Bernd Becher, 75, Photographer of German Industrial Landscape, Dies











My photography professor from undergraduate school sent me this link yesterday from the NY Times. I remember being exposed to the Becher's work as an undergraduate photographer, and initially being underwhelmed. It took me a while to warm up to the cold facades of blast furnaces, water towers, and mines. However, once I did, I was influenced greatly by the full frontal no nonsense approach to seeing. My interest in their work however falls short at the word "typology", often thrown around when discussing the Becher's photography. The study of types. Well no kidding.

Google image search for "Typology" I found not one Becher photograph, but ran across this gem. I'm particularly enamored with the fact that Brooke Shields is the "artist" type.

Cold Feet

So, I am sitting in my apartment, recently vacated by the woman I love and couldn't help but think of the term "Cold Feet".

I'm not sure exactly why there is a negative connotation with having feet that are cold. I happen to like having my feet out from under the sheets or blanket when I sleep at night. Generally they are cold when I do this, and I sleep like a baby.

I tried looking for images pertaining to "Cold Feet" and found a group of images where the bride is trying to grab the groom as he heads for the hills. This is a misnomer as I have recently found out...the opposite can happen as well. This type of imagery leads a bad taste in my mouth, especially now.

So, instead of trying to find imagery by someone else, I am posting a set of photos I made while at Cranbrook Academy of Art, when my relationship was in full blossom, and trudging around our apartment making photographs, my feet were most definitely cold, and I was happy as I am when I sleep.
I seem to recall this work was critiqued as contrary to the work I had been doing in Flint, MI simultaneously. These photographs were of something being built not something that was crumbling and forgotten. I felt like this was an apt observation of this "side" project. In a way it seemed hopeful to me at the time, and with a couple of years hindsight, even now. The irony of course is that the stakes and column bolts were the foundation for cookie cutter architecture that defines suburbia. I like to think I caught the space when it was at it's most beautiful.

Loss

I am thinking about loss right now, having just experienced a painful loss. Doing a Google search, of photographs that deal with loss immediately spawned images of mens hair loss. Go figure. I then thought about one of my favorite photographers, Robert Frank. Of all of the iconic images Frank has made dealing with loss, this one stuck with me, punches me in the gut saying: this is what it is, neither positive nor negative, it just is. For me there is a tension in this photo that goes beyond what words can describe.












©Robert Frank


I find this image also ties in with something that Colleen Mullins is experiencing this week, however in probably a more somber way. For words and images that deal with the deep blue sea and what it invokes for her, check out FiveYearsAtSea.

I read A Grief Observed by C.S. Lewis before I ever had a reason to do so. Now that I do I take comfort in his opening paragraph, which launches the tone of the book in the most poetic and visceral of ways:

"No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear. I am not afraid, but the sensation is like being afraid. The same fluttering in the stomach, the same restlessness, the yawning. I keep on swallowing."

MCP/McKnight Fellowship Results!

2007 MCP/McKnight Fellowship results are in....and the recipients are:

Peter Latner
Paula McCartney
Anthony Marchetti
Thomas Wik

Congratulations to you all!

On Saturday, August 4, MCP will open New Photography: McKnight Fellows 2006/2007, featuring the work of last year's Fellows--Kristine Heykants, Orin Rutchick, Mickey Smith, and Angela Strassheim.

bailliwik

Check out new work published this spring in Bailliwik out of Chicago, IL. Put out by Robert Hunt and Surabhi Ghosh, Bailliwik is a great venue for artists, writers, and photographers.

OK. I'm making an attempt to get this thing going. Those of you who have visited on and off since January...you're efforts have not been in vain. Stay Tuned.