It amazes me that photographs still appear of such quality from photographers that I was unaware of. Is it my lack of knowledge of photographic history or are these photograhers being unearthed after being unknown to the wider public? Whatever the reason it's a joy to see such work, it gives us all hope that one day our work will find an audience. Being an Islington boy myself I love these clean unclutered street scenes. They are of a simpler age, although I photographed Islington in the 1980s I wished I had a camera in my childhood. These scenes exist in my memory, I see them everyday.
Photographer Wojtek Kutyla has self-published a delightful and thoughtful book of his photographs. Wojtek has a keen eye and loves the unusal and the ordinary, combining the two gives his photographs a lovely twist. He is a dedicated follower of photography and has a great knowledge and insight into past and present photographers, this shows in his work.
On April 24 1970 LIFE magazine published photographs taken by Hugo Jaeger Adolf Hitlers’s court photographer. Jaeger was a fascist before the Nazi party was formed. From 1936 through to the end of Hitler and the war in 1945 he took intimate photographs of the Nazi's. At the end of the war he managed to hide his colour slides by burying them in jars under the ground. They survived in good condition and he retrieved them and eventually sold them to LIFE magazine archive.
Mugshots of Australian women criminals from the 1920s. The passage of time has enhanced the power of these photographic images. Simple poses always seem to work, looking directly into the eyes has an intimacy and hypnotic effect.
Australia's Justice & Police Museum has released 2,500 photographs of female criminals from the 1920s. The pictures of murderers, bigamists, bootleggers and prostitutes provide a fascinating glimpse into life in Australia in the early 20th Century.
Why is great British documentary photography overlooked at home? Sean O'Hagan's article confirms my experience in getting any attention for black-and-white photographic projects. The following is a short taster from Sean's article.
"Photographer Chris Killip has a major retrospective show in Germany – but his gritty, hard-hitting images of England deserve more recognition from British galleries.
A combination of art and photography. An extraordinary insight into the notoriously private world of the painter Lucian Freud through the eyes of his model and studio assistant David Dawson. The exhibition features Dawson's remarkably intimate photographs of the artist at work as well as his own rarely-seen paintings of the street outside his studio in Kensal Rise, placing them alongside etchings by Freud himself.
Sir Simon Marsden, 4th Bt, who has died aged 63, was a photographer specialising in spooky subjects such as ruins, moonlit abbeys and graveyards.
Unsurprisingly, he attracted a considerable following among fans of the supernatural. But his photographs were also much admired for their technical excellence, and examples are held by the Arts Council, the Victoria & Albert Museum, the Saatchi Collection, the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris, and the J Paul Getty Museum in Malibu.
Eve Arnold the celebrated Magnum photographer has died at 99.
These two quotes of her's stand out for me: "It's the hardest thing in the world to take the mundane and try to show how special it is." "If a photographer cares about the people before the lens and is compassionate, much is given. It is the photographer, not the camera, that is the instrument."
The Story of Life Magazine - The ‘Picture Post’ documented the British way of life in photographs, it ran from 1938-1958, during the heyday of photojournalism. Some of the greatest photographers contributed and built their reputations with the magazine. It was followed by the Sunday Times Magazine who commissioned the up and coming new photojournalists, they covered topics worldwide before celeb culture and advertisers changed its content.
Barry Feinstein, the photographer, who died on October 20 aged 80, created some of the most enduring images of the Sixties music scene. Feinstein was particularly noted for the series of pictures he took of Bob Dylan when he accompanied the singer on his famous tour of Britain in 1966, during which his transformation from acoustic troubadour to electric rock-and-roller was interpreted as a betrayal of folk music by purist fans. For a full obituary go to The Daily Telegraph http://tgr.ph/pcFgXV.
