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Floating Girl serie by Bill Henson Melbourne born photographer...

Tue, 21 May 2013 19:54:30 +0200

Floating Girl serie by Bill Henson

Melbourne born photographer Bill Henson is a light sculptor playing in the darkness inspired in the tradition of the great European painters. His powerful and edgy photographs approach both the painterly and the cinematic, bringing together the formal and classical with the gritty, casual dramas of the everyday. Creating confronting, beautiful and, unforgettable images, he captures a universal essence with a mysterious darkness.

Yosemite by Takeshi Shikama, platinum palladium print on gampi...

Mon, 20 May 2013 16:22:41 +0200

Yosemite by Takeshi Shikama, platinum palladium print on gampi paper

This picture is part of the Silent Respiration of Forests serie, which explored the brooding forests of Japan and US.

The platinum palladium technique gives the photographer endless possibilities to craft the image. This process allows the opportunity to combine both the power and precision of modern technologies with the charm and passion contained in the oldest photographic processes.

One of the advantages of this technique is the impregnation of finely divided platinum and palladium salts into the paper’s fibers - allowing the image to be as long sustaining as the fine paper the image is printed on. In addition, it is an extremely slow print-by-contact method requiring very strong UV light, and requiring that the negative be the same size as the desired print.

Check the whole process video here

Hurt by Joseph Szabo, 1972

Thu, 25 Apr 2013 20:43:47 +0200

Hurt by Joseph Szabo, 1972

The Essential Photograph Rosie by Richard Learoyd...

Sat, 13 Apr 2013 21:19:54 +0200

The Essential Photograph

Rosie by Richard Learoyd 2007 Ilfachrome print 127 x 152.4 cm

The British photographer trivializes the digital era with his very special technique. Revealing a tremendous wealth of detail, his pictures are a direct positive made on Ilfachrome in a camera obscure. He shoots in one room the model or the object in a light source where he hangs the positive paper. After the slow shot, the paper is run through a processor. Skipping the editing process, the artist is placed at the core of Photography by eliminating every step of the process inessential to make an image.

Don’t miss his more than interesting lecture at the International Center of Photography.

Re-discovering New York with Patti Smith Just Kids is the kind...

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 21:15:00 +0100

Re-discovering New York with Patti Smith

Just Kids is the kind of book that you never want to end. In this tender memoir, US born singer and poet Patti Smith transports readers to the late 60’s and 70’s New York as she shares tales of her early times at the Hotel Chelsea, Scribner’s, Brentano’s and Strand bookstores and her new life in Brooklyn with her “blue star” artist Robert Mapplethorpe. I truly sympathize with her longing for art and her wish to be a creative, creating soul. This delicate book, published by Ecco, features photographs,poems and drawings of the artists.

Honestly and sensitively written, Patti Smith gives perceptive insights into many of the fast movers in the 60’s and early 70’s American pop and art culture. An absolutely brilliant autobiography of the singer and a beautiful way to wander in the streets of the big apple.

Jock Sturges

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 15:12:46 +0100

Jock Sturges

Currently obsessed with Viviane Sassen I specially love her...

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 21:41:00 +0100

Currently obsessed with Viviane Sassen

I specially love her vivid and vibrant colors and how she plays with the subject in a sculptural way. Looking at her portfolio we can have a look at the behind-the-scenes work in her serie “Sketchbook” where she refers to Robert Burton’s The Anatomy of Melancholy and features watercolor works. A breakthrough in the contemporary photography scene, she’s built her visual language with strong shadows and crispy light. Also, she feels comfortable playing with geometric clothes as she does it with human bodies. Furthermore, her images have a universal nuance by fading to black the faces, arms, building abstract lines. The invisible faces are part of her obsession with black skin and Africa, where she lived until she was 5 years old.

She uses a Mamiya 6x7 and talks about her work here

In and Out of Fashion currently running at Huis Marseille until March 17 2013

The Space Between Flowers It’s the title of a short film...

