Go again to see the URBAN SCENE exhibit at the Portland Museum of Art - up until 8/17. Several of the paper works have been removed so they are not under the lights too long to cause damage and two new artists have work in their places.

Kennebec Street © David Wolfe, 2007. All rights reserved.

David Wolfe, owner of Wolfe Editions on Pleasant St. in Portland, is a palladium print artist (and is represented exclusively by VoxPhotographs). Four of Wolfe’s palladiums purchased recently by the PMA are now on view as part of this exhibit (”Checkmate”, “Kennebec Street”, “Portland Company” and “Portland Company Doors” all 2007). See more of his work by clicking on either link in this paragraph.

Mark Klett, based in Arizona, was the inspiration and mentor behind the recent MECA show “Re-Visioning Portland” and if you missed that one, you missed something very, very good. The Portland Museum of Art purchased one of Klett’s works “Panorama of Congress St., Portland Maine, September 2007 with the Baxter Building circa 1901″ Inkjet print. The image is about 6 feet long and really fun to study for a while. Klett has published a book of his work: View Finder: Mark Klett, Photography and the Reinvention of Landscape. I’m going to head over to the MECA library (see this blog category “Maine Resources I Love” about this library) and find a copy. I can’t find a website just for Klett, oddly enough.

One thing about reading a newspaper on paper as opposed to the electronic experience is that your eye is forced to travel the entire page of articles looking for things of interest. Online, I just click on the headlines I’m interested in and…well, I would have missed the review of “Islander” for sure if I hadn’t had my husband’s leftover Sunday Maine Telegram in front of me yesterday at lunch here at the gallery in Portland and caught a line or two of Ted Fry’s (Seattle Times) rave review of the film co-written by Thomas Hildreth, a Portland, Maine native, as I was turning the page.

As luck would have it, I did read it, and didn’t hesitate to get myself over to The Movies On Exchange for their 3:15 showing. I love Maine fiction, Maine social history, and obviously Maine photographic experiences and this fit the bill on all three counts.

How about if I just quote from CinemaDave’s review of the camera work in this film? It’s terrific and even if it weren’t couched in a lovely, sweet and authentic story, it would be worth seeing for itself:

Review by CinemaDave © CinemaDave
“Produced on a low budget, ‘Islander’ contains breathtaking cinematography, the slow pace of a southern told tale and a narrative with a complete middle and end.

Despite the fictional elements, “Islander” has the feel of a personal documentary. Many shots are devoted to the detail of pulling lobster traps from the briny deep and bait being cut. While the film is low budget, it does contain some of the best outdoor photography filmed on the open sea. Director of photography Dan Coplan should receive an award by the Maine tourist council. “Islander” is definitely a vacation from the ordinary motion pictures.”

—-

If you’re into photography, pre-order the DVD, or if you are lucky this summer, get yourself to a cinema to see this film and appreciate what one expert cameraman can do with Maine scenery and its way of life. Here’s more on Dan Coplan:

Dan Coplan, Director of Photography
Dan Coplan is a Los Angeles based director of photography, Steadicam operator, and digital imaging technician. He started his career in entertainment with visual effects and editing, spending a brief period with George Lucas’s company Industrial Lights & Magic. However, the lack of sun and human interaction motivated him to seek a different creative field. On a whim, Dan bought a miniDV camera and started shooting projects for free to gain experience and material for his reel.

One small break led to another as Dan moved from volunteer work to earning a living. Seeking a wider variety of productions with larger budgets, Dan begrudgingly left his great friends and apartment (with parking!) in San Francisco, packed his bags, and moved to LA to make the most of his career. Since then, Dan has worked on numerous projects for a wide variety of clients and is a member of several associations including the International Cinematographers Guild, Society of Camera Operators, Steadicam Operators Association, and Digital Cinema Society.
—–

Okay, so here’s the bad news. Yesterday was the last day the film was playing in Maine. You’ll need to write to Thomas Hildreth (thomas@sternmanproductions.com) to find out where you can see the movie in the coming weeks here in Maine. Michael Hurley of Belfast’s Colonial Theatre writes that they showed it twice last year. Sign up on the website to be alerted to the availability of the DVD, buy one and schedule a movie party for everyone you know. You’ll be a hero.

