Celebrating ​James Barnor – the first photographer to shoot Ghana in colour ​

As seen in The Guardian

James Barnor helped put black women on the covers of British magazines and documented fashion in a country marching towards independence. Now, aged 87, he has taken to Instagram and a London gallery is exhibiting his work

His early works recorded Ghana as it headed towards independence and came to terms with modernity through new inventions, music and fashion. In the 1960s, Barnor moved to the UK to continue his work with South African magazine Drum, for which he shot numerous cover images throughout the decade, as well as developing his own brand of street reportage and documentary photography

Barnor returned to Ghana in the early 1970s to open the first colour processing studio in the country. During this period, he was the first person to shoot outdoors and process images in full colour

Embracing contemporary photography, Barnor recently set up an Instagram account aged 87. A collaborative exhibition between Barnor and the award-winning Italian photographer Daniele Tamagni is on show at the October Gallery in central London until 30 September

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Cindy Sherman in 2016 Street Style Star

I came across this article and images in Bazaar and although intrigued by the pictures found myself uncertain about what was going on. I could instantly see how these related to her earlier work but the text and interview was confusing. Was she actually working for the fashion houses or are these true to form satirical images? The sub heading to the article is, so maybe, who knows? Text by Laura Brown and of course photographs by Cindy Sherman

In an exclusive series of satirical portraits, the famed contemporary artist arms herself with the season’s standout pieces. Her quest? Social media validation.​

She began shooting portraits in the mid-’70s, while her landmark series, “Untitled Film Stills” (69 works in all, in which she embodied female stereotypes), was created between 1977 and 1980. The youngest—by many years—of five siblings, Sherman says her motivation to make portraits was a very basic need for attention. “They were already established as a family by the time I came along,” she recalls. “It was a way for me to say, ‘I’m here, you guys, don’t forget about me!’ Or ‘Maybe if you don’t like me this way, you’ll like me this way!’ Or ‘I can do this!’ “

Sherman’s parents weren’t as prone to introspection as their daughter. “I think they thought it was cute or something,” she says. “I know they didn’t think it would really turn into anything. When I went to college, my mother was always like, ‘Take some education courses just in case so you can always teach.’ They did see the early days of success; I think they started to realize it was a tangible thing for me.” She adds, “I still don’t think they really had a clue what I was doing.”…..

Today, Sherman could very much rest on her laurels. In 2012, New York’s Museum of Modern Art hosted a retrospective, and in 2011 one of her works, 1981’s Untitled #96,sold for $3.89 million at Christie’s (then a record for a photograph at auction). Ask if she’s still ambitious and she replies, “I want to continue to be happy with what I’m working on because that’s the biggest challenge. I’m hard on myself, but everyone is always waiting for someone to fall. That’s a common problem for artists. They fall into a mold of their greatest hits and just repeat it. WhenI feel that I’m repeating myself, or about to, it’s time to move.”

But when the work is done—new characters born, new realities created—Sherman exhales into her life. She’ll ride around Manhattan on her retro Pashley bicycle, or head out to her house on Long Island to collect her chickens’ eggs. Sometimes, when she’s feeling spent, she jaunts to a deprivational German health spa. Unlike the subjects of this series, she doesn’t live in the middle. “I don’t take selfies,” she says. “I hardly ever use my phone for photographs. It’s really hard to remember to even take a picture of something.” She shrugs. “Usually the moment is gone. I just don’t think about it.”

Sherman, 62, is one of the world’s greatest sociologists, so in a way, infiltrating the street-style species is a weirdly natural extension of her work. “You know, I never expected to be doing what I’m doing for as long as I’ve been doing it,” she says. “Every time I start a new project, it’s a new challenge, to try to think of new faces or new characters. Sometimes I feel I’m repeating characters that are poking out of these faces that I shot maybe eight years ago”—a fun exercise for Sherman nerds. “I take on projects like this when I’m starting on a new body of work because it inspires me, gets the juices flowing.”

