Books I'd like to buy.

 Day Sleeper Dorothea Lange – Sam Contis.

"A collection of pictures so contemporary in feel, it's difficult to reconcile them with the Lange we know" – Wall Street Journal Magazine
"Untethered from the heavy responsibility of telling the stories of people in dire situations, [these photographs] delight in the texture of cotton shirts and weathered hands, more ambivalent and playful than [Lange's] state-sponsored work. – The Independent

In this book Sam Contis presents a new window onto the work of the iconic American photographer Dorothea Lange. Drawing from Lange’s extensive archive, Contis constructs a fragmented, unfamiliar world centred around the figure of the day sleeper – at once a symbol of respite and oblivion. The book shows us one artist through the eyes of another, with Contis responding to resonances between her and Lange’s ways of seeing. It reveals a largely unknown side of Lange, and includes previously unseen photographs of her family, portraiture from her studio, and pictures made in the streets of San Francisco and the East Bay. Day Sleeper will be featured alongside other works of Contis’ in the exhibition Dorothea Lange: Words & Pictures at the Museum of Modern Art, February–May 2020.
Day Sleeper Dorothea Lange – Sam Contis – MACK


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Quotes & the archive?

While pockets of the internet, ponder the future of flickr, I decided to deep dive into my own archive. In the process I found this gem of a quote from this picture:-

"I appreciate its historiocity, but it does little for me beyond its cognitive appeal."

The comment was from a friend and was a joke and part of a larger voting game DBOLRL. This camaraderie has long disappeared. Sadly. Still I enjoy seeing others work and engaging a little with them as well. Knowing that the pictures are displayed to their best and no feeding some advertising algorithm helps too.

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Vale John Baldessari!

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MOMA, and a Daguerreotype

Lee Ann Daffner (the photography conservator at MoMA) taking care of the Girault de Prangey daguerreotype;that is now on view on the 5th Floor at the Museum. Due to its light sensitivity, this needs to be swapped out within the next few weeks.

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Australian Photo History

This weekend was prolific in terms of my online reading. I’m still enjoying my RSS newsfeed  feed. Dr. James McCardle has written an interesting piece on the history of Australian art photography on his blog. I had a brief exchange with Dr. McCardle which  led me to a Wikipedia entry he has written on the history of the photographers gallery and workshop. A space I was involved in heavily in the 1990s. Dr. McCardle's article also  lead to an MA thesis on the history of the ACP, another important photographic institution in the history of Australian photography.

All in all a busy Sunday of reading.

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Before and After Photographs of Industrial Towns | PDN Photo of the Day

Creatively life has hit a bit of a quiet place right now.
For a brand range of reasons I have moved away from mainstream social media and am using an RSS new reader to engage with the wider world of photography and blogs.
This link turned up in my feed this morning and is the kind of work that really resonates with me. It is by John Davies and is a book of work about the changing urban  landscape spanning over a decade of work by him.

Before and After Photographs of Industrial Towns | PDN Photo of the Day

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Szarkowski on Atget

Watch this short video of Szarkowski talking about Atget and his work.
From Britannica online

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Why I photograph the urban landscape?

Winter light prompted me to get my 5x4 inch monorail camera out.

The subject a pile of rocks in my backyard

I take and make photographs for a variety of reasons, some pleasurable, some emotional, and some intellectual. I also am the kind of person who enjoys working on tactile objects and the way using my hands can be closely aligned with using my mind.

I have been interested in making pictures in the Urban Landscape since 1988. I began my photography studies in 1987. After 2 years I realised I was mostly interested in photographing the landscape and in the context of art. I spent the next 3 years undertaking a fine art degree. This allowed me to think about the what the why and how of art making and could I try and make art this way?

In the beginning my career I was influenced by Ansel Adams, and the idea of a sublime landscape. Images made in his style of similar subject matter were the kind I initially sought to make. As an urban dweller most of my life trips to the ‘wild’ were infrequent and determined by my free time or the weather. But mainly time.

What this meant was it was difficult to really capture imagery that was truly ’sublime'. Free time to travel was also a hindrance to making the kinds of pictures I aspired to. This was is in part due to light. Light in Australia is at its best in the shoulder periods leading up to autumn and spring. Winter light when it shines is also wonderful. Of course light is often best in the magic hour an time of the year. Magic hour in the suburbs is easy to chase, in the outback, not so easily. Most ‘wild or sublime’ locations in Melbourne are at a minimum one hours drive away. So getting to this kind of location is time consuming and can be difficult, even with a car. The urban landscape is all around me. I can catch public transport there if I need and even on occasion walk.

