Camera position and camera distance… are they the same thing? As we position the camera, are we also thinking about how we position ourselves relative to the subject? By looking at work by August Sander, the Bechers, Andreas Gursky, Tina Barney and Jessica Todd Harper, we examine ideas about how we distance ourselves from a subject.

Above: Photographs by August Sander, Bernd and Hilla Becher, Andreas Gursky and Jessica Todd Harper

Links for this episode:

• Dirk Rosler’s “Japan Exposures” site
• Mary Werner Marien’s book – Photography – A Cultural History

 

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In this, the second of a two-part “desert island photograph” project, we cover more Camera Position listeners describing that one image that they’d take with them for visual sustenance if they were stranded on a desert island.

 

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Links for this episode:

• Don Hong-Oai – A History of Photography “Summer School” podcast
• Cartier-Bresson at Magnum
• Edward Weston

I had the great pleasure of being an interview guest on Paul Giguere’s great podcast “Thoughts on Photography.” We talked about all sorts of topics, concentrating on the education of a photographer, both formally and informally. We also talked about my LensWork Folio and how that came to be.

Take a listen and check out the rest of Paul’s episodes; he’s got a great podcast. Thanks to Paul for having me on!

Back in Camera Position #83, I asked Camera Position listeners to pick their one “desert island photograph;” that one image that they’d take with them for visual sustenance if they were stranded on a desert island. This episode shares the first few of those responses; others will follow in the next episode. Thanks to those of you who submitted!

Links for this episode:

• Vanuatu
• Bill Brandt
• Garry Winogrand
• Ibarionex Perello’s The Candid Frame
• Sam Abell
• Ansel Adams

 

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One of my goals for my workshops is to help the participants learn how to cope with the volume of images that they are making and to edit their images so that the group of photographs becomes their own. This podcast is a partial response to my friend Brooks Jensen using his podcast platform to ask who is teaching this important skill to today’s photographers. Of course, my workshops are about looking and seeing and being in the world as a photographer, but we also work with ideas about how to express who you are and what you think in a series or group of images.

Just a few spots remain in my Italy photography workshops for June, 2010. Join us for “Your Story of Rome” Rome (June 1 to 5) or “In Search of the Personal – Photographing Southern Tuscany” (June 5 to 12) and explore the way the editorial process helps make meaning possible.

Links for this Episode:

• Jeff’s Italy Photography Workshops – June, 2010
• Student Work from the 2009 workshop
• Brooks Jensen’s LensWork Podcast – “Where are the Editorial Workshops?” (.mp3 file in a new window)
• Brooks Jensen’s LensWork Podcast on iTunes and the podcast on the web
• Jeff’s LensWork Folio – “Evidence of Hands on Stone: The Italian Portfolio”

 

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Students from the 2009 workshop in action: