HOST GALLERY BLOG

1000 Words Workshop: Anders Peterson

2010-12-18T06:13:00.000-08:00

1000 Words have just announced their new workshop, this time with Anders Peterson in Morocco.
More information can be found here.

Pieces of a Song: It's Open

2010-12-01T01:41:00.000-08:00

So HOST's 5th anniversary is upon us, and the exhibition celebrating this, Pieces of a Song, is now hung and open to the public, all the prints are also available online here...
It has been a collaborative effort with HOST and Ruth Grimberg, The show runs until the 18th, more info here.....

Ewen Spencer: Three's a Crowd

2010-11-26T08:23:00.000-08:00

For those of you that missed the book launch at HOST, I have just been told that there will be an exclusive book signing of Ewen Spencer's THREE'S A CROWD at YOUTH CLUB pop-up shop off Carnaby St.THREE'S A CROWD is the first volume in a series of four celebrating Ewen's four year journey with arguably the last great rock n roll band The White Stripes.
Each page in this large format unbound book pulls out to form a full colour double sided A3 poster of previously unseen images from behind the scenes with the elusive duo.

Beautifully designed, each copy in this small edition of 500 is also hand numbered. Come on down to pick up your copy and get it signed by the man himself! Also on sale exclusive THREE'S A CROWD posters & OPEN MIC.
Where: YOUTH CLUB, 35 Marshall Street, London, W1F 7EX / When: 6.30pm, 3 December

Rain, Floods and Photographs

2010-11-09T07:42:00.000-08:00

Not too long ago I posted something about Seba Kurtis' Shoe box series, you can see them on his site here.
And then looking at Blake Andrews Blog (which is fantastic) I saw his post about the photographs Bryan Wolf showed him, I thought now they make a nice match, this is the start if something.. Also nice title for a show Rain, Floods and Photographs
You can see Blake Andrews Post here.
Top Image: Bryan wolf:
Bottom Images: Seba Kurtis
Also I cant recommend enough Blake's posts entitled American Prospects Revisited, a lovely investigation into Joel Sternfelds classic book. See them here

Maurice Broomfield, a Tribute by Jon Levy

2010-10-25T07:21:00.000-07:00

As many now know Maurice sadly passed away recently, Jon has written a tribute to the wonderful photographer, gentleman and explorer of both the world and of life itself...
Read it here....

Infidel Tattoos

2010-10-11T05:11:00.000-07:00

Your not really anyone these days, unless your are sporting a HOST approved Infidel Tattoo, now available free from the gallery to accompany Tim Hetherington's Show Infidel....

Teller has landed!

2010-10-07T04:22:00.000-07:00

Just delivered to my desk is the first issue of Teller Magazine, which is a really exciting venture. A Magazine of stories, both in pictures and words. Distributed and published by Trolley. We are going top have a launch party on the 29th Oct, from 6:30 so please do come along and see the magazine, and hear a couple of short readings over a drink.... Anyway more about the magazine from the editors Katherine Hunt and Ruby Russell....

""Teller is a magazine of stories. Stories told in pictures, in words, or in both: contributions are drawn from any medium or discipline that can tell a story on the printed page. They may report a real event, or be works of pure fiction. Often they are both and neither, combining fact and invention, documentation and imagination.

Issue 1 unearths the work of Charles Trotter, a commercial photographer based in Nairobi in the 1950s, whose pictures of high society show us the decadence of colonial rule in its dying days. Meanwhile Flavie Guerrand’s photographs shot at all-nighters in Paris and Berlin present a narrative of the ultimate party.
Other stories include Julia Hayes’s commemoration of a cleansing ritual held by 1930s London slum-dwellers, a savage tale of mortality by writer Lee Scrivner, and Swedish artist Nina Mangalanayagam’s exploration through words and images of the complex cultural identity of her Tamil family in Europe.

Issue 1 out October 2010. ....."

The Creative Habit

2010-09-28T02:17:00.000-07:00

Currently dance artist, with a keen interest in photography, Hannah Buckley, has been helping out in the gallery. Hannah works with her photographer twin sister to combine the two art forms, and you can see their work at the negotiationofspace website, which is really worth looking at
The other day she told me about a book by Twyla Tharp called The Creative Habit, and it sounded pretty fascinating, so I asked her if she would mind writing something for the blog about the book, so here it is:

"I don’t give to charity very often, and a compensation for this if I read a good book I like to buy it for the people I care about and who I think will benefit from that particular book. My books for giving so far have been Og Mandino’s ‘The Greatest Sales Man In The World’, Patrick Holford’s ‘Low GL Diet Cookbook’ and Twyla Tharp’s ‘The Creative Habit’.

Twyla Tharp is an American dancer and choreographer, but so far, as well as a dancer, I have given it to a musician and a photographer. I also have a jewelry maker and fashion designer in mind as future Twyla receivers. The Creative Habit comes from the perspective of the dance world but it is a creative manual for all anyone involved in any art, and the world outside art for that matter.
In a nutshell Tharp believes that creativity, is not a gift from God but the product of hard work. She believes through structure and habit, the very things that people label the creativity killers, you can achieve the most freedom, be creatively productive and work your way out of blank spots on uncreative days. In The Creative Habit she shares her own creative experiences, methods and exercises that have helped her achieve running, and choreographing for, a dance company from 1965 until the present day, choreograph more than one hundred thirty-five dances, five Hollywood movies, direct and choreograph four Broadway shows, receive one Tony Award, two Emmy Awards, nineteen honorary doctorates, the Vietnam Veterans of America President's Award, the 2004 National Medal of the Arts, the 2008 Jerome Robbins Prize, a 2008 Kennedy Center Honor and become a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and an Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Even if you disagree with the fundamentals of what Tharp writes about, (habit breeding creativity), I think every creative person, young or old, could learn something from her informative book. It is well written, with passion, intellect, experience and integrity dripping from its pages."
Hannah Buckley

One of the things this reminds me of is David Hurn in his, and Bill Jay's On Being Photographer talking about how it is so important to be strict when one is researching and shooting a body of work. He goes on about making check lists, in order to almost know what your going to shoot before you go out into the field. I think its often forgotten that being "Creative" can go hand in hand with having very strict rules....

Quick Rant II: How Dare You!

2010-09-26T08:59:00.000-07:00

Quick Rant....: How Dare You!

2010-09-26T07:48:00.000-07:00

I sometimes do not understand why photographers don't have their phone numbers on their websites, it is really frustrating, why would one not?
Admittedly it's also an excuse to use these picture from the artwork for 10cc's record How Dare you !..... Which is a great record

Perpignan Now #11

2010-09-24T10:02:00.000-07:00

Day Seven:6 September. 8p.m, London, England

Back in the rain, back home…
Is our mission, our search, completed?
Seems like it’s hard to tell…
Will the superiors be happy with this report? We don’t know...

But, one thing is certain, we will never forget the kindness of the Greeters of Maine in Paul Jeffers’ photographs, or the extraordinary story of Vissarion by Sergey Kozmin…

And so in that sense, the many photographs and stories we have seen here in Perpignan, have affected us after all… And maybe a few others along the way…
Stories we will never forget…

That was Perpignan 2010…..

Perpignan Now #10

2010-09-23T11:13:00.000-07:00

Day Seven:5 September. Perpignan, France

Perpignan is quiet now as we stroll through the streets…the accredited have left, flown home to follow the chase, both on their own turf and across the globe…

Now the exhibitions are open to the public, the civilians. We head back to the Couvent one last time…

It’s busier than expected, packed with locals and tourists…Surely that is exciting…that the work of photographers such as Stephanie Sinclair and Craig F. Walker is being seen on the walls of public spaces deep in the South of France…
The photographic stories, the photojournalism, that is on display here, in Perpignan, are studies of people and places, beauty and horror, and, like any study of this kind, they may not show the full picture, the whole story….

Hearts and minds....

They may even open a few Doors.....
To be continued...

Perpignan Now #9

2010-09-23T11:02:00.000-07:00

Day Six: The Party. Perpignan, France Upadate: Counvent des Minimes

We return to a transformed Counvent…
A few days ago we were here considering the stories that hang on every wall… and now…tonight…there are just bodies, writhing, pulsating to a music that we both agree and thought had been dead for a long time…
And everywhere Mojitos…

Yes Mojitos…The smell of that tropical drink hanging in the thick air…

We try to stay calm, collected…
We try to speak to people we have met during our stay…But the music is too loud, the dancing too fast…
And then the Mojito paranoia kicks in…

…Everything is moving…

Faces from the week, whether known or unknown dance in front of us…

The Wolves dance with the Shamans, the Pioneers seduce the Hungry….

