Photography News

July 19, 2014 /Photography News/ Have you ever wondered what your grandfather did for fun? While some undoubtedly whittled their lives away, others were out conquering the wilderness. If you’re from Oregon, ol’ grandpa might have even been part of the Mazamas.

On top of Mt. Hood, the original 105 charter members of the Mazamas founded their organization 120 years ago, on 19 July 1894. Since the organization’s founding, the Mazamas have fought for environmental preservation, built a number of lodges, named Mt. Mazama, and, of course, promoted and taught basic climbing education.

For more information on the Mazamas check out their site and find out how to start your own adventure.

Image Title: Mazamas hiking trip to Mt. Rainier. Creator: Kiser Photo Co. Date Original: 1905. Original Form: Gelatin silver prints. Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection

Image Title: Mazamas hiking through the snow on Mt. Rainier. Creator: Kiser Photo Co. Date Original: 1905. Original Form: Gelatin silver prints. Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection

Image Title: Mountaineers in ice cave, Paradise Glacier, Mt. Rainier. Date Original: 1920. Original Form: Gelatin silver prints. Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection

Image Title: Mountaineers on top of Mt. Snoqualmie. Date Original: 1915. Original Form: Gelatin silver prints. Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection

Image Title: Man with motion picture camera near glacier, Mt. Rainier. Creator: Kiser Photo Co. Date Original: 1905. Original Form: Gelatin silver prints. Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection

Image Title: Mazamas or mountaineers group at Paradise Inn, Mt. Rainier. Date.Original: 1920. Original Form: Gelatin silver prints. Original Collection: Gerald W. Williams Collection

July 12, 2014 /Photography News/ Born 160 years ago, on July 12, 1854,  George Eastman was an American inventor and philanthropist. He founded the Eastman Kodak Company and invented roll film, helping to bring photography to the mainstream. Roll film was also the basis for the invention of motion picture film in 1888 by the world's first filmmaker Louis Le Prince, and a few years later by his followers Léon Bouly, Thomas Edison, the Lumière Brothers and Georges Méliès.

In 1884, Eastman patented the first film in roll form to prove practicable; in 1888 he perfected the Kodak camera, the first camera designed specifically for roll film. In 1892, he established the Eastman Kodak Company, in Rochester, New York, one of the first firms to mass-produce standardized photography equipment. This company also manufactured the flexible transparent film, devised by Eastman in 1889, which proved vital to the subsequent development of the motion picture industry.

During his lifetime, he donated $100 million, mostly to the University of Rochester and to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (under the alias "Mr. Smith"). The Rochester Institute of Technology has a building dedicated to Mr. Eastman, in recognition of his support and substantial donations.

In his final two years, Eastman was in intense pain, caused by a degenerative disorder affecting his spine. He had trouble standing and his walking became a slow shuffle. Today it might be diagnosed as lumbar spinal stenosis, a narrowing of the spinal canal caused by calcification in the vertebrae. Eastman grew depressed, as he had seen his mother spend the last two years of her life in a wheelchair from the same condition. On March 14, 1932, Eastman died by suicide with a single gunshot to the heart, leaving a note which read, "My work is done. Why wait?" His funeral was held at St. Paul's Episcopal Church in Rochester; he was buried on the grounds of the company he founded at Kodak Park in Rochester, New York.

His former home at 900 East Avenue in Rochester, New York was opened as the George Eastman House International Museum of Photography and Film in 1949. 

Point101 is a fine art and photography printer providing high-quality, beautiful prints and mounts to customers, traders, and emerging and established artists. On Friday, July 4, it launched a new visual and verbal identity and website.

July 10, 2014 /Photography News - Point101/ Point101 is a fine art and photography printer providing high-quality, beautiful prints and mounts to customers, traders, and emerging and established artists.

On July 4 it launched a new visual and verbal identity and website.

The new identity celebrates craft, openness, freedom and artistic expression: in the logo’s colour, spacing, and cut-away letters; in the limitless compositions made from the logo’s pieces; and in the ultra-reduced typographic approach.

A new slogan, “Fine print.”, summarises the studio’s considered service and affinity to fine art.

The website has been refined and streamlined to give visitors a more enjoyable browsing experience. Point101’s industry-leading image upload and room preview systems have been integrated into the new site. New website copy is engaging, witty.

Along with the brand refresh, Point101 has launched several new printing and mounting products, including photo blocks; DiBond, MDF and Gatorboard mounting; 12 new frame mouldings; and four new giclée papers.

“We’re delighted to have launched such an intuitive, engaging revamp of Point101” said Kerry Keays, director of Point101. “We’ve updated our products. We’ve cleared the site of clutter. Our clients have been asking for features—we’ve added them. Keeping our brand and site at the forefront is important to us.

These changes have been radical, but necessary. Now, we can do our products justice, with all new product photography and large images as a central part of the site.

We love our new identity. It better reflects our extra-mile service and the galleries and professionals we support.”

