It looks like Cindy Sherman and Loretta Lux dated and mated and birthed Alex Prager. Color me intrigued.

Lest you are confused by these photo booth portraits of Chris Mottlalini, the dude is not an ax-murderer, or a contemporary of Johnny Cash. Though he does have a lyrical knack for naming his photo projects-- winter city; the mistake by the lake; after you left, they took it apart.  In any case, Mottalini has been making some great work. I first came upon his pictures when several of his Buffalo bus-stop shelters (the mistake by the lake) were chose for AP24, and I've since become enthralled with his survey of doomed Paul Rudolph houses, and his recordings of some of the demolitions. I was appalled last week at that New Canaan lady who's thinking about knocking down her Philip Johnson house, and these strike a similar nerve. Mottalini is a great sport and answered all of my questions, including the one about a sandwich.


How did you get started shooting the Paul Rudolph houses (how many are there), and what has the journey of photographing them been like? How did you gain access? Have you been present at any of the demolitions?

I photographed my first Paul Rudolph house at the very end of 2006.  I actually happened upon the project pretty much completely by chance; A friend of a friend worked for the Paul Rudolph Foundation and needed some photos of a Rudolph house in Westport, CT, which was about to be demolished.  To be honest, I knew very little about Rudolph and Modernist architecture when I first set foot inside of the Westport house. I was instantly hooked and fascinated, though, and I've probably thought about Paul Rudolph and his work every day since. 

Rudolph completed over 100 projects in his lifetime, from Texas to Singapore, but the Westport house is my absolute favorite.  Even though it no longer exists, my pictures at least serve as a sort of photographic preservation. I was present (and sort of wish that I was not) at the demolition....the street was blocked by the overly aggressive owners and the cops, but I managed to catch a few glimpses of the garage and the front of the house as they were being caved in. A McMansion is currently being built on the site.



Paul Rudolph House, Westport, CT 1972-2007



Paul Rudolph House, Westport, CT 1972-2007



Paul Rudolph House, Westport, CT 1972-2007


Over the past year I photographed thirteen Rudolph projects, including the demolished homes in Westport, CT; Westerly, RI; and Siesta Key, FL.  Many were iconic projects and the existence of one of them was unknown even to the Paul Rudolph Foundation. Once I realized that I was obsessed with documenting these houses, I was able to gain access through the Paul Rudolph Foundation (even still, though, I was ejected by cops from the property of the Westport, CT house). The experience of just being able to wander through these amazing, vanished homes all by myself and to have that privilege because I take pictures, was fantastic.



Paul Rudolph House, Siesta Key, FL 1941-2007



Paul Rudolph House, Siesta Key, FL 1941-2007



Paul Rudolph House, Siesta Key, FL 1941-2007



Paul Rudolph House, Westerly, RI 1956-2007



Paul Rudolph House, Westerly, RI 1956-2007


How long will your project continue? What has your experience been with the foundation?

Seriously, the project will probably continue as long as I am taking pictures.  Even now, several other Rudolph projects are slated for demolition and, unless some type of preservation-based legislation specific to mid-century homes is put in place, it won't stop and will only get worse. Can't stop the progress, apparently.


Paul Rudolph House, Larchmont, NY




Paul Rudolph House, Larchmont, NY



Paul Rudolph House, Newtown, PA

The Pennsylvania house is the secret, never photographed project the Rudolph Foundation didn't even know about.  Apparently, the husband did a lot of the stonework by himself and his wife told me a story about him doing the work on their bedroom, in the dead of winter, while she read the entirety of Anna Karenina aloud from their bed.



Paul Rudolph House, Newtown, PA


Your recent series "mistake by the lake" was featured in AP24. How does Buffalo figure into your work, and why do you think you're attracted to compiling photographs of similar structures? Is architectural history a specific interest of yours?

I completed "The Mistake by the Lake" this winter, and it's my first and only project about my hometown of Buffalo.  It's a photographic record of the strange and amazing assortment of school bus stop shelters which dot the greater-Buffalo landscape. Parents build these shelters in order to protect their children from the brutal winters, though I've never actually seen them being utilized. I guess I needed to be away from that area for a while, because over the fifteen years I lived there, I don't think I ever once noticed a single school bus stop shelter.  They just blended into the background. It took my living in Colorado, Sweden and finally New York to finally notice them.

 



I'm really drawn to photo projects based on repetition.  I like documenting things to excess.  There's something about shooting a ton of similar structures...I like the repetition and the simplicity and I like how it allows for the slight differences in each picture to really become noticeable.  The whole project was basically an exercise in repetition, in that I just drove around every day, for months, just looking for bus shelters.  Some days I would find ten shelters and some days none. 

I've always been interested in architecture and structures but-- until recently, only superficially. This past year, because of my recent projects, I've realized how much I like documenting these houses, buildings and weird shelters. I set out to make portraits of architecture and I really think it's better that I not know as much as I could about architecture and architectural photography. It keeps things a bit more mysterious that way. 

 
You shoot digitally, and in 35 mm format, which is not typical of architectural photography. How does it serve your purpose to be fast and loose with the imagery? It somehow seems fitting, with the danger these houses are in. The images seem more fleeting to me.

I do shoot digital 35mm format (Canon 1DS Mark 111) and I really love it when it comes to architecture and structures. I like using the same format, same camera, even the same lens for every picture I take. I hate tr ipods, I'm not really all that interested in the traditional process, and I love being able to just roam freely around the houses.  It feels more adventurous and emotional to me.  A little sneaky, too.  I'm mostly interested in spontaneity (which is what I feel is missing from most architectural photography) and being able to shoot quickly. 


What other projects are you working on?

In keeping with my Scandinavian and architectural fascinations, my next project will be about Leif Erikson's Viking settlement in Newfoundland. It'll be cold there, too, so that's a plus.  Otherwise, I've been shooting a bunch of assignments, I'm trying to find a good home for "The Mistake by the Lake" and I'm also putting together a collection of photos I found of Hasidic Jews engaged in recreational activities and basically living it up. They 're really beautiful. 


I hear there's a sandwich named after you. Discuss.

That's my legacy you're talking about. I used to work at Red Bamboo (a vegetarian/vegan restaurant) in the West Village. One day the owner was trying to cheat me out of something and I told him that he owed me and that I wanted him to name a sandwich after me.  So, "The Mottalini" was born. I didn't design it, or anything, but I did have the pleasure of hearing about fifty people-per-day totally butcher the pronunciation of my last name.  Glad I don't work there anymore.


See more Mottalinis (the pictures, not the sandwich) here.

Two examples of the future of graphics online. We'll do this in a friendly low-brow/high-brow format.

First, low-brow. Knickerpicker. The name sort of says it all. You can choose a lady and tell her what to put on for you. Reminds me a bit of the bunny ranch. But still, helpful if you're in the market for knickers and you want to see what they'd look like on someone hotter than you.

