Technicolor Cèilidh, 2010 © Caleb Churchill

Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures, 2010 © David Bellingham

Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures, 2010 © David Bellingham

Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures, 2010 © David Bellingham

Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures, 2010 © David Bellingham

Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures, 2010 © David Bellingham

I received a pleasant surprise in the mail today from good friend David Bellingham and thought I’d share. His practice is concerned with the way one classifies, measures or quantifies ideas and objects. Utilizing text, found and familiar objects he creates works that challenge our preconceived notions of the originals, initiating the viewer to a new point of view. There are two versions of Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures. One being the book, the other a set of 13 monochrome contact prints of uncut rolls of film, approximately 50”x6”. It is also noteworthy that Bellingham publishes all his own titles on his letterpress and local offset litho printers under the title Wax 366.

Three Hundred and Sixty Five Exposures
Edition 500
24 pages
21cm x 25.5cm
ISBN N/A
£10.00 (purchase enquires can be made via contact link here or davidbellingham.com)

Untitled, 2004 © Yann Gross

Untitled, 2004 © Yann Gross

Untitled, 2004 © Yann Gross

Untitled, 2004 © Yann Gross

Lavina, Yann Gross‘s first solo show at the Lumen Gallery in Budapest (2008) depicts the ferocious nature of the avalanche. Through his photographic representation, this active moment becomes beautifully silenced for our inspection. Accompanied by guides and researchers these avalanches are instigated through dynamite and are carefully controlled circumstances. Gross is very aware that photographing these moments only exemplify that control, as he transforms something that is terrifying and dangerous into something aesthetic, safe and sublime. This contextualization is even stronger when one considers the possibility of having an avalanche in the frame containing it in a pictorial space.

Untitled, 2010 © Ed Templeton from Drinking the Kool-Aid

Untitled, 2010 © Ed Templeton from Drinking the Kool-Aid

Untitled, 2010 © Ed Templeton from Drinking the Kool-Aid

Untitled, 2010 © Ed Templeton from Drinking the Kool-Aid

Untitled, 2010 © Ed Templeton from Drinking the Kool-Aid

Mörel Books provides us a sneak preview of Ed Templeton’s newest booklet ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’. Echoing a non-judgmental attitude to his environs with brushes, camera and text, Templeton presents a document of today’s youth culture. Preserved amongst the pages of ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ is the do-it-yourself ethos of the skate and punk culture from which Templeton hails. The book fuctions as a whole due to its seamless presentation of collage, illustration, painting and photography. Also noteworthy is the complete vision of Templeton’s experience as he has created, designed and edited the booklet himself.

Pre-orders will be formally released 6 April and copies can be purchased at the  Mörel Books website while available. In addition, make your way to the Elms Lester Gallery in London 8 April for the official book launch/ opening with artist and publisher. Also, be sure to attend the exclusive signing of ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ 10 April (12-2pm). The ‘Drinking the Kool-Aid’ exhibition will run 6 April to 17 April, also at Elms Lester Gallery.

Untitled, 1986 © Bruce Weber from O Rio de Janeiro

Untitled, 1986 © Bruce Weber from O Rio de Janeiro

Untitled, 1986 © Bruce Weber from O Rio de Janeiro

Untitled, 1986 © Bruce Weber from O Rio de Janeiro

Untitled, 1986 © Bruce Weber from O Rio de Janeiro

Untitled, 1986 © Bruce Weber from O Rio de Janeiro

More often known for his homoerotic fashion photography celebrating the muscle bound new masculinity for the likes Calvin Klien and L’ Uomo Vouge, Bruce Weber’s ‘O Rio de Janeiro’ (1986) continues to be his most sought after publication. A collection of landscapes, family photos, still lifes and beautiful models all displayed under the warm sun of Rio de Janeiro become a dizzying montage of Weber’s subjective world in what one could call his photographic journal.

Yoko Okutsu, 2008 © Carlo Van de Roer

Yoko camera generated chart, 2008 © Carlo Van de Roer

Yoko full description, 2008 © Carlo Van de Roer

Tim Barber, 2009 © Carlo Van de Roer

Tim camera generated chart, 2009 © Carlo Van de Roer

Tim full description, 2009 © Carlo Van de Roer

Carlo Van de Roer’s ongoing Portrait Machine Project utilizes a Polaroid aura camera to objectively document the human aura. Whether the camera can actually document human aura is a riddle Van de Roer sets out to solve. By photographing those he knows or has expectations of, most of which are known in the public sphere, an attempt at accuracy is evident. The project having its own web page can be seen here. Snippets of the project can also be seen on his artist website along with other works, all of which I highly recommend.

Photography Degree Zero, 2009 © Geoffrey Batchen

Geoffrey Batchen’s Photography Degree Zero: Reflections on Roland Barthes’s Camera Lucida, MIT Press (2009) is comprised of some new and some previously published essays. With a list of contributors as the day is long (Geoffrey Batchen, Victor Burgin, Michael Fried, and Rosalind E. Krauss just to name a few), Camera Lucida, Hill and Wang (1981) is reconsidered from every possible angle. The varying texts range from the Buddhist approach to standard semiotics. Fourteen essay are included. Batchen’s “Palinode: An Introduction to Photography Degree Zero” not only lays the foundation to Barthes’s theoretical approach, but also explores the physical manifestation, translation of the French text into English and the layout omissions made in the original English version of Camera Lucida. In ‘Camera Lucida: Another Little History of Photography’ Batchen compares Walter Benjamin’s ‘Little History of Photography’ (1931) and Camera Lucida and proposes that Barthes’s text is better read as a history of photography rather than a theoretical text. He equates these two essays as histories of consciousness. He also asserts that Camera Lucida can function as a framework in which to approach vernacular photography. This is not surprising considering Batchen is one of the leading authorities on vernacular photography.

This is a very useful reader and a must for the CL fan.

Further readings not included in Batchen’s text that are helpful:

Benjamin, Walter. “Little History of Photography”, in Walter Benjamin: Selected Writings, vol. 2, ed. Michael W. Jennings, Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1999.

Culler, Jonathan. Barthes: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1983.

Edwards, Steve. Photography: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006.

Jay, Martin. Downcast Eyes: the Denigration of Vision in Twentieth-Century French Thought, Berkeley: University of California Press, 1993.

Nickel, Douglas R. “Roland Barthes and the Snapshot.” History of Photography 24, no. 3 (Autumn 2000): 232-235.

Rebaté, Jean-Michel. Writing the Image After Roland Barthes. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1997.

Shawcross, Nancy M., Roland Barthes on Photography: the Critical Tradition in Perspective, Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1997.