Our Thoughts >

Exhibition title: It's a Crime to Take Photographs this Good.

Artist: Weegee.

Gallery: The Michael Hoppen Gallery London. Ends Saturday 9th January. 

After spending much of the christmas break away from the London galleries I felt a rush of excitement when we scheduled the Weegee exhibition hosted at the Michall Hoppen Gallery this week. Taking his unique name from the dark arts of the 'Ouija' Board, Weegee's work is considered some of the finest and darkest photojournalism to grace the photographic practice. Though he never intended his work to be 'art' imagery, the spontaneity and careless nature of the images pull theses pictures into that exact category of artistic urban documentation. The mere fact that Weegee was commissioned to shoot the photography for Stanley Kubrick's Dr Strange Love 1964 shows just how much Weegee's unique uncanny image making transfers into one of the most successful and iconic films of all time.

I marveled for the best part of the show at the image above. A New York building on fire shot in the 1940's. Everything about the photograph is poetically eloquent, Weegee makes the fire dance and the act of distinguishing artistic, with a long exposure, Weegee captures the awkward movements of the burning heat. Movement, composition and light are the fundamental pieces that bond together to make this image a master class of what can only be said to be photography at it's very very best.

I looked into the distance of the image and saw the side street next to the building is lit so fantastically that in competes against the gradeur of the burning building itself. Just a tiny jewel inside a diamond stone. I never viewed Weegee's images in this way before as so often affiliated with his work are images of grotesque injury and death, the burning building seems to communicate a deep display of sensitivity, shot by a poet of light.

It's pure class.

A perfect introduction to the year

http://www.michaelhoppengallery.com/exhibition,current,2,0,0,0,77,0,0,0,weegee_it_s_a_crime_to_take_photographs_this_good....html

Lynne Cohen - Cover

2009, Publisher - Le Point Du Jour

Price £30 - £35  from - The Photographers Gallery, London.

This is Lynne Cohen’s first book that shows her colour work,  a dramatic shift from her earlier black & white photography. The book is titled ‘Cover’ which may literally make the viewer link both the covered and the un-covered possible themes with in the pages.

Cohen’s rendition removes all human presence and concentrates the image of the interior environment. We are never given knowledge of the usage of the spaces although we are offered a peek clandestine look into the aesthetics of the places. A sense of covert secrecy is inherent through-out the project. The interiors often feel like transient places, spaces that change when occupied by the human. We get a deep sense that maybe these spaces seem less friendly when man has left and maybe it is a comment about the reason’s why we make these spaces so banal and equally sterile, in it's reflection on the way we live and places we occupy. 

Her work lends itself to large format prints that the book sometimes feels restrictive. Her work can be seen in all its splendor at the James Hyman Gallery on Saville Row until 23^rd December.

www.jameshymangallery.com

www.lynne-cohen.com

The book ‘cover’ can be purchased from The Photographers Gallery Bookshop, London.

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Lee Friedlander - MOMA.

2009, Publisher - The Museum of Modern Art

Price £35 from - 125 Gallery Bookshop, London, 51 Great Eastern St.

This book has to be the most value for money object I have purchased in the last decade. A hefty 6kg of 480 pages, celebrating one of the most seminal American photographers since the beginning of the media itself, for the price of a mere £35.

You can buy this bargain book and others at the 125 Gallery on Great Eastern Street until January 31^st.

The space also hosts a whole series of images that the magazine has collected since its creation which also have a poignant reflection on the year 2009.

You can view more information here:

www.125world.com/?p_id=300&pg=390

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THANKING ALL THE CONTRIBUTORS TO PHOTOGRAPHY & MASH THAT UPLOADED THEIR HEROIC AND BEAUTIFUL WORK IN 2009

MOVING INTO 2010, WE ARE EXCITED TO CELEBRATE THE LOVE OF PHOTOGRAPHY AND THE TALENT WITHIN YOURSELFS.

LOVE AND ART WILL CHANGE THE WORLD.

PHOTOGRAPHY AND MASH.  X

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Pete & Repeat

Thinking, Thinking, Thinking.

What to buy, what to buy, what to buy. What to say, what to say, what to say.

The Zabludowicz collection, Camden 176 Prince of Wales street has given us another treat in an exhibition that balances on the circumference of  ‘Repetition’  in this landmark 2009 exhibition ‘Pete & Repeat’. The show has already been going for well over a month and will end on December 13^th.Next week! 

