Monday, April 30, 2007Home

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


York Station Reflections
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
York Station Reflections
by William Luster
#20 of 20
A lucky capture of an empty platform in Historic York, England. The light and fluid lines of this old building were simply fantastic. I had about 5 seconds to catch this moment before the train left the station. Taken with a Canon 10D, Tokina AT-X Pro Lens, & a monopod. No post-processing except for sharpness and contrast adjustments.

Voting on this series will begin Friday, May 4, 2007 at 12 noon PST. You will be able to vote for exactly one week. To submit to Photos of the Month, click here to be taken to our rules and guidelines at CameraArts.com.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Behind the Scene
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Behind the Scene
by Pete Klonaris
#19 of 20
This picture was taken in the Louvre museum Paris France.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Lake Geneva, Switzerland
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Lake Geneva, Switzerland
by Joe Marotta
#18 of 20
Scanned photo taken May 1, 2006 with Nikon N80 using 400 ASA print film.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel

Frosty Morning in La Heutte
by Doug Stockdale
#17 of 20
Digital capture, cropped and image fine tuned in Photoshop.
I was on a local train in Switzerland enroute to Zurich on this foggy and icy morning and I stopped at the small village of La Heutte. The frost and fog helped create this beautiful little scene on the Swiss river.
Visit the photographer's website

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Tuk Tuk
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Tuk Tuk
by Brad Carlile
#16 of 20
Photograph - No Digital Manipulation Taken
On a Tuk Tuk in Guatemala, I wanted to capture the experience of bouncing down a pot-holed road. I use a technique that turns movement into vivid colors. To maintain the essential ties to reality all work is done in-camera and on-film with no digital creation or digital manipulation. I print on a large scale to enhance the impact of the colors. The intriguing details of the interactions between colors draw one into an intimate distance to explore.
Visit the photographer's website

Thursday, April 26, 2007Home

Another Gem from The Online Photographer

Here within, the prospect of a technology magazine based on non-existent cameras is explored. Sounds good to me. Such a publication would be a fine match for all of the tech-oriented Digital Photography publications out there. It would have the potential to be far more entertaining, that's for sure.

Now online: Photo Lucida 2007 gallery

Head on over to our Web Exclusives section to see our Photo Lucida: 2007 Album. Our own Tim Anderson and Center for Fine Art Photography Director Larry Padgett spent some time taking pictures of the event. The two travelled to Portland, Oregon to participate as reviewers in the first half of April 2007.

If you were there, and see yourself in this portfolio, let us know in a comment to this post. A free mystery gift is available to the first ten readers who are confirmed!

Photo Lucida is a biennial portfolio-sharing event for photographers, either aspiring or mid-career, to share their work with gallerists, curators, publishers, and other imaging experts. Visit their website here.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007Home

Foundmyself Online Art Community offers free services

A new Honor System policy has been introduced at Foundmyself.com, where artists of all kinds can sign up, post their work, interact with others, even attach Paypal buttons for their work. The website's organizers are now offering all of these services for free.

From the Foundmyself Q + A:

With our new Honor System policy, Foundmyself is stepping into uncharted territories. Never before has an art community given the artist all the tools they need to share their creations, sell their art, and customize their galleries without any mandatory cost. We still show no ads, and continually work to improve the community for you. The entire system is based on trust.

Donations are expected to be made in proportion with the earnings that individuals make through using the site's services. The organizers have thus taken the trust system and embraced it fully. They are counting on their users to be honest and to act in a constructive, cooperative fashion. This is all monitored by a user's "honor level," which is calculated through the duration of a user's membership, the amount of donations made, and images uploaded. A better rating will get an artist in more visible front-page positions on the site. The opposite applies as well, and one runs the risk of getting the equivalent of a "Mr. Yuck" sticker if no donations are made.

One thing that never fails to surprise me is the almost compulsive need to accumulate "points" among regular users online. Members of forums will rack up thousands of posts just to improve their standing. It will be interesting to see if this self-described "social experiment" would work. After all, the distinction of being Most Honorable is one that we don't hear much anymore. Maybe Foundmyself is onto something. Or maybe their domain will be vacant in a year. Such is the business. Isn't it?

Tuesday, April 24, 2007Home

Apple's One Day Photo Contest this Friday

4/25/2007 Update: A reader informs us that this competition is for US students only, High School or greater. Thanks for the heads-up.

