Beta issue 13

13

FEBRUARY 2015

developments in photography

BETA developments in photography ISSUE 13 editor: Jeff Moorfoot design: Penelope Anne contact: beta@ballaratfoto.org All content in this magazine is Š 2015 of the Ballarat International Foto Biennale and participating artists, and may not be reproduced without the express written permission of the BIFB. Inc save for fair dealing for the purposes of research, study, criticism, review, reporting news. All other rights are reserved.

OFFICE ADDRESS Upstairs, Mining Exchange 12 Lydiard Street North, Ballarat VIC 3350

MEMBER FESTIVAL

POSTAL ADDRESS PO Box 41, Ballarat VIC 3353 Australia

T +61 3 5331 4833 E info@ballaratfoto.org W www.ballaratfoto.org

Assn No A0045714L ABN 70496228247

6

Andrés Wertheim THE MUSEUM’S GHOSTS

30

Jürgen Lechner CAMERA OBSCURA

56

Michelle Rogers Pritzl

THOSE WHOSE HANDS AND HEARTS ARE PURE

80

Mandy Barker SOUP / SHOAL

100

Susan Dobson VIEWFINDER

If you’re a photographer and you want to get your work seen by 200 of the most influential people connected with photography, from all around the world, I suggest you seriously consider entering Critical Mass when it comes around again later in the year. In fact anyone who is serious about advancing their photographic career should consider the portfolio review process.

At our next festival in August/September of this year, we will again offer the best Portfolio Review Program in Australia, with the added incentive of a trip to the grandaddy of all Portfolio Reviews, the ‘Meeting Place’, run by Fotofest in Houston, Texas. This exciting initiative is made by the generous support of Guy Vinciguerra. The Guy Vinciguerra Fellowship will enable the artist with the strongest portfolio as adjudged by consensus of the reviewing panel, a return trip to FotoFest 2016, plus accommodation and a four day review registration at the ‘Meeting Place’. These reviews run over a total of 16 days, with 160+ reviewers on the lookout for exciting and fresh work to feature in their various galleries, publications, and festivals.

By comparison, we are but minnows, but we laud the process and endeavour to put together the strongest list of reviewers who are best placed to offer career advancing opportunities to emerging photographers, as well as established artists. The registration process for the BIFB’15 Portfolio Reviews will be open soon, with all of the information available that potential registrants might need to assist them in putting together the most effective body of work to achieve the best outcome from their participation.

So may I suggest, that if you are not already on our mail database, then you should be, because our monthly newsletter BIFFO announces all the latest information on BIFB’15 matters. You can subscribe directly from our website ballaratfoto.org And no, we don’t inundate our subscribers with daily or weekly emails. Only our monthly missive BIFFO and our bimonthly online magazine BETA developments in photography, and the occasional ONE THOUSAND WORDS [about photography]. And just maybe a Christmas card or the odd announcement of some really special event because, we, like

you, know what it’s like to turn on your computer in the morning to an inbox full of unsolicited emails!

Alas and alack! I fear I have been diverted from the task at hand, which is to tell you all about the brilliant photography that graces the pages of the thirteenth issue of BETA developments in photography. This rounded international lineup, with two Germans [one born in Argentina] a Brit, a Canadian [born in Germany] and an American from Washington DC. They bring us yet again a potpourri of photographic styles that explore the craft, the diversity and the opportunity for self expression and exploration that photography offers.

I trust you will enjoy this issue’s selection, and I always look forward to your reactions and feedback. You can contact me directly at beta@ ballaratfoto.org

Jeff Moorfoot BIFB Creative Director BETA editor Ballarat International Foto Biennale

The Museum’s Ghosts Andrés Wertheim

6

7

Back from heaven. Frankfurt, 2013

PREVIOUS PAGE: A golden age. Vienna, 2013

8

I’ve always been fascinated by the interaction between the artworks of a museum and the public. While visitors gather to look at a painting, sometimes the characters portrayed in nearby pictures seem to be watching them. This tension leads me to melt both planes with my camera by means of a double exposure. My attention focuses on what may exist between reality and fiction to find a theatrical sensation, trying that the transparency between the two images may create a new dimension, a ghostly presence in which past and present intertwine.

9

Ladies night. Vienna, 2013

10

11

Ripped. Buenos Aires, 2013

12

13

The embrace. Frankfurt, 2013

14

15

The phone call. Vienna, 2013

16

17

Vanishing soul. Vienna, 2013

18

19

Lilliput. Buenos Aires, 2013

20

21

The knights. Amsterdam, 2013

22

23

The cherubin´s jokes. Paris, 2014

24

25

The third eye. Buenos Aires, 2013

26

27

Andrés Wertheim was born in 1962 in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

He studied photography with Horacio Coppola, later moved to Germany and from 1986 on travels around the world documenting various places and their people and writing articles for magazines and newspapers. He studied Video Production at The International Film & TV Workshops, USA and attended Juan Travnik’s course on Aesthetics and Expression.

