One of My Favorite Photos from SPE

Paulina Dominguez and Jacinda Russell (image via).

Unfortunately, the Postcard Collective/Candle Heist group shots and the recreation of Nate Larson's wedding guest list were not posted on the link above.

2014 National Society for Photographic Education Conference

The illustrated version (someday when there is more time, these posts will feature elaborate descriptions):

Frantically printing an 8.5" x 11" portfolio the night before the conference.

Frenzied assembly of panel discussion powerpoint at every available moment (ATL airport).

Nerve racking minutes before the panel discussion began.

James writing my introduction while Camden looks on (five minutes before).

James's introduction that I snagged afterwards and photographed in the hotel room.

Taking a photograph of James and me while Camden introduces the Postcard Collective.

Sadly, my SPE partner in crime, Amelia Morris, was missing this year but was represented in the panel and on the above postcard.

[Pause...] No photographs represent the following:

• student portfolio reviews in which I was out of the room by 8:15 AM, speaking somewhat coherently at 9 in the morning (!!!)

• three professional portfolio reviews where I put those 8.5" x 11" prints to use (also out of the room before 9 AM speaking less lucidly than the previous morning)

• Joan Fontcuberta's guest lecture on truthfulness and photography

• winning a raffle print after promising if my name is called, I would give the print to James (he now owns a photograph by Donna Ferrato)

• my horror after seeing a sign for hotdogs topped with mac and cheese and lump crab cake as a menu item

Student work from the photography department at MICA .

Paulina, James, and I photographing the candles that we systematically swiped in the name of Conceptual Art (and performance) from nearly every table at the dance party (photograph by Camden Hardy).

Sixteen candles before party goers came to our corner of the cavernous room and removed them to return to their own very dark tables.

SPE: where very little sleep is had by all (as usual falling on the weekend when we lose an hour because of Daylight Savings).

Destination: Baltimore

Purpose: Society for Photographic Education Panel Discussion

Photo courtesy of Camden Hardy.

If you are in town for the conference, come see James Luckett, Camden Hardy and me dissect the Postcard Collective including these two images from Kristin Reeves and Maria Daniela Quirós.

Killing Myself to Leave (as always)

Office artwork with last week's found wall clock box.

Surprise

Hello Society for Photographic Education website. I was looking up a conference detail for next week and forgot this was one of several variations of the SPE homepage this month. David C. Nolan strikes again.

"The Postman's Choice" on the Postcard Collective Blog

In an effort to keep the Postcard Collective Blog updated before our panel discussion at the Society for Photographic Education next month, I posted the story of this card here.

SPE Panel Discussion in March

It's official:

Note to self: acquire a recent head shot (avoid relying on vacation photographs).

Society for Photographic Education National Conference: Chicago

 Valuable information learned at this year's conference:

1) The Photobook: A History Volume 3 will be published next year! I am a big fan of volumes 1-2 as envious as they make me of Martin Parr's book collection. Who wouldn't love a publication that prints photographs of opened books like this:

Daido Moriyama, Bye Bye Photography, 1972

2) Speaking of Mr. Parr, he is an endearing lecturer (by far my favorite talk of the conference). He showed his undergraduate school installation of photographs displayed in a living room, discussed Bad Weather at length, and his infatuation with collecting political ephemera, Saddam Hussein watches (he owns 85) and Osama bin Laden paraphernalia. So Long Osama Blood Orange Soda was the biggest oddity. Throughout most of the lecture, I dreamed of where Martin Parr stores all his objects (what does his house look like? how does he organize them? does he have room for more?).

 Martin Parr from Parrworld: Objects and Postcards

He also stressed that he is photographing fictions not realities as he intentionally captured litter at its worst in the image below.

Martin Parr from The Last Resort, 1983-85

I immediately placed Autoportrait on my interlibrary loan list when returning. Ending his lecture standing under a photograph of his head superimposed on a muscle man's body was the perfect conclusion coming from a soft spoken Englishman who excused himself for "having a frog" in the middle of his lecture.

 

Martin Parr from Autoportrait

3) Garry Winogrand is on everyone's mind since his first retrospective in 25 years opened at SFMOMA. I tend to love the photographers who make/made work vastly different from mine and he is no exception. Cass Fey and Leslie Calmes delivered an informative lecture on his archive at the Center for Creative Photography. His contact sheets are labeled PD if they are posthumously developed. If a print is made from one of those thousands of undeveloped rolls of film he left after he died, it can never be sold or de-accessioned. It exists only in the CCP archives. Small facts about printing work posthumously that I had always wondered about.

