Reviewer's Scrapbook: Leslie K. Brown

© Jesus Jimenez

LESLIE K. BROWN'S SCRAPBOOK

featuring work by:

Nan Brown
Pelle Cass
Livia Corona
Steve Davis
Angela Buenning Filo
Andy Freeberg
Laura Heyman
Jesus Jimenez
Adam Lampton
Alison Malone
Rania Matar
Eric Percher
Cara Phillips
Alexis Pike
Ellen Rennard
Suzanne Revy
Christina Seely
Dustin Shum
Charlie Simokaitis
Rebecca Sittler
Aline Smithson
Will Steacy
Barry Stone
Lex Thompson
Daniel Traub

Leslie K. Brown has served as Curator of the Photographic Resource Center at Boston University—a non-profit gallery, library, and resource center devoted to emerging and midcareer photographers—for seven years. During her tenure, she has curated and overseen over 40 exhibitions. Known for innovative and engaging exhibitions, the PRC's gallery program has garnered consistently positive regional and national press under her guidance.

Brown received her M.A. in Art History from the University of Texas at Austin and has worked at the Cheekwood Museum of Art and the Austin Museum of Art. She regularly serves as an invited guest juror and reviewer for exhibitions, critiques, and portfolio review events, such as Photolucida and Fotofest.

Besides maintaining the active PRC exhibition schedule, Brown has taught at the Art Institute of Boston and the Rhode Island School of Design. She is also currently curating shows for the DeCordova Museum of Art and the Provincetown Art Museum. A recent national proposal reviewer for the Society of Photographic Education, Brown is also on their publication committee. She is a native of Rochester, NY and the product of a Kodak family.

You can follow her blog at lesliekbrown.blogspot.com

awe & humiliation

" 'People stood overwhelmed with awe, as if in the presence of the super natural. The strange weird light exceeded in power only by the sun, rendered the square as light as midday… Men fell on their knees, groans were uttered at the sight, and many were dumb with amazement.' "
- the Wabash Plain Dealer, 1880

© Christina Seely

Congrats to CM2008 participants Harri Pälviranta & Christina Seely as they've both recently been published and interviewed about their projects for Plazm. Plazm's editor Josh Berger was one of our many Much Beloved and Appreciated Critical Mass Reviewers. Great, great, stuff here.

© Harri Pälviranta

"One learns to identify the situations that contain the seed for violence. One also learns suitable mechanisms for approaching people and photographing them—by trial and error, spending enough time out there. My practice was basic, almost dull, I just hung around the scene and, when I felt it was appropriate, I asked people who had been battered to take their photo, and made the pictures. There was nothing heroic in my practice, quite the opposite. I was often treated like a parasite. Sometimes I felt rather humiliated."

-Harri Pälviranta

show & tell: Mel Trittin covers Stephen Gill

© Mel Trittin, Arlington Million Race 2

© Stephen Gill, Odal Diary 3-1 25 Pounds to Win from the book A Series of Disappointments

Discarded betting slips at the horse track. And Mel's is with an iphone to boot...

p.s. Mel has a great blog too.

Reviewer's Scrapbook: Darius Himes

© Tony Fouhse

DARIUS HIMES'S SCRAPBOOK

featuring work by:

Thomas Alleman
Jorg Bruggemann
Nan Brown
Celine Clanet
Tony Fouhse
Amanda Friedman
Dave Jordano
Graham Miller
Mary Parisi
Cara Phillips
Harri Pälviranta
Ellen Rennard
Johan Rosenmuthe
Christina Seely
Nicolas Silberfaden
Jonathan Smith
Jared Soares
Thomas Wik
Mi Zhou

Darius Himes's work as an editor, publisher and writer positions him on the front lines of the modern photography book movement. He is a passionate advocate for photography and books and is a much sought-after lecturer on the topic. He is frequently invited to attend portfolio review events including Review Santa Fe, photoLucida in Portland, and FotoFest in Houston.

Darius is one of the founders of Radius Books, a non-profit company dedicated to the visual arts, and his professional experience ranges from editor (photo-eye Booklist and Radius Books) to writer (Bookforum, Blind Spot, FOAM, BOMB, PDN, and American Photo) to occasional professor of photography. He also actively pursues his own photographic image making.

show & tell: Erik Benjamins covers Jeff Wall

© Jeff Wall

© Erik Benjamins

cover songs or battle photos?

© Helen Levitt

© Henri Cartier-Bresson

Count me among those who've long admired the series of "battle photos" over on Amy Stein's blog. Blake Andrews and Ellen Rennard were kind enough to send these images in for comparison... or perhaps conflict. Thanks Blake. Thanks Ellen.

© Michal Chelbin

© Robert Frank

© Andrew Lutz

© Zoe Strauss

© Douglas Kent Hall

© Andrew Bush

show & tell: Walker Pickering covers the Death of Marat

© Walker Pickering, Sleep, 2008

© Jacques-Louis David, The Death of Marat, 1793

cover songs: Stuart Levy covers Gary Winogrand

© Stuart Allen Levy, 2008

© Garry Winogrand

OUR 2008 CRITICAL MASS BOOK AWARD WINNERS!