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Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman – working with MAC comestics

 

Vogue 100: A Century of Style

Photographs from a 100 years of Vogue at the National Portrait Gallery, London

Many of the truly great photographers of the last century contributed to Vogue so just to see the works of some masters would be worth the visit. I do suppose it depends a bit on what you think about fashion in general. I am sure with two minutes to spare I could come up with some pointless cynical views on the subject but no doubt I would be in a minority, which is where I generally prefer to be.

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Now as you may imagine I know little about fashion photography so here is a review in Time Out of the exhibition by someone who gives it 5 stars

Not just a pretty face – the style bible is a reflection of our times.

Fashion may be fickle, but the fashion photographer’s lens is also a mirror. ‘Vogue 100: A Century of Style’ is as much a reflection of a hundred years of our history as it is a celebration of the original glossy.

Born in 1916 during WWI, when shipping the US magazine became impossible, BritishVogue has always been more than a fashion mag. And this exhibition is so much more than a collection of pretty models in pretty clothes – Boris Johnson has found his way on to the walls, for goodness’ sake! JG Ballard and Aldous Huxley have both written for Vogue. A pre-fatwa Salmon Rushdie has shared an issue with John Galliano, years before the latter’s fall from grace. Both Queen Elizabeth and her boozy mum have appeared. And, of course, most of the century’s best photographers have shot for its pages. Exhibition curator (and contributing editor to British Vogue) Robin Muir gave Tim Walker, the man responsible for many of today’s most fantastical Vogue shoots, his first job in the 1990s: archiving Cecil Beaton’s work for the magazine from the 1930s.

In this thoughtfully arranged show, it’s the little details that make the difference – from the cocktail style menu of credits in the 1930s room to the wall of seemingly disparate portraits of actress Helena Bonham Carter, milliner Stephen Jones and model Ben Grimes-Viort – united by a colour scheme of feathery pink. A side room shows a series of slides from the ’40s to the ’90s; as though you’re in the cutting room, you watch images go from picture to page.

There’s a charming library of bound copies in which you can survey the century of Vogue as a physical thing. A peek at the pages reveals coverage of major events with far-reaching consequences, like the bloody Alsace campaign at the end of WWII, as reported by Vogue’s very own war correspondent (and former model) Lee Miller. There are also moments of fashion history that reflect societal leaps, such as the launch in 1947 of Christian Dior’s ‘New Look’, which celebrated the end of austerity with its extravagant layers of fabric. Or Donyale Una becoming Vogue’s first black model, gracing the cover in 1968 – a whole ten years before US Vogue would do the same. British Vogue has been around for a century and, in one way or another, it has documented it all in the most beautiful fashion. 

BY: MIRIAM BOUTEBA

National Portrait Gallery St Martin’s Place London WC2H 0HE 020 7306 0055 Contact us Opening hours Daily 10.00 – 18.00 Thursdays and Fridays until 21.00. Last admission to the exhibition is one hour before the Gallery closes. Exiting commences ten minutes before the closing time

On until the start of May

 

The 40 best photos of London ever taken from Time Out

This is an interesting and varied mix of images found in Time Out magazine. Hard to know the criteria by which they have been deemed the best images of London ‘ever’ as there seems to be no discernible link or structure to them. In one instance a memorable news picture, Thatcher leaving Downing Street, in the next a man on the underground with nipple clamps. Clearly some have been chosen because they were taken by famous photographers and others because of the moment but the randomness is fun. Have a look, let me know what you think.

London, you’re beautiful. No, scrap that. London, you’re wild. Angry. Delicious. How do you sum up a city that changes its look as often as its underwear and always has plenty to say? That’s the challenge we set ourselves when we decided to draw up a definitive list of the best photographs ever taken of the capital. In making our selection we had help. Serious help: Wolfgang Tillmans, Juergen Teller, Nick Waplington, Dorothy Bohm and Eamonn McCabe are among the world-famous photographers who shaped our selection. We also picked the brains of the top London photography brass at museums including the Tate, V&A, Museum of London and Imperial War Museum. The result: a celebration of London’s architecture, its icons and its geography, but also of us: Londoners at work, at play, protesting, rising to a challenge and always ready for our close-up. 

