October 2006 Archives

Joel-Peter Witkin & Benedetta Bonichi

By

on October 31, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Joel-Peter Witkin & Benedetta Bonichi at Keith de Lellis

From the website: Notes from Joel Peter-Witkin's journal give testimony to this artistic enterprise: "The artist is a shaman, priest, and mystic, capable of taking on the higher order of dialogue between the invisible and the visible... . I'm a conduit... . Ideas come through me. Art that doesn't point toward some ideal forever beyond the senses isn't art at all... . If my work is theatre, contrivance, voyeurism, darkness, anger, love, it is all these things and more- it's me for better or worse- the marriage of the body to the spirit, the eye of the flesh to the glass eye of the camera." ("Joel-Peter Witkin 55" (2001) by Eugenia Parry)

From the website: Bonichi, on the other hand, creates a universe peopled with the unseen marvels of the human skeleton- her imagery marries science and art in an unexpected union. Utilizing the latest advances in x-ray technology and digital printmaking to create her mural-sized works, Bonichi captures the allure of primitive anatomical renderings in antiquarian medical textbooks.

Rick Stolk - The Uncanny

By

on October 31, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Rick Stolk - The Uncanny

From the website: These stark images are deceptively simple; on the surface very little is happening, yet they are strangely unnerving. As Rick explains: "I try to create a sense of 'hyperrealism,' to give the viewer an uneasy feeling about a place without throwing something in their face. The choice of subject is...subtle and precarious." We think you'll agree that these images are chillingly beautiful.

Five Best Photography Books

By

on October 30, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Five Best Photography Books

Picture it otherwise

By

on October 30, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Picture it otherwise - Show takes photography back to basics by S. L. Berry

From the website: Cameras are arguably among the most ubiquitous objects in our culture. And that's a problem, if you're a photographer with artistic aspirations.

Vista aims to be snappier with photos

By

on October 28, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Vista aims to be snappier with photos by Ina Fried

From the website: Windows Vista has lots of new photography features, but not all of Microsoft's ideas are clicking with digital shutterbugs. The new operating system offers a pretty complete overhaul of the way digital photos are managed. But some of Vista's nuances have drawn ire from the hard-core enthusiasts who have been putting it through its paces.

Vista is the new Windows operating system, due to be released in January

Kim Kauffman - Seeing life through unique lens

By

on October 27, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Kim Kauffman - Seeing life through unique lens by Maureen Patzer

From the website: It's cameraless, filmless photo collages of botanicals as well as inanimate objects. There are 16 larger pieces and eight tiny ones. The process involves recording objects on a flatbed scanner, such as leaves and flowers or inorganic objects and layering the images together. It's not a literal rendering of the plant like you'd see in a textbook. I'm an obsessed gardener, and I'm trying to create the multi-sensory experience of being in a garden.

Mackerel Sky Gallery of Contemporary Craft

More about scanning

A Thousand Words - Kodak Employee Blog

By

on October 27, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

A Thousand Words - Kodak Employee Blog

Informative . . .

From the website: Hurricane Hunters: The program was created to document the story of the Air Force through art and has been in place since the early fifties. Air Force Artists are invited to spend time with units from around the world and experience first hand the various mission's of the Air Force.

From the website: Photo Guest Book & Photo Favors: For the photo favor, we put each photo in a paper novelty photo frame. It may sound a little hokey, but my mom still has her photo favors in her room - with the paper frames and all! When my husband and I flip through our photo guest book, it reminds us of the special time we spent with friends and family, celebrating our big event.

From the website: Getting ready for more bush adventures . . .: Rodents?! Do rodents assault sleeping humans in eastern Africa? Will I be fending off attacking mice in the middle of the night? I'm beginning to wonder what I've gotten myself into. With instructions to bring a water purification bottle, sheet and pillow, toilet paper, peanut butter and packets of oatmeal, my upcoming trip (which I mentioned in my previous post) to Kenya, Ethiopia, and Sudan is starting to sound like a backpacking trip -- backpacking while wearing a long skirt and head covering.

Logitech NuLOOQ Navigator for Photoshop

By

on October 26, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Logitech NuLOOQ Navigator for Photoshop

From the website: It's not a mouse, but it could be your mouse's best friend! NuLOOQ navigator is an innovative stationary control device, about the size of a half a tennis ball but weighs in at a solid 1 lb. Built into the device are a multi-dimensional ring, called the navring for simultaneous 360 degree pan and zoom and a touch sensitive circular disk, called the tooltuner for fine precision control.

