Fuji X100

Yesterday I taught someone on a 121 course. The camera being used by this student was the new Fuji X100. This is a surprising camera, retro in styling, and very nice too, but so up to date in technology. By far the most interesting thing about this camera is the new viewfinder system it uses. A hybrid optical viewfinder, large and bright, and an in viewfinder heads up display of the exposure details and a whole host more. I think this is a major breakthrough in the serious compact/rangefinder type camera and I hope a technology that will be incorporated in many cameras in the future. A full and excellent review is available on the dpreview site which is a must for anyone looking to buy a camera, lens or printer here is a link to the review

The X100 is a very handsome camera that evokes, if not copies exactly the early Leica range finder cameras. If you want something that looks and feels like a real camera from the past with the caché of looking like a Leica and have nearly £1000 to spend this is for you.

pictures courtesy of DP Review

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Diane Arbus: humanist or voyeur?

This interesting article by Sean O’Hagan at guardian.co.uk, is, as usual from O’Hagen, an intelligent and well thought out piece, here is an excerpt

“When we look at an Arbus photograph, we cannot help feeling that we are intruders or voyeurs, even though her subjects are tied to a time and place that has all but vanished. A sense of complicity – hers and ours – lies at the very heart of her power. Her images hold us in their sway even when our better instincts tell us to look away. Perhaps her greatest gift is that she understood that conflict instinctively, and did more than anyone to exploit it artistically.”…….more

Camera obscura … Diane Arbus poses for a portrait in New York c 1968 Photograph: Roz Kelly/Getty Images

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Duane Michals Sequences

Duane Michals (b. February 18, 1932) is an American photographer. Largely self-taught, his work is noted for its innovation and artistry. Michals’ style often features photo-sequences and the incorporation of text to examine emotion and philosophy, resulting in a unique body of work.

Michals grew up in McKeesport, Pennsylvania. In 1953 he received a B.A. from the University of Denver. In 1956 he went on to study design at the Parsons School of Design with a plan to becoming a graphic designer, however he did not complete his studies. In 1958 while on a holiday in the USSR he discovered an interest in photography. The photographs he made during this trip became his first exhibition held in 1963 at the Underground Gallery in New York City.

For a number of years, Michals worked in commercial photography, working for Esquire and Mademoiselle, and he covered the filming of The Great Gatsby for Vogue (1974). He did not have a studio. Instead, he took portraits of people in their environment, which was a contrast to the method of other photographers at the time, such as Avedon and Irving Penn.

In 1968 Michals was hired by the government of Mexico to photograph the 1968 Olympic Games. In 1970 his works were shown at the Museum of Modern Art in NYC. The portraits he took between 1958 and 1988 would later become the basis of his book, Album.

In 1976 Michals received a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts. Michals also produced the art for the album Synchronicity (by The Police) in 1983, and Richard Barone’s Clouds Over Eden album in 1993.

go here for more articles on Duane Michals

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Storyteller: The Photographs of Duane Michals

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Rune Guneriussen photography working with lights

Rune Guneriussen, born 1977, in Norway. Education from Surrey Institute of Art & Design in England. Live and work in eastern Norway. Is an artist working in the transition between installation and photography. As a conceptual artist he works site specific primarily in nature, but also with more manmade structures. The isolation of objects are turned in to installations, most of these are not seen by audience, but only photographed.

37 Websites Every Photographer Should be Reading

The amount of amazing photography on the web never ceases to amaze us. There is so much talent and information surrounding the craft that it can be a little overwhelming. That is why we decided to help curate the photography web a little with our own collection of amazing photography sites that we are fans of. From Lightstalking

Click Here: 37 Websites Every Photographer Should be Reading

40 Gorgeous and Serene Photos of Mosques

A trip through any part of the Muslim world will throw up a barrage of great photographic opportunities, none better than the stunning architecture of the mosques. During my trip to Syria in 2009 I was lucky enough to spend time at the great Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, it was a source of great photographic inspiration. These images on the Lightstalking site are also delightful

Click Here: 40 Gorgeous and Serene Photos of Mosques

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Timelapse Photography: A Complete Guide for Beginners

If you’re not familiar with timelapse videos, you’ve probably already seen them but just aren’t aware of it. With timelapse photography, you can take sequential photos captured over a period of hours and compress them into a video of only a few minutes in length – this allows you to see a slowly changing scene at a much faster pace and can open up a whole new world of photography to you.  In theory, timelapse videos are easy to do with your camera – you’re simply taking a few hundred photos, one after another, and then lining them up in post processing. However, to get a stunning, seamless timelapse video, there’s much more involved than spending a few hours behind the lens. By Christopher O’Donnell at Lightstalking

Click Here: Timelapse Photography: A Complete Guide for Beginners

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David Constantine Photography Exhibition – Bristol 13-28 August 2011

David is one of my oldest and best friends, I met him when he joined The Photographers Workshop in the early 1980’s. We taught each other about so many things, he was my first web master and computer guru I showed him how to develop and print. His work has always been an inspiration photographing in more countries than even the most seasoned travelers. If you can’t make it to his exhibition then have a look at his website here

For the first time in over ten years Bristol
based street photographer David Constantine
is exhibiting his stunning collection of portraits
at the View Art Gallery in Bristol.
Open Mon-Sat 11am-6pm; Sun 12pm-5pm
The exhibition is open on 13th – 28th
August 2011.
19th August at 7pm – Come to an evening
where David Constantine speaks about his
photography and experiences. All welcome.

“If I think back I feel I have always ‘seen’ images. Having the ability to capture them in the way I wish to see them has always been the challenge. I am particularly enthused by light and the sun. If I am in a room, I have a overwhelming urge to always move and place myself near or into the natural light, particularly sunlight.

During my teens when I started to photograph more seriously I was finding my way to the type of images in this book. However on this journey I did try as many photographic forms as possible, dabbling in sports, surf, landscape, music and people.

However, my focus was brought into sharp detail when, following my injury in 1982, aged 21, I was left paralysed from the shoulders down and unable to grip or pick up my camera. I decided to give up photography as just another one of those things I was going to have to accept in my new life as a quadriplegic wheelchair user. What I hadn’t counted on was that I couldn’t just give up what I saw that easily.

With help from a number of key people, in particular Ian Dickens, Head of PR at Olympus Cameras and photographer Keith Barnes, I was able to start taking pictures again just over a year following my injury.

It wasn’t until I moved to a medium format camera and started to travel that I found my real challenge. That challenge is to photograph people in their own environment in a relaxed setting and at their ease. I am not quick, I cannot run after my subjects and I certainly can’t blend into the background as Henri Cartier-Bresson mastered so skilfully. However I can present myself to my subjects who are generally as intrigued by me, as I am by them. A foreigner in a wheelchair with a camera is not something one sees everyday, if ever in many of the countries I have had the privilege to travel to.

I am inspired by the way people live and in many countries I go to, how their faces tell many stories, often of hard work and struggle to survive in a way that we, living in more privileged circumstances, often take for granted. The recent history of a place or country always fascinates me and I try to photograph people who would have lived through or even possibly will live through times of great change in their country.

The images on this site have been taken over the last 20 years, often in moments squeezed into or around my working day. Luckily for good light, one has to rise early. I hope you enjoy seeing them as much as I have enjoyed taking them.”

David Constantine
July 2011