Harry Cock – Omstreken

Copyright Harry Cock 2006, courtesy Stichting Fotografie Noorderlicht

Omstreken (Environs) is the title for the twenty-five year retrospective of Dutch photojournalist Harry Cock. The Dutch word is used to indicate the area and localities that are surrounding you, a fitting description of the territory for Cock’s focus. Similar to Gunnar Smoliansky who photographed his local Swedish surroundings for the majority of his photographic career, Cock has been primarily interested in the everyday of his local Northern Netherlands region.

Cock’s day job is photojournalist for magazines and newspapers in The Netherlands, but he maintains an eye for the normal, especially in his own rural agricultural region. I share this description of Cock’s body of work by the publisher;

The ways in which people try to keep their bearings in changing situations is a recurrent theme in Cock’s work. What is striking about this is his often nimble, humorous approach. Certainly when he turns his camera on the ups and downs of (and in) the urbanizing landscape, his visual language is extremely recognizable. In both black and white and color he has an almost poetic eye for the small things in life…. Collectively they offer an overview of Cock’s development as a photographer, and, sometimes in the background, sometimes in the foreground, they also reflect something of the changes that have taken place in Dutch society over the course of time.

Cock is a photographer-flaneur of the Northern Dutch landscape, observing the subtle social and environmental changes of this rural region which have slowly become more urban over time. His Photographs are amusing, wry, humorous, poignant, and subjective. He captures the Dutch foggy landscapes, mysterious and looming, yet documents that in the midst of this calm beauty, everyday life still continues on.

There is a calmness in his photographs, the capture of the normal day-to-day activities that can become invisible and taken for granted, which he extracts to reveal our humanity. There are the Henri Cartier-Bresson moments of the children playing in the shed, hide and seek or the moment before setting a boat to sail the adjacent and seemingly ever-present waterways. He is a sensitive witness who captures the small details of life.

Even though he is a subjective photographer-flaneur, I am bothered by a retrospective that does not place the photographs in some chronological order. Thus it can be difficult to notice his transition to include color occurred in 2001 and how his vision may have changed over time. I realize that the pairing and sequencing of the images are provided a stronger emphasis, consistent with the design of Smoliansky’s book, that the photographs of a flaneur is about the singular images, randomly found and captured.

Since this is my nick-picking section, I will add that I am less of a fan of the small and diminutive images with large margins within an already small book. These small images are difficult to see the details, lessen the impact of the image and dilutes the image, a disservice to the photographer.

Cock sees his environment like an outsider might. A yellow caterpillar tractor sitting on a sea of white rocks has become an unusual garden decoration. An artist is sitting alone in a field patiently drawing a dairy cow, while even the cow appears to be amused by the situation. What appears to be a judging panel of sitting men, with the lone man who is interacting with the photograph is bathed in a shaft of white light, while in the background stands a row of plastic cows. A building has plastic cows grazing on its well manicured lawn, as though they should be real.

He has a respect for work and labor, showing with dignity those who labor on the farms and in the fields to harvest the crops. Straight forward portraits of those who work the fields, bail the hay and straw, dig the holes, watch over the cows, drive the tractors and trucks, trim the hedge atop the tractor’s roof, or enjoy a night singing songs together. He notices the humor of a man kneeling and vacuuming the rock garden in front of probably his home, or an older man on a rider-mower, massive over-kill, mowing in a tight circle due to the small size of his yard.

But Cock reveals that he is urban enough to recognize the composition of canvas, rope, wood and a tire intended as counterbalance takes on the appearance of Robert Rauschenberg collage painting. Likewise with a small patio with a ladder balanced on the roof and the hose snaking around and the flatness of the remaining composition of constructed rectangles in contrast to the organic soft shapes of the background trees. What you might expect of a museum composition, with a sea of varying textures, range of grays, with repeating patterns of the floor, walls, roofs. A tree towering over a hedge creates a resemblance to Beth Dow’s and Eugene Atget’s gardens.

