It's Competition Time !

This just in from Manchester Uni....

The Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI)

 

PHOTOGRAPHY COMPETITION 2015

  Call for Entries

  The Sustainable Consumption Institute (SCI) Photography Competition 2015 is a juried competition that invites submissions from students, academics and members of the general public. Entrants are asked to submit (a maximum of three) images that depicts the social organisation of ordinary and habitual everyday practices in which consumption takes place and how they relate to  changing infrastructures, policy and power.

 

All shortlisted entrants will have their work mounted and displayed in the offices of the Sustainable Consumption Institute. Both the winner and runners-up will receive a cash prize (1^st prize £100; 2^nd prize £50, 3^rd prize £50 plus 2 x runner ups @ £25 each) and also feature on the SCI website.

 

The competition begins on the 1^st February and closes for entries 1^st April 2015

 

To upload your image(s) please click on the link below:

 

https://www.flickr.com/groups/sci_photo_competition_2014/

 

 

Please find attached a flyer giving more details of the competition which can be printed and placed on noticeboards within your area.

 

 

 

Susan Hogan| Institute Manager | Sustainable Consumption Institute | School of Social Sciences   |  Faculty of Humanities  |  188 Waterloo Place, Oxford Road|  The University of Manchester, UK M13 9PL  |  Tel : (0044) (0) 161 275 4030

 

For the latest news on SCI activities visit our website at http://www.sci.manchester.ac.uk

Sometimes I Bloody Despair Of Photographers.....

 

You may have seen this story and image floating around social media. It's a tale of a painter who's used a photo he's seen as the starting point for a painting he's made. Photographer finds out gets pissed off and thinks "nice one I can make a quid I'll sue the fucker"  it goes to court. It's a bit like the Richard Prince type thing only this time the photographer wins. Art world is a bit miffed, freedom of artistic expression they cry, conservative photo world declares victory for copyright and the status quo. Anyway you can read the tale and common sense comment HERE

Now you may be thinking that I'm having a go at the photographer Katrijn Van Giel well I'm not. It's a strong portrait that's been appropriated by a well known successful artist so I understand their reaction, although in this case I think both the photographer and the law are acting daft. If it was one of my pictures and a top artist like Luc Tuymans decided to use one of my photos I would not only be chuffed to death but I would also milk it like fuck. Still Van Giel is quids in.

It's not a good decision for art though and the reaction from a lot of folk in the photography world just shows their plain ignorance and lack of understanding when it comes to issues being raised by contemporary art. This worries me (as far as photography goes but not like global warming or the new bus lane on the East Lancs Road) because it's some of the movers and shakers of the photography world who think this is a victory. 

I copied the below post from someone on facebook. I've not said who it is so I hope they won't sue me over copyright.

"You can see from my photos that I brave the elements to make them-I am up in the middle of the night, or early morning- or outside in the very cold. They are my point of view- the way I see things - my work and the photographs are the end result, unless I want to do something else with them. I am always talking about how much I resent painters saying they want to paint my photograph. I think painters should find their own subject matter- and go out and take photos if they use photos as inspiration. I think, I can paint my own photograph, but other's should not. I get testy. Of course I have no control when I post them. The choice seems to be that my photographs get seen every few years in a gallery setting, and they are seen no where else, or I post them online, and obviously, I chose to post them. It is, to me, a question of morals, integrity and originality
http://hyperallergic.com/176138/luc-tuymans-convicted-of-plagiarism-for-painting-photo-of-politician/"

PS I just saw this! https://www.lensculture.com/articles/katerina-belkina-paint-a-series-of-photographic-self-portraits

Seafront, Sodley-on-Sea 2015

I thought it was time to have a bit of a look around Sodley and get a bit of fresh air. The picture is once again made using images from the internet that are then made into a diorama and photographed. My latest diorama from Sodley-on-Sea.

Fight Night!

I'm sure it's not going to turn into a fight I'm just rolling with the styling of the poster. Mishka should have got Hodgson to come up here to Manchester for it. They could have done it in the wetherspoons at Piccadilly.
Should be interesting though, I would give it a go if I was in London, and it was free.....

Hunter S Thompson Say's The Bigger Your Camera/Applemac/Software The Smaller Your Cock.

Or words to that effect......
http://petapixel.com/2015/01/19/hunter-s-thompson-problem-focusing-much-technicals-photography/

What, page three yer dirty bastard?

What people think you do when you say your a photographer. 

Louis Porter

I recently did a bit of pruning of the blog. I went through all the links and got rid of any dead ones. In all I removed over fifty links to photographers websites that no longer exist.
I also realised that I was a bit behind as far as adding new photographers to the list. I will rectify this starting today by adding London based photographer Louis Porter. The picture above is from his series Capsule. It's about that Great British Icon the old red phone box. Inside and out there's little clues about Blighty. Sex drugs, crime, religion and filth it's all here.

That's the work of one lazy arsed phone box painter above. A succinct comment in a photo. Lovely stuff.

Gabriel Orozco: "Mirror Crit"

Following on from the last post... This seems more useful than a shitty boring portfolio review, and I bet you could still make a quid out of them.

Portfolio Reviews Are Fucking Nonsense.

Save your money..

Unlike Most of The British Press It's Viz Who are really Je Suis Charlie.

http://viz.co.uk/curtains-al-qaida/

Stephen (C) Nuttall.

 

 

Stephen (C) Nuttall is a home grown satirist. This Manchester based illustrator has been taking folk to task using a pencil for donkey's years. He also makes pictures like the one below which is called Conway Line Painter. See more of his work HERE.

John Myers. I'm So Sorry.

I love John Myers pictures. I'm ashamed to say I only found out about them a couple of years ago via the Grayson Perry curated show Unpopular Culture. I'm not surprised I was late in finding his work. If you look at his exhibition CV it's a bit crap. I don't mean that in a nasty way it's just that he's not had that many shows either here or abroad. The ones he has had have mainly been around his home area of the Midlands. I doubt the London galleries give a shit about pictures of Stourbridge or anywhere else in Middle England, then or now except perhaps when Richard Billingham had his five minutes in the sun back in the 1990's when being pissed and poor in the province's became de rigueur. Not that there are many similarities between Myers pictures and Billingham's. Myers pictures are quiet, they have a hint of New Topographics about them, that show was in 1975. Many of Myers pictures predate them. The picture above of suburban houses pre-dates my Semi-Detached series by thirty plus years! He was lugging a big daft plate camera around the British Midlands long before the legions of beardy Sothists  fawning over Sleeping By The Mississippi in the college library were even thought of let alone born.
I'm not the only one to think he has for too long been overlooked and undervalued, here's what Francis Hodgson has to say on the matter. It's true if Myers had of been working in America I would not now be rushing to add his website to my links list before anyone notices it wasn't there. So sorry John.