We no longer know what time it is or why we are here…

The questions and answers…the search is slipping away, into what? Where? Another Mojito?…

Maybe there is an answer here, at this party…Maybe, in order to move this world forward we all need to dance together more…Maybe that’s it?…Or, just maybe, that’s the Mojitos...
To be continued...

Perpignan Now #8

2010-09-23T10:50:00.000-07:00

Day Six: 4 September. 4 p.m, Perignan, France

Today, we continued our mission, our search, whose goals are becoming more confused and blurred as time goes on…
Photojournalism is alive here, we know that, we have seen it with our own eyes, but here it seems trapped…not able to move on….

The simple question is: Why has it not changed here at Visa Pour L’Image?… In the search of clarity, of answers, we decided to head back into the old buildings of this town where the pictures hang.
To be Continued...

Perpignan Now #7

2010-09-23T10:33:00.000-07:00

Day Five: 9p.m 3 September. Perpignan, France

So.. The Wolves…

Looking back at this journal.... This diary, we realize we may have been a bit harsh on these fellow pilgrims…

Yes, they hounded us at the Café de la Poste, but that’s because we have access to a portal... We have white walls, and blank pages... And they are hungry for all of that, and frankly, that’s just fair enough…. Today we sat ourselves in the burning sun of the Hotel de Pams, sweating not just from the sun but from the endless espresso’s that kept us going as we met photographer after photographer, one story teller after another…

A few things struck us as we sat there: yes, it may be true that many of the stories we saw today have been told previously….
But, nevertheless, we saw a lot of work that took us to places and introduced us to characters we hadn’t met before….

Paul Jeffers took us to Bangor Airport in the U.S State of Maine. Bangor is often the first or last port of call for U.S troops on American Soil before they head out to the war zones of Iraq or Afghanistan.
Paul’s photographs focus on a small non – profit organisation called The Maine Troop Greeters, who are based at Bangor Airport. These greeters’ role is to act almost as family to the troops that pass through the airport (whose real family, more often than not can’t be with them) offering phones, food, a shoulder to cry on and a cheerful face.

Vissarion is the title of a body of work by Russian Photographer Sergey Kozmin. Vissarion is also the self given name of an ex traffic cop formerly known as Sergey Torop, who after being made unemployed decided he was definitely the second coming of Christ….
Jeez! We thought, now here’s a story! Vissarion and his Church Of The Last Testament lies deep in the Siberian Mountains and he currently has over 5000 followers, many of whom gave up their lives and apartments in Russia’s big cities to live as disciples in the villages that populate what Vissarion calls The Promised Land.

Moving on. We know many a photographer has visited and documented the utter devastation that Hurricane Katrina caused to both the landscape and people of New Orleans on August 29th 2005. One of them being photographer Jason Andrew , whose project Jazzland is a study of a specific place in New Orleans; a place that used to deliver happiness and sunny days out to families that have probably long moved on…This Place is Jazzland, New Orleans Six Flags Amusement Park.
Shot on square format film Jason Andrew captures this place of fun slowly becoming prey to the ever-growing swamp. Although there are no people in these pictures, there is poignancy in fact that one can almost hear the laughter that emanated from this site up until that fateful day.

So even after a long day, we feel refreshed, awakened…and it wasn’t just the espresso, we have seen some great work, some great stories by photographers, young and old…
And the above is only a small selection.

There is something new though: Multi Media…Sure it’s only another way of showing work but that is just it, it’s another outlet, and possibly an empowering one for photographers in this day and age….

But sadly the question remains… There is this great work, but who is it for? Who is going to publish and exhibit it?

We have no doubt that the general public, the civilians want to see these stories, but as the saying goes:
"If a tree fall in a forest and there is no one their to hear it, does it make a sound?"...
As we rest back at base this question stays in our thoughts, the taste of something unresolved…

The wolves are hungry but the hands that can feed them are tied…

To be continued...

Perpignan Now #6

2010-09-23T03:29:00.000-07:00

Day Five: 3 September.10 a.m Perpignan, France

Yesterday afternoon was spent searching and then grilling the inhabitants of the Palais Des Congres. We mentioned earlier that, in terms of agencies, many friends and acquaintances are missing, or are, sadly, dead….
The last ten years have been tough for many of them, and we just hope, some day, this war is going to end…

But we stayed positive and happily met some old vets of the field, albeit that their role here, down in Perpignan, has somewhat changed…
A lady now working for L’agence Vu, told us that in previous years they were here to be told the stories, to see photographers work….
But now their presence is just for their clients, to sell the stories of their signed photographers, to meet new costumers and to meet the faces behind the emails….

Click here to see some footage we took along the way...

An Aside: When we headed south we were expecting change in Perpignan, but that change is proving hard to find. The Walls that surround us, enclose us even, in the numerous exhibition spaces look and feel exactly the same, the frames… Those endless frames…the same.
Back home there are ongoing discussions on where photojournalism meets documentary meets art photography, and these discussions take place on the pages of magazines, limited edition books, on blogs, on the walls of galleries and even in the decisions of photographers on how to show their work…
And all this because of the sad death of the extended photo story in newspapers…
Photographers back home have to re-invent what and whom their photographs are for…
And yet here, in Perpignan, the walls are unchanged. There are no conceptually crafted installations, there are no handmade fibre prints in beautifully constructed frames, varying in sizes to make ones gaze glide across a body of work…

There is just uniformity…but that is the point…
Visa Pour L’image do this on purpose, and in some ways it makes sense, maybe Visa isn’t trying to be part of that discussion, they do what they want to do…and what they have always done…
And lets not forget that uniformity brings equality and makes one look under the skin…to search beyond the frame…(and price)…
And that brings us back to that old, established friend Magnum. Maybe Magnum isn’t here in this Catalan town, deep down South, because Magnum is busy exploring the different avenues mentioned above and discussing and arguing where they now belong?
Maybe Magnums haunts are now the exclusive galleries of New York, Paris and London, and on the bookshelves of art collectors…. Maybe they just didn’t fit into their Visa Pour L’Image uniform anymore….
To be continued...

Perpignan Now #5

2010-09-02T04:54:00.000-07:00

Day Four: 12a.m. Perpignan, France

This morning, at the Couvent Saint Claire, we were offered a very close insight into the life of Ian Fisher, the young American GI, by Craig F. Walker. The intimacy of this project is touching, and makes one think about the informative and educational nature of such a simple, yet thorough body of work, similar to Sinclair’s.It reminds us of the great words of Henry Luce, when he founded LIFE Magazine:
“…To see man’s work – his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women men love and many children; to see and take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed.”
But then one has to remember that those great words were written quite some time ago…

As we continue with our mission, it strikes me personally that nothing much has changed since ten years ago.

It’s still alive, for sure…
But thinking about it that worries us, surely it should have changed? Matured? Evolved even?
But then again it’s only day four…
This afternoon we continue our search, our investigation. One thing that strikes us is that someone seems to be absent. An old friend, drinking partner and even neighbour back in London: Magnum, you probably know him too…

With this in mind and the worries mentioned above, this afternoon we scale the Palais Des Congres to corner and question the Getty’s, the Corbis’s, the VII’s,…
The Dream Makers’…
The Shamans…

To Be Continued…

Perpignan Now #4

2010-09-02T04:43:00.000-07:00

Day Three: 6p.m., Perpignan, France.
We have spent the day wandering the streets, seeing the many exhibitions, which take us temporarily out of Perpignan into other territories and cultures. Tomas van Houtryve's Behind the Curtains: Stories from the Last Communist Holdouts investigates the contradictions of Marxist ideology across the globe from Cuba to Moldova and from Laos to China...

But from these more exotic countries we turn to what can be a more familiar place, although often stranger than fiction, the USA with a photo story on the plight of the Californian redwoods by Michael Nichols. What’s staggering about this work is the one, immense composite photograph of a 300 ft redwood that’s over 1500 years old. After closer investigation we learn this work was shot for, and published by, our old friend, The National Geographic... Although physically walking across town to the Couvent Des Minimes, our minds and attention stay in the U.S. We see Stephanie Sinclaire's study of Polygamy in America, a body of work she has obviously spent a lot of time on, and also the access she has been given is astonishing considering the subject. In terms of looking "Behind the Curtain" this ripped the damn blinds down...

