considering pictures | sean justice > open journal

The photograph is dead; long live photography. Sorry for the melodrama. I like to exaggerate, but this isn't an exaggeration: there's a lot of worry and chatter these days about what's happening to our sacred domain. In fact, the anxiety is so thick you can shoot it at 1/15th of a second and still catch it clearly. Last week, the New York Times spelled it like this: For Photographers, the Image of a Shrinking Path . ( Karen d'Silva , an industry guru, wrote in an email: "It's crazy how many people sent me this article. Very telling.") Blogs everywhere record the hubbub, including this post by Shannon Fagan for Ellen Boughn a few weeks ago, a post that generated more than a hundred frantic replies. And on the APA listserve conversation yesterday, a fellow member asked us if anyone, anywhere, had any good news to report. I could go on and on in this vein (just one more: at the SPE national convention last month, an industry executive told a ...

All photos copyright Laurie Lambrecht A terrifically exciting component of any photo festival, aside from the portfolio reviews , is the range of exhibits you'll see. One of my favorites this year at Fotofest was Laurie Lambrecht's project, Inside Roy Lichtenstein's Studio , from her days as Lichtenstein's assistant. Roy in Red Interior , 1992 Laurie worked in Lichtenstein's studio in the early 1990s, assisting in the daily routine, and occasionally making photographs. About the experience: One of my greatest joys was that Roy appreciated the photos I was taking.  He liked the way I used the elements from his work in my compositions.  His work was so often art about art and my photos were reflecting, revisiting and honoring his art.  I remember exactly the day I photographed "Roy in Yellow interior".  It was a very pleasant morning in Southampton.  He arrived in the studio a few minutes after me.  After greeting each other he said " today woul...

It's the last week of August and I'm neck deep in the monitor, rewriting the syllabus, calculating dates, arranging guest speakers...and dreaming about Tucson and the Center for Creative Photography . Last week on vacation we stopped by to look at pictures in the flesh. During class I'm going to talk a lot about the experience of photography, about paying attention, about getting your feet on the ground and breathing through the shutter release. In our internet lives we often forget about the materiality of what we do. At the CCP there's a viewing room and a print study program that will wake you up and shake you from your doldrums. Far from the glow of yet another screen, Cass Fey, director of education , will get you face-to-face with the physical objects themselves. Of all the amazing resources at the CCP, looking at the pictures up close is the most luxurious, and it's open to anyone. Last Monday we chuckled at Tress' Fish Tank Sonata and riddled the messa...

Today my thoughts are trending toward success and what it means to make photographs that matter. I'm happy to say that another draft of the China book has been completed (the one I wrote about earlier ). In this version, responding to ample criticism, I've opened up the pages and included more white space, more room for breathing. I'm hopeful that this project is getting closer to finished—because there's so much other work I want to do—but the process is long, and I can't put it down until it feels like it has the right weight. Zoe Strauss wrote recently about the anxiety she feels when nearing the end stage of a project, in this case her annual and massive I-95 exhibition in Philadelphia. Her words resonate with me: I am confident in myself, in my work, but I am occasionally beset with anxiety surrounding my work. She makes photos that matter, and if she feels this way then I'm having trouble breathing! My friend Allison is giving awards randomly for stuff sh...

Hiroshi Sunari is giving trees to friends and artists who can engage a dream. About LEUR L'EXISTENCE * Tree Project , he says, The trees that still live from the time of the atomic bombing in Hiroshima are called, Hibaku trees (A-bombed trees). In 2009, tree doctor Riki Horiguchi gave me about 250-500 seeds of Round Leaf Holly, Persimmon, Chinaberry, Firmiana simplex, Japanese Hackberry, Jujube—trees that are the second or third generation of Hibaku Trees. I am going to give these seeds to people who are interested in planting them. These seedlings will be exhibited at The Horticultural Society of New York in Dec 2009. I'm amazed and comforted by Hiroshi's project. The idea is inspiring, literally, breath-giving. The spirit and the invitation are gently engaging, compelling, activating. The photographs are quiet, transparent, and honest. When I say that photography is a conversation, a way of knowing, a way of paying attention, I'm talking about Hiroshi's project. ...

Possibility of Knowing , originally uploaded by seanjustice . My eye is drawn toward light. Knowledge pools briefly, spinning counter-clockwise. I am submerged. In the museum today I am wondering about the possibility of holding tightly, or of releasing. I should be answering emails but am drifting weightless through my time on earth. These pictures are from the Brooklyn Museum. Unearthing the Truth: Eqypt's Pagan and Coptic Sculpture examines funerary motifs carved in stone as Egypt transitioned from Pagaism to Christianity to Islam between the 3rd and 6th Centuries. Revealing the uncertainty of the museological enterprise itself, the exhibition asks whether the artifacts in its own collection are real, or if they're 20th Century fakes. Wandering home later, I'm wondering about the human enterprise of building knowledge, and about the desire to unearth certainty from facts in the ground. Crossing Prospect Park, watching kids on bicycles, I'm considering the possibili...

I am so thrilled to get a note about Jan 's new pictures. We worked together in Photo One at the beginning of 2008 and it's clear that she is comfortably on her way at this point: engaged and amazed. She wrote: "I'm having a wonderful time with my photography." These pictures remind me of time and love, and the endurance of change. I like the delicate rough edges and the smooth glow. There's a three dimensional simplicity to the light, and a frank, unsentimental appraisal of the material in her framing. The objects are what they are, totally, but her willingness to stay engaged with them time after time, as they wilt and begin to disappear, speaks about something else. The pictures remind me of Blossfeldt 's cool rationalism crossed with Mapplethorpe 's dramatics, but pursued with an obsessiveness more akin to a need or longing to understand, to not let go. Ah, the humanity, right? The best part of teaching photography is this conversation that evol...