While at University I was introduced to Joe Deal’s work. In particular the San Andreas Fault series [see image from sofomoma.org below]. The idea that images of a constructed or altered landscape could be valuable and interesting helped me look in other directions and think about my own story. Other Photographers and Artists I was introduced to in this period included, Robert Adams, Frank Gohkle, Hille and Bernd Becher, Lewis Baltz, Henry Wessel Jr., No urban landscape photographer worth their salt can neglect to mention the pivotal 1976 exhibition at George Eastman House, “New Topographics, pictures of a man altered landscape” either.

Joe Deal, Brea, California,

from the portfolio The Fault Zone, 1979, printed 1981

I go to a place internally in my mind. A place that is hard to describe but very beneficial. It engages my brain in a way where I focus on the moment like no other activity I engage in. Time disappears. Time becomes just a series of small decisions. Left? Right? Up? Down? More exposure less exposure, wait; lots of waiting. Looking without thinking and at the same time only looking and thinking?

Projects? Everyone has a project. Pictures however are only ever pictures. We attach meaning and substance to them as a consequence. one day early in July the light was magnificent, as it often is in Melbourne mid winter. I went outside and made some pictures with both colour and black and white film, in 120mm and large format. Because the light struck me as well as the mood , and because it felt right. Is this a project? Does it not being a project make it invalid work? How do I take years worth of these images and make then into a valid narrative?

People are talking about surveillance capitalism a lot these days. The places I like to go are often bereft of security cameras, but can also be bristling with them. I’ve been asked rightfully and wrongfully to leave several areas in and around Melbourne over the years. If there are no cameras around I am truly alone in a large city. Something that means more to me s I get older.

Making pictures using  camera, especially a film camera gives a level of purpose that very little else in life gives me. The entire process is somewhat meditative. From exposure in camera to final prints.

In the end I make images of the urban for several  reasons. 

For the geography.
As Autobiography.
As Metaphor

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TYAT & TBT [Lake Mungo Sunrise]

Lake Mungo Sunrise 2009-07-18 07:48:54

Tens years ago today I was on an extended field trip with Latrobe University and a group of American exchange students, touring outback New South Wales.

I was also about to realise I was at the darkest point in my life. I survived thanks to my gorgeous wife and my Doctor.

This spectacular sunrise was only a handful of pictures I made on this trip.


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Emmet Gowin on Ralph Eugene Meatyard

A quick image search on 12/07/2019 at 11:00am

produces a plethora of  images by Ralph Eugene Meatyard

I recently purchased a book/catalogue of an exhibition of Ralph Eugene Meatyards work. The exhibition was held at the University of Kentucky Art Museum, from the 8th of September to the 9th of December 2018. The book contains images of his work that I had not seen before. It also contains short pieces of text by other artists who respond to or knew him. Emmet Gowin is one such artist.

This is the image from page 103

and is the one refereed to by Emmet Gowin

He is one of the few modernist photographers from America who I have the good fortune to spend a little time with. He came to Australia in the mid 1990s, and ran a seminar and gave a lecture. I was privileged to be able to attend both.


Here is his quote from page 102.

“This time the mask is in here hand. This tie the mask isn't needed, nature has provided the transformation.

Normally, the female adult in Gene’s pictures is his wife Madelyn. This time I’m unsure. And still, i think it is. For there is a rare level of intimacy in this image, of warm flesh, the whole body is ready and moving forward. And there is a ripeness, a willow thinness, and the sensuous curve of her jaw and chin and the fullness of her breasts. Thisis a real women fully alive.

In 1966 when this image was made, Gene was at the height of his visionary powers. We first mt the next year. I had just finished Graduate school and was beginning to teach in Ohio. Even before we settled in, a postcard arrived from Gene: “We hear you are ging to be good, send me your thesis, I want to show it at Eyeglasses of Kentucky.” Happily, I already recognised Gene as one of the three most important visionary photographers in America, so I did not hesitate.

Over the next five years we met at least a dozen times. In 1970, Gene travelled to Dayton to meet photographer-philosopher Frederick Sommer. Each recognized the other as a Master Artist. In spite of the many differences there was a genuine kinship. Both were visionaries of the fist order.”Life itself is not the reality. We are the ones who put life into stones and pebbles.” Sommer tells us. “If we did not dream, reality would collapse.”*

The work of Ralpg Eugen Meatyard is the work of an American original. Everything about his photography speaks for and of the right and importance of human imagination,If we did not dream, life would be less interesting.
*Frederick Sommer, “Frederick Sommer: 1939-1962 Photographs: Words Not Spent Today Buy Smaller images Tomorrow,” Aperture 10, no, 4[40] (1962): 163

The images in the book are finely reproduced even though many I have never seen before.

