EDWARD VAN HERK . PHOTOGRAPHER

György László and his impressive site has become a firm favourite of mine. I think it is so important to understand the motivation behind a photograph and therefore the motivations of a photographer. Of course not all photographers would claim to have ‘motivations’ but they make the dullest pictures. An image is a visual representation of an idea and the more clearly understood the idea the better the photograph. As Ansel Adams said “There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept.” 

György László finds images he likes and then interviews the photographer to understand the concept, the motivation and today we have Edward Van Herk, no I hadn’t heard of him either but I do like his pictures.

EVH: Travel comes with a bag full of expectations and clichés to some extent. When I got an opportunity to stay in Buenos Aires for a few days, I immediately had to think about Tango music. When visiting a new place, I always search for authenticity. Tourist dance performances, Tango dinner shows and so on didn’t interest me. When I found out the porteños (locals) passionate about music and dance came together at Milongas, I knew right then I wanted to get inside and connect. I bought a newspaper to search for locations. This particular picture was made in a traditional Buenos Aires Milonga salon, where passionate Milongueros come together to escape everyday life. Time seemed to freeze there and it felt really exciting.

GL: What are you most ‘sensitised’ to? Light? Motion? Emotions? Stories?

EVH: Mostly emotions. A Milonga night is filled with passion, drama, beauty, grace, tenderness, love, desire, envy, romance, tension, and of course music. This couple immediately drew me in. The age difference between them simply seemed to fade. Generally a photographer’s first choice is what to photograph. David Hurn once said ‘You don’t become a photographer because you are interested in photography’. He meant that photography is only a tool for expressing a passion in something else. A desire to become famous, to get many likes on the Internet or to fall in love with cameras as desirable objects doesn’t improve your photographs. Mostly it requires practice, getting out there and going to work and not letting failed attempts set you back. Therefore is important to do some research and find an accessible subject and start a project or story. When your subjects become most important, your heart opens up and you will respond and discover and develop your own style. It will allow you to enhance your level of perception and get involved in the world around you. I mostly develop a strong desire to connect to people during my projects. The greatest gift I have received through my work is the connection with my subjects.

Read the rest of the interview

FOTOURA COMPETITION SEPTEMBER 2013 – PRIMARY COLOURS

We often get information about competitions which we like to forward on, this one organised by Fotoura has the title primary colours.

Over the course of the month of September, as we continue to curate a comprehensive virtual resource on the subject of primary colours in photography, Fotoura members are invited to submit their own photos which make strong use of primary colors as a visual structuring element. Photos may be old or recent, but should in some way engage with this theme.

If you don’t have any images that fit the bill, why not look around the Primary Colours resource page for some inspiration? Read some of our guides and tutorials, browse our recommended resources, check out the work of some new photographers. Think William Eggleston… Think Miles Aldridge… Think (your name here)…

Winners will be announced mid-October. There will be two winners, one in the main category, the other in the public vote category. Entry to the main competition category has a nominal £2 entry fee, and you will have the choice of entering your photo to the public vote category at the time of submission.

Photographs must be submitted before 11:59pm GMT on 30 September 2013.

Here for more information

William Eggleston

 

Landscape II

I was sent some flyers about this and was drawn to the image of the person holding a dslr camera so badly, then I read a bit about it and thought the play sounded really interesting. I can’t make either date in Oxford for which I am disappointed, it is on October 1st and 2nd at the Burton Taylor Theatre.

Three women separated by a hundred years start a conversation across time. Their parallel experiences reveal shared imaginings of identity and escape, as menacing undercurrents steal into their solitary and reflective lives. Their letters, diaries, drawings and photographs expose a series of threatening episodes and unsettling occurrences. As the landscape presses in on them, they draw upon the threads that connect them to survive.

Landscape II is a compelling solo work by Melanie Wilson. This bold hybrid of performance, film and sound art creates a highly contemporary and minutely observed piece of new theatre.

“Wilson’s lyrical imagery is deeply affecting… this is powerful and rewarding theatre”
Irish Examiner on Autobiographer

“Wilson’s language is dazzling…and the crisp immersive sound design is astonishing.” Time Out on Autobiographer **** 

Full details and further information here

Flower Photography

One thing that has become clear from the years of teaching photography is that many, many people want to take pictures of flowers. They are beautiful, colourful, delicate and last only a short time and do not answer back, be difficult, require extensive walking and can be readily available. That said it got to a point on one of our more advanced courses when I realised that half the class were only photographing flowers that I had to ban them as a subject. It was not that I dislike pictures of flowers but just that once the techniques have been mastered the main challenge is finding beautiful blooms to photograph. The impact on the class was initially concern, what were they going to photograph but once they started looking they found many things that captured their interest.

