RAYMOND MEEKS: Photolucida Seminar

Untitled. Photograph (c) Raymond Meeks

"We moved to Portland from our lovely rural life in Montana this past September. The timing seemed right for all of us. There's nothing poetic in this. It's still not home, that takes time, but a really great, caring community. "

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RAYMOND MEEKS photographs are masterful. His accomplished printing techniques have evolved over the years while working in platinum and silver metals, wet plate collodion and hand-applied surface preparation for digital printmaking. He's now come full circle and returned to printing primarily on silver gelatin from sheet and roll films.

Meeks recent work has been exploring a constantly shifting landscape, where dormant fields of reposed soil serve a restorative promise, a certain catharsis from our pasts and a metaphor to the synchronistic relationship between the health of the land and the condition of its inhabitants. He has incorporated some of these images into his latest edition of hand crafted original Artist Books as well as a new Nazraeli Press 'one picture book' titled Doctrine of an Axe which will be released in May, 2009.

Likeness of Reality, is six pages of original inkjet prints on uncoated paper, in an edition of 15, signed and numbered. All design, printing and binding is completed by Meeks. The book is wrapped in a thin waxed vellum. The book contains one of two inkjet prints. They are Meeks own technique of printing carbon inkjet prints on transparency film that he's specially conditioned to accept ink and backed with enamel. I've seen this print technique in the past and they are really beautiful and unique. As of now, one of the two prints that is included with this book is a choice, but as one print or the other sells out, this will not be a personal selection.

VIEW "Likeness of Reality" and print choices ($460.00)

TIME / PLACE: A SEMINAR WITH RAYMOND MEEKS

RAYMOND MEEKS workshop, in conjunction with Photolucida, is a special opportunity to explore the intuitive process with fine-art photographer Raymond Meeks. Meeks' attention to the intimate details of life and home, as well as poetry and the use of metaphor in his imagery will be the starting point for discussion, feedback, and response. This workshop is ideal for students wishing to cultivate a more emotional and organic response to the world through their image-making. Raymond Meeks Seminar Monday, April 27th 10am-4pm $175 Portland, OR Ph: # 503-963-1935

Raymond Meeks Website
An INTERVIEW with Darius Himes

NICHOLAS VREELAND: HH The Dalai Lama

Photograph (c) Nicholas Vreeland/All Rights Reserved

42nd Street, NYC. Photograph (c) Elizabeth Paul Avedon

THE DALAI LAMA VISITS USA APRIL- MAY 2009
Photograph of H.H. The Dalai Lama by Nicholas Vreeland

VEN. NICHOLAS VREELAND, born in Geneva, Switzerland, a protégé of Henri Cartier - Bresson, son of American ambassador, Frederick Vreeland, and grandson of fashion icon, Diana Vreeland, has lived in Germany, Morocco, Italy, Paris, New York and India. He's fluent in Tibetan, Italian, French, Spanish, English, German, and Hindi, among other languages. He studied at NYU film school, initially worked for Irving Penn, before later working for Richard Avedon, and photographed Maharajahs and Tibetan Rinpoches over many years carrying a huge Deardorff 5 x 7 throughout India. His elegant portrait of the Dalai Lama in his flip flops above was used as a billboard all over New York City during His Holiness's 2003 visit.

Vreeland studied Buddhism at The Tibet Center, the oldest Tibetan Buddhist Center in NYC, under the tutelage of scholar Khyongla Rato Rinpoche. In 1985, he became a full-time Buddhist monk, living at the Rato Dratsang monastery in Karnataka, India. After 14 years of study, Vreeland holds the Ser Tri Geshe Degree, one of only three Westerners to ever achieve this honor. In 2001, he had the special distinction of editing An Open Heart, a New York Times Best Seller List book by His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

Vreeland helped organize and arrange, along with the Gere Foundation, HH The Dalai Lama's 1999, 2003, and 2007 Teachings in NYC. The Dalai Lama is touring the U.S. beginning in Santa Barbara, Ca April 26 and May 3 in NYC. HH The Dalai Lama's U.S. Schedule in April-May 2009

India Photos

Buddhist Photo Journal
Rato Foundation Photographs
Rato Dratsang Foundation Exhibitions
An Open Heart by The Dalai Lama, Edited by Nicholas Vreeland

SMITHSONIAN PHOTOGRAPHY COLLECTION

Smithsonian Institution Archives Collections Storage

The Smithsonian Photography Initiative announced The Bigger Picture their new blog which presents an inside look into the Smithsonian’s photography collections. The blog is produced by the Photography Initiative in collaboration with guest contributors from throughout the Smithsonian.

"Photography and the Smithsonian were born within a decade of each other in the mid-19th century. The Smithsonian now has more than 13 million images in 700 collections throughout its 19 museums, nine research centers and the National Zoo. The Bigger Picture uses these collections and the Institution’s experts to stimulate an active conversation about the medium, its history and its meaning in people’s lives. The blog is intended to present multiple perspectives about the impact of photography and highlight the work of curators, photographers, historians and other Smithsonian staff members. It invites the general public to participate in the dialogue by commenting on Smithsonian posts."

