The Transported of the KwaNdebele: Travellers from KwaNdebele buying weekly season tickets at the PUTCO bus depot in Marabastad, Pretoria, 1983. © David Goldbatt/The Goodman Gallery

Imagine photographs by Robert Frank and Henri Cartier-Bresson.  Wait a moment, then imagine some more by Diane Arbus and others by Sebastian Salgado.  Good.  Being the sort of person who reads this blog, you probably just conjured a dozen or more vividly remembered images in your mind’s eye.

Now imagine a photograph by David Goldblatt.  Thought so.  Unless you’re a fellow South African or one of his fans, you probably drew a blank.  He’s one of the world’s most honored living photographers, a man who is greatly respected and, yet, is little known.  It’s a paradox.

On Wednesday evening, when the International Center of Photography [ICP] confers on him its Cornell Capa Lifetime Achievement Award, Goldblatt will collect yet another prestigious award.  He’ll add this to his resume, right above the 2006 Hasselblad Award, 2009 Henri Cartier-Bresson Award, and the 2010 Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement.

As prestigious as those honors surely are, they’re little more than the icing on a magnificent cake.  Over a 50-year career, Goldblatt has been the subject of exhibitions at major museums in Europe, Africa, and North America, including solo shows at the Museum of Modern Art, in 1998, and the Jewish Museum, in 2010.  In addition, leading publishers of photography have produced a dozen books devoted to his work.

It’s an impressive list of accomplishments by any measure.  So, why isn’t Goldblatt’s photography as well known as his name?  And what’s his photography all about anyway?  Read the rest of this entry »

© Paul Salveson, courtesy MACK / www.mackbooks.co.uk

American photographer Paul Salveson has won the 2013 First Book Award for his project “Between the Shell,” a series of color images made through creative observation and arrangement of objects close at hand. The award, announced last week, is co-administered by MACK books and Britain’s National Media Museum. They will publish Salveson’s book later this year.

The judges for the award were Michael Mack (MACK), Polly Fleury (Wilson Centre for Photography London), Liz Jobey (FT Weekend Magazine), Greg Hobson (National Media Museum) and photographer Clare Strand.

Salveson’s work was selected from more than 100 submissions.

The First Book Award, now in its second year, is open to photographers who have not previously released a book project with a publisher. However self-published and print-on-demand projects do not disqualify a photographer.

In order to be considered for the award, photographers must be nominated by one of an international group of nominators. The names of this year’s nominators were not released.

Today Eastman Kodak Company announced the transfer of its Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses to the UK-based Kodak Pension Plan (KPP), its largest creditor. The deal includes Kodak’s Film Capture and Paper & Output Systems divisions, among others, and will see KPP take over responsibility for the operation of Kodak’s film business.

Kodak is giving the businesses over to KPP, the pension plan for its U.K. retirees, in order to settle $2.8 billion in claims KPP made against Kodak in bankruptcy proceedings. Kodak agreed to transfer the businesses to KPP for cash and non-cash consideration of $650 million. If the U.S. Bankruptcy Court and the UK Pensions Regulator approve the settlement, it will help pave the way for Kodak to emerge from Chapter 11. Kodak plans to focus on its Commercial Imaging business.

In a statement, Kodak Chairman and CEO Antonio M. Perez said the settlement helped Kodak clear “several key hurdles in our reorganization…. placing our Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses with a new owner that recognizes their value and is focused on their growth and success, and providing the remaining liquidity we require to emerge from Chapter 11.”

According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, KPP plans to hire new executives to run the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses so they can generate cash flow for the pension plan, rather than finding a buyer for the businesses.

“The businesses that we are acquiring will deliver long-term cash flows to support the plan’s obligations,” said KPP chairman Steven Ross in a statement. “The financial stability that KPP will provide for the Personalized Imaging and Document Imaging businesses will be beneficial to those businesses’ employees, customers and partners.”

Last month we wrote about some upcoming deadlines for major photography grants. Below are four photo contests that have deadlines fast approaching.