But have lots of kleenex handy. I cried ten times during this film, and put off much-needed bladder relief (hey it was hot yesterday and I drank a lot of water!) because I couldn’t miss one second of this film.

• Los Angeles Film Festival official selection 2006
• Maine International Film Festival official selection 2006
• Williamstown Film Festival official selection 2006
• Hatch Film Festival official selection 2006
• Sedona Film Festival official selection 2007 (Director’s Choice Award for Best Feature Film)
• Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival official selection 2007
• Environmental Film Festival official selection 2007

If you are heading to NYC before Sept. 1, take time to visit the “Framing a Century” (1840-1940 ) exhibit there. And if not? Well, take a short trip at your leisure and see the a dozen or so images from the exhibit online in the comfort of your own computer chair. That’s what I did. Each image can be enlarged enough to be studied without squinting.

Thirteen photographers revered by photography historians everywhere are featured - from William Henry Fox Talbot to Walker Evans. Almost every twist and turn in the history of the medium is represented and it’s like a visit with old friends.

All images in the exhibit are from the Met’s own photography collection. Everybody will have their favorites, but I went weak in the knees at the first glimpse of Gustave Le Gray’s Tree Study, Forest of Fontainebleau (ca.1856). It is just so lovely, and I had a hard time moving on to the next image.

I got positively light-headed at the sight of Julia Margaret Cameron’s portrait of Philip Stanhope Worsley (1864-66). How the heck did she pull this off?

I realized I was holding my breath while studying Carleton Watkins‘ Cape Horn Near Celilo (1867) and then Atget’s Rue de la Montagne -Sainte Genevieve. They are so fine, there are no words to describe them.

The Brassai is one I’ve never seen before - Introduction at Suzy’s (1932-33) - and the moment he catches is one of a kind.

The Met acquired the priceless Gilman Collection in 2005 and that, together with their own rare holdings, is the source for this exhibit. The extent of the whole archive is hard to get your head around.

I can’t imagine what I’m missing by not seeing this exhibit in person. There’s no catalog to ease the pain. So…heading south, anyone?

(From E-Photo Newsletter #145 - if you are not subscribing to this great newsletter, the link to do so is at the bottom of this excerpt.)

EDITORIAL: ORPHAN WORK AND COPYRIGHT LAWS

By Alex Novak, Contemporary Works/Vintage Works, Ltd.

————

The patchwork quilt of ill-thought-out copyright laws has made it a nightmare and a virtual impossibility to create any kind of inclusive new history of photography or art without the threat of a massive lawsuit, which has occasionally been used in a fashion akin to blackmail.

While I have great sympathy for artists’ concerns over loss of copyright, I do not see how those concerns could not be met under the new proposals before the U.S. Congress. To leave copyright law as is would not address the serious concerns of publishers, institutions, curators, author/editors and scholars. It would do a disservice to continuing research and scholarship.

Contrary to Frank Stella’s editorial on the subject in the Art Newspaper and other comments on the web, any major living artist, including Stella, would still have to approve any such work. To not do so would be a clear violation of the law. Any publisher/author that did recognize the need to contact a name that one could simply “Google” online and didn’t follow through would be punished severely under the proposed law. What the law would do would be to prevent some third-cousin who now is the “repository” of a more obscure artist’s estate from suing publishers and author/editors who used an image after trying repeatedly to find out who owned copyright and failing.

As the publisher of an email newsletter and a major website on photography collecting, I received dozens of emails each month from editors, curators and publishers asking who controls the copyright of an artist. I think one rather simple solution is a basic database that is run by the U.S. Copyright Office that lists artists by name, media and who is the current holder of their copyrights and how to contact these copyright holders. This would not require massive amounts of funding and could even recoup the little funding necessary by minor charges for access to such a database, which could then be used as a defense in any copyright cases. The rather light burden of listing with such a national (or even international) database should fall on the copyright holder, as it used to. If the work is not identified any where by artist, then it should rightly fall into the public domain. But the new law doesn’t even say that. It merely says that the artist would be entitled “only” to their normal charges for its use, if due-diligence was used by the publisher. In other words, the publisher isn’t off the hook, just that they could not be held up for blackmail.

