Feature Shoot spotlighted Mahesh Shantaram’s photos of “the colorful remains of over the top Indian weddings.” Excerpt: “I have been documenting wedding sets and little associated details at weddings because I find them to be fascinating metaphors of my country’s penchant for order and chaos; colour and noise; and the peculiar sense of taste and design or the lack thereof.”

Link: http://www.featureshoot.com/2011/09/mahesh-shantaram-photographs-the-colorful-remains-of-over-the-top-indian-weddings/

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La Lettre de la Photographie reviewed the book Proud Flesh, a collection of Sally Mann’s photographs of her husband, who suffers from muscular dystrophy. Excerpt: “Sally Mann has had her husband Larry pose for her for six years, documenting at the same time the evolution of his illness, a dystrophy brought about by the progressive weakening of the patient’s muscular cells until they die. In these elliptic compositions, each part of his body appears: a back and a hand, a seated bottom, puny thighs, a sex, an imperial torso, a dangling arm, a quiet face which evokes that of someone who has died. It seems that Sally Mann wanted to immortalize the charms of each of his members before the illness took them away.”

Link: http://lalettredelaphotographie.com/entries/4135/sally-mann-proud-flesh

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Conscientious showcased Andrew Emond’s photos of defunct industrial facilities in Canada and the U.S. The images, though of bleak subject matter, are quite beautiful.

Link: http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2011/10/andrew_emond/

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Bryan Formhals of LPV Magazine, an online and print magazine featuring contemporary documentary and fine-art photography, posted my photo essay about my grandmother’s struggle with dementia. He noted that it’s a difficult subject, and he’s right: It is. Painful, too.

Link: http://lpvmagazine.com/2011/09/kristina-feliciano-claudina/#1

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Savannah Spirit, who writes the blog for the New York chapter of the ASMP, posted this terrific bit of advice from Dorothea Lange: “One should really use the camera as though tomorrow you’d be stricken blind.”

Link: http://sharpernewyork.blogspot.com/2011/10/one-should-really-use-camera-as-though.html

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Photo by Bieke Depoorter, as seen at Verve Photo.

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Verve Photo, which is devoted to documentary photography, highlighted the image by young Belgian photographer Bieke Depoorter, along with a story about it written by Depoorter. Here’s an excerpt:

“I took this picture during my second trip through Russia in the winter of 2008/2009. I met the woman a few days before, in the train, on my way to Vladivostok. We managed to meet again when I crossed her little village. As always, she didn’t speak English and I didn’t understand Russian but the moments with her were very quiet, intense and powerful.  I spend the night on her coach in her small old house. We watched pictures from the past and she invited me for a walk in her neighborhood. It was dark and freezing cold. We had to walk arm in arm because of the ice. She gave me one of her old bags to put my camera in, to protect me against thief’s.  In a little cold cafe that looked down over a frozen lake where some people where doing slipping tricks with their cars, we drank tea and walked back home.  Back in the warm house, she gave me a flowered pajama, watched the Russian The bold and the Beautiful and went to sleep.”

Link: http://vervephoto.wordpress.com/2011/07/08/bieke-depoorter/

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Le Lettre de la Photographie interviewed Kathy Ryan, director of photography for The New York Times Magazine, about “Photographs of the New York Times Magazine,” an exhibition that is debuting at Les Recontres d’Arles and that will be published as a book this fall.

Link: http://lalettredelaphotographie.com/entries/3243/kathy-ryan-thirty-years-of-new-york-times

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At Dodge & Burn, Qiana Mestrich wrote of purchasing Photography’s Other Histories. The book explores “the extraordinary diversity of nonwestern photography,” to borrow a phrase from the volume itself, and is a reminder that the Euro-American lens is not the only valid one through which to view the world.

Link: http://dodgeburn.blogspot.com/2011/07/my-wishlist-of-photography-books.html

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Longtime photo consultant/marketing guru Mary Virginia Swanson highlighted “Five important deadlines between July 13-17!,” including the Photobook Now self-publishing competition and Photolucida Critical Mass 2011.

Link: http://mvswanson.com/calendar-five-important-deadlines-between-july-13-17.html

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Photo consultants/bloggers Stella Kramer, Julie Grahame, and Allegra Wilde announced that they’re launching an online TV show called In the Loupe that is dedicated to photo news and opinions. The initial episodes were shot at Doug Menuez‘s Menuez Archive Projects headquarters in Chelsea, and the trio have posted a trailer—shot at the WIN-Initiative studio—so you can get a taste of what’s to come.

