Simon Roberts

A really great interview with photographer Simon Roberts Discussing Motherland and We English, both fantastic books, it's great to see Simon talk so passionately about his work.

Simon Roberts: Lens Culture Conversations with Photographers from Jim Casper on Vimeo.

More Soth

Found this on Little Brown Mushrooms Alec Soth and friends new blog,

Glass Jars from LBM A/V Dept. on Vimeo.

Book review Week 4 - Alec Soth

A day late, but not my fault as the book I was waiting for was a day late, I gave a little hint with the video of Alec shooting in Georgia. Anyway Alec Soth's Sleeping by the Mississippi is a book made up of 5/6 years of travelling up and down the Mississippi a theoretical journey through the heart of America. An absolutely amazing mixture of portraits, found objects, interiors and landscape, not surprising that this book is £100 plus on amazon and ebay. Alec Soth is for me one of those photographers, whose every photograph inspires me to shoot more.

RIP Larry Sultan

So from reading my blog you'll probably know by now that I am a massive fan of 'American' Colourists, Larry Sultan who has produced some great work has unfortunately passed away due to cancer, a link to NY time's report here.

Alec Soth

Book review Week 3 - Mitch Epstein

I'm a massive fan of Mitch Epstein's work, I have been looking at a lot of his work lately. I wanted to showcase some of the images from the series 'Family Business' which is a collection of photographs, video clips, text and discussions, it focuses on Mitch's father's business's a once succesful furniture store and some properties he rents out, Mitch is showing the demise of what was once a successful Jewish immigrant dynasty. Mitch's work in this series is really truly inspiring, and it's a shame that you can't see the whole series on his website because the book is full of strong photographs.

I also got out 'work' from the library which comes with a dvd with the video footage from Family Business' which the video stills are made up of, Mitch goes around as a silent witness following his dad as he deals with tricky tennants.

Book review Week 2 - Jocelyn Bain Hogg

I first came across Jocelyn's work whilst I was looking at Skinnydip the agency I did my internship with last year, The firm a collection of black and white photographs looking at the extensive underworld of organised crime here in the UK, shot on Leica M6 and R8 cameras and lenses. Jocelyn's work gets us behind the scenes of this seedy industry, his approach feels that not of an outsider but of someone who is accepted by these gangsters. from life to deaf Jocelyn hasn't just focused on the highs but shows life and deaf of his subject. Neither glamorising nor judges, this work gives an honest view of their lives.
Images © Jocelyn Bain Hogg

Website

So for our digital module, we are being asked to make a website, still have a bit to do, but here's a screen shot of what it looks like at the moment,














I'm going for a really clean easy on the eye aesthetic, as I personally think this works best with documentary/editorial photography. This will be done by next week so I will post an update when this is online.

2009 Paris-Photo

So activity on here has increased probably because I should be making my website and I procrastinate so bad, really do reckon I have ADHD, anyway the winner of this years BMW-Paris Photo prize for contemporary photography has gone to Dutch photographer Karijn Kakebeeke, her photo os a young Afghan women with a football, now a member of the country's first ever woman's team, from the series Bend It Like Beckham.

It's definately worth checking out Karijn's other reportage work such as lostfatherland and Pornweek.

An-My Le

So in an attempt to get me using the library more than just research for my projects each week the aim is to showcase

a book, first up is An-My Le's Small Wars which is broken up into 3 black and white photo essays; Viet Nam, Small Wars

29 Palms. Viet-Nam the homeland of the photographer shows us the country in not the war torn, poverty stricken country

that we know from the 60's, but an updated version of the mid 90's of growth and regeneration, there are subtle reminders

of the past, a bullet ridden wall, a destroyed building the backdrop for a farmers field.

Small wars the first series of staged wars shows Viet-Nam veterans re-enacting scenes from the Viet-Nam war in a forrest in

Virginia.

29 Palms presents an American West being used to perform the war in Iraq, training the marines for the conditions they

are going to endure when in battle, a performance the marines pay three different roles, that of themselves but also both as I

Iraqi police and terrorists with anti-American graffiti in the villages and the marines, the scenes are so realistic that if the context

was not given you may be mistaken to believe they are actually images from the war itself.

Anyway here are some images from the book.

Lauren Greenfield

Lauren Greenfield's project on foreclosure crisis in America, mixing still photography with video.