Sun, 10 Feb 2013 18:01:00 +0100

The Space Between Flowers

It’s the title of a short film about Japanese photographer Masao Yamamoto. An interesting overview of his work where he talks about the way he displays his shots, scale and size as well as his techniques to age his pictures. He makes small pictures because he wants to hold them in his hands and he wants them to be objects.

His poetic images evokes memories and nostalgia in the viewer: they seem to be old, cracked, with torn edges. But this intentional technique makes his photographs even more singular. The aged prints are frayed, stained, toned with tea, and painted in a conscious effort to look aged or antique.

As a child he captured beauty by collecting objects of nature.Nowadays he is based in Yamanashi, the mountainous Japanese prefecture, with his wife and son, where he enjoys to observe the changes in nature and take in the smell of the first fruits of Spring. He leads a simple, archaic life, far from the hustle and bustle of the city. As many photographers, his career began with painting.

Watch the short film here.

Think While You Shoot The Master of Photography who inspired...

Sat, 02 Feb 2013 20:34:42 +0100

Think While You Shoot

The Master of Photography who inspired Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avedon, Martin Munkácsi, was well known by his dynamic shots. His approach to photography was summed up in an article called Think While You Shoot, published in a 1935 issue of Harper’s Bazaar. ‘Never pose your subjects. Let them move about naturally. All great photographs today are snapshots.Take back views. Take running views. Our cameras today allow us one-thousandth of a second. Pick unexpected angles, but never without reason.’

The Gerewol Festival The Wodaabe are a nomadic people populating...

Fri, 01 Feb 2013 19:40:00 +0100

The Gerewol Festival

The Wodaabe are a nomadic people populating the Sahel desert of West Africa. Once a year in a few secret locations, their tribe gathers to celebrate the fantastic tradition of Gerewol, often referred to in the popular press as a male beauty pageant. Overall, this festival is a male beauty contest between clans. The elders select some women for their own beauty, they will select the best looking men and take them to the bush. Folded on their heads are the blankets they will use to rest in pairs.

See how they dance and make their choice here

Picture by Victor Englebert

Lambing A testimony as seen by Tanja Geis about the lambing...

Sun, 27 Jan 2013 12:10:46 +0100

Lambing

A testimony as seen by Tanja Geis about the lambing season at Earl Stonham Farms in Earl Stonham, Suffolk, UK in the spring of 2011. Beautiful images about wildlife and birth.

The Third Wheel I love how Melbourne based photographer Jackson...

Wed, 16 Jan 2013 19:46:23 +0100

The Third Wheel

I love how Melbourne based photographer Jackson Eaton portrays himself with couples. The pictures are so hilarious. Additionally he took self-portraits of him looking at nude women. I’m a huge fan of his gestures and his intimate photography.

Imogen Cunningham behind and in front of the lens In September...

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 23:13:00 +0100

Imogen Cunningham behind and in front of the lens

In September 1910, Cunningham established her commercial portrait studio at 1117 Terry in Seattle. The small basement space was furnished in Bohemian comfort with deep blue velvet draperies covering the walls, and was designed to put sitters at ease. It served Cunningham as both home and studio.

The first picture showcases Cunningham at work, photographing Twinka Thiebaud in Yosemite, California, in 1974.The photographer was lecturing a class on nude photography.Judy Dater,one of the attendees who was already an accomplished photographer, saw her chance and snapped a picture of Imogen and her model.

The model Twinka Thiebaud states:

“The photograph of me and Imogen was staged for the benefit of a large group of workshop participants who didn’t have the slightest clue as to how to work with a model let alone a group of nude models. When we first took off our robes the photographers were like paparazzi with their machine gun cameras shooting madly, yelling at the models and fighting with each other over which model belonged to which photographer. In short… a nightmare for this shy creature who had been working as a model in art schools and for individual painters starting with my father, Wayne Thiebaud, for most of her life. Judy Dater, Imogen and I walked away from the madness and Judy decided to show the workshop participants her method of working with models.. in this case Imogen and me. We worked together harmoniously and it shows in the photograph.”

