kodachrome ends. . .

The town of Parsons, Kansas, is — for the moment — the worldwide epicenter of color film photography. That is where Dwayne’s Photo, a small family business, is processing the last rolls of Kodachrome. A. G. Sulzberger is there and has filed this report. Eastman Kodak stopped making the film in 2009 and gave the last roll to Steve McCurry. He shot the last three frames of that roll in Parsons before handing it in to Dwayne’s. They are displayed below.

Frame 36

The last frame of the last roll of Kodachrome made by Eastman Kodak and given to Steve McCurry. He used it to shoot a cemetery in Parsons, Kansas, where Dwayne's Photo was processing the final batches of Kodachrome.

Frame 35

Frame 34

james casebere . . .

James Casebere is showing new photographs of constructed architectural models of houses. The work references his impressions of an area he happened upon during a road trip to upstate New York. Click here to see and read more about this artist's photographic illusions . . .

Installation view of James Casebere: House, Sean Kelly Gallery, 2010

James Casebere, Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #8, 2010

James Casebere, Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #1, 2009

James Casebere, Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #7, 2010

James Casebere, Landscape with Houses (Dutchess County, NY) #2, 2009

cameraless photography . . .

Click here to link to a video from the Victoria and Albert Museum in which Adam Fuss talks about his interest in making photograms such as you see here.

fabrication / illusion / deception . . .

Take a look at the exhibition "The City" by Lori Nix now on view at ClampArt. Then visit her website to see more of her fascinating photographs and read an interview in which she describes her process.

Lori Nix, Museum of Art 2005

Lori Nix, Laundromat 2008

Lori Nix, Vacuum Showroom 2006

Lori Nix, Majestic 2006

award-winning documentary photography . . .

Visit this website to view some wonderful contemporary documentary photography. Spend some time here reading about the Prix Pictet and looking at and reading about the work of these artists, some of whom we have seen in class this semester.

Taryn Simon, Nuclear Waste Encapsulation and Storage Facility, Cherenkov Radiation, Hanford Site, U.S. Department of Energy, Southeastern Washington State Submerged in a pool of water at Hanford Site are 1,936 stainless-steel nuclear-waste capsules containing cesium and strontium. Combined, they contain over 120 million curies of radioactivity. It is estimated to be the most curies under one roof in the United States. The blue glow is created by the Cherenkov Effect which describes the electromagnetic radiation emitted when a charged particle, giving off energy, moves faster than light through a transparent medium. The temperatures of the capsules are as high as 330 degrees Fahrenheit. The pool of water serves as a shield against radiation; a human standing one foot from an unshielded capsule would receive a lethal dose of radiation in less than 10 seconds. Hanford is among the most contaminated sites in the United States. (from series An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar 2005/2007)

Yeondoo Jung, Evergreen Tower 2001

Mitch Epstein, Gavin Coal Power Plant, Cheshire, Ohio 2003

world series typology . . .

Photographer Dan Winters has done a typology of baseball gloves used in the World Series over the years. Click here to see more.

resurrection of documentary . . .

Los Angeles based artist William E. Jones has created this visually frustrating animation from rejected negatives. The photos were originally taken by Farm Security Administration photographers to document the American depression. FSA head Roy Stryker performed the editing with a hole punch. Watch the video below and click here to read more.

Punctured from The Paris Review on Vimeo.

ichat portraiture . . .

Take a look at Laura Sackett's images of young teens iChatting with their friends. She thinks of her work as a new kind of portraiture. Click here to see more photographs and read about her concept.

is there such a thing as privacy? . . .

Philip-Lorca diCorcia talks about shooting his "Heads" series. Watch as he describes his simple lighting set-up and discusses the existence / non-existence of "privacy" in our contemporary world.

julietta cervantes . . .

Frequently, photographs of cemeteries and gravestones fall into the category of "cliché. But take a look at these pictures taken in Brooklyn's Green-Wood Cemetery by Julieta Cervantes, an accomplished photographer who has received numerous awards for her images of dancers. She uses multiple hand-held flashlights as her light source. Read more here in the New Yorker's Photo Booth column, and you be the judge . . .

street photography . . .

"defenestration" . . .

This piece is part of a John Baldessari retrospective coming to The Metropolitan Museum of Art on October 20, 2010. He is a master of conceptual photography. It will be there through January 9, 2011, so if you're in NY be sure to check it out. Fun stuff!

John Baldessari (American, b. 1931)

Floating: Color, 1972

Six color photographs; 11 x 14 in. (27.9 x 35.6 cm) each

Collection Mario Bertolini, Breno, Italy

© John Baldessari

Baldessari once remarked that a large part of his work "arises from a single word, a chance phrase, or an overheard comment or part of one." For Floating: Color it was "defenestration"—the act of throwing something out a window—a word the artist liked, "because it had a limited meaning, specific to a particular act." Deciding that he should throw colors instead of objects, and basing his sequencing on the simple order of the spectrum, Baldessari jettisoned large sheets of colored paper from his window and captured the process on film. (quote from Met web site)

take the haiku review challenge . . .

