i need this:

rollei rolleiflex minidigi af 5.0 digital camera

i'm feeling a posting spree coming on...

sailors & tattoos

i was browsing around tattoo galleries and found this photo (unfortunately i don't know who took it).

philadelphia photo arts center: call for entries

above image by tommy reynolds

this call for entries is just for the philly gang:

for anyone unfamiliar with this organization, the philadelphia photo arts center, it's a new digital lab and photo space (and so much more) that will open in august in philadelphia. the inimitable sarah stolfa is spearheading the project.

the goal of the philadelphia photo arts center is to make philadelphia a place where important photography gets made, shown and talked about. emerging local photographers are essential to that goal. they will be our photo community’s next leaders and the source of important new work and new ideas. PPAC is therefore excited to launch our exhibition space with "NEXT: emerging philadelphia photographers." selected entries will be exhibited in PPAC’s new exhibition space in the crane arts building from august 18 – november 29, 2009.

first, second, and third prize winners will receive, $500, $300, and $200 gift certificates respectively for digital services at PPAC. the competition is open to all subject matter and photographic processes.

the entry fee is $20 for a maximum of 5 images. entry fees are not refundable. all entries must be received by friday, june 26, 2009.

the submission form and guidelines can be found here.

about PPAC:

the philadelphia photo arts center is a nonprofit organization devoted to the study, practice, and appreciation of photography in the philadelphia region. the organization fulfills this mission by offering educational programs, photographic exhibitions, lectures by practicing artists, and affordable access to high-end digital equipment for the creation of photographs. PPAC is a resource for both practicing artists as well as individuals interested in learning about all aspects of contemporary photography. PPAC provides needed technical services and instruction and promotes the relationships and connections that will lead to a more vibrant photography community.

the highline

this isn't really photo-related at all, i just think it's really awesome. although joel sternfeld did take the photos they use of the highline before construction began when it was still a wildflower field.

arlen spector: switch hitter

i meant to post this last week, but i forgot about it and then saw it on my desktop today...

i think it speaks for itself.

genevieve's bird

genevieve took this for me.

hittin' the road

i'm going on a road trip. camping will be involved. so will picture-making. posting will not be. i'll see you when i get back.

above image by lisa elmaleh

women in photography grant

fyi:

amy elkins and cara philips, co-founders of women in photography, are excited to announce the first ever wipnyc grant. yes, like the site, you must be a “women in photography” to apply. there will be a small $20 processing fee.

wipnyc -lightside individual project grant

women in photography, co-founded by amy elkins and cara phillips in june 2008 to showcase the works of female fine art photographers, is pleased to announce their first project grant, funded by lightside photographic services/ and co-sponsored by lti. the $3,000 grant award will provide funding to one photographer to support project costs.

grant: $3000.00. One grant will be awarded

application process opens: wednesday april 1, 2009 12am
link to online application will be made available on wipnyc.org.

deadline: friday, may 1, 2009, 12am

grant announcement: june 10, 2009
grant announcement will be made at evening event at the national arts club, grand gallery. there will be a reception for the grant winner and a slideshow presentation of their work. the grant winner’s work will be featured in a wipnyc.org online solo showcase opening on 6/16/09.

applicant eligibility:
applications will be only be accepted from photographers who are at least 18 years old, and who are not currently enrolled in any full-time or part-time degree program.

project: eligibility:
projects submitted for consideration can be new or ongoing. applicants should submit no more than one proposal in support for one project.

review process:
wip’s curatorial staff, amy elkins & cara phillips will review projects for visual and conceptual strength, rigor of purpose and clarity of stated project goals.

submission guidelines:
wipny will only accept online submissions.
applicants must submit exactly five images. each image must be:

jpeg format
72dpi
sRGB
650 pixels wide

contact info
bio (under 200 words)
cv

**please direct all grant submission questions to the email address which will be made available as of april 1, 2009**

project description:
describe the project in 300 words or less* (in place of artist statement)
please include: project start date, or in progress staus. estimated finish date?*
please provide a detailed list of expenses. itemize each expense and provide a dollar amount.*

please list any estimated income or other funding sources.*

–
women in photography
co-curated by amy elkins and cara phillips
wipcny is a humble arts foundation project.


best of luck!

invisible city, issue 01

to my great surprise, one of my images was selected to be in the inaugural issue of invisible city, an online magazine conceived by marlaina read.

