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Mobile Photography & Art Instagram Showcase – 23 August 2020
Not all self-portraiture includes the photographer, sometimes it is possible to use other people to stand in. I mentioned Sophie Calle‘s work last week and her series ‘Take Care of Yourself 2007-2009), is an example of this. Some photographers use people in a metaphoric sense, I’m thinking of Maria Kapajevea, in ‘A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Woman, 2012-ongoing’) or some choose not to include anyone in the picture at all (Nigel Shafran, Washing-up 2000). All of these approaches are classified as self-absented portraiture, similar to self-portraiture but none include the photographer in a literal sense. In many ways, physically, I have started to feel that maybe I…
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Mobile Photography & Art Flickr/Instagram Showcase – 14 June 2020
“In these last decades ‘concerned’ photography has done at least as much to deaden conscience as to arouse it”, Sontag, S. On Photography (1979). Sontag argued that beleaguering the public with sensationalist photographs of war and poverty was a definitive way to numb the public’s response. Sontag believed that the more distressing images people viewed, the more immune they became to their impact; viewers became reduced to inaction, either through guilt or a dismissive lethargy towards making a difference. Sontag reversed this view in Regarding the Pain of Others (2004), but ‘compassion fatigue’ is still used as an argument against war imagery today. I have been thinking about this a…
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The Impossible Exhibition – Covid Sessions – A Project by Visionary Andrea Bigiarini Part 2
I am delighted to publish Part 2 of The Impossible Exhibition – Covid Sessions – A Project by Andrea Bigiarini. This is a unique venture whereby mobile artists, throughout the world, who could leave home, were asked to film their streets. Or if they were confined, they filmed from their properties. It makes fascinating viewing as Bigiarini has created a complete video with featured work by the following artists: Semra Duyulmus, Camilla Castiglioni, Jane Schultz, Lorenka Campos, Paolo Sbardella, Mark Daniels, Melissa D.Johnston, Marian Seid Rubin, Peter Wilkin, Eric Raddatz, Nancy McClure, Meri Walker, Sylvie Prevot, Geri Centonze, Alon Goldsmith, Donna Donato, Cara Gallardo Weill, Rob Pearson-Wright, Kim Martino-Diaz, Pati…
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The Impossible Exhibition – Covid Sessions – A Project by Visionary Andrea Bigiarini
I am delighted to publish Part 1 of The Impossible Exhibition – Covid Sessions – A Project by Andrea Bigiarini. This is a unique venture whereby mobile artists, throughout the world, who could leave home, were asked to film their streets. Or if they were confined, they filmed from their properties. It makes fascinating viewing as Bigiarini has created a complete video with featured work by the following artists: Aldo Pacheco, Isabel Afonso, Clint Cline, Giulia Baita, Julia Badakhshan, Eliza Badoiu, Catherine Schell Caddigan, Andrea Bigiarini, MaryJane Sarvis, Mehmet Omur, Cecilia Sao Thiago, Dieter Gaebel, Adelino Marques, Frederic Deschenes, Dilshad Corleone, Lanie Heller, Roger Guetta, Linda Hollier, Marco Testoni, Karen…
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Mobile Photography and Art Flickr/Instagram Showcase – 10 May 2020
‘Literature is the most powerful means we have for communicating consciousness’, said author Garth Greenwell. The author of a new book, ‘Cleanness’ which I have yet to read, as I am currently rereading his debut ‘What belongs to you’, a book that has served Greenwell, so well. It’s not the subject that draws me as much as the equisite literature that soaks every line. However, I believe good art can be the most powerful means we have for communicating consciousness. The kind of art that worms its way into a person’s being, art that imbues our lives, illuminating our innermost thoughts with eloquence, compassion. Art teaches us to be more…
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Mobile Photography & Art Showcase – 23 February 2020
Sally Brampton (founding editor of Elle magazine, UK – who killed herself after health professionals ‘missed opportunities to offer her help’, in 2016) said in her memoir on depression: “We are simply defeated by the long, hard struggle to stay alive. When somebody dies after a long illness, people are apt to say, with a note of approval: ‘He fought so hard.’ And they are inclined to think, about a suicide, that no fight was involved, that somebody simply gave up. This is quite wrong.” And so, this week, my thoughts have been with the local family of a 15 year old boy from my daughters school who killed himself.…
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Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 9 February 2020
“I’m with Edvard Munch, who said photography can’t compete with painting, because it can’t deal with heaven or hell”, said David Hockney in today’s Sunday Times. I’m inclined to disagree with this and of course, I can point to this weeks showcase to support my case. Our musical choice matches perfectly, love, loss and the nature of reality. Heaven and hell? Oh yes, having lived full lives, if we cannot cure mortality, should we at least die trying…? The one thing humans have to save them of the depths of despair is humour and like many I have a strong one, Hockney does too “Do you know why laughter is…
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Draw The Line – Second Challenge Results and Showcase – #PowerMarks
We are delighted to publish our second video showcase from our Draw the Line Column by our editor, Carol Wiebe. This time we asked you to contribute to our #PowerMarks challenge. Wiebe has selected the very best images from our Flickr, Facebook and Instagram Groups related to this column. Please take a look at this video to view the high level of work that continues to astound us, usually daily. If you would like to be featured in the future, please ensure you’re contributing your images to these groups (below) so we can find and and include your work. Huge thanks to Carol Wiebe and to all she has included here (foreword by…
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Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 10 November 2019
Many people write to me each week and I love it. Sometimes, I am asked for advice, sometimes I’m asked about me. This week a few times, it was mostly the latter. I was asked, ‘how do you keep coming up with ideas?’, ‘where do they generate from?‘ and then ‘how do you deal with a creative rut?‘. I think the latter was the hardest because the first two I answered with ‘I’m constantly gathering ideas, things that I see each day, people I meet, observations that I make, judgements (I hate to say), but they all encapsulate and become the images and ideas that I’ve been having for the…
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Mobile Photography & Art – Flickr/Instagram Group Showcase – 27 October 2019
I spend everyday thinking creatively, as indeed all our readers do and I would go so far as to say, everyone does in somepart. What does surprise me is when writers bandy around the phrase ‘creative industries‘. I can honestly say, hand on heart, I don’t know of any ‘uncreative industries‘. Creativity is the most powerful competitive advantage any business can possess. New ideas, fresh thinking are the fizz companies to make their business’s pop. There’s this overriding notion that creative artists are cut from a different cloth, this needs to be debunked. Young children overspill with ideas, they cannot hold back. Earlier this week, I was walking one of…
