Photographers | >Re-PHOTO

Milk and Jim Barron

I got a couple of identical e-mails the other day, and the first one that I found rather startled me, as it was addressed not to me, but to a good friend of mine who died six years ago, Jim Barron.

He had a long career in photography, starting with a parrot on his shoulder taking beach snaps and then using flash powder as a scientific photographer in the Civil Service, ending up as head of one of its photographic departments, but also finding time to work occasionally on the side for newspapers etc. Three portraits by him, two of Larry Adler and one of Sir Arthur Bliss, are in the National Portrait Gallery collection. He was also well known as a collector of photographica, and his collection included one of the wooden cameras that Bill Brandt had used for those wide-angle nudes. He lent cameras and acted as a photographic consultant on several films and TV programmes.

I got to know Jim shortly after he retired, when he turned up at a meeting of a small group of photographers that I was part of, and we and most of the others continued to meet regularly to show and discuss our latest work until weeks before his death – in later years at his home in Richmond.

At the time, Jim was taking pictures using a 4×5″ camera, very much in the mould of Edward (or perhaps more Brett) Weston. He’d walk from his home, perhaps up into Richmond Park, his camera and tripod in a shopping trolley. Technically they were fine, but I and others tried to tell him that there were other things in photography that were perhaps of more interest.

At the time most of what I was showing was ‘street photography’ and we had long discussions about my pictures and also about some of the great street photographers whose work interested me. I remember going with him to an exhibition of the work of Gary Winogrand, going round it with him and arguing over the pictures.

Perhaps what finally persuaded him to have a go at street photography was not my example – or Winogrand’s work – but a workshop we both went to with Thomas Joshua Cooper, who told Jim rather more directly what I had been trying to say about his large-format work and encouraged him to try something new.

From then on, until shortly before he died, Jim salked the streets of the West end in his wooly hat, lurking with his Leica and usually a 24mm lens. Ten years ago I wrote a short piece about him for the magazine of London Independent Photography, which by then we had both joined:

Most days it seems, you can find Jim in London. Several times this year I’ve been hurrying to the Photographers’ Gallery or across Soho or down Bond St and in the distance have seen a familiar figure with his Leica and hat.

I haven’t always had time to stop and talk, or even to go over and greet him, as I usually seem to be rushing to a late appointment. Sometimes I’ve realised he is at work waiting patiently for the moment to happen and not wanted to disturb him.

Though officially retired, Jim seems to be working harder than ever. After a day’s work on the street he goes home to spend the evening in the darkroom printing.

Every LIP meeting sees Jim with a new box of pictures for our delight, with perhaps another 30 or 40 or more 20×16 prints.

This print won second prize in a competition organised by the Evening Standard and Canon and was one of five or six prizewinners displayed in the Victoria & Albert Museum.

Despite this success, Jim was robbed as this picture was clearly in a league of its own compared with the other winners.

Another superb example of his street photography, this picture made a fine poster for the Soho Jazz festival. It is hard to imagine how anything or anybody in this peculiar theatre of the street could have been better placed – a moment so precisely caught that could not have been better drafted or choreographed.

I soon realised why I’d got an e-mail for Jim Barron. Both he and I had entered for a competition called ‘M.I.L.K’ in 1999, and as he didn’t do computers, he had got me to send in his entry for him. Now almost ten years on there is a second version of this competition, entitled ‘Fresh M.I.L.K.’ It describes itself as:

“A $125,000 international competition to find photographs that capture spontaneous and humorous moments shared between friends, families and lovers.

We are inviting both professional and gifted amateur photographers from around the world to submit their images now. 150 images will be chosen as finalists and the overall winner, chosen by Magnum photographer Elliott Erwitt, will receive $50,000.

This is a chance to have your photograph become part of a world-renowned collection and be published in a prestigious international book.”

For details go to the Fresh M.I.L.K web site. Entry is free and you can submit up to five entries of five pictures each – online submission only. The small print looks pretty reasonable – as you would expect with Erwitt lending his name to it – and the prizes aare certainly worthwhile. We have until 31 Dec 2008 to enter, and the winners will be announced on or before 31 March 2009.

