…is looking at websites on photography. Not an easy task, because there’s no filter I can think of that discriminates between interesting and worthwhile… and the rest. Gareth and I have been talking about the vocational aspects of the courses, now even more important since the BA (Hons) in Photography was validated earlier this year, and this has stimulated me to begin to put together a select list of sites that you may find useful. A very select list at the moment, and I’m more than happy to take recommendations so that we can expand it carefully.
First, then, the weekly news site of Editorial Photographers UK. This is commendably practical and businesslike, and indeed there’s a little sort of mission statement that includes: “We don’t do techie stuff or in-crowd gossip. We don’t talk cameras or computers.” I’m an EPUKer myself and have been for many years, and while the organisation is for professionals (meaning people earning a living from editorial photography), the news site is for everyone. Highly recommended for general interest and UK news, and especially so if you are planning to use your photography vocationally.
Moving on from the practice and business of photography to a tutorial site, this one, PixBoomBa, has just been launched by Cary Wolinsky and Bob Caputo, both veteran National Geographic photographers. You’ll remember that Cary, an old friend, was our Featured Photographer a few months back, and his interview is there in our archives. There must be endless teaching sites out there; how many I’m not sure but I’ve dozed off through several. This one has the virtues of being the work of a very experienced partnership (I’m hoping Bob will show his work on a forthcoming Featured Photographer page), and being amusing. Check out the short movies. My favourite is the Informal Portraits film. Actually, what you’re supposed to do is then move on to what they call Actual Info…
I’m beginning work on a new book which has a mainly art-critical theme, and in the course of researching I’ve been looking at sites that have something to say on contemporary fine art photography. Again, there are too many, yet too few worth paying attention to. One that I like, though, is American Suburb X, or ASX for short. Yes, it’s Americacentric, but not overly so, and has, for instance, recent features on the South African photographer Pieter Hugo and French photographer Luc Delahaye.
…..and that takes me a few short steps to sites that publish photography in an online magazine form. I’ll be returning to this in the future, as photographic publishing is going through some major changes, and online is part of the industry’s future. Not without problems, however. This site is a commercially-inspired initiative by one of the better photojournalistic agencies, called VII, and is a magazine that began publication online in the Spring. One of the contributing photographers, Seamus Murphy, by the way, will shortly be appearing as one of our Featured Photographers.
Finally, another online magazine-style site published in the US, called 100Eyes. I’d like to know more about how a site like this operates. And of course everyone in online publishing, including Rupert Murdoch, would like to know how to make such things profitable. Or even just help to support a photographer’s living.
Back in China, and increasingly fascinated with the contrast between modern and old, and the way that they fit together. I just left the town of Leshan in Sichuan, a couple of hours drive south of the capital Chengdu. It’s famous for having the world’s largest Buddha, 71 metres tall, built between 713 CE and 803, carved out of the red sandstone cliffs on the Minjiang River.
Well, I said town, and that’s what Leshan used to be, in a backwater, but now it’s a small city, with high-rise buildings and new apartments blocks and malls going up all over the place. By no means is this development all to do with the famous Giant Buddha, but this ancient monument has certainly stimulated growth, and the expressway which makes access to it from Chengdu so easy. Tourism, which in China means Chinese tourism (foreigners are insignificant in numbers), is taken very seriously by government at all levels, and the Giant Buddha of Leshan has not been left out of the development programme. Thousands a day come here, mostly in organised groups, and the site features all the usual crowd control paraphernalia of turnstiles, barriers and queuing procedures. Now you might think that this is what spoils sacred sites, but there’s another aspect, which is that most of the people I was with here were coming to see the Buddha out of a sense of respect, not just ticking off a tourist site. The demeanour of the crowds was lively, enthusiastic, noisy, respectful and polite - not a combination I could imagine in the West. Somehow, modern economic development, seven per cent growth rate, and a love of the past seem to sit together here. And, incidentally, the admission fees, as for every other visited site in China, are relatively high - nine pounds sterling just for the Buddha, rising to fifteen for ancillary sites as well. Unlike India, for example, there is no discrimination between nationals and foreigners, the latter in any case being a rarity.
Eighth-century giant Buddha, modern China.
I’m still shooting for my Tea Horse Road book, and Leshan is part of the area of Sichuanese tea mountains, so I was more than happy to find one elderly visitor carrying his typical flask of green tea.
