Photography 2.0 . . . . A Review of Sorts - Part 1

Why you may ask, as the veritible panelist George Pitts did, would I be attending such an event as yesterdays townhall discussion here in NYC on 'Photography 2.0: The Business of Photography in the Digital Era' hosted by Photoshelter and supported by a gaggle of industry sponsors. After all I am a successful photographer ? Don't I have all the answers and can't I based on my extensive experience predict and mold my future ? Well yes and no. This event had nothing to do with the merits of film V digital, it was about marketing yourself and selling your images in the new world order. Mmmmmmm interesting ?

I don't go to a seminar like this looking for the magical answer that is going to bring me fame and riches from photography beyond my wildest dreams. I go with an open mind, willing to listen and learn. As with all these events there is always such a mixed crowd in attendance which means a lot of different knowledge levels, one has to be considerate of this. It was certainly evident here especially as I surveyed the huge line winding its way around the block and one did feel that some were hoping/expecting to be handed the key that unlocks the secret. All levels were represented; the full gamut from happy amateur to serious professional, this is usually pertinently obvious when its time for a little Q+A ? I am sorry but sometimes it can be a little painful and at times can seem desperate or inappropriate. Listen I don't have all the answers either (nor does the panel) and I can understand how for alot of people the only opportunity to interact with such luminaries is during this part of such an event but please try and direct your question to someone who may be able to answer it ! Or save it for another time when someone will and remember what the theme of the day really is. I don't mean to be a cringer but !

So why was I there; well it was free, it was handy (joking) but really I strongly believe in a sense of community that we can all learn from each other, that one should be open to new experience and hey you never know who you will meet along the way and how that may help shape or form your own future. Photography can be a very solitary profession and with the changes in technology I think most of us who are a little older would admit we have seen a steady decrease in physical interaction with people within the business, whether it be other photographers, vendors, labs, printers, magazine editors, art directors etc.etc. Of course it all depends what sort of a circle you have and all my opinions are based on my own experiences but I have noticed a change and regularity in my own interactions particularly with the demise of the C-print, read earlier post here. But I am one of the fortunate ones who have a lot of industry friends and aquaintances who have always been there to share and help and now with the blog I have reached a new audience and made new friends and all though this may sound a little hokey I have received correspondence from photographers who's work I have long admired and have even met some for a drink, we are all in this together whether you like it or not and no worries if you think I am full of shit because but if one person somewhere can take something from all my ramblings it has been completely worth it.

Anyways back to the big event which involved guest speakers, a little product pushing, a BIG Photoshelter announcement (see above) after all why would they go to all the trouble and all culminated in a panel discussion which was followed by an open beer bar and tasty finger foods; coconut shrimp, mini burgers, sushi and chicken satay. Please read follow up posts below.

Testino revealing Testino

Keeping up with the this weeks fashion beat; courtesy of CNN go here to see and here to read about the inner workings of one of the worlds top fashion shooters, Mario Testino as he reveals himself. Its all terribly glamorous, just the way you imagine it should be, travel, fashion shows, go-sees, supermodels, top designers, studios, sets, royalty and he doesn't even seem to break a sweat as he traverses the globe mixing commerce and art or should that be art and commerce. Watch him and his team go through the motions from concept to execution on a Versace campaign. Will he use models or celebrities or both, how about a celebrity guest starring with models ? Genius ! I won't spoil the ending so plug in and stay tuned as one segment rolls into another and this is in turn followed by the final climactic third act, watch the video and you will know what I mean.

Friday foto

Photo © AH

Symmetry.

Friday Foto(s)

In keeping in the spirit of us all being photographers now, I thought I would mix the Friday Foto(s) up a little this week.


This set comes courtesy of my brother Richard whos new house in Dublin is undergoing something of a major renovation.


I really love this little series 'Whats on the builders table this week ?' where he has been documenting the eating habits of that most exotic of human species, the Irish builder !

Photos © Rich and Michelle

You can follow the progress on the house and more here.

Heres to you Richard, Michelle and Adam !

Gursky revealed

It was access all areas at the Matthew Marks Gallery Thursday evening, no velvet rope, no VIP list, no Andreas, just big prints and a well heeled New York crowd enjoying a beautiful spring evening, white wine spritzers and a truly magical show.

There are 11 prints on display and they are massive. As a photographer one cannot but marvel in his technical and artistic greatness and wonder 'How did he do that ?' What format ? 8x10/Hasselblad H3 ? Film/digital ? How did he manage in the helicopter ? Surely not on a gyroscope alone ? How does he keep the verticals/horizontals so perfect ? Even while airborne ! How much photoshop and pre/post production ? The 20 foot wide F1 Boxenstopp 3 (pit stop) print on display defies all reason and poses even more questions upon viewing up close, its fantastic !