Here's the question: If you have your pictures taken by an AP photographer, are you still "uncontacted"?

Jason Nocito has the musician portrait down. He's not kidding around. No frills, not even flashlights, maybe just some wind in your hair if you're a lady. Well, a lot of wind. And the more hair the better.

Seriously, though. This man has developed what seems to be a rather foolproof formula. And the editors at these magazines are psyched.

I know this was a viral video a few years ago, but I can't resist posting it, especially today. And really, does it ever get old?

I was looking through New York Magazine the other day, and stopped short when I came upon this image of Scarlett Johansson. It appeared to be a promo shot for her new album of Tom Waits covers, but how could it be? It's so beautiful! And so different than normal promo shots. I headed to the gutter credit and found Brea Souders' name. Turns out, according to her blog, that Souders has done a number of Johansson portraits; there was also one in French Vogue and one in Paste. But there was primarily (very beautiful) personal work on her site. I hit the email to get the lowdown.


I've seen a number of images of Scarlett that you shot for her upcoming album; how did you get involved with this project?

My involvement with the project was through a personal connection. My friend Dave Sitek produced the record and based on other work he had seen of mine, he thought that I would be the right match to create some of the artwork for it. The record was created in the Louisiana bayou with a small crew of people and it has a curious, intimate sound that Scarlett and the label wanted to translate into the artwork. I was initially asked to create a diorama of the bayou for the cd packaging and that led to my photographing her in a way that worked with the diorama I was creating.








I was hesitant at first to get involved in that way, because I had all of these notions about what it must be like to photograph a celebrity, but it ended up with us spending the day driving around admiring the landscape and picking out places that grabbed us, and photographing mostly in a spontaneous way, without the entourage and stress that I initially feared.




The images in Paste came out of the photo shoot that I did for the record label. Originally, I was only shooting for the cd packaging, but there were a lot of extra photos left over from the shoot that they liked and decided to use some of those for promotion.




from French Vogue



Tell me how you shot the image I fell in love with (the one up top).

That image was shot at night, just using a simple flashlight as the light source. I almost always prefer to use natural light when I can. And if it's shot at night, then I'll use a flashlight because that is the natural way we would look at something in the dark. Most of the images that I shot of her were either photographed at night with a flashlight, or in a forest with light streaming through the treetops, and no other light source. We chased the light a good amount, and she was a good sport.


 

Do you do a lot of editorial work? I see mostly personal work on your website; how do you balance the two?

Before this project, I wasn't really pursuing editorial work. This came out of the blue and I thought it seemed like a good match for me in terms of my personal interests and photographic style.  It turned out to be a really fun, interesting experience and it opened my mind to doing more editorial work in the future. I think it can be really challenging to balance editorial and personal work, when the aesthetic and conceptual demands of editorial clash with your own interests. The worry is that too much cookie-cutter editorial work will negatively influence your personal projects. Of course that's why everyone hopes someone like Kathy Ryan will call and offer an assignment. A director that appreciates a photographer's unique voice and can pair it with an interesting story or subject is a rare gem, and the most inspired work comes out of those pairings. Given the right circumstances, I think editorial jobs can expand your thoughts and even lead to new personal projects. In the end, It all depends on the assignment, but I'd love to pursue more work of this kind.




Eggshells, 2008


Caught, 2008

Delicious Wood-Nymphery!

Today on the blog we're going to be exploring the partnership between photographers and musicians, and our first example is the new video collaboration between Ryan McGinley and Icelandic band Sigur Rós. You can see it here. Beware, there are boobs, ie:






The result is especially fun, because it basically reads as a behind-the-scenes piece on the making of McGinley's work. I am a big fan of the latest McGinley project "I Know Where the Summer Goes"; there are some really beautiful images. I especially like the vertical, falling figures. You can see more here.


 











McGinley even has installation shots from the show on his site. Love that.

Photo by Jack Delano for the Office of War Information, April 1943.


Okey doke, we all know nothing in life is accomplished without a little elbow grease, so take a look at these calls for entry and do your worst. And make sure to check back to this list as well, especially if you're a photojournalist.


ADC Young Guns



The ADC Young Guns competition, hosted by the Art Directors Club based in New York, has made it their mission to recognize and rally around the brightest young professionals working internationally across a multitude of creative disciplines.

Entries to Young Guns 6 are now open to creative professionals under 30 who are producing work of a high standard and have at least two years of professional experience under their belts.

Fifty winners, as selected by a panel of Young Guns alumni, will have their work showcased in a gallery exhibition in New York later this year, published in a limited edition ADC book and will receive a 1 year membership to the premiere creative collective organization.



The 24th Annual PDN/Nikon Self-Promotion Awards

All Winners in first, second and third will be featured in /PDN/'s October 2008 issue, on PDNonline and at the Awards Ceremony during PDN's PhotoPlus Expo International on October 23 to 25, 2008.

The Grand Prize Winner will receive a Nikon Digital SLR Camera and a portfolio on PhotoServe.com

First Place winners will receive a Nikon camera and a portfolio on PhotoServe.com.


The Camera Club of New York's National Photography Competition

-Each entry to consist of 6 digital images.
-Application fee is $40.00.
-Deadline for receipt of entry is (postmarked) June 30, 2008.
-Chosen artist will receive a one-person exhibition in our gallery and a cash award of $300.00.
-Other finalists will participate in a group show.


The West Prize

The West Prize will be awarded to ten international emerging artists in 2008. The prize will award $100,000 in acquisitions between the finalists and host a finalist TEN exhibition with accompanying publication. A grand prize winner will be chosen from among the finalists to receive a $25,000 cash prize in addition to a West Collection Acquisition.


National Portrait Gallery Competition

The National Portrait Gallery invites artists all over America to investigate the contemporary art of the portrait for the second Outwin Boochever Portrait Competition, to be held in 2009. The competition and resulting exhibition will celebrate excellence and innovation, with a strong focus on the variety of portrait media used by artists today. The National Portrait Gallery welcomes single figures, groups, or self-portraits--from classical drawing and painting or hyperrealistic sculpture to large-scale photography to prints and new media. The competition is named for Virginia Outwin Boochever (1920-2005), a former Portrait Gallery volunteer whose generous gift has endowed this program.

There's a bunch of new things to apply to, and there will be a bigger listing later today. But first, a mini-interview (miniview?) with William Etundi, Jr., one of the founders of Artists Wanted. From the Call for Entries:


3rd Ward is sponsoring Artists Wanted's latest call for new art. EXPOSURE is a nation-wide open call for photography and a search for photographers of all backgrounds who speak exquisitely in the language of lenses and aperture. The top photographer will have their work presented in a massive scale photo show on buildings in the top New York City art districts: Chelsea, Dumbo and Williamsburg. Their work will also be featured at an opening event at the Leo Kesting Gallery in Manhattan on August 9th and they will receive: $2,008 cash, a full-press promotional campaign and a feature in our upcoming publication, "The Annual". Several other prizes include a $1,000 scholarship, two $500 discretionary grants, as well as features in "The Annual". Visit Artists Wanted for more information.


