This is the last weekend to view THE FENCE in Brooklyn Bridge Park

be part of the  1 million people  who have viewed & enjoyed!

In celebration of the launch of PHOTOVILLE, United Photo Industries joined forces with Photo District News and Brooklyn Bridge Park to curate and produce THE FENCE, the summer-long outdoor photo exhibition which was unveiled on June 22, 2012. We invited photographers of all levels to explore the theme of ‘community’ and THE FENCE was their answer. Photographs were submitted into 5 categories: Home, Streets, People, Creatures & Play. Nearly 1 million people have viewed the Fence this summer and we have had an AMAZING response from the community! Stay tuned for next year's FENCE - it is sure to be an epic one!

Photos courtesy of Stefan Falke

Out of an astonishing number of submissions the jury selected powerful works that speak to the importance and essence of ‘community’. The photographers whose work was selected for THE FENCE are: Alejandra Carles-Tolra, Alejandro Chaskielberg, Anne Berry, Anne-Sophie Stolz, Barry Rosenthal, Bojune Kwon, Brenda Islas, Dirk Anschütz, Elizabeth Herman, Elliot Ross, Emily Schiffer, Erik Klein Wolterink, Gesche Würfel, Gregg Segal, Ilona Szwarc, Jeffrey Stockbridge, Jens Sundheim, Jonathan Auch, Julia Curtin, Kerry Mansfield, Landon Nordeman, MASTODON (Massimo Mastrorillo / Donald Weber), Melissa Cacciola, Michelle Pedone, Nick Ballon, Nicolo Sertorio, Peter Andrew Lusztyk, Robert Rutoed, Rudolf Strobl, Sarah Baley, Simon Willms, Stefania Mattu, Teri Havens, Timothy Fadek, Tina Schula, Tom Atwood, Winnie Au. Printed on photographic mesh by Duggal Visual Solutions and measuring more than 1000ft in length,THE FENCE is a public photographic installation like no other! The exhibition begins at Pier 1 and continues along the walkway to the uplands of Pier 3.

"Minor League" by Simon Willms "American Girls" by Ilona Szwarc

This year's Grand Prize Jury Winner is Simon Willms for his series Minor League, and the People's Choice Winner is Ilona Szwarc for her series American Girls. United Photo Industries will be exhibiting Willm's Minor League at the UPI Gallery from September 6 through to September 30, with an Artist Reception on Friday September 7 - where you can meet Simon, see the work, and have a drink with us! We would also like to acknowledge our amazing panel of judges for their time, energy and passion for photography: * Rebecca Wilson – Director, Saatchi Gallery * Krzysztof Candrowicz – Director, Lodz Fotofestiwal * Irene Kromhout – Exhibitions Coordinator, Noorderlicht Festival * Laura Moya – Executive Director, Photolucida * Ihiro Hayami – Chief Editor, PHaT Photo Magazine * Kate Edwards – Picture Editor, Guardian Weekend Magazine * Michael Itkoff – Editor, Daylight Magazine * Ariel Shanberg – Director, Center for Photography at Woodstock * Elisabeth Biondi – Independent Curator * Marcel Saba – Director, Redux Images * Adriana Teresa Letorney – Publisher, Visura Magazine * Leonor Mamanna – Photo Editor, New York Magazine * Dana Faconti – Editor & Publisher, Blind Spot Magazine * Jeff Moore – Northeast Territory Manager, Lomography Additional support and awesome prizes have been provided by: TwoTrees Management, Duggal Visual Solutions, Lomography, Adorama, FotoVisura, Conveyor Arts, and the Dumbo BID

If you can't make it down to Brooklyn this weekend - check out theonline slideshow of THE FENCE!

Don't Forget that (super)heroes is still on display in DUMBO wrapping 340ft around the Manhattan Bridge Anchorage!

ONLY 5 more days to submit to foto/pods '12 for your chance to participate and exhibit your work in Shipping Containers at the DUMBO Arts Festival this year!