The one big surprise/disappointment was that these prints are not in fact one but are two prints butted together, the seam runs vertically, right down the middle. One cannot see it from afar but its pretty evident up close. Whilst I am not an expert I expected Gursky to be on the cutting edge of big print technology and had thought that these would be in fact individual prints, especially as they are probably valued @ $ 100,000 or more. The gallery hand out made no mention of the fact as you can see above and also said that they were C-prints, one would think upon closer inspection that they are in fact digital C-prints as there must be some/alot of retouching going on.


The photographs are epic and I have to say that Bahrain 1 (above) would be my favorite. In this case there is no doubt the bigger the better.

Get your self along for a look see its well worth the trip !

Our man in Lausanne . . . .

Inspirator Jon Naiman was gracious enough to file a "What's the Jackanory ?" story from the Musee de L'Elysee in Lausanne Switzerland. Jon made the trip from his home in Zurich last Sunday for a round table discussion conducted in tandem with the show 'We Are All Photographers Now !' a look at the rapid mutation of amateur photography in the digital age.

"I traveled an hour and a half to Lausanne to attend this chat about photography, digital photography, the internet, the intersection of amateur and professional photography, the place of museums amidst the proliferation of internet photo showing portals, etc. This is no trivial matter as the train along this stretch of Swiss railroad never fails to enduce nausea due to some technical oversight in the name of speed.

It was a good discussion of the changing nature of photography brought about by the newer ease with picture exchange via the internet and electronic imaging. The discussion responded to the nature of the current exhibition, We Are All Photographers Now, at the Musee de L'Elysee, a photography museum in Lausanne, Switzerland. The show invites photographers anywhere and everywhere throughout the world to upload their photos and have them shown(projected) in the Musee de L'Elysee. I hadn't had the chance to see the show before going to this discussion. The proposition put forth is that maybe everything is radically changing now regarding photography, the making of images, the displaying of images, the transfer and distribution of images, the value of photographs and the traditional institutions surrounding it. The discussion also touched on power in this changing constellation, and how the amateur and the professional are blurring and overlapping. With digital photography, a bad image can be deleted and re-shot continually until an acceptable image is reached. So where does expertise still hold ground. The angst with which change is greeted was a subtopic. How has the ground shifted ? How much will it further shift? Is this a "revolution" or an "evolution" ? As it was framed. Some words were spent on the fact that photography has always been changing.

The issue of power with the terrain of the internet got touched on with the questioning of who will control the decisions in the selection, display, and distribution of images(and ideas) when more and more of photography migrates to the internet. What happens when controversial work goes up on websites? This was maybe too briefly touched on. One example was cited of the action by the 'Yes Men', who hosted a Dow Chemical website where they admitted responsibility for the Bhopal disaster(but which they in reality denied). The website, along with hundreds of other unrelated sites were simultaneously shut down by legal action from Dow Chemical. This more dubious side of the internet and how it can also be like a spider web for controlling, overseeing, cataloguing, capturing could be a topic far more explored than was done here. I felt also that the economic issues in the changing of photography could have been tackled in a more aggressive manner. The idea of a "revolution" fits well with the marketing of new products. If the new camera, lens, computer, monitor, software, scanner, storage device, printer, inks, papers, internet platforms are constantly under "revolutionary" change, then the consumer must constantly be upgrading to stay current with the "new" horizon. The business model of faster and faster obsolescence of the tools of the medium so that consumers will have to buy new every year or two, fits very well with the marketing of 'revolution'.

The further refining of digital cameras and processes to make them more and more like (the old) analog cameras is the hidden joke in this "industrial revolution". Digital cameras are finally now made that have the same size chip as a piece of 35 mm film so that your lenses work as they were meant to. Cameras begin to shoot when you push the button, instead of a long 1/2 second delay as it prepares itself. The resolution is slowly getting higher and higher and may one day even be equal to that of film. Hmmmm...

Well, for one thing, it seemed in agreement among those who spoke who had seen the exhibition, that the vast amount of images contributed to the show were not very interesting, fairly cliche images such as of people's dogs, families, churches, sunsets, etc. Not a great surprise.

What seemed the essence of the We Are All Photographers show is the making of a museum into a photo portal along the likes of internet sites like, Flickr, Myspace, You Tube, with the idea of "democracy" at the center. Difference being that with the museum it is a one-off show and there is still the many practices and traces of a museum still present along with the entire museum staff, panels of experts, lectures, physical building, admission fees, opening hours, board of trustees, its security, its caché, its history, its future, etc. Whether or not democracy and revolution are appropriate terms for this discussion, the show is an interesting experiment, nonetheless."
Jon Naiman

Around the round table were :

Fred Ritchin, Professor, NYU, Etats-Unis
Val Williams, Professor, LCC, Angleterre
André Gunthert, Maître de conférence EHESS et Rédacteur en chef de Etudes photographiques, Paris
Martin Parr, Photographer, Great Britain
William Ewing, Director Musée de l’Elysée
Luc Debraine, Journalist, Le Temps, Geneva
Radu Stern, Head of Educationnal Programs, Musée de l’Elysée
Jonathan Lipkin, Professor of Digital Media, Ramapo College, author, New Jersey.

