CdL Creative

@TotalBlankMedia have just lost a customer. Which is a shame, because they used to be good once upon a time. I’ve bought a lot of stuff there over the years, and recommended them to other people. But there comes a point when enough is enough.
I needed another memory card. They had something suitable on their site at £39.99, post free, which wasn’t a bad price. Their shop is a leisurely stroll from where I work, so I wandered up there yesterday lunchtime. No point in doing it mail order if I could buy it for cash and take it home with me rather than risk the Royal Mail, which everyone in east London knows is a regal fail at the best of times.
“That’s £49.99,” sir.
“But it’s shown as £39.99 on your website,” I pointed out.
The sales assistant retreats to the back of the shop and has a whispered conversation with someone else.
“Best price I can do it for is £41.99,” I was told.
“But it’s shown as £39.99 on your website. With free postage. That means it’s cheaper for me to buy it online than you to sell me that one you’ve got in your hand.”
“Yes sir.”
If you’ve ever visited their shop you’ll know that that’s where they ship everything from. It’s not as if they have a warehouse in the Channel Islands which is why there’s a price differential between the shop and mail order.
I walked out in disgust. And when I got back to my desk I ordered it online. To prove a point.
They could have sold it to me on the spot and had £39.99 cash. Or they could sell it to me online. Which means out of the same £39.99 I spent they’ll be giving a cut to the card-handling company, and paying for the packaging, and for the postage.
You don’t have to be a genius to work out which would have given them the greater profit.
I got home this evening to find an envelope waiting for me. Sent from the very same shop that I’d been in the day before.
At a time when businesses are struggling and chasing every sale they can get, treating people like muppets is a really bad move.
They shouldn’t need to be geniuses to understand that next time my money goes elsewhere. And their loss will be a rival’s gain.

Apologies for the outage

The boneheads at my hosting company appear to have broken the site. Normal service will be resumed as soon as possible.

Do opposites attract? Or are they like chalk and cheese? And can things be the same but different? With Strange Bedfellows, just about every combination seems possible.
On one wall are the contrasts. Sebastian Rich’s “Homeless child Somalia” is paired with Nino Gehrig’s “Cooking 2008”. One child bordering on starvation, the other proudly displaying a cake made from a mountain of sugary sweets.
And George Kavanagh’s diver plunging perfectly into a pool hangs uneasily alongside Rich’s shot of a U.S. marine letting a hooded and restrained Iraqi prisoner of war drink from a jerry-can.
Food and water. Two essentials of life common to everyone. The haves and the have-nots. One of the great divides in the world. The problem is that the way the images are put together feels clichéd. Not so much strange bedfellows as obvious contrasts that are predictably poles apart.
While one side of the gallery explores suffering, the other could be seen as being more about sexuality. Here, Sue Golden’s curation of work from the London Photographic Association and Gallery 1839 is much more deft.
Now you start to see the bedfellows. Couplings that look like they are suited rather than being forced together to make a point. And the strangeness is more subtle.
Julie Cook’s “A.J. Men of Sapphire” could be a classic gay icon in his shorts and chaps. While Sukey Parnell’s “Johnny in Tu-tu” is equally fit and rippling, he looks somehow less sure of himself, perhaps bordering on shy of his physique.
Ginger Liu’s study of Fever Blister in her kitchen is beautifully brassy burlesque. Ilya van Marle’s “Dolly Twins 2008” is also deliciously domestic but considerably more coy. Now your eye is caught by the wigs and the iron and the almost matching girdles.
So one half of the exhibition is chalk and cheese. The other is same but different. But do all these oppositions attract? Not entirely, but there’s no denying that the strangeness does have some appeal.
Strange Bedfellows part 2 can be seen at The Assembly Rooms, 8 Silver Place, Soho, London W1F 0JU. The exhibition is open 10am-5pm Monday to Friday, November 3 to 19.

Julie Cook's "A.J. Men of Sapphire" and Sukey Parnell's "Johnny in Tu-tu" at The Assembly Rooms

Apologies if the site appeared to be off-line for an extended period on Tuesday.

But our hosts had a major outage which, at the time of writing this, still doesn’t appear to be fully resolved.

Their level of service has left a lot to be desired recently,  so plans are being made to move the site to somewhere that’s rather more reliable.

I seem to be developing a bit of a sideline reviewing photography exhibitions. Here’s the latest one, written for theblogpaper.co.uk.

