Drought and environmental issues are major topics of debate
in the Australian cultural arena at the moment. A collective
of photographers – “Many Australian Photographers Group”
(MAP Group) are undertaking a documentation project on
a scale similar to that undertaken by the Farm Securities
Administration (FSA) during the Depression in the American
mid-west.
The project is a non profitinitiative and at this stage
involves about 80established and emerging photographers.
The group is interested in finding sponsors to further
develop the project.
September 28, 2007
Beyond Reasonable Drought
September 27, 2007
Focus On : Peter Brew-Bevan: Shoot
This splendid collection of over 40 celebrity portraits by Australian photographer Peter Brew-Bevan would make the perfect gift for those people who have everything. It is a lavishly printed large format coffee table collection. Each portrait is accompanied by the stories of their creation, as concepted and recorded in Brew-Bevan’s personal working journals. It includes quirky design and style options such as including facsimile journal pages for each major portrait in Brew-Bevan’s handwriting.
Portrait sitters include:
- Debbie Harry
Akira Isogawa- Abbie Cornish
- Holly Hunter
George Gregan- Hugo Weaving
Rachel Griffiths- Ashton Kutcher
- Delta Goodrem
- Jamie Oliver
Susie Porter- Venus & Serena Williams
- Missy Higgins & John Butler.
Brew-Bevan was born in Adelaide, South Australia in 1969 and trained as an artist. He discovered photography while at art school and subsequently became a highly sought after editorial photography. His portraits have been collected by the National Portrait Gallery in Canberra.
September 21, 2007
Write it down people before you forget…
APCS PHOTOGRAPHY MARKET
SUNDAY 14 OCTOBER 2007
The Camberwell Centre
340 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria
It’s on again! Mark your calendars now because it won’t be long before the biannual Australian Photographic Collectors’ Society Photography Market.
The upcoming event marks the 20th Birthday of the markets and TPI has a feeling that all the vendors will be celebrating with some super bargains. The market has stalls covering all things photographic from camera’s, consumables, accessories, valuation services and of course books, books, books!
We will have new and used monographs, technical, digital and alternative processing books. As usual, we will also have some great sale boxes containing various hidden treasures…
See you all there!
September 18, 2007
Time will tell…
We have weighed in recently on the various changes afoot in the book trade as regular readers of this blog would know. In the interests of balancing our biases – probably not that necessary given that we encompass two of the areas most affected by the rapid uptake of Web 2.0 namely PHOTOGRAPHY and BOOKS – here’s the other side of story…As specialist independent booksellers currently maintaining a shopfront in a major retail shopping precinct, we consider ourselves reasonably in touch with the state of play in the hugely popular Australian sport of recreational shopping. It is quite literally easy to see how things are going simply by sticking our little beaks out the front door watching the punters on the street.
To our minds, the trends in retail spending habits have as much to do with a fundamental change in values as they do with competition and globalisation. People seem to be a bit more careful where they waste their money these days. There’s lots of looking, touching and “maybe later” going on instead of the ‘buy now, worry later’ impulse shopping that we remember so fondly from last century.
We try and achieve a balance between servicing our local, national and international customers via our website while maintaining an expansive collection of photography books that will suit casual browsers as well as photography enthusiasts. This approach is based more on staying afloat than expanding our global marketshare and we certainly appreciate being able to choose titles from the widest possible selection!
Stephen Matchett writing for the Weekend Australian has pinpointed another trend likely to effect the range of books that distributors and retailers carry. He argues that not only will the option of publishing material online become increasingly attractive to authors it will also translate into the production of and sale of books. TPI are glad to know that bibliophiles will still get their fix in the future…
September 14, 2007
The End is Nigh…of 2007 that is!
Christmas is just around the corner and now is the time to order those hard to get gifts and to shop for friends and relatives who live overseas.
TPI have already received some 2008 calendars and diaries. We expect deliveries to continue until November. The range of calendars in store now includes:
- animals
- landscapes
- art & artists
- pin-ups
- Australian photography.
We are also taking orders now for Magnum Magnum a large format hardcover compilation from the prestigous photo agency. Due for release in December 2007, this landmark publication celebrates 60 years of the vision, imagination and brilliance of Magnum Photos. Features over 400 photographs by 69 of the greatest names in photography from Henri Cartier Bresson, Robert Capa, Eve Arnold to Martin Parr, Alec Soth and Donovan Wylie.
