Upcoming events and news related posts
Thursday, May 14th, 2009
In 1988, I was an 18 year-old BFA Photography major at Arizona State University, in Tempe, AZ. Bill Jay and Bill Jenkins had both thrown lit matches into the straw of my Iowa farm-boy mind that year. My childhood understandings of images and the potency of pictures were simply burned up in a semester or two under their impassioned tutelage.
In bi-weekly photo history lectures, Bill Jay, the archetypal story-telling scholar, was excitedly describing for us how early practitioners of photography were either falling off cliffs atop their glass-plate-laden mules, or accidentally poisoning themselves with gun cotton and ether under the ferocious heat and humidity of canvas tents which served as their field darkrooms.
20 years after I first met him, Bill Jay has passed away. In September of 2007, I spent half a day with Bill at his condo in MIssion Beach, CA (just outside San Diego) interviewing and photographing him for PDN magazine (which can be read here). I also had great fun going with him to the Infinity Awards in May of 2008 (which I blogged about here) where, true to self, he delivered a rather cranky but poignant assessment of the “state of photography.”
The night before the awards, Mary Virginia Swanson (who has just posted a wonderful entry on her blog here), Denise Wolff and I sat with him at Good Burgers in mid-town Manhattan, listening to him describe his recently purchased plots of land in Costa Rica, where he was going to happily live out his days, mere yards from “the most beautiful strip of beach” you can imagine. Maria, at the local cantina had promised to teach him Spanish, and his daughters would periodically visit, he told us. It appears that he has done just that, passing in his sleep this past Tuesday.
During that New York trip, and before, during my time with him in Mission Beach, Bill emphatically stated, “I’m done. I have no more to say.” Photography, as he knew it, was dead. But it was the community around him that had changed, and had truly “passed on”, in a very real sense. When Bill received the Infinity Award, it had been 50 years exactly since his first published piece. He felt a sense of completeness—or at least he stated as much—having reached that marker. It seemed like a good time to sell everything and move to a hut on a beach. He seems to have been exactly where he wanted to be, and that’s not a bad thing.
Visit Bill Jay on Photography for dozens of his articles and photographs of photographers.
Tags: Bill Jay, ICP, Mary Virginia Swanson
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Saturday, May 2nd, 2009
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Saturday, April 11th, 2009
Two weeks ago was the Palm Springs Photo Festival. I loved it. I was a panelist (hosted by Michelle Dunn-Marsh of Chronicle Books and formerly of Aperture), a portfolio reviewer, and a happy camper. The reason for my happiness? Rocks and scrubby bushes, 70+ temperatures, straight-up searing desert sun warming my lizard heart/brain, mid-century modern hotels w/ pools, and some damn fine photography.
Debbie Fleming Caffery gave an evening talk at the Annenberg Theater of the Palm Springs Art Museum. Copies of her new Radius Books title—The Spirit & The Flesh—were on hand and all copies sold out in 15 minutes! Good job, Debbie.
My favorite portfolio was by Verner Soler, a Swiss-born, Los Angeles-based photographer who has been working on an extended project that circles elegantly around themes of mortality, aging, and being far-removed from one’s extended family.
Tags: Debbie Fleming Caffery, Palm Springs Photo Festival, Verner Soler
Posted in Events & News, Photography, Radius Books | No Comments »
Saturday, April 11th, 2009
Based in Santa Fe, CENTER is a non-profit photography organization that, for years now, has worked really hard at promoting great work and creating community. Review Santa Fe—the flagship program of CENTER—has been the model for so many of the photography portfolio review events happening around the country (and the world).
Offering prizes for whole bodies of work as well as single images is the second half of CENTER’s programming. They have just announced the winners of the 2009 competitions, which you can view here. The Project Competition and the Santa Fe Prize are the two prizes awarded for whole bodies of work and have been running annually since 2003 and past winners include the likes of Alec Soth, Dave Anderson, Julie Blackmon, Byron Wolfe, Eirik Johnson, and Hiroshi Watanabe.
