I'm Not Dead,

I've just been busy trying to start stuff before I've finished stuff and while I'm still half way through other stuff. You ever get like that ? Heads up my arse and need to focus and finish one thing at a time. So the blog gets pushed back.
If anyone wants to help out around here it would be appreciated. If you want to write something for the blog let me know. Obviously you got to know something about photography/art/Manchester. You'll get full credit and a decent sized friendly audience. If you're interested let me know at info@manchesterphotography.com

ALTERNATIVE CAMERA CLUB presents EJ MAJOR

EJ Major is this months speaker at The Alternative Camera Club down at The Whitworth Art Gallery. She fits into the remit of the ACC which  looks at what's interesting and fresh in approach within the often conservative and boring world of photography. "Now where did I put my 50% grey card ? I saw it last in my Billingham bag..."

The last post was an experiment I'll explain if it works!

01 the manchester riots

The manchester riots, the riots manchester 2011

Marc Provins

The day before yesterday we had hyena's lions a panther and Lady Gaga, today we have.....Hydrangeas in front gardens. To be honest it's more up my street than ZAF (South African rap in case you're wondering) Although from South Asia, there's something very British about the humble Hydrangea. A bit lower middle class 50's Britain, a bit of a Philip Larkin of an ornamental shrub. I bet Jarvis Cocker would have loved to have been born as a Hydrangea.

I love Hydrangeas my Nan had them and now I grow them. They remind me of my childhood you could fill a council house front garden with a big Hydrangea bush. A nice splash of easy to care for colour, not to showy, with a nice bit of privacy thrown in. I've been partly shaped by my Nan's Hydrangea bush. Our past and environment make us who we are. The above series PH6 by Manchester photographer Marc Provin is  about such things. Not enough acid will turn you blue and no one wants to be a blue. see more of Marc's work HERE.

Sylvia Kristel RIP

Thank you Sylvia Kristal on behalf of a generation of schoolboys.

FATTY BOOM BOOM

Die Antwoord and my old mate Roger Ballen have been playing nicely together again and come up with this video. WARNING contains swearing words and scenes of gynaecology...

PHOTOGRAPHERS by Blacklab.

The brilliant Blacklab

Tom Wood

Tom Wood is one of most favouritistist photographers in the whole wide world ever so I am very happy that he has a new show at THE PHOTOGRAPHERS GALLERY starting today as well as a new book  coming out soon called 'Men & Women'
You can read more about old Tom HERE on the BBC website. Carry on and read the comments, that should leave us photo people in no doubt what most non Doc/Art photo people think about our twating about and the worth of what we do.
Now if only I had an archive of Jimmy Saville photo's people would buy into that shit.

Pelle Cass

Images Pelle Cass

One of the hardest things for me is going up to someone and asking to take their portrait. Now can you imagine going up to someone and saying can I take loads of pictures of you so I can reassemble your face and show something different about you? Unfortunately in the process you may come out looking like..well I'm not sure what. It's fun though and strange so he calls the series "Strangers".

And look closely at this scene. You set up a tripod take loads of pictures of a view and take out the people you don't want and keep the rest. If only you could do "Selected People" in real life. I love the mad head photo's of Pelle Cass.

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."