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.

Greg Stimac

 

Every now and then I get sent a link to a photographers work. Mostly I love it when that happens and I'm always a little bit flattered, but what do you do when your not that keen on their stuff? What is the correct internet protocol?

 I do one of two things. Pick the picture I like most from their website and post a link to said website and that's your lot or I do nothing and delete the email.

Now this might make me seem like a bit of a cunt but at least I don't make up a bollocks submission policy make you jump through hoops, say I'll get back to you in a few months and then fuck you off anyway.

 

None of those problems though with Greg Stimac Greg just sent me a link through to his website. No explanation no artist statement or project statement (in 100 words or less) just a link. And I'm so glad he did. I've been aware of his work for a while and I already had a link to his website in my links list so fuck knows why I've not posted about him before. Sometimes you think you've done something and you haven't like feeding the cat or posting about a really interesting artist like Greg.

 

 

Greg is that rarest and most interesting of photographic artists one that uses other things in his work as well as photos. Take for instance the above 3D work. No info on the website about this other than the materials it's made out of, the boots are real (size 12) and they contain asphalt and truck bed liner. Get on the road Jack.
 

There's a lot of the American road trip references in Greg's work. It's a big American thing isn't it the road trip? The pull of the open road especially for American photographers. It is for them what the seaside is for English photographers and what pissed mentally ill people are for Eastern European photographers.
 It's not a celebration of all things American with Greg's photos though. There's a cynicism running through his work that I love all the more because it's so hard to normally find in American photography. Even when American photographers are showing the under belly of the country I always seem to be left with a sickly feeling in my mouth like I've eat to much of that maple syrup shit they love. It's a kind of romanticism especially for the landscape that they just can't seem to resist.
Greg resists and represents The Great American Road Trip with bottles of piss. Brilliant. I hope America gets his work, if not he should move here to the UK because we'll love it.

www.gregstimac.com

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.

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.

Rhodri Brooks

I only stop by this blog and post when something catches my eye these days. Rhodri Brooks pictures really made me smile, they are so fucking silly in a good way. I had to add to the photographers list at the side.

Brandon Juhasz.

The next step on from appropriation of Google images is the recycling of those images. Internet collage, turning them into 3D and rephotographing. It's all fun, can it be used to say something of substance? can it become something more than novelty? Could say documentary photographers use it in some way? Does anyone outside of the silly little photo puddle we swim in give a fuck?
 There's no getting away from the fact that Brandon Juhasz's images bear more than a passing resemblance to those of fellow American Daniel Gordon but I find them a bit more interesting maybe the next step on to finding a little bit more depth with this kind of thing. Keep making me smile though..

Plant Pots Stolen In Manchester Garden Centre Heist... Only kidding it's the work of Diana Scherer...

 

I bet you've already seen the series 'Nature Studies' by Diana Scherer on the cover of  the recent copy of HOTSHOE (they dropped the 'International' bit of the title a while back I think they realised it sounded a bit wanky)

If you've not seen them have a look. This work was a long time in the planning. Over six months to catch that 'decisive moment' the moment when the plants are at their peak of flowery loveliness. A six month plus decisive moment that's interesting. Plant still life's that's an artistic tradition that takes a bit of thought to come up with something new. Scherer has taken European still life (she lives in Holland after all) eighteenth & nineteenth century specimen illustration and the art of Japanese Ikebana mixed them together and come up with something which I thought was proper fresh. A bit like the plants in the pictures. see what I did there?

Barry W Hughes

Read about this photo HERE

 To get my year of the 'still life' underway I kick off with THIS series by Barry W Hughes. Barry is a photographer, writer and founding Father of the always excellent SUPERMASSIVEBLACKHOLE web mag. I said I was going to spend the year looking at the most interesting still life photography I can find and I think these piccies are a good place to start.....

