April 8 - April 22, 2022
A look at some of the best photography stories of the week along with photography opportunities, and more.
THE WEEKLY ROUNDUP
Great Photography Stories
Kenneth Dickerman Reviews Tony Chirino’s new photo book ‘The Precipice’ for the Washington Post
The photos in Chirino’s book were made in operating rooms and morgues over the course of his career as a biomedical photographer. Read the full review and check out some of the incredible photos from the book here:
“It’s not that the photos are gory. They aren’t. But their heaviness makes the book a challenge to the reader. Fundamentally, it asks questions about the nature of life and death. As Chirinos said to me, “The truth is that living is both a luxury and a dilemma.”
The Guardian features Robbie Lawrence’s Northern Diary
Robbie Lawrence is a photographer whose body of work Northern Diary have an intensity of mood that stays in my mind long after I stop looking at the pictures. Click here to see the Guardian feature.
“Northern Diary brings together a selection of work that Robbie Lawrence has produced over the past seven years, many of which have never been seen before in a gallery setting. Subjects include landscapes, portraits and still lifes made across Scotland’s cities, rural locations and coastal towns. Northern Diary opens at Stills in Edinburgh on 1 April”
Portraits from a Chicago bar in the early 1970s
Loved this Blind Magazine feature on John Banasiak’s portraits and photos in a Chicago bar - images made from his perch as the bartender.
“Long before John Banasiak became a professor of photography at the University of South Dakota in Vermillion (where he’s taught for 42 years), he was a factory worker, a night watchman, and a bartender at George Brown’s Bar, a working-class drinking hole in one of Chicago’s Polish/ Ukrainian neighborhoods. It was there, in 1971, when Banasiak was just 21, that he made a series of tender, elemental pictures that capture a proud, hard-working community.”
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Check out this great 1994 BBC documentary on Cindy Sherman
“New York based artist, Cindy Sherman, is famous for her photographs of women in which she is not only the photographer, but also the subject. She has contributed her own footage to the programme by recording her studio and herself at work with her Hi-8 video camera. It reveals a range of unexpected sources from visceral horror to medical catalogues and exploitation movies, and explores her real interests and enthusiasms.”
It’s an age-restricted video, so you have to watch it on YouTube directly.
EQUITY AND ETHICS IN PHOTOGRAPHY
The Daily Tar Heel, student newspaper of the University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill covers a controversy in their midst when photographer Cornell Watson’s work about the school was censored.
The Daily Tar Heel’s reporter Jade Neptune does a deep dive into what happened when an exhibition of photographer Cornell Watson's work, created as part of his artist residency, was canceled.
“In June, Watson was offered an artist residency at the Stone Center to create a body of work that captured spaces of memory for Black history.
Then, after six months of creating the photo story that would later be named “Tarred Healing,” a reflection of Black history through places, people and systems in Chapel Hill, the photos were pulled from display at the Stone Center in their solo exhibition set to open Feb. 22. This followed the images being featured in The Washington Post.”
OPPORTUNITIES / CALLS FOR ENTRY
NYC Photo Community Newsletter
Just published a new photo book or zine? Putting on a photo talk? Maybe an exhibition opening? Let us know. We'd love to share your good news or help publicize your photo talk or event. We also want to feature your work. Follow @nycphotocommunity and tag your photos #nycphotocommunity to be considered. If you've enjoyed what you read, please spread the word by sharing this subscription link. Thanks!
Photo at top of Weekly Roundup: Bit Coin ATM, NYC © James Prochnik
March 25 - April 8, 2022
A look at some of the best photography stories of the week along with photography opportunities, and more.
THE WEEKLY ROUNDUP
Great Photography Stories
Stephen Shore excerpts his new book in The Paris Review
I enjoyed reading and seeing some of Stephen Shore’s influences and inspirations in this Paris Review excerpt from his upcoming memoir published by MACK, Modern Instances: The Craft of Photography:
“One of the threads running through the history of the medium is the redefinition of meaningful content. Photographers find meaning in something where it hadn’t been recognized before, and then, over time, that content itself becomes a convention. And when it becomes a convention, it lacks the immediacy of the original picture. “Immediacy” means without mediation. Without the mediation of visual conventions. In time the original content becomes a cliché. And the cutting edge of immediacy finds new territory to function as an objective correlative.”
The Guardian highlights some of the work of this year’s Deutsch Börse photography prize nominees
Photographers Anastasia Samoylova, Deana Lawson, Jo Ractliffe, and Gilles Peress were all shortlisted for the big photo prize this year. See some of their photos here, and read more about their photo projects, and the shortlist exhibition currently on view in London at The Photographer’s Gallery here.
“From flood warnings to the Troubles, these images from the four award nominees document the intimate alternatives to preconceived histories”
RIP to Stephen Wilhite, Creator of the GIF file format
While GIFs can be overused, this file format whose primary use these days is to send a quick emotional response over social media have probably brought more moments of quick happiness and good cheer than to more people than most inventions coming out of the tech world. If only Wilhite accepted that people were going to use a hard ‘G’ when they pronounced it! The Verge has a good obit on this influential programmer.
“While there have been long-standing debates about the correct pronunciation of the image format, Wilhite was very clear on how he intended for it to be said. In 2013, he told The New York Times, “The Oxford English Dictionary accepts both pronunciations. They are wrong. It is a soft ‘G,’ pronounced ‘jif.’ End of story.”
VIDEO OF THE WEEK
Not that I think I’m ever all that great about noticing details in scenes I photograph, but this short video, one of the winners of the 2021 ‘Best Optical Illusions’ of 2021, shows me, in humiliating detail, how much I can easily miss. I do think optical illusions are a valuable adjacent field of study or interest to photographers - a reminder that much of what we see, or think we see, with our own two eyes is constructed after the fact.
EQUITY AND ETHICS IN PHOTOGRAPHY
Aperture Magazine presented a lot of excellent online programming to accompany their last issue, Latinx.
If you wanted to see some of these talks, but missed the opportunity when they were live, Aperture has now added this programing to their YouTube playlist. Check out great conversations from the links (🔗) below:
“Recently added Aperture Conversations:
Celebrating Thalía Gochez and Las Fotos Project 🔗
The Narrative Arc of Latinx Photography 🔗
Sasha Phyars-Burgess, Sonel Breslav, and Anika Sabin in Conversation 🔗
Genesis Báez, Joiri Minaya, and Steven Molina Contreras in Conversation 🔗
Inside the “Latinx” issue with Pilar Tompkins Rivas and Elizabeth Ferrer 🔗
On Community: Thelma Golden, Dr. Kenneth Montague, Jamel Shabazz, and Xaviera Simmons 🔗
On Power: Mark Sealy, Vanley Burke, Dr. Kenneth Montague, and Richard Mark Rawlins in Conversation 🔗
On Identity: Liz Ikiriko in Conversation with June Clark, Dr. Kenneth Montague, and Bidemi Oloyede 🔗”
OPPORTUNITIES / CALLS FOR ENTRY
NYC Photo Community Newsletter
Just published a new photo book or zine? Putting on a photo talk? Maybe an exhibition opening? Let us know. We'd love to share your good news or help publicize your photo talk or event. We also want to feature your work. Follow @nycphotocommunity and tag your photos #nycphotocommunity to be considered. If you've enjoyed what you read, please spread the word by sharing this subscription link. Thanks!
Photo at top of Weekly Roundup: On The Beach, Coney Island © James Prochnik