K E E N P R E S S

Maybe its because of the change in seasons, or perhaps President Obama’s visit to Copenhagen, but we going through a lot of changes here in Denmark. Over the summer we received a request from one of our favorite photo editors to “go multimedia”. This was about 3 days before we were heading off on assignment for him. For us this was not a shock, but an opportunity.  Sisse and I have had already dipped our toes into the world of making films. Five years ago, we worked on a film called, “Seeds of Hope”, by Dorothy Fadiman. I was one of several cameraman, and Sisse helped with sound, and shot all the stills for the film.  Even back then, we  experienced the creative possibilities of integrating still photos with sound and moving images. It was a great learning experience for both of us. At the time I was put off by all the post-production work that was required. That was then.

Today, it’s clear that more and more of our creative projects, both personal and corporate, will allow us to come up with new ways for telling stories. Many of our best photos find their way onto magazines websites, after the page count has been filled. We now we have changed our tune, have learned how to create films using the best post-production tools available. I am pretty much shooting and thinking video all the time and Sisse is continuing to produce beautiful, singular images that we are merge into video packages. If you are interested in seeing a sample, please take a look here.

These are some visual sketches we have made from our recent trip back to the Baltic States and Poland. They have changed a great deal since the days of Soviet Occupation, but the style of the footage is to remind us all that history often repeats itself.

Several months ago we had the pleasure of introducing you to a new magazine that celebrates the idea of artists directly participating in the formation of its content. Of course, you still need to be chosen to participate. Well a few weeks later, we were asked to participate, and the exhibit is now live on the site. We encourage you to take a look, not only at our exhibit, but all the others in this issue. Not sure what the business model is, but the magazine is a labor of love. All the people responsible should be given a big round of applause.

Adriana Teresa Publisher/Creative Director, Zöe Calman/Editor, Graham Letorney/Website & Design

Here is a link to the exhibit entitled,  The Space Between “Besmirch,” To Damage or Discolor

Here is a definition I found on Yahoo Answers today.

Deadpan refers to a plain lack of expression – applied to the sitter / subject

Wow, doesn’t that say it all. I just received my new issue of The New Yorker, and Jeff Minton has two pictures that really say it all. Nothing. Am I being too harsh? I am not so sure. Nothing  against his success in the industry, its more the entire genre that I have issues with.

I was raised in a different time, an era when I was introduced to beauty; paintings, music, and photography that moved me emotionally. I have always had such a low tolerance to art that subscribes to theories and preconceived concepts. Throughout my entire life I have been emotionally moved by so little. Perhaps that is why  I spend all of my time trying to create something that works for me. I love exploring with colors, shapes, balance, and depth. I have always had a connection to the Abstract Expressionists who lived in New York during the 40′s creating the New York School. My photographic mentor, who I apprenticed with before starting my first photographic career with National Geographic, was Jules Alexander. His studio was on East 69th Street, in the former Mark Rothko studio. I was very much aware of this connection. It meant a tremendous amount to me.

“Silence is so accurate,” Rothko would say, fearing that words would only paralyze the viewer’s mind and imagination. In their manifesto in the New York Times Rothko and Gottlieb had written: “We favor the simple expression of the complex thought. We are for the large shape because it has the impact of the unequivocal. We wish to reassert the picture plane. We are for flat forms because they destroy illusion and reveal truth.”

Let me know if I am the only person in the world that wuold like to say “Goodby” to this photographic fad. Let’s bring back emotion to the world of photography.

Our weekend just got better after reading a very complimentary article about our work on Doug Menuez’s new Blog, 2.0: go fast, don’t crash. Please read and let us know what you think. Doug’s blog is worth subscribing to, he has great insight on sustaining one’s creativity and making it big in the photographic world. He also happens to be one of the best photographers out there who knows how to merge story-telling, fine-art, and commercial success into a complete package.

We have recently launched a new link on our website with work that has been in development, literally, for the past 30 years. During our tenure at National Geographic Magazine, we often stored all of our old reversal transparencies in the basement, waiting for a time to go through and edit. The only bad thing about this idea was that we had a leaky basement, and for many years we would often run downstairs in a panic and quickly try to lift and move the “yellow-boxes” to dry locations. Some of the transparencies got wet, but they stayed pressed together in their boxes. Today we are editing the boxes and discovering emotional and poignant moments. See here for yourself and let us know how you respond.

One of the most stimulating experiences last week during the Lennart Nilsson Conference in Oslo, Norway, was meeting and listening to Leif Preus, the Founder of the Norwegian Museum of Photography. His opening lecture called, Imagine the Future, was about the Secret of the Photograph. He talked about the three most important photographers in the world who  changed our way of thinking about photographs. Edward Steichen, Lennart Nillson, and astronaut, William Anders, whose photograph, “Earthrise”, taken during the Apollo 8 mission in 1968, changed our way of seeing ourselves forever. I quote Leif Preus here.

