A new international photography magazine - FRAMES

 

We live in a digital age. In fact, photography has undergone a dramatic transformation in the last few decades.The overwhelming majority of photographs now are captured digitally. Additionally, we use our computers and mobile phones to consume photographs most of the time.

But… how about paper?  Enter FRAMES.

Friday, September 18th 2020 marks quite a special day on the contemporary photography publishing scene. My good photography friend Tomasz Trzebiatowski, is launching a quarterly printed photography magazine. Yes, printed. On paper. And it is looking wonderful.

What is pretty unique about this publication is that FRAMES Magazine embraces all possible photography genres and formats. Each quarterly edition will feature the work of photographers using digital and analogue cameras, mobile phones, even pinhole cameras.

“Excellent photography belongs on paper” - is Tomasz’ motto. The common denominator connecting all the images being printed in FRAMES is simply their visual quality and inspiring, thought-provoking character.

The magazine itself is looks gorgeous. In essence, it is a top-notch, quarterly photography book, printed the wonderful 140gsm uncoated Edixion Challenger offset paper manufactured using 100% ECF pulp. Each edition consists of 108 pages (!).

In the first edition you can see the work of such acclaimed artists as Michael Kenna and Phil Penman as well as some great photography by emerging photographers such as Robert Atwater, Olga Karlovac, Yalim Vural, and Curtis Salonick. What’s more, the first issue also includes two in-depth exclusive interviews with Magda Keaney (Senior Curator, Photographs, National Portrait Gallery in London) and Richard Tsong-Taatarii (photojournalist for the Minneapolis Star Tribune).

But that is not all. When you become a FRAMES subscriber, you automatically get access to the entire suite of their digital offerings: FRAMES Digital companions, online Photography Masterclasses and the insider FRAMES Photo Community. It seems like FRAMES is set to become an impressive blend of printed and digital photography assets through the creation of a passionate international photography community with the magazine and its additional digital components as its hub.

You can become the member of FRAMES today for a monthly fee of $14 USD, (Just under £11 a month). This is an early bird offer which you can access through the link at the end of the blog. 

Your membership will secure you annual access to 4 printed editions of FRAMES Magazine, 8 editions of FRAMES Digital Companions, 4 Photography Masterclasses and the private community and forums. This is exceptional value and allows you the opportunity to help build the community too. It is also a comparatively cheap method of collecting some excellent work with print being the best method of collection these days.

If you would like to start your FRAMES Magazine collection from its very first issue, ensure you become a FRAMES member by October 15th 2020. I am acting as the representative of FRAMES in the North of England and you can follow this link to check out their wonderful site and subscribe today. Using this link ensures you will receive the best deal available: http//:joinframes.com/nigel 

My Influences - Cig Harvey

Cig Harvey

Back in July I wrote a review for a book (her third monograph) called "You an Orchestra You a Bomb" by Cig Harvey and said a little about her. This time she has a whole blog to herself. 

I first came across Cig's work online when I discovered some of her early work around the time of her second monograph "Gardening at Night" although by then she had already shown work a number of times in both solo and group shows starting in 2000. I was impressed with her monotone work although most of her pictures are in colour and in fact colour is immensely important to her. Her work often shows edges, hints, and segments;  small pieces which allowed you to wonder and it was this storytelling element of her work that I found attractive. She herself has said that she is influenced by magic realism and has attracted comments comparing her work to that of Rene Magritte.

Looking further I found a long interview with her which was a talk recorded at The School for Visual Arts in New York. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUG-JYvcMwk ). At over an hour it will tell you as much as you need to know up until 2014 when it was recorded. It is never boring and shows many of her early pictures as she discusses motivation rather than technique.

Cig is English and was born in Devon in 1973 but later travelled abroad, working in different countries before settling in the USA where she still lives in Rockport in Maine.

Her first monograph "You Look at me Like an Emergency" was published in 2012 and all her books are now collectors pieces, partly because they are produced in limited numbers by a specialist company in Rockport where she lives. 

She has received many awards and recognition for her work in the intervening years. In 2018 she was named the 2018 Prix Virginia Laureate, an international photography prize awarded to one woman each year. Her recent work has been largely centred on family and firends with some echoes of Sally Mann. Where she will go next is less certain I feel but she is certainly a photographer to watch for me. 

Here is her website to browse https://www.cigharvey.com/ 

Why black and white photographs are still relevant

 

In the history of photography the use of colour is relatively recent. Although the process for chemically recording colour was proposed by Scottish physicist James Clerk Maxwell in 1855 and the first colour photograph produced six years later for a lecture by Maxwell (by the photographer Thomas Sutton), it was not until the 1970's that colour film began to sell in industrial quantities. It had been more widely available since the 1930's but the colour was not great and the film was expensive and difficult to develop without the right facilities.

This means that when we scan photographic history most of the pictures we see are in black and white. Perhaps that begs the question is monochrome still relevant in these days of far more reliable colour films and digital cameras which can create great colour reproduction in comparison to early colour film? I'd argue that it is, as much as anything because it is available and can serve a purpose.  There are several reasons you might consider using mono in a photograph.

1)   Due to the history of photography black and white photographs appear more timeless. Removing colour makes it more difficult to date a photograph.

2)   A lack of colour exaggerates the drama of shadows and light immediately and photographs with dramatic lighting can draw the attention of the viewer more quickly.

3)   Fine art photography often uses black and white to distance the viewer from the reality of the subject. Because we see the world in colour the viewer has to stop and work out what they are seeing. This makes the viewer pause and look more closely, however briefly, at the picture. As Joel Sternfeld said, "Black and White is abstract; colour is not. Looking at a black and white photograph you are already looking at a strange world."

4)   Many photographers would say that portraiture is more stark and exacting in black and white and that removing the colour allows an audience to see the face and eyes without distraction. As photographer Ted Grant once said, "When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. When you photograph them in black and white you photograph their souls."

So it is a good rule of thumb when deciding whether to convert a picture to mono (given that all digital camers will shoot a file in colour even if it gives you the option to adjust the settings for black and white) to consider the light, form and texture of the picture. And don't forget to shoot in RAW if using the mono settings on your camera as the retention of the colour information in the file allows for considerable leeway in post processing...

Images with a wide range of tonal values tend to be better for black and white photographs and images are usually most successful when the tones contain both the blackest of blacks and the whitest of whites with a range of grays in between. 

The photograph below was taken as a challenge to make an image in which almost everything in it is white. This means that the only way to distinguish the content of the photograph is by shade and tone. You can decide for yourself whether that works. As the model had dark hair I even sourced a blonde wig to get as white as possible...