Tim Hetherington - Long Story Bit by Bit

Just realised I haven't put anything I really LOVE on for a while, so at the risk of teaching your grandmother to suck eggs, I thought I'd post something about Tim Hetherington's new book about Liberia; Long Story Bit by Bit.

The book documents the civil war and it's aftermath. It is an intense combination of portraits, brutal war documentary and very quiet landscapes. It also has an unconventional emphasis on context through captions and in depth interviews with many of those involved in the conflict, previous and current members of government and of resistance groups, as well as lawyers and activists, which is one reason it's the best new photography book I've seen for a while. Video interview with Tim about it here. See the images on his site here.

Michael Wolf

from 'Real Fake Art'

Michael Wolf is a German photographer who has been living in China for the last 10 years. His observational series are nice, I especially like Bastard Chairs, 100x100, and Real Fake Art. His student work from the 70's is also nice, B&W of a German coal mining town, very similar to what many British photographers were doing in the north of England in the 70s.

5D as an astronomical camera! on Vimeo

Time lapse video of night sky as it passes over the 2009 Texas Star Party in Fort Davis, Texas. The galactic core of Milky Way is brightly displayed. Images taken with 15mm fisheye lens.

Wow! Back in the day I was a proper physics geek, and I still regularly check astronomy sites for fascinating bits, this however I felt was arty enough to share with you without being laughed out the classroom!

It's shot on a 5D and put the piece together as time-lapse. It's not quite what you'd see with the naked eye, as he's used a filter to bring out the hydrogen emission spectrum (ahem...nice colours) but it's absolutely stunning!

Thanks William Castleman, and thanks mashable (check their other amazing vimeo treats here).

Specific Things

'Specific Things' is a nice site collecting random images, I particularly like 'Teams called the Pirates' (above), and 'Women holding Koalas'!

most pointless video ever?

A 'behind-the-scenes video from the Oscars portfolio sessions' directed by Ryan McGinley, for The New York Times.

Self indulgent, painfully cheesy and I'm sure was really worth the big budget that must have been pumped into this.

Fresh faced and Wiley eyed!

Martina Lindqvist (above) and Petros Christosomou

Check out the Photographer's gallery's selection of this years photography graduates at Fresh Faced and Wild Eyed. Standout for me; Benjamin Beker's isolated Serbian war memorials, Petros Christostomou's oversized objects (or undersized rooms), Nae Bunthita Indhawong's portraits of British nigerians, Martina Lindqvist's Ragskar island in Finland and Michael Whelan's juxtaposed billboards. It's nice to see the variety of work coming out, yeah some of it is derivative but I think college does that to you a bit, be very interested to see what these guys are doing in a couple of years.

Online photo magazines: Triangle Triangle and Eleanor

From Big Rock Candy Mountain by Tammy Mercure, via Eleanor Mag

Eleanor magazine was set up by US based photographer Matt Wright-Steel earlier this year to give space for photographers personal projects. It is biased towards documentary work, nicely designed, and looks like it will eventually go to print as well.

Triangle Triangle's bloggy format was set up by London photographer Jake Dow-Smith. Submit via Hexagon Hexagon.

Todd Hido On Booooooom

Todd Hido: from 'Homes at night'

Just been having a look at the photography archive on Booooooom, and there are a few well executed series of images on themes. I like Todd Hido's houses at night, as well as Alan George's wierd and wonderful trees and J Bennett Fitts' empty swimming pools. Booooooom also has a flickr pool.

Victoria Jenkins

Victoria Jenkins, 'Images from the Institute of Esoteric Research'


I don't know much about the work of recent Brighton graduate Victoria Jenkins and on first impression it reminds me very much of the work of Clare Strand. I've been looking at a lot of graduates work in the last few weeks though and this is one of few works that has stuck in my mind.

Adam Panczuk

Adam Panczuk, from the series 'Actors'

I'm generally not too keen on reposting things that I've found on other blogs, but the work of Polish photographer Adam Panczuk is really quite beautiful and I couldn't resist. Found via Conscientious.

Kyungwoo Chun and Masao Yamamoto

Above: Masao Yamamoto
Below: Kyungwoo Chun

There is some nice work on the Fifty One gallery site. Based in Antwerp, Belgium, they represent a lot of great photographers including a hefty amount of African art, documentary and studio photographers; Seydou Keita and Malick Sidibe who we've already mentioned here, but also J.D. Okhai Ojeikere's extreme hairstyles, Philip K. Apagya's modern backdrops, Cornelius Azaglo's portraits and Depara's pictures of 50's Kinshasa night life.

Today though it was a couple of quiet fine art photographers that caught my eye. Kyungwoo Chun's long exposure portraits capture and distill the fidgets of the sitter, in fact he usually chats to them during exposures of several minutes, and the resulting stances caught are surprisingly emotive. I especially liked these colour, half body portraits, with the combination of movements of the hands and head.

Masao Yamamoto has just had a show in the gallery which closed yesterday (sorry!). His work is lightly graphic with lots of blank spaces and slight objects, and is worked to produced an aged look. Sometimes I find this sort of work a bit cliched and unchallenging but his is very skillfully done. More here.

Flak Photo giveaway!

Today's Flak Photo, Guangzhou Zoo II, Guangzhou, Guangdong, China, 2007 by Kurt Tong


I'm sure many of you are aware of Flak Photo already; an online photography journal ran by Andy Adams, showcasing both the emerging and the established. Andy has just posted a competition on Flak's Facebook group with the aim "to connect interested photographers in the online photography community with a free opportunity that contributes to their personal image-making." The prize is to win a free pass to Blurb's Photography Book Workshops, but get in there quick- the deadline is Friday and the workshops are to be held next week. Find out more here.

The blog is bit quiet at the moment as both Anna and I are away, but updates are coming soon!