insights into photography
From The Telegraph photography pages by
In Paris, in his early 20s, Harry Gruyaert would go to the cinema five or six times a week. Having been desperate to leave his hometown of Antwerp, where – in his words – “there was nothing to learn”, he had relocated to the French capital in the hope of becoming a photographer. “It could have been London or New York, but Paris was nearer and Paris had some photographers I had heard of,” he says. “But Paris also had better movies, and I learnt everything at the movies.”
The year was 1962, and in between screenings of Truffaut’s Jules et Jimand Antonioni’s L’Avventura – he watched the latter more than 10 times – Gruyaert would sit in his tatty little apartment and telephone the hippest fashion photographers of the day, hoping for an “in”.
Paris, 1985 CREDIT: HARRY GRUYAERT / MAGNUM PHOTOS
“I started with William Klein and Jeanloup Sieff and I asked if I could show them my work,” he tells me, when we meet in London. “Klein said: ‘Maybe, but can you charge a camera battery?’ I was so excited, but all I could think when I met him was ‘Jeez, this guy looks and behaves exactly like his photographs.’ It was the most important lesson I learnt, because it showed me right away that photography is all about personality.”…………………”Gruyaert was particularly taken with colour, and began using it in the way other photographers use light, to add a structure and depth. He was way ahead of the curve. At that time, colour photography was relegated to advertising work. “Very few people got involved in colour in a personal way,” he says. “But then I went to New York for the first time and I experienced Pop Art. These paintings by Warhol and Lichtenstein helped me to look at colour in a different way, to stop being a snob and to use its vulgarity.”
We’re here to discuss Gruyaert’s book, a retrospective of his career featuring pictures taken from the Seventies through to the present day and all over the world. Now 73 and a member of the illustrious Magnum photo agency, Gruyaert has finally settled in Paris…READ the full article here
Harry Gruyaert tells Lucy Davies in The Telegraph how he turned colour photography into art.
Who? you may ask: Harry Gruyaert, born in Antwerp (Belgium) in 1941, studied at the School of Film and Photography in Brussels from 1959 to 1962. Then he became a photographer in Paris, while working as a freelance director of photography for Flemish television between 1963 and 1967.
In 1969, he made the first of many trips to Morocco.
From 1970 to 1972 he lived in London. This is an opportunity for unprecedented visual experiments: he decided to “cover” the Munich Olympics of 1972 and the first Apollo flights, on a broken TV screen he has at its disposal, by manipulating the colors.
Between 1973 and 1980, he began a long essay on Belgium first in black and white and then in color.
Harry Gruyaert joined Magnum Photos in 1981 and continues many trips including Asia, USA, Middle East and Russia.
In the 2000s Harry Gruyaert abandons film to digital photography.
Very concerned about the quality of prints made previously in Cibachrome and sometimes dye transfer, he experimented early in the inkjet printing. Better suited to revealing the rich shades found in his films, digital print opens new possibilities for his work, bringing it one step closer to his original intention, namely to give color the means to assert its true existence.
Here is the article
In Paris, in his early 20s, Harry Gruyaert would go to the cinema five or six times a week. Having been desperate to leave his hometown of Antwerp, where – in his words – “there was nothing to learn”, he had relocated to the French capital in the hope of becoming a photographer. “It could have been London or New York, but Paris was nearer and Paris had some photographers I had heard of,” he says. “But Paris also had better movies, and I learnt everything at the movies.”
The year was 1962, and in between screenings of Truffaut’s Jules et Jim and Antonioni’s L’Avventura – he watched the latter more than 10 times – Gruyaert would sit in his tatty little apartment and telephone the hippest fashion photographers of the day, hoping for an “in”.
