‘Car Park: under cover’ an exhibition by Astrid Schulz

The award winning series ‘Car Park: under cover’ is going to be part of
Photomonth, the UK's largest photography festival. The exhibition coincides with the ‘United Nations Climate Conference’ in Copenhagen, 7-18 December 2009.

Astrid Schulz had a very special experience on New Year’s Eve 2006. A sudden change of weather turned her journey upside down, but also lead to the mesmerizing images in her ‘Car Park’ series. Her images remind us of the unpredictability of life. There is an underlining message about the threat of recent climate changes and how little we know about protecting ourselves. Many people are not fully conscious about the meaning of our environmental problems, but in some countries drastic changes have already altered peoples lives often in tragic ways. The images in ‘Car Park’ are a silent reminder to think about the way we take our comfortable lives for granted, but nothing lasts forever…

Astrid Schulz will be present at the gallery during weekends from 12 to 4pm. She is also going to have a talk about the images (Wed 16 Dec, 7-9pm) and is discussing the problems of ‘photographing whiteness’ during a workshop on 6th Dec, 2-5pm (ticket price £5, for booking information please get in touch with Viewfinder Gallery).

Dates: 26 November – 20 December 2009

Venue: Viewfinder Photography Gallery
Linear House, Peyton Place,
Greenwich, London SE10 8RS

Opening event: Friday, 27 November, 6.30pm - 8.30pm

Further information about the images can be seen at ‘Featured Gallery’ on London Photographic Association website.

Viewing times and information about the gallery: www.viewfinder.org.uk

Astrid Schulz Photography home page: www.astridschulz.com

LPA Photography Competition Results

Love and Pain and Beauty
"We all carry around so much pain in our hearts. Love and pain and beauty. They all seem to go together like one little tidy confusing package. It's a messy business, life. It's hard to figure - full of surprises. Some good.

Some bad".

'Henry Bromel', Northern Exposure, The Big Kiss, 1991

Benedite Topuz: Paris, France
Series category, Gold - Interview

Natalie Tkachuk: Hemel Hempstead, United Kingdom
Series category, Silver - Interview

Rene Roalf Jensen: Viborg, Denmark
Series category, Bronze - Interview

Boris Austin: Beijing / London, United Kingdom
Single image, Gold - Interview

Guido Torres: Mexico City, Mexico
Single image, Silver - Interview

Richard Ansett: London, United Kingdom
Single image, Bronze - Interview

Image photograph and design by Guido Torres

Fuck committees

I was looking through a file yesterday where I keep interesting articles, It's my attempt at trying to keep tabs on the the huge amount of information that I come across on a daily basis. I found this article on an American website (I assume) dated June 1998 and written by a chap called Tabor Kaman of New York, clearly my system is not working quite as it should. Given this was written Eleven years ago it is still, sadly, very relevant.


Fuck committees

(I believe in lunatics)
It's about the struggle between individuals with jagged passion in their work and today's faceless corporate committees, 
which claim to understand the needs of the mass audience, and are removing the idiosyncrasies, polishing the jags, creating 
a thought-free, passion-free, cultural mush that will not be hated nor loved by anyone. By now, virtually all media, architecture, product and graphic design have been freed from ideas, individual passion, and have been relegated to a role of corporate servitude, carrying out corporate strategies and increasing stock prices. Creative people are now working for the bottom line.

Magazine editors have lost their editorial independence, and work for committees of publishers (who work for committees of advertisers). TV scripts are vetted by producers, advertisers, lawyers, research specialists, layers and layers of paid executives who determine whether the scripts are dumb enough to amuse what they call the 'lowest common denominator’. Film studios put films in front of focus groups to determine whether an ending will please target audiences. All cars look the same. Architectural decisions are made by accountants. Ads are stupid.
Theater is dead.
Corporations have become the sole arbiters of cultural ideas and taste in America.

