Arno Fischer

Another great find while I was in Hamburg is the work of German photographer Arno Fischer. Fischer was born in 1927 and spent a large chunk of that time in East Berlin in the former DDR. The particular body of work that I want to highlight of his is from his recent book titled Der Garten. This is a beautifully produced book of Fischer's polaroids from his private garden at his farmhouse in the country. The images are grouped into triptychs and coated with a varnish that makes the images have the actual look and feel of a polaroid.
It is an absolutely stunning book and was published by Hatje Cantz in 2007.

Vanessa Winship

On my recent trip to Germany while in Hamburg I was browsing at a wonderful photography bookshop at the Haus der Photographie and came across a little book called Sweet Nothings. It is published by Foto8 and is a collection of images of portraits of "Rural Schoolgirls from the Borderlands of Eastern Anatolia." These engaging images are all taken from the same distance by photographer Vanessa Winship. It is a very special book. Winship's images describe so much - amongst these forty-five images the varied expressions capture warmth, shyness, alienation, friendship, bashfulness, and confidence. Winship said in an except taken from Lens Culture "The girls were a mix of emotions about this event, this small moment of theatre in front of them. They were excited, curious and a little nervous all at the same time. Many things touched me during the making of these images. I was touched by the gravity in their demeanour at the moment in front of the camera, their fragility, their simplicity, their grace, their closeness to one another, but most of all I was struck by their complete lack of posturing." In addition I have just spent the last half an hour on the website of Vanessa Winship and I was literally blown away by her other work from the Black Sea and the Balkans. Outstanding!

Happy Thanksgiving!

This month's 19th Century Photograph

Today I premiere a new monthly feature on my blog. Yay!

Roger Fenton
from the Roger Fenton Crimean War photograph collection...
1855 Captain Thomas Dames Longworth..

Pictures from Germany

Peter Doig

Every once in a while you see an exhibition that leaves you feeling incredibly gratified. I saw just such an exhibition this past week at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt, Germany by the Canadian artist Peter Doig. His paintings are in a word-magical. This is a recent article about him in W magazine here. Below are a few of my favorites from the show.

Dancing Lamb Farm

Mike and Ron






Mike
From the series: the Farm

Support David Wright and A River Blue

Photographer David Wright will be traveling to Uganda to photograph the people and landscape for a traveling exhibition and book that will be used to raise funds for A River Blue (a non-profit arts empowerment project for the children of internally-displaced persons in Northern Uganda). He is selling prints through is blog at a reduced price to help finance his trip and has graciously asked me to help him get the word out. This amazing experience will help shape and define this young photographer - how could you not want to be part of that!

Jason Polan

Somewhere along this internet superduperhighway I have become acquainted with the work of artist Jason Polan.
Jason has just about the most clever marketing for his art that I have ever seen. His primary medium is drawing and he has a thing or two for giraffes in particular. You can hire Jason to hand draw you a giraffe for a $25 initial fee plus $1 for each extra giraffe- with there being no limit to how many giraffes he can draw for you. Other cool options are hiring Jason for one hour or one day of art. Have a look.

Ausstellung in Berlin

I was fortunate enough to be in Berlin this past weekend to coincide with an exhibition of work by students of the Ostkreuzschule für Fotografie. These were students that studied under my friend the photographer Robert Lyons. The opening was in what looked like an old factory or power station in the former East Berlin - a very cool space. The work was quite strong for a student show and a handful of the photographers' work really stood out. The most notable for me being Marcel Krummrich seen below...

Charles Lane Press

Seth & I are off to Germany this weekend to oversee the printing of my second book titled Fall River Boys. Needless to say we are very excited about this-and also a little nervous. We started our own publishing company this spring and this will be our very first title due out in February! Charles Lane Press will be a publisher of photography and art books with the highest standards of production. All of our books will be made by artists working with other artists. It's official and below is our logo.

Touching Strangers

Today I am very excited to present a new body of work titled Touching Strangers. The work is somewhat of a departure for me as there is very much a conceptual component to this new series. I hope to continue this project and push this idea even further but at present I feel very much ready to put it out there... And out there it is - you can see the entire series in the new issue of Fraction Magazine. There is also an interview about the work by Jörg Coldberg in Fraction as well as on Jörg's blog.
And a generous shout out from Andy Adams at Flak Photo too...
Comments are welcome and appreciated...


Reginald and Nicole   Los Angeles, CA 2007



Giovanni and Deborah   Provincetown, MA. 2007



Ilene and Loria   New York, NY 2007



Mariana, Adriana, & Robert    Saugatuck, MI 2007



Kim and Yoshie   Los Angeles, CA 2007

The Farm

From the Dancing Lamb Farm. October 2008

Jonas Bendiksen

Norwegian photojournalist Jonas Bendiksen released his second book with Aperture this year titled The Places we Live. It's a very important body of work- both in terms of art and journalism. Bendiksen gets up close and intimate with slum dwellers in four cities across the globe; Mumbai, Jakarta, Nairobi, and Caracas. Their usually small and cramped dwellings are photographed 360º in deep saturated color. Each home includes writing by the occupant/s about their lives. A must have for any serious collector of photography books... Magnum In Motion has a great multimedia presentation here.

Justin

Yes We Did!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vote Baby Vote!

Chang W. Lee for The New York Times

ahhh...

by Asher B. Durand.
from the exhibit - DRAWN BY NEW YORK: SIX CENTURIES OF WATERCOLORS AND DRAWINGS AT THE NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY