Atlanta-based photographer and gallery owner Robert Matre has a plum photo assignment this week. He’ll be in Pebble Beach, at the US Open, shooting for the USGA.
Rob’s taken two of his passions and merged them together into a specialty; golf photography. Check out the recent video below of Rob on CNN, in Spanish, talking about the nature of his work and the upcoming tournament at Pebble Beach.
It’s time for this week’s Photolink Round-up, a smattering of photo-rich stories, posts and links from across the online spectrum!
The May 28th edition of On the Media re-aired “Snap Judgements“, which investigates the ethics of photographic portraiture. The story includes a great interview with Platon, who’ll be an ACP Lecture Series presenter later this year.
“To be quite honest, I’m often surprised that I’m allowed to carry on doing what I do every day. But I haven’t been stopped yet, and I’m still waiting to be sent out of the country for bad photographic behavior.”
Here’s a fascinating piece in the Atlantic about the rise of the paparazzi as a profitable business. It makes a great companion piece to Smash His Camera, a new documentary about the life and times of Ron Galella, famous for this image of Jackie Onassis. The doc is currently airing on HBO.
YouTube and the Guggenheim have teamed-up for an exhibition called “YouTubePlay” of the world’s best “creative videos”. They’re currently accepting entries, one per YouTube account.
Check out this story from Greensboro, NC about an unbelievable “Kodak moment”.
If you have 10-grand to spare, someone in Virginia Highlands is selling their Hasselblad H3 digital outfit on Craigslist.
Photographs from former Tennessee senator Howard Baker are currently on exhibition at the Jimmy Carter Presidential Library through the end of the month.
“His only source of income comes from the occasional editorial commission, print sales and the books he publishes through his own imprint, Nobody, which he started in 2005. His website has become the key to his self-sufficiency. After the Haiti earthquake in January, he produced 100 prints from his Hackney Flowers series (a continuation of the Hackney Wick pictures) to raise money for the victims; within 15 hours of appearing on the website they had sold out. ‘I could have sold 400 easily,’ he says. ‘A great reminder of the power of photography.’”
The World Cup’s in full-swing, which has sent a lot of photographers back to their archives to see what kinds of crowd-reaction shots they were photographing four years ago. Dean Dorat came up with this set, while PDN reports that Antonio Simoes had 35k dollars worth of gear stolen in South Africa last week.
As Moore’s law still holds, chips keep getting smaller, with increasing processing power, enabling future phone cameras the capability of 14 megapixel images and 1080p HD video. Whoa!
(Have a great link suggestion for Photolink Round-up? Tweet us @acptweets, or send an email!)
Yay, it’s time for this week’s photolinks, a round-up of recent photo-posts across the online spectrum.
The New York Times looks to “style bloggers” for their their camera recommendations. Interesting, because they all prefer small point-and-shoots. (Doesn’t everyone?)
If you used the late-great (pre-Bridge, pre-Lightroom, pre-Aperture) photo-organizer iView Media Pro, you’ll know that they were eventually bought by Microsoft, and the product withered away or morphed into something new (depending on who you talk to). Here’s recent news about Phase-One, who’ve picked-up the pieces.
No Caption Needed takes a look at natural disasters in Taiwan and Guatemala, both of which resulted in images that could lead to a whole new classification of photographs: straight, unaltered pictures that looked like they were Photoshopped.
Holly Johnson has a photo story on the fate of horses at horse auctions, called “Awaiting Fate“. The photographs were made surreptitiously. A quick quote:
“Shortly after we got the horse back, I decided to go to the auction house he was sold at and record it with my camera. I hid my camera in my purse because they do not allow cameras due to the unhappy PETA members that often protest there. What I captured was several animals were dubbed useless because they are too old, too slow on the track, too expensive to keep, or injured.”
Definitely visit NPR’s PictureShow blog, which has a few recent posts on the history of yearbooks, and a look at Dennis Hopper as a photographer.
“Photography is an art for lazy people.” So said Robert Frank, the celebrated Swiss photographer, to Allen Ginsberg, the celebrated New Jersey poet, as they gathered in a Lower East Side flat to make a movie.”
This is what it looks like when you take portraits of people who are upside down.
And Mark Seinmetz, who resides in Athens, has a show currently up at Charles A. Hartman Fine Art in Portland, Oregon. More here:
“Taken from a recently published book (by local Nazraeli Press) of the same title, “Greater Atlanta” is the third in a series of works exploring the American South, particularly parts of Georgia, where Steinmetz lives. Considered together, the books amount to a historical document of life in that region, gently celebrating the beater cars, fog-dappled gas stations and tousled-haired teenagers that inhabit a slouching but somehow beautifully barren landscape. “
This Saturday, the High Museum of Art opens “Signs of Life”, photographs by Peter Sekaer, the “first major exhibition dedicated to the work of the Danish-born American photographer”. A friend, printer, and colleague of Walker Evans, Sekaer’s little-known work spans 1935-1945, and documents American life during the Depression.
Comprised of 75 vintage gelatin silver prints, 55 of which have been aquired for the High’s permanent collection, the photographs were created while Sekaer worked for the Rural Electrification Administration, the United States Housing Authority, and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
Often traveling across the rural South with Walker Evans, Sekaer’s style is more intimate, spontaneous and less removed than Evans’, especially when considering a location like “Negro Barber Shop Interior, Atlanta, 1936“.
Here’s Sekaer’s take, published in the exhibition’s catalogue, printed by Gerhard Steidl. (Apologies for the cell-phone snap.)
While Evans focuses on the stuff of the shop, and implied stories of the shop’s barbers and patrons (in their absence), Sekaer captures the spirit and liveliness of the place, infused with a human moment. Same place, two very different photographs.
