http://56×56.com/for-photographers/calls-for-entries-may-2013/

Railroad wreck, Westbrook, ca. 1890 (Maine Historical Society)

An announcement just came to my IN BOX that Vintage Maine Images is celebrating a re-designed website with two events – this Friday, 5/3, is their launch party and it ties in with First Friday, so an easy opportunity to stop in and see what’s what, including an exhibit of cool images. Food, beverages, AND a vintage photo booth are also part of the celebration!

If you’re a business owner and/or a member of the design community, there’s an invitation-only cocktail party: “A  Vintage Maine Evening” on May 22 from 5-7 to introduce you to this wonderful treasure and answer your questions about how you can take advantage of it. Want an invite? Write to info@vintagemaineimages.com.

There are currently 21,000 images available for purchase and more added every day. Not only photographs can be had for the money: maps, postcards, paintings, broadsides, daguerreotypes, drawings, architectural plans, and letters are there at your fingertips. If you want, VMI will make a print for you, but I always order the image electronically and have my gallery printer (Jim Nickelson) print it for clients. We’re often asked to add location and date as a caption layered on top of the image, and if there are multiple images we neutralize the tones to match if wanted.

Joke photograph promoting Aroostook County Potatoes, Caribou, ca. 1922
(Contributed by Nylander Museum)

Another great development is in the Museum store on Congress St. in Portland – merchandise will feature photographs from Vintage Maine Images and that will be fun to check out.

Many of the works available come from “partners” of the project – historical museums, libraries and museums in Maine and they get half the fee when an image is sold, so…your purchase is a great way to support the preservation of Maine’s past.

Frankly, it’s really fun to troll through this website and I’ve never failed to find what my clients need while having a rather good time doing it.

Thomas Dunn (and friend), Ragged Lake, 1895 (Maine Historical Society)

Sujata Khanna lives in New Delhi, India, but since the summer of 2012 has been a Rockport, ME resident and participant in the Professional Certificate Program at the Workshops. Three other students are in the program: Collin Howell, Adam Pitula and Jourdan Selkowitz. We’ve spent many hours together since September, 2012 in Brenton Hamilton’s History of Photography course learning about those who have shaped photography since 1839.

Being a Teenager 2©Sujata Khanna. All Rights Reserved. “They rebel through experimentation, by testing their limits with authority,
but are light-hearted, spirited teenagers.
They are troublemakers according to some, typical teens for others.
Unique for me.”

So, always interested in seeing photographs, and curious about what these four young photographers are up to in their other Certificate Program classes, last November I went to the showing of their fall 2012 documentary studies projects, a course led by Workshops Vice President of Academic Affairs Elizabeth Greenberg. “For many students, that  project in the fall is their first experience working on an extended project.  A point I emphasize is that the subject of their photographs is not only what is in front of their lens, but rather what is behind the camera – their “concerns” if you will – what it is they are curious about and want to share their unique vision and voice of through their photographs.” she says.

Well. I came away from that humble scene of four projects spread out neatly on re-configured tables in the dining hall kind of unable to blink. I spent a considerable amount of time with the images and their creators, and still feel a little thrill whenever I think of how extraordinary these projects are. These were young, unseasoned photography students? I couldn’t quite believe it.

Sage tastes a beet©Collin Howell. All Rights Reserved

Besides pricing their work, one of the most common concerns I hear from photographers is their inability to edit their own work – honing, winnowing, chucking until only the very best – the A++ images – are left. Sujata told me she had taken almost 2500 photographs and had edited them down to these…EIGHTEEN. Adam told me a similar story (500 taken, 17 shown), as did Collin (3000 taken, 23 shown). (Jourdan wasn’t able to attend the event.)

©Adam Pitula. All Rights Reserved

But it’s not just about numbers, okay? Most important, they are terrific photographs – and that’s always the priority no matter what is cool about process, content or anything else. Second, these groups of photographs told the stories resulting from weeks of work (Adam tells me he spent about 3 days a week over 6 weeks with his subject) and they told them so well – succinctly, and at same time, very completely. Stories with a beginning, a lot of middle, and a wrap up.

