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

Jim writes, “Brazilian artist Ludmila Steckelberg has created a body of work that explores the interesecting ideas of memory and loss; passing time and death; and the reliance on photography, and family albums, to help us remember and reconstruct one’s personal past. Her work, titled “The Absence of Colors” is simple in concept yet powerfully moving when you see the results.” Read more…

Source: Lens Culture Photography Weblog via digitalarte.co.uk

Mr. Whiskets writes, “The 20 hour flight from Thailand to New York left me with a lot of reading time so I was able to finish off the first two releases of the University of California Press’s Defining Moments in American Photography series On Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook of the Civil War (#1 in the series) and Lynching Photographs (#2). Although I find the second book Lynching Photographs an odd choice for a ‘defining moment,’ both are fascinating reads and leave me very curious as to how the series will progress.

Now usually I do not care for books dedicated solely to history so on first glance I thought these would be prime candidates as simple dust collectors, sitting on my shelf neglected and mostly unread. But…these are not simply history lessons; they provoke thought and examine the work in the realm of other visual culture. The series goal is to “investigate key photographers and images in the history of American photography. Reshape that history with attention to race, gender, and class; bring focused and accessible studies of American photography to a wide audience; place American photography at the center of American visual culture; and bring into dialogue writers from art history, American studies, cultural studies, gender studies, literary studies, and American history.” (Whew!)

Each book contains two essays by different authors and each tackle a different aspect of the work. For instance, in On Alexander Gardner’s Photographic Sketchbook, Anthony W. Lee writes at length about the history behind the creation of the Sketchbook and also the role photography played in relation to war and to other means of documentation such as the sketch artists who were also working the battlefields. Then, Elizabeth Young takes the conversation in a different direction with her essay, Verbal Battlefields, which examines the relation of words to photographs since Gardner’s Sketchbook has extensive captions for each photograph.” Read more…

Source: 5B4 via digitalarte.co.uk

A Retrospective / 1-16 December
Private View / Thursday 6 December 6.00-9.00pm

Jo Holland works on the borders between photography and painting, employing the techniques of both to create images that belong to neither medium. Holland makes photographs without the intermediary of either camera or negative, directly exposing the object through the lense onto what becomes a unique ilfochrome print. In this respect her work goes against the grain of much of contemporary photographic practice, which is dominated by the reproducibility of the medium and its digital manipulation. Focusing instead on the line between attraction and repulsion in the viewer’s response, the objects of Holland’s gaze include pig eyes, rotting pears, lamb hearts, sheep brains and, in her recent series the human placenta. Having dissected the object, Holland arranges the resulting cross-sections on a glass plate, onto which, in her more recent images, she intorduces glazes and blocks of colour, creating a hybrid form of image – making between photography and painting. Acquiring from this process the presence and aura of a unique work of art, the resulting images reveal a hidden, fleeting and often violent beauty where we least expect to find it.

The exhibition is Holland’s first retrospective, and a unique chance to see works from her fourteen years as a professional artist.

BODHI GALLERY
214 Brick Lane
London E1 6SA
Open daily 1.00-10.30pm

PREVIEW 21 NOVEMBER 2007 4PM – 8PM
Tim Smyth learned the power cars have the hard way-by going through the windscreen of one that was moving. As well as glass splinters, that accident, when he was out cycling, also imprinted musings on the destructiveness of the motor car.

Smyth has used this, and witnessing a car flip over into the fast lane of a motorway, as inspiration for photography of great beauty. Abstract images that seem at odds with the reality behind the image – the photographs are all details of the decaying shells of cars that have been involved in accidents. What happened in the accident? Was anyone injured or killed? The work doesn’t tell and Smyth doesn’t know so the work leaves the viewer wondering.

