The past couple of years I’ve compiled a list of photography websites of note with a short paragraph explaining why I find them interesting. I’ve decided not to do it this year. Well, at least not in that format. The primary reason is because the list hasn’t changed much, if at all, which to me either means I’m missing some of the better new sites out there (which is entirely possible and even likely), or there just haven’t been that many new sites of note (at least none that appeal directly to my sensibility).

So, this year I decided to copy The Atlantic Wire’s ‘Media Diet’ format to give you a better idea of what I read. And as I mentioned in The Digest last week, I have plans to create a section on the site for recommended blogs and magazines, something more than a page with links. I hope to get around to that sooner than later.

Blogs

I follow blogs primarily through Google Reader (and Twitter). The mainstays are Conscientious, Blake Andrews, A Photo Editor, BAGNewsNotes, DLK Collection, Flak Photo, Feature Shoot, Shooting Wide Open, Time LightBox, LENS Blog, aCurator, New Yorker Photo Booth, Raw File, Wayne Ford, David Campbell, dvafoto, Prison Photography, eyecurious, The Online Photographer, boooooom!, fototazo, Shane Lavalette, LensWork, duckrabbit, the Great Leap Sideways, LENSCRATCH, Searching for the Light, oitzarisme, Street Level Japan and Stellazine.

Blake and Jorg are my favorites because they tend to have strong opinions. We need more of that in photoland. Tom Griggs of fototazo also produced several thought provoking pieces this year that I enjoyed. APE provides a nice glimpse into the editorial world and Rob is very good aggregator. Aline at LENSCRATCH is the hardest working blogger and does the best job of providing textual context for the work she publishes.

I enjoy Mike Johnston’s philosophical musings on TOP. That goes for Brooks Jensen too. Both have plenty to offer even though I don’t necessarily share their aesthetic sensibility.

Without question DLK Collection is the go to blog for reviews of gallery shows in New York.

Magazines

This year I subscribed to Aperture, PDN and Dear Dave. Online I follow Fraction, Unless You Will, Ahorn, Deep Sleep, Excerpt, 1000 Words, Seesaw, SuperMassiveBlackHole, and American Photo.

I made the leap to the iPad this year too. I subscribed to the BJP iPad edition and it’s excellent. I tend to view PDN in app as well, but it’s a tad clunky. I’ll probably pull the trigger on Hotshoe sooner than later.

The most notable absence in my list I feel is FOAM. It’s expensive, and I’m too lazy to go hunt it down in a store. I’ll probably pull the trigger on it this year though. Oddly, I feel it might be one of the very few must reads. Maybe that’s why I’ve ignored it!

I know I’m likely forgetting some magazines as well. There are going to be more and more of them arriving on the scene. It’s becoming tougher to figure out why I should really care about them. The same can easily be said about LPV. We all need to do a better job of differentiating our publications from the crowd in order to keep the ecosystem vibrant and not redundant.

Twitter

I generally keep Twitter open at all times. I’m an addict. It’s my primary source for news. The key accounts I follow for photography are @monroegallery, @theclick , @jmcolberg, @1854 , @brookpete, @rawfileblog and that’s it. What? Can’t be. Well, yes to some extent. Although, I do follow a bunch of other photographers, galleries and publications. I’ve made lists that you can check. I also follow many more outlets that aren’t really related to photography. For that, you’ll have to check out my personal account. 

Twitter can be tough to explain to people. The key for me is to follow people that bring me value. I can be ruthless. Even if you’re a friend, I might not pay much attention to you if you’re not really sharing anything interesting. I’m generally only interested in links to interesting content. Although, I don’t mind some random ruminations or casual chit chat. But twitter is not a place for debate or in depth conversations. You have to know when to back away at times.

Tumblr

I’m addicted to Tumblr. This year POTB was added to the ‘photography spotlight’ which resulted in an explosion of followers, 100,000 and counting. The platform and community consistently amaze me and I highly recommend that photographers use it as their blogging platform.

I follow 590 Tumblr’s which may sound like too many but many of them post infrequently.

My two favorite’s are Mark Peter Drolet and Wayne Bremser. You should read this interview Blake did with MPD to gain some insight into his thinking. In the past I couldn’t follow him because he posted too much but this year I tried again and it stuck. The breadth of work that he posts is mind boggling. I have no idea how he can remember all those photographers or where he finds the time to dig into their sites, but day after day he’s sharing work that I’ve never seen before and that would be impossible for me to find on my own.

Wayne is an old standby, mostly sharing black and white work. I keep tabs on urbanautica and Hamburger Eyes through Tumblr. This is a Cult was new to my radar this year.

The posse of Daniel Shea, Emiliano Granado, Ryan Pfluger, Joao Canziani, Alexi Hobbs, and Jake Stangel have introduced me to plenty of great work. They are great examples of how to mix personal work while promoting the work of their pals.

Others I enjoy are fette sans, Art Photo Collector, Panopticon Gallery, internet history, jogging, photolia, Blood of the Young, photoformag, ICP/Bard MFA, epsteinian, remerge, fourteen-nineteen, Little Brown Mushroom, Please Excuse the Mess, Daily Beast Picture Dept, Banana Leaves, Mossless, digital faun, one125, Rocket Science, and Caille.

The Rest

I check Facebook like most people and I do find some articles there but for the most part what I see there I’ve already seen somewhere else. I still peruse Flickr but that’s mostly to check in some groups or see what some of my old contacts are up to.

What I’ve posted above is just the photography portion of my web consumption. I’ll spare you the details of everything else but if you follow my personal Twitter you’ll find that I throw in stuff about physics, astronomy, publishing and other random articles that cover a spectrum of topics.

Thank you!

There’s no way LPV would be where it is today without all of the wonderful inspiration and insight that the above blogs, magazines and individuals provide on a daily basis. Thank you all very much! I may not interact with you too often, but I am following along, and certainly appreciate all the hard work that you put into your respective sites. I’m also always on the look out for new and interesting sites, so if you know of any, drop me a line.

Here’s to a great 2013!

This is a guest post by Jin Zhu. She’s a San Francisco based artist and the author of Shooting Wide Open. If you’d like to contribute an essay where you write about the photographic process, please send your submission to editors@lpvmagazine.com. I will review them to see if there’s a good fit!

Photographs and Text by Jin Zhu

Ever since returning from Nevada I’ve been in a state – at first a restless jittery need to keep busy and pack the schedule, and then a dragging, bone-sapping listlessness that I don’t understand. I took photos! I had ideas! It was constructive! Why aren’t I satisfied?

Then it hit me. It’s grief. It’s actual grief for the loss of that lake. Maybe more for the peace of that lake. The place where I was already imagining camping, working, returning in the spring, sneaking back before the pass closes for the winter.

I wondered there if there was such a thing as a home that you’d never seen before, and even if it is half idealization and fantasy, it does seem to exist. I tried a small cure by driving out to the sea, that other salt water, and I realized also that I had forgotten. I had forgotten what the fog was like out there, and how surreal it is. I have no memory of it because I have no good photographs of it. I drove it so much when I was not a photographer (or rather, a camera-less photographer).

I ended up at San Gregorio, of all places, but the place was completely changed from when I tromped out there with a camera club and a couple of models. The greyest of grey days, shrouded in fog so thick that the ocean appeared a tiny thing, compensating for its small size with purposeful clamor. The world seemed so small, that it made sense that everything would’ve arisen out of the sea – life and the world, Venus and our god figures. Where else could it have come from? I sat on the crumbly cliff and so there was only cliff, fog and ocean in sight. What else could exist?

Yet there was a hint of light at the horizon – a warmer grey that turned into a disembodied, alocational orange glow as I drove back north. It was the strangest thing, as if daylight had turned to tunsten. Not dramatic at all, but a little disorienting. Then the sky broke through and though it was the expected blue, turquoise, orange, pink, I still could see no sun for the line of fog. And the other side of the sky was reddish, as if a second sun had set east. When whichever sun had set all the way, there was left a mush of white fog on the horizon, and a vagueness to the coastal landscape that somehow implied the closeness of adjacent lands, of the the possibility of change.

And I think: what a terrible place the coast is. To tempt you out with such color and then leave you so cold and damp from sheer love of the thing. Is it the fog spray or the condensation on the heat of your body? And what a terrible thing to forget something like that, which in the moment you think you would never forget. We forget people’s faces this way.

Yet to take a photo would be a cop out. To stand there awed and then to snap a picture is the path of least resistence. If I had a notebook, but no camera, as I did yesterday, I would translate the scene into some other medium that is not visual – that is emotional, or conceptual or encoded in some other sense. If I have that camera, it stays a scene, a visual, no more. Maybe it’s lazy.

But there is something pleasing about the anticipation of going to a place and coming back with the pictures in your camera, the recorded light. I don’t exactly anticipate going somewhere to scribble, though I certainly like to. All those legions of photographers are just like dirt-collectors – we go to a place, feel the specific texture of that dirt between our fingers and take a little pinch it home in a jar.

Does anyone imagine falling in love and think of a place, not a person?

I stayed a day longer in Nevada, and for an evening I felt like just driving home. I thought I was creating a situation where I would miss my home, I thought it would be instructive in light of the experience of migrants and immigrants which I went out there chasing in the first place. But it turned out that I came home and missed the place where I had been. This was not the homesickness I thought I would feel. Yet it’s so acute I don’t know what to do – what do you do but go back? Are there certain places that you are programmed to love? Or is place just an unknowing metaphor for the state of mind you associate with it? For the work you would do there?

I don’t know how to say it to anyone. How silly, foolish… how childish it is to miss a place like a limb when you’ve only seen it once and have no roots there. To imagine perfection because you did not stay long enough to figure out the pitfalls. When you arrived in fair weather and left in fairer weather.

First sight. Maybe I am only homesick for first sights. Those valleys and those hills and that lake in the midst of all those thistles and mirages. It could be an addictive thing – to go through the world, searching for the high of that first sight. And the only way to have it again in place is to forget. And so to forget may not be such a bad thing after all. After all, the curse of memory is knowing your mistakes.

