paltry photography

Contemptuous about contemporary photography? Asleep looking at art photography? Bemused by the accompanying pretentious prose? How bad can it get? See below.

18 June 2011

untitled from "Tsukuba-Narita 2011/03/13" by Jens Liebchen



(Copyright by Jens Liebchen)

"I left Japan two days after the quake. The situation was unclear. Information from Japanese and Western media differed to a great extent. The bus to Narita left on time, as usual." J. L...

"Liebchen's recent work is a direct reaction on the incidents in Japan in March 2011. It brings together 80 photographic images. Tsukuba–Narita 2011/03/13, the title says. A date is given and two Japanese locations are named that supposedly mark the beginning and end of the precipitous bus ride that took place early one Sunday morning in the spring of 2011.It is here that the images originated, the words tell us. The sun had been shining and the bus is said to have left on time. ”On time, as usual.“ The destination – Narita International Airport outside of Tokyo – was reached. No reason to be alarmed. Though the media – if you recall – issued one unsettling report after another. ”Brutal images“, as they themselves called them."How are we read today?—the images ask in a hushed tone. How will you perceive us tomorrow? And what will be recognized in us?" (Christoph Schaden)"

Exhibited at Raum für Zweckfreiheit, Berlin.

Picknick am Müggelsee, Ost-Berlin, 1963 by Max Scheler


(Copyright by Max Scheler)

"Max Scheler had the ability to pay attention to the nuances in dealing with people. His portraits of celebrities or historical moments are characterized by this talent. He noticed small, seemingly insignificant gestures from the perspective of detached serenity. Nevertheless, his competence and ability to empathize with his subjects and an intense interest in the psychology of people already characterized his earliest essays for the magazine Heute. In a portrait of his oeuvre in 1958 Scheler mentioned „Im focused on reportage with dramatic content. I look for situations in which facial reactions of the individual or the masses mirror the atmosphere of the event. The human face with emotions of joy, sorrow, excitement, hysteria, faith, despair is most beautiful. I am more interested in the psychological than formal aspects of photography. Excellent composition, graphic qualities, and distribution of light, are prerequisites of a good image, but I apply these unconsciously."

Exhibited at Photokunst, Berlin.

"Lights" from the series "Once, still and forever" by Jessica Backhaus



(Copyight - Jessica Backhaus)

"As in former series such as "Jesus and the Cherries" (2005) or "What still remains" (2008), Jessica Backhaus' new work in the series "I wanted to see the World" (2010) and "Once, still and forever" (2011) develops a strong sense for the melancholic in the every-day and the power of color and light as emotional means of expression. "I wanted to see the World", published in 2010 by Kehrer, is a series of large scale water reflections as abstracted studies in color and light. The brand new series "Once, still and forever" marks a return to the classical still life. This new series as not yet been published and is exhibited for the first time."

Exhibited at the Robert Morat Galerie.

3 May 2011

Compost Picture 1 by Nigel Shafran


















(Copyright - Nigel Shafran)

"Nigel Shafran's series Compost Pictures quietly documents an ever changing bowl of kitchen scraps ready for the compost pile and carries a more abstract sense of the passage of time and light."

Exhibited as part of the HOUSE exhibition, Hove.

26 April 2011

Roundabout, Andersonstown, Belfast by Paul Graham

















(Copyright - Paul Graham)

"..it was this photograph that set the tone for what was to come. Whilst standing by the roadside with his medium format camera in hand, a British Army patrol approached him and asked what he was doing, whilst making it clear he should take no more pictures. But his instincts took over and he made this frame as the patrol left the scene. You can see the soldiers running off down the road on the right, with one still on the roundabout.

At the time he didn't realise its significance. It was only when he was looking through his negatives that he realised this was his breakthrough picture, one which offered a gateway to the story. His style was now set, it would be anti-surveillance, turning the camera from a device that focuses in on the most important part of the frame, to one that captures the wider view and pushes the viewer to seek out the significance of the picture."

From the blog of Phil Coomes, BBC Picture Editor.

25 April 2011

from 'Vexataions' by Martin Maier


















(Copyright - Martin Maier)


"Vexations is a project that accounts for a junk internet culture""

I do not wish to dislcose whether these images are staged photography, reportage or documentary photography."

Shortlisted, Terry O'Neill Award, 2010.

22 April 2011

from Brot by Gosbert Adler



(Copyright - Gosbert Adler)

"Gosbert Adler’s internationally acclaimed photography questions reality without claiming to offer definitive answers. His pictures depict seemingly trivial, mundane scenes. Always serial and limited to a few themes, they explore the specific aesthetic scope of photography, which sees itself as documentary and is aware of its absolute subjectivity. In his conscious choices of perspective, detail, focus and colour, Adler constantly reflects the possibilities and constraints of his medium."

Exhibited at zone E, Essen.

Seehausen by Hans-Christian Schink


(Copyright - Hans-Christian Schink)

"From the very start of his artistic activity, Hans-Christian Schink has worked on strictly defined series in regard to content that developed over a long period of time. The exhibition focuses on four thematic and aesthetic emphases of his photographic oeuvre. It presents portrayals of walls and empty interiors that negate central and interpretative perspectives, taking their place in the ranks of colour field painting."

Exhibited at  Neues Museum, Weimar.

4 January 2011

From Testimonio by Simon Head


















(Copyright - Simon Head)

"I found a front view and exposed the negative - took copious notes of the measurements from camera to subject, and subject position in the ground glass of my view camera - then moved to a side view... ...the relationship between self and environmental motion appeared to be duplicated when looking at this rough photographic information placed in an isometric composition."   

Paltryphotography translation: I took a shot of a building and then moved round the side of it and took another shot. 

