Cute Overload

No, it's not because I am newly engaged that I share the following...

Maybe it is because I am very excited to be going to the Topsfield Fair today and seeing all sorts of judging and shows of bunnies, chickens, calves, flowers, art, and vegetables. If you have never been and live in New England, this amazing agriculture fair (established in 1818) is a must. I will give you an update later -- especially on the flower arranging section. These folks are brutally honest in their comments on composition.

Cakewrecks pointed me to the blog Cute Overload and there are some pretty excellent and funny pics over there. Enjoy!

Engaged!

On a happy front, we have some new news for our cyberfriends near and far...

Bruce proposed! We are engaged!

A positive step for everyone—we all are doing remarkably well after the passing of his father, and Bruce also couldn't wait any longer! Bruce wanted to turn a page if you will...the next chapter after the summer and look to the future.

The story:
I had wanted to go apple picking and he did it there at Shelburne Farm in beautiful Stow (after picking my favorite apples, empires). He thought of a several other ways, but this summer going the way it did, nothing seemed to work out and nothing fancy seemed right. He wanted a simple fun thing in nature (as we oft do) and wanted to do it before he went back to school. It was a beautiful hot day, the last day of summer.

We were sitting down in the shade to cool down after picking (he had been hiding the ring in his camera bag). The ring is an antique, he said he wanted simple and sparkly (and not pointy as I do a lot of riffling around at work). We went out to eat afterwards on the garden patio at the wonderful Oleana. It's very odd, same, but different.

The date:
No date yet. I've never been a one to go a regular route and we've been together for so long, so no rush. Likely, 2 years, as I would like to aim for the late summer. We want to get Bruce finished with Uconn first and I simply am too behind and too swamped to start planning right now! I will however, in my true fashion, do a goodly amount of research for fun. It could be sooner, but we are just going to enjoy the moment for now!

Fun Friday post - cakes not photos

It's been a rough summer and early fall. A friend sent me this blog, Cake Wrecks (subtitled "when cakes go horrible, hilariously wrong"), and it makes me smile. For example, the original order for the above cake was for a "black high heel." Enjoy the blog and the rest of this post about a cake version of the telephone game here.

PRC landscape show opening this Sunday at Fruitlands Museum, 4-6pm

I hope you can take that wonderful drive out route 2 to Harvard, MA this weekend. The PRC show I curated, New England Survey, gets a reprise in a delightful setting with a beautiful view (seen above). The reception is Sunday, September 14th from 4-6pm.

Surrounded by 200 acres and right next to a collection of Hudson River School paintings, I couldn't imagine a more perfect setting for this exhibition. Come see work by Barbara Bosworth, Tanja Hollander, Janet Pritchard, Thad Russell, Jonathan Sharlin, Paul Taylor again or for the first time.

Click here for directions and more information about this former Transcendentalist and Utopian community and jewell of a museum.

Elusive Okapi photographed in the wild

As reported by AFP, an Okapi was recently photographed in the wild using camera traps. This method gives new meaning to the word "snapshot," which already has hunting overtones. The Okapi looks like a cross between a small giraffe and half a zebra (it's legs have zebra stripes). Click here to read more and see pics of this fascinating animal in captivity. (He looks like he is doing his own impression of the dramatic chipmunk, no?)

An Okapi in the Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The okapi, an African animal so elusive that it was once believed to be a mythical unicorn, has been photographed in the wild for the first time, the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) said Thursday.

(AFP/HO/Zoological Society Of London)

Guess Who? Fun photos of famous photogs

I had such a good time composing this post over on the PRC's blog, I thought I'd cast it out into the world again here. Enjoy!

Photoshelter’s Shoot the Blog had another great recent post, pointing me to a treasure trove of wonderful portraits. Photographer Bill Jay has been photographing photographers for close to 40 years. Currently, he has over 1,000 portraits in his files, with more to be added.

Guess who that is above….? John Pfahl in 1980.

I just sent a good 30+ minutes cruising Jay’s amazing Web site and its curious organization, until I realized that I could look at the portraits alphabetically. Oh well, my bad is your gain. Below are some of my favorites from page 1 alone as well as some folks of local interest. Be sure to look up past PRC Lecturers as well! Good news for us, he’ll be releasing a book with Nazraeli Press soon.

