Art and Photography Blog

Reza Speaks at Frontline Club in London

I posted a review of Reza's War and Peace book. He spoke at the Frontline Club, 13 Norfolk Place London Tel: +44 (0)20 7479 895. The live discussion is available below. Thanks to Grahmam Holliday for alerting me about this event and the link.

Here is another prior event at the front Line that I found interesting - Philip Jones Griffiths: Vietnam Trilogy.

Visions of Paradise Contest Winners from National Geographic

I did a review of the book Visions of Paradise from National Geographic on this blog. There was a related photo contest. Now the 20 winning images in National Geographic’s “Visions of Paradise” photography contest have been selected. Photographers were asked to submit images that best represented their unique vision of heaven on Earth. The winners will each receive a customized edition of the National Geographic book “Visions of Paradise,” with their winning photograph as the cover image.

The winners are: John Hart of Oconomowoc, Wisc., for two entries: a photo of a frost-covered horse and an image of a child in a fountain.

Mai Le Trinh of Las Vegas for her photo of a sunset on Corona del Mar Beach, California.

Kelsey Hargrove of Orlando, Fla., for an image of a pizza deliveryman in New York’s Times Square.

Jorge Fajl of Agoura Hills, Calif., for his image of children on a beach at sunset.

Damien Murphy of Redmond, Wash., for an image of a snowy hill.

Suzanne Mathia of Scottsdale, Ariz., for her photo of Havasu Falls in Arizona.

Mitch Dobrowner of Studio City, Calif., for his photo of Shiprock in New Mexico.

Thomas Prezkop of Scottsdale, Ariz., for an image of Slide Rock in Arizona.

Sarah Le of Alexandria, Va., for her photo of a couple on a bench.

Harry Ogloff of Salmon Arm, British Columbia, Canada, for his photo of a reflection of the Rocky Mountains.

David Pincus of Fayetteville, Ark., for an image of the Wonder Wheel at Coney Island, Brooklyn, N.Y.

Greg Clark of Redding, Calif., for his photo of a sunrise.

Gemm Ferrane of Harwich, Essex, U.K., for his image of an Essex lighthouse.

Sarah Condon of Skaneateles, N.Y., for her photo of a horse rolling in dirt.

Dena Bowman of Amherst, N.Y., for an image of a rock formation in Page, Arizona.

Dieter Turk of Glasgow, Scotland, for his picture of a sailboat.

Joseph Romeo of Lorton, Va., for an image of a red barn.

Andrea Robinson of Santa Cruz, Calif., for a photo of waves on a beach.

Louis Decarlo of Edinburgh, Scotland, for his photo of the ocean off the Isle of Lewis, Outer Hebrides.

The photographers were asked to provide images that reflected what they considered as perfect, spellbinding or most divine in the world. There is quite a diversity here as there is in the book.

Great Food Photos from Detroit

Stan Garfield sent me these links to some great food photos in Detroit. I love food photos and take many myself. These make you hungry. I threw in his links to the places also so you can go take your own pictures.

25 Best Burgers and 40 photos

25 Best Sandwiches with photos

10 Best Fish & Chips

New Art Web Site and Blog by Liz Sweibel

I wrote about my friend Liz Sweibel’s work and recent exhibit on this blog, see - Many Kinds of Nothing Creates an Inviting Art Space. The site organizes her work into three galleries that show pieces that work together. I especially liked the interiors series in gallery two. They are collages of interiors with ink drawing added. I liked the simplicity and stark presentation. These interiors reminded me of some of the interior images of the contemporary Spanish painter, Antonio López García, who I greatly admire.

Liz also provides a play section that offers her more experimental work, as well as a statement and more background. The statement concludes, “My work uses modest materials, simple gestures, and its slight presence to cultivate space and slow time. I hope for it to be a quiet yet persistent call for attention, an invitation to stop and experience the nuances of the moment, and to realize that there is much to cherish and much we can do better.” I think she achieves this goal with her work.

On the site you can click on an image to get a bigger view and then click again to get an even bigger view. She also links to her Flickr photo stream for some nice images. You can also join her email list.

