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April 17, 2009 Studio Visit at Alec Soth's
Mr. Jackanory (Andrew Hetherington) recently visited Alec Soth's studio in Saint Paul, Minnesota to film the fourth episode of his "inside the photographers_studio" series. Originally posted on Whats the Jackanory.
March 17, 2009 Magnum Scavenger Hunt
UPDATE: Contest is now over! Congratulations to the three winners Olivier Laurent, Martin Nicholls and Byron Edwards! The answers are posted below with each clue.
The way this will work is you will begin on the home page of Magnum Photos and by reading through the poetic clues below you will be taken from one place to another, clicking on the link included in those pages that you suspect is the next step of the puzzle. In the end, if you’ve followed each clue correctly, you’ll be able to answer the final query and submit your answer. The hunt will run until 12noon EDT March 19, 2009, or until three people submit the correct answers. Good luck!
February 23, 2009 Paolo Pellegrin's Great Performers
On assignment for the New York Times Magazine, Paolo Pellegrin photographed eight of the contenders for Academy Awards. The intensity and honesty Pellegrin draws from his subjects is striking and gives you a sense of the raw strength they each possess away from the glitz and the glamour and without the makeup and costumes. The result is a stunning set of portraits of Sean Penn, Brad Pitt, Kate Winslet, Penelope Cruz, Mickey Rourke, Robert Downey Jr., and Kat Dennings. Links
January 20, 2009 Yes, we can
"This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can." - Barack Obama
January 18, 2009 Best Photo Books of 2008Photo-Eye recently published a list of the Best Photobooks of 2008. Photographers, publishers, editors, writers, critics and publications have been asked to share their picks for the top 10 (or so). Alec Soth and Martin Parr have been among those asked. Here are their favorites from 2008. Alec Soth:
Martin Parr:
January 14, 2009 On editorial responsibility
I have been following the coverage of the Gaza invasion, and this photograph, printed on The New York Times front page on January 8th caught my attention for its bucolic feeling.
January 10, 2009 The Falling Lego
December 29, 2008 The gift that keeps on giving
Links
December 21, 2008 Sad
I might not be able to write, but I can't seem to escape the interviews. (I even did one on 'lizard people'). Under the influence of Seasonal Affective Disorder, I recently did an interview with PDN where I said, "I have qualms with everything. I wake up I have qualms." Do I need professional help? On Michael Werner's blog, Two Way Lens he asks for advice to emerging photographers. I recently added my two cents, but I can't say it is worth more than that. For something more substantial, check out this two-part interview with Chris Buck on A Photo Editor (here and here). In the course of the interview, Buck says: Though I wouldn't use the word 'competitor', I also wonder if seeing too much contemporary work is problematic. I once had an assistant, Phillip Carpenter, who said something I'll never forget. Phil started off as a musician in Nashville. He was surrounded by a ton of talent and learned about everything going on. But this knowledge, he said, was eventually damaging. Phil explained that the best musicians often come from nowhere. They are in their parent's basement in Idaho, don't really know how to hold the guitar, and consequently develop their own peculiar sound. So here is the question: If limitation spawns creativity, is the limitless resource of the Internet a good thing? Does it do more harm than good to read all these blogs?
December 15, 2008 Vermeer'esque lighting or the Munch'ian emotion
The blog competition from a month ago looking at the relationship between Magnum photographs and paintings has gotten me thinking. I thoroughly enjoyed the connections that were made, but I was reminded of one of my pet-hates when it comes to much recent photography - referencing for referencing's sake. Now this is clearly not the case with most of these Magnum photographs where a less self-conscious connection exists, I think its still worth discussing in relation to contemporary photography. It seems like the surest way to get your photography noticed is to state the visual reference to historical painting, or the reference to Debord or Deleuze. I recently received a press-release in the mail where the photographer claimed affinity to both Wittgenstein and Foucault. Is that combination possible!? While I have nothing against intelligently and historically framed photographic content, I just start to bristle when these feel like they are what they are just for the sake of the ability to cite the reference, or because that is what everybody else is doing. I love what Todd Papageorge says in a contemporary response to Capa - "If you photos aren't good enough, you haven't read enough". But please, lets all let that reading absorb slowly into our work rather then trying to trumpet this reference and that reference. In his advice to young photographers Donavon Wylie extols the importance of reading and literature. In the presentation of his work, you don't see him advertising this reference to Joyce and other obscure (jokes) Irish writers, but his work obviously displays a deeply subtle understanding of narrative and literary context which gives it an strength that goes far beyond visual exclamation marks or press-release citations. Its hard to go to a photography show these days without hearing art-world enthusiasts get excited about the Vermeer'esque lighting or the Munch'ian emotion! When I hear this, I wish that the tradition of photographic interaction with painting was better understood. I don't think anybody has more intelligently related to philosophy or the history of painting then Jeff Wall. I love the way his connection to historical painting is not based purely on a visual similarity, but rather then an in-depth interrogation of pictorial structure, as well as social, historical and metaphysical content. But now, just to contradict my own argument, here's a reference of my own that I should have entered in the competition. Completely unconscious of course - you are hardly able to think about getting into a Goya-like position in a cramped police cell at 3am in Beaufort West! Links
December 10, 2008 Tiny Photographers (and a knitted camera)
I've collected models of photographers for a long time. Some are very, very small. Links
November 27, 2008 Happy Thanksgiving everyone
November 22, 2008 Martin Parr and The School of Life
A three-part series by Peter Terzian on Slate: » Learning To Take Photographs the Martin Parr Way
November 9, 2008 Nixon's mistress
The most famous Presidential dog is probably Nixon's Cocker Spaniel, Checkers. But searching through the Magnum archives, the only picture I could find was of Nixon with an unidentified white poodle. Is this the canine Monica Lewinsky?