He took part of the photographic project CITY 2000 in Chicago and collaborated with the Maistep Project of the Mainz University, Germany. His Fine Art prints are being represented by art galleries at solo shows and at international art fairs. Among several prizes, he was awarded the Nikon Photo Contest International, Kodak European Elite Team and Petrobras / Buenos Aires Photo. His works are in private and public collections in Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Belgium, Russia and Canada.

website: andreswertheim.com

28

Down by the river. Paris, 2014

29

Camera Obscura Jürgen Lechner

30

Zeeland Bridge 02

31

32

Lighthouse

Twosome

35

36

Zeeland Bridge 03

Gulls

39

40

Fence

Poles 02

43

44

Single

Poles 04

47

48

Zeeland Bridge 01

Line

51

52

Pile

54

In a period characterized by technological advances, German photographer Jürgen Lechner looks to the earliest photographic techniques: pinhole photography with a camera obscura.

In doing so, Lechner presents the spectator with contemporary scenes that highlight the often-overlooked viewpoints of our environment.

Lechner’s abandon of digital photogra phy may be unusual, but his aesthetic proves to be as innovative if not more so than any digitally based photographic style. His somber scenes have a quiet and meditative air that encourages the spectator to relish a world that seems comparable with yet far removed from our own.

Born 1962 in Nürnberg, Germany, he currently lives in Eckental, Germany.

Since 1989 he has been a freelance photographer and since 2010 a member of BBK, the Federal Association of Artist of the Fine Arts in Germany

website: juergenlechner.de

Contrast

55

THOSE WHOSE HANDS AND HEARTS ARE PURE Michelle Rogers Pritzl

Those Whose Hands and Hearts are Pure is a metaphor for the psychological damage inflicted on young women through Evangelical Christian purity culture. Through Victorian notions of patriarchy, young women are taught to submit, to be ashamed of themselves, their bodies, their sexuality, their dreams and ultimately to exist for the sake of the husband they will serve.

subverts the intent of the Fundamentalist mindset and the control they seek over women. The control, condemnation and judgment I faced growing up in this environment is turned into pleasure.

The psychological bondage and domination Fundamentalist men would inflict on women becomes a sexually charged situation where I am ultimately the one in control.

In these self-portraits I play a character that performs or endures tasks that represent the inner workings of the psychological damage inflicted by these beliefs. This series tells my own story of withstanding oppression and breaking free. A theme of domination over the female character is woven into the images; this subtle reference symbolizes not only the way that bullied children hear taunts forever, but also

Each image is a 16x20� tintype, printed with a transparency in the darkroom, in a unique edition of 5. My digital workflow combined with the antique media of collodion references the antiquated view of women through the photographic process itself.

56

A Woman Subtle Of Heart

57

58

A Virtuous Woman Is A Crown

59

60

All Subjection

61

62

Thy Lips A Line Of Scarlett

63

64

The Wound Of The Talebearer

65

66

Neither Was Man Created For The Woman 67

68

The Fruit Of My Womb

69

70

The Great Harlot

71

72

The Blessings Of The Breasts And Womb

73

74

The Weaker Vessel

75

76

The Outward Adorning

77

78

Michelle Rogers Pritzl was born and raised in Washington DC, where she fell in love with photography in a high school darkroom. Pritzl received a BFA from the Corcoran College of Art and Design in 2001, a MA in Art Education from California State University in 2010, and a MFA in Photography from Lesley University College of Art, where she studied with Christopher James, in 2014. Her work explores the tension between past and present in our psychological lives as well as the photographic medium itself, often working in a digital/analogue hybrid and using historic alternative processes.

Diffusion Magazine, Lumen Magazine, Your Daily Photograph via the Duncan Miller Gallery and her work as been recognized by the International Photography Awards, LensCulture and the Prix de la Photographie Paris.

Pritzl has been widely exhibited in New York, New Orleans, Fort Collins, Boston and Washington DC, amongst others.

Pritzl was a Critical Mass Top 250 finalist in 2013 and 2014; she has been featured in Lenscratch, Noovo Editions,

website: michellerogerspritzl.com

A Heart Of Snares And Nests

Pritzl has taught photography and drawing in both high school and college for the last 10 years, most recently serving as an adjunct instructor at Lesley University College of Art, as well as leading workshops for the Griffin Museum of Photography. She is represented by Corbis Images.

79

Soup / Shoal Mandy Barker

SOUP is a description given to plastic debris suspended in the sea, with particular reference to the mass accumulation that exists in an area of The North Pacific Ocean known as the Garbage Patch.

SHOAL depicts plastic marine debris collected from the North Pacific Ocean during The Japanese Tsunami Debris Field Expedition in June 2012, following the Japanese earthquake and tsunami in March 2011.

The series aims to engage with and stimulate an emotional response in the viewer, by combining a contradiction between initial aesthetic attraction and an awareness of the disturbing statistics of dispersed plastics having no boundaries, which result ultimately, in the death of sea creatures.