About Point101:

With over ten years’ experience, Point101 is an East London fine art and photography printer. They provide high-quality printing and mounting and support projects and exhibitions. www.point101.com

July 8, 2014 /Photography News/ Born 150 years ago, on July 8, 1864, Fred Holland Day was a dedicated aesthete and well-known figure in turn-of-the-century Boston. He was one of the earliest advocates of Pictorial photography in America and, like Alfred Stieglitz (with whom he corresponded until they had a serious disagreement around 1902), he tirelessly wrote articles, mounted exhibitions, and encouraged like-minded photographers who supported the medium's artistic potential.

Day spent much time among poor immigrant children in Boston, tutoring them in reading and mentoring them. One in particular, the 13-year-old Lebanese immigrant Kahlil Gibran, went on to fame as the author of The Prophet.

Probably his best-known work is an 1898 series of more than 250 photographs portraying the Passion of Christ, in which he posed as Jesus, training for the role by losing weight and letting his hair and beard grow. What is usually shown from this series is the group known as “The Seven Last Words of Christ,” seven portraits that refer to Jesus’ statements from the time of his crucifixion until his death. In each photograph Mr. Day, in character, assumed what he felt were facial expressions consonant with Jesus’ ordeal.

Day often made only a single print from a negative. He used only the platinum process, being unsatisfied with any other, and lost interest in photography when platinum became unobtainable following the Russian Revolution.

F. Holland Day died on November 12, 1933.

Since the 1990s Day's works have been included in major exhibitions by museum curators, notably in the solo Day retrospective at the Boston Museum of Fine Arts in 2000/2001 and similar shows at the Royal Photographic Society in England and the Fuller Museum of Art. Art historians are once again taking an interest in Day, and there are now significant academic texts on Day's homoerotic portraiture, and its similarities to the work of Walter Pater and Thomas Eakins.

Day's house at 93 Day Street, Norwood, Massachusetts is now a museum (The F. Holland Day House & Norwood History Museum), and the headquarters of the Norwood Historical Society.

Saint Sebastian, 1906, F. Holland Day

Beauty is Truth, Truth is Beauty, 1898, F. Holland Day

Black man with diadema, ca. 1897, F. Holland Day

No title, ca. 1900, F. Holland Day

Male nude, F. Holland Day. Source: Scan from the book Suffering the ideal.

Tony Costanza in sailor suit, seated, leaning on pillows, 1911, F. Holland Day

Portrait of Edward Carpenter, the early gay rights activist, F. Holland Day

Amercian poet and essayist Louise Imogen Guiney (1861-1920) in Saint Barbara costume with laurel wreath, pearls, book and (pencilled-in) halo, 1893, F. Holland Day

Woman (Julia Arthur) in Middle Eastern (Salome?) costume, ca. 1895, F. Holland Day

 

June 10, 2014 /Photography News/ Today, June 10, Portuguese all over the world celebrate Portugal Day (officially Dia de Camões, de Portugal e das Comunidades Portuguesas --"Day of Camões, Portugal, and the Portuguese Communities"), which marks the date of Luis de Camoes’ death in June 10, 1580. Camoes wrote the Os Lusiadas, Portugal’s national epic poem celebrating Portuguese history and achievements.

 Here is a set of photographs realized by Horácio Novais Studio (1930-1988) to celebrate Portugal Day. Courtesy of the Art Library of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.

Augusta Street, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Restoration Square, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Rossio, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Palace of the Marquesses of Fronteira, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Rossio, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Rossio, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Restoration Square, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Rossio, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

Rossio, Lisbon, Portugal. Photo: Horácio Novais Studio

The Art Library of the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (Lisbon, Portugal) is a specialized library in the field of Visual Arts and is aims is to provide information access to readers whose research needs include studies in history of art, fine arts and architecture. Besides is general found, constantly updated, the Library holds 180 photographic collections about the art history in Portugal.

June 9, 2014 /Photography News/ Here are some versions of Murphy's laws which often relate to us, photographers. Feel free to add yours in the comment section below.

June 4, 2014 /Photography News/ The Rubikon Paper Camera by Hubero Kororo, also known as the  Pinhole Rebel, is both playful and functional, a cartoon-ish paper camera with a sliding shutter for easy use.  It is designed with a loose interpretation of SLR cameras, but this one doesn’t include an interchangeable lens or any other mark of a camera save for a shutter and film.  Just aim the Rubikon camera at the subject of your choice, raise the shutter and drop it down before you overexpose.

Download the Rubikon pinhole camera it here.

See also:

• How to make a pinhole camera from concrete
• CAP, the pinhole camera made from recycled paper

June 1, 2014 /Photography News/ The World Conference for the Well-being of Children in Geneva, Switzerland proclaimed June 1st to be the International Children's Day in 1925.

To celebrate the spirit of childhood, here is a small selection of the photographs from the collection of the National Media Museum (UK), that were displayed as part of the exhibition Baby: Picturing the Ideal Human, 1840s to Now.

