Roomnoir

An Eye For Fashion exhibition @Mshed

The exhibition opened this Friday and I had the opportunity of going and experiencing the wonderful fashions of the local people that all made a super effort to dress to impress. On show was a pioneering photographer Norman Parkinson; was the first fashion photographer to take his camera out of the studio. The vintage images are of his work 1954-1964 and in Bristol for the first time.  The photographs are very beautiful and I was surprised at how contemporary they looked. The only big difference was the lack of use of Photoshop, the beautiful lady’s had bad teeth, cellulite and natural curves. Have a look at this video Fotoshop by Adobé that was trending on the web last week, then go and see the exhibition. I wonder what Norman would have though of his images being Photoshopped?

The Exhibition runs from Jan 21st-15 April 2012

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I have a blog crush, I have been stalking every post on Lensculture . This site is gorgeous. The work shown is inspirational.

Here is one image by Mitch Dobrowner that blew my socks of, check out the website to see a high resolution Slideshow.

Cell-Lightning, Dundee, Texas, 2011, ©Mitch Dobrowner

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David Malin 2011

Last week I went to an astronomical exhibition by the pioneering astronomy photographer David Malin at the Bristol Gallery.  The images where very beautiful and are the last of there kind because they where taken from glass plate negatives. Now space photography is digital. The prints in the show are scans from a negative then printed digitally, to hand print now would be such a difficult and lengthy process.  On show where three original prints using the 1891 maxwell‘s additive 3 colour system.

“Malin was the first person to use this process for astronomical colour images, and part of that process now bears his name, ‘malinisation’.” source

The curator of the exposition explained, that the when borrowing the glass plates. There where unable to insure them as they where irreplaceable.

The image pictured with David was my favorite, because in the bottom right hand corner there are the reflections of the inside of the telescope made by the light of two stars in Orion’s belt. This is the only photograph in the collection to show evidence of how it was taken and for me that was quite special.

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Source: http://www.buzzfeed.com/mjs538/50-unexplainable-black-white-photos

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While at the Hay Festival I could not resist the opertunity to see David Bailey speek. He was there to promote his book ‘Heros‘ photographs from Afganistan rasing money for Help For Heros. The experience was interesting, David describes his work as “making photographs rather than taking photographs” and this book was more snaps. David talked openly about how, he was not a war photographer, he totally disagreed with war and he had a lot of respect for the soldiers.
When it came to questions one gentleman stood up and said that he was discussed with Davids comments, the large crowd gave a mummer in disagreement and one man suggested he left, then the gentleman left. David was quite right is saying that everybody was entitled to his opinion. Maybe it was Davids awkwardness on stage that distracted me, but I did not find anything wrong with what he was saying.

David said himself that he was not political he just wanted do something to raise money and help. David highlighted that there are many distinctions in photography that not everybody is aware of due to the relative newness of photography, in art you would not put a Tracy Emin next to a Monet for e.g. It is important for a photographer to follow what they feel is their calling, what they are passionate about. David wanted to help, perhaps use his name to raise money, perhaps he was a bit naive giving his statements about passion in photography, but I am sure he is aware of the contradiction in taking a book of so called “snaps” when he is a maker of photographs.

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