If you are in London this weekend and have an hour or two to spare then Jigsaw, a show by photography graduates from the University of the Creative Arts, is worth a quick look.

The exhibition is billed as representing “the finished puzzle of photography, people and individual pieces”. It’s certainly a puzzle, but more like a jigsaw where you are given of lots of random pieces in a box with no real clue as to what the finished item should look like.

Given the number of people being displayed that shouldn’t come as a huge surprise. Perhaps “Pick and Mix” would have been a better working title because providing you don’t expect the parts to make a coherent whole and you are prepared to dip in and out of varying styles then you should be able to find something to interest you.

On an individual level, the work is hugely varied. The only real complaint is that some if it feels a little too experimental. Either the concept is interesting but the execution doesn’t quite come off, or the technique is there but the idea seems a little lacking. Work in progress rather than the finished article perhaps?

But the show does have some undoubted stars. “Are You Looking For Business” by Richard Fleming is an excellent piece of reportage. He’s done an excellent job in recording the sex workers in his town and the pictures ooze with the feel the meaner streets of Medway.

At the other end of the spectrum, Jenne-Rose Gardiner’s “Genetic Instability” is light-hearted but an equally fine example of social documentary. Her uncle and grandfather strike a series of comic poses. The photos are deftly composed and without any suggestion of the subjects being self-conscious about what they were doing.

“Architectonic” by Steven Pocock is also worth more than a passing glance. He’s resisted the temptation to portray tower blocks and housing estates as grim and gritty places. The way they are printed makes his pictures feel cool and light, bordering on graphic art.

Jigsaw can be seen at the Rag Factory, 16 Heneage Street, London E1 5LJ. The exhibition is open from noon until 6pm, Friday June 11 to Sunday June 13.

If you are at loose end in London this weekend it’s your last chance to see “Irving Penn Portraits” at the National Portrait Gallery. Although formal portraiture isn’t something I do, I’ve always thought that you can often learn by studying the way other photographers work. Here’s the review I wrote for theblogpaper.co.uk:

“We don’t call them shoots here. We don’t shoot people, it’s really a love affair”

Irving Penn’s approach was a million miles removed from that of the machine-gun approach of the modern-day paparazzi. But, as a new exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery shows, he was undoubtedly a master craftsman who loved photographing his subjects rather than a chaser after Z-list “celebrities”.

Penn started work at American Vogue in 1943 and when he rose to prominence soon after the Second World War, the Hollywood studio system was only just coming to an end. But rather than kow-tow to the people he photographed he was determined to take pictures his way.

Eschewing the styles favoured by the other leading photographers of the period, he wedged his subjects in a corner or placed them on a grimy old rug. Their reaction to this novel approach is often visible in their poses and expressions. One sitter had the temerity to object and refuse to pose until the studio was cleaned. Penn had no hesitation in sending them packing.

His publishers sent him to Europe and, with the benefit of natural light in his studio in Paris, this was the point from which Penn really flourished. By the end of the 1950s, he had been named one of world’s 10 greatest photographers in an international survey carried out by Popular Photography.

It wasn’t only the great and the good that passed before his camera. While a list of the people he photographed reads like a Who’s Who of the 20th century, Penn was also an astute observer of street workers in his “Small Trades” series.

Before turning to photography because he didn’t think he was good enough as an artist, Penn had studied drawing, painting and design. Possibly as a result, his sense of composition was impeccable. Both in group shots and in photos of individuals everything seems perfectly placed without being forced.

Irving Penn portraits, National Portrait Gallery

Perhaps this was because Penn was also skilled at still life (his first ever Vogue cover) and so understood how all the elements should be arranged to make the whole. Or perhaps it was because he had an instinctive eye and empathy with his subjects. The result is images that are simple and stripped down without ever quite feeling stark, even though the detail of every pore or wrinkle is often crystal clear.

Magdalene Keaney, the NPG’s associate curator of photographs, spent more than two years selecting and assembling the prints, some of which have never been exhibited before. The two things that stood out for her during her research were that Penn understood and could read a face like the words on a page, and that he often seemed to be exploring what was the least that could constitute a portrait.