Daniel Gordon

I first came across the work of Daniel Gordon when I was looking on Google for stuff by Douglas Gordon. It was a happy search engine hiccup. Appropriation. Taking images again often from online and turning them into 3D then the camera is needed to turn them back into 2D. That's the interesting thing for me, the camera is still as much an integral part of the process. Why do I like that ? is it because I love the art and craft of fine photography?  Is it because  perhaps his work can be seen to be exploring ideas such as photography's roll in the modern image savvy world  when digital imaging can take on the job of representation? Do I like his work because it is perhaps a 'kick back' at slick perfect picture making, a bit 'make do and mend' like knitting and baking. Is it because he is the Kirstie Allsop of photography?
The reason I love the work of Daniel Gordon is all of the above but mainly because he makes nuddy women out of old magazines.

Jonathan Lewis

Jonathan Lewis is a facebook friend. I've not posted up his work here because of that. Oh no other way round. Fact is I really like his work and that's why I wanted to be his facebook friend. LIKE LIKE, LIKE. HERE for more.

Gemma Marmalade

I always hated the name Mark Page. It's just a couple of dull noises. Uh Uh. I would have loved a name like Gemma Marmalade.  Mark Marmalade, now that would have been something.

 Ms Marmalade's work partly deals with sexual orientation, you got to be careful with shit like that, this is the art world and like Manchester everyones gay, or at least art about such thing's is a well trod path. Give a lesbian photographer a camera and portraits of female boxers could well be on the cards.

That's no good for our Gemma. She researched and found out that in the 1950's far from just eating sick off the pavements  pigeons could also tell if you were gay or not or so some people came to believe. Now when such things were illegal (being gay not eating sick) getting grassed up by a pigeon was a bit of a shitter. That's the background for her 'STRANGE BIRDS' . I reckon this bird is one to watch.

Ciaran Og Arnold

I love this picture it blew me away when I saw it in SOURCE GRADUATE PHOTOGRAPHY. It's the single most memorable image I've seen in a while. I think I will remember it for a long time and also remember who it's by. I think as visual artists that's the best we can hope for.
I've been a fan of Ciaran's work since I first saw it back in SOURCE in 2007. With this latest series 'No Day or Night' he's took it up a notch. They are photographs of the inhabitants of a town, we are not told where or when. Like my favourite stuff from Japan or Denmark, existential documentary could that be a genre? HERE for more.
You will notice that the link takes you to a site called FINDING FRAGMENTS well worth a look round in it's own right. Work made by photographers who studied under such luminaries as Paul Seawright and Donovan Wylie.

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.

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.

Marten Lange

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

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." 

Henrik Malmström

I'll admit that one of the main reasons I started blogging back in 2007 was self promotion. It wasn't the only reason I also wanted to get a good go to link list of photographers who's work I liked, but mainly it was about getting a presence on the web. That probably reached it's peak a couple of years in, ran it's course, achieved as much as a blog by someone who is not part of the photo/art establishment can. "Hits" stats are fairly constant at around 9k a month so I'm not complaining but as a PR tool for yours truly it's maxed out. 

So that brings me to why I still bother. One reason is I like most artists love the sound of my own voice. The other increasingly important reason is that I get to meet, hear about and interact with all kinds of tip top folk. Over the years I've met and maintained friendships with photographers/artists from the other side of the world as well as just down the road. I also on occasion get smashing free stuff. Henrik Malmström continues that tradition. Henrik contacted me and asked if he could do swopsey's with my book 'Art is Godd'. he was offering his book 'On Borrowed Time' I nearly snatched his virtual hand off.

It's not an easy book. I was immediately transported to a very private family experience, cancer. Strangely enough it was a family situation that was very much at the forefront of my mind as it was almost twelve months to the day that my family were in the same situation as we watched my Father fall to "The big C" .  Henrik's moving series goes beyond being a darkly beautiful and touching personal tribute to his sister Maija and becomes a document of a shared human experience.

Okabe Tokyo

Proper mad bollox that's what this is. Japanese, by Tokyo Okabe. I love it. Loads of self portraits wearing big pants and picking your nose. There's not enough of that in the photo world. HERE for his pretty crappy website and HERE for a better look at his unique work. I'm off to set light to my head.