Smyth says:
“One morning I found this car at the end of my road that had been in a collision. It looked like an amazing still life: great material that transposed well photographically because of the amount of layers that you get within the reflections, the paintwork and the metal underneath.”
“Because I didn’t do anything to the cars myself, the process of creating the pictures involved really inspecting them”

Tim’s work was awarded Hotshoe Magazine’s student award 2007. In the accompanying article Sophie Wright described what it was that impressed Hotshoe so much:
“The surfaces barely recognisable as bumper or bonnet, transform into a glacial landscape, satellite images of continents, or canvas scoured by strange calligraphy.
“Corrosion is the final layer in Smyth’s photographs: a gradual reclaiming by nature of man-made technology.
“Although the end result seems abstracted, the intention is still documentary.
“His influences are all documentary photographers whose work sits comfortably in an art context: From Henri-Cartier Bresson to Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen Teller and Stephen Gill”

Tim Smyth’s exhibition “The Nature of Machines” is the first exhibition for Rathbone Gallery. Sam Green of Rathbone says:
“We are very pleased that Tim Smyth chose Rathbone to exhibit these beautiful works. The underlying tension seems to reveal itself the more you look at them and they fit in perfectly with Rathbone’s desire to bring the best of contemporary photography along with the best, and most interesting, of the past.”

The opening for Tim Smyth’s “The Nature of Machines” will be at Rathbone on 21 November 4 – 8pm and the exhibition will run until January 17 2008.

For further information/images please contact:
Sam Green
T: 020 7636 6699
M: 07967 688 406

November sees the book launch in both London and Oslo of ‘The Norwegian Way‘ Showcasing Jorn Tomter’s work and his five year study of the ‘Russ’ – a three week countrywide party held by graduating Norwegian 18 year olds. With writing from Karl Erik Haug of Carls Cars and commentator Erlend Loe discussing this “fascinatingly exhaustive, hedonistic celebration”.

London
Launch party and book signing 20th November 07
6:30 Onwards
Bar Kick
127 Shoreditch High Street
London E1 6JE
Nearest Tube: Old Street

jimcasper writes, “A remarkable exhibition of 150 vintage prints by Russian photographer Piotr Ostrup are on display 7 November to 2 December 2007 at the Moscow Museum of Modern Art.This exhibition is not a strict documentary testimony or historical narrative. It is an exhibition of the art photography of one of the most important photographers of Russia during the first half of the XXth century. According to the curators: “The exhibition is composed of photographs made in a particular historical time in a particular geographical-historical-cultural space”: the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917 in Russia, which was one of the most disruptive turning points of the XXth century.” Read more…

Source: lens culture photography weblog via digitalarte.co.uk

John Nack writes, “Welcome to what may be my very best conversation yet,” says George Jardine of the latest Lightroom podcast. “Or at least the most fun and insightful.”
George sat down with photographers Jay Maisel, Greg Gorman and Seth Resnick for “a long and rambling discussion about film archives, digital archives, various sorting and editing methods, and how they all intersect. Or not… I found Jay continually driving at a singular point about why he photographs, how he edits, and why he feels shooting to please yourself is the only important thing for a photographer.” Read more…

Source: John Nack on Adobe via digitalarte.co.uk

John Nack writes, “So, what does this mean in terms of running Adobe software? The good news is that most Adobe apps don’t require updates in order to run well.  That is, the CS3 versions of Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Flash, Dreamweaver, Fireworks, and other apps are good to go for Leopard right now.  Rock out.” Read more…

Source: John Nack on Adobe via digitalarte.co.uk

Don’t miss the story of photography starting next week on BBC4, Thursday October 25 at 9pm.

“In the course of our 170 year relationship, photography has delighted us, served us, moved us, outraged us and occasionally disappointed us. But mainly, it has intrigued us by showing the secret strangeness that lies beneath the world of appearances. And that is photography’s true genius.
Follow the story of photography in BBC Four’s six-part series “The Genius of Photography”. See some of the most famous photographs ever taken and find out more about what made them so very special.” Read more…

Source: bbc.co.uk via digitalarte.co.uk