[..songs] I've heard a thousand times. I know the song so well that when it comes on my brain shifts it to the background. I don't listen carefully because I think I know it. But do I?via 99 Cent (*) by Blake Andrews (*).
Photographs are valued because of how they can bring distant views close at hand, and they are faulted for introducing unnecessary distance between the viewer and reality itself.via What Is Near and Far in the Geography of an Image? (*) by No Caption Needed (*).
I write a lot about photobooks on this blog. The photobook world is small, a few thousand people, but it is dynamic. Sometimes it's too small and it gets too self-congratulatory. When it becomes most interesting is when it looks out of itself, That's when you get great photobooks that are great books - that touch on the world at large, that tie in with a bigger picture, and touch hearts and souls beyond those of the 10,000 people in the world who regularly buy photobooks.via Luton Airport, x-rays and Blue Peter (*) by Colin Pantall (*).
Self-published in a small edition, Borissova’s (*) book (*) reached me from Russia. Here then is one of the beauties of today’s photobook boom, which to a large extent is fueled by the internet and its way of allowing for connections to be made: Stories from far away can be told and brought to one’s door step, without requiring the need of a major publisher. All it takes is an artist willing and able to make a book, and to allow for that little piece of art to sail off into the world - a piece of art not part of the electronically floating world, but a real thing, to be held and enjoyed.via Review: The Farther Shore by Julia Borissova (*) by Joerg Colberg (*).
Any photograph is both more or less a record of what has happened, and more or less an artistically enhanced experience, both more or less empirical, and more or less interpretive, both more or less accurate, and more or less suggestive. The point here is that photographs –whether analogue or digital—operate in the interspace between reality and imagination. The camera records the surface of the world like no other instrument, but the truth of what is shown can be realized only through an act of imagination. Stated otherwise, the photograph is inherently not reducible to a simplistic realism, but is instead a heterogeneous object where different sources of meaning intersect, and the intersections are lodged in the formal design and explored through interpretation.via A Realist Imagination (or is it An Imaginary Realism?) (*) by No Caption Needed (*).
When you offer only love to the world you can never go wrong. I am becoming an example of this. We all share the same function of forgiveness and healing, and for me photography is a channel to express that. Be well.via Peace G. Just stopping by to show love, it's been a minute. I see you've been getting some good looks lately, [..] Keep building, you'll have books and exhibitions in no time. (*) by Khalik Allah (*).
Numbers need context. Numbers are one dimensional, human performance is multidimensional. We must focus on the human element, the athlete; they are not integers in an equation.via It’s Still Just A Number (*) by Vernon Gambetta (*).
The pursuit of real vision. That is what inspires (*) me. The eyes (*) do not see, and the ears (*) do not hear. My photography is predicated on the heart (*), which is the real organ of vision (*).via Who inspires you? (*) by Khalik Allah (*).
It comforts me a bit that even if nobody pays attention to my work [..] during my lifetime, there might be a place for it in an archive. It is a humble end, but I find the prospect of being stored for future sifting by researchers or scholars immensely appealing.via On archives (*) by Shooting Wide Open (*).
It is like a compulsion. I can’t quite explain where it comes from other than this truly extraordinary building. The combination of the light [..] that cast wonderful striping shadows [..] is extraordinary.via Loving Light at the Office (*) by James Estrin (*).
His subjects tend to stare back at his camera sadly or in a slightly bewildered fashion. Around them, the world tilts – the horizon line is seldom level – but there is always what might be called a Winograndian logic to his compositions, an instinctive grasp of the geometry of a good photograph. His interest was the rhythm of the streets and the people who created it.via Garry Winogrand: the restless genius who gave street photography attitude (*) by Sean O'Hagan (*).
Watching drama with subtitles shifts the perspective to take in more than can be fully understood. Once into the rhythm of this complex narrative, the sensation is truly that of entering another world.via The Guide (*) by Annabel Ross (*).
sometimes you forget to stop looking and start doing. [..]via How Everything Truly Great Is Inspired (*) by The Story of Telling (*).
Great works or art, design, graffiti (*) and literature from Banksy to Brontë are all inspired (*) by lived experiences (*) or drawn from within.
Your inspiration (*) is all around you in your day to day. Your advantage probably already exists.
You’re just not looking there. Yet.
worked for 12 years to tell this story. He told it as a love story because he says that while war stories dark about death, war also illuminates love (*) which is the greatest expression of hope (*). It's what we live (*) for.Colin questions and challenges Photographers (*)
And because it's what we live for, it's what we want to read about. Flanagan has every reason to be self-indulgent and wallow in his father's misery, but it seems like he's translating the story for readership. He's reaching out, he's editing (*), he's adapting (*), he's simplifying (*), he's making it a story that has been written for the reader. It's written on the reader's terms.
I think an interesting question here is how often do photographers do this?; go out to the reader and sacrifice their self-indulgence to tell the story well? How often do they do this, how often don't they do this?via Whatever Evil is, it wasn't in that Room (*) by Colin Pantall (*).
A photograph should be more interesting than the subject (*) and transcend (*) its obviousness.As Jorg Colberg (*) writes:
Print this out, and hang it in a place where you’ll always see it.via It is what it is (*) by Jorg Colberg (*).
