The photographs by Dutch photographer Popel Coumou are paper constructions in built in two dimensions then lit to give the illusion of three dimensions.

Useful Links:

Artist Website

First off, I apologize for the late post. I caught influenza this weekend and was feeling too horrible to write a post yesterday.

I remember the first time I saw the photographs made by this husband and wife duo. I was at the Newport, Rhode Island Society for Photographic Education national conference, and there was a show of their work in one of the local galleries. I remember not liking the work at all. I liked the aesthetics of the process they were using (photogravure) but I didn’t like the subject matter, or concept. Probably because it was some of the first conceptual photography I had seen, and didn’t quite “get” it. Over the years though, their work has really grown on me and they are among my top favorite photographers.

Featuring the “everyman,” (who is Robert himself) the photographs depict a man trying to repair the damage done to the land.

Their latest work is all in color and I find it even more enjoyable than the monochrome photogravures.

Useful Links:

Artist Website

Jack Shainman Gallery

For her series of River Taw images, Susan Derges goes to creeks and river beds during the day and suspends flash guns high in tree limbs. At night she returns, places a sheet of color photographic paper in the creek and fires the flashes, exposing the paper. The flash and ambient light cast shadows of the tree branches and the water flowing over the paper.

Useful Links:

Artnet

Ingleby Gallery

Robert Adams has been one of my favorite photographers and photography critics ever since my college photo teacher introduced me to him about six years ago. He has written books, including Beauty in Photography and Why People Photograph that have served as, and to which I turn regularly for, a great inspiration and influence on my photography.

Useful Links:
Getty Museum
PBS Art 21 Documentary Bio
New Topographics Wikipedia Entry

James Hajicek and Carol Panaro-Smith collaborate in making photograms of plants, “photogenic drawings” using very much the same techniques and chemical formulas William Henry Fox Talbot used.

Plants that we either dug from the earth or collected from the sea are exposed in contact with hand-coated light sensitive paper. This organic material withers under the intense heat and light of the Arizona sun as it completes its final act of participation in the creation of its own image.

As opposed to using commercially made photo paper like Jerry Burchfield, the duo hand-coats paper with light sensitive chemistry:

As we continued to work with variations of William Henry Fox Talbot’s basic chemical formulas, we discovered that altering the variables of the light sensitive solutions, the chemistry in the paper, the intensity and accompanying heat of the light, and the chemicals emerging from the organic material, a color palette and physical presence emerged in the final print creating an ‘organic artifact’ beyond the imagination of anything previously thought of as photographic

Useful Links:

Artist Website

Photo Eye Gallery

Watermark Fine Art Gallery

This week I’m digging into the past, and presenting Carleton Watkins. I have always been fascinated with History. When I was registering and deciding on a major for college I was deciding between History and Photography. I chose photography, and the rest, as they say, is, well, history. So it is only natural for me to have a keen interest in the history of photography. Some of my favorite processes for my own photography are historic/alternative processes, i.e., carbon printing, cyanotypes, etc…

Many of the first photographs people see of the Yosemite Valley are those done by Ansel Adams. Indeed, they are very beautiful photographs of a very beautiful place, and still rank among my most favorite photographs. I recall the first time I saw a Carleton Watkins photograph in my History of Photography class in college, I thought I was looking at an Ansel Adams photograph.

After moving to San Jose from New York, and later moved to San Francisco, Watkins began photographing the Yosemite Valley as official photographer for the California State Geological Survey, using both a mammoth camera and a stereo camera.

Maybe it’s from my fascination with history, or my affinity for the aesthetic of an albumen print from a wet plate collodion negative, but Watkins photographs of Yosemite, specifically, and other photographs, his photographs have surpassed those of Adams for me, in terms of who I prefer.

Useful Links:

CarletonWatkins.org

National Gallery of Art

Getty Museum

In Focus: Carleton Watkins

Wikipedia

Useful Links:

Personal Site

Rokeby Gallery

After a few conversations with my friend Jon Long (who’s original idea this is), I’ve decided to take on a project wherein I choose a photographer to study/analyze, with the end result in viewing getting to know 52 photographers in a year. Don’t let that last statement and the name of this site make you think I’ll only do this for a year; I plan on maintaining this blog as long as I have the energy to do so.

I’ll be publishing a post every Sunday with my review. I hope this blog can become a resource for friends, strangers, students, and anyone else interested in photography and seeing new photographers. I don’t intend this to be very comprehensive, but I hope it can be a point of departure for those needing to research other photographers, or are just wanting to expand their “vocabulary.”

A bit of a caveat: I am a landscape photographer, so most of the photographers I review will likely be landscape photographers as well, but don’t be scared away if you’re bored with landscape photography. The whole reason for this is to look at photographers from all styles: landscape, documentary, portrait, conceptual, installation…anything and anyone I find interesting.