fototazo: Gwen Lafage

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4.29.2014

Classroom: Aura Lambertinez

fototazo began a mentorship program in 2012, matching young Colombian photographers with mentors from across the spectrum of the photographic world - gallery owners, bloggers, academics, art directors and working photographers. The goal is to provide the young photographers with commentary and advice on their work from professionals in the field and to expand their network and knowledge of resources beyond Colombia.

The program started behind the scenes, but in an effort to create a singular conversation, share with readers work being made by the photographers, and under the belief that the advice, insight, and ways of talking about images offered by the mentors will be useful and interesting to other photographers, we are experimenting with making the process a public one.

We will be featuring a selection of images from a photographer involved in the program and comments from mentors approximately once a month.

This post features the work of Aura Lambertinez - who was our 11th microgrant recipient - and comments from her two assigned mentors, Gwen Lafage and Charles Guice, as well as additional comments from Dawn Roe.

The image numbers in the text correspond to those below the images in the caption here.

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Aura sent this note to her mentors about the work.

Dear mentors:

My name is Aura Duque Lambertinez. I'm studying a degree in the visual arts at the University of Antioquia. I'm 22 and I live in Medellin, Colombia. Some time ago I worked a bit on a project on vanity. It spoke of the ephemeral and the number of gadgets that humans have invented in order to try to satisfy the emptinesses we sometimes feel imposed by a consumer society. The work emphasized the grotesque that you can become.

Now I'm starting a new project, which speaks of absence. I decided to do it after the suicide of my cousin and best friend. I would like to receive suggestions and tips about how to talk about this situation through the pictures. I do not want to verge on the literal, and would love to achieve a more emotional and subtle poetry in each image.

I greatly appreciate your input and comments!

Regards, Aura Lambertinez

Response from Charles Guice:

Hola Aura,

You’ve obviously chosen a very personal subject to base your new series on. I’m so sorry for your loss. Co-workers, friends and family members often face a wave of emotions in the aftermath of a suicide, including grief, shock, anger, guilt, fear, depression and relief, and you yourself may be feeling any or all of these. A number of your images do, in fact, seem to reflect many of these emotions.

Certainly, the second image (woman in bed) appears to capture someone feeling deep depression, while several of the others, including the third (Star of David necklace), fifth (ring), seventh (box on mattress) and ninth (diary), evoke feelings of memory and loss. Initially, these five are the most effective and generating these varied emotions.

Personally, I found many of the other images to be less effective in conveying any real emotion, but they may have significance to you that I simply could not impart. I also initially thought that the emotional response should be even, e.g., all evoking similar feelings of memory and loss. But I then came to the conclusion they should not because, as a close friend of a suicide victim, your own emotions would probably swing back and forth over time.

With that in mind, I would suggest varying the emotional response even more than you have, assuming you have experienced these, as I would expect you to initially feel shock, then anger, depression and eventually loss. Photographing and selecting images that evoke and represent these emotions would make your work more powerful and possibly even cathartic.

I hope this is helpful, Aura. Having also lost a friend to suicide, my response to the work is probably more an emotional one than anything else, as the work forces me to reexamine my own feelings. I would encourage you to explore the full spectrum of your own feelings even further and try and represent them as best you can.

I’m looking forward to seeing where you take this. Please do keep in touch.

Abrazos,

Charles

Response from Dawn Roe:

Hello Aura,

What a great start to your project! Many strong images in this group – I’ve got quite a few comments, and I hope they are clear. I’ll start with Image 1 and 9. Although they are somewhat distinct formally, they stand out to me as being the strongest in relation to the sensibility you are in search of – there is a strong poignancy to each of these images for somewhat different reasons, for me.

Number 1 is a striking image to start off with – and I was admittedly being influenced by the knowledge that the content of this work deals with the suicide of your best friend and cousin. There is a strong sensation that comes across in that image – very much a feeling of being on that rooftop under the somewhat sickly (yet beautiful) orange glow of the city lights, coupled with the wet concrete that is made more noticeable due to the reflection that sits within the small puddle. The light illuminating its outer portion further accentuates the ledge, and there is a palpable intensity that can be felt when one considers the empty space, just beyond.

Number 9 conjures many of these same feelings, but differently. The aesthetic is somewhat simpler, less romanticized perhaps. The book is clearly (but softly) lit and there is a sense of this interior space being dimly illuminated. The book is perfectly framed and contained very precisely within the edges of the frame, allowing just enough of the bare mattress to show through from below. Here too, there is a strong sense of loss, again being influenced by the knowledge of the content, but even without that, the inclusion of this book/journal within the image suggests its importance and/or relevance to someone’s life – and it is somewhat sadly left tossed open upon the bed.