We know that snapshots are mostly boring, but a found photo—a snapshot or other non-art photo given meaning by someone who didn’t take it—can be boring, too: finding a photo can be as thoughtless an activity as taking one. Both logic and experience suggest that the percentages are no better for found photos than for any other kind. One way a found photo can be boring is to be derivative.via Imitation (*) by Looking for Snapshots (*).
[..] imitation is something you don’t want to get rid of: cultural transmission couldn’t happen without it. There’s no bright line between an artist who imitates and one who is (productively) influenced, or between an artist who isn’t doing anything new and one who is carrying on a tradition. An artist who imitates is probably one who loves, and love is a good thing.
What is remarkable to me is less her ability to integrate herself and large camera into that community than what she has transcended. She achieves finding the moments of grace in the unexpected – a trait that photography is rife with and frankly at this stage, not surprising – but she uses the surrounding landscape to punctuate those moments filling the frame with additional visual textures – fences, television antennas, road signs, trees, building sides, and power lines – that feel weighty yet light, beautiful yet ugly, oppressive yet fragile and on the verge of collapse.via The Nine and The Ninety-Nine by Katy Grannan (*) by Jeffrey Ladd (*).
the ability to work on our words until they succeed in transmitting our ideas and causing action. [..]Thanks Jeff and Seth.
you do have precisely the same keyboard as everyone else. It's the most level playing field we've got.
The first step is to say it poorly. And then say it again and again and again until you're able to edit your words into something that works.
But mostly, you need to decide that it matters. [HT: Shawn (*)]
Ray was an experimentalist with a brilliant sense of graphic composition (*) using deep shadow (*) as bold black shapes, and he was especially sensitive to repetition, minimalism and subtle variation.via Ray K. Metzker 1931-2014 (*) by Mike Johnson (*).
I’m not sure. I’m an artist, and I thought it would be good to create a situation where I feel out of place and slightly fearful. I feel like you can only draw inspiration from circumstances. Inspiration isn’t really something that you can sit around and extract from your psyche.via This spot in the park reminds me a bit of Massachusetts, so I... (*) by HONY (*).
Your enthusiasms are the things you really take to and learn about because you love them and that bring you consistent pleasure.via On the Road Again (*) by Mike Johnston (*).
The mid-20th century was when street photography became well known, thanks to photographers like Henri Cartier-Bresson, Garry Winogrand and others. Armed with unobtrusive hand-held cameras, they rapidly snapped pictures of passersby, searching for unstudied compositions [..]Brian Sholis (*) continues:
In the 21st century, for better or worse, there are fewer people at home during the day and we’ve offloaded a lot of that ‘eyes on the street’ to surveillance cameras,Steven Rosen (*) summarises:
At the same time, those cameras fill many with unease.Brian Sholis (*) concludes:
So 21st century street photographers are dealing with techniques and issues far different from their forebears
What unites them is they’re incredibly attentive and able to reveal things that we might not otherwise see because the street is such a kinetic and dynamic placevia Street Photography in the 21st Century (*) by Steven Rosen (*).
Making things people want goes beyond the making of the thing. How we create experiences, tell stories and give our customer’s stories to tell matters. [..]because as Bernadette (*) concludes:
when we have an option we will always choose how something feels, before we choose how it tastes, looks or works.via The Trap Of The Misleading Advantage (*) by The Story of Telling (*).
the purpose of a [photo]book is to educate and inspire you.via On Opportunity Costs in Street Photography (*) by Eric Kim (*).
The genuinely untalented [..] probably have no idea that they’re no good—because they’re too untalented to realize it. (This is the “Dunning-Kruger effect [..] ) In short: if you’re worried you don’t measure up, that could well be a sign that you do.Maybe there is some hope:
The real trick to producing great work isn’t to find ways to eliminate the edgy, nervous feeling that you might be swimming out of your depth. Instead, it’s to remember that everyone else is feeling it, too. We’re all in deep water. Which is fine: it’s by far the most exciting place to be.via Nobody Knows What The Hell They Are Doing (*) by Oliver Burkeman (*) [swissmiss (*)].
Either you feel that a thing must be perfect before you present it to the public, or you are willing to let it go out even knowing that it is not perfect, because you are striving for something even beyond what you have achieved, but in struggling too hard for perfection you know that you may lose the very glimmer of life, the very spirit of the thing that you also know exists at a particular point in what you have done; and that to interfere with it would be to destroy that very living quality.via Photographers on Photographers: Looking for the Ghost of William Gedney (*) by fototazo (*).
I am grateful to have inspired you, ultimately that is my focus. Inspiration is spiritual. Inspiration is of God.via Just watched your doc. It was so insightful and humble to the max! Love your work your photographs are a great inspiration for my artwork! Your one amazing being! Sending love from South Carolina! (*) by Khalik Allah (*).
the almost magical appearance of Maier's work, as if it had been conjured, has not only inspired much further creativity and contemplation about the nature of photography, it has also shown how their own interests and approaches have crossed paths with Maier's.Naomi Cass (*) expands Vivian Maier (*) Influence (*) on the Past (*), Present (*) and Identity (*):
We always need to think of a way of activating the past with respect to the present. We couldn't assume Maier to have had an influence on contemporary practice, however all the artists in this exhibition are acutely aware of not just her work but the complexity of her identity.via Maier's portraits are an unexpected gift (*) by Andrew Stephens (*).
most people who call themselves “artists” actually make money somewhere else.via How Small It Actually Is, Alex Zafiris interviews Ben Davis (*) by Alex Zafiris (*) [via photographsonthebrain (*)].