PC or Mac

$80

MacWorld Review

From the website: If you spend serious time in Photoshop, Illustrator, or InDesign CS2; require precise tool control; and make repetitive trips to the toolbox, menus, or options bar, the customizable and highly configurable NuLooq navigator & tooldial is definitely for you. With it, Logitech has created a must-have tool combination for the serious creative pro and anyone else who needs precise navigational control over their large monitor and work space.

Shooting the Kids

By

on October 26, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Shooting the Kids

From the website: Are you a parent who wants to take great photographs of your children? Are you someone who wants to learn how to shoot better, in a more interesting way? You don't have to have kids to find something helpful -- take a peak around and check out some of our previous posts in the archives.

Different views

By

on October 25, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Different views by Blake Morrison

From the website: As a student, like other students of the era, I stuck photographs of war atrocities round my bed. There was one in particular, which I'd cut from the Sunday Times colour magazine, depicting the My Lai massacre in Vietnam, when US soldiers led by Lieutenant William Calley murdered hundreds of civilians: the photo showed a heap of bloody corpses lying in a ditch. The photos attracted odd looks from less political-minded peers and they didn't do much for my sex life. But though the piety and ghoulishness of having them there now embarrasses me, they weren't merely right-on, in the way a Che Guevara poster would have been. The display was an expression of astonishment that something like this could have happened in our time - out there in the killing fields, away from the sanctuary of the campus. We weren't witnesses, as the photographer had been, but this was history and we were living through it and no one must be allowed to forget.

The Seductive Tyranny of Digital Printing

By

on October 25, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

The Seductive Tyranny of Digital Printing by Ctein

From the website: Computer-assisted printing is a true gift...but a gift is not always a blessing.

Seminal School-Portrait Photographer Dies at 92

By

on October 24, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Seminal School-Portrait Photographer Dies at 92

From the website: Anszczak was the first school photographer to offer matte finish. He was the first to seat subjects on a stool, to direct them in proper placement of their hands, and to offer them the use of a black plastic comb before the photo was taken. He pioneered use of soft-focus, previously seen only in Hollywood glamour portraits, in senior-year photos. And he introduced the now-famous "fence post, wagon wheel, and bale of hay" tableau, which became an industry standard.

Amy Toensing - Paris Parks, Urban Parks

By

on October 24, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Amy Toensing - Paris Parks, Urban Parks

From the website: A linear lid atop an abandoned 19th-century railroad viaduct, the Promenade Plantée runs almost three miles (five kilometers) through urban neighborhoods in eastern Paris from Place de la Bastille to the Bois de Vincennes. From dawn to dusk, its lush gardens offer walkers a long ribbon of green relief from noise and traffic. Sheltered in the viaduct's arches are artisans' workshops and galleries open at street level.

Confessions Of The Covetous Photographer

By

on October 23, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Confessions Of The Covetous Photographer by Joan Hunt

From the website: I covet that which I cannot have and it's making me a bitterly jealous person. My art is suffering and so am I.

Laughing Rhino Photography (Joan Hunt)

Gear Acquisition Syndrome (GAS) can be remedied by pinhole photography.

More about pinhole photography

Abelardo Morell - Furthermore

By

on October 23, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Abelardo Morell - Furthermore at Benrubi

More about camera obscura

Catherine Opie - American Cities

By

on October 21, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Catherine Opie - American Cities

From the website: People always come up to me and ask, "Are you an artist or a photographer?" I'm very rooted in the documentary practice. Throughout my life, looking at photographs in history books has informed me. However, people think that if you say you are a documentary photographer, you are a journalist. If you say that you are a fine-art photographer, then people think you are Ansel Adams.

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990-2005

By

on October 20, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Surface:

Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life, 1990–2005

Photographer to the Stars, With an Earthbound Side by Roberta Smith

From the website: The museum, desirous of a big-name exhibition, seems to have ceded too much control to its subject, and as a result, the show is an unconscious exercise in ego gratification that serves no one well. Leaking vanity and ambition, at once yearning for greatness and blithely assuming that greatness has been achieved, the works on view are like a high-brow, static form of reality television. It is fueled by an obsession with celebrity and accented with the trappings of first-class travel, serious real estate and privilege. Its revelations are mostly inadvertent.

The Still-Life Mentor to a Filmmaking Generation by Randy Kennedy

By

on October 20, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Depth:

The Still-Life Mentor to a Filmmaking Generation by Randy Kennedy

From the website: "He was so authentic, in a way that a lot of us had never experienced," Mr. Burns said. "You wanted to be like him. You wanted to tell the truth. You'd go out to take pictures with him, and we all saw the same things he did, and then we'd come back, and he'd put up his prints, and you'd put up yours, and you were devastated."

Blind Photographers

By

on October 19, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Blind Photographers:

Challenged Visions - John Dugdale & Flo Fox by Robert A. Schaefer Jr.