I also thought 5, 7 and 13 had potential, and feel perhaps that 6 and 14 play off of one another in an interesting manner in terms of the suggestion of a wide open, yet lonely world (which could relate back to the first image as well) – although the tilted horizon in image 14 doesn’t seem to make as much sense with your others images (at least not right now) although I can see how the movement and possible urgency suggested within that type of composition might be a strategy you could employ.

Number 5 and 7 are aesthetically and conceptually similar to number 9, and I think it was smart to break these up within your sequence, as the repetition of the mattress does become noticeable. I’m not sure though that they all need to be in the series, as there is the potential that the repeated gesture of placing an item of seeming significance on top of this (potentially loaded) surface, could lose its strength if repeated too forcefully or frequently. I will say that those do have the subtle poetic quality that you are seeking with the work, and I am drawn to them visually. There is also something compelling happening in number 13. The religious symbolism coupled with the fragmentary nature of the composition speaks to absence – the emptiness of the interior of the composition accentuates this, where the disembodied hand comes out toward the middle, and the small tree seems almost as if its trying to rise up to meet the gesture.

In terms of those that aren’t working as well for me – at this point, 2 and 3 seem a bit more overt than your others, and less nuanced. As well, formally, the extreme blues and pinks don’t seem to make as much sense with the subdued, subtle palette of the majority of the work. For this reason, 10 does not work as well for me at this time either. And, although there is potential in the final image, it doesn’t contain quite enough specificity, for me, at this point, and is almost just a bit too ambiguous. The same is true for number 12 – potential, but maybe revisit that one. Numbers 11, 8 and 4 are just not as strong formally for me, as your others. The compositions don’t seem as deliberate and they don’t, at this time, feel as much a part of the series as the others.

There is enormous potential here, and I hope I get a chance to see the work as it unfolds. Thanks for allowing me the chance to see this work in progress!

Dawn Roe

Hi Aura,

Thanks so much for sharing your work.

I'm glad to see the first photos of this new series and at first glance I have to say that I'm impressed with how your work has evolved and is becoming much stronger than what you presented last year.

The theme you have chosen for your new series is very difficult and it is very brave to address such a personal and emotional subject. Dealing with grief and trying (I guess) to find answers through photography is very honorable and I hope that it can help you.

Of course absence is hard to photograph, as you're trying to represent something which is not there anymore. The way to achieve this could be done in different ways, for example through objects reminding you of your friend that belong to her, places representing memories, old notes, tickets, etc., old photographs. It could also be done through a more direct approach, including yourself (self-portraits) or member of your/her family. Both approaches can also be complementary.

One thing which is I think important to keep in mind for every project is the consistency of your project and how each photograph can add to the story you want to tell or the feeling you want to express. In your case I think that your desire to create 'emotional and subtle poetry' is more achieved by some photos than others. Think about the colors of the photos, the textures but also how the photos work together and how they follow each other. I think your color palette here can really change your project and give it a different tone.

To be more specific, I believe that some of your photos work better than others for your objective. For example photos 8 and 11 don't really seem to work that well with the rest. Photo 14 is not as strong as photo 1 or even 10. Photo 4 and 13 work for me, I like what they're telling.

Photo 3 can be interesting but I'm wondering about the color which seems to stand out from the rest. I like photo 2 but I'm wondering if it fits with the rest or if maybe you should add more photos like this one: this is the only photo featuring someone (you?) and I think that you could explore that idea but add more photos like this. Photos 5, 7 and 9 seem very personal and they make lot of sense - I'd explore more photos like these to create this very personal feeling (there is something very sad about those photos) and emphasize the absence by presence of objects.

I did a quick search of projects dealing with similar situations, and here are a few projects which might be inspiring (even if the circumstances and contexts are quite different):

http://dennisdehartcom.fatcow.com/photography/when-i-see-you/

http://www.henrikmalmstrom.com : ON BORROWED TIME

http://goseongchoi.com/umma

http://elizabethfleming.com/#/PORTFOLIOS/Buried%20on%20Her%2090th%20Birthday/1/

http://www.joshualutz.com/#/books/hesitating-beauty

I hope this helps!

I look forward to see how your project evolves.

Best

Gwen

10.31.2013

Classroom: Juliana Henao Alcaraz

fototazo began a mentorship program in 2012, matching young Colombian photographers with mentors from across the spectrum of the photographic world - gallery owners, bloggers, academics, art directors and working photographers. The goal is to provide the young photographers with commentary and advice on their work from professionals in the field and to expand their network and knowledge of resources beyond Colombia.

