Visible

From In Darkness Visible, Verse I, by Nicholas Hughes

The photographs of Nicholas Hughes play with light and seeing at the extreme ends of lightness and darkness. In his earlier work, his large white on white on white photographs were like whispers of tone and nuance that rewarded the viewer when your eyes could finally detect the delicacy and wonder and richness of what was there with such subtlety. They were so fine that it was nearly impossible for the finest book printer to hint at the overall elegance of the images. And trying to show them on a computer screen would be a crime.

This new series, In Darkness Visible, on exhibition at the Photographers' Gallery in London September 13 through November 4, 2007, is equally evocative while dusted in darkness. You really should see these remarkable prints in person if you can. But if you cannot, we provide a glimmer of what you can appreciate via your computer screen.

More info about current exhibitions is at the Photographers' Gallery.

"in Between" Photo Contest Semi-Finalists

So far, the interpretations of "in between" moments in photography have provided rich variety for Lens Culture's first photo contest.

Here are a few our of editors' favorites as the contest starts up. These are shown in no particular order. Please submit YOUR photos via Flickr at this address, where you can also see all of the other entries:

www.flickr.com/groups/lensculture-contest-1/

Deadline: September 30, 2007.

by Rodrigo

by lepagejp

by shihlun

by E Tsuk

by Miklos Kiss

by Barbara

by Stefano Mola

by Automatic Eyes

by Templeton Elliott

Abelardo Morell: "Shadow of the House" documentary

The new documentary film about Cuban-American photographer Abelardo Morell is now screening at various places around the world. You can meet Morell and the film director Allie Humenuk at Boston's Museum of Fine Arts on Thursday September 13 at 8 pm., and Saturday September 15 at 1:45 pm.

Still from the film.

Laura and Brady in the Shadow of Our House, 1994

Filmmaker's Synopsis: Shadow of the House is about looking closely. Filmed over seven years, it is an intimate portrait of photographer Abelardo Morell, revealing the mystery and method of his artistic process. The narrative skips across time and space from his early childhood escape from Castro’s regime to his status as a world-renowned photographer. The film explores his daily working life as an artist and his eventual return to Cuba after 40 years of living in exile. Shadow of the House uncovers the deep layers of a man who is pushed to confront his past and his familial allegiances as it explores his unique artistic vision.

You can get more information about the movie, and view a trailer, at www.shadowofthehouse.com. And of course, you can view a very nice selection of Morell's work here on Lens Culture, and listen to our exclusive audio interview with him as well.

Serious advice for serious photographers

Is there a list of basic guidelines to help "serious" photographers to make better work?

Alec Soth has been writing about his recent teaching experience at San Francisco Art Institute, and some of the challenges and frustrations and questions that have arisen as a result. In one entry on his blog, he cites Charles H. Traub's "maxims" for graduate students, from the book Traub co-edited called, The Education of a Photographer.

Traub's list makes me want to go out and read the entire book.

Lens Culture Contest #1 — "in between" moments

Many of us carry cameras every day, everywhere we go. And often the images that surprise us and delight us most are those that are taken while we are waiting for something else to happen.

Finnish photographer Arja Hyytiainen once described the pleasure of travelling by train through Europe (and making photographs) like this: “When you are on a train you can be in a magical state; you have already left but you have not yet arrived.”

One of my snaps from a train stop in Berlin

This contest is seeking great photographs that capture that sense of noticing things while commuting, or waiting, in a state of transition, or pause — suspended temporarily apart from the day-to-day flow of life, and open to observation. Active and passive at the same time. Maybe in a private "zone" while in a public place...

Likewise, it is often those photos that we take for the hell of it, in between our “serious” photos, that capture the kind of punctum that Roland Barthes celebrated.

So, with these loose guidelines, please post ONE photo that best captures this feeling for you.

Here is the Lens Culture group site at Flickr to post your photo:

http://www.flickr.com/groups/lensculture-contest-1/

At the end of September, we will select the best of the entries and publish them in Lens Culture. And, “in between” now and then, we will post some of the best photos in the blog at Lens Culture.

Thanks, and cheers.

Jim Casper
Editor, Lens Culture