Archive for the ‘Wot happened on this day’ Category
QUEENSTOWN: Catching up with Jackie Ranken and Mike Langford
We recently visited two of the great luminaries of the Australian and New Zealand professional photography scene, Jackie Ranken and Mike Langford at their Queenstown Centre for Creative Photography. And as if the work these guys do is not amazing enough their home, in the QCCP has one of the world’s most magnificent views over the city of Queenstown, Lake Wakatipu and on to Walter Peak on one side and the Remarkables mountains on the other. It’s hard to engage in conversation with Jackie and Mike in daylight as every now and then your attention wanders to view outside — you need to excuse yourself, and grab a camera to capture the changing remarkable scenery out the window.
Between them Jackie and Mike have amassed a collection of AIPP APPAwards ‘glass eye’ trophies, NZIPP glass trophies and the AIPP New South Wales Awards antique cameras. It takes one large windowsill to show just some of the awards. Facing the lake and mountain view is a gallery of their stunning landscape and documentary works. The QCCP is an amazing and inspirational place to visit.
A selection of Professional Photographer of the Year trophies
After dinner we spent time talking about the issues of photography, great photographers past and present, and shared stories of places encounted and photographed. A data projector was positioned before a screen and we made presentations of recent works. One of Jackie’s projects, which we’d call ‘flying kitchenalia’, shows household items, mainly from the kitchen, being captured mid-air above various New Zealand picturesque locations. The incongruous pairing presented a completely different perspective in the photography of this already well-documented landscape. The absurd combinations in these images evoke a hilarious viewer response.
For some time the pair have travelled in Burma (sometimes called Miramar) and a presentation of Jackie’s documentary images of showed us that this is a most remarkable place for travellers, particularly those with a camera. While we recognized that Miramar is an amazing place, it is important to acknowledge Jackie’s skilled and astute photographic vision. In these images there was the poetry of a well-seen moment and yet a profound sense of place. Jackie captured poignant human moments where her subjects had unknowingly shared something special of themselves and their lives in this country. In turn this experience was shared with us. Jackie’s images are a remarkable document of a people and place that is about to change, and somehow, that’s exactly where photographers do their most profound work.
Mike’s images of Japan explored this familiar subject for him through an interesting concept of transitions referring to movie making techniques. Here Mike was looking at a more intimate and personal vision of this intriguing country. Our conversation continued well into the evening . . .
The next day was an early rise so we could catch our flight home. For breakfast Mike scrambled some eggs, toasted rustic bread and made coffee. Doug made a silhouette portrait of the pair before the picture window and then off to the airport — a bit rushed, but rich with the thoughts of the time spent together.
Jackie and Mike in silhouette
Thank you Jackie and Mike.
Doug and Vicky
SEE more about Mike and Jackie and the QCCP here:
PHOTOBOOK Workshop: Wanaka Autumn Art School
For the last 5 days we have been working with 13 participants in a Photobook workshop in Wanaka, New Zealand. The idea of the workshop was to enable the development of concepts and techniques for the presentation of personal photo-stories in the form of the self-published photobook. Two key aspects for the workshop were the photo-narrative and the form that a photobook can take beyond the traditional ‘pictures-in-a-book’ format.
The students were put through a steep learning curve engaging with the computer technology and software required, as many had never used Adobe Photoshop before. Sessions of intense computer activity were punctuated by practical book construction exercises.
Each student worked to develop a major personal book project during the workshop and, as tutors, we supported the conceptual and technical progress to make it happen.
Students @ our Photobook workshop – Wanaka Autumn Art School
They were an amazing bunch of people with varied interests and backgrounds. They all shared a great sense of humour and enthusiasm to get into the process of applying acquired knowledge—some doing ‘homework’ into the wee hours.
Coordinator of the Wanaka Autumn Art School is fabric artist (quilter), Robyn van Reenen who was supported by a motivated and energetic team including her husband Gilbert the photographer of Clean Green Images fame. Robyn and her team provided the tutors, many from Australia, with a great experience and opportunity to share their skills and knowledge with the participating students and artists.
We had a great learning experience as well and ended up probably as worn out as the students by the end of the workshop.
The group shot tells the story . . .
