8.09.2009

Craftspeople and Charles Lane Press

Book Making is often a collaborative process. We at Charles Lane Press take great pride in the specialists that we work with. Throughout the editing, scanning, production, and printing of our books we know how important it is to utilize the expertise of the most respected practitioners in each of these fields. This post pays homage to them.


Photographer and Editor of Fall River Boys: Marc Joseph Berg

Our editors help guide our artists with image selection, sequencing, cover choice, and writing copy.



Designer, Filmmaker, and Cake Maker Extraordinaire: Andrew Sloat

Andrew works on the product identity, packaging and presentation of our artists' work. He works closely with our artists'and editors in the sequencing of the material and chooses fonts and typeface.



Color Seperator: Robert J Hennessey

Bob scans our artwork and creates the separated digital files into their component ink values. Which are then used to make the plates we use on press.




Bob commenting on an image from the forthcoming book Outerland by Allison Davies



Production Supervisor:  Bryonie Wise

Bryonie helps guide us through the technical aspects of the printing of our books. She advises the press operator about what inks to add or subtract when we are on press.



Bryonie doing a press check on Fall River Boys



Press Operator at Cantz

8.07.2009

Jennifer meets Thor

Photographer Jennifer Boomer emailed me recently to tell me that she encountered the subject of one of my photographs from my project 49 & 50. I met Thor while photographing on an oyster farm in Jakalof Bay near Homer, Alaska last summer. I love it when photography intersects with life in this way. Jennifer's email tells it best - other than Thor remembering incorrectly that I photographed him in Hawaii when it was actually in Alaska!

Hi Richard,

Hope this email finds you well. I have a photo connection that I wanted
to share with you! I just finished-up a 5 month stint in Bristol Bay,
Alaska where I was shooting more fishing community photos. I was
fortunate enough to find a boat ride leaving Naknek in Bristol Bay
heading to Homer with a commercial fisherman friend. The trip is
supposed to take 3 days, buts took us 7. It was a terrific adventure: 4
gill net boats, 16 people and 2 dogs. It took us much longer than
expected due to boat problems, terrible weather and lots of partying.
For 3 days all of the boats were docked at at the head of Illiamna Lake
due to poor weather. On the 2nd day I had major cabin fever decided to
take a hike and another guy in our fleet decided to come along. During
our hike he asked me about my photography and randomly asked me if I had
ever heard of you. Ironically enough, you have photographed him in
Hawaii. His named is Thor. He is now fishing salmon up in Alaska and was
part of my epic 2009 Alaska Adventure! Such a small world!

Best,
Jennifer

Jennifer Boomer's work from Dutch Harbor, Alaska is of particular interest to me and quite lovely. Check it out here.


© Jennifer Boomer



© Jennifer Boomer 

Thor   2008    ©Richard Renaldi

8.06.2009

GLOBAL:PHOTOGRAPHY 09


GLOBAL:PHOTOGRAPHY 09
looking at/looking for

curated by Massimo Sordi, Stefania Rössl
@ SIFEST 2009 – Photo Festival of Savignano, Italy
11th september-4th october 2009
www.savignanoimmagini.it

evan baden (USA)
catherine balet (F)
mathieu bernard-reymond (CH)
michele cera (I)
samantha cohn (USA)
jen davis (USA)
wolfram hahn (D)
alessandro imbriaco/francesco millefiori (I)
seba kurtis (ARG)
molly landreth (USA)
kalpesh lathigra (UK)
maria leutner (D)
andrés marroquín winkelmann (PERU)
colin pantall (UK)
andrew phelps (A)
marion poussier (F)
blerim racaj (UK)
richard renaldi (USA)
frank rothe (D)
carla van de puttelaar (NL)
shen wei (CHINA)

8.02.2009

Rebecca Solnit

I am working my way through a fantastic collection of essays by writer, journalist, and activist Rebecca Solnit titled Storming the Gates of Paradise published by University of California Press.

Her writing on the environment, social justice and the American west is heroic, important, and accessible. I highly recommend picking up a copy. In the meantime I have linked to several of her essays on photography: on Susan Sontag, on Western Landscape Photography, on Edward Burtynsky.

7.30.2009

The Floor Scrapers, 1876.


Gustave Caillebotte

7.28.2009

Gary

During my recent trip to the midwest I decided to take a detour into the city of Gary, Indiana. I have passed by Gary on Interstate 80 countless times on my way to and from Chicago and it had always been a place I wondered about. Finally I stopped wondering and learned what sad sad shape this town is in. I was expecting a functioning, primarily black city -scraping by something along the lines of Newark. What I found instead was a dead city with almost no economy to speak of being slowly but unmistakably reclaimed by nature. Gary is home to US Steel and as most of you know those manufacturing jobs have been leaching away year after year. I left Gary feeling depressed and cynical. Gary was crucial in giving Indiana to Obama and all I could think was this president probably isn't going to help this town and its people anymore than the last one...


