Visa pour l’Image

Another of the big annual festivals I’ve never been to is Visa pour l’Image at Perpignan, which accurately describes itself as the “International Festival of Photojournalism“. Held every year in the south of France since 1989, it’s been going for 20 years and has established itself as the most important event of the year for many photojournalists, with many of the big names as well as those who would like to be more famous attending during the professional week – this year from 1-7 Sept.

There are around a thousand photographers and others in the business listed (you can download it from the site) as being there, and something around 30 exhibitions, among them one arranged by the friends and family of Alexandra Boulat, who died tragically last October, only 45.

Those attending were also saddened to hear of the death of one of Frances greatest photojournalists, Françoise Demulder, after a long illness; photographing for Gamma, she was the first woman to win the World Press Photo of the Year in 1976.

In the evenings at Perpignan there are screenings of images covering the events of the year and various meetings and events. Freelance photographers also get a chance to show their portfolios.

The Visa d’Or awards are presented at Perpignan, for news, feature reporting and the daily press, as well as a special best young reporter award. Four four nominees are selected by an international panel for each award, and a different panel meets during the event to select the winner. The Canon Female Photojournalist Award and the CARE International Award for Humanitarian Reporting are also made there.

The nominees were announced some time ago. For the Features award, made on Friday night they are:

Carlos Spottorno / Getty Images : Xinjiang, China’s Far West

Alfred Yaghobzadeh / Sipa Press for the Figaro Magazine : Religious Minorities in Iran

Brent Stirton / Reportage by Getty Images for Newsweek and National Geographic Magazine : Virunga National Park, Eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, July 2007

Agnès Dherbeys / VIImentor program : Temple of Dooms, Wat Prah Bat Nam Phu, Thailand;

and for the News category to be awarded Saturday:

Yasuyoshi Chiba / AFP : Kenya

Philip Blenkinsop / NOOR : China Earthquake

John Moore / Getty Images : Assassination of Benazir Bhutto

Anthony Suau / Bill Charles : Mexico/US border fence

You can read reports from the festival on several sites, including Foto8 and PopPhoto, although others who have promised to cover it – such as the Digital Journalist – have yet to make a post from Perpignan as I write. But I’m sure they will find a hot spot soon!

Byzantine Photographs

Thanks to a post on Indymedia I got to read the story posted on ‘Byzantine Blog‘, Deceiving the World with Pictures posted on Aug 12, which cast some doubt on some pictures from Georgia by Reuters photographers David Mdzinarishvili and Gleb Garanich, suggesting they were staged.

According to blog comments, Reuters has now re-captioned some of these pictures and allegedly removed others but you can view a set ‘Crisis in Georgia‘ which includes pictures by Mdzinarishvili and Garanich, including three from the two sets those the blog labels as fake, and you can find others from the scenes by a search on the Reuters site.

The evidence on ‘Byzantine Blog’ certainly raises doubts, and though at first I thought they had discovered something, having seen more of the pictures I’m fairly convinced the pictures are genuine. Take a look and see what you think. It’s also worth looking at the comments and the pair of pictures it mentions on another site. You can also see the story and read more comments (for, against and mainly pro and anti-soviet rants) on Russia Inside Out.

In real life things are as simple and straightforward as many of the comments suggest, and in the chaos following an air raid almost anything may happen.

Work on the Reuters site that shows Mdzinarishvili and Garanich as phtoographers doing a great job working under what must be difficult circumstances, I’d certainly be inclined to give both the benefit of the doubt – even if I had any.

Photos are of course staged all the time for various reasons, but it is important that those that have been staged are not represented as news. I’m sure Reuters would agree wholeheartedly, and when they were made aware of the actions of Adnan Hajj with Photoshop, he was quickly fired.

A lengthy post with the title ‘The Reuters Photo Scandal’ looks at these and other images from Lebanon on Zombietime, a San Francisco based site that perhaps requires reading with salt shaker to hand and that I would not recommend exploring too fully. But some of the examples it gives are interesting and leave little doubt that photographers are sometimes manipulated by being offered good picture opportunities, and that in other cases they have set out to deliberately manufacture news.