The first ever
"Insomnia Photo Contest" will take place this Friday. An assignment will be posted on the afternoon of April 24, 2007, and entries will be due the following day. Click here.

Table of Contents: CameraArts May/June 2007!

As you can see, we have posted the new cover from CameraArts May/June 2007, as well as a preview of what's inside. Our next issue will be packed with new features, interviews, portfolios, and much, much more.

The photography being featured includes the work of Zeb Andrews, Candace Guadiani, Ken Holden, Jonathan Moller, and an exclusive interview with Jerry Uelsmann! If that weren't enough, we will also present Part 2 of Jack Reznicki's The Dotted Line: Copyright and You, as well as columns by Bryan Dahlberg and Jim Hughes! Also, we'll be having a group portfolio of winners from the latest Krappy Kamera Competition at SoHo Photo. Click here to see the May/June 2007 table of contents!

In May, when the new issue is on the stands, we will be releasing exclusive extended articles and portfolios at www.CameraArts.com. Never fear: we will announce everything right here at The CameraArts Blog.

Exhibition at Philadelphia Museum of Art explores "a sense of place"

A new exhibition of works from six photographers opened this week at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, including Paul Caponigro, James Fee, Paul Strand, Laurie Brown, John Divola, and Alan MacWeeney. Entitled Particulars of Place: Photo Portfolios from the Collection, the exhibition examines the sense of place in photography of the twentieth century.

From The Philadelphia Museum of Art's website:

An early and dedicated believer in the power of sequenced pictures, Paul Strand portrays a place close to his heart as well as close to home in The Garden, a tribute to his undisciplined plot of land in Orgeval, France. Paul Caponigro tackles the majestic and spiritual overtones of the ancient menhirs (or standing stones—ed.) at Stonehenge in his portfolio of a dozen photographs from his extensive series on the subject.

A sense of place is commonly referred to in discussions of not only photography and visual art, but also of film, fiction, and even music. It's one of those near-clichés that I am proud to name-drop whenever I can, since there really is no other way to describe it. The sense of place can manifest over the course of an entire body of work or series, as in James Fee's series taken at Dolores River, Colorado, where the scope of man's interference with nature is laid bare.

James Fee passed away in September 2006, leaving a legacy of black-and-white photographs that are by turns haunting and inspirational. He captured many tragic images of abandoned and neglected places in the United States and abroad. His series from the Eastern Philadelphia State Penitentiary is on view, and the sense of place makes itself apparent in the smallest of details, working on the subconscious level.

California-based James Fee made his series of photographs there in 1995, using views of the penitentiary's storeroom, machine shop, and infirmary to record some of the left-behind objects that hint at the lives of former inmates. The artist made his negatives using a nineteenth-century wet-plate photographic process and employed other techniques to diffuse the detail of his subjects. The resulting hazy, imperfect quality of his prints suggest the passage of time and, by offering only indistinct glimpses of the penitentiary, reminds us of the many untold stories within its walls.

You can view information on the exhibit, which runs through November 4, 2007, here.

I suppose I'm fairly preoccupied with the sense of place, as an enthusiast of both fine art photography and of storytelling. Am I sounding like a broken record? Don't hesitate to let me know!

Monday, April 23, 2007Home

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Viva La
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Viva La
by Sylvia Crain
#15 of 15
On a 6-week trip through Mexico, we stopped to view a lovely waterfall in Chiapas. As we know, branding is everywhere! December 2002
Visit the photographer's website

Voting on this series will begin Friday, May 4, 2007 at 12 noon PST. You will be able to vote for exactly one week. To submit to Photos of the Month, click here to be taken to our rules and guidelines at CameraArts.com.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Carnevale
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Carnevale
by Kathleen Dailey
#14 of 15
This was taken during Carnevale in Venice, Italy. Carnevale is very much like our Mardi Gras here in the States.