Without distilling the already eloquently tackled subject of repetition in this exhibition with some kind of profound statement about ideas of modern 21^st century mundanity and repetition, the work in show not only reflects a vast post-modernist outlook on the cycle of life and the representation of objects that profoundly makes us reflect on our own boundaries and comfortable routines.In this sublimely exciting exhibition space, which coincidentally is a retired chapel/church, we are presented with room after room after room of a consortium of photography, sculpture and film. It becomes our job to pick through and find the repetition in the concept and when we leave the space we are then left alone to find the repetition in our own self.

Thought of the week:

The gallery created a limited run of 500 handmade screen printed exhibition guides. The contents of which talk about notable artists like Paul Pfeitter - 24 landscapes and Bernd and hilla behar - Water Towers 1979 - 2005.

The book is a charmingly crafted homage to the great work in the show and also celebrates luminary writers that have already commented on the issue of repetition. Essay’s included are Samual Beckett’s - Molloy and the great Friedrich Nietzsche - Of Vision and The Riddle. By displaying these great writer’s the book shifts the experience of repetition from the gallery space to a very real and fluid notion. Making us re-think the simplicity of our life’s as a very automated system.After this read you will go forth and break free from the self expanding foam that is cushioning and impairing our freedom. Apparently we are free! Quote by Nietzsche. 

Website Address - http://www.projectspace176.com/projects/pete-and-repeat/

Love & Peace. 

Photography & Mash. 

This year has seen a new home for the internationally recognised Photographers Gallery. Expanding its capacity over three floors, this cave of white has already hosted exhibitions like Simon Foxton, The Deutsche Börse Photography Prize  and Andrea kertesz. This month see’s the arrival of the first Magnum photographer to grace the walls of this new build. Jim Goldberg offers the public a sentimental photo essay titled ‘Open See’

The photographic quality of the exhibition is rightly it’s strongest attribute. An overt interest in the primordial nature of instinctual survival, Goldin captures quietly, man in his most basic state. Photographing people who have abandoned their homeland country fleeing from war and poverty. Goldin tells us the on going struggle and survival for man in the 21^st century. Just when we thought that peace was favored in a collective society, we are reminded that man has not moved much further in his quest for sympathetic reconciliation.  At points in the exhibition the images may be dominating in exploitation but still this remains true to the subject matter in its honest depiction.

Goldin is at his best when positioning man in the environment. Showing people salvaging debris or simply documenting their escapism, Goldin moves the gallery into a very desperate place when positioning these ethereal images around the space. Shot in the morning light, we are offered a romantic authentic quality that sells us the brutality of the environment in a very poetic seductive way. This is pushed away at times by the unorthodox display of the show, hanging large format photography, 35mm and Polaroid in a scrap book style arrangement. The viewer is thus forced to deal with the images in their own environment creating a pensive interaction between viewer and subject. The show then becomes either heavily embracive or easily passive.

Magnum, the bastion of the photographic world, offers a contemporary look into the age-old notion of war and consequence. Open See becomes the reminder of all the things western media and western civilization wants to quickly hide and forget. The show will run until January, it be a injustice to the exhibition to be missed.

You can now view a list of art schools present on photography&mash in our online gallery. If you want to get involved just sign up or log in and then select your art school and your work will automatically appear.

Currently, we have work from: Edinburgh College of Art; University College Falmouth; University of Sunderland; Sheffield Hallam University; University of Brighton; London College of Communication; Central St. Martin's.

We're building a great collection of fine art photography on the website, thanks to everyone who's uploaded work. Last month nearly 2,000 visitors enjoyed the gallery.

Represent!

Thanks and bye for now

Brendan & Alex

Hi, Alex here.

Just thought I'd share the fact that I've jacked in my job and will be running a web design and development firm from next month. 

Here's our website: http://www.alwaysmaking.com/

We've done a couple of sites for photographers so if you know of any more or fancy a site yourself feel free to get in touch. We have a 'one page website' package that could be good for a sort of 'business card' website that you can put your details and portfolio on.

I appreciate your time

Alex.

After the recent change of the website we have been updating events and functions like mad!!

We developed a logo ( Top Left ) in the mêlée of creating the site.

Until now we have been pretty happy with it, but pretty is not good for the creative restless demanding team we are!!! 

Soooooo were asking YOU what you think of it, Please take the time to give us your feedback. And any other thing you may suggest. We do have a new logo ready to rock and role but we wanted to check to see what your thinking first!