Ken Lennox: Margaret Thatcher leaving Downing Street, 1990

Downing Street has witnessed major political events, of course, but the actual drama mainly happens behind closed doors. Not so with Margaret Thatcher’s tearful, final departure from Number 10 in 1990, when it was hard to know which was more startling: the suddenness of her ousting, or the Iron Lady displaying human emotions.

© Ken Lennox/Mirrorpix

Mo Farah winning the 5,000 metres at the London Olympic Games, 2012

We screamed a lot during the 2012 London Olympics: at the telly, at home, in pubs, and at each other. But nowhere was the din as loud as in the Olympic Stadium when Mo Farah claimed his second Olympic gold by winning the 5,000 metres. The sound of the 80,000-strong crowd was so loud that the camera at the finish line started to shake, warping the image. ‘Nothing captures the fervour, the noise and the enjoyment of London 2012 more than this image,’ says Time Out photographer Rob Greig. ‘It’s a picture taken by 80,000 people.’

Bill Brandt: Francis Bacon, 1963

German-born Brandt produced mainly portraits and landscapes – and this study, ostensibly of the painter Francis Bacon, shows his mastery of both. It’s hard to tell which aspect is the most severe, the most sullenly evocative: the dark, stormy sky; the angled stripe of pathway up Primrose Hill; or the glowering snarl across Bacon’s face.

© Bill Brandt Archive

Tom Hunter: Woman Reading a Possession Order, 1998

Bathed in a beautiful morning light, Tom Hunter’s young woman looks likes she’s stepped out of Johannes Vermeer’s seventeenth-century masterpiece ‘Girl Reading a Letter at an Open Window’. The narrative, though, is pure late twentieth-century. Fillipa is a squatter reading an eviction notice from Hackney Council. Hunter, at the time a fellow member of Hackney’s squatter community, shot the image for his ‘Persons Unknown’ series. It went on to win the John Kobal National Portrait award and has shown around the world. ‘I never envisaged this response to a photograph I took of my neighbour and friend in a squat one sunny morning in Hackney,’ he says. ‘But its intimate depiction of the mother and child in a moment of vulnerability seems to resonate in a universal way.’

© Tom Hunter

Charlie Phillips: Notting Hill Couple, 1967

A cool shot of a stylish couple. What could be simpler? Taken at a party in Notting Hill in 1967, this isn’t the most immediately momentous of Charlie Phillips’s photographs, which include images of global icons such as Muhammad Ali and the first images of a fledgling Notting Hill Carnival, as well as intimate photos of Windrush-generation west Londoners. But it’s a picture that speaks volumes about London living and loving. As Phillips remembers, at the time being in a mixed-race relationship meant you’d get ‘louts shouting “nigger lover” from the windows of their cars as they passed’. Thankfully, those days are gone, but issues of race, visibility and Notting Hill’s heritage still occupy the photographer. ‘What really pisses me off,’ Phillips told us when we spoke to him last year, ‘is when they made that horrible film, “Notting Hill”. There wasn’t even one person of bloody colour in it!’

© Charlie Phillips/www.akehurstcreativemanagement.com

Eve Arnold: One of Four Girls Sharing an Apartment, 1961

London in the early ’60s, before it began to swing, was really more like the ’50s: a little bit dismal, a bit pokey and dowdy – still dusting itself off from its postwar blues, not yet ready to embrace the Technicolor future. Arnold’s wonderfully moody photograph seems to capture that in-between era perfectly.

© Eve Arnold/Magnum

Tim Peake: London from Space, 2016

We’ve all been high on a Saturday night but, orbiting 400 kilometres above the earth, British astronaut Major Tim Peake takes the (freeze-dried) biscuit for altitude. Shot from the International Space Station at midnight on Saturday January 31, 2016, his image of London, its skeins of twinkling lights shining brightest around Oxford Street and Regent Street, is the most recent image in our top 40 and the ultimate establishing shot. ‘I’d rather be up here… but only just!! #toughcall,’ Peake told Twitter as he flew past at 17,150 miles per hour.

© ESA/NASA

See the rest of the 40 best ‘ever’ here

This looks more interesting photography in London, exhibitions, competitions etc

20 OF THE MOST IMPORTANT PHOTOGRAPHS IN HISTORY

The title is a bit misleading as the images are those selected from one collection, that of The Royal Photographic Society. The choice therefore is a bit restricted but is still an interesting mix. I would be most interested to hear what you consider the 20 most important photographs of all time from whichever source you like.

