It’s been 11 long months since the last Filmwasters audio podcast, but we’re back with a bang as Leon interviews one of Ilford Photo’s head honchos, Steven Brierley, about the future of analogue photography. I’d write more, but if you’re an trad photo person then you already have the best reason on the planet to go and give this a listen.

• Ed recommended the Film Photography Podcast
• Phil recommended A Road Trip Journal by Stephen Shore
• Matt recommended Adox PAN 400 film

• Go to Google to see more Lillian Bassman images online.
• That Kevin Spacey TV ad campaign for the new digital Olympus Pen.
• The blog post on Boogie Woogie Flu from which we took the wonderful Weegee material.

Faves/picks/recommendations this time round are as follows:

• Ailsa’s latest book, Travel Photography Masterclass: Joe Cornish, Charlie Waite, David Ward and Others is available for pre-order.
• Ailsa sung the praise of the book, On Being a Photographer: A Practical Guide by David Hurn & the late, great Bill Jay.
• Leon recommends the wonderful portraits that Vicky Slater produces (see examples above) & the street photography of Nick Turpin.
• Ed raved about the recent publication of what seems to be the collected works of the wonderful, Fazal Sheikh.
• Damion recommended two Birmingham-based photographers: Vanley Burke (short bio here) and George Hallett.

This episode was supposed to be a photo journalism special, but inevitably things drifted off-topic pretty quickly and Leon had a time of it trying to edit together something even vaguely cohesive. Fear not though, there’s a lot of good, sensible stuff here in amongst the jokes and the general photography-related chatter. In particular documentary photography is covered in some depth; including a discussion of Colin’s current series, This Is England.

We also discuss the sad passing of Bill Jay, a giant of photographic commentary whose work has made a big impression on us on lots of levels. Visit his site to find out why.

Faves/picks/recommendations this time round are as follows:

• Colin recommends Robin Bell’s Silver Footprint exhibition at the Independent Photographers Gallery in Sussex, UK until June 20th.
• Leon recommends Tim Rudman’s excellent exhibition, The Colourful World of Black and White, which is on at the Lightbox gallery in Woking, UK until July 26th.
• Ed raved about an oldish book he discovered on a friend’s shelf recently, a Time-Life publication from 1980 glorying in the title, Photographing Children.
• Damion had two picks. The first is Ilf and Petrov’s American Road Trip a book from 1935 by Ilya Ilf, Evgeny Petrov, Erika Wolf, Aleksandr Rodchenko and Anne O. Fisher. His second pick is the project currently being undertaken by our good friend, Gordon Stettinius, to publicize, document and research the life and work of Gita Lenz.

Andrea Ingram: Nairn Stroll

In this episode, Leon talks with Andrea Ingram about her recent exhbition at the An Lanntair Arts Centre on the Isle of Lewis, and her new Blurb Book amongst other things related to her photography.  Apologies for the poor sound quality – the Outer Hebrides doesn’t have the greatest broadband link-up so Skype quality wasnt perfect – it improves as the recording goes on, so stick with it if you can.

Andrea’s Fave Photographers discussed:

• James Ravilious
• Jack Thingy (Spencer, actually)
• Alex Titarenko
• Andrew Sanderson
• Leonard Misonne
• Callum Angus Mackay
• Willie Fulton (ok, not photography, but great pics none-the-less)

Note: people have experienced issues downloading recent podcasts from this page. If this happens to you please download from this alternative location (right click and ‘save as’).

A couple more interesting links for Ken Keen:

• Recent article from ePhotozine http://www.ephotozine.com/article/Seeing-without-sight-11077
• Radio interview in Real Audio format from 2006 http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/factual/intouch_20060725.shtml

• Cameron giving a master class in how to not organise things properly when showing work in a cafe.
• Don prompting Ed to lead a deeply technical discussion on the magic of Polaroid peel-apart films during which he used the word, “thing”, far too often and mixed up his 5×4, 54, 55 and 665 like there’s no tomorrow. Yes, folks it’s good to be in the presence of such a knowledgeable commentator!

Cameron’s Picks:

• The Andreas Gursky exhibition at the National gallery of Victoria.
• The work of Rennie Ellis, the award winning Australian photographer and writer.