Following the popularity of last year's foto/pods deployment, and the runaway success of Photoville, United Photo Industries returns to the DUMBO Arts Festival with foto/pods 2012 - a hamlet of shipping container exhibitions, tents, outdoor projections and much much more. And we are looking to YOU to send us your best, most imaginative proposals for a photo-based exhibition in a shipping container, Photoville-style. Submit your best idea, and if selected, we'll provide the shipping container, the lights, the hanging rails, the art handlers, the staffing -- pretty much everything but the art! The one and only rule is that you have a 20ft shipping container and it's yours to do what you like. The shipping container is your oyster! Submission Deadline: September 3, 2012  For more information and to submit click here

FotoWeek DC Seminars & Portfolio Reviews this November!

We are excited to spread the word about what our friends in DC are up to! We encourage everyone to check out the FotoWeek DC website for information on their Seminars & Portfolio Reviews which will include leading names in photography that will share their insights and advice as well as a myriad of programming from November 9 - 18, 2012. FotoDC and the Goethe Institut partner this year to bring educational programming to the FotoWeek Festival.

Read More

Thais Beltrame "happy life"

September 1st is the opening of the exhibition of Thais Beltrame "happy life" a production of Galeria de Babel Black & Espaço Revista CULT, don't miss it !

There are 15 drawings from the artist's first solo show in Sao Paulo, all done in black ink on paper, a production from her most recent work, as well as interventions in the space. "the happy life" was inspired by a poem of the same name, originally written by the Roman poet Marcus Valerius Martialis nearly two thousand years ago.

Centuries later the same poem was translated into English, and transcends time to talk about what is seemingly simple and mundane, and what humans crave for centuries but do not seem able to achieve. The conjecture of it is anything that could make our lives happy.

The artist Thais Beltrame is 35 years old, lives and works in São Paulo. Studied in Brazil and in the United States. She has illustrated several books and magazines, and has also had her work exhibited in galleries in Brazil, U.S. and England.

Opening: September 1st from 15.00 to 21.00

Venue: Espaço CULT Magazine

Rua Inacio Pereira da Rocha, 400 - Vila Madalena / Sao Paulo - SP

Info: Galeria de Babel Black + 55 11 3825 0507

.

Read More

Ed Kashi took The New Yorker’s Instagram

Last week, Ed Kashi took The New Yorker’s Instagram feed with him to Aspen, where he spent the week at a photography workshop at the Anderson Ranch Arts Center. “Usually when I teach I don’t get the opportunity to create new work, so it was especially exciting to be looking for images and constantly creating, reviewing, and then being able to post the work in real time,” Kashi told me. “Photography has dominated my life for more than thirty-five years, so the ability to make images anywhere without the cumbersome equipment that I normally work with is liberating.”

I asked him how shooting with an iPhone differed from the way he usually makes photographs. “Of the many aspects I love about the photographic life, the heightened acts of ‘noticing’ and ‘seeing’ make my experiences that much richer. But being Instagram, of course it led to the inevitable neurotic tallying of ‘likes’ and discussions amongst my assistants and some of the students about what makes a successful Instagram image.” What kinds of photos are successful? 

His assistants on the workshop, photographers Jessica Van Fleteren and Emily Lane, decided that patterns and the color yellow attract the most approval, while images of people or characters, “unless graphic, weird, or dramatic in some way,” are less popular. “My approach to this week was, in keeping with how I think and work, more narrative,” Kashi said. “I tried to bring the ‘followers’ along with me on my journey from home in New Jersey to Colorado, and then with my students in the small towns, rodeo, Aspen bike race, the children at the ranch, and finally going back home to spend a day or so with my family before I had to let go of the reins of the New Yorker feed.”

Kashi says he’ll continue to use Instagram in his travels as a kind of visual journal, and “to add a twist to my main work, which tends to be very serious and issue-oriented.” Here’s a selection from his trip to Aspen.

Read More

New York man builds 50 foot tennis racket

Talk about having a big serve: wacky New Yorker Ashrita Furman has just built a tennis racket the size of a bus.

Furman, who holds the record for the most Guinness World Records at one time -- currently 151 -- hopes his mammoth wooden racket will soon join the list.

