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Showing posts from April, 2012

Peace on the news

It's been raining so hard my Freeview digi box can only pick up half the normal number of channels today.  Right down the end, past the 'Buy Stuff' and Childrens' TV channels, and somewhere just before where the porn starts are a couple of news channels I am always am impressed by if I make it that far - Russia Today and Al Jazeera.  The latter hadn't started broadcasts for the day yet so I fell back on RT and was spellbound by an interview with a former American army colonel, Douglas A. MacGregor.  What stopped me in my channel-hopping tracks was that even though he looked like one more fully paid-up warmongerer he was in fact eloquently making a case NOT to support aggression against Iran, and also lucid on why Western intervention hasn't happened in Syria, despite the escalating civilian death toll. It was astonishing to hear someone who's analysis is adamantly not for war and who spoke not at the behest of those lobbyists with deep pockets who buy pro-

eBay window shopping

I LOVE THESE SHOES!

straight and curved

 

Previously

A couple of years ago I was laboriously drawing paths in photoshop and adding myself into exterior shots from construction sites.  While it may have crossed my mind occasionally I never went and just climbed over security fences while dressed up in a frock. It would have saved a lot of time - as well as adding a whole deep level of credibility to the final images.

Time and space

There is so much in Mike Nichols 'The Graduate' that is unforgettable but the one sequence which is etched on my brain forever is the haunting editing elision of the summer affair between Ben and Mrs Robinson.  The way the 'family home' and 'anonymous hotel' environments merge together in a beautifully complex way is still astonishing. The pacing conveys such emotional emptiness amidst all the sunshine and affluence.

Half a million invites per day

One of the nice surprises when promoting a group show is to get to pick the people who've done stuff you like and to find that when you pester them with an invite to the opening they write back, despite getting half a million invites per day.   Photography writer Susan Bright's book ' AutoFocus ' is essential reading for anyone whose subject is themself.  (Click on 'See Inside' just below the cover photo on the web page.)

A-Z

I saw this monster 444 page photo-book about photo-books in Waterstones in London last year when I was in there distributing copies of Uncertain States magazine and hiding from the rain - but resisted buying it. I've been resisting ever since but it was so compelling and this morning before work resistance finally proved futile and I ordered a copy. Now it's only a matter of time before I'm back to eating at least two bars of chocolate a day and spending Saturdays in charity shops looking for the perfect photo-shoot dress. Photographers A-Z By: Hans-Michael Koetzle 

Other trespassers

People who sneak in . Recently trespassers reached the top of The Shard construction site in London. Research into Place Hacking . Crack The Surface - Episode I from SilentUK on Vimeo .

Construction sites

Self-portrait Legs (Someone else's living room)

Hair (Someone else's spare bedroom)

Someone else's spare bedroom: #1

Someone else's spare bedroom: #2

Dress test # 1

Off-cuts & other materials

Wall, floor

I'm gonna take this framed print along to Quarters Cafe in Highgate next week (Uncertain States First Tuesday photography talk night) and hopefully swop it with the one I've got on show there as part of the Salon. There is a risk it might put people off their tea and cake but maybe no more than with the one already up.

William Eggleston arrives (again)

36 of American photographer William Eggleston's prints were auctioned a couple of week's ago at Christie’s for $5.9 million in a benefit for the Eggleston Artistic Trust.  They were digital prints in limited editions of two (with only one available at this time), sized at 44 x 60 inches. Joshua Holdeman at Christies said, 'Eggleston has been kind of stuck in the old school world of the photography collectors for a long time, whose primary concerns are about process, print type, print date, etcetera. [...] for contemporary art collectors it’s much more about the object itself—they couldn’t care if it’s a dye transfer or a pigment print or whatever, as long as the object itself is totally amazing, that’s what they care about. 'This is an attempt to start a migration of Eggleston from the quote unquote confines of the photography world into the larger context of the art world. I think it was probably the most important event for Eggleston in a long, long tim

A secret about a secret

'A photograph is a secret about a secret...the more it tells you the less you know. ' Diane Arbus     Tenderpixel show homepage here