*DEADLINE: June 17th



Tell me about the Exposure competition. What type of work do you hope to glean from it?

Several members of our staff are photographers so it holds an important place in our hearts. But more importantly, it has an important function in our culture. We communicate more and more through images each day. Images have the power to reach people in ways that words alone cannot. Their impact is subtle and emotional.

We are interested in art that is powerful both in its impact and its reach. We are not interested in one type of photography but in images that exemplify this power. Submissions will be rated on originality, craftsmanship, composition, and ambition.


What made you decide to show the winning images at such a large scale? Will work that performs well large therefore be favored, and how will that same work translate to the Leo Kesting gallery?

Part of what sets Artists Wanted apart from traditional art outlets is we try to present great work in unique ways. With this competition, we want to show one photographer's work in the largest most ambitious way we could think of. Showing the work via massive projections in the three top art neighborhoods will get our winning artist attention from the traditional art world, the press and the many thousands of random people who will happen by. We want to create an over-the-top event that really launches someone's career.

The core goal of Artists Wanted is to find novel ways of helping great talent skip the challenges and road blocks that the traditional art world puts up. With us, it's not about who you know or who you've worked for, it's simply about finding great talent and getting their work seen.

We also understand that there is an existing infrastructure in place in the art world and it is important to us to offer the selected photographers a traditional gallery show. At a gallery, the viewer will have a totally different experience with the work, even if they've already seen it projected. We want to make a big bang and get the best of both worlds.

Everyone knows I love a floater, so when M. Scott Brauer commented on the Chinese photography post and said he wished I'd included Li Wei, I grabbed the folder of Wei's work that's been burning a hole on my desktop and uploaded it with glee.

Wei is a photographer and performance artist who puts himself in gravity-defying poses, often with the use of harnesses. Thirty-seven-year-old Wei intentionally seeks to surprise and shock the viewer:

"The first reaction is astonishment. Some people think they are full of sense of humor. They are curious about how I did this. Sometimes I am in real danger; I have to hang myself high with steel wires and people do get a little worried for me, but I am fine. My work and artistic experience are characterized by a unique specificity and particularity. My artistic language is universal and deals with themes about contemporary politics and society using symbols understood by everyone in every part of the world. I am fascinated by the unstable and dangerous sides of art and I hope my works reflect these aspects."

Watch and listen to National Geographic photographer David Doubilet introduce the Nudibranch here. I promise it will knock your socks off!

Notable quotes:


"Of all the creatures in the sea, these are the high fashion models."

"Nudibranchs have a marvelous sex life. They are hermaphrodites."



Doubilet built a seamless studio to photograph these Nudibranchs. There's nothing like a soft, seagoing slug!


Nembrotha kubaryana

Cuthona sp.

we don't stay up too late.

I've been slowly making my way through the PDN Annual, and this image by Russ Quackenbush caught my eye. It's from a series of portraits focusing on people with Type 1 albinism.

What's not to love about an online photo magazine? There are some new additions to this neighborhood, including the bi-monthly labor of love Fraction, and the bi-annual Dossier, which also exists in print.


Some images from Issue 1 of Fraction, which features individual photographer projects:


From Biosphere, by Mark Geil


From Action Figure Cutouts, by Lawrence Getubig

So I've been talking a lot about fire imagery lately as a trend, and it's also seeped into my consciousness as something I wanted to work with in my own photography. In fact, I spent last weekend obsessing about a series of different kinds of flowers on fire, as sort of a still-life study, but also as something beautiful and unexpected. And then Steve Cohen sent me the above image. Now I have to rethink my own project, but not before I purchase a print of that flaming bouquet. Or maybe the glowing book, I can't decide.

I visited Steve Cohen's studio a few weeks back, in an attempt to gain a bit more of a foothold on what a still-life photographer's practice is actually like, and how one gets started doing such precise and painstaking work.

Cohen went to RIT in the '80s, which was at the time a very commercial program. Had he not become a photographer, he thinks he would have ended up in product design or some sort of engineering. The draw of the blending of science and art has always intrigued him. He told me he's interested in objects for their volume, shape and texture and how nature informs their design. And indeed, his studio is filled with objects like tree bark and sea sponges that he's explored photographically. A lot of Cohen's work comes from entities like Nordstrom's for whom he shoots handbags and cosmetics, but he approaches every shoot like a story, with a context and subtext.





Cohen was kind enough to answer some of my specific questions about fire, gear, and his recent campaign for Absolut. Here are the answers.


I know you are very controlled in terms of how you shoot, and that you love the precision your job brings. Do you think most photo editors and buyers recognize the nuances of product photography? Who are the folks that really "get it"? And what does "getting it" entail?

I was perusing my local bookstore over the weekend, and I saw noted photography fan James Frey's new book on the shelf. I'm always interested in book jacket photographs; I feel like they're really hit or miss.

This one seemed nice enough, but a bit cliche. No shock and awe. High-end vanilla.


I was surprised to see who'd taken the picture. Any guesses? And try not to cheat, it's better that way.

These are from the inspiring Christian Patterson. I like the fire, unsurprisingly.

Yeah, I thought we were wrapped for the weekend, but then hot photo assistant Blake Sinclair (the dude with the monkey) posted a comment about lol cats and I went to his site and fell in love with this picture, and felt that I should post it.

Yup, it's almost the long weekend. But this really is a trend. An important, photographic trend that needs to be discussed.

Cornell Capa, photographer, founder of the International Center of Photography, and member of Magnum, died today at 90.

The Times has a nice obit. It doesn't get much more iconic than Robert and Cornell Capa. Robert was killed by a landmine in Vietnam in 1954. Some of the Robert Capa imagery that's seared into my brain:

Wedding bed, Nürenbuerger Eck, Berlin, 1996

If you're skipping fleet week and are instead across the pond in London, check out Nan Goldin's two iconic slide shows, which will be playing alongside live performances by Patrick Wolf and John Kelly at the Tate this weekend.

The Other Side and The Ballad of Sexual Dependency consist of hundreds of impassioned photographs taken primarily in the 1970s and '80s, but the shows are updated every time. The Tate show will include pictures taken through 2007.

These images feel like old friends to me now. I like the surprise of a new one. I hadn't seen Wedding Bed. And what could be better than the accompaniment of Patrick Wolf? Lost urban 80's bohemia meets contemporary bedheadded British androgyny.

Listen and look!





David at Grove Street, Boston, 1972



C.Z. and Max on the Beach, Truro, MA, 1976



French Chris at the drive-in, NJ, 1979



The Hug, NYC, 1980



Nan and Brian in Bed, NYC, 1983



Rise and Monty on the lounge chair, NYC, 1988

I saw some drunken sailors skittering down the cobblestones near Christopher Street last night, and sent myself straight to Shorpy to find some naval-inspired shots. And my visit did not disappoint. I cannot believe Nurse Hamaguchi! That's the best Ansel Adams image I have ever seen.