Love & Peace.

Photography & Mash. 

There’s been some phenomenal work on the site recently. That’s put the fire in us to get cracking on some new features that have been in the pipeline a while!!!

If you’ve added new work since yesterday you’ll see that this process is a little easier. This is the first of a few changes in this area of the site – soon you’ll be able to move around images and edit projects in general a bit easier.

Most of the other changes were minor tweaks, although there’s a new projects page in the gallery.

In the next few weeks we’re going to make it easier to explore work on the site. We’re also going to look at driving more traffic here to look at the fantastic work – mainly through promotion online and by sending automatic notifications via our twitter account for new work or thingswelike.

As ever, if you have any ideas get in touch.

Hello and thanks to all the new members!!!

Alex.

Last week we removed our ‘invite-only’ sign up to make it easier to join. Since then we’ve had an influx of new members – 50 new photographers have signed up this week alone and the work on display has been stunning.

We’ve always hoped that Photography&Mash will become an essential resource for emerging photographers – whether you want to post or view the latest photography exhibitions, look for useful, inspirational or interesting links, get an opinion on equipment or create an elegant public profile to display your work. All those features rely on this site becoming a hub for those that value quality photography – something that I think we have taken the first step towards!

If you have ideas for improvements or new features or spot anything you have a question on feel free to get in touch with me.

For now, take care

Alex.

alex[at]photographyandmash.com

Hello everyone.

We’re in the process of cleaning up the look and feel of p&m and will be putting the changes live this weekend. The site should be a lot easier to use and there will be a focus on letting the images breathe more with plenty of white space and a cleaner gallery feel. We’ll be experimenting with different ways of displaying the ThingsWeLike and Events pages and will also be looking at how managing your profile can be improved. As ever, we are open to suggestions about how the site works, after all, it is the community that brings these pages to life.

Note that there will be a small outage on Sunday afternoon whilst site is upgraded with the new changes. I’ll write another post once the work is complete.

Until then,

Alex

Turn off the music, Put the computer to sleep, Get your shoes on and go to the TATE modern now! 

Robert Frank has 9 of his original contact sheets from 'The Americans'. 

I can safely say it's an euphoric feeling, I hope you find comfort in these too. 

http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/ 

Here's a rare podcast of Robert on The Americans. Ignore the annoying voice of the women, what she's saying is actually a good contextualization of 'The Americans' 

http://luxmedia.vo.llnwd.net/o10/clients/nationalgallery/audio/020309lect01.mp3

Brendan

Hello all.

Recently we’ve added a couple of new features including ThingsWeLike and an improved Events page with detailed listings of UK photography exhibitions.

The next big change will be how your artist profile pages work. We’ve identified a load of things that could be easier/quicker/more intuitive related to uploading your work and managing your profile and we’ll be rolling these out over the next few weeks.

Finally, we have a major redesign in progress which will give the site a cleaner feel and make it easier to navigate. If you have any suggestions on this please get in touch!

Bye for now,
Alex.

alex[at]photographyandmash.com

Sorry all - today we suffered an outage linked to a configuration change made last night. If you tried to visit the site today and saw an error message then apologies.

The site is now available again but the search feature has been taken offline whilst we resolve the root cause of the outage.

So far the site has been stable but since we are still running the site in our spare time it can take a few hours to get round to fixing problems like this. Please bear with us!

This weekend we'll be making some more changes, more details to follow, but in the meantime if you spot any problems with the site don't hesitate to contact us.

With peace,

Alex.

Are you looking for a central source of good photography links that changes daily? Do you want to start a discussion on a photography-related topic? Do you want to start a discussion on a non-photography-related topic? Are you just bored at work or uni looking for some way to sift through the mélange of crap that weighs down the internet?

We've made a new section called ThingsWeLike, right now it's a blank canvas and we want the community to determine what goes on here, anyone can submit a link or start a discussion there and we've got no idea what's going to happen. Help us build it out, click submit when you get there and fire away.

Happy browsing,

Alex.

Looking for some visual indulgence this weekend?

Check our Events page for London Photography Exhibitions that are on this weekend.

If you know of any more, please go ahead and submit them (you must be a member to do this) and we'll get them on there.

Enjoy the remainder of the week,

Alex.

Creatives!

If you look in the top right of the screen you will see that we have a new feature - search. This text box is a gateway to the underbelly of photography&mash, typing a word/phrase there and pressing enter will yield a list of photographers, images, projects, events and blog posts that match your criteria. 