Our culture is corporate culture.
Culture used to be the opposite of commerce, not a fast track to 'content'-derived riches. Not so long ago captains of industry (no angels in the way they acquired wealth) thought that part of their responsibility was to use there millions to support culture. Carnegie built libraries; Rockefeller built art museums, Ford created his global foundation. What do we now get from our billionaires? Gates? Or Eisner? Or Redstone? Sales pitches. Junk mail. Meanwhile, creative people have their work reduced to 'content' or 'intellectual property'. Magazines and films become 'delivery systems' for product messages.

But to be fair, the above is only 99 percent true.
I offer a modest solution: Find the cracks in the wall. There are a very few lunatic entrepreneurs who will understand that culture and design are not about fatter wallets, but about creating a future. They will understand that wealth is means, not an end. Under other circumstances they may have turned out to be like you, creative lunatics. Believe me, they're there and when you find them, treat them well and use their money to change the world.
Tabor Kaman New York June 1998

Points of View Exhibition At The British Library

Points of View
Capturing the 19th century in photographs 30 October 2009 – 7 March 2010

Points of View brings together, for the first time, a selection of photographs from the British Library’s unique collections, examining the development of the medium and its influence, from its invention and early years up to the growth of a popular amateur market in the early 20th century.

For more information visit www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions

LPA Masterclass with Guy Gowan

The London Photographic Association is delighted to present two NEW
seminars with Guy Gowan on the following subjects,

Retouching Workflow- Thursday 8th October 2009
Fine Art Retouching Friday 9th October 2009

"Having seen Guy present, I believe these seminars will prove invaluable to commercial and fine art photographers alike." Kevin O'Connor - LPA

For more information and bookings.

THE EYE OF A HAWK AND A VELVET GLOVE

L’Imaginaire d’Apres Nature by Henri Cartier-Bresson

Written by Christine Booth
Photographs: Courtesy Musee d'Art Moderne
Copyright Henri-Cartier Bresson/Magnum Photos

If you want a treat, get along to the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris before the 13th of September – and, thanks to Eurostar, you can now hop on a train at London’s shiny new St. Pancras station and be in the centre of Paris in less than two and a half hours.

This exhibition was first shown at the University of Fribourg-Misericorde, during the Triennial of Photography in 1975, under the title, Hommage a Cartier-Bresson, and comprises some sixty-eight photographs, chosen then by Cartier-Bresson himself as what he considered his best work. As this was the year that he had decided to give up photography to concentrate on drawing, it can be seen as a definitive exhibition of his entire photographic career.

Recreated here to mark the centenary of his birth, the exhibition has been divided into four sections: Early Works; Henri Cartier-Bresson as a Photographer of Daily Life; Henri Cartier-Bresson as A Witness to His Time and Henri Cartier-Bresson as a Portraitist, and includes some of his most familiar images as well as some not so well-known. Every single one, though, is captivating. Even his most famous shots, such as the boy with the cheeky grin, carrying bottles (Rue Mouffetard, Paris, 1952), take on a fresh aspect, especially as the prints are displayed here without glass, removing any annoying reflections.

In fact, they’re breathtaking. It’s easy to see why HCB, as he is fondly referred to by the French, is regarded as the father of contemporary photojournalism. Not just the father, but the master. His photographs are so simple yet so powerful that you stand gazing at them for a very long time indeed, reading the human stories that they tell.
And in these days of digital wizardry, it’s hard to believe that Cartier Bresson’s prints weren’t even cropped. His Simiane-la-Rotonde, France 1969, is so perfectly composed that it looks choreographed, set up, planned. But,no. HCB hated manufactured photographs - or any kind of technical intervention. He photographed life as it is. Armed with just a simple 35mm camera, his skill was his eye – and timing.

“For me, the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant……In photography the smallest thing can be a great subject. The little human detail can become a leitmotif.”

And it was in recognizing – and capturing – the human detail that has the power to tell the wider story that he showed true genius, such as in Visit de De Gaulle, Rovergne, 1961, where we don’t see the man himself: just the cynical expressions on the faces of elderly spectators. In Lorraine, 1972, we see lines of washing hanging out in the shadow of a filthy power station, but it’s the presence of a small child in the picture that makes it powerful and shocking.

There’s humour here too, such as in his photograph of a priest and elderly lady trudging along, oblivious to the two dogs mating in the background; and happiness, in Epire, Greece, 1961 – a simple picture of a boy doing a handstand in the hills, bursting with joi de vivre!

