Mr. Whiskets writes, “Lee Friedlander is often cited as America’s most important living photographer but undoubtedly he is its most prolific. Lee has created substantial bodies of work in every genre of photography and succeeded in making each his own. Self portraits, nudes, social landscape, the American monuments, labor, technology, music, the family album, architecture, flowers, words, and the ever constant landscape have been exhaustively consumed by his tireless lens. One of the threads that has linked much of Lee’s work is his celebration of the great achievements and achievers of this country. His is a celebration tied to labor and craft accomplished by skilled hands driven by a lasting unique vision. A fine fieldstone wall seems more to his liking than microchips and our pixel arranging society. ” Read more…

Source: 5B4 – Photography and Books via digitalarte.co.uk

Jim writes, “Four photographers were named this week as finalists for the annual £30,000 ($60,000) Deutsche Borse Photography Prize. The finalists are: John Davies (UK), Jacob Holdt (Denmark), Esko Mannikko (Finland) and Fazal Sheikh (USA).

Exhibitions of work by all four photographers will be on display in London at The Photographers’ Gallery, February 8 – April 6, 2008. The winner of the award will be announced Wednesday, March 5, 2008.

Lens Culture is pleased to present more than 40 photographs from the finalists, right here. So take a look, and try to pick the winner yourself.” Read more…

Source: lensculture via digitalarte.co.uk

New updates from Elizabeth Atterbury. I wish there were more often… If you’re not familiar with Elizabeth’s photographs, please visit http://eatterbury.blogspot.com/

Mr. Whiskets writes, “It is rare for a photographer that came of age in the 1960′s and 70′s to not cite Robert Frank’s The Americans and Walker Evans’ American Photographs as the two books that inspired them to take up a camera and explore the world. It is lore that gets repeated so often it almost seems disingenuous in the retelling. I have often thought that it isn’t possible that so many people could be so instantly enamored since, as much as it may be embarrassing to admit, both of those books took a while for me to warm up to them and see their true greatness. I’ve come around, probably in the same way that an early critic of the first edition of The Americans had when he described Frank as one who “produced pictures that look as if a kid had taken them while eating a Popsicle and then had them developed and printed at the corner drugstore.” That critic failed to specify which flavor of Popsicle would have fueled such a remarkable feat. If he had, maybe photographers would have flocked to have given it a taste.” Read more…

Source: 5B4 – Photography and Books via digitalarte.co.uk