CAUTION, this is VERY ADDICTIVE. Enjoy!

Aaron Siskind
Frederick Sommers
A young Jerry Uelsmann
Lucien Clergue, who looks a lot like Dustin Hoffman
Manuel Alvarez Bravo
Martin Parr
Paul Caponigro
Robert Heinecken
Russell Lee

Of local interest:
PRC founder Chris Enos
Nick Nixon
Marie Cosindas and John Szarkowski
Joe Deal
Diana Gaston

ABOVE IMAGE: John Pfahl, copyright Bill Jay

Weather photography/ers

I sit here, safe, on my couch watching the Weather Channel track Hurricane Gustav. Several poor souls are reporting from the storm path and are being beaten down by rain and wind (one fellow just talked about being stung in the face by the rain).

There is nothing like weather to humble humankind. I too am fascinated by it. Weather was in fact the topic of my very first blog post.

I have often wondered, why do we crave such images? Besides the obvious ratings boost, is such weather watching a contemporary desire for the sublime?

I did a quick search and found a photographer "The Weather Paparazzi" and a stock agency "Weather Pix" that specialize in weather photography (visit the former to see his tag line). I share these links only out of curiosity. I hope that all of those in Gustav's path fair the storm. Be safe.

IMAGE: Hurricane Isabel, from here

New England Survey exhibition now on display at Fruitlands Museum

Last week, I traveled out beautiful Route 2 to Harvard, MA and the Fruitlands Museum to lay out the PRC's warmly received landscape exhibition, New England Survey.

The exhibition will run August 23 – December 21, 2008 with an opening reception on Sunday, September 14, 4 – 6pm. I am proud as a peach, as it's the first show that I curated that has traveled.

As you can see above, it is right at home in their Picture Gallery. Take a sneak peek at the installation and their beautiful grounds in this flickr set!

I am thrilled at how it turned out, as are they. The work is in their Picture Gallery, right next to Hudson River School paintings and right outside are incredible views and nature trails. The juxtapositions created are stunning. Re-experience work by Barbara Bosworth, Tanja Alexia Hollander, Janet Pritchard, Thad Russell, Jonathan Sharlin, and Paul Taylor.

A little history - This past spring, we were approached by the Fruitlands Museum to show a version of the PRC exhibition New England Survey in fall 2008. Fruitlands, a former Transcendentalist, Utopian center founded by Bronson Alcott, is increasingly considering exhibitions that complement their interpretive themes (Inhabiting Nature, Encounters on a Changing Landscape, and Traditions that Bind) as well as intersect with their mission. New England Survey was a perfect fit and joins a special exhibition of Joe Wheelwright’s trees sculptures currently on their grounds.

I am thrilled that Fruitlands loved the exhibition so much and that it will live on and be shown at such a beautiful location during New England’s peak fall season. I invite you to see it again in this unique setting, or for the first time. Take a whole day, have lunch, walk the trails, and explore their collections, it's that amazing!

Visit www.fruitlands.org for more information and directions. See you at the opening!

ABOUT FRUITLANDS: Fruitlands Museum is one of the first outdoor museums in America and boasts over 200+ acres of pastoral landscape and several period buildings. This national landmark shares the unique ideas, stories, objects, and landscape of New England’s most original thinkers, movers, and reformers. Enjoy nature trails and four unique galleries of Native American, Shaker, and American art collections, including Hudson River School landscapes and nineteenth-century vernacular portraits.

Air Guitar meet Air Camera

Justin James Reed had an inspired moment. While ruminating on another's post on an air guitar contest in Germany on his most excellent blog, he noted the following:

Dagmar professed that, "(a)ir guitar looks much more spectacular than air camera."...I am here to differ, as I think that we can make "Air Camera" rock way harder than air guitar. So, in an effort (and on a whim) to get this going, I am sharing my first attempt at Air Camera here (see above)... Also on a whim, and as an encouragement for all of you out there to share your attempts at Air Camera, I have started a new blog named, what else, AIR CAMERA. I am looking for Air Camera of any format, be it Air 35mm, Air Medium Format, Air Large Format, etc., show me what you've got!

Two submissions are now up on the newly launched blog, three if you count his above. Surf on in and check out aircamera.blogspot.com and submit one of your own!!