Next we are in the Bronx with a set of pictures by Antonio Bolfo. One can't help thinking of the T.V series "The Wire" when looking at Bolfo's photographs of young and discontented cops of the NYPD's Operation IMPACT. These officers are sent into the most dangerous and violent areas of New York, the Bronx, at the earliest stages of their careers, talk about Trial by Fire...
We have seen a lot today but it's too early to draw any conclusions. We also must remember what we saw and heard last night tells us that Perpignan is not just about the photographs, there is more... Something that brings people back…
There certainly is something that is alive here, but what it is we have yet to pin down, yet to fully understand...
It's familiar but let’s not forget we are on foreign ground...

But as mentioned already, it’s late, and there seems to be a place where our questions may be answered. The city is now dark and we are about to head into the heart of the town,.. One could almost call it The Heart of Darkness...The Cafe de la Poste...

To Be Continued…

Perpignan Now #3

2010-09-02T04:35:00.000-07:00

Day Two Update: 1a.m, Perignan , France...
Having just returned from the Bar De La Poste, The memories are flooding back fast. The characters; the pioneers and the figures that can make a photographers dream come true. And then these wolves. The wolves that surround them...

That part of this war is still raging...

Strangely many people seem to be here for the same reasons we are, hunting, or rather searching, albeit each for their individual reasons...

We met a young photographer who was told Perpignan can be a lonely place if you don't know what your here for. You have to find your targets, research them and hunt them down.... She mentions her need for a mentor, she mentions a name, a prominent agency director but insists that they are not ready yet. What worries us is that she was referring to the director rather then herself...

We leave early as for some reason we don't feel part of the gang, the pack, almost like right now we don't have the right accreditation. But I'm sure the morning, and a new day, will change all that...

We digress, but what we can report is that there is definitely still a hunger here, and a thirst... A Thirst of the kind that I don't believe the Bar De La Poste can ever quench...

To Be Continued...

Perpignan Now #2

2010-08-31T01:40:00.000-07:00

Day Two: Monday 31 August 2010, London, Stansted:
"Today we leave... We board a Boeing 737 chartered by Ryanair, the last time I flew with that outfit I swore I never would again, yet here I am.....
Waiting at the airport and watching all the people returning home as I prepare to leave gives me time to think.....:
There is a character in a novel by David Mitchell who runs a film shop and he muses that the quality of any movie in directionally in-proportional to the number of helicopters in that movie… So gets me thinking of how this could relate to photographs.....
But they just called the flight, so for now, that will just have to wait….."
To be continued..

Perpignan Now

2010-08-30T23:45:00.000-07:00

Day One: Thursday 26th August 2010, London:

"As I lie here listening to the rain, I think back to the past 10 years... To the last time I was there.. ..

The heat, those hot sweet nights, the crowded bars, and dark lonely alleys.... and then the images, images everywhere, in convents and on buildings..

I never thought I would return.... But I saw it there, alive, definitely alive...

But then I hear a rumour going around. Whispers, and murmurs, spoken out there on the web, that its died, yes,it's is truly dead…. Dead….

So I realize as I lie here, that I have to return. To go south once again... To see for myself if its true and it really is dead, maybe it’s just in hiding, retired or simply in disguise.

I cant believe its dead, I know that in my bones....

So I know I have to return, to head back again..

South......

To Perpignan"

To be continued...
(Disclaimer: If you have not seen the film Apocalypse Now, or not seen it recently, then the following diary will probably make me sound like a bit of a fool, on the other hand if you have not seen, or not seen recently the film Apocalypse Now I cant recommend it enough..)

Zuzana Salajkova

2010-08-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

Zuzana now has a new website with more images to be added soon......
I'm a fan of just how subtle she can be...
Well worth a look here...."After more than seven years living in a different country I started to question myself about where my real home is. Each time I go back to see my homeland I start to feel more and more like a stranger...."
Zuzana Salajkova

Bad Backs and Death....

2010-08-26T09:17:00.000-07:00

Firstly I need to apologize for not posting of late, and I'm not going to moan but its because I have had real bad back problems...... But as the saying goes " It could always be worse!" and damn right it could be!..
Which brings me onto a new book by Canadian Photographer Jack Burman's new book " The Dead" and yep as you can see my back problems pale in significance to some of the subjects of this fine book..."The Dead" published by the amazing Canadian Magenta Foundation, is basically a study of long deceased but painstakingly preserved bodies, or bits of bodies.....
Its well worth a look and the special edition comes in a beautiful wooden box ( coffin!)...
Its available from Magenta here....
and there is a good article here....

It's been a blast I must say ... Jason Royce

2010-07-23T03:02:00.000-07:00

Now here is a story from Jason Royce, I saw this work at one of our carousel evenings, I wont say much as I think Jason says it just fine:

"These colour photos are from a series shot on Fuji Velvia & black & white film back in 1994.

they depict the Environmentalist Non Violent Direct Action scene that burst into existance just a coulple of years earlier. I had just finished A one year photography course at the St. James The Less School In Pimlico. And someone I met In the Samuel Peyps pub in Hackney suggested I get my arse down there.
Well That was It - The first time I saw that street I was Hooked. I decided straight away that I was going to photograph the Undergound Environmental Movement properly . That Is to say becoming an Activist as well as a Photographer & ignoring the press .

So after a couple of visits of photographing the street & 1 day pulling nails out of bits of wood. I was prepared for the Final Eviction of Claremount Rd . I was on the roofs & In a cargo Net strung between treehouses & the victorian terraced houses before I knew It . And It was the best day of my life. I was published In the Crusty press & that was it - I met the Underground.Where I was asked ' What I wanted to do next " ? And my reply was photograph the tree camps " Fairmile & Trollheilm " In Devon .

That was It - next come Reclaim The Streets - The 1st proper big one was In Camden Town In the Early 90's - And no one has seen those pictures ( apart from the Police who raided me about 5 years ago ) false allegations were made against me - relating to another Photographer. My first proper audience who sitting on my bed going through my photo's exclaimed " This Is Another World " . Oh And there was A section back In 1999 the Underground scene got pretty hectic with the squat scene back in the day - there was a lot of drugs & lot of Pisstakers In the end. And a lot of pressure was put upon me to publish. Everyone saying " When are you going to Do Something with your Photo's " at the same time not really offering any help or advice.
So after being " Jacked Up " & then released from the Funny Farm I went travelling around the world - my thinking being " If I'm going to be miserable anywhere it might as well be abroad. So I went travelling ( without a proffesional camera ) to many different countries & got into all sorts of scrapes & adventures , but that's another story.

So returning home After my 3rd trip abroad I put an Exhibition on at the " Foundry " entitled " Demand The Impossible " & printed up 1000 flyers and leafleted various places ( lot's of pubs in the East End , The Guardian Newspaper & areas in Hackney where I knew A lot of the Underground would be - very low key .

The Exhibition was a wild success and I got a rave review in Focus - Fine Art Magazine by Bill Troop & The rest they say is history as they say. Well apart from me continuing " Shooting " & Training both at Climate Camp & over In Eire' more recently.
It's been a blast I must say .
And I must give A Big Shout Out to Alll those selfless Eco Warriors & Worriers out there. With paticular attention to those whove passed on . Namely Dolly The 93 year old " Protester who was born in Claremont Rd " And to whom there was a 100 foot scaffold tower erected in her honour - That was 1 Hell Of A Climbing Frame .

And of course I must not forget The Police & MI5 / MI6 who have been monitering us for years and lastly of course - The Press & All those Paps.
Tou You I can only say Feck You .

Thankyou everone else ...."
Jason Royce

Joachim Schmid / Ed Ruscha / Joachim Schmid

2010-07-14T07:31:00.000-07:00

OK so this is not the most recent title, but I only became aware of it when Joachim Schmid showed the book at the photobook publishing seminar we held at the gallery last weekend. Its in part a homage to Ed Ruscha..
Its titled:
Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Nine Swimming Pools, A Few Palm Trees, No Small Fires
Being a big fan of the books of both Ed Ruscha and Joachim, it was good to see....

And here is what Joachim has to say about it:
Between 1963 and 1972, Edward Ruscha published fifteen artist's books, his first being "Twentysix Gasoline Stations"; a book which is considered to be the first modern artist's book, and has become the iconic precursor and a major influence on the emerging international artists' books culture.
"Twentysix Gasoline Stations, Every Building on the Sunset Strip, Thirtyfour Parking Lots, Nine Swimming Pools, A Few Palm Trees, No Small Fires" is a modern remake of some of Ruscha's famous books, all grouped in one volume. Unlike the original books it relates to, this work was made entirely at my Berlin studio. I didn't visit Los Angeles to make the book and I didn't use a camera either. The camera is out there.

The picture above is of one of Rucsha's originals, and will set you back quite a bit, but thankfully as with many of Joachim's books its available through Blurb on demand here...