Voting on this series will begin Friday, May 4, 2007 at 12 noon PST. You will be able to vote for exactly one week. To submit to Photos of the Month, click here to be taken to our rules and guidelines at CameraArts.com.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel

Two Boats, Papua New Guinea
by Joseph R Hearst
#13 of 15
Nikon D70, 18-200 mm lens

Voting on this series will begin Friday, May 4, 2007 at 12 noon PST. You will be able to vote for exactly one week. To submit to Photos of the Month, click here to be taken to our rules and guidelines at CameraArts.com.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Sunset on the Arno
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Sunset on the Arno
by Catherine Helmsing
#12 of 15
This was taken in the summer of 2005 in Florence, Italy on the Arno River.
Visit the photographer's blog

Voting on this series will begin Friday, May 4, 2007 at 12 noon PST. You will be able to vote for exactly one week. To submit to Photos of the Month, click here to be taken to our rules and guidelines at CameraArts.com.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel

Carousel in the San Diego Zoo
by Alysia Kaplan
#11 of 15
Shot with a Diana camera.

Voting on this series will begin Friday, May 4, 2007 at 12 noon PST. You will be able to vote for exactly one week. To submit to Photos of the Month, click here to be taken to our rules and guidelines at CameraArts.com.

Friday, April 20, 2007Home

JPG's call for photographs, in which no one is rejected

JPG Magazine releases their print edition six times a year, and also has a great-looking site and photo-sharing services. They have just announced a new competition, Breakthrough: An Amateur Photography Revolution, which will run from April 20 to June 16, 2007, at The San Francisco Arts Commission Gallery.

From JPG Magazine's website:

Every photo submitted to our Breakthrough theme will be displayed in the gallery in some fashion. Some will appear in a grid on the photo wall, some in a slideshow, and a select few will be printed and hung in the gallery.


And you're invited to attend the opening! It'll take place at the gallery on April 20 at 6pm. We'll also be participating in a panel discussion on the "art and practice of photography in the brave new digital age" on May 31 at 6pm at the Koret Auditorium, San Francisco Public Library. We hope you can join us!

The creative community at large is still coming to grips with the internet's role in enabling individuals to "break through" into communities both developing and established. Is it a good thing that all who enter are accepted?

Thursday, April 19, 2007Home

Winners Announced: Photos of the Month, March 2007


Third Place
Layla in the Shower
by Timothy Hughes
Shutter speed: 1/125, Aperture: f/3.2, 200 ISO, Focal length: 50mm
www.timothyhughes.com


Second Place
Untitled
by Craig Payne
Digital Infrared
Visit the photographer's website
First Place
Ginger's Night Out 1
by David Dadekian
Taken with a Canon A2E with a 20mm lens during March of 2003.


Tuesday, April 17, 2007Home

Nude in Public: Photography Shoots in Amsterdam and Mexico

Spencer Tunick is a New York-based photographer who captures massive works of performance art through his lens. These often involve crowds of nude people, captured in repose and in close proximity. Tunick plans to shoot two new series: one at the temple-pyramids of Teotihuacan, outside of Mexico City, which will take place May 6, 2007; and the other in Amsterdam, to take place at undisclosed times and locations.

From DREAM AMSTERDAM'S website:

Tunick's ongoing art project is a symbol for freedom. His images are abstractions that challenge to look differently towards nudity and privacy. His photographs and videos are the witnesses of these public events. Tunick has made many impressive installations world wide, in cities like Barcelona, Buenos Aires, London, Melbourne, New York and Sao Paulo.

Submissions are being accepted to appear in Tunick's installations at his website. You can view a gallery of his images at the website for I-20 Gallery in New York.

Monday, April 16, 2007Home

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel

Idiosyncratic Columns of Barcelona
by Stuart Brafman
#10 of 10

The photograph was taken at Parc Guel in Barcelona Spain in December 2006 with a 35 MM Nikon N90s camera using Tmax 400 film. Parc Guel is the idiosyncratic creation of Spain' s famed architect, Gaudi. The real estate development turned amusement park is a corner stone in the foundation of Spanish modernism fashioned by Miro, Picasso, Gris and Dali.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Staten Island Ferry Riders
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Staten Island Ferry Riders
by Iris Posner
#9 of 10

As an ex-New Yorker and photographer, shooting in NY has been my love and greatest challenge. During my last visit this past summer, I took my long-awaited ride on the ferry and saw that for its daily travelers, it was just one leg on a ho-hum trip to the city. I was also fascinated by the spacing of the riders – leaving each with their own space and privacy.

