wow, sorry i missed you. Actually, i’m never late to anything, actually the opposite…:))…i was there from 6:00 pm — 7:30 (free wine prior to 7!!!!)…i looked at the book 2x’s (it is a great book, but am cash broke at the moment, as u can imagine)…gorgeous book, gorgeous production as always :))…yes, Michal’s series were a stand out…also, thrilled to see to of Zhe Chen’s pics…and the Award winner’s work was great…there were also some other (more art oriented stuff I like very much)..

i agree completely…frankly I HATE HATE HATE group shows…and though i’ve participated in quite a few years ago, i never do it now…doesnt make sense…for the reasons you’ve sighted (about artist statements and intention being available) but even like last’s night show, they just look messy and actually uninteresting…a mess really, almost all group shows, unless the curator is doing something thematically or stylistically or something…this was just an award show and so, actually, iw as pretty bored…but yes, there was strong work and i wanted to see more…though the book, for a ‘group book’ is quite beautiful..never as good as a singular book….

actually, i think most people who exhibit in group shows (at least once they mature as authors) actually do it for either 1) some kind of award thing or some gallery) or 2) just to show somethign…i dont thing they really care (i never did) if viewer’s like/get the work shown…because you at least need that dialog and fuller sequence…most of the stuff left me indifferent, but i also understand these are primarily ‘young’ photographers (though jenn ackerman was included)..andyes, i agree…as you will see soon ;))…i am also interested in the tension between what is in the frame and what lay outside…or also, destroying what is in the frame to such a point that it asks, what possible lay outside to have collapsed this,e tc….yea, i remember Alec’s talk (you should have her Jack Burman’s, the best talk of that show) 2 years ago…totally…

time to catch up…:))..

must run
hugs
bob

Sorry I didn’t see you last night…you probably arrived fashionably late. I saw Michal’s series at the end of my tour (must have gone through the exhibit backwards), and I felt like telling everyone around me the BURN discussion about his work.

Through all of that, there arose questions about the other images in the exhibit, and how far beyond me the photographers’ intent was. Ironic, because if you recall, it was the Magenta talk with Soth (2,3 years ago?)that began the inquiry for me between intent and delivery, and the awareness – if not the understanding – of such that was key to the viewer’s reception and perception. Michal’s artist statement here added to my reception of his work last night; not privy to the other’s may have lessened my appreciation. But that is not the point, is it?

Further, since my current focus of inquiry is how the photograph is limited by the frame, and how the image can be compressed within or exploded beyond the rectangle, it was the images in the show dealing with the latter dynamic that took my time. There were two photographs that went that route and sang for me; Brett’s contribution to the book addressed it as well.

All of this leads me to conclude that if it is of little concern to the artist that their intention is caught or lost on the viewer, it is equally of little concern to me as viewer if the work-at-hand addresses my aesthetic checklist. It’s a happy co-incidence in space/time when the two meet; maybe the good stuff, be it an essay or a single image, can bridge all the intentions and understanding of the artist and viewer at once.

first, Congratulations Michal on being one of the Magenta Flash Forward awardees! I was at the opening/book launch last night and 3 of your photographs from this series were there! :))…They looked gorgeous…and were the first series that was shown at the entrace. They are also among the strongest of all the work shown in the exhibition/book! :))…So happy, and surprised, to see your work there after having seen it here and written about it a few days ago.

those in toronto who wish to see how strong Michal’s pics are in the flesh, I highly recommend!

Cheers
bob

you mean that the fact that i do not even think twice about the price of the iPhone 5 and buy it even though my 4 was just fine is a sign of me “dancing faster and faster”? so you think that if i lose my iPhone, which i do probably once a day, and causes the same basic symptoms of a heart attack, cold sweat, chest pain, etc has me caught in the tech whirl “without empathy”? wait a minute, where is that damn thing? had it right here a minute ago…

sick

cheers, david

I have to agree with this as a general statement. Nicely phrased too. The pace of change, technologically and environmentally, and consequently socially, is growing exponentially. Even planned obsolescence has been rendered obsolete in the face of this pace. Interesting time. Full of opportunity. But only if you try.

just let me know, a seminar in nyc or south would be wonderful…bring my speaking voice and some, um, potables ;))

oh yes yes..it would be a really good discussion i am sure…full of REALITY….and if we had you there too even better…

i have too much on my plate right now to plan much of anything, but given just a wee bit of space/time to plan for sure we could have a Burn seminar to beat the band…dont you think? get this cast of characters together and it would be truly amazing….

get Akaky to open the show and you to close it….oh my…

let’s really think about this one….and NOW as your essay is about to really get a charge out of Jim and others we will have plenty of grist for the mill….

i think i still owe you 40 bucks…to be paid in full if we can ever meet….or i send check?