The essays are in Dutch by Eddie Marsman and Marcel Moring. An accompanying English translation, even as an insert, might benefit Cock’s work and provide a larger international audience for this body of work. From what I can understand, Marsman appears to discuss the development of Cock’s photographic work, while Moring appears to discuss how the work is in essence a self-portrait of the artist.

By Douglas Stockdale

   

  

Photography.Book.Now call for entries

Beth Dow “In the Garden” 2008 Photography.Book.Now Grand Prize Winner

The 2009 Photography.Book.Now self-publishing book competition is now open, with more information here. The lead book juriest for this will Darius Himes, co-founder of Radius Books, who was a judge in the 2008 competition. The grand prize will be again, $25,000.00, which is probably why there were 2,000 entries in last years competition.

There are a number of important aspects of this competition, the first is the personal results of self-publishing your own work if you have not had a opportunity to complete this yet. The quality of the submission are very high, thus this competition should not be be taken too casually. There is the opportunity to participate in the shared photography book community, with the awards celebration and meet-ups that are on-going and will continue world-wide.

You will have until July 16th to complete your entry, and I wish you all the very best as you develop your book.

Regards, Douglas Stockdale

Beth Dow – In The Garden

In the Garden, Beth Dow, Blurb 2008

Beth Dow’s In The Garden, was the 2008 grand prize winner of the recent Blurb Photography.Book.Now juried book competition. Dow had developed her large format book based on the Plantium Palladium prints from photographs made in formal English and Italian gardens. This book probably does represent some of the best in self-publishing book design utilizing print on demand templates, which I will discuss in a moment.

It is easy to understand how one can be taken by both her photographs and her book.

My first impression is that this is a contemporary series which could be seen as evolving from the later photographic work of Eugene Atget. I find that the statement that John Szarkowski made about Atget’s photographs of the French gardens at Saint-Cloud to be equally applicable to Dow’s photographs:

When we attempt to discuss the life of pictures we allow ourselves to speak of real trees and reflected trees; we extend to ourselves sufferance to speak imprecisely, rather than repeat over and over again, tediously, that there are no real trees here or reflected trees either, that there is only aspect. Photographs are about aspect, the best of them make us half forget the fact.

Dow gives us a chance to roam these formal gardens, providing a glance there and glimpse over here. To perhaps walk along a lane or take a seat and meditate on what currently worries or delights us. She effectively uses her lens to obtain a slice of form in light to direct our vision and thus prod our thoughts.

The framing of the images, the use of the edges and frames, the control of the tonalities, all provide a meditative and peaceful escape. Even when the weighting of subjects within the photograph are seeming out of balance, the resulting photographs still seem complete.

In her introduction, she stresses the hand held nature of image capture, but the resulting photographs have all of the structure and formality of a larger format camera mounted on a tripod. We are provided with a clear vision and a wonderful description of line and mass, within the context of these gardens.

Dow’s book design and layout does strive to take as much advantage as possible of the limitations of self-publishing limitations with print on demand. Usually the print on demand publishers provide limited design options in the form of pre-made templates, but it is a skillful selection and implementation of these templates that will allow someone to rise above the rest.

 

 

 

 

 

As Dow did not return my email message regarding some questions about the design and production of this book, I am not sure that the slightly green hue of the photograph in her book was intentional. The photographs in the book do not have the same gray neutrality of the platinum palladium images on her web site.

While looking at her book under florescent light, there were so some very slight magenta “bronzing” in the dark middle grays of the photographs. The POD publisher she has used does offer a color managed printer work flow, but that is an extra premium and I was not able to confirm that Dow had purchased this color managed work-flow for her book.

Best regards, Doug Stockdale

David Plowden – Vanishing Point

East of Las Vegas, New Mexico, 1971 – book cover- copyright of David Plowden

Last year in 2007, a retrospective book was published about David Plowden’s photographs, Vanishing Point: Fifty Years of Photograph, with an introduction by Steve Edwards, published by W. W. Norton.