Goings on in Lausanne part deux

As part of the 'We Are All Photographers Now !' extravaganza in Lausanne, Martin Parr also gave a solo talk the evening before the round table discussion, listen to him here. He explains how your family photography is a form of propaganda, what his new agenda is, the demise of Corbis and Getty at the hands of Flickr and what the best new business model for successful photography is. And how dreadful, cliched and boring alot of amateur photography is. Fascinating insight from a true visionary and one of my all time faves.

The show runs through May 20th and it will continue to pose some very interesting questions particularly for those of us whom make our living from photography, how will we adjust and transition into a world where 'We Are All Photographers Now !'.

Everything is changing…

… how we take photographs, manipulate them, share them, store them — even how we pose for them. Our tools are mutating quickly, promising ever faster, clearer, brighter and cheaper pictures. Meanwhile telephones become cameras, desktop printers morph into mini-printing labs, and high-definition screens threaten to dislodge the venerable photographic print from gallery walls. And the eyes of the whole world are only a click away on the computer keyboard.
Where are we all heading?

During photography’s entire history, the amateur and the professional have represented distinct and often contrary approaches to photography, each battling for supremacy. Has the digital revolution tilted the field of battle irrevocably in the amateur’s favour ? Or has it swept this traditional rivalry into the dustbin ? Can anyone say ?

A laboratory, an experiment

This innovative project takes a close look at the current state of this exciting, rapidly mutating image environment. A highly interactive event, it welcomes submissions from across the globe, and invites both live and virtual debates between visitors of all ages, educators, representatives of industry, photographers, editors, curators and cutting-edge internauts, netizens, and digerati. And just as our image world shifts with each passing hour, minute and second, so too will our exhibition respond to new developments with constant updates.

A comprehensive overview

Cell-phone imagery, digital camera pictures, sharing sites like Flickr and photolog, amateur agencies like Scoopt and Splash, individual blogs, electronic scrapbooks, hotlinking, ‘citizen photojournalism’, professional photographs showing amateurs at play, new printing opportunities, and historical precedents going well back to the 19th century… all are fodder for our electronic experiment. This is the first major museum project to undertake a comprehensive overview of the digital revolution as it impacts on everyone. This includes you !

As featured in . . . . ESPN the magazine

I have some stuff coming out in a few magazines this month and I thought I would share the story behind the story so to speak.

'March of the Penguins' (above) is a piece on the Pittsburgh Penguins hockey team for ESPN the magazine, centered on four players, two younger (Crosby, Fleury) and two older (Gonchar, Roberts) youth and experience and how this mix has helped change the teams fortunes and drive them to NHL playoffs.

The (pesky) Penguins were a little more uncooperative in reality than we had been led to initially believe. The magazine had asked me to concentrate on the 4 and my brief was to get individual portraits, group if possible, player interaction, practice, the locker room and anything else that caught my eye. My main problem going in was that the Penguins PR had shot down the idea of the group shot and I would not be able to schedule any individual one on one time nor would I be able to set up a small portrait set, I would have to grab everything on the go, fine I have done this before no problem. Well as it turned out things got a little trickier.

I did not realise (nor did the magazine) that I would be part of a larger press pool and would have shared access in the locker room and where ever else. It was a bit of a scrum and the players were seldom without a microphone in their face. On top of that the players were not told of my presence nor was I introduced to any of them by the PR and had to pick them out myself, so it was impossible for me to establish any connection with any of the subjects, frustrating.

I attended two practice sessions, one @ their training facility, the second @ the Mellon Arena the following day which was a game day. I had no access to the players before practice, when they were on the ice I was stuck behind the glass and then had to make a dash for the locker room with the media pack. It was all a bit sketchy. Whilst the first day was a little chaotic I was assured the second would be more self fulfilling. This as it turned out was not the case. One of the players Gary Roberts wasn't even in the locker room the second day, good job I had gotten 5 frames on him (although not very good) on the first.


The job was shot on Canon 1DS Mark 2 (digital) a change from my usual mediums of choice (hasselblad/film). The format is certainly a challenge and I am more inclined to shoot horizontal as I find the vertical to be a little long and skinny especially with my attraction to the square format.

As you can see from above and below my pictures underwent some dramatic cropping. I gave the magazine full frame 35mm files, I try not to crop my own work and this is especially easy for me when shooting square, my books are square. It can be quite the challenge for an art director to work the square on to a rectangular page and my work is usually cropped in some fashion but there are some great (good) layout surprises from time to time.

Photos © AH

I think the layout looks good all things considered. Did I get anything for my own book ? Probably not but that was not the exercise, in trying circumstances like this one needs to put the clients needs first.

As it turn out and per an earlier post I have had limited fortune with Pittsburghs finest (sport stars). Having dealt with a contrary Ben Roethlisberger (his luck took something of a bad turn shortly after our encounter) maybe the torch has been passed onto the Penguins as they were dumped out of the 1st round of the NHL playoffs last night. Looks like you are free of the Hetherington hex Ben, good times are here again for Steeler nation !