Would you ever stand in a place so stunning that you will decide not to take a photograph? That you will pull a Memento and willfully forget so that you could do it all over again, as smashingly as it happened the first time?

We’ve wrapped up Issue 4. Baring any unforeseen circumstances it’ll be released next week. It’s been nearly six months since we published a print issue. I didn’t plan to have such a long time period between issues but it just happened. Issue 4 was the most challenging thus far and in many ways the most rewarding. I’ve learned some valuable lessons that have shaped how I’m going to proceed in the future.

When I started down the path of publishing a print magazine I wasn’t sure exactly how it’d play out, or if it would be something I’d continue to pursue long term. It’s been just over a year since we launched but in internet time, that means a lot has changed. As can be expected more and more magazines are popping up, both in print and online. It’s incredibly difficult to differentiate yourself and build an audience, which means anyone serious about publishing needs to continually push themselves. The last thing I want to do is waste your time. There’s always room for improvement and innovation, but most importantly, for me there’s room to be more focused. I need to focus more clearly on exactly what I want to say through LPV.

As I look back on it, it’s been a year of big changes. I went from freelancing to a full time job that I find rewarding, but also time consuming. I’ve also spent months and months editing and thinking about my own work which has impacted how I feel about editing LPV.

I mentioned in The Digest a few weeks ago that it’s becoming tougher for me to separate my own work with LPV. It’s all apart of the same thought process at this point. When I look at blogs and magazines, I tend to divide them up between those that are run by individuals actively pursuing their own photography, and those run by people who are moving more down an editorial/critical/curatorial path. Is that an important distinction? Probably not, but right now I more closely relate to the perspective of the photographer.

Some of the most interesting and inspiring conversations I’ve had with photographers the last couple of years have been about the creative challenges of the photographic process, from choosing projects and subject matter, to editing, book making, publishing, and the madness of the internet. I don’t think I’ve done as good a job as I can in bringing the essence of those conversations to LPV, so I’m going to try to focus on that a bit more.

For the last six months I’ve been editing a body of work for a book I plan to publish this year. It’s been a struggle, but also a very illuminating experience. I plan on writing about the process in the next couple of months. My gut feeling is that many of you will relate to the challenges I’ve experienced, so hopefully we’ll be able to open up a dialogue about the process.

From the beginning, LPV has been an integral part of my photography education. Now I see that education moving into a new stage and I expect that to be reflected through LPV. Stay tuned! And please, feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions or are interested in collaborating.

Bryan
editors@lpvmagazine.com

And the converse is also true: that books which purport to be displays only of photography are often not fit to be published as books.  Most usually, these fall into a category I think of as ‘project books’.  A photographer has an idea for a formula which can generate some pictures.  He makes enough of them to fill a book.  He gets a book. He is proud to be the author of something which nobody else cared about in the first place, which nobody much gets to see, and of which second-hand book dealers will struggle to sell even the paltry number of copies in existence for the next fifteen years.   We all know – we all own ! – books like this.  But photography is a way of communicating.  It deals in facts, and it deals in ideas.  If your facts are banal and you’re bereft of ideas, you may well not have a photograph at all.  You certainly won’t have a book of them. - Francis Hodgson, ‘The Sound of One Hand Clapping’

Personal and creative fulfillment are perfectly valid motivations for self-publishing a photography book. Sure, maybe only a handful of people will actually see it, but who cares? How does that possibly harm serious minded photography and its pursuit of discovering canon worthy work?

I think Jonathan Blaustein put it best when he said:

I believe we need more Art, not less. More people out there making cool shit, pushing their brains sideways, and hopefully eliciting interesting questions from the people who look at it. More public support for the Arts will lead to more monkeys typing away, which of course will lead to a more intelligent society. Make it so.

The ease and affordability of self-publishing allows people who might otherwise be excluded from the game to pursue their ideas and passions. I don’t understand how this can be seen as anything but positive. And honestly, it’s sort of silly to debate. It doesn’t matter how many commentators take to their blogs (self-publishing!) to criticize self-publishing, it’s not going to stop it because most people aren’t paying attention to anything they have to say anyway, they’re just going to keep sending those files to Blurb and Magcloud. (Note: I’m not refuting Hodgson, in fact I agree with much of what he says. I’m just saying that often people criticize self-publishing through social media which is, you know, a form of self-publishing)

I’d rather not focus on that aspect though because it’s not what interests me most about self-publishing. What I’m interested in understanding are the motivations for pursuing photography and self-publishing. In a private forum, “I wondered whether people will take you seriously unless you’re committed to earning a living as an artist or photographer.”

I’m not sure they will when it comes to photography because the terms amateur and hobbyist have been become poisonous these days. Generally they’re just easy scapegoats for the ills of the photography industry or added to the litany of reasons why photography is dead. The fact is though that most people are going to end up making their living from something other than photography.

Maybe I’m barking up the wrong tree here though. I think most intelligent people realize that good work can come from people with a multitude of backgrounds and perspectives. I guess my point is that I think there’s value in pursuing work that doesn’t aim for commercial value or validation in the fine art or documentary photography world.

I’m trying to avoid being overly cynical but it really seems that these days there’s an unhealthy obsession with the economics of photography and status within the community (whichever community you find yourself in). It just seems like too many people are motivated by either economics or receiving validation from the right people. The internet exacerbates this problem because the currency of the web is attention and recognition. It’s not exactly the best medium for contemplation.

Like I said, I’m really interested in motivation, passion and dedication. Why are you making photographs? What are  you thinking about? I find that many people can’t answer these questions. It’s hard, I know, but at some point you need to be able to do it.

I’m going to take my editor hat off for a moment and speak as a photographer. I’ve spent the last six years making photographs, educating myself, connecting with other like minded people, and generally allowing myself to be completely consumed by photography. It’s been a magical six years and an unbelievable journey.

So, what’s my motivation? Photography is personally and creatively fulfilling. I need no other rewards. The process and everything about it satisfies my soul at the most primal level. It’s a great a moment when you arrive at this stage. The sense of freedom is liberating. Certainly most of what you’re going to create is going to be banal and forgettable but as long as you’re alive and capable, you can keep on trying, and keep on making more photographs.

I’m in the process of editing a book a photographs I made in California between 2006 and 2008. I’m going to self-publish it. I don’t care if people ignore it. I have to do it. I have to satisfy my creative urge and finish what I started. The creative process and all the work I’ve done these last 6 years is the reward.

Naturally, all of this can also come off as completely narcissistic and self-indulgent. That’s fair. There’s plenty of truth in that but given the amount of vacuous, pointless art that exists in the world, I’m not sure there’s much to worry about in that regard. The beauty of photography is that it’s so pervasive these days that it can almost literally (if Google has its way) cover all perspectives. That’s something to celebrate. So is self-publishing. Let’s keep cranking out the books and zines, and putting work out into the world. Let history and time figure out the rest.

In July, 2011 I wrote an article titled The Process, The Stream, and The End which outlined some of my thoughts about how photographers are using the internet to publish their work. In it, I advocated ‘photography as process’ in which photographers embrace showing their work in progress in order to make a deeper connection with their audience. While I still think that’s relevant for some photographers, I’ve been slowly re-thinking my position, especially as I’ve come across new insights and ideas.

In the same article, I also touched on the idea of ‘serializing’ blog posts. It’s something that has been on my mind frequently these days, so I want to use this post to see if I can further these ideas and hope stir up some conversation.

When Magnum Jumped Aboard Tumblr

I’m on Tumblr probably too much for my own good, so I was curious to see how Magnum would use it for the next installment of the Postcards from America project. As expected, they posted photographs from Rochester as they worked, sometimes with short captions about the subjects, other times with nothing more than the name of the photographer. It was a your standard ‘random’ visual Tumblr, which is probably what they were aiming for I suppose. Use the tools of the day and all that.

The guys from Magnum are in a tough spot. People expect to see the highest quality documentary photography but as we all know, it’s tough to produce great work in a short period of time, and for them to show work in progress is probably challenging and goes against their natural instincts as disciplined photographers. The photos kept arriving in my stream but I wasn’t really paying too close attention. It just wasn’t all that engaging, but I did wonder about how they felt about using Tumblr and working on the fly.

Then oddly enough this article appeared on The Online Photographer which related to publishing random projects.

I find it curious that Magnum photographs are now so often compiled into random sets, even in books, when one of the reasons for Magnum’s founding was so the photographers could control the presentation of their pictures and make sure they were always presented in the proper context. Magnum photographs now most often seem to be seen out of the context of photojournalistic stories. And sometimes in the context of truly random groupings—such as pictures that include wallpaper.

Maybe the Postcards from America project is one of their ways of regaining some control over context while still working with the platforms of the day (Tumblr). It’d be interesting to hear some of their thoughts about it. I think the Rochester hook has potential but from the photographs I’ve seen it doesn’t really seem like the location matters too much. They just as well could be in Buffalo. I don’t want to be overly negative about the project but it hasn’t really resonated with me, nor with many of the people I’ve asked about it.

But they’re out there trying and to be honest, it’s not like there’s much imagination in photoland when it comes to publishing on the internet. That’s something that has bugged me for awhile, but like most complicated problems, I haven’t really come upon any insights worth sharing. Then I read Megan Garber’s piece about ‘Making the Internet More Like Our Brains’ in The Atlantic and a few things started to click.

The web may be, in the broad cybernetic sense, a brain; as a user experience, though, it has some faulty wiring. When we disparage the digital environment as “overwhelming,” what we’re also faulting it for is its lack of a narrative. The Internet moves, but it doesn’t necessarily move forward. It expands, but it doesn’t necessarily follow any particular trajectory. It lacks, in that sense, a purpose. It lacks a plot. Men die, the Greek physician Alcmaeon believed, “because they cannot join the beginning and the end. – Megan Garber, The Atlantic

What’s the Plot of Your Tumblr?

I suppose asking what’s the plot of your Tumblr might sound a bit strange, but it’s also a bit intriguing. Through social media we sort of naturally and passively tell our story and depending on the person, reveal varying levels of biographical details. In some cases a natural narrative develops but it often comes off as incidental, or at its worst is nothing more than personal branding with an economic objective in mind.

