Why Even Bother?

Mrs. Dean just posted these thoughts on film, processing and scanning.

TD

Alec Soth's "From Here to There" flickr project

Photographer Alec Soth has started a flickr pool in conjunction with the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis. He's provided the following list of subjects and has asked for contributions to the pool. Photos he likes will be posted of the Walker Art Center web site. Go for it.

Pilots

Amateur Paintings

Unusually Tall People

Museum Guards

Sleeping Children

Neighborhood Bars

Supermarket Cashiers

Sheep

Sedans

Suitcases

In his Little Brown Mushroom blog, he recently posted a copy of the card that he carried while photographing Sleeping on the Mississippi. The back of the card lists the subjects that he was interested in photographing. It is a very broad list. A nice weapon to have in your pocket when your asked what and why are you photographing this odd thing. It will at least get a conversation going.

Diana

The Blog "B" by Blake Andrews "This is Your Diana" for your reading pleasure.

Heso Magazine Toy Camera Article

I missed this when it was released.

The author is trying way too hard to position toy cameras within photo history and sometimes sounds a bit silly and tedious. To give you an idea of the tone of the article after stating "...do we really need all these niche luddites continuing to proselytize their anachronistic plastic lenses all over their pretentious micro-galleries while talking about expired stock with knowing smiles and carefully cultured converse sneakers." The author answers this question with a big yes but fails to back it up with any ideas.

For those of you interested in toy cameras it is worth a read.

http://hesomagazine.com/photographic/toy-cameras/

Landscape Stories

If you love photography books, Landscape Stories gives you the chance to quickly view a number of books before making the monetary commitment. More often than not, viewing the short videos makes me wish I had made the plunge. Check it out.

The Elephants

Taken with a Holga 120WPC pinhole camera. Difficult to use, but the results can be very interesting.

The Print is Dead

I run the Holga Photo Exchange group on flickr. I have to admit, that with a few exceptions it has been very difficult to get people to participate. Once I approached someone that I was interested in trading prints. They suggested that if I wanted a print of one of their photos, that I should download it and print it myself. This is when I really understood that, except in rare instances when a collector wants one, the print has no value in the digital age. The print is dead.

American Suburb X has just posted a short essay by Danny Lyon. He addresses this subject far more eloquently than I ever could. It is worth a read.