Worn out students and tutors @ Wanaka Autumn Art School
SEE a collaborative book that was made with contributions from the students;
http://www.cooperandspowart.com.au/2_PLACES/OtherBooks/WANAKA-Bk_PageFLIP/WANAKA_Flip.html
Cheers Doug + Vicky
TWO NEW ZEALAND CAMERA OBSCURAS
The view from our window @ Rydges Hotel overlooking Lake Wakatipu – Planning a camera obscura shoot
Rydges Hotel Camera Obscura: Queenstown + Lake Wakatipu
We checked into the Rydges on the Lake hotel at Queenstown in the late afternoon and the lake-view room demanded that a camera obscura image be made. Hotel and motel rooms are all pretty much the same—the beds, the bathroom, the table with one chair maybe two, the big mirror, the tiny bar fridge full of junk food and drink and the TV. In the room one could be anywhere and nowhere.
That evening a visit to the local 4 Square store meant that we were equipped with enough black plastic bin liners and some black electrical tape to cover the 2.5 X 3 metre window.
What we needed to complement the image potential for the picture was a beautiful clear sunny day—and that’s exactly what happened the next day. There were two sessions, one around mid-day and the other late afternoon. Blue sky, the golden leaves of poplar trees in autumn and the colours of lake and mountain filled the room.
Camera Obscura image looking towards Walter Peak
In between shoots we left the ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door just in case room-cleaning staff should intervene—We often wonder about what unsuspecting visitors would think when first entering the blacked-out space of the room.
Three main images were made—one of the un-made bed, a deep shot into the room, one each of the both of us—Vicky timing the one-minute exposure, the other, a simulation of Doug checking the review screen of the Olympus camera that had been used for image-making that day.
Image left: Vicky times the exposure Image right: Doug reviews images made on his camera
The ‘pinhole’ was fashioned from a postcard of Lake Wakatipu with the steamship the Earnslaw crossing the lake. The aperture was around 10mm and the exposure time around 2.5 minutes.
Victoria Cooper holding the postcard with the ‘hole’ in it
AIPP ON THE LOUNGE: SQIT Toowoomba April 11, 2012
- AIPP – On the lounge SQIT, Website invite
On this evening the SQIT Photoimaging team hosted two events for visiting AIPP members and invited guests. The visit began with a ‘High Tea’ catered for by the SQIT Hospitality team – sumptuous treats were accompanied by tea and coffee. Those attending settled down to conversation with each other in the convivial atmosphere of the ‘Futures’ Restaurant. Coffee Shop
At 5.30 stage two of the visit began with the open of an exhibition of photobooks and artists’ books made by SQIT Photo students over the last 5 years. The show was opened by Queensland Division President Jan Ramsay, who as a past student of an art photography unit, and also part of the end-of-year professional assessment team at SQIT, had experienced the Toowoomba TAFE Photo team at work.
Doug thanks Jan Ramsay for opening the ‘Brought to Book’ show
The books on show ranged from Shanea Rossiter’s ‘Inspiring Women’ book of portraits to Cathy Smith’s book ‘Junked’, a documentary comment on our disposable society and Lorraine Seipel’s political message in the book ‘Song for the future’. The exhibition was curated by Victoria Cooper and Doug Spowart for the Queensland Festival of Photography.
‘Brought to Book’ opening @ Futures Gallery SQIT Toowoomba
The third stage of the program included presentations by the three full-time staff of the photo team – Rachel Susa, Alison Ahlhaus and Doug Spowart. Each spoke of their connection with photography from both the personal and professional context. Doug spoke of the 20-year history of the photo Diploma and Certificate courses at SQIT and the Photoimaging teaching methodology.
The session concluded with a PowerPoint show presenting a selection of images and comments from past students. It was interesting to hear of the experiences of these past students about studying at SQT as well as their achievement in photography. The past students included: AIPP Chairman of the Board Alice Bennett, Nicola Poole, Katie Finn, Lisa Mattiazzi – National Gallery of Australia imaging specialist, Lydia Shaw who works in many areas including photography and teaching in Dubai, nationally acclaimed commercial photographer Damien Bredberg, Sue Lewis – APPA Team Manager and recent graduate Shanea Rossiter who is establishing a business in Warwick.
The Past Students PowerPoint show (PPS) can be downloaded from the www.cooperandspowart.com.au website – It’s a 30.9 mb download but presents an interesting overview of where SQIT students go to and the amazing achievements that they have. CLICK <http://www.cooperandspowart.com.au/2_PLACES/OtherBooks/index.html> Then select the PowerPoint AIPP OTL picture.
The evening concluded with the video fusion show “Dance-on’ by 2011 SQIT Diploma Student of the Year. “Lindsey’s video represents the future of photography” said Doug, and added, “that the stilled image is dead!” The point was not debated, but in the context of an industry that has gone from wet darkrooms to light rooms and digital output in the last ten years everyone left knowing that anything is possible.