other contributors include:

marlaina read, alexander binder, aaron mcelroy, olivia locher, noel ruiz, alejandro cartagena, michael scaringe, kristen heldman, benjamin reich, chih-han hsu, jason reed, jordan tate, daniel farnum, susanne willuhn, grace kim, bruno roels, aaron joel, santos, carlo dulla, stephen donnelly, andrew p. marcinek, nicola trethowan, vladimir zykov, m kitchell, kris t kahn

a little about the project:

invisible city is an online magazine dedicated to showcasing contemporary art and writing by emerging artists from australia and around the world. each issue will explore a contemporary theoretical idea through images, creative and critical writing and will be curated to theme with an accompanying essay.

the magazine will be produced initially in pdf format, with a view to move to a full flash integration with an accompanying PDF edition.

march: cdg / jhe by jh engstrom

amazon has yet to deliver my february selection so i have decided to extend my resolution to stipulate that i only buy books from brick and mortar locations.

i picked this up at my local art-book store spoonbill & sugartown.

because:

1/ i hadn't ever seen the pictures before that i can remember.

2/ the pictures look like daguerreotypes in color.

3/ i wanted to know more.

overwhelmed, amazed

where to begin?

i went to a lecture at sva this week, "collecting contemporary photography--with an emphasis on emerging artists." it was really very fascinating and covered issues that i had encountered while working at gallery 339.

someone on the panel mentioned that when in need of inspiration she turns to the photo section at the strand bookstore.

i am often in need of inspiration.

so i went.

only i wasn't really prepared. i've never, ever seen so many photo books in one place and this includes the photo sections at several well respected college art libraries. i need to go there sans bag, sans coat and in a pair of stretchy pants so i can plop down indian-style on a spot on the floor for hours upon hours. possibly i should also bring snacks.

also: i don't know how much longer i can maintain the "flickr a day" series. my eyes are being saturated with too much mediocrity, and all those bad pictures are starting to make me bitter. i'd like to replace them with a picture a day project featuring images of my own, but i'm not sure i have the discipline for that kind of project.

i'm welcome to suggestions from you, my ever silent audience.

walker evans and the picture postcard

walker evans and the picture postcard
february 3, 2009 – may 25, 2009
metropolitan museum of art
the howard gilman gallery

1/ i had no idea that walker evans had collected so many postcards over the course of his life.

2/ it was really satisfying and wonderful to see the visual connections between his photos and the postcards

flickr is killing me

i'm getting so sick of looking through flickr. everything is the same. my eyes are bored.

national gallery of art

i went to d.c. last weekend to see a friend. on the way back to her apartment, while we were discussing what to do with our weekend, i spotted a banner advertising an exhibition of "the americans". it was quickly settled that we would go. luckily enough there was another photo exhibit being shown there as well entitled "oceans, rivers and skies," so it was a two for one.


1/ "looking in: robert frank's the americans"

the show was pretty good but i didn't really learn anything i didn't already know. although there were a few copies of publications i hadn't ever seen before.

2/ "oceans, rivers, and skies: ansel adams, robert adams, and alfred steiglitz"

ok this show was curated very strangely. i honestly don't even know what to say about it. there were images from steiglitz's equivalence series and then some images of both ansel and robert adams' seascapes. i just didn't really get it. i mean don't get me wrong, i understood it, i just didn't get it.

what remains: the life and work of sally mann

i guess my interest in sally mann has waned over the years. i've bypassed this documentary on the shelves at the rental store many many times. the other night i couldn't find any movies that i was interested in seeing, and somehow i found myself at home with three different art documentaries. what remains was among them and it was by far the best of the three films i rented (including the meandering eggleston in the real world). in this film, steven cantor was able to both shed new light on her pictures for me and also transcend the work by presenting a fascinating portrait of the creative process and an artist's life.

one of the my favorite moments of the film: sally mann learns that pace macgill has cancelled her upcoming exhibition of "what remains." she had been exceedingly excited about the show, and when she hears of the cancellation she spends the entire day sobbing. so here she is, this artist of international acclaim, essentially as famous as any photographer can hope to be, and upon learning that pace macgill has cancelled her show, she is totally paralyzed. we watch her second guess the body of work she has painstakingly built over the course of 4 years. the scene struck me as such a clear illustration of how universal the plague of self doubt is, and that doubt will wash over all of us in vicious waves over the course of our lives.

sally mann is helplessly articulate. just one quote of many that grabbed me, in this case in reference to her landscape series:

"there is magic in the landscape. the question is whether i can get at it."

