A MOTTO FOR 2016

"...there should be some discrimination and selection based on quality rather than novelty".

Landscape, Untitled #3

Work in progress: PROJECT "FRONTLINE"

A few weeks ago I started with my new project called "Frontline". The background of this project is the WW2 Battle of Moscow, which took place  (according to official history) from Sept. 30, 1941 to April 2, 1942. Today it is seen as the largest battle between two armies of all time. The Battle of Moscow marked the first time Hitler's armies failed to triumph with their Blitzkrieg tactics and the German army never completly recovered from that defeat which is seen by many contemporary historians as the ultimate turning point of WW2.

Along the frontline of this battle there are today a lot of memorials and monuments remembering the heroic fight of the Red Army to stop the Fasiscts. With my project I want to document some of them. Seeing photography as a meaning of expression of one's feelings I am planing to "manipulate" my pictures in a way that they express the emotions I had while making the pictures. Here are first test to try out how to achieve this...

You can find more pictures at my photoblog.

At the "Alley of the Heros", Ruza

Monument to the "Sibirian Defenders of Moscow", Snegiri

Monument to the "Defenders of Moscow's Sky" , near Moshaisk

The "Stop Line" at Snegiri

The "Panfilov Warriors", Nelidovo

FROM SILVER TO SILICON

My personal journey through (parts of) the History of Photography.

My personal (photographic) life is covering less than a quarter of the timespan of photography. Nevertheless I witnessed and took part in the most important transformations in it‘s history. This is a short and very personal journey through my photographic life...

A long and winding road...

   When in 1984 I did my MFA in Photography at the “Graphische“ in Vienna (which was founded in 1888, therefore being one of the oldest schools for photography worldwide) photography was in a climax. The technical development had reached a level which couldn‘t be exceled. At least we thought so - not realizing that the Eastman Company, better know as Kodak, was already working on a 1-megapixel-CCD-sensor for digital cameras, an item which would at the end completely change our (photographic) life. And will bring down the Eastman Company because they themselves didn‘t fully believe in digital photography.

   At the beginning of the 1980s the curriculum of photo colleges still contained things like retouching negatives. We made portraits with the 4x5 inch view camera, using big  tungsten light lamps for lightning. Being a student was also an financial matter. Films and paper was expensive, you always thought twice before making a print. Film speed was more or less limited to 27 DIN/400 ASA (anybody still knows ASA and DIN?). Everything above this was called push developing - and not very much appreciated by our teachers. We where mixing our own chemistry and spent whole days in the darkroom (which was especially nice in winter, when you didn‘t see any daylight during darkroom days). 

Bretagne. Early Morning. 

   

   We had our photographic “heroes“, Ansel Adams for those in landscape photography, Avedon for fashion, Mappelthorp and Herb Ritts where at the beginning of their careers,  Oliviero Toscani started his. controversial and much discussed advertising campaign for Benetton. Although photography was not seen by many people as “art“ (there was only one photo gallery in Vienna at this time) many of us where thinking about photography as art. And it was the high time of photojournalism too. After all pictures changed the public opinion on the Vietnam war (which let to the „embedded“ journalists in the Iraq war of 1991). There where magazines like Life and National Geography, like GEO and Stern each of us wanted to work for. Being invited to become a member of MAGNUM was the Holy Grail...

From my "Avalon" Portfolio

   At the beginning of my „career“ as an artist I did a lot of landscape photography which was quite a back braking undertaking. When I working on my „Avalon“ portfolio I was carrying about 25 kg of equipment for three weeks through the Highlands of Scotland. One needed at least a medium format camera (I for sure couldn‘t afford a 8x10 inch view camera at this time), a heavy tripod, a box full of filters (all shades of yellow to dark red, as Ansel Adams was teaching us). After that you spent hours, days, weeks in the darkroom, breathing in the healthy fumes, fighting with gradation, dotting and burning. And yes, I enjoyed this time. Very much so.

Just the basics. Add filters, heavy tripod, light meter...

   Then some curious thing called „digital photography“ emerged. I was trying to ignore it, avoid it. But at some moment one of my clients wanted to have the pictures not only as slides or prints but also as digital files. I survived thanks to scanning the negatives and saving them on a Photo CD. But when they needed the pictures from a conference in Vienna within two hours after the event took place at their headquarter in Brussels, well, that was the point in time when I had to do the step into the world of digital photography.