September 10, 2007
Exhibition Highlight : Photo Portfolio I & II
Where: Centre for Contemporary Photography – 404 George Street Fitzroy 3065
When: 7 September – 27 October
What: Collaborative presentation by CCP and Melbourne International Arts Festival: Two Collections of Photographic Works by World Renowned Artists
CCP and the Melbourne International Arts Festival proudly present Merce Cunningham and Photo Portfolio I & II. The Cunningham exhibit celebrates his commitment to dance and visual arts while the Portfolio exhibitions include work by Gregory Crewdson, Chuck Close, William Eggleston, Candida Hofer and Cindy Sherman.
Also on show are the finalists from the 6th Leica CCP Documentary Photography Award which is a biennial showcase of contemporary Australian documentary photography. It includes two works by the winner – Stephen Dupont – as well as work by Jesse Marlow and Doug Spowart + Victoria Cooper.
September 7, 2007
Book Review : Jason Kimberley – Antartica: A Different Adventure
Fun in the sun of a different kind takes place in Jason Kimberley’s lastest offering Antartica : A Different Adventure. In 2005, Jason Kimberley spent 16 days in Antarctica with travelling companions Jason Veale and Peter Hillary. Kimberley’s powerful photographs and engaging stories provide a riveting account of the harsh realities of that expedition.
Part travelogue and part coffee table, Antartica: A Different Adventure would suit readers interested in sharing the physical and emotional journey behind the pictures. For collectors of Australian photography, it also makes a great contemporary companion piece to Frank Hurley’s records of his expedition to Antartica with Ernest Shackleton at the beginning of last century.
Jason Kimberley has previously published Australia Exposed (2003), a vibrant record of 12 months spent travelling around Australia. He has extensive experience photographing adventure expeditions and recently became a member of Explorers Club – New York.
September 3, 2007
Plastic Porn : Renato Grome – Dollypop
Who: Renato Grome
What: Dollypop
Where: Byron McMahon Gallery in Redfern NSW until 22 September & Monash Gallery of Art in Wheelers Hill VIC until 30 September
Renato Grome’s Dollypop solo exhibition is showing simultaneously in Sydney, Melbourne and Rome. It has excited a bit of media interest due to its titillating subject matter – namely Ken and Barbie dolls arranged in a variety of sexual positions.
The images from the show that TPI have seen online are candy coloured, soft focus and appear to have been lit in a style reminiscent of stage shows – or one might assume – spot lit strip clubs. What seems to have excited so much interest is that
the dolls are barely discernable as dolls.
TPI have not seen the actual prints but it seems that close inspection is necessary in order to unpack the subject matter. Grome stated in the Sydney Morning Herald that the show was inspired by playing with Barbie dolls on a train with his daughter about 17 years ago. He was interested in the contrast between the extreme anatomical detail of the dolls and their lack of genitalia.
TPI thinks that the images could be read as reflecting the plasticity of pornography and the artificality of the sexual behaviours it depicts. But we also have to ask do we really need more pornart/artporn?
Perhaps we are a little bit jaded, however this work does not seem to offer anything other than the pleasantly pretty, momentary site gag of “is that real, no - it’s a doll”. We certainly do not get a sense from the images that we have seen thus far that Gromes is adding a critical voice to cultural debates about the representation of women, the mainstream fetishisation ofporn sexuality or the schooling of children – through commercial products – into a particular form of adult mores.
TPI are well aware that our perspective is not a popular one. Sexually explicit imagery is so pervasive in every form of media and art that it does not seem to raise eyebrows amongst men or women. Most of this imagery seems to grind relentlessly on, raising the shock & awe bar on what came before in a bid to stay current.
- What we all must ask ourselves is how does this cultural preoccupation serve us?
- What impact does pornography and the mainstreaming of porn aesthetics have on how we learn to be men and women, and on how we learn to relate to each other?
- Why is that social awareness can cause a backlash against ‘fast’ food but society seems unwilling to even suggest that there may be a problem with ‘fast’ sex – because surely porn has as little to do with sexual relationships between consenting adults, as chain store hamburgers have to do with home cooking?
Let us know what you think!