Send in your questions, folks, we're open for business.

06-02-97


Fittingly, it was Noah Kalina who sent me the link to Chris Higgins at Mental Floss, who had uncovered what at first seemed to be a mystery; a website with a trove of images documenting a life, with no name attached:

What started for me as an amusing collection of photos -- who takes photos every day for eighteen years? -- ended with a shock. Who was this man? How did his photos end up on the web? I went on a two-day hunt, examined the source code of the website, and tried various Google tricks. Finally my investigation turned up the photographer as Jamie Livingston, and he did indeed take a photo every day for eighteen years, until the day he died, using a Polaroid SX-70 camera. He called the project "Photo of the Day" and presumably planned to collect them at some point -- had he lived. He died on October 25, 1997 -- his 41st birthday.

It turns out Higgins had somehow stumbled upon an unpublished website Livingston's friends Hugh Crawford and Betsy Reid had put together. The website came out the exhibit JAMIE LIVINGSTON. PHOTO OF THE DAY: 1979-1997, 6,697 Polaroids, dated in sequence, that opened in 2007 at the Bertelsmann Campus Center at Bard College (where Livingston started the series, as a student, way back when). The exhibit included photographs of every Polaroid and took up a 7 x 120 foot space.





This story is pretty touching, and has been picked up on a lot of photo blogs, and elsewhere. Only the Blog Knows Brooklyn has full coverage of the story, the author having known Livingston personally:

This photographic diary, began when Jamie was a student at Bard College in Annandale-on-Hudson. The project continued when he moved to apartments in New York City including the incredible circus memorabilia-filled loft on Fulton Street, which he shared with his best friend.

The picture taking continued when he became a much-in-demand cinematographer and editor of music videos back in the early days of MTV. He contributed his talents to the ground-breaking Nike "Revolution" spot and many other commercials, too. 

When Jamie Livingston, photographer, filmmaker, circus performer, accordian player, Mets fan, and above all, loyal friend, died on October 25th (his birthday) in 1997 at the age of 41, he left behind hundreds of bereft friends and a collection of 6,000 photographs neatly organized in small suitcases and wooden fruit crates.

Apparently the story is even now on Wikipedia. Amazing how polaroids spread. Below, a selection.

Emily Gould's New York Times article about her ultimately painful experience blogging for Gawker landed in my inbox in several forms this morning, most amusingly from photographer Mark Tucker, who warned me that I might want to restrict myself to Olympus camera-type posts in the future.

When I went to read the piece (which will run in the magazine this weekend) I was struck by how Elinor Carucci those images were! Of course, they turned out to be by Elinor Carucci. But really, here is a photographer who delivers editorial imagery that is barely distinguishable from her own work. She and Gould even look alike. This pairing is kind of amazing:

Holy Cow, this thing is usually $26 bucks on Amazon.

photo by Trish Herron

+


photo by Chase Jarvis

=

Long.





Short.







This reminds me of a Sesame Street feature from my childhood. Anyone?

These make me shudder. Are these ads too much? Part of me hates to see these people demoralized any more, even in the name of human rights.

In related news, Errol Morris has posted again on his NY Times Blog, ZOOM, about the meaning of the Abu Ghraib pictures, and how to interpret the true emotional content of a photograph. As with the Fenton posts, it's obsessive and thorough and fascinating. Read it here.


Advertising Agency: Unitas/RNL, Santiago, Chile
Creative Director / Art Director / Copywriter: Pancho González
Illustrator / Photographer: Josefina Pro
Published: January 2008

Speaking of China, and explosions-- here are some images from a Chinese wedding that took place during last week's terrible earthquake in Sichuan Province. Unbelievable how the scene changes so quickly, and how the photographer keeps documenting. Terrifying.

Rainbows, animals, shiny things, fire, and explosions are all the rage in photography today, so I was delighted to see Gizmodo put a cd in the microwave and take some pictures. Well done! One less experiment that I have to do.

These don't have quite the power of those Chilean storms, but they're not far off. I'm going to set something ablaze soon, I can feel it. 

Sarah Pickering was the one who got me started.

PA contest winner Ben Roberts (in his suit) made me think of this image below, from the 2006 Beijing FotoFestival. Photo-eye and Hewlett Packard teamed with Chinese photographers and reviewers to create this event, modeled on Houston's Fotofest. The resulting website is super engaging. Here are some of my favorites. Especially the fire.

Okey Dokey! This has been a long and sometimes harrowing affair, but I trust we all enjoyed this contest and are the better for it. After careful tabulation, we have determined TWO winners, a male and a female assistant, both scorchingly hot. They are Erika Neola, and Ben Roberts. See them below. Erika has an excellent tattoo, and has an appropriate "I just won an award!" expression. Ben, you have seen before, but is still adorable there on the left, in his suit.


Erika Neola !




Ben Roberts  !  



 
AND... our runners up:

Geof Teague
Blake Sinclair
Wynn Medinger 
Kelly Koehler
Ward Price               
Brian Faini     
Jeff T Smith   
Steve Boyle


Thank you so much for participating! Here is our Pricewaterhouse Cooper moment, for those of you who are interested in such things (read: we took into account who voted for themselves a gajillion times)... from the poll designer. He shall remain nameless and behind the curtain, but don't you doubt for a second that he has an excel sheet and is on to all of you!! bwahahah. Seriously, though. We wanted this to resemble something square and fair.


"Our Shoot the Blog poll was designed to be simple and user-friendly. We decided to implement a simple voting mechanism based on cookies in order to limit the number of votes to one every twelve hours. When tabulating the votes, we noticed some odd patterns. For example, we saw over 1,700 votes come from a single machine in a very limited amount of time from a DSL network. Ultimately, we decided not to count the votes (when there were a boatload of them) that had come from what we suspect was the same machine.

Cheers!
Your friendly system engineer at PhotoShelter."



Again, thank you all for participating, and stay tuned for our next contest. Coming soon to a blog near you.

Tonight, Picturehouse presents an exhibition and silent auction called Show and Sell of photographic prints at the Chelsea Art Museum.

556 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011

Silent auction from 6p-9p
Winners announced at 9p
Pack and carry from 9p-10p

All proceeds go to coalition for the homeless/camp homeward bound.

I'm getting pretty into these silent auctions; sometimes you can get a killer deal. The list of artists is long and excellent-- check out the whole shebang after the jump.

For now, I will dream in my head of the images I would like to procure. I have no idea if these are part of the auction, but these artists are, so I'm dreaming away.




Ben Donaldson



David Armstrong, George in the Water, Provincetown, 1977

The RFK pictures from New York Magazine led me to Vanity Fair's coverage of Bill Eppridge's imagery, and it was then that I saw the Larry Fink campaign imagery of Hillary and Obama. I think these are pretty beautiful and well-done; I love a gray image, and I love it square. These images feel not so divorced from 1968. Interesting, too, to see The Times top-dog Damon Winter crouched there on the floor.

