Category Archives: Photography

opinion pieces about photography

Dreams and Imagination, MGA photography

Review: Photography Exhibition Catalogue

Dreams and Imagination: Light in the Modern City, Monash Gallery of Art , until 1st March 2015.

MGA-Light016I have just read a copy of a wonderful catalogue of a significant photographic exhibition at the Monash Gallery of Art (MGA). Yet again the MGA lives up to their reputation as ‘The Home of Australian Photography‘.

Chances are that I will not get to Melbourne to see this exhibition. However, the catalogue is a real gem and should be sought after by anyone interested in the development of Australian photography during the early 20th Century. (click on the images to enlarge)

Continue reading Dreams and Imagination, MGA photography

The curatorial crypt

The sale price of a Singapore photograph, by G R Lambert

lambert-bannerWith the recent growth interest in South Eastern Asian photography, prices of historic photographs have been rising significantly. Gael Newton, having departed from the National Gallery of Australia in late 2014, has continued her research and curatorial interests in South East Asian photography. She has recently written a post on her observations of a particular sale. click here.

A Photograph

Photography: Things that puzzle

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This small barrier was erected in the foyer of a mall we passed through most days to get to our apartment hotel in Singapore. The sign says – Work In Progress.

During the whole week that the installation sat there nothing happened around, above or anywhere near it. To this day I wonder whether someone put it there as a joke and as it looked official, it remained in place and undisturbed. It was still there the day we left Singapore. Or was it in fact an artwork – an artistic installation?

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Paul Costigan

Sydney Photography 2014 – 2015

Notices of photography exhibitions in Sydney

over the period end of 2014 into 2015

lost_psyche_03The information below is about photography exhibitions in Sydney over the period from the end of 2014 into the early parts of 2015.

This is my selection and may be added to as I come across exhibitions I would like to recommend. If you know of others, let me know. But I will only upload stuff I am interested in and/or can recommend.

Continue reading Sydney Photography 2014 – 2015

Black Victorians

Review: Photography

Black Chronicles II

Rivington Place, London till 29 Nov 2014.

downpage_3043500cThis a photography exhibition that has to be seen in the flesh to be appreciated. The basis for the exhibition is the unearthing of photographs that have not been seen for far too many years.

The researchers have done a great job of identifying most of the subjects. The main room has huge portraits printed from the original negatives. The people are from an African choir on tour in Britain between 1891-93.

These images are just so beautiful and majestic. They have been printed super large and each person is represented by two different portraits.

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NGA Senior Curator of Photography

Shaune Lakin, The New NGA Senior Curator of Photography

John GollingsAt the end of an exhibition seminar in August at the Monash Gallery of Art, we witnessed the NGA Senior Curator of Photography, Gael Newton (finishing September) , handing on the baton and all the challenges to her replacement, the new NGA Senior Curator of Photography (from October), Shaune Lakin (previously The MGA Director).

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Brisbane, photo-essay

Brisbane, photo-essay

Here are a few photographs taken near the Roma Street Parklands in mid winter 2014. This time of the year makes for wonderful light. Please click on any of the images to enlarge them. I enjoyed this image because of the shadows and the light, the plants were being highlighted, and of course the texture and mass of the rock wall.

P1060315Near Roma Street Parkland entrance, July 2014

Continue reading Brisbane, photo-essay

Robyn Stacey

Review: Visual Arts, Photography
Robyn Stacey at Jan Manton, Brisbane
Guest Relations Brisbane

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I have stayed in many hotel rooms in many cities and towns. The experience of being in a hotel room, although now it is mostly apartments, is usually enjoyable but always with a tinge of weird. You enter this borrowed space and establish your presence while always being aware of the temporary nature of your stay.

Continue reading Robyn Stacey

FX Harsono at the NGA

Review: Visual Arts
FX Harsono and Writing In The Rain

FXAt the seminar at the National Gallery of Australia, the Indonesian artist FX Harsono made a presentation as an Indonesian of Chinese decent who is now researching and making art about the treatment of the Chinese communities in the early days of the Indonesian republic.

There’s a fantastic video on exhibition in which FX Harsono deals with his Chinese name, in that he is writing it continuously while other forces are washing it away.

Continue reading FX Harsono at the NGA

Ian North on Canberra

Review: Photography
Ian North’s Canberra Suite Series 1981,
Canberra Museum and Gallery 2014
On exhibition: # 6, 11, 12 17, 20,24
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It was while visiting the Canberra Gallery for another exhibition that we spotted these six works by the artist/photographer Ian North. On exhibition were colour photographs from Ian’s suite of 24 images, the Canberra Suite Series (1981).

