Street Photography Quick Links is a compilation of Links, Projects, News, Videos, Events, or anything that is related to street photography or photography in particular that I have personally consumed. Perhaps these might interest you or make you think. If you want to send some links my way, details will be at the bottom of the post below:
Portoflio Find
I am a sucker for calm and meditative topographics. Sarah Pannell’s work The Territories shows a view of Hong Kong that is different from all the hustle and bustle of the tourist areas and actually reveal some of the influence on the Chinese held territory that is still Hong Kong.
Jonathan Higbee’s approach to street photography is a colorful visual assault done in a traditional manner. I’m currently working on an interview piece with him which will come out this December.
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Our Condolences
One of my favorite photographers together with her husband Bernd Becher. They formed the “Dusseldorf School” and pretty much shaped contemporary photography.
Hilla Becher, the German photographer who, with her husband, Bernd, meticulously documented coal mines, steel mills and other features of the industrial landscape, straddling the worlds of archival documentation and conceptual art, died on Saturday in Düsseldorf. She was 81.
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Interviews
Mark Cohen on Frame: A Retrospective by Blake Andrews
BA: “No credentials. No motive.” Not entirely true. But it raises the question: What is your motive? When you are asked “What Are You Doing Here?” what do you say?
MC: I am fueling an obsession — with Tri-X. There is a certain exciting anticipation in looking at the film coming off the developing reel. So I can’t talk about artistic obsession with a guy on the street who feels ripped off and is a little, or a lot, angry, so I try “it’s my hobby” and “I’m an old guy” and that can do it but it is much better to know who to avoid but those are the people that I most want to photograph, so it is tricky — much more comfortable with a landscape.
The Larry Fink You Haven’t Met Before via American Photo Mag
So how did you arrive at this?
I’d had a show of the Social Graces stuff at the Museum of Modern Art in 1978. When the call came from the Seattle Art Museum to go out and photograph anything I wanted to I was somewhat paralyzed by my success. Everybody was talking and blah blah blahing and asking “Do you want to repeat yourself?” For somebody who was essentially thinking about the revolution and underground behavior, all of a sudden to be on top of the mob, without necessarily being ambitious to do that—it was surprise that John Sarkowski gave me the show. In fact, before that I had felt, in my political naïveté, that I wouldn’t take a show at any museum like that because it was, you know, the establishment. And then when I got it, of course, I was overjoyed. [laughs]
An Interview with Matthew Mahon via Lenscratch
Editor’s note: Matthew Mahon’s project and subject matter might be tad bit too intense since he photographs, interacts, and sometimes takes drugs with the prostitutes he is with. It is a strong and intense work.
I was immediately taken by Mathew’s project Under/Austin, an intimate series of portraits, still lifes, and moments of prostitutes (providers) in and around Austin, Texas. What allured me to this work was it wasn’t a typical fine art project; rather Matthew’s images have an editorial feel to them. He’s not just documenting the women; he’s engaging with them to make dynamic pictures.
ISO 400 – Ep. 023 – Amy Lombard Talks About Bronies and IKEA via Phoblographer
Amy Lombard is one my heroes with her way of getting close to the people she photographs. In here, she talks about her process, work, and ongoing project documenting niche communities (another great interview over at VSCO you might want to read). Just a treat. Give it a listen/watch.
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From and/or About Magnum
Magnum Photographers Reveal Theirs Most Intimate Photographs via Feature Shoot
Thomas Hoepker, Matt Black, David Alan Harvey, Sohrab Hura, Jonas Bendiksen, Peter van Agtmael, Jean Gaumy, and Richard Kavlar share their most intimate photographs.
Magnum’s Square Print Sale: Are They Leading the Race to the Bottom by Kenneth Jarecke
It’s a slippery slope when you start competing on price and not quality. That’s how we got were we are today. Downward pressure on licensing fees is what drove Magnum (for the most part) out of the editorial world. Magnum was founded as a photojournalism agency. When that market was destroyed by lesser agencies, they re-invented themselves as an artistic cooperative which would rely on the fine art and museum market to replace the revenue once earned from magazines.