Newspace Center for Photography 2013 Juried Exhibition
The Newspace Center for Photography in Portland, Oregon, is hosting a contest in which the winners will be part of its 2013 Juried Exhibition. Additionally, one photographer will be selected from all of the entries for a solo exhibit at the Newspace in 2014. Deadline: April 30, 2013.
www.newspacephoto.org/gallery/call-for-entries

Image13
The American Society of Media Photographers’ New York chapter is one of the co-sponsors for the Image13 international photo contest. First, second and third place prizes will be awarded in two categories: Professional and Student. Prizes include inclusion in a New York City exhibition, a promotional e-mail sent to industry professionals and an ad in PDN announcing the names of winners. Only images created after January 1, 2012, will be eligible for the contest. Deadline: May 1, 2013.
www.asmp.org/image13/

Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize
The Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University relaunched the Dorothea Lange-Paul Taylor Prize this year, with updated guidelines that reflect the changing approaches to documentary projects. The new guidelines include accepting audio files or graphic novels in the written section of the submission; artists need to have already started the documentary project to be eligible; and photographers no longer need to work with a writer to qualify, as solo submissions are now accepted. According to the award’s online FAQ section, “All entries must have one thing in common: evidence that they were created with reliance on documentary methods—research and interviews—and immersive, long-term fieldwork.” The winner will receive $10,000 and an exhibition at the Center for Documentary Studies. Deadline: May 7, 2013.
www.documentarystudies.duke.edu/awards/dorothea-lange-paul-taylor-prize

Daylight Photo Awards
Non-profit book and magazine publisher Daylight is sponsoring the Daylight Photo Awards 2013. According to the contest’s guidelines, jurors are looking for analogue or digital images that “demonstrate the ability to build a strong series of images and a cohesive body of work.” Prizes include $1,000, an exhibition at the Daylight Project Space and a set of Daylight books. Deadline: May 15, 2013.
www.daylightphotoawards.com

A French magazine could be shut down and a photographer sent to jail over the publication last year of photographs of Britain’s Prince William and his wife, Kate Middleton, sunbathing while on vacation in France. The magazine, called Closer, published topless images of Middleton that were allegedly shot by photographer Valerie Suau.

French authorities are investigating the publication of the photos, which may have been a violation of French law. If charged and convicted of violating the royal couple’s privacy, Suau faces up to one year in jail and a fine up to 45,000 euros (about $60,000). Closer could be shuttered for as long as five years.

Prosecutors are also investigating Suau’s employer, a French newspaper called La Provence, which published some of the sunbathing images, although none showed Middleton topless.

The royal couple had been sunbathing on private property when Suau allegedly photographed them. The publishers of Closer have said in their defense that the images were shot from a public road.

After the images appeared in France, authorities there ordered Closer not to publish any more of them. But the images appeared in other European publications.

The suppression of the images in France and ensuing investigations reflect that country’s strict privacy laws, which bar the publication of photographs of individuals without their permission–even if the photographs are shot in a public place.

The royal family has invoked the death of Prince William’s mother–Princess Diana–to stir outrage over the sunbathing photos. The photos, according to an official statement from the royal family, are “reminiscent of the worst excesses of the press and paparazzi during the life of Diana, Princess of Wales.”

Princess Diana  died in a car crash in Paris in 1997. Several paparazzi and news photographers on motorcycles were chasing the car she was riding in when it crashed. Although the driver of the car was later found to have been drunk, and manslaughter charges against the photographers were dropped after an investigation, many people still blame them for the princess’s death.

Three of the photographers were eventually found guilty of violating France’s privacy laws because they photographed Princess Diana and her companion, Dodi Al Fayed, inside the car after the accident. Those photographers were ordered to pay a symbolic fine of one euro each.

Last week at the Portland Art Museum as part of the 2013 Photolucida festivities, Alec Soth gave a lecture titled “From Here to There: Searching for Narrative in Photography.” The talk could have been titled “Searching for Narrative in Photography Lectures,” because Soth mostly allowed the audience to lead the way with questions, which he responded to with the aid of a number of prepared slideshows. The evening was free-form, entertaining and a bit wandering, which made sense given that Soth emphasized that wandering and taking pictures without a set goal in mind has produced some of his most important bodies of work. But more on that later.

Soth started on a down note, sharing a quote from Robert Frank—“There are too many images, too many cameras now. We’re all being watched. It gets sillier and sillier. As if all action is meaningful. Nothing is really all that special. It’s just life. If all moments are recorded, then nothing is beautiful and maybe photography isn’t an art any more. Maybe it never was.” He also showed a photograph of an installation by Erik Kessels: a pile of prints made from all of the images uploaded to Flickr in a 24-hour period.

Soth described the perspectives offered by the Frank quote and Kessels’ installation as “bleak.” But, he said, the “way out of this [bleak situation for photographers] is storytelling.” Read the rest of this entry »

Daniel Martinez Bazaldua, a photographer with the newspaper Vanguardia, was found dead yesterday in the northern Mexico City of Saltillo, the Associated Press reports. He had been missing since Tuesday, when he left the Vanguardia office in the afternoon.