This article on Lightstalking by  Izabela Korwel explains some of the basics of flower photography. Check out Iza’s amazing macro photography on her blog,. 

All of this article is useful, I would add that most zoom lenses  that come as a basic kit with a dslr camera can close focus to about  8 inches and are great for macro/close focus work. If you want to explore this with your zoom lens put it in manual focus and set the focus ring to it’s minimum focus distance (usually when the ring is extended furthest out) then put the camera to your eye and move the camera backwards and forwards until something close comes in focus, this will be about 6 – 8 inches. Using manual focus with macro flower photography is a better way to work that auto focus because you get to decide what is in sharpest focus rather than the camera.

Here is the start of the article:

Flowers are the easy subjects to come by and to photograph, even close to home. You can go to local park or find a flower bed downtown or at the mall. You can visit a botanical garden, there is one in every major city. You can ask the neighbours if you can photograph in their garden. You can also just go the flower shop and buy potted or cut flowers, and set them up in your living room.

The easiest way, as I discovered this year, is to plant small flower garden in front of your house. Even for the sole purpose of having a photographic subject handy, they do not require that much work, especially if you choose the local wild flowers. The diversity in types and colors will help keeping you interested and returning often to add to the collection of images. Each day, the flowers will looks different, some will be already dying, and some will just start to bloom. There are new and different photos to be taken each and every day.

Click Here: How to Take Incredible Photographs of Flowers 

Henri Cartier-Bresson: ‘There Are No Maybes’

In 1971, Sheila Turner-Seed interviewed Henri Cartier-Bresson in his Paris studio for a film-strip series on photographers that she produced, with Cornell Capa

Q. Have you ever really been able to define for yourself when it is that you press the shutter?

A. It’s a question of concentration. Concentrate, think, watch, look and, ah, like this, you are ready. But you never know the culminative point of something. So you’re shooting. You say, “Yes. Yes. Maybe. Yes.” But you shouldn’t overshoot. It’s like overeating, overdrinking. You have to eat, you have to drink. But over is too much. Because by the time you press, you arm the shutter once more, and maybe the picture was in between.

Very often, you don’t have to see a photographer’s work. Just by watching him in the street, you can see what kind of photographer he is. Discreet, tiptoes, fast or machine gun. Well, you don’t shoot partridges with a machine gun. You choose one partridge, then the other partridge. Maybe the others are gone by then. But I see people wrrrr, like this with a motor. It’s incredible, because they always shoot in the wrong moment.

Q. Can you bear to talk a bit about your equipment?

A. I am completely and have always been uninterested in the photographic process. I like the smallest camera possible, not those huge reflex cameras with all sorts of gadgets. When I am working, I have an M3 because it’s quicker when I’m concentrating.

Do you want to read more of this interview….of course you do go here

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Photojournalists On War: The Untold Stories From Iraq

I watched the BBC program Imagine with the feature on Don McCullin recently,  a most touching and revealing documentary, which I implore you to watch if you can find it anywhere. In the BJP we find out about a book that merits further investigation. As with the earlier post about L1GHTB1TE the stories behind the pictures are often as important as the images themselves and give us an opportunity to understand more of the photographic process.

Photojournalists On War is the result of five years of interviews with some of the world’s leading photojournalists. However, it’s also the fruit of Michael Kamber’s frustration over the harrowing images that were never shown or published before

The longer that photojournalist Michael Kamber spent covering the war in Iraq, the more frustrated he became. His position on the frontline meant he and his colleagues were closer to the war than anyone, other than the soldiers and Iraqi civilians, yet the photos in the Western media didn’t reflect what he saw happening. “They look like sports pictures to me. It looks like a quarterback limping off the field, being helped by his buddy,” he says. “It’s not what these wars look like.”

 

With his commitment to accurate reporting shortchanged by what he saw as censorship, Kamber began working on Photojournalists On War: The Untold Stories From Iraq in 2008. The book is a compilation of interviews with 39 photojournalists from around the world, accompanied by some of their most poignant and definitive photos. The aim of the book, which will be released on 15 May in the US and later this year in the UK, is to tell the uncensored story to the general public, an audience that hasn’t been privy to much of what went on there.

The photographs in the book are at once stunning and arrestingly graphic. In one shot, by Eros Hoagland, the severed head of a suicide bomber lies in the middle of the frame, surrounded by the crumpled bodies of doves. Other images show the bodies of American contractors strung from a bridge across the Euphrates, children maimed and bleeding, or grieving and covered in the blood of their family members. Until now, many of these images had never reached the general public. 

