In my morning news-reader today was an article headlined Probing Question: Are Smartphones Changing Photography? The lede is: Although cell phone cameras are a recent innovation, they continue nearly 150 years of tradition that photography should be broadly accessible and an extension of our own … Keep readingMishka Henner (part 2)
We all know how to do photography. You take a camera in hand, you find a thing you want to photograph, you point the camera at that thing, you release the shutter. The photographer has a reason for taking that photograph; the photographer decides what … Keep readingMishka Henner (part 1)
When looking at Stephen Shore’s photographs for the first time, I suspect the reaction of most people (and I include myself in this group) would be some variation of WTF? For a lot of folks, that’s also the second and third reaction, and for many … Keep readingStephen Shore
GRAPHIC IMAGES — GRAPHIC IMAGES — GRAPHIC IMAGES I confess—I don’t quite know what to make of Leigh Ledare and his work. His most recent project—a series of black and white photographs of a Russian motorcycle gang, the Night Wolves—is pretty straightforward; it falls neatly … Keep readingLeigh Ledare
We are the music-makers,We are the dreamers of dreams,Wandering by lone sea-breakers,And sitting by desolate streams— A few years ago I saw the photograph below. I don’t recall now where I saw it, and there was no attribution given. I had no idea who took … Keep readingAsako Narahashi
DISTURBING IMAGE == DISTURBING IMAGE — DISTURBING IMAGE Cindy Sherman’s photography comprises an aesthetic of questions. What’s going on here? What is she saying—or trying to say? What does all this mean? And then, of course, there’s the question that underlies all the other questions: … Keep readingCindy Sherman
We rarely acknowledge the role luck plays in an artist’s career. We’re all aware of it, of course, but we generally like to pretend it all comes down to talent (or, for those artists whose work we dislike, a venal agent and a lot of … Keep readingMiwa Yanagi
William Joseph Eggleston turned 70 on July 27, 2009—less than a week ago. He was born in Memphis, Tennessee in 1939. Shortly thereafter his father left to serve as a gunnery officer on a destroyer attached to the Pacific fleet in World War II. Baby … Keep readingWilliam Eggleston
Who knows where art comes from? Surely, it must be influenced—if not actually shaped—by the artist’s life experience. In Japan, there was a generation of artists born before the Second World War, who grew up during that war, and who began to make art in … Keep readingEikoh Hosoe
Los Angeles. Unlike Paris or New York City or Prague, the city of Los Angeles has a reputation among photographers for being notoriously difficult to photograph. That’s because LA exists as much in myth as in reality. It lacks a single identity. LA is the … Keep readingGuillaume Zuili