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


New York
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
New York
by Georgiy Londarenko
#8 of 10
Visit the artist's website

Photos of theMonth, April 2007: Travel


San Marco Square, Venice
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
San Marco Square, Venice
by Domenico Foschi
#7 of 10
Sepia toned Gelatin Silver Print

"I started to document Venice out of pure wonderment but, as I went along, the focus started to change." Venice is a doomed city, on one hand standing on soft ground, on the other it faces a rising sea level due to melting ice caps; its life expectancy is short and the magnitude of the problem is too big an obstacle for the limited human scale.

Four-wheeled transportation is impossible, giving the illusion that time has stopped. Venice has tried to defy the laws of nature, it has challenged what we call modern civilization and it is losing its war. It was born because of a war, as a refuge from the invader, and now is dying because of a conflict with modern times.

Visit the artist's website

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Untitled
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Untitled
by Christopher Bonney
#6 of 10
This photograph was taken in Naples, Italy. I was struck by the density of residences, the degree to which residents had made their terraces their own, and the sea of antennae on the roof. And of course the wonderful Italian color. Digital Scan.
Visit the artist's website

Friday, April 13, 2007Home

Getty Conservation Institute and the Photograph

The San Francisco Chronicle has an article about Dusan Stulik, Project Manager for the Getty's Research on the Conservation of Photographs. It doesn't matter if you have reams of old family photos, daguerrotypes, palladium or selenium prints; Dusan Stulik wants it.

Many archival inks earn the name because of a 50 to 100 year survival period. We have come to the point, however, when so many early photographs have easily crossed the century mark. In 2000, the Getty Conservation Institute and Image Permanence Institute made a joint effort to initiate a conservation project for photographs. Stulik has his work cut out for him, since much research and deliberation is required for the simple analysis of the numerous materials used in image making all through the years. This is before one can even think about taking steps to conserve an image.

You can read the article here.

Thursday, April 12, 2007Home

AIPAD 2007 and Photo Lucida

AIPAD's Photography Show 2007 has begun. Also, our own Tim Anderson is now at Photo Lucida, which is currently underway. Mary Virginia Swanson is at Photo Lucida as well, and had this to say.

From Marketing Photos with Mary Virginia Swanson:

On the eve of both AIPAD in NYC, and PhotoLucida in Portland, Oregon (where I am this week), I am reminded once again of the value of our creative community. At a time when our materials, our marketing and distribution channels and indeed our entire industry is undergoing dramatic change, the one thing we can count on is our community. Being in the company of sage artists and those who are just coming into their own, seeing accomplished works and those in progress - this is what is all about. I am priviledged to be a part of this community, among colleagues whom I respect and continue to learn from. This is what inspires me to share all that I can with those wishing to bring their work to the broadest possible audience. I too am reminded that I am rich with friends, immeasurably so; a gift not to be taken for granted.

Stay tuned for reports on both events next week. If you would like to receive regular updates and announcements (including registration opportunities for events like these two), click here to be taken to the subscription and archive site for FRAMES: The CameraArts Newsletter.

The Third Annual powerHouse Publishing Workshops

This summer, powerHouse Books, publisher of fine art photography collections and other illustrated books, will offer a series of workshops aimed at aspiring and established artists, photographers, designers, and packagers looking to learn the ins and outs of the art book project.

Started in 1995, powerHouse Books has worked with the world’s top photographers, art directors, writers, and cultural icons. The Making The Book series consists of three workshops, taking place throughout August 2007. They are all limited in size to 6 participants each, due to the hands-on emphasis of the courses. These include Image Analysis & Sequence Editing with Daniel Power, Founder of powerhouse Books; Book Design & Dummy Preparation/Presentation with Kiki Bauer, Senior Designer of powerHouse Books; and The Edit and Sequence with Craig Cohen, Associate Publisher of powerHouse Books.

You can find application forms for all workshops at powerHouse Books here.

Applications are due by July 6, 2007. All workshops take place at the powerhouse Arena in Brooklyn, NY.

Tuesday, April 10, 2007Home

How camera lenses are made

The idea of "making stuff" has a lot of appeal, not only for meticulous types, but anyone interested in the stories behind everyday things. This video brings to life a process usually described only in tomes of technical writing and diagrams.

The Art of Butoh Meets a Traditional Technique, Still Avant-Garde

Michael Philip Manheim’s career began at age 13, when he found an outlet for his creative disposition in photography. He has been a professional photographer since 1969, when advancements in photographic equipment and their creative applications were very much the rage.

