Cobweb, By Darren Rigo

I like Darren Rigo’s Displacement series quite a bit. I see a connection to John Pfahl’s Altered Landscapes, which I have come to think of as some of the most interesting landscape photography of the 20th century. Whether intentional or not, it’s clearly working; I find this to be a very strong group of images.

Displacement #19 (Yellow Aerosol Streamer), By Darren Rigo

Displacement #17 (Blue Crêpe Streamer), By Darren Rigo

Displacement #16 (Purple Stuffing), By Darren Rigo

Displacement #16 (Red crêpe streamer), By Darren Rigo

I caught an interview with Joel Meyerowitz on WNYC this week that is worth passing along. Meyerowitz mostly discusses his new book, but he digresses a few times to more general topics. The money quote, in response to the claim that “nature photography is riddled with cliches,”:

“I think cliches are in all of our minds. It’s so easy to point. You step into a place and you say “Look at the flower, look at the sunset…” I think serious photography takes a different kind of complexity and looking that requires some kind of relationship between things rather than objects alone…”

Personally, I did not fall in love with Legacy the way I expected to. The book includes some wonderful photographs, but all in all it feels a bit scattered to me, and many of the images don’t do much for me. I love to hear Meyerowitz talk about photography, though; he is very thoughtful and well-spoken.

1: This is the last week to see the small but compelling show of Roberts’ new work We English at Klompching Gallery in Brooklyn. I liked it so much I went back twice.

2: Andy Adams at FlakPhoto is having another Facebook giveaway, and this time he is offering three signed copies of We English. All you have to do is visit Flak’s Facebook page and post a link to your favorite photo from the FlakPhoto archives. For the record, I went with Pablo Lopez Luz.

3: You can see the whole series on the We English website.

4: My favorite from the show:

From the series We English, by Simon Roberts

5: I really enjoyed reading through Roberts’ blog for the project, even though I didn’t discover it until it was already well underway. Here’s a post from two years ago of a scrapbook which shows some inspiration for the project.

These devastating photos by Chris Jordan show the effects of pollution on albatross chicks on an island in the north Pacific ocean. Although the images are disturbing, I also find them to be completely mesmerizing.

Ice cone, Montmorency Falls, QC, 1876
Alexander Henderson, Salted Print

More information about this image at the Musée McCord

Flickr has a new gallery feature which allows you to group related images onto one page. The interface is nice; I could certainly think of a few improvements, but it gets the job done. I still enjoy going through my contacts’ recent uploads from time to time and occasionally see something that makes my eyes pop. Finding the good stuff in the proverbial haystack can require a lot of patience, but I think I came up with a nice selection, including photos from Alexi Hobbs, Noah Kalina, Sean Stewart, Grant Willing, Carlos Albalá, and Lisa Scheer, and others. Take a look and let me know what you think.

I just came across a new body of work from Joel Meyerowitz that will be published by Aperture this fall. Legacy: The Preservation of Wilderness in New York City Parks contains 250 images from New York City’s parks and wild spaces, and from what little I’ve seen, it looks pretty spectacular. The subject of wilderness contained within urban areas is something I have been fascinated by for a long time, and I’m sure I’ll see a lot of familiar places. The book also contains information about the parks such as maps and historical information.

There is no specific release date mentioned, but it would seem to be sometime in the next month or two to accompany the show at the Museum of the City of New York, which opens October 9. The book looks great, but the box set, which includes an additional book and a signed inkjet print, is at the top of my wishlist.

Eclipse of the Moon, 2005, Mark Klett

I am a sucker for time-lapse, black and white, poetical desert mysticism; basically everything this image represents. Michael Lundgren and Chris McCaw inspire similar feelings, I thought these last three worked together very nicely.

I hope you have enjoyed this series of images as much as I did compiling them. I am back from vacation today, full of new experiences and ideas, and with a whole bunch of film to think about. These images were all very much on my mind as I was out making pictures in the mountains of Catalonia; perhaps I will find echoes of them in my own work. More about the trip soon.

Sunburned GSP#164(Mojave), 2007, Chris McCaw

I loved Chris McCaw’s work at this summer’s Transfiguration show at Michael Mazzeo.

Speaking of Michael Mazzeo, be sure to catch the online-only show Arbor, currently on view on the gallery website. I recommend watching it in fullscreen mode, and just let it play. Between this and the last few shows I’ve seen at the gallery, Michael Mazzeo is quickly becoming one of my favorites.