2010-09-09T04:21:58Z Joshua Spees Copyright 2010, Joshua Spees SPHPBLOG
Fortunately, if you own a legit copy of Adobe products they keep records of your serial numbers on products you have purchased from them and registered. A simple login at Adobe will get you to this info. Next I went to download another copy of InDesign CS4 from Adobe to punch in my serial number on. No such luck. Adobe removes all links to old versions. We are now on to CS5.

Another stroke of luck brought me to someone's site who did some serious digging and came up with a link to tons of old versions of Adobe products which they still have on their site available for download. Why Adobe doesn't have this list is beyond me. Here is the link http://technolux.blogspot.com/ Whoever this is saved my ass. An hour of downloading InDesign CS4 and punch in my old serial number and voila.

I hope this helps someone else in the future and saves some time and heartache.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100824-200428 2010-08-25T00:00:00Z 2010-08-25T00:00:00Z
My first encounter with serendipity on the trip was driving through the New York countryside and coming across the Aperture warehouse and bookstore. Both my wife and I were slightly confused seeing the sign as we zipped through town so we turned around and headed back. I finally bought a copy of Stephen Shore's Uncommon Places and my wife bought an August Sander portrait book. We brought the dog into the bookstore and spent an hour or two just looking at books.

Later in the trip I picked up a copy of Helen Levitt's Slideshow and really got to thinking about how serendipity plays such a huge part in the photos in that book that are successful to me. Personally I could edit that book down to about ten photographs that I think are excellent and the rest are only so-so to me. The photos that are by far the best in my mind are the photos that contain, and I really hate to use this word but I have no other word for it, punctum. There I said it. The elements of the photos that could have only happened by being in the exact right place at the exact right moment and having one if not more magical things happening bring it home for me. Don't get me wrong here, there are many other photos that are successful on a level of visual elements and geometric elements and even wonderful use of color but most of them just don't make the grade in my book. I need something more.

That's where good old serendipity comes into play.

I picked up another book of street photography by a photographer whose name I can't even recall now. It was a Blurb book, self published, and contained black and white street photography from the last decade. Using the same editing measures I had just used I edited this book down to one photo. One out of about 75. Again there was lots of well taken photos in here but only one hit me on a level that I would consider worthy of memory.

Part of this has to do with the sheer amount of photos I have seen in the last 15 years. I have graduated to a different level of looking at photography and enjoy photography on my own terms now and not just the ideas handed to me by my teachers and peers over the years. I don't think by any means that this is the way that everyone should look at photography. I think everyone needs to develop there own ideas about what they enjoy and find successful in photography. This is also not the only thing I look for when looking at photographs, it is just something I have recently become conscious of in my own likes and dis-likes when it comes to looking at photos.

I look at a lot of contemporary work and I feel that a lot of it is missing this element of serendipity. For the record here, I don't believe this is the only thing that can or does make work successful, but is just one added element among many. It is however one of those elements that can push a photo over the edge for me into a photo that I just can't forget. It is something I often look for in my own work and when I am out photographing. Sometimes the serendipity is simply discovering a place to photograph, sometimes it is one element juxtaposed against another, and sometimes it is just magic.

I was reminded of this once again when I went to see the Richard Avedon fashion show at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. I was once again admiring the photograph of Dovima with the elephants. Story has it that Avedon was walking by, saw the elephants, saw the lighting and had to make the photo. Avedon had a flair for waiting for the exact right moment to click the shutter. Considering he was using an 8x10 most of the time this makes it all the more amazing.

]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100819-161512 2010-08-19T00:00:00Z 2010-08-19T00:00:00Z
]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100729-180826 2010-07-29T00:00:00Z 2010-07-29T00:00:00Z
I know I treat my digital SLR very differently from my 4x5 and I treat the images I make very differently as well. 4x5's get scanned and stored in a laborious process so I don't make very many images with the 4x5. I have to have the presence of mind and some foresight to even bring it along on a trip with me. My SLR I throw around like like a yo-yo often not even looking through the viewfinder. It often becomes an extension of my body and I experiment constantly with it. In some ways it is my sketch book for projects I intend to work on in a serious manner. It is also often a light meter, yes I said a light meter, for my 4x5 work. You would be surprised at how close the digital capture is at matching 4x5 slide film.

I also know of people who often go out looking for things to shoot relative to the equipment they are using. Take the Lens Baby phenomenon for instance. While I find it mind blowing that people spend thousands of dollars on a digital SLR and then slap a $2 plastic lens on it, many people enjoy the nostalgia and organic feel it brings to the photographs. It is a mere reaction to the perfection of the digital world and will undoubtedly continue. Although I would hope with less expensive cameras. Seriously, a Holga is only like twenty bucks.

So how much of your photography is determined by vision and how much by equipment? Does the equipment take over at some point?]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100726-132242 2010-07-26T00:00:00Z 2010-07-26T00:00:00Z

image from the Andrew Smith Gallery

Vroman was not a professional photographer, at least not by today's silly standard of making more than half your money from photography. Vroman instead owned a bookstore in Pasadena California (which is still open by the way) and he often made trips to the Southwest over a period of ten years photographing landscapes and portraits. His photos he mainly gave away to friends, subjects, writers, and other intellectuals with an interest in the Southwest. Most of his prints were platinum and he never exhibited them.

Now a hundred years later he has become quite a historical figure in photography. HIs prints are bought and collected on a regular basis.

Vroman spent years photographing the Hopi and the Navajo at a time when Western tourism was rearing its ugly head for the first time. The hand held camera had recently democratized photography to the general masses and tourists were likely to pay Natives for a chance to photograph them. By 1902 Hopi Indians had actually restricted photographers to a small area during their their Snake dance. Whether or not Vroman was considered part of the problem still remains a mystery to me. The way he describes photographing a Native portrait seems to be more of an exchange of conversation, description, patience, and eventually prints from the session, seems to me to remove him from that category of camera toting tourist and put him into a documentary / ethnographic category.

The Vroman collection consists of 2400 negatives, mostly glass plate, and a selection of original prints. The collection was purchased by the Los Angeles County schools audio visual division and promptly forgotten about until 1957.

I find the work of Vroman quite beautiful, much as I find the work of Adams, Weston, and Strand beautiful. But my mind stops there on this kind of work. I find it meditative and I marvel at the technical prowess of the photographers, especially during a time of limited technology. I have spent more than my fair share of time working in large format out in the field and even today wit the advances in film and darkroom, it is still a laborious process, but that is part of the reason I do it. It slows me down.

