12th Pollux Awards

I received notification recently that the six image I had submitted for the 12th Pollux Awards had received Honorable Mention in the Documentary and Reportage Series category. All images were from my Pasadena Police Department Series, the juror was Philip Brookman, consulting curator of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C..

The images are displayed on line now at: https://www.thegalaawards.com/pollux-non-pro-2

I will also be participating in the Pollux Awards Exhibition in Barcelona, Spain in May of 2019. The exhibition will either be held at Gallery Valid Foto or Space Nau Bostik during the first two weeks of the month.

Old Reviews of my Santa Anita book ....

In 1991 I published my first book, Santa Anita. I stumbled on to photographing at the racetrack while searching for a place to photograph here in California with images like I found on the streets of New York and Chicago. You can find Street Photography in California, even Los Angeles now, but it is different because California is so spread out and everyone drives everywhere. The track has it all, people from all walks of life, right there in one place, and easy to move about them photographing, just like being in New York. I continue to photograph at Santa Anita, probably more as a personal retreat than actually working on a new project but that is fine, the process is what matters when photographing. Plus I have been able to photograph two Triple Crown winning horses the last few years by continuing to go out. Anyways in case you are wondering why I am writing a post about a project from 27 years ago today, its because I just was doing a Google Search on myself and came across a couple old reviews of the book which I don’t think I have shared before. Pretty accurate in my mind so I wanted to put do a post on them and thought it best to provide an introduction why I was.

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The Reviews

Laura Rose of Equine Images Magazine wrote: "In his book Santa Anita, photographer William Karl Valentine captures the pulse of this California racetrack with his camera, The images, chosen from four years' worth of photographs, include everything your eye may pick up during a day at the track - from a classic stretch drive to a refreshing horse bath, from a grandstand littered with people and paper to a lost child in the safe grip of a track security officer." "But the photographs of the people of the track tell just as much of the story, and Valentine has captured them not as snapshot figures, but as friends...it's evident that not only does Valentine know the track, it knows him."

Mark Ratzky of the Daily Racing Form wrote: ""Santa Anita" is a must-see for any fan of this racetrack. The book contains 80 black and white pictures of just about every aspect of an afternoon at the foot of the beautiful San Gabriels, and really manages to capture a day at the races."

New York Galleries - October 2017

I was in New York last month to show my work and to photograph.  I also took some time to hit a few galleries in Chelsea, here is what I found:

Laurence Miller Gallery  521 West 26th Street, Fifth Floor, NYC

I loved the vintage work they had up (new exhibitions up now), some amazing images I had never seen before from the masters.  W. Eugene Smith's image from the 1941 World Series at Yankee Stadium really got my attention.  I have photographed a lot of baseball so I am always interested in how other photographers, especially a master, choose to document the sport.  I also thought it was interesting this image was taken just before the start of WWII.  Robert Frank's prints were another favorite.  I am very familiar with the work but the style of printing for these prints was interesting, gave me more insight of him as a photographer.  I also appreciated the photographic technique and craftsmanship of Erica Deeman’s prints. Her work has received a lot of attention recently.  The gallery staff knows the medium well, I enjoyed talking with them.

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Robert Mann Gallery   525 West 26th Street, NYC

What a cool space and I loved Julie Blackmon’s photographs.  Her large prints are amazing, best way to experience her images, they allow you to see all the details.  I especially like her new work, "Trapped" & "Holiday", and I really appreciate her humor.  I also picked up a copy of Julie's book, great addition to the library.  Gallery staff at Mann has energy and you can tell they love what they do.  Can't wait to visit again.

 https://www.instagram.com/julie_blackmon/

http://www.julieblackmon.com/   

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Robert Mann Gallery

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Holiday - Julie Blackmon

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Trapped - Julie Blackmon

Friedman Benda Gallery   525 West 26th Street, 1st Floor, NYC

I went to the opening of Misha Kahn's Midden Heap by accident while looking for Kasher Gallery's opening and am thankful I did.  Friedman Benda describes Kahn's exhibition this way: 

By allowing the illogical and the irreverent to take over his creative process, Kahn transforms a white-walled gallery space into a delightfully inventive alternate reality. “Each piece is part of a landscape I imagine as the earth gets swallowed by the sea,” he says. “No single object has any specific meaning. It’s all part of a feeling.”

I have no idea what it was but it was so cool, and describing it as a "feeling" is accurate, especially during the action of a New York opening.  This exhibition runs through December 16, 2017, if you're in NYC it is worth experiencing. 

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Steven Kasher Gallery   525 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, NYC

I enjoyed Jill Freedman’s work. The prints were obviously vintage based on their condition and the craftsmanship; I always like opportunities to see vintage prints because I can learn so much more about the photographer.  Debi Cornwall's work definitely had merit too.

