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Heidi Specker

© Heidi Specker

I find the work of German photographer Heidi Specker truly fascinating. It is the captivating contrasts of mundane objects in her compositions, objects creating patterns that would be usually ignored but become alive with her pictures. More images here, and don’t miss her books.

I am interested in the contrast between recorded reality and the effect of the image that I create. – Heidi Specker

The reason we photograph …

This is why we start, this is why we keep doing it …, isn’t it?

In the moments when inspiration does not find our path, or when the jobs are scarce or the client complains too much … remember, it is all about the fun. Enjoy the moments when photography flows from inside …

More about Jacques-Henri Lartigue after the jump. Some pictures here, here, here and here.

An interview with photographer – and filmmaker – Jennifer Loeber

© Jennifer Loeber

[Limited series prints for sale at at the Humble Arts Foundation]

I am very pleased to post an in-depth interview with photographer Jennifer Loeber. Jennifer Loeber is a young photographer based in New York City. Jennifer’s portfolio reflects the exploration of an evolving artistic vision, from documentary series to portraits that have the quality to bridge both the subject and the viewer with a unique sense of intimacy. Her work was exhibited at a group show by the Humble Arts Foundation in New York City. Her latest series, Zeig Mal (Show Me), was featured in a profile on Gothamist.com and her first feature documentary, Fishkill Flea, is currently exhibiting internationally. Jennifer has also a personal blog.

New Visions of New York City by Michael Kenna

© Michael Kenna

Via Gallery Hopper, I found the newest work of the great Michael Kenna, a series of New York City that was exhibited at the Robert Mann Gallery (images here) in New York. It is wonderful to see the unique “Kenna” style, with dark shadows, high contrast and clean lines. His work provides a distinct look of “perhaps” the most photographed city in the world. Few weeks ago I had the opportunity to see some of his prints and I have to say that if you ever get the chance to see a print from Michael Kenna prepare yourself to turn breathless. They are so amazing.

“China Blog Blocking” by Doug Stockdale

Blogs, discussion forums, and bulletin boards are very popular in China. They’re heavily filtered by keyword blocks. Blogs’ service providers do not let posts with certain words be published, and blogs are also censored manually [via CNN]

My fellow blogger and photographer Doug Stockdale, is having a hard time accessing blogs while traveling in China. Here I loan him again a post so he can share his experiences and findings on how to access a blog when you are in China. If any reader has information on how the censorship that limits access to external blogs from China works, or how to get around it, please share it with us. Here there is some information about China Censorship from wikipedia.

Contemporary photography is alive and flourishing in Shanghai, China

It is my great pleasure to introduce a guest contributor, photographer and blogger Doug Stockdale [Singular Images], who is now in China. He provides in this post a very interesting snapshot of his experience while visiting the fine art scene in Sanghai, at the heart of the M50 district, where modern art and fine art photography is flourishing. It is good to learn more about this amazing country and get a first hand experience on how fine art photography is getting momentum there.

Rape of a Nation

©Marcus Bleasdale

The Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) is home to the deadliest war in the world today. An estimated 5.4 million people have died since 1998, the largest death toll since the Second World War, according to the International Rescue Committee (IRC).

You can see the impressive multimedia photographic work by Marcus Bleasdale [from Agency VII] at MediaStorm. If you are interested you can purchase a DVD or a book of this heartbreaking work, and if you are generous you can donate at any organization mentioned in the article. It is really a shame for all humanity that this world is still experiencing never ending tragedies like this one in Congo … sadly, it is just one more among others.

Blooging as a job: opportunity at Photoshelter

Andrew Hetherington has a post over at “Whats the Jackanory?” that could be interesting if you are a blogger and a photographer, and like to consider a job blogging about photography.

Visualizing Spaces: Thomas Misik

© Thomas Misik

Thomas Misik is a German photographer that photographs spaces where geometry, color and composition create an illusion of unpopulated areas isolated from their own context. His work shows the space as an art form, sterile, without human presence. Unfortunately, it is not easy to find much of his work online but found some interesting images via galerie-poller. The navigation is not very intuitive: click on the images until you see thumbnails on the right side, with galleries for different years. Click on the thumbnails to see larger images.

Photographs not taken

Words and photography. Two different media that rarely intersect besides some areas like photojournalism. Usually we see and enjoy fine art photographs without words, with not even a single caption in most cases. Good fine art photographs make us wonder and so we recreate with our own mind our interpretation of the image. It is our understanding of the picture, not the photographer’s.