Below is the submission information. Now, go get your shoot on!

Submit all images to: Justin@JustinJamesReed.com Image Requirements: All images should be 72 dpi. Sized to 10 inches on the longest side. Saved as a .jpg file and labeled as your name with no spaces or punctuation: your_name_1.jpg. Please feel free to submit a link to your personal site which will be included with your best "Air Camera," along with a title (i.e. camera format), where your from, and any other relevant information.

"I Was There. Just Ask Photoshop"

Last week, the New York Times ran a very interesting piece about Photoshop titled the above. Instead of the usual trickery and celebrity air brushed talk, the author focused on regular people and the increasing practice of erasing unwanted people or adding others not originally present to family photos.

I am not one to alter or harm a photo, although I am a HUGE fan of artwork that does. (Ask those that know me, I can't even delete a digital image and fill up and save all of my cards. Yes, I know I can save them to the computer, which I do, several times, and reformat, which I never do.) The only time I ever destroyed a photograph was when I broke up with an ex. Gathering all of the photos with him in them, I burned them all over a raging fire. I did cut up one, but it looked silly, so I think that too went into the flames.

Oddly enough, the essay talks starts out talking about a woman from Rochester! I'll share a quote from Alex Williams' piece, as it's that good and intriguing:

REMOVING her ex-husband from more than a decade of memories may take a lifetime for Laura Horn, a police emergency dispatcher in Rochester. But removing him from a dozen years of vacation photographs took only hours, with some deft mouse work from a willing friend who was proficient in Photoshop, the popular digital-image editing program.

Like a Stalin-era technician in the Kremlin removing all traces of an out-of-favor official from state photos, the friend erased the husband from numerous cherished pictures taken on cruises and at Caribbean cottages, where he had been standing alongside Ms. Horn, now 50, and other traveling companions.

“In my own reality, I know that these things did happen,” Ms. Horn said. But “without him in them, I can display them. I can look at those pictures and think of the laughter we were sharing, the places we went to.”

“This new reality,” she added, “is a lot more pleasant.”

... Read more here.

Thanks to Keith Johnson for keying me in to this!

ABOVE IMAGE: BACK IN THE U.S.S.R. Grandpa always wanted to visit the Soviet Union (circa May Day, 1937), and with some digital help, it’s almost as if he’s there. Illustration by The New York Times; photographs by Bettmann/Corbis (historical image) and John Henley/Corbis (man waving)

Bruce Myren featured on Teachingphoto.com

I mention my partner Bruce Myren occasionally in my posts, but usually it's in reference to our adventures and not his work (save a grad school update). Currently, he is featured on Teachingphoto.com, which deserves a special mention!

For those who don't know know about this wonderful Web site, it is the effort of the great Henry Horenstein and includes insightful and useful articles from photographers, teachers, and industry leaders. Henry asked Bruce to meditate on his experiences as an older student deciding to go to graduate school and then enrolling in an MFA program. Click here or above to read it. He starts his second, and last, year in a few weeks at UConn. I will miss him a lot, but he is almost done!

Bruce also has a busy schedule of upcoming exhibitions in 2008/2009, see below. Hope to see you there!

Danforth Museum of Art
"New England Currents series
Markers: Memory, Solo exhibition
October 22 – December 7, 2008
Framingham, MA
Artist Reception, November 22, 2008

Gallery Kayafas
The View Home, Solo exhibition
October 16 – November 22, 2008
450 Harrison Avenue, Boston, MA
Opening Reception, First Friday, November 7, 2008

Hallmark Museum of Contemporary Photography
The Fortieth Parallel and Other Adventures, Solo exhibition
July 2 – September 20, 2009
Turner's Falls, MA
Artist Reception and Talk, September 19, 2009

And now for something completely discipline specific...

Y'all know how I love art about museums or museum humor. The museum staff at SFMOMA recently hung their own artwork on 4 floors of the museum's offices in an exhibition titled ART : WORK. 25% of the staff participated, isn't that great?

Above is the wall text from my favorite piece with a sample of the installation below. Brilliant! What would your office do? You can read more about the show on their blog Open Space and check out the pictures on their flickr stream.

