Vice Magazine – STATE-SPONSORED VOYEURISM – Photography from the Czechoslovakian Security Services Archive:
We will probably never know the proper names of some of our favorite photographers of the last century. You see, these people were not working for the sake of artistic glory. Instead, they served a totalitarian state apparatus that was not at all unlike the cheerful government in George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four. And so what follows, dear comrades, are surveillance photographs taken by the Communist secret police in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 80s.
Art – Images of a Camera-Toting Artist Turn a Gallery Into a Chapel – NYTimes.com:
The memorial exhibition for the New York artist Dash Snow, who died last week of a drug overdose at 27, is a casual, personal thing with no formal title and a simple organizing principle: people who knew Mr. Snow were invited to bring things in to remember him by.
Photographers speak out on Edgar Martins – Conscientious:
While I am waiting for further clarifications from Edgar Martins on the NY Times Magazine kerfuffle (don’t worry, they will come), Alan Rapp (a photography and architecture book editor – who, for example, edited the BLDGBLOG book) talked to four architectural photographers about the complex.
“Photography is a personal experience through which i choose to express views on the world. The work I produce reflects my need for uncovering dark places, and further feeds my desire to produce humanistic, palpable photography. I choose to work with photography on the deepest level I can, to produce the best work that I can. I photograph things I feel and see. I try to give voice and meaning to the elements and environment around me.”
AMERICANSUBURB X: THEORY: “Charles Harbutt – I Don’t Take Pictures; Pictures Take Me (1972)”:
How is this continuum of photographer, world, and camera achieved? Each person must find it individually, but for me it has flowed from the realization that I don’t take pictures, pictures take me. I can do nothing except have film in the camera and be alert. My adversary, a photograph, stalks the world like a roaring lion. Pictures happen. One can only trust one’s sensitivity, the bounty of the world, and the chemistry of Kodak. This is the photographic method.
In this weeks long-overdue interview section, my compadre Daniel Shea interviews Alec Soth. Big ups to Daniel for this excellent and informed interview, check out his site if his name is new to you.
Showcase: Crack, Close Up – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
When Tony Fouhse first exhibited his stylized photographs of crack addicts made on a street corner in Ottawa, Canada, he was unsure what the reaction of the opening-night audience would be. But he knew that some of those in attendance would approve: the subjects themselves.
Hugh Kretschmer is a photographer based in Los Angeles and specializing in photo-illustration, advertising and editorial photography and design. Of his work, he says: ‘The idea is the most important ingredient. I’ve always appreciated concept because it adds another layer to the photograph and invites participation from the viewer. When I see something that is done well, where the artist really nails it, I find myself just staring. I can’t think of anything else that would be more of a compliment than that’. Kretschmer’s clients include Mastercard, Evian and the New York Times magazine.
David Lynch is endlessly creative, and his artistic output is usually quite bizarre and surreal. Lynch’s latest project is as a photographer and collaborator with musician, artist and producer Danger Mouse. Together, they’ve created a multimedia installation that is now on display in Los Angeles.
Fifty of Lynch’s photographs are mounted on aluminum panels that seem to float on the gallery walls, converging with the moody rhythms of the music from Danger Mouse’s latest album, Dark Night of the Soul.
Metro Collective – Promise & Peril – Michael Robinson Chavez:
Michael Robinson Chavez has a great multi-media feature on the L.A. Times website, “Promise and Peril in South L.A.”, an in-depth series of essays documenting how life has and sometimes hasn’t changed in one of America’s most notorious neighborhoods.
Bill was a man of many talents and I would do him an injustice to refer to him as Plain Dealer photographer Bill Kennedy, for he was far more than that. First and foremost a man devoted to his family who now celebrate his life and mourn their loss.
On Assignment: Afghanistan – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
You could call David Guttenfelder the man behind the man in the pink boxers. Mr. Guttenfelder, 40, the chief Asia photographer for The Associated Press, attracted attention two months ago — all the way up to the Commander in Chief — with his photograph of Specialist Zachary Boyd, Specialist Cecil Montgomery and Specialist Jordan Custer returning the Taliban’s fire in Afghanistan. Specialist Boyd was wearing pink boxers and flip-flops at the time. Admirers of this picture saw in it a perfect expression of American readiness and capacity to fight. “Any soldier who goes into battle against the Taliban in pink boxers and flip-flops has a special kind of courage,” Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates said.
PDNPulse: Spanish Newspapers Try to Discredit Famous Capa Photo:
The International Center of Photography recently brought its traveling Robert Capa exhibition to Spain, and the Spanish press is using the occasion to rip one of Capa’s most famous photographs to shreds.
Must See: Surfing, With a Dark Edge – Lens Blog – NYTimes.com:
Chris Bickford’s project about the local surf scene on the Outer Banks of North Carolina was all about firsts: his first time shooting in water, his first time capturing a fast-action sport and his first time conceptualizing completely in black and white.