Exhibit Review: Of Women By Women, Charlotte, USA

Of Women By Women: Selections from The Do Good Fund
The Light Factory, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

The Do Good Fund is a Georgia-based charity building a museum-quality collection of post-war Southern photography. The fund lends its collections to museums, galleries, and other institutions interested in promoting photographic art, and its latest is on display at The Light Factory, a Charlotte, North Carolina gallery and institute of photography education.  Of Women By Women fairly well describes the exhibit theme, an unexpectedly powerful collection of images that left me wanting to see more. The images did not appear especially agenda-driven, apart perhaps from the preponderance of subjects that appeared to be working class and rural poor. The display, as can be seen in the photos here, was simple but effective.  On my visit a young lady welcomed our small group, explained the background to the exhibit, and then left our group alone to wander and view.  If I were living in Charlotte, I would be happy to explore more of Light Factory’s exhibits and education offerings.  It looks like a happening place in a happening neighborhood.

The Do Good Fund maintains an online catalog of its collection, for those who’d like to see what they’re doing but won’t be making it to the southeast United States.  Check it out at: http://www.thedogoodfund.org/

The Light Factory: http://lightfactory.org/

Susan Worsham

Margaret's Rhubarb

2010

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Book review: Ihei, Kimura. Akita. 1978 (2011).

Mutsumi found this book at a beer bar in Ikebukuro Station.  We were slaking our thirst after a long day of walking, not there for the books.  In fact we were lucky they didn’t have a table for us when we came in.  We sat at the bar instead, near which is a bookcase with a small collection of mostly magazines.  When we found Akita, we cleared the bar, started at the front, and worked our way through what must have been around 200 plates, all black and white, and shot in the post-war period, from the 1950s-70s.  As the title indicates, the subject is the prefecture of Akita, still a rural area of Japan that from the looks of these images has changed drastically in the past half century.  Apart from the occasional bit of English – the word “post” on a postbox, for example – or a motorcycle or car in the background, it seems these photos could have been taken 100 years ago, or even 500 years ago.  There are no signs of mass produced anything – no TVs, radios, cell phones, watches, name brands, baseball caps, or even something as simple as zippers.  All the clothing appears to be hand-made, everyone walks or in winter uses sleighs, motor power is provided by animals, and home life appears to center around eating, drinking, talking, and smoking.  The images are absolutely amazing for revealing a way of life that when it was recorded neither the subjects nor photographer could have imaged disappearing within 50 years of having been recorded.  Sometimes we can’t see the significance of what photographers record until years later, after which we are incredibly thankful for the investment in time and effort, despite others not being able to see the value in the work as it was being produced. Thank you, Kimura-san.

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Exhibit review: Jigoku Wonderland: Buddhist Hell Scenes, Tokyo, Japan

Jigoku Wonderland:  Buddhist Hell Scenes
Mitsui Memorial Museum

Opening day was not as crowded as expected.  Not crowded at all, in fact.  Mutsumi said it was because this was a B-grade exhibit, not something likely to draw hordes of fashionistas.  The building was perhaps more impressive than the exhibit, an early 20th century construction that has been designated an Important Cultural Property.  The exhibit featured approximately 100 pieces ranging from the 13th century to the present, all connected to the theme of hell as conceived in Japanese Buddhism.  A few texts were on display, but most items were paintings, drawings, or sculpture.  As with the work collected in the exhibit of the Belgian Fantastic, many of the paintings and drawings demanded close inspection to appreciate the detail filling out the corners of the canvas or paper.  Common themes included the depiction of Emmao and the ten judges of hell, the corresponding ten levels of hell, and the various tortures perpetrated by the guardian monsters against their human victims, which consisted in the main of burning, boiling, dismembering, and impaling.  Altogether this was a well conceived and interesting collection of art.  It might have been improved by a suitably gruesome soundtrack of roaring flames, sawing bones, banging metal, dripping blood, breaking bones, screams and moans.  Museum management needs to rethink customer relations.  We were told off by a guard for using our mobile device within the exhibit.  We were not photographing or talking on the phone, just searching maps for our next destination.

