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August 2009 Archives

August 4, 2009

Martin Parr is on Google - literally

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Martin Parr's images can now become the first thing you see when you start up your browser and go on your Google page. The iGoogle team have now added the "Martin Parr" theme to its vast range of visual options. You can find it here.

August 7, 2009

Rhubarb-Rhubarb kills 2010 review

Rhubarb-Rhubarb is scrapping its 2010 international portfolio review, after a decade of successful events.

Rhonda Wilson, Rhubarb-Rhubarb’s creative director, announced the plan at this year’s review, citing financial constraints resulting from the recession.

‘It's been a tremendous year for us, with the winning of the Obama's People exhibition and around 400,000 people visiting the Rhubarb exhibitions this year between April and August,’ said Wilson. ‘But the reality is that while photographers want to know more, their capacity to buy time at reviews and courses is getting less, due to the current financial uncertainty and cutbacks in commissions and editorial.

‘At the same time, flights and hotel rooms for reviewers are going up. The response from other portfolio review directors is to put up the prices to the artist but we bought ours down a little this year – we don't just want to entice only artists who are cash-rich, that’s not what we're about. We want to bring prices down more but we lost three regular sponsors this year in the downturn, so we ended up supporting the review costs with other projects we took on. That isn't how we want to move forward.

Instead the organisation hopes to run an international summer school next year and resume the review in 2011, plus move into a new space in Birmingham and open public photobook library. To find out more read our breaking news story.

August 10, 2009

'News photography is finished'

Gamma owner says there's no future in news photography after the agency leaked €3m in six months

Censors in the classroom?

A photography lecturer faces a disciplinary hearing after it was alleged that he showed students pornographic material.

BJP understands that Simon Burgess, who lectures at East Surrey College in Redhill, will appear in front of the hearing on 17 August after a complaint was lodged by one or a number of second-year students on the Higher National Diploma in Digital Photography.

The complaint concerns photographs by Del LaGrace Volcano, whose work has often been deemed controversial, but has nonetheless been exhibited in galleries across Europe, including the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.

More...

August 18, 2009

Leibovitz's archives are worth $50m

As a lawsuit against Getty Images has been accepted by the New York State Supreme Court, information about the value of Annie Leibovitz's work has been released in the court fillings, writes PDNOnline in this insightful article. According to both parties - Getty Images and Art Capital, with which Leibovitz has a $24m loan - the archive is worth more than $50m.

"This past spring, Getty entered discussions with ACG about buying the archive. Talks abruptly ended after Getty allegedly offered $15 million for the archive that ACG valued at more than $50 million."

Read more at PDNOnline.

August 19, 2009

National Geographic finally opens up its archives

For more than one century, the National Geographic Society has been collecting millions of images in "a kind of secret museum of photography under the streets of northwest Washington," writes the New York Times in today's edition. The collection is composed of more than 11 million images "documenting the life of the 20th century, from Uganda to the Mississippi Delta to remote lamaseries near the Mongolian border."

Finally, on 17 September, the National Geographic Society will be opening up its archives with a first exhibition of 150 vintage prints from photographers such as Herbert G. Ponting, George Shiras, Joseph F. Rock and Baron Wilhelm von Gloeden.

“Very little of this material exists anywhere else, because many of these pictures were taken specifically for National Geographic and they have the only copies,” says Steven Kasher of the Steven Kasher Gallery in Chelsea, New York, which is organising the exhibition and sale.

The exclusive prints will fetch between $3000 and $10,000, according to the organisers. Read the full article on the New York Times website.

August 20, 2009

Stories of the Eye at Vice

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Photo © Daisy Lowe.

VICE is staging a special photography project with four 'cultural icons'. Four women - Daisy Lowe, Alice Dellal, Miquita Oliver and Lovefoxxx - are using the latest Olympus E-P1 camera to document their lives over the course of six weeks along specific themes:

Daisy Lowe - ‘eyeStyle’.
The supermodel will be giving viewers a rare glimpse into her glossy lifestyle.

Alice Dellal - ‘eyeDoWhatILike’
Britain’s edgiest supermodel and style icon will be inviting viewers into her world.

Miquita Oliver - ‘eyeLondon’
London born TV presenter will show us around her hometown.

Lovefoxxx is ‘eyeTravel’
The CSS musician invites us to travel with her around the world.


The images are uploaded daily here. However, viewers can also upload their own images, with an overall winner receiving the new E-P1 camera. Find out more at www.viceland.com/storiesoftheeye.

August 24, 2009

Fujifilm addresses 'worst camera ever made' review

It's such a rare occurrence, that when it happens we have to mention it. Last month, Fujifilm announced its first Real 3D camera (see our news article here). Akihabara News was one of the first media outlets to get their hands on one to review it, and their conclusions were quite harsh:

To be VERY VERY VERY Honest, I feel pretty bad… I feel bad for the Fujifilm engineers and staff who worked on the W1… There's no word other than crap that comes to my mind when describing it, maybe I got it wrong from the beginning, maybe I was expecting too much, but I can't recommend the W1 to anyone… Seriously… What did Fujiflim expect? I really want to know. Read the full review here.

Fujifilm could have retaliate by never loaning a new product to Akihabara News, but that's not what they did. Instead, they invited the reviewer and editors to Japan to discuss the review and explain why the cameras had some limitations. This is almost un-heard off, and we wish other manufacturers would adopt the same policy. Read Akihabara News' report on its meeting with Fujifilm.

How do you get a one-ton lightjet through the door?

Last week, BJP wrote about Metro buying a Lightjet capable of printing 76-inch digital C-type prints in one piece (read our full article here). However, that Lightjet printer - one of only ten available in the world - is big. It weighs one ton and cannot fit through any doors. So how did Metro install it in its London premises? By taking down a wall and using a crane. 'Both machines were lifted over the top of the building Saturday morning and down through the basement window,' says Metro's director Chris Jackson. 'We now have a lot of kit in the basement!' For more details about Metro, visit metroimaging.co.uk.

Here are a few photos of the move.

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August 25, 2009

Huh?

That Jonnie Craig's a bright young thing. Born in 1988, he's already publishing images in Vice magazine, published a monograph, had a solo show at Claire De Rouen books (among others) and shot ads for Nike, Diesel and Levis (among others). Apparently that's not quite enough though because there's also talk of his own gallery space and he's just launched a magazine.

Huh. Magazine , as it's known, is a Vice-like mix of the spurious and serious, including features on hipster favourites music, art and skateboarding. It also features some interesting photography - I particularly liked the shots by Jerry Hsu, Matthew Genitempo and Karly Wildenhaus.

Wildenhaus was also born in just 1988, but her interesting, deliberately-pixellated work suggests she too is wise beyond her years. 'Identifying what qualifies as a photograph has been relatively straightforward for the past 100 years, but that definition is coming into question as more computer-generated images deal with photographic issues,' she says. 'Despite a lot of anxiety over the death of film, I definitely don't see any traditional or trend-oriented forms of photography dying out. Instead, the boundaries of the medium will become less distinguishable. That's all I could really predict at this point.'

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