Link: http://intheloupetv.tumblr.com/

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Photo by Manjari Sharma, via The Photography Post.

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The Photography Post featured New York City–based photographer Manjari Sharma’s
“Darshan” project, in which Sharma is photographically re-creating images of nine Hindu gods and goddesses. Above is the first image, Maa Laxmi, the goddess of wealth, good fortune, and prosperity. Sharma is trying to raise funds to complete the project, and the post includes a short video in which she makes the case for contributing.

Link: http://thephotographypost.com/blogs/post/rachel/breaking-boundaries-manjari-sharmas-darshan-1954

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An image from Phaedra Call's "I Was Emily Dickinson," a photo project that includes quotes from her elderly subject.

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At Conscientious, Joerg Colberg rightly praised Phaedra Call’s series of portraits of an elderly woman, titled “I Was Emily Dickinson,” calling it “one of the most memorable photography projects I’ve seen in a while, shot and presented beautifully.”

Link: http://jmcolberg.com/weblog/2011/07/phaedra_call/

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“‘Starting out online was financially easier and I was able to reach a wider, international audience, but it has become more difficult to compete online with so many other blogs and websites.”

Which drew the following comment from a reader: “With the business (audience, advertising) shifting to digital media will paper publishing become a field for real amateurs (in its noble meaning)? Fast and interactive media vs slow and collectable media?”

Link: http://magculture.com/blog/?p=11303

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Noting that “applications to the Orange County High School of the Arts, the alma mater of Glee star Matthew Morrison, have been soaring,” the Los Angeles Times’ Framework blog posted a photo essay by LA Times shooter Jay L. Clendenin on the seniors at the school performing their season finale.

Link: http://framework.latimes.com/2011/06/24/glee-effect-pictures/

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British magazine Professional Photographer interviewed Lorraine Candy, the editor of Elle U.K. about the magazine’s approach to photography and what she seeks in prospective Elle photo contributors. An excerpt:

“I think the lighting and emotional feel of a photographer’s book is the most important thing. I’m looking for something unusual; someone with a slightly different take on things. Photography in print can convey a sense of emotion. There are a lot of good technical photographers out there, but you can’t get anything out of them.”

Link: http://www.professionalphotographer.co.uk/Frontline/Editors/Lorraine-Candy-Editor-ELLE-UK-magazine

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Another Los Angeles Times blog, All the Rage, reports that Smashbox Studios is hosting an exhibition of work by photo assistants. “The idea behind the show is to introduce emerging photographers to top working photographers, photo representatives and  producers.”

Link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/alltherage/2011/06/up-and-comers-smashbox-studios-hosts-the-annual-la-photo-assistants-show.html

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Cover Junkie posted the latest in its “Great Art Directors About Their Favorite Covers” series, which asks creatives what covers (from any time in publishing history) they wish they’d designed. This week, it was Eric Capossela, design director at Atlanta magazine. Among his picks was the above July 1966 Esquire cover designed by George Lois.

“This list wouldn’t be complete without the inclusion of Mr. George Lois,” writes Capossela. “This DiMaggio cover carries a certain sadness, elegance, AND the grandeur of Yankee Stadium. And that iconic swing!”

Link: http://www.coverjunkie.com/blog/coverjunkie-eric-capossela/15/6505

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La Lettre de la Photographie spotlighted photos of Mexico by Larry Cwik. Explains Cwik, “The work in this series results from a cumulative total of six months spent photographing for this project in Mexico, visiting annually since 1983, to a different large city each year, and walking an estimated 900 miles to date through the streets of Mexican cities, looking for images.” He adds, “Andre Breton, a founder of surrealism, said that Mexico is ‘the surrealist place par excellence,’ and I agree.”

Link: http://lalettredelaphotographie.com/entries/the-mexico-of-larry-cwik

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PDNonline posted an article on how best to stay in touch after a portfolio review that included a few other interesting portfolio-review nuggets, like this…

Too often, photographers will attend reviews with just one body of work and then show up with the same set of images. Christopher Rauschenberg, co-curator of Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Oregon (and co-founder of Photolucida), recommends photographers bring at least two or three different series for review. “We all say it, but not everyone listens,” says Rauschenberg. By bringing more than one project to show, “you minimize the chances of having work that someone won’t care anything about or has no feeling for.”

…and this, from curator Anne Wilkes Tucker of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston…

“During the review I want to see between 20 to 30 pieces max. I also prefer an artist not go on and on about the work before I see it. Don’t tell me who has bought the work and where it was shown. Either the work will speak for itself or it won’t.”

