PRC Board Member Susan Lewinnek wrote to inform us about a show in Manhattan that was arranged in tribute to her brother, Lee Lockwood (whose death we noted earlier on the blog). Here’s an excerpt from the press release:

The Center will also pay homage to its founder, photojournalist Lee Lockwood, who died July 31 at the age of 78. Lee began photographing the Cuban Revolution from the first day, January 1, 1959 and the 20 photographs the Center will show from its extensive collection of his work continue Cuba’s story from where Arias leaves off. The photographs are from the first decade of the Cuban Revolution.

On-line, we received the following notice from Dirck Halstead, who’s been helming a web site called The Digital Journalist since 1997.

From: dirck.halstead@gmail.com

Date: August 27, 2010 2:09:48 PM EDT

Subject: A Letter to the Viewers of the Digital Journalist

As you are aware, The Digital Journalist at http://digitaljournalist.org has been on hiatus for several months.

This is due to the loss of our key sponsor Canon USA, after 10 years of support. Industry changes have put great pressure on camera manufacturers, and the economy itself is a key factor. We also want to thank those of you who sent generous contributions to keep us going. They actually did keep us going for another few months, but ultimately, the effort was not sustainable.

We are using this hiatus to create an App, that you will be able to access on your mobile devices. We hope to have this ready later this fall.

In the meantime, all of our archives will remain open. They are among the most valuable in the industry.

In addition, we will be linking to other sites that have features of interest.

This issue, we link to “http://20inthecar.com.” That was the call sign Topeka Capital Journal Director of Photography Rich Clarkson would send out every morning to the photo desk, dating back to 1957. In the coming decades Clarkson would create and inspire what may arguably be the best newspaper photo staff in history, including such renowned photographers as David Alan Harvey, Brian Lanker, Jim Richardson, Bill Frakes, Mark Godfrey, Perry Riddle, Gary Settle, Bill Snead and Susan Biddle. He continued to assemble the talent as the Director of Photography for Sports Illustrated.

Last month, 60 of those former Clarkson protégés turned up to honor him. They presented him with a book, and a website in which they recounted the turbulent days they spent working for him. We would like to share these memories of an extraordinary force in photojournalism with you.

Halstead’s work as an editor, curator, teacher of still and video imagery through his Platypus workshops, and archivist is worth commendation, support, and more than a cursory look. The Digital Journalist is full of content; that is, there’s meaning to the stories, not just gloss or celebrity. The work he’s circulated is evidence of the power of story-telling using digital tools, which formally may be amazing and “wow”-inducing, but must ultimately take a back seat to content within the context of journalistic narrative. Not sure how TDJ will play as an app, but I trust that Dirck will find a way to make it sing.

Our wonderful sister organization En Foco is hosting a portfolio review on Saturday, September 25. They are offering Early Bird registration effective until August 29 (they just extended it); they are also offering an additional discount to PRC members as part of our Connections agreement. Please check out this opportunity here.

En Foco Executive Director Miriam Romais and Program Director Marisol Díaz Photo: © Bonnie Portelance, 2005

Kyohei Abe, Imaginary Scape, Untitled #3, 2008, from the Gallery 339 exhibition "In Review"

I finished my fourth set of PRC portfolio reviews yesterday. Since my first set of reviews in May I’ve met and reviewed work by 27 photographers who have been willing to update their PRC memberships to have a chance to spend a half-hour presenting themselves and their images to me face-to-face. I feel honored and privileged by this, and I believe that the exchange of favors is mutually beneficial. The PRC can certainly get something in the form of new work to show on walls, on-line, or in print; in fact, five of the 27 have already been featured in Spotlights on our site, and several more will appear in forthcoming issues of NEO, our rejuvenated online portfolios (starting next month), and Loupe, our redesigned magazine, the first issue of which will appear in October. The reviews are critical—the best, most effective means for us to learn what our members are doing, how they are shaping the evolution of the medium.

During reviews I strive to give back something personal, something inspired by what I’m experiencing at the moment. Honest responses, insights, advice, references—in the best cases, work strikes a chord with me and I am in synch with both photographs and maker, but in all cases I remain open to what is in front of me. All work reveals something about the medium. Anyone who comes to a review has questions about their practice. My job is to identify, even help frame the questions, and point the way toward answers and increased knowledge. These encounters can be introductory exchanges in some long conversations about photography.

Regarding the process of selecting work from reviews, I was struck by a show that is still on the walls of Gallery 339 in Philadelphia, having opened there in June. In Review includes ten artists who met with the gallery’s representatives during reviews in the latter part of 2009 and early 2010. There was no organizing principle given for the show other than “our intent…to preserve a sense of the depth and variety that we saw [in the reviews].…Collectively, the works of the ten artists in In Review suggest a medium that is engaged in a lively, complex, and intelligent dialogue about meaningful issues.” The Gallery 339 staff are dead-on in their assessment of these events as being “inconsistent at times, yet exciting in their diversity,” and that “the sessions…offer a messy yet more complete view of what is happening in contemporary photography.”