Continue reading Ian North on Canberra

Three Photographs

Review: Photography
Three photographs, three photographers, and the contemplation of the women by women.

It was while visiting the Stills Gallery in Sydney to see the works by Mary Ellen Mark, that I was totally struck by the ambiance of a photograph titled: The Damm Family in Their Car, Los Angeles, California, USA, 1987. (it is reproduced larger below)

Besides the stand out nature of the total composition, the car, the children, the hands around the woman, it was the faces on the mother and the daughter that glued me for much more than the standard time one usually spends with any work in an exhibition. Then I could not help but return to it several times.

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AGNSW Photography

Review: Visual Arts
Photography at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

Exhibition title: Australian vernacular photography

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Once again, the Art Gallery of NSW has brought together an interesting exhibition of Australian photography – click here.

This is a must see for anyone with interests in photography. Judy Annear, the curator, has brought some gems from their vast collection.

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Not A Photography Exhibition

Review: Visual Arts
Points of Focus: Historic Photographs from the Pacific

University of Sydney, Macleay Museum

This exhibition is advertised as being of historic photographs from the Pacific spanning a century beginning from the late 1850s. With these words both in advertising and online, the expectations were for an extensive exhibition of photographs of the pacific islands.

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photography

Photography exhibitions
an overview of some national & international photography, January 2013

Lee-Grant-P1020397Would we all have wings to zoom around the globe to visit a few photography exhibitions. But wait, that’s called the internet. So here are a few of the current exhibitions presently with an online presence that we have looked into recently.

This is a fairly random selection and we are linking to those where there is an accessible online exhibition. If a gallery has used flash and therefore there are no direct links, unfortunately they are fairly useless for this exercise. Shame there are a few that miss out, such as one of my favourite Singapore galleries: Gallery 2902. Continue reading photography

Art Gallery Exhibitions

Review: Visual Arts

An overview of accessing Australia’s major visual art gallery exhibition programs though their websites. Date: Christmas 2013.

stairs-Wei-P1010762

This is an overview of what visual arts major art galleries are telling us is available around the country this Christmas. Our major art galleries endeavour to have their local audiences come through the doors. The challenge is to convince someone interested in all manner of visual arts, including photography, to spend some of our discretionary leisure time and dollars to travel (pay airfares and accommodation) to see the collections and special exhibitions.

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Botanic Gardens

Review: Australian National Botanic Gardens

botgrdn-P1020270

On the western edge of Canberra’s CBD, next to the Australian National University, on the side of Black Mountain, sits one of the National Capital’s often overlooked treasures, the Australian National Botanic Gardens. Although it figures in tourist brochures, I am not aware of large numbers of visitors. I am also not convinced that local Canberrans visit this site very often or that they think to take their visitors there.

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Christmas Stories

Photo-essay: Photographs of Christmas 2013

A collection of photographs gathered more or less locally.  

there two more collections – here and here

We were traveling back from Sydney and made a stop over for dinner at Bowral. There’s a good take away noodle shop half way down the main street.

I took the time to observe the Christmas decoration in the local shops. (click on any image to enlarge them)

Here’s an image in the R M Williams window.

bowral-Christmas01 Continue reading Christmas Stories

Food: in japan

Photo-essay

Japan and food – an image

A photograph taken in 2006 of lunch time on a busy back street in Tokyo.

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The food was great.  Ordering in such places is always interesting as no-one there spoke English (and this is the usual off the tourist areas) and we spoke absolutely no Japanese. We managed through hand gestures and pointing and thanks to the politeness and very friendly nature of the owners. This experience was repeated often whereby the locals were both helpful and courteous to these foreigners who did not speak their language.

 

Photography and The Tableau

Review: Anna Carey – Contemporary Photography

For travelers of urban space and cities, there is nothing more enjoyable as roaming streets and observing both the unusual and the ordinary. In reality most of time the ordinary and the unusual do tend to blend. Anyone who is an observer of street behaviour realises that there is not much that is ordinary about how people behave as they wander, rush or simply promenade about our urban thoroughfares. The streets of our cities are packed with these constantly changing tableaux. The realities are fun to observe as well as those things we conjure up in our imaginations about the buildings and the streets and the parks and the cosmopolitan mix of people.

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