It’s funny how we work on certain ideas, and how they stick with us for months and years. In my article from last July I wrote:

Instead of posting a series of disconnected blog posts, why not serialize them and tell a story? Have a new project in the works? Why not plan out a series of posts that tell the story of how it came to be, from inspiration to execution. The only limitation to the possibilities here are creativity and courage.

This begins to touch on a larger issue within photoland. For the most part, I think the web is viewed as a platform for discussing and commenting on photography and not as a storytelling platform.

That doesn’t have to be the case though. The tools we have at our dispense are powerful and can be used in many creative ways. The time is ripe for a photographer to fuck with our expectations and put these tools to use in new ways that will engage us on a deeper level.

The stream is powerful and frightening. Conforming to its expectations is understandable. But the stream is also malleable. All it takes to change our perceptions of how it can be used are a few creative people who aren’t afraid to push the boundaries of what’s possible. And they exist everywhere.

In the Magnum example, I think instead of publishing the ‘Rochester’ project in progress on Tumblr, it would have been more interesting if they spent time editing the work, adding context and then releasing it in chapters or episodes over a short period of time. Each day they could publish a few pieces of content that link together in some way and then just like good serialized TV shows, leave a bit of cliffhanger. Much can be learned from serialized TV dramas and I think this is a way that you can embrace the randomness and pace of the web but also impose some narrative arc that tells a story. It won’t be easy and naturally photography doesn’t necessarily work like a TV drama, but I think a similar structure can be used in interesting ways.

Maybe I’m being a bit idealistic here, and it could be that I’m just want the web to do something it’s not very good at doing. That may very well be the case but I think photographers and publishers can do better and make the way we experience photography on the web more interesting and engaging (There’s always just ‘good’ pictures too I suppose.)

I haven’t fully fleshed out my ideas but I wanted to write something down to share what’s been on my mind lately. Perhaps we can use this as a starting point for a conversation. If I’m not being clear, or you have questions, please feel free to drop a line in the comments, or on Facebook, or Twitter, or email, or the next time you see me at the pub.

Willhide dedicates “To Adrian Rodriguez, with Love” to the individual who broke into her home and stole various things. Her computer was recovered by the police, but the hard drive had been wiped clean. Willhide attempted to recover the erased data but found her digital photographs corrupted. Rather than delete the images, Willhide considered these corrupted files a collaboration with her machine. She refined them and made additional ones inspired by the mess. – New Yorker: Photo Booth

Sometimes I think we forget the role that serendipity plays in photography. Melanie Wilhide’s project is a great example of finding inspiration in the random twists and turns life throws at us while we work on our photography. Typically when we think of corruption, we think of it in a negative way, Wall St. for example, but in the context of Wilhide’s project corruption becomes transformative and an inspiring force.

Instead focusing on what she lost, Wilhide decided to use her talents to create something new and alive. Sure, we could easily say that these are simply photo-collages, the type that we’ve seen before, but when I was walking through the gallery looking at the photographs I could oddly sense the serendipity that lead to their creation. That’s something that’s hard to quantify naturally, and perhaps the back story put me in a suggestive mood, I’m not sure, but regardless I found the photographs visually interesting.

Even if the photographs don’t necessarily resonate with you, there’s still insight to be gleaned from the project, and the role that surprise and serendipity play in the creative process. Perhaps those obstacles we’re confronted with on our journey are actually signs that we need to move in a new direction.

Melanie Wilhide – ‘to Adrian Rodriguez with love’
February 23 – March 24, 2012

Von Lintel Gallery
520 West 23rd Street
Ground Floor
New York , NY 10011

It took me three years of living in New York to finally visit MOMA. I’d made plans in the past and there were certainly exhibitions I wanted to see but for no good reason I never made it. Then a few weeks ago I started reading about the Cindy Sherman exhibition and after doing a bit of research learned that there was an Atget exhibition going on at the same time. It would be inexcusable not to check them out. It also helped that I had a Thursday off from work.

To ensure I’d make repeat visits this year I decided to purchase a membership. $70, not a bad deal. After paying my membership dues, I started my journey through the museum (and modern art), beginning with the recent acquisitions which included a few Nan Goldin photographs. Then I made my way up to the third floor where the Atget show and photography gallery are located. Unfortunately I didn’t realize that until three floors later. Picking up a map might have been a good idea.

So I marched on, up to the fourth floor where I came face to face with Pollock, de Kooning, Warhol, Johns, Rauschenberg, Rothko and many others. As I wandered through the galleries I almost forgot about Cindy Sherman and the reason I was there. Looking at art is always a rather meditative, soothing experience.

Then it was up to the fifth floor which is where many people visiting MOMA from out of town probably head to immediately. Coming face to face with walls of Picasso’s and van Gogh’s ‘Starry Night’ for the first time is awesome. Then there’s Monet, Joan Miro, and Dali. I was getting exhausted from looking. Too much art for my brain.

Courtesy of MOMA ©2012 Cindy Sherman

As I walked up to the sixth floor I started to formulate some thoughts about Cindy Sherman. “Ok, what do I actually know about her work? Not much. The untitled film stills, centerfolds, clowns, the Art 21 episode, hype, accolades. What’s my baseline sentiment? How do I feel about her work? Not really my thing, but I like the film stills, so I’m curious. Will I be looking at photography, or art? That’s a stupid question. Must eradicate that impulse. Just look at the fucking pictures.”

At the entrance you’re greeted by a wall of large murals (above), which are Sherman’s latest body of work. The exhibition is divided into 11 galleries based on theme, not chronology. The complete series of ‘untitled film stills’ and ‘centerfolds’ take up two galleries. These are the two bodies of work that I was most familiar with and curious to see in full view. Neither disappoint.

In all, there are 70 photographs in the ‘untitled film still’ series. Viewing the entire series displays Sherman’s various approaches to composition. There are portraits, intimate candid photographs, documentary style, voyeuristic, blurry, abstract, all with a very cinematic feel to them, which naturally was the objective.

‘Centerfolds’ contains the photographs that I’m guessing most people casually familiar with her work will recognize. The girl in orange laying on the kitchen floor (Untitled #96) for example. It’s a pleasure to see great prints of famous photographs on a wall, but what I was more interested in were the photographs that were unfamiliar. Viewing the entire series clearly brings out much more nuance in the work. The darker, saturated palette in the series was appealing as well.

Courtesy of MOMA ©2012 Cindy Sherman – From ‘centerfolds’

After those two series is when Sherman really starts experiment and disappear into more diverse characters. The work from middle ’8os to ’90s  includes her series of fantasy and grotesque images, as well as her history portraits. Most of these photographs are intentionally absurd and provocative which I didn’t find that interesting.

The ‘headshot’ work from the 2000s (below) was the series that I found most interesting. I wasn’t familiar with it going in, so I was pleasantly surprised. In these photographs Sherman the satirist comes alive. The best satire works by existing an inch away from reality. These portraits inhabit that terrain. This is Sherman at the top of her game in my opinion. She’s fully immersed in a diverse set of female characters that are recognizable American stereotypes. Most wear too much makeup and have a hint of sadness, and yet seem to be very proud to be in front of the camera. I spent a good amount of time absorbing these portraits, and thinking about the way Sherman channels so many styles of portraiture into her work. It’s impressive.

After viewing this series and the large scale society portraits I began to have a much deeper appreciation for Sherman’s work. It’s difficult to not enter these type of exhibitions without a whole host of assumptions, mainly that I wouldn’t enjoy or appreciate the work, which is silly considering I’d never really taken the time to look at it. I felt very fortunate that I was able to experience her work in such a setting.

Courtesy of MOMA ©2012 Cindy Sherman – From ‘headshots’

Courtesy of MOMA ©2012 Cindy Sherman – From ‘headshots’

As I strolled through the galleries for a second time, I found myself not really even thinking about photography. Yes, these were photographs but that didn’t matter, I was engaged with Sherman’s ideas and most importantly how she articulated them visually. There’s simply no way you can look at this body of work and not realize you’re encountering an extremely gifted, original artist. It’s much the same feeling I had while browsing the work of the great painters in the floors below.

That said, there were certainly photographs such as the ‘clown’ series that simply didn’t resonate with me visually, but I still appreciated Sherman’s willingness to push herself as an artist, which naturally is important, and necessary.

Too often I find myself gravitating to the type of work I know that I’ll enjoy. These days I actively try to avoid this tendency because I’m interested in exploring a diverse range of photographic approaches, and not simply retreating to what’s comfortable.

As I left the exhibition, I pulled out my phone and searched for Atget and MOMA so I could figure out where I should be going. Turns out, the third floor. Atget would be my last stop in a very long day of looking at art, but I’ll cover that in a later article.

Courtesy of MOMA ©2012 Cindy Sherman

Cindy Sherman
February 26–June 11, 2012

Museum of Modern Art
11 West 53rd Street
New York, NY 10019

It’s worth noting that the entire exhibition is available in a special section on the MOMA website. It’s very well done. Not perfect, but it’s not flash, the images are nice a big, and there’s plenty of additional audio commentary.

Elsewhere

• Cindy Sherman @MOMA [DLK Collection]
• Cindy Sherman Unmasked [NYTimes]
• Video: Cindy Sherman in ‘Transformation’ [ART21]
• Pictures of You: Cindy Sherman at the Museum of Modern Art [Gallerist NY]
• Being Cindy [Hyperallergic]

Courtesy of MOMA ©2012 Cindy Sherman – From ‘Untitled Film Stills’

A few weeks ago an article in the Financial Times about Paul Graham’s new work ‘The Present’ appeared in my Facebook feed. The project is Graham’s contribution to the tradition of street photography, the genre that first really got me interested in photography. As anyone whose read LPV over the years knows, I’ve been fairly active in the online street photography community. It’s a genre I’ve spent a considerable amount of time studying.

Street photography has become incredibly popular on the internet, and there have been a few prominent gallery shows, like Joel Sternfeld’s ‘First Pictures.’ And of course, the Vivian Maier story has brought a certain amount of mainstream attention to the genre. All of these are welcome developments for street street photography, and yet it’s been my experience that street photographers don’t feel the genre gets the respect it deserves.

