Foto Motel

My Favorite Books from 2008

Including one re-issue and a pop-up book.

 

Wichita in the Artist File Online

I'm in the online "slide" registry at the Artists File Online HERE.

Square America

America Squared.
I have a new treasure, Square America, see it HERE. I personally went straight HERE, to the guns section, 'cause well, that's me, (earlier post HERE). Curiously enough I didn't see any photos of gun-toting babes, like HERE, HERE, HERE and of course HERE. I guess women didn't pose like that in "vernacular" photography during the first half of the last century. There were a lot of kids with guns, cowboys and soldiers to make up for the lack of gun-toting babes. Americans like there guns.

The reason I'm so attracted to these images and the many like them is, I hope, maybe even expect to find myself in them. If not me, then maybe, just maybe a long lost photo of my parents or grandparents. A hidden treasure to answer all the unanswered  and unanswerable questiuons. I have not. But I keep coming back.

"Change Me" Getty

I've forgotten the mini-cooper that I didn't win from Corbis because Getty has "Change Me." Here's what Getty says on the site:

Change Me is an open conversation that brings people together to share ideas through powerful imagery.

Simply find an image that inspires you and use it to express an idea that has the ability to touch or affect the person viewing it.

If selected, your image/idea may appear as part of a traveling global exhibit, and be published in a book.

For each submission we will donate $10 to ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History - which helps raise awareness about the crisis of extreme poverty and AIDS.

So I figure that with 2004 profits of $107 million that's 10,700,000 submissions that they can afford. So what are you waiting for click HERE. And tell your friends too.

The Four Sisters Brown

The Brown Sisters are in town for the holidays. I was sure they were avoiding a national gathering, since its their 31st anniversary. I can't blame them, who wants to be surrounded by tourists, flashers and old aunts at the holidays that only poke, prod and point at you, remind you that you're still in black & white and that you have not changed a bit.

Go see the Brown Sisters by Nicholas Nixon at The National Gallery in DC. More info HERE. See them at their 25th HERE. Word has it that one of the photography curators at the NG went to high school with the sisters. And in case you didn't know, third from left is Bebe, aka Mrs. Nicholas Nixon.

To see some other Brown Sisters click HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
 

Gotta Get a Getty Grant

Get your Getty Image Grant HERE. Deadline is November 15th.

Magazine Abundance

What to do with two years of PDN, Picture, Blind Spot, Photo Shop User, Modern Painters, and American Photo? I want to keep Modern Painters because it smells the best.

Tagging Madonna

Madonna.com wants you to tag. The "Icon's" newly launched site now has a place for fans to send in their collected pictures of Madonna. By sending an email to tagging@madonna.com of a photo "tagged" with numerous one word descriptions. This will create a searchable archive much like Wikipedia. I hope its as self correcting too. Guidelines are posted HERE. I find this interesting because there is a small history of photography that runs through Madonna, from Herb Ritts to Horst P. Horst.  I wonder if people realize this?

Tagging brings the fans together
Strike a tag
What it feels like for a tag
Desperately Seeking a tag
Don't tag Me
Tagline
Tagging Up
Live to tag
Tag another day
Sidewalk Tag
You must be my lucky-tag
Like a Tag
Like a Tag
Beautiful Tagger
Justify My Tag
Where's the Tag
Tag a Bow

Yeah, I couldn't help myself.

The Ongoing Moment

Is anybody reading The Ongoing Moment, by Geoff Dyer? I hope to finish it this week. It looks promising. Here's a review. If you are in LA (wish I was), he has a reading at The Hammer Museum in November. More HERE.

Veras Images

Check out Veras Images. Jessica Dimmock has a home there.

Masterfile

Masterfile sends out the best promotional materials. Just got the second in the "unbound" series today. Its so well produced, with its unglamourous paper and "artist book" manufacturing. I went crazy for it. Well, its just nice to get something in the mail at work. Get on the Masterfile client list, you get good stuff.

The missing Getty photographers

Attention! Attention! Getty Images has lost it photographers. Well they've misplaced copious amounts of them. Ok, ok. Getty Images is trying to get in touch with photographers they've lost touch with over the years to return their unused images. Click HERE, if you think you may be one of the missing. OR call, Stephen Morelock (323) 202-4233, or by email at imagereturns@gettyimages.com. Read the full story HERE at PDNonline.

Bound for Glory

The Library of Congress is about to open its exhibition, "Bound for Glory: America in Color, 1939-1943," on Thursday. The NYT has an article about the exhibition of 70 images from a larger collection. Read the story HERE. A book of 192 images was published last year from the same collection. The Library of Congress is an amazing source for imagery that is all in the public domain and affordable priced. Ever want a picture of "Migrant Mother," by Dorthea Lange? Well you can get it at The Library. I hope to go see the show on a long lunch hour soon.

boys wil do

Looking forward to when Taschen publishes Tom of Finland: The Comic Collection. I love the picture of the huge female hand holding the entire boxed edition of "proud men having happy sex." You can find more on Tom of Finland, HERE.

Herber Springs

The NYT had a piece about the power of the internet helping two collectors gather up the work of Mike Disfarmer in Herber Springs, Arkansas. On a side note Herber Springs is also the home of a man with over 8000 four leaf clovers. Read the story here.

Muralist, Siqueiros' Image Bank

e-flux projects has put on the web a huge portion of Mexican Muralits David Alfaro Siqueiros' photo archive online. Spanning the 1930s to the 1970s the archive was used by Siqueiros as a resourse for his work as well as other artists. It seems that e-flux projects is keeping that spirit alive and will offer it up as an historical archive to current artists and historians. The images are divided into groups like August Sander's was, but the project is entirely different.