Throughout his career, Manheim has always been drawn to themes of change and transformation. In 1998, he began experimenting with layered phases of movement to create impressions of living motion. He has employed this technique in his portfolios “Under Nature’s Canopy,” “Solo Souls,” and now “New Butoh And The Nature of Being.”

Manheim utilizes his unique style to capture the contemporary dance form that started in Japan. One of butoh’s central elements is the full release of emotion, revealing inner emotions though movements that can be wild or subtle, passionate or meditative. Manheim encourages his models to explore emotional states with movement and dance, and captures moments of expression that merge into a unique conception of motion. All of this is done without darkroom manipulation.


From
Michael Philip Manheim’s website:

Muybridge and Janey pioneered a repetitive technique of capturing action, as did Edgerton with his 1931 invention of the strobe. My approach honors those innovators but bypasses their regularity, introducing elements of chance and painterly blurring, for an impression of motion originated from emotion.

Michael Philip Manheim has been exhibited throughout the United States, as well as in Germany, Italy, and Greece. He has been featured in
Zoom magazine (US and Italy), Photographers International (Taiwan), La Fotographia (Spain), and Black and White (US), among many others. You can see his website here.

Monday, April 09, 2007Home

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Ha Long Bay, Vietnam
by Lori Pond
#5 of 5
I took this photograph as I was entering the bay on a traditional Chinese junk. It was very foggy and misty that day, and rather than being disappointed by the lack of all-encompassing views, I was entranced by the mystery conveyed by the fog. Then, when another Chinese junk passed in front of us, it added to the exotic ambiance of the place.

There are over 3,000 limestone islands that make up the bay, many of which also have caves deep inside them. The name Ha Long literally means "Descending Dragon." A Vietnamese myth states that heavenly dragons were sent down to protect the bay from foreign invaders, and when they descended, they spit out jewels and jade, which formed into the islands we see today.
Visit the artist's website

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Face of Time
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Face of Time
by Michael J Hamilton
#4 of 5
Myanmar is on the Travel Advisory List of the US Government. This is because of the Military control held over this wonderful country. A group of generals control the government sponsored tourist activities of this country. The one way to not support the government, but to help the people, is to travel there and hire local guides and services once there. This places the money in the hands of the innocent and generous people who need it. I found incredible sights in Myanmar. This statue is around 300 years old and the ravages of time have taken their toll.
Bago - Myanmar December 2006
Visit the artist's website

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel

Kehena Beach, Big Island, Hawaii.
by Lloyd Ziff
#3 of 5
February 25, 2007 Leica M2, 35mm.lens, Kodak Tri-X.
Visit the artist's website

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


LA Beach Dude, 2007
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
LA Beach Dude, 2007
by Jami Saunders
#2 of 5
I ran along the beach earlier that morning and noticed how amazingly creepy these structures looked in the fog. I had a flight out of LA that day but managed to make it back for a few minutes later with my Holga. As I was looking through the viewfinder, composing my image of the structure by itself, this guy swung into frame! In a split second I snapped, and that was the image.
Visit the artist's website

Photos of the Month, April 2007: Travel


Cobra Girl, Madurai, 2005
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Cobra Girl, Madurai, 2005
by Barbara Houghton
#1 of 5
This young girl met me at the west gate to the Meenakshi Temple in Madurai, India. Her blue face is like the Hindu god Krishna and around her neck is a roughly fashioned cobra sewn from woven fabric.
Visit the artist's website here ...or here

Friday, April 06, 2007Home

Photos of the Month: Voting Now Open!

Now that the 20 finalists have been chosen for the month of March, all of our readers are invited to participate in the vote by clicking HERE. Voting has already started today, and will continue for a week until 12 noon PST on April 13, 2007. Thumbnails of all entries will be displayed, as well as links to Flickr, where all contest finalists have been displayed during the month of March 2007.

Every week during the past month, dozens of entries were received, but only five were chosen for display on Flickr. As regular Photos of the Month participants know, every the month gives us 20 finalists, with 20 images to be judged by the public.

The subject for March 2007, "Figure and Fashion,” was open to interpretation, and we received a wide range of submissions from all types of photographers and every experience level.
Everyone who participated and wasn't selected as part of the final 20 should be assured that the CameraArts staff had some TOUGH decisions to make when it came to selecting entries!