I see this type of work still being made. Take a look at Flickr or even the APUG group and you will see it by the thousands. I even make work that echoes the sentiments of this type of work but I have a much greater task in mind. I want people to question this type of work and the effect that it has upon our sentiments. I want people to understand the power this type of photography has over us and its virtues as well as its downfalls. I need the viewer to think, not just meditate.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100720-120316 2010-07-20T00:00:00Z 2010-07-20T00:00:00Z
OK I get it. Books are different. The goodness is on the inside and the outside is just a package to sell it, but I am talking about a more disturbing trend that has been with art for quite some time. The trend of artists selling work and viewers buying work on name only.

Name recognition, while being a powerful marketing tool, is by no means a judge of quality. For instance, I had a friend once who in the midst of a conversation about photography said the following blanket statement: "I love (insert artist name here). I just love everything he does." The rest of the conversation went a little something like this.

Me: You love (artist's name)?
friend: Absolutley.
me: You know him?
friend: Well, no not personally, but I love his work.
me: Of course but you SAID, you love him.
friend: so what is the difference?
me: It is a huge difference. He is a person and his work is an object or objects created by him. He could be a complete asshole for all you know.
friend: I doubt it. His work is amazing.

You see where this is going right. Such and such artist can do no wrong and all his work is great because HE made it. While I agree, I really liked one of his books, I thought the rest were mediocre and never bought any of them. But I also never confused the work with the person either. I always try and judge art on the merit of the object, or more often, the effect the object has upon me. If the work moves me in some way or changes the way I think about the world around me, or hell even if I just like the color scheme, then I am a fan. Sure in the past, I have picked up books because I recognized the name, but I have never ordered a book site unseen. (Thank you Photo Eye book tease) So I guess in the end of this ramble, my point is this: Buy work because you love IT.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100713-164828 2010-07-13T00:00:00Z 2010-07-13T00:00:00Z
This is just a thought for the outdoor industry.

When choosing a name for a product that is intended to be used in nature or the wilderness, please stray from naming it things like, "Probe", "Intruder", or "Destroyer". It kind of defeats the purpose.


PS this is not my photo, just one I borrowed from the candy store known as the internet.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100711-111951 2010-07-11T00:00:00Z 2010-07-11T00:00:00Z
Journalism has seen this same change as well. Blogs and online magazines run for little or no money at all have popped up all over the map. Even Twitter and Facebook have become sources of news for all of us.

Yet at the same time it has watered down much of the content. On a semi weekly basis I look at Facebook and have to wade through pages and pages of Farmville status updates, shameless self promotion, and meaningless crap to get a few worthwhile pieces of information. Same goes for blogs and online magazines. I see the same work over and over again. The sheer amount of work has increased twenty fold, yet the quality has gone down in my opinion. Don't get me wrong here, when I do find something I really like, I am ecstatic because I had to work so hard to find it. Good photography for me has become like a meal made over an open fire after a 15 mile hike in the mountains. It tastes so much better.

I have no answer to this issue. It just nags at me on a daily basis. Some of you out there probably don't even see it as an issue. Many of you are probably very excited that you now have these new found capabilities to produce and self publish your work. Me, well, I am a big fan of quality over quantity.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100709-110502 2010-07-09T00:00:00Z 2010-07-09T00:00:00Z
Steve McQueen
]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100708-171413 2010-07-08T00:00:00Z 2010-07-08T00:00:00Z
Where have I been? Busy. A lot has gone on in the last four or five months and almost none of it has to do with contemporary photography. Well, other than my own work of course. I haven't really been paying much attention lately, so if you are looking for my opinion on new work or the who's who in photography right now, I am happy to say I will probably disappoint you. Check Joerg, Flak, or Fraction for that.

I will try and get some of my old posts up on to this blog. This delightfully low tech blog is a previous version of the Word from a while back. It is super easy and does not run on a database. Unfortunately it does not have very many bells and whistles. Maybe I should say fortunately. Either way, this is what we have to work with as it was already on my server and set up.

So here goes nothing. or something.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100706-210620 2010-07-07T00:00:00Z 2010-07-07T00:00:00Z
Here is the official blurb on Issue 8…
“Issue #8, on newsstands February 1st, will focus on Afghanistan from the perspective of photographers from all over the world including: America, Canada, England, Ireland, France, Greece, Turkey, Peru and Afghanistan itself. The portfolios included each highlight a different element of Afghan life and society, from mountain tribes to the
Taliban, from poppy farmers to school teachers, from foreign military personnel to local photographers in Kabul. Together, these photographers show life within Afghanistan with an intimacy and quiet intensity that serves as a necessary complement to mainstream media coverage of the region. While the United States (and the Coalition) have waged an eight year war on the Taliban, rarely do we see the infinite complexities of daily life or the individuals struggling to survive in this beautiful, but fraught, landscape.”

Online publishing is a tough business. I waded in that pond for almost two years on a very serious basis working with Fraction Magazine. In the end I left because of time issues but also for money issues. In the year and half of publishing Fraction I made all of $35 dollars and I received a couple of free books. Mind you, this is for working twenty hours a week or more on top of two other jobs I had at the time. In the end it just didn’t make that much sense to me. I still produce this blog, but very rarely do I put much time into it for this very reason.

While money shouldn’t be the end all factor, it is pretty damn important when it comes down to working your ass off and eating bean burritos. I see that other people in the online publishing and “blogosphere” are starting to get to the same point as well. I imagine that originally all bloggers and online ‘zines started out the same way. They had something to say and self publishing is an easy way to get your name and ideas out there. After a while though and if you do a good job at it, people start to read it and you carry forward ever more and more serious. It begins to take up more and more time. If you are worth your salt at all you keep working harder to make it better but in the back of your mind somewhere you start thinking about money and where it is going to come from.

Your money choices are slim. Google ads? Joke. Google had screwed over the value of advertising so much I can’t even fathom it anymore. You would be better off collecting your check in pesos because at least it would sound like it was worth more.

What about donations? I am a big fan of this. Trust in humanity. Well…. that doesn’t really work out either. People in general, especially on the internet where they are not face to face with anyone don’t always come through on the donations. As a matter of fact you may be lucky if anyone EVER donates.

How about selling your own art as a way to generate revenue? Sounds good in theory until you remember that you already worked hard to make the art and now you have to write daily articles or publish a monthly magazine just to sell it every once in awhile? That doesn’t really make much sense either.

