Blog still in hiatus

I regret that this blog is still at a standstill, due to chronic illness. Hopefully I can make some progress and have the stamina to spare for some posts sometime soon - daily life around the house currently takes all my energy.

Richard

Ilford Imaging to be reborn.

CR Kennedy and Chugai press release: WORLD FAMOUS ILFORD BRAND NOW IN SAFE HANDS AND TO RE-EMERGE AS A LEADER IN THE GLOBAL IMAGING AND GRAPHICS MARKETS

Chugai Photo Chemical Co Ltd of Tokyo, Japan and CR Kennedy & Company Pty Ltd of Melbourne, Australia, have been successful in their bid for the ILFORD Trade Marks and Associated Assets.
Ilford is a world-famous brand and is one of the great pioneers of the photographic industry, with a proud 135-year history.

The acquisition will see leading products such as Ilford Gallerie Prestige and Ilford Omnijet range continue, with existing ICC profiles, on a world-wide basis.

A new company, Ilford Imaging Europe GMBH has been established as a joint venture and will be responsible for all product development, production, logistics, sales and marketing activities. Clement Kennedy and Arnoud Mekenkamp have been appointed as joint managing directors.

The Ilford brand is now in safe hands. Together, both partners have a combined history of 146 years in the photo industry. They are committed to implementing long-term strategies for growth, with respect for the history and traditions of the Ilford brand. Ilford has for 135 years represented outstanding quality; this will continue.

Replacing Ilford Gold Fibre Silk

Ilford Imaging of Switzerland are insolvent and have closed their inkjet paper factory.

They are a separate company from Ilford UK, who make traditional film and darkroom supplies. That company is owned by Harman, who also produce Harman inkjet paper.

Ilford Gold Fibre Silk was the staple paper for many of us. Its surface and warm hue were beautiful; furthermore, it was one of the cheapest fibre-based inkjet papers.

There are still stocks available, so now is the time to ensure you buy as much as you'll need.

All will not be lost, however, as there are other papers that are very similar. Canson Baryta Photographique is the most cited replacement paper for Gold Fibre Silk. 

The two papers are so close in hue that one reviewer said that the Ilford is slightly warmer, while another said that the Canson is slightly warmer. (The Rangefinders Online review, which said that the Canson was the warmer of the two, also has internal contradictions, so that article may not so reliable.)

Ernst Dinkla is a print studio owner from The Netherlands who has compared the Canson and Ilford. He thinks the differences are so negligible that they may be more a question of the individual batch, than the make. 

Another person who uses both, said in a forum that the difference was possibly only perceptual; Ernst said elsewhere that it may be hard to tell them apart on a blind test. 

Ernst's Lab measurements are below, quoted from Luminous Landscape Forum discussions (see below for the links).

Measured: Canson Baryta Photographique Lab 98.0, 0.1, 0.0 and the Ilford Galerie Prestige Gold Fibre Lab 97.8, 0.0, -0.8.

That 0.2 difference on the b is less than people see as a difference with two samples next to one another.

The sample of Gold Fibre Silk that I measured before it got the prestigious name had a Lab 98.2, 0.0, 0.5 measurement. The differences are production batch differences in my opinion. The spectral plots are identical.

... The Bonjet Atelier Fibre, Canson Baryta Photographique, Ilford Galerie Prestige Gold Fibre Silk, MediaJet PhotoArt White Baryta and the Innova IFA69 FP Baryta Satin have identical spectral plots and the same 310 gsm weight. So it does not surprise me that the ICC profiles can be exchanged for them. 

July 2013, 500+ inkjet media white spectral plots.

(He later added, regarding an earlier comment that the Innova paper had been removed from their catalogue: 'Innova IFA69 is still in production and available. There is a report that Innova now also makes the IFA69 in US sheet sizes.')

At B&H, the Canson currently works out cheaper than the Ilford in NZ (though metric sizes are mostly unavailable at B&H).

Fotospeed claim that their Platinum Baryta is a direct replacement for Gold Fibre Silk, but no one seems to have tested that claim yet.

PS: I have just received some Canson Baryta Photographique and, in a quick side by side comparison, could not tell the two papers apart. Canson's packaging is more robust than Ilford's and the paper is in a plastic bag inside the box, which my last boxes of Ilford lacked.