A selection of small images of some of the exhibit items is available on the museum's Japanese language website:  http://www.mitsui-museum.jp/exhibition/index.html

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Exhibit review: A Life 1968--2017: Shunji Dodo, Tokyo

A Life 1968--2017:  Shunji Dodo
Gallery 916, Tokyo

This was the most inspiring exhibit of summer, the one that opened new possibilities in my own work.  The inspiration wasn’t terribly radical.  It was more like a sympathetic understanding of possibility, of seeing my work in Dodo’s, and his in mine, and realizing mine might one day look as interesting.  I appreciated seeing how what would seem ordinary worked well, which suggested I can perhaps look again at such scenes when they present themselves.  I saw many images which seemed excessively dark in their exposure and development, far more than I would be comfortable working with but suggesting that such images are not outside the range of possibility.  Dodo created both posed and spontaneous street portraits, the former largely in rural communities, the latter in urban. Despite their somewhat repetitive appearance (of groups of people smiling at the camera), I began to appreciate the posed images for revealing the character of the photographer, someone able to convince large numbers of strangers to participate in his work.  Two types of images made me want to try my own experiments:  still life of the commonplace, stuff you might come home with in your pockets or in your bag; and images of half-things, cars or people, for example, shown only partially and inviting the viewer to fill in the rest.

Review: Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

While this is a lovely facility in an upscale neighborhood, I was disappointed on three counts.  The first seems to be rather common to Japan, the prohibition of photographing exhibitions.  I would have liked to have taken an image or two for this blog.  I’ve been to exhibits that actually encourage the taking and sharing of images on social media as a form of free advertisement.  It makes for a more interactive experience of art than simply acting as a passive consumer/viewer.  Secondly, there is no permanent display.  Apparently there used to be, but it was long ago removed.  And lastly, there was no display during my visit of Japanese photography.  Fortunately, I found an excellent exhibit of a Japanese photographer -- photography permitted -- at Gallery 916.

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Exhibit review: World Press Photo 17, Tokyo, Japan

World Press Photo 17
Tokyo Photographic Art Museum

Since this is a collection of news photographs, it wasn’t unusual, while viewing the exhibit, to come across a familiar image. What was helpful here were the descriptions and often the context, as some were part of a larger series.  The collection included around 100 images from the annual journalism awards, printed on poster board with background information in both Japanese and English.  Some of the more interesting images in the collection were from long-term projects, such as a series by an Iranian photographer working within his own culture, as well as a Finn shooting a small rural community in the US midwest.

Worth a visit if you're in the neighborhood, but not perhaps a special trip.

The entire collection can be viewed online here: https://www.worldpressphoto.org/collection/photo/2017

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Review: Franklin, Stuart. The Documentary Impulse. 2016.

Franklin, Stuart. The Documentary Impulse. 1st ed. London: Phaidon Press, 2016. Print.

The publisher’s promotional text promises insights into “how we, as humans, are driven to visually document our experiences and the world around us.”  Taken together with largely laudatory reviews, my expectations were perhaps higher than could be satisfied by a text that turned out to be a fairly standard presentation of the history of documentary photography.  While ideas are presented succinctly and in clear prose, the conclusion is something of a letdown.  The author concedes that, in effect, there may be as many documentary impulses as there are documentary photographers and that ultimately the need to document may be a manifestation of an underlying need to understand what it means to be human.  For me, the book fairly begins where it ends.

Book and Film Review: Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits (2009), Grab A Hunk Of Lightning (2014)

Gordon, Linda. Dorothea Lange: A Life Beyond Limits. 1st ed. London: W.W. Norton & Co., 2009. Print.

American Masters: Dorothea Lange: Grab A Hunk Of Lightning. Dyanna Taylor, dir, 2014. DVD.

It’s not difficult to understand why this book was a prizewinner.  The writing is crisp, sufficient background is provided to contextualize the actions and behavior of the actors, and the main subject is presented as a complex, contradicted human, one who through her images expressed great empathy but was so driven in her work that she often took for granted the people with whom she shared her life.  This was my first extended exposure to Lange and so I had no preconceptions to be challenged or reinforced.  As presented by Gordan, I found her someone with whom I could sympathize in her curiosity about the working and living conditions of others, in her interest in exploring new surroundings, her sense of adventure, and her sensitivity to injustice.  I also appreciate her approach to photography as a method of communication and a tool for changing the world.  Lange was foremost a documentary photographer, one might argue even an ethnographer, who first honed her skills making commercial portraits and who took the portraitist’s sensibility, of making people look their best, into the field.  She was least interested in photography as a means of exploring self, though of course no conscientious image maker can deny the power of the process to affect the camera operator.  It is clear from comments made late in life that she was fully aware of the transformative potential of engaging in the visual arts.