New York Magazine has a chilling story about the death of RFK, illustrated with some amazing images by Harry Benson, whose book published by powerHouse, Photographs from RFK: A Photographer's Journal, will be released in June. 

These images are awfully powerful.

Interestingly, New York excerpts an essay to pair with these images from another photojournalist, Bill Eppridge, whose book A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties, was just released by Abrams.

Take a look, it's a good read.

If you're not festivaled out, you're going to want to head down to Charlottesville in June, because Look3 seems almost like a photographer's utopian festival dream. From the 12th to the 14th, all of Charlottesville will be taken over by photography; even the trees (Flip Nicklin's undersea whale images will be suspended high in the trees along Charlottesville's outdoor pedestrian mall).



The event centers around three masters of the craft, who will each deliver an Inside The Actor's Studio type lecture, albeit with NPR's Alex Chadwick in lieu of James Lipton. This year:


Mary Ellen Mark, James Nachtwey and Joel-Peter Witkin.





These three folks will also have shows up in Charlottesville. In addition, there will be talks, screenings, books, portfolio reviews-- the works. On the evenings of the 13th and 14th there will be projected shows; one is called Shots, and the other, Works.  A partial list of the artists in Shots:

Christoph Bangert
Juliana Beasley
Lucas Foglia   
Ed Kashi & Julie Winokur
Erika Larsen
Joseph Sywenkyj
Jonathan Torgovnik



And Works:

Andrea Modica
Marcus Bleasdale
Dan Winters
Simen Johan
Antonin Kratochvil
Balazs Gardi

I know it makes you sad that this is our last New York Photo Festival post, but its time has come to sleep with the fishes. Here are some pictures from Friday night's award ceremony, which featured a live cellist and oscar-worthy acceptance speeches. It was actually rather touching to be in a room full of photography fanatics. See the list of winners here. After the awards wrapped up, there was a mass exodus to the booze table at powerHouse. This gave me an opportunity to:

1. Say adoring things to Amy Stein (a winner of the book award!)
2. Admire Jessica Dimmock's new G9 (she won the multimedia award!)
3. Embarrass myself in front of Aperture's Lesley Martin

and, two hours later....


4. Sit on Jen Bekman's lap. My crowning achievement, I must admit.

Twenty-four hours later, here are some of the images that are still floating around in my brain. Pervading themes in all the shows: fire, explosions, animals (or traces of animals), rethought still lives, and the color orange.

Martin Parr and Kathy Ryan proved that the 40x50 c-print is alive and well, and Lesley Martin was looser, propping and pinning up work. Tim Barber threw up his entire print collection, but I liked the flea market aspect of it; I found a nice egg and a toaster on fire. And the Tierney Fellowship show killed it; Thomas Bangsted is my new favorite. Check out that goat.

Read some other reviews by Joerg here and here and one by Robert Wright. And I'll do one more post with some goss and a picture of me on Jen Bekman's lap. After that, it's time to talk about Look3. We're taking the photo festival train to Charlottesville, folks!




Simon Berg/ Various Photographs, curated by Tim Barber

This is going to be a killer photo project for a scuba-certified photographer.

Brandon over at Fujfilm gave me a heads-up this morning about their newly published information about emulsion transfers; looks like they're trying to step into some Polaroid-sized shoes. It is rather impressive that Fuji is responding to the fine artist here. From the press release:


"Fujifilm has always supported the culture of photography and in these changing times that philosophy is unwavering. All of Fujifilm's Instant Films are capable of satisfying both specific technical markets and the fine artist whose unique creativity and perspective relies on the unique characteristics of instant film products. In this special edition of Cable Release you will find the techniques for using FP-100C Instant Film for creative printmaking -- see the instructions for Emulsion Lift  and the story on Emulsion Transfer.  We trust this information comes at a welcome time."


Check out the full newsletter here.

I had the good fortune to speak yesterday with the lovely Yola Monakhov, who currently has a show entitled Out of Nature at Sasha Wolf Gallery. Monakhov has seen many sides of the photographic coin; she worked as a journalist for years for publications such as Newsweek and The New Yorker and The New York Times, and then decided in 2005 to pursue an MFA degree at Columbia, and switch her focus a bit. Her work is lyrical and thoughtful and is about her investigation of place, time and subjectivity, mapped as image.

This interview also coincides with Flak Photo's WEEKEND series, a curated selection of images that highlights work from new photo essays, book projects and gallery exhibitions. Series photographs are published on Saturdays and shown throughout the weekend; this month showcases Monakhov's photographs.

Here is our Q&A:


Does Russia feel like home to you? What's your homeland identity?

Russia is a part of my identity as a photographer. It's a place where I know how to look. I left when I was seven and grew up in New York. I'm American. I think I style myself as more of a Russian than I actually am-- I just finished teaching Photo I at Columbia and at the end I was saying something about the American education system and the students were surprised that I knew about it. They were like "oh we thought you were Russian." I think I relate to my idea of Russian-ness in the regressive way that emigrants do; the country you're from moves forward, but you're sort of stuck in your notion of what it's about. So I think I have some kind of notion of it that's not what it is; I'm not interested in the Russia that resembles America, like its fast food restaurants and malls. I'm more looking at the Russia that is romantic and maybe even nihilistic, the way that college kids in the States read Dostoevsky. Not as an analysis of the place and a historical condition, but relating more generally to the ideas it presents. So I think of these images as being not so much of Russia but of nature ultimately triumphing over man's desire to make a spot for himself, and man persisting in finding and creating beauty.








For example, I have this picture that depicts snow blown into a room, onto wallpaper that itself depicts and idyllic image of the perfect autumn season with birch trees, which is a trope of a Russian landscape, mingled with another similar trope.


Have you found that same trope in New York?

That's why I have two photographs from New York in the Sasha Wolf show; one is the Polaroid image of the Shipyards Building in Brooklyn that has since been destroyed, and another that is an interior from my apartment. I am looking for it in New York.







What was your initial entre into editorial photography, how did you first get work?


I dropped off a box of prints at Time Out Magazine and an editor there, Nancy Iaocoi, liked them, and gave me work. Then I wanted to do something more newsy and international, and in the meantime my father had moved back to Russia, so I began photographing in Russia in 1999, just after the ruble collapse. That's when I got in touch with The New York Times.

I was in New York at the New York Daily News, (where, incidentally, I got my favorite expression to chide slacking students: "You can't publish excuses, only photographs!") and I kept wanting to do something more photographically exciting. I went to the Middle East in 2000, then to Iran and Afghanistan and Iraq at the beginning of the Iraq War. And in the meantime, I spent a lot of time in Russia and started to see that I was interested in something else that wasn't news.





That's when I bought a large format camera. I still had some more editorial projects, like I went to Belarus for US News and World Report. For a long time, I worked in Russia for The Times, but also did my own work.




