The very next financial supporter who contributes $250 or more to Lens Culture will receive a signed copy of Andrew Phelps' excellent book, Not Niigata, along with a signed, limited edition print from that series made in Japan in 2009. You can choose any of the images below as your 30x40 cm print. We'd like to thank Andrew for his generosity and support of Lens Culture, too!
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Each of the 29 winners of the 2009 Lens Culture International Exposure awards won the opportunity to design and publish a free photobook from Blurb. These are just two of the beautiful photobooks that winners Raina Vlaskovska and Paolo Patrizi have created. You can view complete previews by clicking on the book covers below. Enjoy!
The complete book of winning photographs from Lens Culture International Exposure Awards is also available via the Blurb website.
]]>Photographer Jessica Hines won an honorable mention in our global photography competition -- and thus an opportunity to publish a photobook at Blurb.com. She took this as inspiration and teamed up with Elizabeth Avedon (the designer of many of Richard Avedon's stunningly beautiful photography books, and his daughter-in-law) to publish this blockbuster of a book. It's a remarkable photobook that conveys an important political message as well as the compelling story of a personal tragedy that confronts some difficult, universal truths. Brilliant combination of great photography, thoughtful text, and excellent book design. Highly recommended!
Here is the publisher's introduction to the book:
With her photo essay, My Brother’s War, Jessica Hines attempts to gain a better understanding of what happened to her brother, Gary, when he was a soldier in the American war in Viet Nam. Drafted, he served two years and returned home a victim of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Ten years later, he took his own life. Hines photographs the letters that he wrote and, with diligence, managed to locate and speak with some of his wartime friends. More recently, Hines traveled to Viet Nam to retrace her brother’s “footsteps”. The research and resulting photography has revealed much about the nature of veterans’ experiences in Viet Nam and the nature of suffering that ensues when a family loses a loved one to war.Selected as a "Staff Pick" at Blurb: You can view the entire book online.
After you look at Jessica's book, also take a look at the the complete book of winning photographs from Lens Culture International Exposure Awards.
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The jury of the World Press Photo Competition announced the winners today.
Pietro Masturzo, a photographer from Italy, was awarded World Press Photo of the Year 2009, for his photograph of women shouting on a rooftop in protest to the presidential election results in Tehran, Iran, on the 24th of June.
You can see a larger version of this photograph — along with 20 other winning photographs — in Lens Culture's high-resolution slideshow of the winners. You can also read the juror's comments about this photo, and about the competition in general. Overall, the winning selections are remarkable photographs covering a diverse range of news topics.
It was especially pleasing for us to see that two of the top winners of the Lens Culture International Exposure Awards 2009 were selected as top winners for World Press Photo Awards, too: Marco Vernaschi and Laura Pannack.
Congratulations to all the winners!
Here is a second chance for you to help Lens Culture -- and get a great gift in exchange!
The very next financial supporter who contributes $250 or more to Lens Culture will receive a signed copy of British photographer Simon Roberts' excellent book, Motherland, along with a signed, limited edition print from that series made in Russia in 2005. The print is 11" x 14", from a limited edition of 50, signed verso. This is a £175 value, and about to be sold out completely.
In addition to our archives of 6 years of photography articles, portfolios, critical essays and book reviews, it looks like people are really enjoying our ever-expanding audio-video interview section where you can hear (and see) photographer's talking about their own work.
When you have some spare time, dig in to our archives and you are sure to find at least a few interesting and inspiring discoveries from the wide world of contemporary photography.
We're busy preparing our next new issue, which will include discoveries from the Anthropographia Awards for Human Rights Photography and Multimedia (I was honored to be on the jury this year), as well as work from photographers around the world who have submitted their work directly to Lens Culture for our review. And in the next two months, I will be reviewing portfolios in person in Budapest, San Francisco, and Houston FotoFest -- so it looks like we'll have lots of new material to present soon!
Cheers.
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During the filming of our interview with Roger Ballen, for the third installment in our new video series, Lens Culture Conversations with Photographers, I asked him how important photobooks were to him. That part of the conversation didn't make it to our final cut of the tightly-edited interview, but I thought his comments might offer another welcome point of view in the discussion about the future of photobooks being hosted by our friends at LiveBooks.com. So, here's a short clip of what Roger Ballen has to say about photobooks. Enjoy!
Our friends at PhotoAlliance in San Francisco hold a portfolio review once a year. Their event brings together top photography editors, publishers, curators, gallerists, and educators representing small, mid-sized, and major venues from around the U.S., to meet with engaged photographers, review their portfolios and encourage their careers and exchange opportunities.
The Our World event is pre-juried, with a limit of 50 participants, and is set to take place the weekend of March 12-14, 2010. Last date for applications is EXTENDED to February 19, 2010. For more details, check out www.photoalliance.org/ourworld.pdf.
Highly recommended.
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Las Vegas Birthday Slideshow from Little Brown Mushroom on Vimeo.
British photographer Simon Roberts has generously offered a gift to the very next financial supporter of Lens Culture who contributes $250 or more. It's a signed copy of his excellent book, Motherland, along with a signed, limited edition print from that series made in Russia in 2005. The print is 11" x 14", number 44 of 50, signed verso. This is a £175 value, and about to be sold out completely.
Here is the cover, and below is the informal video interview made by Alec.
From the Library: Riley and His Story from Little Brown Mushroom on Vimeo.
The book looks great, and important, and especially timely. You can download a generous PDF excerpt (114 pages!) here, which apparently covers about 1/4 of the whole book. You can get more info about the book here.
]]>Hamburger Eyes from Nick Fogarty on Vimeo.
]]>As always, however, there were bits of articulate insight from that interview that didn't make it into the final cut for one reason or another. So, with absolutely no color correction or smooth transitions or titles or credits, we've decided to share these short "bonus" clips where Simon Roberts talks about why he deliberately made the shift from shooting primarily for magazines to authoring his own photobooks. We thought this might be another welcome point of view in the discussion about photobooks being hosted by our friends at LiveBooks.com.