Read more here

NY Times 2007

NY Times 2007

Read more: http://www.bjp-online.com/british-journal-of-photography/report/2262550/photojournalists-on-war-the-untold-stories-from-iraq#ixzz2ebOUxUBz
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TAYLOR WESSING PHOTOGRAPHIC PORTRAIT PRIZE 2013 SHORTLIST ANNOUNCED

Every year there is a sharp intake of breath as the shortlist for the Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize is announced, rarely can any award be more divisive amongst the practitioners of the discipline than this one. Some hold the choice up to ridicule whilst others marvel at the vapidity of the work, whilst others consider the choices as being visionary. Who knows? Anyway the choice for the short list has been made.

This is what the Artlyst site says  Taylor Wessing Prize

Four photographers have been shortlisted for this year’s Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize, the major international photography award. Firmly established as the leading showcase for new talent in portrait photography, the £12,000 prize is sponsored for the sixth time by international law firm Taylor Wessing.
 
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013 at the National Portrait Gallery will showcase the work of some of the most talented emerging young photographers, alongside that of established professionals, photography students and gifted amateurs. Selected anonymously from an open competition, the diversity of styles reflects the international mix of entrants as well as the range of approaches to the portrait genre, encompassing editorial, advertising and fine art images. The judges have selected 60 portraits for the exhibition from 5,410 submissions entered by 2,435 photographers, an increase of 85 entries on last year. The exhibition will run from 14 November 2013 – 9 February 2014 at the National Portrait Gallery, London.
 
As well as the four prize winners, the exhibition will feature the John Kobal New Work Award. For the second consecutive year, this will be awarded to a photographer under the age of 30 who work has been selected for the exhibition. The winning photographer will receive a cash prize of £4,000 to include undertaking a commission from the Gallery to photograph a sitter connected with the UK film industry. It will be announced on the 12 November along with the winner.
 
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize continues the Gallery’s long tradition of championing the very best contemporary portrait photography. The following four photographers have been shortlisted for the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2013:

Anoush Abrar, Dorothee Deiss, Giles Price and Spencer Murphy are up for the £12,000 prize, which rewards the best in contemporary portrait photography.

Kofi Annan by Anoush Abrar, 2013 © Anoush Abrar

Born in Tehran, Iran (02.06.1976), Anoush Abrar has lived in Switzerland since he was five years old. He studied at the University of Arts in Lausanne and has taught for 14 years. His portrait of Kofi Annan, the Ghanaian diplomat who served as the seventh Secretary-General of the United Nations until 2006, was commissioned by ZEIT Magazine and published in March 2013. Abrar had photographed Mr Annan previously and he says he knew that time was of the essence. ‘In my mind it was clear what I wanted to do’, he says, ‘and this portrait took literally three minutes!’

The twins by Dorothee Deiss, 2013 © Dorothee Deiss  
 
Dorothee Deiss (08.05.1961) lives and works as photographer and pediatric endocrinologist in Berlin. Born 1961 in Münsingen/ Württ, she studied medicine in Freiburg/Breisgau and since then she has been working as a pediatrician. Since 2003 she has studied photography at the Fotografie am Schiffbauerdamm and at the Ostkreuzschule school for photography and design, Berlin. From 2010-13 she studied in the ‘limited residency MFA in Photography’ programme at Hartford Art School, USA, where she received her MFA in August 2013. She is a founding member of Exp12, gallery for photography, Berlin. Her portrait, from her project VisibleInvisible, is of twin sisters she visited in their house. ‘I took a lot of more conventional portraits of them’, she says, ‘but when I found the bathrobe in a corner, perfectly fitting to the bedspread, that was when I knew I had the picture’.

Katie Walsh by Spencer Murphy, 2013 © Spencer Murphy

Spencer Murphy (22.09.1978) grew up in Kent and studied at the Kent Institute of Art and Design before gaining a BA in Photography at Falmouth College of Arts. Taken at Kempton Park Racecourse his portrait of Katie Walsh was taken whilst shooting a series of jump jockeys’ portraits for Channel Four’s The Original Extreme Sport campaign. ‘I set up at the side of the racecourse and pulled in the jockeys as they finished their races, ‘he says, ‘I was keen to include Katie. I wanted to show both her femininity and the toughness of spirit she requires to compete against the best riders in one of the most demanding disciplines in horse racing. I chose to shoot the series on large format film, to give the images a depth and timelessness that I think would have been hard to achieve on a digital camera’. Shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards in both 2010 and 2011, Murphy’s work will now have been exhibited as part of the Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize seven times, and last year his portrait of actor Mark Rylance won him Third Prize.