Last days to attend her exhibition at Fundación Mapfre, in Madrid!

A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai), Jeff Wall, 1993 Even if...

Sat, 22 Dec 2012 14:59:00 +0100

A Sudden Gust of Wind (after Hokusai), Jeff Wall, 1993

Even if it looks spontaneous, this picture is extraordinarily elaborate. The Canadian photographer Jeff Wall was inspired by Hokusai’s “Yejiri Station, Province of Suruga” (ca. 1832), one of the great Japanese masters of ukiyo-e woodblock prints. The finished work represents the digital collage of more than 100 original shots, taken in the course of a year or more. The effect is strangely surreal and dreamlike, the poetic evocation of a wind that may never have existed except in the artist’s imagination.

In addition, he utilized actors and took him over a year to produce 100 photographs in order “to achieve a seamless montage that gives the illusion of capturing a real moment in time.” He then collaged elements of the photograph digitally in order to achieve the desired composition.

It reminds me of Hisaji Hara who was inspired by Balthus paintings.

Click on the arrow in the image to see Hokusai image.

Find more about him at MoMA’s exhibition website

From the serie and book “Subway” by Bruce...

Sun, 09 Dec 2012 21:19:32 +0100

From the serie and book “Subway” by Bruce Davidson

These pictures could be the snapshots from a 70’s movies but they are a compendium of photographs taken during the seventies in New York by Magnum photographer Bruce Davidson. He describes his subjects as “the people in the subway, their flesh juxtaposed against the graffiti, the penetrating effect of the strobe light itself, and even the hollow darkness of the tunnels, inspired an aesthetic that goes unnoticed by passengers who are trapped underground, hiding behind masks, and closed off from each other.”

See more pictures here

Untitled, 2004, by Thomas Sandberg I really like the simplicity...

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 20:41:00 +0100

Untitled, 2004, by Thomas Sandberg

I really like the simplicity of this photograph

“Motion Study”, circa 1926 by Rudolf Koppitz I had...

Sat, 24 Nov 2012 15:30:30 +0100

“Motion Study”, circa 1926 by Rudolf Koppitz

I had no clue who was Rudolf Koppitz until I bumped into this 145,000€ photograph. I really appreciate the mystery and the sensuality of these enigmatic figures. Somehow it reminds me the episode of “Eyes Wide Shut” where all the women are naked and wearing long dark capes. Koppitz produced several different versions of movement studies, in this one,the models were dancers from the Vienna State Opera.

The Czech photographer languid nude also brings to mind the agrarian romanticism of Austrian artists like Gustav Klimt and Alphonse Mucha.

Find part of his artwork here

The Nape by Emmet Gowin “We know more than we say…We tell...

Wed, 21 Nov 2012 21:14:30 +0100

The Nape by Emmet Gowin

“We know more than we say…We tell those things that we feel have a chance poetically of fitting back into life.” - Emmet Gowin

Read his interview in American Suburb X here

Christmas Night by Malick Sidibé (1963) Often photographing...

Mon, 19 Nov 2012 20:22:59 +0100

Christmas Night by Malick Sidibé (1963)

Often photographing Malian youth, Malick Sidibé captures the romantic, carefree, ambitious, and overall cool energy that represented the newly independent country. A collection of Sidibé’s classic black and white prints, as well as some never-before-seen color prints can be found in the new book “Malick Sidibé: Portraits of Mali”.

Don’t miss his exhibition at Galerie du Jour, 44 rue Quicampoix, Paris

The Shooting Star See this marvelous time lapse video by Chuck...

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 20:43:02 +0100

The Shooting Star

See this marvelous time lapse video by Chuck Hilliard , feel like if you were there laying in the ground and make a wish.