Workshop in Riga, Latvia

Vanessa Winship and I are teaching a 2 day Documentary masterclass in Riga, Latvia on the 27 and 28 March.

The combined master-class will address the issues of contemporary documentary photographic 

practice and approaches. The aim is to build up an understanding of different forms of narratives and 

ways of structuring the work on comprehensive documentary projects. 

More info and to apply from here

Istanbul workshop for Toscana photographic workshops

On the 1st May for a week I am teaching on workshop in Istanbul for Toscana photographic workshop. Details can be found here

Contact Sheet

I am featured in a book released in the US by Ammo books called Contact sheet. A review can be found at Photo-eye and The Online Photographer. I haven't seen a copy yet but I know it features 40 photographers, each showing 1 photograph and the contact sheet it came from, with some text about the situation. Photographers include, Nan Goldin, Martin Parr, Elliot Erwitt, Chuck Close and Paul Fusco.

Fault Lines updated on website

As my book "Fault Lines: Turkey East West" finally comes close to being realised I have updated the project on my website. I have taken images that won't appear in the book out and added a few more from the book. If all goes to plan, the book should be available across Europe towards the end of April. I will post updates as the book comes close to completion.
I have also changed Turks 2 to appear as it will be printed and exhibited.

Invisible London published in Gioia

Gioia have just published the London project and have again used a brave layout.
But sometimes I do wonder why I spent so many years carefully learning the craft of framing an image to only include the information I wanted to put across. Maybe I should resort to using 6x7 in the future but I'm sure the photos will then be cropped to 35mm.
This seems to be so typical of so many magazines.

Photographers Lectures from the ICP

The International Center of Photography has a great audio and video archive of their photographers Lectures program. It has been running from 1974 and has a large number of lectures and Q&A with some great photographers, from masters to young contemporary photographers. It looks like they are slowly updating the archive.

Included are Nan Goldin, Phillip Lorca di Corcia, Bill Owen and so many others.

FT Magazine

The Financial Times magazine published a selection of my images from Georgia
"In the shadow of the bear". Not sure about their selection but I like the fact they used my title for the piece.
text by John Lloyd© Financial Times 2009

In the Shadow of the Bear - Blurb book

I was trying to enter the Blurb competition in the summer but failed to upload the book in time.

The work consists of the first part of my ongoing project "In the Shadow of the Bear" looking at Georgia and Ukraine. The work in this book is based on 2 trips to Georgia, images from the first trip are on my website but not yet from the 2nd trip.
I ended up having to rush the editing but it's a useful first dummy to have in my hands.
You can see a full preview of the book on the Blurb site here.

I will take this book off the Blurb site once I have re edited the work.

I have set a high price as I'm not really trying to sell this book as it stands

Graham Smith

A final post on Side. The Side gallery has a great collection of photographs and it was a real pleasure to look through the prints, Weegee, Gilles Peress, John Davis, August Sanders and a lot more. The photographs that really caught my eye was the work of Graham Smith (born 1947) a photographer from Middlesbrough, England, who was particularly active in photographing Middlesbrough and the northeast of England in the 1970s and 1980s.




















In the 1970s he was among the photographers central to the Side Gallery; and created a series of photographs that showed working-class people in the north of England. Unfortunately he gave up photography in 1990 to become a framemaker. Graham is included in ParrWorld, on show at the moment at the Baltic Art centre in Gateshead.
It is very difficult to find his work on the internet.

Side Gallery exhibition posters

Side gallery have a great range of exhibition posters for sale at £5 each, a real bargain.

Vanessa Winship exhibition opening at Side Gallery

Vanessa's "Sweet nothings" and "Black Sea" will go on show at the Side gallery in Newcastle from Saturday 7 November until 9 January 2010. She will be presenting a slideshow and talk this saturday at 2pm, it's free and all are welcome.

The Side and Amber films is a film & photography collective incorporating Amber Films, Side Gallery and Side Cinema...with work rooted in social documentary.

