So what are you left with? Selling private ads? This should be a good way to generate some income but the aforementioned Google has pretty much ruined this. The only way this idea works is if you are very popular regionally then you can sell regional advertising but it is still a tough sell.

I hate to sound like a bitter pill over all of this but something will have to change or else the quality things that we all love on the internet will disappear to continually be replaced by new and less quality items. This is where I could put out a call for people to band together and make sure quality blogs and ‘zines somehow get compensated. But in the end I know that will probably come up short. Instead I see a new future on the horizon for things like this. In fact there are already other blogs and ‘zines following this model.

Subscriber rates. That’s right. Pay to read.

I know what your thinking. What the f*!$ !! The internet is supposed to be free. Well… for most of these people who put out good blogs and ‘zines, it is a job for them and they should be compensated. It’s just the way the world works. No one like to work for free and I don’t see why so many people out there complain about having to pay for something. The internet has spoiled most of the world. So maybe we should have to pay. I most certainly agree. The product will only get better as the writers and creators have more free time to produce quality material. We all like quality right?

AND in a perfect world we could do away with all of the advertising we all see everyday. I don’t care what Nikon lens is on sale.

I don’t know how well this model will hold up for singular bloggers and creators but I think if people begin to band together to create something larger it may hold water. I personally would hate to see a few of the things I read and look at on a regular basis disappear. I bet you would too.
]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100201-170132 2010-02-01T00:00:00Z 2010-02-01T00:00:00Z
The first of the two shows is In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age. First of all, the title is rather confounding. Did they mean everything before 1990? Because that’s pretty much what the show was. Don’t get me wrong they had newer work than that, there was an Edward Burtynsky print, but in the end I thought it was a fairly vague title for a show. Needless to say there was some great work. It is always a pleasure to see photographs in person after spending so much time looking at work online. There is nothing like seeing work up close, printed on paper, and in all of its super-sized glory, especially when it comes to contemporary work like Burtynsky. Other highlights for me included Julia Margaret Cameron, Henry Fox Talbot, Anna Atkins, William Eggleston, and Ansel Adams. That’s right, Ansel Adams. They had two versions of Monolith, The Face of Half Dome, one printed in 1927, and the other in the 1980’s(?). It was interesting to see how much the printing styles had changed over the years as well as the quality of the paper and the print.

The other half of the photo exhibit was portraits by Robert Bergman. I recently talked about the hype surrounding Bergman and his photos and I wanted a chance to see the work for myself. I was not disappointed by the show. The work is quite excellent. Bergman works in 35mm which but from the looks of the images he does not work quickly. The portraits remind me more of work I have seen done in large format. The photos seem very methodical. They all have a very similar look to them. He seems to stick to a very prescribed set of rules when photographing. The work is very painterly and thought out. The lighting is beautiful in all of the images but almost to the point of redundancy and tends to get gimmicky in my opinion. When something is done really well and then done over and over again it cheapens the experience for me. However, most of us only get light like this in a photograph once in a while and Bergman does it over and over again which should attest to his skill.

In the end I left the gallery thinking about the show quite a lot. I will admit we made it to the photo section of the museum quite late and had to be ushered out like children by the barking of the guards. I did not get to spend nearly as much time with the photographs as I would have liked to. We spent way too much time in the The Robert and Jane Meyerhoff Collection: Selected Works show, which I would also highly recommend. Having had a couple of days to think about the show, I think the work is excellent. National Gallery excellent? Maybe not. A few of the photos have stuck in my mind which is a sign of great photography in my book. But in the end I don’t think I would put Robert Bergman at the top of my list.
Good portraiture to me stands out in the fact that it tells me something about myself. No, it doesn’t tell me anything about the person in the photo other than the color of their eyes or what they are wearing, etc. A good portrait makes me ask questions about my own pre-conceived notions of who I am and how I see the world. Rineke Dijkstra’s work does that for me. So does early work by Katy Grannan and Shelby Lee Adams. The point is, I look for portrait work that changes how I see the world through my own eyes and not just images that only force me to view the world through someone else’s eyes. It is the reason I am not fascinated by portraits of famous individuals.

All in all a good show and I am glad I caught it before it came down on January 10th.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100111-170311 2010-01-11T00:00:00Z 2010-01-11T00:00:00Z
AMERICAN POWER – Mitch Epstein
I absolutely love this book. I know it has not been out very long yet but I have been waiting for this work to come out in book format for quite some time now.

SAWDUST MOUNTAIN – Eirik Johnson
Another book that I have had for about 5 months now and have looked through over and over again. I simply cannot get enough of this book and every time I look at it I see something new.

MP3 VOLUME II – Curtis Mann, John Opera, and Stacy Yeapanis
Well to be honest it is really Curtis Mann’s book that get’s all the attention but as it is part of a set, you get all three. I think of it as a buy one get two free kind of deal. And.. if Curtis Mann isn’t your cup of tea you have two other choices that might just do it for you.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry100101-170549 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z 2010-01-01T00:00:00Z you can visit her site here and see the images.

In the last year or so I have come across a few artists who have put together a body of work that really intrigues me and Claire Beckett’s work is near the top of that list. I was ecstatic when Claire agreed to answer some questions for me about her series Simulating Iraq. I would like to thank Claire for taking the time to answer my questions.

JS: How did you get into photography?

CB: I started making pictures while in high school. As a kid I was always into art, and I’d been pretty seriously dedicated to pottery. Then in the 11th grade my pottery teacher, whom I was very fond of, retired and I refused to study with the new one. In need of an art class, I ended up taking photography with the attitude, “I’ll hate this, it’s not me.” But I ended up loving photography from the very first day. I have been making pictures ever since.

JS: How important is your camera equipment to you? Do you consider yourself a gear junkie or not?

CB: The gear is only important to me so far as it enables me to make the picture I want. So for my current project I want a large, focused negative that I can enlarge to a decent size. Compared to other photographers I think I’m not that into gear. Gear in of itself does not interest me all that much—what I want is a really great picture.

Beckett_soldiers_as_villagers
© Claire Beckett “Army Privates Kendra Duffy, Allison Bronner and Jessica-Ann Layug, playing the role of Iraqi villagers at Basic Training, Fort Jackson, SC, 2006”

JS: What is the impetus behind the photographs in your latest series Simulating Iraq?

