La Lettre

During my daily web browsing today I came across La Lettre, a French-based online site that shares and informs daily on the events in the world of photography, available in French and English.

On their front page they list their current review postings on photo projects, books, and exhibitions which LL labels as "trends". On the link bar at the top of the front page are days of the week to go to for postings from that day - Photographer portfolios are featured on weekends. Below the Weekend link is a Best Of Last Week section, feature the top book, portfolio from the previous week. And Below the Best Of section is a list of categories of features from Advertising, Fashion, Holidays, Portrait, and Schools.

On the bottom of the page is another link bar, the Adenga page is a calendar of feature gallery exhibits and other events such as festivals and auctions. The Agenda is posted by date of course and also labeled with City or Country of event, which makes the listing informative and give the exhibits and events some contexts - On the left side of the Agenda page is a link column of listed Countries to see events by location.

La Lettre has a reputable and experienced team behind the site. It's three co-founders together are news media-specialists,  published photographers, editors, and artistic directors (formerly creative directors at GQ). The regular contributors are reporters,  journalists, and photographers from France, Russia, the U.S., Japan, Italy, and several other countries.

What I enjoy most about La Lettre and makes it unique from other popular and hip art/photo sites is it's  features focus on professional and established photographers and their works. A lot of great popular sites like A Dirty Job, BOOOOOOOM, and Shoot for You Life are mainly showcasing newer emerging photographers and their works. It is important to have a concentration of the "higher" end type of photo work from veterans to learn and be aware of what they're doing as well opening ourselves up from the young and new styles. La Letter shares work coming from people with years of experience and news from established organizations, and that's not to say that it's better in any way or not to degrade newer artists. Honestly, I'd really relate the works of veterans and younger photographers by their parallel of spirit, drive and attitude for their work. Not to go off topic with justifications, but the features on LL are coming from people who've had years of time to their work, to reflect and perfect.
& It is worth noting again that LL has a full staff of experienced editors, photographers, and reporters/journalists who understand the veteran world of photography, and who put a lot of effort and time into operating this site, which most of the hip/popular sites just don't have.

Vice's Picture Perfect with Patrick Brown

I just picked up the latest issue of Vice, and while flipping through it I saw one of their ads - for one of their own productions. This ad is for one their online video series called Picture Perfect(presented by Incase), where Vice goes behind the scenes with their favorite documentary photographers. The images on the ad struck me, as well as the concept of documentary about photographers' work so I curiously went to Vice.com and looked for the newest episode featuring Patrick Brown, whose images were on the ad. In this 21 minute video Patrick Brown, based in Bankok, Thailand for the past 12 years talk about his perspective on photography as a craft and we see the last year of his 10 year long project in which he is documenting the illegal trade of endangered animals in Asia for a book to be called Trading to Extinction.

At his studio space Brown gives us his perspective,  saying that his photographs are different from him, they are records of what's been happening in front, they are not his constructions, and if he is able to give a voice for that situation then he has achieved his objective.
Brown confesses that photography was the best visa, taking him in and out of societies he otherwise wouldn't have been able to, he's been with homeless, drug addicts, and royalty.
With Brown who came up as a tool maker and loving to work with his hands, he doesn't just like taking photos as a craft, but the process of making a unique hand printed photograph in the darkroom. This is definitely a certain trait most film photographers carry, not just that they like grain or the distinct image quality of film -  Bex Finch and Ian Ruhter also bring this up in their work.

Brown admits himself as naive when he was younger about what documentary photography could do. He explains that when he came across a section in the newspaper about the only surgeon in Africa for 2.5 million people that was when Brown decided to sell his car and surfboard and spend 6 weeks to photograph how that situation was. When he Brown returned home to Australia he had an exhibition of the photos which raised a lot of money for the surgeon, Dr. Robert Weeden, and raised awareness in Australia. From that trip and the impact the photos generated, Brown realized you could actually make a difference with a photograph.

