Women in Photography at Aperture

Tomorrow there's a panel discussion about Women in Photography at Aperture that I highly recommend.

Women In Photography
Spotlight

Tuesday, September 30, 2008
6:30 p.m.

Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555

Women In Photography is a new online venue showcasing work by contemporary female photographers and providing a vital platform for support and the exchange of ideas. Join WIP co-founders Cara Philips and Amy Elkins, alongside noted contributing photographers Robin Schwartz and Elinor Carucci, for lively discussion of their work and what it means to be a woman in photography today. Moderated by Laurel Ptak, Aperture's Educational Programs Manager.

Art Under the Bridge

The Dumbo Arts Center (DAC) is presenting the 12th Annual Dumbo Art Under the Bridge Festival ™

NYC’s big FREE urban forum for experimental art.
60+ new artworks in public space, neighborhood-wide open studios and non-stop new video art at video_dumbo.

September 26 - 28, 2008

Over the festival weekend, art will be happening everywhere in Dumbo: streets, sidewalks, storefronts, elevators, lobbies, the water, the waterfront, parks, nooks, crannnies, on the NY Water Taxi, and more. Along with the 65+ new public art projects, over 100 local artists will open their studios to the public and at the new Galapagos Art Space, video_dumbo will feature a non-stop program of cutting edge video art from NYC and around the world.

Opening night on Friday, September 26 will include the following events:

1. POLITAOKE: Hop on board the NY Water Taxi for FREE (every 30 minutes between 7 and 9 pm) at the Fulton Ferry Landing to participate in Diana Arce’s Politaoke (www.politaoke.com) - POLITcal speeches as karAOKE), where you too can deliver the great rhetoric of today’s most important politicians.
2. HACK THE DEBATE - 3D!: Galapagos Art Space, 16 Main Street: video_dumbo presents Current TV’s “Hack the Debate,” an interactive broadcast of the first presidential debate. For visual enhancement, video_dumbo will transform the Broadcast into 3D! “Hack the Debate” will, for the very first time, integrate real-time Twitter messages (aka “tweets”) over major portions of a live television broadcast. As Twitter users tweet throughout the course of the live broadcasts, Current and Twitter will collect comments regarding the debate and layer the individual messages over the debate feed.

   In addition, the debate will appear in three-dimensional space, based on a new polarized filter technique called Chroma-depth®. Ironically, this stereoscopic system is based on the colors RED and BLUE. Each object displayed in those colors will create the illusion of either protrude out of the screen, or retract behind the screen - creating a true stage for this political theater. More at videodumbo.org/opening-night.html, current.com/debate, twitter.com/current.

3. US premiere of The Snow White Project by Catherine Baÿ might be: check out the live performance at 111 Front Street, Room 202, (fiaf.org) from 7 - 9 pm.

More details at: dumboartfestival.org

Photolucida Critical Mass

From Photolucida, "The aim of Critical Mass, and all Photolucida programming, is to provide participants with career-building opportunities and to promote the best emerging and mid-career artists working today.

Critical Mass is a program about exposure and community. The idea is simple- photographers (from anywhere) submit a 10 image portfolio for $75. This work then gets pre-screened by a committee of 25 great jurors and from there, 175 top finalists are determined. These top finalists then pay an additional submission fee and their work goes on to a jury of approximately 200 of the world's best curators, editors, and professionals who have agreed to vote on these finalists. From these votes, two or three photographers receive book awards and once the monographs are published, everyone who enters and reviews will receive copies of the books."

Mary Virginia Swanson has some advice about entering:

"My best advice: submit 10 images that are coherent as a group. EDIT! Each image should add to the strength of the submission; don’t throw a curve ball into the submission, to show how broad your capabilities are… Carefully consider which image you elect to identify as “signature” from the submission, which will be used on the checklist we receive. If the selection of images you submit comes from a larger project or series, tell us. Provide us with titles. Write about your work with clarity."

Stripeman Gallery Call for Entry

Stripeman Gallery invites artists to submit work for the Kings and Queens group show, opening on October 10, 2008. This opening coincides with Second Fridays, the monthly program led by the Williamsburg Gallery Association to encourage visitors, where 36 galleries keep their doors open until 9 PM, or later.

Entries must be postmarked no later than tomorrow, Tuesday, September 23.

ETA: The deadline has been extended to Wednesday, October 1.

Rachel Hulin's new blog

The recent and regrettable demise of Photoshelter Collection also means the end of Rachel Hulin's clever and informative posts on Shoot!TheBlog. Here's an interview with her on Heather Morton's blog. I haven't had a chance to check out Rachel's new blog until now and I'm happy to see it has the same charm.

Jill Greenberg shows her version of John McCain

Then Jill Greenberg shot the version below for her website:

When The Atlantic called Jill Greenberg, a committed Democrat, to shoot a portrait of John McCain for its October cover, she rubbed her hands with glee.