1968 Remembered

Actually I don’t remember too much of the sixties – I was a student for most of them and pretty involved in the events in Manchester which had some interest, although not at quite the same level as Paris, though we did have our demonstrations and of course occupied the university like everyone else.

Had I been taking photographs then I would at least have some aids to jog my memory, but I didn’t have the cash. I have just a few pictures, slides of girlfriends sitting in cherry trees or posing in front of stately homes, a few assorted black and whites, and a set of terrible grey and white wedding photos from what was my personal major event of 1968 (our honeymoon was in Manchester with a day trip by coach to the Lake District.)

But this year, 40 years on, has seen a great deal of time devoted to remembering the other events of 1968, and one of the most dramatic was of course the Soviet Army invasion of Czechoslovakia which brought an end to the ‘Prague Spring’. This was the first news event that a 30 year old Czech photographer covered, and he risked his life using his Exacta camera to produce an amazing set of black and white pictures. A year later these images, smuggled out of the country were published anonymously as it was thought they could endanger his life, and the 1969 Robert Capa gold medal for photographs requiring exceptional courage was awarded to that anonymous Czech photographer.

The following year, Joseph Koudelka, with a little help from Magnum and the British authorities was allowed to leave the country for England on a 3-month visa and not return when it expired. The Magnum Blog has a set of 10 images from that 1968 invasion, as well as links to a set of 100 images from it as well as some of his later work.

A new book from Aperture features his pictures: Invasion 68: Prague, and his work will also be on show shortly in New York at the Aperture Gallery (Sept. 5 – Oct. 30, 2008) and Pace/MacGill Gallery (Sept. 4 – Oct. 11, 2008.)

Terry King at 70

Terry King reads his poetry at his 70th birthday party

I was surprised to find that Terry King was approaching 70 when I got an invitation to his birthday party on Saturday.

I got to know Terry in the 1970s when we both went to meetings of ‘Group Six‘, a rather controversial group of the Richmond and Twickenham Photographic Society whose interests in photography were largely outside the world of amateur photography with its print battles and sunsets. At the time it was led by another photographer now well-known on the web, Vincent Oliver (then just Vince) whose photo-i web site is the only place to go for reviews of scanners and printers.

Later Terry took over the group, and together we organised a series of shows that got considerably more attention than the main society events, upsetting the committee and we had to set up as ‘Framework‘, an independent photography group outside of the amateur movement. Framework continued to organise shows for a number of years and among many UK photographers to exhibit with Framework were Terry King, Carol Hudson, John RT Davies, Derek Ridgers and Jo Spence. We also had a few foreign contributions.

But Terry is best known for his interest in alternative print processes and his personal work using them, particularly gum bichromate and the ‘Rex’ variations he developed for gold printing and cyanotype.

Around 30 years ago, I sat in a row on the left-hand side of a dimmed hall in Richmond listening to a lecture by a retired advertising photographer called Steinbock. On my right was Terry King and on my left, Randall Webb (much later to become the co-author with Martin Reed of ‘Spirits of Salts: A Working Guide to Old Photographic Processes‘ London: Argentum, 1999.) The small and rather tonally lacking gum prints which the lecturer put on display were not the first I had seen, but this was the first time I had seen a gum printer and been told with some detail how to make such prints.

The three of us went away, each determined to try the process. At the time I was a teacher of chemistry and photography, and liberated a couple of surplus jars of the potassium dichromate needed from our chemical store and gave one to Terry.

Later I helped Terry who had set up a course ‘From Wedgewood to Bromoil‘ so he could get paid while he tried out early photographic processes at the local adult education institute. I got my college to pay my fees for the course and we spent a year of Saturday mornings with a few other keen students learning how to do pretty much the whole range of alt processes, with William Crawford’s ‘The Keepers of Light‘ as our main guide.

I found gum a pain to work with, especially when I tried tri-colour printing, and soon concentrated on other processes such as salt-printing, kallitype and platinum and palladium, teaching a few classes and workshops, but eventually my other photographic interests left no time alt printing. In any case, once most alt printers had started to work from digital negatives I felt they may as well go the whole way and make inkjet prints.