The contraption is an exact copy of the wooden one used by Billie Jean King in the 1970s when she reigned over women's tennis at tournaments like the US Open that kicked off in New York this week.

The laminated wooden head, brown grip, red trim and inscriptions are a perfect match.

The only difference is that the racket measures 50 feet (15.2 meters) long and has a head 16 feet (4.9 meters) wide. The strings are made of water hose and the handle is so big that even a large person would have trouble wrapping both arms around it.

"It's 22.2 times bigger and done to scale," Furman told AFP.

Although it was his idea, this wasn't the lonely challenge of some of his other Guinness feats, which included balancing 81 drinking glasses on his chin or running a half marathon with a full bottle of milk on his head.

"We had members from all over the world. One guy from New Zealand did the wood finishing. We had a guy who's a professional violinist, and he did the strings. We had a German guy planing the wood," Furman said.

Once the giant sporting device was done, propped up on blocks in a private driveway in New York's borough of Queens, the next challenge was to decide where to take it -- and how to get it there.

"We did try to display it at the US Open, but we were told that because it's over 10 feet high it's considered a building," Furman said, laughing. "You know it would take months to get a permit from the Department of Buildings."

Furman, 57, and his assistants are all devotees of the late guru and peace advocate Sri Chinmoy, who taught that meditation can help people accomplish seemingly impossible tasks, and who was a friend of King's.

The racket was built to honor what would have been Chinmoy's 81st birthday.

Pasha Royden, an 11-year-old from New Zealand, took a turn bouncing around in the strings. He said he isn't a great tennis player, but he certainly enjoyed becoming a human tennis ball.

"It shows the world that anything you want to be done can be done," he said, pausing to look back at the racket.

Royden then thought over the implications of such a big racket. "To play, a giant would probably have to be (the height of) that tree. Three of them on top of each other," he calculated. "Then he'd need a very big court and a very big opponent and another very big racket and more than one ball."

Furman said it took seven days for his team to get the racket made in the back yard in the leafy residential neighborhood and that they would have gone more quickly if they'd been able. "Our style is kind of work-through-the-night, but the neighbors were complaining."

The group previously made the world's biggest pencil, and already Furman is dreaming about the world's biggest hobby horse. It all seems doable to a man who's already got the records for catching grapes in his mouth (85 in one minute), spitting champagne corks and underwater hula hooping.

"I've found that the meditation really works. If you go deep inside yourself, you can do anything," Furman said.

Engineer Yuyudhan Hoppe, 53, who oversaw the technical side of the racket project, said they could have built one bigger yet, except for one simple problem that even meditation couldn't fix.

"It wouldn't fit in the yard."

Read More

Remembering Danish Photographer Kristen Feilberg

Kristen Feilberg

Born 173 years ago in Denmark, on 26 August 1839, Kristen Feilberg (Christen Schjellerup Feilberg) is best known for his images captured in Sumatra, Singapore, and Penang.

After giving up his dream of becoming a painter, Feilberg followed his sister to Singapore in 1862 where he worked partly as a tobacco agent and partly as a photographer. In 1867, he set up his own studio in Penang and, the same year, exhibited 15 views of Penang and Ceylon at the Paris World Exposition.

The earliest photographs of eastern Sumatra were taken by Feilberg in 1869. Considered to be of excellent quality, they include integrated group portraits of workers on tobacco plantations. They are presented in three albums entitled "Views" at the Royal Tropical Institute.

Feilberg died in Singapore in 1919.

Scores of Feilberg's photographs from the collection at the Tropenmuseum in Amsterdam can be accessed on Wikimedia Commons as well as at the Tropenmuseum itself.

Three Batak warriors with spears and swords in front of a wooden construction. A dog lies between the two girders at the left. Circa 1870

Batak war canoe near Lake Toba, Sumatra, 1870

Deli river, circa 1870

Batak family, circa 1870

Portrait of a Batak woman, circa 1870

Batak village, circa 1870

Portrait of workers, Deli, circa 1870

Batak, circa 1870

Dyak women, Borneo, 1860s

Rev. Habb preaching to the Klings (South Indians) in Penang, 1867

Read More

Tibetan musicians arrested for praising Dalai Lama

Popular Tibetan singer Amchok Phuljung

Chinese authorities are taking things to extremes by increasing the number of arrests made to artists, singers, writers and educators who express support for Tibetan national identity and praise spiritual leader the Dalai Lama, who was exiled from Tibet in 1959 after Chinese communists took control of the country.


