TEDXSalford.

"Crabtree watching the Transit of Venus from a flat above a kebab shop, Broughton 1639" by Ford Madox Brown, a mural at Manchester Town Hall.

Many years ago in Salford you could well have heard William Crabtree talking about space or Karl Marx telling Engels what's what over a scoop at The Crescent. These days you are more likely to hear "Chelsea eat yer fucking chicken nuggets". But there are enclaves of more academic chat to be found in Salford. Not all Salfordians use the Lowry centre solely for auditions for Twat Factor. Oh yes we have our thinkers as well as our tinkers.

I must confess I didn't know that Salford had it's own branch of the TED organisation not till one of it's members Mike Metcalf got in touch to tell me about and event at The Lowry on the 21st of this month. He also pointed me in the direction of an interesting article about photography he had written HERE on the TEDXSalford site. Nice one, Salford has a broader intelligencer than me and Peter Hook.

Marten Lange

I love Sweden. Naked sauna's meatballs dark detective films Marten Lange's photography...

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.

New Cliches of Photography #29

Making stupid costumes out of crap.

New Cliches of Photography #28

Family snapshots past off as art.

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.

96.

For twenty years or so I've been believing a lie or perhaps more accurately not believing the truth. I like to think I'm media savvy but the press in this country sowed a seed of doubt in my head back in 1989 and the years that followed, that maybe just perhaps it was the scousers fault, lets face it there's no love lost between UNITED and LFC fans so I swallowed it.

But today I think that Liverpool should be proud of it's self as a city, today it must be great to be a Scouser. I read somewhere that the Hillsborough report has wiped away any sense of celebration left over from LONDON 2012 it shouldn't have done. The OLYMPICS have been a lesson in perseverance tenacity human triumph and team spirit  what if not those very qualities have the families of the victims been showing over the last 23 years?

I bow my head in shame and have learnt something that I should have known already.....

Jennifer Kaczmarek

Image Jennifer kaczmarek

Jennifer Kaczmarek's series and photo diary 'LOVE FOR ALYSSA' it's a little bit American but hats off as  a lot of folk would steer clear of a project like this.

Kevin Connolly

Kevin Connally is a photographer who was born with no legs. He gets about on a skateboard. He gets about on a skateboard and photographs people's reactions to what they see. To be honest it's a bit tight on his subjects, if I saw a fella with no legs on a skateboard pointing a camera at me I  would no doubt stare. Even a dog stares in one picture. Still fuck em it makes for an interesting project.

Patricia Lay-Dorsey.

Image Patricia Lay-Dorsey

 PATRICIA LAY-DORSEY'S writes of her series FALLING INTO PLACE (SELF PORTRAITS) "As an artist-turned-photographer, whenever I would see photo essays or articles featuring persons with disabilities, I would assess the work both photographically and personally. The photographs might be superb, but all to often non disabled photographers would fall into the trap of presenting their subjects as brave, pitiable; I was simply doing my best to live a full life with the hand I'd been dealt." 

Touchy Subject ?

It's the paralympic games that's got me thinking about disability (which of course is partly the point of the games) and I've been thinking about photographers either disabled or not who make work on the subject. There's a fair bit  of work been made about soldiers returning from the numerous wars that are going on and of course there's a large contingent at The Games representing that group, but outside of war casualties I've  not seen much photographic work been made on the subject. So I put out a shout on facebook via flak photo network and a new history of photography network  (both recommended if you are on Facebook) and I got back a fair few names both of disabled photographers and photographers who make work about disability. I'm sure I got back less though than if I had asked for a list of say oh I don't know.... say photographers who make work about Detroit. Why I wonder? Do able bodied photographers fear getting it wrong and the backlash and possible harm it may do to a career? I shall feature those name I got here over the next few days.

I had already decided to feature Ian Dury's Spasticus Autisticus on the blog before I saw it covered so well at the opening ceremony of the games. Once banned by the BBC now played as part of the celebration, Progress. There's also an interview with Dury done by Manchester's very own GRANADA.

P.S. Blogger spell check has no knowledge of the word Paralympic. Just saying.....

My old cocker Harvey Benge drew my attention to this article on the state of German photography a report by The Goethe-Institut. It's an interesting read and underlines that photography is well assimilated into a wider German art (I'd love to see one on the state of British photography)

I also love Harvey's new site featuring stacks of his work btw. See it HERE

THE MANCHESTER PROJECT

"Originally started back in 1999 the initial inspiration came from W. Eugene Smith’s PITTSBURGH PROJECT. The aim to make as complete a portrait as is possible of a city, in this case Manchester.


The archive exists as several hundred sixteen by twelve inch prints. It is also a blog which can be seen HERE.

THE MANCHESTER PROJECT is divided into eleven chapters which are; GROUPS, TOPOGRAPHY, LIFE, YOUTH, BUILD THEM UP KNOCK THEM DOWN, CONTROL, WORK, SHOPPING & PLAY, FOLK, SIGNS and DEBRIS.

THE MANCHESTER PROJECT may never be finished."

So reads the blurb that I have just upload over at my website. That's why I've not been writing here for a couple of weeks. I've been building THE MANCHESTER PROJECT blog which is a proper photo blog. No talking shit by me like here, just photo's.

Woof.

Small selection of new stuff HERE

My Pretend Salford.

Salford & other Myths is a set of pictures I've just uploaded HERE They are photographs (shot on film with The Frances Tonks Memory camera) of Salford or at least a Salford that lives in my head. It's not real Salford (was it ever like that?) it's the Salford of artist's and writers imagination that grew into something else. It's a pretend Salford of the first half of the twentieth century. It's a shared imagined and remembered lost past. It exists parallel  to the media barrage of scrotes and the riots and the new big Tesco's and no pubs and shiny media city. Those things are pushing my pretend Salford out of my head and I wanted to document it before I lose it. Below are things that have helped to create my lovely "in your head" Salford.

Photographs Found Under Oscar Wilde's Bed Shock!

I know how folk love a salacious headline with their Sunday morning breakfast. It like most headlines is of course complete bollocks. This picture and lots of others taken at the start of photography, comes from one of the most off the wall photo blogs I've found. MY DAGUERREOTYPE BOYFRIEND whose tag line is "Where early photography meets extreme hotness" brilliant and really silly.  

Odd.

How the general public view photographers.

Good Morning Salford!

Chat.

A conversation between two of my favourite Manchester photo artists Mishka Henner & Seba Kurtis HERE.

Digital or Film?