Visa Pour l?image: The 17th International Festival of Photojournalism, in France this August.
Archive for May, 2005
Fay Godwin
Fay Godwin: Oh, that’s sad; Fay Godwin has died. She was one of our best and most socially-committed landscape photographers. Her work is collected in the excellent retrospective book Landmarks (Dewi Lewis, 2002). The most recent online interview with her was in April 2000’s LIP magazine (PDF, 1.3mb).
Wolvo wonders
Wolvo wonders: An exciting hi-tech event in Wolverhampton – shock! Hint; it’s not at the Science Park and it doesn’t involve Business Link. Speakers include: Ian Bell (creator of Elite); Bill Thompson (how open source was used to help organise the Madrid terrorist bombing remembrances); Sarah Ewen (how Sony is using Linux on the Playstation); […]
Otaku market in Japan
Bedroom bonanza: According to a report by Japan’s Nomura Research Institute, Japan’s obsessive fan/collecting culture is worth Y290-billion annually. That’s about ?14-billion. The full report, The Otaku Group From A Business Perspective, is available for download (PDF, 366kb).
Mary Ellen Mark
Marked:Documentary photographer Mary Ellen Mark, interviewed in The Daily Telegraph (free registration required)… “…this is the kind of work I love to do, more than anything else in the world, and I was very successful doing it for a long time, and now I can’t make a living doing it. The market has dried up. […]
Fused listings
Fuse, lit:Birmingham’s Fused magazine has a new event-listings page online.
New photography schools
New photography school: British schools need to start thinking about teaching photography. I mean teaching it seriously, for the long-term, and embedding it right across the curriculum. Schools have had new computers & training pumped into them for over a decade now. Their children are set to get half-decent 2pmx digital camera s in next […]
Northern Exposure series 3 on DVD
NX3: Excellent, the whole classic 23-episode third series of Northern Exposure, on DVD from 14th June.
Modern Masters of photography – Japan
Modern masters: Japan mounts a two-day retrospective of master photographers, Modern Masters of Photography – Japan.
UK support for games developers
Game, set and match-funding: Sony demands action (Times, free registration required) by the UK government on support from games developers… “We don’t mind if it’s hard support, in the form of tax incentives, or soft support such as training schemes. We just want some acknowledgement, anything,” … “the UK Government has done nothing. I can’t […]
New York otaku show
Otaku outing Metropolis Magazine covers a current New York art show, Little Boy: The Arts of Japan’s Exploding Subculture (sponsor: Microsoft). Curator Murakami suggests that the Japanese cult of cuteness has some dark historical roots. For those who can’t visit New York, there’s a superfat 448-page catalogue from Yale University Press.
UB
UB:The University of Birmingham; yet another re-branding disaster.
Cliffhanger
Cliffhanger: It’s amazing what you can get from the net. Today I received a DVD-r of a really obscure British 1960s thriller. I last saw it fifteen years ago… but I never managed to see the ending. The DVD-r has Japanese sub-titles, that’s how obscure it is – the 1980s Japanese video-tape release being the only […]
IMAF
IMAF:…the winners. One’s from Birmingham, and several others are from the UK. Are we breeding a new generation of home-grown manga talent?
Broch building
Broch building: Built in Scotland in the Iron Age, huge stone structures as old as the pyramids. The construction techniques are being re-invented by a master craftsman. How? He’s building a new one, in a remote forest. There’s a DVD, via PayPal.
Film funding in the UK
“I’m ready for my close-up, Mr. Taxman!” Nick Cohen lays bare the whole system of tax scams that have funded – and ruined – the British film industry… “How much public money has been frittered away since 1997 is anyone’s guess. Michael Kuhn said that tax breaks were worth £5 billion in cash terms between […]
Creative London
Creative London: More than a year after launch, I went back to the Creative London web site. I was hoping to find a dazzling wonderland of inspiring info and news. Er, no. It’s still as it was on launch, and the content doesn’t seem to have changed. After a launch that grandly claimed… “creative industries […]
Geek2Geek – chasing that pretty unique snowflake
Chasing that pretty unique snowflake: The San Francisco Chronicle (where else?) profiles a new U.S. dating service for geeks, Geek2Geek. No pictures allowed. It seems a little redundant — I mean, which eligible geek/nerd doesn’t have a weblog or something very similar? We can find each other that way, for free. Ok, so perhaps the […]
MoMA Arbus
MoMA Arbus: MoMA is staging a major Arbus retrospective; and her portrait subjects have started turning up to see it.
Shopping in Stoke
Shopping in Stoke: People have this old-fashioned image of Stoke-on-Trent as still being industrial grot, wreathed in smoke from the potteries. “What’s your weekly trip to the shops like, then?” trilled a chortling acquaintance in Birmingham… “bet you it’s grotty!”. Well, dear reader; I won that bet.