Jason Fulford & Gregory Halpern – The Photographer’s Playbook
Copyright 2014 Jason Fulford & Gregory Halpern published by Aperture
While in Santa Fe last month and visiting the photo-eye book store, I had an opportunity to purchase a copy of Jason Fulford and Gregory Halpern’s book The Photographer’s Playbook. The subtitle reveals the essentials of this book; 307 (photographic) Assignments and Ideas, which are distilled from 307 photographers, curators, photographic academia and workshop leaders, including Aline Smithson, Mark Steinmetz, Jim Goldberg, Stephen Shore, John Gossage and many more. From my perspective, this book draws heavily on a few photographic academia programs for BFA and MFA photographic degrees.
It appears that the book is focused on young and inexperienced photographers who are searching for the reason to be a fine art photographer (as part of a BFA/MFA program) or for a photographer who is stuck in a dry spell as to how to find conceptual ideas to development next. If you have the technical side of photography down then working through a bunch of these assignments could provide you with an equivalent BFA/MFA education as to the conceptual projects you work on. What may be missing is the group critiques offered in the academic programs and instructors that might challenge you (alternatively a best friend that can continue to say “No, try again, dig deeper”). So find a small group photographic/artist peers that you can count on to be candid and talk/show the work/assignments, a group who can say “Very cool, I see where you are going, keep at it, dig deeper”
To be candid, there are some ideas within this book that are similar to other ideas I have developed over the years to help me consider photographic options and move my concepts forward. I will continue to write about some of them, such as my post earlier this morning about experiment-play (games), a frequent idea (27 different variations) that is recommended in this book. In my case, experiment-play was what I was doing that led me to my Memory Pods project that I have been working on for just about three years. Recently, experiment-play is what inspired me to start the Middle Ground (aka Life in the Slow Lane) project earlier this year.
To be fully transparent, as a portfolio reviewer for LensCulture, we also provide some resource recommendations as part of the portfolio review and this book is one that I recommend to photographers who have a photo technique but appear to looking for a project to apply their process. Recommended!
Cheers,
Douglas Stockdale, Editor
(originally posted on Singular Images)
Medium Festival of Photography: Oct. 20-23 in San Diego
This year the Medium Festival of Photography will take place October 20-23, 2016, at the Lafayette Hotel in San Diego. This week of events, lectures, portfolio reviews, and book signings promises to be an exciting experience!
Registration open now through October 9.
More details at: http://mediumsandiego.org/
Highlights of the Festival Lineup
http://mediumsandiego.org/portfolio/festival-events-at-a-glance/
All events take place at the Lafayette Hotel unless otherwise noted.
Thursday, Oct. 20
9:00 am – 5:00 pm Eye to Eye Portfolio Reviews (by appointment only)
7:00 – 9:00 pm Open Portfolio Walk (FREE!)
Friday, Oct. 21
9:00 am – 5:00 pm Eye to Eye Portfolio Reviews (by appointment only)
6:00 – 7:00 pm VIP Reception (VIP and Big Pass Holders only)
7:00 – 8:00 pm Keynote Lecture with Penelope Umbrico
8:00 – 10:00 pm Book Signing and reception with Penelope Umbrico
Saturday, Oct. 22
9:30 am Second Sight lecture with Leonard Suryajaya
10:00 am – 3:00 pm FLASH! Pop-Up Shop
11:00 am Susan Rankaitis lecture
12:00pm Susan Burnstine book signing (FREE!)
12:00pm Michael Lundgren book signing (FREE!)
1:30 pm Patrick Nagatani lecture
3:00 pm Marisa Scheinfeld lecture
4:00pm Marisa Scheinfeld book signing (FREE!)
4:30 pm Vincent Cianni lecture
5:30pm Vincent Cianni book signing (FREE!)
7:00 pm Size Matters exhibition reception at Low Gallery (FREE!)
7:00 pm OpenShow San Diego
8:00 pm Daylight Books Fall book launch and signing (FREE!)