Terry went on to develop his own individual approach to gum printing, producing many fine images (one of which normally hangs on my wall, and you can find some examples on his web site) with this and other processes, as well as to run workshops that trained a whole new generation of alt photo printers in the UK, to organise the international APIS (Alternative Processes International Symposium) and various other events, as well as becoming Chairman of the Historical Group of the Royal Photographic Society.

Terry is also a poet, and in particular has produced many inspiring limericks. Long ago when he was a civil servant he used to compose at least one every morning on his train journey from Twickenham to Waterloo. The photograph shows him reading some short poems shortly before blowing out the candles on his cake.

Bronx Boy John Benton-Harris examines the validity of Frank Gohlkes Where We Live”

‘Where We Live – Queens, New York 2003-4,
Howard Greenberg Gallery, New York, 27 June-22 Aug 2008

As someone as long in the tooth as Mr Gohlke, and involved just as long as he in communication through seeing, I feel I have both the right and the obligation to speak of this show, and what I feel are its merits and failings. And as I sense its overall merits are few, and its failings great, Ill deal with the former first.

The 40 plus prints exhibited (mostly horizontal) are large and very large by the standards of a documentary photographer of his age and type, and far too big for the smallness of their content. So why he would want to draw our attention to this view of Queens is beyond my comprehension, especially after the gallery handout stated: “Queens is both a destination and a way station, where ethnic diversity first undergoes the turbulent process of Americanization.”.

Well, looking at this show, I would have to challenge that remark, for there is no sign of habitation, let alone a piling up of people awaiting assimilation, neither is there anything chaotic, untidy, or frenzied about these images that would suggest this process, singularly or en masse. Indeed for Mr Gohlke to gain a chance to capture anything of it, he would have had to take the risk of working in a less affluent, more borderline neighbourhood. That way, he could easily show us these same nice tidy homes adjacent to or juxtaposed against failing light-industry, foreign greengrocers, new Irish pubs, Indian news agents, graffiti, abandoned cars, and possibly even sneakers dangling from tied shoelaces hanging from a spaghetti of overhead cables. And all manner of other signs of change and cultural clash, that are easily and abundantly available, if one chooses the right locality, and focuses an appropriate mindset to illustrate transition.

These images are more like advertisements than anything to do with social commentary or the art of thoughtful seeing, and that having been said, I believe they would be better placed in an Estate Agents window than on a gallery wall.

So Im thinking whoever wrote the PR for this show was doing it without access to the images, while Mr Gohlke was out doing some simple stock-taking with his camera in a part of Queens that looks more like the place where we would find “Stepford Wives” residing than any area in the process of great social and ethnic turmoil. The only kind of reading these observations project is the neutrality and economy of a quantity surveyors list. A list of different types and kinds of required bricks, railings, fences, doors, sidings, windows, awnings, bushes, trees, shrubs, and flower beds. All that seems to be missing here is the costings of all these different home and garden accessories, so if they celebrate anything at all, it seems to be “Home Depot“, or some such other like place.

As someone who is a veteran walker of this city, I know where to look for what “Where We Live” promised but didnt deliver, because Ive explored a number of such confused and contrasting areas of this borough and the other four. So I know from experience all that just mentioned is indicative of this kind of turbulence, and is very gettable, as long as one commits the necessary thought, time and effort.

But I suspect he’s a contented one-way approach person, and will carry on snapping stylistically as he always has, leaving any sign of personal reading in or across his imagery to others, as well as any accompanying text. And that will always get him into deep shit with people who can read image/text and text/image, for his promises remain undelivered.

However, on the plus side, as this kind of graphic wall furniture goes, they are beautifully finished and presented, as is the standard of Howards gallery. But Mr Gohlkes commitment here is merely to shape-up on this dull neighbourhood, that at best reveals an abundance of poor taste, made taut through simple juxtaposition. And to think it took him two years to bring into being this small graphic exercise. Even more astonishing to me is that it should get an outing off campus, let alone at a major New York Gallery.