Let’s work together to deal with ALL the real issues here on both sides. Copyright law is not some windfall way for artists to win the lottery by suing publishers when those publishers have made an honest attempt at finding the copyright holder and failed. At the same time, I think the law should be clear as to what specific actions a publisher should take to ascertain who the copyright holder is in order to receive its protection. Publishers should not be allowed to simply ignore copyright.

There are easy solutions to these problems if the participants are truly trying to resolve them.

Copyright © 2008 I Photo Central, LLC.
I Photo Central and Vintage Works Ltd., Alex Novak, 258 Inverness Circle,
Chalfont, PA 18914 USA; Phone (Country code: 001) 215-822-5662; email:
info@iphotocentral.com .

To subscribe to the E-Photo Newsletter visit:
http://www.iphotocentral.com/subscribe/subscribe.php .

Thanks to a short article in the current issue of PHOTOGRAPH magazine, I’ve bookmarked three blogs I want to keep in touch with…in fact, I’d be much further along personally and professionally if I logged on to these each morning during breakfast instead of reading the regional newspaper (my husband needs to subscribe for the comics and crossword/puzzles) which is shrinking daily and covering all the news I read the day before online.

So don’t let these pass you by.

pictureyear.blogspot.com - Dealer James Danziger must be up all night writing his blog. He owns Danziger Projects in New York City (and is former director of Magnum Photos/NYC). In June alone, he wrote about Misrach, photos of RFK’s funeral train taken in June, 1968, large format landscape photographers, YouTube images to link to, Iranian beauty contests,Tim Walker’s London Show, surreptitious photographs of his own - and on and on. Tons of images to soak up - really worth the time of all of us busy people. Lots of reader comments to enjoy as well.

howtobuyart.blogspot.com - most of what I saw here is about photographs, so log on and go to it. I really like the tone of the blog and the chance to see some other things I don’t have time to dig for myself. Lisa Hunter, the writer, is an arts journalist now based in Montréal, but recently in NYC, so she has lots of experience with that “art scene of art scenes”.

5b4.blogspot.com - if you suffer from the same illness I do — can’tresistphotographbooks-itis — you will find this blog provides some very effective medicine! Not just the usual easy-to-find photography book titles are reviewed and discussed here, so if you want to get out beyond your Amazon wishlist, bookmark this blog. A really good part of this blog is the reader comments - some real in-depth info. from other people who share this uncurable condition!

With the advent of the excellent (and free) Firefox browser to Version 3.0, PC users finally have improved color management within their browsers. I’ve been using Firefox for years as an alternative to Microsoft Explorer, but the newly released version 3.0 finally provides color managed viewing for the PC - something Mac users have had for a long time on their platform and that has been hard to find on the PC (outside of the Opera browser).

Why does this matter? Well, by having color management built into your browser, the experience of viewing photographs on-line can often be significantly improved. Most importantly, for many sites, color management is the only way to see the photographs with the colors intended by the artist. Certainly on other sites you may not notice a difference, but the differences may be subtle but important on many configurations.

Because this new feature is not needed by everyone and has possible performance impacts (though I have not noticed any myself), Mozilla defaults Firefox 3.0 to having no color management. The excellent Rob Galbraith site provides a small tutorial on setting up your version with color management. I personally used the beta plug-in and it worked like a charm. You can test your system to see if your browser (any browser, not just Firefox) is properly color managed at this helpful page.

In a few years, I would expect that all browsers will have this sort of capability, but I welcome this improvement now to the already-excellent Firefox browser. Give it a shot yourself to see if it makes a difference for your viewing.

- Jim Nickelson

Thanks to a re-scheduled appt. last Saturday morning I scuttled over to the Portland Museum of Art just after opening time to get my first viewing of the just-opened Georgia O’Keeffe and the Camera - The Art of Identity exhibit curated by Susan Danly, Curator of Graphics, Photography, and Contemporary Art at the museum. The exhibit was already humming with people who were clearly really getting into what they were seeing, to the extent that over the next hour I got cornered by a couple of delighted strangers who just had to talk about what they were looking at. That’s a first.

I went to the far corner of the farthest room of the exhibit to try and get some space and soon totally forgot about the annoyance that there are other people in the world. I had found gold - and the fact that others were enjoying the same treasure no longer mattered.