Shooting Blind: Photographs by the Visually Impaired

Blind Photographer Is a Man of Vision - Pete Eckert by Delfin Vigil

Ralph Baker, (refusing to be) Blind Photographer

Tactile Photography - Mariliana Arvelo & James Patten

Buttons - A Blind Camera

By

on October 19, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Buttons - A Blind Camera

From the website: Buttons takes on this notion of the camera as a networked object. It is a camera that will capture a moment at the press of a button. However, unlike a conventional analog or digital camera, this one doesn't have any optical parts. It allows you to capture your moment but in doing so, it effectively separates it from the subject. Instead, as you will memorize the moment, the camera memorizes only the time and starts to continuously search on the net for other photos that have been taken in the very same moment.

The Invasion of Sullivan County

By

on October 18, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

The Invasion of Sullivan County

From the website: This past weekend, the family of a local Marine who was wounded in Iraq allowed two of the photographers into their home. A nursing home let four students photograph its residents. (A handwritten sign said, "Saturday and Sunday Eddie Adams group coming to take pictures. Make sure home is nice and clean and make sure residents are nice and clean.")

Digesting Eddie Adams [Workshop], a thread at Lightstalkers

From the website: All I can say is that I am reenergized about photojournalism. I walked away from the workshop knowing how much I suck but also knowing how to improve.

Stephen Berkman - Ambrotypes

By

on October 18, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Stephen Berkman - Ambrotypes

More about processes

Philippe Halsman: American Artists

By

on October 17, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Philippe Halsman: American Artists at the Montclair Art Museum

From the website: One of the leading portrait photographers of the twentieth century, Philippe Halsman was best known for his provocative, penetrating portrayals of celebrities, politicians, and intellectuals which graced the pages of such major magazines as Life, Look, Esquire, and the Saturday Evening Post during the 1940s through the 70s.

When He Said "Jump..." - Philippe Halsman defied gravitas by Owen Edwards

How Do You Photograph the Amish? Let Us Count the Ways

By

on October 17, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

How Do You Photograph the Amish? Let Us Count the Ways by Liz Cox Barrett

From the website: It's challenging enough, this reader suggested, to photograph a grieving community, to balance the news value of a given image against a certain respectfulness for its subjects. But how does one photograph a grieving community whose beliefs prohibit them from being photographed?

One Man's Trash . . .

By

on October 16, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

One Man's Trash . . . by David Segal

From the website: The tons of junk in these massive photos, which hang through Sunday at a Manhattan gallery, were collected from a junkyard in one of Rio de Janeiro's worst neighborhoods, nicknamed the Gaza Strip. As Muniz and his assistants rummaged, members of two rival drug gangs, the Red Commando and the Third Commando, tried to kill each other.

From the website: After endless tweaking, Muniz would climb to a catwalk 40 feet up and photograph an assemblage, which was about the size of a basketball court, with a large-format camera. Then he'd clear the floor, head back to the junkyard and start all over again.

Sikkema Jenkins

Fall NYC Photography Auctions

By

on October 16, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Sotheby's: Photography, 10/17

Phillips, de Pury & Luxembourg: Photography, 10/18

Swann Galleries Auctioneers: 19th & 20th Century Photographs 10/19

The pre-auction exhibits are a great way to see a huge variety of photography.

Lori Nix - Tableau

By

on October 14, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Lori Nix - Tableau

From the website: Lori Nix is an artist who bends the line between truth and illusion in her photographs. She accomplishes this by photographing miniatures and models which illuminate her interest in the disaster movies of the 1970s, and her memories of growing up in Kansas, a place that seems to attract disasters like no other.

Andreas Lang - Landscapes

By

on October 13, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Andreas Lang - Landscapes

From the website: For example in Germany, Lang often sought out places of legends (these were of particular interest in the 19th Century.), such as the dragon rock reminding of the legend of the Nibelungen, tracing the footsteps of Caspar David Friedrich. In Spain and France he frequented places connected to the legend of the Holy Grail. In France and Poland he found landscapes connected to the gruesome world wars.

Richard Galpin - Revisionary

By

on October 13, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Richard Galpin - Revisionary

From the website: Richard Galpin is known for work in which he creates photographs of various cities, and scores directly into the surface of each photograph with a scalpel, selectively removing areas of photographic emulsion to arrive at the finished works.

Steven Klein - Valley of the Dolls

By

on October 12, 2006 6:00 AM | Permalink

Steven Klein - Valley of the Dolls at Wessel + O'Connor Fine Art

From the website: At times his work can be subversive in its eroticism and fetishism. Images are language and it is the language Steven Klein speaks fluently.

Melanie Pullen - High Fashion Crime Scenes

By