7.26.2009

The Large Format Portrait

I recently taught an intensive week long large format class at ICP and wanted to post some of my students' work. It was the first time shooting large format for most of them and I think everyone did a fantastic job. It was really instructive for them to get out there and have the hands on experience of working with the view camera. Thanks to all of them - check out their work below...









Bryan Schutmaat






Matilda Saul









Matthew Genitempo






Tim Carpenter



Rogelio Pereda






Wesley Wong

7.23.2009

Elton John

My nephew Jonathon (pictured below)

who is a big fan of Elton John asked me a couple of months ago if I might be able to try to get him tickets for the Elton John/Billy Joel concert in Chicago this summer (being that Elton has been a big collector of my work). I wasn't so sure as I had only dealt with Elton through my gallery. I figured that there was no harm in asking so I wrote an email to my gallerist to see if this might be at all possible. They passed on my request to the personal hair dresser of Elton John who also happened to have one of my photographs in his collection and he was kind enough to have obliged us with 4 tickets and backstage passes.

We hadn't any idea of what to expect but we were delighted to have had the chance to meet Elton John and chat with him for nearly twenty minutes.

We talked a lot about photography and his passion for the medium. He was also really engaged and made us all feel at ease even though we were all pretty starstruck.

Sir Elton's shoe

and then we were treated to an amazing three hour concert in historic Wrigley Field. It was pure joy.



Billy Joel


my new bff!

Okinawa Churaumi Aquarium - Beautiful video!

Kuroshio Sea - 2nd largest aquarium tank in the world - (song is Please don't go by Barcelona) from Jon Rawlinson on Vimeo.

7.17.2009

7.16.2009

Michael Light

My friend Michael Light was in town not too long ago and showed me the maquette for his forthcoming book Bingham Mine/Garfield Stack published by Radius Books. It is a stunning body of work of his aerial photographs of the Bingham Canyon copper mine in Utah. The work raises your anxiety level over the devastation of our environment while at the same causing you to gasp at Michael's beautiful images that are so thoughtfully composed all from the seat of his small CTSW airplane. I was also fortunate to get a peek at some of his other work from the mountain states and can attest to their magnificence.
If you do not know who Michael Light is - he is the author of both Full Moon and 100 Suns - two important books which were the result of him doing thousands of hours of archival research of the Apollo missions and Nuclear Test Site photographs. By the way, Michael shoots 4x5 film while piloting an aircraft at the same time! Can you do that?










all images © Michael Light

7.12.2009

Straight from the horses mouth...

Bill Moyers speaks with a former PR insider from the Healthcare Industry about why the insurance companies are so dead set against reform. Hint: Shareholder Profit. Heroic journalism from one of the best in the field. Watch the episode here.

7.11.2009

Charleta

Stop is exactly what I did when I saw this woman walking down the streets in Roanoke. I was in Virginia for a couple days last month on assignment for People Magazine when my assistant Andy spotted this fabulous character walking down the street.
We drove by her and she looked in the car and asked us for a ride over the bridge to the other side of town. I negotiated the ride for a photograph and I was fortunately obliged.





7.09.2009

Cacti in New Jersey?!*

It took me over 41 years to learn today that the prickly pear cactus is indigenous to all lower forty eight states. Who knew?

July 9, 2009  Gateway National Recreation Area   Sandy Hook, NJ

7.08.2009

July's 19th Century Photograph


Panorama of the World's Columbian Exposition  (The White City)   Chicago 1893
compiled by Brian Karpuk     (best viewed when open and enlarged)

7.05.2009

Mammatus Clouds

Last week I noticed that the light was really beautiful outside so I grabbed my camera and went out to the pier where I have been doing a lot of shooting lately. I was lucky I did as I was rewarded with some of the most unusual clouds I have ever seen.
You can read about them here.



7.04.2009

Happy 4th of July


Battery Park, New York, New York July 4, 2009

7.01.2009

renaldi.com - censored

A few months ago I met with the Department Head of Photographs at a major art museum to show them my new book Fall River Boys. During the meeting I asked if I could show another more recent body of work that appeared on my website. They obliged and handed me a laptop to bring up my site. When I entered the url a message was returned that my website was blocked due to adult content (likely due to a handful of nudes in one of my series titled hotel room portraits). This was regarded as no big deal by the curator. I was told that there were many artists whose websites were blocked because there was some form of nudity in their work. I however was flabbergasted for many days afterwards - that a world class museum of art had internet filters preventing curators from viewing images of the naked human body. To this day I wonder if they are able to view their very own collection online?