The Hippopotamus at the Zoological Gardens’ by Juan Carlos Maria Isidro Count de Montizon de Borbon, 1852 ©National Media Museum, Bradford

‘Soldiers of the Sky’ by Nickolas Muray, 1940 ©Nickolas Muray Photo Archives

In 1853, Prince Albert noticed how quickly the world of photography was developing, so urged the Royal Photographic Society to start collecting images quick smart, to be sure they recorded its rapid rise. And so they did. The result? A collection of more than 250,000 images, 8,000 items of photographic equipment and 31,000 books and documents, including some of the greatest examples of photography yet.

Now, for the first time, photography fans can witness some of the best images from the entire body of work. Drawn by Light, an exhibition running from 2 December 2014 to 1 March 2015 at the Science Museum’s Media Space, showcases shots by such high-profile names as Ansel Adams, Madame Yevonde and Lewis Carroll, right up to Don McCullin, Terry O’Neill and Martin Parr. From still lives, nudes and portraits to photo-reportage and landscapes, it spans the gamut of styles.

‘Afghan Girl’ by Steve McCurry, 1984

Science Museum has selected these 20 images from Drawn by Light,  exclusively for Condé Nast Traveller, for you to lose yourself in.  www.sciencemuseum.org.uk/drawnbylight

‘Aspen’ by Ansel Adams, 1958 ©National Media Museum, Bradford

‘Audrey Hepburn’ by Angus McBean, 1950 ©National Media Museum, Bradford

‘Bewengungsstudie Movement Study’ by Rudolf Koppitz, 1926 ©National Media Museum, Bradford

‘Nude on Sand, Oceano, 1936” by Edward Weston ©Edward Weston

Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico’ by Ansel Adams, 1941 ©National Media Museum, Bradford

Go here for this article

Here is a BBC review of the same

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LILLIAN BASSMAN talks to Rankin

You may remember the rather beautiful pictures by Lillian Bassman that we featured previously here well she has popped up again and this time talking to that man Rankin

Lillian Bassman entered the world of publishing at Harper’s Bazaar as a protégée of Alexey Brodovitch, the acclaimed art director of the magazine from 1938 to 1958. Initially a student on his Design Laboratory course, Bassman was given an internship at the magazine in 1941, and a permanent title four years later, when Junior Bazaar was launched. She stayed with Harper’s Bazaar until the 60s, and during this time she became a photographer. She was known to spend hours in the darkroom experimenting with unusual techniques, including using tissues to bring certain areas of a photograph into focus, applying bleach to change tone and washing prints in the bath to achieve dreamy effects. Her signature high-contrast, black-and-white, graphic-style images won her a new-found appreciation in the 90s, when a cache of discarded negatives resurfaced. Before her death in 2012, at the age of 94, Rankin had a conversation with Lillian Bassman about her career and the art of photography.

RANKIN: I’M A BIG FAN OF YOUR WORK. HOW DID IT ALL START FOR YOU?....want to know what she said? Go here

 

Benjamin Von Wong, a Montreal photographer – underwater fashion

From Bored Panada

Benjamin Von Wong, a Montreal-based photographer known for his complicated productions and fantastic images bristling with power, has completed an extraordinarily difficult underwater photoshoot with absolutely stunning results. He and a hand-picked crew of experienced divers, underwater photographers and freedivers set up an entire photoshoot 25m under the sea in a sunken shipwreck off the coast of Bali.

The images are enchanting in their own right, before you even get into the incredible technical details of the photoshoot. The models, who also had to be experienced freedivers (divers known for diving without oxygen tanks), posed on-site in and around the shipwreck with beautiful flowing dresses provided by international Bali-based designer Ali Charisma. Their flowing dresses transform them into the wonderfully beautifully mermaids or nymphs of mythology, who threatened to drag sailors bewitched by their beauty to the cold, dark depths.