Paris, 1985 (© Harry Gruyaert / Magnum Photos)
“I started with William Klein and Jeanloup Sieff and I asked if I could show them my work,” he tells me, when we meet in London. “Klein said: ‘Maybe, but can you charge a camera battery?’ I was so excited, but all I could think when I met him was ‘Jeez, this guy looks and behaves exactly like his photographs.’ It was the most important lesson I learnt, because it showed me right away that photography is all about personality.” READ MORE HERE
The International Garden Photographer of the Year competition is now open for entries. What could make your picture a winner? In The Telegraph
Britain is seeing a surge in amateur garden photography. Over the past decade, the hobby has flourished and now has a cult-like following.
The growing talent and quality of photographs means garden photography competitions are inundated with exceptional entries. One leading competition is the International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY), which receives more than 20,000 entries.
“We’re looking for images that are absolutely special,” says Clive Nichols, one of the founders of the competition and a judge. “Not just technically, but also in terms of what they show. To win it, you really have to have a standout image.”
Philip Smith, managing director of the competition, has some practical advice (see overleaf) if you are looking to improve your garden photography. His favourite IGPOTY winners from previous years are shown here.
“The first is by Magdalena Wasiczek,” he says. “It is the rhythm of this photograph (Upside Down, below) that expresses its subject so well. The delicate soft light and the impossibly balanced butterfly – all the elements come together in a fleeting moment of fragile beauty. It is like a soft melody in a minor key.
This is an interesting little tale, I think it shows how, as photographers we often see the same as other people. Anyway read on, from The Telegraph
©Sarah Scurr
Next time you’re lining up that perfect holiday photograph, you might consider checking there’s no-one standing beside you with the same scene in their viewfinder.
If you don’t, there’s a slim chance you could – like one Telegraph reader – fall victim to accusations of plagiarism almost a decade later.
In 2006, Sarah Scurr boarded a cruise from Puerto Montt in southern Chile to the San Rafael Glacier in the Northern Patagonian Ice Field…….Marisol Ortiz Elfeldt, a Chilean reporter and amateur photographer, was so adamant that she had taken Scurr’s photograph, she publicly denounced the Briton on Telegraph Travel’s Facebook page – posting her own “non-Photoshopped original” picture as proof:
This interview found in the photography pages of the Telegraph
England was her salvation. ‘It’s the best country, I can tell you that – and I’ve lived in a number of them… Why? Because of the people’ Dorothy Bohm watches the clouds scud over London’s skyline. Looking out from the roof terrace of her Hampstead home, she tells me that she has photographed these cumulus forms for more than half a century. Since she arrived in Britain on the eve of the Second World War, Bohm’s career has focused on such ephemeral wonders: on clouds and childhood, curious characters and lost corners of the world (her books include photographic surveys of Egypt and 1960s London). She has exhibited in Paris, Berlin and Milan, and has befriended many of the great photographers from the past century, including Bill Brandt, André Kertész and Martin Parr.
Bohm is turning 90 and reappraising her life and work, both of which have been shaped by serendipity and tragedy, by the war, a good marriage and Britain. ‘It has been extraordinary,’ she says. ‘By some happening I became a photographer.’
‘Let’s say it’s my profession but it’s also a love,’ she continues as we sit down to tea and lemon cake. Bohm has a youthful easy smile and a rolling wave of silver hair – she might well have been preserved in her own fixer. Around us, the walls are peppered with her photographs: Provençal seascapes, a serene Irish lake, a still life of fruit……Interested in more?
I found this on the photography pages of The Telegraph,
Urban explorers (Urbex) and their photographs have become extremely popular over the last few years, each post we make about the subject becomes one of our most popular at that time. It is hard to know why such images of desolation and decay are so riveting but they have great currency, at the end of this post I will list our other Urbex posts for you to follow if you wish
Fabiano Parisi talks to Lowenna Waters about photographing crumbling and deserted locations.
Born in Rome in 1977, Fabiano Parisi began photographing abandoned mental asylums as part of his Psychology degree. It triggered a love affair with deserted locations that has taken him to the United States, Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom, Eastern Europe and Russia. He’s snapped everything from a disused swimming pool in Woodridge, Illinois, to a derelict church in Żeliszów, Poland.