The program started behind the scenes, but in an effort to create a singular conversation, share with readers work being made by the photographers, and under the belief that the advice, insight, and ways of talking about images offered by the mentors will be useful and interesting to other photographers, we are experimenting with making the process a public one.

We will be featuring a selection of images from a photographer involved in the program and comments from mentors approximately once a month.

This post features the work of Juliana Henao Alcaraz- who was our sixth microgrant recipient - and comments from her two assigned mentors, Amani Willett and Oliver Schneider, as well as additional comments from Jaime Permuth and Gwen Lafage.

______________________________

Juliana asked her mentors specifically for help looking at the three different projects she has been working on to judge how they stand so far as well as how much promise they offer for her moving forward. Her three statements as well as images and comments from the mentors follow. For length, only a selection of the over 30 images sent to the mentors are presented here.

Project 1
Traces of life and death / Granada, Antioquia

Never before in Colombia had people lived through the destruction of a town of this size, never before had my eyes seen so many dead, never before had I seen so much fear.

Before everything was normal, the people went to church, went to the market, to the river, the children played in the courtyard, people went to the their small country houses...they lived.

Then we left. There were very few people left, all in silence. We got used to the fear. Then came the hatred, then after the hatred came hope ... We all move forward with strength and memory, looking to the future without forgetting the past. There is no peace, nor tranquility, nor happiness. There is still silence and sadness, but now with a little more hope than before.

Project 2
Blue

Another world ...
You refuse the light completely,
You go clickety clack as if you’re going to crash,
Crackling in and out of the water,
you're somewhere else, you fly ...
Feel your living slowness
that takes you to magnificence and oblivion ...
You dye yourself in her: green, yellow, blue ...
You undo yourself in form and color,
in weight or in fragrance ...
You navigate the sky by going through the bottom,
Sky galaxies reflected
and the waves circle you in rays of light...
Listen to your heartbeat,
your skin becomes bejeweled by clear drops,
other bodies go by like they’re water,
fleeting water for your thirst,
that caresses you with a distant light
in an intimate and unique shadow ...
You dance as if you are air
do not talk, do not hear, do not breathe ...
Feel.

Project 3
Days

Eternal and timeless days. Days filled with strangers who become close to you upon meeting them…days filled with friends who become strangers. Days in which you see the same thing…days in which you see nothing. Days in which instead of seeing, you feel…days with luck.

Days.

_____________________________________________________________________

Response from Amani Willett:

Hi Juliana –

I'm excited to be able to connect with you, see your work and offer what advice I can.

I began by reading your project descriptions without looking at any of the photographs. This was a fun exercise because I have never seen your work and I know very little about you.

After reading the project descriptions, I think the first one, Traces of Life and Death, sounds the most promising. In the description I can hear your voice and your passion. I could immediately tell that this is a subject that you feel very strongly about. In reading the description, I gained some insight into your history, your experiences, your fears, etc.

Besides the obvious connection and interest you have the subject, I also sense that Traces of Life and Death holds promise for the most interesting project possibilities. There are so many different ways you could approach the subject – landscapes, portraits, documents. etc. Or a combination of multiple approaches. I would say that this potential strength is also a potential weakness– it could quickly get overly-complicated, overwhelming or confusing.

The Blue project idea is fine, but I’ve seen many similar projects. You would need to figure out a way to set the series apart from other similar projects.

The third project Days might be too open-ended. It might not provide enough structure.

After reading the project descriptions I looked at the photographs. The three projects are at differing stages of completion. The most cohesive of the projects at this point is the Blue series. The images work together, they agree with the work statement and they are the strongest images. It could be relatively straightforward to continue working on this series to try and make some images that set it apart from other photographers who have photographed "swimmers," "water," and "blue." You should do some research to see what other artists have produced while tackling these themes.

I still think Traces of Life and Death has the most potential, but at this point it also probably needs the most work. The photographs don’t yet have the same power as the statement and they feel disconnected with one another. This project may require quite a large number of images to effectively illustrate your concept. You might want to consider incorporating historical images, old family images, landscapes, still lives, portraits, maps and oral histories.

You have many exciting and promising directions to explore and some of the images in this first batch are wonderful. I hope my comments are in some way helpful for you as you figure out which project to focus on. I can't wait to see how your work develops!

