Noorderlicht Photofestival faces closure

 
From the Dutch city of Groningen, Nooderlicht, or Northern Light, is one of a handful of international photography organizations whose influence and recognition reaches far and wide. Nooderlicht has been instrumental in showing and promoting cutting edge contemporary photography as well as historical and archival photography that has helped to define the medium. Due to severe arts funding cutbacks the Nooderlicht festival is under severe threat. It must to continue to exist. Please consider visiting their web site HERE to express your support.

Noorderlicht grew out of the Noorderlicht Photogallery, which was set up in 1980 as a place for documentary photography. In 1990 the gallery celebrated its tenth anniversary by launching the Noorderlicht Photofestival, and the Independent Noorderlicht Photography Foundation came into being shortly afterwards. In 2007, PDN described Noorderlicht as one of the five most important photography events in the world. This year's festival, Terra Cognita, will take place from 02 September - 07 October.

LEWIS BALTZ at Kunstmuseum Bonn

Lewis Baltz, Palo Alto, 1973, from the series “The Prototype Works”

Kunstmuseum Bonn is showing, until September 2,  the first retrospective in a German museum of an American photographer who today is legendary. Already in the early 1970s, Lewis Baltz, born 1945 in Newport Beach, California, arrived on the scene with photos that launched him as an essential groundbreaker on the way to (new) art photography. At the age of 26 with “Tract Houses”, Baltz had his first solo exhibition at the famous New York gallery of Leo Castelli, and remained within its program till the early 1990s. Baltz (as well as Hilla and Bernd Becher) took part in the 1975 epochal exhibition “New Topographics: Photographs of a Man-altered Landscape”.

In view of his clear formal vocabulary, Baltz was initially seen as a documentarist. However, since 1986 and his residency in Paris and Venice, his photography has, at least at first glance, radically changed. Instead of a copious series of small-sized black-and-white photographs, large-scale color photography has since the 1990s replaced them. Nonetheless, thematically, the artist has remained true to himself. The subject is always the coming to terms with urban space, architecture, landscape and ecology, which allows Baltz to emerge as a subtle political artist far removed from eye-catching or confrontational tendencies. Already in his early art, the Prototype Works (1967–76) or the New Industrial Parks near Irvine (1973–75), Baltz confounded with an enormously austere formal vocabulary that underscored the flat photographic plane.

His historically innovative landscape photographs document places that are the product of industrial civilization: wasteland, industrial areas, warehouses. Their spatial constructs, in the rigorous form of black and-white photography, manifest an unmistakable analogy to Minimal Art. Aesthetic appreciation and horror at the price of so-called progress mark the two contrary poles of how Baltz’s photography could/can be viewed. This continued in another vein in the series Sites of Technology, as well as in the large, bright-colored diptychs of the 1990s and, not least of all, applies to the gigantic wall Rond de Nuit (1992–95), in which Baltz takes the conventional understanding of documentary photography to its limits.

Lewis Baltz, National Centre for Meterological Research, Grenoble, 1989-1991. From the series Sites of Technology

Peter Fraser - A City in The Mind at Brancolini Grimaldi, London

Untitled, 2008 - 2011

Brancolini Grimaldi announces a new exhibition by photographer Peter Fraser which opened last week and runs until July 21. Peter Fraser has created a portrait of London unlike any other. Inspired by Italo Calvino’s novel Invisible Cities in which the explorer Marco Polo tells the Emperor Kublai Khan of the many fantastical cities he has visited on his travels, Fraser has spent the past five years photographing his current home, London, with the aim of creating an imagined “city in the mind”. In a series of intimate and enigmatic images, Fraser reveals a poetic vision of London which appears to bear little if any relation to the city as we know it. 

What kind of city has Fraser created? Several photographs feature antiquated miniatures or models, perhaps from some kind of museum. Other images show objects whose visceral texture and colour leaps out from the picture plane – a suggestively fleshy conch shell, shiny chestnuts on a table, the glowing red vellum of a volume of Who’s Who. A dazzling chandelier and a gold chair hint at opulent palaces. Others could relate to learning – a white board is the subject of one image, an antique model of penicillin another. The objects chosen by Fraser could be read as portals to another world, openings onto stories and histories, even other civilizations. And here, as in his previous work, Fraser’s eye is drawn to things and interiors that would not fascinate most as they do him. The London of Fraser’s mind is mysterious and allusive, and reminds us that ultimately all cities are created in the mind.

