New Portraits: at The French House

November 29th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

Although I don’t consider myself a fashion photographer, occasionally I find myself doing a fashion shoot for a friend.  This time, the designers name is Sara Emilie Terp Hansen, a danish graduate of St. Martins who this summer has been working for Façonnable (french label).
I chose these images to put online because I find them  interesting. There is more than fashion to them.  The first one is perhaps more obvious.  The play with space within the photograph is hard to figure out, and shapes repeat themselves throughout the frame.

Click to Enlarge

The second portrait is of Sebastian, a London based sculptor.  I suppose that this is a less obvious photograph as it does not explicitly scream fashion, but none the less, it is quite posed and directed.  I really like this photograph.  When I look at it I have the feeling I’ve seen it before (as with the previous one, clue: HN), but again, it is very general and I can’t relate it particularly to one photographer.

The expression of Sebastian is somewhere in between thoughtful, worried, and contemplative.  His awkward position, the coffee and the newspaper place him in an indeterminate time, a pause perhaps, which we both know wont be very long.

The photographs around him, seem to be people that are in his mind.  The mirror only shows us more photographs and he appears to be only in their company.  The wood and the chairs have a french feeling.  Is he in France?  As we look at the top left, the blackboard is written in english and the prices in pounds.

Click to Enlarge

Any more thoughts? Please feel free to comment.

Back from Paris (Photo)

November 22nd, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

Doug Rickard, A New American Picture

This year’s trip to Paris was great in many ways. If it is Paris Photo you want to know about, unfortunately there is not much to say about it.  I was hoping that at least there would be some interesting books and publishers, but not really.  Regarding books, publishers have turned to Offprint, a small in size, large in content independent book fair. (Here is a list of the publishing houses at the fair).

Amongst my favorite books was “Winning Mentality, Victor Starr” by Mishka Henner, “A New American Picture” by Doug Rickard.  Unfortunately due economical reasons I wasn’t able to get A New American picture… so if someone is feeling generous…

Then there was “Anonymes, L’Amerique Sans Nom: Photogrphie et Cinéma” at Le Bal curated by David Campany & Diane Dufour.  It included work from Walker Evans, Anthony Hernandez, Bruce Gilden, Sharon Lockhart (80′ brilliant film), Jeff Wall and Doug Rickard amongst others.

“Unamed America in Photography and Film
Since the 1930s the mainstream culture of America has celebrated individuality and the self, while nearly all its important image makers have addressed the nondescript, the flattening of daily experience and the pervading sense of anonymity. These have been the country’s twin gifts to the world’s visual culture and their contradictions and tensions are now experienced everywhere. Anonymes brings together work by some of the several generations of significant photographers and filmmakers of the post-war era who have found innovative ways of addressing this situation.”

-David Campany & Diane Dufour

The exhibition will continue until December 19, so if you are in Paris before that, I highly recommend you go have a look.  But don’t order the Ox tail at the restaurant if you happen to eat there.

“Somewhere to Disappear” film screening in Paris, with Alec Soth.

November 17th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

I am extremely excited I will attend the screening of this documentary on Alec Soth‘s latest book Broken Manual.  The film by Laure Flammarion and Arnaud Uyttenhove follows Alec Soth around the USA while he produced the book.  Broken Manual is a book on people who want to escape from society and civilization.  Get a copy before it sells out.

There is a screening on Thursday at 8pm and one on Sunday at noon at the Pantheon theatre (13, Rue Victor Cousin, 75005).  I think it’s a bit late to get a ticket but you can always try to email them through the website.

Offprint Paris: The independent artist book fair.

November 17th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

I recommend for those going to Paris this week that you visit Offprint Paris, an artist book fair focused on independent publishing.  My friends from AMCBooks and ABC Artists’ Books Cooperative will be there, they are the friendliest guys you’ll come across in Paris this week… and they also publish interesting books.

Hope too see you.

Portraits

November 17th, 2010 § 3 comments § permalink

Ricky, Brereton Heath Park, UK

I’ve always kept my distance towards portraiture in photography and thought “man, I really don’t like doing that”.  Having done a few portraits already, I realize that there were two reasons I was not inclined towards this faction of photographic practice.  The first reason is that while living in London, my most common place to practice portraiture when practiced, was the studio.  Boring. I did not go from studying Chemistry to Photography to stay inside a studio (or laboratory) for many hours a day and not enjoy the fresh air and sun.  The reasonable alternative to the studio then, became the city where I live in.  Central London, Zone 1.  Impossible again, too many people, no engagement with anyone, everyone is always in a rush, and people are too self aware and paranoid.  There is always something dodgy about a photographer who wants your photograph these days.  That’s how I feel about it.