Lanzarote. A "hyprid" so to say. Negative scanned, printed on inkjet printer...

If you buy a piano you own a piano. If you by a camera you are photographer... 

Was it worth? Well, it is photography too. I am not missing this endless hours in the darkroom. With digital photography you have at the end much more possibilities (or, at least, can achieve the results much easier and faster). Yes, it was worth it. Even if it is nowadays much more complicated to be recognised as a „real“ photographer. 

Picts, or it doesn‘t happen. 

Digital photography has „democratized“ photography (and more or less destroyed the professional photographers business). Everybody (who owns a cellphone) is making pictures today. Every day in 2014 an average of 1.8 billion photos were uploaded to the internet, a total of 657 billions. Every two minutes humans take more photos than ever existed in the total 150 years ago (and that are only this which are uploaded, pictures which a on some SD-cards or other hard disc are not included). 

The only problem I can see with this flood of pictures: The important ones, the really good ones, these which matter, are not so easy to find. And a lot of pictures are lost because its so easy to delete them. In the times before digital photography no (serious) photographer ever destroyed his negatives or slides. Nowadays you just push the right button to get rid of them if you think the are not worth keeping. In this connection I very much like the story of Dirk Halstead who did a photo which became a cover of Time magazine and won him many awards (not because of the quality but because of the uniqueness): During Bill Clinton‘s 1996 presidential campaign, Halstead was at an fundraiser event a few days before the election, shooting photos right up until the end. Several months after the fundraiser, the news broke that Clinton had had an affair with Monica Lewinsky. Searching his archive he came up with this particular photo which ended on the Time cover. He was shooting with a 35mm film SLR. His colleagues where shooting on digital - and deleted near identical images from their memory cards right after the event. 

My advice (maybe a little bit „old-school“): Never delete a picture. You never know if you might not need it some times in the future...

For me it was a long journey from the beginning of my photographic life until now. A journey which I enjoyed more often than not. A journey which is for sure not over yet...

YES. IT IS ART.

Documentary photography can be art photography too...

“Pictures which are going directly from the eyes to the heart...“

(An inscription in the visitor‘s book of my 2015 „Leftovers“ exhibition in Lucca)

   "Is photography art?" may seem like a silly question to some (or many, or most) but it has been a debate which started more or less right at the moment when Joseph Nicéphore Niépce made the first photograph in 1826 or 1827 and this debate is still going on. If I would get 10 Euro every time I had this discussion over the last 30 years or so I would be a very rich man...

  The invention of photography had an dramatic impact on the careers of illustrators and painters. The livelihood of many artists was jeopardized by the camera, which they often viewed as a mechanical device or passing fancy, rather than as an artist's tool. Few denied that photography was an ingenious invention of the modern age but many saw it as a threat to the traditional values associated with art. The public debate on whether images were photography as art or mere documentation began back then, often centering on the camera, rather than on the talents and intent of the photographer.

Let‘s start with a definition of "Art Photography" - that is how Wikipedia is defining it: 

• Fine art photography is photography created in accordance with the vision of the artist as photographer.
• Photography that is done as a fine art - that is, done to express the artist's perceptions and emotions and to share them with others.
• The production of images to fulfill the creative vision of a photographer
• Creating images that evoke emotion by a photographic process in which one's mind and imagination are freely but competently exercised.

   Photography is an art when the photographer is an artist. It is immaterial that the photo can be replicated a thousand times (thus depriving the 'original' of its unique status). A photographer's art is his ability to capture a moment of reality and turn it into viewable image of interest and/or beauty. At the end of the day a camera is not so very different from a painter's brushes and paints. It is no more than a set of tools with which a photographer tries to create an image: an image to stir our soul, in the way that images do.

An Artist's Statement: 

Every time I take pictures, I don't photograph a motive, but the picture of a motive. To transform this motive into a picture, one must convert it into the "medium photography", meaning that everything you observed at the motive, experienced, felt you have to express with the given characteristics of the medium - the whole pallet of the grey tones . The more exactly one knows the tools, the more successfully the conversion is. The successful picture - and not the motive itself - then represents the photographic correspondence, the photographic equivalent of the experiences with this motive. In this doing the artistic photography arranges itself into a row with all other representing arts.

Only the picture contains the message.

  One could say that when the one of the leading institutions in modern art, the MoMA in New York, has a separate department for photography (as it has since 1940) the question „Is photography art?“ could be seen as solved. Today, fine art photographs can be seen in many leading museums around the world, even such revered and conservative like the Albertina in Vienna...

