altfotonet http://altfotonet.org/blog/ the companion blog to altfotonet.org a website for: creatives/artists/idealouges/ratbags/visionaries en Copyright 2010 Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:18:43 +1100 http://www.sixapart.com/movabletype/ http://www.rssboard.org/rss-specification Joe Deal, Dies Joe Deal, has passed away, according to this entry on Politics and Theory

(Notes on) Politics, Theory & Photography: Passings ~ Joe Deal (1947-2010), here as well

Joe Deal was a participant in the New Topographics exhibition, that has had a lasting influence on many photographers, myself included.

]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/06/joe_deal_dies.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/06/joe_deal_dies.html photography art photography Sun, 27 Jun 2010 22:18:43 +1100 Fotofest 2010: Will Steacy SeeSaw Magazine has curated an exhibition in the FotoFest 2010 entitled Whatever was Splendid: New American Photographs

The Curatorial statement says:

The exhibition Whatever Was Splendid explores the parallels that exist--both in America and in photography--between our own time and that of Evans, and the enduring power of American Photographs as discerned through contemporary U.S. photographic practice....At its heart, Whatever Was Splendid is centrally informed by the legacy of American Photographs, and by Evans' vital contributions to the nation's photographic language and traditions. That said, it is by no means intended as a nostalgic update or sentimental plea for photography (or, for that matter, America) to return to its past. As much as Evans' precedent has provided both the inspiration and reinforcing framework for this exhibition, Whatever Was Splendid is first and foremost the manifestation of the intelligence, ingenuity, and multiplicity of voices and visions that can be found within current U.S. photographic practice

One of the photographers is Will Steacy, a New York based photographer and writer, who currently has an exhibition entitled Down These Mean Streets at the Michael Mazzeo Gallery. ]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/06/fotofest_2010.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/06/fotofest_2010.html new finds photography Thu, 17 Jun 2010 21:57:59 +1100 PhotoAccess PhotoAccess is at the Manuka Arts Centre, in Canberra. It is an incorporated community association that aims to provide opportunities right across the community, including groups and individuals whose access to photo media is limited by gender, geography, income, disability or other reasons.

Their exhibition space is the Huw Davis Gallery, which is a public art gallery and the only community gallery space in the ACT dedicated to the photo based arts.

A recent exhibition--in 2009---was the 25th Anniversary Print Portfolio, which consisted of sixteen images donated by artists closely associated with PhotoAccess as board members, board advisors, staff, course tutors and exhibiting members make up the print portfolio.]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/06/new_post_2.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/06/new_post_2.html Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:38:37 +1100 Marzena Wasikowska: Fallen Marzena Wasikowska is a Polish born and Canberra-based visual artist who works with the photographic medium in portraiture and in the landscape both in Australia and Europe.

A recent, and intriguing body of work is Fallen, which was produced between 2004-07.

WasikowskiMFallen13.jpg.
The images are dark, blurred, monotone and in low light. They are of rocks walls and a hole in the ground. We are in the abyss or the underworld, or the unconscious. It could be well be images of the Australian landscape as sites for representations of Australian history and memory. ]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/06/marzena_wasikowska_fallen_1.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/06/marzena_wasikowska_fallen_1.html new finds photography Thu, 03 Jun 2010 19:15:50 +1100 New York Photo Festival: 3D coverage New York Photo Festival in an earlier post on the Altfotonet blog. I've since discovered the 3D coverage project by Martin Lenclos. The 3D coverage, gives website visitors the chance to experience the festival "virtually" by offering photos and video interviews of the NYPH's curators, attendees and exhibitors in an evocative rendering the festival's actual environment.

It is fascinating to explore --but you need fast broadband for it to work effectively:

]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/05/new_york_photo_festival_3d_cov.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/05/new_york_photo_festival_3d_cov.html new finds Wed, 26 May 2010 20:17:26 +1100 Andrew Moore: large format Close-up: Photographers at Work: Portraits produced by Rebecca Dreyfus on the ABC's IView before it was taken down. The film was originally produced for Ovation TV by Maysles Films and it featured the following photographers: Albert Maysles, Andrew Moor, Sylvia Plachy, Timothy Greenfield-Saunders and Gregory Crewdson, as well as curators, artists, authors and writers.

My interest was caught by Albert Maysles hanging out on the streets of Harlem taking street portraits; the work of Sylvia Plachy and the large format work of Andrew Moore: MooreACubaELPentagono.jpg Andrew Moore, El Pentagono, Cuba, 1998-2002

Moore is known for his Known for his large-scale photographs of dilapidated buildings in places like Cuba, Russia, Times Square and Detroit. ]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/05/andrew_moore_large_format.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/05/andrew_moore_large_format.html photography Thu, 20 May 2010 18:49:25 +1100 Murray Fredericks: Lake Eyre know of is Murray Fredericks and his Lake Eyre series.

Each year since 2003  Fredericks has camped for 5 weeks alone on the surface of Lake Eyre immersed in space with his  8" x 10" Toyo field  camera. The subject of Fredericks' photographs is emptiness, infinity and the void.

FredericksMsaltlakeeyre5.jpg Murray Fredericks, SALT 5, Lake Eyre series

Often the only reference point is provided by the razor sharp horizon devoid of features as can be seen in the image over the page: ]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/05/murray_fredericks.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/05/murray_fredericks.html photography Wed, 19 May 2010 20:57:59 +1100 New York Photo Festival New York Photo Festival 2010 has just ended. The main exhibitions are here whilst the satellite exhibitions are here if you want to go exploring. The exhibitions themselves do not seem to be online but we are given links to the various photographers participating in the exhibitions. In addition to its four main exhibitions, runs a programme of talks, lectures and panel discussions on the future of contemporary photography.

