Correctly spaced eyes

Don’t really know what to say about this one … “Wrinkle that nose honey”!

– Rory

Thanks to Podge 🙂

Eve Arnold

Eve Arnold ©Henri Cartier-Bresson / Magnum Photos (from NYTimes website)

Eve Arnold passed away this week at the age of 99, peacefully in London. Born in America in 1912, she lived in Britain since 1961.

There have been many obituaries written, so I won’t try to expand on them here. A quick google search reveals obituaries in the Irish Times, the New York Times, The Telegraph, and many others. One that caught my eye was the obituary in the Guardian:

“… Arnold’s black and white photographs of 1950s Harlem, documenting existence under racism and apartheid, exploited labour, global poverty and working women’s lives are the most meaningful and powerful of her images. …

“…Eve Arnold was the first woman to be invited to join the Magnum photo agency, back in the 1950s. Visit Magnum’s website today and look at its list, 60 years on. Less than 10% are women. …”

Eve Arnold, RIP.

– Rory

Happy New year & don’t forget Project 12

Well it’s the last day of 2011, and it’s been quite a year for the world. Between earthquakes and tsunami’s, fallen dictators and economic crashes, it has been, as they say, interesting times. One of the biggest shocks in the photojournalism world was the death of Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros, a very sad loss.

But the world keeps turning, so here’s to 2012, and wishing you all the best and a very happy New Year.

A quick reminder of our December 21st blog post, Project 12: Something old, something new –

We’d love if you took part. The rules are simple –

1. Shoot two photos at anytime between Dec 24th and Jan 1st. The photos should say something about the end of 2011, and the begining of 2012. Doesn’t have to be a world scale reflection and projection, can just be something personal too.

2. Use any camera, film, digital, phone, whatever’s easiest for you

3. Post the photos on CorkAP’s Facebook wall – https://www.facebook.com/corkap

I should add one more rule –

4. Rules are guidelines, be creative and break them …

If the camera has gotten dusty over the past week, but you have two photos that meet the spirit of the project, go ahead and post them. It’s just for fun!

Now, need to check the beer situation for tonights festivities …

– Rory

** Adendum. Looks like we can’t create photo albums on the FB page. Therefore just upload the photos one at a time, or create a jpeg with both photos on it, if you are technically minded!!

Happy Christmas!

© Cork Analogue Photographers

Taking a break from the general hub bub sios an staighre, wishing you all a very merry Christmas, and a happy New Year!

Project 12: Something old, something new

An old photos of some old Cork Analogue Photographers. In a field.

We haven’t been blogging for a while, and there’s a reason why. Cork Analogue Photographers have become a little jaded lately. Motivation has been down, and we have trouble arranging to meet up. We want to be more inclusive, and interact with more people. Maybe people who don’t live in Cork. Maybe some who don’t even shoot film. So we’re coming up with a plan, and the plan is being planned (to use a Dr. Suessism!). I’ll tell you more in the New Year, but to mark the end of 2011, and looking forward to 2012, we have come up with a little project.

We’d love if you took part. The rules are simple –

1. Shoot two photos at anytime between Dec 24th and Jan 1st. The photos should say something about the end of 2011, and the begining of 2012. Doesn’t have to be a world scale reflection and projection, can just be something personal too.

2. Use any camera, film, digital, phone, whatever’s easiest for you

3. Post the photos on CorkAP’s Facebook wall – https://www.facebook.com/corkap (post both in the same post using Create an Album – many photos)

Enjoy it, have fun!

– Rory

Paris Photo

Join the dots - Paris Photo 2011 by Google

I was there last year, but didn’t make it this year. Perusing my daily selection of photo talk in the blogmosphere, I wish I had made it. Maybe next year … Anyway, James Danziger wrote a great review of Paris Photo 2011 on his blog (here). They’ve moved the main exhibition space away from the Louvre and into the Grand Palais, and sounds like it was a move for the better. Of course Paris Photo is not just about the main event – it’s about the hundreds of little galleries and spaces showing photography all over the city center. My favourite memories from last year are walking up through the 6th arrondissement to our hotel late at night, noses pressed against the cold glass of the little shop and gallery windows as we walked by, and an assortment of photographs gazing back out at us from the dimly lit interiors. And the pause for another glass of house red!

– Rory

$4,338,500

(c) Andreas Gursky

Read more on the worlds 2nd best photo website here.

– Rory

 

 

Advise from Steve McCurry

Need advise? Ask an expert! From Phaidon

– Rory

 

 

 

 

 

 

BJP: An invitation to all monochrome photographers

Image from the classic photobook Cafe Lehmitz © Anders Petersen.

Emerging black-and-white photographers are invited to submit their work to Gomma Magazine, for the chance to be published in a hardback photobook called Mono next year.

Read more at the British Journal of Photography online here

 

– Rory

RIP

screen grab from apple.ie (photo by albert watson)

GoGo Clare Gallagher

(c) Clare Gallagher

Northern Irish photographer Clare Galllagher recently sold an image to the Gift Of Gift Of program.

Gift of Gift of’s mission is to offer young art patrons an egalitarian opportunity to impact large collecting institutions and to aid emerging artists at a critical point in their careers.

Each year Gift of Gift of organizes an event in which photographs are exhibited for the consideration of collective purchase, to be offered as a donation to a major collecting institution. Event attendees receive a set number of votes with the purchase of event tickets. Attendees then vote on which of the exhibited artworks they think should become part of a museum’s permanent collection. Those artworks with the highest number of votes will be purchased with the pooled funds.

Clare earned a MFA Photography with Distinction at University of Ulster,Belfast, during 2009-2011. She has  exhibited in Belfast, Dublin, Montpellier, London, New York and Houston and will be shown later this year in Bratislava and Delhi. She is also a shortlisted artist for Saatchi’s New Sensations 2011.