Peter Fraser was born in Cardiff in 1953 and graduated in photography from Manchester Polytechnic University in 1976. In 1982 Fraser began working with a Plaubel Makina camera, which led to an exhibition with William Eggleston at the Arnolfini, Bristol, in 1984. Fraser’s books include Two Blue Buckets (1988), Deep Blue (1997), and Lost for Words (2010). In 2002 the Photographers’ Gallery, London, staged a twenty year survey of Fraser’s work, and in 2004 he was shortlisted for the Citibank Photography Prize. 

A monograph of A City in the Mind  co-published by Steidl and Brancolini Grimaldi with a foreword by Brian Dillon is due May 2012.

An exhibition of Peter Fraser’s work will be at Tate St Ives from the 26th January to the 6th May 2013. Tate will publish a monograph covering Fraser’s career to date with an essay by David Chandler.

Brancolini Grimaldi, 43 - 44 Albemarle Street, London.

You can go to Peter Fraser's website HERE.

Untitled, 2008 - 2011

John Baldessari Catalogue Raisonne: 1956-1974 v. 1, now available

 
The pioneering conceptual artist John Baldessari (b. 1931) began his career as a painter in the 1950s, but in the subsequent decades he expanded his practice in a new and groundbreaking direction by juxtaposing texts with found photography or appropriated images. These texts questioned the nature of art and the art-viewing experience, suggesting new meanings for the images they accompanied. This interaction of words and images remained a critical aspect of Baldessari's work, even as he branched into other media, such as site-specific installations, drawings, video, sculpture, prints, and multiples. The first of a projected four-volume set, this lavishly illustrated book features about 500 works and chronicles an important shift in Baldessari's thinking during these formative years. Included are such landmark works as the Cremation Project (1970), where Baldessari incinerated the "body" of work he had made between the years 1953 and 1966. The ashes of the cremated works were then baked into cookies, and the rest sealed in a book-shaped urn, which he then presented along with a plaque announcing the "life" and "death" dates. The following year, Baldessari proposed his "I will not make any more boring art" project, which was realized by students at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. Baldessari's work and teaching have been greatly influential on a subsequent generation of artists. The book features an essay by Yve-Alain Bois considering Baldessari's ethos as a generator of his artistic practice. Also included are an interview with Christopher Knight and a detailed chronology of the artist's life and work.

Available from AMAZON or The Book Depository

Paul Graham, book signing Dashwood NYC next week

If you happen to be in New York next Wednesday May 30, Paul Graham will be signing his new book The Present,  between 6 - 8pm at Dashwood Books.

The Present is the third in Paul Graham’s trilogy of projects on America which began with American Night in 2003 and was followed in 2007 by a shimmer of possibility (winner of the Paris Photo Book Prize 2011 for the most significant photo book of the past 15 years). The Present takes Graham’s reputation as a master of the book form to new heights, employing multiple gatefolds to convey passages of time and the unfolding of urban life.

Excerpt Magazine Issue 3 is online now

 Excerpt Magazine is a free quarterly independent publication pushing boundaries to present photography and moving images in new dynamic ways. Issue number 3, online now, has an action packed 76 pages with content that ranges from intimacy to disasters connecting with ideas happening now.

Excerpt Magazine Issue 3 Contributors are: Stefan Abrams, Kirstine Autzen, Ruth van Beek, Harvey Benge, Kristina Bengtsson, Maggie Brown, Tonatiuh Cabello, Marisha Camp, Kevin Chin, Hayley Davis, Lone Eriksen, Ellinor Forsberg, Alex Gibson, Hao Guo, Daniel Gordon, Kim Guthrie, Elizabeth Hosking, Katharina Kiebacher, Yvette King, Paul Knight, Isobel Knowles, Katrin Koenning, Helena Lukasova, Veronika Lukasova, Amy Marjoram, Georgia Metaxas, Peter Nitsch, Benedikt Partenheimer, Louis Porter, Loris Savino, Mark Schaer, onlineMatthew Sleeth, Van Sowerwine, Umberto Verdoliva, Kate Warren, Henk Wildschut, Keith Wong, Anne Zahalka, Zhuang Zhouyang.

 You can see Excerpt Magazine HERE now!