One of the most interesting body of photographers exhibited is Marc Garanger's Femmes Algériennes--images of Algerian women unveiled during the Algerian war (1954-1962)--which featured in the "Bodies In Question" exhibit, curated by Fred Ritchin the author of "After Photography" (2008)

GarangerMAlgeria.jpg Marc Garanger, untitled,  from Femmes Algériennes

The background is that the images were made in a French internment camp and the Algerian women were forced to be photographed and Garanger, the military photographer, had to take the picture for French identity cards given to Algerians during their mid-20th Century War of Independence. Garanger was ordered by the French military to force the women to show their faces in public, often for the first time.The colonial period in Algeria ended in 1962.]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/05/new_york_photo_festival.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/05/new_york_photo_festival.html new finds Tue, 18 May 2010 21:03:05 +1100 The Unreasonable Apple A succinct and thought provoking essay. [A Presentation at first MoMA Photography Forum, February 2010]

[From Paul Graham Archive, The Unreasonable Apple]

From JÖRG M. COLBERG's revamped Weblog, Conscientious

]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/04/the_unreasonable_apple.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/04/the_unreasonable_apple.html criticism photography aesthetics art photography projects representation Thu, 08 Apr 2010 09:37:25 +1100 Australian modernism: a note canon of Australian art photography Australian modernism  is usually associated with Max Dupain. The work was in black and white, concerned with form, architectural in focus, done with a view camera and concerned with the fine chemically-based print made in a darkroom. 

However, there have been a number of others who worked in  this style, such as Tom Balfour, who roots lie in architectural photography in Adelaide, in the 19790s and as associate in  Max Dupain's Sydney studio, photographing architecture in the 1980s. He has had a minimal presence in the  modernist art gallery since, and exemplifies how  the  Australian modernist tradition slowly withered.


BalfourTtanks.jpg
Tom
 Establish the photographic canon was done in the context of Australia's post-colonial condition, geographical isolation and troubled relationship with the idea of "home". This post-colonial condition, accompanied by a chronic inferiority complex, consists of the endemic tall poppy syndrome, the vast cultural cringe and endless tiresome discussions about the quality of Australian art  photography versus work produced overseas in the US.

]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/01/australian_modernism_a_note.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/01/australian_modernism_a_note.html history photography Tue, 12 Jan 2010 16:28:45 +1100 Alec Soth Returns to Blogging Alec Soth has returned to the blogosphere, this blog appears to focus on photography books and photography publishing.

]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/01/alec_soth_returns_to_blogging.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/01/alec_soth_returns_to_blogging.html e-zines photography book photography Sun, 03 Jan 2010 21:43:29 +1100 Ballarat International Foto Biennale: Sam Oster 2009 Ballarat International Foto Biennale, even though it was an important event in Australian photography, and the festival has been included Festival de la Luz or Festival of Light [FOL], a grouping of 32 festivals of photography worldwide.

Sam Oster was one Australian photographer who exhibited in the core program. This is the flagship of the Biennale, featuring a selection of some of the best contemporary photography from Australia and around the world.

OsterSBurnsiderubbish.jpg

There is little of Oster's art photography work on the web other than what is her Silvertrace studio website, which is part of the broader Adelaide-based Headquarters Studio. collective. ]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/01/ballarat_international_foto_bi.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/01/ballarat_international_foto_bi.html photography Sun, 03 Jan 2010 18:04:19 +1100 Altfotonet; Image Highlight Reminiscent of the Russian Constructivists this mage plays with perception and depth quite nicley

.]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/01/altfotonet_image_highlight.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2010/01/altfotonet_image_highlight.html new finds photography abstraction aesthetics altfotnet modernism photography photos Sun, 03 Jan 2010 16:21:25 +1100 Australian photographers: Gordon Undy Point Light Gallery in Sydney. Form there I gather that his interest is black and white interpretations of the intimate Australian landscape, and that his photographic background is studying landscape photography with Paul Caponigro and fine printing with George Tice who also introduced him to the craft of platinum/palladium in 1994.

UndyGBurdekinDam.jpg Gordon Undy, Burdekin Dam, Queensland, circa 1994-1996

Robert McFarlane says that Undy's images from Intimations, his second book, reveal a photographer moving away from the orthodoxies of classic landscape photography, as pioneered by artists such as Caponigro, Weston and Adams:
Undy's pictures have become quieter, meditative and somehow more intensely Australian. Until recently, landscape photographers in this country, with notable exceptions such as Jon Lewis and Peter Elliston, have been deterred by the "untidiness" and "density" of the Australian bush. Undy's recent photographs, such as Midday, Mungana, Queensland 2003 embrace the compressed, inconvenient nature of the Australian landscape.
I am attracted to Undy's industrial shots made whilst documenting Queensland's mining country in the mid-1990's. ]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2009/12/australian_photographers_gordo.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2009/12/australian_photographers_gordo.html new finds photography Sun, 27 Dec 2009 15:51:13 +1100 Saul Leiter: pioneer of colour photography William Eggleston's legendary colour show at the MOMA in 1979 was groundbreaking for the acceptance of colour photography, Saul Leiter is one of the true pioneers of colour and abstract photography. He started shooting in colour in 1948.




Saul Leiter treated the use of color in his photographs of the street and his surroundings as a painter of his time (1940s) would have done,  and  he helped lay the foundations for the development of the abstract notions of a photograph in the US.
]]> http://altfotonet.org/blog/2009/12/saul_leiter_pioneer_of_colour.html http://altfotonet.org/blog/2009/12/saul_leiter_pioneer_of_colour.html new finds Sat, 26 Dec 2009 18:30:41 +1100