Get Off My Lawn
Get Off My Lawn Issue #1, published by Geoffrey Ellis
Photo zine impresario Geoffrey Ellis released issue #1 of Get Off My Lawn this week, and I am very happy to have my work included. The zine features the work of eleven photographers who are 34 years and older. (I am only 33, but I was grandfathered in). Get Off My Lawn is a tongue-in-cheek response to the calls for entry, contests and publications that require “emerging photographers” to be somewhere between the ages of 18 and 34. Contributors include: Noah Beil, Geoffrey Ellis, Grant Ernhart, Alan W George, Liz Kuball, Sarah Lacy, Ian Lemmonds, Jennifer Loeber, Dalton Rooney, Andrew Martin Scott, and Justin Visnesky. I received my copy a couple of days ago, and it is fantastic.
Geoffrey’s zines have a habit of selling out quickly, so I would get over there and get one if I were you. I have a promotional copy I would like to give away, too. Just leave a comment here or, even better, click the little Twitter button attached to this post and post a tweet about it. (Make sure your tweet links back to this post so I can find it.) One lucky commentor/tweeter will receive a free copy of the zine with one of my photographs on the cover, signed by me. The winner will be announced on Tuesday, July 6, so good luck!
Update: Bill at expiredfilm.com won the zine. Congratulations!
Geoffrey still has copies left, you can grab one here. (Look in the sidebar for the “Add to Cart” option.)
Italian Photochrom prints, c. 1890
I came across this extraordinary collection of vintage Italian Photochrom prints (ink-based photolithographs, c. 1890-1900) on the Library of Congress Flickr page. They are also available as high-resolution TIFF files on the collection homepage; I’ve already downloaded a few and I’m ready to start printing. Here are a few of my favorites after just a brief dip into the collection of thousands of images:
Mount Solaro, Capri Island, Italy
Bellagio, general view, Lake Como, Italy
Cityscape view looking toward cathedral, Florence, Italy
General view, Arco, Lake Garda, Italy
Menaggio, general view, Lake Como, Italy
Blue grotto, Capri Island, Italy
Valley of Sarca, Arco, Lake Garda, Italy
How to be a poet
Jamaica Bay Wildlife Preserve
“How to Be a Poet” by Wendell Berry
(to remind myself)
i
Make a place to sit down.
Sit down. Be quiet.
You must depend upon
affection, reading, knowledge,
skill—more of each
than you have—inspiration,
work, growing older, patience,
for patience joins time
to eternity. Any readers
who like your poems,
doubt their judgment.
ii
Breathe with unconditional breath
the unconditioned air.
Shun electric wire.
Communicate slowly. Live
a three-dimensioned life;
stay away from screens.
Stay away from anything
that obscures the place it is in.
There are no unsacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places.
iii
Accept what comes from silence.
Make the best you can of it.
Of the little words that come
out of the silence, like prayers
prayed back to the one who prays,
make a poem that does not disturb
the silence from which it came.
Hear this poem, and others, ready by the author at speakingoffaith.publicradio.org.
Thirteen Views of Yosemite Valley
Composite from collected images tagged with “half dome” on Flickr.
Phil Underdown
Phil Underdown recently won the Curator’s Choice award in Jen Bekman’s Hey, Hot Shot! competition. I felt an immediate connection with Underdown’s work when I saw the announcement and have been spending a lot of time on his website since then. Here are a few images from his winning entry, The Trapper’s Lament:
Phil Underdown, from The Trappers Lament
Phil Underdown, from The Trappers Lament
Phil Underdown, from The Trappers Lament
I particularly appreciate Underdown’s project statement for this work. He leads us into the pictures without trying to overwhelm us with jargon and big ideas. The work is very personal, and his writing reflects that.
Images from some of his other projects below:
Phil Underdown, Grassland #188, from Grassland
Phil Underdown, Grassland #45353, from Grassland
Phil Underdown, Field 002.3 November 2004, from The Field
Phil Underdown, Tent Caterpillars 002.7 September 2006, from The Field/Tent Caterpillars
Much of Underdown’s work fits very well within the notion of “The New Pastoral” that I wrote about recently. There is an emphasis on open space and the beauty of light and natural forms, while never ignoring the human presence in the landscape. In The Trapper’s Lament, Underdown seeks to reconcile his own difficult decisions in the face of a destructive beaver population near his home. The viewer is exposed to hard truth in the warm glow of the Adirondack sunshine. In Grassland, he looks closely at a decommissioned airfield that is gradually reverting to a natural state. The wetland-turned-airfield-turned-grassland will never be exactly what it was; it is now uniquely the product of a collaboration between humans and nature.
Of course, I can’t ignore my personal connection to this work either. This is a landscape that I love, and Underdown is looking for insight into many of the same questions that I have. It is work that simultaneously reverential, curious, and critical; beautiful without being cloying. Underdown is doing everything that I love about landscape photography, and I will be following his work closely in the future.