- Amani Willett

Response from Oliver Schneider:

Dear Juliana,

Thank you for showing us your beautiful work. I'll go on and comment on each series specifically.

Traces of life and death / Granada, Antioquia

It was a huge difference to just look at the pictures without having read your statement. That's a common problem with photography and especially with documentary photography: the context is very important. My own personal goal is to make pictures that go beyond the context and stand for themselves (which I haven't managed to reach yet by my own standards). You could try to let your pictures be free and stand by their own, but with the topic you chose still in mind. What I mean is: don't try to tell something specific, grab your camera and do more pictures and don't think about what the viewer might want to know or has to understand.

I can see that you don't want to do a traditionally told photo story about a village that has been destroyed. But I think you could be even more distant from the actual story and tell us more about your feelings and show us your observations. Strangely, the picture with the horse (number 5) still sticks in my mind. Maybe because of its strange angle and framing but also it seems to be your personal, subjective perspective. The surrealism of the picture gives the picture more reality, in my very humble opinion. It reminds me a little of the work by surrealistic artists like Luis Buñuel or Alejandro Jodorowsky. The picture with the cow (number 10) goes very well along with it and has the perfect balance of showing something but not everything and still holds its mystery.

The whole series would gain immensely if you would take out the first three pictures or better: redo them, try again in different lighting and/or perspective if you can't let them go. Find out what it is you wanted to take a picture of and try to catch it. In your case maybe I would propose to try taking black and white pictures, too, I can imagine it could be great and even stronger and more focussed than in color. I can imagine numbers 3, 5, 9, 10 and 12 could look great in black and white and would make a good series.

Some pictures, like numbers 3 and 4, seem to me like you were hiding to take them or you were in a rush. Maybe you could try to be more upfront or when taking pictures of people, try to ask them for permission. Believe me, I know how hard that is, I'm still hiding when I can which is still a problem for me. Also, the situation changes completely when they're aware you're taking a picture and that sucks, too, I know. Try to find your way of dealing with this, maybe go to a public event or make planed portraits at their homes. The expressive faces are fascinating and it would be great to see them more clearly.

I really like your style of writing the statements, it's great to try something different and I like poetry. I think poetry has a lot in common with good photography: it's a condensed feeling. I think the challenge to understand a poem is not so much the context and excessive additional information but how you understand and how you feel it personally. Certainly this is my personal opinion rooted in my taste in photography, others might see that differently.

Blue

I can relate to your fascination with water and to be underwater. You feel free and in a way out of this world. The numbed hearing and the shades of blue are indeed fascinating. Also, no wonder in medicine they use tanks to give people relief who suffer from Tinitus. To quiet down is also a big wish of mine, to find quiet and stillness in a stressful world. Unfortunately there are certain topics in photography that so many people have tried and used that it's hard to stand out - to say it more directly, they're a little overused. I'm working as a designer and I sometimes have to look for fitting images in stock photography collections like Getty Images. This work numbs me in a bad way and spoil photography sometimes because I get sarcastic from so much stereotypes.

To be honest, this series is not working for me so much, I like the more abstract pictures the best (numbers 2, 7, 9, 10). Try to reflect what it is that fascinates you and try to get to the root of it, get extreme and try different photographic techniques (using flash or long exposure, wrong colors, bad cameras etc.). Maybe the goal will become clearer while doing more work underwater. Maybe looking at works of other photographers or painters will give you more ideas about how to proceed and how to get it more personal and outstanding. Do you know the work of Daisuke Yokota? Your statement is great, I really like your text and I think I really get what you're after but I think this series needs some more work. But don't give up, please, it's just hard to do in a really good and unique way.

Days
Another great statement! The viewer doesn't really need the additional information from your statement but it adds to the experience. I really like the series, I just think the pictures number 4 and 9 fit in so well. In those pictures your view gets more distant and the pictures lose their intimacy and power. Other than that, they're really touching, youthful and exploring - a rush of experiences. Please continue, I'm looking forward to seeing more. This series might illustrate what I said to your Traces of life and death series, these pictures telling me nothing specific, but in general they're telling me so much more about you and your life. I can relate and I can feel your hopes and dreams and I get a glimpse of you.

So, I hope I could help you in any way, I really tried! ;) Please get in touch and comment if you feel like it.

Best wishes from Berlin,
Oliver

Response from Jaime Permuth:

Hola Juliana,

I was very moved by the courage, faith and sensibility in the words you wrote to accompany your images. I grew up in Guatemala during my country's Civil War, a time of great social upheaval and bloodshed. Violence was part of our everyday existence as were censorship - and ultimately more damaging for an artist - self-censorship. It was painful to hear about your devastating experience and witnessing in Granada. I hope that photography can help you come to terms with that in some way.

