Panchromatica

The first rule of blogging

...is of course to keep posting, which is something I have singularly failed to do. It isn't just here. My Flickr and Ipernity accounts are also languishing from lack of attention.  I haven't been idle though. I have  been working on a much longer piece than I normally post here, and also working at getting out and about selling my pictures. I have something like 30 art or craft fairs booked between now and the end of the year and I am also promoting my work much more actively.

The fairs are useful on two counts - they give me a place to sell, but they also lead to increased exposure. Even so it is hard work. Most people going to craft fairs expect to find jewellery perhaps, textiles and knitted products, perhaps wood. They don't I think expect to find art or photography. Consequently you need a high footfall to stand a chance of making significant sales.

I really would like to see more such fairs with the primary focus on art. The downside is that you don't get the people who would never go to a gallery and are just looking for a pretty picture to hang on their wall. I'm not proud - if that is what you want I will sell it!

Anyway - here are the next few fairs I will be attending. If you are in the area, please pop in and say hello - discount for anyone producing a print out of this article.

Monday May 26^th - Cleeve House, Seend near Devizes (also Jewellery) - 10.00 am to 4.00 pm

Saturday Jun 7^th - Southampton Bargate Art Market - 9.00 am to 4.00 pm

Sunday Jun 15^th - Lacock - Village Hall - 11.00 am onwards

Sunday Jun 22^nd - Alton, Hampshire - Art Market – High Street - 9.00 am to 2.00 pm

Saturday Jun 28^th - Tetbury Market Hall - 10.00 am to 4.00 pm

Saturday Jul 5^th - Bath - Craft in the Crypt - St Michael’s Church, Broad Street, Bath BA1 5LJ - 9.00 am to  4.00 pm

Sunday Jul 20^th - Lacock - Village Hall - 11.00 am onwards

Sunday Jul 27^th- Alton, Hampshire -  Art Market – High Street - 9.00 am to 2.00 pm

Video on Flickr

It is now possible to upload Video to Flickr. This one caught my eye and gave me some hope that it won't turn into a You Tube clone.

Brooks Jensen on Inkjet printing

For thirty-five years now, I’ve been a strong advocate of the virtues of gelatin silver photographic prints. Until 2005, all of my prints have always been fiberbase gelatin silver, archivally processed and toned in a traditional wet-darkroom. Even as the publisher of the LensWork Special Editions and LensWork Folios I’ve used language like "No inkjet compromises!" and "Nothing can replace the depth, tonality or presence of fiberbase silver photographic paper." We used such language to clarify that the LensWork Special Editions were not the “inferior inkjet prints” we feared people might assume they were. Our mistake was thinking that the inkjet technology of late 1990s was not going to evolve. Boy were we wrong!

Jensen goes on to argue that 'inkjet' is the wrong term in any case - the inkjet is the process not the medium - and settles instead on 'pigment on paper'.

I am now offering inkjet images – the correct terminology is actually "pigment-on-paper." I refuse to call these giclée – a term I’ve always thought was meant to disguise rather than to elucidate. Gelatin silver and platinum/palladium prints are so designated because they indicate precisely the nature of the imaging chemistry and/or substrate. Neither of these are defined as their mechanical means of production – "projection prints" or "contact prints" although these would both be technically accurate terms that are occasionally used as supplemental descriptions. Similarly, "inkjet" is an accurate term describing the mechanics of delivery used, but pigment-on-paper describes the material – chemistry and substrate – and is a better equivalent for comparison to "gelatin silver" or "platinum/palladium" prints.

He also has some interesting things to say about pricing and editions that chime well for me .

While I don't limit my prints, I do know that a clear and precise provenance is important to some people and may have historical importance long after I am gone. All of my prints now specify the date of their production, the source (negative or digital file), the precise number of copies I made that day, and which is the number of this print. Here is an example of that text.