Solar Eclipse Photos

Check out these cool images of the total eclipse of the heart, sorry sun. It can be seen today, August 1st, in parts of Canada, Greenland, Russia, Mongolia, and China. Here is a link to a gallery on Yahoo. Enjoy!

Above image: A man using a special filter observes a partial solar eclipse in Riga, August 1, 2008 (Ints Kalnins/Reuters)

Top Artist: ART meets reality t.v....really?

Wow, I am...speechless.

Sarah Jessica Parker has pitched a new idea for an art reality show to Bravo. You can see below for the whole astounding story. Despite coming from the woman who played SanDeE from one of my favorite Steve Martin art-themed movies L.A. Story, I am not sure how this will fly (although I will likely tune in just to witness it). Nevertheless, I don't think it can hold a candle to our locally-minted art game show, Art Show Down.

Be sure to check out some of Art Show Down's past episodes! They are beautifully designed and wonderfully hysterical. Highlights include Episode 1, with games such as "Auction Price is Right" and "Schmooze and Booze." In the latter, a contestant has to eat as much cheese and drink as much * correction * Tabasco-flavored seltzer as possible while simultaneously talking up and name dropping with a curator (pictured & linked above). Don't miss it!

From REUTERS: LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter):

Sarah Jessica Parker's art-competition reality show has found a home at Bravo.

The network has picked up "American Artist," a "Project Runway"-style series that takes on the art world.

Aspiring artists compete to produce various styles of artwork (painting, sculpting, etc.), which is then judged by a panel of experts. Parker's Pretty Matches production company is helping develop the project.

If ordered to series, the show would give Bravo another skill-driven reality show to its lineup, along with "Top Chef" and "Top Design."

- Mon Jul 21, 2008 1:28am EDT

Instant Art Critic

From Pixmaven, via Modern Art Journal....Voila! The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator.

First, read the instructions below, then browse some of my results at the bottom, and then click the link HERE to test it out yourself.

Salvation is here!
Feeling inarticulate? Critically gauche? Or just verbally impotent?

We here at Pixmaven have developed The Instant Art Critique Phrase Generator so you need never again feel at a loss for pithy commentary or savvy "insights." With this device you can speak about Art with both authority and confidence. Use this marvellous tool to amaze and confound friends and colleagues. Don't miss this opportunity to menace and dumbfound professors and artists emeriti!

The instructions are simple-- type any five digit number in the field below, click 'Create,' and enjoy your ready-made Critical Response to the Art Product (or CRAP). Now you can produce CRAP critiques as easily and fluently as anyone in your MFA program!

Please use this product responsibly.

Here are some of my results:

With regard to the issue of content, the disjunctive perturbation of the spatial relationships brings within the realm of discourse the distinctive formal juxtapositions.

Although I am not a painter, I think that the internal dynamic of the negative space endangers the devious simplicity of the inherent overspecificity.

Recreated iconic photos...in legos

Here's something fun to peruse this week/weekend.

Inspired by my last post on iconic photos recreated by senior citizens, I present iconic photos redux -- this time done in legos, and quite well I might add -- in an amazing flickr set. You can click here or on the above image to browse other odes to Cartier-Bresson, Robert Capa, Eddie Adams, and Alfred Eisenstaedt. (You can also check out a behind-the-scenes setup shot showing how he made the above image right here.) Thanks to DK for pointing me to this!

ABOVE: An homage to Henri Cartier-Bresson's "Behind the Gare Saint-Lazare" by Balakov

Happy 4th, In Full Color

I hope everyone had a wonderful 4TH of JULY weekend! Bruce and I, DK, and JS walked to and through MIT to watch the fireworks explode over the Esplanade. It was a great view and a super show!

I share with you the above image from the Library of Congress's Flickr site, yes Flickr site. If you haven't yet checked it out, this site is refreshingly fun, open, and democratic (although I wish folks would only post informative notes on the images). The above transparency is by Charles Fenno Jacobs (1904-1975) of "School children, half of Polish and half of Italian descent, at a festival in May 1942, Southington, Conn."

Be sure to explore their 1930s and 40s color set in particular. These images are from the FSA and the OWI (Office of War Information) and range from 1939 to 1944 -- certainly an era that we aren't used to seeing in color. The best way is to click on the first - a Rosie the Riveter - and keep clicking to the right. Enjoy!