August 2012 Archives
August 31, 2012
Congratulations to British photographer Michael Marten. His remarkable new photobook Sea Change: A Tidal Journey Around Britain was just published by Kehrer Verlag. The book features diptychs taken from the same point during high tide and during low tide (often just 6 hours and 20 minutes apart).
He met his publisher last year at Lens Culture FotoFest Paris portfolio reviews. And, coincidentally, earlier in 2011, Marten won the Grand Prize in the Portfolio Category of the Lens Culture International Exposure Awards.
He also has a one-man show coming up at gallery@oxo in London on 26 September. Cheers!
Salmon fishery, Solway Firth, Galloway. 27 and 28 March 2006.
Low water 5.20 pm, high water 12 noon.
YOU can still enter your photographs and multimedia to win one of Lens Culture International Exposure Awards 2012: lensculture.com/awards. Deadline is September 16, 2012.
AND you can still register for portfolio reviews in Paris (November 12-13-14, 2012): fotofest-paris.com.
Great work deserves to be seen all around the world!
August 29, 2012
Street photography is perhaps the defining genre of photographic art. Seminal works by Walker Evans, Harry Callahan, Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand display photography’s astonishing dance with life, and its unique role in forming our perceptions of the modern world.
The Present is Paul Graham’s contribution to this legacy. The images in [his latest] book come unbidden from the streets of New York, but are not quite what we might expect, for each moment is brought to us with its double – two images taken from the same location, separated only by the briefest fraction of time. We find ourselves in sibling worlds, where a businessman with an eye patch becomes, an instant later, a man with an exaggerated wink; a man eating a banana walks towards us, and a small focus shift reveals the blind man right behind him.
Although there are flashes of surprise – a woman walks confidently down the street one moment, only to tumble to the ground a second later – for the most part there is little of the drama street photography is addicted to. People arrive and depart this quiet stage, with the smallest shift of time and attention revealing where life is frozen rigid. A suited young businessman crosses the road, only to be replaced by his homeless alternate; a woman in a pink t-shirt is engulfed with tears, but seconds later there is a content shopper in her place.
The Present gives us an impression quite different to most street photography where life is frozen. Here we glimpse the continuum: before/after, coming/going, either/or. A ‘present’ that is a fleeting and provisional alignment, with no singularity or definitiveness; a world of shifting awareness and alternate realities, where life twists and spirals in a fraction of a second to another moment, another world, another consciousness.
The Present is the third in Paul Graham’s trilogy of projects on America which began with American Night in 2003 and was followed in 2007 by a shimmer of possibility (winner of the Paris Photo Book Prize 2011 for the most significant photo book of the past 15 years). The Present takes Graham’s reputation as a master of the book form to new heights, employing multiple gatefolds to convey passages of time and the unfolding of urban life.
— Text from the press release for The Present, the latest photo book by Paul Graham.
August 27, 2012
with support from Paris Photo, FotoFest International (Houston), Lens Culture, and
Amis de la Photographie Internationale.
Register today for the largest and most effective photography portfolio reviews in Europe: Lens Culture FotoFest Paris 2012. November 12-13-14, 2012.
"Lens Culture portfolio reviews are among the best —
because they get results!"
Photographers from 27 countries have registered already for this truly international photography event (many are returning for the 2nd or 3rd time):
• Belgium • Brazil • Canada • Colombia • Croatia • Denmark • Ethiopia • France • Germany • Iceland • Ireland • Israel • Italy • Japan • Latvia • Netherlands • Norway • Poland • Russia • South Africa • South Korea • Spain • Sweden • Taiwan • United States • United Kingdom • Wales •
Register today. Registrations are filling fast. Deadline to be included in the catalog is September 21, 2012.
Please tell all of your friends and colleagues who are serious about careers in photography. See fotofest-paris.com for full details.
August 25, 2012
It is not uncommon for people to have nightmares in which they dream they are stark naked out on a crowded city street. Photographer Erica Simone decided to create a series of nude self-portraits at locations throughout New York City to discover for herself, "What would the world feel like, naked?" She seems to have enjoyed the experience, and it has become an ongoing project.
Read and see more (including a high-resolution slide show) here in Lens Culture.