Sunday, Oct. 23
9:30 am Collecting Contemporary Photography (roundtable discussion)
10:00 am – 3:00 pm FLASH! Pop-Up Shop
11:00 am Matt Eich lecture
1:30 pm Wayne Martin Belger lecture
Ellen Butler – “Home” Exhibition at the Center for Fine Art Photography (C4FAP)
Copyright © 2016 Ellen Butler
We are pleased to announce that Ellen Butler’s three-dimensional artist’s book Come Home Again was selected by Juror Kevin Miller for the “Home” Exhibition at The Center for Fine Art Photography (C4FAP).
This is the second time Ellen is exhibiting at C4FAP; the previous time was in 2009. She said she is hoping that visitors will be able to pick up, view, and read her unique art book at the exhibition, which will run from December 2, 2016 to January 7, 2017, with an opening reception on December 2 from 6 to 8 p.m.
The preview of this exhibition can be found here: http://www.c4fap.org/exhibitions/home-with-kevin-miller/
C4FAP is located at 400 North College Avenue, Fort Collins, Colorado, and is open Tuesdays through Fridays 10-6 and Saturdays 11-5. Closed Sundays and Mondays.
Copyright © 2016 Ellen Butler
Copyright © 2016 Ellen Butler
Photobook Independent review
Photographs copyright 2016 Nancy Albright
This last week was Photo Independent which was held at the Raleigh film studios in Hollywood on sound stage #14. Within this larger event was Photobook Independent exhibiton, which was a group of exhibitors who were focused on the publication and presentation of their photobooks.
Photo Exchange member Douglas Stockdale was a guest curator, photobook exhibitor and one of the judges for this year’s photobook competition. Stockdale provided walking curatorial discussions of the winning photobooks and then the photobooks of some of the exhibitors. Stockdale also provided an interesting insight on the photobook judging process and the four key judging aspects: photography, concept/idea, design/layout and the book production and how all of these aspects are intertwined.
The photobooks at the event were very diverse, including the full spectrum from trade edition books to limited edition hand-made artist books. Exhibitors photographed below include Susan Burnstine showing photographs for her new book, Sara Terry and her recent self-published artist books series X, Marissa Roth and her photobook investigating Tibet and Ejen Chuang who is documenting the subculture of Cosplay.
Guest Curator for Photo Book Independent
As a follow-up to being one of the judges for the Photo Book Independent book competition, I am honored to also be providing two curatorial discussions of the juried in books as well as the other photobooks available during Photo Book Independent.The schedule for talks, book signings and curatorial discussions has just been posted.
The first curatorial walk will be held first on Friday night at 6pm just prior to the VIP opening of the exhibition space at Raleigh Studios (yes, a functioning sound stage in the midst of the film capital). The second walking discussion will be on Sunday morning at 10:30 am just prior to the opening for the general public. I am planing on an hour discussion, but be prepared, it could last a little longer depending on the questions and answers.
For the juried in photo books, since I was part of the judging and had developed the judging process, I am planning to provide a little back-ground on the judging criteria. How did we decide which books were interesting and provocative and which did not seem to past muster and capture our attention? If you were every thinking about submitting a book dummy or photobook to a competition, this could be an interesting discussion for you.
The good news, my curatorial discussions are FREE for those to participate, but the space is limited and if you want to join for what I hope is an interesting, fun and informative event, you need to sign up for it NOW: http://photoindependent.com/talks-and-book-signings/
Leave a comment if you have any questions.
Cheers!
Photobook Independent Book competition & Stockdale named a judge
Photobook Independent – Photobook Competition 2016
I have some great news, I am honored to be recently selected as one of the judges of the PhotoBook Competition this year as a part of the Photo Independent activities occurring at the end of April in Los Angeles. I just posted a quick update as to the judges and timing on my another blog that I am also the editor of: The PhotoBook.
If you have a published book and copies still available for sale, then you may want to check this opportunity out now (deadline for mailing submissions is March 21st!). I am now looking forward to all of the submissions, as this should be great chance for me to get a quick pulse on our greater photographic community.
