Roseanne Lynch is running an introduction to photography using film course at the Crawford College of Art and Design, begining on April 14th. Drop Roseanne a line at roseannelynch@eircom.net. Pull out that old film camera and experience some true photography!!
– Rory
Posted in Tuition
By Miriam King
From "Faith" by Jackie Nickerson
Part # 1 of this post is here
From "Faith" by Jackie Nickerson
A little while later Jackie met her husband, who is Irish, and moved to live in Ireland. It was at a time when the Catholic Church was constantly in the news, with scandal after scandal coming to light. She had decided at this stage that she wanted to be an artist, and once again she wanted to use photography to explore the country and society now lived in, particularly the Catholic Church she was hearing and reading so much about.
This time she spent a very difficult year researching renaissance painting, iconography and Byzantine art. It was almost impossible to get permission to photograph any of the religious orders as they were suspicious of being portrayed in a bad light. Eventually one closed order allowed her in. She sat and watched the nuns, wondering what it was that gave them the faith to lead this kind of life. The project moved away from the political situation and even the Catholic Church in particular, to the question of individual faith.
She photographed the everyday institutional life of the nuns using the traditional colours and symbolism of Renaissance painting. These photos were published in the book ‘Faith’.
Ten Miles Round
From "Ten Miles Round" by Jackie Nickerson
When Jackie and her husband originally moved to Ireland they lived in Dalkey (a small town on the edge of Dublin) but then they made the move to an extremely rural area in Co. Louth. She knew that for her next project she wanted to stay at home in her local community. She began to build up a picture of the area by collecting photos of familiar images that were already in her head; the pothole outside the local shop, the telegraph pole that was falling down that she drove past every day.
Initially she decided to leave aesthetic aside and use her brain instead of her eye to begin the project. The aesthetic came to her when she came across an early Van Gogh painting in a museum in Amsterdam. She instantly recognised the Northern European monotone shades of cyan and grey, with a little red peeping through, and realised that was the aesthetic she wanted.
Next she began to photograph people in the community. She was allowed to use the waiting room of the local Credit Union as a studio. At the start she had to intercept people coming out of the shop and persuade them to sit for her, but word quickly went around that she would take your photograph for free! Then she began to go into peoples homes, photographing interiors as well.
She explained that you have to know what you’re aiming at and what it is you want to communicate with the audience. She wanted to tell the story of the people in a community and of an area that was wild, chaotic and untamed and she used the landscape photos of hedges & grey skies and the portraits and interior photos to communicate this.
She also said that the advantage of photography as an art form is that it is far more accessible to people than other forms of contemporary art. People are used to seeing photographs all around them every day, in advertising, magazines & newspapers and so they are more willing and able to read art photographs.
From "Ten Miles Round" by Jackie Nickerson
Jackie ended the talk by saying something that I really love, “If you know how to look at things you can begin to understand them”. I think that was one of the things that really came through from listening to her speak was that her photography was very personal to her. She used it time and again to explore and make sense of her environment and her life. I found it inspiring and fascinating to hear her speak about her life and her creative process.
– Miriam
‘Photographs’ an Exhibition by Jackie Nickerson continues in the Sirius Art Centre in Cobh until Thursday, April 1st.
Images from Une Nouveau Ideal,
When Jackie and her husband originally moved to Ireland they lived in Dalkey (a small town on the edge of Dublin) but then they made the move to an extremely rural area in Co. Louth. She knew that for her next project she wanted to stay at home in her local community. She began to build up a picture of the area by collecting photos of familiar images that were already in her head; the pothole outside the local shop, the telegraph pole that was falling down that she drove past every day.
Initially she decided to leave aesthetic aside and use her brain instead of her eye to begin the project. The aesthetic came to her when she came across an early Van Gogh painting in a museum in Amsterdam. She instantly recognised the Northern European monotone shades of cyan and grey, with a little red peeping through, and realised that was the aesthetic she wanted.
Next she began to photograph people in the community. She was allowed to use the waiting room of the local Credit Union as a studio. At the start she had to intercept people coming out of the shop and persuade them to sit for her, but word
Posted in exhibition, famous, Jackie Nickerson, portrait, Review, wordy (lotsa words)
Photograph Copyright Jim Marshall
Jim Marshall, a photographer who took some of the most famous images of rock and pop musicians, including Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar aflame at the Monterey International Pop Festival and Johnny Cash at San Quentin prison, died on Tuesday night in a hotel in New York. He was 74.
His death was confirmed by Peter Blachley of the Morrison Hotel gallery in New York, which represents him there. The cause was not immediately known.
Read more at the New York Times
– Rory
Impossible?