I’d suggest you start at the beginning. If I had seen nothing but the first photograph Stieglitz took in 1917 of O’Keeffe when she was 30, standing in front of her first one woman show at his NYC gallery, that would have been enough. It is all about her, as opposed to many of his subsequent photographs of her which were much about him. Of course, I’ve seen this image in books, but studying this original platinum print left me practically levitating. Alfred Stieglitz took well over 300 photographs of O’Keeffe and they are truly icons in the history of photography. In 1918, in front of her work No.15, Stieglitz photographed O’Keeffe in her hat and coat, hands beautifully arranged around the top coat button. These two images are simply unforgettable.

After O’Keeffe moved to New Mexico, she was photographed throughout the rest of her life by the best of the best. Many of these images I had never seen. Regardless of the point of the exhibit - how O’Keeffe collaborated with and controlled many of the photographers who came to take her image to create a certain sort of public persona, the portraits collected here are quite frankly breathtaking and talk to me as much about the photographers as about the subject herself.

A huge silver gelatin portrait (1956) by Yousuf Karsh of O’Keeffe sitting in the shady alley of Abiquiu is beautiful beyond belief (and reproduced a little light in the catalog). The touch of light on O’Keeffe’s face and just beyond her in the corner of the alley is something only a master could achieve. Ditto for the catalog cover silver gelatin image portrait of O’Keeffe with a white headscarf on (above). Honestly…could it get better than this?

Well, I had never seen the Irving Penn full length studio shot of O’Keeffe kind of cowering in a corner - did the photographer really master her, I wonder? It is amazing. The iconic Arnold Newman image (1968 ) used for the promotional pieces for the exhibit will be no stranger to anyone and you can see why when you stand in front of the real thing.

John Loengard’s two pictures - The Rock from Eliot Porter, Abiquiu, 1966 and Evening Walk, Ghost Ranch, 1966 are images I will spend much time studying before the end of the exhibit on September 7. The latter says it all about O’Keeffe. An almost endless vista of desert engulfs the tiny figure of O’Keeffe from the back walking on a dry rocky path with her chow further on ahead. Engulfed she may be, but there is no doubt she is completely at home in that desert. It’s completely inspired and both portraits demonstrate Loengard to be a photograper with a powerful and unique vision.

I’m not a huge fan of Ansel Adams but I was blown away by two of his images in this exhibit: the simply gorgeous and perfect St. Francis Church, Ranchos de Taos, NM (circa 1937) and surprise: the wonderful 1937 shot Palomino, Ghost Ranch. I’m so glad it was included in the exhibit - it’s a stunner. Neither are reproduced in the catalog, so I’ll have to return to the exhibit itself to enjoy them further.

I will also return to see O’Keeffe’s simple and exquisite painting The House I Live In, 1937, the quote next to which provoked a seemingly endless monologue from another museum-goer who just had to speak about what he was feeling. I happened along and looked as good as any other witless audience, I guess!

Three years ago my friend Peg Golden and I spent a week in Santa Fe and reserved tickets in advance to tour Abiquiu. The two hours is imprinted forever on our memories. Standing in O’Keeffe’s studio (right next to her priceless journals and catalog raisonné) gazing out the picture windows over the miles of desert she loved, allowed into her spare, beautiful bedroom, her living room, her kitchen, her gardens. If you can, put it at the top of your life’s TO DO list. Of course the photos in this exhibit of O’Keeffe’s personal spaces at Abiquiu bring back that treasured afternoon and that’s a gift in itself.

Summer’s upon us. My favorite beach will be the Portland Museum of Art - cellphone turned to “silent”, a deep frown on my face to discourage comments from strangers, and seriously, my heart speeding up in anticipation as I enter these rooms again and again to lose myself in the presence of greatness.

Fine art photographers, emerging or established, will find it worth their while to spend some time on the following two sites, the first one sponsored by the second one:

Women in Photography showcases work from all women fine art photographers and every other Tuesday publishes a one-person show. This site is an easy way to keep in tune with what is happening out there and that is helpful considering we are in the corner of things here in Maine and the juice of contemporary photography’s national scene sometimes stops flowing before it gets this far (like New York City ????!).

This site was just launched a week ago and Jim Nickelson brought it to my attention. As the blurb says on its home page- this will develop into an excellent resource for curators, editors and gallery directors, to name a few. Although the site invites you to subscribe to Women in Photography, I couldn’t figure out how to. If you do, let me know.

