Tickle Your Fancy – #28
Welcome back to our twenty eighth post in our new section ‘Tickle Your Fancy’. ‘Tickle Your Fancy’ includes a round-up of five links to articles from around the internet that have specifically interested us during the course of the week. Ones that we feel are relevant to your interest in photography and art.
Just to explain the title for this section ‘Tickle Your Fancy’ is an English idiom and essentially means that something appeals to you and perhaps stimulates your imagination in an enthusiastic way, we felt it would make a great title for this new section of the site.
We hope you enjoy this weeks’ selections…
Should Photography be Banned in Museums and Galleries?
A very interesting read in The Telegraph posing the question of should photography be banned in museums and galleries now. I say now, mainly due to mobile photography – as in many ways this is the main issue. As the article says, twenty years ago cameras were almost universally banned in museums and galleries – this was because the flash was disturbing and could possibly damage light sensitive paint. The Public had to be content with rummaging through the gift shop in the hope of finding a postcard or poster perhaps of particular artwork they wanted to remember. Now, this has completely changed. The author comes to a conclusion that I disagree with entirely but it’s a very interesting and thought provoking read.
The First Ever ‘Selfie’ – 1839
Robert Cornelius, an amateur chemist, took this self-portrait 175 years ago in the back of his family’s silver-plating shop in Philadelphia. On the back, Cornelius wrote: “The first light Picture ever taken. 1839.” It was one of the first Daguerreotypes to be produced in America, only a few months after Louis Daguerre announced his invention.
Follow the links for some fascinating history.
The Guardian & The Times Select Same Image For Front Covers
Photography: Muhammed Muheisen/AP
It was very interesting to see that both picture editors for The Guardian and The Times selected the same image of a six year old Afghan girl for their front covers. Muhammed Muheisen captured the image, a portrait of Laiba Hazrat, a refugee from Afghanistan living in a slum in Islamabad. It’s interesting to read the Guardian Picture Editors reasoning for selecting this outstanding image.
The Platinum Sphere Portrait Turns a Photo Into a $500,000 Metal Headshot
Well, if you happen to have a spare $500,000 and have no idea what to do with it, then you could have your face immortalised in one of the most expensive metals known to man. Platinum sphere portraits literally made of platinum, are produced with the very best jewellery craftsmanship in Japan. Production of this one-of-the-kind portrait required platinum ingots, melted in a furnace at more than 1,700 Celsius degrees, which are shaped into balls in 2 to 5mm pitch. The platinum balls are then handed over to master craftsmen who painstakingly set each ball by hand to create the portrait.
Follow this link to a video to watch the whole process, it’s quite incredible.
Interview: Gary Taxali: The multi-media artist discusses balancing commercial and personal work and the perils of a blank white page
A very interesting article discussing the relative merits of trying to balance commercial and personal work at the same time trying to find inspiration. This is a hugely positive and refreshing read, I particularly like this quote “I like to work on a few things at a time. I don’t stay married to what I’m working on, or treat it too preciously. I might throw a piece across the room, set a mug on it. That stain from the mug or scuff from the floor usually pulls the piece in a new direction, or brings something together. I try to see each piece, whether big or small, as part of my larger process”.
Joanne Carter
Joanne Carter, creator of the world’s most popular mobile photography and art website— TheAppWhisperer.com— TheAppWhisperer platform has been a pivotal cyberspace for mobile artists of all abilities to learn about, to explore, to celebrate and to share mobile artworks. Joanne’s compassion, inclusivity, and humility are hallmarks in all that she does, and is particularly evident in the platform she has built. In her words, “We all have the potential to remove ourselves from the centre of any circle and to expand a sphere of compassion outward; to include everyone interested in mobile art, ensuring every artist is within reach”, she has said. Promotion of mobile artists and the art form as a primary medium in today’s art world, has become her life’s focus. She has presented lectures bolstering mobile artists and their art from as far away as the Museum of Art in Seoul, South Korea to closer to her home in the UK at Focus on Imaging. Her experience as a jurist for mobile art competitions includes: Portugal, Canada, US, S Korea, UK and Italy. And her travels pioneering the breadth of mobile art includes key events in: Frankfurt, Naples, Amalfi Coast, Paris, Brazil, London. Pioneering the world’s first mobile art online gallery - TheAppWhispererPrintSales.com has extended her reach even further, shipping from London, UK to clients in the US, Europe and The Far East to a global group of collectors looking for exclusive art to hang in their homes and offices. The online gallery specialises in prints for discerning collectors of unique, previously unseen signed limited edition art. Her journey towards becoming The App Whisperer, includes (but is not limited to) working for a paparazzi photo agency for several years and as a deputy editor for a photo print magazine. Her own freelance photographic journalistic work is also widely acclaimed. She has been published extensively both within the UK and the US in national and international titles. These include The Times, The Sunday Times, The Guardian, Popular Photography & Imaging, dpreview, NikonPro, Which? and more recently with the BBC as a Contributor, Columnist at Vogue Italia and Contributing Editor at LensCulture. Her professional photography has also been widely exhibited throughout Europe, including Italy, Portugal and the UK. She is currently writing several books, all related to mobile art and is always open to requests for new commissions for either writing or photography projects or a combination of both. Please contact her at: [email protected]