In fact, Graham’s essay ‘The Unreasonable Apple’ caused a bit of a stir amongst bloggers a couple of years ago. Our contribution came in the form of Blake Andrews’ excellent article‘The Beautiful Burden,’ which is worth reading if you haven’t seen it. Essentially the argument goes that the art world doesn’t understand or appreciate straight photography. I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole again but if you’re interested, Harlan Erskine has a nice roundup of articles addressing the essay.

It all seems a bit ironic now, considering Graham is represented by The Pace Gallery. Some of the other artists on Pace’s roster include Sol Lewitt, de Kooning, Chuck Close, Kiki Smith and many, many others. This makes the argument that the art world doesn’t understand or appreciate straight photography a bit challenging to defend. I’m sure Graham stands by his essay, and I think he’s more than likely an outlier, one of the few that’s been anointed.

With this new work though, I think he’s going to be scorned by a majority of street photographers, who will raise grievances about the work being overly conceptual and not ‘real’ or ‘authentic street photography. Graham has committed the ultimate sin against the genre, he started with an idea before pounding the pavement.

Photography, at its simplest, is a moment sliced out of the continuum of life. What Graham is after is “the breaking down of the decisive moment, not allowing life to become this single frozen shard, trying to reflect something of the flow of time in the work”. In his New York pictures, this is carried out with even greater economy. “You don’t need a multiplicity of images. You show what happens, then what happens next. And so you shift your focus. You don’t need to show 10 other moments, you’ve implied that it’s a continuum and what you thought mattered shifts quickly and transforms itself into another thing that matters for that instant.”

After reading that I’m certain many street photographers blood will boil and they’ll take to the keyboard to air their grievances in forums around the web (HCSP, I’m looking at you!) They might have a point and before viewing the show I was skeptical too but not because of the concept, rather the photographs didn’t look all that impressive. In fact, they looked like mediocre street photography!

I convinced my friend Kramer O’Neill to join me at the opening, which was only a short walk from where we work. I figured he’d be a good person to discuss the show with since he’s also been immersed in street photography for the last several years, and always has reasonable insights to share.

The show featured sixteen diptych and two triptych prints that were hung a few inches from the floor. The large prints and perspective gave you the feeling of being on the street, immersed in the scene. As we walked around looking at the prints, Kramer and I both commented on the quality of the prints and how nice it must be to print that large. It’s really something to see street photographs blown up that large. It’s too bad most of the scenes weren’t very interesting or compositionally messy. I felt like I was falling right into Graham’s trap.

As we continued around, we arrived at a photograph of a woman who had fallen and was offered assistance from a few men in suits. We both thought it was a nice, almost classic street scene. Hmmmm, fuck. At this point I knew Graham was fucking with my mindset as a street photographer. I started to realize he was addressing issues that all street photographers confront. You spend hours and hours making photographs and not many of them are very good. But in order to get a few good photographs, you need to make all of those bad photographs. It seemed to me that what Graham was saying is that those photographs right before and after the “traditional keeper (decisive moment)” are valuable, and in fact incredibly important to the practice of street photography.

This is something that all experienced street photographers understand but they’d never show those photographs.

“Only show your best work! You’re lucky if you can get two or three keepers a year!”

That’s the standard thinking, and Graham knows it.

After we viewed all the photographs, Kramer and I chatted in the center of the gallery, now surrounded by what I’d call the ‘art world’ crowd from my few visits to openings in Chelsea. It wasn’t the type of crowd you’d see at a smaller photography show at a photography only gallery.

I told Kramer what I found interesting was that Graham seemed to be specifically addressing the tradition of street photography while also producing a body of work that a broader art audience would find potentially compelling (I’m not sure of the art reaction, haven’t read anything yet.) We both found it interesting but weren’t exactly blown away by the actual photographs. I ended up talking mostly about the ideas and the concept, which I found interesting and worthy of discussion.

I appreciate how he attempts to create value in photographs that would normally be discarded. This isn’t exactly a new idea, but I think it’s refreshing in the context of street photography. If you think about it, it actually sort of mimics the way many people view street photography on the web. You often ended up sorting through numerous mediocre photographs to find the gems. In fact, my friend Justin Vogel’s Flickr stream sort of follows the logic Graham embraces in this show.

Kramer patiently listened as I sipped my beer and rambled on.

“Yeah, those are the type of things you can think about when you’re wealthy, old and have nothing to do but make photographs,” he quipped at one point.

Then out of the corner of my eye I spotted a famous face. “Is that David Byrne?” I asked. “Yeah, I think so,” Kramer replied unimpressed.

After that we left. I told Kramer that I thought street photographers were going to hate these photographs. In fact, I know they will, which is too bad because I think this work intelligently addresses some of the concerns and challenges all street photographers face. As a body of work, it attempts to deconstruct a bit of the magic that can happen with really good street photography. That’s probably the problem.

I’m not sure street photographers want the genre to be deconstructed or challenged. They like it just how it is, which is fine I suppose. They’re a stubborn bunch, but I think if they look closely at this body of work, they’ll see that Graham has a great mount of respect for the genre and how difficult it is to create compelling images. This body of work seems like a great homage to not only the tradition of street photography, but where it stands in the present.

Paul Graham: The Present
Feb 24, 2012 – Mar 24, 2012
The Pace Gallery

I view portfolio reviews and photography competitions with a heavy dose of skepticism. I think there needs to be more dialogue about portfolio reviews and the“the photography-competition-portfolio-review-exposure-complex” in general. There are a handful out there that are top notch, and incredibly valuable but there are more that really are nothing more than money making schemes.

So, needless to say I was a bit apprehensive when I was invited to sit as a reviewer at the ASMP fine art portfolio review. “Oh man, I’ve said some fairly critical things about portfolio reviews in the past. This would make me a hypocrite.”

I thought about it for a day but eventually didn’t really see any reason why I shouldn’t attend. Why? Well, it’s free for members for one thing. Also, let’s not beat around the bush, it’s good exposure for LPV. It helps me gain more visibility for what we’re doing. That’s important because I believe in the work we’re featuring and want to do what I can to share it with people who will appreciate it.

If it were a review where photographers paid a fee, the decision would have been more difficult. Or I should say, it would have been more difficult before my experience on Tuesday.

Going into the review I wasn’t sure what to expect. I was confident in my ability to talk about photography but also knew my weaknesses: need to learn more about the history of the medium; need to learn more about the fine art and commercial photography market; need to better understand the historical role photography has played in the media; need to view many more books; need to read Barthes, Sontag, Badger, etc., etc.

Despite those weaknesses, I was still confident I could look at a set of photographs and offer some honest feedback. I think most anyone whose spent time looking at enough photography could as well.

I wasn’t sure what type of work I’d be looking at or how many people would even have a clue about what LPV was all about. Given the exceptional list of fellow reviewers I was expecting I might just spend a few hours messing around on Twitter.

I arrived at Calumet and had a glass of wine. There were several familiar faces. I chatted with Julie Grahame of aCurator (which should be on everyone’s reading list) and Stella Kramer who somehow manages to be at every photography event in New York City. I don’t know how she does it!

©Tommy Forbes

Talking About Photographs

I took my seat and sipped on some water as the instructions were announced. Then it was time. Each review would be ten minutes. The first person to sit in front of me was actually a familiar face, which made for a very pleasant start to the evening. I don’t know the protocol on these things so I’m not going to name any names just to be on the safe side (even though I doubt most people would mind the promotion!).

I generally started each review with a few questions: how long have you been working on the project? What’s your goal? A book? A show? What are you struggling with right now?

As they answered I’d flip through the prints and then share my thoughts, which would vary from project to project as one would expect. There were some projects where the conversation flowed nicely, while others I really struggled to find anything meaningful to say. A few times I thought: “They definitely think this idiot has no idea what he’s talking about.”

And that was probably true. As I highlighted above, there are some areas where I still have much to learn

As the night progressed, an internal dialogue developed in my mind about the importance of being able to talk about photographs. Man, it’s important. You need to be able to articulate why a body of work resonates with you. It’s also important to sharpen your critical skills so you can figure out exactly why some photography doesn’t resonate with you.

This is hard. Really hard. But also really important.

This got me to thinking about how I present photography on LPV. More often than not I simply show the work without much commentary. I think is fine for the most part, but I’m also going to start writing more about some of the work I’m featuring. This is going to come in the form of book reviews, perhaps talking single images, and also bodies of work. It’s important, and something I want to work on.

Photographers Want Feedback

Perhaps the most important lesson I learned from the review was that photographers really want and appreciate feedback on their work. Seems obvious, right? My cynicism probably got the best of me when I assumed that most people were simply trying to promote their work and show it to the right people.

After a few hours of discussing projects I left realizing that there are many photographers out there that simply want to produce the best work possible and fully realize their vision. This is something I should know because that’s how I feel about my personal work.

The biggest rush I get is when I’m able to talk with passionate photographers about their projects. That type of collaborative energy is a beautiful thing.

It was a great experience. I met some incredibly talented and inspiring photographers, and learned a few things along the way. Thanks ASMP!

One year is like a decade in internet time. It’s only been nine months since the re-design/re-branding and launch of the print magazine, but it feels like this is the way we’ve always been. I feel much more at ease with the editorial direction now than I did at the end of last year. And yet, I’m filled with anxiety about 2012 because the landscape for photography blogs and magazines is complicated and changing incredibly fast. It’s extremely difficult to sustain any momentum and get your voice heard in a crowded marketplace.

I feel fortunate we’ve been able to sustain a decent readership and following on our social media channels. Modest, but growing I like to think. The numbers don’t really concern me though. I’m primarily focused on evolving and improving editorially. Quality is what counts and that’s what brings in readers.

For us, that not only means developing interesting features for the web, but also for our print edition. It’s been an interesting experience and as you can imagine, working in print brings in a whole new set of challenges. There are some things we’ll do differently next year but for the most part I’m very happy with the issues we published this year.