There are twelve portraits in this exhibition and, in each one, without the use of any artifice and using only available light, Cartier-Bresson captures wonderfully the essence of the sitter’s personality.

“We must respect the atmosphere which surrounds the human being and integrate into the portrait the individual’s habitat.”

And that’s exactly what he did. I particularly loved his portrait of Pierre Bonnard at home in his studio, looking tiny and vulnerable, with drawings and sketches strewn around; of Truman Capote, taken in Louisiana in 1946, surrounded by huge foliage, giving him a hunted look; and of Alberto Giacometti, taken on the rue d’Alesia in Paris in 1961, trudging across the road in the rain, with his coat over his head.

Cartier-Bresson loved taking photographs, documenting life: it excited him. In his book, The Decisive Moment, he recalls how, after getting his first camera, he “prowled the streets all day, feeling very strung up and ready to pounce, determined to trap life, to preserve life in the act of living.”

Ready to pounce he may have been, but he was never intrusive or voyeuristic. Whether they are portraits of famous artists or documents of daily life; whether they show tragedy and suffering or joy and humour, one quality is evident in all his photographs and that is the dignity and respect he affords his subjects. He knew that ‘trapping life’ carries with it a great responsibility and believed that a sense of human dignity was therefore an essential quality for any photojournalist.

“Of all the means of expression, photography is the only one that fixes forever the precise and transitory instant…..it is essential, therefore, to approach the subject on tiptoe…..a velvet hand, a hawk’s eye: these we should all have.”

This exhibition shows Cartier-Bresson at his best: documenting his times and capturing the timeless essence of human life. Go and see it if you can.


Copyright Christine Booth 15th August 2009
________________________________________________________________________
Quotations from The Decisive Moment by Henri Cartier-Bresson (Pub. Simon & Schuster, 1952)


L’Imaginaire d’Apres Nature by Henri Cartier-Bresson
Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris,
11, avenue du President Wilson, 75116 Paris
Metro: Alma-Marceau or Iena
Tel: +33 (0)1 5367 4000
Open: Tuesday – Sunday 10am – 6pm (Thursday to 10pm) Closed Mondays and public holidays
Admission: Adults: 6 Euros; Concessions: 4.50 Euros; Age 13-26: 3 Euros; Free for under-13s
Guided tour for lip readers on 30 August. Admission 4.50 Euros. No booking required.
www.mam.paris.fr

Christine Booth travelled to Paris on Eurostar

Eurostar operates up to 19 daily services from London St.Pancras International to Paris. Fastest London-Paris journey time is 2hrs 15mins
Return fares from £59
Single fares from £35
Trains also depart from Ebbsfleet International (close to junction 2 of the M25 and the Bluewater shopping centre, with car parking, taxi and Avis car hire facilities) and from Ashford International.

Tickets are available from www.eurostar.com or telephone 08705 186 186

Annie Leibovitz faces court claim for $24m

Annie Leibovitz: life’s work at risk. Photograph: Jacquelyn Martin/AP

A firm that lent millions of dollars to Annie Leibovitz, one of the world's most renowned celebrity photographers, says she has reneged on an agreement to sell her life's work to repay the debt, and has asked a New York court to order her to open her home and studio to its estate agents.

Mired in debt, Leibovitz approached Art Capital, a US firm specialising in loans backed by pricey art collections, last year and obtained $24m (£14m) in credit to right her "dire financial condition", the firm said in a court filing....more

Another nail in the coffin of photojournalism

France's Gamma photo agency on brink of collapse.
By Laure Bretton

PARIS (Reuters) - French photo agency Gamma, which rose to fame documenting the May 1968 uprising in Paris and the Vietnam War, said Tuesday its survival was in doubt, the latest victim of a crisis hurting traditional media.

Founded in 1966, Gamma spearheaded a golden generation of French photo-journalists, whose prize-winning images of world events were showcased on the front pages of influential magazine Paris Match and newspapers around the globe.....more

Kodak Kills Kodachrom

After being made for 74 years, Kodak announced today that Kodachrome will no longer be made.