Discussions/Reviews:

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/forum/index.php

http://www.dpreview.com/forums/thread/3149250

Amateur Photographer Fibre-Based Paper Comparisons

Rangefinders Online Fibre-Based Paper Comparisons

Jan R. Smit's comparisons between two other alternatives (Google translation)

Chema Madoz

From EV+1: The work of Spanish photographer Chema Madoz is astounding. Every image reveals an inventive mind that thrives on visual incongruities and puns. His images instil a sense of wonder in the viewer; one is repeatedly left with the thought: how ever did he think of that? [Read more...]

© Chema Madoz

Richard Avedon: Darkness and Light

This documentary on Richard Avedon is excellent (though I couldn't get the last few minutes to play).

Vanessa Winship: Black Sea: Between Chronical and Fiction

Like all of her work, Winship's Black Sea: Between Chronical and Fiction is poetic and poignant. It stands alongside the work of any of the great documentary-style photographers, including Henri Cartier-Bresson and Josef Koudelka.

© Vanessa Winship

© Vanessa Winship

Cartier-Bresson was more likely to use the words 'surrealist' and 'anarchist' to describe himself than 'documentary photographer'. Walker Evans preferred to call his work 'documentry-style'. Winship alludes to this premise by entitling this essay Between Fact and Fiction. Her work has too much art in it to be called purely documentary.

Imagined States and Desires: A Balkan Journey is an equally brilliant essay; her entire website is essential viewing for anyone interested the travel-documentary and portrait genres. Winship is represented by the VU agency, which was founded by by Martine Franck.

From VU - Vanessa Winship bio

© Vanessa Winship

Born in the United Kingdom, Vanessa Winship lives in London. After studying cinema and photography at Westminster University (Polytechnic of Central London), Vanessa shares her time between photography and teaching. She then fully devotes herself to photography and lives for about 10 years in the Balkans and Turkey. She joins Agence VU in 2005,and the Gallery VU in 2009.

© Vanessa Winship

Laureate of numerous prizes, including the World Press Photo (Amsterdam) twice, the National Portrait Gallery Prize (London), PhotoEspana Descubrimientos (Madrid).

Exhibited her works in numerous museums and festivals such as the Rencontres d'Arles, the Kunstall Museum of Contemporary Art in Rotterdam or the Horst Gallery and Photographers Gallery in London.

Prize-winner of the HCB Award 2011 for her project "Out there: an American Odyssey."

www.vanessawinship.com

Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light

Anyone who has held off buying a comprehensive book on Bill Brandt will very likely be interested in a new volume being published to accompany an exhibition at MoMA: Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light. 208 pages in length, the new book is being published in the USA by MoMA and in England by Thames and Hudson.

New York Times: A Camera Ravenous for Emotional Depth The pre-eminent British photographer of the 20th century, Bill Brandt, took pictures whose balance of art and humanity is frequently called strange, mysterious and irresistible. The best induce us to pore over them, exploring their psychology as much as their form, their implied narratives as much as their brooding blacks or parsimonious whites, their connections to the history of art as much as their documentary realism. Brandt himself wrote in 1948 that he admired photography’s power to make people see the world anew, to experience it with “a sense of wonder.” [Read more...] 

The Boston Globe Review: Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light The 20th century ended more than a decade ago, time enough to erase any doubts about whether Brandt was its foremost British photographer. He demonstrated mastery of social documentary, portraiture, landscape, nudes. His best work in any of those fields would have made him a major photographer. [Read more...]

Time Lightbox: Let There Be Dark: Bill Brandt’s Shadow and Light Henri Matisse, who knew something about color, had a wary regard for one in particular. “Black,” he once said,“is a force.” At “Bill Brandt: Shadow and Light,” the voluptuous retrospective organized by curator Sarah Hermanson Meister at the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, you find out just how powerful a force it can be. In Brandt’s inky photographs, the sky can be a tar pit. Lovers in an illicit room can take on the gray scale and density of anthracite. Darkness has more than an aesthetic appeal for Brandt. For him, its charms are metaphysical. It stabilizes a haphazard world and pays due respect to its mysteries.... [Read more...]
The Book Depository (MoMA) NZ $50.32 incl freight
The Book Depository (Thames & Hudson) $63.67 incl freight

Fishpond (Thames & Hudson) NZ $59.57 incl freight
Amazon (MoMA) US $31.50 excl freight

Street photography interviews on Youtube

Anol Bhattacharya has created a 49 item-long playlst on Youtube of Street Photography interviews. It's well worth wading through over the festive season.