A big thanks to the guys that did the design work: Alex JD Smith, Geoffrey Ellis and Alexi Hobbs. Thanks to James Turnley for all his help during the year. He’s always a great sounding board for me and has contributed some interesting features over the year.

The biggest thanks though goes out to our readers! And our print subscribers. It’s hard to gauge who’s actually reading your website but this year I received some incredibly moving emails and submissions, which always re-energized me and made me excited about the future of LPV. I’m dead set on pursuing collaborations that will bring us to new places editorially, even if that means having a modest readership. LPV would not continue if I didn’t feel creatively challenged and excited to work with photographers, designers, and writers. I still feel excited about what we’re doing and believe we’re still in the very early stages of a long journey.

©Alor Mark Powell- From Issue #1

Highlights From 2011

LPV Magazine in Print
It’s been a struggle at times, but I’m very proud of the work we’ve done with the print issues. We can certainly improve though. If you subscribe, you’ll receive all three issues at once, and you’ll be eligible for our photobook raffle. We’ll be raffling three books to our subscribers in a few weeks.

But maybe you don’t have the funds to buy the print versions. That’s cool! I understand. You can always download the PDF’s for FREE or browse through the issues right here, which also includes the interviews.

Photographs on the Brain
The tumblr took off this year. I primarily use it to aggregate interesting articles and photographs that I find while surfing the web. It’s fairly simple and I like it that way.

Community, Crowdfunding & Incentives
A piece I wrote about in January about the importance of community building and crowdfunding incentives. David Campbell wrote an excellent three part series around these issues, sighting this article in Part 2.

The Hermit Photographer
Ok, I guess I can publicly reveal that Emerson, The Hermit Photographer is fictional. I needed to create new voice and character to channel some of ideas, and basically just to rant a bit. It was amusing to watch the reaction though. I was toying with the idea of creating a Tumblr but writing in the voice for a prolonged period could be hazardous.

The Process, The Stream, and The EndI think this was the best essay I wrote this year. It wrapped up some ideas I’ve had about publishing photography on the internet. Unfortunately, there really are no concrete answers to the challenges at this point.

The Dreams and Delusions of Photographers
Perhaps a bit cynical at times, but it provoked a decent debate.

Photographers Should Write More
Probably the most read article of the year. Words and photographs can be a contentious issue but I consider myself a writer and a photographer so they need to find a way to co-exist in my creative universe.

Feature: “I don’t fuck much with the past but I fuck plenty with the future”
A collaboration with Pauline Magnenat of All of This Is Rocket Science. She’s pretty great.

A Photobook Friday in Brooklyn
Thanks to Noah Kalina and Joerg Colberg for making this happen. It was awesome. I can’t wait for the next one!

Elizabeth Clark Libert – Portraits
I really enjoyed the stories that Elizabeth shared about a few of her portraits.

Nguan – “the quiet hum of ordinary life”
Nguan shot this series exclusively for LPV. That’s a first, and man, it’d be awesome if we could do more of that in the future while fairly compensating photographers!

Joao Canziani – 99
It was an amazing experience working with Joao on a project he was so passionate about. Truly one of the most enjoyable creative collaborations I’ve had running LPV, and certainly an experience I’ll never forget. Thanks Joao!

James Luckett – Forest
For the last couple of years I’ve wanted to work with James. We’d correspond. Throw out some ideas. He’d send strange and amusing postcards. Then finally he hit on an idea and I let him run with it. Turned out great.

Mikael Kennedy – Passport to Trespass Vol. 8 & 9 – Part 1
What an honor to work with Mikael as he brought his epic project to a close. I have a deep admiration for his philosophy toward not only photography but life.

©Mark King- From Issue #2

A Few Speculations About 2012

1) The Collaborative Platform
There are numerous collectives active right now, but not many collective photography blogs or platforms. I think this will change in 2012. People will realize that running a one person shop is hard work and will realize that if they pool their resources together they can build something more sustainable. We hope to do this with LPV, and I predict that the launch of the new Flak Photo site will be more collaborative in nature.

2) More More More More Photography Magazines
Hey, there’s nothing too terribly difficult about all of this stuff. There will be more photography magazines with kickass designs, big hopes and great photographs. Many will probably publish print versions as well. It’ll be increasingly difficult to stand out in the crowd. To stand out, magazines and blogs will need to offer something unique editorially.

3) Video Killed the Writer
Look for more video to show up in blogs and magazines. We’ll be experimenting with video interviews. I think there’s real opportunity here because it requires collaboration and very few are doing it well right now.

4) Revenge of The Critics
I’m not sure about this one but I have a hunch that a few blogs dedicated to criticism and deeper analysis will develop and be welcomed to the online community. I think if the tone resonates, there’s a real opportunity for photography criticism to take hold. There’s been several discussions about this online the last week which I think is early sign of demand for critical writing.

5) iPad is the Place to Be
I’m a loser. I don’t have an iPad yet. Fuck! Tablets are exciting and new and the future and awesome and ‘the way’ and the savior. Yeah, ok. Give it a few years. Shiny new object syndrome and all that, but clearly there’s something interesting and innovative going on. Many more publishers will experiment in 2012 and probably hit upon something interesting.

6) You’re Not Invited to the Party!
The wild west of the web can be fun but conversation can quickly devolve into chaos. Closed networks (Flak Photo Network), private forums, hidden Tumblr’s will pop up more frequently. I welcome this change. My days in HCSP have taught me that open, online Forums really are dead ends. Or maybe I just haven’t explored enough. Irregardless, we have the tools now to easily put up the gates and I think many more people will do so.

7) Sorry, There’s No $$$ in Photoland
My sense is that the terrible economy has forced many people to turn to the internet for hope. They’re underemployed, perhaps desperate, and looking for something positive. The internet is attractive. If you work hard, you can build something. Unfortunately, making money on the internet is extremely difficult. Sure, there are the outliers that many people look to as the way forward, but mostly it’s just a dream. I don’t want to be the type of guy who pisses on a dream, but I think people need to be realistic about what they can do on the web.

To those that prove me wrong, congratulations. You’re in select company.

©Missy Prince – From Issue #2

LPV in 2012

1) More Writing About Photography and Book Reviews
I plan to do more writing about books and photography next year. Last year I spent a good amount of time thinking about how web culture is impacting photography. Over the last few months I’ve felt I’ve said pretty much everything that I need to say about social media and the internet. Maybe that’ll change, who knows. But next year I want to spend more time writing about photography books and photographs. I think photography is a great portal into our culture and I want to explore that through writing.

2) LPV Video
I’ve got some ideas for video and will probably explore them. Will it work? Will showing my mug on video be a disastrous PR move? Maybe. That’s why I plan on bringing in guests so we can have conversations about photography over a couple of beers.

3) Collaboration
I welcome the eager, the ambitious, the hungry, those delirious and desirous to forage into the unknown. Young, old, naive, established, I want to hear from you. I want to hear about your crazy ideas. I want to be bored by your stupid ideas. I want to engage in philosophical conversations with you about memory, history, technology and the nature of photography. I want something new. I want to be challenged. I want your energy to frighten me. I want to sit down with you in a pub, in your town, on your time, on my dime. We’ll make things right, we’ll make things happen.

4) The Death of LPV
I might just walk away. “Kill your darlings.” I’m a dilettante. I’ve always found other things to do. Life is fun. If the adventure gets boring, veer off course and go somewhere else.

Issue #3 will be published online in the next week, featuring Ed Panar, Hannah Pierce-Carlson, Shane Lynam and Tommy Forbes, plus a group show edited by James Turnely.

I browse numerous photography blogs and magazines, probably not as many as some people, but I’m guessing more than the median photography enthusiast. There are plenty of destinations to find quality work these days but I find there are very few that have a distinct point of view, and finding quality writing about photography is still a challenge. Far too many new blogs and magazines simply want to replicate what’s been done already (me too!) or have misguided editorial missions (“we want to expose photography/photographers we love/think is great/deserves more attention/ to a wider audience!”).

These days I can get a bit cranky about internet publishing, part of which comes from my own frustrations with trying to carve out a distinct perspective for LPV, but also I think there’s a shortage of critical discussions about what we’re dong online. Nobody in general is to blame for that, after all, who really wants to talk about social media and publishing? “Is blogging dead?” “How is social media impacting photography?” discussions tend to be short of new observations and generally resort to platitudes and hype, both of which we need far less of online. The critical, combative, engaged discussions generally aren’t very well received online, and in fact the web might not even be the best venue for those type of discussions. Anyway, I digress.

With this list I want to briefly comment on a group of blogs, magazines, destinations, websites, that I have a tremendous amount of respect for at the moment. There are many others that are very good, but these have triggered something in my mind that I think is worth noting. Please feel free to disagree and create your own list! After all, it is that time of the year!

About: A website dedicated to contemporary fine-art photography, founded and edited by Jörg M. Colberg

Comment: Next year will be the ten  year anniversary. If there’s one blog that’s on the must read list for fine art photography, it’s Conscientious. I’ve not always agreed with Jorg but I’ve never stopped reading his articles or viewing the work he publishes. He’s simply very good at what he does and doesn’t mince words. He writes about ideas and is a curious curator. You can try to pigeon hole him, but it won’t work. This year, what I’ve respected most are his new initiatives. He jumped back on Twitter and quickly became a must follow. He published a book, “Conversations With Photographers.” He continued his publishing initiative with Meir and Mueller. He experimented with Google+ and sharing photography books on Youtube. He showed his comedic chops in a couple of very funny videos. He does what every good blogger and publisher should do: he evolves and continues the curious pursuit of his passions.

Recommended: Photography is Over

About: “…a unique site combining social giving and photography. Its mission is to raise funds to purchase equipment for young, emerging photographers from economically disadvantaged backgrounds from Colombia, and eventually from around the world…”

Comment: The mission statement very clearly announces what you’re to expect and it’s very admirable. Tom Griggs is a savvy publisher, creating features that tap into the active online community with a keen editorial eye. I’ve always thought that the internet was a good place to learn if you can make your way through the noise. Griggs is certainly someone who believes this and isn’t hesitant to put in the necessary work to achieve his mission. I’m very excited to see where he takes things in the next year and can’t wait to view the work from the students he’s collaborating with. This is an incredibly exciting new site and one that I hope others with aspirations for creating photography platforms will learn from in the future.