When Brown moved from Australia to Asia he met Burmese refugees who gave him access that he would have never been able to get to. That experience opened up his eyes to a world he didn't know existed to the extent that it did, a world that was the Burmese boarder - where smuggling happens.
His current project, Trading to Extinction, about the animal trade started back in 2002. Brown didn't know much about the animal trade, thinking it was just small critters, and in some way that's what the rest of the world thinks of it too, but 4 years ago made as much as some of the biggest electronic industries with 52 billion dollars. To place a physical boundary for Trading to Extinction, Brown's focus on the project was South East Asian, nearer to where he lives.

Brown shares stories and photos from some of his trips, like the first story he did on anti-poaching in Cambodia and Nepal with a team of anit-poachers who most of which were ex-poachers. Brown says that he has a lot of empathy for the poachers because they are just doing what their ancestors have done for hundreds of years, which is hunting, and they make little money for every animals and have little knowledge of where the animals go.

Switching gears, the video shows us Brown's recent trip and experience with the animal trade scene in Guangzhou, China - the economic powerhouse in the south west region of China. Due to the wealth in this area in China it has been a popular place for the animal trade. Brown was in Guangzhou 5 years ago for the 10 year long project and decided to come back to see how things are. Although Brown didn't believe that that trade decrease, he feels the traders have gotten smarter about hiding it because they are less confident since they know the issue of trade is beyond China and are more paranoid about people with cameras.

Slightly off the issue of trade Brown touches on him never asking for permission on taking photos, since he has only a small window of opportunity, people don't act the same when you start asking for permission, and even says that when people(the traders) don't want photos taken it's because they know they are doing something wrong. Brown describes the hardest thing to capture in a photo is an emotion so if he is able to get an angry person it adds another dimension to the body of work. I found this particularly interesting that Brown has this aggressive attitude for taking photos because he isn't concerning himself with being particularly polite, Brown's concern is the photo and the real story.

When Brown goes into a fish store the worker openly says that most of the fish were smuggled in through Hong Kong from different countries. Brown called the sellers "untouchables" because of the way they are not on the radar of criminal activity and not a priority of law enforcement. I also think a component to the traders' openness on details of animals may come from their wanting to impress potential buyers on what they have to offer.

Brown talks more about the different restaurants, shops, and tourist spots. The wildlife game for food he describes has a lot to do with the idea that you are what you eat, so predators like tigers and alligators are popular but also mostly all of the animal is used, whether for creams or soups. On zoos, Brown says the ones that are legitimate are great institutions and highly educational, but most in the region are not so legitimate. The zoos and circuses with rarer collections of animals attract more people and make a lot of money, but caged animals are just like prisoners - and especially when one institutions has about half the population White Tigers, one of the most rare species, there is something wrong.

Brown says that he is not an animal activist, that his work is more about exposing subcultures in society. It isn't about showcasing the animals, it's about what is happening to the animals. The cause is the subculture of smugglers and poachers. When I watched the video for the first time this really struck me as a younger photographer, and it ties back to what Brown says in the beginning about his objective being to give a voice to a situation.
Brown discusses his decision to shoot the project in black and white film. This project not being shot in color by Brown discouraged some publishers financially and also wouldn't have been able to be printed right away. Brown says his decision was simply based on his understanding black and white film photography. He feels black and white to be a more powerful tool, it allowing people to on a more subconscious level to get a sense of placement - their imagination can go further than if they were looking at a color photograph.

According to Brown the trade industry is driven by naivety and greed, naivety in the sense of lack of education in terms of health benefits some products from animals have and greed comes from the idea of delicacies that the animals are.
While in Guangzhou a man even goes up to Brown and his translator while the cameras are rolling to try to sell bile from a bear that came from Tibet (or Nepal), which had never happened before to Brown - like it was nothing. This showed Brown just how much traders would go just to sell small items for a lot of money (1000 dollars for two small items of bear bile).