This image is one taken by the British Journal of Phototgraphy using the Impossible Project’s new “polaroid” film. It’s the best of the lot that they got from their press pack. Oops. Doesn’t look good. Read the BJP article here.
Could be a problem with an early production pack, but I won’t be parting with any cash for this stuff yet. Pity …
– Rory
For optimized results, please:
1. Develop at a temperature between 17-24°C
2. Immediately protect from direct light
3. Caress with all your analog heart
According to Amateur Photographer, The Impossible Project will begin to sell new B+W instant film for traditional Polaroid 600 and SX70 cameras from this week. Won’t be cheap, at €18 per pack, but Polaroid lovers can rejoice that it will be possible to indulge in occaisonal instant film fun!
– Rory
Posted in Polaroid
By Miriam King
From "Farm" by Jackie Nickerson
On the 11th March a group of students, artists and photographers gathered in the Rory Gallagher lecture theatre to hear Jackie Nickerson speak. She spoke about her background as a fashion photographer and her subsequent life as an art photographer, telling us the story of her three successful projects so far, in a talk that I found fascinating and inspiring.
Fashion
Jackie began by telling us about the first camera she was ever given when she was about 12 years old. It was a Kodak instamatic and she ran straight outside to take photos of the trees, using up her first roll of film within minutes. That was the moment that she connected with her passion.
She continued to take photographs throughout her teenage years and learned to work in a darkroom and make black & white prints. When she didn’t get into the only course she wanted to do after school, she flew to New York at age 18 because that was where all the great photographers were. Over a period of 5 years she took any job going to gain experience. Then she moved to Milan to start up as a fashion photographer herself. Later she lived in London and worked for all the big fashion magazines of the 90s; Marie Claire, Elle, The Face, Wallpaper etc.
She showed us a series of photographs from some of these shoots. She commented that fashion photography at the time was more pure and simple than it is now, there was less fantasy and less retouching. She liked to put her own stamp on fashion shoots, keeping hair & make-up simple and preferring to photograph clothes that she herself would wear, like Comme des Garcon & Yohji Yamamoto. She liked the character of the model to shine through, so that there was an element of portraiture in her work.
Farm
From "Farm" by Jackie Nickerson
From "Farm" by Jackie Nickerson
Eventually Nickerson became dissatisfied with fashion photography and when an opportunity came up to go on holidays to Africa with a friend she went, and ended up staying for 3 years. When she first arrived she was completely burnt out and had given up photography altogether. She was living in a cottage on a farm in Zimbabwe, but over time she began to feel uncomfortable with the separation between the white farm owners and the black farm workers.
From "Farm" by Jackie Nickerson
She finally picked up the camera again to try and understand and connect with the place she was living. At first she went out into the bush with her Leica Rangefinder and took black & white photos of branches and trees. Then she progressed to photographing the farm and village, but she felt her photos were very much the ‘standard’ photos of Africans as poor victims, which was not how she felt or what she wanted to portray. She admired Africans and felt they had a freedom and happiness that she didn’t have. So she moved on to taking still life photos and realised that her background in fashion photography meant that her strength was in attention to detail. So she started to take portraits linking the land with the people. After photographing the people on the farm and in the surrounding areas she bought a truck and travelled around Africa, to Mozambique and South Africa, photographing people until she had to leave Zimbabwe and move back to London.
One more crucial step in the process relates back to a time, as a fashion photographer, when she had tea with Henri Cartier Bresson in his apartment on the Rue de Rivoli (lucky girl!) and he told a story about Matisse, when they both were on holidays in the South of France. Matisse said to Cartier-Bresson that he had it easy photographing in black and white, colour was far more difficult because the bright sunlight kills colour. She remembered this and realised that the bright sun in South Africa did the same. For example the sky is not really blue but cyan. So you have to look with your brain and not your eyes to see what colours are actually in real life.
When she returned to London she had no ambition to become an art photographer. The photographs sat in a drawer for over a year until her printer introduced her to an agent who offered her a book deal. The book is simply called ‘Farm’.
– Miriam
Part 2 coming soon!
‘Photographs’ an Exhibition by Jackie Nickerson continues in the Sirius Art Centre in Cobh until Thursday, April 1st.
Images from Une Nouveau Ideal,
Posted in exhibition, famous, Jackie Nickerson, portrait, Review, wordy (lotsa words)
By Dee Moriarty
Another great travel portrait from Dee. She tells me that her ability to get flukey shots is unsurpassed, but I dunno how flukey she is … mostly they seem right on the mark!
– Rory
Posted in colour, cork analogue photographer, Travel
By Dee Moriarty
Dee’s ability to find interesting faces on her travels, and get them to stop and pose is unsurpassed! Another great portrait
– Rory
Posted in colour, cork analogue photographer, portrait
Review By Padraig Spillane.