It is now 40 years old and has produced and supported a great number of exhibitions and photographers over the years. It has a really rich collection of original prints including work by Weegee, Graciela Iturbide, Martin Chambi and British photographers documenting the North, including, John Davis, Chris Steel Perkins, Julian Germain, Sirkka-Liisa Konttinen, Dean Chapman and many more. Well worth checking out.
























































I exhibited Between the Lines at the Side in 2002 and will present Fault lines: Turkey East West over the 2 galleries in 2010.

NPG Taylor Wessing Prize

Last night the Taylor Wessing prize at the National Portrait gallery was announced and I was, as is natural, a little bit disappointed that Vanessa received the 2nd prize.
I was puzzled by the overall winner and I suspect a little politics at play, but that is often par for the course.
The first prize went to Paul Floyd Blake for "Rosie Bancroft" from an ongoing project entitled "On Track for 2012: The work of the short listed can be seen here and all the photos in the exhibition, including one of my images from Georgia, can be viewed here.
Also there is a feature on the award in this weeks British Journal of photography, titled Once more, with feeling.
The print edition includes a number of the exhibited photos including my own.

Kai Wiedenhöfer wins 50,000 euro Carmignac Gestion award

Having mention Kai yesterday, today I hear with great delight that Kai has won himself a very useful and well deserved €50 grand for his dedication to documenting the never-ending Israel/ Palestinian conflict.

Below is the Blurb.

Kai Wiedenhöfer was declared the winner of the first ever Carmignac Gestion Photojournalism Prize. Fourteen candidates from eight different countries were short-listed from 76 entries. They were selected as much for their extremely well-researched projects as for the outstanding quality of their photographs... The panel of judges, chaired by the photographer, filmmaker and artist William Klein, was composed of:

- Christian Caujolle, journalist, author, exhibition curator, and founder of the

VU gallery and agency

- Guillaume Herbaut, photographer, founder member of the Oeil Public agency

- Fabrice Hergott, director of the Museum of Modern Art in the City of Paris

- Jean‐Luc Marty, editorial director and editor-in-chief of Géo magazine

- Alain Mingam, photojournalist , exhibition curator and agent

- Vivienne Walt, correspondent for Time Magazine

The subject given to photographers for the 2009 Prize was “The Gaza Strip”.

The panel’s discussions focused first on the quality of the photographic work together with the photographer’s chosen approach and unique perspective. Next, they examined the originality of the written proposals and the capacity of each candidate to present a fresh and meaningful view.

At the end of a first round of very lively analysis, the work of three finalists offering differing approaches was singled out: Kai Wiedenhöfer from Germany, Eman Mohammed from Palestine and Lizzie Sadin from France.

In its discussions, the judges made special mention of the quality and sensitivity of the work of 22-year old Eman Mohammed on the condition of Palestinian women, for which he was awarded the judges’ Special Prize.

The panel finally decided to award the project to Kai Wiedenhöfer.

Kai Wiedenhofer

We made a short stop in Berlin on our way home from Ukraine and stayed at Kai Wiedenhofer place while he was away in Israel and Palestine.
I saw his continuing project on Walls dividing countries, a very long project that has already led to a book on the Isreal/Palestinian wall released by Steidl. More photos can be seen here and here.
He has covered the USA/Mexico border, Belfast and a number of other places that will be released as a book late next year.

Guardian photography articles

This week the Guardian have posted a couple of good articles on photography.
A review of Jim Goldbergs exhibition and book "Open See" at the photographers Gallery.
And an article by Diane Smyth about judging the National Portrait Gallery's Taylor Wessing prize.

Ukraine photos 4

The last post from Ukraine, leaving on Sunday back to London via Berlin. And then the serious work of editing. How many of the images or pairs will remain in the final edit I'm not sure, I find it a useful way of formulating ideas as I'm working.

Ukraine Photos 3

Ukraine photos 2

Klavdij Sluban interview

I met Klavdij Sluban a few years ago at a festival we were both exhibiting at.

He has always pursued long term project, so it was great to hear that

he won this years European book publishers award.

Another long term project, in fact 15 years so far, is his work on

prisons and the prison workshops he conducts.

Jim Casper at Lens Culture has posted a video interview with

Klavdij. There are also a number of other interesting audio interviews

over at Lens Culture.

Lens Culture Conversations with Photographers: Klavdij Sluban from Jim Casper on Vimeo.