This year, the winner of the Santa Fe Prize is Hiroyo Kaneko, chosen by the sole juror, Charlotte Cotton. And the winner of the Project Competition, chosen by a panel of three judges, is Cori Chandler-Pepelnjak.
There’s lots of great images/photographers recognized throughout the single image categories and as honorable mentions in the bigger prize categories. Here’s a few of my favorites:
Brian Ulrich (Guggenheim recipient this year!), Honorable Mention, Project Competition:
Betsy Schneider, Curator’s Choice (Corey Keller), First Prize:
Brad Moore, Curator’s Choice (Corey Keller), Honorable Mention:
Damion Berger, Editor’s Choice (Simon Barnett), Third Prize:
Aaron Huey, Publisher’s Choice (Michael Mack), Honorable Mention:
Tags: Aaron Huey, Betsy Schneider, Brad Moore, Brian Ulrich, CENTER, Cori Chandler-Pepelnjak, Hiroyo Kaneko, Review Santa Fe
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Friday, March 27th, 2009
All of the judges have been chosen, confirmed and posted on the Photography.Book.Now 2009 contest website. It’s an amazing line up of critics, curators, gallerists, photo editors and photographers. If you have ever thought of producing a book and have wanted to show it some of the best names in the business, this is your chance!
Dana Faconti, Anthony Bannon, Vince Aletti, Kira Pollack, W.M. Hunt, Platon, Jodi Peckman, Karen Hangsen, (and Todd Hido—coming soon!)
Tags: Anthony Bannon, Blurb, Dana Faconti, Jodi Peckman, Karen Hangsen, Kira Pollack, Photography.Book.Now, Platon, Todd Hido, Vince Aletti, W.M. Hunt
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Friday, March 27th, 2009
The annual photography show of the Association for International Photography Art Dealers (AIPAD) is taking place this weekend at the Park Ave. Armory (at 67th Street). As with any art fair, this one fills the space with a maze of dealers booths, each more or less filled with wares—in this photographs—for sale. It’s a chance to see work from around the world, ostensibly, and if you’re in the collecting mood, to purchase a few for your collection (without having to travel the world to visit each dealer on their own turf).
For myself, it’s a chance to see work, but primarily it’s a chance to reconnect with other people in the industry and to explore ways of working together.
This year, it’s also a chance to launch a couple new Radius Books titles!
Scheinbaum & Russek (booth 206) will have copies of Beaumont’s Kitchen. David Scheinbaum, who wrote the introductory essay, will be signing the book at the booth from 2-4 on Saturday.
Gitterman Gallery will have copies of Debbie Fleming Caffery’s new book, The Spirit & The Flesh, on hand, along with copies of her limited edition version of the book.
Lastly, Julie Blackmon will be on hand to sign copies of her monograph, Domestic Vacations, at Catherine Edelman’s booth.
Please come by and say hi!
Tags: Beaumont Newhall, Debbie Fleming Caffery, Gitterman Gallery, Julie Blackmon, Radius Books, Scheinbaum & Russek
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Monday, March 2nd, 2009
Last year I was privileged to play a major role in the first occasion for what turned out to be an inspiring and surprisingly well-attended contest. Photography.Book.Now 2008, which was hosted by Blurb and included a range of photography industry sponsors (like American Photography, JPG magazine, Flickr, etc), is now set to begin again, for a second time, with the same Grand Prize ($25,000!).
And, I’m privileged to be part of this whole thing again, acting as the chair of the judging committee. Honestly, I can’t tell you how much fun it was to look at over 2000 entries from around the world. We’re all excited and confident that the entries this time around will only increase, the question is, by what magnitude.
This year, there will be 3 categories (as opposed to just the 2 from last year): Fine Art, Editorial, Commercial. The wording for these 3 categories can be found here, on the Photography.Book.Now website.
The judges, who will be announced in the coming weeks, will be drawn from the international pool of photography professionals with backgrounds in the arts and editorial work, and will include magazine picture editors, gallerists, photographers and museum curators. We had an amazing line-up of judges last year, and this year will be no different.
