April’s Always Apt For Hopping

For those of you who are scheduled to attend next Tuesday’s field trip: bring $6.00 with you for a round trip Metra fare (that’s the student ID discount rate) and $2.25 for the CTA (if you bring, say, $100.00, that leaves you $91.75 for a gourmet luncheon). We’ll take our attendance at the school before we get bussed–to the rail depot–then we’ll commute downtown and walk to the Cultural Center to see two, or possibly three, exhibits. There may be time for the Gage Gallery as well, one block away, and nourishment of the food sort. We’ll ride the Brown Line El to visit galleries in the River North neighborhood; then we’ll hoof it back to the 1:30 train and return to Borington at 2:32.

Here are links to current exhibits.

http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/event_landing/events/dca_tourism/EricHolubow.html

 http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/event_landing/events/dca_tourism/writenow.html

 http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/supporting_narrative/events___special_events/special_events/tourism/morbid_curiosity.html

 http://www.roosevelt.edu/GageGallery.aspx

http://www.mocp.org/exhibitions/2012/04/survival_techni.php

 http://www.edelmangallery.com/exhibitions/2012/beltra/beltrashow2012.htm

http://schneidergallerychicago.com/home.html

2012/04/12
Categories: Exhibition, Hah Thkoo, Information . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

Read The Tweets and Buy The Book

This summary of the main ideas in “Believing is Seeing (Observations on the Mysteries of Photography),” by Errol Morris, is as terse as the text is expansive. As a photographer who shares this world with the rest of us, you need to acquire this book and digest it.

Errol’s book made simple. (Some principles.)

All photographs are posed.

The intentions of the photographer are not recorded in a photographic image. (You can imagine that they are, but it’s pure speculation.)

Photographs are neither true nor false. (They have no truth-value.)

False beliefs adhere to photographs like flies to flypaper.

There is a causal connection between a photograph and what it is a photograph of. (Even photoshopped images.)

Uncovering a relationship between a photograph and reality is no easy matter.

Most people don’t care about this and prefer to speculate about what they believe about a photograph.

The more famous a photograph is, the more likely it is that people will claim it has been posed or faked.

2012/04/09
Categories: Information, Words of Wisdom . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

Fabricated To Be Photographed

Robert Cumming made some engaging images which were included in an important exhibit in the 1970s “Fabricated to be Photographed.”

Mr. Metzker made a series called “Pictus Interruptus.”

The Belgian directors/brothers Dardenne have potentially useful comments for our current business of constructing barriers in photographs.

“We like to plunge the viewer into the scene without having had any exposition, particularly, before the scene happens. We just like to throw them into it.”

“It’s not that we don’t want any psychology. It’s just that we feel that, when we give a psychological explanation, we’ve told everything. For instance, if we say, well, Samantha was not able to have a child or she’s wanted to have a child for a long time, we feel that we’re giving an explanation to the viewer who then, in turn, feels that he or she has understood everything.

We try to place our camera in a way – position it so that there are obstacles, almost as if the reality that we’re filming is refusing that our camera find the right place. So since the camera is not in the right position, it’s almost like a documentary. We’d like to see the entire face, but we can’t quite.”

Hear the entire NPR story: http://www.npr.org/player/v2/mediaPlayer.html?action=1&t=1&islist=false&id=148774087&m=148774504

And finally (for now), look at some of the work of Yeondoo Jung.

2012/03/17
Categories: Information . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: 2 Comments

The Law (well… some laws, somewhere)

This is not event-specific or timely or a reaction to anything, simply something of which to be aware.

http://thestreetphotographymanifesto.com/2011/12/08/street-photography-and-the-law/

2012/03/06
Categories: A Matter of Record, Information . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

Bonus Karma: Colleen Plumb’s “Animals Are Outside Today”

Bonus karma: credit for effort that is over and above and aside course requirements, often referred to as “extra credit.”

This came up only sporadically in class on Thursday and Friday, so here’s a reminder to get to the March 4 reception for the exhibition at the place called Brushwood, in Riverwoods. I suspect it’s a venue not unlike the Wauconda Ansel show. Travel east on Lake-Cook Road, past Milwaukee Avenue; turn left on Portwine to its end, left on Riverwoods to the Ryerson Conservation Area.

Ms. Plumb’s artist’s statement says, in part: “…Henry Beston stated regarding animals in his book, The Outermost House: ‘They are not brethren, they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendor and travail of the earth.’

“Contradictions define our relationships with animals. We love and admire them; we are entertained and fascinated by them; we take our children to watch and learn about them. Animals are embedded within core human history—evident in our stories, rituals and symbols. At the same time, we eat, wear and cage them with seeming indifference, consuming them, and their images, in countless ways.