The American Masters film was directed by one of Lange’s grandchildren and provides a concise summary of the photographer's life and work should you not have the time to devote to Gordan’s biography.  The film is actually a suitable companion to the book, allowing the reader to hear Lange’s voice, to witness her gait (caused by childhood polio), to see her interact with grandchildren, and with photographic colleagues such as John Szarkowski, who aided her in preparing her retrospective at the MoMA.  The granddaughter’s presentation appears a bit more idolatrous than Gordan’s, but does not entirely overlook some of the less romantic aspects of Lange’s life.

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Yakyu: Japanese Baseball Stadium Culture

On Shooting
My photographic goals for six weeks in Japan were hardly ambitious.  I had no intention of capturing the spirit of Japan.  I’ve practiced long enough to know that any representation is partial.  For most of the trip I had no photographic plan at all.  The only part for which I had were the visits to five baseball stadiums.

As with many projects, the conception was grander than the final product.  Perhaps what sets the good photographer apart from the average is taking the time to reflect in order to try understand why the output didn’t line up with expectations.  

Book review: McQuade & Hall. (2015). Looking and Seeing: An Introduction to Nalanda Miksang Contemplative Photography (Way of Seeing Book 1)

McQuade & Hall. Looking and Seeing: An Introduction to Nalanda Miksang Contemplative Photography (Way of Seeing Book 1). Drala Publishing, 2015

The preface makes no bones about the authors' focus:  "...we are really talking about Enlightenment."

The purpose of Miksang is not just to make pictures, but to reorient vision in order to wake up to the world beyond things.  "The most direct way to spontaneous creativity [is] not in “breaking the rules,” [but] in making contact with the world before there are rules at all.”  This can be accomplished, the authors believe, with just a short shift of orientation, or Enlightenment by a few degrees.  They compare the mind to a ship, whose destination can be radically altered by a course change of just a few degrees.

The authors are students of Sakyong Trungpa Rinpoche, one of the first Tibetan refugees of the early exodus to settle and build a Buddhist community of westerners within the United States, and of his disciple, Sakyong Mipham Rinpoche.

This text promises to be the first of three outlining the practice of Miksang, a Tibetan word meaning "good eye."  While the authors feel Miksang is best taught, or transmitted, in face-to-face encounters, they realize as well the value of texts in being able to provide more detail than available in workshops, seminars, or lectures.

Review: Workshop: Shoot the Street With David Nightingale (08 April 2016

The instructor asked me at the end of the evening, “Was today useful for you?”  I answered in the affirmative, even though I had some reservations. I was tired and it didn’t seem appropriate to get into a discussion as there were a number of other students still in the classroom who might want to say their farewells or ask a follow-up question.

Making a Photobook in the UAE: Zno (formerly Artisan)

The Zno (Artisan) book left, Riot right

Last month I curated a collection of images of Dubai neighborhoods to test the work of online photobook service Artisan, which has since changed name to Zno.  They currently offer a $5.00 trial on a 6x8 (grammatically misnomered) lay-flat book of 20 pages, a similar size to what I ordered previously from competing services.  For more about those, see this blog post.

Zno provides an online design application that was fairly easy to use, but may require a little tinkering if you have unusual needs. As with my last experiment, I used a plain background and only one image per page.  Unfortunately, I didn’t discover until near the end how to format all pages with one command, and so manually resized all 20 images. This was not a huge inconvenience, but if you are doing a large project, or one using multiple images per page, be prepared to spend a little time getting things set up.  I did not try Zno’s help services, so cannot comment on their speediness or usefulness in assisting with these kinds of issues.  Upload of 22 images at 300 dpi (20 interior pages + front and back covers) was relatively quick and easy, and moving images around within the design software quite effortless.  My project was submitted 20 March, I received confirmation of shipment the next day, and DHL delivered the package a week later on 27 March.  With $5.00 shipping, the book came to $10.00 total.  Normal pricing for this product appears to be $35.00 (shipping included).