Some bank holiday visuals. 

This is a guest post by Dave Hendley, senior photography tutor at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design.

I can safely lay claim to the fact that photography and music have been the only unswerving passions in my life, yet while I have written extensively about the later I have carefully avoided expressing in words my feelings about the former.

Photography’s realm is by nature an elusive and unruly place and this confusion is reflected by the many contradictory academic theories on the medium generated since the mid 20^th century. Photographers are not by nature theorists or verbal communicators so most of this interpretation and re-contextualization comes from non-photographers residing in their own academic vacuum.

Although this may seem like stating the obvious, the act of photography (as is generally perceived) can be described as a procedure that is a formed from two primary processes. The first is the highly regulated parametric process of physics that uses a lens to gather light reflected from a spatial area of reality in order to record an image of that reality onto a photosensitive surface.

The second element of process is biometric; it is that of the apparatus/camera operator who uses their eyes and brain to decide what to frame.  Intention, emotion, intellect, knowledge and culture all, to varying degrees, play a decisive role in this process.

The photographic image is the final result of this interaction (that is a process in itself) between a system of physics and the human system of perception.

Michel Frizot (2007) in his eloquent essay ‘Who’s Afraid of Photons?’ suggests that we need to adopt a realistic definition of what photography actually is. He articulates this concept of photography as photons accumulated on a sensitive surface within a measured quantity of time (exposure) in detail to argue the case for digital photographs, where only the initial recording is formed by light (the photographic object/print generated, unlike an analog image, is generally not made by a photosensitive process, although modern processes like Lambda printing use light sensitive papers and can be regarded as photographic in the traditional understanding).

For me this definition of photography as a union of physics and human cognition provides a very clear starting point for understanding what lies at the heart of the medium. Again this may well seem to be obvious statement but over the past 12 years I have worked with many students, particularly at postgraduate level, who have not been able, or willing, to grasp this simple concept of photography and expect to visually articulate the most complex ideas (many not even suitable for visual expression) without any understanding of the fundamental photographic language.

As a child I learned these principles in a very rudimentary way by observing my dad take photographs on the annual family holiday to Bognor Regis.

My dad only ever took pictures once a year, and habitually using 64 ISO Kodachrome. Economics dictated that only the one roll a year was ever purchased, 36 exposures if funds allowed and 24 if cash was scarce. The exposures were made economically over the two-week period with only notable places and events considered as worthy of being photographed.

One year in the absence of his favored emulsion he bought a roll of Agfachrome and from the disappointing results I understood a little about colour balance and of how different films had their own semiotic peculiarities which effected emotional response to an image. Although only a child, I still can recall that theses Agfa slides had a blue bias that made me view the photographs with an air of slight melancholy – Even the blue and white striped Agfa box did not seem to me as cheery as the deep yellow the Kodak packaging.

The very simplicity of my dad’s Iford Sportsman made the concept of exposure and focus very easy to understand. There was no light meter or rangefinder so exposure decisions were guided by the sunny/cloudy/shade icons on the film’s information sheet. Focus was set manually on the lens and calculated by using the depth of field scale.

On reflection I must have sub-consciously taken all this on board at an early age in a very effortless way. Ironically many years later it is teaching these basic principles that is one of the banes of my life as the over complicated menu systems and electronics of modern digital cameras seem to willfully hinder the understanding of photography’s fundamentals. This situation is further exasperated by the inpatient idiocy of would be photographers who buy these complex objects of fantasy without considering any need to read the instruction manual.

My own journey in photography, and my fascination with its ambiguous and impossibly elusive nature, was certainly sub-consciously activated by a fascination with my dad’s holiday slides and the rudimentary understanding that things look different once they are represented by photographs

I can remember the excitement in the house whenever a yellow package of slides with the Wimbledon postmark was returned from Kodak’s lab.

As we did not have a projector family members had to wait in turn to see each transparency dimly illuminated in a small Patterson viewer. My brother and I were last in the pecking order and I can recall to this day the feelings of hopeful anticipation that the camera had faithfully recorded the precious details of our holiday that were peculiarly significant to me.

More often than not the backlit image viewed did not align exactly with the mental picture that I held of the event. It did not disappoint, but in fact it invested these fragments of the real world with a surreal beauty that somehow resulted not just from the subject itself but how it looked once it was photographed.

All these years on from the early 1960s I still find that photography remains just as beguiling, and its inherently reflective quality possesses more power to move me than any other of the visual mediums.