From the press release:

ROCHESTER, N.Y., June 22 -- Eastman Kodak Company announced today that it will retire KODACHROME Color Film this year, concluding its 74-year run as a photography icon.

Sales of KODACHROME Film, which became the world’s first commercially successful color film in 1935, have declined dramatically in recent years as photographers turned to newer KODAK Films or to the digital imaging technologies that Kodak pioneered. Today, KODACHROME Film represents just a fraction of one percent of Kodak’s total sales of still-picture films.

“KODACHROME Film is an iconic product and a testament to Kodak’s long and continuing leadership in imaging technology,” said Mary Jane Hellyar, President of Kodak’s Film, Photofinishing and Entertainment Group. "It was certainly a difficult decision to retire it, given its rich history. However, the majority of today's photographers have voiced their preference to capture images with newer technology – both film and digital. Kodak remains committed to providing the highest-performing products – both film and digital – to meet those needs."

While Kodak now derives about 70% of its revenues from commercial and consumer digital businesses, it is the global leader in the film business. Kodak has continued to bring innovative new film products to market, including seven new professional still films and several new VISION2 and VISION3 motion picture films in the past three years.These new still film products are among those that have become the dominant choice for those professional and advanced amateur photographers who use KODAK Films.

Among the well-known professional photographers who used KODACHROME Film is Steve McCurry, whose picture of a young Afghan girl captured the hearts of millions of people around the world as she peered hauntingly from the cover of National Geographic Magazine in 1985.

As part of a tribute to KODACHROME Film, Kodak will donate the last rolls of the film to George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in Rochester, which houses the world’s largest collection of cameras and related artifacts. McCurry will shoot one of those last rolls and the images will be donated to Eastman House.

“The early part of my career was dominated by KODACHROME Film, and I reached for that film to shoot some of my most memorable images,” said McCurry. “While KODACHROME Film was very good to me, I have since moved on to other films and digital to create my images. In fact, when I returned to shoot the ‘Afghan Girl’ 17 years later, I used KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME Film E100VS to create that image, rather than KODACHROME Film as with the original.”

For all of its magic, KODACHROME is a complex film to manufacture and an even more complex film to process. There is only one remaining photofinishing lab in the world – Dwayne’s Photo in Parsons, Kansas – that processes KODACHROME Film, precisely because of the difficulty of processing. This lack of widespread processing availability, as well as the features of newer films introduced by Kodak over the years, has accelerated the decline of demand for KODACHROME Film.

During its run, KODACHROME Film filled a special niche in the annals of the imaging world. It was used to capture some of the best-known photographs in history, while also being the film of choice for family slide shows of the Baby Boom generation.

To celebrate the film’s storied history, Kodak has created a gallery of iconic images, including the Afghan girl and other McCurry photos, as well as others from professional photographers Eric Meola and Peter Guttman on its website: www.kodak.com/go/kodachrometribute. Special podcasts featuring McCurry and Guttman will also be featured on the website.

Kodak estimates that current supplies of KODACHROME Film will last until early this fall at the current sales pace. Dwayne’s Photo has indicated it will continue to offer processing for the film through 2010. Current KODACHROME Film users are encouraged to try other KODAK Films, such as KODAK PROFESSIONAL EKTACHROME E100G and EKTAR 100 Film. These films both feature extremely fine grain. For more information, please visit www.kodak.com/go/professional.

Frame grabbing: The art of drawing great photography from video

By Edward J. Delaney

[The June issue of Esquire arrives on newsstands Sunday, and there's something unique about its cover photo. Not the presence of an attractive young starlet — that's de rigueur in the magazine business. It's that the photo of Megan Fox was shot with a video camera, not a still one. Photographer Greg Williams shot footage of Fox with one of those jaw-dropping Red One cameras and pulled stills from the resulting video. (As Zach noted recently, Esquire seems to be cornering the market on cover gimmicks: e-ink, mix-and-match flip books, and now framegrabbing.)