Is that when you switched over to a more fine arts format?

When the story broke of the Andijon Massacre it was actually the Spring before I had to start graduate school, in the MFA program in the Fall. I have a Russian passport so I was able to get into Uzbekistan without a visa when no one else was allowed in and was able to report it for The Times. That was very exciting, but also very scary, and that was kind of the last hurrah of photojournalism for me. Then I came back to the United States and started my MFA program.
.



Yola Monakhov for The New York Times, May 2005


Was it a jarring change to suddenly be in a fine art context in graduate school, after being in a war zone?

I had to find my own way, and figure out what my identity was. In the beginning I definitely felt a little weird. The program at Columbia is interdisciplinary, and I didn't have much of a language in contemporary art, but I had a language in modern art and I found I caught on pretty quickly. Still, I felt that this question of "photojournalism vs. art" was part of my identity in an unfortunate way, and I think I only shed it recently. And I'm really glad to have shed it. But you're right, I'd almost forgotten that in the beginning it was quite jarring, though I knew I very much wanted something different.
 


 

The conversation was really interesting about art when in the context of the whole group of artists there, and it was more about life and mentorship and the medium of photography with Thomas Roma (who runs the photography program at the school). It was really enriching to go through that, as opposed to what I had when I was doing straight photojournalism, in which there was almost no consciousness about what people are actually doing, no critical thinking or analysis, and where you're so beholden to the industry, and a utilitarian way of thinking. You go and you do your thing and then you do the next thing.


Tell me about the show you have up now at Sasha Wolf, Once Out of Nature

The show is something that's actually still in progress. The photographs were made mostly in Russia, but it's actually not about Russia per se, to me, but about looking at Russia as a metaphor for a type of decay, or relationships and nature and the landscape and memory and longing and certain basic human things-- and home. So I've been photographing there since 1998. The photographs in the show start at the end of 2003, and about half of them were made in December of last year. And they're something I'd look to do a book of, to make a final product that could make it a more enduring experience.










And what are you doing now?

I'm actually photographing uptown Manhattan now, in Sugar Hill. It hasn't yet become corporate. The architectural setting is old and kind of neglected, but the culture that people make is very much their own, and a little haphazard, ramshackle and handmade. And I like that. To see it in Manhattan is fascinating for me.








What's your process for making these images-- are they large format?

Some are large format, some are medium format. I started off with medium, but in New York I have been using entirely large format.  And some of the portrait-y photographs are made with strobe, a Lumedyne. My grandmother in Moscow still complains about having to carry heavy buckets from the well on a yoke when she was a little girl, and when I heard that I thought, "oh that's me, it's in my blood to carry heavy stuff."


Who are influences, photographers you're looking at now?

I've been thinking about Walker Evans for a long time, and Atget. And in New York-- Helen Levitt and Thomas Roma. Walker Evans, because of the appreciation for the vernacular expression. And Roe Ethridge, I like a lot. Koudelka, obviously. Harry Callahan; they're mostly sort of high modernists. I don't think I've digested a lot of contemporary work yet.

I got excited earlier this week about the Photosynth Demo; now here the software is in practice, on a site featuring the Hard Rock Cafe's collection of memorabilia. Pretty amazing.

*If your place of business is offended by mammaries, this post may be NSFW.

I was struck the other day by Italian Vogue's online multimedia presentation of Steven Meisel's Eva Mendes photographs. But aside from the three dimensional quality and clever overlays, there was something else that caught my eye: Eva Mendes' breasts.

Under glass.

This is a trope I am familiar with from George Pitts' photographs; he is a big fan of the glass-on-breasts trope. I was sure I'd seen this before, and I surveyed some folks, including Clayton Cubitt, who seems to know about such things. We agreed that Helmut Newton and Guy Bourdin were into GOB also. But I couldn't find any hard evidence from Newton; Bourdin, I could. See below.



photo by Steven Meisel

Yesterday marked the 50th anniversary of the release of Robert Frank's opus. There have been many of versions of this book printed since 1958; take a look:

I can't believe I JUST discovered Dalton Rooney's blog, and I'm hooked. This dude is a triple threat:


1. Beautiful, beautiful imagery:




swoon.

An interesting ad greeted me in my New Yorker this week; GAP has the Whitney's latest and greatest wrapped in sensible cotton tees. This gives me vague pause; Is this like when BMW sponsored the Guggenheim's motorcycle show?

Then I moved on to more important issues; like the Stephanie Seymour and Jeff Koons collaboration. I want that shirt. Because it has a deer on it, and I love its antlers.

Barbara Kruger was shy too, but Shalom wouldn't take off her pants.

I got a nice reminder of one of my new favorite photographers in the Photo-Eye newsletter yesterday; they're currently featuring Birthe Piontek. I was first introduced to Piontek through Jen Bekman, and have since seen her popping up everywhere. She's good at the portraits and the landscapes, and the little narratives, and her edits are nice. Check out Sub Rosa and Terrain Vague. Also she has a series called Eat More Cookies, of which I highly approve.

All the images below are from Sub Rosa, except for the feet. I had to throw those in. Also, the lady in the first portrait is a dead ringer for Jillian from Project Runway Season 4.

Interesting G9 news from Andrew, our VP of Marketing, just landed in my inbox. As part of PhotoShelter's New York Photo Festival sponsorship:

"Canon is on site at the "Canon Production Studio" set up at 111 Front Street.  They've brought 50 G9 cameras and are lending them out to anyone for 2 hour intervals.  Upon return, shooters can download the memory card to Aperture stations.  Editors will review the pics at 3 pm everyday (top magazine editors), and curate a living gallery exhibit with their top choices. All chosen images will be printed with gigantic Canon printers and will hang in several gallery spaces throughout 111 Front Street.  PhotoShelter will be on hand to create free 1 month trial accounts for the PhotoShelter Personal Archive.  All images from the event will be uploaded into individual Personal Archive accounts and available to the shooter one week after the event."

Pick me, Jody Quon!

I've been having a blast watching the coverage at PDN of the similarities between political imagery on the covers of major magazines. I guess there are so many ideas out there. Or only so many images shot by Platon. In any case, here's a synopsis, graphic-style.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

photo by Martin Parr


Okey Doke. I've been sweating over here all day trying to figure out how to explain what events are happening and when at the New York Photo Festival, and which happenings seem most awesome. I've settled on modifying the NYPF's own graphic, with pink highlights to indicate things I'm most excited for. I know it's too small to read- click on it and it will open bigger in a new window.

The main exhibitions curated by Lesley Martin, Kathy Ryan, Tim Barber and Martin Parr all are open from 10am to 7pm, May 15-18. Go here to read about them. Go here to read about the Satellite Exhibitions.

Here is a map of the whole area.

As you can see, there are events all day long; these are mostly artists talks. I'm psyched for Roger Ballen and Simon Norfolk. Each day, Aperture will be running the programming from 5-6pm; all of these events seem strong, especially the Kessels and Parr pairing, and The Ptak, Barber and Jen Bekman panel.