Link: http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/features/Benefiting-from-Port-3091.shtml

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British newspaper The Telegraph illustrated its “Photography Sites of the Week” with the above pair of images by Jocelyn Allen, whose work was on view all last month as part of the Guernsey Photography Festival.

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/photography/6515582/Photography-sites-of-the-week.html

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We Can Shoot Too was taken with Kevin Scanlon’s photos and video of people living off the grid in Southern California’s high desert, and the county’s crackdown on them. The images accompanied a piece in the LA Weekly.

Link: http://wecanshoottoo.blogspot.com/2011/06/la-countys-war-on-desert-rats.html

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And AnOther magazine’s Kasia Bobula writes of finding a 1966 copy of Photography Annual containing an interview with Irving Penn. Among the quotes she posted from the “brutally honest yet very educational interview” is this one on commercial photography:

“The ideal commercial photograph is one that is highly sensual. It is however a controlled and used sensuality. (…) As a matter of fact, advertising clients of successful companies seem to value the sensual picture more than editors of magazines do, because they know that is a way to get at buying the public.”

Link: http://www.anothermag.com/reader/view/4001/IRVING_PENN_IN_QUOTES

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Several notable photo competitions, PDN‘s The Look, the IPAs, and the APA/NY Photo Contest, are accepting submissions, and the deadlines are drawing ever nearer. Read on for details…

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Anna Wintour, as photographed by Lauren Greenfield, who won the Grand Prize in last year's The Look contest. Click image to read more and to view the 2010 winners' gallery.

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PDN‘s The Look: Where Fashion Meets Art

Deadline: June 20.

Categories: Advertising; Editorial/Celebrity; Still Life/Accessories; Personal Work/Fine Art; Runway/Street Scene; Beauty; Debut [Student/Emerging].

Prizes: Grand Prize includes a Sony A850 DSLR ($1999.99 value), a SAL-2875 lens ($699.99 value), and a Milk Studios Prize package; six first-place winners receive a Sony NEX 3 camera and a $100 B&H gift card; all winners get a PDN Photoserve portfolio ($860 value); a page in the October 2011 issue of PDN, exposure in The Look contest online gallery, and a Clickbooq annual plan.

Details: http://pdnthelook.com

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International Photography Awards, a.k.a. the IPAs

Deadline: June 24.

Categories and prizes: International Photographer of the Year Award, $10,000 cash prize; Discovery of the Year Award, $5,000 cash prize; Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year Award, $5,000 cash prize.

Details: http://www.photoawards.com/en/

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APA/NY Photo Contest

Deadline: June 17

Professional categories: Action + Adventure + Sports; Fashion + Beauty; Landscape + Architecture
Still Life + Food; People + Lifestyle.

Prizes: Grand Prize winner receives Agency Access North American Standard Membership ($925 value), a PhotoServe Portfolio, $300 Asuka Book gift certificate, a Sony NEX-3 Camera, and a Drobo Hardrive; first-place winners in pro categories get Think Tank Photo digital holster camera bag, Blinkbid estimating and invoicing software, $50 Adorama gift certificate, and a $100 Asuka Book gift certificate.

Details: http://apany.com/photo-contest-2009/tell-us-a-story-2009.html

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And just for fun…

La Lettre de la Photographie’s call for holiday photos

Technically, this is not a contest but rather an invitation to send your favorite holiday photos to this popular photo blog, which will post one from each person with a caption. The photos need to meet certain size requirements. For all the particulars, go here: http://www.lalettredelaphotographie.com/entries/la-lettre-wants-your-photos

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La Lettre de la Photographie columnist Paul Melcher has singled out five photographers’ websites that he thinks deserve a special look, including Michael Muller‘s site, mullerphoto.com.

“You could get lost in Michael Muller’s website,” writes Melcher. “It is as various and eclectic as his talent. From adventure photography, to music, entertainment, sports and advertising, there seems there is nothing this photographer cannot do. It also seems that he might be one of the busiest photographer on the planet.”

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A screenshot of the Gallery section of Michael Muller's website.

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“You might know him for his Spiderman photography or you might have seen one of his famous celebrity portraits,” Melcher continues. “Did you see is adventure photography or his sport portrait. They are as creative and amazing as his most famous images. It might take an hour or so to browse to all the images Muller has made available on his site but it would be one of the most rewarding hour of your life.”

To see the other sites that made his list, click here.

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