Kristina Bengtsson, study for helicopter crash, 2009

Photobook Master Class - THE ARLES SESSIONS

This year at the Rencontres d'Arles 2012, which opens July 2nd, Lichtblick School, Cologne and Schaden. com will present a week long Photobook masterclass, finalise your book project. Experts include Markus Schaden, Wolfgang Zurborn, Tina Schelhorn, Nina Poppe and Frederic Lezmi. The objective is to help bring participants photobooks into reality. The program consists of a week of lectures and masterclass group work which will end in a book dummy exhibition and public screening of project on the final Saturday.

The Program:
11am – 1 pm Morning lectures,  4 pm – 7 pm Masterclass
Monday – Kick-off with review of all photobook projects of the participants. Tuesday – Developing the Photobook: Dummies, Studies and More / Markus Schaden. Wednesday – Sequencing the Photobook / Wolfgang Zurborn. Thursday – Object and Desire / Frederic Lezmi and Nina Poppe. Friday – Exhibiting the Photo Project / Tina Schelhorn. Saturday – The Masterclass goes public: Exhibition, Screening and wrap party.

Detailed Information and application form is available from the Lichtblick School website HERE

John Baldessari, a brief history

John Baldessari is one of my favorite artists. His blockbuster show PURE BEAUTY seen in London at Tate Modern, in LA at LACMA, Barcelona and New York at The Met was worth the price of an airticket. This 5 minute 55 second YouTube video, narrated by Tom Waits will tell you all you need to know about Baldessari, that's if you don't know it already. He's seen as the godfather of conceptual art, making work that is cool, funny, cerebral, sardonic and provocative. And famous for his statement I will not make any boring art. His advice to young artists is simply this, 1, Talent is cheap. 2, You have to be possessed. 3, Be at the right place at the right time.
Now watch the video HERE!

Colin Pantall writes on Indie photobook publishing

 
Back in January, UK based photographer, blogger and photography writer Colin Pantall wrote a piece Doing it by the Book, for the British Journal of Photography. This is an informative must read for anybody interested in self published photobooks.

Colin starts the article with some comments from photobook supremo Markus Schaden, “There are three main reasons for the upsurge in new photography books,” says Markus Schaden, the German bookseller whose Cologne shop many rate as the world’s finest. “The first is Martin Parr and Gerry Badger’s two-volume The Photobook: A History, which has made the role of the photobook much better known and important. The second reason is that people have realised the value of the medium of the photobook itself. A book can work better than an exhibition; it’s a form unto itself where the photographer, publisher and designer all work together. And the last reason is due to technical developments that mean that you can now make small editions of 200 or 300 copies, which wasn’t possible before, and you can easily distribute and sell your own work online.”

You can download the complete article in PDF form by going HERE 

The article includes a series of links relating to self publishing.  Here is the list which you can access direct from the PDF

atembooks.com / delphinebedel.com / dewilewispublishing.com / dittopress.co.uk / hasslabooks.com / hard-copy.tumblr.com / jesuisunebandedejeunes.com / littlebrownmushroom.com / offprintparis.com / oodee.net / pogobooks.de / schaden.com/ selfpublishbehappy.com / thevelvetcell.com / tinroofpress.com /
ubyubooks.com / white-press.com

Colin Pantall's website is well worth a look HERE and his blog HERE and while you're at it you can check out the British Journal of Photography online HERE

Ron Jude - Lick Creek Line, booklaunch at Dashwood, NYC

If you happen to be in New York tomorrow, Tuesday May 15,  night don't miss the launch of Ron Jude's new bookwork, Lick Creek Line. The launch is at Dashwood Books, 33 Bond Street and kicks off at 6pm.

Ron Jude, Lick Creek Line. “The scene seems to last forever – a caravaggesque rendering of some minor myth, in which the horror and splendor supersede the particulars of the obscure narrative” —Nicholas Muellner, No Such Place
Ron Jude’s new book, Lick Creek Line, extends and amplifies his ongoing fascination with the vagaries of photographic empiricism, and the gray area between documentation and fiction. In a sequential narrative punctuated by contrasting moments of violence and beauty, Jude follows the rambling journey of a fur trapper, methodically checking his trap line in a remote area of Idaho in the Western United States. Through converging pictures of landscapes, architecture, an encroaching resort community, and the solitary, secretive process of trapping pine marten for their pelts, Lick Creek Line underscores the murky and culturally arbitrary nature of moral critique.
With an undercurrent of mystery and melancholy that echoes Jude’s previous two books about his childhood home of Central Idaho, Lick Creek Line serves as the lynchpin in a multi-faceted, three-part look at the incomprehensibility of self and place through photographic narrative. While Alpine Star functioned as a fictitious sociological archive, and Emmett explored the muddy waters of memory and autobiography,Lick Creek Line finds its tenor through the sleight-of-hand structure of a traditional photo essay.