The bodies of Martinez Bazaldua, age 22, and another man identified as Julian Zamora, 23, were found dismembered on a street. According to state prosecutors, the body parts were dumped along with a  hand-written message saying that the Zetas drug cartel was responsible for the killings. Saltillo is located in northern Coahuila, a state where Zetas is known to operate.

Coahuila state Attorney General Homero Ramos told reporters that investigators had indications both men “were participating in illegal activities.” Vanguardia, which hired Martinez a month ago to shoot for its society pages, rejected the attorney general’s claim, which was made before any criminal investigation into the murders.

In a statement issued yesterday, Carlos Lauría of Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said, “It is irresponsible for authorities to reach conclusions before conducting a full investigation.” CPJ called on Mexican authorities “to fully investigate this crime, examine all possible motives, and bring those responsible to justice.”

CPJ reports that according to a Vanguardia editor who asked to remain anonymous, “Photographers covering the society section in Mexico have been targeted by organized crime groups in the past for inadvertently capturing images of cartel members, according to CPJ research.”

In May, three news photographers who covered organized crime and drug violence in Veracruz were found dead and dismembered.
CPJ reports that more than 50 journalists have been killed or disappeared in the last six years

Related Article
Three News Photographers Murdered in Veracruz, Mexico

A federal appeals court has ruled that artist Richard Prince did not infringe photographer Patrick Cariou’s copyrights by reproducing several dozen of Cariou’s images without permission. The appeals court said 25 out of 30 works by Prince at the center of the dispute made fair use of Cariou’s photographs.

The decision reversed a lower court ruling that held Prince liable for infringement.

Click here for the full story.

Panasonic today announced its latest micro four-thirds camera body, the DMC-G6. It slots in between the GF6 and the GH3 in Panasonic’s lineup, a mid range body with some new features and a solid, if not class leading, feature set.

Panasonic G6

G6 feature highlights:

• 16MP Live MOS sensor
• ISO 160-12,800 (extendable up to 25,600) 7 frames per second continuous shooting, 5 fps with AF-tracking
• 3.0″, 1.04 million dot touchscreen LCD
• 1.44 million dot OLED electronic viewfinder with eye sensor
• AVCHD video in full 1080/60p  with  manual control
• 3.5mm external mic socket
• Wireless Connectivity via Wi-Fi / NFC

As with other Panasonic bodies, the G6 is styled very much like a small DSLR and looks to continue Panasonic’s typical solid handling with its generous grip and multiple “function” (Fn) buttons. The sensor is the same previously class leading one that was used in the GH2 though Panasonic claims that its new Venus Engine speeds processing time and improves noise reduction significantly in the G6. This allows a maximum native ISO sensitivity of 12,800 (25,600 extended) and an increase to 7 frames per second shooting rate. An external mic input and full manual control over video recording are always welcome features in any body. The G6 is Panasonic’s second body, along with the GF6, to offer NFC (Near Field Communication)/WiFi connectivity. This allows users to connect the camera with a properly enabled device simply by touching them together. This means no more entering wifi details on a tiny screen or searching for bluetooth pairings. However, while becoming more common on Android devices, the feature may be of limited use to many photographers as Apple has yet to embrace NFC for its iOS devices.

Full specifications available via the DMC-G6 press release and Panasonic’s website. Pricing and availability have yet to be announced.

©Fabio Bucciarelli

Fabio Bucciarelli, who has covered the civil war in Syria for Agence France-Presse, has won the Robert Capa Gold Medal Award, the Overseas Press Club (OPC) has announced. Bucciarelli won the award for a portfolio of images titled “Battle to Death,” showing Free Syrian Army soldiers battling intensely against government forces in the streets of Aleppo.

In announcing the award, OPC said, “The images from this portfolio put you ‘in the moment’ and have a palatable sense of urgency. There is a consistency to the images that helps the viewer identify with the subjects and the perils they are encountering.”

The award, given annually by the OPC, recognizes photographers who have shown exceptional enterprise and courage while covering world news events.

In other OPC award categories, freelance photographer Samuel James won the Olivier Rebbot Award for  best photographic reporting from abroad in magazines and books. James won for “The Water of My Land,” a story about oil production and its consequence in the Niger Delta. The story was published in Harper’s magazine.

Bernat Armangue of The Associated Press won the OPC’s John Faber Award for feature photography. Armangue won for his portfolio of images about the conflict in Gaza.

Oded Balilty, also of The Associated Press, also won a feature photography award for his story about an ultra-orthodox wedding near Tel Aviv.

An awards ceremony will be held tonight in New York City. A complete list of award recipients is available on the OPC Web site.