We invite everyone to enter our next contest, which is already underway. The subject is "Travel." All who have entered the December 2006 contest are invited to enter again. Send all entries (low-res jpegs only, please) or any questions you might have to tgibbons@cameraarts.com, along with your full name, image title, and medium used. Every Monday of January 2007, five entries will be selected for the final vote. All selected images will be posted here and on Flickr. One image per person, per category, please.

Thanks to everyone for submitting, and best of luck to our finalists!

Juried exhibition and calls for entry in Georgia

“SlowExposures,” a juried exhibition taking place in the gallery of the same name in Concord, Georgia, will celebrate the diversity and culture of the rural South. Georgia, with its prolifigation of green trees, spanish moss, and strange, often ebullient, sometimes tragic stories, is still an epicenter of "Southerness," at least in the minds of outsiders like me. The competition is open to all photographers nationwide, but the images must have been taken in the State of Georgia. The deadline is June 30, 2007, and the exhibition will run September 21-30, 2007.

From the SlowExposures website:

Jurors Birney Imes and Sylvia Plachy will choose a number of images from the scores of images that are traditionally submitted each year to present in the exhibition scheduled for September 21 through 30 in Concord, Georgia.

Birney Imes has captured the vanishing culture of his native Mississippi since the early 1970’s in photographs that have been characterized as honest, gritty, idiosyncratic, and moving. His iconic images of juke joints and dilapidated local gathering spots are on permanent display in over 20 museums and private collections in the United States and Europe.

Sylvia Plachy has been recording New York City’s visual and cultural landscape and its diverse residents for over 40 years. She has been a staff photographer at The Village Voice for thirty years and a regular contributor at The New Yorker. Her powerful and memorable images have been seen in one-woman shows and museums throughout the United States, Europe and China.

“SlowExposures” 2007 will feature two categories. “Images of the Rural South” can include images taken anywhere in the Southeastern states. “Photographs from West Central Georgia” can include images taken anywhere in Bibb, Coweta, Crawford, Harris, Heard, Lamar, Meriwether, Monroe, Muscogee, Spalding, Talbot, Taylor, Troup and Upson Counties in addition to Pike County, home of “SlowExposures.” Photographers may enter up to four images in each category with the final winners sharing up to $2,000 in awards in September.

The competition's aim would seem too narrow if the subject wasn't a place so tied up in the history and struggles of humanity, whether one approaches through the Civil War and the burning of Atlanta, the causes and consequences of the Civil Rights movement, or the realm of Southern Gothic, inhabited by the likes of Harper Lee and Flannery O'Connor. Check it out here.

Thursday, April 05, 2007Home

A donation from the Herb Ritts Foundation to The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston


In a recent release by The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, a donation made by the Herb Ritts Foundation will allow the construction of the first photography-exclusive gallery at the museum.

From the Museum of Fine Arts' Press Room:

The Museum of Fine Arts, Boston (MFA) announced that the Herb Ritts Foundation has given $2.5 million to its Campaign, Building the New MFA. In honor of this gift, the MFA will create the Herb Ritts Gallery for Photography—the first gallery devoted exclusively to photography in Museum history.


Herb Ritts (
CameraArts February/March 2003) was an acclaimed photographer for Rolling Stone, Interview, Vanity Fair, and Vogue; he created many celebrity portraits that have become famous in their own right, such as Jack Nicholson grinning into a magnifying glass, and the gender-bending photographs of Cindy Crawford in lingerie and K.D. Lang in male drag; and he was dedicated to many AIDS/HIV related causes until his death on December 26, 2002.

Additionally, the Herb Ritts Foundation, based in Los Angeles, California, is giving 189 Herb Ritts photographs to the Museum, adding to the gift of 45 works that photographer Herb Ritts made to the MFA in 2000. With this gift, the MFA will have one of every print from the exhibition, Herb Ritts: Work, in its collection. Herb Ritts: Work, the first full-scale retrospective of Ritts’ iconic photographs organized by and on view at the Museum in 1996/1997, was one of the ten most highly attended exhibitions in the MFA’s history.

Ritts may prove to be among the first photographers of his time to have a Museum Gallery named after him. It is an honor, but all too unfortunate that his time will have to go on without him.