The Bigger Picture is great for those of us who love to research vintage photos and a chance to meet the people behind the scene responsible for accumulating, editing and storing them for us.

The Bigger Picture: http://blog.photography.si.edu
SPI Photo Search: http://photography.si.edu/SearchImage.aspx

APRIL: Snakes

Charmers, 2003. Photograph (c) Tom Chambers / All Rights reserved

Snake Scare, 2009. Photograph (c) Emily Zoladz / All Rights reserved

PHOTOGRAPHS: Tom Chambers and Emily Zoladz

SHIHO FUKADA: Pulitzer Nomination

Photograph by Shiho Fukada for The New York Times

"Tibetan monks leaving morning prayer on Wednesday at Rongwo Monastery in Qinghai Province, China. The Tibetan New Year has come, but many Tibetans, angry over the events of the past year, are rejecting official efforts to drum up festivities." Shiho Fukada was detained for 20 hours after taking this photograph.

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SHIHO FUKADA, a native of Tokyo, now based in Beijing, China, has a degree in English literature from Tokyo's Sophia University and worked in fashion and advertising before becoming a photojournalist. Fukada's stark photograph of Tibetan monks was recently published on the front page of The New York Times. I thought it was a powerful choice for photo editor Michele McNally to select for the cover of the Times newspaper.

Shiho's work includes portraits of child labor in Bangladesh where poverty pushes an estimated 6 to 7 million children to work, comprising one-fifth of the country's labor force. She also spent months in the Bangladesh brothels photographing both the child prostitutes and women who were sex workers for 50 years .

Her website includes her award winning photographs of the grief stricken families taken after the 2008 earthquake that struck China's Sichuan Province. At least 9,000 children were crushed to death by the falling school buildings. This photographic series received The New York Times Grand Prize, Photo of The Year by Editor & Publisher Magazine in 2008. The China earthquake photographs, like most of her work, began as her own personal project, not an assignment. Her work has also received recognition from the New York Press Photographers Association, The National Press Photographers Association in Photojournalism award, the Best of Photojournalism award for her multimedia work, PDN Annual, Communication Arts and Unicef Photo of The Year.

In the U.S., Shiho has covered the Iowa caucus for New York Magazine, photographed male exotic dancers and the life of migrant farm workers. In between assignments on the road, she recently completed a photo essay about the demise of the biggest labor town in Japan which has become a dumping ground of old men since the Japanese economy, once 2nd largest in the world, is now deteriorating at its worst pace since the 1970's during this financial crisis.

Shiho has been nominated for The Pulitzer Prize by The New York Times.

http://www.shihofukada.com
The New York Times slides: A Day of Mourning in Tibet
The New York Times 5/29/2009

ADRIAN PANARO: Out My Back Door

Out My Back Door #5
Photograph (c) Adrian Panaro/All Rights Reserved

"My family and I were living in a loft three blocks south of the World Trade Center, at Trinity Place and Rector Street, and witnessed the first plane hitting the North tower from our six year old's school PS 234, at Greenwich and Chambers Streets. We weren't permitted to go home for about 6 weeks and when public policy dictated it was safe, our eyes and noses told us otherwise. We hoped things would improve, but in the end we decided to move out to New Mexico. "

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PHOTOGRAPHER ADRIAN PANARO now divides his time between New York and New Mexico. The destruction on 9/11 rendered his downtown residence/studio, like the rest of the neighborhood, uninhabitable and in 2002 he and his wife Tina moved their family to New Mexico.

Panaro began his professional career in New York City in the 1970's. After traveling extensively throughout Afghanistan, India and Nepal and attaining his undergraduate degree in Anthropology, he began working for Richard Avedon. During his 3 years with Avedon, he learned the fine points of studio lighting, participated in the preparation for and mounting of Richard Avedon's major retrospective Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, while also serving for a time as studio manager. Panaro next worked with fashion photographer Bill King in Paris and New York.

When Adrian branched out on his own as a free-lance editorial and advertising photographer, his work was published in The New York Times, New York Magazine, Details Magazine, and various international publications. Those early portraits of artists, writers and musicians included everyone from photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, artist Andy Warhol, to the legendary rock and roller Chuck Berry.

Since moving to New Mexico, his work has expanded, and taken him into a much different direction. "Due to my being an expatriate and from the experience of 9/11, I found myself drawn back to the original impetus that led me into photography as a medium of self expression."

ADRIAN PANARO

May 1st through May 30, 2009
Group Exhibition:Walter Randel Gallery
287 10th Avenue, NY, NY.
http://www.wrgallery.com

Adrian Panaro: http://www.adrianpanarophotography.com
ArtInfo: Robert Mapplethorp, Silver Gelatin Print, 10 x 10 inches