I thought that was a perfect reason to post this interview Ted did with Pulitzer-winning photographer (and my former coworker at The Dallas Morning News) David Leeson about frame grabbing — an area where he was an early innovator. —Josh]

To David Leeson, the appeal of frame grabbing seems obvious. It reduces the number of tools a photographer has to juggle, and it enables multiple outputs from the same journalistic workflow. As he wrote about his first experience, preparing to cover Hurricane Katrina in 2005:

"The first thing I did upon receiving an HDV camera…was shoot a few seconds of video, import it with iMovie and make a frame grab. The results were almost as magical as the first time I saw a print emerge in a tray of developer. I knew the world of photojournalism as we knew it, would never be quite the same again."

But he’s been surprised by the resistance among many of his fellow photojournalists. Even as each wave of new cameras to hit the market makes frame grabbing an easier option, Leeson still finds himself preaching to the unconverted. The main resistance may be the core belief that the fundamental art of the photograph is timing the decision of when to press the shutter...... more

The Digital Photo & Imaging Show Thursday 18th - Friday 19th June 2009

Thursday 18th - Friday 19th June 2009

Stand 601 is where you will find the LPA at this years DPI show, please drop by for a chat.
REMEMBER to register online now for your free entry to the DPI show (£12 on the door)

The DPI show has been designed to be the knowledge centre for professional photographers and agencies active in advertising, fashion, photojournalism, sports/action, portraiture, wedding and lifestyle photography.

The DPI show will feature the second year of the hugely successful BJP Insight series which will include seminars from many of the leading lights in the photographic market. It provides an opportunity where you can interact with people who have been influenced by photography and in many cases have influenced the world.

We will also have a Live studio run by the Pro Centre, building a full-feature facility at the show illustrating the capabilities of the equipment in a studio environment.

The DPI show will include industry leaders in the photographic market such as Hasselblad, Nikon, Adobe, Broncolor, Apple Solutions Experts, HP and many more...

NEW Speakers announced by The British Journal of Photography - The Insight Lecture Programme

LPA Photo Forum At Camden Arts Centre

The LPA has linked up with Camden Arts Centre to hold regular photography events and presentations from established and emerging photographers and other professionals linked to the photography industry.

The aim is to provide a platform to the (LPA) photography community to stimulate communication and networking in an informal setting. These evening sessions 6.30-8.30pm, are on selected Thursdays, each month, starting on the 7th May with presentations by photographers Suki Parnell and John Ferguson, discussing their current projects.

For more info or to book a seat, please contact Kevin O'Connor at the LPA

Tickets are £5.00 each and spaces are limited , so booking is essential!!!!

Photograpy by Sukey Parnell

The Arts Forum

The Brighton Media Centre invites you to ArtsfORUM.

A monthly ‘Review of Art in Progress’ for the photography and moving image enthusiasts.

The Arts Forum allows established and emerging photographers to film makers to articulate and showcase their current project to an audience, encouraging discussion and feedback in a peer-led environment.

Led by Vanessa Jones and Beatrice Haverich, it is held every second Wednesday of each month.

Join us for an evening of inspiration

The aim of this event is to serve as a communications network to benefit both the audience and the artist through the process of an open critique. A discussion of the presented bodies of work will provide a platform for the artist to speak about their aims and concerns of their projects.

Submission process please email around 10 images (small Jpgs.) of a body of work in progress to vanessa@mediacentre.org.
The selected artists will be notified 2 weeks before the event.

LIMITED SPACES SO BOOKING IS ESSENTIAL

INFO and BOOKINGS: 07882852659 or 07890834112
vanessa@mediacentre.org or info@beatricehaverich.com

We will have a Bar… before, during and after!

6.30pm-8.00pm
Wednesday 11 March 2009
Brighton Media Centre Gallery
Friese-Greene House
15-17 Middle Street
Brighton BN1 1AL

Fujifilm Launch Medium Format Film Camera

It cheered me up to see that Fujifilm are launching a new medium format film camera this spring. We are not sure when it will sell in the UK as yet.

First shown as a prototype at the Photokina trade show in Cologne last year, the GF670 Professional will now be released in Japan in mid-March as a portable folding bellows camera, jointly developed by Fujifilm and Cosina. The production may be limited to just 5000 units.