“Our connection to animals today is often developed through assimilation and appropriation; we absorb them into our lives, yet we no longer know of their origin…  This series moves within these contradictions, always questioning if the notion of the sacred, and the primal connection to Nature that animals convey and inspire, will survive alongside our evolution.”

In this particular case, don’t read the Reader (nor do the wind, the sun, or the rain) so you won’t witness the indignity of the review’s senseless link to an article about a good restaurant’s serving of pigtails. I may have noticed this because I may be ADHD (“Look! A bird!”).

http://ryersonwoods.org/p/artExhibition.html

http://www.colleenplumb.com/

 

2012/03/03
Categories: Exhibition, Information, Uncategorized . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

Team Vivian Update

The folks at the Gray Lady admits they’re playing catch-up regarding the saga of Vivian Maier, but they’re making up for that with a brace of posts. As promised last year, we’ve/they’ve only begun to scratch the surface of negatives in the newly processed film.

http://lens.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/vivian-maier/?src=rechp

http://6thfloor.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/02/16/vivian-maiers-muse/

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2012/02/19/magazine/vivian-maier.html

Pick Sunday’s NYT for the Magazine feature.

(Kelly, did you get a badge?)

2012/02/16
Categories: Brush with Greatness, Information, Viv . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: 1 Comment

The ACLU Says

Simply to remind ourselves from time to time (like, say, before a field trip):

Police officers may not generally confiscate or demand to view your photographs or video without a warrant.

Much more at http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2012/02/13/aclu-says-know-your-rights-photographers/ including, for instance:

If you are arrested, the contents of your phone may be scrutinized by the police, although their constitutional power to do so remains unsettled. In addition, it is possible that courts may approve the seizure of a camera in some circumstances if police have a reasonable, good-faith belief that it contains evidence of a crime by someone other than the police themselves (it is unsettled whether they still need a warrant to view them).

2012/02/15
Categories: A Matter of Record, Information . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

You can look all you want.

If you are an Illinois resident, the Art Institute of Chicago will admit you for no charge on weekdays through February 10.

You’re still home? Go there!

 

2012/01/22
Categories: Exhibition, Information . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

The Hamilton College Jazz Archive

Here is an exemplary archive of interviews with musicians who are gone, and who still walk amongst us. Monk Rowe, and some others (who should be canonized) assembled an admirable collection of recordings that preserve big chunks of Americana.

First, familiarize yourself with, oh, for instance, Clark Terry and Joe Williams, if  you need to, on wikipedia; then watch these:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqISuuiNgyM

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOuCvEMZRbo

…finally, seek them out on http://elib.hamilton.edu/hc/hc-main.php?id=col_jaz&c=jaz_a

This is our culture, not Herman’s Hermits or Sam the Sham or John Denver. Learn it and absorb it. It’s still alive, and it will nourish you.

P.S. One could easily lose a weekend at this site; fair warning.

2012/01/17
Categories: Brush with Greatness, Information . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

Holiday Hedonism

Whether you’re reading this when it’s fresh, or whether you’ve come across it months after posting… when one needs to make purchases by a hard deadline, any sort of help is welcome. That is why we provide this service again during the holiday season. You be the judge as to which items are bang-for-the-buck and which are only to be acquired with one’s second lottery winnings. Let’s begin with the glowing items:

http://www.glo-net.com/glow-photo-paper.html 

http://www.freestylephoto.biz/sc_search.php?q=holga+glows&sc=2200

On to books. Books are always good. 

The New Testament of pinhole literature is (may we have the envelope, please):

Product Details

Next item of interest: the aforementioned101 Things to Learn in Art School by Kit White.

A book which has in limbo for 40 years is finally published:

The Complete Architecture of Adler & Sullivan by Richard Nickel, Aaron Siskind, John Vinci and Ward Miller.

Another monograph we’ve been anticipating, for a year or more, is Vivian Maier: Street Photographer

by Vivian Maier, John Maloof and Geoff Dyer (hmm… didn’t know Mr. Dyer was involved; good).

Not enough Viv? http://www.bighappyfunhouse.com/archives/11/12/16/14-55-57.html

How about The Vivian Girls? http://www.hammergallery.com/Artists/darger/Darger.htm

Perhaps you’d like to fill your freezer with things that are, um, going away soon. Kodak_Announcement-1

…or simply enjoy collecting an artist’s work in the fast track: http://blakeandrews.blogspot.com/2011/11/with-halloween-fading-in-rearview.html

Personally, all I want for Xtol Xmas is more film & paper and the time to ruin it. (And maybe a $2500 gift card.)

Happy armchair surf-shopping!

2011/12/19
Categories: Information, Viv . . Author: mrdplus . Comments: Leave a comment

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