There’s an exhibition up at the Concordia Gallery for the next few days that closes out the school year. It’s a juried exhibition of student work. Every student from my Photo II and Advanced Photo classes had work accepted to the exhibition, so that was great news for them! Here are a few quick iPhone shots from around the gallery:
[Click each image to enlarge}
Last month, I took my boys to the MIA, and I was excited to see the Piotr Szyhalski exhibition "Labor Camp Report." I've admired Szyhalski's work for nearly 20 years, and we were teaching at MCAD at the same time 15 years ago or so.
I watched him create this series on Instagram. Here's a bit about it from the MIA website:
On March 24, 2020, Minneapolis-based artist Piotr Szyhalski embarked on a daily drawing practice responding to the COVID-19 pandemic as it unfolded in real time. What began as a way for the artist to share observations of life in lockdown and the pain caused by the pandemic quickly became a daily exercise of chronicling his thoughts and feelings and reconciling them with the changes being wrought in the world.
COVID-19: Labor Camp Report consists of 225 drawings created over eight months that fall under Szyhalski’s ongoing artistic framework, Labor Camp. New drawings were posted daily on Instagram, serving as a witness to the unfolding crisis and a record of time, both labored and lost.
I came across this article in Format magazine nearly 2 years ago, but I had it buried until now. It's some quick "no nonsense" advice from Alec Soth:
Film or digital?
Alec Soth: Use whatever tools that best suit the project.
Social media: For personal updates or professional work?
Use social media if you feel like it, but not out of a sense of obligation.
Travel: A good way to start new projects?
Travel can be a way to avoid distraction and heighten engagement, but it can also be a crutch.
What’s the best way to approach strangers to take their portrait?
As Wegee said, ‘If you want to be a professional, you can’t be a Nice Nelly.’
Should photographers have a diverse body of work—portraits, landscapes and still lives—or just stick to one thing?
Having limitations is essential, just don’t box yourself into a corner.
Your project with writer Brad Zellar, The LBM Dispatch is a secondary outlet for your work. Would you recommend other photographers to start a project like this?
One of the things I like about photography is that you can have dozens of outlets: books, magazines, galleries, websites, etc. It’s a good exercise to maintain ownership of some of these outlets, but I would find it extremely limiting to put all of my eggs in my own basket.
Part of The LBM Dispatch is collaborating with Zellar. What’s the benefit of building a creative partnership?
Photography seems like a solitary art form, but all art eventually requires some form of dialog and collaboration. Building strong relationships makes your work better.
What’s the differences between presenting work in mediums: books, exhibitions, magazines, etc.
Everything changes by virtue of the context in which it is seen. I see my role as a photographer as not just making pictures, but as engaging with the contextual relationship of their distribution.
Do you plan and research your ideas before starting a project?
I think of planning my work similarly to planning for a road trip. I like to know that there are hotels and restaurants where I’m going, but I don’t like to book too many reservations in advance. I want to feel free to wander around the outline.
Do you have any lasting advice for staying creative, inspired, focused and productive?
Never stop working. When things get tough, try to remember the first time you got excited about making stuff.
My small Advanced Photo class at Hamline University (seen in this post) recently finished up a medium format Holga film project. Overall, they really didn't care for it. I don't think they liked all the steps involved in shooting film. They'd rather snap the shutter and check the LCD screen to at least have some sense of if the image turned out or not. Film made them too nervous. (And the whole process made me feel like a dinosaur.)
We did a simple diptych project with the Holgas. Here are a few pairings of their final photos, along with 2 other individual Holga images that just turned out well:
This afternoon, I took my Digital Photo II class from Hamline to the Weinstein Gallery in south Minneapolis. I hadn't been there to see a show for a while, and this show was packed with big names. So we had to check it out. Here are a few snaps of our visit:
• 1: Here's a trailer for an upcoming documentary called "Long Live Film." I don't need to tell you what the movie is about.
• 1: National Geographic has a new website to highlight their great photography. This is what they say: "FOUND is a curated collection of photography from the National Geographic archives. In honor of our 125th anniversary, we are showcasing photographs that reveal cultures and moments of the past. Many of these photos have never been published and are rarely seen by the public."
Some images are beautiful, some are historical, and many are both. You could keep scrolling for days. There are some amazing photos in this collection, and many of them are for sale. Check it out here.
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