Forgive me for having more questions than comments. I'm not sure what the timeline is on your different projects or if you are undertaking them simultaneously. Are these projects complete or in progress?

With regard to Traces:
How far away do you live from Granada these days? How are you approaching photographic production? When and how often do you return to make these photographs? What is it like for you to return? More context in your statement would be very helpful.

I agree with Amani that Traces has great potential as a project and with Oliver that it might work better in black and white. I also, agree with Amani that the images in Blue are your most adventurous and consistent thus far. In a sense these two projects are like the two sides of a coin: mourning and celebration, ying and yang.

As a photographer you learn in two basic ways: by looking at other images and by making images as often as you can.

Looking at other explorations of tragedy and exile might be helpful to you (Peress, Koudelka and Salgado to name a few) as well as past explorations of the joys of the aquatic world (Howard Schatz, David LaChapelle and Jill Greenberg in the commercial arena and Breath, a beautiful new project by Tomohide Ikeya).

Un abrazo,
Jaime

Response from Gwen Lafage:

Hola Juliana,

Thanks for sharing your work.

As opposed to Amani, I first looked at your photos seeing just the title of the series and then I read your statement, before looking again at the photos.

I believe that it is important to convey the message or illustrate the subject just with the photos first - the title should be enough to give a first vision of the work, the statement should then offer a deeper understanding.

At first glance, I think that Blue is the most comprehensive project. The statement is well written, the photos are consistent. But as mentioned by others this is not a very new or innovative approach so you should keep exploring the subject to better define your own voice. Your statement is full of poetry, but also reverie and solitude, so as much as I like the playfulness of some of the photos, I think you should probably explore more the reverie you describe in your statement - or work on the playfulness of photos 4 and 6 for example but then with a slightly different statement?

Regarding Traces of Life and Death, I saw at first a very literal translation of the title in the photos. And I didn't understand the consistency and the flow of images. But reading your statement gave me another perspective and I started to better understand some of the images, which is a good thing. This project definitely has a very strong potential. But I think you should search deeper to explore what you're feeling and how your photos expressed that. There is an emphasis on your statement on the "before" and the "after," maybe this is something you can work on and explore this "duality." Your statement is very profound while I believe the photos are often too superficial, too literal. Your statement is also a lot about the people, maybe getting closer to the people, adding some portraits while keeping looking at the landscape can create a better story.

Your last project Days has for me the best photos. I'm not sure about the entire consistency of the images, but for me there is definitely something here. I wouldn't worry about the consistency or even the title or statement of this project just yet. Probably because the subject is very open, the photos seem closer, truer to you and your life? It seems to me that maybe because the subject is a little vague, it didn't become a constraint and so the photos are more natural - taken more from your 'heart' than your head? The statement is once again well written, but I think it might be too open to really create a consistent project/story. I would keep shooting and worry about the edit in a later stage. Sometimes keeping things simple and just shooting what feels right for you is the best way to go.

Thanks again for sharing your photos - I look forward to seeing your work progressing!

Best,
Gwen Lafage

11.19.2012

Interview: Larissa Leclair

Larissa Leclair is a writer, curator, collector, and the Founder of the Indie Photobook Library. The iPL is an archive of self-published and independently produced photobooks, artist books, photozines, and other genres not usually collected by traditional libraries in the United States.

Leclair is assembling this archive with the foresight and understanding our contemporary era will be - in part - defined by what she terms in the interview as the “second wave of self-publishing” as well as by photobooks more generally. She has been aggressive about taking the library on the road to galleries and festivals, an innovative structure that ensures the library’s contemporary relevance in addition to its historic value for future scholars and photographers. By concentrating these books in one collection, she has also created a unique opportunity to study contemporary alternative publishing in depth, a depth she ensures with an open submissions policy that keeps the archive free of curatorial biases and provides a democratic cross-section of materials. The library’s exploding growth proves both the need and its importance.

This interview complements the information about Leclair and the iPL found in other interviews she has previously done, including those on B, Lenscratch, Visura Magazine, and Hey, Hot Shot! It explores her thoughts on the history of photobooks, her vision of the contemporary publishing landscape, and her ideas on the strengths and limitations of the format.

The Indie Photobook Library can be found on Twitter and Facebook.

fototazo: What is the backstory on how the iPL formed? What gave you the drive to create a photography book library?