112 pages, 69 colour plates, 25.7 cm x 29.2 cm, softcover with dust jacket 

Ron Jude was born in Los Angeles in 1965, grew up in the Pacific Northwest, and currently lives and works in Upstate New York. His photographs have been exhibited at venues such as Gallery Luisotti (Santa Monica), the Photographers’ Gallery (London), the High Museum of Art (Atlanta), Proekt_Fabrika (Moscow) and Roth/Horowitz Gallery (New York), among others. His work is in numerous collections, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, George Eastman House, the New Orleans Museum of Art, and the Georgia Museum of Contemporary Art in Atlanta. Jude is the co-founder of A-Jump Books and the author of Alpine Star, Postcards, Other Nature and Emmett. He is represented by Gallery Luisotti in Santa Monica.

Alec Soth at ICP, NYC

Nice to see a copy of The Pond and Auckland Project on the table

On Monday evening of this week the ICP Library Committee hosted photographer and publisher of Little Brown Mushroom, Alec Soth, for an intimate seminar. 
Alec Soth spoke about his artistic practice and the books that have had a meaningful influence upon his life and work. Alec talked about his multiple and varied experiences in the world of photography: As a photojournalist on assignment with Magnum, as a teacher and as an artist, as a maker of fine art books and as an independent publisher. Alec Soth & LBM have produced some of the most unique and innovative contemporary artists’ books of our age and continue to push boundaries and question the very nature and form of the book. For this evening, each of his projects was brought to life through examples of his work and also some of the influential printed matter that sparked the original ideas. Alec emphasized the importance of his collaborations with other artists, designers and even members of his own family. But what was really important to Alec it seems was the importance of the ‘experience’ of a project – enjoying it, learning from it and living it.

Alex Soth books

Vantage points :  campus as place / photographs by Beth Dow, Chris Faust, and Alec Soth. Exhibition held at the Carleton College Art Gallery, February 15 – March 10, 2002. Northfield, Minn. : Carleton College Art Gallery, 2002.

Sleeping by the Mississippi / Alec Soth ; essays by Patricia Hampl and Anne Wilkes Tucker. Göttingen : Steidl, 2004.

The factory / edited by Ian Jack.  (Chapter – The making of parts by Alec Soth). London : Granta, 2005.

Niagara / Alec Soth ; essays by Philip Brookman and Richard Ford. Göttingen : Steidl,  2006.

Fashion magazine : Paris-Minnesota / by Alec Soth.Paris, France : Magnum Photos, 2007.

Dog days Bogotá / Alec Soth. Göttingen :  Steidl / Edition7L, 2007.

Sheep / Alec Soth ; design and layout by Paul Schiek ; editing and sequence by Alec Soth. Oakland, CA : TBW Books,  2008.

One Mississippi / Alec Soth. Portland, Or. : Nazraeli Press, 2010. Volume no.63 of the series: Nazraeli Press one picture book.  Edition of 500.

One day – ten photographers / edited by Harvey Benge. Heidelberg : Kehrer, 2010.

From here to there : Alec Soth’s America / Walker Art Center, Minneapolis / edited by Siri Engberg ; with texts by Geoff Dyer … [et al.]. Minneapolis, Minn. : Walker Art Center,  2010.

Brighton picture hunt / by Carmen and Alec Soth. Brighton : Photoworks, 2010.

Broken Manual / Lester B. Morrison & Alec Soth. [Saint Paul, Minn.] : Little Brown Mushroom ; Göttingen, Germany : Steidl, 2010.

Ash Wednesday, New Orleans / Alec Soth. Kanagawa, Japan / Super Labo,  2010.

The Auckland Project / John Gossage and Alec Soth. Santa Fe : Radius Books, 2011.

Rodarte : Catherine Opie, Alec Soth / [by Kate Mulleavy ... Ed. by Brian Philipps]. Zurich : JRP Ringier, 2011.

Mostly Women / Alec Soth. Portland, Oregon : Nazraeli, 2011.  Edition of 150. Nazraeli Press Six by Six series , Set 2 volume 5.