Sujata’s project is titled “Being a Teenager” and she focused entirely on a group of rebellious teens who hang out together in the amphitheater behind the Camden Public Library (see first photo at top). Collin’s project developed down a different track than she had originally thought it would, she told me – she was documenting a woman who is resurrecting a 40 acre farm that had long been dormant. But it was 6 yr. old Sage who became the story instead. Collin says “Sage and her siblings are schooled at home and spend many hours of their day outside helping to run the farm. Sage plays and explores with the wonder of a child, but works with the strength and maturity of an adult. What is it like to be this six year old farmer?” 

Sage entering the steer’s pen ©Collin Howell. All Rights Reserved

Adam documented the life of a local hermit. He told me he gradually gained Dave’s trust and was let further and further into his life as the weeks went by. “I remember the first time I saw Dave. He was slowly making his way up the small hill from Camden Harbor towards Elm Street. Groups of tourists moving around him quickly, I watched as he took his time seemingly unaware of the people around him. He stuck out visually in comparison to the other people out on the streets that day, almost like he was from a different time. Dave Conray grew up here, this has always been his home and he was not out of place in the least.  Yet he has become somewhat of a stranger in his own habitat.  He lives on the outskirts, and spends his days in the heart of town.  Just beyond the gaze of society, he occupies the spaces in between.”

©Adam Pitula. All Rights Reserved

—————-

Now, just to make things even more interesting, I’m including a couple of photos from Sujata’s winter project – 3515 images taken, 7 selected – and the group of 7 images is perfection – but that perfection you’re not going to see with me isolating these two out of the pack*. She questions, “whether we are aware of the amount we consume, whether we are mindful of the volume of material we throw away that can be reused – are we conscious of the footprint we are creating on the earth?”

Our Footprint 2©Sujata Khanna. All Rights Reserved

Our Footprint 1©Sujata Khanna. All Rights Reserve

And finally, you too, can see the  newest work of these students: right now at Zoot coffee shop in Camden Sujata is showing 11 (mostly Portland) photographs taken for a social landscape project in their Visions & Themes class led by Brenton Hamilton. As well, the class will be showing their work in Rockport at the MMW Gallery opening May 30, and at PhoPa Gallery in Portland opening June 12. They deserve your attention.

*But MMW needs to create a link online so these projects can be seen in their entirety. It’s how they were meant to be viewed and I want to get them in front of more people and share their success.

Portland, Monument Square©Sujata Khanna. All Rights Reserved

Elizabeth Greenberg says it best: “…it was a major achievement for each of them to refine and develop their ideas and connect those ideas to how they see photographically.  There were many “aha” moments.“

It shows.

If you want to see and understand what real, worthwhile lyric documentary photography is, see this exhibit.  About 60 images are on view, and yes, Stess has taken 1000′s over the decades. But Susan Danly did such an insightful job curating the work, I can assure you it’s all there. The respect, the trust, the knowledge. Not “insight”. Knowledge. That’s what working from the inside out is. Observers observe. Experts have insight. Stess knows.

Ryan©David Brooks Stess. All Rights Reserved

In 1989, David Stess was driving around in downeast Maine taking photographs when someone told him he should check out the blueberry rakers, and gave him directions to a local barrens. As he tells it, after what seemed like days on a rocky track, eery figures emerged from the fog.

And in that instant… he knew.

As only Dave Stess can do, he jumped right in – and stayed in – with everything he’s got. Frankly, the project still isn’t quite over, but it’s very close. For the rest of us in the photography community, the portraits he made of the rakers over the last two plus decades say it all: here’s a person who understands what it takes to create something of importance. Ingredients: intimate knowledge, love, respect and trust.

Raking Close Up©David Brooks Stess. All Rights Reserved

For Dave learned how to rake blueberries. He raked and raked and raked and photographed. He became known as “Super Dave” for his amazing speed. He not only raked next to them, he went home with the rakers after the long, backbreaking, sweaty days to share their food, their living quarters, their games, their talk.

