insights into photography
I stumbled across this blog and realised it has the same ethos as ours namely it is people who are interested in photography talking about photography
Initially a way for a group of friends to keep track of monthly photo walks, Faded + Blurred has evolved into a fantastic online resource for creative inspiration, shared by a community of photographers, both amateur and professional, who are dedicated to the art and craft of making images. This is what they say about themselves, sounds like us.
Here for example is a brilliant article about Bill Brandt
“It is part of the photographer’s job to see more intensely than most people do. He must have and keep in him something of the receptiveness of the child who looks at the world for the first time or of the traveler who enters a strange country.” – Bill Brandt
Heralded by many as Britain’s greatest modern photographer, Bill Brandt was a man who never took a photograph unless he had something to say. On par with Man Ray, Brassai, and Atget, Brandt accomplished what few photographers have been able to do (either before or since), which is to successfully bridge the gap between photojournalism and documentary photography all the way to the other end of the spectrum of fine art. His work is characterized by stark contrasts between black and white and strong geometrical structures, whether the images are of a miner bringing home his coal for the day or the nude form of a woman on a rocky beach…..READ MORE HERE
and here is another about Gregory Crewdson
“My pictures must first be beautiful, but that beauty is not enough. I strive to convey an underlying edge of anxiety, of isolation, of fear. ” – Gregory Crewdson
Few photographers have had such a dramatic impact on photography as Gregory Crewdson. Like Richard Avedon or Henri Cartier-Bresson before him, Crewdson fundamentally changed not only the photographic language, but also the process of creating images and, in doing so, established himself as one of the most visionary photographers of the last decade. His photographs hang in museums, galleries and private collections all over the world and can sell for upwards of $100,000, but seeing him on the set of one of his productions, you might think he looks more like a film director than what has traditionally been the image of a photographer. In fact, he rarely even presses the shutter button. “I prefer not to be behind the camera,” he says, “because I want the most direct experience with the subject as possible.” Creating one of his photographs means dozens of crew members, unbelievably large budgets, and magnificent environments that require sets to be built or streets and neighborhoods to be temporarily shut down. Large in scale and obsessively detailed, they are made even bigger by what the viewer doesn’t see. “In all my pictures,” he says “what I am ultimately interested in is that moment of transcendence or transportation, where one is transported into another place, into a perfect, still world.” READ MORE HERE
The people behind Faded + Blurred are Jeffery Saddoris is a mixed media artist and designer whose love for photography started in the darkroom of his high school photo class. Jeffery is also the co-host of the weekly photography podcast, On Taking Pictures on the 5by5 Network. Nicole Rae (Nikki) is a food and fine art photographer. In 2008, Nikki won the Aperture photo contest, just one year after picking up a camera. In 2012, she co-wrote and photographed Chill, an eBook all about ice cream. See her fantastic food photography at Simmer & Shoot.
I would suggest you hurry over to their wonderful blog site for more of what you love 
We recently featured Man Ray in one of our blog posts here and now there is an exhibition of his portraits at The National Portrait Gallery
Man Ray Portraits is the first major museum retrospective of this innovative and influential artist’s photographic portraits.
Born Michael Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia in 1890, Man Ray initially taught himself photography in order to reproduce his own works of art. In 1912 he began to change the signature on his paintings from ER to Man Ray, and the Radnitzky family adopted this shorter surname.
Man Ray’s earliest photographs date from around 1916, when he documented his own Dada self-portrait and made portraits of Marcel Duchamp. Man Ray’s support and promotion of avant-garde artists was formalised in 1920, when American patron Katherine Dreier invited Man Ray and Duchamp to establish the Société Anonyme, America’s first contemporary art collection.
Focusing on his career in America and Paris between 1916 and 1968, the exhibition highlights Man Ray’s central position among the leading artists of the Dada and Surrealist movements and the significant range of contemporaries, celebrities, friends and lovers that he captured: from Marcel Duchamp and Pablo Picasso to Kiki de Montparnasse, Lee Miller and Catherine Deneuve.