August 24, 2012
SUMMARY
Location: Central Paris, France
Dates: October 18-22, 2012
Fee: 9900 NOK
Limit: 15 photographers
Full details (in Norwegian and English): Bilder Nordic School of Photography
ABOUT THE MASTERCLASS
This masterclass will be a 5 day marathon for photographers interested in making a significant vertical leap in their work. It is geared to fine art photography and reportage as art.
This masterclass is coordinated by Bilder Nordic School of Photography in Oslo, Norway, in partnership with Lens Culture in Paris, France.
- The class will emphasize shooting, editing and the final print. Shooting will take place in central Paris and in the studio. Students will have the opportunity to work with street photography, the nude, still life, and abstraction during the course of the class. There will also be group visits to some photography-based cultural institutions throughout Paris.
- Class members will be expected to bring a body of work in progress to be discussed by the group. Each participant will also receive one-on-one consultations with Jim Casper and Jeff Cowen.
- Mr. Cowen will stress how digital photographers can learn to use new technology while respecting the tradition of analogue-based photography and its position as a medium with respect to art history.
- Career possibilities in photography and the artist’s path will also be topics for discussion. This class offers a unique perspective to create a dialogue with a working artist and an international photography critic, publisher and lecturer.
ABOUT JEFF COWEN
Jeff Cowen is a New York University honors scholar in Oriental studies. 25 years ago he was the assistant of Ralph Gibson and Larry Clark. His early street photography in New York City and his reportage work of the Romanian Revolution is in numerous collections and has been shown in Museums such as The Filature in Mulhouse and the New York Historical Society Museum.
Mr. Cowen is known for his painterly style. He works with the figure, landscape, abstraction and still life. He is represented by several leading galleries and his work is in over one hundred collections and institutions. His first monograph was published by Paris-Musée, and his galleries have produced books for his many solo shows around the world.
He participates regularly in art fairs such as Art Basel, Art Cologne, Art Bolonga, Arco, Photo Espana, LaArt Fair, Art Paris and others. In the fall 2012, his work will be exhibited at the Grand Palais in Paris in a special museum exhibition by the Huis Marseille Photography Museum during Paris Photo and the Month of Photography.
ABOUT JIM CASPER
Jim Casper is the founder and director of Lens Culture, an international organization dedicated to the celebration and promotion of contemporary photography in all of its forms.
Lens Culture publishes one of the most popular online magazines about global contemporary photography (www.lensculture.com), and organizes the yearly Lens Culture International Exposure Awards (www.lensculture.com/awards), and the annual Lens Culture FotoFest Paris international portfolio reviews (www.fotofest-paris.com) in partnership with Paris Photo and FotoFest International, in the USA.
Casper is a curator, writer, publisher and lecturer. He also serves on juries around the world.
APPLICATION/REQUIREMENTS:
Requirements: This course is open to all serious photographers. Digital printing equipment will be available for all participants. If you choose to work with film, we have arranged for professional lab film processing, contact sheets and digital scanning (you must pay extra for the lab work). We do not have a full darkroom available, so we will focus on digital printing for this purposes of this workshop.
Equipment: Bring your own camera, and a laptop if possible.
Price: NOK 9900,- (Maximum 15 persons. Material costs, travel and stay is not included.)
Conditions: Before signing up, please read the conditions and agreement carefully.
How to register: Sign up here.
THE WORKSHOP WILL BE HELD IN ENGLISH.
August 21, 2012
An amazing, influential jury of photography experts from 3 continents has been announced for the Lens Culture International Exposure Awards 2012 for Photography & Multimedia:
Alison Nordström
Senior Curator of Photographs and Director of Exhibitions
George Eastman House
New York, NY, USA
eastmanhouse.org
Felix Hoffmann
Head Curator, C/O Berlin
Berlin, Germany
co-berlin.infoJames Estrin
Co-Editor of Lens, The New York Times' photography blog
Senior Staff Photographer, The New York Times
New York, NY, USA
lens.blogs.nytimes.comJean-Jacques Viau
Worldwide Internet Manager, Leica Camera AG
Solms, Germany
blog.leica-camera.com
facebook.com/LeicaCamera
leica-camera.comJim Casper
Founder and Director, Lens Culture
Co-Founder and Director, Lens Culture FotoFest Paris
Paris, France
lensculture.com
fotofest-paris.comJoanne Junga Yang
Director, Y&G Art; Curator, Seoul Photo Festival
Seoul, South Korea
yngart.orgLars Boering
Owner, Lux Photo Gallery
Amsterdam, The Netherlands
luxphotogallery.com
The Awards include 9 cash prizes, 25 honorable mention awards, and worldwide exposure for all 34 winners.