I came across this news on Lenscratch

– Rory

(c) Clare Gallagher

 

 

 

 

Feeling Rejected? Try Portrait Salon!

From Portrait Salon’s Tumblr –

Portrait Salon is a form of Salon des Refusés – an exhibition of works rejected from a juried art show – which has a long tradition as a fringe way of showcasing artists’ work that may otherwise go unseen. Devised by two portrait photographers, who are both based in London and are professionally involved in the city’s photographic community, Portrait Salon aims to show the best of the unselected entries from the National Portrait Gallery Photography Prize. We figure that, out of the 6000+ rejected entries, there must be some damn fine portraits which deserve to be shown.

We want to see these portraits, and we want to celebrate their brilliance with a projection (time and place to be confirmed) which no doubt will be accompanied by a little bit of a party. The projection will be curated, so we will be selecting the best portraits that we receive. But we expect to show a much higher percentage of work than at the National Gallery.

If you submitted work to the National Gallery Photography Portrait Prize and got rejected, please email a jpeg of your submission to portraitsalon@hotmail.com. The images need to be jpegs, at 1000 pixels on the longest edge. And please spread the word about this… we want as many submissions as we can!

– Rory

Simon Norfolk at Belfast Photo Festival

Spotted this on A Photo Student. Simon Norfolk at the Belfast Photo Festival. Great talk. Wish I had had the time to get up for it.

– Rory

Steve McCurry: A Retrospective (by Leica)

There isn’t much I can say to add to the content of this video. So make yourself a cuppa, sit back, and enjoy (thanks to TOP for the tip)

– Rory

In conversation with Rena Effendi

by Sanda Galina

 

Growing up my first attraction to photography came through books from various documentary and street photographers. They grabbed me by my two pigtails and sent my childish imagination spiralling into a whole new world. Somewhere out there, beyond the green fields of my playground was another world, people of different skin colour, armed men, starving children, people living in the strangest ways.

And ever since I have been drawn to documentary photography. I have a profound admiration for photographers reporting on social issues, telling everyone their stories that otherwise would not be told.

I came across Rena Effendi’s work few years ago and have been inspired since. At the time her first book was just published “Pipe Dreams: A Chronicle of Lives along the Pipeline” in which she tells a story on people’s lives along the Baku-Tbilisi- Ceyhan oil pipeline through Georgia and Turkey. Story of ordinary people, struggling for survival, right next to a pipeline that is carrying all its wealth and energy to the West.

 
 

(c) Rena Effendi

 
 
 
I managed to get in touch with Rena to find out what inspires her work to which she graciously agreed to answer a few of my questions. Thanks Rena!
 
What is your main drive behind choosing a certain project?
 
Rena:The story has to have some global relevance and it has to be important to me personally. The best story is the one that chooses me.
 
How do you approach people you choose to photograph and what are the main qualities one should have to be able to build a connection between you self and the person you’re documenting?
 
Rena: You have to be open and honest; you have to be charming and also brave in approaching strangers. It’s basic human communication skills that are useful in almost every job. You have to understand your purpose and explain it well.
 
 

(c) Reena Effendi

 
 Have you stayed in touch with anyone you have photographed?
 
Rena: I have been back to meet some of the people I had photographed. But now I moved to another country (Egypt) and with constant travel it’s harder to go back to the same stories and stay in touch.
 
What is the hardest part and what is the most rewarding part of your job?
 
Rena: The most rewarding part is to go back with the images that then become part of your life. Every story and image add on another layer. For me, the hardest is the time before I go out on the shoot. It’s the anticipation and trepidation before the whole thing starts. And then I get sucked into the work and forget everything else.
 
What has been your most interesting situation or experience while taking pictures?
 
Rena: There have been so many different situations… Just last week I was chased down the hill by a 350 kg baby elephant, he was almost 2 years old and wanted to play. Photography takes me to places I would otherwise not find myself in, such as going 400 meters underground in the belly of the Siberian coal mine or enjoying a dinner cooked by the Turkish trans-gender sex workers.
 

(c) Reena Effendi

 
 What equipment do you make sure is always in your camera bag?
 
Rena: I have a Rolleiflex which is older than me by a few years. It’s a wonderful camera that I always take with me. I feel almost helpless without it.
 
I know you shoot film, do you develop it your self or brig it to a lab?
 
Rena: I have been working a lot in colour, so I use various labs around the world to process my film.
 
What makes you to shoot with film instead of digital?
 
Rena: Film pushes me to take things more seriously. With only 12 exposures on the medium format roll, I really have to think hard before I shoot. It’s about discipline. I also love the surprises of film, sometimes you have to trust the gods.
 

(c) Reena Effendi

 
 If you could have a master class with anyone you wished, who would be your ultimate photographer you would like to learn from or work with?
 
Rena: There are definitely a few that I would love to meet and have a conversation with. Unfortunately, most of them are dead now. Diane Arbus and Richard Avedon for instance. I would have loved to hear them talk in person.
 
If you could shoot anything and anywhere, what would it be?
 
Rena: In my dreams, when I am asleep. Sometimes there are wonderful pictures there.
 

(c) Reena Effendi

 How did it feel to hold in your hands your first book for the first time?
 
Rena: It was like when you come from a trip abroad, a country you’ve never been to before and you went there with your best friends and brought back memories, pictures and things you bought. And a few years later you find a box of all these things in it and you open it again and go through it. It feels nice.
 
What tips and advice would you give someone wanting to work with social and documentary photography?
 
Rena: Be patient, read more, look at other people’s work to see who is doing what, try to avoid clichés.

(c) Reena Effendi

 
To find out more about Rena’s work and see her beautiful photographs please visit http://www.refendi.com/  
 
Thank you,
 
Sanda