Crispin Elsted

Crispin Elsted, printer, poet, April 30, 2013.

"The Elsteds have been operating Barbarian Press for more than thirty-five years. In that time they have done commercial work, such as stationary and cards, and fine press work, including broadsheets, pamphlets and forty books. They've published classic authors—William Shakespeare, Edmund Spenser, John Keats—and contemporary ones, such as Theresa Kishkan and Tim Bowling. They have created, and live, what might be called a handmade life, carrying on traditions and practices that have remained unchanged in their essentials since the fifteenth century, when Gutenberg modified a grape press in Mainz, Germany, and used it to print a bible. They are now among the most senior and respected members of a very small group of people worldwide (the Fine Press Book Association's website lists just 118 member presses) [...]"

Michael Hayward - Geist 87 Winter 2012

H Craig Hanna

H Craig Hanna, artist, March 23, 2013.

I first came across the talented Mr. Hanna when Charllotte handed me his sketchbook. "Here," she said. "You will never believe what we found in Paris." In the warren of gallery spaces known as the Left Bank, on rue Bonaparte, she had found the Laurence Esnol Gallery. Hanna's work was visible from the street.

I did a little research. I looked him up online, trying to find out if he might be a good subject for a portrait. He looked like a pugilist from Hemingway's Paris. Not without a certain nervousness I contacted the gallery and introduced myself. Then the answer came: Craig liked the sample photos I sent him and was willing to do a shoot. Timing might be difficult. Was I flexible?

On the last day of my visit to Paris I got a message from the gallery. Could I be there in an hour? Indeed I could. I felt considerably out of my league. I was in Paris, five-thousand miles from home, with some black velvet cloth and a portable studio set-up in a roller bag. I had support though. My seventeen year old daughter, Esmé would be my assistant. Together we did a quick set-up in the gallery. The results were exactly what I wanted.

Photographing Craig Hanna in the Laurence Esnol Gallery. Esmé McLaughlin-Brooks

In the end I need not have been so apprehensive. Craig was humorous and engaging. Laurence Esnol was kind, generous and very accommodating. During the shoot I had talked to Craig about differences between photography and painting. Before I left he inscribed the front of my copy of his sketchbook.

Tim, 

A photo captures a moment in time.
Nice!
A painting is time.

Touché.

On Falling Off the Edge of the World

Falling off the edge of the world ... that's what it feels like. To work so intensely on one project that you put everything else aside. When this happens in the movies it's so dramatic. The person doesn't sleep and forgets to eat. They walk distractedly into traffic and are almost struck down by angry drivers. The music is paced to indicate that time is passing quickly and great advances are being made. Or, perhaps the opposite: that vast resources are being expended on attempts that do not succeed. The tension mounts. Will the project be a success? Or a failure?

For the past year I have been working on a book manuscript with Charllotte Kwon. It is a great undertaking made possible through the company, Maiwa. The project involves writing, photography, mirrors, threads, the British Raj, and great caravans of up to one-hundred thousand pack-bullocks.

The manuscript was finally sent to the publisher last week. Now, we don't want to jinx anything, so we'll just keep it mysterious and low-key for now. But I wanted to say, when I disappeared ... that is where I went.

With that deadline met, I am making plans to return to these posts and to Image on Paper.

"Portraits Found and Taken" wins a silver at the Paris Photo Prize.

Portraits Found and Taken is awarded a silver in the Paris Photo Prize. Tim's portrait work placed silver in the Book category and in the Portraiture category. Here is the press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

WINNER OF PX3, Prix de la Photographie Paris

TIM MCLAUGHLIN OF CANADA WAS AWARDED SECOND PRIZE IN THEPX3 2014 COMPETITION.

PARIS, FRANCE
PRIX DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE PARIS (PX3) ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF PX3 2014 COMPETITION.

Tim McLaughlin of Canada was Awarded:Second Prize in category Book (People)for the entry entitled, " Portraits: Found and Taken ." The jury selected PX3 2014’s winners from thousands of photography entries from over 85 countries.

Px3 is juried by top international decision-makers in the photography industry: Carol Johnson, Curator of Photography of Library of Congress, Washington D.C.; Gilles Raynaldy, Director of Purpose, Paris; Viviene Esders, Expert près la Cour d'Appel de Paris; Mark Heflin, Director of American Illustration + American Photography, New York; Sara Rumens, Lifestyle Photo Editor of Grazia Magazine, London; Françoise Paviot, Director of Galerie Françoise Paviot, Paris; Chrisitine Ollier, Art Director of Filles du Calvaire, Paris; Natalie Johnson, Features Editor of Digital Photographer Magazine, London; Natalie Belayche, Director of Visual Delight, Paris; Kenan Aktulun, VP/Creative Director of Digitas, New York; Chiara Mariani, Photo Editor of Corriere della Sera Magazine, Italy; Arnaud Adida, Director of Acte 2 Gallery/Agency, Paris; Jeannette Mariani, Director of 13 Sévigné Gallery, Paris; Bernard Utudjian, Director of Galerie Polaris, Paris; Agnès Voltz, Director of Chambre Avec Vues, Paris; and Alice Gabriner, World Picture Editor of Time Magazine, New York.


