Sunday 29 November 2009

FT Magazine

The Financial Times magazine published a selection of my images from Georgia
"In the shadow of the bear". Not sure about their selection but I like the fact they used my title for the piece.
text by John Lloyd© Financial Times 2009

Tuesday 10 November 2009

In the Shadow of the Bear - Blurb book

I was trying to enter the Blurb competition in the summer but failed to upload the book in time.
The work consists of the first part of my ongoing project "In the Shadow of the Bear" looking at Georgia and Ukraine. The work in this book is based on 2 trips to Georgia, images from the first trip are on my website but not yet from the 2nd trip.
I ended up having to rush the editing but it's a useful first dummy to have in my hands.
You can see a full preview of the book on the Blurb site here.
I will take this book off the Blurb site once I have re edited the work.
I have set a high price as I'm not really trying to sell this book as it stands

Monday 9 November 2009

Graham Smith



















A final post on Side. The Side gallery has a great collection of photographs and it was a real pleasure to look through the prints, Weegee, Gilles Peress, John Davis, August Sanders and a lot more. The photographs that really caught my eye was the work of Graham Smith (born 1947) a photographer from Middlesbrough, England, who was particularly active in photographing Middlesbrough and the northeast of England in the 1970s and 1980s.




















In the 1970s he was among the photographers central to the Side Gallery; and created a series of photographs that showed working-class people in the north of England. Unfortunately he gave up photography in 1990 to become a framemaker. Graham is included in ParrWorld, on show at the moment at the Baltic Art centre in Gateshead.
It is very difficult to find his work on the internet.

Side Gallery exhibition posters

Side gallery have a great range of exhibition posters for sale at £5 each, a real bargain.

Thursday 5 November 2009

Vanessa Winship exhibition opening at Side Gallery

Vanessa's "Sweet nothings" and "Black Sea" will go on show at the Side gallery in Newcastle from Saturday 7 November until 9 January 2010. She will be presenting a slideshow and talk this saturday at 2pm, it's free and all are welcome.

The Side and Amber films is a film & photography collective incorporating Amber Films, Side Gallery and Side Cinema...with work rooted in social documentary.

















It is now 40 years old and has produced and supported a great number of exhibitions and photographers over the years. It has a really rich collection of original prints including work by Weegee, Graciela Iturbide, Martin Chambi and British photographers documenting the North, including, John Davis, Chris Steel Perkins, Julian Germain, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Dean Chapman and many more. Well worth checking out.
























































I exhibited Between the Lines at the Side in 2002 and will present Fault lines: Turkey East West over the 2 galleries in 2010.

NPG Taylor Wessing Prize

Last night the Taylor Wessing prize at the National Portrait gallery was announced and I was, as is natural, a little bit disappointed that Vanessa received the 2nd prize.
I was puzzled by the overall winner and I suspect a little politics at play, but that is often par for the course.
The first prize went to Paul Floyd Blake for "Rosie Bancroft" from an ongoing project entitled "On Track for 2012: The work of the short listed can be seen here and all the photos in the exhibition, including one of my images from Georgia, can be viewed here.
Also there is a feature on the award in this weeks British Journal of photography, titled Once more, with feeling.
The print edition includes a number of the exhibited photos including my own.

Monday 2 November 2009

Kai Wiedenhöfer wins 50,000 euro Carmignac Gestion award

Having mention Kai yesterday, today I hear with great delight that Kai has won himself a very useful and well deserved €50 grand for his dedication to documenting the never-ending Israel/ Palestinian conflict.
Below is the Blurb.

Kai Wiedenhöfer was declared the winner of the first ever Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Prize. Fourteen candidates from eight different countries were short-listed from 76 entries. They were selected as much for their extremely well-researched projects as for the outstanding quality of their photographs... The panel of judges, chaired by the photographer, filmmaker and artist William Klein, was composed of:

- Christian Caujolle, journalist, author, exhibition curator, and founder of the
VU gallery and agency
- Guillaume Herbaut, photographer, founder member of the Oeil Public agency
- Fabrice Hergott, director of the Museum of Modern Art in the City of Paris
- Jean‐Luc Marty, editorial director and editor-in-chief of Géo magazine
- Alain Mingam, photojournalist , exhibition curator and agent
- Vivienne Walt, correspondent for Time Magazine

The subject given to photographers for the 2009 Prize was “The Gaza Strip”.

The panel’s discussions focused first on the quality of the photographic work together with the photographer’s chosen approach and unique perspective. Next, they examined the originality of the written proposals and the capacity of each candidate to present a fresh and meaningful view.

At the end of a first round of very lively analysis, the work of three finalists offering differing approaches was singled out: Kai Wiedenhöfer from Germany, Eman Mohammed from Palestine and Lizzie Sadin from France.

In its discussions, the judges made special mention of the quality and sensitivity of the work of 22-year old Eman Mohammed on the condition of Palestinian women, for which he was awarded the judges’ Special Prize.

The panel finally decided to award the project to Kai Wiedenhöfer.

Sunday 1 November 2009

Kai Wiedenhofer

















We made a short stop in Berlin on our way home from Ukraine and stayed at Kai Wiedenhofer place while he was away in Israel and Palestine.
I saw his continuing project on Walls dividing countries, a very long project that has already led to a book on the Isreal/Palestinian wall released by Steidl. More photos can be seen here and here.
He has covered the USA/Mexico border, Belfast and a number of other places that will be released as a book late next year.

Guardian photography articles











This week the Guardian have posted a couple of good articles on photography.
A review of Jim Goldbergs exhibition and book "Open See" at the photographers Gallery.
And an article by Diane Smyth about judging the National Portrait Gallery's Taylor Wessing prize.