Looking at good photography continues to keep me on the straight and narrow, and reminds me of my humanity when I all too often stray too far from the path.

Reference

Frizot.M  ‘Who’s Afraid of Photons?’ - Elkins.J. ed (2007) 1^st ed. Photography Theory. New York: Routledge 

We have been working hard to get the upload button sorted and today we can safely say that everything is now working again. Please accept our apologies if things don't work perfectly at this early stage of development. 

Tucked away in the heart of the Brixton market an exhibition has been running in the Photofusion gallery that redefines the power of portrait photography. 

We've been live in 'beta' mode for just over two weeks now and we'd like to thank everybody for their feedback so far. In particular, Nathalie, Katie and Chris have made a number of suggestions that we are busy integrating in to the site.

This weekend we gave every member 10 invites, meaning you can now invite any friends to the site. Please feel free to send these out to any photographers you know who may be interested in joining this young community!

Image Upload Problems

Thanks to everyone that contacted us about the image upload method failing on some browsers. The problem is due to a security-patch in the new version of Flash Player (v10), which breaks the component we are using (the error you can expect is below). The vendor are releasing a new version of the component that we should have running on the site in the next couple of days. Until then, if you are able to use a browser with an older version of Flash you will be able to upload images. Apologies for this.

"Error: Error #2176: Certain actions, such as those that display a 
pop-up window, may only be invoked upon user interaction, for example 
by a mouse click or button press.
at flash.net::FileReferenceList/browse()
at 
SWFUpload/SelectFiles()[C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\other\swfupload\FlashDevelop\Flash9\SWFUpload.as:407]
at Function/http://adobe.com/AS3/2006/builtin::apply()
at flash.external::ExternalInterface$/_callIn()
at <anonymous>()"

Signing off,

Alex.

Who can possibly write anything profound about the prestigious Magnum agency that hasn't already been said?

On Tuesday 28th April we debarked on a great adventure, me and a group of creative students visited the infamous Magnum Agency in London. An eclectic mix of Central Saint Martins ‘cool kids’, contour tutors and a kaleidoscope of images made by some of the greatest photographers in the world. There's something to marvel at being in the company of so many great images as well as being in the company of potentially some fantastic emerging talent. Sitting with like-minded image makers, under the roof of the godfather of archival photography, brought me great hope in the battle for the longevity of the photographic media.

The essence of the meeting conjured up the current question about digital vs film. The general consensus was that digital photography, at the rate it is increasing in quality, would eventually filter into the likes of agencies like Magnum and the other photographic societies. The big debate is still the question, will it over take the usage of film photography all together?

One thing that was mentioned by the archival manager was that the over usage of digital imagery will make specialized film and film cameras become more and more expensive with the reduction of the amount of films being made in the future, resulting in the amount of digital image makers increasing. Those who will stay faithful to film photography will find it harder in terms of cost and availability. Whether this will deter people from using film is a matter of time.

My personal view is that the organic nature of the process of film images will triumph over the ease of the digital device. It’s the ease of taking a digital image that makes the image somehow venerable to disposability. There seems to be nothing precious about archiving a digital Pixel. Not like storing away an old negative. A product that proves that the image displayed on its transparent film is a documentation of a lived moment or a documented event. I struggle to fall in love with on screen pixels. It’s this totality of evident proof through holding a product like a negative that makes the process of film images so rewarding.

The visit to Magnum showed me that the beauty of image making is still appreciated within its widest context. It brings hope to areas of photographic practice that are still supported by company’s like Magnum. It is evident that ‘Art’ and photography can live side by side in  21^st century image making. After seeing a selection of contemporary photographers from Magnum, it is evident that the rich tapestry of non-commercial photography is still as great as it ever was. I would like to think that Photography & Mash has a part to play in the next century and beyond in harboring young image makers who want to be part of this rich tapestry.

The grandeur of the images at Magnum shows the power that Photography can still conjure in the 21^st century. Magnum must remain a beacon for all photographers, young and old. It is a reminder of how far photography has come and the exciting journey that lay ahead.

Brendan Olley

Co-Founder of Photography & Mash

Visit Magnum In Motion http://inmotion.magnumphotos.com/

We have included some selected Photography events in London.

We hope you find this area of the site useful. 

Please feel free to give ANY feedback at: 

 talktous@photographyandmash.com

Enjoy the sun! 

The Photography & Mash Team.