Exhibit Review: The Traveling Museum of the Caucasus

During my one-week stay in Tbilisi, I had the great fortune to attend a temporary exhibit (now closed) at the Museum of Georgia featuring the photographic work of Alexander Roinashvili, a 19th century ethnographer popularly known as Georgia’s first photographer.  He was, it seems, interested mostly in the documentary function of the camera, which he carried across Georgia recording the folk ways of the country’s many villages, towns and cities.  He worked in a variety of genres to document all manner of life, from landscape to portrait to still life.  He was as well a collector of artifacts, amassing a huge collection of tools, weapons, clothing, furniture, and other items of everyday life, many of which were on display at last month’s exhibit, along with a selection of photos, largely landscapes and portraits.  While the collection on display was quite impressive, I was somewhat disappointed in the relative lack of images compared to artifacts, but otherwise thrilled to learned about such an important, resourceful, and dedicated photographer.  A two-volume set of images has been published in Georgia, and before better sense prevailed I almost bought one. For those that might be interested in exploring, two useful web links are provided below.

Exhibit Review: Dubai Photo Exhibition, 16-19 March 2016

I’m not much in the mood to write a long description of the exhibit:  the sponsors, the concept, design, number of peices, types of work, artists represented.  I think anyone who finds this blog post can find most of that information at the exhibition website.  I did, though, want to leave a post as a record of attendance and to perhaps also make a note of those artists I discovered and about whom I’d like to know more.

Friday morning was a good time to attend as there were few visitors and thus no body contact with strangers, annoying cell phone conversations, or crying children.  In fact I think there were more men in black suits - the event security team - than visitors.

Review: Essential Street Portrait Crash Course, 12 February 2016

Yesterday, I attended the following 8-hour workshop, part of the annual Dubai Photo Week organized by Gulf Photo Plus.

I signed up for the class in December and am no longer clear why I did so.  As so much of my photography the past three years came out of my OCA classes, perhaps the lack of a course had me looking for a bit of structure and focus.  I think I was also interested in developing my street photography skills and saw this as chance to not only challenge myself, but also as an opportunity to meet fellow Dubai photographers with similar interests.

Review: Singh, R. (1996). Tamil Nadu. New York: Distributed Art Publishers.

Raghubir Singh turned up in my FB newsfeed a few weeks ago, which sent me on a search for his work.  The only thing I was able to find is this 1996 volume on the state of Tamil Nadu, available through the UAE university library system.  

There are a variety of images here, including what look like typical tourist photos of temples, landscapes, and cityscapes.  There are also clearly abstract images, such as the shape of a tree shot in silhouette against the sun, coils of green pipe accented by a round mirror (reflecting the photographer), or a close-up of a mud carving of the face of a deity that is all swirls and whorls.  There are also a series of landscapes shot from with an automobile and framed by car windows, and the somewhat typical old/new contrasts, such as a satellite dish foregrounded against an ancient temple, or an electric fan between two ancient bronze statues.  

Much is made of Singh’s use of color.  He was, it appears, an early adopter, but I don’t see much color here that is especially redolent.  The collection does capture the essence of the India I have seen and know and evokes a feeling of nostalgia and the desire to travel again.  I look forward to exploring more of Mr Singh’s work.  

A small selection of images are available here:  http://121clicks.com/inspirations/raghubir-singh-inspiration-from-masters-of-photography

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Book Review: Bate, D. (2009). Photography: The Key Concepts. Oxford: Berg.

This is perhaps one of the more interesting of the half-dozen or so introductory photography books I’ve read as part of my formal photography education.  It’s neither a historical narrative, nor a practitioner's rumination on the craft or art of making images, but a review of some of the critical concepts used in discussing photographic images, of what they mean and how they are used.  Bate does this through the prism of genres, specifically Documentary, Portraiture, Landscape, Still Life and Fine Art.  There are also brief reviews of history and theory, as well as a concluding chapter on global trends.  

The writing is largely accessible, especially in comparison to others who take a similar approach, such as Graham Clarke’s The Photograph, but may assume a bit much from a beginner. There were enough interesting observations scattered throughout to keep me engaged, such as peripateia, a theory of historical painting in which the artist seeks to depict the dramatic moment when past became future, which Bate positions as antecedent to Bresson’s decisive moment.  I also appreciated his treatment of Still Life, often discussed in photography texts only in passing, which Bate frames contemporaneously as product photography, the kind of images you see in catalogs or on websites of e-merchants.  Bate occasionally gets carried away, as in his discussion of product imagery, in which "images of hamburgers are depicted with beautifully lit sesame seeds on the top of the buns, which compensate for or complement the insular singularity of the object with the sign of a multiplicity." 

It seems somewhat odd that a search for published reviews of this text came up empty.  

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