This video focuses on Brown's documentary photography perspective in his project, but really I think it's his generally perspective. With the project coming to an end, he says "my book will soon be in people's hands and it will no longer be my book, it will be their book." I think Brown says that because he knows that the people who get the book will have and appreciation of Brown's work or have a sense of why the trade is an important issue. I personally have sub-interest in animal photography, but even more so as a photographer look up to the way Brown just wants to use his photography to give a voice and by the way he realized it can make a difference and applies it for  his documentary photography.

To see additional information on Trading to Extinction and to support check here.

Feature Shoot's Online Group Show #3: On the Road

This past Friday Feature Shoot posted their third online group shows called On The Road. After coming across Feature Shoot's second online group show back in March I decided to continue following them. I had never heard of an online art/photo site call a collection of any kind a "group show", maybe only 'projects' like on BOOOOOOOM(still not the same), so it's interesting to see if these will catch on and be something we see more of in the future on other sites as well.

Moving on, FS's 3rd online group show has of course great photos, hands down, but again Feature Shoot (as in their previous show: Window Seat) does not provide much detail or signage as to why they chose the photos in the collection or what the significance is about the collection On the Road. In the post for call for submissions the only guideline feature shoot gives is that the topic of the group show is road trips.

Again, of course, with this show the title of the collection brings the photos together. Having only the title be what relates the photos to each other makes the collections quite open ended and not significant in terms of what the purpose of the show is and why the photographers took the photos. I would like a group show to be more forward and clear on what the images are about and why. If the show is meant to be open ended, then I'd like for the show to address that in some clearer way, and maybe even why it is open ended. If this show was meant to have few restrictions and binding significance of collective photos  because it was to be produce quickly and over the internet with public submission then that is understandable, but if Feature Shoot is not thinking about these factors of photo significane in a group show then they need to reevaluate what they mean when they title collections group shows. It is clear they want to showcase the work of photographers, like they do with their other more descriptive postings, I just wish FS would keep the same level of communication on the works they show.

& like I said about Window Seat, it would even be great to at least caption where the photos were taken, since this show is about travel....

However, even though not much is said on why the specific photos were chosen to be presented for either of Feature Shoot's group shows, I do like that with On the Road there is more visual variety. Window Seat was a collection of closely similar images, and without much explanation or statement included I wish more diversity was given. Since there is more variety in On the Road I am much more intrigued and curious to see mother work from the participating photographers.

*Just wanted to add that when I initially wrote this post I tweet the link directed to Feature Shoot, and the next day FS tweeted back, saying "good points, thanks for this". So I don't think my criticism is too out of line or harsh - they're really just comments of my observations.

Select photos from On the Road -

By Arnaud Teicher

By Andrew Sullivan

By Dan Depew

By Ellen Jantzen

by Hizuan Zailani

By Magali Duzant

By Marcus Bastel

By Marisha Camp

Silver & Light, Wet Plate Photography by Ian Ruhter

This new video of Ian Ruhter's project with large scale wet plate photography was released a few weeks ago.
Although Ian grew up with the global transition from traditional to digital photography he has always stuck to his roots of his traditional work.
The video presents Ian's new project of wet plate silver photography, where he and his team have converted a large truck into a functional camera to produce wet plate images.
As Ian says, his project wasn't about making actual images or building the world's largest camera, but more about making sacrifices to hold on to the thing he loved the most. Wet Plate photography has given him the chance to use his hands, use raw materials to create his own film and one of a kind images.
The project was not just making everything largest but having to redesign everything of camera and film so it worked on a larger scale.
We see the difficulties Ian faced, it's not a case luck or of trial and error, but rather learning how to get produce and reproduce great images with the camera and wet plates.
I think what can be frustrating so much when it comes to non-digital photography, is making mistakes, because of course you want to get a great images, you don't expect to make mistakes and especially when you're so passionate about creating something and it does not work out right and it's even worse when you don't know why it didn't work(when there are many variables that come into play).
Ian's self realization that the only limitations are the ones he puts on himself continue drive him in producing these large scale wet plate images with his own funds and all his emotional investment.
What Ian has already done and will do with the camera is worth all the sacrifice and efforts he has put into this project.
Other photographers and groups do similar work as Ian's such as the 6 foot negatives for The Vanishing Cultures project by Dennis Manarchy and also Photobooth's tintype portraits we saw with Bex Finch's feature on American Hipster Presents.




