Uncorrected:

Corrected:

Uncorrected:

Corrected:

Uncorrected:

Corrected:

Artist-Led Exhibition Walkthroughs: New Topographics - Mark Ruwedel

Artist-Led Exhibition Walkthroughs: New Topographics

Sunday, November 1 @ 2:00 pm

Join artist Mark Ruwedel for a fresh perspective on the exhibition New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-Altered Landscape.

BCAM Level 2
Free with paid admission, tickets required
Available one hour before the program

http://lacma.wordpress.com/

Artists on New Topographics, Part I: Mark Ruwedel

October 29, 2009

In honor of our re-staging of New Topographics, we’re doing something special: starting this Sunday and occurring every Sunday through mid-December (except Thanksgiving Weekend), we’ve invited a leading Los Angeles-based photographer to give a tour of the show and share his or her insight into the ways New Topographics opened up possibilities for new photographic engagement with the landscape.

Each Sunday will feature a different photographer. In anticipation of each tour, we’ll whet your appetite here on Unframed with an exclusive interview. First up: Mark Ruwedel. Mark has photographed the topography of the American West for nearly three decades, focusing on nature’s reclamation of the land over time. He has depicted relics of industrial expansion, like abandoned railways, as well as evidence of geological upheaval, such as the impact of prehistoric glaciers. His recent series Westward the Course of Empire surveys the deterioration of the once mighty railroad network forged across the nineteenth-century American landscape.

I recently spoke to Mark about LACMA’s restaging of this important exhibition, which was first seen in 1975 at the George Eastman House of Rochester, New York. The video here offers a sneak peek into Mark’s take on New Topographics, and how it continues to bear influence on photographic practice today, including his own.

                      

An optical illusion the size of a town

Details: http://gizmodo.com/5392075/dont-adjust-your-tv-set
http://www.varini.org/doshpdv/dos2009/04-09-hd.html
http://www.todayandtomorrow.net/2009/10/27/cercle-et-suite-declats/
http://www.core77.com/blog/object_culture/an_optical_illusion_the_size_of_a_town_15053.asp

Felice Varini

Torture Porn

Via wikipedia:

The combination of graphic violence and sexually suggestive imagery in some films has been labeled "torture porn" or "gorno"

Google Image Search

Now Playing at Your Local Multiplex: Torture Porn

Just watched an elephant give birth ...

.... and yes lots of fluid.

I guess I had a productive week.

• Sunday
• went to Bagnall's. I got two Polaroid Land Camera's and an awesome hasselblad strap. Scanned for BFA. Helped out a friend. Worked on my presentation for Experimental. 
• Monday
• Experimental Presentation on James Turrell. I think it went well. That timer was cruel ... 20mins went past and I was still up there. Finally finished scanning for BFA - 132 scan in all .. format 645 so about 15-16 images per roll and had about 10 rolls
• Tuesday
• Printed out 4x6 proofs of my scans and was late to class. From digital, went to wood, figured out what my project is going to be. I am going to build a light table, but I think I'd rather make a pinhole camera that is set up for 11x14 paper. Instead of going to Art History (yes, again) I narrowed down half of my images so I had about 60ish. Then narrowed down again to about 25.
• Wednesday
• Lab day for Experimental, but I had nothing to show him. My project will be the 'Origin of the Peanut People.' I'm trying to not use my hasselblad or digital. I want to use my pinhole camera and polaroid. I spent the time until seminar further editing down my images with help and studying for seminar midtem. I now have 12 images :) Now to color correct, print, talk to Rebecca, Mark, and Kyle, and finish my artist statement ...
• Plan for the rest of the weekend
• Driving to 29 Palms ... It's been 3 weeks, but It feels like 6
• Reshooting a couple things for BFA
• Shooting for digital project
• Color correcting or at least attempting to
• SLEEP
• Appointment
• Come back on Sunday and do it all over again ...

It's My Birthday :D

Photos From an Alternative Earth Where Superheroes Existed

What if Batman were a general for the Allies during World War II? What if Superman helped crush Nazi Germany? Or Spiderman battled alongside US soldiers in the streets of Berlin? Photographer and illustrator Agan Harahap wondered about the same:

Born in 1980 photographer and illustrator Agan Harahap from Jakarta, Indonesia, currently works for music magazine TRAX. His latest photography project called ‘Super Hero’ consists of memorable political and wartime scenes from the mid-20th century featuring beloved superheros like Spiderman or Batman in some interesting and funny positions – true juxtaposition in effect. It’s fun to see Superman standing in the Neuschwanstein Castle.

Agan Harahap Super Hero

Agan Harahap

His Blog

Charlie White - OMG BFF LOL

BAGNALL'S CAMERA EXPO

This Sunday, October 18th!!

WEBSITE
Admission is $5
Time; 10:00 am ~ 3:00 pm
The Brookhurst Community Center

2271 W. Crescent Ave., Anaheim, CA 92801

Pro Photo Connection

 

Pro Photo Connection, Inc. is a photo specialty store that has been located in Orange County for over 20 years. Our store features a 4000sq. ft. Sales Floor, a full service Photofinishing Department, Rental Department and more.

Phone: 949-250-7073

Address: 17752 Fitch, Irvine, CA 92614

Hours:

M-F 8 AM - 6 PM

Sat. 9 AM - 5 PM
Sun. Closed

 WEBSITE   Located in Irvine. It's about 5-10 minutes from the Samy's on Bristol in Orange County.

They have really great prices on C-41 processing.
$2.50 for 35mm film
$3.50 for 120 film
$5.00 for 220 film

I normally go to Samy's, but I'm going to start going here now.