Giles Price for Kumbh Mela Pilgrim Mamta Dubey and infant Kumbh Mela Pilgrim – Mamta Dubey and infant by Giles Price, 2013 © Giles Price
 

Hertfordshire-based Giles Price (09.07.1973) has exhibited widely and has been commissioned by several magazines and newspapers. His interest in photography began while on military service. He joined the Royal Marine Commandos at 16 and served in northern Iraq and Kurdistan at the end of the first Gulf War in 1991. After leaving the military due to injuries sustained in Iraq he went on to do a BA in Photographic Studies at University of Derby in 1994-7. His portrait is from a series shot at the 2013 Kumbh Mela Festival in Allahabad India. Taken outside the main hospital in a pop up studio, the portrait shows Mamta who was on a pilgrimage to the Kumbh.

I can already hear the shrieks of despair “every year they have a red headed child holding a small animal and this year they go all conventional on us”

Related articles

• Notes on Portraiture: The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 (heidilouisex.wordpress.com)
• Woman jockey Katie Walsh’s picture shortlisted for top prize (standard.co.uk)
• The Taylor Wessing Portrait Prize (chrisfloyd.com)
• Review: Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2012 – a room filled with gazing faces. (campbellseye.wordpress.com)
• Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 13 (davidbrunetti.wordpress.com)
• Photography: Alma Haser amazes us with her folded stories (itsnicethat.com)

L1GHTB1TES a blog worth checking out

I was contacted today by György László who wanted to tell me about his blog and having had a chat with György and had a look at his site I thought I just had to share it with you.

As he said to me his blog is a weekly photography blog that I started about three months ago. Every week I select a picture that I like (mostly street/documentary/portrait photography), sometimes from famous authors, sometimes from young photographers. And I talk to the author about the picture: both about the craft side (camera, lens, settings, etc.) and about the artistic side of those decisions. His choice of photographers and images to discuss is interesting and the interviews can be revealing. If you are interested in photography, and if you are reading this you must be, I would recommend you check out his site, it is very nice looking too

BRUNO BOUREL

JEFF JACOBSON

ERICA MCDONALD

Here is a sample of the interview with Erica

GL: How did you ‘meet’ the woman behind the window?

EMD: It happened close to the end of the time when I was working on The Dark Light of This Nothing. I had the bones of the series laid down but was out looking for the kinds of moments I had missed in the previous months. The woman just happened to be looking out her window – we saw each other and shared a moment.

The Dark Light was done as personal project. Up until that point I had been focused on the single image, and I had decided that I’d like to invest myself in a long-term story. Magnum photographer David Alan Harvey runs a site called Burn and he had been encouraging a group of readers to see what they could accomplish over a period of a month or so. I met with David and told him about a few of my ideas, and together we came to the conclusion that I should focus on this one; what was started as a month-long project became a several-year endeavor.

See more of this interview and read the others here

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To Change the World

Britain’s piers in focus by Simon Roberts

Phil Coomes writes on the BBC website about photographer Simon Roberts and his series of photographs of British piers

Southwold Pier, Suffolk, June 2012

Brighton West Pier, East Sussex, April 2011 (Lost Pier)

 

 

Britain’s obsession with the coast is an understandable one given its geography and naval history, yet the coast also played an important part in the country’s social history.

It was here that millions of workers first enjoyed time away from the tough working conditions of Victorian towns, and any self-respecting resort would require one key ingredient, a pier. Their popularity lasted well into the middle of the last century, but since then, many have struggled to survive the changing holiday habits of the nation, and in some cases natural disasters.

Yet in some way these structures jutting out into the ocean reflect the nation’s one-time desire to spread its influence, for good or ill, around the globe. Today those that still stand have mixed fortunes, with some like Ryde Pier reborn and others still seeking regeneration.

“These pictures may encompass some of the seaside things we know best through such photographers as Tom Wood or Martin Parr, but they put those scenes in a broad context where people live in a landscape and a country, not just a car park. They also derive something from that quite different tradition, of the wild skies and unquenchable nature that we find in Turner. ” Francis Hodgson, 2013

Photographer Simon Roberts has spent the past three years creating a comprehensive survey of Britain’s piers, depicting all 58 surviving pleasure piers along with a handful of those lost in photographs marking where a pier once stood.

Read and see more pictures more here

Related articles

• Britain’s piers in focus (bbc.co.uk)
• Piers of the realm (ft.com)