"My Little Town" Exhibit at Photoworks, Glen Echo

I've been participating and learning from a great group of photographers at Photoworks, Glen Echo Park, in Maryland. (Click Here) to read more about the group.

 

Photoworks is hosting a juried exhibit from February 27 - April 13, 2015.

 

I entered the following images, but did not get selected for the exhibit. I shot all of these in DC, with my Rolleiflex 2.8F. Though they weren't selected, I'm still proud of these images.

 

 

It's important to remember that we don't only learn from our successes. In fact, some would argue that we only learn from our failures. I am looking forward to seeing the work that was selected for the exhibit, to help me improve my own photographic skills.

 

There is a reception at the exhibit on Friday, February 27.

 

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Opening at the NYC Public Library: "Public Eye: 175 Years of Sharing Photography"

From December 12, 2014 - September 4, 2015, the New York Public Library is hosting an exhibit of a selection from the library's enormous collection of photographs, collected since the 1800s. I saw the banner announcing the show on my visit to NYC last weekend, but the show had not yet opened at that time.

NYC Public Library, by Reed A. George

Leica M9, 50mm Summicron f2 v.3 Lens

iso 400, f8, 1/125 sec.

 

The exhibit will be arranged around contemporary themes from social media: crowdsourcing, image sharing, and street view. It will be interesting to see how these themes are interpreted and which images from such an expansive collection will be included.

 

The exhibit will be held at the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Fifth Ave at 42nd Street, NYC.

 

(Click Here) to read more about it on the NY Times' blog "Lens."

 

I really hope that I can get back up to NYC before the show ends next September.

 

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Meeting Frank "Tico" Herrara

Last night, I had the good fortune to meet master black and white photographer and printer, Frank "Tico" Herrara. I had shown up way early for the hanging of my images for the exhibit "Coffee and Critique: Exposed" at Glen Echo Park in Maryland. More on that below.

 

Happy to at least find the building open on this cold, windy night, I had to wait for a long while in the dark lobby, until someone showed up and unlocked the gallery and darkroom space where Coffee and Critique is held. Along comes this gentleman, who happens to have a key, and is willing to let me follow him in. When he asks why I'm there, I tell him I'm there for a hanging. He says "Oh, good. I haven't been to a good hanging in so long. I thought they were outlawed nowadays." or something to that effect.

 

Anyway, it turned out that this was none other than Frank "Tico" Herrara, the most senior staff member at Glen Echo Photoworks, winner of a Guggenheim fellowship, and excellent photographer and printer. We sat and chatted for about an hour, which gave me the opportunity to learn about his Guggenheim project, "The West Virginia Crosses," among other things.

 

In this project, Tico used the Guggenheim fellowship to "document clusters of Roman crosses that were being erected all over West Virginia by a millionaire businessman as part of a religious mission called "Cast Thy Bread.""

Image Source: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/proxy/AVvXsEiZGouJYA1UUbb2WQ54ZVCSgFdbEaE-NN9YQHUTqfMPSMfAWMEaGb_d66MXvaG1Q-R3oI02LRjI1o2PLPs6brCPyi9UJwwXqUnifU7EeGXfND0NEOuyai_yVnFvmcjqYGiJEt21STQ0HO95Gfo1gomIzZ2XMoDelUepAGEbdiM=s0-d-e1-ft

 

After we'd talked for a while, I screwed up enough courage to ask Tico for input on the pictures I'd come to hang, those of my meditation practice, shot with large format film and old cameras, including a pinhole. I posted a slideshow of those images previously. (Click Here) to see that post.

 

I was pleased to hear that Tico sort of "got it," meaning the idea of what I was trying to communicate with the images. He said they definitely communicated a meditative message. That was really nice to hear.

 

So, all in all, I'm glad that I arrived so early to the exhibition hanging. My reward was to meet and spend some time with a real photographic master, one on one. Tico is a really nice guy, and I hope to get the chance to meet up with him again.

 

If you're interested in seeing my exhibition, along with about fourteen of my colleagues that take part in the Coffee and Critique sessions at Glen Echo Park in Maryland, you can (Click Here) for the details. My work will be up until January 5, 2015.

 

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Lessons from the Forest - My Upcoming Exhibition

I spent some time yesterday printing and preparing for my upcoming photography exhibit, as part of the "Coffee and Critique Exposed: The Exhibit," to be hosted at Glen Echo Park, Maryland, from November 21, 2014 - January 5, 2015.

 

I've been working on a set of photographs related to my meditation practice. I've put together five prints for the show, printed on matte paper. I'm using Epson matte paper at the moment, but may experiment with some other papers before the exhibit hangs on November 13.

 

One thing I learned from the Magnum Days workshop with David Alan Harvey is to make short slideshows of my work, as part of the editing process. Here's one that I made and posted on youtube for this exhibit:

 

 

Lessons from the Forest, by Reed A. George

 

All five images were shot on 4x5 film. The first and final shots were made with a Graflex Speed Graphic, the others with a pinhole camera. I have a lot more to do on this project, but the goal of this series was to share something of the state of mind that I achieve in meditation, and particularly in walking meditation.

 

I hope you find it interesting!

 

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10 X 10 = 100 Years of Leica

This is an important time for Leica. Celebrating their 100th anniversary and moving into a new headquarters in their original home of Wetzlar, Leica is having fun on several fronts.

 

In addition to introducing highly exclusive camera editions that most of us will never see, they've commissioned an exciting series of photographs from contemporary photographers, pairing each of them in style and spirit with an important photographer from the past.

 

Image Source: http://blog.leica-camera.com/leica-news/leica-gallery-wetzlar-inaugural-10-x-10-exhibition/

 

The ten photographers, and their conceptual partners from the past are listed below:

 

Jing Huang and Henri Cartier-Bresson

Craig Semetko and Elliott Erwitt

Julia Baier and René Burri

Dominic Nahr and Robert Capa

Evgenia Arbugaeva and André Kertész

Kirill Golovchenko and Lee Friedlander

Alec Soth and William Eggleston

Amedeo Turello and William Klein

Thomas Ruff and Alexander Rodchenko

Saga Sig and Jeanloup Sieff

 

Each of the ten chosen photographers created ten images, which are now on exhibition in the Leica Gallery.

 

(Click Here) to read more about the show on the Leica Camera Blog.

 

The blog shows one representative image from each of the featured photographers. I'd like to see the rest, as what they show is intriguing. Reading this also reminds me of how many great photographers have come before us, and how I should become familiar with their work. While many of the names of the greats listed above are familiar to me (some are not), I would have trouble pointing out the style of any of them with the exception of Bresson and Capa. There is a lot for me to learn from them.

 

I appreciate the Leica is celebrating the past and looking to the future with this event.

 

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