Recommended: Current Microgrant

About: The blog of photographer Blake Andrews.

Comment: Not much to add from what I wrote last year. Every post is still a surprise.

From 2010: You never really know what to expect from Blake.  He operates in a mental space that very few bloggers can access on a regular basis. He taps into the photography web zeitgeist in a way that adds depth to his irreverent posts.  Beyond the hijinks and humor, he’s also a fantastic and insightful writer.  When he decides to challenge an idea, he makes sure he’s thought about the argument, and offers counter points worth thinking about.

Recommended: The Sprig and Optimal Lag

About: To joust in the melee of contested meanings in surveillance, fine-art, documentary, amateur, institution, and virtual photographies of prisons and other sites of incarceration.

Comment: Pete Brook gets straight to the point and he’s on a mission. I was fortunate enough to meet with him twice this year and each time I came away believing more and more in his mission. His blog doesn’t ask you to think, it forces you to think. It’s always smart, finely edited and illuminating. The subject matter isn’t for everybody. It’s the type of work and issues that we’d just rather ignore. After all, of all the members of society, prisoners are the mostly likely garner little sympathy from the general public. Pete understands this challenge but confronts it head on. Realistic, honest, funny and passionate. After a few minutes browsing through his blog, you’ll come away thinking and it’ll be a nagging thought you’re not likely to shake.

Recommended: Photographing the Prostitutes of Italy’s Backroads: Google Street View vs. Boots on the Ground

About: LightBox, a new blog by TIME’s photo department, will explore how photography, video and the culture of images define today’s world.

Comment: As I’ve heard, LightBox was a clandestine operation by the Time photo editors that didn’t have the sanction of the corporate overlords. Thankfully for us, they’re disobedience went unpunished. It’s really a no brainer, but the cynic in me says, “jeez guys, it took you this long to get started?” Now that they’re here though, we’re exposed to a very tightly edited, engaging dose of photography on a daily basis. They have the resources and access that most independent bloggers and magazines simply never will have, and it shows in the quality and diversity of the work.

Recommended: Merry Christmas from Lee Friedlander

About: An independent charitable gallery (Cardiff, Wales) run by photographers Joni Karanka, Maciej Dakowicz, Bartosz Nowicki and a group of committed volunteers.

Comment: I’ve known Joni for a few after meeting him in HCSP. It’s been exciting watching what they’ve done with TFG this year. Actually, it’s pretty fucking remarkable and shows exactly what a group of passionate, intelligent photographers can achieve if they have a vision and dedication to bringing it to fruition. The TFG web presence is pretty straightforward and that’s all it needs to be. They’re able to get the word out to the right people and have been successful in raising the necessary funds to keep them afloat. In their first two years, they’ve exhibited Tomas Van Houtryve, Rob Hornstra, Ben Roberts, David Hurn, Laura Pannack, Chris Steele-Perkins, Peter Dench, and Carolyn Drake. That’s impressive. What more can you say?

Recommended: Support Us

About: Wayne Bremser’s Tumblr/Blog.

Comment: My favorite blog on Tumblr. Wayne is smart and the connections he makes between photographs is stimulating (“Bremser Image Telephone.”) He doesn’t write much, but when he does, it’s always very insightful and relevant. The photos run the spectrum from contemporary to historical, and are generally photographs that haven’t been heavily circulated in our visually saturated internet wasteland.

Recommended: How to Photograph the Entire World: The Google Street View Era

About: Facebook group of Flake Photo. “My hope is that by hosting online photo conversations in a single place the FPN will make it easier to share ideas and meet photography colleagues using Facebook.”

Comment: Maybe the years I’ve spent in photography forums has made me jaded, and kind of skeptical of these ‘community’ organizing initiatives, but I applaud Andy for his ability to bring together people that might not normally participate in photography forums. There’s plenty of conversation, insights and idea sharing happening on a weekly basis to keep my interest. It can be a great resource and it’s always interesting to read the opinions of people that don’t normally share them publicly.

Recommended: If you can get in…and tolerate the self-promotion.

About: The blog of duckrabbit, an award-winning digital production company.  We work with documentary audio, still photography and video to make compelling film and audio narratives for commercial, charity and broadcast clients.

Comment: There are  some blogs you like because of the attitude. duckrabbit is one of them for me. They have their nose to the grind and are tapped into the pulse of what’s happening with documentary photography and photojournalism. They’re opinionated, passionate and won’t back down from a good argument or debate. One to read for sure.

Recommended: Are photography degrees the joker in the pack?

About: Bagnews analyzes and reports news and media images. In an ever more visual society, BagNews seeks to better understand the levels of meaning, the underlying story lines and the various agendas reflected in the more prominent news pictures of the day.

Comment: Bag is one of those sites that I’ve said I read but more often than not only skim. Then this year I really started to read it regularly and found it incredibly interesting and insightful. The way photographs are used by media organizations in our hyper saturated, fast paced publishing world is worth taking the time to consider. For that type of analysis, there really is nowhere else to go other than the Bag.

Recommended: Taking it to the Kittens: The Pepper Spray Cop Meme — and What It Means

About: A Photo Editor (APE) is edited by Rob Haggart, the former Director of Photography for Men’s Journal and Outside Magazine.

Comment: The online pulse of the editorial and commercial photography world. Great resource for articles that are floating around. Jonathan Blaustein’s gallery and book reviews are long…but well worth the time investment. Recommended reading for anyone remotely curious or interested in the business side of commercial and editorial photography.

Recommended: Why Does Everyone Think They Need A Photo Book?

About: I examine how documentary photography and photojournalism work, the opportunities multimedia bring, and the challenges presented by the revolutions in the new media economy.

Comment: David’s thoughtful articles typically get me thinking. His subject matter might not be the most exciting for photographers but if you’re interested in publishing and how the web is evolving, creating new challenges & opportunities, then David’s blog is a must read. Always well researched, timely and engaging.

Recommended: Agencies as publishers: a new approach to photojournalism

About: Feature Shoot is run by photographer, photo editor and curator Alison Zavos and showcases work from up-and-coming photographers alongside established photographers who have completed a project or whose work has taken on a new direction.

Comment: Alison’s eyeballs must get really sore because she seems to see just about every photograph that’s published on the web. FS publishes an eclectic mix of work, crossing many genres and styles. What I like most about FS, is that I don’t like everything that’s published, and yet I keep coming back because I know there will be photographs that I haven’t seen before, many of which I’ll likely find interesting. Having chatted with Alison a few times, I have no doubt she’ll introduce new and exciting features in the next year.

Recommended: Parisian twins photographed by Maja Daniels

About: Edited by Constantin Nimigean

Comment: From Bucharest comes this serendipitous find. I’m not really sure how it came on my radar but after I subscribed I started to notice that most the photography strongly resonated with me. It was fun to see what was coming next. Sometimes he’d link to work I’d seen on other blogs but more often than not I’d be treated to work that hadn’t crossed my radar. I’m very interested to see how the site evolves in 2012.

Recommended: Valentina Riccardi – NO RENT

About: Edited tags from Tumblr.

Comment: It’s brilliant. Tumblr has chosen a group of photography enthusiasts to edit tags and promote work they think deserves more attention. So, what you get from the chaos of Tumblr is some semblance of organization. You can check the ‘portrait’ tag and find what’s ‘popular,’ ‘promoted’ and ‘everything’ else. They’ve made good choices in their editors too.

To show the power of Tumblr, and why I think every photographer should have a presence there, I’ll share an anecdote. I signed up in 2007 and started aggregating work under LPV/Photographs on the Brain. In four years, I gained about 2,000 followers. A few weeks ago I posted this wonderful photograph by Chris Dorley-Brown. In two days, after being ‘promoted’ it accumulated over 10,000 notes and became ‘popular.’ Within five days I’d gained nearly 4,500 followers. If Tumblr can harness this viral power and create a compelling ‘Front Page,’ they could really be onto something very interesting.

Regular reads, recommended: Unless you will, Fraction Magazine, 1000 Words, Eyecurious, Colin Pantall, LENS, New Landscape Photography, The Great Leap Sideways, Two Way Lens, Wayne Ford, dvafoto, Raw File, Shooting Wide Open, lenscratch, DLK Collection, This is the what, Search the Light, Two for the Road,urbanautica, LUCEO, Banana Leaves

Last month I received an email from Ross Mantle inviting me to “a gathering, presentation and conversation around images and film” at his apartment in Greenpoint. Photographers Jason Andrew and John Francis Peters showed a slideshow of projects they were working on, while filmmaker John Wilson showed one of his short films.

After each presentation the group of around 10 discussed the projects and offered up their ideas on how they could be pushed forward. It was an interesting experience and really refreshing to be in a setting where ideas could be discussed amongst a group of creative people. The artists were very open to criticism and new ideas for their projects.

This experience is not that unique I’m sure, your typical class for a photography student, but for me it was another recent experience that greatly influenced how I want LPV evolve in the future.

I’m very fortunate to be able to live in Brooklyn and meet up with photographers who are interested in kicking around ideas. These interactions have further solidified my desire to work more closely with photographers on LPV projects and features. I find it far more rewarding than simply going through ‘submissions’ and looking for ‘content’ to feed the photoland beast.

About Submissions 

I feel very honored that photographers are interested enough in what we’re doing to take the time to submit their work. In general, I have to say the quality of our submissions is pretty high, at least by my perhaps pedestrian standards. We’ve published plenty of work that’s come directly from submissions, so I’m grateful, but at the same time, I’ve always felt a bit depressed about rejecting others. But that just goes with the territory.

Over the last few months there have been multiple occasions where I’ve received a submission for a body of work that resonates strongly with me, only to find that same work appear on a blog I follow within a week. “I guess I’m too slow,” I always say to myself.