The images show all plastic collected and photographed during the scientific research voyage that lasted one month and covered over 4000 miles. Plastic debris was collected from trawl and net samples recovered from the North Pacific Ocean between Japan and Hawaii, and also from the tsunami affected shoreline. The collections of plastic form shoals and were photographed onboard the expedition vessel and captioned with the grid reference of where each sample was collected.

All the plastics photographed have been salvaged from beaches around the world and represent a global collection of debris that has existed for varying amounts of time in the world’s oceans.

81

SHOAL 5

82

SHOAL 10

83

SOUP Ruinous Remembrance 5

84

SHOAL 4

85

86

87

WHERE Balloon

PREVIOUS PAGE: SOUP Birds Nest

88

SHOAL 9

89

SHOAL 7

90

SHOAL 1

91

SHOAL 11

92

SOUP Refused

93

94

95

SHOAL 8

PREVIOUS PAGE: SOUP Burnt

96

SHOAL 3

97

Mandy Barker is an international awardwinning photographer based in the UK and her work involving marine plastic debris has received global recognition. The series SOUP has been published in over 30 countries including Time Magazine USA, The Guardian Eyewitness, GEO, CNN, and The Explorers Journal. She has exhibited internationally and currently her work can be seen at GYRE The Anchorage Museum Alaska USA.Â

website: mandy-barker.com

EVERY snow

98

99

The series Viewfinder consists of largescale serene photographs of water made with a large-format film camera.

Each water scene has been digitally overlaid with a scan of a historic largeformat camera ground glass. Dobson scanned the ground glasses at George Eastman House, International Museum of Photography and Film, and they span almost the entire history of 19th and 20th century photography.

The bodies of water are purposefully not identified, as they represent a generic and commonplace subject matter that could be anywhere. Dobson is more interested in the ground glass as a site for material engagement between photographer and subject matter. Many 100

of the ground glasses bear distinctive markings and etchings, as well as indexical signifiers such as fingerprints. To emphasize the interplay between these markings, the photographer, and the subject, Dobson titled each image with the name and manufacturing date of each camera ground glass. To further emphasize the material qualities of film photography, Dobson also chose to include the processing clip marks and film brand identifiers on the edges of many of the 4x5 negatives she made for this series. The images in Viewfinder thus provide a glimpse into a period of photography that fostered slow looking and material engagement, in contrast to the digital capture and nearly instant global dissemination of images today.

John Stock & Company New York. Stereo Wet Plate Camera, circa 1866

VIEWFINDER Susan Dobson

101

Deardorff, circa 1923

102

Rochester Empire State Camera with reducing back, circa 1900

103

Speed Graphic View Camera, circa 1940

104

Bouquin Daguerreotype, circa 1850

105

106

Daguerreotype Sixth Plate, circa 1848

107

Sanderson Tropical Field Camera Half Plate, circa 1920

108

Century Studio Camera with reducing back, circa 1925

109

110

Seneca 5x7 View Camera, circa 1940

111

Wista Technical Field Camera, circa 1980

112

Toyo Field 45AII, circa 1980

113

Linhof 4x5, circa 1946

114

Deardorff 5x7, circa 1965

115

Cambo, circa 1950 Eastman Commercial View Camera, circa 1937

116

Susan Dobson grew up in Germany, and now resides in Guelph, Canada.

Her photographs have been exhibited internationally, and she has participated in many photography festivals, such as CONTACT (Toronto, Canada), Fotoseptiembre (Mexico City), Le Mois de la Photo (Montreal, Canada), Bitume /Bitumen (Belgium), and FotoNoviembre (Spain). In 2012 her work was included in the Canadian Biennial titled Builders at the National Gallery of Canada, and

in 2010 she was a contributing artist to the Vancouver Cultural Olympiad.

She is currently working on a multiyear research project titled The Pictured Past and the Future Perfect: Shifting Tenses in Contemporary Photography.

Dobson is Associate Professor and Photography Department Head at the University of Guelph.

website: susandobson.com

117

The Ballarat International Foto Biennale is a proud member of two groups representing a total of 38 photo festivals around the world. To find out what’s on where and when, check out their websites

Keep your finger on the pulse

Aleppo, Syria Arles, France Atlanta, USA Ballarat, Australia Bienne, Switzerland Braga, Portugal Buenos Aires, Argentina Daegu, South Korea Denver, USA Derby, United Kingdom Houston, USA Kaunas, Lithuania Krasnodar, Russia Lodz, Poland Mexico DF, Mexico Montréal, Canada Odense, Denmark Paris, France Portland, USA Porto Alegre, Brazil Tampere, Finland Thessaloniki, Greece Toronto, Canada

w w w . f e s t i v a l o f li g h t . n e t

www.ballaratfoto.org

Angkor, Cambodia Auckland, New Zealand Ballarat, Australia Chiang Mai, Thailand Chobi Mela, Bangladesh Bogota, Colombia Guatephoto, Guatemala Head On, Australia Higashikawa, Japan Penang, Malaysia Pingyao, China Shimmer, Australia Queensland, Australia