Sometimes an exhibition is many years in the making. Case in point
is the show I’m opening next week which deals with the ongoing influence the great photographer August Sander had and continues to have on photography. Most active from the early 1900s through the 1920s, Sander’s credo was simple: “I am not concerned with providing commonplace photographs like those made in the finer large-scale studios of the city, but simple, natural portraits that show the subjects in an environment corresponding to their own individuality.”
Gregory Garry has seen a few magazines come and go. He was photo director for Budget Living (folded 2005), Weekend (folded 2006) and Radar (folded 2008). At Radar, Garry oversaw the wacky celebrity photo-illustration covers that earned the magazine a reputation for satire and snark. Garry had the good luck to leave Budget Living and Weekend before they closed, but he was working at Radar when the axe fell just before Halloween. Garry recently took time out from his job search to chat with PDN about photography, Radar and the future of magazines.
We asked WSJ director of photography Jack Van Antwerp, “The Big Picture” editor Alan Taylor, and “Captured” editor Meghan Lynden to describe their editing processes.
When it comes to voyeurs who photograph or videotape up a woman’s skirt (known as “upskirting”) or snap a photo down a woman’s shirt (“downblousing”), though, “there are not many practical, legal remedies available to people who find themselves the victim,” says Anita Allen, a privacy expert and professor at Penn Law. That’s if the woman even realizes she is a victim in the first place, which is unlikely, as the voyeur typically manages to go undetected. If the photo or video is published online — which, increasingly, it is — it would be difficult for the subject to ever come across the material. Even if she did, how could she recognize one underwear-clad rear as her own?
obviously, i am the type of person/photographer who enjoys close contact, either attained quickly or after weeks of growing relationships…i do not think that is a mantra for photographers at all…it just happens to be my way
Alec Soth’s latest venture on the printed page is a self-published newspaper with the gothic-script title of The Last Days of W. 36 photographs within which even the inanimate objects look simply worn out and exhausted. With many of us down on our luck, this is supposed to only cost you a fiver.
When I heard about Trunk Archive (website here) last February and saw the list of photographers who’s work they represented I thought how great this will be for photo editors and art buyers to source and use high end imagery. I had the opportunity to talk with Matt Moneypenny the President and CEO of Trunk last week and here’s what we talked about.
I have begun exploring mental illness in Vietnam. This will hopefully continue next week and into following year. For the time being I will simply leave you with a broad edit of photographs.
We are on the Isle of Wight, a roughly diamond-shaped piece of land in the English Channel, for an educational weekend with Britain’s pre-eminent documentary photographer. Occasionally Martin Parr discusses technique and technology with individual members of the group, but mostly we learn by watching him. The lesson is simple: Photograph what you love.
IFComp 2008, The 14th Annual Interactive Fiction Competition and keeper of the old-school text-game torch, recently declared its winners. Bronze went to my game, Everybody Dies, silver went to Eric Eve’s Nightfall, and the gold went to Jeremy Freese’s Violet.
For over fifty years Alan Abel has been creating absurd hoaxes to fool the media. “Abel Raises Cain” is a very touching tribute to Alan, produced and directed by his daughter, Jenny.
Norwegian black metal is the country’s most controversial musical export — and bane of the wooded Scandinavian enclave’s existence. Dealing as it does with Satanism, arson and murder, the music remains mostly underground; America’s general knowledge of Norwegian rock still starts with a-ha and ends with Royksopp. But recent interest in the notorious subgenre, including the new documentary Until the Light Takes Us and Peter Beste’s just published True Norwegian Black Metal, is shining a new light into the darkness.
A study by the U.S. Green Building Council in Texas found that the yearly carbon consumption fron a single digital billboard is enough to power 13 homes. Beyond excessive power usage, the light pollution these signs emit is so intense that, for instance, one billboard that was erected this year — near Topanga Canyon and Victory boulevards in the San Fernando Valley — can be plainly seen by hikers on Top o’ Topanga’s scenic overlook, four miles away.
Drivers on La Brea Avenue report being mesmerized by three billboards flashing high-intensity images into their faces near Pico, Olympic and Melrose boulevards. Kevin Glynn, a member of the Miracle Mile Residents Association and Mid-City West Neighborhood Council, says, “It’s just a matter of time before somebody is run over by a driver bedazzled by the graphics. They’re really hideous and cheap. Where are the billboard taggers when we need them?”
“Dear Folks,” the letter begins, “I think of you when I hear a Beethoven symphony or the words of a childhood hero repeated and more beautiful as I approach my forties. The strength and principles you planted into me at an early age, though inconsistent with the larger culture I grew up in, is now flowering in fertile soil. I see your faces in my mind and remember the courage both of you demonstrated during the McCarthy period when you were alone. How fortunate that Gail and David can grow up in a community that supports their ideals — it shows — they are so strong and independent, you would be proud. I work hard. I’m the administrator of the medical system in Jonestown. It’s the most exciting thing I’ve ever done. There is a song we sing that begins, ‘It feels good to rise with the morning sun,’ and ends, ‘It feels good to see all the work we’ve done and to know the future is now,’ it sums up my feelings about my life here. I am thousands of miles from you, the electronic communications are limited between us, but I am more your daughter than I’ve ever been before.”