Cheers!
2016 photo l.a.
2016 photo l.a. copyright 2016 Douglas Stockdale
I had an opportunity to join Hiroshi Watanabe at the Gala opening of photo l.a. (Thursday evening). Walking through a gallery (Fair) exhibition like photo l.a. provides an interesting snap-shot of some of the current trends in contemporary photography as well as bench mark for the market of earlier photographer’s work. Note: This is not the time or place for a photographer to try to button hole a gallery owner with a portfolio about one’s “great” photographs, but to take note of who is exhibiting what and to follow up with gallery owners afterward. Which is to say that you should at least introduce yourself!
The overall exhibition & gallery emphasis seemed to lean towards photographers who were or are now exploring conceptual projects. There were a couple of gallery’s who were showing early work by some documentary photographers, but usually limited to a few prints in their collection that were available for sale. As a disclaimer, the aisles were crowded, we were an hour late, so we moved through the exhibition hall at a decent pace. Nevertheless, there was still a lot of interesting and diverse collections of photographs to look at and study.
Cheers!
Note: this article was originally posted on my blog Singular Images.
LA Art Book Fair – coming soon to SoCal
The LA Art Book Fair will again be at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA and will be another delightful maze of rooms with amazing displays of photobook and zines. This event has always been punctuated with some wonderful finds.
From Printed Matter:
Printed Matter presents the fourth annual LA Art Book Fair, from February 12 through 14, 2016, at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA, Downtown LA. A ticketed preview will take place on Thursday, February 11, 6-9PM.
Free (another aspect of this event that I love) and open to the public, Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair is a (very) unique event for artists’ books, catalogs, monographs, periodicals, and zines presented by more than 300 presses, antiquarians, artists, and independent publishers from over 20 countries.
The LA Art Book Fair is the companion fair to the NY Art Book Fair, held every fall in New York City. Over 35,000 artists, book buyers, collectors, dealers, curators, independent publishers, and other enthusiasts attended the NY Art Book Fair in 2015.
A full list of this year’s exhibitors can be found here.
Highly recommended for those on living (or visiting) the Left Coast.
Cheers!
2015 LA Art Book Fair at the MoCA
Printed Matter’s (2015) LA Art Book Fair
This coming weekend on the Left Coast is what is becoming an annual event; Printed Matter’s LA Art Book Fair which will take place again at the Geffen Contemporary at MOCA.
As I have written about the past (2014) LA Art Book Fairs taking place at MOCA, this building is a maze of rooms, small hidden rooms, medium size display areas and a huge room usually reserved for the Zine world. A ton of books, magazines, zines that are new and old (“collectibles”) that can overwhelm the senses. Fortunately the food trucks out the front doors can provide sustenance to help you endure. In past years there was a section reserved for photobooks up on the mezzanine, but guessing there will be spot somewhere.
Schedule:
Preview Thursday 29th January, 6-9pm
Friday January 30th, 12–7pm
Saturday January 31st, 11-7pm
Sunday February 1st, 11-6pm
Also nice about this event: FREE Admission!
Cheers!
Douglas Stockdale, Founding Editor
Elizabeth Avedon’s Best Photography Books for 2014 – Douglas Stockdale
Copyright Douglas Stockdale 2014, self-published Pine Lake
As a book artist and photobook specialist, this is the time of year that I provide kudo’s to all of the photographers, photobook designers, photobook publishers and the book artists who use photography as a part of their creative medium. .
What came as a very pleasant surprise is when the amazing NYC book designer Elizabeth Avedon (yes, a familiar last name to those following photography over the years) selected my artist book Pine Lake as one of her Best Photography Books of 2014. A total surprise as this is a very limited edition artist book (edition of 25 plus 2 A/P’s) and thus I am assuming not many have actually held or seen this.
What a sweet ending to the year and which reminds me that I need to get my butte back into gear and finish my next limited edition book Bluewater Shore, the second of the three photo-narratives planned for this series.
Cheers!
leave a comment