To hear a story about the relationship between two of my favourite photographers being described in such glowing terms make me glad I do what I do.

Roger Ballen also has a quote, along with Duanne Michals & Marvin Heiferman.

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Ways of Seeing Algorithmically

Lewis Bush is going to republish John Berger's seminal work Ways of Seeing to include and examine AI and machine vision. Excited!

"...I am currently in the progress of reworking and updating ‘Ways of Seeing’. Just as Berger’s book sought to educate audiences about the ways we perceive and interpret art, my project ‘Ways of Seeing Algorithmically’ aims to do something similar for the new visual system of algorithms and artificial intelligences, helping audiences understand how these technologies see and understand the world around us. 

To do this, material drawn from my research into artificial intelligence is overlaid on to the pages of ‘Ways of Seeing’ in a way which creates contrasts and juxtapositions between Berger’s text and images and my own. In doing this I will also collaborate with Richard Hollis, the original designer of ‘Ways of Seeing’, in order to ensure the update remains true to the original."

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TYAT 2009-05-22

2009-05-22 08:26:10

Ten years ago today I made this picture with my then state of the art Sony Ericsson C902 Phone camera. I am guessing the location based on my local knowledge of Sunshine. Which in itself has turned into my lifelong 'project' both digital and analogue.

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TYAT

2009-05-13 11:17:28

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Spoilers?

Garry Winogrand’s “Untitled (New York),” from 1952-58

I am looking forward to visiting New York City soon. I have compiled a list of cultural institution I want to visit and in this day and age of the internet I know exactly what galleries are showing what art and when. Two of those galleries are, Brooklyn Museum and Gagoisian . The Brooklyn Museum is showing Gary Winnogrand’s colour work. The Gagosian, Jeff Walls’s work. The Newyorker online magazine has an article that covers them both and compares them. It is now impossible for me to unthink what I have read about. But also I can go and visit with some prior knowledge. A double edged sword? Only time will tell?

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Kodak & Kodachrome

Kodachrome is a legendary film amongst those who remember it.
Kodak has a blog/magazine that celebrates this marvellous film as a linchpin. Rabbit hole alert.
See you in a few days.

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Pop Culture

I recently caught up with my brother. He is a writer and newspaper sub-editor. We were sharing a few beers and a yarn as you do, and the conversation got around to TISM. TISM, or This Is Serious Mum were a band who performed around Melbourne and Australia from about 1982 to 2011. Sadly I only ever got to see them once at the Corner Hotel in Richmond. They have an extensive footprint on youtube. As a consequence once home later that night I loaded up a bunch of videos on YouTube, and also grabbed the book they had published. I grabbed it as I dashed out the door to sit the gallery this afternoon again. Reading the introduction was a great laugh. Last night my brother and I wondered. Who is writing and playing such rebellious and irreverent music these days? Neither of us could answer. As an example of their ethos attitude and barbs here’s a song of theirs that resonates. It’s called  ‘The Back Upon Which Jezza Jumped”.  It’s more about the ‘Average Joe' than footy, which is why I like it.

The 1970 Grand Final. One the greatest marks ever in the
History of VFL football is taken by Mr. Alex Jesaulenko.
And this is a song about the man he took it over,
Mr. Graeme 'Jerker' Jenkins."