Think Josef Koudelka (Gypsies) and Danny Lyon (The Bikeriders), both early inspirations for Dave. Think Richard Russo (Mohawk, Nobody’s Fool, Straight Man, Empire Falls and most recently the autobiography Elsewhere) who wrote the catalog essay introducing David’s exhibit to the public. Russo knows firsthand: he kicked off his rise to literary stardom writing about the upstate NY towns and culture he grew up in. Russo gets it right – and the reading public knows it.

Suzette©David Brooks Stess. All Rights Reserved

David Stess earned the trust of his subjects by entering their world without reservations. He “got it” – what they do and why they do it. How hardscrabble and uncertain such a life is. Weather, bosses, machines, bad crop – you are a pawn in the very tough and unforgiving world of harvesting.

It’s okay to take photographs of others who live differently, but more often than not, taking photographs as an outsider is closer to invasive voyeurism on the part of the photographer and the viewers. When young writers are told “Write what you know.” this is no rhetoric. Photographers need to make an investment of time and psyche to their subjects to earn their trust, but just as important, so they take photographs from the inside out, from what they know, not just what they see. There’s a difference and it’s a big one.

I honor David Brooks Stess. We are very different people, he and I. But I know the real thing when I see it.

http://www.pressherald.com/life/foodanddining/black-and-white-and-blue_2013-04-03.html?pagenum=full

http://www.pressherald.com/life/go/blue_2013-04-04.html?pagenum=full

http://blogs.yankeemagazine.com/art-reviews/david-brooks-stess-blueberries-for-all/

http://www.wcsh6.com/life/programming/local/207/article/238677/50/Photographer-David-Brooks-Stess

http://www.pressherald.com/life/audience/bowdoin-gives-kirkeby-well-deserved-due_2013-04-14.html?pagenum=2

Quinn©David Brooks Stess. All Rights Reserved

(David’s photographs are in the collections of the Portland Museum of Art, Farnsworth Art Museum and many private and corporate collections. He was the first artist I took on to represent work when I started VoxPhotographs in 2007. He is still represented by VoxPhotographs.)

Santa Fe, New Mexico©Norman Mauskopf. All Rights Reserved

Tim Whelan doesn’t know it, but he changed my life. Back in say, 2005, after I had sold my publishing company, I was self-studying photo history. But I wanted more. I went online to locate a college-level course, but had no luck: anything available required studio work courses.

One day I dropped into Tim’s bookstore in Rockport.  It was mecca for anyone in the midcoast area interested in photographs, especially the staff and students at Maine Media Workshops around the corner. I complained to him about my lack of success in finding an accessible course anywhere in the country on the history of photography. Tim looked at me and said, “But the best course is right here in Rockport.” Hello? Yep, the photo world’s best kept secret is Brenton Hamilton’s History of Photography course at Maine Media Workshops, part of the Certificate Program offered there. I signed up and five minutes into the first lecture I was on the edge of my seat with excitement. Here was someone who understood art is tied into everything! Thus began many happy hours and years at Brenton’s feet soaking up how we got to where we, in the photography community, are today. And because of Brenton’s inspiring teaching, I started VoxPhotographs to represent Maine’s fine art photographers. So, Tim Whelan was vital to me, my artists, and countless students and instructors at Maine Media Workshops over the decades. He was the hub of a community wheel.

Tim Whelan at the opening of “Timothy Whelan, Photographer As Collector” at PhoPa through May 4.

Tim was, among many things photographic, a student at the workshops from time to time, and tells me the tradition was to trade your work with the other students in your class and the instructor. So, since his first purchase (thanks, Mom!) – Ansel Adams’ “Clearing Winter Storm”, a whopping $25 per print at Yosemite National Park almost 50 years ago – and through several different means, Whelan has built a collection of perhaps 1,000 prints and thus, we have a glimpse into that collection on view through May 4 at PhoPa Gallery in Portland. The show is curated by Bruce Brown and Jon Edwards.

The exhibit starts off with four sweet landscape photographs by Tim himself, and then immediately kicks into high gear with two Joyce Tenneson images, including the gorgeous “Dasha, Russia”. Circle around the 38 works from the collection to see who you know and who you don’t, and then go around again to focus on the images.