Lauren Greenfield's "Foreclosure: Death of the American Dream" from Frank Evers on Vimeo.

Garry Winogrand (1981)

Interview With Garry Winogrand from 1981, not great quality but well worth a listen.


More from Mr Winogrand here.

Stephen Vaughan - Ultima Thule

So one of the best things about being back at AUCB, is having a gallery on campus, at the moment Stephen Vaughan's Ultima Thule is exhibitioning and will be until the 27th of November, the project takes it's name from an ancient historical term to describe the mysterious northern frontier, representing a distant unknown region at the extreme limit of exploration and discovery. The large format photographs explore the connections between geology, archaeology and history. the images reveal landscapes marked by volcanic activity, shifting tectonic plates, vast glaciers and steaming sulphurous pools. (Words from the exhibition guide, tried scanning but came out really badly)

Martin Schoeller

So I have been going on for a while about a catch up on the exhibitions I have been visiting over the summer. As soon as I landed in Paris I noticed Martin Schoeller was having an exhibition at A. Galerie, it seemed like it was more aimed at art buyers as a sort of Paris this is Martin Schoeller, not really a theme to the exhibition more just a showcase of his recent portfolio, but the oppertunity to see large prints of photographs taken on 10x8 should never be missed. Here is the flyer for the exhibition. (On a side note Zidane is one of my heroes).

Wolfgang Tillmans

Just been told that wolfgang has some of his books to download as pdf on his website, worth a look because it's free.....

When I met Wolfgang last year

Irving Penn

Only just found out today that Irving Penn died earlier this month aged 92, Irving was one of the most influential photographers of the fashion and famous world. He had this amazing style of mixing classical elegance with minimalism with a long career at vogue his photographs were instantly recognisable for fixing his subjects to there background and never being blurred.

Irving Penn, "Marcel Duchamp, New York, 1948"

Irving Penn "Truman Capote, New York, 1948"

Obhama's People

I mentioned this earlier but I managed to visit Nadav Kander's work whilst it was exhibition at the Flower Gallery in London, thanks to a tip off by Jake Baggerley (whose Chernobyl and Blind series's are great and well worth a look). Was so great to see the work printed big and to such a high quality. the great thing about going to exhibitions is being able to see the small details that are not visible on the interenet such as the word love which is embroided on Reggie Love's Cuffs. Even though this exhibition has now finished it should be touring elsewhere for a while, around the world and blatantly back again in the UK so I really recommend seeing it. I bought the book that went with the exhibition which includes a really interesting foreword by photographic critic Francis Hodgson about the history of portraits.

Hillary Clinton by Nadav Kander

Julius Shulman

This movie looks great.




6 rolls of film processed today more processing tomorrow, scanning on Wednesday so shots of what I have been up to and catch up of my summer to come.

Elliott Wilcox

Spotted in Foam's Talent Issue, such a simple idea carried out so well. Elliott Wilcox

Stories of The eye

Just a quick blog as I can't sleep, Vice are running a photo competition along with Olympus, four categories to choose from (London, eye do what i want, eye travel, eye style) the winner getting a new Olympus pen and a opportunity to exhibit in London, check here for more

Gavin Watson

Gavin Watson has two new books recently the first Skins and Punks carries on from his first book 'Skins' showing more intimite photos of the sub cultures and the movements from one sub-culture into the next.



His third book 'Raving 89' done with his brother Neville, again gives us the perspective of someone who was a part of the movement/sub-culture giving a completely honest account and an account without scrutiny of the subjects. I think this is why Gavin's work is so great, he gives an insiders eye of these sub-cultures. Giving the message or the essance of that culture to the viewer as if they were there themselves.




If you want to check out more from Raving 89 series, the first 35 pages you can get a pdf download by clicking here.