La belle dame sans merci / Alec Soth, cura di Marco Delogu ; [testo: Francesco Zanot]. [Rome] : Punctum, 2011.

Postcards from America :  San Antonio TX, Del Rio TX, Highway 90, El Paso TX, Bisbee AZ, Las Vegas NV, Fresno CA, Oakland CA / Alec Soth, Jim Goldberg, Susan Meiselas, Paolo Pellegrin, Mikael Subotzky, Mikhael Subotzky & Ginger Strand.New York, N.Y. : Magnum Photos, 2012.

Auckland, the last of the Autumn light

Grey, wet winter has arrived here this week. This last weekend saw the last of the Autumn light. Here are some photographs I made.

Yannik Willing, Before Tomorrow

In 2010 I spent a month in Sri Lanka, making pictures and from them a small bookwork. Recently I discovered online a German photographer, Yannik Willing, who'd also been to Sri Lanka and he too had made a bookwork. I contacted Yannik and we arranged to make a swap. His work, Before Tomorrow arrived this morning.

Unlike my A5 sized work, Yannik has produced a tabloid sized edition with 300 copies over 60 pages and 31 photographs. There are a number of strong portraits, landscapes and photographs of incidental details. This is an accomplished, perceptive work made with care, integrity and from the heart. Superbly designed and sequenced too.

Yannick says this about the work: In my project, I am concerned with the imminent radical changes of tourist regions in Sri Lanka after the end of the civil war in 2009 that had lasted almost thirty years.
In 2011, more than 750.000 tourists visited Sri Lanka -never before had so many tourists visited the country in one year. The government is aiming to achieve a number of 2.6 million tourists in the year of 2016 – in a few years, the tourist regions will change drastically.
It struck me in these regions that the atmosphere was calm – but at the same time there was a sense of tenseness in the air. It was only on taking a closer look that the signs of imminent, unavoidable changes became apparent. Investors from Sri Lanka and abroad had already secured many land areas.
It seemed to me that the barriers to structural change had just been opened. However, the consequences of that rapid change are still not clear, even today.

You can see more on the Yannik Willing website and order a copy of Before Tomorrow,  HERE.  Now some images:

 

 

Eugène Atget at musée Carnavalet, Paris

 Atget photographed by Bernice Abbott in 1927

Until July 29,  the Carnavalet Museum in Paris presents the work of one of the most famous photographers of the twentieth century, Eugène Atget (Libourne, 1857 - Paris, 1927). The exhibition offers a selection of 230 prints made in Paris between 1898 and 1927, from the collection of the Carnavalet Museum, supplemented by those of the George Eastman House, Rochester and collections of Fundación Mapfre in Madrid.

This retrospective, which includes well-known images and others, unpublished and less known, portrays an atypical view of Paris,  far from the clichés of the Belle Epoque. Visitors will discover the streets of Paris of yesteryear, the gardens, the Seine, the old shops and small business vendors.

There is also is a room presenting a set of 43 prints by the photographer, collected in the 1920s by American artist Man Ray, this album, now in Rochester, opens an understanding on Atget's influence on the Surrealists.

Accompanying the exhibition is a 346 page catalogue published by Editions Gallimard.

Musée Carnavalet
23, rue de Sévigné, 75003 Paris, Tél. : 01 44 59 58 58
Open every day from 10 h to 18 h except Mondays and public holidays.
Tarif: 7 euros, Nearest Metro: Saint-Paul; Line 1

LEWIS BALTZ: New Steidl bookworks

Texts. This is the long-awaited compendium of Lewis Baltz's writings from 1975 until 2007, drawn from his critical writing for magazines such as Art in America, the Times Literary Supplement, L'Architecture d'Aujourd'hui and Purple. The book includes Baltz's texts on Edward Weston, Walker Evans, Robert Adams, Michael Schmidt, Allan Sekuka, Chris Burden, Thomas Ruff, Barry Le Va, Jeff Wall, Félix González-Torres, John McLaughlin, Slavica Perkovic and Krzysztof Wodiczko, among others. This important publication gives Baltz's literary output the standing it deserves and offers a unique insight into some of history's leading photographers.

Introduction by Matthew S. Witkovsky.
160 pages, 13.5 cm x 21 cm, clothbound hardcover with foil embossing and a bookmark with an acetate dust jacket.