Now let’s go to the other side. Let the photographer communicate with just words, not pictures, and let these words make us wonder about the image so we can recreate with our own visual aesthetics a world of possibilities based on the text. From words to pictures? It sounds unusual, it is uncommon. Related with this I came across a very interesting project, “Photographs not taken“, where photographers talk about images they did not take but they hold in their memory.

“The Photographs Not Taken” is a collection of essays by photographers about the times they didn’t use their camera. This collection is a series of photographs not taken with a camera, but, instead, lived and remembered. – more here.

A good picture can trigger an emotional response. Also words can move us, poetry can make us feel, captions can change our visual interpretation of an image. Words and images are indeed complementary ways to communicate and they enrich each other to create a response in the viewer with enhanced awareness of the subject matter. I wonder why it is not more usual to mix both media, fine art photography with words, captions and poetry. The juxtaposition of both ways of communication could create something different, a new art form in a way, or at least enhance our understanding of the photograph and the emotions that the photographer likes to convey with the image.

[update: arneg in the comments referred to a great site Unphotographable, where the pictures not taken are indeed described with words. Very interesting indeed]

The closest thing to fine art that fashion has produced: Guy Bourdin

© Guy Bourdin

”Guy was the closest thing to a fine-art photographer that this business has produced.” – Albert Watson

I find very interesting the intersection between fashion and fine art photography, and both Guy Bourdin and Albert Watson, merge those genres like few have done. At the core of Guy Bourdin’s photographs there is a challenge to the very nature of commercial image making. Typical fashion images focus on beauty and clothing as their central elements. Guy Bourdin, on the contrary, presented fashion as an excuse to make beautiful photographs rather than the subject of his photographs. His main impact in photography resides on the fact that it is not fashion itself but the image that fascinates the viewer.

Guy Bourding was a radical artist in his field, he lived outside the cutting edge and so he re-defined it. He is one of the few in fashion whose work will endure the passage of time, placing him in the pedestal of the most influent photographers of the second half of the 20th century. You can see more of his images here, and after the jump, and a reference from the New York Times.

“The Photographer’s Eye” at The MoPA

This book [The photographer’s eye] is an investigation of what photographs look like, and why they look that way. It is concerned with photographic style and with photographic tradition: with the sense of possibilities that a photographer today takes to his work.- The Photographer’s eye, by John Szarkowski, 1966.

The Museum of Photographic Arts in San Diego (MoPA), California, celebrates its 25th year anniversary with a unique exposition based on the landmark exhibition at The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), New York City, in 1964 and later published in the historical book “The Photographer’s eye“(1966), by John Szarkowski , the former Director of the Department of Photography at the Museum.

The exhibit at the MoPA (San Diego) starts tomorrow Jan. 19th and will be on display until April 20th, 2008.

Printing, presenting and storing your photographs

I guess that most of you agree with the main point in my previous post: “the print is the photograph”.

To some, it is such an obvious concept that it may not be worthwhile to mention. But, as much as we believe that the true photographic experience emerges from looking at prints, photographic editing is now mostly entirely driven by the use of computers, so most images never get printed. We even disqualify or select images from our own work by looking at the computer screen!

How many images do you print? Do you create photobooks? Do you create folios of printed work?

The print is the photograph

I spent one day at Photo LA 2008 last weekend and I was immersed in a vast array of spectacular “printed” photographs. Close to 100 galleries exhibiting side by side contemporary photography with work of the masters. I had the opportunity to see prints of images that I remembered from photographer’s websites. I though I had seen the images before, but I was wrong. I hadn’t.

If you ever think that you have experienced an image by looking at it using the LCD of a computer, it is just because you forgot what it is to look at a master print. You have seen only a possibility, but you have not experienced the performance.

Photo LA 2008 reminded me something obvious but easy to forget in this computerized times: the print is the photograph. The rest is just a possibility.

I came across this short video from film director David Lynch. This is his message to people who watch movies on their iPods and cell phones. The same applies to all of us looking at images on LCDs resized to fit 600-800 pixels at 72 ppi.

Get real! … don’t you think?

In the comments section, “ahob” [don’t know the real name] points to a recent post by photographer Mark Hobson, over at excellent blog “The Landscapist“, where he addresses this topic from his own personal work.