She delivered the image the magazine asked for—a shot that makes the Republican presidential nominee look heroic. Greenberg is well known for her highly retouched images of bears and crying babies. But she didn’t bother to do much retouching on her McCain images. “I left his eyes red and his skin looking bad,” she says.

After getting that shot, Greenberg asked McCain to “please come over here” for one more set-up before the 15-minute shoot was over. There, she had a beauty dish with a modeling light set up. “That’s what he thought he was being lit by,” Greenberg says. “But that wasn’t firing.”

What was firing was a strobe positioned below him, which cast the horror movie shadows across his face and on the wall right behind him. “He had no idea he was being lit from below,” Greenberg says. And his handlers didn’t seem to notice it either. “I guess they’re not very sophisticated,” she adds.

The Atlantic didn’t select the diabolical looking McCain for its cover. Greenberg is hoping to license that image to some other magazine (she negotiated a two-week embargo with The Atlantic so she could re-license images from the shoot before the election).

Warned that the image is just the kind of thing that will stir up the anti-media vitriol in the conservative blogosphere, Greenberg said, “Good. I want to stir stuff up, but not to the point where I get audited if he becomes president.”

That said, she goes on to explain that she’s thought about replacing McCain’s mouth with bloody shark teeth and displaying the image on a billboard with the message that the candidate is a bloodthirsty war monger.

Given her strong feelings about John McCain, we asked whether she had any reservations about taking the assignment in the first place.

“I didn’t,” she says. “It’s definitely exciting to shoot someone who is in the limelight like that. I am a pretty hard core Democrat. Some of my artwork has been pretty anti-Bush, so maybe it was somewhat irresponsible for them [The Atlantic] to hire me.”

The follow-up from PDN, "After our posting Friday, media outlets around the country picked up our story. Hundreds of you (including, evidently, a lot of first-time PDN readers) posted comments. The reaction was overwhelmingly critical of Greenberg. Even among professional photographers, many said Greenberg acted unprofessionally.

Atlantic editor James Bennet released a statement saying Greenberg "disgraced herself, and we are appalled by the manipulated images she has created for her Web site of John McCain." He told Fox News that the magazine would not pay Greenberg for the shoot and was considering legal action. The writer of The Atlantic's cover story, Jeffrey Goldberg, wrote on his blog that Greenberg "betrayed this magazine, and disgraced her profession."

Bill Hannigan of VAUGHAN HANNIGAN tells PDN today that the agency is no longer representing Greenberg, a decision that was "mutually agreed upon." UPDATE: Greenberg has also left the Montage Agency and is now repped by ArtMix Photography.

(With the upcoming Election 2008 Art Gotham show coming up in October, I've been looking at how photography and images of the candidates have been used. This one of John McCain certainly has me chuckling.)

How to Collect Photography

Yesterday I attended a panel discussion on how to collect affordable photography hosted by Aperture. It was moderated by the lovely and photogenic Laurel Ptak (more on this later), Aperture's Educational Programs Manager, Kellie McLaughlin of Aperture's Limited-Edition Photographs Program, Amani Olu, founder and executive director of the Humble Arts Foundation and Director of the Bond Street Gallery, collector Ruben Natal-San Miguel of ARTmostfierce arts blog, and photographer Brian Ulrich.

Although the discussion was geared towards first-time and young collectors, I attended hoping to learn what sort of advice was given to collectors and how, as a photographer, I might fit into that. The basic and obvious advice given was "To buy what you love". I was especially struck by Amani Olu's description of how he founded Humble Arts Foundation; it was simply a desire to host online group shows of photographers he admired without regard to their market value. "If I look at a photograph I just ask myself if I like it or not. I don't worry about whether it will sell." He did admit to some new challenges to this philosophy now as director of the commercial Bond Street Gallery. It will be interesting to see how he balances both roles.

I had the wonderful opportunity of meeting Ruben Natal-San Miguel, one of the most approachable, enthusiastic and charming art collectors I've come across. He was very passionate about photography (which he now exclusively collects) and advised potential collectors to do their homeowrk by thoroughly researching artists. With the presence of the web, almost all information regarding artists/art fairs/events can be found. He also cautioned, "If you see a limited edition photograph you think you may want buy it before it's too late. Time is of the essence."

The main conclusion of the evening was that technology has resulted in a paradigm shift that has helped to circumvent the gallery system in many respects. The informational resources we have access to has made collecting art and photography more democratic.