Rule Without Exception / Only Exceptions. This progressive book object combines two volumes and covers the sweep and depth of Lewis Baltz's influential oeuvre. Rule Without Exception is a re-issue of Baltz's award-winning mid-career retrospective book which accompanied a travelling exhibition of the same name in 1991. The book surveys Baltz's work from The Prototype Works of 1967 through to Sites of Technology of 1991, showing the range of his images of industrialised landscapes and technological sites. Each section of the book is accompanied by installation views as well as texts by distinguished writers, some newly commissioned for this edition. Only Exceptions is a new book chronicling Baltz's work – now usually site-generated commissioned works – from 1992 to the present and is published on the occasion of an exhibition organized by the Kunstmuseum, Bonn. Only Exceptions includes Baltz's work in California, Leipzig's Black Triangle, Reggio Emilia, Groningen, Rome, Venice, and two projects with Jean Nouvel in France and Italy. Texts by Mowry Baden, Simon Baker, Gus Blaisdell, Olivier Boissière, Paolo Costantini, Marco Fincardi, Stefan Gronert, Mark Haworth- Booth, Marvin Heiferman, Shirley Irons, Jeff Kelley, Bernard Lamarche-Vadel, Jane Livingston, Jeff Rian, Christoph Schaden, Michael Schmidt, Urs Stahel and Igor Zabel.

Book design by Connie Wilson and Lewis Baltz.
2 volumes,184 pages, 23.8 cm x 33.3 cm, 130 photographs, each duotone and four colour process, Two otabind softcovers, housed in a cardboard sleeve.

Lewis Baltz is one the most intelligent and perceptive voices working in the photographic medium today. These books are essential additions to any photobook collection.

The books can be obtained direct from Steidl by going HERE

The Photobook: The role of design, an essay by Jörg Colberg

In the British Journal of Photography, online, Jörg Colberg discusses the role of design in the making of five modern photobooks.

Here is Jörg's introduction: In the most basic terms, they are simply books made up of photographs, but of course there’s much more to the photobook than that. Typically they are carefully edited and sequenced, and the selection of the photographs, and their order, are crucial to whatever story is being told. But there’s another crucial element that’s too often ignored – the design.

Over the past few decades, photobook design has become an integral part of telling the story. Classics such as Walker Evans’ American Photographs used a very straightforward design: blank pages and picture pages alternating with very little text, if any. In contrast, contemporary photobooks have come to embrace the many different ways in which the design of a book – the graphic design as well as its actual physical properties – can help shape the message. The following books are some of the most striking examples I have come across.

And the five photobooks:

Broken Manual by Alec Soth

Redheaded Peckerwood by Christian Patterson

Capitolio by Christopher Anderson

Baghdad Calling by Geert van Kesteren

Come Bury Me by Andrej Krementschouk

You can read the complete article HERE, a must for anybody interested in the contemporary photobook.

Shane Lavalette, Picturing the South

From it's beginnings in 2010 photographer Shane Lavalette is now at the book dummy stage of his new book-work Picturing the South. In order to move the project forward Shane is looking for support via the crowd funding site KICKSTARTER. Already after a week the project is over 30% funded, which is great! This is a superb, heartfelt body of work and deserves to be out there and deserves support. You can go to Shane's KICKSTARTER page HERE.

Lavalette says this about the work. In 2010 I was commissioned by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta to create a new body of photographs for their "Picturing the South" series, which includes past artists Sally Mann, Emmet Gowin, Richard Misrach, Dawoud Bey, Alex Webb and Alec Soth. I'm honored to be amongst these artists, and look forward to exhibiting new work with photographers Martin Parr and Kael Alford in June of 2012. Having grown up in the Northeast, it was primarily through traditional music—old time, blues, gospel, etc., that I had formed a relationship with the South. With that in mind, the region's rich musical history became the natural entry point for my work. I was not interested in making a documentary about Southern music today, but desired to explore the relationship between traditional music and the contemporary landscape through a more poetic lens. Moved by the themes and stories past down in songs, I let the music itself carry the pictures. Two years later, with the project now complete, I have begun working on a mock-up of a book which I believe is the ideal venue for this body of work. From the beginning I imagined this project in book form. With your help, I hope to make this book physical in the coming months. 

 Shane Lavalette is a photographer, the Publisher and Editor of Lay Flat, as well as the Associate Director of Light Work.  Lavalette currently lives and works in Upstate New York. Kaylen Swinging, Louisiana, 2010

Kaylen Swinging, Louisiana, 2010