Published in Flip, the magazine of the group, 'London Independent Photography', Winter 2010. 
The Smothering by Natalie Dybszi (Miss Aniela)

 






















(Copyright - Natalie Dybszi)

Exhibited at JoAnne Artman Gallery, Laguna Beach and IfIConstantlyShowMyKnickersMaybeTheyllNotNoticeTheDuffPhotos Gallery, London

1 January 2011

from Landscapes by Sandra Kantanen



(Copyright - Sandra Kantanen)

"Sandra’s works are combination of painting and photography; it’s more about abstract than figural, however, she’s always following the canons of art photography. Fusion of different cultures seen by the photographer gave her insight to perceive image from a different angle."

Exhibited at Pobeda gallery, Moscow
from 'Evidence' 1977/2005 by Mike Mandel / Larry Sultan



(Copyright - Larry Sultan/ Mike Mandel)

"Today the Evidence project is considered a milestone of both conceptual and appropriation art. It is an early example of artistically subverting the notion of the original and of authorship. Moreover, by omitting all textual explanation, the project directs attention to the structure and poetry of the images."

Exhibited at Fotomuseum, Winterhur
3265, 2010 by Stefan Heyne





(Copyright - Stefan Heyne, Galerie Kaune, Sudendorf Cologne)

"Looking at his pictures reminds you of the situation of awakening, when reality slowly takes shape and everything seems a little out of focus. One wants to rub his eyes, to wipe off the remains of dreams that veil his gaze. But the cognition hoped for fails to appear. Haiziness remains persistent.

Heyne's pictures are no easy entertainment. We are spellbound by the mystical aura of his pictures, enchanting and unnerving at the same time. This conflict of curiosity and anxiety entices the beholder to abandon his usual way of perception, hoping to remove the blurry haze and discover the message behind it."

Exhibited at Galerie Kaune, Sudendorf Gallery for Contemporary Photography, Cologne
from 'Dream Villa' 2010 by Dayanita Singh



(Copyright - Dayanita Singh)

"The absence of people is manifest in empty rooms and spaces and in remarkable still lifes of everyday objects. People are also emphatically absent from her most recent series, Blue Book (2009) and Dream Villa (2010), yet they do remain omnipresent in details and even in the color and light. The urban scene full of movement and vigor has turned into a desolate, surreal world that offers an endless range of interpretations and meanings."


Exhibited at Huis Marseille, Museum for Photography, Amsterdam.

5 November 2009

Grable 15 kilotons, Nevada, 1953 by Michael Light (born 1963)



(Copyright - Michael Light)

Michael Light (1963) has been exhibited internationally and his works are in numerous public and private collections. His archival photographic projects FULL MOON (1999) and 100 SUNS (2003) have garnered global acclaim.

Exhibited at Foundation Yours Gallery, Warsaw

Real Tennis by Elliott Wilcox



(Copyright by Elliott Wilcox)

"The exhibition PRUNE - abstracting reality focuses on the complex but intriguing relationship between realism and abstraction in contemporary photography. The exhibition includes only photographic work that is based on reality but which depicts this reality with a greater or lesser degree of abstraction. On show in the exhibition is work that first and foremost can be appreciated for its abstract, formal qualities, such as form, colour and composition. Only afterwards does the viewer recognise the subject rendered in the work. Then the viewer becomes aware of an underlying story and the concept employed by the photographer. Usually it is the information in the caption which compels the viewer to relate to the work in a new way. The exhibition emphasises that abstraction of reality is always present in photography and that there often is an underlying story which only reveals itself indirectly."

Exhibited at Foam Fotografiemuseum, Amsterdam.

Lehman Brothers 92-08 by Michael Najjar



(Copyright - Michael Najjar)

"
(His) photographs take impressive cliff and rock formations to exemplify the development of leading stock exchange indices over the past 20 - 30 years. Like blueprints Najjar suspends the performance charts of such indices as the Dow Jones, Hang Seng, Nikkei and Dax over the mountain peaks, and changes the natural course of mountain borderlines, pairing pure natural beauty with the development of the global financial system."

Exhibited at Bitforms Gallery, New York.

'Lust' from Gabriel Jones - Somewhere on Time II



(Copyright - Gabriel Jones)

"Jones has an eye for the subtle, barely perceptible gestures, glances and stances that become visible through his male and female protagonists.
Recording them, he plays with the difference between the precise moment of a spontaneous 'gesture' and the extended duration of the frozen 'pose'. His achievement is to reveal to the viewer aspects of the human psyche concealed for their laying bare our vulnerability and proportionately evasive of neat words."

Exhibited at Galerie Bugdhan und Kaimer, Düsseldorf

Unseen vistas of the Big Apple by Swiss photographer, Christoph Studinka



(Copyright - Christoph Studinka)

"He's interested in the miraculous moment of seeing and framing the image, which is often happening in a matter of seconds. Studinka strolls through the chessboard of New York's streets with his preloaded camera, the lens on f 8, the shutter on 1/125 second, waiting, watching, searching, waiting, wondering, deciding, and instantly shooting the picture of a concerned wall street banker, of a young couple in love at SoHo, of an elegant lady approaching the stretch limousine waiting in front of the Plaza Hotel. He is fascinated by New York's greed and poetry, its success and failure, the symbols for world power and (like Ground Zero) destruction."

Exhibited at Gallery See 301, Zurich.

early "Bilder über Landschaften" 1979-1984 from Knut Wolfgang Maron



(Copyright - Knut Wolfgang )

"
The extraordinariness of Knut Maron's universe does not lie in astonishing forms or new themes. Its profound distinctiveness is not the consequence of breaking through hitherto accepted boundaries of art. Instead it results from a meditative reversion to art itself, from transcending its timeless truths."

Exhibited at Zone E, Essen