Sodley-on-Sea In GUP MAGAZINE.

Sodley-on-Sea is to be featured in the February issue of GUP MAGAZINE. 

A Few More Towards The 21st Centuryerers

Image Stephen Gill

Carrying on with the Towards The 21st Century or The Brave New World of Photography or So What's New (as I settled on) a discussion going on in photoblog land which was started by Joerg Colberg and Colin Pantall a couple of weeks ago, I've come to one or two conclusions. First off considering how many millions of photographers out there and thousands that I personally have seen, it's amazing that two of us picked the same photographer for our lists. I think that's a whole new discussion about the state of modern photography right there.
                                   Anyway being a bit thick and feeling a bit intimidated at being in such photo illustrious company I did two lists because the first one I did I thought I had got hold of the wrong end of the stick. My list was a list of five photographers who I suppose could be said to be at the top of their game, reached the heights of this tree where if they wanted to they could laugh ha ha ha and close down their websites in the safe knowledge that a load of little sycophantic twats would do all the promo work for them. My second list that I posted here was with perhaps the exception of Mishka who's bloody everywhere photographers who could do with being a bit better known.
                         So my first list not published here (are you following this?) was as follows...

  Alec Soth because of Sothism.

The Broomberg & Chanarin twins

Stephen Gill The cockney Bristolian

Taryn Simon and her cockeyed tiger

and last and by no means least

Paul Graham just because.

Again my earlier point about us all creating similar lists to each other. I know why I picked these folks it's their different take on the document. That's what I love, taking that documentary art thing and giving it a good fucking push. Take Stephen Gill's latest series and book (you can read about it here)  'COEXISTANCE'. Is there any other photographer who explores the actual materiality of the photograph and it's presentation as much as Gill? Some will and have accused his work of being gimmicky, that's like saying that Pointillism is gimmicky.

                                          So that's what I'm on the look out for over the coming years, documentary photographers who are looking at new and exciting ways to use the photograph to document because that for me is photography's future.

So What's New?

Colin Pantall posted THIS I contacted him and said  "I'll have some of that what do I do?" He emailed me back and said,

Dear photography blogger,


To celebrate new ideas in photography, we are asking people to nominate up to five photographers who have demonstrated an openness to use new ideas in photography, who have taken chances with their photography and have shown an unwillingness to play it safe. These three categories can be interpreted in any way. We ask that people put their nominations up on their photography blogs starting Monday, September 17th, with a short text and a key image (from 100 words up to however long you think "short" can be) as a nice way to kickstart the Autumn: a collective effort of the photography blog community.

Colin (Pantall) & Joerg (Colberg)

So then in no particular order as they say......

Mishka Henner

from the series BLISS

Playing for team GB and good old Manchester town I can think of few photographers who have either mined the t'internet so resourcefully or managed to bridge the photographer or artist, artist or photographer this shit can sit happy in any gallery I don't need to exist in a photo ghetto riddle. A true Cyberman. 

Philippe Spigolon

 from the series PEDIATRICS

A Frenchman who's not afraid to get his little compact out even in front of sick kids. Finding pictures close to home without the need to travel, and all cut through with deft and gentle humour. A clever photographer. Keith Arnatt's bastard son.

Craig Atkinson

Or the zineman. Founding father of rough n ready photo zine publisher CAFE ROYAL BOOKS this fella gets his booketts and other peoples into the collections of such places as TATE, MOMA and the V&A. Photo's with no faff.

Stuart Griffiths

Stuart, a photographer originally trained by the British army is probably best known for his work about that same said army. In more recent years he has used his no bollocks approach to document other mainly British subjects who are either being shafted or shafting themselves.

TomRS

TomRS is THE godfather of  PHOTOBLOGism which along with BLURBism has been one of the new minor religions of the 21st century. It's like he's got a camera instead of an eye like in an 80's film but he's a good guy, a superhero of the everyday.

So that's my 5. What links them? I believe in what each one of these artists is up to, the fact that there is a strong and interestingly new documentary approach to what they do. Documentation is such a strong ingredient in photography but so many of today's practitioners are not interested in  exploring the document in new ways. Well what do you think? Ah fuck it, let history decide. 

You can see what other bloggers think by clicking on these names....  Colin Pantall Stan Banos Harvey Benge Joerg Colberg Mrs Deane Andrew Phelps and Others.