Susan’s Picks:

• PHOTONOLA is Susan’s BEST OF PICK of 2008. It’s a month long celebratioon of Photography in New Orleans coordinated by the New Orleans Photo Alliance. It included a auction/gala, workshops, reviews, seminars and exhibitions across the city.
• Susan discovered her talent of 2008 at the “Emerge” workshop she ran at PhotoNola; Sam Portera.
• And another 08 treat was getting to see Louviere and Vanessa’s Solo show, Instinct & Extinct at A Gallery For Fine Photography in New  Orleans. Jeff Louviere & Vanessa Brown
• Susan’s LAST THOUGHT BEST PICK OF 2008 has to be Gordon Stettinius‘ self portrait series; currently only viewable online via facebook.

Ed’s Picks:

• The Maurice Broomfield exhibition at London’s HOST Gallery.
• Knock Three Times by Chris Coekin. “Through photographs and archive material, Coekin explores the cultural roots and identity of the Working Men’s Club and examines the complexity of working class culture, as well as ideas of masculinity, relationships and the work ethic.”

Don’s Picks:

• foto8 magazine; recommended reading from the UK
• The Australian Photo Journalist; a great book published annually with top PJ from around the world. Support photo journalists and buy!!
• The forthcoming Ballarat FotoBiennale 09; a big, month-long photo get-together in Australia in ’09.

Onto the show itself: first off there’s a 6 minute long discussion about the Filmwasters.com site including a well-deserved plug for our very own, Susan Burnstine’s wonderful short film on Fine Art TV  (go watch it immediately) and info about some forthcoming collaborations. After that we warm to the subject of Leon and his ‘home build’ camera project followed by him and Damion reviewing fine art photography magazines, Foam Magazine and AG . Ed brings things back to basics with a discussion about 3D (or stereo) photography and the success of his recent purchases from Loreo. Cameron Stephen’s 3D image mentioned in the podcast can be seen here. Also, because we were in the countryside cockerel can be heard crowing throughout.

• Damion recommends Richard Avedon: Photographs 1946-2004
• Ed recommends the Arena portfolios book
• Leon recommends the Martin Pye Wedding Photographer website

NB – The original upload of this podcast contained an incomplete MP3 file. This has now been fixed and the whole podcast is available to play or download.  Apologies for the confusion that this will have caused.

• Susan recommends the movies, The Diving Bell and the Butterfly and What Remains.
• Gordon recommends the Mary Ellen Mark prom series.
• Ed recommends Ghosts In The Landscape by Craig J. Barber.

Ed got something slightly wrong during the podcast. The alleged portrait of Mayakovsky is not one of him wearing a workers’ Constructivist uniform designed by Rodchenko. The suit photo is one of Rodchenko himself, whereas the famous Mayakovsky portrait is a little less surreal.

• Leon recommends the Arena Photographers’ website.
• Jim recommends the Comfort Zones exhibition at Dimbola Lodge on the Isle of Wight.
• Ed recommends Truprint for 35mm C41 process and print in the UK.

Susan wanted me to publish this link to explain her crude comment about Alec Soth. She thought it best to clarify her comment for fear that his wife will hunt her down. The reference to his body of work called ‘Niagra’. Which was shot at Niagra Falls hotels. Susan’s next solo show at Wallspace in Seattle, WA runs from March 4 to April 5. Artist reception is Thursday March 6 and she will be there so go along and say hi.

Ed’s picks were:

• Motherland by Simon Roberts
• Agfa Ultra 100 colour film (discontinued)

Gordon’s picks were:

• Flesh & Blood by Anne Beattie and Andy Grundberg
• Portraits by Bill Burke
• The Short Story & Photography, collected short stories
• Polkamotion
  

Susan’s picks were:

• Shooting Blind
• Polly Chandler
• Mona Kuhn images and books.

Damion’s pick was:

• www.plrds.com

Renowned LA-based photographer, Aline Smithson, joined regulars Ed and Susan for the first podcast of 2008. Susan and Aline were fresh back from the excitement of Photo LA and Review LA, so there’s a lot of talk about that. The discussion topic for this episode was, “What’s The Most Difficult Thing We Face As Photographers”, so we kicked that around a bit too.