Benrubi Gallery

521 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor, NYC

I thought Matthew Pillsbury’s images were very interesting, unique, and well crafted.  Definitely best to view prints because the images really work at that scale.  I don't know if this will make sense, but for me, when I looked at these images for a few moments, their layers showed themselves and a deeper meaning came through.  I see how it would be possible to move through the gallery quickly and think you saw these images but you really wouldn't have.

Strand Books   828 Broadway, NYC

Okay not a Gallery, and in a different part of the city, but this book store is amazing and worth talking about.  I picked up a copy of Meryl Meisler’s book ‘A Tale of Two Cities: Disco Era Bushwick’.  It's not the tightest edit or greatest printing of a book I have ever seen but I just liked a lot of her images, found it to be an interesting documentation of the New York during that era.  Could have filled my suitcase with everything I found on their racks.

MoPA - Sebastiao Salgado exhibition

The Sebastião Salgado "Genesis" exhibition at MoPA in San Diego is wrapping up this weekend, luckily I was able to get to see it earlier this month.  I am a huge fan of MoPA, and a member.  Its a great space, always worth the trek south, and this was another solid exhibition.

I had seen silver prints from Sebastião Salgado's Workers series before and was impressed.   I am pretty sure this is the first time I have seen prints from the Genesis series.  All the prints at MoPA were digital prints either from original digital files or scanned negatives.  The massive scale is impressive and appropriate for the subject matter.  The quality of most of the prints were very good.  I think MoPA did an outstanding job getting so much work up without it feeling crowded.  

The The International Center of Photography was the first venue in the United States to host this exhibition in 2014 which was curated by Lélia Wanick Salgado.  The ICP described the exhibition this way:  "Genesis is the third long-term series on global issues by world-renowned photographer Sebastião Salgado (born Brazil, 1944), following Workers(1993) and Migrations (2000). The result of an eight-year worldwide survey, the exhibition draws together more than 200 spectacular black and white photographs of wildlife, landscapes, seascapes, and indigenous peoples—raising public awareness about the pressing issues of environment and climate change."   A powerful body of work, relevant to today, and well worth the view.

The Billboard Creative 2016 - Los Angeles

In December 2016 I had an image included in a very unique exhibition here in Los Angeles, The Billboard Creative.  The exhibition takes unsold billboard spaces and features one artist, and one of their works, on each billboard for a month in December.  My billboard was on Wilshire Boulevard and Dunsmuir Avenue just east of LACMA.  

I am always happy to have my work seen, but I especially happy that Mona Kuhn included this image in the group of 45 selected artworks for the 2016 Billboard Creative.  I love the concept of putting artwork on billboards in a place like Los Angeles which is such a car centered society.  I also felt this was the perfect image for the venue and I get excited to think of the thousands of people who had a chance to see one of my most important photographs.

I also love the fact this image was displayed over a Thai Massage parlor!

HAFNY.org also used my image as the lead image to their feature on the project.

http://www.thebillboardcreative.com/gallery-1/#2016-show2

http://hafny.org/blog/2016/12/the-billboard-creative-turns-los-angeles-empty-ad-space-into-public-art

2017 Los Angeles Exhibitions - Bowers & Autry

This past year the Autry Museum in Los Angeles and the Bowers Museum in Santa Ana both had exhibitions of some amazing photographs by the masters.  Bowers had its final exhibition in a series on Edward Weston's work and the Autry highlighted Group f/64 and Richard Misrach's photographs from the Bank of America collection.  I believe it so important to see prints by the masters of our craft for a photographer to really have the understanding of what a good print looks like.  I remember early in my career getting to see, and hold, a Weston pepper print and learning so much from that experience.  Another important exhibition I saw was SFMOMA commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ansel Adams where they exhibited 100 of his prints curated by John Szarkowski.  What I enjoyed most in that exhibition was seeing prints of the same image that were printed at different times in Ansel's career.  It really highlighted how he honed his craft as a master printer.

My only criticism of these two exhibitions was the lighting in the galleries at both venues.  At the Autry it was too dim and you couldn't see print detail.  I especially remember two split toned images by Misrach which looked they were beautiful but there wasn't enough light on them to show the green and purple tones.  The lighting at Bowers was inconsistent, one image would be lit perfectly then the next would have fall off that prevented the viewer from seeing the full beauty of the image.

As a side note, here are some favorite works I saw at the Autry on my last visit (I am Maynard Dixon) :

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Billy Schenck

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Billy Schenck

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James Doolin

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Maynard Dixon

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Maynard Dixon

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Frederic Remington

 

Street Photography

© 2017 WILLIAM KARL VALENTINE "Untitled"  CHI-DSC 58974-20-17

I follow Street Photography International on Instagram, I follow numerous photography related accounts.  Today they posted a posed portrait, I think it was a self portrait, of a woman's reflection in a rain drop covered window.  It was a fine image, it got tons of "Likes" and emoji's,  but it was not "Street Photography".  I commented on the image, questioning if it was "Street Photography" and the photographer replied that it was because there was a street in the reflection... I chose not to continue my point there because I did not want a reply war on Instagram, opting to share my opinions here on my blog instead.