Aaron Schuman Once Upon a Time in The West

Aaron Schuman is a senior lecturer at the AIB as well as lecturing in Brighton and I was lucky enough to catch his exhibition 'Once Upon a Time in The West' at the HOST gallery which ended on the 9th of May but the series can be seen on Aaron's website. The photographs for this showcase were photographed on the eroding sets and locations of Sergio Leone's celebrated 'Spaghetti Westerns', deep in the Almerian deserts of southern Spain. Aaron recently became fascinated by the notion that a fundamental American achetype-the Wild West, and it's associations with freedom, independence, rebelliousness, brutality, morality, honour and so on- had benn transposed by an Italian film director onto the landscape of Franco's Spain, and subsequently came to define this 'quintessentially American' genre in itself. Schuman has been particularly interested in exploring these remnants and what they may say about America today. (note: this blurb has been stolen from the blurb from the exhibition)

I really like being able to go to exhibitions whenever I am in London which isn't as frequently as I would like and it has been especially enjoyable to see some of my lecturers work in the form in which it is intended. Hopefully going to the print space to see 5 emerging photographers at the LPA Futures 09 including Ben Robberts (who I highly rate, and is an alumni at AIB) who recently won the BJP project assistance awards so congratulations to him.

London - Placement

Right i'm in London at the moment and about half way through my placement, I am currently working at Skinnydip and I have had great fun Street casting for a new catalogue for a large US company that is moving to the UK, I have also been meetin Art Buyers and other potential clients and delivering portfolio's to them, had a look through some great photographers work and it was really interesting to see the work produced at A3 size. Also had a sneek peak at Lawrence Watson's new book done in conjunction with Adidas. Containing some of his images from the last 25 years which has seen him work for the NME whilst Rap started to boom and develop strong friendships with bands like Oasis and Paul Weller over the years. This body of work is also going to make an exhibition running from 30th of May to the 7th of june at the londonNewcastle Project Space. Tommorrow of to Assist Stephan Morgan which I am really excited about.

Also fellow peer Toby Roberts has put together a book containing all of us year 1 photographers at the AIB, it's a really great idea and I know Toby has put in a lot of leg work to get this together, so I want to thank him for doing that. You can have a preview and purchase it here.

The worlds most popular man.

So the 44th president of the united states Barack Obama has now been in the Whitehouse for one hundred days, the flickr blog has some interesting fly on the wall style shots of the President on his everyday shots as taken by the Whitehouse photographers. Nothing photographically amazing just good to see the President working. 

Also Nadav Kander who is truly an inspiration to myself, is exhibitioning his latest work 'Obama's People' at the Birmingham Museum and Art gallery showing his commission by the New York Times magazine which existed only previously as a slide show on the New York Times Website (link) including some dialect about the project from both Nadav and Kathy Ryan the picture editor of the New York Times who originally gave the commission. The series has Nadav written all other it in the style of the photos and the poses and hopefully if I have any spare time I will be able to make it up there as this is an exhibition that I should not miss. The exhibition runs until the 30th of August but for more information click here. 

Eugene Kang, 24, Special Assistant to the President

Film is not Dead

The Fujifilm Distinction awards are open again, an award with a completely open brief, the only thing is that the photo must be taken on Fujifilm and you are allowed to enter as many entries as you like, a good opportunity to get your work seen, as well as cash prizes for the top 3 photos chosen by the judges an exhibition is curated using the winners and the images that are awarded merits . Deadline is 1st of September so a long time to go and entry is free. Last years winners including Sarah Turton  an alumni from the AIB gaining third place. 

Sarah Turton's Third Place Entry

On the flip side Kodak is ranked (by Moody's) as one of the big companies that could not see the new year due to the recession (link), Kodak is really important to those who still shoot film such as myself even if you only shoot Fuji, with Kodak going we would lose competition in the film market thus giving Fuji the monopoly and this could potentially mean the end for film. Films like Portra and Tri-x are some of the best films produced and are used by professionals and amateurs alike and would be a great shame to loose. It would be a shame to loose these films and we might see an apocolypse style buying of kodak. 

Rev. Dwayne Morgan by me, shot on Portra

Shot on Kodak Tri-x by Mikko Toiviainen

Jo Longhurst

I have just got back from a talk by Jo Longhurst who is an artist who works with photography, This was a completely different talk compared to the other photographers who I have seen since arriving at the arts institute. Jo has just recently graduated with a PHD from the Royal College of Art where she did a long term project in conjunction with the best whippet breeders of the UK. Interested in perfection and human nature.

Twelve Dogs, Twelve Bitches

This study has stemmed from Francis Galton (Charles Darwin's half cousin) and his interest into perfecting the human race, which has been greatly dismissed now in humans due to Nazi Germany, but still caries on in the animal world. 