Reality World cup

2010-07-12T07:42:00.000-07:00

Marking the end of the Wordlcup, I thought I would mention Alan Powdrill's show that's on at the Printspace, London until the 20th July....
Powddrill photographed over three seasons in the Sunday Leagues across seven UK cities, this is a humanistic focus on the unsung heroes and dreamers who week-in week-out live out Match of the Day fantasies for nothing but love.

Teabaggers' Ball

2010-06-22T04:17:00.000-07:00

Here is some work by Dennis Yermoshin, who lives and works in Houston Texas.
Dennis was born in Baku, but his family came to the US as refugees in 1991. He has done some fantastic work on his family in America, which was featured on Foto8 some time ago, see more of it on Dennis' site here.
But the work shown here is from the new series Teabaggers' Ball
"In preparation for the 2010 November elections, Tea Party members from eight surrounding Houston, Texas counties, gathered at Discovery Green Park in Houston on America’s Tax Day – Thursday, April 15th as a conservative whole, uniting in liberal perspective to share and promote their ideas of progressive reform as well as their undeniable opposition to the Obama administration and their policies."
"The evening was filled with speeches given by Tea Party leaders from each of the participating counties as well as some other members. Proclaiming a need for a “change” in American health care and their desire for bigger tax cuts while strongly criticizing President Obama's efforts, the “Teabaggers” also supported local candidates for upcoming state elections. Each Tea Party had tables and booths set up in a smaller field near the entrance for promotional purposes, distributing handouts about themselves, collecting emails, and selling various political merchandise - t-shirts, buttons, etc."
"The diversity in age groups ranged from toddlers to elders, all united under one wing in their devotion to political activism and their patriotism for America."
Dennis Yermoshin

Qi Lihe and a Sin City

2010-06-19T03:59:00.000-07:00

Here is some work by British photographer Stephen Kelly, currently working in China, the first images below are from his series Qi Lihe:The series explores the district of Qi Lihe, which sits on the outskirts of Lanzhou city in Gansu Province, north western China.
It is home to thousands of Muslim migrant families who have left their homeland within the Linxia Hui autonomous prefecture and arrived into the city searching for job opportunities and ultimately, a better life. For hundreds of years the Hui and Dongxiang Muslim minorities have farmed the arid land surrounding their ancestral villages.
In recent years though, desertification has forced this once workable landscape to begin a dramatic change, impelling many modern day farmers and their families to migrate to the provincial capital in order to survive.

The photographs below are from Stephens Sin City:
The Sin City series documents life in China’s self-styled ‘city of dreams’. Situated on the western side of the Pearl River Delta, this semi-autonomous region of China is the sole territory within the People’s Republic that permits gambling.
In 2009, Macau’s thirty two casinos are reported to have made US $14.875 billion in gambling revenue, doubling that of Las Vegas.

See more of Stephens work here...

Between Make Up Your MInd and Making No Sense..

2010-04-29T02:31:00.000-07:00

Recently I was a judge for the Rhubarb Rhubarb " Hungry" bursary, which was an interesting day, the judges and I were lucky enough to see a lot of good work, and excitingly the majority of the really interesting photography was by the photographers who were either students or very recent graduates.....
Anyway, two things struck me quite early on in the day, and these were:

1)Some of the photographer’s statements were SO bad! And (to me) made little or no sense whatsoever, completely whimsical and solely about themselves!... For example there was a very interesting set of pictures of strange man-made structures, photographed at night in a stylised way. It was obvious these strange buildings were inhabited, and I for one wanted to know more, so we were given the photographer’s statement, which we read, and it went on about how his or her work was really dealing with concepts of the spaces between dreams and reality and so on, and not once did it mention what these structures were, or where they were! So in a sense the work became futile! There was too much "I" this and "My work" that.... Sometimes I just want to know what I am looking at, surely that’s not too much to ask?

2) It is probably a huge exaggeration but it seemed the majority the titles of the bodies of work I saw had the word “between" in them. Things like "Between Dreams and Daylight", " Between Waking and Darkness", "Between reality and illusion" and so on..... Is this a linguistic game? Am I to work out that ”Between Dreams and Daylight” could be called "Nightime"? The other "Daytime"? And the third, God knows what?
What I’m getting at is that sometimes I wish photographers would just say what they mean.

So this got me thinking about how many titles of photo books have the word “between” in them, a quick advanced search on Amazon brings up 3,762! Some of which are:

Between Art and Revolution: Tina Modotti
In Between: Guy Bourdin
China Between by Polly Braden
Between the Eyes
Some Points in Between... Up Till Now: Robert Polidori
Between Sky and Earth
Between Dogs and Wolves: Growing Up with South Africa by Jodi Bieber
IRAQ: The Space Between by Christoph Bangert
Between Past and Future: New Photography and Video from China
Between the Dark and Light by Jay Blakesberg
Between the Two by Todd Hido
Between Sea and Sky by R.S. Thomas and Peter Hope Jones
Between Dreams and Reality: Tracey Moffatt
The Space Between: Michal Rovner
Between Past and Future: New German Photography
Between Worlds: Contemporary Mexican Photography
Water: Worlds Between Heaven and Earth by Art Wolfe
Tibet: The Roof of the World Between Past and Present by Maria Antonia Sironi Diemberger
Between Visible by Tomoko Yoneda
The Space Between: Gordon Matta-Clark
Between Dog and Wolf by Nick Haymes
Between Dark and Dark by Thomas Joshua Cooper
Between Dog and Wolf: Chrystel Lebas

Obviously of those 3, 762 books I found with 'Between' in the title, I grant many should have a clear right to use the word, a good example being:
Different Strokes: The Difference Between Cats & Dogs by Gandee Vasan
I haven’t actually got that book so I cant vouch for its titles validity, but I assume it does exactly what it says it does, and currently at £3.61 for a used copy, it may actually be worth a look….

There you go, Thursday morning rant over.....

Alexander James's Taxis

2010-04-14T10:06:00.000-07:00

I have always liked Fashion Photographer Alexander James' Taxi Series' and just found an interview with him here on the Sketchbook Blog....

FotoFest: Cori Chandler-Pepelnjak

2010-04-14T09:30:00.000-07:00

Another person whose work i saw in Houston was Cori Chandler-Pepelnjak, she showed me her work Jo Jo, Cori started the work whilst on one of photographer David Alan Harvey's workshops in the US... :
"The more I watched this girl, the more confused and intrigued I became. I wasn’t sure of her age—she could have been 15 or she could have been 20 something. I approached her and explained my intentions and asked if it were ok if I photographed her for awhile she hung out there with her skater friends. I left Union square that night without getting any information besides her name..."
"..For two nights following that initial meeting I returned to the same spot hoping to find her or her friends hanging out. I was in luck, and this guy who is now her boyfriend called her up and handed me the cell phone so I could talk to her. I explained that I would love to spend a few more days photographing her in her everyday life, she nonchalantly agreed and so I planned to meet her outside her school the next day and would walk home with her so I could meet her mother, which I insisted on...."
"...Just as we arrived at the stoop of her building, before she picked up her bike to carry it up the stairs into the Chinese-red hallway that led to the apartment stairwell, JoJo told me her mom was hosting a party. With a disgusted expression she said, “my mom is a cougar, you know what that is right?” Caught a bit of guard I followed JoJo through the red hallway, up the dingy blue stairwell, and into the apartment and straight to JoJo’s bedroom which was dominated by a hot pink hairy blanket on her bed and three frenzied miniature greyhound dogs..."
"...Wondering which of the women buzzing around was JoJo’s mom, she said, “oh, that was my mom”, about the striking woman that just popped her head in. No one asked who I was or what I was doing, my being there was nothing out of the ordinary. I did tell JoJo I wanted to introduce myself, so I did and was immediately absorbed by all the hubub and various characters that were coming and going. That was a year and a half ago. JoJo is now 16 and I am still photographing her life...." Cori Chandler-Pepelnjak

FotoFest: Greta Pratt

2010-04-07T05:08:00.000-07:00

Some of my favorite work was that by Greta Pratt, it seems that for some years now Greta has been looking at American identity through both its history and its icons, and their affect both visually and metaphorically now on the American people here is some work form the Lincoln series..:
"These men all belong to The Association of Lincoln Presenters. They are passionate about Abraham Lincoln and spend time studying, reading, and performing for school groups, community celebrations, and senior citizen centers...
"..I asked the men to write about why they dress and act as Lincoln. Although they began this obsession for various reasons their motives for continuing it are similar. Repeatedly, they refer to Lincoln’s moral character and the work ethic that enabled him to rise from humble beginnings to the presidency. They revere Lincoln because he embodies one of America’s most cherished tenets, that the common man, through sheer hard work and determination, can elevate his status in society. .."
"These photographs are a continuation of my quest to understand how I, and we, remember history. My intention is to comment on the way a society, composed of individuals, is held together through the creation of its history and heroic figures..." Greta Pratt

FotoFest: Laura Noel

2010-04-07T04:54:00.000-07:00

Laura Noel has been working on a body of work called Deliver Me, portraits of smokers, I thought many of these portraits have a loneliness to them that is incredibly touching..
Laura says of the work:
"Smokers have become social refugees banished to windy corners, cars, and private rooms. I am interested in the idea that society has become so disenchanted with this habit that we have tried to legislate smokers out of existence. "

To me though the smoking just acts as continuity to a subtle yet beautiful body that acts in part as a small survey of the US State of Georgia, where all the pictures were taken....

