Melissa Catanese pt.II

I picked up on Melissa Catanese's work a while back when I was quite taken by her "Jungle" work.

Today I just saw a new reference to her here and either I wasn't paying attention and missed some of her work first time round, or else she's put new work up since (probably the former). Anyway some different pictures really caught my eye today when I looked.

Especially work from Stardust and also When The Bugs Come Back - both to be found linked, along with other projects, on her website.

Also worth checking out is the section tucked away on her main page called simply More. My guess is (and I could also be completely wrong) is that this is slightly older work, but she doesn't want to quite abandon it. If I'm correct and that's the case, I found it worthwhile looking at because to me it seemed to give a picture of her developing her work and ideas and way of seeing things over time and then it's as if she has found her stride in the main, new (?) work she's presenting - Stardust, Bugs, Jungle, Garden etc. Maybe I'll hear from her one way or the other.

I also noticed that she has a small book put out by and outfit called ping pong projects who seem to have a few nice looking (low budget??) photography books - but as their website is - lets say - minimal, I can't add much more than that. The book is Stardust and it looks like you buy it via Lulu.

Not just Black & White

Since I started this blog just a touch over a year ago, I seem to have got a reputation as a black and white photographer. Mainly I think because my current main project has been in done in black and white, as was a major one before that.

But in fact, up until those two, I hadn't used black and white as a major part of my work for a long time (although it was what I started off with - learning to process at 14 years old in our blacked out kitchen was a lot cheaper using Ilford HP5... and much of the early work I did in the UK - photographing post-industrial NE England was all also done in good old HP5. But after that, most of what I did was actually in colour, with the odd foray here and there back to the darkroom and enlarger.

So here is some work from peripheral vision - The Yellowknife Project. The last bit of this was done in 2005:

"the suburbs as a state of mind...

There no longer appears to be a clear division between the suburbs and either the urban or rural environment. There now seems to be a generic suburban condition that may be a potential quality for all inhabited spaces. This extended suburban condition does not easily show up on maps, it is in many ways more of a suburban state of mind than a topographic location...

In photographing this I find myself looking at things that are somewhat off centre, off to the side - a peripheral vision. Things that are often unnoticed and just below our level of perception. Things seen that are in plain sight yet so familiar or obvious they are usually ignored, unseen, and their existence barely registered - attention no longer paid to them.




This project conveys everyday North America and the infiltration of the city by suburban culture - the place seen on the way to the office or the supermarket - viewing these familiar environments from an off-centre perspective, revealing the ambiguities and artifice of everyday life.".

The Square

(photo Harry Callahan)

Over the last few weeks I've been experimenting on and off with the square format - 2 1/4 by 2 1/4 (or 6x6cm...) - mainly in colour.

It's been many many years since I used this format and that was with a fairly battered M.O.D./SOCO broad-arrow-marked Hasselblad.

(photo Harry Callahan)

I must say it's been much harder than I expected to "work the square". It's a very different way of seeing to me - even using the ground glass on a TLR feels very different to the 4x5 or 8x10 ground glass image (I'm doing some ragnefinder stuff as well). And then dealing with the equal sided frame - for one thing, it's too easy just plonk everything right in the middle... But it's an interesting and challenging experience so far as well. We'll have to see what eventually comes out of it.

So any words of wisdom from the square masters/mistresses out there would be appreciated!

Unfortunately, though, I haven't actually had time to scan any of my efforts yet (I've also been using up an old stash of outdated Ektachrome 120 64T film a lot of the time just while I experiment, rather than "real" - i.e. in-date - film).

So until I get time for some scanning (and find my MF scanner holders) here's a few from Harry Callahan instead.

(photo Harry Callahan)

A Couple of Opportunities

The Humble Arts Foundation has application info up for a couple of good opportunities (as humble as they are, I think for most photographers, every little counts...)

First the Spring 2008 Grant for Emerging Photographers:

Given twice annually, the GEP is a $1,000 grant award that recognizes the strongest new proposal in fine art photography as submitted to Humble Arts Foundation.