Some critics have suggested that Penn wasn’t quite sure what to make of the Swinging Sixties, as another generation of photographers emerged. But as you study the work he produced over more than half a century there is a sense of a constant development and refinement rather than any huge leaps of style. The Grateful Dead and Nicole Kidman were photographed with just as much aplomb as Igor Stravinsky and the Duchess of Windsor.

And while other people were out partying Penn, ever the perfectionist, was hard at work in the darkroom, reviving and refining an old platinum and palladium process that would allow him to print his work with even greater depth of detail.

Interviewed by American Photo, Penn said: “I have always stood in the awe of the camera. I recognize it for the instrument it is, part Stradivarius, part scalpel.” This exhibition is both lyrical and an incisive depiction of Penn and his work, and should be a must-see not only for photographers and lovers of portraiture but also as an insight into recent social history.

Irving Penn Portraits is organised by the National Portrait Gallery, London in collaboration with the Irving Penn Studio, with support from Bank of America Merrill Lynch. It runs until June 6 and will then transfer to Rome.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Posed and poised: the portraits of Irving Penn (guardian.co.uk)
• Irving Penn: Portraits at the National Portrait Gallery, review (telegraph.co.uk)
• How Penn’s camera stole celebrity souls (thejc.com)

Apologies for the recent outage. It looks like the Super Cache plug-in may have been the offender. The problem is still being investigated, but disabling the plug-in seems to have brought the site back to life.

Steve

Having just done a little more housekeeping on my bookmarks, I think the point has come where the increasing collection of photography links is threatening to overwhelm the sidebar.

So the full list of links (50+ and still growing) will reside here. The page should update itself automatically every time you visit.

It’s not that dislike fireworks. Just that most photographs of fireworks always look a little too similar to me. When making plans for last weekend, I briefly toyed with the idea of going to a big display, or perhaps finding a vantage point that looked out across London. I decided against, and headed out of town instead.

My reward was a pair of stunning sunsets, much more pleasing than any man-made spectacle. And probably better for the environment too; though it might be that all the smoke being blasted into the sky added to the richness of the colours.

Saturday at Capel Fleet and Sunday on Brighton beach

I don’t know whether Saturday’s sunset was isolated to that particular corner of Kent. But I’ve seen several pictures that show a lot of south-east England enjoyed Sunday’s spectacle.

Who needs fireworks when you can enjoy sights like those…

Sometimes when I’m taking a photo I must look like I’m doing a little “dance”. I’ll shuffle from side to side, bob up and down, and rock back and forth. It’s amazing the difference a slight change in viewpoint can make to the framing and the final effect. Other times, you don’t have the luxury of seeking out the perfect spot or the defining moment. You see something, possibly no more that a glimpse out of the corner of your eye. And if you waste any item the opportunity might be gone before you act.

The bike in Southend Shakedown was parked by the side of the road, its engine ticking over with that distinctive resonant throb that Harleys have. The rider was waiting for his pillion passenger to finish packing the panniers and settle herself behind him. You couldn’t fail to notice his helmet. Even in the middle of a big bike rally, it stood out from the crowd.

In the days when I shot film I used the same body and lens for close to 20 years. By the time I’d lifted the camera to my eye it was switched on and my fingers were hovering over the key controls. I could take a picture in a single flowing movement, with no pause from picking the camera up to pressing the shutter release. I’ve had the 350D for the best part of 18 months now, and although I’m much more fluent using it I still don’t feel that it’s quite the natural extension of me that the A1 was.

Even so, I managed to get four frames off before the bike pulled away. This was by far and away the best of them. Passing riders heading for home made the background a little too fussy in the other frames. The pillion passenger was wearing a high gloss jet black helmet that was just and shiny and provided an interesting contrast to the rider. It’s an interesting image, but I don’t think it’s anywhere near as good.

I wouldn’t say that I didn’t think about the reflections in the helmet. That, after all, was what caught my eye in the first place. But what would have happened if I’d stopped to think about what I was seeing? Would the reflections have been improved if I’d changed my position a little? Could I have eliminated the hot spot caused by the sun’s glare? Should I have waited until there was no passing traffic so I could step out into the road and take the shot from there?

The chances are that if I had hesitated, especially if I’d tried to find another place to stand, then the bike would have pulled away and I’d have been left with nothing. Even before I went digital I always subscribed to the pros’ adage: film is cheap. When, and only when, you’ve got something in the bag you can allow yourself time to see if you can improve the image. Until then, just remember to shoot first and think later.