Larissa Leclair: I started off as a photographer, but my interest in archives began in graduate school, when I spent most of my time researching and working in Manuscripts & Archives at Yale University with photographs, postcards, ephemera and books. I came to understand the life of objects and the role of an archive – both its strengths and its pitfalls. While there, I was a member of the Photographic Memory Workshops and continue to be part of it now, ten years later. Each year the PMW and the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library team up to present a Master Class. Graduate students and scholars are given the opportunity to spend a day (or two, or four) with an entire collection from the Western Americana Collection at the Beinecke, along with the photographer of the collection or expert scholars on the collection. The Master Class in April of 2010, that I attended, focused on the Peter Palmquist Collection. Peter Palmquist’s life mission after retiring was very inspiring and his collection has and will have a big impact on the history of photography specifically relating to women in photography since the late 1800’s. It will enable photo historians to fill in the gender gaps. The vision encapsulated in his collection, and the fact that he had done it on his own, was the final piece of encouragement I needed.

The idea of creating a non-circulating library has been in my head for many years. It was an idea I wanted to bring to the table for a non-profit organization and at that time my focus was a broad range of international titles and making them available to a U.S. audience. That initiative never materialized but the idea stayed and evolved. Starting in 2009, with the rise of self-published books and the Blurb Photography Book Now competition, I was personally frustrated with not being able to view most of these books in person. So the idea of wishing for a central place to look at these kinds of books was in my head on the day I saw Peter Palmquist’s archive. I was blown away that a single individual could follow his passion, and create a collection without institutional support, and in the process have an impact on the history of photography. I realized I was not only interested in promoting indie published books, but most importantly, interested in creating a lasting archive. So two weeks after the Master Class - with the idea, one photobook, and a Facebook page - I founded the Indie Photobook Library in May of 2010.

In the last two and a half years of the iPL’s history, I have organized 20 pop-up library spaces and feature-length photobook exhibitions from the iPL archive, lectured at conferences and universities, been a consultant for other photobook exhibitions, and written about photobooks. The goals of the Indie Photobook Library are twofold: to showcase independent and self-published photobooks to be seen in person now (not just on the web) and to preserve them for future generations. The concept is a browse-able archive or non-circulating public library and the iPL has already become a benchmark collection in such a short time. Having a specific collection dedicated to these kinds of books allows for the development of future discourse on trends in self-publishing, the ability to reflect on and compare books in the collection, and for scholarly research to be conducted in years, decades and centuries to come.

f: Share with us a short history of the photobook. When did it begin to evolve as a vehicle for art photographers and what are some of the landmarks of its subsequent history?

LL: Since the beginning of the photographic medium with Fox Talbot’s The Pencil of Nature, the book has been an integral part of the history of photography; a part that has been substantiated and can easily be read about in Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s The Photobook: A History. Volume 3 will be coming out soon. So the history of the photobook is as long as the history of photography itself. Anna Atkins, Francis Frith, Julia Margaret Cameron, Alexander Gardner were all putting their work into books. There was Muybridge; Japanese photobooks from the 1960’s and 70’s; Ed Ruscha; punk zines; and now this explosion with self-publishing and collaborative and independent small presses. That is egregiously abbreviated. There is so much to discuss! Yet even the photobooks covered in Parr and Badger is just a starting point. When I teach the history of photography, I discuss subjective history and offer parallel “histories” of the medium. I look forward to a truly inclusive “world” history of photography. And when I lecture about photobooks, I stress to the audience to make sure history remembers you by putting at least one copy of your photobook in a public collection. There is never a definitive history and it is always being written. And the Indie Photobook Library is playing a role in collecting photobook history today as it is happening and influencing what should be included in its ongoing history.

f: Lots of people have commented over the past few years that we’re in a photobook Golden Age. Do you think this is true? If so, what are the dynamics that would define this as a Golden Age?

LL: As online and print media are talking about the disappearance of the paper book form, the photography community is embracing the physical book. We indeed are seeing a renaissance, or Golden Age, for self-published and independently published books. The e-book world is having little effect on the DIY photobook culture. In my lecture at the New York Art Book Fair at MoMA PS1 in 2011, I categorized this current photobook movement as a second wave of self-publishing. The bookmakers of today continue the trail paved by those who challenged the paradigm in the 60’s and 70’s. Advances in digital printing and the option of POD in the last decade has greatly impacted the proliferation of self-published photobooks and has broken down barriers in thought and production for photographers wanting to put out their own book. The traditional publishing paradigm is being challenged. The mindset has changed. It can be done on your own!

f: What do you believe are the strengths and inherent limitations of the photobook format, as opposed to showing photographs on a wall or in a digital or multi-media format?