Deadline: 11:59 pm, Monday, March 3, 2008

Applicant Eligibility
Applications will be accepted from photographers who are at least 18 years old and do not have gallery representation.

and secondly:

"31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography" On March 1, 2008, in honor of Women's History Month, Humble Arts Foundation, in collaboration with Ladies Lotto, will present "31 Under 31: Young Women in Art Photography," a month-long exhibition celebrating 31 of the most innovative young women in emerging art photography under the age of 31. The Exhibition is co-curated by Lumi Tan, Director of Zach Feuer Gallery in NYC, and Jon Feinstein, Curatorial Director of Humble Arts Foundation.

We are now accepting submissions from women photographers under the age of 31. Submission deadline: Friday, January 25th, 2008

I'm glad they haven't tied "emerging" with "under 25" or some similar arbitrary age for the grant - some (of us) "emerging" photographers are actually over 40 or more... so that in itself is a good move (though I note they did tie "innovative young women in emerging photography" with the under 31 cut-off in the wording for the the second opportunity - but I see they've got enough grief on all that from the lady photo bloggers already, so I'll leave it well alone... suffice to say I am frequently ticked off by much larger well established grant opportunities which frequently tie emerging with under 30 or some such arbitrary age)

All that said Kudos to the guys at Humble for keeping going with their commitment to all this and photography in general.

Full info on both here

(Photo by Molly Landreth winner of the the Fall 07 Humble Grant)

Paul Graham

I've mentioned Paul Graham before in relationship to his new book(s)/series A Shimmer of Possibilities, but up until now it's been hard to find much of his work online. However, thanks to Shane Lavalette I just found out that Graham now has an archive of much of his work online.

I'd say that in the early 1980's Paul Graham's colour photography was the first colour work which really had an impact on me and helped me see that there was a different way to use colour than the typical/traditional colour postcard/calendar/Amateur Photographer Magazine look.

The impact of his early work was probably even greater for me because his first three books all dealt with things that were familiar to me - but despite that personal link, his early work was pretty radical, especially compared to most other photography in the UK at that time.

A1 - Great North Road remains a fantastic colour milestone. For some years I lived just off the A1 and often travelled this historic route north and south (the book is almost impossible to find now - I bought my copy for about £10.00 I think and later sold it for $1600.00 to help fund my Phillips 8x10 - a fair exchange...). It's just an excellent collection of pictures.

Then came Beyond Caring, a rather damning - if oblique - look at the Welfare State at the height of the bleakest of the Thatcher years in 1986. Again, this came out at the same time that I was also photographing around the whole subject of unemployment and the post-industrial milieu of North East England.

Finally there was Troubled Land in 1987 - this remains the best depiction I have yet come across of the place and state of mind of Northern Ireland while it was still in the midst of "The Troubles".

Schmidt and Joachim All these works used colour in a way that really hadn't - and still wasn't - being done in the UK before. And although his work paralleled the New Colour work of the likes of Shore and Sternfeld in the US, it was also distinctly different from it. He makes an interesting comment in an interview that he was deeply influenced by Berlin/Essen photographers such as Michael Schmidt, Joachim Brohm and Volker Heinz and through them John Gossage and Lewis Baltz who they were bringing over to Berlin at the time. A quite distinctive (and on the whole possibly more substantial) school than the ubiquitous students of Bechers in Dusseldorf.

Since then Graham has continued to work on different and distinct project from New Europe to American Night (Phaidon also published a good overview of his work a few years ago) and through to his current A Shimmer of Possibilities (hopefully he will have images from that online soon?)

"...Within four years I published three books: A1, Beyond Caring, and Troubled Land, driven by the boundless energy of youth, no doubt… but by 1987, I we had this juggernaut of color documentary photography emerging in England; it had really taken off. Martin Parr switched to color, so did people like Tom Wood, and then our students, like Paul Seawright or Richard Billingham or Nick Waplington came along. So… I felt it was time to move on from that, before it became exhausted. For example, the mixing of landscape with war photography in Troubled Land was striking and quite successful —I had shows in NYC galleries—but what happens is that you hit this resonant note and everyone wants you to repeat it. I was invited to duplicate Troubled Land in Israel and South Africa. Commissions, dollars, travel, the whole nine yards. But I thought, I can’t do this. For better or worse, I’m one of those artists who once something is “proven,” have to drop it and find another way to scare myself..."



"...RW: So you went to Europe?

PG: In the early to mid 80s I had made friends with a group of German photographers who were quite distinct from the Becher’s Dusseldorf school. They were mostly around Essen-Berlin: Volker Heinze, Joachim Brohm, Gosbert Adler, and Michael Schmidt too, who was running these workshops in Berlin and inviting people like John Gossage and Lewis Baltz to come over.