The back upon which Jezza jumped and rode into the ground,
The humiliated vertebrae that mighty mark crushed down,
The pathetic platform from which Jezza leapt into the sky,
That ladder to immortality is finally laid to down to die.
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
Yes, Graham "Jerker" Jenkins, the man that stood his ground,
That took the pain that gave others fame is six foot underground.
Giant jolly Jerker Jenkins, Jesaulenko's dupe.
All he got out of that magic mark was a tendency to stoop.
Did he hear the thundering footsteps on that fateful day,
As he looked up at that Sherrin, did he know he'd have no say,
As Jezza jumped to fame and glory with one almighty leap
And he was left to be forgotten in a crumpled heap.
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
And so all you men with small ability and mediocre skill,
All those of you who in the race of life are left standing still,
All those who must always know others who are unquestionably better,
The second class, the also-ran, the unsucessful go-getter
The minor-leaguers, the average markers, the consistent second-raters,
The stay-at-homers, the timid loners, the habitual masturbators,
The ugly girls, the amputees, the screaming mongoloids,
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
The senile old, the deformed young, the bladders that unwillingly void, the cancer ridden,
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
The Aids victim, the plastic surgery disaster, the fake bowel,
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
The anguished howl as the psychopath shafts ya, the violated, the child rapist,
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
The jerkoff artists, The intensely hated, the disaster fated, the involuntary farters.
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
All of you huge race of men, with mind or body dismembered,
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
Never forget the name of the man who will never be remembered
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
And beware all of you with hopes of happiness you pathetically nurture,
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
Lest you forget the back upon which Jezza jumped
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
The giant Graeme 'Jerker'.
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
Is Jerker... is Jerker, Jerker dead?
Is Jerker...

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Ten Years Ago Today? [TBT]

2009-05-02 15:06:42

Ten years ago today, I mdae this picture. At the time I was using a Sony Ericsson C902 phone camera. I had a 5 megapixel sensor and full internet connectivity. These were the reasons I bought it, even though my telco had offered me an iPhone 3 at the time.
In those early days I was fond of pushing the limits of a digital photograph being made using the humblest of devices with minimal control. I feel I had some interesting outcomes.
Now ten years later I have a much more sophisticated device. One that is capable of capturing in several file formats and allowing some exposure and focus controls. In some ways I miss that early experimental aesthetic. It feels like it's harder to achieve when I can shoot in RAW, and the process the file in Lightroom. I use a third party app for this on my iPhone XS. It is called ProCamera, I wrote a couple of articles about it back on my Wordpress blog.
Having the ability to make a "serious" picture that may end up on a gallery wall on in a book is too tempting to not make sure at least some of the pictures that I see, I can best reproduce using any device at hand. The opposite idea really applied in this early days. How far could I subvert the image using this simple tool? Yet hold onto that vestige of indexicallity that so many critics claim is Photography's Achilles heel?

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Ten Years Ago Today

2009-04-28 12:16:28

Ten Years Ago today, I was in a place called Waurn Ponds about 2 hours west of Melbourne. On my way to a school camp. It seems like the best I made on the day?

This picture was made with a Sony Ericsson C902. A 5 megapixel camera with full internet functionality. I had chosen this over the iPhone 3 for this reason alone. My current phone shoots raw so colour and exposure in this situation would have been easily corrected. Sadly even with 2019 tools like Lightroom I doubt I'm going to get much more from this image.

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Early memories of the internet?

Embassy of the internet survey

The embassy of the Internet put out a survey recently, here are my responses.

• Username/Name:  s2art
• Age: 50+
• Gender: M
• Location: Antipodes
• Job Role/Description: Educator; since 1993

What do you first remember most fondly about using the internet?
My first exposure was really to the WWW. I was doing my teacher training. One subject got us looking at technology in the classroom. I sat at a computer and “surfed” not really knowing what to look for or find. I guess due to bandwidth concerns my University blocked ALL images. So I was completely underwhelmed by that experience. I was an Art/Photography major at that school. Within 12 months however I was working in  a photography department of a school whose HOD saw that this was important and connected the department to the internet with a dedicated line. I also acquired a desktop computer and had my own connection to the WWW. At the time had a friend who was a  from Rochester in the USA. He put me onto listservs and mail groups. My early days of internet communications came from these groups and I spent many an hour dutifully downloading my mail each working. Reading it offline. Then reconnecting the next morning and sending my replies. Over the years I found many tools for online communication. My favourite has always been email however. Not long after came learning html and blogging, then flickr.com, and instagram. What I really loved about my early years of the WWW was to ‘surf’. Drifting from homepage to homepage. Discovering some real gems.

What do you think has changed the most since your early years on the web?
The demise of homepages and to a certain extent blogging. The WWW is really now an ‘app’ and few people experience it outside of their phones and tablets. When it so much more than that.

How do you use the internet and what do you mostly use it for?
Research, entertainment, shopping, as well as my own publishing to flickr and blogging.

What is your biggest concern about the internet and/or the future of the web?
The balkanisation of the web by a few services, apple, facebook, google, instagram etc.

What would you change about the way we use the internet or how it is controlled now?
It’s difficult to know how to reclaim those early days. Maybe it isn’t even a wise premise to expect?

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Photoshop: The First Demo

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