I try not to publish work that’s been too widely distributed, even though I know each blog and magazine probably has their own unique audiences, and naturally strong work should be widely distributed, right? Still, it just makes me feel lazy as an editor, so I’ll often open up a dialogue with the photographer to brainstorm a new idea for a feature. An example of one of these collaborations is Elizabeth Clark Libert feature we published. I was pretty stoked about that one, as well as the recent feature of Nguan’s work.

Generally the photographers have been excited and open to ideas. It is a bit more work and sometimes features take a few weeks, or even months to come to fruition, but when they do, I feel the collaboration comes through in the feature we publish.

I frequently think about how photography is presented on the web and as I’ve written in the past, I wonder what exactly are we looking at when we see a selection of photographs on the web. I haven’t figured it out yet but I think there’s room to evolve the formulas that are most frequently used.

Sometimes we just seem to devour photography on the web like we’re at an all you can eat buffet of imagery. Gorge, gorge, gorge, more, more, more. We should watch out though, because I don’t think getting fat on photography & imagery is necessarily desirable. It’s impossible to take it all in anyway so we might as well focus on enjoying what we can and not give in to the impulse to gorge.

Point being, I’m not really attracted to sorting through submissions and simply publishing a few photographs from the projects that resonate with me. As an editor, and creative individual (I like to think anyway), I want more out of the process. I’m not interested in simply promoting certain photography because I think it deserves more exposure (which often just means sharing it with more photographers.)

Let’s Collaborate 

It’s taken a bit of soul searching, as well as some inspiring conversations, to arrive at the realization that what I’m really interested in doing with LPV is collaborating with photographers, writers and artists who want to create something unique and creatively meaningful for everyone involved in the process. So we’re going to keep going down that path.

Along that line of thinking, as LPV evolves, I think we’re going to become a bit more experimental in our editorial approach and will start showing new work from photographers that might break away from their typical style. I always like to ask photographers if they’re working on any new projects or have new work they’d like to show. I think we’re going to see more and more exclusive features on photography blogs and magazines, especially as we see more new endeavors emerge. It’s challenging to differentiate yourself these days, which I find to be exciting because it forces me as a publisher to keep thinking and evolving.

We have a long way to go, but I’m excited about our direction. If what we’re doing resonates with you, or if you have an idea for a collaboration, drop me an email. I know some people aren’t comfortable pitching ideas, and I respect that, so a standard submission is always welcome as well. I look forward to working with you and discussing how we can present your work in unique ways.

Collaborating and building long term relationships with photographers makes me incredibly excited about the future of LPV.

Cheers,

Bryan

I have a friend whose making a radical change with his life. He’s leaving the city because technology and the internet are driving him crazy. He feels if he doesn’t leave now he’ll end up having a complete mental breakdown.

Because I respect his wishes and the new direction he’s taking his life and work, I can only refer to him as ‘Emerson’ from this point forward.

I met Emerson a few years ago on Flickr when I saw him commenting frequently on a friends stream. I checked his work out and liked it so I started following him. He was a few years older than me but we shared the same sensibility. He was a cubicle dweller and made a decent living but you could tell it wasn’t what he really wanted to do.

Over the years his work consistently improved. He’s been working on one main project and then a smaller side project but both are really good and he’s built a decent following. His work has showed up on blogs every now and again but they’ve tended to be smaller. He hasn’t busted through to bigger blogs yet.

He’s savvy when it comes to social networking. He’s the one who introduced me to Tumblr a few years back when he moved his blog there. He’s never been very vocal and tends to just show his photographs but every now and again he’ll do some writing about his work and it tends to be really interesting. He’s been hoarding photography books for years, so his collection is impressive.

There have been times when he’d disappear online for a few weeks, leaving me wondering if he’d ever come back but then I’d get an IM from him late at night. After that there’d usually be a flurry of activity on his Flickr and blog. I could sense he was getting a bit fed up with the internet but I didn’t think much of it. We all get fed up with it from time to time. We’re receiving messages and links from so many people every day, how is it possible to really give any one person much thought? Sounds cold, but that’s the reality.

He was coy about his work life and finances but I knew he had a decent camera collection that included a Leica M7 and Rolleiflex, so I figured he was doing pretty good for himself. He made vague references to girlfriends and nights out with friends so I knew he had a social life too. He definitely drank while interneting but was good about keeping most things private.

Some nights he’d get on a roll though. His rants would often be funny but as the whisky flowed, so did the bitterness and anger. I’d often tell him that he needed to stay away from the internet and more specifically photoland.

©Anna Shelton

Google+ Was the Final Straw

About a month ago Emerson stopped posting to Flickr and Tumblr. In the few times we chatted I realized something was up. He told me was going to quit his job.

“To do what,” I asked

“Nothing,” he replied.

“What about money,” I asked.

“I’ve saved up,” he said. “Investing is another one of my hobbies.”

“Well, that makes things easier,”‘ I said. “I’d travel around the world.”

“That’s for the future,” he replied.

I didn’t hear from him again until last week. I figured he’d run away already and was too busy to give him much thought. Then he pinged me on Gchat.

“That’s it. Screw the internet. What is this Google+ shit? I’m done. Fuck all this social media shit and everyone who talks about it. It’s all boring. It’s all noise. Nobody writes anything interesting. They’re all drones churning out “content” for fascist overlords.”

“I don’t think it’s that bad,” I replied. “Just the world we live in these days.”

“The internet is destroying my creativity, ” he replied. “I can’t finish my projects. I can’t think. I have no attention span. Every time I check Twitter and Facebook I want to reach through the screen and punch people. It’s not healthy. This is no way to live. Have you read that book by Jaron Lanier?”

“No, not yet,” I said. “I’m too stupid to realize I need to read all the books about how the Internet is making me stupid.”

“The internet is making photography stupid,” he replied. “That much I know, which is why I’m done with it.”

“So what are you going to do,” I asked.

“I bought a piece of land in a remote part of the country,” he replied enthusiastically. “I can’t tell you where, sorry. I’m going to become a minimalist. I’ll make photographs. Grow vegetables. Build a darkroom, and just live.”

“The hermit photographer,” I said.

“Yeah, I guess you could look at it that way,” he replied. “I need to work on the ideas, on the philosophy. Photographers need to get away from hyper-connectivity, and all this internet shit. It’s making the work all look the same . All these anxiety ridden photographers hustling for attention. Tweeting frivolously, talking about their shows, or what stupid blog they’ve appeared in. Oh, you have a Blurb book! You’re an amazing visionary! Destined for immortality. The whole thing is whacked. Never before in the history of humanity have so many people been so delusional about their creative talents.”

“Yeah, it’s probably time you got away from civilization,” I replied. “Drastically changing the way you live will probably have an interesting influence on your photography.”

“Yeah, exactly,” he said. “Photographers get too caught up in their routines and mental patterns. Everything becomes planned, almost scientific. Chance, luck, fate, messing with it all. You’ve got to do it. You’ve got to mess with your reality, mess with your own brain to really make something unique.”

“Can I visit,” I asked.

“Yeah, man,” he replied. “I want it to be a destination, a place where photographers come and hang out. I’ll set up a room for showing work. It’ll be a gallery in the woods. With fresh vegetables and natural scenery.

“How are you going to get the word out,” I asked. “Thought the point was to run away and leave it all behind.”

“You’re my pointman,” he said.

“I’m not sure I want the job,” I retorted.

“I’m leaving all my work to you,” he said. “When I die, it’s in your hands.”

To be continued….

Over the last few months I’ve been thinking about how we choose to present photographs and photographic projects on the internet. The first results of this inquiry were a couple of articles that I wrote about writing which I think is an important aspect to presenting photography on the internet. In this article I want to discuss a few ideas that have crystallized in the last few weeks which will hopefully open a dialogue about some of these issues.

Photography as Process

Over the last few years there’s been an ongoing debate in media circles about the evolution of journalism in the social media age. One of the ideas that I’ve found interesting is the notion of ‘process journalism.’ Simply put, this means posting a story on the web before it’s fully baked, or all the facts are known. As consumers, we’re able to watch the story form in real time across various networks, such as blogs, Twitter, Tumblr or Facebook. This is quite different from the traditional way we’d consume news which would be by reading a fully fleshed out article in the newspaper.

There are certainly pros and cons to it but I’m not going to get into that, rather I’d like to talk about how it relates to photography.

By now it’s rather common for photographers to share work from projects in progress. In fact, it’s so common that I think we’ve taken for granted how big a change this is from the past. You’ll often hear photographers from an older generation say things like “only show your very best work” or “never show your contact sheets,” advice many photographers still heed, but I think amongst younger photographers we’re seeing a tendency to show more photographs from projects, many of which will likely end up on the cutting room floor.

Not only are photographers showing more work but they’re also openly discussing their projects on blogs and other social media channels. This provides other photographers and fans with an opportunity to glean insights about the project as well as follow the travails that accompany working on a long term project.

I think photographers who are transparent with their process and share openly make a stronger connection with their fans and other photographers. Emphas.is is a perfect example how this might work on a larger scale. We’re already seeing evidence of how fans and followers can become apart of the process which offers some exciting possibilities for collaborative projects in the future.

The photography as process model does present a few challenges. First, it’s more work for the photographer. Instead of devoting all of their attention on making the work, they also need to devote time to writing articles, editing and engaging with their audience. This can be challenging, especially for hermetic type photographers.

Second, there’s the potential for over exposure. By the time the project reaches completion many followers maybe bored with it, or have seen enough of the work online and will decided not to buy the book. Also, on the fine art side I’ve heard that some curators and publishers warn against over exposing projects online. I don’t understand the logic of this but I’ve heard it mentioned a few times.

I’m sure many people would rather experience a project in its final form and won’t be interested in the process, but I think as the way we publish photography on the web continues to evolve we’ll see more thought put into how we present ’photography as process.’

©)ezra(

Welcome to the Stream

The platforms we use to share and distribute information almost uniformly present it in a stream of some variety. The stream constantly flows with fragments of information, links, photos, stories, etc. I’m sure we’ve all had the experience of the odd juxtaposition in our streams. We jump from a funny meme to a serious news story to a blog post from a photographer we admire almost seamlessly. This behavior has become so habitual it’s like channel surfing.