Tuesday, April 03, 2007Home

BlueEyes and the Photographic Image

A bi-monthly showcase of black and white photography, BlueEyes Magazine, has released its latest issue. Three photographers are headlining the 15th edition in a familiar formula for the publication: two photographic articles by Stephanie Sinclair and Stacia Spragg-Braude; and one complete portfolio, by Cary Conover. The magazine is free, and exists online only, but proves that these things shouldn't matter if done right.

Stephanie Sinclair’s series examines the repercussions of the Lebanon conflict of 2006, one that seems to have vanished from headlines. All too often, the myriad stories that begin with war’s onset keep going unnoticed long after the peace treaty is signed. The mainstream news have leapt to the next crisis, and very few are looking back to see whether people are able to rebuild in the wake of chaos.

Nevertheless, in an age ruled by propaganda and “illegal” warfare, it is small relief that it’s possible for a conflict to be resolved, even if both sides perceive themselves as victors. War without end, embodied in Iraq and Afghanistan, has become a sad fact of life in the modern world. For those portrayed in Sinclair’s photographs, however, there is struggle with no end in sight.

Stacia Spragg-Braude has photographed the environmentalist efforts of the Begay family in the heart of Navajo Country. The recent passing of family elders Mary and Gold Tooth Begay has many raised questions for the new generation, not the least of which are how to carry on, both as a movement, and as a greater culture sharing a largely unseen connection through the land. These images convey a people’s bond through loss, uncertainty, and hope.

In the latest installment of BlueEyes’ Portfolio Series, Cary Conover shows his vision of New York City in a portfolio of found moments in street photography. City life is very much on display here, and the individuals pictured, being from all walks of life, remind over and over that there are truths that cannot be known, only hinted at through the image.

From the BlueEyes website:

The 8-track may have been replaced, and Betamax is nearly vanished, but the radio, theatre, and still photography, thank god, are all alive and kicking. And it doesn't stop there. This just in: Photojournalism is not dead… Newspapers are still being printed… Broadcast news will always suck… And the Internet is as confusing as ever.

Despite whatever is emerging now, and whatever is on the horizon, black and white photography, artfully created, will always have a special power to stop a viewer dead in their tracks. That power, much like still pictures itself relative to video, is found in the stripping away of layers and complication to foster a more immediate connection between viewer and story… of a family's connection to each other and the land, of the fear and shock of civilians during war, and of a city's bizarre and transcendent street life.

The new issue of BlueEyes Magazine has been awarded first place in the News Photo Gallery category by the National Press Photographers Association (NPPA). "The Naked King", an essay on the revolt against the monarchy in Nepal by Tomas van Houtryve, sheds light on another important event that the media’s spin machine won’t touch. You can view the award-winning presentation here.

Monday, April 02, 2007Home

Photos of the Month, March 2007: Figure and Fashion


Dancing Shoes
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Dancing Shoes
by Terrel Meek
#20 of 20
Platinum and Palladium on Arches Platine paper. Photographed in the summer of 2003, this is a part of a series intended to capture the personal side of a young woman. Returned from a weekend of contra dancing at the beach, her blistered bare feet revealed her very fashionable “Dancing Shoes.”
7.5" x 9.5"
2003

That's it for the month of March! Visit our Photo contest section at CameraArts.com on April 6, 2007, at 12 Noon PST to vote on your favorite!

Photos of the Month, March 2007: Figure and Fashion


Shadow Corset
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Shadow Corset
by Mark Nelson
#19 of 20
Original Print Platinum/Palladium print 12 x 15 made with digital negative.
www.MarkINelsonPhoto.com

Photos of the Month, March 2007: Figure and Fashion


Elizabeth—Standing Torso
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Elizabeth—Standing Torso
by Eric McCollom
#18 of 20
This was shot with a Nikon D70 and Lensbaby2

Photos of the Month, March 2007: Figure and Fashion


Untitled
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
Untitled
by Craig Payne
#17 of 20
Digital Infrared
www.craigpayne.com

Photos of the Month, March 2007: Figure and Fashion


First Communion
Originally uploaded by cameraartsblog.
First Communion
by Charles Chamberlin
#16 of 20
Nikon Coolpix 5000
available light / handheld
Communion dresses on display
Grosse Pointe, Michigan