The Manchester Mafia presents.......

The Manchester Mafia are once again bringing us The Manchester International Festival! Reuniting chums Hans Ulrich Obrist, Maxine Peake, Bjork, legendary Mancunian Damon Albarn, Peter Saville (no relation to Jimmy) and the oldest swinger in town Dave Haslem. All together again for another money spinning year.

Ed Watts Does William Eggleston.

It's about time Manchester Photography did a post about a Manchester photographer. It's Ed Watts I'm referring to. I'm sure a lot of you know him. He's been organising photo related stuff at The Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester and further afield with gems such as The Alternative Camera Club, Roast Beef and such like for ages.
Here though I'm interested in what he's been up to with his own photography. The above picture, that even the most photographically illiterate provincial council art gallery curator should spot is William Eggleston's 1973 piccy Greenwood Mississippi.
Watts, and I'm going to call him that rather than Ed so that I sound more impartial and professional, has been thinking about this photo for years. I can testify that he has wanted to recreate that space for donkey's. Well thanks to the folk at this years FORMAT Festival he's going to build that ceiling as a life size installation/sculpture and invite others to photograph this iconic scene. I wonder if that room was ever photographed by anyone else? It's so famous a ceiling but it's the only photo I know of the place which is unusual because as we all know photographers love to photograph the same thing over and over again. Just look at that canal/river in Hackney, I'm sick of the fucking sight of it.
Anyway Ed, I mean Watts is going to give all of us photographers the chance to photograph that red ceiling again and again and again and we can flood the internet with shit loads of versions of it so when we next type in Greenwood, Mississippi 1973 we will get the same but different.
As I said in the last post too many photographers call themselves photo artists without doing anything more than point and shoot. Watts is screwing that notion up with this piece.

Boring but not in a good way.

"The festival is not open to the new developments in photography, new technology, new names and faces. Film is gone. We have to stop clinging to it like some grail with the power to grant new life."

So writes Jean-Jacques Naudet  about this years Arles festival on LE JOURNAL De La PHOTOGRAPHIE. Now never having been (although I once showed work in a fringey bit) I can't possibly comment.

Decided that this week it would be a complete waste of time bothering to send submissions or trying to contact European photo people as anyone who is anybody will be in ARLES.....You can find me in Manchester all week.

On Brighton.

Martin Parr "This is Brighton" from Photographie on Vimeo.

Martin Parr presents the Brighton Photo Biennial 2010 from Olivier Laurent on Vimeo.

Two little film clips of Martin Parr introducing Octobers BRIGHTON PHOTO BIENNIAL. Strangely enough neither clip features any photography!?

Salford Film Festival.

Absolutely brilliant though it is, Salford film has moved on a tad since "A TASTE OF HONEY" as can be seen this coming weekend at THE SALFORD FILM FESTIVAL.

NYPH09

NYPH O9 - New York Photo Festival - May 13-17
The New York Photo Festival is pleased to announce the Call for Entries for the New York Photo Awards 2009Submissions Accepted Starting March 2, 2009Visit www.newyorkphotoawards.com

Another good opportunity and another $80 submission fee.

FotoFreo

I should have mentioned on the last post, that Graham Miller is also one of the organiser's of the Fotofreo biennial, in Australia http://www.fotofreo.com/ God I wish Manchester had a photo or even a foto festival....................

Hereford Photofest 2008

Image copyright Amanda Jackson

Hereford photofest http://www.photofest.org/2008/index.htm is now in it's 18th year. On between 17th May & 14th June This years Theme is "Here and There" with work from the UK and Africa, including the legendary Roger Ballen http://www.rogerballen.com/

NYPH08

Perhaps the leader's of our city should be looking at laying on something like this:http://www.nyphotofestival.com/TheFuture.html I can't see photographer's smashing up Town after a couple of drinks....... HEADLINES: MARTIN PARR GOES ON ONE MAN RAMPAGE! no I can't see that.....................