Matthew, Bristol, UK

I’ve always done portraits of people I know.  I feel that the intimacy generated, and the connection that is created from what the sitter wants, and how I want to shoot the portrait, always culminates in an interesting photograph (Matthew, Bristol, UK).  It is true that as Avedon and Soth have said that portraits say more about the photographer (and the spectator), their reaction towards the “sitter”, than the person portrayed.  But then again, I’ve always thought that my friends are my friends because I see something of them in me, or something of me in them, so in this way, portraiture can say more about the “sitter” than conventionally it is thought to.

On the other hand, I wanted to say that I am now inclined to portrait photography.  Last week I was around Manchester shooting for my new project on the Mancuspia and approached some people randomly.  It was the first time I really felt comfortable photographing someone who’m I didn’t know (English Boy, Holmes Chapel, UK), and didn’t spend much time with either.  It was the curiosity that drove both the person being photographed and myself to a short relationship and interaction that I admittedly enjoyed.  I will continue doing portraits.

English Boy, Holmes Chapel, UK

Deira, Holmes Chapel, UK

Discussion on the “incident” of Carmen Soth at the Brighton Biennial

November 16th, 2010 § 0 comments § permalink

Published by Photoworks

There has been talk around what is being labeled the “Alec Soth incident” at the Brighton Biennial. Regardless of the views expressed and the incident itself, what I find interesting is the fact that some have labeled it “incident”.

The word incident is by definition related to violence, hostility and danger. In any case, this project by Carmen Soth, initiated and instigated by Alec, should be labeled a happening. It is definitely a self conscious act that intends to comment on street photography and the art world, it’s curators, and it’s supporters (magazines, institutions, etc.). It is in my opinion a big mockery. It comes across as provocative and perhaps pretentious, but when has art been any different? I dig it.

Here is an interesting post and comments.

Also Joerg Colberg has a few things to say.

Student Protests in London: Fire extinguisher is thrown off the roof.

November 16th, 2010 § 1 comment § permalink

I completely omitted this photograph when I made the initial edit from the student protest in London (November 8, 2010).  I remember the moment when the fire extinguisher was thrown off the roof so clearly.  It was, like in a photograph, as if time stopped.  I can’t explain the many thoughts that crossed my mind in the brief instance that it took for that object to drop to the ground, but they were all terrifying.  The most terrifying though was that someone would definitely be killed the moment that the extinguisher got to ground level.  Miraculously this did not happen.  I don’t know if we owe this miracle to the police or the students, but in that moment, police and students, for as brief as it was, were on the same side of the gun.

Fire extinguisher drops from the roof on students and police. (CLICK TO SEE FULL SIZE)

I do not wish to enter in the meaning of this moment, but I will say that it shows a break in the comradeship of students.  For the fight at the time became not against the establishment, but against the activists who were at the time on the roof.  Perhaps, if we get more philosophical, we were fighting ourselves, who until then were supporting what was going on.  And many still cheered after this happened.

Now, as a photographer I thought that the image could have been stronger if I would have been closer to the falling object, and captured both the expressions of the people and the extinguisher.  Having thought about this photograph for some time now, I’ve realized that the image is actually stronger as it’s been shot.  The space that the extinguisher occupies in the surface of the photograph is insignificant.  Then there are the people on who can be barely spotted on the roof, and the crowd of police and students in the bottom.  This insignificance of the extinguisher in mid flight on the photograph becomes an allegory of the whole reason for the demonstration.  On the one hand, it shows how insignificant the person who threw it thought this act was (and how insignificantly small his brain was too).  On the other hand, it represents what the government has done to students.  At this point of the day, the activists on the roof have taken the place of the institution, and in this act, metaphorically illustrated what the government has done by raising student fees.  They’ve dropped a bomb on our heads and everyone else who was there (ie the police) while they sit in Parliament and politicize education.

New work in Progress : The Mancuspia

November 15th, 2010 § 1 comment § permalink

I have started a new project on the Mancuspia.  I stumbled across this curious animal when I found an old book at Stoke Newington market.  The book had many pages erased and crossed out, so this immediately stood out to me. There don’t seem to be any breeders of Mancuspias any longer in the UK as there are many pathologies associated to the animal.

The project can be found on my website under the 2010 projects.

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