Can you summarize an art exhibition in a few words or sentences? A haiku, a sonnet? Click here to read more. Check out these examples . . .

Haiku Review: Allen Ruppersberg’s decades-long text-and-(found)-image project into memory and reconstruction has taken many practical and strategic turns. The latest, “No Time Left to Start Again,” is one of the most accessible and, perhaps for that reason, most affecting. This time Ruppersberg is acting the avid record collector, documenting early rock ‘n’ roll through its recordings; the amateur magician, researching spells; and – returning to his own salad days – a topical historian of “LA in the ‘70s,” and who knew whom and how.

Allen Ruppersberg. Honey, I rearranged the collection asking myself the question—Who is the founder of conceptual art?, 2010. Silkscreen and collaged photographs on paper

38-1/4 x 50-1/8 inches

Image courtesy of Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles

Photography by Brian Forrest

Copyright Allen Ruppersberg

(Margo Leavin, 812 N. Robertson Blvd., W. Hywd 90069, thru Oct. 23.)

Haiku Review: Ron Rizk and Cindy Kane are both masters of a kind of meta-still life. Rizk describes observed objects with exacting precision within gently weathered framing structures (actually painted illusions) while Kane wields a somewhat looser brush in her intimate rhapsodies of objects enlivening the covers of art and other magazines. (Yes, the New Yorker.)

Ron Rizk, Time Exposure, 2010. Oil on panel 28 x 22 ”

Courtesy of Lora Schlesinger

(Lora Schlesinger, Bergamot Station T3, S. Monica 90404. Thru Oct. 16.)

fun typology . . .

Remember the Boombox? You may even have one? Here's a link to a photography project by Lyle Owerko that's all about remembering these giant portable music boxes. Read more about it here.

photograph as starting point . . .

It's worth a trip to Fort Worth to see this fascinating installation by Eve Sussman and the collective called Rufus Corporation at Fort Worth Contemporary Arts. Based on a photograph,Yuri's Office is a detailed re-creation of the office of early cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man in space. Click here to read about it.

lupita murillo tinnen . . .

UNT photography alum Lupita Murillo Tinnen is showing her work alongside that of Keith Wilson in a new exhibition "Context" at Richland College in Dallas. Click here for more information. The "cityscapes" of these two artists depict interiors and exteriors of the homes of Mexican-Americans.

Lupita Murillo Tinnen, mesa

Lupita Murillo Tinnen, pajaritos

Lupita Murillo Tinnen, el sofa rojo

Kieth Wilson

Kieth Wilson

"mexican suitcase" negatives rediscovered . . .

A suitcase of negatives taken during the Spanish Civil War by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and Chim (David Seymour) and missing since 1939 has been rediscovered. These remarkable images of war have arrived from Mexico City and are on view now at ICP in New York. Click here to see and learn more.

One of three boxes containing negatives by Robert Capa, Gerda Taro, and Chim (David Seymour).

© International Center of Photography

Robert Capa, [Exiled Republicans being marched on the beach from one internment camp, Le Barcarès, France], March 1939. © Estate of Cornell Capa / ICP / Magnum, International Center of Photography

Chim (David Seymour), [Mother nursing a baby while listening to political speech, near Badajoz, Extremadura, Spain], late April–early May 1936. © Estate of David Seymour / Magnum. International Center of Photography

Gerda Taro, [Young Republican soldier, Brunete, Spain], July 1937. © International Center of Photography.

concept, concept, concept, concept . . .

Look at this exhibition at MoMA for an inspiring view of the work of 4 comtemporary photographers . . . Click here to see and read more about this exhibition. To quote the Introduction: "Infusing the seductive language of film and advertising with a touch of sly conceptualism, the artists included in New Photography 2010 explore the relationship between straight and constructed photograph, image and picture."

Roe Ethridge, Pumpkin Sticker, 2010

Elad Lassry, Guinevere (Green), 2009

Alex Prager, Despair, Film Still #1, 2010

Amanda Ross-Ho, Irreconcilable Indifferences, 2010

seeing without eyes . . .

Take a few minutes to watch this short inspiring film about a project by blind photographer John Dugdale. Watch to the very end to see his provocative, elegant, inspiring photographs.

lolo veleko . . .

New York Times critic Holland Cotter has described these portraits by South African photographer Lolo Veleko as "eye-tingling", and Nigerian-born art historian and curator Okwui Enwezor considers this work an antidote to what he calls "Afro-pessimism". Click here and here to see and read more.