RW: It’s funny that that school is so unknown here. Michael Schmidt even had a one-man show at MoMA.

PG: Yes, a great show and few remember it. It's as though the Gursky show wiped out people’s under-standing of everything else in German Photography. Gursky is much more accessible. He goes for the jugular because it is about the ‘Great Photograph.’ Of course, he succeeds, but it’s recidivist, in a way. Photographers have been trying for years to make bodies of work where images work together to build up a coherent statement. It’s not about one great picture by Robert Adams; it’s about twenty or thirty pictures that form a sensitive, intelligent reflection of the world. It’s the same with Garry Winogrand, or Robert Frank. Gursky brings it back to that “wow” moment. It sort of undoes that way of working, and reduces things to the “What a great shot!” appreciation of photography. I’m a sucker for that as much as anyone, but want people to appreciate what Robert Adams does more so."

I must say I'm very much looking forward to seeing A Shimmer of Possibles when it arrives. Graham's work has nearly always given me something new to think about.

Some Goodies for 2008

I hope everyone had a good New Year and that 2008 is something for you look forward to.

My favourite photobook review site - 5B4 - has a list of some upcoming books to be published in the coming year. If this is just a selection, then 2008 already looks like it's going to be an exciting(and expensive...) year as far as the photobook is concerned.

Here are a few of my favourites from those he lists - including some new editions of old favourites:

First, Fredrick Law Olmsted Landscapes by Lee Freidlander. A few years ago, Friedlander took part in a project for the Canadian Centre for Architecture along with Geoffrey James and Robert Burley photographing the parks and landscapes of Olmsted. That led to a very nice little book Viewing Olmsted. I don't know if this book is a new presentation of the pictures he took then (probably many of which were never published in the original book) or if he has continued to work on the subject in the meantime. Either way, it's a book I'm looking forward to seeing.



Next there is a book of Luigi Ghirri's colour photographs It’s Beautiful Here Isn’t It (with an introduction by William Eggleston). Ghirri's work is hard to come by, especially in N. America, but he is one of the seminal colour photographers of the last 40 or 50 years and was an important influence on what became known as the "New Colour" photographers, laying the groundwork for Shore, Sternfeld, Meyerowitz, Christenberry and the next generation of Parr, Soth and so much of the colour work we see today.


There are also re-issues of Robert Adams The New West (Aperture) and Robert Frank's The Americans (50th Anniversary from Steidl) - works any photographer should really have in their library (although, as a friend of mine says - after looking through The New West you sort of feel the only solution left is to slit your wrists. Perhaps even more so, as what Adams depicts and highlights has only got worse since the 70's when he did the work...).




(BTW, there's also a Robert Frank colouring book online...)



Karin Appolonia Müller's sublime book Angels in Fall is also being re-issued. It's hard and expensive to find right now (a previous post on Müller here)


There are also two new Sudek books out The Window of My Studio and Portraits




And finally, one I discovered while hunting these books down - Silicon Valley by Gabriele Basilico, which interestingly seems to include a number of colour photographs - a rarity for Basilico.



But check out the other releases listed on 5B4 as well

Happy Xmas, Seasons Greeting and all that

Dust of Snow

The way a crow
Shook down on me
The dust of snow
From a hemlock tree

Has given my heart
A change of mood
And saved some part
Of a day I had rued.

Robert Frost

Photographers of the Year - 2007

Well, I'm almost ready to take a short break for Xmas, but I wanted to recap a few photographers - my picks of the year from those I've featured on the blog over the last twelve months.

The one photographer that stood out for me - no newcomer by any means - is JoAnn Verburg (and here):

But she has to share my choice for first place (a dubious accolade at best...) with a photographer long dead - Joseph Fortuné Petiot-Groffier - who, upon his demise in 1855 left his darkroom in Chalon-sur-Saône in Burgundy fully intact and it was left abandoned, never to be opened until just a couple of years ago, thus giving us a unique insight into the alchemy of the early days of photography.

