Back with Stefania Gurdowa’s glass negatives

Back in Germany! After seeing great photography in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York my notebook is full of photographer names and my ixus full with exhibition shots. I will try to get some of what I saw and liked onto the blog, but it was sooo much.

Anyways, I’ll start today with something I just found online, not during the trip.

It’s a project I found on lensculture.com, edited by Agniesza Sabor and Andrzej Kramarz. They found about 1000 glass negatives of a photographer called Stefanie Gurdowa (1888-1968) who ran a photographic studio in the 1920s and 30s.

Especially as this technique of preparing and exposing glass negatives doesn’t exist anymore (or is somebody still doing it?), these pictures look very much like a view into the history of photo techique as well as a view into another time, when people were not used to sit in front of a camera.

The accompanying book can be found here at photoeye .

 

 

 

Andrew Bush – “Drive” aka “Vector Portaits”

I recently found the series  “Vector portraits” of LA-based artist Andrew Bush that I find really really good.

These photographs were made when Bush was driving through the streets and freeways of Los Angeles, he had a medium format camera with a flash attached to his car and then photographed the other drivers, always writing down exact informations about where he took the photo at what speed at what time etc.

On his website, you can see the whole body of work containing not less the 66 photographs. I think some pictures are not that interesting so a slightly tighter edit would have concentrated the thing even more, but in the book it’s probably quite nice to have that much material.

Shot between 1989-1997, “Vector Portraits” is now finally available as a book called “Drive” (I like the original title way more.)

Some more infos @ YOSSI MILO GALLERY were Bush recently had a show with this work.

Also a longer article on Design Observer.

“Komm, mein Maedchen, in die Berge” by Andrea Stultiens

“Komm, mein Maedchen, in die Berge” is german for “Come, my girl, to the mountains” and is the title of a wonderful book by dutch artist Andrea Stultiens. Unfortunately, I’ve not yet seen the book itself, but saw some stuff /articles about it online and if it’s not produced too bad I’ll totaly buy it (it’s only 18 Euros).

Through a colleague, Andrea Stultiens received several boxes with 3000 slides and after overseeing them all, she picked 45 pictures that show a couple over more than 3 decades spending their holidays in the mountains.

Again I think it’s quite  amazing what you can do with found footage and – if you edit your footage an interesting way- what kind of stories one can tell with these pictures. With “Komm, mein Maedchen, in die Berge”, Stultiens constructed a life, a whole world of that unknown couple and to me it’s also very emotional because in many pictures the connection between the two is so present that we, the observer of their live, turn also in witnesses of a big love.

Or maybe that wasn’t a big, lucky love at all? How can we know?

German daily FAZ has a nice online feature with audio interview here. They also did some research of the true history / identityof the two protagonists of the book. See the only german article here.

Here some more pictures:

What makes these photographs also noteworthy is the fact, that the husband who put the camera on the tripod seemed to have a good eye for framing the picture and plcing the couple in the wonderful landscapes of the alps.

I myself am also working on a found footage project about my family, still scanning and looking through the whole material, not knowing how and when this might end, but here some raw scans…

Dan Winters’ new book – Periodical photographs

Dan Winters has been one of my favourite photographers for some time now. I always considered him to be a master photographer, but I was surprised that he’s still quite young – only 38 I guess. What I like very much about Dan Winters is that he found a very special way how he uses light and how he shows his subjects. When I see a picture of him a can tell immediately that it must be his, and that is a quality and uniqueness you don’t find too often. He says:

“As photographers, we are hired for our opinions to a certain extent. It will be a visual take, a very subjective interpretation,” says Winters. “I really think the strongest ally (above any technique) any photographer can have is the ability to really look at something and formulate an opinion about it. My goal is to have enough freedom with my clients to know that I am using my judgment in the best way I can, and that they know I’m working hard for them.”

His subjects, he says, have compared sitting for him to ”going to the dentist. But in a good way. Not having root canal. Maybe just having X rays done.”

And there is another thing that is really special about Dan Winters: it seems that he does extremely tight edits, which means that he only sends 1 (!) picture to the magazine after a shoot. This is consistency!

When doing some research for this post I also came across of a lot of illustrations he also does, not only photographic illustrations but also hand-drawings. He’s really talented whith transforming strories and complex circumstances into interesting and sometimes even funny illustrations. Must be a big pleasure for an art director to work with him.

