Vivian Maier was recently discovered posthumously. The Chicago nanny took over 100,000 photographs and some say she may rank among the top street photographers of the 20th century.
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“Collectors are willing to pay steep prices for the world’s finest photography books. Rare editions from the likes of Robert Frank, Hennri Cartier_Beesson, Irving Penn, and Ansel Adams are among the most sought-after of all art books. Sometimes these books have captured an era or a location, sometimes they have helped to coin an artistic trend, sometimes they are simply the finest work of a particular photographer.”
Richard Davies comments on the 10 most collectible photo books and 5 more.
Find my recommended photography books here.
As visual communicators, we’re responsible for everything that’s in the frame; we’re also responsible for everything that’s not in the frame. Deciding what’s in the frame and what’s out is a critical decision that can make or break an image. Here are two essential framing strategies.
1.?Use the frame to eliminate distracting information around a subject.
Take extra care with image information that touches the frame, as it will draw extra attention. Do this with significant compositional elements.
2.?Eliminate space around a subject to focus a viewer’s attention.
A lot of space between the subject and the frame can be used to call on psychological associations with space, such as freedom or isolation. Some space between the subject and the frame can give the appearance of the subject resting gracefully within the frame. Touching the subject with the frame strongly focuses the attention of the viewer and may seem claustrophobic. Cropping the subject with the frame can focus the attention of the viewer on specific aspects of the subject and/or give an image a tense quality, evoking evasion and incompleteness—this often seems accidental if less than half the subject is revealed.
There’s more than one way to apply these strategies. While cropping techniques are simple to practice, the reasons for their application and the choices made about how to apply them, as well as the final effects, may be exceptionally complex. You have two choices ..
1. Reposition the frame before exposure.
2. Contract the position of the borders of an image after exposure
If you plan to retouch, you’ll frame and crop differently …
Read more at Digital Photo Pro.
Find more digital photography techniques here.
Learn more in my digital photography worskhops.
In the 1930s, a small group of California photographers challenged the painterly, soft-focus Pictorialist style of the day. They argued that photography could only advance as an art if its practitioners exploited characteristics inherent to the camera’s mechanical nature. This small association of innovators created Group f/64, named after the camera aperture which produces great depth of field and sharp focus. The exhibition revisits this debate and includes images by photographers in Group f/64 such as Ansel Adams, Edward Weston, Imogen Cunningham, Sonya Noskowiak, and Willard Van Dyke, as well as images by such Pictorialists such as Anne Brigman, William Dassonville, Johan Hagemeyer, William Mortensen, and Karl Struss. With 90 works by 16 artists, Debating Modern Photography offers a feast for the eyes while illustrating both sides of a high-stakes debate. Outstanding examples of the clean edges and bold forms of Group f/64 stand in sharp contrast to the romantic, hand-crafted Pictorialist work that includes elegant portraits, tonalist landscapes, and allegorical studies.
The exhibit is open (Mon-Fri 9-7) through Dec 5.
Learn more at Maine’s Portland Museum of Art.
In 2000, CMCA mounted the most comprehensive exhibition of Maine photography ever: Photographing Maine: 1840-2000. The project was presented in two parts: photography from 1950-2000 in August and September and earlier historical work from the 1840s to 1950 in mid-October to mid-December.
During the past decade, the activity among Maine photographers has grown exponentially. In this digital age there are more and more people seriously committed to fine art photography using both new and traditional darkroom techniques. The goal of the invitational exhibition Photographing Maine: Ten Years Later is to pay homage to the two exhibitions in 2000 by showing a sampling of works by 150 Maine photographers created between 2000 and 2009. Each photographer is exhibiting a single work in the invitational exhibition. In addition, four images from each of the 150 photographers are part of an online exhibition (see below), which is also available to view on computer at the exhibition.
The exhibit in Rockport, Maine runs from October 02 – December 05, 2010.
300 million are photos taken each day generating over 100 billion a year. While 20 years ago 10% of photographs made were printed, today less than 1/10 of 1% are ever printed! Historically, what’s printed lasts; what’s not, doesn’t. Has this changed?
Find out about my digital prints here.
Find out more about printing in my free Digital Printing Lessons.
Learn more about printing in my Digital Printing Workshops.
Since it’s invention, photography has played an important role in history. It not only records history, it also has its own history. America knows itself in part through photographs. So what are the most important American photographs?
Here are the top 25 according to Mastersdegree.net.
What other photographs would you include?