LL: Moholy-Nagy believed that the book form was the ideal format for photography. It is my preferred way of looking, revisiting, and owning work. Ruscha argued about his own work that the subject matter on the surface may not be that interesting, but once collected, compiled, and sequenced in book form, the package becomes something entirely different. The photobook can be as much an artistic object as the work inside and is a valid venue for viewing photography. Often the book form is the paramount space for a particular body of work. I see the photobook as a self-contained exhibition able to be revisited again and again, long after a traditional exhibition would be de-installed. The book form counters that ephemeral existence of exhibitions.

f: Is a photographer’s style, voice, or “sensibility” something equally apparent in their photobooks as in their images?

LL: The photobooks that embody the sensibility of the artist and the photographic work inside are usually the most successful in my opinion. It is the culmination of the components - the photography, design, details, and book concept manifested together. Rather than just a book of photographs, it is the book-as-object.

f: Do you believe that some form of narrative is inherent in a book format, no matter how aggressively it is attacked?

LL: There is an inherent sequencing that happens in a book that creates relationships between the images. But not everyone looks at a book the same way – front-to-back, back-to-front, middle and then flip-through. There are plenty of photobooks that are unbound and thus the original “narrative” changes according to the viewer. Some photographers try and direct the viewer, while others leave the narrative very wide open. Visitor by Ofer Wolberger completely upends the sequencing and narrative of the traditional book form.

f: What are as the trends in contemporary photobooks that you are noticing as you engage with new books on a daily basis?

LL: I’ll list a few: The Dutch are consistently amazing photobook designers and makers. Newsprint, in all its tones and weights, is being utilized by everyone - from students of photography to established photographers. And bookmakers are using the print-on-demand platform just as a starting point for their photobook - pushing the possibilities - and putting their artistic stamp on it.

f: Are we reaching a point of photobook saturation in terms of volume of production for the market that exists? How do you see the current state of the independent, self-published book market?

LL: Sure the photobook market is a niche market; one that seems to be overflowing with self-published books. But there are plenty of photobooks that sell through their print-run very quickly. I’ll answer the question this way. Photobook makers should be realistic about the size of their audience and don’t print an unrealistic number.

f: If you could have one photobook you don’t already own, for free, which would it be?

LL: Wow, what a question! For the Indie Photobook Library, anything by Ed Rushca; Mishka Henner’s Astronomical; and Cristina De Middel’s The Afronauts. For my own personal collection, I’d love a volume by Maxime Du Camp. And two books I missed out on when they were in print were Andrew Roth’s The Book of 101 Books and Flamboya by Viviane Sassen. Was that just one?

f: Talk with us about the recent iPL exhibition at Carte Blanche. What were the goals and subject of the exhibition?

LL: One of the most recent iPL exhibitions, “A Survey of Documentary Styles in early 21st Century Photobooks” started at Gallery Carte Blanche in San Francisco and had the opportunity to travel to Washington, DC. There may even be a few more itinerations of the exhibition. I know the title is a mouthful, but Darius Himes (co-curator) and I wanted to be explicit in conveying all the components of the exhibition. The exhibition looks at documentary photography in a very broad way. While there are some books that speak a more traditional documentary language, most do not. There are books that critique the documentary tradition, diaristic books, typology studies, narratives based on found and vernacular imagery, and photobooks that borrow heavily from an art-photography storehouse. The primary medium is photobooks from the Indie Photobook Library archive, rather than photographic prints exclusively, as in a traditional exhibition. Yet, there were prints included for the first time in this Indie Photobook Library exhibition. From the 70 photobooks, Gwen Lafage, Founder of Gallery Carte Blanche, selected a total of 16 images by 6 photographers (Michael Jang, Erica McDonald, McNair Evans, Matt Eich, Lacey Terrell and Eliot Dudik) to accompany the books. This created a dynamic dialogue for viewing and experiencing photography. The exhibition is a very current and contemporary analysis of self-publishing, presentation of photographic work and documentary styles.

f: Do you have specific ideas and goals for further exhibitions at this point that you're looking forward to working on?

LL: The pop-up library spaces and traveling exhibitions are an initial way of showcasing the books in the archive, but from the beginning, I have always wanted a permanent space for the entire Indie Photobook Library. The space would operate as a browse-able archive or non-circulating public library. In the meantime, I continue to collaborate with universities, galleries, and festivals and look forward to more great exhibitions in 2013!

