Journal

Once a year Tom Persinger, who organises the f295 Symposium in Pittsburgh, throws a one-day event on the east coast that’s sponsored by B&H. This year it’s on January 18th at B&H’s Event Space and the speakers will include Alida Fish, Craig J. Barber, Dan Estabrook, France Scully Osterman, Jo Babcock, Joy Goldkind, Michelle Bates, Robert Hirsch and Tom Persinger. I was fortunate enough to meet many of these speakers in Pittsburgh last year and know that it will be an amazing event.

From the B&H website:

Over the course of the past year, f295 has been investigating the art of photography through the voices of practicing photographers. The f295 seminar at B&H is a very special day which features 10 artists discussing their ideas, images, rationale, and inspiration. Each presentation will also include reflections on how the three main elements of photography - Light, Time, and Apparatus impact their work. There will be time at the end of the day for questions.

This is a rare opportunity to engage in conversation with some of today’s most ambitious and accomplished photographers using a 21st Century approach in their work.

f295 is pleased to announce that the Camera Club of New York will be hosting an exhibition entitled ‘f295: 21st Century Photography’ from January 16 - 20, 2009. There will be a reception with the artists on Saturday, January 17 from 7-9pm. This show coincides with the f295 Seminar at B&H Photo on January 18 and features work from a selection of artists who have been involved with previous f295 events.

I have one image in the show, a platinum-palladium print from a Diana camera negative, Leaning Tower of Pisa, Illinois (see previous post). The CCNY is at The Arts Building, 336 West 37th Street, Suite 206, New York, NY 10018-4212.

Leaning Tower of Pisa, Illinois

It’s been a busy year.

Early in the year Beth went to Portland, Oregon for the opening of her show at the wonderful Blue Sky Gallery, while I travelled to Pittsburgh to speak at the f295 Symposium and then twice to Florence with Cy DeCosse, organising things for his 2009 show there.

In the summer, Beth and I spent some time driving around the small towns in west-central Wisconsin, gathering material for a collaborative project we’re working on, finally ending up in Chicago for yet another of her projects.

One of the highlights of the year for me had to be in June, when my image Bird’s Nest was published by Jen Bekman’s 20×200, while for Beth it was probably being flown out to San Francisco for a few days by the nice people at Blurb to receive her $25,000 check for winning the first Photography.Book.Now competition.

As for exhibitions, I had work included in several group shows in Phoenix, New York and Pittsburgh, while November saw Beth’s show open at the Photo Center Northwest. That same month saw Beth and I having a joint show at the Iris Gallery in Boston, which then travelled to their other gallery in Great Barrington, where it will remain until early January 2009.

Beth is already organising several shows for 2009 for which I’ll have to start printing soon, as well as finishing the 100+ 3-colour gum dichromate prints for Cy’s show in Florence. That show will open in October 2009 and will be accompanied by a 3-colour catalogue. And yes, we’ll be there…

Today, there’s an interview on Moodboard with Andy Adams of Flak Photo.

Andy published my photo, Bird’s Nest, a photogravure, back in October 2007 and when Moodboard asked him to select ten favourites he included mine.

Check out Flak Photo - an amazing website devoted to great photography. Thanks Andy!

From MacBlogz. (Full link to the article can be found here.)

AT&T’s exclusivity with the iPhone is expected to last into 2012, however we believe it could be quietly extended even longer than initially expected.

Recently, Beth was asked by the good folks at 20×200 to come up with some answers for their continuing series of artist interviews. Here’s the complete interview, or you can go to the weblog at 20×200 Artist Interview: Beth Dow.

Back in Minneapolis after another (all too quick) trip to Florence and a week of good eating. And photography…

Villa Le Piazolle was incredible. High in the hills above Florence yet near enough to be able to walk into town, although the return journey usually involved a taxi ride, especially after lunch or dinner.

My room had windows facing in three different directions and the image above was shot from one of these. According to the website its ancient purpose was to let the occupant control the property on three sides, as well as the work that was being carried out on the estate.

The flight back was uneventful, from the taxi being there at 5am to making the connection in Amsterdam. But special thanks must go to the steward on the Northwest Airlines flight who, because I had briefly fallen asleep, chose to decide for me that I didn’t want a main meal. When I requested one from him on his way back to the galley I was told that “we’ve stopped serving”. OK, I’ll just have to make sure I’m awake for the snack later. Which I wasn’t. Again, he knew better, but at least I had my stash of Clif bars.

