Phillips de Pury Wishlist

We just got the Jan. 31 Phillips de Pury photograph catalog, and there are a few I will, but would rather not, have to live without. Here is my short list.

BRUCE DAVIDSON Brooklyn Gang (stickball game), 1959

DANNY LYON Yuma, 1962

JOSEF SUDEK Mé okno, 1952 (a steal at only a $800-1200 estimate)

ANSEL ADAMS San Francisco from Red Mountain, 1933-1934 (one of the rare times I would actually look twice at an AA)

BILL OWENS Selected Images from Suburbia, 1972-1977

FRANK GOHLKE Selected Images, 1975-1982

Happy Christmas!

from the darkroom. Santa brought me my platinum/palladium chemistry a few days early. I am so excited about these negatives (and just the process in general) that I am taking every available minute to print and print and print. I should have a few scanned and up in a few days . . . But, until then, here are two of my all-time favorite Christmas pictures. The first is, of course, by Bill Owens. The second is a picture by Peter Goin I remembered from a lecture I saw more than five years ago.

Daniel Shea, Appalachia, and Mountain Top Removal

I took a short trip to Centralia, Pennsylvania a few years ago, and while I didn’t spend much time photographing in the abandoned town, I spent a good deal of time driving around the area, and photographed in inactive areas of the few surface mines I could sneak into (sneaking with an 8x10 is not exactly easy). What I saw in the mines and the surrounding communities sparked an interest in conflict between the mining companies and the residents, as well as the physical damage to the environment, the hazards to the populations' health, and the larger implication for the world's climate. It was something I really intended to investigate further this coming winter and spring. So, when I first saw Matt Niebuhr's post about Daniel Shea's project on mountain top removal I was a little disappointed that he had beat me to it—which is a subject Cara Philips seems to have beaten me to writing about also . . . *

However, after spending a good deal of time on Daniel's blog this evening, I discovered that not only is he an excellent photographer, but his approach and dedication the subject, and to the project as a whole, is very admirable. I feel it is a level to which we can all hope to aspire.

Daniel Shea from the series: On coal and Appalachia

*NOTE: In general, I think the whole "I can't do this now because someone else did it first" argument is a crock. I feel, that if done honestly, whatever you do will be completely your own, The only time when something like that becomes an issue is when it comes time to selling it, or defending it in art school . . . (thank god I missed out on that—but that is a whole other can of worms . . . )

Matthew Betcher, Los Angeles River Orotones

Before flying back to the East Coast on Friday, I had the pleasure of meeting Los Angles photographer, Matthew Betcher, and seeing his exhibition of incredible large-scale orotones from his series el rio de nuestra señora la reina de los angeles de porciuncula. I just learned the show has been extended to the end of the year,  and is surely not to be missed.

Inspired by Edward Curtis's Orotones— a process involving ambrotypes backed with gold pigment in banana oil—Betcher printed on orthochromatic lith film that was slightly bleached, toned, then mounted on glass backed with gold leaf.

Along with the show of about ten 40x60-inch pieces, is a beautiful a 19x25-inch portfolio of all the photographs in the series. Again, they are hand-printed lith film, with gold painted rice paper, hand-bound and housed in a box that contains an orotone on the bottom. The book is a work of art in itself.

These three digital images may give one the idea of what the show is about, but nothing can replace the feeling of being in front of these in person. They are almost dream-like in the way details disappear in the three dimensional quality achieved by the interplay of light and the layering of image, glass, and gold leaf.

In Matthew's introduction he writes:

For the series, I have been exploring the LA River as a datum for the explorations and questions relating to a new sense of what is ‘nature.’ Knowing the River was originally named after the small field (’porciuncula’ is loosely defined as ‘a small portion of land’) where St. Francis of Assisi developed a monastic order based on a lack of worldly possessions and an admiration for the natural environment, the Los Angeles River becomes a paradox in its own right. The massive concrete structure intended to allow the massive expanse of the city now protects the Glendale Narrows - one of the few spaces in a concrete city choked by its own waste where, as a protected sight, ‘nature’ is left to fend for herself. For the work, I have been using a photographic technique used mainly in the teens that involve photographs on gold-backed glass. The idea is that the large scale gold-leafed plates adorning the jungle-like images from the Los Angeles River bring into question the schizophrenic ideals of what is or could be considered ‘natural.’

Here, there are no swimming pools, no movie stars, but a mutation of nature that continues to thrive in a place no typical Angelino would go. As a dedicated nature preserve, the Glendale Narrows represents the natural world Los Angels couldn't manicure or pave with concrete. The images are, for me, both a metaphor and the antitheses of the City.

Photo Review Benefit Auction

So the Photo Review Benefit Auction is tomorrow night (Sat. Nov., 10) at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, and I have my "if-I-had-the-money with list." There isn't much I would really like to buy—mostly vintage—but just don't have the means. My ideal job would be consulting with collectors on their personal acquisitions. A few months ago, I actually told Kate Ware what to get from the Mike and Doug Starn show at the Print Center. Here is the short list from tomorrow's auction:

Vincent David Feldman: Hongkew, Shanghai, 2005/2006, carbon inkjet print, A/P, signed verso, framed, 16"x20" $350—$700

Eugène Atget: Senlis. Ruines se Saint-Frambourg, 1903, gold-toned albumen print, unmounted, 8.5"x6.875" $4,000—$8,000

Jay Dusard: Petrified Forest, Arizona, Blue Mesa, 1977, silver print, titled recto, framed, 8"x10" (courtesy of D. W. Mellor) $250—$500

Henry Horenstein: Texas Map Turtle, Graptemys, c. 2000/2007, digital chromogenic print, signed verso, 20"x16" $800—$1,600

Mark Klett: Storm Clouds over Eastern Idaho: Near Craters of the Moon, 8/18/80, 1980, silver print, signed verso, 16"x20" (courtesy of Michael Mattis and Judith Hochberg) $900—$1,800

Stuart Rome: Presence, Bali, 1993/2007, archival pigment print, A/P, signed verso, 12"x15.5" $500—$750

Josef Sudek: Trees in Flower, 1950s/1976, silver print, unmounted, 11.25"x8.25" $750—$1,500 Unknown: Tea House Nogeyma at Yokohama, Japan, c. 1880s, hand-colored albumen print, 7.750"x9.875" $200—$400 Frank Yamrus: Tree in Nickerson State Park, Eastham, MA, from the series "Bared and Bended", 2004, archival pigment print, signed verso, 6.5"x6.5" $700—$1,400

Re-introducing my blog . . . again . . .

Since I started this blog, I have been wondering what I should title it. Not wanting to give it a pretentious, misleading, inaccurate or clichéd title, I simply called it "Richard Boutwell- Blog." I'm changing all that now. And yes, it might just seem to contradict everything above. Who really cares.

During some recent reading, and even more thinking about what I am really doing with my work, I came across this quote by the painter, John Marin: "Art is just a series of natural gestures." It really sums up how I work and what it is I find myself responding to— in people, in life, and in art.

To start off with a new theme, "I LIKE THIS," here is a picture by Robert Adams from his series on the L.A. Basin. Devoid of irony or cynicism (unlike so much photography of late), this is evocative, visually complex, and is an example of something integral to art making and viewing— that being sensitivity.

Robert Adams Edge of the San Timoteo Canyon, San Bernardino County, California 1978 © Robert Adams