The Photo Awards fete will be on Friday night; there will be an after party too! See all the nominees here. Strong crowd.

And, perhaps most exciting of all, is Book Soup: this is a panel about book collecting with some legendery folks, but the BEST PART is afterwards:

"Following the panel discussion, there will be a book signing extravaganza at The powerHouse Arena at 9pm with authors including:

Lili Almog, Roger Ballen, Juliana Beasley, Harry Benson, Kevin Bubriski, Julia Calfee, Vivian Cherry, Livia Corona, Valdir Cruz, Lalla Essaydi, Larry Fink, Brian Finke, Ron Galella, Stephen Gill, Arlene Gottfried, Christopher Griffith, John Gruen, Alice Harris, David Alan Harvey, Henry Horenstein, Ellen Jong, Leora Kahn, Seth Kushner & Anthony LaSala, Christopher LaMarca, WassinkLundgren, Jeff Mermelstein, Slava Mogutin, Rachel Papo, Martin Parr, Nigel Parry, Mark Peterson, Thomas Roma, Steve Schapiro, Joachim Schmid, Jamel Shabazz, The Snorri Bros., Michael Spano, Peter Sutherland, Linda Troeller, Victor Vazquez, Veronique Vial, Nathaniel Welch, and David Yellen."

SO AWESOME. Ok, if you're still confused go to the official site. And be sure to read Andrew Hetherington's running commentary over at foto8. He knows what's up.

Enjoy. Drink Rum; there's a Rum-bamba Saturday. Seriously. And remember: click on this calendar and it will open bigger in a new window.

photo by Alex Tehrani

I know this is a few days old, but now there's a remix, and I'm including my favorite Alex Tehrani picture of Bill O'Reilly to make this a slightly photo-relevant post. For some reason his ranting makes me.... happy.


The Original:




And the Remix:

And I'll never be the same. First there was Shorpy, then there was Astronomy Picture of the Day, now there is FFFFOUND! This one's a little more complicated, and I seem to need to be invited to participate (ie: post and share and such). But I've still managed to troll through quite a bit, and have ferreted out some new photographers who strike my fancy.

FFFFOUND!'s official line is that it's "a web service that not only allows the users to post and share their favorite images found on the web, but also dynamically recommends each user's tastes and interests for an inspirational image-bookmarking experience!!"

Invite me, you inviting folks!

My first major discovery is the French design and photographic duo HELMO, who are seemingly brilliant. They are Thomas Couderc and Clement Vauchez, and they like smoke and sparkly things and animals, which I've really been feeling with the rise of the likes of Hannah Whitaker and Estelle Hanania. It seems that a lot of the work is installation-based, which is a nice melding of mediums.


These three are from colored smoke:

Since this is the week of The New York Photo Festival, I thought I'd post some work about New York. There's a really smart show up at the New York Public Library called Eminent Domain that's based on a New York Public Library exhibition of the same title (on view May 2-August 29, 2008, at the Humanities and Social Sciences Library, Fifth Avenue and 42nd Street).

The show presents selections from the work of five New York-based artists who have recently created large photographic projects that take on the theme of the modern city.The artists are Bettina Johae, Thomas Holton, Reiner Leist, Zoe Leonard, and Ethan Levitas.

I'm especially interested in Thomas Holton's work; he's spent several years documenting the life of an immigrant Chinese family, in a project called The Lams of Ludlow Street. I first saw this work in Aperture last year, but this show has a new component, which are the polaroids the kids in the family took while Holton was photographing them. These add a whole new dimension. I asked Holton some questions about the work, and about his upcoming projects.




I'm very interested in the notion you've used with the Lams of Ludlow Project in terms of involving the family's children in the capturing of their own narrative, with the use of polaroid film. How did this change the nature of the project?

The use of the polaroid film evolved on its own as the project went on. The kids always stole the camera from my bag and banged out photos when I wasn't looking. But I saved them all in a drawer and when I entered a particularly frustrating time during the project, I decided to revisit them and to stop shooting my own work for a bit. I was struck how their vision was sometimes so completely different from mine and intrigued by the idea of how we shared experiences together but had different takes on them. While i saw one thing, they saw another. This really expanded the narrative and made the project much more of a collaboration and not just a documentation. I didn't want the project to be all about me. I became so close to them that it just feels natural to include their work too. After all, i was new to them too. I enjoy how my eyes go from my images to theirs, then back to mine. You'll see things in one of my photos that remind you of something you saw in theirs and vice versa.



What is your favorite image in the series that you took and what is your favorite image that the kids took?

One of my favorite images in the one of Shirley watching tv while preparing dinner. She's so intensely lost in the Chinese soap opera while the woman on the tv also seems lost in thought. It's just a moment that we can all relate to, getting stuck in a tv show.



I also love the polaroid of Shirley's bandaged foot; she hurt it on the stairs. While i felt bad for her, it's just something i seemed to overlook photographically. But when the children make a photo of their mother's hurt foot, it becomes so much more sympathetic and caring.



I've always been interested in people who are native New Yorkers, as so many people adopt it as their home base but never truly feel like it is home. What about this city signifies home for you? Is it the people, the culture? Is New York the place you always come back to? I can't imagine what it would feel like to not have a country mouse type of longing. Do you have any of that?


I've lived in New York all my life; I'm a townie, just one of those losers who never leave their hometown! I just feel that I can't live anywhere else. regardless of this fact, I always felt like a visitor in Chinatown even though i have 100% Chinese relatives living there. New York is home to me for many reasons-- the diversity, most of my family is from around here and I love walking down streets that I used to roam around when I was a rebellious teenager looking for fun and trouble in the 1980's. Photographically, there are so many stories here that can be told...you don't need to travel across the planet to make interesting work. You can shoot in a tiny apartment for three years and come up with something interesting. I sometimes imagine living somewhere else but then I visit small towns or other cities and love returning here. Plus i have a deck so I can at least get some sun and air.



How did the show at the Public Library come about?

The photo curator, Stephen Pinson, saw my work in the 2005 Art and Commerce festival for emerging photographers and he contacted me and wanted to see more work. I firmly believe that you have to get your work out there as much as possible and then hope somebody sees it, likes it and makes it even more visible.




How has your relationship with the city changed as you've aged, and what other New York City photographers interest you?

As I've gotten older, I love exploring the city more than I did when I was younger. You appreciate the diversity and the endless creative possibilities. I also love the fact that I still get lost every once in awhile. It reminds me that I live somewhere so completely complex, a place always changing so that even townies can get lost.

I like Bruce Davidson's work (brooklyn gang and subway), Arbus, Winogrand...the masters. There are obviously people making work about NYC now too. Basically I like people who reveal the circus that is this city.




Where and What do you want to photograph next?