Tina Fey is back

17 Year Old Fashion Photographer

From Jezebel; "When you hear the words "17-year-old fashion photographer" your gag reflex probably goes into effect, especially when you learn that her mother's a fashion writer who started bringing her along to shows when she was in grade school. But Isabelle Erb actually seems like a nice kid who's super passionate about photography. She's homeschooled, and "instead of dashing off to St. Bart’s on school breaks, Isabelle has gone on church missions to Malawi and New Orleans." Isabelle is a photographer for the website totallycool.net. and something of a mascot to the other shutterbugs in "The Pit," which, incidentally, sounds horrible. Are we pettily aware of how good this will look on a college application? Yes. But do we resent it? Not as much as usual!"

Stock Photography Photoshelter is closing

This is the notice I received:

THE PHOTOSHELTER COLLECTION IS CLOSING
OFFICIAL STATEMENT - SEPTEMBER 11, 2008

"Today, we regret to announce our plans to close The PhotoShelter Collection, our stock photography marketplace, effective October 10, 2008.

Going forward, PhotoShelter will focus our energy and resources on enhancing the PhotoShelter Personal Archive our original product that today provides thousands of photographers worldwide with bulletproof backup storage and robust ecommerce capabilities for managing image sales online. We will continue our commitment to developing new ways to use technology to advance the art and business of photography.

Just one year ago, we started the PhotoShelter Collection with a mission to change the image marketplace for good. Our objective was to provide an unprecedented selection of fresh, diverse, and authentic imagery culled from a global community of thousands of photographers, while bucking industry standards by treating our contributing artists fairly. Rather quickly, we built a unique position in the industry, fueled by integrity and a true passion for photography.

The PhotoShelter Collection became a haven where photographers could find a better deal based on our 70/30 revenue split, and access to professional insights directly from world class image buyers. Buyers welcomed the Collection as a much needed alternative - whether they liked the access to content never before seen, or simply because they appreciated our approach to better treatment for photographers.

Our unique approach, however, was insufficient to change buyer behavior on a grand scale and generate revenues quickly enough to satisfy our goals for this product line. Hence, our decision is to close the Collection. "

That last paragraph is so telling.

Anatomy of a Magazine Story

Via APE, Wired is giving everyone a look behind the magazine making curtain with a new blog called Storyboard.

"When we started talking about building this site last year, one of the first ideas that came up in our brainstorming meetings was the need/desire to "pull back the curtain" on the process of making (writing for, photographing for, designing for, producing) magazines. As the SPD continues to grow and expand its mission deeper into educational realms, the notion of (radical) transparency has stayed front and center in my mind. Heck, our magazine wrote a cover story about the trend back in our April 2007 issue.

Fast-forward to this summer. My friend and colleague, Jason Tanz, pitched a story at a WIRED editorial meeting about screenwriter Charlie Kaufman, he of Being John Malkovich/Adaptation/Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind fame. Charlie's a WIRED guy and has a new movie coming out, his directorial debut, Synecdoche. And as I'm sure you'll remember, his work is all about the search for meaning in the process itself. Very GEB: it's about the systems, the way the act of doing is meaning. In Adaptation, Nicholas Cage's character (Charlie Kaufman) writes himself into his own adaptation of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief. We get to see the sausage-making and boy, is it fascinating.

Ok, so how did we get from there to here?

As is normal, we all chit-chat about the writing, our goals, the shoot, the layout, how we want the thing to turn out. Jason and I were at a little happy hour last week and got to talking about our hopes for the profile, since the very fact that Charlie had granted access was itself a coup. We're both big fans, but moreover, we've been wanting to do a little form-breaking.

Jason had the notion that we should inject some "Charlie Kaufman" into the making of the profile, go a little meta on the thing. That we walk our own talk. I was hooked. And so was Jason's editor, Nancy Miller. We got to planning. "What if we showed how we produced this story?" "What would happen if we broke the rules, we put the whole thing online as we produced it?" "What if we posted the edit--hell, the rough draft." "What if we posted the pitch letter?" "What if we posted the emails about the pitch letter?" "What if Charlie sees it?" "What if he hates the draft and refuses to cooperate for the rest of the reporting?" "What then?" "What if there was more story about the story than in the story itself?"

You can see where we went. And so, you can see where this blog is going.

And so here we are. A grand experiment.

It's all going online. Everything. Here, on this blog.

Stay tuned."

Upcoming events

A list of some upcoming openings and events that may interest you:

Alessandra Sanguinetti at Yossi Milo Gallery, NYC.
The Life that Came
September 4–October 18, 2008
Artist's Reception: Friday, September 12, 6:00–8:00pm
Yossi Milo Gallery
525 West 25th Street, NYC


Events:

Aperture Gallery Presents: Collector's Workshop: Introduction to Affordable Photography
Amani Olu from WIP sponor Humble Arts Foundation speaks.
Moderated by Laurel Ptak
Tuesday, September 16, 2008 | 6:30 p.m.
Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555


Aperture Gallery Presents: Women In Photography Panel Discussion
WIP Founders Amy Elkins & Cara Phillips speak with WIP artists, Elinor Carucci & Robin Swartz
Moderated by Laurel Ptak.

