people who photograph their food . . .

Ever wonder what compels some folks to photograph their food and post the pictures online? Click here for answers and pictures.

Javier Garcia photographing his food. Every other week, he posts the pictures on his Web site.

most influential cameras . . .

Click here to see and read about the 14 most influential cameras of all time. Fun reading. A couple pictured below:

looking back . . .

As we mark the 10th year since "9/11", artists find many different ways to speak about it. Click here to see images and videos, and to read a review by Roberta Smith (New York Times) of 3 current exhibitions.

A photograph by Eugene Richards, taken at memorial service for Lt. Paul Mitchell,

formerly of Brooklyn's Ladder Company 110.

The exhibition "September 11", opening Sunday at MoMA PS1, includes works that were made before the attachs, such as a beamlike form wrapped in red tarpaulin by Christo (1964-66), and Barbara Kruger's re-imagining of the American flag (1991).

Willem de Rooij's "Index: Riots, Protests, Mourning and Commemorations

(as represented in newspapers, January 2000 - July 2002)"

A photo installation at the School of Visual Art's Westside Gallery.

camera as eye . . .

What percentage of art-viewing these days is done through the eyes of a camera? Click here to read what Roberta Smith of the New York Times has to say about this phenomenon:

". . . a photograph of a person photographing an artist’s photograph of herself playing a role is a few layers of an onion, maybe the kind to be found only among picture-takers at an exhibition."

A man photographs an exhibit by Cindy Sherman.

Capturing "Hippy Dialectics" by Nathaniel Mellors.

An interactive piece by Norma Jeane.

Visitors at the Venice Biennale capture Urs Fisher's statue.

raphael dallaporta . . .

One of photography's great strengths is its ability to catalogue and record the world in which we live. The simplicity and clarity that photography offers has both commercial and artistic possibilities. In more recent years there has been a trend towards documentary photographers isolating one particular aspect of society and exploring this in great detail.

Raphael Dallaporta presents the most chilling example of this genre by photographing antipersonnel landmines. These strange ugly objects also have a certain disturbing beauty to them. We hear about the damage that landmines inflict on innocent victims long after the purpose of their planting has lapsed. They of course are hidden underground before exploding. I had never seen a landmine in real life or in a photograph until discovering Dallaporta's images. It was a revelation. We now learn that hundreds of types of landmines exist and the variety of design, appearance, shape and design is incredible.

Because Dallaporta has photographed these objects in the way an advertising photographer might render a shampoo bottle, he glorifies these objects and yet appears totally neutral in his approach. It is a most clever trick, so much so that we hardly notice he has done it.

Martin Parr

ruud van empel . . .

Ruud van Empel (1958) is one of the most extraordinary photographic artists of this moment, both nationally and internationally. From hundred of fragments adopted from digital photos, he compiles new images that seem very life-like and realistic, but also conjure up a world that has never existed. Click here to view the artist's website.

Trailer: Ruud van Empel. De onschuld voorbij from Groninger Museum on Vimeo.

timothy schenck . . .

Here's a fun summer typology! Click here to see more work by this artist.