Garry Winogrand's Women are Beautiful on view at the Art Institute

4) Why or why wasn't Kate Palmer Albers teaching the history of photography at University of Arizona when I was in graduate school? Her lecture Abundant Images and the Collective Sublime resonated with me on so many levels. She discussed one of my favorite contemporary photography installations:

Erik Kessels, printing every photograph uploaded onto Flickr in a 24 hour period (image via)

Kessels piece, Penelope Umbrico's millions of sunsets, Mark Klett and Byron Wolfe's 100 Setting Suns at the Grand Canyon, and Gerhard Richter's Atlas were her primary examples of artists establishing mass.

Penelope Umbrico, Suns from Sunsets from Flickr, 2006-ongoing

These artists obsessively mark time with photography. She also stressed that the "self-archive is rapidly gaining headway" as a viable form of art. Albers' talk validated my current interests in masses of objects and introduced me to new artists like Hasan Elahi who explore surveillance and tracking in a contemporary way.

5) Richard Misrach's keynote lecture reminded me that I have to watch Spike Lee's follow-up to When the Levees Broke - If God is Willing and Da Creek Don't Rise. I've refrained for a few years but after hearing Misrach discuss his latest photographic series, Petrochemical America, the time has come.

Richard Misrach, Untitled, February 14, 2012, 6:19 PM

Misrach is getting closer to making portraits of people as he zooms in on the faces of swimmers. He returned to the same hotel room where he photographed On the Beach (above) with a digital camera and telephoto lens. I don't know how I feel about those and am looking forward to seeing how they are received when he publishes them soon. I am so enamored with the vulnerable human surrounded by the sea (substitute me), I am not sure I want to know their identity.

6) SPE brought so many of my wonderful photo friends to Chicago some of which are pictured below.

 James Luckett, Laurie Blakeslee, and Amelia Morris

Adam Neese in the Empire Room

Mark A. Lee after winning the Richard Misrach raffle photograph

Sneaking an image of a famous photographer...

the back of Jerry Uelsmann's head.

Wishing I had a photograph of...

me talking to Richard Misrach about our meeting in 1996.

7) The biggest surprise I received will be featured in a post next week. I am not opposed to a sneak peek however:

Chris Toalson's A Long Overdue Artist's Book, 2011-2013

Midwest Society for Photographic Education Conference - Cincinnati

Day 1: Amelia Morris as Robert Frank's Elevator Girl at the Hilton Netherland.

Instagram view of downtown Cincinnati, the Ohio River, and Covington, Kentucky from Room 2417.

Prime location: Carnegie Visual and Performance Art Center opening exhibition with Corrinne LeNeave (Photo by Matt Compton)

After the opening at Mt. Adams Bar and Grill with Matt Compton, Corrinne LeNeave, and James Luckett (Lighting by Amelia Morris)

Day 2: Lecture with a couple microphone technical issues but other than that I survived in the giant Pavilion with infinite seating.

Edible clay at the Contemporary Art Center's Green Acres exhibition (it tasted chalky = no surprise)

Amelia striking a pose in Image Machine: Andy Warhol and Photography at the CAC.

Defunct clouds in the Andy Warhol exhibition at CAC (another fan was desperately needed)

Anthony Luensman's Taint at the Weston Art Gallery (above and two below). The Weston always receives an A+  for alternative modes of presentation. Luensman's exhibition included video portraits, objects illuminated by light installed in unusual locations, and photographs. I wish I had time to return and study his art more closely - too many openings that evening.

Amelia Morris and Allen Morris (A. Morris^2) at the Senate featuring gourmet street food as witnessed by the Lindsay Lohan hot dogs above.

Day 3: James and Eve at the Cincinnati Art Museum (in addition to me holding hands with fake humans and animals, James posing with a serial killer expression became a popular photographic trend throughout the conference)

Jim Dine's The Red Bandana at the Cincinnati Art Museum

The most amazing disclaimer that each of us had to sign before entering Doug and Mike Starn's The Gravity of Light at the Holy Cross Church at Mount Adams Monastery.

The illuminating arc had technical malfunctions when we first walked into the space with our hoodies securely fastened and UV glasses on.

View from the platform overlooking Gravity of Light.

Detail of the tape holding the moth/fly print together.

Those uneven surfaces I could have tripped on mentioned in the disclaimer.

The Starn Triplets: JR, Amelia, and James. For more photos of this installation, see this link from the Starn's website.

Before the drive back, Amelia and I stopped at Jungle Jim's International Market (my twice a year run to one of the best grocery stores in the US). I accidentally discovered something I was looking for in May 2010. There were two on the shelf and they had a thick coating of dust as if they had been on display since I first heard about it 2.5 years ago. Needless to say, they were both purchased - one for Hannah for cat sitting and the other to  see if it tastes like visiting the Spiral Jetty on a hot August day in the middle of the summer.