The series, titled ‘Il Mondo Che Non Vedo’ (‘The world I do not see’) has gained Parisi widespread critical acclaim, including winning the Celeste Prize International in 2010, and the Arte Laguna Prize in 2012. He participated in the 54th Venice Biennial, and has been shortlisted for the prestigious Young Master Arts Prize in 2012 and 2014.
Find our links to other Urbex posts here
https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/02/02/urbex-talkurbex/
https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/01/30/urbex-urban-explorers-with-cameras/
I found this useful article in The Telegraph
The International Garden Photographer of the Year competition is now open for entries. What could make your picture a winner?
Britain is seeing a surge in amateur garden photography. Over the past decade, the hobby has flourished and now has a cult-like following.
The growing talent and quality of photographs means garden photography competitions are inundated with exceptional entries. One leading competition is the International Garden Photographer of the Year (IGPOTY), which receives more than 20,000 entries.
“We’re looking for images that are absolutely special,” says Clive Nichols, one of the founders of the competition and a judge. “Not just technically, but also in terms of what they show. To win it, you really have to have a standout image.”
Philip Smith, managing director of the competition, has some practical advice (see overleaf) if you are looking to improve your garden photography. His favourite IGPOTY winners from previous years are shown here.
How do you plan a shoot?
What is the best light to shoot in?
Which colours work best together?
How do you compose a shot?
What is the ideal time of day to shoot your garden?
These are basic questions answered here follow the link for further advice on becoming a better plant and garden photographer
Rankin is undoubtedly one of my favourite photographers. Not just because he makes wonderful pictures but also because he is a truly right on bloke. I found this interview with him in the Telegraph By Charlotte Williamson
The moment Rankin glimpsed the Queen laughing with one of her staff, he knew that was the shot he wanted. “I watched her walk down this long corridor at Buckingham Palace with a guy who must have been at least 6ft. She’s tiny, and she was looking up at him, smiling and chatting, and I thought, ‘You’re exactly what I want you to be. You’re a real person’. ”
But the photographer, who shot Her Majesty back in 2002 as part of the Golden Jubilee celebrations, had only five minutes, and was desperate to make her laugh again. “So I started saying ‘Ma’am’, like ‘jam’. ‘Ma’am, you have to smile, please’ – I was like Austin Powers. And she just laughed at me. She was really funny, making a lot of jokes – very dry. Photography is all about collaboration – and she gave it to me.”
The end result is the Queen grinning in front of the Union flag. “She wrote back to me, having seen the shot, saying, ‘I love the stitching on the flag’. That’s the Queen’s way of not having an opinion. That’s classy. It’s like saying, ‘I like the photograph, I’m just not commenting on myself’.
“David Bailey took a photograph of her last year and he made her laugh as well,” he adds. “His is better than mine. I was quite young when I took mine. He’s a bit nearer her age. His is so brilliant. But then, I made her laugh first!”
In much the same way that Bailey documented the Sixties, Rankin catalogued the Nineties, befriending the celebrities he shot – Jude Law, Kate Moss, Kylie Minogue – dating models and generally having a very good time. This was partly aided by Dazed & Confused, the style magazine he launched in 1992, which was at the forefront of popular culture.
Other articles about Rankin
https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2012/05/31/rankin-hunger-tv/
https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/the-addiction-of-photography-rankin/
https://oxfordschoolofphotography.wordpress.com/2014/10/28/lillian-bassman-talks-to-rankin/
This article caught my eye because at number one it featured the famous Oxford photographer Paddy Summerfield. I have been lucky enough to know Paddy since 1982 and it is with great joy that I see he is getting recognition for his emotive imagery.
Mother and Father by Paddy Summerfield – £30
I have to thank a sentimental Sean O’Hagan for introducing me to Paddy Summerfield’s moving series, Mother and Father. It is a tender documentation of the last ten years of his parent’s marriage as Alzheimer’s came to claim them. The touching photographs, shot in black and white, allow us to see their love and tenderness in huge measure. They are deeply personal photographs but we can all identify with the emotional content.