It may be a bit obvious to say that Irving Penn is one of the biggest innovators and stalwarts of portraiture. However, it is the truth and that’s something that’s always a bit thin on the ground. Irving Penn Portraits showing in the National Portrait Gallery in London is a timely reminder of his work, how his practice influenced photography and also the grace of the man behind the camera.
This exhibition is divided in to the decades of his work from the forties to the noughties, the decade of his death. These divisions illustrate the shifts in his practice and what he is trying to garner from his subjects. Penn’s subjects are from the world of art and celebrity coming mainly from his time working at Vogue.
Penn remained predominately a studio portrait artist. However, there are shifts in style and structure through the decades. In the forties and early fifties his work took place in what seems to be a studio without a cleaner. The studio is minimal almost borderline austere and threadbare. The word neutral does not seem to do it justice. It has its own aura it but never takes away from the people being photographed. Old carpets used as amorphous props, and cigarette butts on an unswept floor add to an air of almost an in-between place.
Within this dishevelled space Penn constructed a corner. This is the centre for most of the forty’s studio work where his subjects stand, pose and play. What emanates is the person in the glory of singularity. It’s like wrapping a ruby in old newspaper. The effect of rarity is heightened. It’s not all paparazzi flash bulbs and glitter. It is a place away from all that. What is captured is: gesture, the finest details of the person and perhaps an inner drama laid bare.
By Irving Penn
By Irving Penn
By Irving Penn
“Sensitive people faced with the prospect of a camera portrait put on a face they think is one they would like to show the world. … Very often what lies behind the façade is rare and more wonderful than the subject know or dares to believe”. Irving Penn.
There is a move from the fifties toward capturing more (and less) of the subject. Penn closes the frame in around the face allowing only the head and shoulders to be visible. This move heightens the drama of a gesture or a particular posture, as seen in his portrait of Richard Burton and perhaps more famously of Pablo Picasso. Penn is seemingly a master at putting his subjects at ease and getting what he wants. There is nothing showy about these photos while at the same time the subjects do not seem to be restrained. What seems to be given (dare I say it) is honest, whether the person is at play or just being as they are.
By Irving Penn
The quality of the prints is, well, quite high. I found myself nearly with my nose to glass looking at the textures of clothing and faces. Although the studio shots have an air of asceticism there is vigour at work. The pose of Truman Capote must be down to leaving him let rip and exploring his space in the corner.
The portrait of sculptor Alberto Giacometti is my personal favourite. The symmetry, the texture, Giacometti’s presence in the photo and the chiaroscuro are all so beautifully structured. There is seriousness and a sincerity thats captivating. There is a little mystery there too. The light falls on a wall of a man with his arms folded (if I’m being glib it’s a pose that is in contrast to Giacometti’s own sculptures). Is there a reticence to being photographed? Is he tired? There seems to be an anxiety while everything is still. This tension obviously does not make it less of a portrait. It makes it even more. Giacometti seems to be what he is, a man being who he is. Irving Penn’s grace is to allow his subjects to be who they are.
By Irving Penn
I urge anyone who is heading to London to go to the National Portrait Gallery and find something wondrous in the eyes of Irving Penn’s portraits.
– Padraig
Posted in b+w, exhibition, famous, Irving Penn
by Dee Moriarty
Dee sent me some scans of work from her travels. It’s great! I’ll post a few more over the coming days. I asked Dee what type of film was used, you know, nerdy stuff. She said it was “colour”. Nice one, put me in my place …!
– Rory
Posted in colour, cork analogue photographer, Travel
Foam #21 Winter 2009
The excellent contemporary photography quarterly, Foam magazine, has announced it’s 4th annual talent call. It’s open to photographers between 18 and 35 and the entry closes on May 1st. So if you think you have the talent (and I can think of many Irish photographers who do), then get to this web page and submit an entry.
“… The 4th Annual Foam Magazine Talent Call
As in previous years, Foam Magazine’s annual fall TALENT issue will present the work of young talented photographers.
The Foam Magazine Talent Call is open to photographers from all over the world. Last year, we received over 900 entries from 53 countries worldwide, and because of the quality of submissions, 18 photographers were chosen – we had to double our issue!
The competition is fierce, but the winning portfolios will be presented along with an interview written by an esteemed author in the fall issue: Foam Magazine #24/TALENT …”
While you are on the Foam website, do check out their issues link. You can view the magazines online, and enlarge them enough so that you can read the text. An excellent preview into the contents of the magazine, and a worthy subscription. Far superior to most photo magazines that you will find on the shelves of your local newsagent. Anybody else got a favourite photo magazine? Hit the comments button to let us know about it.
– Rory
Posted in competition
cork analogue photographers 