In case anyone had forgotten, Beth Dow won the Grand Prize last year with her beautifully seen project, In the Garden. The rest of the winners and runners-up can be found here, on Blurb’s bookstore site.
One of things that is most exciting to me—and was to many of the judges—is the chance to see photographers, of all types and backgrounds, engaged in envisioning their own work in book form. For many of us, as publishers, curators, picture editors and gallerists, we are actively involved in looking at photographic work on a daily basis and the book is a central form of expression within the medium. To see so many fresh voices engaged in this process was truly inspiring, and we’re looking forward to that same level of intensity again this year.
So get cracking on either a new project or finish up an existing one, get it worked up as the best book you can muster, and submit it to the contest, which runs through July (see the contest website for more details). Regardless of whether or not you win, the chance for such an illustrious panel of judges to see your work is worth it alone.
Tags: Blurb, Photography.Book.Now
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Tuesday, February 17th, 2009
This Friday, February 20th, I’m giving a public lecture/gallery walk at the Palace of the Governors here in Santa Fe, NM. This gallery walk is in conjunction with a massive exhibition entitled Through the Lens, curated by Mary Anne Redding and Krista Elrick. The exhibition, Through the Lens: Creating Santa Fe is part of the city-wide celebration of Santa Fe’s 400th anniversary as well as the centennial of the Museum of New Mexico. The exhibition itself features 175 photographic objects (prints of all sorts, from daguerreotypes to platinum prints, to regular old gelatin-silver prints, along with numerous old cameras and stereographic viewers).
The Palace of the Governors was originally constructed in the early 17th century (approximately 1610) as Spain’s seat of government for what is today the American Southwest, making the Palace one of the oldest working buildings in the United States. (Can you beat that, Boston?!). It’s an honor to be able to speak about the show and even more of an honor to somehow contribute to the living history of the building.
Tags: Krista Elrick, Mary Anne Redding, Palace of the Governors
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Wednesday, February 4th, 2009
My friend Sara Distin over at Hey, Hot Shot (a Jen Bekman project) just posted a little interview with yours truly:
From the interview with Sara Distin:
“I had the pleasure of first meeting Darius a couple years ago at the Winter 2007 panel review, held in Jen’s cozy and art-filled apartment. In spite of the casual atmosphere, it was an intimidating room to be in: some of the smartest and most insightful individuals working in the fine art photography world were hunkered down, ready to look at hundreds of Hot Shot entries and determine the fortunes of the top ten (now it’s five, but then it was ten Hot Shots). Darius was one of the first to crack a joke and seemed to be having a good time during what can be a really grueling process.
His enthusiasm for contemporary photography was evident. I’m guessing that kind of energy also spills into his other projects, which most recently include Radius Books. Radius, a non-profit, publishes gorgeous books (I am a delighted owner of Michael Lundgren’s Transfigurations) and as part of their mission, donates at least 300 copies of every title to libraries and schools, because as they put it, “the arts–all arts–are vital to our nation and our culture’s future.” To learn more about Radius and to be notified about new editions, sign up for their mailing list. It’s good to be in the know as limited editions sell quickly, like the signed and slipcased Lee Friedlander: New Mexico, which is almost gone.
Here to stay, thankfully, is Hey, Hot Shot! panelist Darius Himes, former editor of photo-eye Booklist, current independent curator, writer, consultant, and co-founder of Radius Books.
SD: How did you come to be a panelist for Hey, Hot Shot!?
DH: Jen and I met at Review Santa Fe a few years ago. There was a really great group of reviewers and photographers that year, and we’ve all stayed in touch. It was right around then that Jen launched 20×200. I like to think that she and I have similar eccentric tastes in photography and share a similar enthusiasm for the field. She asked me shortly thereafter to be a panelist. (At least that’s my version of how it all happened! Jen’s may be different…)
SD: What’s most interesting/engaging for you in seeing so much work from emerging photographers?”
READ MORE ….
Tags: Hey, Hot Shot!, jen Bekman
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Photography: A Very Short Introduction
Words Without Pictures (Aperture, 2010)
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Bird Watching, by Paula McCartney