A typical First Edition, First Printing will be three to five copies, sometimes as few as two, on rare occasions as many as thirty. Time marches, we change, our creative vision does, too. It is not uncommon for me to see new ways to interpret an old image. I am not opposed to improving an image when I see a need to. Each time I fuss with the digital file, usually to change it a bit to more closely match my creative vision, I call this a new "edition." It's a different interpretation of the raw data, so to speak - a new "performance" in Ansel Adams-speak. Sometimes that might be a little tonal adjustment, sometimes a contrast change, sometimes a dodge here or a burn there, sometimes I'll crop something or digitally remove a bothersome spot, occasionally I go all the way back to the negative and re-scan or back to the original in-camera file and start over. In one way or another, the new "edition" is a new artistic rendition of the image.

Contrary to the contemporary zeitgeist, therefore, the later editions are the ones I would generally consider the more valuable because I perceive them to be the more mature interpretation of the image. Having said that, additional editions may also be a result technology improvements.

The designation "Third Edition, Second Printing" would mean that this is the third time I've worked this image from a creative point of view and the second time I've printed a batch of prints from this third rendition. The print # is simply a count of how many prints I've made from that digital file on that day.

I produce and sell my prints on a first-come, first served basis. Orders are filled in Edition/Print Number order. Obviously, editions are not reprinted except where identified as a later printing.

I also reserve the right to withdraw from sale any image at any time.

Words and pictures

I have linked already to 'No Caption Needed'. Here are two more in the same vein - both well worth adding to your feeds.

(Notes on) Politics Theory and Photography

See this essay for example looking at the escapades of the infamous Blackwater in Iraq.

I am not partial to mercenaries like Prince and have made that plain here before (see this post and the links it contains). Today Prince complained that just because his employees are trigger happy yahoos we should not "rush to judgement" because they are working in a dangerous, stressful environment. A couple of things spring to mind. First, no one is making any of these guys take jobs in Baghdad. Second, they are a lot less stressed with no accountability for their actions than they will be if the Congress gets some backbone and starts to inquire into their activities. And third, they are making a ton of money shooting up the town.

Errol Morris at the NY Times

A blog by the maker of the movie The Fog of War: Eleven Lessons From the Life of Robert S. McNamara that won the Academy Award for best documentary feature in 2004.

See this post about two photographs by Roger Fenton taken during the Crimean War and the baggage that goes with judgements about which came first.

I spent a considerable amount of time looking at the two photographs and thinking about the two sentences. [Susan] Sontag, of course, does not claim that Fenton altered either photograph after taking them – only that he altered or “staged” the second photograph by altering the landscape that was photographed. This much seems clear. But how did Sontag know that Fenton altered the landscape or, for that matter, “oversaw the scattering of the cannonballs on the road itself?”

Surely, any evidence of this would be independent of the photographs. We don’t see Fenton (or anyone else for that matter) in either of the photographs bending down as if to pick up or put down a cannonball. How does Sontag know what Fenton was doing or why he was doing it? (To up the ante, Sontag’s sentence also suggests a certain laziness on Fenton’s part, as if he himself couldn’t be bothered with picking up or putting down a cannonball himself, but instead supervised or oversaw their placement. The imperious Fenton: Hey, you, over there. Pick up that cannonball and move it on to the road. No not there. A little more to the left. Or maybe it wasn’t laziness. Maybe he had a bad back. The incapacitated Fenton: Boy, my back is killing me. Would you mind picking up a few cannonballs and carrying them on to the road?)

While I was wrestling with these questions, it occurred to me that there was an even deeper question. How did Sontag know the sequence of the photographs? How did she know which photograph came first, OFF or ON? Presumably, there had to be some additional information that allowed the photographs to be ordered: before and after. If this is the basis for her claim that the second photograph was staged – that the landscape was posed for the second photograph – shouldn’t she offer some evidence? Fenton takes one photograph (OFF), oversees the scattering of the cannonballs and then takes another photograph (ON).

NO CAPTION NEEDED

Definitely one for your blog roll: NO CAPTION NEEDED.

From my Ipernity site

A scan of one of my Holga photos.