You can View the video playlist at Youtube or watch from Ep 1, below.

   

Henri Cartier-Bresson interview

This lengthy interview with Henri Cartier-Bresson is well worth watching.

   

William Klein: In Pictures

From Tate Media: An exclusive interview with photographer William Klein and a first-ever glimpse behind the scenes at his Paris studio.

'Almost everything is coincidence and luck and chance.' William Klein is one of the twentieth century's most important photographers and film-makers and in this interview for Tate Media, he discusses his experience photographing on the streets of New York, the challenges in publishing his first New York book and how he worked with filmmaker Federico Fellini.

Klein's work is featured in the exhibition William Klein + Daido Moriyama at Tate Modern, 10 October 2012--20 January 2013.

See also from Tate Media: William Klein: Films, 1958-99

Unseen Photo Fair Amsterdam: The Future of Photography

From Unseen Photo Fair Amsterdam: Unseen is an international photography fair focused on undiscovered photography talent and unseen work by established photographers. The first edition of Unseen took place from 19 to 23 September 2012 at Amsterdam’s Westergasfabriek, kicking off the gallery season by celebrating yet undetected, cutting-edge work. 

Unseen Festival Day 2: The Future of Photography
The discussion was opened with an introduction by Marc Feustel, known for his blog Eyecurious. His statement of "future of photography being now" was an interesting start for the discussion. The participants, Simon Baker (London, Curator of Photography and International Art, Tate), James Reid (London, Picture Editor of Wallpaper), Christine Ollier (Paris, Artistic Director of Galerie les Filles du Calvaire), Francois Hébel (Paris, Director of Festival Les Recontres ‘d Arles), and Feustel himself, were moderated by Marcel Feil, Artistic Director of Foam. [Read more...] 

Street Photography Now

Street Photography Now is a recent book displaying a collection of current work in the genre. It is by no means the last word. No mention of Constantine Manos or Josef Koudelka. This slideshow gives you an idea of the contents.

Conversations in Photography: 25 years of Panos Pictures

Panos Pictures is a photo agency specialising in global social issues, driven by the vision and commitment of its photographers and staff. Panos is known internationally for its fresh and intelligent approach and respected for its integrity and willingness to pursue stories beyond the contemporary media agenda. [Read more...] [See more on Vimeo]
 

George Georgiou in Turkey

George Georgiou discusses his work in Turkey, as well as the state of documentary photography today.



[George Georgiou Website] [In Transit Blog]

Canadian Photographers Now Officially Own the Copyright to All of Their Photos

From Peta Pixel: A big win for photographers in Canada: as of today, you now officially own the copyright to all your photographs regardless of whether they were commissioned. The development comes as a result of Canada major copyright reform bill (Bill C-11) taking effect this morning. One of the stated goals of the new copyright law is to, “give photographers the same rights as other creators.” [Read more ...]

NZ Herald: Marti Friedlander Interview

United Women's Convention 1979 © Marti Friendlander 

New Zealand's Marti Friedlander is surely one of the world's great documentary and portrait photographers (of any era), but is not a household name outside her adopted homeland. The photo opposite is typical of her three-dimensional eye, which characteristically juxtaposes foreground and background subject matter, with acid wit and insight. She may not have been a Magnum photographer, but she is as accomplished as any in all of the great photo agencies of the world.

Sarah Daniell interviewed her for The New Zealand Herald.

Twelve questions with Marti Friedlander

Marti Friedlander was born in 1928 to Russian Jewish parents. She was raised in an orphanage, with her sister, from the age of 3. Marti emigrated to New Zealand from Britain in 1958 and began taking photographs of people, places and protests. Friedlander is 84 and lives in Auckland with her husband, Gerrard. 