Popular Tibetan singer Amchok Phuljung was recently arrested after being accused of writing and recording songs that support the Dalai Lama and elected Tibetan leader Dr Lobsang Sangay as well as highlighting the difficulties of being under the regime of Beijing.


Phuljung has previously recorded five albums of his patriotic music with the latest recordings to be what hit the nail in the coffin for Chinese authorities who issued a warrant for his arrest leaving Phuljung and three monks from the Golok area, who are said to have helped with writing lyrics for the album, hiding away in fear of being captured. It has been reported that Phuljung had been hiding for approximately 2-3 months before being found and arrested for his partisan lyrics.

Phuljung’s lyrics are said to have advised Tibetan people to resist China's dominance by speaking 'only pure Tibetan' and by 'uniting and working together.'

This arrest comes only days after another favoured Tibetan singer, Chogsel, who was in the process of creating a new album in collaboration with other famous local singers, was detained for releasing music that contains marks of respect and praise for the Dalai Lama.

Chogsel’s music was then banned from being sold in stores and confiscated by Beijing Authorities and fines were issued to people playing Chogsel’s music in public.

The 29-year-old singer was arrested just months after he released an album titled Raise the flag of Tibet, sons of the snow, which makes reference to and encourages Tibetan people to claim independence for their country.

These arrests are just some of many as Chinese rulers aim to deliver an increased ‘clean up’ of Tibetan intellectuals and creative nationalists. This crackdown on conformity increased as China prepared for the 2008 Beijing Olympic games.

There is no current information on either artist regarding their wellbeing and whereabouts.

Read More

2013 Aftermath Project Grant

The Aftermath Project’s mission is to support photographic projects that tell the other half of the story of conflict — the story of what it takes for individuals to learn to live again, to rebuild destroyed lives and homes, to restore civil societies, to address the lingering wounds of war while struggling to create new avenues for peace. Grant proposals should reflect an understanding of this mission. Proposals may relate to the aftermath of numerous kinds of conflict, not just international wars. 

The conflict may have been at the community level — for example, violence between rural ethnic groups or an urban riot in an industrialized country. It may have been a regional one, such as a rebel insurgency, or it may have been a full-scale war. 

There is no specific time frame that defines “aftermath,” although in general The Aftermath Project seeks to support stories which are no longer being covered by the mainstream media, or which have been ignored by the media. In general, conflict should be over for a situation to be deemed an “aftermath.” There are specific cases, however, where conflict may have continued for so long, or be the result of an aftermath situation, that they will be considered to be within the scope of The Aftermath Project.

Grant: $20,000. The grant winner and the finalists will be published in “War is Only Half the Story, Vol Seven.”

Eligibility: The Aftermath Project is open to working photographers world-wide who are interested in creating work that helps illuminate aftermath issues, and encourages greater public understanding and discussion of these issues. 

Grant winner(s) and finalists retain all copyrights to their work.

Deadline: November 5, 2012

Website: Aftermath Project Grant

Read More

Meandering Just This Side of the Hamptons

At Jackson Pollock’s studio in the East Hampton hamlet of Springs, Raul Dorticos takes a photo of the dribbles and drops on the floor where Pollock laid his canvases to paint.

I HAVE never been a fan of the Hamptons. Sure, the pristine beaches and sloping waves are a welcome respite from the Manhattan summer scorch that can melt the soles of your flip flops. But by the time midsummer rolls around on the eastern end of Long Island, a hint of desperation seems to settle in among the summer habitués who know that the days of sunset clambakes and lazy afternoons at Georgica Beach are coming to an end. 