Liz has also started a blog that seems mostly devoted to her art. I especially liked the post, "But the Visual Is Not Reducible to the Verbal." This is an issue I have been had a life long interest in as both an artist and a cognitive psychologist. Liz starts with her efforts to categorize her work, a task that requires using words to describe the visual, a cross-media task. She concludes the post, “As someone who's made a living from words for 30 years, this dilemma is actually exhilarating. It's always been my need to make work that exceeds (if not precedes) words, to get at something beyond (if not before) our brains' capacity to reduce it to the verbal.”

Two Different Views of Abandoned Stuff

My friend Karen D’Amico, a London artist, sent me the link to Photology. It has wonderful photos of old cars, trucks, boats, other vintage stuff, along with flowers. The photos of vintage stuff remind me a bit of Walker Evans. The flowers seem like Man Ray doing a better job on Georgia O’Keefe images. Anyway they are enjoyable in their own right.

Karen also sent me a link to Abandoned Places by Henk van Rensbergen. It takes theme of abandoned images found in Photology and goes a lot further. The site says, “Old buildings, abandoned hospitals, industrial palaces overgrown with plants and trees, 
the remaining walls decorated with graffiti, smashed windows, rain dripping through the roof... These places have become hard to find, difficult (or illegal) to access, dangerous to explore ... great to spend the day !” He updates the site with new images. The most recent was of Château de Noisy, “a sort of Disneyland castle after 30 years of abandonment.”

Enjoy. You should also check out Karen's web site for her latest projects. I will be writing about them soon.

100 Great Photo Web Sites

Jessica Merritt wrote the post, 100 Awesome Niche Photo Sites You’ve Never Heard Of. It produces as advertised. The list includes organizations, photojournalism sites, outdoor and travel, education and a number of other topics. If you are interested in photography this is a nice resource.

Submit Your Photos to Shots Magazine and Onexposure

If you have great photos here are two sites for you. If you like to look at great photos also check them out. Here are two sites that you can submit photos for publication. I heard about Shots Magazine, an “independent, edgy and fascinating publication” from Akos Szilvasi, a great portrait photographer who is leading a portrait photography discussion group I hope to get a chance to attend.

Ed Friedman introduced the group to Onexposure. As he write, “One submits photos and is either accepted for publication on the site or not. The screening is process interesting. There is a panel of screeners who look at all submissions. They can accept or reject a photo. If they are on the fence, they throw it out to their members to vote for or against publication. If you get rejected (as I mostly do!)you do get some feedback as to why. If you disagree with a decision of the screeners you can appeal. Also, if rejected one can post the image to a forum to see what other viewers think of the image. I have done that several times and gotten good feedback from other members. It is free to join.” Ed also has a great photo site himself.

Great Transformed Fall Leaves Photo

Here is a wonderful transformed photo by Jeff Clow. Thanks to Mick Mather for proving the link. The artist used a "posterize filter embedded within Photoshop Elements 5.0 to remove some of the detail and to focus on the primary colors within the medley.”

Daily Dozen Photos from National Geogaphic

Here is a nice source of photos. It is photo editor Susan Welchman's daily selections, the Daily Dozen. From
the Daily Dozen, two photos will be published monthly in National Geographic magazine.

Akos Szilvasi - Photos of People

Recently, I went to an event of the Cambridge Art Association and saw the photographs of Akos Szilvasi. They have a very direct quality. Akos said he often crops off the top of heads to focus more on the eyes and mouth were there is much more information. You see this in the four portraits on his opening page. He talked mostly about black and white and explained the digital process for black and white photography.  With digital you have to start with color but then you can take the color out.

Akos puts his subjects in front of a white background to focus only on them. He takes the picture vertically to make the most of the pixels but then adds white on either side to create a horizontal format. Akos said he does this as we see the world horizontally.

Akos also has a blog, Invitation to discussion: Portraits: How Do We Photograph People?  It is nice to see the complementary web site and blog with the blog providing more of the back story.  He needs more entries in the blog as Akos has a lot of interesting things to say.