Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Love my dummy


4-8-13 update:  Well as sands shift and people's words in poem and song (not released or sung and told on back porches) move from story to story, my work morphs from shape to shape in my woodshed. What is a woodshed (used in jazz circles as wood-shedding) to me?  The woodshed is a place (a very magic place I experienced as a child) that my grandfather worked in.  Out of it came wonderful things made of wood, not high craftsmanship but oh-so soulfully made with love and creativity.

I was blessed enough to have crossed the Atlantic with him and my family when I was 14 yrs old. He had fought in the US Marines in WWI and wanted to see Germany as a civilian in peace time. His last name Elsasser (German) came from Alsace (French) or "Elsass" (German).  He had told my aunt years before, the last thing he wanted to do before passing was to see Germany again.  As life can be, he died (right next to me) on a plane going from Germany to England. I am amazed as life plays so much like fiction.  I love the line in "Jungleland" that Springsteen wrote "The poets down here don't write nothing at all, they just stand back and let it all be."  Indeed, I thought I heard Philip Glass on American Masters say to the effect "there is a river underground where the music is and I just have to listen."  I have been thinking about doing a book about my grandfather for a while now,so maybe that river is more clear to me now. It will be interesting for me to balance a plan with my intuition as I tend to work best in non premeditated ways.


"woman looking west from coastal Morocco", (c) george elsasser


I finally got to cross the Atlantic again in March 2013 to visit Matisse and one of many other artists' favorite places to visit. There will be a quiz.

So what about "Tips and Tales" did I digress (lose discipline) or just claim "a stream of confusion" writing style?  I will just have to shoot from the hip if there will be anything here to read, real writing is not my job at this time.  Well "Tips & Tales" has morphed into something called "Break, Enter, Hunt, Gather".  I really wish I had a dummy to bring to Photolucida done, but I do not. I am very pleased with it thus far.  This does not mean as a title, book or body of work I have tossed "Tips & Tales" to the hounds, I have not.

8-15-12 update:  Join me on the back-stretch of a hair pulling, mentally taxing, spiritually rewarding August sweatshop. If you like me are still tweaking your first book this is an excellent opportunity. I have been continuing work on mine but here is a perfect reason to bring it to its next stage of finalization. 9-10-12 Deadline (I will have to check to see if I can send in my Dummy book's updated version or will have to send the first dummy).
Either way, a great chance for people to get their work under important eye balls.  "First books eligible for entry include those produced via print-on-demand." See all details here- Aperture

"window & curtain", (c) george elsasser


I thought it might be fun to loosely document my progress and changes on the book, above is a roughed in copy of the front cover I am playing with. Also if you missed the post LOOK3 (editors & my dummy book) . Here are more recent notes and photos for the book. 

The book will be longer and hardbound, here is the current dummy showing all pages.

LOOK3  is what has pushed me harder on this project, I am hoping to get a real publisher interested and there is a ton of good work out there, so I want to bring my design to a more innovative place that engages the viewer in a different way than photo books have in the past.

Monday, June 18, 2012

New Photo Book review site


Ben Krewinkel has just started brand new site:

"onphotobooks website" Ben Krewinkel







ONPHOTOBOOKS

LOOK3 (book signings 4 favs)

LOOK3 (books)

all images included below are copyright of the individual photographers

Note - Get books through Photo-Eye Books (because they have been serving the creative photo community since late 70s) if possible.  So check to see if they have the book your looking for.

If they have it but you still need to do Amazon, use the their link at the bottom of the book's page on Photo-Eye.

They will get something on the deal and you will still be supporting our passion by helping them. Trust me they have been around since around 1979 and have grown into an integral part of our community. 


I was able to visit their gallery and bookstore a month back, wonderful people and a great place, surely a staple in a small like minded community driven by passion first check em out.



(update 11-2-12)
Gee wish I had bought the Bazan book in June when I could have, it and Webb's latest book are sold out and very expensive now.

I am not sure all of the following were sold at the festival but I certainly learned of them there.


Where Children Sleep - James Mollison
Published by Chris Boot who is currently with Aperture





Loved this book, profound and powerful, see for yourself.

slide show
book
James Mollison



Fish-Work: The Bering Sea - Corey Arnold






(update 7-1-12) Not mentioned before but there were certainly more than 4 books I liked, Suffering of Light - Alex Webb was certainly one of them.


  book


(orginal post)

Here is a list of some of the books I enjoyed at LOOK3.  Being on sabbatical to do my own work and living pretty lean for a few yrs. now I usually rely heavily on the library and just visits to the book store to look but these are indeed some fascinating books and some are hard to find. So I broke my rule. There were many great books there but these stood out to me and particularly because I was unfamiliar with these people's work.

1-Wonderland (A FAIRY TALE OF THE SOVIET MONOLITH), Jason Eskenazi






































book review 
I concur with the review (although I enjoyed it being small) and bought a signed copy, despite no budget for books. Jason was very interesting even after this book was published he worked in the Metropolitan Museum of Art as a guard.
lens.blogs.nytimes 
npr interview 
conversation with jason eskenazi 

2-Viviane Sassen: Parasomnia 





I loved it want it will buy when able. 

amazon notes-Saturated with color and boldly composed, Viviane Sassen's photographs straddle the boundaries of fashion, art, and documentary photography. This monograph by the award-winning Dutch-born photographer Viviane Sassen features photographs from throughout West and East Africa. Sassen's overriding theme is parasomnia, a sleep disorder involving strange movements, behaviors, emotions, and dreams. The otherworldly feel of these photographs, involving both human and inanimate subjects, aptly conveys an altered-consciousness point of view-one that is at home in the pages of a fashion magazine, newspaper, or a modern art gallery. Indeed, Sassen's images have appeared in all three venues to wide acclaim. Sassen's photographic series is engaging and thrillingly beautiful, filled with shadow and ambiguity, and it offers a challenge to the viewers to come up with their own narrative.
http://www.vivianesassen.com/ 

3- Afronauts, Cristina DeMiddel - book is just out now!

 



















http://laughingsquid.com/afronauts-photos-inspired-by-zambias-forgotten-cold-war-space-program/ 

From the photographer: 
In 1964, still living the dream of their recently gained independence, Zambia started a space program that would put the first African person on the moon catching up the USA and the Soviet Union in the space race. 
Only a few optimists supported the project by Edward Makuka, the school teacher in charge of presenting the ambitious program and getting its necessary funding. But the financial aid never came, as the United Nations declined their support, and one of the astronauts, a 16 year old girl, got pregnant and had to quit. 
That is how the heroic initiative turned into an exotic episode of the African history, surrounded by wars, violence, droughts and hunger.                            
“Afronauts” is based on the documentation of an impossible dream that only lives in the pictures. I start from a real fact that took place 50 years ago and rebuild the documents adapting them to my personal imagery.                                                                           
  

Cuba Bazan, Ernesto Bazan

Ernesto is a kind and gentle spirit, glad I discovered him and his work at LOOK3, the work below speaks easily for itself.
Wonderful stuff, wish I could have bought about 15-20 books at the event.