So it was with trepidation that I drove with my friend Dan to the hamlet of Springs and the home of Jackson Pollock, who this year would have celebrated his 100th birthday. I have long wanted to see the house and studio where the troubled Pollock used sticks and brushes to drip abstract designs onto large canvases. But I have been thwarted too by the idea of snarled summer traffic (the studio is closed to visitors in winter) and the whine of avaricious shoppers clogging the shore’s few thoroughfares. As we barreled in Dan’s convertible along Route 27, I posed the question: Can we go to the Hamptons without actually having to go to the Hamptons?

It was a good time to ask, for as we approached Southampton, a line of cars ahead halted us abruptly. Dan took a sharp left onto Shrubland Road, and we found ourselves in another world, breezing along a country lane beneath a lush canopy of sun-dappled leaves, the wind tugging at the scarf I had knotted under my chin. We moved swiftly, which is more than I can say for the drivers we left behind choking on exhaust. It was an important lesson for our not-Hamptons adventure: Take the road less traveled. The journey is circuitous, and you will make a wrong turn or two, but it is certainly more enjoyable.

Sometimes we had to backtrack on roads like Scuttle Hole, Brick Kiln and Long Lane and, for the most part, we remained north of Route 27 and away from the beach mayhem. Pollock’s studio sits near Accabonac Creek in Springs, where he moved in 1945 with his wife, the artist Lee Krasner, and lived until he died in a car crash not far from his home, in 1956. The Stony Brook Foundation now oversees the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center, offering tours for $10. While guides sometimes gloss over less glamorous aspects of an artist’s life, ours did not. She delved into the couple’s meager existence (they initially had no indoor plumbing), a tempestuous marriage (he had affairs), and talked openly about Pollock’s fits of alcohol-induced rage and violent death.

What I had not known was how the studio could enliven to touch. We were asked to slip on fabric bootees so we could alk on the floorboards splashed with crimson and yellow, punctuated by spots of lime green, black and sky blue, where Pollock laid his canvases to paint. Art enthusiasts are rarely allowed to touch an artist’s work, let alone walk on it. But the floor, while not meant to be a finished painting, had some of the same characteristics of his most famous pieces. I could feel the texture of Pollock’s dribbles and drops on my thinly covered feet, my toes exploring uneven layers of paint on bare wood.

Pollock and Krasner are buried nearby in Green River Cemetery. But by now we were hungry and searched for a place to eat outdoors. We drove south along Springs-Fireplace Road, turning west toward East Hampton Point and the resort there with a deck overlooking a marina. Boats slipped quietly in and out of view, the gray afternoon light reflected like ribbons of silver on the calm blue bay. The restaurant is a charmer for sunset cocktails, but it seemed to be trying too hard to appeal to a 20-something crowd. A hostess invited my niece, Tessa, who had joined us for the day, to a coming reggae night. When I asked if Dan and I could come too, the hostess noted our age but conceded with a shrug, “I guess it is an intergenerational thing.”

We capped off the day with a visit to the lighthouse at Montauk Point, picking up Route 27 again near Amagansett. The lighthouse, built in 1796, was named a national historic landmark this spring. By now it was late afternoon, and the staff was cranky (clearly all the island’s young people were drinking beer at Clam Bar that day), barking at visitors to hurry up and climb the 137 steps to the top of the lighthouse before being shuffled out the front gates. We vowed to go early next time and explore the shore of nearby Camp Hero State Park, a former military station built to look like a fishing village to fool Nazi spies.

A few weeks later Dan and I embarked on another not-Hamptons trek, this time headed on North Sea Road to the Conscience Point Historic Site and Nature Walk. It is a short path leading to a quiet bay surrounded by tall marine grasses and buzzing with dragonflies among the waist-high stalks of Queen Anne’s lace that bobbed gently in the summer breeze. English settlers landed here in 1640. About 60 acres of adjacent land was turned into a wildlife refuge in 1971, but some people may better remember the area because it is not far from the nightclub where, in 2001, the publicist Lizzie Grubman backed her father’s Mercedes-Benz S.U.V. into a group of 16 people and was sentenced to 60 days in jail.