October 31, 2008 Not a Friday PoemCool to see that Simon Norfolk is guest editing this week's edition of the British Journal of Photography. In choosing Milton Rogovin for the cover story, he writes: The fashionistas will run a mile from his photographic style (monochrome is so last century); his tenacity (so 1970s,) humanism (so last year) and his communist politics (so ... oh, didn't capitalism collapse last week?) - but quality will always shine through in the end. While working near Buffalo, I made a pilgrimage to meet Rogovin in 2004 (see the picture here). I was terrified, but he was as sweet and generous as his photographs. I later learned that at age ninety Rogoving began writing poetry (via): "I was sitting in this chair in my living room on my ninetieth birthday, and I started crying as I recalled my father going swimming at Coney Island, and a poem came out. Then I wrote a poem about my mother. I was remembering the time she took me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City to see a well-known painting called "The Horse Fair" (1852) by Rosa Bonheur. I wrote about 70 poems over the next few years, all of them sitting in that chair. My family joked about it. (Laughing) My son Mark sat in the chair, but no poems came out."
October 28, 2008 Does photojournalism make you verklempt?Joerg is dangling the meat over at Conscientious, but I just don't have time to bite. I might be blogging again, but I'm not going to sacrifice my first born this time around. Maybe someone else is in the mood to masticate? As Linda Richman used to say, I've got shpilkes in my geneckteckessoink…talk amongst yourselves...
March 3, 2008 Updating the blog again
I have just updated our blog's links page once again. I added a couple of photography related blogs and a couple of journalism and photography related websites. As always, feel free to send your suggestions for inclusion in the list. Other than that stay tuned for exciting new blog features and stories that we are currently working on and please let me know what you would really love to see here.
October 25, 2007 It's a blog, blog world
There are blogs about family vacations, cooking, knitting, little dog puppies, cats, hidden sexual fantasies, about photography, art and so much more. Despite the fact that nobody could ever possibly read all the blogs out there due to the sheer tremendous number of thousands and thousands of blogs, most of the time it wouldn't be worth it anyway. Frankly but at the same time nicely put: Most blogs are not very interesting at all. At least not if you are not the author or a close friend of the author. But of course there are many, many exceptions to this as well. There are a whole bunch of blogs that are worth reading, that you can learn from, that can inspire you and broaden your horizon. In an effort to bring some more inspiration to all of us I have collected 83 links to blogs about photography, art, multimedia and journalism, that I hope might be a source of good information for you. You might know a lot of them, or even all, but maybe you can find a couple of blogs that you did not yet know. 2point8, 5B4, Alec Soth, A Photo A Day, A Photo Editor, A Visual Society, Amy Elkins, Amy Stein, BAGnewsNotes, Ben Huff, Bitter Photographer, Chase Jarvis, Columbia Journalism Review, Conscientious, Dave Greenwood, David Alan Harvey - Road Trips, David Alan Harvey - work in progress, David Alan Harvey - family/friends, David Alan Harvey - student work / workshops, Drinking with a Dead Man, Digital Filmmaker, Edward Winkleman, Fabrica Blog, Flak Photo, From This Moment, Gallery Hopper, Ground Glass, Harlan Erskine, Heading East, Hey, Hot Shot, Hiding In Plain Sight, I Heart Photography, I Like To Tell Stories, Imke Lass, In Search Of The Miraculous, Intersecting Images, Intrepid Art Collector, Japan Photo, Jeff Olson, Jeff Singer, Jonathan Gitelson, Jon Bakos, Joshua Lutz, Journal Of A Photographer, Kevin Miyazaki, Left-Eyed Right-Handed, Lens Culture, Liz Kuball, Look Underfoot, Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson, MediaStorm Blog, Meet Me In Ataxia, Michael Dooney, Michael Sugrue, Modern Art Obsession, Mrs. Deane, Muse-Ings, (Notes on) Politics, Theory & Photography, Not If But When, Off Center, PDNedu, Pelicula 64, Personism, Photo Book Guide, Photography In Print, Redux Blog, Self-Guided Tour, Shane Lavalette, Shenphoto, Sight Under Construction, Speak, See, Remember, Squint, State Of The Art, Strobist, The F-Stop, The Sonic Blog, The Way I See It, Thomas Broening, Todd Deutsch, Whats The Jackanory, wan.der.lust.ag.ra.phy, You Call This Photography, Zoe Strauss At the same time I updated the Magnum Blog's link page to include these blogs for future reference. The collection of various articles concerning photography on that page will of course still be available and updated from time to time. Comments on the selection are appreciated and if you know a blog, or find one in the future, that should be added please let me know. Blogs that we link to usually do not only contain photographs but also some sort of textual information and thoughts. We will check every suggestion and if the submitted link could be of interest and value to our readers we will add it.
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