Women in Photography is “sponsored” by humble arts foundation - another pretty interesting site. Print sales, group and solo shows both online and in bricks-and-mortar galleries, books and a grant application for emerging artists who have no gallery representation. Its events and exhibitions calendar stops in March, 2008, but see the comment below from Jon Feinstein at haf for more specifics - this is an active, dedicated organization.

But, check ‘em out. You can’t lose. It’s important to really spend time at fine art photography exhibits in galleries and webgalleries to find out what’s being done in your field and here are two good places to spend time today.

Long-form journalism, and photojournalism in particular, is something that has been greatly impacted by media changes over the past decade.  Increasing print costs and decreasing readers have resulted in fewer in-depth stories in many print magazines and newspapers.  The Internet offers hope for a renaissance in viewing this sort of content, but the potential of the Internet for this has not yet realized, as most photo essays combine messy interfaces with tiny images.  Two recent developments, very different from each other, both offer possible new directions for journalism and photojournalism to go.

Newly created Dispatches magazine (yes, a real print magazine) looks very exciting.  I expect its production values to be top-notch (I don’t yet have a copy, but it is premium priced), and it promises to allow for longer, in-depth articles and photo essays.  The first issue is about America and the second Iraq.  What is so exciting is the depth - the main photo essay in Volume 1 runs about 80 pages!  Length without quality wouldn’t be enough, but from what I’ve seen so far, it looks top-notch.  It is worth digging around their new website as there is quite a bit of on-line content as well.

Similar in spirit but much different in execution, Boston.com has a new free photo blog entitled The Big Picture.  So far it looks to have photo essays on the order of 5-20 photographs, but it importantly makes them BIG.  Finally, an online photography source that acknowledges that people have larger monitors and more bandwidth now.  The editor explains the rationale and such here.  I’m sure the quality will vary a bit since this blog is taking photographs from various feeds and wire services, but I’m excited about the possibilities.

- Jim Nickelson

In March, Maine Medical Center invited submissions from Maine artists for works to enhance the walls of their new facility. I’ve just heard from the consultant company that fine art photographers were wasting their time when they responded.

Big bucks have been committed by the hospital to sculpture and paintings by Maine artists. But not one fine art photograph has been purchased. Instead, the fine art photographers who submitted works for consideration received notice yesterday that there is now a new call for submissions “specifically for photographers”. Before you rush to review your photo archives, read on:

1) The photographs selected will hang on a long corridor near the Staff Stations.

2) The smallest print size that will be accepted is 16×20.

3) No black and white photographs will be considered.

3) And for the “shutterbugs” who are successful? (Please don’t use the word “artist”) “An honorarium of $125 will be paid for each unframed photograph.

Healthcare facilities need a specific uplifting mood to prevail in their healing environments and hire professionals who are experts in this field to help them select appropriate art. Many of the submissions I made on behalf of two of the Maine Heritage photographers represented by VoxPhotographs, and the submissions labored over by several of the photographers exclusively represented by VoxPhotographs are gorgeous, positive and serene images from the early 1900’s through to 2008 that would allow patients and their families to lose themselves in a positive stream of thought, relax into a beautiful Maine landscape or generate hope to everyone who passes them on the walls. I’m sure other fine art photographers who submitted images felt their images would be considered as well.

Unfurling Sail, 1930 © Ralph Farnham Blood Estate

Acadia Sunset © 2007 Jim Nickelson

Okay, you’re thinking. Obvious sour grapes here.

Sorry to disappoint you. Both the gallery and the individual photographers could have handled a rejection. You win some, you lose some. We were all really curious to see the outcome of this long process for the Medical Center and how our work fit or didn’t. But to be totally shut out of the process as artist? Wow, that hurts.

I guess Maine’s fine art photographers and photograph galleries have a lot to learn - that photographs just aren’t worth the paper they are printed on. Are they ART? Hey, they’re just “prints” so why are they priced at….GASP!!!!! $750? Anyone can push a button, right?

Why didn’t Maine Medical clarify three months ago in the information supplied that fine art photographs would not be welcome as submissions? It would have saved the photographers a lot of time — time they could have spent learning how to paint.