While the area is less picturesque than the Hamptons’ Atlantic Ocean side, it has its own natural charm, including the burble of noisy bullfrogs and the smack of wings on water as hungry gulls dive for fish. It was quiet too at the nearby North Sea bathing beach, a pebbly strip of shore near a small community of homes that face Little Peconic Bay. The coarse sand disappoints when compared to the fine grains of Southampton’s Coopers Beach on the Atlantic side, but I wasn’t looking for that beach’s crowds either. Instead I found a bounty of yellow and orange jingle shells. These translucent discs are from mollusks related to oysters and named for the sound they make when you gather them together in your hand. There were also scores of charcoal, inky blue and cream shells from the scallops that nestle in the sea grasses of the Peconic Bay and are harvested in winter. I could have walked all afternoon stuffing my pockets with shells and brightly colored pebbles. 

After so much stillness I was ready to mingle with people. Even though we were never more than 20 minutes from a Starbucks or a Calypso St. Barth clothing shop, we had managed to avoid town and didn’t want to break the streak. So from here we traveled east along Noyac Road (along the bay) toward Sag Harbor and, after a few turns, picked up Sagg Road. There are vast stretches of open fields near Sagaponack: rows of corn, freshly mowed grass for horse riding and trellises heavy with grapevines owned by the local wineries.

We opted to visit Wölffer Estate Vineyard, mostly because a friend said I would enjoy the Tuscan-style tasting room with a deck and view of manicured cypress trees and meticulously kept vines. Clearly this wasn’t the low-key North Sea area; we pulled up alongside a couple loading cases of wine into his and hers Maseratis. But the crowd was wonderfully eclectic and the servers playful — generous with pours if we wanted to try a wine not in our tasting flight.

Dan and I ordered a plate of manchego and goat cheese that came with a square of quince paste and some crackers. I was relaxed from the morning walks. As I took a sip of a sparkling rosé, I thought, this is the Hamptons I could learn to love.

LAURA M. HOLSON

Read More

Despite Good Intentions, a Fresco in Spain Is Ruined

The three versions of the “ecce homo” fresco of Jesus. From left, the original version by Elías García Martínez, a 19th-century painter; a deteriorated version of the fresco; the restored version by Cecilia Giménez.

MADRID — A case of suspected vandalism in a church in a northeastern village in Spain has turned out to be probably the worst art restoration project of all time. 

An elderly woman stepped forward this week to claim responsibility for disfiguring a century-old “ecce homo” fresco of Jesus crowned with thorns, in Santuario de la Misericordia, a Roman Catholic church in Borja, near the city of Zaragoza.

Ecce homo, or behold the man, refers to an artistic motif that depicts Jesus, usually bound and with a crown of thorns, right before his crucifixion.

The woman, Cecilia Giménez, who is in her 80s, said on Spanish national television that she had tried to restore the fresco, which she called her favorite local representation of Jesus, because she was upset that parts of it had flaked off due to moisture on the church’s walls.

The authorities in Borja said they had suspected vandalism at first, but then determined that the shocking alterations had been made by an elderly parishioner. The authorities said she had acted on her own.

But Ms. Giménez later defended herself, saying she could not understand the uproar because she had worked in broad daylight and had tried to salvage the fresco with the approval of the local clergy. “The priest knew it,” she told Spanish television. “I’ve never tried to do anything hidden.”

Ms. Giménez said she had worked on the fresco using a 10-year-old picture of it, but she eventually left Jesus with a half-beard and, some say, a monkeylike appearance. The fresco’s botched restoration came to light this month when descendants of the 19th-century artist, Elías García Martínez, proposed making a donation toward its upkeep.

News of the disfiguring prompted Twitter users and bloggers to post parodies online inserting Ms. Giménez’s version of the fresco into other artworks. Some played on the simian appearance of the portrait.

The Borja authorities said they were now considering taking legal action against Ms. Giménez, although they insisted that their priority was to try to return the work to its original state, under the guidance of art historians.

Read More

VISA POUR L'IMAGE 2012 - PERPIGNAN

The Festival in pictures

a look at some screenings...from September 3rd to 8th, 2012

The Exhibitions in picturesfrom September 1st to 16th, 2012

www.visapourlimage.com

Read More