Cheers Doug
Judging professional photography: MSIT, Brisbane, March 24&25
The 2012 AIPP Queensland Professional Photography Awards.
Queensland AIPP Professional Photography Awards judging
I’m sitting on judging panels for the landscape and documentary panels of the 2012 AIPP Queensland PPY Awards. The work is challenging and diverse and the judging panel capable and opinionated. My mind wanders to thoughts about photography, its assessment and critique.
The social scientist Pierre Bourdieu wrote many things about photography. Many photographers would take particular exception to his essay on ‘Photography: A Middle-Brow Art.’ But some of what he says bears a strong and salient connection with the way photographer’s debate, discuss and judge their work. Bourdieu states,
” It is no accident that passionate photographers are always obliged to develop the aesthetic theory of their practice, to justify their existence as photographers by justifying the existence of photography as a true art.” (Bourdieu 1996:98)
Whilst his statement may relate to all kinds of photography from the camera club to the teaching institution it connects, to my mind, most directly to professional photography. Shortly after the time he wrote the original French text (early 1990s) I was not only a fervent participant in all kinds of photography competitions but also the chairperson of the AIPP Australian Professional Photography Awards. I witnessed and perhaps even guided the transition of the APPA, as it became known as, into the form that it now takes.
Founded in 1977 The AIPP National Print Awards were judged with an interest in the work being suitable and relevant to professional products for clients. Prints were glorious colour, 16”x20” flush mounted and were a celebration of technique as well as saleability. Each year 300~500 prints would be judged by the doyens of the industry and a few rising stars. In 1984 I sat on one of these judging panels alongside the big names of professional photography at the time – I felt quite small.
By the end of the 1980s new influences were invading the professional scene. John Whitfield-King and others of his persuasion were creating a space for documentary approaches to wedding photography informed by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Elliott Erwitt. Areas of photographic practice such as illustrative and landscape were emerging and along with them was a recognition of art photography from the American scene by practitioners like Ansel Adams, Harry Callahan, Lee Friedlander, Arnold Newman et al. Black and white prints with Leica-esque full-frame black fuzzy borders became the emergent trend and prints became small and fine on white mount boards. Along with Paul Griggs, Jeff Moorfoot, Lyn Whitfield-King, Peter Adams and Robert Billington, I also was also one of this new guard.
Photographers began to present images from their own personal photographic exploration – subjects that excited and invigorated their practice. These were photographs made by photographers – for photographers. The judges were excited by this work as well and awards were made that celebrated inspirational photography. Each year new work became more and more detached from the previous client-based assessment, and the new paradigm became the engine room for photographers to experiment and push ideas about what professional photography could be and also what clients may want. All this change was not without its detractors. The photo press and newsletters published the laments by some about the loss of industry and the self-indulgence of those engaged in it.
Despite this, professional photographers did embrace the awards process with such enthusiasm that larger entries necessitated extra judging rooms, days of judging and an army of judges and event team volunteers. Early in my chairmanship I undertook a national judge training program with the intension of filling the judging ranks with new judges, and in particular, evening up the gender balance of such panels. The term ‘judge training’ implies some kind of conditioning process where the participant is shown how to spot and reward certain standards. This was not the route that I chose. My philosophy was related to the recognition that all candidates start with a significant understanding of photography and that what they needed was to (1) understand the APPA judging system of team-based scoring and debates, (2) come to know and practice discussion and debate techniques, and (3) grow through the process accepting it as not only one which is about making judgements, but also its educative nature for the judge and the entrant alike.
In time we achieved much of what we set out to do. The judging team became more representative of membership – gender balanced, younger, from the regions as well as the city. APPA as a system during my time as chair cautiously welcomed-in digital output, imaging and image enhancement – something we take for granted now but an area of significant consternation in the mid 1990s. Not to mention each year’s crop of award winners that are celebrated in the prestigious form of the Awards Book. Additionally we should not forget that the APPAs were originally, and still are an accreditation system to recognise and reward the professional photography skills of AIPP members through the awarding of APPA Associate, Master and Grand Master honours. At one time you could count the number of APPA Masters on the fingers of two hands – they were a rare-breed indeed. Now the AIPP is replete with masters and Grand Masters may need more than two hands to count. In my opinion what it takes to be a Master is no less now than it was 20 years ago – it’s just that the general standard of professional photography as an innovative and expressive form of communication has grown exponentially.