Summerfield’s poetic description “I recorded my mother’s loss of the world, my father’s loss of his wife and, eventually, my loss of them both” describes his melancholy and moving journey.
Photographed in the neatly kept garden at their home in the Welsh countryside, Summerfield’s moving, gentle narrative captures subtle gestures of love revealing the bond formed during their 60-year marriage. The couple, their bodies gently bent in unison, tenderly hold hands, or link arms behind their backs, and stroll though the place they love. Eventually nature reclaims the garden, and the garden chairs become a poignant memorial to happier times.
Its that time of year, all the major awards and competitions produce their winners, yesterday we reported on the Landscape Photographer of The Year and now it is The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize. We did report on the alternative version of this prize, the one that represents the ones that didn’t win the Portrait Salon 2014 – Pictures rejected by Taylor Wessing I admit I was a bit harsh on the Taylor Wessing Prize in that piece, I suggested that to win the TW you either had to have red heads holding a small furry animal. Well I was wrong, this time it is a chicken, and I also said that every subject had to look bored out of their brains, again I was wrong, it is just most of them have to be bored. The winner this time can barely be called a portrait, this is what The Telegraph said
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize tends to draw a vocal crowd. This year more than 4,000 submissions have been whittled down to 60 exhibits, plenty capable of eliciting an “awesome” or an “awful”. However, as the last prize to be hosted by the outgoing director Sandy Nairne, there is little doubt that this is a fine swansong, delivering portraits that are variously elegant, jubilant and unsettling from a consistently accomplished selection.
Tongues will still wag. Not least because many will consider that the winning image, David Titlow’s Konrad Lars Hastings Titlow, is not a portrait at all. If you photograph a bowl of fruit, you’d be hard pressed to call it a landscape. Likewise, I’m not sure you can describe as a portrait a composition in which three adults, a baby and a dog vie for prominence (if anything the dog wins) and which focuses on the moment rather than the subjects. It’s a strong image, resonant of the Golden Age of Dutch painting (more of which later). But is it a portrait?
The 2014 winnerKonrad Lars Hastings Titlow by David Titlow. Photograph: David Titlow/National Portrait Gallery
Ah nice doggie…..
Here is the ubiquitous red heads with animal
Shortlisted imageBraian and Ryan by Birgit Püve. Photograph: Birgit Püve/National Portrait Gallery
See what I mean about bored?
Shortlisted imageSkate Girl by Jessica Fulford-Dobson. Photograph: Jessica Fulford-Dobson/National Portrait Gallery
The Guardian has an easy to access gallery here
I am not sure I can go on, the mirth is overwhelming, anyway here are some more images to tempt you along to the exhibition at the NPG
The Taylor Wessing Photographic Portrait Prize 2014is a unique opportunity to see sixty new portraits by some of the most exciting contemporary photographers from around the world.
The selected images, many of which will be on display for the first time, explore both traditional and original approaches to the photographic portrait through intimate images of friends and family alongside revealing portraits of famous faces.
This year the competition attracted over 4,000 submissions in the form of editorial, advertising and fine art prints and the selected works in the exhibition include the four prize winners as well as the winner of the John Kobal New Work Award.
Please note this exhibition contains nudity.
Also on display, in Room 39 is Hana Knizova′s portrait of Olivia Colman which was commissioned as part of the John Kobal New Work Award 2013. 13th November – 22nd February 2015
Longlisted imageArvi, by Sami Parkkinen. Photograph: Sami Parkkinen/National Portrait Gallery
and just to prove how wrong I can be here is one that incorporates a smile, still a bit doubtful as a portrait though, more street scene
Longlisted imageVijay Rudanlalji Banspal, by Karan Kumar Sachdev. Photograph: Karan Kumar Sachdev/National Portrait Gallery
Here are the links you will need
The Telegraph for an appraisal
The Guardian for a selection of images in a nice gallery format
A review and explanation in The Guardian
Good luck
Oxford School of Photography 