I’m thinking that he did me a favour though, because on the last three international flights I’ve taken with NWA this year I’ve been sick afterwards. This time, aside from having a craving for a mixed bean salad (?) I couldn’t have felt better.

So, when I next fly NWA and The Replacements‘ song Waitress in the Sky is playing on my iPod, I’ll be able to put a face to the lyrics.

Bene, bene…

Beth Dow and I are having a joint show at the Iris Gallery in Boston opening this week.

The original gallery started in the beautiful town of Great Barrington, MA, right in the heart of the Berkshires, and the owners Alison and Fred Collins opened the second gallery in Boston in the summer of 2007.

Once the show finishes in Boston on November 3rd, it will travel on to Great Barrington and will be up until early 2009 - through the holiday season - so there’ll be no excuses for buying your friends and family lame Christmas presents this year!

Today, Blurb announced the winners of their first Photography.Book.Now competition, and although she’s been sitting on this news for nearly a week, I’m happy to say that Beth has won the Grand Prize of $25,000 for her book, In the Garden. Congratulations Beth! The purpose of the award is to allow the photographer to start or finish any project of their choosing - and what a nice chunk of change to work with.

Beth has always believed that her work would be best presented in book form, and has worked towards that end for many, many years. She has a good eye for design, layout and the grouping of images and will agonise over the smallest of details. So this award is truly well deserved, in my completely biased opinion.

Next week she gets to fly out to San Francisco for the awards ceremony that’s being held at Bimbo’s 365. Check out the history (and the name of the club) here. After that, Blurb takes the work on the road and has organised symposiums and meet-ups at Photokina in Cologne, London and finally New York. There are free tickets to be had for each of the events, just click on the RSVP link for the appropriate city, although the New York symposium looks as if it already has a waiting list.

UPDATE Her flight leaves at 7.30am which makes me feel better about not going with her…

One of my images, The Third Bridge, has been accepted into the show Photography Re-Imagined at the Tilt Gallery in Phoenix, AZ and has been awarded 2nd Place! But I’m especially pleased as the juror was Christopher James.

Christopher James is an internationally known artist and photographer whose paintings and alternative process images have been exhibited in galleries and museums in this country and abroad. His work has been published and shown extensively, including shows in The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The George Eastman House, and the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

His book, “The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes” (Delmar, 2001) has received unprecedented critical acclaim, was the winner of The Golden Light Technical Book of the Year award, and has become the standard reference text in alternative process image making. His second, and significantly expanded, edition of “The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes: 2nd Edition” was released in February 2008.

Christopher, after 13 years at Harvard University, is currently Professor and Chair of Photography at the Art Institute of Boston at Lesley University.

The image, quite small at 5″x5″, was printed as a polymer photogravure in an edition of 10 on 11″x14″ Hahnemühle paper. There seems to be something about small prints that some people like, as this has become one of the more popular of my images - not that I’ll ever be accused of being a prolific artist - since it was exhibited in the Fine Arts building last year at the Minnesota State Fair. I’m close to selling out the edition! Let’s hear it for small prints…

Beth has just published a Blurb book on her project In the Garden. It’s 78 pages and 13″x11″ in size with a hardcover, and although we haven’t seen a hard copy yet, every Blurb book I’ve seen has been well produced.

It’s been a weird week and one that seemed to revolve around many of the London printers I used to hang out with in the pubs of Shoreditch and Clerkenwell. It’s as if I’ve been in a time warp or an episode of Dr. Who.

Now, I’ve just been pointed towards the website of Richard Nicholson who has photographed many of the last remaining professional darkrooms in the city including many of the printers that I mentioned in an earlier post. Maybe it’s because I’m a printer, but I LOVE these images. And you’ve got to love that speaker balancing precariously on Adrian’s 504…

Debbie Sears

Adrian Ensor

Klaus Kalde

Mike Spry

Roy Snell

All images copyright © Richard Nicholson.

Jen Bekman Gallery Presents: Ornithology from Derrick Tan on Vimeo.
Here’s a video tour of the current Ornithology show narrated by Jen Bekman, where she says really nice things about Beth, myself and our work. Thanks Jen!

The sad news about Bill Rowlinson on Friday was preceded by wonderful - but stunning - news from 20×200 on Thursday.

20×200 is a project from Jen Bekman whereby two editions a week are released as inexpensive inkjet prints in three sizes for $20, $200 and $2000. My image that’s currently in the Ornithology show, Bird’s Nest was chosen for a special edition released on Thursday. It went live at 2pm ET, but within minutes both the small and medium sizes had sold out!