CB: Prior to working on “Simulating Iraq” I did a project called “In Training,” in which I dealt with young soldiers preparing for war. “Simulating Iraq” sprung directly from my experience photographing soldiers in training. One day I saw a bunch of Basic Training soldiers dressed up like Iraqis and made this picture “Privates Kendra Duffy, Allison Bronner and Jessica-Ann Layug, playing the role of Iraqi civilians during Basic Training, Fort Jackson, SC, 2006.” (see my website under “In Training”) Afterwards I did some research and learned that cultural role playing was becoming a major component of pre-deployment training, and so I pursued the opportunity to photograph at several specialized facilities. Personally I am very interested in the concepts of cross-cultural interaction and role-playing, and these interests stem in large part from my undergraduate training in Cultural Anthropology and my experiences working as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Benin, West Africa.

JS: I’ve noticed as I look through the series that it plays back and forth between photos that seem very quiet and some that seem very shocking. Could you explain the importance of this, if any, in this series?

CB: Yes, you’re absolutely right. With the Simulating Iraq series I move between quiet, contemplative photographs and more jarring ones. This interplay is important to me. I think of some of the calmer landscapes as setting the scenery or providing the context for the more forceful pictures. If I had a whole wall of the bloody pictures, for example, I think it would really be too much. Mixing the pictures together I think a viewer has a better chance to enter the work and spend some time with it.

JS: How do you find the locations you shoot in?

CB: I do a lot of research before ever going out to photograph. I discover places to photograph through a combination of secondary research and speaking with my contacts in the military. Often I’ll hear about something in the news and then call someone I’ve worked with in the past to get more information about the logistics of photographing at the site and also get more information about the look of the place, which is hugely important to the photography.

JS: How many photos do not make it into your final series of images you show?

CB: Many photos do not make it into the final edit. I don’t edit myself when I shoot. I prefer to make many photographs and edit down in the printing stage.

Beckett_Marine_jihadi
© Claire Beckett “Lance Corporal Joshua Stevens playing the role of a Taliban fighter, Marine Corps Mountain Warfare Training Center, 2009”

JS: How much of a directorial influence do you exert over your portraits?

CB: I am absolutely the director of my photographs. Using a 4×5 view camera it is nearly impossible to make a candid photograph, so everything in composed by me in collaborati¬on with the people I photograph. I say “collaboration” because I do solicit a lot of input from both the people I photograph and the other people around. Most recently, when photographing Marines role-playing as the Taliban, I asked these Marines a bunch of questions about their Taliban character as we made the pictures. I tried to base the photographs off of what the Marine said his Taliban character did, or what the Taliban character thought or how the Marine imagined the Taliban character felt, or how the Marine felt about being the Taliban.

JS: How do you begin a new project and when is a project or a body of work finished for you?

CB: I begin a new project when a new idea starts nagging at me and won’t let me be. If the idea doesn’t really stick around and bug me then it probably isn’t a good idea. Likewise a project is finished when it isn’t exciting me anymore. I usually try to make some more photographs just to be sure.

JS: What does the future hold for this project?

CB: At this moment I’m in the editing stage, so I’m not sure. I’ll know once I’m done printing and editing my newest photographs.

JS: How do you get over a creative slump in your work?

CB: I try not to indulge in too much negative thought about a creative block. Instead, there is always something to be done to move the work forward, whether that is shooting pictures, editing, printing, sharing proofs, drafting an artist statement, reading, doing research, revising the website, etc. If I don’t exactly know what to do next I work on whatever is in front of me. I don’t regard not knowing what to do next as a problem, rather I tend to see it as an opportunity for the next thing to present itself to me organically.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry091120-173154 2009-11-20T00:00:00Z 2009-11-20T00:00:00Z
It is with great sadness that I must tell you all I will no longer be a part of Fraction Magazine. Over the past twenty months I have put any amount of free time I have had into the magazine, through design, programming, constantly looking at new work, updating the blog, etc. While I have enjoyed my time doing it, one thing has suffered in the wake, the amount of time I have left to work on my own personal art and projects. When it comes down to it my own need to produce and create seriously outweighs the time I have to donate to the magazine.

Fear not, David will continue at the helm on his own. With the help of people like Melanie McWhorter and the larger photo community I am sure his efforts will be grand. Don’t be afraid to offer the man your time and help if you are so obliged. I will continue on making new work and remain part of that photo community at large and hopefully lend David a hand whenever I can. You can follow all of my work and my incessant ramblings and bitching about the world of art at my blog. I’ll always be looking at and talking about new work I have come across and posting new thoughts and ideas.

Thanks to all of you for making Fraction a success and stay tuned to see what David has planned for the future of Fraction. ¡Adios compañeros!
]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry091115-170949 2009-11-15T00:00:00Z 2009-11-15T00:00:00Z

I visited Austin for the first time this weekend. Besides the music, the food, and the people watching I found time to go to the Harry Ransom Center. Not knowing what would be on display, I took my chances and hoped for something photo related. My main goal was to finally get a chance to see Niepce’s first photograph from his window.

On display was the life and times of Edgar Allen Poe in honor of his 200th birthday this year, images from the history of star gazing, the Guttenberg Bible, and Niepce’s photo. The photo is encased in what appears to be a semi permanent installation near the entrance. The photo is basically inside a box and lit from above. The lighting isn’t the greatest for viewing the photo as it is hard to see from straight on, you have to move around to all sorts of angles to get a glimpse. Sadly it actually renders better in some of the pictures you have seen of it in books than it does in person unless you catch just the right angle.

I came across other photos in the gallery, a Dagurreotype of Poe, a Julia Margaret Cameron portrait of Herschel, and some large photos taken moon, but I kept returning to look at Niepce’s photo. In fact I went back five times. I wanted to understand how this one object became what it is today, how before this photo, there were no other photos. It is hard to imagine a world without photography as we have become so utterly dependent on it to display everything we cannot see in person. It has in essence become our roving eyes of the world. I remember quite clearly life before digital, but I talked to a teenager the other day who couldn’t remember cell phones that did not have cameras. So how then did we go from nothing to utter dependency?

I know when I ask most people why they take and keep photos, the common response is for the memories. Most people want a visual reminder of the things and events that were important in their life. Who doesn’t like to look through old photo albums from their families? More than that though we have become almost addicted to what the image has come to represent. The image has come to stand in for our memory and has become a document of proof, the proof that we were there or took place in an event.