Photolucida is proud to announce our Critical Mass 2008 Book Award Winners:

CELINE CLANET


ANDY FREEBERG

PRIYA KAMBLI

Congratulations to our winners, our Finalists, our Reviewers, and every single one of our participants. Remember, once these books are produced, they'll go out to each and every person involved with Critical Mass 2008.

Reviewer's Scrapbooks: Christopher Rauschenberg

© Beth Nakamura

I hope I don't sound like a broken record, but again, our ultimate goal with Critical Mass is the process, not just the results. Critical Mass is simply about getting lots of good people to look at lots of good work. While the results of the voting indicate the common ground among our 200+ Reviewers, perhaps the most interesting area to examine are the individual preferences of these Reviewers. What's in that folder of images they saved on their computer desktop? What are the individual pictures that grabbed them enough to save as they made their way through 1800 pictures? What do these "Reviewer's Scrapbooks" look like?

Andy Adams, in the form of a month-long feature on Flak photo, was kind enough to be our first "scrapbooker." Now that his feature has run its course, I'll start sharing the others that have come in.

CHRISTOPHER RAUSCHENBERG'S SCRAPBOOK

featuring work by:

Karen Barto
Matthew Baum
Meg Birnbaum
Jörg Brüggemann
David Wilson Burnham
Diane Bush
Tom Chambers
Céline Clanet
Aaron Cohen
Geoffrey Ellis
Christopher Farber
Andy Freeberg
Amanda Friedman
Jessica Hines
John Hirsch
Sian Kennedy
Robert Knight
Richard Laugharn
Pablo lopez luz
Rita Maas
Audra Melton
Graham Miller
Beth Nakamura
Louie Palu
Alexis Pike
Suzanne Revy
Keith Sharp
Dustin Shum
Rebecca Sittler
Bethany Souza
Rylan Steele
Lex Thompson
Kurt Tong
Lori Waselchuk
Scott Whittle

Christopher Rauschenberg is a photographer who has had 77 solo shows in six countries. He is a co-founder and past president of Photolucida. He is a co-founder and co-director of Blue Sky Gallery where he has co-curated and co-produced over 600 solo exhibitions and 45 group shows and has edited and produced over 50 art and photography publications. He is a member and co-founder of the Nine Gallery and is the founder of the Portland Grid Project. He has done portfolio reviews at every Houston FotoFest since 1988 and at Photo Americas (Portland, Oregon), Rhubarb Rhubarb (Birmingham, England), Foto Arte (Brasilia), the Month of Photography in Bratislava and the Month of Photography in Montreal, as well as the informal reviews at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie in Arles, France.

cover songs: Cynthia Grieg covers Cartier-Bresson

© Cynthia Grieg

© Henri Cartier-Bresson

and you've all seen this one, right?

© Mike Stimpson

show & tell: Randall Kuhn covers Robert Frank

© Robert Frank /© Randall Kuhn

show & tell: Tamir Sher covers Joel Peter Witkin

© Tamir Sher, Lion on a Stand, 1996

© Joel Peter Witkin, Dog on a Pillow, 1994

Thanks Tamir. Alright folks, this is the last one I've got for the time being. I tell you what though, I'm not going to close this. If you come up with more, or find some out in the world, please share.

show & tell: Blake Andrews covers Joel Meyerowitz

© Joel Meyerowitz

© Blake Andrews

Blake writes: "Image 1 is from Joel Meyerowitz's Summer's Day. Image 2 is an image I shot last year in Eugene. I swear I wasn't aware of the Meyerowitz image when I shot this."

I believe you Blake. The funny thing is that when I posted them here, I couldn't remember which image belonged to who. The specifics of the greenery gave it away. That first one doesn't look like our typical Oregon.

Thanks much, Blake. Keep 'em coming! I'm glad to keep this up until we replace it with something else for Valentine's Day (hint, hint).

show & tell: Thodoris Tzalavras covers Anton Corbijn

© Thodoris Tzalavras, 1999

© Anton Corbijn, Gary Lucas, 1990

Tzalavras writes: I was actually unaware of Corbijn's picture at the time I did mine in 1999, even though I was a fan of his work in general. So when I came across this one in 2000 I had one of those jaw-dropping moments coupled with the automatic arrogance-driven youthful thought "Wow, does this mean I am now as good as he is?!?" Ten years later the answer is still "not quite yet..."

Thanks much Thodoris. Keep 'em coming!

on photography:

"It’s an incomplete, visual form of muttering, and it’s perfect in that sense."
-Ron Jude

- yet another great interview of much value for the emerging photo crowd over on Michael Werner's Two Way Lens.

show & tell: Daniel Schmeichler covers Walker Evans

© Daniel Ernesto Schmeichler, Brooklyn Bridge. 2006

Walker Evans. (American, 1903-1975). Brooklyn Bridge, New York. 1929.

Great. Thanks, Daniel.

Keep 'em coming!

And on a side note, I'll be seeing Daniel, and whoever else stops by and introduces themselves, at the Foto Revu Portfolio Review at PCNW this weekend.

show & tell: Kyle Ford covers Clifford Ross

©Kyle Ford, Expedition Everest, Disney's Animal Kingdom, 2008

© Clifford Ross, Mountain IV, 2005

Yes! Thanks Kyle. Keep 'em coming.