Apparently, Sekaer’s early passing contributed to his relative hiddenness. While his contemporaries were able to get their work out into the world, especially when photography arrived in museums in the 70s, Sekaer’s archives stayed more-or-less unseen, with his family.
Our friends down in Pike County, Slow Exposures have a new site and a current call for entries for their eighth (!) annual contest/exhibition/festival. Deadline is June 15th. Have a look!
“Photography’s central role is to be the absolute medium of the day. It is fantastic that there is no longer any technical intimidation. When I first started learning how to take photographs, you had to spend the first six months figuring out what an f-stop was. Now you just go and take pictures. Nobody thinks about technical issues anymore because cameras or camera phones take care of that automatically. On the other hand, you still have the option of controlling every technical aspect. It’s the most accessible, democratic medium available in the world. This has to be celebrated, and we must continually remind photographers of this.”
TODAY, in Atlanta, you can buy groceries that will benefit arts along the Beltline: What: Atlanta BeltLine has been selected for “5% Day” at Whole Foods Market at Ponce de Leon, when Whole Foods will donate five percent of the day’s net sales to support The BeltLine! The more you shop, the more you give! So BeltLine fans, grab a friend and grab your reusable shopping bags and head over to Whole Foods Market at Ponce de Leon on Wednesday, May 26th!
That’s right, five percent of what you spend at Whole Foods Market at Ponce de Leon on our day will be donated to the BeltLine!
When: Wednesday, May 26, 8am – 10pm
Why: Funds generated from 5% Day for the BeltLine will be used to support Art on the BeltLine in the creation of visual arts, performing arts, and historic site interpretation in the BeltLine this May through October. Art on the BeltLine will draw thousands of residents in to the BeltLine corridor – including the section of the BeltLine directly behind the Whole Foods store on Ponce.
“Let me tell you about my summer. In May, I worked on A Day in the Life of America. Then I went to Miami, and I shot an album cover for Don Johnston. After that, I spent three weeks in Hong Kong and a few days in Korea for the London Sunday Times Magazine. From there, I went to Carmel to teach a Friends of Photography workshop. I came back to New York, and the London Sunday Times called again. I flew to Hawaii for them to photograph Marcos. I came back to New York, and then I went to Aspen to teach another workshop. From there, I flew to Idaho to photograph a meeting for the Aryan Nations – an extreme right-wing group. After that, I taught in Maine for a week. I came back to New York and decided I was going to relax. But Life called, wanting me to go immediately to Pakistan, so I did. After that, I went to Toronto to work on a film.”
To get started, you’ll need your event, artist & venue info. You’ll need a large jpg, between 1000 and 3000 pixels on its longest side. Like last year, we’ll be displaying each listing chronologically by date of the main event, so we recommend that your main event occur between mid-September and October 31st.
The ACP Festival Guide is a free guide, available in print and online, which offers a complete listing of the more than 150 exhibitions and events that take place during the month of October. It lists all ACP programs, as well as all participating venues, which include commercial and non-profit galleries, museums, colleges and universities, artists’ studios, cafes, and other alternative spaces. The Festival Guide provides locations, dates, times, as well as artists who are being presented at all venues. The 15,000 printed copies will be freely distributed by a network of dedicated volunteers and will be available at all participating venues, as well as area schools, libraries, bookstores, cafés, and various retail establishments. Online guides can be downloaded for free. The ACP 12 Festival Guide will be available mid-September.
Chip Simone’s “The Silence and The Dance“
Opening: Friday, May 14, 7:30 – 10:00 p.m.
Artist Talk: Saturday, May 22 11 a.m.
Emerging Visions
May 14th – June 25th, 2010
Opening: Friday, May 14, 7:30 – 10 p.m.
Juror Talk: Saturday, May 15th, 10:30 am
Juror: Elizabeth F. Spungen
Executive Director The Print Center, Philadelphia, PA
Christopher Sims, who’s attended the ACP Portfolio Review a few times was named a recipient of the Baum Award from SF Camerawork. Nice work, Chris!
Peter Magubane, who exhibited at Spruill Gallery during ACP 10, has been awarded an Infinity Award from ICP. Here’s a look back at his show here in Atlanta.
Following-up on links from two weeks ago, Paco Blancas keeps coming back to the Marina Abramovic performance at MOMA in NYC (fourteen times!), and he keeps getting his picture taken by Marco Anneli.
Why make photographs of your own when the roving Google Street View Van can do it for you? There’s a blog (of course!) of unique street views from Google Maps, called Apres Garde, and here’s an interview with its creator. The photo below wasn’t taken by Stephen Shore, it was taken by a robot.
A delicious idea for a photography show in DC at the American University Museum at the Katzen Arts Center, One Hour Photo, in which photographs will be projected for one hour and one hour only, never to be seen again. Bravo!
Similarly, Jason Lazarus is looking for photographs that are “too hard to keep“. He’ll keep them for you, apparently.
What are folks doing with their HD-capable DSLRs these days? They’re strapping them to remote control helicopters and flying them around Whitefish, of course!
A few quick links:
Photography collective MJR has created a grant to support $500 worth of film for an analog photographer. EXPOSURE is offering 10K and a year’s rent in NYC.
A review of the iPad from a photographer’s perspective.
And a new video of ACP Lecture Series presenter Alec Soth, in his studio.
Established in 1998, Atlanta Celebrates Photography supports Atlanta's emergence as an international center for photography. Through an annual October festival and year-round programs, ACP seeks to nurture and support photographers, educate and engage audiences, promote diverse photography venues, and enrich Atlanta's cultural scene. Through these efforts, we facilitate Atlanta's emergence as a world-class cultural city.