October 10th

I went a Photo Swap Meet on Saturday. I realize after the fact it would have been a great thing to post here.

I got new items to add to my photography arsenal:

Metz Mecablitz 60 CT-4 - Grip-type flash

Polaroid: Land Camera Model 95

 

Two Hasselblad A16 Backs for 645 images.

Writing an Artist Statement

Wanted to give some help to those who are applying to the BFA program this semester and need to write an artist statement. I took 499 last fall with Rebecca and she gave us a handout with these guidelines. Oh and avoid using the word CAPTURE.

1. Describe the work itself. Do not try to summarize all of your thoughts on art, the nature of photograph, or why you’re an artist. Be specific.

2. Consider the photographs. What is it that makes them different from the work of other photographers? How do they ask to be considered?

3. Try to speak honestly about your work. Do not try to use unfamiliar language or jargon without researching what the terms mean. Familiarize yourself with the multiple definitions of the worlds that you are using and the different meaning they might convey to others.

4. It may help to begin by writing as much as you can without editing yourself. Follow this by going through your writing to extract the most significant points or phrases.

5. Once you have a preliminary statement: EDIT, EDIT, EDIT. Have someone read your statement and attempt to explain to you what they think you mean.

6. Correct any grammar and punctuation errors. The quality of your writing is important.

7. Avoid quoting dictionary definitions, talking about why you decided to be an artist as a child, and making broad generalizations.

Worlds in a Small Room

Irving Penn (June 16, 1917 – October 7, 2009)

NPR: Fashion Photographer Irving Penn Dies At 92

President Barack Obama wins Nobel Peace Prize

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_nobel_peace

OSLO – President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday in a stunning decision designed to encourage his initiatives to reduce nuclear arms, ease tensions with the Muslim world and stress diplomacy and cooperation rather than unilateralism.

Nobel observers were shocked by the unexpected choice so early in the Obama presidency, which began less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama woke up to the news a little before 6 a.m. EDT. The White House had no immediate comment on the announcement, which took the administration by surprise.

The Norwegian Nobel Committee lauded the change in global mood wrought by Obama's calls for peace and cooperation but recognized initiatives that have yet to bear fruit: reducing the world stock of nuclear arms, easing American conflicts with Muslim nations and strengthening the U.S. role in combating climate change.

Hiroshi Sugimoto

Theaters

Akron Civic, Ohio, 1980

Trylon, New York, 1976

Canton Palace, Ohio, 1980

I'm a habitual self-interlocutor. Around the time I started photographing at the Natural History Museum, one evening I had a near-hallucinatory vision. The question-and- answer session that led up to this vision went something like this: Suppose you shoot a whole movie in a single frame? And the answer: You get a shining screen. Immediately I sprang into action, experimenting toward realizing this vision. Dressed up as a tourist, I walked into a cheap cinema in the East Village with a large-format camera. As soon as the movie started, I fixed the shutter at a wide-open aperture, and two hours later when the movie finished, I clicked the shutter closed. That evening, I developed the film, and the vision exploded behind my eyes.

- Hiroshi Sugimoto

Conceptual Forms

The study of mathematics is thought have begun in ancient India and China. "Zero" and "infinity" were not so much discoveries as human inventions. The notion of length with no width is very curious indeed, the pencil line I draw being only an approximation of an invisible mathematical line. Endeavors in art are also mere approximations, efforts to render visible unseen realms.

Among the notes Marcel Duchamp left in his Green Box are various mathematical notations. The Large Glass attempted to throw projections of the unseen fourth dimension onto our three-dimensional experience, much in the same way that three-dimensional objects cast shadows onto two-dimensional surfaces.

While not wholly subscribing to the post-Renaissance “rational” scientific regard on the natural world, I especially appreciate those eighteenth- and nineteenth-century optical devices and experimental implements that gave visible form to unseen hypotheses. I have photographed suites of "stereometric exemplars" purchased from the West during the Meiji era (1868-1911), now preserved by the University of Tokyo. The mathematical models are sculptural renderings of trigonometric functions; the mechanical models were teaching aids for showing the dynamics of Industrial Revolution-age machinery. Art resides even in things with no artistic intentions.

- Hiroshi Sugimoto

Art:21 - Sugimoto
Sugimoto Hiroshi

Fraenkel Gallery, San Francisco
September 10 - October 31, 2009
Lightning Fields and two new works based on early negatives of William Henry Fox Talbot
Current Exhibition at Fraenkel Gallery in SF

Charlie White

Charlie White

Understanding Joshua

                         

Charlie White photographs vulnerability. Using a humanoid puppet he calls "complete fragility manifest in a body," White presents human frailty through a fictional character, much as a novelist might.

As White tells Jacki Lyden for Weekend All Things Considered on NPR, his puppet, called Joshua, helps him to explore the themes of male self-image and self-loathing. White places Joshua in a series of vulnerable situations -- at a cocktail party or a lover's house -- and photographs the scene.

Charlie White’s photographs suggest how society makes monsters of everyone; a homunculus named Joshua tries to chat up a blonde.

EGG Interview
Charlie White, 6 Questions

Minor Threat: Published in Words Without Pictures, June 2008, LACMA

Summary: A brief overview of the complications and challenges involved in the act of photographing a minor. This text considers the historical and political ramificatios of photographing, looking at, and presenting the image of a minor. Using the life of Brooke Sheilds as example, this text maps the shifting perspectives of youth as both subject and object of cultural interest, and sexual desire.

Must get this stuck in someone else's head

Warning: This Image Will Give You Insomnia for a Month

Warning: This Image Will Give You Insomnia for a Month