FotoFest: Monika Merva

2010-04-07T04:50:00.000-07:00

Since 2002 Monika Merva has been documenting the lives of children who are living in a government-run housing facility for severally disabled and at-risk teens in Fot, Hungary.
The official name is the Karloyi Istvan Gyermekkozpont. They call this place “The City of Children.”
In her own words:
"My focus on Gyermekkozpont comes from understanding that one's sense of self comes with a sense of belonging within a community.
I believe the home is where our strength lies. It's the source of everything, where all our, fears, questions, love and our need to belong originate."

FotoFest: David Rochkind

2010-04-07T04:44:00.000-07:00

Mexican based photographer David Rochkind's Heavy Hand, Sunken Spirit looks at how the illegal drugs trade has permeated so many aspects of Mexican life. David was quick to point out that his work is not just about the violence (although this is out of control) but about how this conflict is affecting the very heart of the country.... See more here...

Houston FotoFest

2010-04-07T04:35:00.000-07:00

I recently arrived back from 5 days reviewing work at the Houston FotoFest 2010, founded in 1983 this was the 13th Fotofest.
The following entries are of some of the work I viewed (on average one see's over 20 photographers a day) so of course this is only a selection!.
Along with the review sessions (which last a month in total) there are many shows instigated by the festival.
The show Whatever was Splended: New American Photographs, curated by Aaron Schuman, in my opinion was not just the highlight of these exhibitions but also hands down wins best title for any of the shows. Whatvever was splended featured work by Will Steacy, Michael Schmelling, Greg Stimac, Tema Stauffer, Jason Lazarus, Jane Tam, Richard Mosse, Craig Mammano, Todd Hido, Hank Willis Thomas, and RJ Shaughnessy.
(All images are of the Whatever was Splendid Exhibition)
One of the other larger shows was curated by Natasha Egan Associate Director and Curator, Museum of Contemporary Photography at Columbia College Chicago, an interesting photographic survey of where America stands now, entitled Road to Nowhere? Egan says:
“The artists in this exhibition address a repertoire of diverse but related themes including politics, surveillance, race, war, and economic insecurity. While the work is oftentimes critical, a quintessentially American optimism is evident.”
Anyway more about that later..

David Gray's Drift

2010-04-07T04:16:00.000-07:00

Another fine publication of photographic fiction has just been published by photographer Davis Gray as part of his ongoing series that I have mentioned before....
It is now available in the gallery or online here....
Drift is a rootless wanderer in search of purpose, a change in fortunes, cursed with the the unquenchable hope of a big win. From San Francisco and the coast roads to LA and on via the car park of the Bellagio casino, through death valley and onto to the salt flats of mono lake, there are glimpsed fragments of the human condition strewn by the highways.

Drift is the fourth in the dream that days break portfolio series, featuring the photography of David Gray. Each series sees the release of a limited edition photographic prints and accompanying book. Vampire, Surge and Thunderbolts Way have preceded this latest release.
A 10" x 8" print is accompanied by a 10" x 8" 28 page singer sewn soft cover book containing all the images from the series as well as a written response by Paul Summers. Both are individually signed, numbered and in an edition of 100.

Seba Kurtis New Website and New work....

2010-03-17T03:51:00.000-07:00

Seba now has a new website up, which you can see here. It has lots of new work and well worth a look.... The images here are all from Shoe box:

"In the late 80’s Aregntina suffered another crisis, where my father lost his business and our house and our belongings got repossessed...

A shoe box with all the family memories was the one thing that remainded.

They had all been damaged in a flood...." Seba Kurtis

Maurice Broomfield Show at Pallant House, Chichester..

2010-03-11T02:54:00.000-08:00

Maurice will be showing at Pallant House, in Chichester until the 9th May 2010, If you have not been to Pallant House before I strongly recommend it, and if Pop Art is your thing they have an incredible collection, including this great Richard Hamilton....
Also please click here to see a slideshow and audio interview with Maurice.....

Joanna Pallaris at Exit Gallery

2010-03-10T03:11:00.000-08:00

This evening (10 March) is the private veiw of an exhibition of polaroids by Joanna Pallaris entitled Nursted House
Consisting of images shot on a single day during the autumn of 2007, the work also focuses on life within the home, including family members, with particular attention being paid to a young woman. These shifts from meditative spaces to studied portraits create an atmosphere of intimacy, but also hints at an underlying narrative.The Exhibition runs until the 30th April
EXIT GALLERY is at Claire de Rouen Books

First Level
121- 125 Charing Cross Road
London WC2 0EW

Arnhel de Serra's Appleby

2010-03-09T08:55:00.000-08:00

This is some of Arnhel de Serra's work in progress on Appleby, and here is some text from him about it:
'When the little chavvies gets up,they take the grails down the pani...then we all have bread and kel and a piece of stinger..’ Zilla Roberts describing Appleby Horse Fair, quoted by John Ezard in 1976.
Appleby Fair has existed since 1685 under the protection of a charter granted by James 11.Held in Appleby-in-Westmorland, Cumbria, it is world famous and probably the most well known of the horse fairs attended by Romany families who travel early June each year to conduct business and catch up with friends.
The fair is an extraordinary spectacle which is shared by both gypsy,tourist and local people a like. Whether this is expressed through the traditions of trotting and racing down Flashing Lane, or through the horses being ridden and washed in the River Eden en mass, the horse is at the heart of this week long event.
The culture of Apple Fair is a healthy two fingers up to an ever increasingly over regulated,globalised society that is forcing minorities to the margins of society.

Sneak Peek: The Gallery Changes.....

2010-03-05T07:23:00.000-08:00

Its Friday and we are taking the weekend as an opportunity to make some changes in the space, will all be ready for Ed Kashi's show being hung Monday ready for his talk Monday night, and then reception opening Tuesday evening, so do come and join us for a glass of something....
H

Kurt Tong: Memories, Dreams; Interrupted

2010-03-04T06:55:00.000-08:00

Good news, HOST Gallery now has selected works from Kurt Tongs seres Memories, Dreams; Interrupted available in the gallery, prices starting at £350.00, do get in touch if you wish to see the work....
Here is some background from Kurt about the project:
This series explores the concept of memories. Scientists have suggested that memories are stored like jpegs, broken down into small pieces and stored. When we recall an event, the pieces are then put back together, any parts missing are filled in automatically by our brain, thus altering our memories of the event. The images are taken at places where I spend a lot of time with my daughters, where memories are made. These spaces are familiar to them and yet are shared, beyond the security of our home and constantly changing beyond our control. They are interpretations of our memories.
The spaces are shot using films, working with different lighting conditions and several other technique to 'degrade' the film, the images are then reconstructed through digital means.

Ed Kashi and Colin Jacobson on the sofa

2010-03-04T02:36:00.000-08:00

An evening in the gallery, Monday the 8th to mark the opening of Ed Kashi's show, Curse of the Black Gold, more info here...

Last few days of the Eggleston at Victoria Miro

2010-02-24T04:43:00.000-08:00

Yikes, if, like me you have not seen it yet, hurry down there..

Book Launch: Defiant Images 18/02/10

2010-02-17T04:10:00.000-08:00

Tomorrow, Thursday the 18th, we are hosting the UK book launch of Darren Newbury's Defiant Images: Photography and Apartheid South Africa... Please join us for a drink from 6:30 Pm....
More info here...

Cowboy up Cupcake...