Over time the APPAs have grown beyond our imaginings of the 1990s into the mega event it is today. States such as Queensland have their local awards judgings that have entry numbers exceeding the national entry only 20 years ago. Professional photography practitioners from this country have, for over ten years, won every major international award, had top ten listings in numerous disciplines and travel extensively as guest speakers and leaders of the industry internationally. Some of this acclaim comes from the spark that was set by the team that was APPAs in the 1990s. Most of the names and contribution that these people made have now gone. I think of David Puddefoot, Mike Woods, Ian Hawthorne, the ‘godfather’ Ian McKenzie, Malcolm Mathieson, Jeff Moorfoot, Ruby Spowart, Victoria Cooper and the current Chair David Paterson. We owe these individuals and a host of other committee members of that era including Paul Griggs, Robyn Hills, William Long, Ian Poole, for the foundation that they helped make so that APPA, and the state events could be what they are today.
It has been some time since I have judged at an APPA style event. As I sat on the judging panel I reflected on the history that has brought us to this moment. It felt good – and I was able to contribute to great discussion about some amazing imagery. Photographers have embraced the theory and aesthetics of their art and justify it through the most interesting and informative processes.
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Doug Spowart
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Bourdieu, P 1996, The Rules of Art: Genesis and Structure of the Literary Field, Stanford University Press.
DIGGERS BEACH DOING REFERENCING VERIFICATION
Cross-checking references to ensure that they are current and hyperlinked in the ePrint (online version) of my PhD ‘thesis’ took most of the day. Books and print journals are marvellous things in that they exist in a physical world—not so URLs. They move, are deleted, lost and are sometimes hidden in the ‘member access’ areas of online journal content management agencies.
Anyway, that’s done now …
OTHER PhD topics on this blog include:
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2012/04/01/easter-wooli-study-and-research-centre/
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2011/10/10/1-october-picking-up-some-thesis-help/
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2011/07/01/1-july-diggers-rest-for-lunch/
https://wotwedid.wordpress.com/2012/03/31/march-1-the-day-the-examiners-report-arrived/
CHARLIE SNOOK: HIS LIKENESS RETURNS AS A PHOTO
Charlie Snook + portrait by Doug Spowart
I first met Charlie Snook in 1977 when he and I were among the guest lecturer team for the Binna Burra Photo School in Lamington National Park near the Gold Coast. The weeklong event was an inspirational live-in experience for keen photographers. Day and night workshop sessions were augmented by bushwalk forays into the surrounding National Park. Darkrooms for black and white processing and even colour work were set up to provide a complete experience of ‘learn and do’ in just about everything photographic.
Other members of the lecture team included Rob Heyman, Rob Bannerman, Alec Fraser (recently departed for the big darkroom in the sky), Ansett photographer Gary Lewis and of course Tony Groom traveller and photographer the son of the founder Arthur Groom. Someone was always up to something—whether it was photography, experiencing nature or telling tall stories of travel or life or just plain joking around. Over time great photographers like Steve Parish presented workshops and added to the yearly event’s reputation.
Charlie and I struck up a friendship that connected us with the love of photography and the natural environment. Apart from the annual Photo School adventures that included the Coomera Crevice, the Shipstern decent and the Ballanjui Falls abseil, Charlie and I, assisted by his two son’s-in-law canoed the Mann and Clarence Rivers from Nymboida to Jackadgery. Later when my mother and I began of offer photo tours around Australia as part of our Imagery Gallery business activities Charlie became a regular traveller.
Charlie and me on the river Photo courtesy of Lesley Wall (Charlies Granddaughter)
In 1987 photographer Maris Rusis and I made a 10”x8” photographer’s journey along the east coast of Australia. We spent some time with Charlie helping to fix plasterboard panels to the ceiling of a house he was building at Minnie Waters near Grafton. A plumber by trade Charlie had worked in a variety of amazing projects including The Blue Cow tunnel in the Snowy Mountains, massive holiday resorts in Yamba and as a volunteer for the Catholic Church missions in the islands of the Pacific building community infrastructure.
In July 2011 Vicky and I visited Charlie and I made a portrait of him in front of his photo gallery. He stood proudly before his cherished image by Frank Hurley of the ship the Endurance trapped in ice in Antarctica, images from his travels and of family and friends.
Today we revisited Charlie to return his image as a black and white print—he was chuffed!!
Cheers Charlie.
POST SCRIPT: Charlie passed away peacefully in Grafton last Saturday, August 10, 2013. He will be sadly missed but his enthusiasm for photography, wilderness and Minnie Waters lives on with those who remember him.