I'm finishing up a two year project and just started something very, very new in Chinatown. I've been photographing my mother-in-law for two years (she lives in long island) as she prepares to retire from the same teaching job that she's had for 35 years. Her present life is somewhat of a bittersweet reality, different than what she imagined 35 years ago.



I also just began to photograph at a ballroom dancing joint in Chinatown but have really just started... I've only shot there twice. Most of the dancers are middle-aged immigrant Chinese women but all the instructors are these immigrant Russian dance experts. So it's this wonderful collision of cultures meeting to dance in this random place that can only happen here. I'm definitely curious about the joint, so I'll keep going back at all times of the day. I like the idea of constantly returning to a single place and seeing something new every time. It's what i did with the Lams, my mother-in-law and now possibly this ballroom dancing joint.

PDN's affair last night was swanky and delicious; while I did not locate any cheese, I did manage to attack track down two of my photo blogging mentors, Andrew Hetherington and Daryl Lang.

photo by Joel Barhamand


OK, this New York Photo Festival is expansive and overwhelming to blog about, but I'm going to do my best. I'll try to come up with a map for you guys, or some such thing. But you should definitely check out the Tim Barber-curated exhibition tonight; it's free and open to the public and includes a few hundred of Tim's favorite photographers, from the look of the invite. Word on the street is that you should show up at 7pm for maximum fun. Word.

I have ten rolls of 120 film that need to be developed. I'd also like to have low-res scans made, because that's the easiest way for me to go over the work, and I can make my own contact sheets from the digital files. I'd like to do this without bankrupting myself. There are twelve images on each roll. How much can this possibly cost? I made some calls.

Here are the results, from cheapest to most expensive:


ALKIT
227 East 45th Street
212-674-1515
99 cents per image, for processing and 4.5mb scans, and 4x5 prints
TOTAL: $120.00

Baboo Color
37 West 20th Street
212--727-277
12.99 for a 4.5mb jpeg scan, including processing
TOTAL: $129.90

Hong Color
123 West 20th Street
212-924-2080
$6 for processing, and an additional $10 for a 4.5mb jpeg scan=
$16 a roll
TOTAL: $160.00

Flatiron Lab
108 West 17th Street
212-633-9191
$18 for processing and a 6mb jpeg scan
$20.50 for processing, 4x5 prints and 6mb scans
TOTAL (w/out prints): $180.00

LTI
34 East 30th Street
212-685-6871
$18 for processing and 6mb scans
TOTAL: $180.00

Coloredge CRC
20 west 22nd street
212-633-6000
$6 for processing, and an additional 12.65 for a 4.5mb jpeg scan
= 18.65 a roll
TOTAL: $186.50

US Color Lab
12 Mercer Street
212-254-7200
$19.99 for processing and 4.5mb jpeg scans
TOTAL: $199.99

L&I Color
12 West 17th Street
212-206-7733
$5 for processing, and an additional $15 for a 5mb jpeg scan=
$20 a roll
TOTAL: $200.00

Duggal
29 West 23rd Street
212-941-7000
$7 for processing, and an additional $15 for a 4.5mb jpeg scan
= $22 a roll
TOTAL: $220.00



I think I'm going to go with Hong Color. They're a small operation, and they have personable service. Also, they have a reputation for good quality, and I've had hugely varying results with Baboo. Alkit's my second choice, but 45th Street on the 12th floor is the deal breaker. Anyone else have a better tip?

The PDN Photo Annual 2008 Awards have been announced and are now perusable online; there's an extensive cache of imagery, including awards for the following categories: advertising, magazine/editorial, photo books, photojournalism/sports/documentary, corporate design/photo products, personal work, stock photography, websites and student work.

There's also a fete tonight for the winners at Capitale, and I've got my dancing shoes on, 'cause I'm going! I hope there will be cheese. I'll be sure to report back, like Daryl did for the Infinity Awards.

The winners in the magazine/editorial category include some of my favorites from the year, which feels satisfying. My top five:



Photographer: Nan Goldin

Title: English Beat
Concept: Disaffected Anglo youth at their snappiest.
Publication: T: The New York Times Style Magazine
Director of Photography: Kathy Ryan
Photo Editor: Judith Puckett-Rinella
Creative Director: Janet Froelich
Art Director: David Sebbah (Senior), Chris Martinez
Designer: Elizabeth Spiridakis (Senior)




Photographer: Simon Norfolk

Title: Where Protons Play
Concept: The new supercollider poised to shake up physics.
Publication: The New York Times Magazine
Picture Editor: Kathy Ryan
Photo Editor: Joanna Milter
Art Director: Arem Duplessis
Designer: Cathy Gilmore-Barnes



Photographer: Larry Fink

Title: My Sexual Safari
Concept: Candid images of the New York City nightlife for an article that discusses nonverbal communication between the sexes.
Publication: Men's Health
Director of Photography: Laurie Kratochvil, (Deputy) Brenda Milis
Photo Editor: (Senior) Leah Rudolfo



Photographer: Cass Bird

Title: Warhol's Children
Concept: Thought the era of bohemian superstar was over? Meet artists Ryan McGinley, Dash Snow and Dan Colen, who are doing their outrageous best to prove that downtown lives on.
Publication: New York Magazine
Director of Photography: Jody Quon
Photo Editor: Alex Pollack
Editor: Adam Moss
Design Director: Chris Dixon




Photographer: Nadav Kander

Title: David Lynch I
Concept: A portrait of the artist.
Publication: The New York Times

I spent all weekend trying to remember Kim Keever's name. I remembered his images, but I had no idea where he showed, or how to find him. I kept googling things like "large-format aquarium images", and it finally worked. In any case, I was thinking of Keever last week when I posted the Chilean lightning storms, which reminded me of the Hudson River School painters.

And Keever's images are nothing if not Hudson Rivery; not surprisingly, he started off as a painter. I love the craftiness of this work. I remember being entranced as a kid by swirling food coloring in water, and these feel that way to me. I find some of the images much more striking than others, but the whole idea of these worlds being created in that aquarium makes them all interesting. I found an interview with Keever on the NY Arts Magazine site; excerpts are below. You can see more Keever work at Kinz, Tillou+Feigen.

Sometimes you just want to fade into a wall.

This video blew my mind  a year ago, and since my mind is still blown, but I now have a blog, I'm going to share. This is a presentation of Photosynth, which would entirely change the landscape of digital imagery. Watch it, it's awesome.





For context, Photosynth is a collaboration between Microsoft and the University of Washington based on the groundbreaking research of Noah Snavely (UW), Steve Seitz (UW), and Richard Szeliski (Microsoft Research). Go here to read all about it and/or install it.

OK Folks, It's Go time! It's your patriotic duty to vote for the Hottest Photo Assistant.
You may vote once every twelve hours, and voting will be open until next Monday morning. So do your worst. CLICK HERE TO DO THE DEED. Click on the thumbs to make them bigger. Should be fairly self-explanatory.

Good luck!



PA: Robert Badillo/ Photographer: Emiliano Granado