Jo also talked about her current long term project looking at elite gymnasts. Again interested in perfection as well as human drive and the process of training. It was enlightening to see a more art based photographer to see the way in which they work compared to a commercial photographer, Jo talked a lot about how she displayed each of the pieces and why she did it in that way.

Bob Carlos Clarke

Just read an interesting article (link) on the life of Bob Carlos Clarke, an amazing photographer and one of the early pioneers of photographic manipulation, he has been noted by some as England's answer to Helmet Newton. In 2006 Bob ended his troubled life by jumping in front of a train. Their is going to be a retrospective look at his career at The Little Black Gallery as of 8th of May, which hopefully I will be able to attend as I will be in london (more news on that as it happens).

Champions

The Champions by Anderson & Low was an exhibition was produced in support of the Elton John AIDS Foundation to raise awareness about the global issue of HIV/Aids, it consisted of striking nude poses classically done of some of the worlds biggest international sport stars. 

Anderson and low described the project 'From the start, we wanted to photograph athletes from a range of countries, sports, and races. For all that they have in common, such as physical beuty, mental and emotional strength, and common to their goals, the participants offered us unique artistic opportunities with every shoot. Through their very act of participation, all the athletes have laid themselves bare. A major part of our statement is achieved through the project's nudity. These people have the most amazing physicality, but despite this they are as vulnerable to HIV and AIDS as the rest of humanity, and hence the nudity becomes symbolic of this. We want to make them icons of a different sort with this work.' 

This work was beautifully lit and composed as can be sen on the website and a lot of the images for me have a resemble that of Ancient Greek statues, especially the photographs of Joe Worsley and James Beattie. 

Joe Worsley - English Rugby Player

week 34

We had a visit from Jess Crombie who is the photo editor of NGO Water Aid, but has previously been an art buyer and worked at Magnum, the talk was really interesting and Jess went through  the career paths of different photographers and how they have got where they are today as a result, it seems if I do want to be a editorial reportage photographer for an area it is best to jump in  the deep end and move over there and then make the contacts like Olivia Arthur.

Other advice she gave was to enter competitions and enter grants as this could be the way to fund the projects you want to do, and to get art buyers attention she said to send a card with website and then ring a week later as she personally hate to be cold called. and again don't be snobish about doing advertising photography if you consider yourself a fine art photographer and so on as this will lose your work and might mean you don't have the funding that you need for a personal project later on down the line.  

week 33

So the year is winding down, with my CAP project to finish of and placement left to do I have been lining myself up some personal projects to do during the summer term, I am trying to get some samples from CTRL clothing to do a fashion shoot and have lined up 4 models and have found a location in the new forrest and hopefully I will be able to get the samples after easter. 

I have also met with some people who partake in Viking activities during the weekend and they have informed me that their is a big viking battle weekend coming up in Seven weeks so I will go along to this and do a portrait series of these guys dressed up in their viking uniform, these projects are purely to boost my portfolio and I think I will have a good time shooting them. 

week 32

It is the week of our hand in's and I have unfortunately not been able to get enough subjects for my CAP project in time I have spoken to Aaron about this and found out the procedure for getting a referral as I am enjoying the way this project is now turning out, with the extra time I will be able to extend my project further, and find more of the subjects I am looking for rather than just putting up with weaker ones. I am annoyed I haven't been able to complete the work and for next year I will definitely plan to have a back up so if my first idea does fail I will be able to get on with plan b. 

week 31

Digital Darkroom is done, CAP is far from done, I have also been contacting photographers about placement and need to keep on top of this as well. I have been looking at a couple of photographic agents firstly East and Bill Charles and looking at the photographers they have on their books, when I leave my studies i will have to go on and find one that suits my style Bill Charles seems to have some very big names on his books such Larry Fink, Stephen Shore, Oliver Chanarin and Oliver Broomberg. I have been noticing that I have been finding myself more interested in American photographers like William Egglestone and Alec Soth and prefering they way that they photograph.   

Week 30

`My Digital Darkroom project is almost done now, which gives me a bit more free time to get on with my CAP project I have changed my idea and am now photographing priests in their homes, I have been on three shoots this week, the first I have used some fill in flash on, but I am not happy with the results and have decided to use available light, the second one I have used window lighting but I feel that this one looks to obvious and is not really what I am looking for. The third using tungsten lighting I am really happy with, the only problem is the deadline is soon approaching.