[N.B. Sorry that the sound quality is slightly worse than usual. Skype wasn't on our side when we recorded the show]

• Aline’s pick is the new Photofile book, Man Ray (ISBN 0500410658).
• Her recommendation from Photo LA is Finnish photographer, Pentti Sammallahti. Link to the work here and here.
• Susan’s picks are Nine Francois and the 3 winners of the New Orleans Photo Alliance show, Toy Stories (photos below).
• Ed’s pick is Matt Stuart’s wonderful street photography

Winning entries in The New Orleans Photo Alliance show, Toy Stories:

1. Best In Show: Matthew Yates, ‘Sold Mah Soul’.
   More of Matt’s images @flickr
2. Honorable mention: Warren Harold, ‘Boy Behind Fence’.
3. Honorable mention: Rosana Salonia, ‘Little Man’.

(Click on images for larger versions)

We changed the format a little for the third show and moved more into “discussion” territory. Listening back to it this morning I actually think it worked out pretty well although there are a few pauses because we’re occasionally having to actually think before we speak.

• Damion’s pick is Martin Parr by Val Williams; a retrospective of Martin Parr’s work up 2000.
• Susan’s pick’s were the documentary film, Born Into Brothels: Calcutta’s Red Light Kids – watch it on YouTube – and Photo LA.
• Don’s pick was Portfolio magazine from the UK.
• Ed’s pick was printing out paper (POP). Click here for a UK stockist.
• Leon’s pick was Leros by Alex Majoli and the Spirit of the Season exhibition at The Independent Photographers Gallery, Battle East Sussex.
• Don recommends the work of David Dare Parker and A Photo Editor blog.

Having seven people on the Skype call was always going to be a bit ambitious and it’s fair to say we were plagued by technical difficulties as a result. Susan and Don didn’t have enough equipment for two people to share her laptop so they used the in-built mic and speakers. A gold star to Skorj for getting up at 5AM with a nasty temperature just to make to show. The badger reference was part of an ongoing back story started by Ailsa and finished by Damion. It was funny as hell, but it got left on the cutting room floor; buy us a drink and we’ll tell you all about it.

Show Notes:

• Leon’s picks are From Seeing to Showing (Creative Photography Workshop) and John Blakemore’s Black and White Photography Workshop.
• Ed’s pick is Century: One Hundred Years of Human Progress, Regression, Suffering and Hope 1899-1999.
• Susan’s pick is the movie War Photographer featuring James Nachtwey.
• Damion’s pick is Comfort Zones by Jim Green.
• Skorj’s pick is Magnetic Fields by Toshiro Oshima.
• Ailsa’s pick is Taryn Simon: An American Index of the Hidden and Unfamiliar.
• Don’s pick is The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer.
• Here’s the website of the toycamera competition that Susan’s judging.
• Links for the ToLNe and Golden Half (and Golden Half results and here) cameras that Skorj discussed.
• Damion’s one-off t-shirt design is based on this album sleeve.

Here’s the tasty Filmwasters.com merch design (courtesy of Sean Rohde and Skorj). As discussed, you can log onto your fave Print on Demand (PoD) provider (CafePress, Printfection, Zazzle, Spreadshirt, etc), upload this design, and have it applied to anything of your choice. Fun for you, and no profit for the Filmwasters, just those pesky PoD people… Click on the thumbnail to view or download the high res version:

Show Notes:

• Leon’s pick is Easter Island by Michael Kenna.
• Ed’s pick is The Victor Weeps by Fazal Sheikh.
• Susan’s pick is James Fee: 1993-2000 by James Fee & the Josef Koudelka anthology.
• Ailsa’s pick is Henry Wessel by Henry Wessel.
• The 2 websites for the Harrachov Exchange are here and here.
• The Simon Norfolk lecture that blew Ed away is linked to here.
• For non-Americans here’s a link to the Wikipedia entry for Hollywood Squares.
• Leon explained that he’d recently returned from a trip. Here’s what he got up to.

Photos by Ailsa taken at the Harrachov Exchange. Click on each one to see a larger version: