[EXPOSURE]

In the meeting last night we discussed the importance of photobooks and passed around titles including:

Let Us Know Praise Famous Men by Walker Evans and James Agee

Nicaragua by Susan Meiselas

Mine Fields by Bill Burke

Naked City by Weegee

Photobooks are a unique and very important way to experience photography. They offer up an unmediated story put forth by the photographer, combining elements of information, document, and art. While it is great to know about the work being put forth by publishers like Steidl, Aperture, and Phaidon, it is also important for young photographers to think about making their own books. Websites like Blurb and MyPublisher offer a cheap and easy way to create your own book.

To learn about the thousands of photobooks that have been published in years past check out Artbook or read The Photobook: A History, Vol. I and II by Martin Parr and Gerry Badger (available in the Tisch library).

If you are interested in learning about new and unusual photobooks, check out the blog Little Brown Mushroom started by Alec Soth.

Happy reading!

Tonight’s talk by Nora was on Alec Soth, an American photographer born in 1969 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Soth’s photography is firmly rooted in the tradition of Walker Evans, Robert Frank, and Stephen Shore. Soth’s depiction of the everyday life really confronts the ideals romanticized by American society; independence, freedom, religious devotion and individual expression, but his work is more so a comment and realization than an outright critique or opinion. Soth’s work is driven by curiosity and exists within a world between documentary and fine art. While his work flows through stories, Soth is not creating a linear narrative with a specific critique. Soth says that his intention was to create a series of photographs that feel like lucid dreaming, a rambling series of impressions that aren’t quite clear but make some sense.

“ I see poetry as the medium most similar to photography … or at least the photography I pursue. Like poetry, photography is rarely successful with narrative. What is essential is the “voice” (or ‘eye’) and the way this voice pieces together fragments to make something tenuously whole and beautiful.”—Alec Soth

You can see Alec Soth’s work on his website here.

You can read Alec Soth’s archived blog here.

Alec Soth will be speaking at MassArt on Monday October 26th at 6pm. More details here.

A little while back NPR‘s All Things Considered did a short piece on a photograph from Robert Frank’s The Americans collection. Questions about permission and intention always arise when a person takes a photograph of a stranger. Thus, it is great to hear a story from a woman in such an iconic image who really seems to understand the intention and ‘get it.’ The full story can be found here.

Elevator—Miami Beach 1955, Robert Frank

Exposure will be visiting Frank’s influential and controversial show of The Americans at the Met during our annual New York trip in November.

The School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston hosts a lecture series of visiting artists in Photography. All lectures are on Thursdays from 12:30 to 2:00 in the main building of the Museum School, 230 The Fenway, Boston in the Visual and Critical Studies classroom, B311. I will be at all of the talks, and again, it would be great to get some peeps from Exposure to go to some and discuss the work in a Wednesday meeting. Here is a .pdf with more info. Enjoy!

Nora

Thursday, October 22
Karl Baden, SMFA Viz/Crit Room B311, 12:30 – 2:00

Thursday, November 5
Moyra Davey, SMFA Viz/Crit Room B311, 12:30 – 2:00

Thursday, November 19

Laurel Nakadate, SMFA Viz/Crit Room B311, 12:30 – 2:00

“Mary in the Water” film still from “Stay The Same Never Change” by Laurel Nakadate