Submissions to the iPL

1.09.2012

fototazo Begins Mentorship Program

fototazo is launching a mentorship program as we start the new year. The program matches young, emerging Colombian photographers with mentors from across the spectrum of the photographic world - gallery owners, bloggers, academics, art directors and working photographers. The goal is to provide the mentorship photographers with commentary and advice on their work from professionals in the field and to expand their network and knowledge of resources beyond Colombia.

The process will be a semi-public one. Images from the photographers will occasionally be posted on this site along with commentary from the mentors under the belief that their advice and insight will frequently be useful to other photographers and seeing how they look at and talk about photographs will be of public interest.

The program will begin with four photographers, each matched with two mentors:

Photographer: Oscar Ulloa
Mentors: Matt Johnston co-runs The Photo Book Club as well as Phonar; he is a Professor at the University of Coventry in England; Kevin Thrasher is a photographer based in Richmond, Virginia

Photographer: Natalia Lopera
Mentors: Julia Schiller co-runs the site Actual colors may vary; Oliver Schneider co-runs the site Actual colors may vary

Photographer: Daniela Serna
Mentors: John Edwin Mason runs the blog John Edwin Mason: Documentary, Motorsports, Photo History and is a Professor at the University of Virginia; Wayne Ford runs Wayne Ford's Posterous and co-runs The Photo Book Club

Photographer: Aura Lambertinez
Mentors: Charles Guice is Founder of Charles Guice Contemporary; Gwen Lafage is Founder of Gallery Carte Blanche

Bryan Formhals, Founding and Managing Editor of LPV Magazine, will be serving as a floating mentor and guest critic, periodically reviewing work from all four program photographers.

The mentorship program photographers will be delivering new work to the mentors in roughly a month at which point some of the work and comments will begin to appear in subsequent posts.

9.10.2011

f100: Pierfrancesco Celada and Flore Aël Surun

fototazo has asked a group of 50 curators, gallery owners, blog writers, photographers, academics and others actively engaged in photography to pick two photographers that deserve (more) recognition - the underknown, the under-respected as well as not-appreciated-enough favorites. A little more information on the project is available in the first post in the series here.

Today we continue the series with responses from Gwen Lafage.

We began the series with responses from Nicholas Nixon, Matt Johnston, Blake Andrews, John Edwin Mason, Aline Smithson, Colin Pantall, Michael Werner, Liza Fetissova, Laurence Salzmann, Bryan Formhals, Richard Mosse, Shane Lavalette, Amy Stein, Amani Willett, Wayne Ford, S. Billie Mandle, Leslie K. Brown, Gordon Stettinius, Marc Feustel, Hin Chua, Adriana Rios Monsalve, Daniel Augschoell, Larissa Leclair, Elinor Carucci, Pieter Wisse, Daniel Echevarría, Natalie Minik, Qiana Mestrich, Jason Landry, Rona Chang, Stella Kramer, Joanne Lukitsh and Yumi Goto.

Respondent: Gwen Lafage is the founder of Carte Blanche, a project dedicated to emerging photography from around the world. The project will be first launched this fall online and then in San Francisco as a photography gallery and bookstore.

She also blogs regularly about the photography that questions and inspires her life. Originally from Brittany, France, she now lives in San Francisco.

Selections: Pierfrancesco Celada and Flore Aël Surun. Both are talented young European photographers who have succeeded in creating powerful emotional and question-raising bodies of work.

Pierfrancesco Celada explores solitude in the modern Megalopolis. His long-term project in Japan shows isolation and loneliness in crowded environments. His images depict the complex emergence of individualization that is probably even stronger in modern cities than in the countryside. In a society where ways of communicating have multiplied through modern technologies, he captures the opposite phenomena, highlighting the lack of real communication and human relationships. By capturing scenes of daily life he questions the paradoxes of our time and brings us back to our relationship to others… moreover each one of his images is well thought out and beautifully executed. I look forward to seeing the next part of his series as he is now back to Japan! Watch this.

Flore Aël Surun is a French photographer who belongs to Tendance Floue, a French collective that I particularly enjoy. They're a group of engaged documentary photographers who are not afraid to shout what they think with strong images. Flore Aël Surun tells each of her stories with sensibility, with femininity and elegance and makes each one a beautiful testimony about life, death, love, "survivors." "Because [as she says] their survivals of any orders get her to the heart without a warning." And I believe that each one of her images gets to our heart without a warning. They're aesthetically beautiful and emotionally fascinating. Through her approach Flore Aël Surun teaches us the power of personal documentary photography and its undeniable artistic appeal.