Tuesday, September 30, 2008 | 6:30 p.m.
Aperture Gallery
547 West 27th Street, 4th Floor
New York, New York
(212) 505-5555


CCNY Presents: Erika Larsen
Oct. 7th 2008 7 p.m.
School of Visual Arts Amphitheater
209 east 23rd street
Amphitheater
$10 general public, $5 students with ID,
free to SVA students, students and faculty and CCNY members.

Call for Artists Art Gotham

Art Gotham is looking for artists for its annual Square Foot Show/Election 2008.

"Politics and art? As impossible a mix as oil and water? Not necessarily. Has there ever been a more powerful anti war message than Picasso’s Guernica? The last year has shown that Americans want to engage in politics again. We do care what happens here and abroad. To celebrate the excitement now bubbling as the coming election approaches, Art Gotham chose the timely theme “Election 2008” for its annual Square Foot Show, which opens Saturday, October 25th and runs through Saturday, November 8th, 2008. Artists were provided with 12x12 canvases, and asked to think politically as they create works for the show. Nothing like a tough assignment for producing amazing results.

All artists will start from square one, a uniform 12x12 inch canvas, to create a fresh, new work from any medium (yes, photography and sculpture included). Canvases will be offered on a first come, first serve basis for $35 each which also includes the canvas, advertising, publicity, reception and art installation costs. All forms of payment accepted. Each artist can include up to six works of art. You can send a friend to pick up a canvas for you. Canvases/entry to the exhibit can also be given as a gift to an artist.

You will set the price to sell your Square Foot artwork! You will also be given a clear cover notebook insert to include your bio, resume, information on your art, images of your work, your website etc for collectors and curators to read more about you. ART GOTHAM’s Square Foot Show will be an excellent opportunity for you to promote your art to collectors, curators and and other gallery visitors. You will also meet many other artists. Art Gotham will choose artists for future solo shows from this group exhibit as well. This is a benefit for artists: you will receive 50% of the sale proceeds based on the price you set to sell the work."

REGISTRATION/CANVAS PICK-UP DATES
Saturday, September 6th 1pm – 5pm

Sunday, September 7th 1pm – 5pm

Friday, September 12th 1pm - 5pm

Saturday, September 13th 1pm – 5pm

Sunday, September 14th 1pm – 5pm

More details can be found here.

More from Isolation/identity

I'm continuing with my Isolation/identity project. The image above is a woman I met while in Amsterdam. The morning light filtering into her dining room had a wonderful quality so that's where she was photographed.

Art Crawl with Aperture

Last Thursday I went on an art crawl featuring Aperture artists' openings from Michal Chelbin, Paul Fusco, Josef Koudelka, and Polixeni Papapetrou. I was particularly drawn to Chelbin's portraits. Her subjects gaze calmly at the viewer, bathed in a gentle and hazy European light.

The exhibit is described as, "Exposing the world of performers and wrestlers across Ukraine, Eastern Europe, England, and Israel, Michal Chelbin reveals images that are both odd and ordinary to their viewers. The settings, costumes, and even some of the subjects themselves may seem exotic, but her portraits manage to unearth familiarity in the lives of her subjects. Strangely Familiar presents human stories from everyday life, those that exist in the space between fantasy and reality. By capturing her subjects in natural settings apart from their lives as performers, Chelbin creates a private moment for those who are living very public lives.

The exhibition coincides with the publication by Aperture of the monograph Strangely Familiar (essay by Leah Ollman), which presents the complete project."

ETA: Here's a post about Chelbin's work.

II Amerika

My dear (and talented) friends are in a group show at ICP called II Amerika. The opening reception is on Friday, September 12, 7-9pm.

The photographers in this collection exemplify the cross-cultural nature of America. While living here- whether American born, foreign immigrants or just passing through - each one represents a facet of this diverse society and has a unique take on its culture. There is more here than just a geographical link; each photograph in some way addresses the nature of American life. These pictures are grounded in a particular American reality, a ‘New Americana’ if you like. Regarding the collection, Robert Stevens, former international photo editor at TIME and current ICP faculty member, identifies the notion that: “America, truth be told, is fractured into a thousand pieces. But it couldn’t be anything else.”

Originally premiered as part of Bushwick Open Studios in June 2008 and entitled simply AMERIKA,this exhibition—II AMERIKA—further expands upon the themes and issues addressed in the original, showcasing a broader spectrum of work and delving deeper into the nation's psyche. Though it would be a mistake to suggest this is a comprehensive review, there is here the making of a statement about where the country is today.

If America is a democratic idea, then Amerika is the social reality. These photographers live and breathe its air, they explore its people and its landscapes. They photograph what they find and their discoveries give us a better idea of the State of the Union than any Presidential address ever could. And to that, attention must be paid.