But to be kind, and to also to encourage the photographer to go back and give the subject suggested in the text another try, I did happen to notice here and there a few barred windows and the occasional front door that resembled a small town bank vault. So maybe his mind was beginning to kick in with a little, but too late. From his CV, he seems like a guy who knows how to get access to funding, so if he doesnt feel “hes already done it“ and there is a next time, this could be a start point. He might consider trying to let us know something about those who live there, as I listed earlier. Such as what the inhabitants drive, where they eat and shop, anything that would help to warm up Mr Gohlkes precision and economy, so we are motivated to look again.

At this juncture he simply gives us access to what we can easily see for ourselves if we venture past those houses, and down those streets. So I must pose the question “Does this view of Queens really deserves great praise?“ Yes indeed it does, but only if we were tragically all born blind, and these observations were printed in Braille, then we could all feel our way around the gallery walls, and be amazed.

© John Benton-Harris – 14 August 2008

Web Links

Howard Greenberg Gallery
Frank Gohlke

Harry Benson – Let Glasgow Flourish!

Harry Benson A photographer’s journey

Friday 30 May 2008 – Sunday 14 September 2008
Kelvingrove Art Gallery and Museum, Glasgow

People who know me won’t be one jot surprised to learn that Glasgow is my favourite Scottish city – though Edinburgh’s nice enough, and as Irvine Welsh reminds us, in particular Leith has its moments.

And although Harry Benson’s glittering career working for the major news magazines took him to London and New York which is now his home, it is clear from his photographs that his native city is where his heart still lives.

His large and interesting show at the Kelvingrove until September is worth a visit, not least for another chance to view the TV program on show there where Benson talks about his work, and is shown taking pictures in the city and around. You can see at least most of the pictures from the show (and some others) on his web site – with around 30 pictures from Glasgow which includes a portrait made with the giraffe and Spitfire in the art gallery itself.

Benson is the kind of press photographer who makes a career of setting up his subjects – often the rich and famous (including every US president since Eisenhower) – to perform for his camera. Were I ever to try to cover an event at the same time as him I can imagine he would leave me fuming , one of those guys who feels he has to organise things. At one point on the film he says something like if you just take pictures of people as they are they would look boring, so he gets them to jump in the air or something. But equally I’m sure he would be a fascinating guy to talk to in the pub afterwards.

In the end its his own pictures that provide the best argument against what he says. For me the strongest work in the show – or on his web site – isn’t the organised images of celebrities (though you can surely see why they have been so popular with editors and readers alike) but the pictures from the streets of Glasgow where he has taken things as they were. Beside his pictures of the boys at the Stewart Memorial fountain (a short walk from the gallery) or the couple of girls in front of graffiti playing with the city motto his pillow fighting Beatles are empty, meaningless decoration, however nicely done.

Like I say, Glasgow rather than Edinburgh.

John Benton-Harris – “a son of the beach” – looks at Joseph Szabo’s “Jones Beach”

Michael Hoppen Gallery, London (1 August – to -19 September)

It takes courage to be a leader, instead of simply playing it safe by being yet another follower, just as its refreshing for us, not to gaze upon works by people whove been over-celebrated and over-marketed. But sadly Mr Hoppen’s courage isnt quite enough; it also takes the ability to differentiate between imagery that is adequate, or even good in editorial terms, and seeing that goes way beyond familiar observations of everyday existence.

However, imagery that take us to this new plain of awareness is always the by-product of those who take the trouble to know this history, and also something about their subjects and those earlier eyes that contributed to both. Sadly Joseph Szabo’s love affair with Long Islands Jones Beach has more the look of a voyeur then someone engaged in a fine romance. He, as this imagery states (excuse the clumsy metaphor) has been operating in the dark while hes been out there basking in the sunshine of this subject. So as adequate as these first images looked on paper, as illustration, they do not pass muster as notable examples of fine art, on a gallery or museum wall.