I have decided to call my opening speech, “The Secret of the Photograph,” rather than “The Secret of Photography.” Photography is the process, the photograph is the result. As soon as the image is materialized as a photograph, it starts its own life.

A photograph is a thing, something materialized and needs to be an object. It could be a print on a wall, or something you keep in your wallet. Today, we focus so much of our creative time and attention to publishing our work on the internet, this is an important thought to pay attention to. Leif Preus feels that what we see on the computer screen is not a photograph, he calls it a virtual image.  It is only when we print it on a material surface, does it become a photograph, and begins its new independent life in the world.

So what is the Secret of the Photograph? There is always something in the photograph that you cannot see, something that initiates a process between your  eyes and what you begin to  feel emotionally. Leif Preus calls it “Associations, the heart has its own understanding, which the understanding does not understand.” His quotes Saint Exupery, “Only with your heart you see correct. The essential is hidden from your eyes.”

What matters for us is that we continue to print out our exposures on pieces of paper, or whatever, so we have saved our photographs for the coming generations. Leif Preus ended his lecture quoting an Austrian photographer, John D Pforr, who had dyslexia, word-blindness, but with the assistance of his wife, he wrote poetry. These are words worth remembering.

“When the fall of eve comes to pass, the gift to your children that shall ever last, will be the images of your past.”

This looks like a very interesting online photographic magazine worth bookmarking.

DEEPSLEEP

About Deep Sleep

Welcome to the inaugural issue of Deep Sleep magazine, which we hope will be the first of many. We aim to generate and gather enough material to produce four such issues a year and contributions are invited from any and all photographers with a suitable set of images.

via Deep Sleep Magazine – This Issue.

We have been here. It’s been just over a week since we last posted a ‘post’ on our blog. We have been preparing for our upcoming lecture in Oslo, Norway, about ‘The Melting Arctic’, been printing and hanging our latest exhibit at Montana Mobile, and right now, its Stock Season. These are the months that we sit in the dark, scanning, captioning, and keywording  our stock images for the various agencies, like Gettyimages and National Geographic Image Sales, that we contribute to. Because of all this hard work in the wintertime, we provide ourselves with the time and money to travel during the remaining months of the year to make photographic art.

We have also updated our website with some photographs from our latest projec  in Denmark, take a look here.

Stay tuned…

Here is a product update for those of us working with the Epson Digigraphie Print Program. It’s a great way to insure that collectors who buy your prints know that the editions are numbered, signed, andcertified. All of our prints are sold this way.

Digigraphie® allows photographic artists, painters and museums to produce limited, certified editions of their original works of art, using Epson’s most advanced print technology which guarantees exceptional quality and durability.

Roll up Epson extends Traditional Photo Paper range

16th February 2009 – Epson has today announced that it’s highly popular media, Traditional Photo Paper, is available in rolls.

Epson Traditional Photo Paper is a very high quality photo media, the manufacturing process being very similar to that of Fine Art paper. The look and feel is very similar to that of traditional “Baryta” paper.

The substrate of this media is composed of very stable alpha cellulose fibres, and is coated with a barrier layer that prevents the ink from migrating into the fibres, exactly the same as the Barium Sulphate layer on “Baryta” papers. The whitening effect of the “Baryta” layer has been replaced with optical brightners.

It is available in 15m roll lengths with widths of 17”, 24”, 44” and 64”. Prices start at £78.51 Ex. VAT

Epson also has some great offers on its traditional photo paper sheet media range – 50% off until the end of March. Other media included in the 50% off offer is A2 Premium Lustre Photo Paper, Premium Glossy Photo Paper and Premium Semigloss Photo Paper.

Read more at www.epson.co.uk

More bad news about the Climate Change, lead news story on  BBC.

Prof Field said rising temperatures could thaw Arctic permafrost

The severity of global warming over the next century will be much worse than previously believed, a leading climate scientist has warned.

Professor Chris Field, an author of a 2007 landmark report on climate change, said future temperatures “will be beyond anything” predicted.

Prof Field said the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change IPCC report had underestimated the rate of change.

He said warming is likely to cause more environmental damage than forecast.

Speaking at the American Science conference in Chicago, Prof Field said fresh data showed greenhouse gas emissions between 2000 and 2007 increased far more rapidly than expected.

“We are basically looking now at a future climate that is beyond anything that we’ve considered seriously in climate policy,” he said.

Prof Field said the 2007 report, which predicted temperature rises between 1.1C and 6.4C over the next century, seriously underestimated the scale of the problem.

He said the increases in carbon dioxide have been caused, principally, by the burning of coal for electric power in India and China.

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Global warming ‘underestimated’.