Besides Tenneson, Maine is well represented with Paul Caponigro, Jon Edwards, Dave Stess, Olive Pierce (an exhibit of her work is part of the summer exhibit schedule at PhoPa), Tillman Crane, and Madeleine de Sinety. Oh, and Gary Briechle, that elusive and brilliant Camden photographer who, Tim told me, just launched a website.

What I like about this exhibit is seeing old friends, yes. But I also like learning about photographers I’m not familiar with but who have definitely made their mark. There is bio info. available on each photographer and it’s a resource to spend time with.

Dasha, Russia©Joyce Tenneson. All Rights Reserved

So this exhibit is a great antidote to cabin fever and feeds our mud-season need for a change of scenery. You can explore the work of artists like Arno Minkkenen, Lary Wiese, Ted Orland, John Isaac and others who deserve our attention, and feel like you’ve experienced a glimpse of spring – fresh, unexpected and beckoning.

To say Frank knew what he was talking about is an understatement. After securing a Guggenheim grant in 1955, Frank spent almost two years traveling all over the USA, and the end result was over 27,000 images. He edited those down to 83 to create one of the most seminal photography books ever – The Americans. And that editing process is the topic of another posting down the road.

Anyone who aspires to be an accomplished pianist practices for hours every day. Ditto an athlete. Why is it then that “artists” feel entitled to wait for “inspiration”?  I remember someone responding to my husband’s comment that he’s in the studio Mon-Fri with astonishment: “You mean you go in and paint every day???!!” Hello?

Sakura Storm©Dave Wade. All Rights Reserved

Last week I ran into Dave Wade, whose work is represented by VoxPhotographs. He was out in Tommy’s Park in Portland on a gray, yucky day taking pictures. I have to wonder if he ever leaves the house without that camera in his hand. I doubt it.

The day before I had teasingly reminded Jim Nickelson, also part of the gallery stable, and in the midst of creating an extraordinary full moon series, that the night before had been a full moon, hint, hint. I knew he had company for the week, was flooded with work, and has a 6 year old he’s mightily involved in caring for, so my job dropped when he said: “I know. I drove to Acadia and shot pictures.” I should have known.

Great Spirit Moon III©Jim Nickelson. All Rights Reserved

Yes, I’m fortunate to have gallery artists who are dead serious about their work. They don’t just talk about it. They know “inspiration” is a fleeting moment of insight and vision, not a formula for success. That formula is called working.

University of Maine Museum of Art – Dog Run: Michael Crouser – on view through March 3.

Bowdoin College Museum of Art – The Fixed Image: History and Process in American Photography – on view through March 3.

PhoPa Gallery – BAD ASS – Photographs by Melonie Bennett – on view through March 30. Opening Reception, February 14, 5 p.m. Artist talk: Sunday, March 17, 2 p.m.

Maine Museum of Photographic Arts – Terrain Vague (Part I): 1998-2010. Photographs by Gary M. Green, University of Southern Maine, Glickman Family Library. Through May 3, 2013. Opening Reception, February 7, 5-7 p.m. Artist talk: March 15, 2-3:30.

And to while away a few hours in a highly productive way – connect with Jim Nickelson’s latest blog posting for a list of  Calls for Entries! Get the word out about your work!

If there’s anything else going on that I’m not aware of, please make me aware!

My friend sent this from Paris last fall…via Instagram.

Buses are covered with photographs, my e-mails are full of them, and I continue to be frustrated with my older sister who writes a couple of quick notes a day, but never once has included a photo because she can’t figure out how to do it on her PC. Send me a picture, I say! I expect to SEE what you are talking about!

So, it’s fun that our photographs have become integral to how we communicate. We have become used to daily uploads, to changing images that keep us “current”, and to capturing any special scene or fleeting moment anywhere, at any time, with our camera phones and handy small digital cameras. My just-completed Snapfish 2012 photobook is a tubby 55 pages as I chronicled more and more of the year’s events photographically, and made stunning pictures, with almost no talent or effort, of the two beautiful Maine cities we live in. Because I live in Portland half the week, my Belfast-based husband and I often send cellphone pics throughout the day to keep connected about the small things. Photographs are woven into our daily lives and I like it a lot.

