News
-
Austin Nelson
Edward Steichen
In an effort to study the myriad possibilities that natural lighting affords, Edward Steichen once photographed the same cup and saucer set over two thousand times. This and other exercises like it illustrate both Steichen’s personal discipline and his open-mindedness in regards to photography - discipline to remain focused on one subject for such an
-
Austin Nelson
A Conversation with I-Hsuen Chen
I-Hsuen Chen is a recent graduate of the MFA Photography program at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. I sat down with I-Hsuen over lunch for this conversation about his recent body of work, Nowhere in Taiwan. A photograph from this series was recently purchased by the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Austin Nelson: Your
-
Austin Nelson
Photography Exercise No. 1
I have developed a few exercises that I feel were very beneficial to my photography and to my understanding of the field. This is the first such exercise and I will post more in the coming weeks. For this exercise, pick a favorite photographer and pick five of their images that you really enjoy. Write
-
Austin Nelson
William Eggleston & The Advent of Color Fine Art Photography
There has been a lot of discussion of late of artists’ and collectors’ rights following the Christie’s auction in March wherein William Eggleston sold reprinted editions of 36 of his iconic photographs and raised $5,903,250 for his artistic trust. The photos were 60” by 44” instead of his usual smaller print size and they were
-
Austin Nelson
The Lives of Alfred Stieglitz
I thought it would be appropriate to begin this series of posts for The Camera Club with a brief piece on Alfred Stieglitz, one of The Camera Club's earliest and most influential members. In studying the fractal history of photography, we frequently encounter myriad claims of invention and hear seemingly endless debates over true versus
-
A.E. Benenson
Public Image III, Museums: Please Stop Hitting Yourselves
[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="720" caption="Ed Ruscha, The Los Angeles County Museum on Fire, 1968"][/caption] I think that a lot of the misunderstandings about "new media" stem from the misguided assumption that looking at images displayed on a computer is anything like looking at other kinds of images. Obviously, the images you see on your
-
A.E. Benenson
Public Image II: Back to the Future
In a museum someone steps between us and a painting to snap a photo. But it's not just that our view is momentarily blocked, our sight-line is constantly interrupted by something or other in crowded galleries. It's only with the sound of the shutter that we feel something more intangible and more disturbing has been
-
A.E. Benenson
Public Image
A theory: photography alone has the potential to turn the public art museum into a community space. What I mean is that photography, unlike any other medium featured in the art museum, is a field of action where the artist and the viewer can convene: within the museum, there are photographs that have been taken
-
A.E. Benenson
Seeing Nothing
Below are some early notes for an article I intended to write about the atomic explosion at Hiroshima whose radiation burnt a shadow of the city, at the moment of detonation, into various surfaces. Documentary photographs of the city after the explosion show the spectral imprint of a farm's picket fence on the scorched fields,