"I have discovered photography. Now I can kill myself. I have nothing else to learn." 

Pablo Picasso

"I have always been very interested in photography. I have looked at far more photographs than I have paintings. Because their reality is stronger than reality itself."

Francis Bacon

Posted in: Oppinions

A/P, B.A.T., 3/25 - WHAT'S IN A SIGNATURE?

   As with so many things in the universe of Art Photography there are no clear rules or commonly agreed conventions for signing an artwork. And as with so many things in the universe of Art Photography there are many different opinions even between photography dealers, collectors or curators.   Historically there are many bodies of work that were routinely not signed. With 19th century work, a handful of artists either signed their prints or affixed facsimile signature ink-stamps...but many more did not.—in the 20th century, important figures like Eugene Atget basically never signed his prints and Alfred Stieglitz did so rather rarely. With contemporary work, it is natural for collectors to expect that all works would be signed. Again: There are no rules and it very much depends on the artist. An unsigned contemporary photograph by Ansel Adams is a problem, an unsigned Walker Evans is not unusual.

  As there are no norms in this particular instance you will find a lot of variations. Signatures on the picture itself, verso (i.e. on the back) or recto (i.e. on the front). Sometimes you may find a C.A.T. (i.e. a „Certificate of Authenticity“ stamped on the back), sometimes you wouldn‘t find anything of this...

Some kind of a C.A.T.

1/99

Such numbers are pointing out that this particularly print is part of a Limited Edition (in our case Print 1 out of an edition of 99). A limited edition is normally hand signed and numbered by the artist. Again, there are no clear definitions. In some countries (e.g. in 14 states of the USA, in Great Britain or New Zealand; in France, it is a legal requirement to edition your prints to 25 copies or less) there are laws defining a “imited edition“, in others there are more or less generally agreed conventions (e.g in Australia, where limited editions rarely number more than 99 and are often less). Many Limited Editions are Portfolios, which is a group of photographs with some unifying concept published together.

In generally one can say that a “Limited Edition“ is

produced directly from the artist‘s original work

directly by the artist or under direct supervision

limited to some pre-defined number of prints

signed and numbered by the artist

   

You may not find the artist‘s signature only but from time to time some abbreviations like A/P. Most of them derive from the printing craft: 

A/P (Artist‘s Proof)

Usually about 10% of the total number of prints in an edition remain the property of the artist, and are called Artist's Proofs. They are identical with the other impressions in the edition. Artists usually use them for their personal portfolio or for special exhibition.

P.P. (Printer‘s Proof), W.P. (Working Proof), B.A.T. („Bon A Trier“)

An impression of the finished work that is identical to the numbered copies.  Identifies a proof which will serve as the standard to be maintained during the printing of an edition. This originate from the times when the artist didn‘t to the printing by himself. (Henri Cartier-Bresson for example almost never did his own printing.)  

H.C. („Hors de Commerce“)
Prints that are given to someone personally by the artist or are for some reason unsuitable for sale are marked "H. C." or "H/C", meaning "hors de commerce", not for sale.

U.S. (Unique State)
A print that is one of a kind. Meaning that there is only this one, unique print.

Several years before his death, Andy Warhol signed his name on copies of the tabloid magazine Interview (of which he was the editor). Regularly costing $2, he charged buyers $50 for these signed copies and they sold pretty fast...

Filed under [Collector's Basics]

UNDERSTANDING THE MARKET

  There are multiple sources of photographic art, falling into one of two general categories although there will be some cross over from time to time. You have to keep in mind that for the artist there is a very big different between this two markets: Only when his work is sold at the primary market he/she actually earns money. If the work is sold at the secondary market he/she may not even learn about it...

Primary Market _ Term for the sources of art works initially sold to collectors, usually through galleries, dealers, and at artist's shows, the 'first sale' of a work of art. 

Secondary Market _ Term for sources of art works that have been sold before and are available again for sale in the market place.

The Primary Market

Primary markets are by definition the point of the first acquisition of a work of art. This is also the time when the price for the artwork is established for the first time. Primary market players are galleries, private dealers (Generally an individual without a display space regularly open to the public. They work by telephone, appointment, and most often with established clients.) and at times the artist themselves. In primary markets, prices are established by the artist as a condition of representation. All galleries who work with a contemporary photographer should be selling at the same price. 