Back Cove, 09/12 morning walk, iPhone

Except for the fact that I am a photographs dealer.

I believe the time has come for those of us who are in the fine art photographs business – either creating, exhibiting or selling them – to stop using the word “photograph” and here’s why:

1) If we’re all taking and sharing an endless stream of photographs, the value of a single photograph is understandably diluted, and 2) It becomes more and more challenging to convince collectors that investing in a single photograph for their workspace or home is valid.

Using the word “photographs” to sell a fine art piece is becoming a little like bringing coals to Newcastle. For younger collectors especially, committing to works of art they will view day after day for years most likely, is somewhat weird. It’s all about change, the newest new. And then, spending money on an object (“photograph”) that they themselves make easily, is well…even weirder.

At a time when photographs are commanding serious chunks of change at the top of the art market (http://www.forbes.com/sites/kathryntully/2012/12/09/the-steady-rise-of-fine-art-photography/) photographs in the lower echelons of fine art are a tough sell because photographs have become ubiquitous and really, really easy for the rest of us to make, and make well.

Break©David Brooks Stess. Dave waited 5 years to photograph this group of blueberry rakers in northern Maine. His exhibit of over 50 silver gelatin photographs, taken over a 22 year period of raking alongside the workers, opens at the Portland Museum of Art April 6, 2013.

That said, what has blown open the fine art photographs market for me, at least, is the fact that photographs no longer look like, well, “photographs” only. Clients come to the gallery and look around in wonder, saying “I thought you just sold photographs!” It gets clearer to me every day that it’s time to get the word out that today’s “photographs” are not your father’s photographs. Today’s photograph creators cross every line, mix every process (both digital and historic), approach picture-making from every angle and method and with a no-holds-barred attitude. The results are photo-based art and “photograph” no longer fits.

In fact, creating photo-based art has never been more exhilarating, satisfying, and yes, more challenging. And what I’m finding is that the fine art photographers I know and admire are up for those challenges, and in fact are energized by the infinite possibilities as photography becomes re-defined. By employing digital darkroom techniques, and often combining digital darkroom with historic processes, artists understand their work just gets more and more unique, and they’re right. I can see it on my clients’ faces as they move from one piece to another, one artist’s work to another – every new work is a fresh visual experience because the creative options and combinations are infinite for the creator.

After the Wedding Dresses/Sinking©Sharon Arnold.

I’ve run into an interesting scenario a couple of times over the last few months: when I or a designer client of the gallery has presented works from gallery artists for consideration to a corporate client, the comment is made that this employee, or that employee’s wife, takes great photographs and maybe they should just frame and hang those for little or no investment. I’ve come to the conclusion it’s a semantics problem: photographs, as traditionally defined, are too easily come by today and therefore a free route to take to dress up the corporate walls. Using terms like “two-dimensional wall art”, “photo-based art”, “pictures”, or “images”, sets the tone that the works they are about to see are the result of a creative journey known only to their creators – making the point there is mystery here, artistic vision realized, and hard work.

Like making a photograph used to be.

Desert Island©Dave Wade. All Rights Reserved

Dave Wade has installed two huge, beautiful prints unframed for you to stick your nose right into, along with a very generous selection of small images simply framed in black. Anyone who knows Dave knows he’s got a good sense of humor and you’ll see that clearly in many of these images. Yes, he enjoyed creating these photographs, there’s no doubt about it. So take advantage of this opportunity to see some skillful objects portraits by an old pro and you’ll also have a good time appreciating his content, composition and lighting choices. Dave’s work is also represented at VoxPhotographs.

The other side of the Addison-Woolley gallery features a very successful body of work by Alan Sockloff who has chosen to render these still lifes entirely via the cyanotype process. With the terrific impact and success of digital darkroom for any artists, it’s interesting to see many also including historic processes in their oeuvre. These floral still lifes are simply lovely, and also are the result of excellent content and composition decisions-making.