Its most unusual feature is a mechanism for switching between two different film formats - 6x7cm and 6x6cm. It is also fitted with an 80mm f/3.5 fixed focal length lens, which is composed of six glass elements in four groups. The GF670 has an automatic lens shutter, and an SPD sensor with both automatic and manual autofocus. The ISO sensitivity ranges from 25 to 3200.

Garbo Meets Models in N.Y. Show Pitching Fashion Photos as Art

Spot the Fake #1" by Miles Aldridge
Review by Linda Yablonsky

Feb. 2 (Bloomberg) -- Most men in suits don’t look like sex symbols. Gary Cooper did, at least in Edward Steichen’s come- hither 1930 photograph of the actor for Vogue.

In those days, a fashion magazine was the go-to place for seduction by portraiture, publishing the most provocative photographers, writers and designers of the moment.

Today, a style magazine is literally a museum piece at New York’s International Center of Photography. Proclaiming 2009 as its Year of Fashion, ICP is presenting four separate but unequal exhibitions that propose fashion photography as a crucible for new ideas in art.

To accomplish this, the ICP, which prides itself on classic photojournalism, has taken a radical step. Its lead show, “Weird Beauty: Fashion Photography Now,” pretty much dispenses with photographic prints. Those it does show are nearly lost within a blizzard of magazine layouts, and not even original ones at that. All are reproductions, most published within the past two years.

Fashion trades on fantasy and “Weird Beauty” includes some startling images. Several center on the mouth, exemplified by Miles Aldridge’s bright color close-up of a woman’s blinding white teeth clenching a yellow gemstone between her fiery red lips.

Languid Young Men

This picture is surrounded by Aldridge images from recent magazines, some featuring languid young men sleeping under bushes. Their clothing is secondary to their presentation as objects of desire themselves.

That is what is most striking about the images in this show: Clothes are not the center of attention. The artifice of the image itself is what takes center stage -- the dramatic lighting, framing, styling and posing that combine to brand the style of each of the show’s 40 photographers rather than any designer of fashion.

From Nick Knight we get an overhead, black-and-white shot of a model in a laced-string camisole laid out on an examination table as if begging to be ravished. Paolo Roversi’s “Blue Mask” surrounds the model’s face behind the blow-up of another Roversi photograph of her tinted blue face, with a fake pink mouth attached.

Removed from their commercial context, it might be easier to consider these images as ingenious works of art. But we see them here only in the service of commerce, to sell a label or a concept, not to create any larger understanding of the human condition.

Steichen, who mined the Romantic tradition of the sublime before becoming a hard-core modernist, was one of the stars of the Conde Nast firmament in the salad days of Vogue and Vanity Fair, from 1923 to 1937.

Socialites, Celebrities

His work for those magazines is the subject of a retrospective at the ICP, with 175 photographs of socialites and celebrities who ruled the gossip columns of the day.

It’s interesting to move from the abject surrealism of “Weird Beauty” to the pronounced glamour of Steichen, who established the photography department at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. His formal iconography of famous figures like Winston Churchill, Amelia Earhart, Charlie Chaplin, Greta Garbo and Cooper has influenced contemporary photographers as disparate as Robert Mapplethorpe and Irving Penn.

Two smaller shows force a closer consideration of the artistry behind a fashion photograph. “Munkacsi’s Lost Archive” presents a small selection of new prints from a cache of glass negatives by the Hungarian photographer, acquired by the ICP after they appeared on EBay.

Before he died in 1963, Martin Munkacsi was a top talent at Harper’s Bazaar whose art took place as much in his darkroom as on a set. The show reveals his process, juxtaposing original shots that include an assistant’s hands or feet in the frame with the tight focus of a cropped, finished print.

Stylish Satchel

More absorbing -- and curious -- is “This Is Not a Fashion Photograph,” a group of unrelated photographs from ICP’s collections that curator Vince Aletti cites as having as much calculated style as documentary truth.

It would be difficult to find a more fashionable image than George Strock’s 1941 photograph of the very stylish baseball great Satchel Paige, who lights a cigarette at a Harlem pool hall.