anyway always good to have you here Bob…this sand castle would not be the same without you…

cheers, david

oh yes for sure i am indeed a “lab rat” (smiling, love it) and for sure Jim i can’t remember “insisting” i had any idea where i am going….adventure and seeking a way by its very nature means the “end” is for sure not in sight!!! i think my bit is to simply suggest that we do indeed keep moving lest we freeze to death out here…. :)

oh sure, i think all Magnum/NatGeo or any photog with any kind of icon attached often feels “targeted” from the bitterness from many who are just pissed off ..comes with the proverbial territory…it has always been thus…yet for me for sure even those two icons are icons of the past….i am looking for a new room to hang my hat…loved the old icons deeply, and yet for sure if i were a young photographer today, actually i feel like a young photographer today, i would be, and am, seeking totally new territory…

unknown territory? ahhh yes yes!! …the only kind worthy of exploration now or ever..yet like any explorer, or wild animal, i try to see better, smell better, hear better..the senses are heightened when survival and/or discovery is at stake…this is the beauty not the beast…

yet even in the hard economic times of today, some of those i have mentored who started here on Burn at about the time you started penning an oftentimes negative vibe, have already broken into the biz and are indeed getting published and earning a living…i.e Chris Bickford and Lance Rosenfield…and what about Michael Subotsky and Bieke Deporteer and Matt Eich etc etc and just look at the effect that Zoe Stauss has had on the city of Philadelphia…surely her work is way more effective in bringing about awareness than some of the nicely paid yet falsely anointed photographers whose names and work we cannot even remember..

for sure Jim i agree with you totally about the nature of the conversation…and that is why i have invited you on several occasions to be on a panel discussion we will set up in Houston or Austin in the near future…you probably won’t come, but i wish you would….

hey amigo, we might sell a whole lot of tickets to the Jim & Dave Show! i need the money….

cheers, david

You have, by deliberate choice or not, made yourself a lab rat in the search for a panacea to disruptive change in photography. You have one foot firmly and securely in the past, and have put the other enthusiastically in the middle of rapid technological change (Burn, digital production and distribution, etc.). Whether you know where you are going; or, as you sometimes insist, you are simply stumbling around trying to find a way, I think a lot of photographers are watching you and cheering you on. While that shines a bright light on you, I don’t think it makes you are target. More a beacon.

There is a danger in this search for a way forward, though, for photography. And that is to assume that technology is benign. That all we have to do is bend it to our wills, embrace it and make it dance for us like a sideshow chicken on a hot plate. Unfortunately, technology more often silently molds us to its will, and without empathy, keeps turning up the heat so we dance faster and faster. It serves no one but itself (and those who sell it).

Neither those of us who remember the first televisions, nor those who remember only the first iPods; whose first camera was a Leica IIIc or first camera a Canon D30, have any better understanding of the ultimate consequences of a world molded by unrestrained technological change. But the conversation is still important. And Burn, and what DAH is doing, is at the center of that conversation. And I think it at least as important a subject for photographers as talk about pretty pictures.

I’m also not convinced that revisiting the past shines much light into the future.

Try reading “Blood Meridian” by McCarthy. His poetry saturates his prose. Violent as all get out, but terrific.

Bob Black

Thanks for shining the light.

Michal Solarski

I love it. I spent some time in Batumi Georgia, an old Soviet getaway as well. I like those places a lot.

in my memory we have always had problems keeping the thread in its proper place…sometimes it just gets derailed..for sure part of this discussion belongs in Road Trips…my personal apologies to Michal for letting it slip here….yet discussion happens where it happens….not quite sure how this happened this time, but it did…it’s all good…it’s all about how photographers think and work…

cheers, david

for sure family drive could fail…after all, i said so first! yes? it is a process and i have not yet found the key..it is a complex equation….if i cannot, i move on…i do not show work here as “gee whiz look what i can do” ..not at all and you know it…damn i have failed way more than succeeded for sure…my oh my…failure has plagued me forever…it sucks

i had no clue i was a “myth”…funny…all seems pretty damned get out of bed and go take a picture to me!!

nobody that i have ever heard of has ever done more than two or three great bodies of work in a lifetime i am sorry to say…but we all TRY to beat the impossible odds…and none of us knows for sure which body will be deemed special, if any….so we push on..however, i would bet (if i could) that the work of mine that you think is the “best” will not be considered so…i am guessing and only guessing that the very earliest and now the very last will be it..i think…dont know of course…

yet, amigo you are dissing me…no problem really..we are here to speak our minds..i will defend you to the end…and of course i will take the high ground and not diss you back..actually i guess we are both indeed really easy targets for different reasons ..yes?

however i waive my right to pull out the rhetorical sword…i will leave you alone..no point to doing otherwise.. Jim you are oftentimes just a bit of a sad character that’s all…i would wish for you to be a happier man with your own career/work..really do..i do not think anyone sees you in reality as writing about mine…

cheers, david

You’re right about hijacking a thread and not having a consistent place to go for general discussion. Burn used to do a pretty good job about keeping such a thread going, but that has come undone.