The original print on which the image is based is available as a hand-pulled photogravure in an edition of 10.

Contact the Jen Bekman Gallery at info (at) jenbekman (dot) com for more details.

Image © Nikki Gibbs, print by Adrian Ensor

It’s hard to believe but I have been printing for other photographers now for nearly 30 years. The time hasn’t always flown by, but I have - and I really believe this - had fun for most of that time. And some of the best times were in the 1980s and early 1990s when I was fortunate to know (and of course socialise with), many great printers in London. Roy Snell, Klaus Kalde, Mike Spry, Steve Walsh, Ron Bagley, Adrian Ensor, Barbara Curtin and Debbie Sears amongst others. And of course, Bill Rowlinson. Sadly, I have just learned that Bill died last week.

When I started to print exhibitions and portfolios way, way back then, there were three printers who greatly influenced my career. Ron Bagley, Roy Snell and Bill. In their own styles, they were, and are, all great printers, but each of them gave to me something different.

From Ron I learned about the commercial aspect of printing. Not always in a this is how it should be done way, but sometimes more of a how not to do it way. And I think anyone who knew Ron will laugh and agree. I worked for Ron for about 4 years, although it seemed like 10, because we had so much fun and so much happened. And Ron’s handling of clients was something to behold. Whatever words were exchanged, amicable or unprintable, the clients usually left laughing.

From Roy I learned how to print. Not in the most basic sense, as I’d been printing for years before I met Roy, but he taught me how to make a print that had feeling. To watch Roy work and produce such stunning prints with apparent ease was so inspiring; suddenly everything made sense. It’s hard to put into words, but even today, when I have that gut feeling of knowing a print is right, that’s what I learned from Roy. A day in the darkroom (which was too infrequent) with Roy was always a joy and something to look forward to.

And Bill. He gave me the courage and advice not only to constantly strive to produce excellent, award-winning prints, but to really do what you believe in, do it from the heart and not sell out. And to go out on a limb occasionally, because “if you’re not the lead dog, the view never changes”. In later years he became quite a private man, and I lost contact with him some years ago, but when I left London for America in 1996, Bill quietly gave me some advice and words of encouragement which I still treasure and follow to this day. Those words have always been very personal and special to me and I have never really discussed them with anyone else, but he was right. He always was.

UPDATE There’s an obituary in the British Journal of Photography by its former editor Chris Dickie, now publisher of Ag, here.

The Diana arrived this morning, fresh out of the mould from the Lomographic Society. I still can’t believe I paid $50 for a plastic camera, but then again, when I think about how much I spend on platinum, palladium and polymer plates, the thought of a nice photogravure from a Diana negative balances it out.

One of the reasons I was persuaded to buy it is that it has the ability to function as a pinhole camera as well as a regular camera, and even then you have two choices. You can either set the aperture to pinhole and keep the lens in place or remove the lens to give you a true 120 pinhole camera. Quite versatile!

According to the wonderful little book that came with it, Diana + True Tales & Short Stories, Wolfgang Möbius even designed the Porsche 928 with the Diana’s smooth lines in mind.

And on a lighter note - should you ever take this camera seriously - they even produce special editions. There’s The White Stripes Meg edition in red and white, and the all-white Eidelweiss. Now, how about a Jesus and Mary Chain version in all-black? Oh, that’s right. It’s called the Holga.

New York I - Polymer Photogravure

The f295 Symposium in Pittsburgh is over and I’m back in Minneapolis after one of the best symposiums I think I’ve attended in a long time.

The event was well organised and honestly, I’d be happy with a fraction of the energy that Tom Persinger, the organiser, displayed while I was there. Tom’s a great guy, very personable and on the ball at all times. How can you not like him and his humour?

I went in having never really used (nor, I think, appreciated) the pinhole camera, but I’m now a convert. And the creativity and open mindedness that was exhibited by all the attendees was incredible - I even ordered a Diana camera that’s on it’s way via UPS as I speak.

Along with the symposium there’s an exhibition that’s up until July 5th at the 707 Penn Gallery that’s showing the work of the speakers from this year and last year. I have three photogravures in the show; two from a series shot in New York and another titled The Third Bridge.

Tom and Jesseca Ferguson, one of the speakers, are both showing work at the Silver Eye Center for Photography, a beautiful gallery. Thanks to Linda Benedict-Jones, the Executive Director there, for making us feel so welcome.

So, my thanks to Tom and everyone, new acquaintances and old, that I met in Pittsburgh and who made it so much fun.