Schauraum 3 – thesis show at the FH Dortmund
July 9, 2009
Contact Press Images with digital exhibitions
July 6, 2009
Contact Press Images have re-designed their website and they have a bunch of “digital exhibitons” online now.
I especially liked the Contact/s exhibition where photojournalists show their actual contact sheets on whom they made their edit.
Bruce Wrighton
June 29, 2009
The way I find interesting material for this blog is that I just see things online or in an exhibition, do some research and post it. With Bruce Wrighton it was both: I saw pictures of him in a blog some time ago, and only shortly after that I saw his prints on the wall at the booth of Laurence Miller Galery at the Art Cologne. From that moment I have to say this photographer was and is one of my favourite photographers.
Bruce Wrighton (born 1950, died 1988) lived in Binghampton, New York, and there is only very little information on him and his work available online. He is not a well known documentary photographer (yet) and as he died way too young there is only limited material to show, but that what he produced is in my opinion really strong. At the Art Cologne I had the chance to speak to his gallerist and he told me that many years ago, he had shown Wrighton’s Car series in his gallery. And then only a few years ago, the gallerist approached Wrightons widow and asked if there were more photographs, so they “found” two more series, portraits and interiors. Laurence Miller Gallery then in late 2008 showed the “new” material and Bruce Wrighton obviously got some acclaim posthumously.
Here some of his portraits:
About his picture, Wrighton said:
“Yesterday I saw a parking attendant who had just the right look in his eyes. I didn’t even introduce myself, I said, “Can I take your picture?” And either because I was so forceful, or he was so open, or there was something in my sincerity, he just said, “Sure”.
He was a fairly young kid. Weeping eyes. Eyes that really spoke of the pain of having to struggle versus really wanting to find a home. As I chatted with him as I was making the picture–again setting up the 8 by 10 is not like the snap-snap of an SLR. It takes 15 minutes to get the whole thing together. It’s a commitment and it’s building a relationship.
I find that important because I need to develop some kind of rapport with these people. So during that rapport building session, he mentioned he was going in the army. I said to myself, gee that’s just so fitting. To me when a young kid tells me they’re going in the army and they’re working in some parking lot or something like that; I don’t know for certain, but I say this kid’s looking for direction. But in his eyes I got the sense that the direction had to come from within him.
Anyway the kid had a nice pink shirt and red hair and a red hat. There were aesthetic reasons as well (he laughs), the psychological and spiritual element have to be there, but as well a successful image for me has to be aesthetically balanced.”
-From an interview with Bruce Wrighton by Sean Phelan, August 2, 1988 for the Weekly Pennysaver
So I asked myself what is it that I like so much about these portraits? Why were they stuck in my head for the last months? Why did I seriously think about buying a print (soem portraits come in a new edition of 20 / appr. 12*18 inches with 2000 Dollar each – reasonable I think ) ?
I think Wrighton picked quite interesting characters for his pictures and composed them beautifully in their surroundings. The colors a really gorgeous and so natural, it just feels good to me to see the quality of these prints (made with a 8*10 large format camera) especially when you compare them to these bad, flat digital prints you see nowadays way too often. The guy in the second picture reminds me of a worker or miner in a Richard Avedon picture… In general I see a connection to the portrait work of Avedon, but also to August Sander e.g. Wrightons work is because of his early death not comprehensive enough to make him a real classic, but I’d say at the moment he his absolutely undervalued.
German publisher Hatje Cantz will, as far as I know, publish a book on Wrightons work later this year.
Here some more pictures from the interior and car series:
I finally found this one that was in an auction last year. Also a beautiful one.
What do you think about him? Post your opinion!
Zwischenzeit Exhibition this Saturday
June 23, 2009
David Hockney uses Wacom Tablets & Photoshop
June 23, 2009
British artist David Hochkney (72 ! ) now works with a Wacom Graphic Tablet and Adobe Photoshop. I saw that on TV and found that pretty astonishing, that somebody who has painted for decades with a similiar technique finally decides to try something completely new and do it the digital way. The final “computer drawings” as he calls them are sold as Inkjet prints.
See a Times article here or his gallery where he’s having a show right now here.
These 2 pieces where made with tablet and Photoshop:
Ryan Mc Ginley
June 19, 2009
Andreas Mühe
June 19, 2009
One of my favourite german portrait photographers is Andreas Muehe. He recently shot german chancellor Angela Merkel for Spiegel magazine and though he is only 30 he has shot a wide range of interesting people, including politicians, actors etc, but also some advertising. In my opinion, he has found his very own,unique style and makes great pictures with very special light and colours. He doesn’t copy other photographers and their light, but found at a quiet yoiung age his own way of portrait photography (not only). Unfortunately, he took his website down some time ago, there are only few polaroids to see.
More on camerwork’s website.
A film about Wolfgang Tillmanns
June 19, 2009
Fortunately, I was able to see a film about photographer Wolfgang Tillmanns yesterday at the Museum am Ostwall, Dortmund. Berlin based director Heiko Kalmbach accompanied Tillmanns for several years and made this interesting documentary, showing a lot of private moments but also the artistic process which is very special with Tillmanns work (e.g. the way he hangs his photographs on the wall when he has a show – this can easily take several days…).
As far as I know, this film isn’t available on DVD, but maybe there are more screenings soon, I’ll keep you updated if I learn more about that.
If One Thing Matters
- a film about Wolfgang Tillmans
by Heiko Kalmbach, D/USA 2008, 72 min.
See also the PDF here.
In the documentary there is also a sequence that shows how the british band Pet Shop Boys ask Wolfgang Tillmanns to do a music video for them, “Home and dry”. In the beginning, the concept for the clip was very different from what it turned out to be later, and Tillmanns ended up to show mice in the London tube…Like that one.
dju-Fotografentag „Grenzüberschreitungen“
June 19, 2009
Hey there!
The last weeks where quite busy, so there wasn’t enough time and energy to research and post new stuff. Nevertheless, i’m back with I guess some interesting material. But first of all, for those of you that are based in Germany, this photography conference in Hannover might be interesting:
dju-Fotografentag 09
„Grenzüberschreitungen“
am 10. Oktober 2009 ,
von 10 – 17:00 Uhr,
in der Fachhochschule Hannover, Bereich Design und Medien
Expo Plaza 2 in Hannover.