ABOUT Px3:
The "Prix de la Photographie Paris" (Px3) strives to promote the appreciation of photography, to discover emerging talent, and introduce photographers from around the world to the artistic community of Paris. Winning photographs from this competition are exhibited in a high-profile gallery in Paris and published in the high-quality, full-color Px3 Annual Book.
Visithttp://px3.fr

For Press Inquiries, Contact:
Press@px3.fr

About the Winner:

Tim McLaughlin has a long-standing interest in photography and its relationship to character. He has been working to expand the ground of formalized portraiture: exploring our idea of what make a likeness and what makes a portrait.

He ives in Roberts Creek, BC, Canada.  Over twenty-five years he has been active in experimental radio, hypertext fiction, graphic design, writing and documentary film production. Many of these works can be found at Ampersand & Company.

In addition to Photography Tim McLaughlin is the editor of Image on Paper a collection of photobook reviews.

Julian Merrow-Smith

Julian Merrow-Smith, artist. Taken March 18, 2013.

On February 16, 2005, Julian Merrow-Smith painted an oyster. It was 12 x 14 centimetres, about the size of a postcard. A year and 362 small paintings later, an article about the painter and his project appeared in the New York Times. Six months after that Julian’s mailing list had grown from three to three thousand and each painting was selling even before it was dry.

Ruth Phillips Cherries from Cheveux's Orchard

Outside the red cottage where I live in Roberts Creek is an ageing fig tree. It is planted too close to the house. It is, in fact, planted directly under the power lines making constant pruning both necessary and dangerous, but is gives abundant and beautiful fruit. Each September if I can collect the figs before the birds and wasps get them I stew them into a ruby jam and deliver a jar to friends at Christmas.

In the spring of 2009 I began following Postcard from Provence and in the summer I bid on the painting of three figs. Each year my figs come and go but these three have remained true.

Three figs - Julian Merrow-Smith

I wanted to meet Julian Merrow-Smith and his wife Ruth Phillips not just because he is a brilliant painter and she a professional cellist and skilled author. Although that would have been enough. I wanted to meet them because they seemed to have solved one of the great questions of our time: how to make a living through art while at the same time retainingo a measure of independence to live where and how you choose. When I first encountered Postcard from Provence. I thought it was the most clever idea I had seen in a long time. It seemed a stroke of genius. Take advantage of the internet as a visual medium that can easily be tied to online auctions. Make the paintings small enough to go easily through the post, add one very talented painter some hard work and some luck and “voila!” you had a mechanism by which you could live almost anywhere and make your living through your art.  

The Watercolour was small, warm, very much alive; mp tom the sense that the oranges looked like oranges; although they did. It was more that the pleasure Julian took in the paint and the oranges was somehow alive in the painting. There was a strong sense of analysis but also of revealing—in the subject and in the medium—that made it so different to anything I was doing then or have ever managed to do since. I think that this is something that defines the best of his work: an intellectual coolness and sensual warmth that is emulsified somehow in paintings which, and I don’t think this is a coincidence, are more often than not inspired by the pantry.

Introduction to the book Postcard from Provence by GJH

I set up my portable studio in their living room. Julian, I photographed before lunch, Ruth, after lunch. For my assistant I took my seventeen year old daughter Esmé. Julian remarked how different it was to be on the other side of the portrait process. Ruth played her cello. Even warming up it was magnificent.  As I worked on Ruth's portrait Julian left to begin his afternoon's painting. I felt very privileged to be invited into their world and tried hard not to make too big of a dent in their day.

Ruth Phillips

Ruth Phillips, cellist, writer. Taken March 18, 2013.

It was early spring 2008, a year after Lucien Chauvet’s death. Along the length of the house now ran four wooden boxes in which grew the beginnings of four varieties of tomato. There were aubergines. There were salad leaves, chard and rocket, turnips and beets. A Sicilian gourd reached upward with its first rampant tendrils. Potatoes were planned, naturally. Every square of growth was punctuated with an organic insect repellent or bee attractor such as rosemary or marigold, and the vegetables were arranged in happy families. Carrots that loved tomatoes, tomatoes that loved basil, radishes that loved mustard and redwort pigweed. Julian tapped a packet and three seeds plopped into his hand. He took a pencil and created an indent for them in a pot the size of an egg cup. He let the seeds drop. He placed earth on top of them, sprinkled fine sand over them, and watered them from a great height. Next, he transplanted a row of lettuces, gathering earth around the seedlings as lovingly as if he were tucking a child in to a bed. Then, looking as smitten with the yellow blooms as he ever had been with me, he picked four Lady Banks roses from the bush and walked them toward the studio.

Ruth Phillips – Cherries from Chauvet's Orchard: A Memoir of Provence.

little attempt at distance or objectivity ...

What we have is both an example of the interplay between photographs and text, and a fascinating insight into the mind of the British Raj. The photographs are, for the most part, conventional studio-type portraits of individuals, though there are some fine group studies. It is the texts that are the most revealing: a mixture of gossip, ethnography and military intelligence report, with little attempt at distance or objectivity.

Martin Parr and Gerry Badger – The Photobook: A History volume I