United Photo Industries, a Brooklyn-based collective dedicated to exhibiting and promoting photography, has announced their first major event, which will take place at a river-front park in Brooklyn, New York, this summer from June 22-July 1.

Dubbed “Photoville,” the event at Brooklyn Bridge Park, will feature 35 concurrent exhibitions of photography from all over the world. Each exhibition will be housed in shipping containers, forming a “village” of photography exhibitions, which will be free and open to the public.

As part of the Photoville programming, PDN has joined with United Photo Industries and Brooklyn Bridge Park to produce an outdoor photo exhibition called “The Fence,” which will adorn Brooklyn Bridge Park for two months this summer.

To create the installation, more than 300 images will be printed on photographic mesh, forming a 1,000-foot fence. The images exhibited on “The Fence” will be selected from contest entries by a jury of photography curators and editors. For more information on how to enter, visit The Fence contest site here.

In addition to the exhibitions, Photoville will also feature outdoor projections, panel discussions and lectures, workshops, a food and beer garden, tents with photo gear vendors, and even a dog run.

For more information about the inaugural Photoville event visit photovillenyc.org.

Last August, as legendary Magnum photographer Martin Parr traveled around Finland capturing the essence of that nation and its people, he had a camera crew tagging along as he searched for subjects and made his characteristically deadpan images. The result is a nine-minute documentary his fans are sure to appreciate called “Martin Parr–The Making of ‘Think of Finland,’” which is the name of his new show at Laboratory, a Helsinki gallery. Shot and directed by Rami Hanafi, the film shows Parr wandering the streets, night clubs, markets, beaches and countryside on what appears to be a big scavenger hunt. Parr explains on the voiceover soundtrack what he’s looking for and how he goes about his work. “Think of Finland” will be on exhibit at Laboratory through April 8.

The ingenuity and craftsmanship that go into photographer Lori Nix‘s images of carefully crafted dioramas and miniature models always elicit a smile, even when the subject is dark or ominous. This past fall, Nix and her partner and collaborator Kathleen Gerber were asked by producer and writer Joe Sabia to help make a video on a serious topic:  the overfishing of the world’s oceans. The idea was to inspire people to consider this environmental issue by explaining where sushi comes from.

Directed by Vincent Peone, “The Story of Sushi” begins in a sushi bar then moves to a fishing trawler to a warehouse and back to a restaurant. Each location is actually one of Nix and Gerber’s sets. It’s at once realistic and playful, thanks to all the props and models, including toy sharks and billowing fog –all sourced, assembled or handcrafted by Nix and Gerber.
Gerber describes the seven-month project on the Lori Nix blog.

“The Story of Sushi” can be viewed on Vimeo.

LOOK3 Festival of the Photograph announced today that Alex Webb, Donna Ferrato and Stanley Greene will be the featured “INsight” artists at this year’s festival, to be held June 7–9 in Charlottesville, VA. As featured artists the photographers will create solo exhibitions for the festival and speak about their work during the program of talks and presentations.

This year’s festival is being curated by Washington Post visuals editor David Griffin and photographer Vincent J. Musi.

Outdoor exhibits will be presented by Hank Willis Thomas and David Doubilet, LOOK3 has also announced. Doubilet will be this year’s “TREES” artist, hanging work in the trees that line the Charlottesville Mall.

LOOK3 also released a partial list for the series of “Master’s Talks” that takes place during the festival. Bruce Gilden, Robin Schwartz, Camille Seaman, Lynsey Addario and Hank Willis Thomas will all speak at the festival, the organization said.

For more information please visit: http://look3.org/

Related: LOOK3 2011 Recap: Photographers and Other Fest-Goers Discuss the Highlights
More LOOK3 2011 Coverage

Photographer Gregory Crewdson, who is famous for his cinematic depictions small-town American life, is the subject of a new documentary that will premiere  March 10 at the SXSW music and film festival in Austin, Texas. Directed by Ben Shapiro, the film is called “Gregory Crewdson: Brief Encounters.” It takes viewers behind the scenes of the elaborate productions of some of his best known images, and if this trailer is any indication, the film shows what a regular guy he is–knocking over lamps, waking up sick with worry that things might go wrong–in his search for the perfect moment.