I have participated in professional portfolio reviews in Houston, Portland, New Orleans, on-line, and elsewhere for many years, and have often wanted to do a show just like this, a show that reflects the Protean, prodigiously multifaceted nature of photographic creativity. A show that also suggests the enormous challenges facing any curator of contemporary photography (let alone contemporary art as a whole), the challenge of an embarrassment of riches and far too few opportunities for utilization (not to mention shipping costs).

Here’s the breakdown of the artists in the show. I was curious to know if any of them were from New England, and was pleased to see not only past exhibitors but also current members among an international crew.

Kyohei Abe, Rochester, Michigan (no PRC exhibits found to date); Peter Ainsworth, London, United Kingdom (no PRC exhibits); Gabriel Benaim, Tel Aviv, Israel (current member, not shown at PRC); John Chervinsky, Somerville (active member, exhibitor and frequent contributor to PRC); Chang Kim, New York City (no PRC exhibits); Joel Lederer, New York City (no PRC exhibits found); Isa Leshko, Houston, Texas (active member, contributor to auctions, selected by former PRC curator Leslie Brown for 2005 New England Photography Biennial at the Danforth Museum of Art); Hannah Price, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (no PRC exhibits); Dustin Ream, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (no PRC exhibits found); Phillip Toledano, New York City (no PRC exhibits).

All of this commentary reflects me acclimating to the conditions “out East.” I want to share with readers some of the concerns that underlie the process of guiding photography into an organization, a process that may seem mysterious, inexplicable, or frustrating to an observer. Believe me, it’s not rocket science or the United Nations, but it has a lot to do with knowledge, relationships, and a desire, on both sides of the table, to communicate.

[Thanks to PRC intern Lindsay Rogers for her background research on the artists.]

As photographers go, I’m not an artist. I post a lot of pictures on Facebook, but that’s as much a way to prompt conversation, to let people know what I’m seeing in my day-to-day life, as it is a creative outlet. I don’t hesitate to call myself a photographer; anyone with a cell phone can say that (are there any cell phones that don’t have cameras?). Not to belittle photographers, but there are countless ways one can employ this malleable medium. I decided in my twenties that I was fascinated and motivated by what other people were saying with photography, and that I hoped that I would, through writing and curatorial activities, be able to contribute something to what the world understands about the territory of photography as it was being mapped by its most able practitioners.

I’ve seen a lot of change in the medium, and in the art world, since my early twenties. I admire the dedication that drives photographers to make a career of their art. I wish, always, that it would be easier for them to chart a course. Everyone takes a different path, it’s true; what works for one doesn’t always work for someone else. Passionate engagement with your art, and a sense of direction, guided by a lodestar of intention and purpose, is a critical part of moving forward. But it doesn’t hurt to have some additional direction from the field.

Enter a newly-published book, Accelerating on the Curves, from Katharine T. Carter and Associates. This collection of essays by Carter and numerous associates will soon be available for reference in the PRC library and can be previewed and ordered on-line here. I hesitate to recommend anything before I’ve had a chance to immerse myself in it, but the thoroughness of Carter’s outline for development, the range of essays by associates (clustered under the subtitle “Hare Pen Curves”), and the presence of a set of templates for press kits and presentation packages bodes extremely well for the effectiveness of this new guide. At $95 (shipping and tax included) it may not be something that everyone wants to buy, but a group could certainly split the cost and share the book. Call it a business investment; there’s probably a chapter to help determine if you can write off the expense.

I look forward to recommending parts of the book to you in future blog posts.

I write for COLOR now and then (most recently a profile on Jerome Liebling in issue #9, dated September 2010 but on the stands for nearly a month already), and as a result they send me multiple copies of each new issue. Just arrived is issue #10 (November already?), the annual presentation of winners in their color portfolio contest.

494 photographers entered nearly 9,000 images, vying for 115 Spotlight, Excellence, and Merit awards chosen by judge Henry Rasmussen. Notable among the twenty Spotlight winners, each of whom will receive a multi-page spread in a regular issue of COLOR during 2011, was Brookline’s own Rania Matar, who hereby proves herself as adept with color as she is with black-and-white. Please look for her portfolio during the next twelve months; I’m guessing that the work is of teenage girls in their bedrooms, but that’s just a guess. (Rania, if you read this, let us know what they’ll be publishing and when.)

Among a large handful of New Englanders who were published in the issue as Excellence and Merit award winners was C. E. (Christopher) Morse of Cumberland, Maine, whose records of painterly decaying surfaces so impressed our executive director during a portfolio review that he ended up acquiring one from the photographer.

Congratulations to Rania and Christopher, past and continuing PRC members getting their work out there!

link to COLOR online

As the weather is so nice, and the summer seems to have settled down into beautiful conditions for being outdoors, I’m sure everyone is eager to find excuses to sit in front of their computers glued to web sites.

Maybe not.