1. What compelled you to pick up a camera and start taking pictures of faces that weren't famous?

I started because I came to a country where there was so little recognition of the arts - of artists, musicians, whatever. I decided I was going to seek out all these people who were so gifted but working alone and take photographs of them because one day people would be interested. I was trying for my own sake to find associations with people I had something in common with. [Read more...]

[Marti Friedlander Website]

Saul Leiter

© Saul Leiter

A lengthy interview with Saul Leiter is found on the Photographers Speak Blog, entitled Saul Leiter: The Quiet Iconoclast.

From Photographers Speak: Saul Leiter has been redefining the parameters of street photography since the 1940s. Working in both black and white and color, he exhibited from the beginning of his career a distinct visual grammar that features off-center perspectives, compressed spatial dynamics, and a predilection for breaking up the frame in unpredictable and exciting ways. His color work, which went unrecognized for decades, is perhaps even more radical in its asymmetrical visual rhythm and defiantly unsaturated tonalities inspired by Johannes Vermeer. Leiter’s work is further distinguished by its indifference to decisive moments of human intercourse. In fact, Leiter might be regarded as the master of the “indecisive” moment – those in-between moments when nothing of much importance seems to be happening but which resonate with a profound if understated sense of interior drama.

'....I didn’t photograph people as an example of New York urban something or other. I don’t have a philosophy. I have a camera. I look into the camera and take pictures. My photographs are the tiniest part of what I see that could be photographed. They are fragments of endless possibilities.'  [Read more...]

© Saul Leiter

From Lens Culture: 'I spent a great deal of my life being ignored. I was always very happy that way. Being ignored is a great privilege. That is how I think I learnt to see what others do not see and to react to situations differently. I simply looked at the world, not really prepared for anything.' 

'Art critic Roberta Smith wrote in 2005: .... Mr. Leiter captured the passing illusions of everyday life with a precision that might almost seem scientific, if it weren't so poetically resonant and visually layered.'
[Read full article with photos...]

In No Great Hurry: 13 Lessons in Life with Saul Leiter

A film has been made about Saul Leiter. Look out for it in your next local film festival.  [Film website]

See also: Retronaut.
 

Fotofever Brussels 4-7 Oct 2012

© Denis Dailleux - Le Port De James Town La Voile-Galerie 127

From Fotofever: For its first edition in the heart of Europe, fotofever, a contemporary photography fair, brings together leading galleries, editors, institutions, and collectors to thrill an eagerly awaiting public. In the 5000m2  space of “Tour & Taxis” and through a meticulous selection to highlight its 60 galleries, fotofever presents an unseen private collection, a solo-show of the winner of the fotoprize rewarding the work of a young European talent, fototalks, a video space, a VIP programme, etc…[Read more...]

Paddle8 offers international collectors online access to a selection of curated works from the galleries, foundations and fairs, via a 'VIP' personal account. [Create account]

Portrait de femme avec loupe, 1987 © Collection Galila Marc Le Mene

From Le Journal de la Photographie - Fotofever 2012: Diary of Matthieu Wolmark: As a sort of distant homage to the commercial evolution of our developed countries, the fair is as diverse in genre as it is in quality. From one stand to another, the works of superstars appear next to those by inspired photographers, whether or not they’re famous, like those opportunistic works destined for oblivion. Old-school gallerists speak fondly of their photographers as if they were family, and next door, young art dealers and merchants present their works like they were selling stocks. [Read more...]

From Le Journal de la Photographie - Juliette Deschodt: Cécile Shall, founder and director of the festival aims to show to the visitors the diversity of contemporary photography. She also wishes that the festival be a platform for the new artists by promoting new talents. She is thinking about expanding the festival to other continents. The future will tell. The program is mainly european, although a Moroccan gallery is also part of the exhibitors. With more than sixty galleries and fifteen participating countries, the festival is growing. [Read more...]

Adore Noir Portfolio Competition 2012 winners announced

© Eric Kellerman

From Adore Noir Magazine: We are pleased to announce the winners of the 2012 Adore Noir Portfolio Contest! The image which will appear on the cover of "Issue 10" has been selected by Susan Spiritus and will be revealed on October 1, 2012. {Read more...]