A SMALL COMPETITION
November 11th, 2008 adminI’m knee deep in nappies and won’t be back on the blog this week. So in the meantime I thought I’d run a small competition and giveaway a copy of the wonderful book Our True Intent Is All For Your Delight: The John Hinde Butlin’s Photographs to one reader.
As you know, I’ve recently been looking the work of photographers who have made significant documentaries exploring their homeland, which was somewhat inspired by a comment Joel Sternfeld recently made in an interview in PLUK magazine (Summer 2008), where he said “I thought about ‘home’ and its power, and about an idea I have that many of the great practitioners photograph their ‘home’ landscapes.â€
While I’ve concentrated my efforts on looking at the work of British photographers and in my Easy Rider series, the work of American and German photographers, now I’d like to hear your suggestions. Please post or email me your ideas of work by photographers (which could be you) that have explored their own ‘homeland’ with a short explanation of why you think their work is important. By homeland, I mean the country where one was born or now considers their home.
I’m particularly interested in countries other than those I’ve already looked at.
One reader will receive a copy of Our True Intent and a signed copy of Motherland.
November 11th, 2008 at 3:29 pm
My friend, and a great artist, Adam Golfer, has several bodies of work exploring home: adamgolfer.com
More importantly is that his identity is of particular cultural importance in the last century, as a Jewish-American, and so his interpretation of home is more contingent on historical events.
Anyways, check it out! I’m enjoying the blog too.
November 12th, 2008 at 1:52 am
After reading your post, this small essay i made recently year came immediately to my mind:
http://www.pedroguimaraes.net/main/index.php?/project/suburbia/
needless to say, it’s a set of images made in a cement driven city build for a non-existent middle class utopia. It’s Braga ( Portugal ), my city, but could be any other, i know that 😉
November 12th, 2008 at 7:30 pm
Hey simon :))
ok, i’ll jump aboard…it’s a bit of an opaque question, because the definition of Home(land) is also deeply problematic…what is home: a place or the constiuency of our lives and the way we live?….i dont have a homeland myself other than the place and time in which i am gathered with my wife and son….I’d argue, that my entire body/history of my own work is about exploration of homeland…
“home is the place where distance did not yet still matter.”-berger…
but, without being overly didactic, i’ll offer you some considerations…on the issue of homeland:
1) Marina Black: working on that now (o, shit, she’s my wife): http://www.marinablack.com…in 2009 both of us will be following up with this idea…exploring russia: russia, her “home” country
ok, now for books ;)))…
1) RUSSIA/UKRAINE: BORIS MAIKHAILOV: A MUST!!
a) Case History (a must, but profoundly sad)
b) Salt Lake
c) Unfinished Dissertation (a must)
2) RUSSIA: Alexie Titarenko (about St. Pete, but is a real exploration of land)
3) RUSSIA: JASON Eskenazi
a) Wonderland: a magnificent book…he’s not russia, but it may very much be his home!!!
3b) RUSSIA: Jonas Bendiksen: Satellites…’nuff said ;))
4) ITALY: Mario Giacomelli
a) get his big retrospective book…a must
5) JAPAN: MORIYAMA: big any book ;))
i have lots more recommendations Simon…will write more when i get home tonight ;)))
cheers
bob
November 12th, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Hi Simon,
Have enjoyed your work over the years. Thanks for sharing your vision and this blog.
My answer to this interesting question came quickly and surely:
Koudelka: Exiles.
http://www.magnumphotos.com/archive/c.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.BookDetail_VPage&pid=2K7O3R15DG_U
This powerful book, filled with poetic, iconic, lyrical images, is a record of Koudelka’s life on the road.
The opening quote to the book, which reinforces the fact that Koudelka’s proverbial “HOME” was (and still is) wherever the wind blows him, is by Victor Hugo:
“All the corners of the earth are exactly the same. And anywhere one can dream is good, providing the place is obscure, and the horizon is vast.”
Regards,
Landon
November 13th, 2008 at 4:41 am
Dear Simon,
Hi ,this is Siddharth here…..Being from India I have seen so much of work from many parts of the country…and also work from so many photographers that keep coming down to photograph…..
There’s one photographer from India whose work influenced me the most when I started photography…esp. for his work on color photography and his long term essays on India..
Please do check the work of Raghubir Singh (http://www.raghubirsingh.com/home_en.php) ,and esp. his books like ” A way into India”
http://www.theglobalist.com/storyid.aspx?StoryId=4096
very new and exciting……..
cheers
Siddharth
November 13th, 2008 at 11:05 am
Istanbul was George Georgiou’s home when he made this work – Happy is he who calls himself a Turk. It captures the complexity of home, the assimilation and melding of different values, landscapes and cultures, the use of ideas and ideals to mould a people – and the impossibility and contradictions inherent in that task.
http://www.georgegeorgiou.net/gallery.php?ProjectID=148&groupid=1
November 13th, 2008 at 11:06 am
And congratulations on the baby! Which you delivered yourself!? Is this true?