Aging Alone©Alan Sockloff. All Rights Reserved

“Something Old, Something New” opens Dec. 7 with a reception for the artists and continues through to Dec. 29, 2012.

Speaking of “something new”  – I believe change is afoot for this gallery space for 2013, so stay tuned.

White Hat, from the “Deified” series©Felice Boucher. All Rights Reserved

But photography is no longer “a medium”. I started off the discussion with the comment that there IS no “state” of photography today because photography today is in total flux and undefinable. And to my mind that’s a good thing. For so long, decades and decades, the majority of photographs were made in a chemical darkroom, mostly realized in a silver gelatin paper print. The darkroom has expanded, and there are no horizon lines in sight: digital darkroom capabilities and technology at large have blown any previous definition of photography to bits. Museums who had just a very few years ago finally created Fine Art Photography departments complete with curatorial staff and fanfare, very quickly merged these new departments into Contemporary American Art, etc. departments, now that so much photo-based art employs other media in the creative process. See my previous postings on this subject here: ARTnews continues the discussion, and Where Are We All Going?

Viewfinder#9, from the “Viewfinder” series©Meggan Gould. All Rights Reserved

For photographs dealers, this is both a great and difficult time to be in the fine art photographs marketplace. Great – because the endless personalities of photographs offer a broader aesthetic appeal and the collector base has responded. Difficult – because today’s technology makes photographers of us all, all day long and everywhere, and as Andy Graham said at a panel discussion at CMCA two years ago: “Making a photograph used to be hard.”

So what defines a “fine art photographer” anymore, when everyone’s making photographs? Photos can be seen on every bus that roars down every street, millions more on facebook, and I myself probably include twenty photos every week in e-mails I send to friends and family. We are all photographers now – so much, much more than ever before because it is so easy and accessible to create cool and really good pictures. Not to mention FUN.

But there is no doubt in my mind what separates a fine art photographer from the rest of us and I offer no apology for my unequivocal stance: a fine art photographer is a person who has a unique vision, and realizes that vision in a mature body of work via the medium of their choice.

Bug Light in Snow, from the “Lighthouse” series ©Michael Heiko. All Rights Reserved

There are two main points here: a unique vision. What is that? It means visually unprecedented. Something never before conceived of this way. It can include interpretation, technique, a new point of view or seeing. It is a creative impulse that defines something differently to the artist, new and fresh to the rest of us, a way of seeing something that belongs entirely to that individual. That’s step one.

But here’s the crux of the difference between a fine art photographer and others who photograph well: the fine art photographer is a mature creator who can take that unique vision beyond an idea or inspiration or illumination of the mind. The fine art photographer realizes that vision in a body of work – a full body of work with a beginning, a middle and an end.

Smoke Rings, from the “Smokers” series©Abigail Wellman. All Rights Reserved

I don’t care if the work was taken with a cellphone, mixed with other media, developed in a darkroom, in the sun, or via a digital darkroom. It is all so unimportant now. But what can you show me that I haven’t seen before? And can you prove your creative maturity by realizing that initial vision through the trials, errors and successes of a body of work?

Every artist whose work I represent at VoxPhotographs fits this simple template. They use photography in some way to create a tangible group of works that visually realize their initial unique conceptions and inspirations, abstract thought or flash of a brainwave. Soooo many people have such great ideas. Soooo few people have the skills to realize them, to bring them to fruition, to make it happen, whether in business, art or personal life.

So don’t ask me to blur the lines. A person who enjoys making cool and successful creations out of clay is not a fine art sculptor. Everyone who paints pictures is not defined as a fine art painter who rigorously, day in and day out, creates full and risky and definable bodies of work based on unique visions.

Pear with Book, from the Still Life with Book series©David Puntel. All Rights Reserved

As so it applies to photography. Since 1839 photography processes have morphed and morphed and morphed. But always has the fine art photographer emerged in every era as the one who has a unique vision, and who is not only a good technician. And that vision is then made tangible in a mature body of work, a vessel that holds the vision in place and defines it for all viewers for years to come.

Italian Eggplant, from the “Pedestal” series©Lynn Karlin. All Rights Reserved