Doing a quick on line search this is one of the first definitions of Street Photography that I found: Street photography is a type of documentary photography that features subjects in candid situations within public places such as streets, parks, beaches, malls, political conventions and other settings.  The basic concepts are the images are candid ( usually not posed ) and they document something.  Yes I know every photograph documents something by the nature of the medium , but in this case I think good "Street Photography" documents the moment and has layers with deeper meaning created by the interaction of the different elements within the image.  I am a Documentary Photographer, some of my images are "Street Photography" other images are just documentary in nature.  Image quality is more important than a label.

I have seen a fair number of other images lately that people try to label as "Street Photography" and the images just are not, they are not candid nor documentary, and often they are not good.  I think some people like the concept of Street Photography and adopt the label without knowing what is and what isn't Street Photography. 

Above is one of my images from Chicago a couple weeks ago.  I think this is a decent example of "Street Photography".  I made the photograph while actually walking down the street, it's candid, it documents how these people looked on this date, plus the way the little girl is looking at the man begging while her mother is looking away adds that deeper layer of value for the viewer.

For those wanting a better understanding of Street Photography look for "Streetwise" published by Modernbook in 2010 which accompanied a MOPA exhibition on Street Photography curated by Deborah Klochko, its is a good definition of Street Photography.  Garry Winogrand, Robert Frank, Danny Lyon, Bruce Davidson, and Lee Friedlander are Street Photography legends, look up their images.   I do think is worth noting though, that I have seen a video interview of Winogrand where he ripped the term "Street Photography" and wanted nothing to do with it.  That's why I will stick with the label "Documentary Photographer" and leave it at that.

Artsy.net

I got a request this past week from Artsy.net asking me to share a link to the their website, specifically their feature page on Robert Frank.  I wasn't too familiar with Artsy so I looked in to them first, they are basically a clearing house for art on the internet, collecting information from all over and having it in one place. They are definitely worth checking out and I even added their mobile app to my phone.  Below is the link to their Robert Frank page and I have their main page in my Links page now as well.

https://www.artsy.net/robert-frank/

Slash Exhibit not worth the trip

So I decided to endure afternoon traffic in Los Angeles to go see this exhibition today.  I loved the concept of the pop-up exhibition and thought the venue had potential. 

Slash exhibition

So this is it...  Really?

The building is hip, I would say it was cool but it doesn't have air so it isn't - they were running fans to deal with the heat. The concept of the exhibition display is interesting how it hangs from the ceiling and you move through it.  Someone put a lot of time and effort in to that, plus they had the plastic holders for the magazines created for the exhibition.  I know this because they all had "Slash Exhibition" molded in to the top of them.  But the reality is this exhibition sucks.  I went there hoping to see the images from the magazine printed and displayed like a normal gallery, I thought I would see some of the magazines too, but I expected more.  All they did was hang a bunch of the magazines up so you could look at them. Big deal?  There is no lighting in the building so it hard to read most everything.  You have to deal with the harsh lighting from the front windows and the reflective properties of the plastic sleeves so good luck with seeing half the work.  Another thing is this is an exhibition about the punk era of the late 1970's,  the presentation is too clean and delicate, it doesn't fit.  Someone would have done better to spray paint the walls and glue copies of the magazine over them.  The presentation is more befitting modern images where the process of actually walking through them was an important component of the exhibition.  I looked at the catalogue while I was there, $50 for basically a bunch of reprints of the original magazine but again they are scaled down in size and hard to read and see detail. 

It just seems like someone was looking to make a quick buck with this rebirth by quickly repackaging the magazine issues in a catalogue and hanging some old copies from the ceiling.  If someone would have taken the time to go through old negatives and make some good scans then reproduce the text this exhibition, and catalogue, could have been pretty amazing. As it is I would have gotten way more out of this if someone would have just scanned the original magazines and put them on line so I could read them when I had the time.

Slash Article - Exhibition through August 19th

I read Caroline A. Miranda's article in the LA Times about the punker magazine Slash on Thursday and was excited to see there is a pop-up exhibition going on highlighting the magazine, the scene, and Melanie Nissen's photographs.  It is showing at 4859 Fountain Avenue in Hollywood and is open Monday - Friday from noon to 5:00pm.  Limited hours but I am hoping to make it up there this week and will give a review after.  But since it is up for such a limited time I wanted to make a post about it now.  I am excited that we are starting to see more photographs from the 1980's getting visibility.  The link to Caroline's article is below, great read.

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/arts/miranda/

Polly Gaillard's Blog & Website

While looking at A New History of Photography's Facebook group page today I saw a post by Polly Gaillard announcing her latest blog post "When the House is Burning Down; Photography and Memory.  I checked it out and thought it was a great read plus there is a lot of other good content on her site, worth the visit.