Junk for Code

the Holtermann collection

The Holtermann Collection is a remarkable archive of a photographic record of that gold rush in the 1870s. The photographers responsible for the images were Beaufoy Merlin and Charles Bayliss of the American and Australasian Photographic Company.

Charles Bayliss, View of Chappell's stamper battery, near Bald Hill, on Hill End Creek, New South Wales, ca. 1872, NLA

The glass plate negatives are being digitized

Julia Solis: Stages of Decay

Julia Solis is a veteran urban archaeologist/photographer whose explorations of subterranean New York have inspired many (and whose book New York Underground: The Anatomy of a City, is a classic). This text explored the iconic landscape beneath Manhattan---it was a historical tour of New York's vast underground systems.

A later project is Stages of Decay, an photographic study of crumbling theaters still standing throughout America and Europe.

Julia Solis untiltled, from the series Abandoned Theatres

The project focuses on the actual stages as they become disfigured by neglect, as the decay moves from the first patches of mold to crumbling plaster, rotting curtains and collapsing roofs. The camera's perspective is that of a last audience member, viewing the unfolding spectacle of decrepitude.

Australian architectural photography: Tim Griffith

The Ballarat International Foto Biennale (BIFB13) will be in late August/early September this year. In the meantime BIFB have created a quarterly online photography magazine entitled Beta. Issue I has been published and it is a retrospective which features some of the shows we presented at BIFB’11 and BIFB’09.

One of the photographers included is the Australian-born and US-based architectural photographer Tim Griffith, who mostly photographs for clients the new buildings in South East Asia and the US with a modular 5x4 Alpa with a digital back tethered to a laptop.

Tim Griffith, The International Commerce Centre (ICC Tower), West Kowloon, Hong Kong, 2010

“Architectural photography” still connotes a traditional client-driven practice straddling the architecture and publishing industries---the international architectural firms tap selected photographers to create photographs of their projects. The modernist style dominates---crystalline, weightless, with endless linear recession and crisp intersection of planes.

Griffith, in contrast, works in the space of architectural art photography. The photographs produced with a large format camera and high-resolution digital sensors are pristine and finely detailed and they are subsequently exposed to a series of processes to degrade the image.

Tim Griffith, Beijing International Stadium (Birdnest) China

These photos don’t look like architectural photography, not as thought of by the profession. The bird nest looks like a ruin in the Romantic tradition. This kind of photography is an interpretive medium for architecture.

Edward Weston at Point Lobos

Whilst photographing along the coast west or Victor Harbor I recalled the work of Edward Weston at Point Lobos. He made a number of black and white studies or rocks and cypress trees with his 8 x 10 field camera.

Edward Weston, rocks, Point Lobos, 1930.

Weston's home was on Wildcat Hill in Carmel Highlands where he lived off and on from 1938 until his death in 1958. His modernist series of photographs of tide pools, kelp beds, sand, stone and bent cypresses of Point Lobos and Big Sur were taken only a few miles from the front door, at what is now the Point Lobos State Reserve.

Juergen Teller

German born Juergen Teller works in London anbd is one is one of a few artists who has been able to operate successfully both in the art world and the world of commercial photography.

Juergen Teller, Nürnberg Winter 5, Nürnberg, 2005

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois: sculptures

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois, was a renowned French-American artist and sculptor, best known for her contributions to both modern and contemporary art, especially sculpture. She created some powerful images as could be seen in the exhibition of the late works at the Heide Museum of Modern Art.

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois, Maman, 1999.

It was in the late 90s that Bourgeois began using the spider as a central image, her self-selected totem figure, because of its power to intermingle two- and three-dimensional relationships. The title Maman is the familiar French word for Mother. The mother figure nurtures and protects her brood while exuding a threatening presence.

Louise Joséphine Bourgeois, Cell XXV1, 2003

Bourgeois created cells in the late 1980s – small enclosed spaces into which the viewer may enter in some instances, but may also be excluded from, forced to peer between architectural features or through holes in glass. They usually contain a mixture of made and found objects, including things that have particular historical significance for the artist; pieces of furniture are often combined with sculptural elements.