To make the shoot possible, Von Wong had to find just the right people to support the photoshoot. Instead of photo assistants, he had experienced safety divers who provided the freediver models with breaths of air from their oxygen tanks. The underwater setting prohibited the use of studio luxuries like lighting – they had to rely on camera strobes and on natural lighting. For some of the shots, the models were actually tied down to the shipwreck – a miscommunication could have spelled disaster for their project.

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To see the full extent of Benjamin’s work go to his website here

Margarita Kareva – fantasy art photography

From Bored Panada

Margarita Kareva is a Russia-based photographer who specializes in fantasy art photography. Her photographs beautifully portray women that have been transformed into fairytale princesses and witches. She adds surreal elements to her shots that make the photographs really stand out, combining Photoshop manipulation with real props. In an interview with Rosphoto, she explained that she finds inspiration for all her photoshoots in fantasy books.

Kareva’s work is constantly evolving and growing because she took up photography just three years ago. Her portfolio is already full of vibrant, magical and creative images. Kareva’s story proves that it is never too late to take up a new hobby – you just need to “learn every day, all your life”.

See more of Margarita’s pictures here

See Margarita’s website here

Oleg Oprisco

This comes from Bored Panda

Oleg Oprisco is a brilliantly talented photographer from Lviv, Ukraine, who creates stunning surreal images of elegant women in fairy-tale or dream-like settings. There’s one significant difference, however, that sets him apart from other artists who create similar work – Oprisco shoots using old-school film photography.

The fact that he shoots with film means that everything you see in these photos had to be created that way – it couldn’t be done digitally. “I’ve found it ideal to do everything myself. I come up with a concept, create the clothing, choose the location and direct the hair and makeup,” Oprisco explained in an interview with Bored Panda. “Before shooting, I plan the overall color scheme. According to the chosen palette, I select clothes, props, location, etc, making sure that all of it plays within a single color range.” He uses Kiev 6C and Kiev 88 cameras with medium-format film and a variety of lenses.

It’s clear that Oprisco is deeply passionate about his work. “Each of my photos is a scene from real life. That is the perfect source of inspiration for me as there is so much beauty to it.” Oprisco offered some inspiring advice for aspiring young photographers mixed in with some tough love as well. “Drop your job and shoot … if you feel that’s what you want,” he said. “Freedom, happiness, money… all will come after you let go and just shoot.”

It does beg the question whether Photoshop has been used even if the original was shot on film, still nice pictures

The Grace Of Nuance: Dan Winters

Another helping from the excellent Faded + Blurred, this time the wonderful portraits by Dan Winters

Some people might say that Dan Winters has an amazing photographic style, that you can tell at first glance if he took a particular photograph. His signature lighting style, the red and green tones he uses and the dramatic expressions he gets from his subjects are all part of how he shoots. He would say it is more of a sensibility than a style, however, saying that a style relates more to the technique and materials used. A sensibility would be what you bring to every shoot no matter where it is or what tools you use. Whether you call it a style or a sensibility, though, you can’t deny Dan Winters is an artist.

I found Dan Winters’ work fairly recently. I think the first image I saw of his was his portrait of Tupac Shakur. Even though Tupac wasn’t looking into the camera, I found the image mesmerizing. Image after image in Winters’ portfolio captivated me. Though he is well known as a celebrity photographer, his portraits of “regular people” are every bit as engaging and are treated with the same level of care and reverence, a word Winters uses often to describe his work. “I like the word reverent for portraits”, he says “and I think we need more of that reverence for people and for their own experience and their own path and the way that they’re represented.” Though I am not a portrait photographer, if I were, I would love to be able to take the kind of portraits that Dan Winters takes; portraits you can get lost in. I love that Winters avoids the stereotypical “look at me, I’m famous” celebrity portrait. Rather, he tries to do something purposeful, something unique. Whether he’s catching Stevie Wonder without his glasses or carrying Sandra Bullock on his shoulders to place her in a tide pool or capturing Brad Pitt playing Rock Band. Each photograph reflects not only the time and effort he puts in, but also his profound love of the creative process. With his years of experience it would be easy for him to just stick with what he knows and make every shot the same, but he takes each portrait assignment as a very personal challenge…..READ MORE

 

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