Submissions are open to ALL genres and categories, including, but not limited to: documentary / photojournalism / fine art / conceptual / fashion / cinematic / fiction / storytelling / nature / portraits / alternative processes / iPhone / other.
Entry deadline is September 16, 2012. Winners will be announced in a special issue of Lens Culture in November 2012, and a high-resolution projection of all winners will be projected at art festivals, conferences and major cultural institutions around the world during 2013.
Enter your best work today — Award recognition and exposure has the potential to significantly boost your career.
Full details — including biographies of all jurors — can be found at the awards website: lensculture.com/awards.
August 16, 2012
The winners were just announced for the National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest 2012. Lens Culture is pleased to present a high-resolution slideshow of all winning photographs this year. Below is a preview of some of our favorites:
Near the city of Morondava, on the West coast of Madagascar lies an ancient forest of Baobab trees. Unique to Madagascar, the endemic species is sacred to the Malagasy people, and rightly so. Walking amongst these giants is like nothing else on this planet. Some of the trees here are over a thousand years old. It is a spiritual place, almost magical.
My sister in the south of Chile. We are sitting at home next to the fireplace in our
southern lake house when it suddenly began to pour uncontrollably. Had to rush into the lake to take this snapshot!
This is the great Japanese maple tree in the Portland Japanese Gardens. I tried to bring a different perspective of this frequently photographed tree.
Taken at Cloud Break at an outer reef in Fiji, a surfer duck dives his board to clear the rolling waves of the raw ocean.
A lonely cabin is illuminated under the Northern Lights in Finmmark, Norway.
Congratulations to all the winners! For more information about the contest and winners, see the National Geographic website. And don't forget to appreciate all the winners in Lens Culture's high-resolution slideshow!
August 13, 2012
"Anna and Eve were particularly interesting to me when I first met them in 2005 because the boundary between the child and the adult woman was blurred to an unusually high degree. This was primarily due to the mother's young age (23); it seemed at times that she was more of a child than her 3 year-old daughter. It was often hard to tell who held the power and control between the two, and who was learning the essence of being a human in this world."
— Photographer Viktoria Sorochinski
To my mind, and to my eye, staged photography is very difficult to do well. It is so easy to fall flat, or to look unconvincing, or to seem sappy and simple-minded. The worst of the genre falls, for me, into the mass-market cheery greeting card category, or the poorly-wrought metaphoric stock photography motivational-inspirational fantasy world of refrigerator magnets.
So, it is a complete delight to discover an artist such as Viktoria Sorochinski who soars with her staged photography that features real-life characters in fantastical settings that ring true.
Sorochinski and I met in person during portfolio reviews at Lens Culture FotoFest Paris. Her work was recognized by other reviewers in Paris, too, and it is currently being featured at the Biennale in Buenos Aires. The video above is a pitch for a book project that has yet to become a reality.
See and read more by Viktoria Sorochinski in this photo-essay in Lens Culture.
— Jim Casper
August 10, 2012
From the Guardians series © Andy Freeberg
In the art museums of Russia, women sit in the galleries and guard the collections. When you look at the paintings and sculptures, the presence of the women becomes an inherent part of viewing the artwork itself. I found the guards as intriguing to observe as the pieces they watch over.
In conversation they told me how much they like being among Russia’s great art. A woman in Moscow’s State Tretyakov Gallery Museum said she often returns there on her day off to sit in front of a painting that reminds her of her childhood home. Another guard travels three hours each day to work, since at home she would just sit on her porch and complain about her illnesses, “as old women do.” She would rather be at the museum enjoying the people watching, surrounded by the history of her country.
— Andy Freeberg
See and read more about Freeberg's current exhibition, Guardians, at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University.