That last one is from a cool story for WIRED.

Now, Mr. Winters has a new book out called “Periodical Photographs” that shows is assignement work.

One of my favourite spreads:

Over at WTJ you find a flip-through through the book… I guess for people interested in book design and great portraits, this book will be a must have.

More articles on the book here and here.

PDN call him a legend and have a nice online presentation with interview here.

A last cite:

“I get up every day and that’s what I do, make photographs, whether I’m being paid to or not. I love it, love it, love it.”

More Links:

@ ppmag

http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2007/10/08/oh-god-not-dan-winters-again/

http://jankesnergallery.com/jkgartists/winters-dan.html

http://www.lamag.com/article.aspx?id=16884

ALL PHOTOGRAPHS IN THIS POST  COPYRIGHT DAN WINTERS.

Jussi Puikkonen

I just found the work of finnish (and now Amsterdam based) photographer Jussi Puikkonen and wanted to share it with you.

I first read about his book “on vacation”, that  shows vacation parks, ressorts, beaches etc. in the long, 9 months lasting finish winter period. You find some photos of the series here, you must scroll down then to see all pictures.

But I also like his fashion and portrait stuff. Born 1980, young big talent.

on photo books / book fair kassel, frankfurt and more

First of all, my friend Jenny Braun brought an interesting website to my attention:  25books.com , the website of a photo book store in Berlin.  They recommend some really interesting, non-mainstream books in small editions. I will definitely visit the store itself when I’m again in Berlin, hopefully soon! Seems to be a nice place.

As I was clicking through that website, I found a dutch publisher called kesselskramer, on 25books currently represented with a new book called “In every single picture 7″ . I found their books and the concepts behind them very entertaining/fresh/innovative and even funny, their programm is really worth checking out – and they are not even really expensive.

2 more things related to photo books: From the 15th-17th of may, there will be the FOTOBOOK FESTIVAL in Kassel with lectures, exhibitions and lots of photo book dummies (hopefully, one of my projects will be on disply there, too).

And then a note that comes quite late…at our school, the FH Dortmund, students in different courses produce quite a lot of books every year (photography, illustration, conceptual stuff or design in general). A selection of these books will be shown every year on the FH Dortmund booth at the book fair in Frankfurt. The selection 2008 has it’s own website with all selected books, unfortunately, only in german. See it here.

They also made a short video when selecting the books, here.

Richard Renaldi let’s strangers touch each other…

Those of you who are not familiar with Richard Renaldi’s work and books, please check his website. i love to click through his website as there are so many different photos and projects to see, though navigation is kind of irritating sometimes.

I wanna recommend his “Touching Strangers”  ( here ) series, where Renaldi asks people who don’t know each other to pose together for a photograph, touching each other in what form ever they like. Great concept.

Pieter Hugo – Nollywood

Pieter Hugo who became well known through his books such as “The Hyena and other man”  shot a new series that I like very much – “Nollywood” . He photographed actors and actresses in Nigeria where the 3rd largest movie industry (after Hollywood and Bollywood… )is located.

The series will be published in book form by Prestel in October 2009 – will buy it for sure!

Find more interesting informations on the project on his gallerists webiste here or by clicking the screenshot below.

By the way, Hugos website was updated recently, there are some ineresting new portraits there. In another blog I read that Hugo used to work together with Stefan Ruiz at Colors Magazine – no wonder I like both so much!

Schauraum exhibition in Dortmund

From Friday to Sunday, “schauraum” shows diploma works from 38 students of my school, the FH Dortmund. Among them my friends Julia Holtkoetter, Katharina Ficek and Maurice Kohl, who did a wonderful book showing portraits of young mongolian people, athletes, musicians etc.

Schauraum., FH Fortmund, Max-Ophüls-Platz 2, 44139 Dortmund, opening Friday, 13th of Feb, 12 p.m. , Sa & So 12 p.m.-6 p.m. www.schau-raum.net

Here some of Maurice’s work – he’ll update his website soon, so check it out.

Bergwerk Ost featured in new Reflektor magazine

hey everybody,

I was recently travelling and quite busy so there was not too much time for blogging…
But now the annual design magazine of the FH Dortmund is out! It’s called REFLEKTOR (watch it here) and my Bergwerk Ost series (the coalminers…) is featured with a selection of 6 photographs. It’s in english and german and is distributed allmost worldwide (get it at Amazon).