Follow the project's twitter account here and more of Ian's work on his tumblr here.

Instagram for Android - Good, Bad, Why?

*This post is one of my "Substantive" posts for class.

With news of Instagram being bought for $1 Billion by Facebook a few days ago Instagram has surely been in a lot of conversations lately. Just last week on Tuesday Instagram, the popular photo sharing social networking smart photo app released it's version for Android devices, which was previously only for Apple IOS systems. Several online news sites posted information on the huge news, including The Huffington Post, New York Times, and gadget culture blog Gizmodo. Within 24 hours over a million android users downloaded the app. 

The "Issue" with the Intsagram opening up for Android users that came up during the first days of the news was the different positions Iphone and Android users had on the app for android, whether is was a good or bad thing. The notion that Iphone/apple users as being superior to users with different systems came into play. In CNN's write up it shared a tweet from an assumed Iphone user, "Instagram went from a gated community to section 8 all in 1 day".

Current culture buzz blog Uproxx also shares more of these negative statements from iphone users, where the overall message being "that Instagram is going to be ruined by the shitty taste of Android users. If you don’t have enough taste to pick the right phone, you can’t possibly have enough taste to shoot supercool images, right?". 

I don't see how the presence of a user you don't want around can bother you, unless you follow them? 

Before IG for android, there were already Iphone users who used the app for no serious reason, they aren't photographers or actively engaged within the photography community within Instagram or not, just people posting anything. But all you have to do is not follow them if you don't want to see their photos. There is no need for this aggressive possessiveness and claim to a public phone application. 

However, even though there were some clearly negative people and out of line comments with the switch there were definitely some warm welcomes from Iphone users, as on Instagram's post that morning. More warm welcomes from users commenting on popular photography accessory store Photojojo's post, and on IG community team member Jessica Zollman' post(JayZombie). It was actually J's post that I first read about Instagram being available for Android and to see the positivity from users, as well as the defense some Iphone users for their friends who had Android phones generates a great spirit in the community.

Honestly, I personally was also thinking it would be great for IG to be open to other systems for some of my own friends and other photographers to partake in photo sharing who before were left out, particularly LA based photographer Daniel Seung Lee.

It's clear there is a division in mentality, notably between those welcoming Android users, who are a little more serious about great photography while at the same time have a playfulness to them that Instagram aslo brings to photo sharing and users who are upset, and seem to care more about what phone they're using.
Why else would it matter who is using an app? But why does that matter?
It's more than silly, it's ridiculous. 

Would those Iphone users have been upset, or ever thought about exclusivity if the app initially came out as an open system app?

The argument against Instagram for Android and other systems is unreasonable because the purpose of the app was not and is not separation, but a tool for community by means of photo sharing.

Bex Finch Featured on American Hipster

On my ride to school today I was scrolling my instagram feed where I saw San Francisco-based photographer Bex Finche's post.
Bex, a film photographer, re-posted a photo from a few months ago taken on a rainy day with a person standing and holding their umbrella that flipped inside out from the wind, writing that this morning a video was released from that day.
That man holding his umbrella flipped is Paavo Steinkamp, host of American Hipster Presents, a new documentary - "Video Portraits of American Trendsetters"from 10 cities across the country.
Today's episode features Bex, her photography, iphoneography, where she talks specifically about instagram and her project documenting her father's alzheimer's disease.