Roger Ballen, known for his dark, unsettling photography, has brought his esthetic to the “I Fink U Freeky” video he recently directed for the South African hip-hop band Die Antwoord. The result, which has been widely circulated via social media, is a creepy but visually compelling freak show. Ballen recently explained to Phaidon that he shot photographs for the band about three years ago. They asked him to shoot a music video, which he was happy to do. “We started with my photographs for ideas and then mimicked them in the sets. Most of the sets started with almost like a ‘Roger Ballen still life’ and then we might have added in a mouth or foot or hand and then we went into them cinematically,” he told Phaidon.

©Larissa Sansour

The Musée de l’Elysée abruptly cancelled the 2011 Lacoste Elysée Prize for photography, protesting the decision by prize sponsor Lacoste to exclude one of the finalists. Lacoste, meanwhile, has announced that is “has decided to cancel once and for all its participation in this event and its support for the Elysée Prize.”

Lacoste reportedly objected for political reasons to a project by finalist Larissa Sansour called “Nation Estate,” which was inspired by the recent Palestinian bid for nationhood at the United Nations. Lacoste said in a statement today that Sansour’s work did not fit the contest theme, and denies it excluded her for political reasons.

Click here to read the full story.

Over on PDNOnline we’ve gathered together the biggest photography news stories of 2011, a year marked infringements on the rights of photographers, by sticky legal cases whose results will be felt long into the future, and by tragedy. The 15 stories we highlighted were the most-read news articles and blog posts on PDNOnline and PDN Pulse this year.

Which of these stories do you think was the most important news story of the year? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.

© Pieter Hugo, from Permanent Error

The Photographers’ Gallery in London has announced the four artists shortlisted for the 2012 Deutsche Börse Photography Prize. The prize of £30,000 (about $47,000 US) is awarded to a living artist who has made a significant contribution to photography in Europe between October 1, 2010 and September 30, 2011.

Rinko Kawauchi of Japan is nominated for the French edition of her book Illuminance, which was published earlier this year in Germany by Kehrer Verlag (the book originated and was published in the US by Aperture, and Éditions Xavier Barral published the French edition).  For more on the book, see “In a Moment,” PDN March.

South Africa-based photographer Pieter Hugo is nominated for his book Permanent Error, portraits of men and boys working in a dump  for toxic electronic waste in Ghana. (See our story on the project, “Digital Divide,” PDN, May.) The book was published by Prestel.

British-born artist John Stezaker, who makes photographic collages, was nominated for his 40-year retrospective, exhibited this year at the Whitechapel Gallery in London.

American Christopher Williams is nominated for a show of his work at the Budweis in the Czech Republic. Williams, “as much conceptual artist as photographer,” according to Photographers Gallery, has been creating images of cameras, vehicles and other technical devices for 40 years.

The jurors for this year’s Deutsche Börse Photography Prize are François Hébel, Director, Les Rencontres d’Arles; photographer Martin Parr; Beatrix Ruf, Director/Curator, Kunsthalle Zürich and Anne-Marie Beckmann, Curator, Art Collection Deutsche Börse, Germany. Brett Rogers, Director of The Photographers’ Gallery, is the non-voting Chair.

The winner will be announced in April 2012. Previous winners of the prize have included Jim Goldberg, Juergen Teller, Rineke Dijkstra, Robert Adams and Andreas Gursky.

Related stories:
Notable Photo Books 2011, Part 2

Jim Goldberg Wins $50,000 Deutsche Borse Photography Prize

A print auction held at the annual PDN PhotoPlus Expo Bash on October 28 raised more than $8,000 for the Red Cross’s relief efforts in Japan, PDN PhotoPlus Expo has announced.

Harry Benson, Douglas Kirkland, Susan Meiselas, John Isaac and Art Streiber were among the 50 photographers who donated prints for the benefit silent auction.

Unique Photo, Fuji Film and Modernage sponsored the event, held at Highline Stages in New York City, which featured live music by Tyburn Saints and was attended by more than 1,200 people.

“It was important for us as an organization, and an industry, to organize an event that would give us an opportunity to participate in the worldwide efforts to help the victims in Japan,” Jeff McQuilkin, Group Show Director for The Nielsen Company, said. “Obviously, the photographic industry has strong ties to Japan and its culture and was deeply affected by the disaster. The fundraising event was one way we could show our support.”

“It was amazing how the industry came together to support this event,” added Lauren Wendle, Vice President, Nielsen Photo Group. “Everyone had a great time but never seemed to lose sight of fundraising aspect of the event. The print auction was very active and we want to extend our warmest thanks to the photographers who donated prints, and our guests who bid and bought them.”