Initially I thought that this book by Plowden was going to be easy to review. This book is beautifully printed and bound, a joy to read. I have followed Plowden’s photographic landscape series for probably thirty years, and I have a copy of his book Commonplace, published in 1974 by Chatham book, an imprint of E.P. Dutton & Co.

Rereading the Edwards introduction, I remembered Plowden’s early relationship with Walker Evans, a friend of his first wife’s family. And I think that this what has been troubling me.

Hostler, Canadian National Railways, Hamilton, Ontario, 1959

As you look at the photographs made over Plowden’s long career, you can sense the similiarities between Plowden and Walker. In fact Plowden quotes Walker for the reason he composes many of his photographs, “give me a corner to walk around so that I can use my imagination. Don’t tell me everything“. As a result, many of Plowdens photographs do not include people, because Plowden wants the viewer to inhabit the scene and make it their own.

But why then is Plowden then not recognized as continuing the photograpic tradition of Evans? When we think of the evolution of Atget to Walker, we usually think next of Robert Frank and then Gary Winogrand? If Plowden spent so much time discussing photography and printing with the older Walker, what is the disconnect?

I now believe, as evident in this book, that Plowden probably did not fully embrace all of the reasons behind Walker’s vision and purpose. One clue may be that altough Plowden was accepted as a student of Minor White, he bailed out on White’s tutorage to photogaph steam trains, which Plowden understood, whose days were numbered. Plowden wanted to photograph the landscape literally, as more of a passive, not a critical, social observer.

Outer Depot, Reading Company, Reading, PA, 1963

I think that by the two met, that Plowden was already entrenched in his purpose and photographic style. That style just became more finly honed with Evans assistance. And Plowden’s work does seem like a more contemporay Atget and Evans, it just did not evolve forward from there.

That is not to detract from Plowden’s body of work, which is quite beautiful and still. He follows in the line of the documenatary style of the FSA photographs. To capture what is now, but knowing very soon that will be what was. His early fasination with steam trains, steam tug boats and failing bridges. He does that with clarity, which shows through very well in this current book. In comparsion, my 1974 Commonplace looks clunky, with the blacks blocked up. Regrefully, there are no past images carried forward, as there are many that I would like to have seen printed with more clarity.

The Yaquina Bay Bridge, Newport, OR, 1968

All in all, it is the American landscape, beautifully seen. A transitional time, captured and documented with gace and style. Who could ask for more?

Best regards, Doug Stockdale

BTW, on the nightstand is Robert Hansen’s Yucatan Passages and Beth Dow’s In The Garden.

Photo+Book – Self publishing juried exhibition

Similar to the recent Blurb juried POD book on-line exhibition, the 23 Sandy Gallery Portland, OR is now having a call to photographers for a self publishing print on demand (POD) book exhibition. This exhibition is not limited to just Burb printed books. This exhibition is being co-juried by Christopher Rauschenberg and Laura Russell, the galleries owner and director.

Rauschenberg has recently published Paris Changing: Revising Eugene Atget’s Paris, published by Princeton Architectural Press in 2007. Laura has also self-published numerous limited edition books and has used print on demand for her open edition books.

Photography.Book.Now winners

In the Garden, copyright of Beth Dow, and Grand Prize Winner, 2008

If you have not had a chance to browse the winners of the Blurb photo book contest Photography.Book.Now, you just might want to and see the possibilities of self publishing. The templates of many of the Print on Demand (POD) publishers can be limited, but within the available possibilities, good things can happen.

Also a good place to purchase some interesting books.

I know from my own personal experience, my first attempts now seem a little awkward. I knew where I was trying to get within the limitations of Blurb, but for my first book, I was not as familiar with the ins and outs. Kinda like Photoshop, to learn it, after you find out about the basics, you just have to start using it. For my Blurb book In Passing, I think now that I might design the cover differently. And for my Blurb book Places Amongst Us, I should not have chosen the 7 x 7″ format, as was might bit too small.

The nice thing about the POD technology, is that you can quickly change your self publishing project into a second edition with a completly differenct & revamped appearance.

Best regards, Doug Stockdale