And when I first caught sight of his Jones beach snaps while flipping through a copy of a recent Sunday supplement, the thought that came to me was something Walker Evans wrote (for a show of his work at MoMA in 1956 – quoted in full in “Walker Evans and Robert Frank: An Essay on Influence”, Tod Papageorge, Yale University Art Gallery, 1981) in regard to where he believed “Valid photography” could not to be found; after listing several unlikely spots, he concluded – “under no circumstances is it anything ever anywhere near a beach.”

Looking at these images without the benefit of my knowing of my medium and its achievements, I might well agree with Walker’s prejudice. But since I have this knowledge and openness, I can also see what Mr Szabos simple approach denies him: a message or opinion to deliver; a desire to entertain; a determination to seek and capture what has not been previously seen; and a talent for invisibility. Understandably all this allows, even demands, that I be under-whelmed by Mr Szabo’s shoot, and Mr Hoppen’s choices, as well as Mr Evans’s words, when it comes to understanding what the beach has to offer.

At this point, I must confess I haven’t yet seen the complete show, only the synopsis of it. But having experienced Mr Hoppens disregard for fact, his poor visual sensitivity tells me hes simply looking here to sell lower priced works, to gain some advantage from the recent down-turn in the photographic market.

…

Well, now that Ive seen the “whole tamale”, Im left feeling that the additional 30 images only devalued his smaller view, for it became clear that the diversity that was hinted at in the first eight images that illustrated his “DAYS OF SUNSHINE AND POSES” revealed more about him then his subject. Snap, after snap, after snap, this beach was used as his premier place for watching “dolls strutting their stuff”, mixed in amongst a few muscle flexing Adonises. If Joseph truly wants us to be taken seriously (by me at any rate) he needs to stop letting little Joe point the way, and also attempt to look beyond the reach of his lens, for a contact that strives to go beyond the best – and nothing of that is to be gleaned in this display of beach trekking

The variety hinted at in the small editorial advertisement for this show was never delivered, but a diversity of sorts was to be found; it was in the prices asked, which ran from £790 for an 11 x 14 inch print to as much as £8289 for something near 2 by 4 feet. So I must admit, I got Mr Hoppen’s motivation wrong, it was not after all about a show at a lesser cost to everyone, it was about giving us an “AMERICAN FANTASIST” to follow in the wake of his first “AMERICAN FICTION” – “The New York School” – his last American offering.

So thinking there might also be a fictional aspect to this show as well, I took one last look around these 36 exhibited prints, to make sure there werent any from Brighton, Ramsgate, Margate or Scarborough, by another true “son of the beach” like myself, that could more justifiably be connected to either of these poorly represented and distorted offerings.

Collecting on the Cheap

I first came across Jen Bekman in 2003, when she started a small gallery in New York in 2003 and curated a show (the third at the gallery) ‘made in ny‘, a mixed show that included work by Mitch Epstein and other photographers along with street art and “works on paper” (also what most photos are printed on!) but what really brought her to my attention was the international photo competition, Hey, Hot Shot! which she started a couple of years later. This describes itself as “The best thing going for emerging photographers” and it is certainly worth considering an entry, though you have missed the latest of these now semi-annual events, which closed on June 17, and you can see the Hey, Hot Shot! 2008 – First Edition Winners on the blog along with pictures from some other entrants, and, until Aug 23 at the Jan Bekman Gallery in NY.

The two photographers who interest me most among the five winners are Kate Orne and Colleen Plumb, but all of the winners and those of the 20 or so ‘Honorable Mentions’ I’ve looked at have some fine work – this is a tough competition.

Entering Hey, Hot Shot! is also how photographers approach Bekman’s latest venture, 20X200 which is based on a simple formula:

large editions + low prices x the internet = art for everyone

Each week two new art works come on sale, one of them a photo, available in 3 sizes. The smallest size (on 8.5×11″ paper) is in an edition of 200 and sold for just $20, hence the site name (though mailing to the UK more than doubles the price), with a medium size print (17×22″ paper) at $200 – edition 20 – and a larger print (30×40″ paper) at $2000 in an edition of 2.