Courtesy of the National Media Museum

Woman reads as baby sleeps. Photographic Advertising Limited. Collection of National Media Museum.
Photographic Advertising Limited (1929-1977) created stock advertising images with the potential for selling a range of products. Idyllic household and family scenes were very popular.

Baby show. Reuben Saidman (1906-1967); Digital positive from glass negative. Collection of National Media Museum.This photograph is from the Daily Herald Archive, held at the National Media Museum. It is a collection of over three million press photographs, dating from c.1911-1970.

A cabinet card of three children. J E Reeves; Cabinet Card. Collection of National Media Museum.
A woman, probably their mother, can be seen behind them.

'Mother and Child'. Henry Essenhigh Corke (1883-1919); Autochrome. Collection of National Media Museum.
This is an autochrome - an early colour process which used a glass plate covered in microscopic, red, green and blue grains of potato starch.

'The Awakening'. Emma Barton (1872-1938); Carbon. Collection of National Media Museum.
Emma Barton received the Royal Photographic Society Medal in 1903 for this photograph.

'Mother and Child'. Rudolf Dührkoop (1848-1918); Opalotype. Collection of National Media Museum.
This is an opalotype - a photograph on white glass.

A Maxwell; Carte-de-Visite. Collection of National Media Museum.

May 31, 2014 /Photography News/ Pets are our pride and joy. They often define our lives and sometimes even rule our lives. Humans can be entirely devoted to their animal companions. PictureCompete is searching for photos that poignantly display that special relationship between people and pets.

Prizes:

• First Place: $250 (USD) Cash Prize

• Second Place: $100 (USD) Cash Prize

• Third Place: $75 (USD) Cash Prize

Winners will also receive:

• Winner's gallery exhibition

• Social media exposure

• PictureCompete™ newsletter exposure

Eligibility:

Open to all individuals 18 years and older, worldwide.

Entry Fee:

$15.00 for up to four (4) images.

Deadline: June 19, 2014 (11:59PM CST)

Website: http://picturecompete.com/photo-contests/

To view all current call for entries listed at Photography News, visit http://www.photography-news.com/2009/12/photography-competitions.html

"Photography is a strange phenomenon... You trust your eye and cannot help but bare your soul." (Inge Morath)

Inge Morath Self Portrait, Jerusalem, 1958

May 27, 2014 /Photography News/ Born 91 years ago today, on 27 May 1923, Ingeborg Morath was a photographer associated with Magnum Photos for nearly fifty years. 

After studying languages in Berlin, she became a translator, then a journalist and the Austrian editor for Heute, an Information Service Branch publication based in Munich.

In 1949, Morath was invited by Robert Capa to join the newly founded Magnum Photos in Paris, where she started as an editor. She began photographing in London in 1951, and assisted Henri Cartier-Bresson as a researcher in 1953-54. In 1955, after working for two years as a photographer, she became a Magnum member.

Her work included striking portraits of both posed celebrities and fleeting images of anonymous passers-by. Her feeling for places as reflected in images of Boris Pasternak's home, Chekhov's house and Mao Zedong's bedroom was so sensitive that some viewers insisted they could see invisible people.

'Inge Morath possesses the priceless quality of making the world look as though it had been discovered only this morning and she was present with her lens to record its bright freshness,'' Harrison E. Salisbury wrote in The New York Times Book Review about the couple's book in Russia
 (Viking, 1969).

Morath married the playwright Arthur Miller on February 17, 1962 and relocated permanently to the United States, where she had previously had assignments.

Ingeborg Morath Miller died of cancer on January 30, 2002, at the age of 78.

Because Morath devoted much of her enthusiasm to encouraging women photographers, her colleagues at Magnum Photos established the Inge Morath Award in her honor. The Award is now given by the Magnum Foundation as part of its mission of supporting new generations of socially-conscious documentary photographers, and is administered by the Magnum Foundation in collaboration with the Inge Morath Foundation.

May 26, 2014 /Photography News/ Guyanese around the world celebrate the 48th Independence Day anniversary today, 26 May 2014.

Guyana has been a former colony of the Dutch, and for over 200 years of the British. It achieved independence from the United Kingdom on 26 May 1966 and became a Republic on 23 February 1970.

To understand this day's significance, we invite you to take a look back into Guyana's past through a set of photographs covering the 1922 Stanley Field Expedition to British Guiana led by Bror E. Dahlgren and John R. Millar.

 All photos courtesy of The Field Museum Library.

The Field Museum is an educational institution concerned with the diversity and relationships in nature and among cultures. It provides collection-based research and learning for greater public understanding and appreciation of the world in which we live. Its collections, public learning programs, and research are inseparably linked to serve a diverse public of varied ages, backgrounds and knowledge. The formation of The Field Museum Library’s collections began in 1894 with initial transfers of books from the libraries of various departments of the World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. Currently, the Library serves the Museum’s staff, visiting scholars and the general public.