It has personality, it has social realism, it has class. Which means it may not matter if we label it art, journalism or fashion. At the ICP, such distinctions are completely without a difference.

“Weird Beauty: Fashion Photography Now,” “Edward Steichen: In High Fashion, The Conde Nast Years, 1923-1937,” “This is Not a Fashion Photograph: Selections from the ICP Collection” and “Munkacsi’s Lost Archive” are on view through May 3 at the International Center of Photography, 1133 Avenue of Americas at West 43rd St. Information: +1-212-857-0045; http://www.icp.org.

( Linda Yablonsky is an art critic for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are her own.)

To contact the writer of this review: Linda Yablonsky in New York at fabyab@earthlink.net.

"Spot the Fake #1" by Miles Aldridge, a 2006 photograph published in New York Times T Magazine, is shown here. The photo will be on display as part of the exhibit "Weird Beauty: Fashion Photography Now" at New York's International Center of Photography through May 3, 2009. Photographer: Miles Aldridge/ICP via Bloomberg News

Another Lawsuit filed against Richard Prince

Images of Rastafarians under dispute by photographer Patrick Cariou

Andrew Goldstein | 21.1.09 | From the Art Newspaper

NEW YORK. French photographer Patrick Cariou has launched a lawsuit against Richard Prince, claiming that the artist improperly lifted images from Cariou’s photographic survey of Rastafarian culture for a recent series of paintings. The suit, filed in New York, also names as defendants Larry Gagosian, Prince’s dealer who displayed the series in a recent show titled “Canal Zone”, and publishing house Rizzoli, which co-produced the catalogue. In addition to seeking unspecified damages for copyright infringement, the lawsuit also demands the “impounding, destruction, or other disposition” of all of the paintings, unsold catalogues and preparatory materials involved in the making of the works.

Cariou filed the suit after being alerted that the show contained images of dreadlocked men and woman seemingly copied from Yes Rasta, a book Cariou published in 2000 after a decade of photographing Rastafarian culture in the hinterlands of Jamaica. According to the lawsuit, 20 out of the 22 works in the series—a pastiche-like amalgam of Rastafarian images, porn photos and painterly strokes recalling artists such as de Kooning and Picasso—featured photographs from Cariou’s book. The photographer’s lawyer and representatives for Prince and Mr Gagosian all declined to comment on the suit.

Prince, whose work typically incorporates images from a variety of sources, has previously incurred some resentment for his practice. In the 1980s photographer Garry Gross sued Prince over Spiritual America, a 1983 work that consisted of a blown-up copy of a picture Gross took of a nude, pre-pubescent Brooke Shields. Reportedly the suit was settled out of court. A series of enlarged Marlborough advertisements that brought Prince international celebrity in the 1990s—selling for millions of dollars, a price his work now routinely commands—also created consternation among the lesser-known commercial photographers who shot the cowboy-themed pictures. Prince himself, who has said of his work that he’s “practising without a license”, unapologetically problematises issues of authorship. The essay for the show’s catalogue, for instance, was written by James Frey, the controversial author who fabricated whole swathes of his 2003 “memoir”, A Million Little Pieces.

In the lawsuit, Cariou’s lawyers argue that the appropriations in “Canal Zone” are especially egregious because they involve the recent work of a fellow artist whose images are the result of years of ethnographic research, not simply the output of a commercial photographer. However, the question facing the judge if the case goes to court will largely boil down to whether Prince’s use of the images was transformative and therefore permissible under the United States’ doctrine of “fair use”, which allows for limited reproduction of copyright imagery for the purpose of parody or other creative ends. A significant recent case regarding the practice of appropriation in art was Blanch v Koons, a 2006 action where fashion photographer Andrea Blanch sued Jeff Koons for incorporating a photo she took of a woman’s lower legs for Allure magazine. The suit was decided in Koons’s favour when a judge found the artist’s appropriation to be transformative.

Lea Golda Holterman at Gallery 1839

Exhibition by Lea Golda Holterman

Gallery 1839 is hosting an exclusive, solo exhibition of 'Exile: an image of women, women as an image' by acclaimed Israeli artist and photographer Lea Golda Holterman at The Assembly Rooms in Soho London.