2010-02-16T09:41:00.000-08:00

I have just started reading The Legend of Colton H. Bryant by Alexandra Fuller, which so far is great, anyway it reminds me of Jane Hilton's Dead Eagle Trail work (which is currently being made into a book) Jane's work as I have mentioned before will be showing in the gallery in April....
But on a wet, dark Tuesday evening a nice end of the day quote from fullers book seems apt:
"Cowboy up Cupcake, everyone has their freakin problems....."
Photograph: Jane Hilton

Taking Portraits

2010-02-16T09:05:00.000-08:00

Just a quick link to a great article on the Concientious blog, its based on Franz Fiedlers books Portrait photography, well worth a read here....

Teenage Years

2010-02-15T07:26:00.000-08:00

Here is some work in progress by photographer Soraya Hocine, its from a body of work called Teenage Years, which is being shot around a skate park in London's Camden.. Its a little bit Jo Szabo and a little bit Ed Templeton...

The pictures Seamus didnt take....

2010-02-02T02:24:00.000-08:00

The Telegraph has done a nice little questionaire with Seamus Murphy here.... Well worth a read...
Photograph: Seamus Murphy

a language still in its infancy

2010-01-27T13:01:00.000-08:00

A rather nice quote from a while back by the late Mr Leonard Freed:
"Photography is a visual language still in its infancy. Just as the poet adds meaning to words, so the photographer adds to visual symbols. But, whereas the other arts developed in time over centuries, photography has yet to mature and define itself. The fact that millions of people can see the same visual images on television, in films or photography is communication. It is a language. To be a poet-photographer is both saddening and challenging. Saddening to think that literary traditions are being lost to a language that is only in its infancy. Challenging in that one is free to be original...."
Photo by Bill Jay

Cry Wolf......

2010-01-22T16:40:00.000-08:00

The Natural History Museum's Wildlife Photographer of the Year Award has had an interesting turn of events when judges it seem cried WOLF! ... Read more here....

Camera Club

2010-01-22T15:27:00.000-08:00

JM Colbergs blog recently posted Chris Verene's work, which reminded me what an important photographer he is...
I became aware of his work simply through the fantastic books which Twin Palms publish...
I cant recommend highly enough looking at this book....
Anyway below is from his body of work Camera Club, it speaks for itself really but here also is an explanation from Verene's website....
"..In the mid-nineteen nineties, Chris Verene sought out photography clubs that advertise to aspiring models offering them a career in the modeling industry. These clubs have been in the US since the 1940’s—often seen as groups of male photographers huddled around swimsuit models in studios and on beach locations.

The project sought to document the photographers who join a club as way of access to women who would be willing to pose in lingerie, swimwear and nude. Verene joined these clubs in a number of American cities and surreptitiously made pictures of the men and their equipment while they were distracted by the models. Verene also conspired with a female friend who applied to the clubs as an aspiring model as a way of investigating the system that drives the organization. The two found that the clubs were never a real route to becoming a fashion model, and such promises were often offered in lieu of payment.

Verene’s “Camera Club” project is unstaged, and is a real document of how the clubs truly feel. It stands as a caution to young models—suggesting to all such people that they be careful who they trust with taking off thier clothes for pictures, and that they not always believe all the stories that such clubs tell..."

Stephen Gill: Haiti Appeal Print

2010-01-22T02:27:00.000-08:00

Stephen Gill has produced an editioned print from his series Hackney Flowers whereby all proceeds will go to aid the people whose lives have been devastated by the earthquake that hit Haiti on January 12th...
From an edition of 100, 12"x10" print...
And great value at £40.00
More info here....

Dead Eagle Trail

2009-12-11T05:36:00.000-08:00

Here are some examples from photographer Jane Hilton's work Dead Eagle Trail, which excitingly will be in book form early next year, and also will be exhibited in the gallery in its entirety in April 2010, so watch this space....

28 Stories...

2009-12-04T05:06:00.000-08:00

28 Stories if the MA in Photojournalism and Documentary Graduate Degree Show at LCC, it opens next week, It runs from the 10th - 23rd December, and then the 4th to the 15th January 2010, and is sure to be well worth a look. More information can be found here...
The picture below is by Poulomi Basu from the series To Conquer Her Land...
Also on the 9th December David Campbell, Telegraph Picture editor Lucy Davies and Photographers Ed Kashi and Simon Norfolk will be discussing The New Ecology of Photojournalism from 6pm.
From the series Tsang's Odyssey by Lee Wing Ki

Glen Denny

2009-11-30T05:13:00.000-08:00

Here are some examples of Californian photographer Glen Denny's 1960s work of pioneering mountaineers tackling the slopes of the Yosemite... A golden age of climbing...

Projected Landscapes

2009-11-30T05:04:00.000-08:00

If you are in central London I have curated a small show at the Architects Association, its on till the end of December and features some great photographs... More info can be seen here..

I Saw You

2009-11-16T04:24:00.000-08:00

Recently New Zealand Photographer Bruce Connew was over in London with lots of new work, and new books (all of which are well worth seeing. One of these little books is I Saw You, 2006-2007 and here is what Bruce says about the work….:
“For twelve months, from the top floor of home, veiled behind an apron of black velvet, through double-glazing and a long lens, I photographed the comings and goings of a car park, an ample piece of reclaimed Wellington land that juts out into a bay, a family beach to one side…”
“Surveillance is routine nowadays. It’s everywhere. We’ve come to expect it; we’ve even come to embrace it. It promises social order. It makes us feel safer. Its premise is creepy….”
“I peered in on people’s lives, sneaked up on their susceptibilities as they busied themselves mostly in ordinary ways, minding their own business and perhaps a little of yours, when they could reasonably expect no one to be watching — private moments in a public space. Then I took away some of their identity and shuffled them together. …” Bruce Connew

The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey

2009-11-12T06:59:00.000-08:00

The Quest for the Man on the White Donkey is the title of a piece of work that photographer Yaakov Israel has been working on since 2002, the title refers to belief that in the Jewish tradition the Messiah will arrive riding a white donkey.... Below are just a few examples of the work and Yaakov in his own words...:
"A few years ago, as I was taking photographs near the Dead Sea a Palestinian man rode past me on his white donkey...
It is after having developed this plate that I’ve realize that I had encountered my “Messiah”; this meeting brought me to initiate the body of work that carries the name: “The quest for the man on the white donkey”...."
"The American tradition of the great photographic journeys served as a blueprint for the initial phase of the “quest”: with the definitive difference that in such a small Country the size of the territory in which my hunt was pursued would have shaped my proceedings. ...
What otherwise in the documentary photography genre spans over months of continuous traveling, was confronted with a territory in which no matter what destination I had chosen it would have brought me back home by midnight the latest...."
"Then, as I’ve found myself passing through same places over and over again, the personal identity of my project was revealed: I had to let go the idea of narrating the physical journey itself but rather concentrate on the intimate, emotional reactions to those places; how I was reacting to the occasional encounters with people and scenarios..."
"As my “Messenger” revealed himself, the search for a deeper understanding of my Country and what defines me as an Israeli became an urge to look for the in-between places, the non-usual; suddenly a detail requested my attention as I stood for hours waiting for a meaning to reveal itself: or pushed me away, puzzled. But in the end I had to hold to it. I cannot let go until that detail is made mine, until the allusive and enigmatic find their place in my understanding of what I deem as authentic, real....." Yaakov Israel
Click here to see Yaakov's website...

The unnapointed guardians of morailty

2009-10-27T10:32:00.001-07:00

A great quote from the legendary John Morris:
"The Picture Editor is the voyeurs' voyeur, the person who sees what the photographers themselves have seen but in the bloodless realm of the contact sheet... and now pixels on the screen. Picture Editors find the representative picture, the image that will be seen by others perhaps around the world. they are unwitting (or witting, as the case may be) tastemakers, the unnapointed guardians of morality, the talent brokers, the accomplices to celebrity. Most important - or disturbing - they are the fixers of 'reality and of 'history'.".......
John G Morris

Dave Wyatt

2009-10-26T10:27:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday during the Cultivate Reviews (Organized by the Rhubarb folk) held at LCC I was lucky enough to see the work of Dave Wyatt, Dave recently finished his MA at Dalian Medical University in Dalian, North East China. He showed me a couple of projects, the following images are from Captive, images from Dalian Forest Zoo..."Our relationship with the natural environment has always been a fragile one and this is best exemplified by our need to encage and exhibit animals in zoos. On the one hand, zoos offer a valid opportunity for education for the young to learn about the animals they cannot see and yet their future actions serve to protect....
"By seeing these animals in the flesh it helps people relate to the animals they hear about in the wild facing extinction unless they adapt their consumption...."
"On the other hand holding any animal captive, including the process of breeding them for captivity surely cannot be argued to be anything but morally corrupt...."
"The portraits of the animals of Dalian Forest Zoo presented in this project depict not only the physical and mental situation of the zoo’s inhabitants but also allude to how the Chinese people are embracing the rapid transformation of their country. Importantly the work also addresses my own feelings of isolation living in a country as foreign as China for someone of British origin. This isolation I felt on an individual level is very similar to how the Chinese as a population feel as a country that only within the past 30 years since the end of the cultural revolution is starting to find its own voice in the world..." Dave Wyatt

Thunderbolts Way

2009-10-22T03:32:00.000-07:00

Excitingly David Gray's new book is available,again from the series The Dreams That Day Break and I should have copies in the gallery very soon, as usual they come with a 10"x8" print are are typical of David's Fictitious photographic story telling...