Some of the $20 editions – which go on sale online at 2pm EST on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (which I think makes it 7pm in the UK) – sell out in a few minutes, but others are slower sellers, and there were 20 of the $20 photos still available when I looked at the site, and a great choice of the more expensive editions – though $200 is still cheap looking at current market prices.

If you are interested, you can sign up for free on the 20X200 site and get advance notice of future editions. I think this is a great idea, although the delivery cost for those not in the USA makes it considerably less attractive.

You can of course buy low cost prints of some of the classic works of photography from the Science and Society Picture Library. Their prints are not editioned and come from the Science Museum, National Railway Museum and the National Museum of Photography, Film & Television which includes the Royal Photographic Society Collection, one of the best collections of the first 100 years of photography in the world. Prices are extremely reasonable and print quality sometimes rather better than that of vintage prints. You can buy some really iconic photographic images- if you’ve always wanted a print of Alfred Stieglitz’s ‘The Steerage’ it’s yours for £7.50 at around the correct size.

LIbrary of Congress- Walker Evans
Walker Evans, Auto parts shop. Atlanta, Georgia. 1936
Library of Congress (available as 20Mb Tiff)

Cheaper still is the Library of Congress. Its pictures are also available as prints at low cost, but you can also download some as high quality scans for free and make your own prints – which can be better than the originals. Only a limited selection of the work is available as high quality TIFF files, but it does include a number of pictures by Walker Evans to name just one of my favourite photographers.

City of Ambition – Ferit Kuyas and other shows

Yesterday I had a day of looking at pictures rather than taking them, though I couldn’t resist a few snaps later on – after too many glasses of red wine – as you can see here. Between a couple of meetings I fitted in visits to the Michael Hoppen Gallery in Chelsea and the Photographers’ Gallery near Leicester Square in an afternoon involving far too much sitting in hot buses in slow moving traffic and sweltering in the underground.

There were three shows at Michael Hoppen, but the only one I found of much interest was of work by Miroslav Tichy who I had written briefly about in 2005, around the time he won the New Discovery Award at Arles (he first allowed his work to be shown in public in a show in Spain in 2004.) Tichy was obsessed by women, how they looked, stood, their gestures, and carried that obsession beyond normal limits, photographing through windows, the fences of swimming pools and on the streets, taking sometimes a hundred pictures a day with his handmade cameras. Part of the charm that these pictures do possess is that they are so crudely made, but I think they are really objects that are talking points rather than photographs. I certainly find the idea of paying 8 or 10,000 euros for one extremely curious. Yesterday was the last day of the show, but if you missed it I don’t think you missed a great deal. You can read the story on the web site (and elsewhere) and that’s what this is all about.

The Photographers’ Gallery has a show that clearly demonstrates how much better fashion photography used to be. I never thought I would walk around a show and decide that the most interesting picture was by Helmut Newton (there is a nice Irvin Penn and a quite a few others of interest.) But frankly I don’t think any of the more current big names in the show stand up to the earlier competition and printing them big just makes them seem more vacuous. Fashion in the Mirror continues until 14 Sept 2008.

Outside the gallery
It was cooler on the street outside Photofusion

In several ways my most rewarding gallery visit was to Photofusion in Brixton, where Turkish-born Ferit Kuyas’s City of Ambition was having its private view. The city in question is Chongqingin, China, whose 32 million inhabitants include the family of the photographer’s wife. The large colour prints made from his 4×5 images are mainly from the outskirts of the city, showing areas of rapid growth through the haze of pollution that appears to cover most of the country (and will possibly lead to the cancellation of the Olympic marathon in Beijing.)

Ferit Kuyas (centre) at the opening

You can see some excellent images of his work from the project on his web site, along with some other projects worth looking at. ‘Agglosuisse‘ is a collection of colour images of “mediocre suburban spaces” that I really like, while the black and white images in ‘Archetypes‘ show more of his sense of design. You can also read more about him in a feature in the Hasselblad Masters Archive.

Down the pub
Brixton – band in pub

My evening finished at a pub a short walk away, before a rather long wait for the bus to take me to Clapham Junction for the train home. It’s a pain that the Victoria line closes at 10.00pm – these works seem to be dragging on for ever.