musings from the photographic memepool [the shallow end]

The inaugural issue of altfotonet.org has been launched.

The process has me wondering now about the differences between brick and mortar galleries and e-zines, and website and blogs. What differentiates a magazine from a gallery, a blog from a website, a website from a bricks and mortar gallery, a blog from an e-zine?

My plan with altfotonet, is to build a repository of photographic art work that represents the current focus of where people are trying to take photography, with the help of the other members of the selection committee. A kind of beacon for others to follow.

A former student has asked me, for some help. Can anyone help me identify this camera, I can see it's an Agfa, but not the make?

The first for 2009.

If you'd like a high resolution version of the invite e-mail me, and I'll send you the pdf.

Geo-tagging an idea close to my heart reached a milestone recently on flickr

[Code: Flickr Developer Blog » 100,000,000 geotagged photos (plus)]

I like the idea of creating a collective narrative of who we are and where we are, something only made possible by the internet, computers, and sites like flickr.

Browsing my film archives of the last few days, looking for work for the upcoming group show I'm in, I am once again struck by the power of photography and memory. The search reminded me of several locations, that I'd not visited for some time, and some images I'd made that for whatever reason, I'd never gotten around to printing. Now with the ability to publish my work as a book, either electronically, or as hard copy, it maybe time to revisit this older work, some spanning more than 20 years, to give it fresh life and an audience.

Are being proposed, join the protest.

For all you collectors of photography books, [I am one], here's 2 new polaroid books on the market.

• POLAROID - IMAGES OF AMERICA
  Very rare book, exclusive hand signed by author Alan R Earls for all PolaPremium customers. Filled with over 100 amazing pictures from the Polaroid Corporate Archives. A must-have collectors item!!
• HUGE MAGAZINE
  New edition of the Japanese HUGE magazine, completely dedicated to the magic of Polaroid. 150 colorful pages will conquer your senses and show the world the immortal power of Polaroid pictures and tools.

The tyranny of distance, and idea proposed by, Geoffrey Blainey, is to some extent still in place, and sometimes the internet amplifies it, other times it diminishes it. Sometimes, both.

These exhibitions all look interesting, I found out about them via the internet, but of course it is not possible for me to visit any of them.

• The Animals are outside today
• The list on this page just makes me weep, I would so love to see more of Emmet Gowin's work in the flesh.
And on and on and on....

Of course seeing screen versions of these images, if the galleries in question have an online exhibition, in no way replaces the experience of seeing them in the flesh.

Or does it?

This quote from David Schonau, raises a good point. [The complete article is about a politician attempting to bring in a law in the USA, that all camera phones have an audible shutter.] While he is correct in that Leicas and similar range-finders are virtually silent, they are STILL cameras. Everybody in western culture knows what a camera is and is capable of, but the dual functionality of a mobile phone camera makes this more of a intriguing and potentially confusing issue. One that is still being debated. It even impacts on an approach and style of phone-camera photography, as seen in That's MR poplabs' stream on flickr. Other people such as Mr Sco, use the device's dual functionality to capture some of the best candid portraiture I've seen in a long time, while I Nancy's candid work draws on a more formal style.