"Thunderbolts Way is both real and imagined. It straddles the last few
kilometres of the habitable interior of New South Wales, a place where soft
tarmac dives for cover under the hot tundra of red dust and parched grass.
Where global capital meets the Kelly gang legend, where Melbourne Cup
winners are bred and a gambler’s dreams begin...." David Gray

New Cliches in Photography

2009-10-13T05:28:00.000-07:00

This is quite funny from the Manchester Photography Blog, read it all here...
My favorite has to be:
Cliche #2: Mounds and Heaps

Work in Progress: Caroline Molloy

2009-10-12T07:47:00.000-07:00

Here are some examples of Caroline Molloy’s work in progress from India:
"Over a number of visits I have been researching and photographing traditional photographic studios in Kerela, which were once an integral part of the venacular language of studio photography, steeped in both tradition and a colonial history.
With the introduction of modern technology, they are now rapidly becoming remnants of a time gone by...."These static pictorial spaces, now more or less ornamental, were symbolic of an idealised ‘fantasy’ background and a preferred space to record the ‘inspirational’ portraits. My intention is for the spaces void of sitter to act as a portrait in their own right.."

David Raymond Conroy

2009-10-09T03:02:00.000-07:00

I greatly recommend going to see an exhibition that opened last night at Seventeen Gallery in London, its a show by artist David Raymond Conroy entitled It Was Part of It Before. And Now. Not exclusively Photography by any means but the work brings up some interesting thoughts regarding the re contextualizing of imagery... Well worth a look.... The Piece below is titled A History of Photography

Aeroplanes #4 David Moore

2009-10-07T02:26:00.000-07:00

David Moore is most recently known for his project The Last Things, which became a book published by Dewi Lewis and also a touring show, recently though I came across another earlier project Planes, The below excerpt is an edited version of what David writes on his website here:

“I flew into New York JFK airport from London on the 10th of September 2001, arriving around 10 pm. An electrical storm lumbered and raged as cabs poured passengers into Manhattan leaving a wash of recent storm water flooding the sidewalks all the way downtown. It was warm with flickers of cool air and the unpredictable atmosphere was brought closer by jet lag and the bewilderment of stepping off a seven hour flight into this.

After 9/11, I stayed on in the city for ten days not photographing much at all, it didn’t feel like my job and there was too much of that going on already. I returned to London late September then went back again to New York in early November; Though the city smelt the same as it did in late September, all fused electrics and burning dust, everything was different.

Back in London; and continuing to this date, I have made more and more photographs of these planes, generally from the same place, and at the same time of year, near where I used to live in East London. The holding pattern on ‘westerly operations’, takes all incoming Heathrow aircraft over Hackney, Islington, The City, Westminster and most everywhere else over London and its populace.

The aircraft in these photographs, their altitude, fragility and commercial purpose, their routes over our lives, now offer us an altogether more ambivalent identity. The most banal yet beautiful modern objects.

European Fields comes to HOST!

2009-10-06T08:58:00.001-07:00

22 players, no spectators and maybe a horse in the next meadow....
It has been well over a year in the making but finally and excitingly Hans van der Meer's show at HOST is upon us, we open the show on the 22nd October and on the 23rd Hans will be giving a talk about the work...

Bill Jay

2009-09-30T04:06:00.000-07:00

In the latest issue of Lens Culture there is a heap of quotes by writer and photographer Bill Jay, proving again just what a genius guy he is, here are just a few favorites:
"Art is not democratic; if millions take bad pictures they are still bad."

"A photograph is a mirror; mostly it reflects the prejudice of the of the viewer."

"Why do photographers photograph? to make unreality Visible."

"Artists are individualists who copy each other."

And the best:
"Photography is pointing at things while skiing in a straight jacket."

Interior Politics

2009-09-30T03:55:00.000-07:00

Here is just a mention of an interesting show that opens next week, three photographers work under the title Interior Politics its at Sixty Seven A , Dalston, London, E8 2NG.
The opening is Thursday the 8th October 6pm and there is more info here...:
Anna Leader:Bella Fenning
Amy Gwatkin:

Ross Mantle

2009-09-16T04:12:00.000-07:00

I recently got an interesting card in the post from photographer Ross Mantle, and have been looking at his work in progress entitled In Wake of an American Dream, here are some examples but more can be seen here....

Nikolai Ishchuk's Vanishing Point

2009-09-14T08:45:00.001-07:00

Here are some examples from Russian photographer Nikolai Ishchuk's Vanishing Point series, you can see more here...

Marrigje de Maar

2009-09-14T02:55:00.001-07:00

Here are a few examples of Marrigje de Maar's interior pictures from China, its well worth looking at her website as there are many many more than this... Also looking here, it seems a publication will soon be available....

Off The Page Exhibition

2009-09-08T07:07:00.000-07:00

Off The Page is the rather nice title for the University of Westminster's MA in Photojournalism's final exhibition which opens this Thursday evening (10th Sep 2009) at the P3 Gallery, London, the show runs until the 15th of September and more information on it can be found here...
I was lucky enough to see Jordan Worland's work that will be part of that show last week, It is all focused on an cement factory in his home town of Barrington, its where his father worked and most of his neighbours and his friends fathers, so a good example of starting with your own backyard....

Klavdij Sluban Workshop

2009-09-07T02:49:00.000-07:00

Just heard that Klavdij Sluban alongside the people from Atelier De Visu will be conducting a week long workshop in November this year, more information here....
Klavdij was the winner of the European Publishers Award 2009, and if you dont know his work I strongly suggest you have a look

Project Five

2009-08-27T04:53:00.000-07:00

Now here is an interesting idea, Project Five, are 5 New York galleries who have pooled their talents and created a limited edition (of 30) portfolio of prints, each gallery putting forward one of their artists.... So an interesting way to start a collection, all images are 11"x14" and come in a custom made case.... I always find it refreshing and exciting when galleries work together to promote good work...
Project 5 are also doing portfolio reviews that I am sure could be invaluable to an photographer trying to break into the gallery market, read all about Project 5 here...
My favorite is Guido Castagloni's Street Corner, Kanaya, Japan, 2009 (below) form the great Sasha Wolf Gallery ..

Space Lands

2009-08-25T02:35:00.000-07:00

Paul Freeman's project Space Lands is now available in book form, and with a print. The book comes in a box, and you can choose any picture from the book as the print (which comes mounted so ready for framing) the print is 29cm X 21cm in size...
I have a copy in the gallery if you would like see it further....

A find in Sofia

2009-08-24T04:44:00.000-07:00

Just a quick post of some photographs found in a market in Sofia, Bulgaria.... I think they make such a great pair, implying epic narratives, they are definitely a pair..... The only info is a scribbled 1936 on pencil on the back of one of them......

A Winner

2009-08-20T05:09:00.000-07:00

So the Foto8 Summer Show and award has been judged, and the result is in: Torben Weiss’ “Mr Bohr in his room full of pictures”.. Please see below and have a read all about the process and final decision in a piece my Max Haughton here at Foto8.com.... (also below some pictures of the judging process)

Argentina on film

2009-08-04T13:37:00.000-07:00

Simply a sneak preview stills from film work that HOST represented Seba Kurtis will be showing at the Noorderlicht festival in September in Holland. The show Seba is part of is curated by Lauren Heinz, editor of our own 8 Magazine....

Karabekian Continued

2009-08-04T10:38:00.000-07:00

Just Before I go away for a week, i thought I would continue what the painter, Karabekian, said after this (blog two down)... Purely as, strangely, it reminds me of my favorite words ever, written by Henry Luce ( you can read it here)...
So Karabekian continues in Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions:

"I now give you my word of honor," he went on, "that the picture your city owns shows everything about life which truly matters, with nothing left out. It is a picture of the awareness of every animal. It is the immaterial core of every animal -- the 'I am' to which all messages are sent. It is all that is alive in any of us -- in a mouse, in a deer, in a cocktail waitress. It is unwavering and pure, no matter what preposterous adventure may befall us. A sacred picture of Saint Anthony alone is one vertical, unwavering band of light. If a cockroach were near him, or a cocktail waitress, the picture would show two such bands of light. Our awareness is all that is alive and maybe sacred in any of us. Everything else about us is dead machinery."