About a kilometre south of here, after a winding climb around the cliffs, there was the most lovely bridge in the fading misty light… The Shang Hao Bridge, leading to Wu You Temple…
I’m now in Colombia, and for the last two weeks in Cartagena, on the Caribbean coast. This is South America’s second oldest colonial city (the slightly older one is Santa Marta, a two-to-three hour drive up the coast) and its best preserved. One of my walks is around the old city on top of the old walls, and I can do most of it without a break.
It’s also a great city for shooting, with a very noisy and vibrant street life. Apart from being hot, which propels most life out onto the streets, it has a very distinctive Afro-Latin character. So much goes on in the narrow streets, and no-one simply walks in a dry northern-European way. The way people move and gesture is a constant delight. Right now I’m shooting a video for teaching photography (the video sequences surround the still shots), and I’ll see if it’s possible to post a video-clip or two to show you what I mean. Meanwhile, here are some still images from the city, all low light ……
The centre of the old city at dusk. A 5-frame burst spaced 2 ƒstops apart, then exposure-blended.
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Chess in the Parque Bolivar at night. 15mm focal length, 1/40 second and ƒ5, these settings possible at ISO 25,600.
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Another high-SO shot in available light: dancing at the Café Havana, also with a 14-24mm zoom.
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.... and backstage at a fashion show in the Centro de Convenciones.
Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago at 12:39 pm. Add a comment
Oh… I only just realised that I’ve ignored this part of the site for a long time. Maybe this is why I find Twitter impossible (quite apart from never being able to say anything in just a couple of lines)
It’s not as if I didn’t have anything to write about, either. On Saturday I returned from a six-week trip that went Thailand-upper Burma-Yunnan-Assam-Chennai-Gujarat. Part of it was admittedly holiday, but more of it was adding to the Tea-Horse Road book - the little-known southern route, snaking down from Kunming into Shan State, then across upper Burma to Imphal, Continue Reading…
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 3:12 pm. Add a comment
This trip now drawing to a close, as well it should after seven weeks on the road. Today I just returned from a twelve-day drive through Tibet east of Lhasa, ending at Qamdo, which brings the total mileage for the month up to a little short of 4,000 kilometres, all in 4WDs, a little of it on surprisingly good roads but much of it on predictably bad ones. Continue Reading…
Posted 11 months, 1 week ago at 4:21 pm. Add a comment
After Yunnan, on to western Sichuan and its high grasslands, Tibetan culture. A 12-day drive along various parts of the tea road towards Tibet. For Tibet proper (meaning the T.A.R.), we need four permits to drive around, and that takes time, so I’m first doing the Sichuan side and then, after a couple of days in the capital, Chengdu, flying to Lhasa to pick up another 4WD vehicle. In fact, flying tomorrow, as the first of our permits has just arrived by courier at the hotel (can’t fly without). Continue Reading…
Posted 11 months, 3 weeks ago at 3:33 pm. Add a comment
Back in Yunnan, following the tea road. After a couple of days in the capital, Kunming, I drive to Dali, which is well-established on the tourist map. So much so that, despite having been an important stop on the Tea-Horse Road from the tea mountains in the south of Yunnan up towards Tibet, it’s not at all an easy place to photograph. Continue Reading…
This several-week trip began in Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago. A week there photographing contemporary interiors for a new book, and attending Hong Kong’s first tea fair, as part of my current book project on tea. Then to near the city of Chongqing in central China, with my Chinese clients who are two years into building a new luxury hot spring resort - the Brilliant at BeiBei. Continue Reading…
After last month’s filming in Singapore for Sony, I just returned from Rome, where I joined the Magidson Films crew at the Vatican.
Nostalgia for the old days of film? Try this — A/C Alex Falk loading 70mm film. And lifting one of the two O’Connor cameras would definitely make you think twice before complaining about the weight of a DSLR.
I’ve been doing very little shooting in this last month for the entirely necessary reason of developing this website - as well as making the picture selection for a new book, to be called The Art of Photography, and as well as working on the sequel to The Photographer’s Eye. In fact, the only serious assignment I’ve had time to do was a two-day shoot in Singapore for Sony. And when I say shoot, I mean that I spent most of the time on the other side of the camera, as we were filming a promotional video for the new Sony A900 (well, newish). Continue Reading…
Posted 1 year, 1 month ago at 10:15 am. Add a comment