Art Fairs UK

Building on the previous post on this topic, I have now set up a Ning Network to talk about some of the issues that might be involved in getting such a venture going. At the moment it is closed and has only one member - me. However, if you are in the UK and seriously interested in developing ways to sell your art or photography, then contact me here and I will send you an invitation.

I have in mind two options

• the Art Fairs could themselves be a viable business with an income built on fees for participation, from commercial sales stands etc
• they could be a coop with the main aim being to provide a venue at which coop members could sell.

These are not mutually exclusive of course.

However, until the basic concept is ironed out I don't want to make public information that might later be commercially sensitive. That sounds rather grandiose I know, but once a few people have signed up, we can take a decision about going fully public.

I've started putting together a preliminary list of fairs in the UK.

The Bayswater Road in London would be be a good model for what I have in mind, as would the People's Photography event in Dublin. Prom Art in Grange over Sands I didn't know about - this looks a fun event.

Armstrong Bridge in Newcastle has been going for a while - I remember when it started so I'm pleased to see it still going strong.

Cluny - an art market in a pub!

A link to various other art and craft markets etc. on Tyneside

A Guardian article on Market Trading is also interesting.

If you know of any art markets of this type in the UK please let me know, so that I can build it into a more structured list.

 

the city wears emerald and pearls tonight

From Ipernity, a stunning image by lunaryuna. Click on the image to see it in full glowing colour.

New blogging

While I intend to continue blogging here on all the usual topics, I have also started blogging at a new group blog, "Man in the White Suit", about photography the old fashioned way with film. You can see my first post here.  I haven't lost my interest in digital manipulations, far from it, and if your only interest in photography is family and holiday snaps, then digital cameras are ideal. However digital media cannot, so far, capture the subtle tones possible from medium and large format film.

I've invested therefore in a new 120 film camera - like most modern technology these days, made in China - and I'm looking forward to trying it out. For the non-photographers out there, 120 film produces negatives 6cm square, although with some cameras you can get other formats. The normal 6x6 format is about four times the size of a 35mm negative.

Actually 'invested' is probably too strong a word for spending  twenty quid on an overpriced toy, but the images I've seen from  Holga cameras have been captivating. There is perhaps something liberating about not having a few hundred pounds worth of high tech goods round your neck. Even taking processing costs in to account, you would have to take an awful lot of pictures on a Holga to spend the equivalent of a top of the range digital.

Holga#15, originally uploaded by thorburn.

Given that the Holga is indeed a toy, I've also bought a S/H Lubitel 166. This also uses 120 film, but is an altogether more serious - if still cheap - camera. It is an obsolete type really, known as a Twin Lens Reflex (TLR) using one lens to focus and a second to take the picture. The two lenses are linked, so that as you focus the one, the other adjusts too.

Using cameras like this means a change of pace. Winding on the film is a process of slowly winding the knob until the number of the next frame appears in a small red window on the camera back. This takes at least 30 secs. In the same period, my digital SLR (Single Lens Reflex) can rip through 50 or 60 pictures. You can't capture rapid movement with these cameras so there is no point in trying and you begin to concentrate on the details of what is in front of you - perhaps seeing it for the first time.

I'm looking forward to the experience.

Ipernity, the new photosharing site I am moving to, also includes provision for a blog (alongside video and audio files). So far it shows no sign of turning into a Myspace or YouTube clone. My blog space ay ipernity will I think also be devoted primarily to photography. This post, about my personal involvement in photography over the years, recycles various bits and pieces already blogged or published in some way.

Today's Photograph

I'm in the process of moving from Flickr to a new photosharing site called ipernity. This photo is from a new album (equivalent to a flickr set) called "100 views of the Tyne Bridge". I began the project while working in Gateshead, but never finished it because I moved to a new job. This particular photograph however was taken only a couple of years ago, when back in town for daughter's graduation.

For more about why I'm leaving flickr you can read this (from the associated blog at my ipernity site) or this, from another disgruntled flickr member.