Part of the Digital Darkroom project was to do a front cover and a double page spread as if it were for a magazine, I have pitched it to the photo editor of Disorder magazine and he really liked the photos and has asked me to email him back again in a months time as they have already allocated all the fashion spreads till september, I did this as I remember Mark George saying to always complete every part of the brief, and this acted as a good way to gain confidence in talking to photo editors and gaining media for myself.  

Week 29

Their is an exhibition at the moment of Alumni students most notably Wolfgang Tillmans and Nick Knight the exhibition shows some of the photographers current work but also a piece from whilst they were at university here, for some there university work it isn't eve a photograph and is either design work or illustration. I came across the work of Martin Hartley who I really like it seems he is a modern day Scott who is photographing the Artic ocean at the moment. This exhibition is really inspiring to a lot of us here studying photography as it shows those who have made it in the over saturated market that is photography and also increases the credibility of the AIB.

Week 28

I have managed to do my shoot for Digital Darkroom this week I was really happy with how the dresses looked and managed to get a stylist to come in and do the hair and makeup which I was also really happy with, I went along to a two B&B's today but unfortunately they were not really what I was looking for, both were recently refurbished and did not fit the schema I was looking for. It seems I may have to abandon this project for now as the one's that do fit my schema do not want to be photographed. 

I have been looking at Nadav Kander who seems to fit so well into all different aspects of photoraphy whether it be documentary, advertising or portrait and doesn't seem to ashamed of it like other photographers who do not advertise that they do advertising photography as they consider themselves an fine art photographer.  

Week 27

I have found a fashion designer to help with my digital darkroom project and am discussing with her how many pieces I am going to need and I have asked her to do them in a neo-romantic style, I have planned a test shoot with my model to play around with lighting set up, I am a bit worried as my model is off to New York in two weeks and I hope the dresses are made in time. If not I will have to find another model, but this project seems on it's way now. My CAP project is still up in the air, I have been contacting B&B owners to do a portrait series on, I have managed to secure a couple of shoots for next week. 

David Moore

David Moore is a conceptual documentary photographer, whose documentaries a lot of the time seem to involve a governmental/state power theme. David was tauht by the legendary Martin Parr. His work like Parr is more fine art based than commercial as he stated 'Do project and find out where it fit's afterwards' the idea that commercial will follow after. which he said after shooting The Commons porject he recieved three jobs of the back of it because he showed he could use macro and lighting to good effect. 

His first documentary The Velvet Arena in 1995 David attended private views, book launches, business parties taking pictures of the art directors and other attendees, whilst talking about this book David described himself the photographer the person with power and his subject the person without power. Which is true the photographer can manipulate the image however they want for example Don McCullin's shell shocked soldier has been reproduced in different ways firstly where the eyes are visable shows he soldier in it's shell shocked state whereas when the eyes are darkened the picture tells a completely different story where the soldier looks ready to go into battle.  He also described how he feels about hflash stating that useing flash is an assault on the person and that off board flash enchances the drama which it deffinately did in the velvet arena with what could have been potentially boring scenes have now been made interesting with amazing details in the skin and texture of the clothes. 

The second piece of work David talked about was his book the commons again similar to The Velvet Arena with David looking at things in a Macro sense and again using flash but this time without any of the MP's. Whilst talking about this project he firstly let on that the project itself had taken 3 years to gain access to but also when starting a project be very open ended so as not to have an idea until you get there which I guess is true for documentary photography when you do have time to shoot the project as you can go back and assess the pictures you have taken but this is not the case in the fashion world where you only have one chance to photograph the model as you are relying on so many other factors. 

The final project that david talked about was The Last Things a documentary on a Secure military bunker in London, for this project he decided not to use flash as the viewer has never seen this space before he wanted to be more environmental, obviously due to security reasons he had to photoshop certain things out. David decided to publish some of these photographs in the Mail on Sunday over the Guardian as he wanted a larger audience but also because he wanted a audience with less photographic knowledge. David's final piece of advice was that if you are going to photograph institution, community then there are always going to be people who don't like what you are doing or how you are portraying it but you just have to tak it on the chin and keep a clear conscience.