"A photographer must always work with the greatest respect for his subject and in terms of his own point of view". Henri Cartier-Bresson Today we resumed our discussion of Street Photography...that we revisit at f8 every few years. Howard lead the discussion with a PowerPoint presentation way too big to include with this blogpost. In large part his presentation focused on classic street images that kindled our discussion. It was obvious again today that the subject was too vast to cover in just 1-2 sessions...or even an academic year. As usual, we could not agree on a single definition but as the editor of this blog I felt compelled to put one such definition in... In 1981, Joel Meyerowitz offered a definition of street photography as “central to the issue of photography . . . purely photographic, whereas the other genres, such as landscape and portrait photography, are a little more applied, more mixed in with the history of painting and other art forms.” (Editor's Note: please apply your own definition and/or perspective to above). Clearly this type of photography is from or to the street, road, beach...frequently includes people going about their business interacting with their environment directly or indirectly in straight forward or whimsical way etc. Our discussion was aided today by a visitor Marc Todd, a street photographer advocate. Marc will come back and show his own images and aesthetic at a later session. Below are questions regarding street photography we either touched on today or would have liked to discuss...please note the "sp" is for street photography how did 35 mm change sp effect of color in sp effect of digital and iphone on sp effect of multiple exposure function in sp effect of video on sp how have the ethics of sp changed have the aesthetics changed in sp do people need to be part of sp as a primary focus of sp candid vs non candid that is a question in dp long lens vs short lens how much is intent vs chance a part of sp how wide is the street in sp…beaches still sp role of social conflict and politics in sp effect of social media platforms on sp influences of bresson, myerowitz, walker evans…robert frank “the aamericans” is the lyrical the norm…irony, juxtaposition is it fine art or documentary photography? about future of sp how important is “mindfulness” in sp Below are some references and links ...just a few The last part of today's session was devoted to f8'ers images of the street. I was hard pressed to exclude images from our blog post but it was necessary.... The 1st set is by Steve Lewis The 2nd set is by Jim Staub The 3rd set is by Howard Landau The 4th set is by Joe Loudermilk The 5th set is by John Holmes The next set is by Bill Wishner The last image is by Charley Kohlhase The last two images are a takeoff on the classic image by Robert Frank in "The Americans"....the first image is the original The image on the left is by Bill Wishner on the right by Joe Loudermilk
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"For a long time it was necessary to contest the classical aesthetic of photography as too absolutely rooted in the idea of fact... I accept that claim, but I don’t think that it itself can be the foundation for an aesthetic of photography, of photography as art. They way I thought I could work through that problem was to make photographs that put the factual claim in suspension, while still creating an involvement with factuality for the viewer. " Jeff Wall, Conceptual Photographer / Vancouver CA Our guest today was Bjarne Bare….a photographer, curator and gallery owner. His photography focus has been largely “conceptual.”
Bjarne is only 33 but already a recognized photographer both here in LA and his home in Norway. Trained both in Norway and UCLA, Bjarne’s images have been shown in galleries and museums. He has published several books and monographs. He has curated photography exhibits both in Norway and the US He and his partner in started the MELK Gallery in Oslo. The gallery features new works by regional photographers. Their gallery now expanded continues today even with Bjarne permanently here in the LA area. Currently, Bjarne maintains a studio in downtown LA and works as an archivist and printer for Curatorial Assistance here in Pasadena. During his presentation at f8 today, Bjarne traced his artistic roots and education from Norway to UCLA and explained the genesis of his current body of work. He showed printed examples of his recent projects and electronically showed images of previous gallery and museum exhibits. Bjarne’s presentation was spot on in content and tone for f8 Pasadena Salon. Check out his website that contains his complete bio at the end of the website. https://www.barebjarne.no Below are a few images he shared with us The Art of Bird Photography... Patience This week we had several f8'ers who showed their personal pictures of birds. Charley and Rod showed their images...unfortunately, Rod could not download his images....so here are a sampling of Charley's images. Also there was a discussion centering on just how to capture these images...location, equipment and patience. In addition to the bird images several other f8'ers show different sets of work. Jim showed a whimsical series of street shots....an example of this whimsy is below Despite the whimsy, the group decided I should post his "lines and color" images from that series Bill showed some "small image formats" for his upcoming book "De / Faced"...in contrast to his usual larger images. Several examples below...what you can't see in this post is that each was printed approx 5x3 and was printed on 8.5 x 11 Aquarelle Rag 310...you had to be there Last Image we saw was from Joe in honor of Father's Day...it's an image of Joe in his father's arms We talked about the NY Times continuing to foster images new and old in the paper...kudos to them; we want to see images continued to be featured. Also, remember Google is partnering with the NYT to digitize their archives...below is a picture of the NYT archives today...as you can see they need help A recent example of how they are using their archives is a series they called "Time Lapse"