Bex talks about instagram in a way I haven't looked at before. She says that she uses it as practice, composing her photos every time she uses it each day. For the most part I thought instagram as more of a  scenes to people's lives or behind the scenes of companies and brands. That's not the way Bex has used IG, and not why I was so attracted to her that I began following her some time last year. Bex uses instagram as if it were a quick platform for digital photos from her daily scenes, but being as serious as if it were photography-just with a phone. Since she is  heavy film photographer generally her only digital shots would be from her phone that go to her instagram. It makes perfect sense that as a film photographer she uses her phone as a tool for quicker results while still using her fundamentals of composition and light that she definitely uses in her film work. Which is why her instagram looks better than most.
Bex says she prefers using film because of the way it is more intentional, where she is thinking more about about composing things versus just shooting away with digital. She says that film cameras are reliable, give beautiful photos, have a forgiving quality, give different tones, have a more tangible component to them, and allow room to make work more convenient or better but require a little more effort and time.

She also discusses her father's alzheimer's and it's impact on her photography, which has hertrying to emulate him - his condition and state, bringing the idea of being disconnected from the environment, and having listless mood reflected in her work. The continuation of taking self-portraits and taking photos of her father as his condition continues parallel one another, and can be seen as she is trying to understand what is happening to him and trying to put herself in his position to understand what he is going through.



The way Bex talked about the different quality and nature of film reminds me of film photographer who are clear example of what she talks about, work from those who I especially enjoy and follow inlcude Jeff of 12fv and Sisilia Piring, The Sunday Huddle, Extra Bigger, and the blog Terroriss.

Bex's project on her dad is similar to other long term projects that photographers take on where they document people as they change and grow, but specifically observing them through the photos they take. Elizabeth Weinberg has done this with her younger sister and Irina Werning has done something similar with her Back to the Future projects where she take portraits of people in a way that compares themselves of their youth and as adults.

For more on Bex Finch see her website and her instagram @bexfinch.

National Geographic April 2012, African Masks by Phyllis Galembo

National Geographic is currently the only magazine I have a subscription to which was a gift to me from my girlfriend, since she knew I had previously been paying for each issue individually from bookstores and other new stands she thought it'd be a nice to have a yearly subscription.
Nat Geo has been one of my top favorite sources of world photography, news, history, and culture. I'd even go to garage sales or thrift stores to find older issues from past decades.

When I sit to read the new issues I take my time to browse and actually read the articles to understand what the photos are about. I've even used articles as sources on science papers. I take the magazine pretty serious. Since the spring semester started I haven't found time yet to read February-April, but when I get them in the mail I'll leaf through and glance at the photos.

In the 2012's April issue the cover story and big spread is on the Titanic and it's story with photos of the shipwreck under water. Looking at photos I'll have to check out the full article and text on it. I'd be lying if I said from April's issue the Titanic was what immediately intrigued me.

It was the colorful, intricate, and spiritual portraits by Phyllis Galembo of African masks was stand out right away.  Phyllis Galembo, a Professor at University of Albany, has for over 20 years traveled to Africa and Haiti to document the culture that comes with the mask.
The April Issue brings attention to what Galembo's work has been about and the fascination that belongs to it.
"It's the creativity. It's not just the mask. It's about the entire ensemble and the uniqueness of ritual dress."


Galembo's photos highlight the creativity and uniqueness to the fullest and NG gives readers the platform to experience of these cultures and lets us look in awe of other worldly beings.

Here are a few photos from the feature -

Cathy Newman writes the article for NG,
In the realm of the spirit world, the mask is more than mere facade. It is utterly transformative. The man in the mask—and it is nearly always a man—may speak in a different voice, move differently, behave differently, because he is a different being. The mask is put on. The line between reality and illusion, god and man, life and death blurs. The masked man is not playing a role. He becomes the role.  NG

The article addresses a cultural distinction, but rather than comparing cultures I reflect on my own and look at what makes ourselves distinct and also try to find examples of what similarities we may share. 

Costume and dressing up has a great history in photography where photographers explore, experiment, and point it out, being inspired by halloween, past generations trends of their own societies, as well as original costumes inspired by nature like the masks from Galembo. 

Read the article on NG and see the full gallery with additional captions for each mask and dress. 

Visit Phyllis Galembo's website to see other work.