]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry091008-172443 2009-10-08T00:00:00Z 2009-10-08T00:00:00Z

Can Photography Be taught? If this means the history and techniques of the medium, I think it can. The latter, particularly, are straightforward. If, however, teaching photography means bringing students to find their own individual photographic visions, I think it is impossible. We would be pretending to offer the students, in William Stafford’s phrase, “a wilderness with a map.” We can give beginners directions about how to use a compass, we can tell them stories about our exploration of different but possibly analogous geographies, and we can bless them with our caring, but we cannot know the unknown and thus make sure a path to real discovery.

Ought photography to be taught? If at the beginning of my own photography I had taken a course in the mechanics, it would have saved time. Learning the history of the medium might also have been done more systematically in a class, but it was fun and easy to do on my own. As for the studio courses in “seeing” – which usually place student work up for evaluation by both classmates and teachers – I was never tempted to take one, and so am not attracted to teaching one. Arrogantly I believed right from the start that I could see. That was the compulsion, to make a record of what I saw. And so listening to most other people speak didn’t seem helpful. Even now I don’t like to discuss work that isn’t finished, because until it is revised over the span of a year or several years there are crucial parts that are present only in my mind’s eye, pieces intended but not yet realized. If I were forced to pay attention, as one would be in a class, to a dozen different understandings and assessments of what I was putting together it would amount to an intolerable distraction, however well mean. Architect Luis Barragan was right, I think: “Art is made by the alone for the alone.”

Am I one to teach photography? When I consider the possibility I can’t help remembering a question put to me by an affectionate and funny uncle when I told him I might become a minister – “Do you have to?” Experience later as an English teacher brought up the same issue. Teachers must, I discovered, have a gift to teach and the compulsion to use it. And faith. Anything less won’t carry you through.

]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090617-151231 2009-06-17T00:00:00Z 2009-06-17T00:00:00Z

Fraction got a shout out on the NY Times blog called Lens and one of the artists had a featured little story.

Click on the related link and look for the flood photos from March 24th.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090525-130502 2009-05-25T00:00:00Z 2009-05-25T00:00:00Z

Signs of life has been a pet project over the last year and a half. It moves along at a snail's pace most weeks and months but over time it has grown ever larger. I finally put it up on my website in some rudimentary form to at least get something out there for you all to see. I have more plans for it and it will continue to grow and take more shape as time marches ever steadily forward.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090522-191107 2009-05-22T00:00:00Z 2009-05-22T00:00:00Z Over the next couple of weeks I am going to begin collecting images that refer to this and see what come of it.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090522-191049 2009-05-22T00:00:00Z 2009-05-22T00:00:00Z

OK so we are not screwing around anymore. Fraction Issue 7 is up and running and is by far the best design so far. It incorporates everything I ever wanted it to do. Large photos, all in one screen, everything backlogged and available to the viewer.

]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090520-133501 2009-05-20T00:00:00Z 2009-05-20T00:00:00Z
What interested me most about his work was not his work at all but his stories. His stories enthralled me. He spoke of drug dealers being tazered while diving back over the 12 foot wall back into Mexico, of rocks being hurled over the wall back at the US forces as they tried to confiscate drugs, of lonely mountaintop encounters with drug mules, and conversations with US border patrol agents who didn't really believe they were making any sort of difference at all.

He flashed pictures across the screen as he talked and told the stories and none of the pictures revealed anything at all about his stories. The pictures were quiet and spoke of a calm boring world. Why? I asked myself this question after the talk and one of the few answers I could come up with was this. David had a predetermined set of controls that he was working in. A 4x5 camera and a certain way of photographing. He should have been rolling with the punches more and let the experience determine what he was doing. If it was fast action, why not video and a fast digital camera. He was hung up on making very large prints which inherently dictated a large format camera.Large prints are like dinosaurs in my opinion. Yes there is a time and a place for them but this was not it.

This comes up often in my own work and I often find it hard to move out of my original and intended ideas for the project. This is where I find I have to just let go and experiment and try everything to see if something else more successful can be made of the project. So where is that line? When do you throw away everything that you have done and try something else? I think this is where a group of peers becomes important to bounce ideas off of. Not saying that you should let them decide for you, but you should definitely see if you are headed in the right direction.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090430-120028 2009-04-30T00:00:00Z 2009-04-30T00:00:00Z

Fraction Issue 6 is out and running. Please check it out. The issue includes five photographers all from New Mexico.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090326-182330 2009-03-26T00:00:00Z 2009-03-26T00:00:00Z

Iran is a country with a long history of settlement and like most places, a history of conflict. Known officially as Persia until 1935, Iran’s borders contain many different tribes and geographical differences. Goerg Gerster’s story in Iran began in the mid-seventies when he hand delivered a letter to the Imperial Court in Tehran. From 1976 through 1978, he flew 100 separate flights, totaling 300 hours to photograph Persia from above. With the permission from and help of the Iranian government, he captured photos in all seasons and in all areas. As the conflicts in Iran grew in the late seventies, Gerster had to end his project and consequently wait thirty years before he could finally publish the photos. Paradise Lost, Persia from Above is the fruit of those labors.

Photographing a place that most of us know very little about, Gerster gives us a different take on the land. Being a pioneer in aerial photography and having spent the last forty years flying all over the globe, he sees his work as a ‘philosophical instrument’ in that: “Distance creates an overview, and an overview creates insight.” Aerial photography has often made its way into the art world spotlight. Emmit Gowin and his Changing the Earth, David Maisel with his Black Maps and Oblivion, Taiji Matsui’s JP22, and one of my personal favorites, Terry Evan’s and his Inhabited Prairie series, have all taken this same route to change the way we see the landscape and our impact upon it. Gerster’s effort is none the less enthralling and makes for a great book.

The focus of the images range from modern cities to the eroded landscape and cover what seem to be centuries of tradition all happening at the same time. Modern ski areas mingle with ancient methods of farming all with in the same country, terraced rice fields reflect the light from above, walled compounds form geometric patterns, and oil fields burn off in the late afternoon light. Gerster seems to capture the many complexities that all form what was Iran in the seventies.

The photos, all taken in the seventies and on Kodachrome film have a nostalgic feel to them. In contrast to the ever-increasing popularity of the digital world and the look of the digital image, these photos have the look and feel of a time when you could actually determine the film type by the color cast inherent in each different film.

The book is divided into geographic sections and each one is prefaced in the beginning of the book with a short history and description. Also included is a short section of poems from historical Persian poets selected by Maryam Sachs, an Iranian born writer who worked closely with Gerster in the production of the book.

My one complaint with this book is my usual complaint about printing over the gutter of the book, which is too distracting from the images. This seems to be commonplace these days and for the life of me I cannot figure out the logic behind this decision.