There are some distinguishing marks which define a “good“ art dealer:

• The reputable Art Dealer is 100% behind the work he/she is selling
• Most reputable dealers have extensive libraries -many are art historians or collectors turned dealers.
• Most reputable dealers are happy to educate, explain, and teach. They have a passion for the art they sell, and they want to communicate it. 
• Reputable dealers will also give full condition reports, and will document fading, foxing or other condition problems

The Secondary Market

Secondary markets are by definition involved in the acquisition and sale of work that has been owned previously. Key players in secondary markets are auction houses, private dealers, and some galleries. 

The secondary market often establishes the market value of works of art at a point in time.

Prices on the secondary market can be pretty confusing: the internet is bringing more visibility, but because there are a lot of different factors that aren’t readily captured or noted, the internet is not bringing greater clarity. The key to remember is that while not all prints are the same, there are common factors that sellers use to establish the price. Those are: general market and economic conditions, image desirability and demand, image scarcity and supply, size, condition, period of printing, provenance, and image quality. 

For the works of deceased photographers,  the secondary market is not only critical in establishing prices, but sometimes the only source of original photographs. 

Auctions are public events, can be entertaining and exciting for bidders, and present a great opportunity to view and bid on multiple works of art at the same time. It is sometimes possible to get a good deal. Sometimes prices get pretty outrageous, so you have to exercise caution when bidding. One thing that some people are not aware of in bidding is that the hammer price is not the final price. At most auction houses, there is a buyer premium for 20-25%, which means if you bid $20,000 for a photograph, you aren’t picking it up until you pay the house $25,000.

Online Auctions are a relatively new phenomenon which one has to take with a pinch of salt. Buyers are taking a chance buying original prints from an online or independent seller. If the buyer recognizes that and is willing to take that chance, then it might be worth it. There are some points to consider when you are buying at an online auction:

• Is the seller accurately representing the item? 
• Is the seller accurately disclosing the condition? Damage can take the value all the way down to zero, if significant enough.
• Is there an opportunity to return the item if not as described?
• Is there a satisfactory recourse if it becomes necessary?

The Contemporary Art Market

There are typically four different areas in the contemporary art market and most dealers will sell art from one or more of these areas. They are:

• The Reputable Print Market which covers both "emerging artists" and established artists.
• The Avant-Garde - otherwise known as "emerging artists". 
• The Established artist - This term covers artists whose work is well-known by the art-going public, and represented in both private and museum collections. 
• The Contemporary Masters - This covers artists who are generally acknowledged to be important figures in the history of contemporary art.

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OPPORTUNITIES FOR COLLECTORS

I would be happy if you would purchase some of my work. But there are other opportunities too... ;-)

If you want to start to collect fine art photography (or if you already in it) at a reasonable price there are some opportunities to add some nice artworks to your collection. Some well known photographers are doing from time to time online print sales. Although most likely it will be from an open edition it may be anyway a good opportunity  to find one or the other artwork for your collection.

From time to time I will point you to such print sales, especially if the are done by photographers whose work I would like to possess myself. Today I want to present you two  print sales:

PETE TURNLEY
The first one is the “Vive La France“ Paris Print Sale of two of Peter Turnley‘s works, done in cooperation with Mike Johnston‘s “The Online Photographer“ Blog.

Peter Turnley and TOP are making available Peter's two most popular Paris prints at what he has long considered full size, on 16x20 inch (appr. 40 x 50 cm) paper.

Peter Turnley, Paris, 1991

These are fiber-base silver-gelatin prints signed by the photographer. The price is $450 for one print and $375 for a second one. (This is far lower than the "everyday" price for these prints, and the lowest price that either print has ever been available for.) And because the pictures are of Paris, a portion of the proceeds of the sale will be donated to the French Red Cross for the victims of the Paris attacks and their families.

This print sale is time-limited rather than number-limited. Orders are taken until this Friday (Dec. 4th). All orders will be shipped to arrive in time for Christmas.

COLE THOMPSON
The second opportunity for purchasing a fine work of art photography is given by Cole Thompson. 

Cole Thompson, The Angel Gabriel

Cole is selling a limited numbers of prints of his well known „The Angel Gabriel“ for the very special price of $100 which includes shipping. The print is 8x12 inch (appr. 20 x 25 cm) on Hahnemuhle Photo Rag 308.


And there is always the possibility to get some of my artwork here.