The stream dictates how photographers publish and present work on the web as well. Blogs are typically a stream of individual, disconnected posts about projects, accomplishments, ruminations or just a series of new photographs. Flickr and other photosharing sites are built around the stream too – the “photostream.”

We have Twitter streams, Facebook streams, Tumblr streams, Google+ streams, all sending a constant flow of articles and photographs. For many, it must feel like being caught in the rapids of raging river.

What do most of us do? We feed the stream without much forethought. We find an interesting article, we share it on Twitter/Tumblr/Facebook/Google+.  When we have a funny thought or observe something strange while at lunch, we post it to our Twitter or Facebook streams.

Blog posts might be the one area where we sit back and take a bit more time to formulate our thoughts. But each blog post is generally its own self-contained piece. We might think about a post for a few days before publishing it but my general feeling is that most photographers still write their posts when inspiration strikes or they come across something on the web that sparks an idea.

I’m sure all of us understand this is the nature of publishing and sharing on the web but I want to put it in words so we can slow down and think about it.

And then I want to ask why we follow this formula? Why do we allow the stream to dictate our behavior?

There are people out there breaking out of the formula, but I haven’t seen many in photoland. (Send me examples!)

Instead of posting a series of disconnected blog posts, why not serialize them and tell a story? Have a new project in the works? Why not plan out a series of posts that tell the story of how it came to be, from inspiration to execution. The only limitation to the possibilities here are creativity and courage.

This begins to touch on a larger issue within photoland. For the most part, I think the web is viewed as a platform for discussing and commenting on photography and not as a storytelling platform.

That doesn’t have to be the case though. The tools we have at our dispense are powerful and can be used in many creative ways. The time is ripe for a photographer to fuck with our expectations and put these tools to use in new ways that will engage us on a deeper level.

The stream is powerful and frightening. Conforming to its expectations is understandable. But the stream is also malleable. All it takes to change our perceptions of how it can be used are a few creative people who aren’t afraid to push the boundaries of what’s possible. And they exist everywhere.

©Missy Prince

When Does it End?

In what might be the most insightful article I’ve read this year, Paul Ford writes illuminatingly about how our consumption of information via “the stream” and social media competes against our desire to experience stories with definitive endings.

You should read it. Especially if you’re a project oriented photographer who believes your work is meant to be viewed in a book.

It wasn’t until I read this article that I realized what bothers me most about photoland, especially when it comes to looking at projects. And what bothers me is that I rarely get to see the ending. I rarely get to see the project presented in the form the photographer intended.

Each day we’re exposed to a number of new projects. We look at a selection of 10 photographs on a blog or 25 on a website but that’s it. That’s like watching a trailer for a movie, or reading a chapter from a book. In most instances, that’s all we’ll see. We’re left with a series of fragmented stories which interrupts our desire for endings.

I think this is why photoland can be so frustrating on the web. We’re constantly teased with interesting projects and bodies of work, but rarely get to see them in their final form. We may buy a book on occasion but I’d guess most people can’t afford to buy the book of every interesting project they come across on the web.

So, what exactly are we looking at when we view 10 photographs from a project on a blog or a series of 25 in a portfolio? A marketing campaign? A book trailer? Abridgment?

With few endings in sight, ‘the stream’ consumes us and we start to wonder why we even bother. That body of work on Fraction or Conscientious or LPV is great but we’ll never likely see it in its completed form, so what’s the point? Are we more creatively fulfilled knowing this work exists or would we be better off devoting our attention to completed works?

Unfortunately, this is the type of article without a nice tidy ending. The best I can do is share these thoughts and put them out into “the stream.” Maybe someone will latch onto an idea which may attract another idea and eventually crystallize into something insightful.

I know the photoland experience on the web can be more interesting and engaging. ‘The stream,’ and all the other tools can always be used in new ways if we challenge ourselves and embrace the flow.

We’ll still need professionals to organize the events of the world into narratives, and our story-craving brains will still need the narrative hooks, the cold opens, the dramatic climaxes, and that all-important “?” to help us make sense of the great glut of recent history that is dumped over us every morning. No matter what comes along streams, feeds, and walls, we will still have need of an ending.  - Paul Ford

So I do have this conviction that if people could somehow put themselves in the place of other people viewing their photographs in the future, their work would improve. That audience includes your heirs, your friends, your future self. I’ve been taking pictures all my life, but there are so many things, so many people, so many places, that were important to me, that I don’t have pictures of. In the future, neither you nor anybody else is going to care a whit about how saturated your reds are or how little noise you’ve got in the shadows. They, and you, are going to care what’s in the pictures—the stories behind them, what they meant to you, why they were important. I simply believe that if we were to try to second-guess posterity, it would make our work better. – Mike Johnston

 

Who do you think will view your photographs in the future? Or will remember them? Like Mike says, for most of us, I believe it’ll likely just be a small group of family, friends and descendants. If we’re lucky and this internet thing continues to evolve maybe there will be small communities of future photography zealots who will spend time digging into long dormant websites and Flickr streams (if these even exist into the future!)

While archiving and “image permanence” are important and worth discussing I’m actually more interested in what Mike says in the excerpt above because I think it resonates with a great number of photographers, especially those that document their lives and their immediate surroundings.

I’ve made my case for photographers to write more. Since then I’ve discussed the topic with several people and have heard some interesting ideas and thoughts. Some have agreed that words are important in adding context and providing a backstory, while others have said that photographs should be able to stand on their own. It’s interesting to think about because I think both perspectives have a point. Over the last few weeks I’ve come to the conclusion that for me, what matters is where I’m viewing the photographs.

If I’m paging through a book and there are words and stories, I more than likely will skip over them and just look at the photographs. I might go back later and read it if I really like the work but on first glance it’s about the photographs. When I’m looking at work on the wall I’ll probably read the statement quickly but other than that all I care about is the photographs.

That makes me a hypocrite right? I certainly could be. However, over the last few weeks I’ve noticed something else from speaking to many photographers. There’s a certain degree of frustration and dissatisfaction with photoland on the internet (there always is isn’t there?)

For some, there’s simply too many photographs floating around on a daily basis. Nothing is going to change about that. But another frequent complaint is that much of the work that’s published is stripped of any context, with many people simply spewing out photograph after photograph on blogs and Tumblr. I doubt that’s going to change either, and for many that maybe what they want from photoland.

©Don Hudson

What I think might change is that people who are invested in experiencing photography on the web will likely start to scale back and be much more selective in what they choose to read and look at (hell, I had friends doing that a few years ago already. They were right. I didn’t listen.)

Amongst the people I’ve talked to this is where we get to the importance of writing. They’re looking for more context and a more immersive experience from photography on the web (several blogs and magazines are providing this already).

The most interesting bloggers and editors write about the projects and work they’re featuring. They tell us why it’s important, why they appreciate it or an idea it evokes. As a photographer telling the stories behind the photos, adding context, narrative and generally presenting your audience with something new and original about the work will be more engaging, and more creatively rewarding for yourself I believe.

That’s what I’d like to see more of  from photographers and publishers and I don’t think I’m alone. We should strive to not only showcase the work, but to provide new insights and stories about it. The classic way of going about this is the interview. That’s a good start but I think we can find other creative ways to doing it as well (a future post).

Looking back at the work that resonates with me, and the work that I’ve featured on LPV, I’ve found there’s always been a strong affinity for the stories behind the photos, which is maybe why I’m so drawn to the combination of words and photographs. As I’ve dug deeper into photography I’ve grown to appreciate all different genres and styles. I respect the type of photographers who take on difficult issues and tell the stories of other people. We need that work and we need those photographers.

But I think we also need the photographers who work day jobs (The Insiders), love photography, study it, and spend their time documenting their family, friends and immediate surroundings. For these types of photographers, I think the internet will become a great tool for telling these stories more in depth to a growing community. We really have no idea how future generations will use the stories we’re creating. I’m not sure thinking about that really matters either. But I do think if we focus more on telling stories, creating context and narrative around the work, photography on the web will be a much more enriching experience.

It was around 100 degrees yesterday so the twenty minute walk from my place in Greenpoint to Kalina’s studio in Williamsburg left me completely drenched in sweat, and maybe on the verge of heat stroke. Luckily Kalina’s place comes fully air conditioned and stocked with nice cold water.

I was visiting to take a look at some work prints for one of his projects. While we were chatting, he started pulling a bunch of books from the shelf.

“Have you seen this one?,” he said.

“No. I can’t afford books at the moment,” I replied as I paged through Lorca diCorcia’s Thousand.

I looked through a few more books and a few zines before eventually blurting out, “Man, there’s just so much photography I’ve never seen because I can’t get ahold of the books.”

Reading that back, it sounds annoying, “the struggles of first world assholes in Brooklyn.” But it does illuminate something that consistently frustrates me about all the chatter about photobooks. It’s really amazing that so many people can produce them these days, but who the hell is actually looking at all of them? And is it possible to create a distribution system that enables more people to see more photobooks? I touched on this last year in a post, but I’m not sure I’m any closer to discovering an idea. It is an interesting problem and something I’m continuously thinking about.

There’s also a larger issue involved too. Without access to great photography books, I can you really evolve your thinking about photography? The internet is marvelous. I love you internet! I love looking at photographs on the internet and while we talk about the billions and zillions of photographs available online, there’s a shitload treasure trove only available in books. And sometimes those books are only available to select few.

“You elitist jerks! Why must you be so wealthy and able to afford kick ass photobook collections? Envy, pure envy.”

It’s a challenging situation, and more than likely I think most of us will just need to be content building a small collection over a lifetime while looking at what we can online. Over the years, I’m sure more and more will be scanned and distributed in some form over the web.

And who knows, maybe someday me or someone much smarter than me will develop a financially viable service that will allow people to share their photobook collections with trusted network of enthusiasts.

Until then, if you live in NYC, have a kick ass photobook collection and don’t mind entertaining strangers from ze internet, please feel free to drop me a line.

P.S. Maybe a new LPV feature could be about these visits, kind of like reviewing people’s personal photobook collections (the surprises, the gems, the obscure). Might even make an interesting video feature.