D'log

The right stuff:Julie Burchill announces she’s to leave the Guardian soon. Is she perhaps going back to the good old NME, where (in my view) she did her finest writing? Nope. Clue: she won’t be going to the increasingly mis-named Independent.

“You don’t have to be mad, but…”:A long article in today’s Sunday Times magazine (free registration required) about the links between mental disturbance and creativity, and between creativity & heridity. Skip most of the first page if you want to get to the meat of the summaries of recent research findings.

It’s About Time:I nipped over to Broad Street on Friday night, after finishing teaching at BIAD. Shortly after passing Brum’s giant illuminated ferris-wheel, I hopped off the bus at the top of Granville Street and wended my way down to the impressive new offices of my friends Nigel & Sabine. They were having a very […]

Hiroshi Sugimoto:The Daily Telegraph on a new London show by photographer Hiroshi Sugimoto. (Free registration required). Small versions of more of Sugimoto’s works & an interview are on eyestorm.

Brass eyes in Paris:It’s not just photojournalism that the commercial art world is cautious/caustic about. Fashion photography is being shut out as well.

Photojournalism: Year Zero:The latest eight magazine has a long article on why the art world currently feels so threatened by photojournalism. Here’s a taster…. “The art world feels threatened by good photojournalism and feels the need to rubbish it and then subsume it into the gallery circuit to control it, like a dangerous wild animal. […]

Business Finks:Yet another survey (Sunday Times, free registration required), this time from the FSB, which shines a light into the depths of incompetence which lurk within Business Links. The previous withering blast was in Sept 2002 from Ernst & Young and the LSE. Whenever I see that a creative industries development service has been forced […]

redeye:Manchester’s redeye have their newsletter & research archive online. There’s a heavyweight recent research report, The Opportunities for Photography Publishing in the North West, along with the five most recent issues of the excellent newsletter.

Conifer cull:Now that conifers can be had from places like Canada, we can regenerate our broadleaved woodlands over the next 100 years. A notable example of globalisation resulting in the regeneration of local distinctiveness.

Trolley volley:Stephen Gill’s eclectic photo series.

Grammar boy:The Daily Telegraph reviews After Theory. (Free registration required). “Strained but wearyingly formulaic humour alternates with concatenations of dead metaphors and cliches.” Oh dear.

America 24/7:The Digital Journalist has a slideshow of 50 photos & the prefaces from the monumental new America 24/7 all-digital photobook.

“My Rebellious and Imperfect Eye”:A new book – in the guise of a thick hardback journal issue – on poet & writer Geoffrey Grigson.

Jazz Butcher:Released a few weeks ago and now filtering into fab music shops, The Jazz Butcher’s Free Lunch is a compilation of the best of his Creation Records years (Rev-Ola records: CRREV 54, £9.99). Many years ago I had the pleasure of making a promo-video for ‘Mr Odd’ & of discussing early Eno and the […]

Paris Vogue:The story behind the new typographic system & re-design at Paris Vogue.

300D macro tests:I tried out the new 300D camera ‘s macro (close-up) function with different lenses & depth-of-field combinations…. (large version, 48kb) (large version, 62kb) (large version, 72kb) (large version, 53kb)

Photographers gallery:Is there a dedicated photographic gallery in the West Midlands? I can think only of occasional small shows at small public galleries like the Light House in Wolverhampton, and occasional pomo hangings at larger galleries like the New Walsall or the Ikon. I can’t think of one physical place that’s dedicated to showing only […]

DVD = Digital Vanishing Disc:I had to buy another DVD copy of Olivier’s Henry V today, because my three-year old DVD copy was literally fading away. Its dye had faded to semi-transparency. This caused big square artifacts to fringe around anything that moved rapidly on screen. Worryingly, a couple of other favorite discs seem to […]