pete mcgovern

Photographs along the Rhine, in southern Germany

I love the Matisse-like tree and the ball in the sky

Kunsthaus Lempertz catalogue

Villa Grisebach auction catalogue

The made for TV film 'Georgia O'Keefe' was on telly last week - starring Joan Allen, with Jeremy Irons as Alfred Steiglitz.  It's a naff film in many respects but watchable if only for the physical likeness that Irons pulled off which is terrific.  He looked just like I had imagined Steiglitz to be.  That was until just now, when clicking through from collectordaily to a photo auction about to take place in Berlin I saw this picture of the egomaniac/madman/photo-impressario/galleriest/publisher/photographer/theorist himself, taken by Ansel Adams (who would have been in his early thirties at the time).  Steiglitz is smiling, he may even be on the verge of laughing.  And it appears genuine!  I can't think of anything witty Adams might have said that might have put this unexpected levity in that wizened and usually solemn face (and neither of them had a reputation for jocularity), maybe it was Ansel's promise of a full explanation of the benefits of the zone sys

I Want to Grow Up Fast 2 min. from Judy Gelles on Vimeo .

My nephew showed me a picture he'd been sent recently, of my family taken long, long ago.  Hundreds of years ago, stood outside church.  The tension is palpable.  We were all turned out nicely, how mum managed that is remarkable.  We all had stylish haircuts.  I must have been about five. It may have been the last time I had a stylish haricut.  (Maybe there was a week or two in the mid-80's, I may be mistaken). Although not a professional hairdresser I felt suddenly ready to make a leap back in time to when I had short hair and cut half my hair off, one big snip each side.  So I made it part of the way back to being a child.  It didn't help in the looks department (what would?) but my head felt 1.5 KG lighter. At the moment of big snip number two I assumed it was going to turn out pretty equal length on both sides, how hard can it be, after all?  Oh.  Well, the asymettrical look, it can only a matter of time before it is regarded as a stylish haircut,I think.  Probably

I've resisted buying any photography books for more than three months but a copy of Kelli Connell's 'Double Life' , for which I've long harboured feelings, is available at a good price at the mo.  I keep trying to have less stuff - and books are definitely stuff, having just had to move all the ones I've got to paint some cupboards - but this is a seriously impressive series of fabricated photographs.  So...FAIL - I just went and ordered the book. This morning I had a dream where I met with someone I once knew and we just kissed, it was simple and lovely. I woke up feeling happy that a kiss could be so much. Other important things in life : The breeze.  Birdsong.  The sky. 

Thanks, Bernie

The use of a ping pong ball bounced into his photographs at the moment of exposure adds a quality of peculiarity that avoids the usual weighty seriousness that much art photography labours under (mine included).  It's clever and an anti-sentimental an approach to looking - and prepared to appear insensitive as when choosing to artify this particular car, bearing as it does a note on the dashboard stating, 'THIS IS NOT AN ABANDONED CAR' .  More at photo-eye

photo-eye Katy Grannan is maybe the most compelling photographer I can think of working today.  Not that I'd like to meet her.  Her series always show unusual precision, both in thematic continuity and in the way she callously delves into people's failed lives with a grand sense of impunity. She probably believes it is enough for her or one of her assistants to ingratiate themselves and hand over ten dollars once the shot is in the bag. Maybe it is, for the ends would seem to justify the means. This recent black and white project is the haul from observations of those impoverished black and white people who occupy California's nowheresvilles.  It is preceded by the familiar stately large format colour portrait work which peters out as she instead looks for - and finds - more fleeting moments of interaction within the frame.  These moments are subtle but somehow electrifying when found in the harsh, bleached American landscape that time has forgot. There are reminders

photo-eye

A new stretch of deserted coastline visited; reed-filled saltmarshes opening out onto gooey mudflats and huge expanses of open beach that are probably under a few feet of North Sea right now. After getting sunburned when out for a few hours in a cold sea-mist a few days ago I took no chances and pasted factor 30 all over my face today - but still got another scorching, wind-burn thrown in, perhaps. The camera struggled with pans, the fail-rate higher due to my hand being shaken by that stiff breeze, confusing the relative-positioning mechanism, I guess. Sometimes I get allergic reactions to suncream (and/or to taking pictures) and my nose and eyes were streaming. Strands of loose hair flicked in my eyes and tangled with long, brilliantly glistening threads of swirling snot. And the loudest explosive sneeze/shout maybe in my life, unheard, me nothing more than perhaps a jolting speck on the horizon.