"When placed side-by-side, these photos — and others, all shot 68 years apart — resemble a trick mirror, changing black-and-white to color, suits to casualwear, film cameras to digital. Only the New York City backdrops — Rockefeller Center, Central Park or St. Patrick’s Cathedral — remain largely static. The black-and-white pictures were shot for The New York Times Magazine by the staff photographer Sam Falk on April 2, 1951. The color ones are by Tony Cenicola, a current Times staff photographer, and were shot on April 2, 2019 (in addition to April 1 and 3). Together, they form an entirely unscientific experiment that asks: What does amateur photography look like today versus 68 years ago?" Rene lead the discussion today on Alfred Stieglitz, a seminal character in the rise of photography as an art form focusing on some specific photographic aspects of his life and career. First he recounted Stieglitz's early life and career...the specific information can be found on the Stieglitz Wikipedia pages and will not be recounted on this blog post. Rene then brought to the table a two volume compilation of the entirety of his work that his wife, Georgia O'Keeffe put together after his death...all 25 lbs of book and images....a publication tour de force. Of course, what we looked at today was a reprinted version let to Rene by Book Alley. The larger part of his presentation centered around on of Stieglitz's publications ..."Camera Work" Below is a discussion copied from the Stieglitz Collection website about this publication. Camera Work Published 1903–1917 information below from the Stieglitz Collection website...link below Camera Work "Stieglitz had edited two previous publications—The American Amateur Photographer and Camera Notes—before deciding in 1902 that he wanted to put his energies toward an autonomous, high-quality magazine intended to elevate and promote the art of photography. In the prospectus for Camera Work, he argued that the journal would be independent, “owing allegiance only to the interests of photography.”[1] The first issue was published in January 1903, and Stieglitz declared therein his standards of inclusion: “Only examples of such work as gives evidence of individuality and artistic worth, regardless of school, or contains some exceptional feature of technical merit, will find recognition in these pages.”[2] Camera Work was a sumptuous, erudite publication. Its Art Nouveau cover was designed by Edward Steichen, and the quarterly printed some of the best of American art criticism, often reproducing reviews of 291 shows from other publications. Most importantly for Stieglitz, Camera Work boasted high-quality photogravures—printed under Stieglitz’s supervision and tipped in by hand—in order to better represent subtle gradations of tone and value. This was seen as a major improvement over the typical halftone reproductions employed in other publications. In the journal’s early years, Stieglitz prominently featured artists of the Photo-Secession, including James Craig Annan, Frank Eugene, Gertrude Käsebier, Edward Steichen, Frederick Evans, Alvin Langdon Coburn, Clarence White, and others. As 291’s exhibition program moved beyond photography to embrace painting and sculpture, the magazine began to cover modern art, taking on a more international focus. With these changes, and the advent of World War I, subscribers dwindled and the publication schedule became increasingly irregular. The last issue of Camera Work (49–50, June 1917) featured early work by Paul Strand, presaging Stieglitz’s own new direction toward straight photography." We were lucky in that Rene had in his possession Camera Work #4 that we all had an opportunity to look at and discuss this remarkable piece of photographic history. Finally, our looking at one of his iconic images..."The Steerage" we discussed globally visual intent and interpretation and how one image comes to represent issues in society eg class...a longish discussion that I could not capture in the moment...you just had to be there. Below is the "The Steerage" image. Next we saw and discussed a set of images Bill shot on his recent trip to NY State and Mass..His narrative is below and he brought in two prints of several of the images he called "Visual Support III." "As a Visual Hunter I always search for whatever others don’t easily see. On a recent trip to Mass MOCA in North Adams MA…a fabulous museum of modern art in a converted factory space…I noticed the old support poles that were left in place as part of the reconstruction. They went largely unnoticed. But I could previsualize their artistic value largely on the basis of their texture and juxtaposition to the surrounding gallery architecture. I call this series “Vertical Support III” The bland and innocuous poles supporting the interior structure looked like this...see below But with a great of pre visualization and some Photoshop magic the images below are some of the image set of Vertical Support III" Lastly, we mentioned a new picture-word book by Teju Cole (writer) and Fazal Sheikh (Photographer) entitled "Archipelago". Both are academics at Harvard ..pictures below
After a two month hiatus and a lot of looking at potential meeting places, we settled into the conference room at the Senior Center in Pasadena...after one meeting today all worked out well. The new image on our home page is from Joe Loudermilk... Today was an open meeting and the images were from f8'ers who had been traveling the past few months. I curated images from each presenter for this blog post. The first set of images are from Joe and his narrative is below... "The roads less traveled in the Atlantic Provinces of Canada. Joe present group of color and black and white images from his road trip through Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, New Brunswick and Quebec, from early May. Many of the images were taken in small fishing towns along the Nova Scotia coastline, as well as some landscape and seascape images. In addition there were images of abandon rural buildings, and a selection of close-up studies of massive port-side grain storage facilities." The next set is from Steve...and his travels to Denver Howard traveled to the UK and Dublin...and did some visual window shopping Jim showed street people images from Dublin, London and Kilkerry Finally, Mark showed images from his walking trip in Venice...Venice Beach California Charley is exhibiting his nature photography as part of a group show at the Los Angeles County Arboretum in Arcadia...below is announcement for the reception today...the exhibit is up until the end of June.
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