But if you are looking for a dreamy, content-rich space on the web, you could click over to Pedro Meyer’s web site and easily meander around for an hour or two. There are essays, curated collections of his work, autobiography, and a wealth of mediated imagery from one of the pioneers of magical realism in photography.

http://www.pedromeyer.com

Boston has lost one of its leading photojournalists, and the PRC has lost one of its early advocates. Lee Lockwood, a 1954 graduate of Boston University and a member of the photography agency Black Star during the 1960s, became a trustee of this organization in 1979. He joined Carl Chiarenza, Estelle Jussim, Jerome Liebling, Elaine Mayes, Bart Parker, and several other notable individuals who were led by the 3-person board of directors consisting of A. D. Coleman, Jeff Weiss, and Chris Enos, the motive force behind the PRC and its founding director. In 1979 the PRC was still in its infancy, consisting of a newsletter and lots of sweat equity. He remained on the board until late 1987, when the staff numbered nine and the board of directors almost twenty. The gallery program was up and running in the Bakalar & Klebenov Galleries at 602 Commonwealth, and VIEWS: The Journal of Photography in New England was appearing quarterly. Lockwood was a part of that tremendous evolution.

In a consolation note to Lockwood’s sister Susan Lewinnek (a current PRC board member), Chris Enos recalled that “Lee was to represent the documentary photographers. His connections and suggestions were very valuable. Plus, It gave us credibility to have him on the board because of his reputation as a photographer.” His connections and his experience were deep, significant, and not widely known outside of journalistic circles. He was skilled as both a photographer and a writer, and his work always evinced a commitment to social change. As obituaries in several papers relate (links below), Lockwood was most known for a long interview he had in 1965 with Fidel Castro; he also published books on Eldridge Cleaver and Daniel Berrigan. In 1967 he was the first photographer in a decade to photograph in North Vietnam; he arranged a visa while he was in Cuba for the Castro interview.

He wrote the following in the introduction to his 1967 book, Castro’s Cuba, Cuba’s Fidel: An American Journalist’s Inside Look at Today’s Cuba in Text and Picture: “We don’t like Castro, so we close our eyes and hold our ears. Yet if he is really our enemy, as dangerous to us as we are told he is, then we ought to know as much about him as possible.” A worthy sentiment, and one so seldom followed.

Obituary notices in:

The Boston Globe

The New York Times

In June I wrote a Spotlight about Paul Wainwright and his book A Space for Faith: The Colonial Meetinghouses of New England. I’ve just received word that Paul’s book has been selected as one of the five finalists for a 2010 New England Book Award in the non-fiction category. This award is given each year by the New England Independent Booksellers Association to recognize authors who have produced work that makes a significant contribution to the region’s culture.

The winners will be announced at an event in early October. Paul, I’d say we would pray for you, but that might be taken the wrong way. In any case, best of luck, and congratulations on this honor!

Link to the book

Link to the NEIBA awards

Just read this blog entry about Steve McCurry, who managed to get the last roll of Kodachrome out of Kodak’s manufacturing. I’m imagining the machines turning off as the film comes off the spool, in the dark. Thanks to Judith H. Dobrzynski for this. Jeff Jacobson, who is on our schedule of exhibitors here in 2011, is also thinking about the last roll, in a metaphoric and personal sense. A long-time user of Kodachrome, Jeff’s “last roll” is a meditation on life both on film and off. Stay tuned for more on that.

reGeneration2, published by Aperture

If anyone was tempted to think that there are only a handful of people and places that matter in the photography world, try this project on for size.

This second volume of reGeneration, just released by Aperture, comes five years after the first; not enough time to measure whether the project organizers, William A. Ewing and Nathalie Herschdorfer, are fulfilling their mission, which is to publish and exhibit work by photographers likely to be known in twenty years’ time. Nor is it entirely clear that focusing one’s curatorial efforts on art school graduates will always yield work of the most lasting value.

But it is clear that Ewing and Herschdorfer have reached out to gather in photography from all over the academic world. The eighty artists in this book have affiliations with some 120 schools, located everywhere from Finland and France to Australia, Lebanon, China, Japan, Argentina, India, and Ecuador. Nearly 720 artists from those schools were “candidates” for the selection, so inclusion in this volume was no mean feat.

In New England, these schools were “invited to participate”: Harvard; Mass Art; RISD; SMFA; Art Institute of Boston; and Yale.

From these programs, these photographers surfaced (in alphabetical order): George Awde; Jen Davis; Dru Donovan; Shane Lavalette; David Molander; Richard Mosse; Sasha Rudensky; and Robert Watermeyer.  They were born between 1978 and 1987, some outside of the United States. Some had not finished their programs when the book went to press, so this is truly a speculative venture, a prediction based on a snapshot of time and taste.

I don’t know many of the artists in the book, but I do have to admit to a certain thrill at seeing that Dru, Shane, and Jen were selected—wonderful photographers all. Congratulations on “passing the grade.” Remember, our eyes are on you for the next twenty years.

Link to information about the book.