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 [...]
27/08/2010
What I’m doing now
…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.
http://www.americansuburbx.com
…..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.