There are also a couple of runners up:

Mike Ryder and his wonderful "Fail Distinction" work -

and Idris Kahn's multiple typologies (and here) -

Three Pictures

Three pictures that caught my eye this last week:

1. The top one here from Swiss photographer Joël Tettamanti's project Qaqortoq - photographs of the Greenlandic town of the same name (vie the Exposure blog)

2. The next one here - Partial Cover by Kevin Miyazaki:




3. The last one is from Lynne Cohen's current exhibition Camouflage (via Flack Photo's photo of the day):


Sometimes photographs just get caught in your mind - even if you see hundreds or thousands in a week. That's what these three did.

Emperor Kangxi's Southern Inspection Tour - Chinese Scrolls

For about a year recently I worked on the cataloguing and documentation of the new Mactaggart Collection of Chinese Art and Textiles at the University of Alberta Museums.

The Mactaggart Art Collection includes over 600 textiles, costumes and related artifacts dating from the Song (960-1279), Ming (1314-1644) and Qing (1644-1912) dynasties. There are also many fine and rare examples of 17th and 18th century Chinese court costumes and silk fragments, as well as a world-class collection of Tibetan costumes. The painting collection includes works dating from the 13th century (Yuan Dynasty) to the 1980s and is comprised of hanging scrolls, hand scrolls, albums and engravings with particular strength in Qing court paintings. Notable among these is the Southern Inspection Tour Scroll from 1698, which documents the Kangxi Emperor's boat voyage of 1689 through southeast China.

Up until then I knew very little about Chinese art, but over that time, working on the individual scrolls and paintings, I became quite fascinated.

The star piece of the collection is the Southern Inspection Tour (No. 7) A hand scroll painting by Wang Hui - one of twelve commissioned by the Emperor to portray his Tour - that depicts scenes from the Emperor Kangxi's 1689 inspection tour from Wuxu to Suzhou.

This scroll - aside from it's detail and beauty - is quite fascinating as a superb example of traditional Chinese "perspective". David Hockney studied it in his own exploration of perspective and it informed this work on his photographic "joiners". The way space and depth is depicted is quite different than the tradition Western form of perspective, and yet it conveys these things - space and depth - in an entirely convincing and harmonious way.

By contrast, there is a second Inspection Tour scroll dating from the later Emperor Qianlong's royal progress in 1751 by Xu Yang:

By this time, Western Renaissance perspective had been introduced to China and had begun to influence Chinese artists. In this scroll, both forms of perspective can be seen - the combination doesn't work terribly well in some cases and compared to the earlier scroll is feels somewhat disharmonious. Perspective is always and only cultural construct.

What is also fascinating is following the stories and details on the scrolls - you can pick out individuals and their expressions - fishmongers, a "bonsai" tree shop, families in their homes, children, old ladies etc.

But as magnificent as those scrolls are, my personal favourite has always been the "Prunus" by the Qing Dynasty artist Gao Qipei dated 1712:

As anyone who knows my work can probably see, this ink drawing of a tree and its bare branches spoke to me very strongly in relation to my own Immersive Landscapes project and the way I was trying to view similar subjects. (In addition, it is actually a 'finger painting" the artist grows his finger nail and then it was split and shaped and he used it like a pen to make the scroll - it is quite literally the artists hand at work, with no intermediary between hand and paper).


If I could own one scroll, it would be this one - but I'm not sure where I would get the couple of million needed...

It was a fascinating and very informative experience working on this unique collection and a privilege to work at first hand with these wonderful art objects - I know it has informed my work since, and will probably continue to do so for a long time to come. There are certain similarities as well as dissimilarities with photography - the scrolls are meant to be view at about arms length with a foot or so unrolled to view - so a small view, often about the size an 11x14 print, and yet it isn't hemmed in by the four sides of the frame as a photograph is - as well, the sign of a good scroll is that wherever it is unrolled to, at that point it will always present a complete picture in itself, as well as being just one part of the whole. Would that I could bring that kind of coherence to every aspect of my photographs...

The scrolls are particularly hard to present online (all the images here are just small - full height - sections). The Southern Inspection Tour Scroll for instance is close to 100 feet long - they really need to be held in the hand and viewed close up. I'd also suggest going to browse and looking at some of the albums - some wonderful stuff in those as well landscapes and flowers and figures (and how to get a good spanking... or a rather humorous horse).

The art part of the collection is now online. You can view the scrolls as well as the paintings and albums (though I note the resolution of the "scrollable" scrolls doesn't seem quite right - I guess they don't have anyone working on the photography and imaging anymore...).

(all images from the University of Alberta Museums - Mactaggart Collection)