This is why it’s troubling to see Magnum selling prints for a hundred bucks each. Here’s the link. True, the prints are small and the printing process itself is fairly inexpensive, but the business model, sell a lot and make a little on each, is more suited to a fast-food outlet, not a fine art agency.
My Dream Lens: David Alan Harvey
DAH talks about the 35mm and why it is his desert island lens.
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General News
7 with VII: All About Gear via VII Photo Agency
We asked Facebook, Instagram and Twitter followers to submit questions about gear for the second installment of 7 with VII. Read on for the 7 answers from VII’s Ron Haviv, Sim Chi Yin, Ashley Gilbertson, Arthur Bondar, Ed Kashi, Poulomi Basu and Sarker Protick
Stanley Greene – LFI Artist Talk via LFI
From punk concerts to tank trenches – Stanley Greene reports on close to forty years as a photo journalist. Watch the LFI Artist Talk video here
Stanley Greene was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1949. An encounter with W. Eugene Smith sparked his passion for photo journalism. Greene became known for his documentation on the Chechen war, and has since receive five World Press Awards, among others. He is today a member of the NOOR Agency, and lives and works in Paris. His Western Front series about the juvenile, punk-rock scene in San Francisco, appeared in issue No. 2 of the M Magazine.
The photographer presented his pictures from the Chechen war as well as the Western Front series. Afterwards, visitors had the chance to ask the photographer questions about his work and enter into a dialogue with him.
4 Ideas from the Photographic Writings of Roland Barthes via B&H Photo
A wee bit of photographic theory primer on Barthes. Although I do prefer Szarkowski’s thoughts, this is something that might stimulate your brain.
The Real Costs of Making A Photo Book by Darren Soh via Invisible Photographer Asia
At the end of the day, making a photo book is really a career in itself, and I always feel very strongly that if as a photographer, you wish to publish a book, you should really do it to the best of your ability, and perhaps even try to go beyond that with additional help. Because the fact is that it is going to take alot of cash, blood, sweat and tears in order to put that vision of yours into print, and you really do want the print version to be representative of the version in your head don’t you?
Humans of New York and the Cavalier Consumption of Others via The New Yorker
I don’t want to spoil the article but it is the first of my must read article of this month(s).
Inside Paris Photo: The Art Fair Almost No One Saw
A day or so before Paris Photo, I was explaining to my girlfriend that this event is pretty much the equivalent of Comic Con for a photobook lover like me. But sadly, the Paris attacks shortened the festival and hardly anybody attended… The link above shows you a virtual tour of Paris photo. I wish I could have been there.
The 2nd of my must read article for this month.
The landscape/interior/portrait combination is something of an unholy docutrinity in contemporary straight photography. It’s the photo two-fer, a way of expressing inner ruminations under the guise of outer world documentation. The photographer takes on the role of scientific explorer. Go out, trap some images, report findings to the photo community in the prescribed mix.
That it’s a formula does not proscribe excellence. Some photographers excel. But I think it’s important to call out the style. Just as almost any piece music recorded in 1969 is easily pegged to the date by the mix, vocal arrangement, and instruments of the era —the stuff not generally considered creative content, in other words— when we look back in 30 years at the present era, I think docutrinity will be the visual motif which announces “2015!”
On Land: Photography and the City-State of Singapore via Invisible Photograper Asia
My 3rd must read article of the month. Just an amazing piece of writing and at the same time, an excellent primer on what is being photographed in Singapore.
Our development has been unchartered over the course of the 20th century, establishing ourselves as one of the role models of Asian city development. In the last twenty years, the Asian city has come into its own: unabashedly modern, aspiringly utopian, and a blueprint looking not merely to emulate the West, but to overcome it.
In so doing, its citizens have felt the tug of things lost with the turn of change. It is not merely nostalgia, but the search for identity, and can identity ever be without the familiarity that comes with even nascent historicity? Singapore’s struggle is introspective – a search within – rather than a force juxtaposed against a wider political reality. We have no hinterland or superpower hindrance; our fight is simply the quest to find our own.
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Care to share some links?
If you have any links, videos, or anything interesting you want to share. Tweet them over to me at @agdemesaphoto or email me the link at contact@agdemesaphoto.com
Cheers everyone! Till Next Month!
- A.g.