EASTER @ The Wooli Study and Research Centre
Easter holidays, (if you can call time working on a PhD ‘holidays’), and we are at the beach at Wooli. While Vicky slogs her way thru Haraway, Latour and the non/more than-human I’m preparing the digital files for the electronic version of my thesis. Sometimes I just feel in-the-moment so much that a camera nearby gets in the act – it compels me to photograph!
An auto-portrait – A montage of montages
SEE EXAMPLES OF WOOLI STUDY AND RESEARCH OUTPUTS Here…
http://www.cooperandspowart.com.au/2_PLACES/WOOLIflipBOOKS/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IupUzMv9Js0 DIGGERS BEACH
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yk4vnbzTqOU&feature=channel WOOLI PINHOLE VIDEO
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hldyc_p__g&feature=relmfu WOOLI – WINDY DAY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qo1IiDDVcoc&feature=related WOOLI BEACH FUN
TIM MOSELY: An Eskimo climbing to a plateau
Make like an Eskimo – Invite
Tim Mosely is a PhD candidate at the Queensland College of Art. He is working through the research processes that students engage in to position their academic imprimatur on some aspect of human knowledge. Mosely over the years has developed a significant international practice in artists’ books, handmade paper and the book experience as one in which the tactile senses are evoked.
Tim Mosely – Make Like An Eskimo. POP Gallery Brisbane
Make like An Eskimo, at first appears as a mixed exhibition originating from many individual artists as each body of work teases out an idea, a gesture, a memory – blurred, or a theme. These are experiments, the research level is PhD so we do expect something that presents a challenge, or expresses a cathartic moment or even a line of questioning that leads … nowhere. This work does not leave this viewer wanting. The stones have been turned over and what has emerged are things that show Mosely’s Inuit traverse of the smooth white space where he has drawn on his intimate knowledge of printmaking medium, of his personal semiotics and his dreams.
Tim Mosely – ‘imagining mt giluwe‘ a multi-sheet linocut
One monumental piece explodes from the wall – imagining mt giluwe. It’s a multi-sheet linocut – dark and brooding with markings made by Mosely’s tools that resemble some kind of tribal scarification. The wild landscape overpowers the smooth white gallery wall and entices the viewer to move in close. There is a hidden map implied by the transecting vertical and horizontal lines of the individual printed sheets. Is it a map of the physical, the metaphysical or is it just mere tactile experience – for touching with the eyes? There is a movement through the monochrome surface and a red rectangle of paper overlays a part of the image – is this order implied over chaos? Colonial blood over Nature? Or could it hide a didactic code with its intention to perplex the viewer – or maybe it is there to just hide the fact that no code exists?
Tim Mosely – Make Like An Eskimo books
Another work, a series of books attempts to contain the big lino imagining mt giluwe. It is in fact, books made from pages of the large work. Once again there is a calling to explore and this time it is easier as the dividing and sectioning of the work into book form creates a path through the act of page turning. Some pages have been slashed and red paper shows through the jagged shapes implying similar questions as the red rectangle in the larger work. I am comfortable with this work, and perhaps Mosely is as well, as it is derivative of the language that he has employed in the past.
As I reflect on the experience of the POP Gallery I can confirm that Mosely is interrogating his practice, his experience of life and what it means to be an artist. What stands out is his haptic encounter in the making of his artworks and the profound need that he has for that vital energy to be infused into the art. And in that I think he is not alone – the materials seem to respond to his interaction. Here I am reminded of a discussion that Barbara Bolt has about a mode of thinking informed by Martin Heidegger’s techne and Paul Carter’s ‘material thinking’, where she states,
‘In the place of an instrumentalist understanding of our tools and material, this mode of thinking suggests that in the artistic process, objects have agency and it is through the establishing conjunctions with other contributing elements in the art that humans are co-responsible for letting art emerge.’ (Bolt 2007:1)
Tim Mosely in the exhibition Make Like An Eskimo
Mosely’s work and the materials in his work do emerge to present the viewer with communiqués that are enriched not only by what is embedded in them but also what they invoke in the mind of those who encounter them. We wish him well in the ascent to his academic plateau.
Doug Spowart
MARCH 1: THE DAY THE EXAMINER’S REPORT ARRIVED
Late morning on March 1st an email arrived from the Post Graduate School from James Cook University advising the examiners had responded to my PhD exegesis (thesis). I was told that only a few minor corrections, mainly typos were required. I found it hard to concentrate on work – 7 years of part-time study came down to a moment of quiet reflection out of the window beyond the computer screen.
I had an extended lunch in the park with Vicky and I lay back …
wotwedid 