Lensculture issue 26 is now on line and as always there is much to look at, not least a preview pick of 40 pictures from the 2010 Rencontres d’Arles so that I can see what I will be missing from July 3-13 th (the exhibition programme continues until September 19th>.
I’ve thought about going there for years, but have never quite got around to it. Until around ten years ago there was a good reason, since it was always a very busy time for me at work, and it would have been difficult if not impossible to get the time off, but since then it’s largely been a matter of sloth and failing to persuade any of my photographic friends to accompany me.
Another feature I was very pleased to see was a selection of 16 images by Tony Ray Jones, a highlight of the recent Month of Photography in Krakow, Poland. I did a very good PR job on his behalf with a lecture at the 2005 FotoArt Festival at Beilsko-Biala (just a short trip down the road from Krakow) on the ‘Two Rays’ of British photography – Ray Moore and Tony Ray Jones, and again when I spoke in the same lecture hall two years later in a presentation of the history of British ‘street photography.’
You can see my pictures from Bielsko-Biala and a dairy of the 2005 festival there on line, though for copyright reasons I was unable to post my full lecture. I also kept an online diary in 2007, in which I promise to make a version of my lecture available – but as yet I’ve not managed to do so. There are some copyright issues that I’ve not found a sensible way to resolve.