The book is due out in April from Phaidon Press and well worth a look. At a time when we are so intimately involved with Iran, yet so many have very little knowledge of the area, maybe Gerster’s ‘philosophical instrument’ into Iran can provide us with more of the necessary insight we need to achieve something greater.
]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090326-182021 2009-03-26T00:00:00Z 2009-03-26T00:00:00Z

Recently I came across a book that I somehow missed in my many travels through the libraries and bookstores. I was reading Martha Sandweiss’ Print the Legend and there was short passage referring to a book made in the eighties entitled Sign Language by Skeet McAuley. It sounded quite interesting so I got on the web and found a used copy. When the book finally arrived in the mail I had forgotten I’d ordered it.
Skeet McAuley set out with the task of photographing the Native American at present (remember this was the eighties), and their current situation on the reservation. This is typically a sticky situation for a non-Native photographer to get into. McAuley worked it out in a non-typical way and what he accomplished truly impressed me. The book not only gives you the kind of images you might expect, but quite a few you may not have expected. He spent his time with two tribes, the Navajo and the White Mountain Apache who were both open to his ideas and had a willingness to cooperate. What really sets the book above is who also provides a written read on the photographs, McAuley enlisted the help of Mike Mitchell, a Navajo medicine man from the Dine College in Arizona to sit with the photos and give his own impressions.
I looked through the book once before reading the text to get my own impression of the pictures and then went back again to read Mitchell’s text about the photos. Our impressions could not have differed more. While my view on the photos was coming from a background in practicing photography and years of art history, Mitchell’s view was one of a different read. In a photograph where a tackily dressed young tourist stands inside a Hogan with a Navajo weaving family, my thoughts were of commodification and a constant need of non-Natives to want to give the Native their old way of life back. What Mitchell saw was the sacredness of the Hogan and the virtues of weaving as a Navajo way of life. He never even bothered to mention the young white tourist in the Hogan. It was though he had not even see the young man.
Again this happens when he is shown a photo of water running in a large man made ditch, part of the Navajo irrigation project. Mitchell describes the holiness of water, how it is part of all living things, and the role it plays in ceremony. Not once does he mention how man has diverted and possibly even squandered out natural resources.
How we read a photograph, or how we discern our visual language remains a mystery to many. What we see and how we see it is part of who we are and where we came from. Our culture, our upbringing, and our education have a profound impact on the way we read a photograph. While one person can see one thing, others often read things very differently. Seeing both sides of the coin, or the possibility of more than one reading is at the core of understanding our visual language.
]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090216-000109 2009-02-16T00:00:00Z 2009-02-16T00:00:00Z

Often by the time I get around to wanting a book, I am months behind the list of the newest books on the market. So many come off the presses these days it is hard to keep up. Such was the case with Toshio Shibata’s Landscape 2. By the time I contacted Nazraeli Press to get my own they were long since sold out. With only a thousand hand numbered copies out there I was sure I was out of luck. Lucky for me I have Vincent Borrelli here in town who was nice enough to loan me a copy for a review.

Shibata has become one of Japan’s most revered photographers over the last decade. His original Landscape was released by Nazraeli in 1996 and quickly sold out. The second printing in 2000 did the same and he followed up with Dam in 2004. Switching from large format black and white to color for his latest release, the work takes on a whole new dynamic.

Landscape 2 has over five years of work and containing 84 images, the book has a lot to offer. Like his earlier works, Shibata continues to focus on the collision of man and nature and the never-ending battle to control it. Japan’s mountainous interior is constantly under attack by the forces of nature. Erosion is trying to bring Japan back into the sea and humans are trying to stop it when it impedes our own needs. Thus the mountains contain a bizarre conglomeration of attempts at halting nature’s reclamation.

A rigid structure within a natural order, the lines created by the construction take on the appearance of contour lines on a map following the hillsides and riverbeds on a mathematical path. The geometric pattern only becomes all the more beautiful when it begins to coalesce with the forces it is trying to control. The two are completely at odds, one trying to find a balance and the other trying to force a balance, yet together they form something that Shibata has the ability to make beautiful in his photographs. The eerie repetitiveness of the constructions with nature on all sides and quite often creeping back in only made me wonder, who is winning and who is losing?

There is no introduction, no foreword, and no explanation at all, something I find completely refreshing and really enjoyed about this offering. The photographs said all that needed to be said. Shibata’s work left me only wanting more by the time I got to the end of the book. The only thing that bugged me about the book was that the book contains eighty photographs from Japan and four from Oregon. Even without reading the text describing the images locations they felt slightly out of place. Had those four photos been left out, the book would have been just as successful in my opinion.

If you are looking to add some contemporary landscape to your photo book collection, I highly recommend this book. As a limited edition it is almost guaranteed to go up in value if you can stop looking at it long enough to keep it in great condition.
]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090209-171607 2009-02-09T00:00:00Z 2009-02-09T00:00:00Z
"In Brady’s placid father-son portrait, the younger James wears a military-looking jacket, its nine buttons fastened right up to the collar, and holds a wide-brimmed straw hat with a ribbon encircling the crown. The most telling detail, however, is the way the boy, who stood on a box for the picture, casually rests a forearm on his father’s shoulder. “It illustrates how people posing for portraits in the nineteenth century tried to convey their status, character, and modernity in pictures,” says Robin Kelsey, Loeb associate professor of the humanities. “The pose conveys the extent to which the elder James was a progressive and permissive parent—he grants his son an autonomy and authority that was quite unusual at the time. Most portraits of that era establish the father as the patriarch in no uncertain terms.”"

That is just one read on the photo. Maybe the photographer set it up that way to have the son look as though he rests on his father because he needs his father to be the stronger man, etc. There could be a million reads on that photo and we will never no the whole story. Anyway read the article and decide for yourself.

Article]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090129-195015 2009-01-30T00:00:00Z 2009-01-30T00:00:00Z
OK?

No really. OK?