Small Ecologies

2009-08-03T04:48:00.000-07:00

Last Saturday I went to The Rhubarb Rhubarb festival in Birmingham where I was reviewing work, this is a portrait I rather like by photographer fresh out of studying called Damian Hughes, its from a series called small Ecologies: The Personality of Space..
The above pictures are from another series of work on Tunstead Quarry, Derbyshire...

Kurt Vonnegut and a rant!

2009-08-02T11:50:00.000-07:00

So many times I have heard people say something along the lines of " Yeah but I could have done that..." or even recently from a very well established photographer: "But really my four year old could have taken those pictures", when looking at photographs.....
I have always found this a frustrating type of comment, because it is of no use whatsoever, and yes, maybe you could have taken that picture, but the bottom line is you didn't!...
So recently I have been reading novelist Kurt Vonnegut's (above) Breakfast of Champions and came across a section where a painter ( Karabekian ) is questioned about his abstract (and minimalist) painting selling for a colossal amount of money... And in response Karabekian says:

"I have read the editorials against my painting in your wonderful newspaper. I have read every word of the hate mail you have been thoughtful enough to send (to me) in New York..... .. The painting did not exist until I made it.. Now that it does exist, nothing would make me happier than to have it reproduced again and again, and vastly improved upon, by all the five year-olds in town. I would love for your children to find pleasantly and playfully what it took me many angry years to find."

And that kind of sums it up for me.....

Katharine MacDaid's Oman Revisited

2009-07-31T08:27:00.000-07:00

At one of the Portfolio review sessions we hold at Foto8 on a monthly basis, I was lucky to see Katherine's work, she is currently teaching photography in Oman, here are some of here pictures and a few words from her...
"The photographs come from my time spent, so far, living and working in the Sultanate of Oman, a country on the southeast coast of the Arabian Peninsular. I moved to Oman in December to teach photography at a Government run technical college in Muscat. Having spent my early childhood growing up in Oman, I have long wanted to return to see the place again and to photograph my experience of it now. The work has developed without a fixed agenda. Preferring to photograph as I explore the place, observing what is presented in my daily life and weekend adventures, I am recording a personal encounter as I learn how to place myself in this distinct culture and unfamiliar landscape. "The above picture is a bus stop in case you were wondering.... H

The Party 09!

2009-07-31T08:10:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures taken by Dougie Wallace of The Foto8 Summer Show Party that happend last Friday here at the gallery, we estimated 800 people passed through our doors that night, and luckily we were nearly prepared for it.... More pictures are trickling in so more will be posted in the next while.... Thanks for everyone who came and supported us

Whitney Hubbs..

2009-07-27T04:17:00.000-07:00

I came across the work of Los Angeles based photographer Whitney Hubbs, whilst looking through the first issue of LayFlat Magazine, these pictures are taken from two different bodies of work: To Fill the Unforgiving Moment and Nothing Happens in June..

122 Photographs and a party

2009-07-20T15:51:00.000-07:00

So we have just finished hanging the Foto8 Summer Show, and I hope that everyone is aware of the party that is to happen at HOST/Foto8 this Friday, if not please get your tickets here....
Once again its a spectacle and a celebration of photography in all it's guises...
If you can't make the party please come and see the show. All prints are for sale and at Summer Show prices....
Be sure to let us know you are coming by emailing summershow(at)foto8(dot)com..
Anyway here is a sneak preview of the hanging of the show.

Ian J Whitmore's Channels

2009-07-20T10:30:00.000-07:00

Here is some work by Ian J Whitmore entitled Channels, of which Ian says:
" The overall premise of this work is to look at the reality of everyday people in a way that challenges the use of entertainment (television) as a means to be voyeuristic. In large part this project came out of a response to reality television and it endless (mindless) attempts to portrait the world "unfiltered". The basic question I asked myself when I started was how could a portrait be made using television that turns it on its head a bit and potentially (although not completely) offers a more practical and real image of that person..".
Ian is also Art Director for the Proximity Magazine..

Avalanche

2009-07-10T03:53:00.000-07:00

Currently showing at PhotoEspana (not that I am there..) is the work of Yann Gross, mainly from his fantastic body of work on the inhabitants of the Swiss Rhone Valleys, but he also has this ongoing work on avalanches "Lavina"...

Zuzana Salajkova

2009-07-09T08:15:00.000-07:00

Here is some work by a young Czech photographer currently working in the UK, look here to see more of her work from various series....
Zuzana also has work in a show opening at the Impressions Gallery

Lay Flat: Remain in The Light

2009-06-26T05:16:00.001-07:00

Good news, I now have copies of issue one of Lay Flat magazine! which is now sold out, I have 5 copies for sale, its a beautiful thing, included in the inaugural issue of Lay Flat are four essays, an interview and a poem, all accompanied by 20 unbound photographs from a selection of international photographers....
Lay Flat is bought to you by Shane Lavalette and Karly Wildenhaus...
Shane is a photographer himself and I very much like his work.... See below

Making do and Getting by

2009-06-16T03:45:00.000-07:00

I just had to post a couple more pictures from Richard Wentworth's Making do and Getting by series, if you can get the book it is well worth it, one of my favorites of all time, I have some copies in the gallery bookshop at the moment too....

Drew Jarrett

2009-06-16T03:36:00.000-07:00

A friend at Wire Magazine introduced me to the work of Drew Jarrett, and english Photographer working out of New York, there is lots to see on his site here......

Clang

2009-06-15T04:56:00.000-07:00

Another discovery for my in New York was the work of Clang, I particularly like this series entitled Fear of Losing the Existence....

LIFE! always an inspiration.....

2009-06-06T12:17:00.000-07:00

"To see life; to see the world; to eyewitness great events; to watch the faces of the poor and the gestures of the proud; to see strange things — machines, armies, multitudes, shadows in the jungle and on the moon; to see man's work — his paintings, towers and discoveries; to see things thousands of miles away, things hidden behind walls and within rooms, things dangerous to come to; the women men love and many children; to see and to take pleasure in seeing; to see and be amazed; to see and be instructed…. "
Henry Luce
Luce, (aka Father Time) wrote this to explain the objectives of LIFE Magazine, I always find it such a beautiful thing to read....
Luce was founder of Time Magazine, Fortune and of course LIFE, I think he gets the award for best Magazine names.....

Surge

2009-05-29T03:43:00.000-07:00

Just in is the new book Surge by designer and photographer David Gray, Surge follows on from the last book Vampire, as kind of a Fictional Photo Essay, poetic and sinister and yet beautiful and again delicately and thoughtfully produced, with every attention to detail, only £25.00 from an edition of 100 and comes with a signed 10x8" print.... Available from the Foto8 shop here (and in the Gallery)

(Super) Natural

2009-05-27T03:24:00.000-07:00

Another small show at te NYPH was called (Super) Natural, I have to admit it was quite a varied mixture of work, but there where some beautiful prints such as this Untitled 001 by fashion photographer Justin Hollar,
(Super) Natural was curated by Luci, who are a new curatorial collective engeged in the production and exhibiting of new and emerging photographers...

What is it with....?

2009-05-26T13:37:00.000-07:00

Tote bags??.... Don't get me wrong i like them, and have even looked into getting HOST Gallery bags, I am even a proud owner of a NYPH bag (that I got free...)..
Anyway just saw this on the Jen Bekman mailout, and apparently it's a Give Away (If you spend $200)...
Please let me know if you would like a HOST/Foto8 Gallery Bag (for Free/And/Or $200)....
Anyway talking of Jen Bekman, I really wish I could see her show of Christian Chaize's work Praia Piquinia on until the 11th July

Joni Sternbach

2009-05-26T12:18:00.000-07:00

So over the next few posts I shall be looking at some of the work from other peoples shows at the NYPH that I found interesting.... (Of course we could bang on about our own show forever!..)
First up is Joni Sternbach, and her work work on Surfers, here are some examples but I strongly suggest looking at both her bodies of work The Salt Effect, and Abandoned......

NYPH 09 A Visual History # 3

2009-05-15T09:06:00.000-07:00

So we are done, please if you are in town do come and visit us, show us work and buy us a coffee...

We will be looking to travel the show to the UK at some point so, if your not at the festival don't worry we will bring it Home.........