Featuring over 150 vintage prints and key works from international museums and private collections, the exhibition also demonstrates Man Ray’s use of revolutionary photographic techniques and early experiments with colour, as well as surveying his published work in leading magazines such as Vogue and Vanity Fair.
7th February until the 27th May NPG Full details of the exhibition can be found here
On my new favourite photography blog “Anthony Luke’s not just another photoblog blog” I find an article about Man Ray, less of an article more a largish number of pictures plus a bit of biog. I have been interested in Man Ray since I learned that Bill Brandt worked with him, and as Bill Brandt was the most important photographer to me in my teens I have held that interest. Here is a bit of what Anthony says and a few pictures, if you want to see them all go here
Man Ray (August 27, 1890 – November 18, 1976), born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was an American artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. Perhaps best described simply as a modernist, he was a significant contributor to both the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. Best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, Man Ray produced major works in a variety of media and considered himself a painter above all. He was also a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. He is noted for his photograms, which he renamed “rayographs” after himself.….MORE
On 24 October 2011, the V&A’s new Photographs Gallery will open to the public. The gallery will have an inaugural display of works by key figures of photographic history including Victorian portraits by Julia Margaret Cameron and significant works by Henri Cartier-Bresson, Man Ray, Afred Stieglitz, Diane Arbus and Irving Penn.
The Photographs Gallery will draw upon the V&A’s internationally renowned collection of photographs, and will chronicle the history of photography from 1839 up to the 1960s. In 1858, the V&A became the first museum to exhibit photographs, and the new Photographs Gallery is able to showcase some of the most technically brilliant and artistically accomplished photographs in its collection. Temporary displays, primarily showcasing contemporary photography, will be shown in the V&A’s existing photographs gallery.
there is also an interesting article in The Guardian by Jonathan Jones
“Photography is a mechanical art. The photographer points a lens at an object, records the image on a plate or film or, today, in digital memory. Therefore all photographs should be similar, the hands of individual photographers unrecognisable. Yet the new Photographs Gallery at the V&A, which opened on Monday to showcase the world’s oldest museum collection of photographs, reveals the apparently limitless variety of the art and the utterly personal genius of great photographers.
A photograph of a steam train taken by Alfred Stieglitz in 1902 hangs near Henri Cartier-Bresson‘s 1932 picture Behind Gare St Lazare, Paris, on the blue-painted wall of the long, elegantly restored, Victorian gallery.” ....more of this here
Robert Howlett (1830-58), ‘Isambard Kingdom Brunel and the Launching Chains of ‘The Great Eastern”, 1857. Museum no. PH.246-1979
Roger Fenton (1819-69), ‘Roslyn Chapel’, 1856. Museum no. 290-1935
As we continue to get response to our posts on Light Painting it seems worthwhile having a look at what else is out there to stimulate you. Maybe this interest is because it is so dark and dull all day here in the UK.
“Light painting, also known as light drawing or light graffiti is a photographic technique in which exposures are made usually at night or in a darkened room by moving a hand-held light source or by moving the camera. In many cases the light source itself does not have to appear in the image. The term light painting also encompasses images lit from outside the frame with hand-held light sources. The first known photographer to use this technique was Man Ray in his series “Space Writing” created in 1935. Photographer, Ellen Carey, discovered Man Ray’s signature signed by penlight nearly 74 years after the pictures had been taken.” here a a couple of Man Ray images from about 1935 
The first point of call today is
“Light painting, or painting with light is the art of lighting a photograph with a hand-held light – usually a flashlight. If you’ve ever written your name in the air with a sparkler, you’ve got the general idea.After many years of light painting on my own in dark, lonely studios I’ve decided to relaunch LightPainting.org as a community site. We have forums, galleries and articles to help you get started. Membeship is free and you can sign up here: Register.” There are tutorials, forums, blogs and galleries.
There is also advice on making light painting images even if you do not have expensive equipment
Abduzeedo also has a tutorial page with images that you will find useful, you can never have too much information!
Oxford School of Photography 