]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090129-193614 2009-01-30T00:00:00Z 2009-01-30T00:00:00Z


In March of 1847, Keokuk and his associates were in St. Louis on some sort of business from their newly established reservation in Kansas. Keokuk and his crew stopped into the studio of Thomas Easterly for a Daguerreotype portrait session. Thus they became the first Native Americans to have their portraits made inside of a American studio. Keokuk carefully prepared his dress for his portrait as one can see in the photo, but left no clues as to his intentions for his portrait. He also has a portrait of his wife and child made at the same visit. Paintings had already been made of him, and some he had even posed for. Did he understand the power of the image? Didi he only want a keepsake for himself? He had to have known how badly the paintings misrepresented his own image. Maybe he thought the photograph was a better reproduction of image.
Another interesting aside to this image is there was more than one made. The one above has the Smithsonian as a credit while the one I came across researching the image has his hand still and on the side of the cane instead of the ball of the cane. It is listed as being in the property of the Missouri Historical Society.
I will post more about this image if I come across it.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090128-131452 2009-01-28T00:00:00Z 2009-01-28T00:00:00Z My best advice to anyone out there is to start by finding a local group of photographers and spending some time talking about your work. Share your time helping them and along the way you will end up helping each other. Go out once a week or once every two weeks and meet somewhere and spend your time talking about each other's work. Not about who knows who or what so and so said on their blog. This way you actually get better at what you do and the work gets better over time. When you really have something good, then work on getting it out there. Bombard everyone you know and can find of importance with the work. If it truly is good someone will recognize it.
I have a certain group of people I have formed relationships with over the years, most of whom are local and I often show my work to them to get some feedback. A lot of times things make sense in my head but when I talk about them to others I often realize that the thoughts were not clear at all. So I ask questions, take some notes, take a big dose of humility, and go home and get back to work. The best part about all of this is it is free. Not 700 dollars to put your work in front of a group of people who are quite often there for their own greedy intentions and not yours.
I know some people say to network with everyone you can and develop these relationships. While I know that can be beneficial, in the end if your work ain't good, it ain't good and everyone else will see it. Make the work first and then start kissing ass. If it really is good, most people will kiss your ass.
Now don't get me wrong. Portfolio reviews can be helpful, if you are finished with the work and it truly is bad ass. There is a chance you might get somewhere following that avenue. There are many other avenues as well and usually the most creative ideas for promotion come from the most creative people and end up getting them the farthest.
A while back I worked for an artist who was a genius when it came to self promotion. He could spend a couple of hundred dollars or less and get his work in front of way more than five reviewers. Be creative and keep at it.
Now go out and find some local artists like yourself and start critiquing.

I promise that after this I will never again talk about the business of photography. From now on only images, ideas, and books.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090127-185722 2009-01-27T00:00:00Z 2009-01-27T00:00:00Z Print The Legend.

In the mid 1980's, Texas photographer Skeet McAuley traveled throughout the Southwest making color photographs that documented the ways in which contemporary Indian peoples, particularly Navajo and White Mountain Apache, lived within a modern landscape shaped by mining, tourism, and tract housing, as well as by long standing ceremonial practices. Explicit about making his project one of exchange, he collaborated with Mike Mitchell, a medicine man at the Navajo Community College (now Dine College), showing him copies of his work, taping his responses, and translating and transcribing these comments for publication in a book with the photographs themselves. Mitchell's readings of the pictures make starkly clear the culture-bound nature of photographic understanding and the capacity of photographs to convey different information to different readers. Indeed, he suggests, knowledge lies at least as much within the mind of the viewer as within the photograph itself. Where a non-native viewer might see the photograph of a concrete irrigation ditch and contemplate the impact of expanding populations on a fragile desert environment, Mitchell sees the photograph as a meditation on the holiness of water and its sacred place in the Navajo life. The picture of a tourist standing in a Monument Valley hogan bedecked with trinkets might trigger thoughts about the commodification of culture and the impact of tourism on Indian life. Mitchell seems not to even notice the young white tourist, seeing instead the spirituality of the hogan; "life lies inside, hope is inside, love lies inside." Photographs are not necessarily a universal form of communication, conveying the same thing to all viewers; what is clearly present and visible to him remains unseeable and unknowable to others. Photographs may reveal, but they can also conceal. Visual evidence is not the same as knowledge; indeed, knowledge comes first, a prerequisite to the interpretation and understanding of visual evidence. The historical photographs stored away in museums and libraries may reveal less about their subjects than some observers fear; they whisper their secrets most loudly to those who already know what they are.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090126-163240 2009-01-26T00:00:00Z 2009-01-26T00:00:00Z



What can these two images tell us about the West? One will tell you the west is an ugly place and the other will tell you it is beautiful. Were the intentions of the photographers any different? And by different I mean were there final intentions, aka the viewers lingering thoughts on the image any different?

Ansel and Robert both wanted to save the West. They went about it in very different ways. Ansel made pictures that tugged at your heart strings and made you want to sign a petition to rope off some area from development. Robert made photos that made what we are doing seem so silly, ugly, and lonely. I often think of the photo of the silhouette in the window of the home and it makes me feel a million miles from everyone else on the planet.

A good friend of mine once said that every landscape photograph ever taken was about one of two things. Either paradise or paradise lost. In a way I could not agree with him more but part of me wants to know that there is another way of looking at things without having them boiled down to one or the other.

Can the landscape be something else? Can a landscape be beautiful if it doesn't inspire breathtaking emotion? Or is it just our view of the landscape and our constant guilt of destroying Eden? Before we fenced it all off and divided it up, it belonged to someone else. Although they had no concept of ownership, they did have a concept of boundaries and often squabbled over them.

Both Robert and Ansel used photography as a way of getting their point across. Ansel made technically complicated images that pushed the very limits of photography and created images that existed only in his imagination. Robert made images that pushed the envelope of what we refer to as landscape photography and at the same time questioned our path into the future. Both were successful in generating sympathy for their cause. Both were successful in generating beautiful images. Where does the future of landscape imagery lie when the environment of thinking has changed very little in the years since Robert or even Ansel?]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090119-191204 2009-01-20T00:00:00Z 2009-01-20T00:00:00Z What I am driving at here is this. The blog. Here it is. Free and easily consumed by all. I am giving away these words but at the same time I am setting their value at 0. So now everyone can see what I have to say and for free. At the same time however I am guaranteeing that others will not ever want to pay for this sort of thing ever again. Hence the reasons newspapers and the press are hurting so bad. Why pay fifty cents for a newspaper to read the news when you can go online and read it all for free as well as fifty umpteen million different takes on the event ala the blogging world.
So why you may ask would I blog while complaining about the very same thing? That is a question that I have no real answer for.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090116-153115 2009-01-16T00:00:00Z 2009-01-16T00:00:00Z

Fraction has been on my mind a lot lately.
Not so much because I just spent the last three weeks completely re-designing the entire site, but more because I wonder what the value in something like this is? I know the reason I started this was to give artists an alternative to showing their work in a traditional gallery. The website can go world wide and introduce the works of photographers in a way a gallery never could. For me this is an act of giving to my fellow artists.