November 14th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
It might be either avery long shot or a very obvious one (not too sure, but Depardon’s work (most notably “La Ferme du Garet”, but there may be more I can’t quite remember right about now) might be regarding as analysing the notion of homeland as well. In this case, in regard to a very narrow definition of what a homeland is.
http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/c.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.BookDetail_VPage&pid=2K7O3R180FIW
November 18th, 2008 at 4:00 pm
I’ve had a couple of names emailed to me-
Esko Manniko’s photographs in Finland, see here – http://www.yanceyrichardson.com/artists/esko-mannikko/index.html
and photographs by Martin Kollar, whose from the Slovak Republic, of Eastern Europe in a project called “Nothing Specialâ€, see here-
http://www.martinkollar.com/
November 19th, 2008 at 8:01 pm
Hi Simon
here is my contribution:
Swedish photographer Lars Tunbjork and his series “I Love Boras!” (1989-1996) in which he offers a portrait of contemporary swedish society, inspired by his personal and generous vision of life and people in his hometown. http://www.steidlville.com/books/444-I-Love-Bor-s.html
Also his new series “Vinter”, or life in a cold climate… the series play on contrasts between interiors and exteriors, the whiteness of snow and the smears of grime. http://www.steidlville.com/books/610-Vinter.html
Both series are exhibited in Paris at the moment, and will be on till January. a must-see!
November 19th, 2008 at 10:18 pm
On reading your blog regarding the study of photographers whose work looks at home and I can think of a few that have touched me in recent years.
Derek Smith – The Lost Communities of Industrial Teesside, originally photographed in his home town in the 70’s, then reworked on and reprinted 3 or 4 years ago and subsequently exhibited in London, Darlington and Stockton. http://www.amateurphotographer.co.uk/forums/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/653587/an/0/page/0
The Lost Communities of Industrial Teesside – The project began in 1971, when Smith was sixteen years old and continued into the mid 1970s, developing into an extensive body of work documenting the communities that had grown up around the huge iron and steel works of the region. Among the pubs, clubs and streets Smith found often difficult working lives and hardship, but also rich expressions of solidarity, compassion and a stoical sense of humour. As an insider to these communities, whose family had worked and lived in Thornaby since the early 1900s, Smith was well placed to portray them without sentimentality or judgment but with dignity, curiosity and respect. Today, following de-industrialisation of the region, many of these once thriving working class communities have been lost from the national map and have been forgotten. In this light, Smith’s recently rediscovered negatives provide a fascinating and thought-provoking insight into the culture and living conditions of a section of the North East in the 1970s. Many of the images are being shown for the first time in this exhibition.
I have also enjoyed the retrospective showing of the work of Colin O’brien, classic black and white studies of mainly East London where O’Brien has lived virtually his whole life. He will be 70 next year and hopes to publish his best work in celebration. http://www.colinobrien.co.uk/
One that is currently showing at Portsmouth University is by Egyptian based photographer Yasser Alwan looking at the Egyptian working class, numerically one of the biggest blocks of industrial workers in the world but virtually unknown in visual form. I know Yasser is in this country at present and will be giving a talk at Portsmouth next Friday afternoon I think. http://www.fiftycrows.org/photoessay/alwan/index.php
Good luck with your project I am looking forward to seeing the results. I very much enjoyed your work on Russia.
November 20th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Hi Simon. I am a student in New Zealand and am wanting to start a project next year looking at this strange place we call home. In my research I have found some great work by Derek Henderson, he is a commercial photographer who works in England I believe but has come back to New Zealand, his homeland, on many occasions to photograph. He has produced a beautiful book called The Terrible Boredom of Paradise and is releasing another this year called I Go Down to the River to Pray. I hope you find his work interesting, his website is: http://www.derekhenderson.net/
Your work is beautiful. I hope you are managing the long nights with your new baby and taking joy in the quiet moments.
November 20th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
Thinking of homeland? Well, just about every William Eggleston book but particularly, ‘Election Eve’ and of course ‘The Guide’ –
http://www.egglestontrust.com/
Any David Goldblatt book but particularly, ‘In Boksburg’ where he documented a small town in his native South Africa which he sees as “shaped by white dreams and white properties” but which is ultimately “nondescript and elusive” –
http://artsouthafrica.com/?article=433
and ‘Particulars’ –
http://www.alibris.co.uk/booksearch.detail?invid=9500223876&qauth=Goldblatt%2C+David&qtit=particulars&browse=1&qsort=&page=1
Books that deal with the harsh environment, both physically and emotionally, of a Scandinavian winter, Naarashauki- The Female Pike by Esko Mannikko
http://photo-eye.com/Bookstore/mShowDetailsbyCat.cfm?Catalog=ZC055
and ‘Vinter’ the relatively new book by Lars Tunbjork.
Stop me the list is endless!
How about the brilliant, ‘Waffenruhe’ by Michael Schmidt? Which deals so brilliantly with the psychological impact of “The Wall†in a pre-unification Berlin.
http://www.cahanbooks.com/cgi-bin/cahan/30276
November 22nd, 2008 at 11:00 am
Simon
Alright !
You might like to check out the work of Paul Shambroom.
I’m sure you know of these but i’ll mention them anyway; Stephen Shore – American Surfaces
Back to England and John Davies – A Green and Pleasant Land and John Darwell who is a mate of Norfolk’s is he not ?
Hope to see you soon
Regs
Andy G
November 22nd, 2008 at 3:00 pm
Simon
Me again. Looking at the images of Joachim Brohm I couldn’t help being reminded of the artist Breugel ?
Other photographers to note (if you have not already done so) are Tom Wood – All Zones Off Peak, Stephen Gill – Hackney Wick and Daniel Meadows – The Free Photographic Omnibus 1974 -1999. Forgive me if these are already mentioned.
A book you might like to look at is Contemporary Brazilian Photography – Maria Luiza, Melo Carvalho pub by Verso.
regarded as one of key Indian photographers is Raghubir Singh ( died in 1999.