(p.s. all i wanted to do when this movie was over was grab my camera and shoot something.)

a flying saucer landed in my kitchen last night

i finally bought a point and shoot. i got the panasonic lumix lmc dx3. i am in love.

january: self portrait by lee friedlander

cover of self portrait by lee friedlander

ok. i don't generally make new year's resolutions because they always feel sort of arbitrary to me.

however, this year i thought of a particularly good one so i am making an exception. back in my school days, i would go to the library several times a week to sit in the quiet with the photo books. i also worked at a barnes and noble where i had books at my immediate disposal at all times (as well as a hefty discount). unfortunately i don't have convenient access to a great photo library anymore. i have settled instead for logging books in my amazon wish list. as a result, my list has grown exceptionally long while i have made no attempt whatsoever to add any of those books to my actual library.

so: every month this year i resolve to purchase at least one book from my list and post about it here.

for january, i have decided to start with a classic. i just ordered lee friedlander's self portrait book. i haven't looked at it in quite some time (and it will be a while before it comes in), but it's a charming yet smallish paperback full of quirky indirect self portraits.

i chose it as the first selection of the year for two reasons:

1/ i feel like this book is sort of a staple for me and i return to it frequently for inspiration.
2/ as it's a paperback it is relatively inexpensive, so i felt it would help me ease into this process with a little less trepidation.


i always think of friedlander as a photographer's photographer because of the complexity with which he balances elements that are uniquely, well, photographic. his compositions are so meticulously pieced together. i was studying the cover image of self portrait earlier and realized i had never noticed the row of crescent shaped lights (or what i think might be lights) at the very top of the image. they mimic the loops in the garland and the trophy. today i noticed it with the clearest understanding of how that detail affects the photo. what gets me is that every single picture of his is full of this kind of attention to detail.

recently i've been revisiting a lot of photographers who shoot very formally in black and white: friedlander, callahan, koudelka, morell, robert frank etc. i also discovered roger ballen a while back although i haven't seen a large amount of his work yet. i expect the first round of purchases to be in this vein. but i can't wait to see where the year takes me. i am however quite nervous that my bookcase will not support the additional weight of twelve coffee-table-sized books. i proceed with fingers crossed.


post script added january 28th, 2009:

i was entirely surprised to learn they republished this as a hardcover.

three o'clock

three o'clock : the concept :

"we -- capucine bailly, kelly shimoda, neil harris, and paul fittipaldi -- each took a photo at or around 3:00 p.m. (local time wherever we were) every day in 2008."


my reactions (in no particular order):

1/ this project is amazing.

2/ each of these photographers is really talented so there are 4 amazing pictures for every day of 2008. that means 1460 pictures total.

3/ it's amazing when all four images are working together perfectly, but it also only takes one image to throw off the whole set.

4/ portraits seemed to throw off a set the most easily because my eye would inevitably get stuck on that single image. however most of the portraits included were quite wonderful, so...

5/ at first i was looking at each image just as a piece unto itself, but then i started mentally tracking each photographer's individual journey and i started to get to know each of their idiosyncrasies. this i found to be especially fun.

6/ i wish i had known about this as it was unfolding.

7/ i wish my friends and i had thought of this first.

call for submissions: 4th issue of the exposure project book

i just wanted to pass along the following from ben alper of the exposure project:

"the exposure project has begun work on the 4th issue of the exposure project book. we are holding an open call for submissions. all the details are provided below:

we are asking photographers working in any facet of the medium to send the following:

1: 5-7 low res jpeg's sized @ 72 dpi

2: these images should reflect the vision of an ongoing, or recently completed body of work

3: in addition, please send a brief artist statement which corresponds to the work submitted

we are also hoping to publish literary works in addition to the photographs chosen. if you have written an essay, article, review, or conducted an interview that is in some way related to photography we would love to review it. proposals for unwritten works can also be submitted; simply send microsoft word formatted material in an e-mail.

deadline for submissions is: monday, january 5th, 2009

all submitted material should be sent to ben@theexposureproject.com. selected photographers and authors will be notified of acceptance no later than february 1st."