So what then is the worry? Fraction has been seen by over thirty thousand viewers and the number of people who view it goes up exponentially every time. In a way I have accomplished my goal but at the same time I have had to give up a lot of my own time as an artist to do it.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090110-175803 2009-01-10T00:00:00Z 2009-01-10T00:00:00Z

A few months ago I came across the work of Michael Eastman in a gallery in Santa Fe. The prints were enormous and beautiful, yet so large that I could never imagine owning one. So goes the trend in modern photography I suppose, but there were a few photos from that show that really stuck in my mind. When Rizzoli contacted me about reviewing the book I really wanted to see how the work translated from prints to book form.

I grew up in a town that could have easily been the central focus for this book. The stores are all closing down and everyone drives an hour or more away to shop now. The only thriving businesses are bars and the only places to fill the seats are churches. The mid-west is full of towns exactly the same, boarded up and closed for business.

When the book arrived I was a little surprised by the size. At 192 pages it seemed a little hefty. Not that I mind getting more bang for the buck, but quantity and quality do not always go hand in hand. Eastman has been photographing for the past thirty years on this project allowing for much fodder to choose from. Upon opening the book I found not only an enormous amount of pages, but even more photos.

The book’s layout is one of my greatest complaints. Quite often in the book there are two or three photos on one page with no border in between and butted right up against one another. While this does allow for multitudes of photos in the book it does not allow for many of the photos to be looked at without others distracting from it.

Eastman’s list of influences has to include many of the 20th century masters. He has an amazing eye and a superb talent for making great photos. His talent works especially well on the signage of yesteryear and the patterns created by them. These dilapidated words on the wall write our past and at the same time tell of where our future is headed.

The book is loaded down with nostalgia for times and places that have been forgotten. We all have a certain pang of remembrance for the America that has been lost and often romanticize it even though it is our own choices that have left it behind. The world of Interstates has bypassed Main Street and there is little we can do about it on our current cultural and social path. Eastman seems to be able to find wonder and beauty in this decay. The work is devoid of people, yet at the same time cannot live without them. The human presence is everywhere in the work. The booths in the diners, the chairs along the wall, and the writing on the blinds all have a museum-like quality about them.

In the end this book has less of an effect on me than seeing the work in person. It has nothing to do with the size of the images, in fact the large prints do less for me than the images in the book do, but the show contained a tightly knit group of images edited down from the book. The gallery group did a better job of creating emotion and informing the viewer than did the multitude of images within the book.

If your penchant is for a time gone by and a love for Main Street America then this may well be the book for you. Eastman has an amazing ability for seeing the architecture and covered framework of what once was America, a country of small towns all building and dreaming towards something greater.

]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry090107-153841 2009-01-07T00:00:00Z 2009-01-07T00:00:00Z

Are you starting to see what I am talking about? Does anyone out there have a few thousand extra dollars to give for a project?]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry081231-130811 2008-12-31T00:00:00Z 2008-12-31T00:00:00Z

This image by Troy Paiva reminds me of how the image/photograph has had such an immense effect on how the west is viewed by so many of us. The original image of this sign that made it famous has only been around for about thirty years. When David, Sam, Todd, and I went by a couple of years ago the letters had long since been stolen. Nothing remains but the poles that once held the letters. Even the mistakes that have been made here have been used for something.
The letters were virtually worthless until an image gained popularity and a monetary value. Once the photo gained value the letters were suddenly worth something whether or not it was monetary. Now they are probably sitting in some photo fan's living room or basement.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry081230-175619 2008-12-30T00:00:00Z 2008-12-30T00:00:00Z

I recently read Jeff Ladd's review (5B4) on Lee Friedlander's latest offering. Published by Radius books, Darius and company have put together a beautiful book.

Jeff's question about the book was, "Is it necessary?" I can't answer that question and I think only time will tell.

The question that bugged me the most while I was looking at the book and nagged me for the next few days was, if this book had been published by someone else, someone who didn't have a name in the photography world, would I have given it less of a chance. The answer is yes. I looked at this book a few times, waiting for it to reach out and grab me. It didn't . I put it down and came back to it a few days later thinking I would see it in a different light. I still didn't.

So what does it all mean? I thought that maybe because I have lived in New Mexico for the last thirteen years that it had an effect on the way I viewed the photographs. In my estimation, after thirty some odd books over his career, the bar has been set pretty high for Friedlander. I hold him in high estimation and this book let me down a little. Great photographs yes. Would have been better twenty five years ago, but now...

I still love Friedlander's work and he still has an amazing talent for making photographs that use the frame like no other photographer. The fact that this book accompanies the corresponding show has a lot to do with its publication I assume. If in the end you need it to complete your Frielander collection, then buy it. If you only have one or two of his books and want more then there are better titles out there.

]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry081226-174304 2008-12-26T00:00:00Z 2008-12-26T00:00:00Z The most prominent thing that stood out to me was how he explained that the Whites often come to the reservation and lament for their lost way of life. He explained that the 21st century would have come, no matter what, and life would have changed for them anyway. My personal favorite was when he asked the professor would he be interested in meeting an old medicine man who could give him insight in to the Apache way of life. The professor answered yes he would be. The Apache then told him that HE could also give him much insight to the Apache way of life but from a different angle. I found it a useful insight that most of the modern day Native Americans do not see themselves in that light anymore. They are connected with their history but intent on moving forward. Yet at the same time we want to return them to their old lifestyle and give back to them what our ancestors took from them. Their culture is still thriving today but unfortunately when we look at them all we can see are the images of the past and not the ones of their future.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry081222-224958 2008-12-23T00:00:00Z 2008-12-23T00:00:00Z


I have been thinking a lot lately about the way photography has changed the way we see things. I know that the age old argument of photography as truth is long since dead, at least for me, but nobody ever bothers to ask what is the truth? Define truth, and then get back to me on that argument. Aside from that, historical images like the Edward Curtis image above have had a profound effect on our assumptions of the West and what defines it. Here is the proud Native American, yet at the same time this image was taken years after we had stolen most of their land and put them on reservations. I know Curtis was simply trying to preserve what little was left, but did he do the Native American a dis-service by showing them in this light?
More on this to come. Much much more.]]> http://www.joshuaspees.com/word/index.php?entry=entry081213-180648 2008-12-13T00:00:00Z 2008-12-13T00:00:00Z