The gallery will be open to the public on Open Saturday 24th & Sunday 25th January 2009 10:00am to 4:30pm

Gallery 1839 at
The Assembly Rooms
8 Silver Place
London W1F 0JU Map

Online at www.gallery1839.com Prints can be purchased from the online gallery.

All enquiries should be addressed to Kevin O'Connor
Tel: 020 8392 8557
Mob: 07768 275075

Sponsors:
The London Photographic Association (LPA)
The Assembly Rooms

Self Promotion through 2009 - A MUST!!

The past few months have not been easy for anyone in the commercial sector and, as we head into 2009, I think it's important to point out how crucial it is that you all promote yourselves as best you can. The LPA is your association: we are here for you. We can, and do, help members market themselves, exhibit their work, gain extra exposure and even appear higher up Google rankings. Please use us: we want to help you succeed.

Perception is very important in our industry. People want to deal with busy people so make sure you are on page one of Google for relevant search terms: it'll make it seem as if you've got loads going on, and more work will come from that!

This is just one of the areas in which the LPA can really help, but you have to keep us in touch with what you are doing. We regularly publish members' news and it is this text that Google's spiders pick up. The more news you have appearing about you on the internet, the more likely you are to appear on page one of Google, which will ultimately drive more traffic to your LPA portfolio and your personal website.

If you still need convincing that it's a good idea to let the LPA help you with marketing, here are some stories from members who have used the LPA's muscle power. They all got fantastic exposure which has made a positive difference to their careers. Will it be you next?

Photography by jane Chilvers

Cultivate, Portfolio Reviews

Rhubarb-Rhubarb is pleased to announce the third Cultivate series of seminars and portfolio reviews.

Cultivate has been designed for self-taught emerging photographers, graduates or students in their final year of a specialist photography course. The aim is to bring insightful and up-to-the-minute information about the current photography industry. We've sourced some of Britain’s best curators, agents, gallerists and freelance photographers to present a series of seminars and one to one portfolio sessions.

This is a two-day event run in conjunction with London College of Communication. The two events will be held at their building in Elephant and Castle, dates as follows;

Full day of seminars on Saturday 28th February 2009, 10.00 am - 4.30 pm
Portfolio Review event on Saturday 14th March 2009, 9.30 am - 3.30 pm

We're very aware that these are trying financial times for all of us. We've put together a price package that reflects this and is excellent value for money. Prices as follows;

£25.00 for one seminar session ( am or pm )
£40.00 for two seminar sessions
£70.00 for two seminars and 3 portfolio sessions

For further information and online booking, visit http://www.rhubarb-rhubarb.net/13_cultivate.asp

Places are limited and work on a first-come, first-served basis.

We're looking forward to seeing you in London. Any queries, please get in touch.

Sean McGarry
Information Officer

Rhubarb-Rhubarb.net Ltd
212 The Custard Factory,
Gibb Street,
Birmingham
B9 4AA
United Kingdom

e: admin@rhubarb-rhubarb.net
t: +44 (0)121 773 7889
f: +44 (0)121 773 7888

Philip Lee Harvey | Documentary Silver Award Winner

Silver winner of My Back Yard 4 - documentary photography.

George Rodger
The images awarded silver place in the series category were taken by Philip Lee Harvey during a project retracing the footsteps of British photojournalist George Rodger 60 years ago. Land Rover contacted Philip with a commission to commemorate the brand's own 60th anniversary. When asked to suggest ideas which reflected 1948, the Magnum co-founder Rodger's journey into Africa immediately sprung to mind. "I suppose there's an aspect of school-boy adventure to it all," says Philip, "and Rodger is a photographer I've known about since I was a boy. He lived in the area where I grew up, and I was always aware of that, even though he was a very quiet man."

Philip retraced Rodger's journey through the Maasai Mara, the mountains of Uganda and the Sudan, revisiting the three main tribes which he saw on his 1948 journey.

Additional text

P.L.Harvey | LPA Featured Gallery Haiti

P.L.Harvey | Gallery 1839 - Fine art print sales