Good morning and welcome to Labour Day. Ko te ra tenei i hanga e te Ariki. Ka koa tatou, ka koa hoki ki reira.
Labour Day is a New Zealand public holiday commemorated each year on the fourth Monday in October, and celebrates when the eight hour working day became the law in New Zealand.
The Bay of Plenty is expected to have some morning cloud, otherwise it will be a fine day ahead. Cloud is returning in the late evening with the chance of a shower. Southerlies will be turning northerly this morning.
It’s a one-to-two-layer clothing day with an expected high of 19 degrees, and an overnight low of 14 degrees. High tide is at 2.40pm and low tide is at 8.48pm. Sunset is at 7.40pm.
What’s on today?
Give it a go today from 6.15pm with Ultimate Frisbee at Waipuna Park. Bring friends, a dark and white top, water, cleats – sneakers are ok, but not much traction. All welcome! even if you haven’t played before. You’ll find the Ultimate Frisbee event happening in the Top Fields, which is right next to the main car park. For more information click here
re:generate Fashion Market. Photo; Supplied.
Head to Mount Maunganui for the re:generate Fashion Market at the Mount Sports Action Centre.This market features a curated selection of vintage and modern preloved fashion and accessories for all genders and budgets.
The Incubator. Photo: Supplied.
At The Incubator Creative Hub at Tauranga Historic Village, there are many exhibitions, workshops and events happening daily. For more information click here.
For more events visit My Tauranga.
The Mission House at The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga. Photo: Rosalie Liddle Crawford.
The Elms | Te Papa Tauranga in Mission St is open from 10am – 4pm. Come and view the Mission House and gardens. For more information click here
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Tauranga Art Gallery in Willow St. Photo: Supplied.
Take a walk through Tauranga Art Gallery and view the many exhibitions on display there this week. The gallery, in Willow St, is open from 10am – 4pm.
Love public art? CITY ART WALK TAURANGA app is a free to download walking tour of 20 public artworks in Tauranga’s city centre. For more information click here
Diana Bomford, Tony Fraser and Hugh Bomford at the Lion and Tusk Museum at Mount Maunganui. Photo: Daniel Hines.
Have you been to the Lion and Tusk Museum yet? It’s open today from 10am – 3pm at Unit 4, 14 Portside Dr, Mount Maunganui. Come and see a massive display of Rhodesian military history records and exhibits of uniforms, medals and equipment. Opening hours are 10am – 3pm Thursday to Sunday. For more information click here
What else is on today?
Association Croquet
Sat, Mon,Wed at Club Mt Maunganui, 45 Kawaka St. 9.15am for 9.30am start. Visitors & new players welcome. Ph. Malcolm 027 681 5204
Beginner Social Dance Group
Commencing Monday, 18 Sept, 6-7pm, Welcome Bay School Hall, Welcome Bay Road. Ballroom/Latin/Rock&Roll. Just come along to enrol on the night. Ph Sonia 0273221786
Body+Soul 50+ Fun fitness
Exercise for better health, strength and balance. Move to great music. Make new friends. First class free. 9.15am Greerton hall Ph Dianne 027 4314326
Chess at Mount Maunganui
Mount RSA Chess Club 544 Maunganui Rd, Mondays (excl public holidays). Early program 6.15pm-7pm Late program 7pm onwards. Casual Chess allowed. Search “Western BoP Chess”.
Creative Fibre Tauranga
Knitting, crochet, spinning, weaving, felting & dying. Every Monday 9.30am & every 2nd & 4th Thursday 6.30pm. 177 Elizabeth Street. Enjoy learning new crafts. Phone Rosanne 027 575 2175
Free Public Advocacy Service
Advocacy Clinics: Tuesdays, Greerton Library 1pm – 2:30pm. Thursdays, Welcome Bay Community Centre 1pm – 2:30pm. *Mondays, Merivale Community Centre, phone for appt 0225629845.
Papamoa Family History Group
Meets 2nd Monday Feb-Dec 10am-2pm at Papamoa Community Centre 15 Gravatt Road. Visitors and new members welcome. Beginners Classes starting early 2024. Contact papgen@gmail.com.
Tauranga Senior Citizens Club
500 Cards. Come join us for a game of 500. 14 Norris Street (behind Pak’n’Save). Start at 1 pm. ph 022 6392411
Tauranga Vision Friendship Club
4th Monday of each month, starts 10am, Tga Citz club, 13th Ave Tga upstairs. entry $5.00 Visitors welcome for information Phone Sue 021543544
EVANSVILLE, Ind. (WFIE) – An Evansville-based artist is preparing to have his art displayed at an international art festival.
This week, Fort Branch-native Andrew Cooper will ship out new work for display at Art Basel Miami, one of the largest and most exclusive art fairs in the world.
Cooper says this will be his third year participating, but he’s been invited to bring more work than ever before. Six of his new paintings will be on display.
He tells us it’s a great chance for him to get inspired by the other artists and to get his still life collection noticed.
That’s because lots of celebrities attend the fair to discover new artists.
“Thousands of people come around from the world, Kanye was there last year, Leonardo DiCaprio — like all of the names and they buy art. It’s a very exclusive event, and I’m really happy to be there,” he says.
Cooper has already shown his paintings in London and Switzerland, but all his work is made in his live-in studio on Evansville’s west side.
The exhibition runs December 8th to 10th.
Copyright 2023 WFIE. All rights reserved.
October 22, 2023
Even before Jay DeFeo’s death, at the age of sixty, in 1989, her reputation as an artist rested almost entirely on a single work, a massive painting called “The Rose.” Built up, layer by layer, between 1958 and 1966, mostly in DeFeo’s San Francisco studio, the finished piece is eleven feet tall, weighs about two thousand pounds, and still looks like a work in progress—or an ancient artifact, rescued from oblivion. Now held in the collection of the Whitney, where it’s on view in the museum’s seventh-floor galleries, “The Rose” has the presence of a religious relic, but its pattern of deep, radiating grooves anticipates a sci-fi future: that thrilling moment in “Star Wars” when we’re sucked helplessly into hyperspace.
In 1959, DeFeo was chosen—along with Jasper Johns, Ellsworth Kelly, Louise Nevelson, Robert Rauschenberg, and Frank Stella—for a survey show at the Museum of Modern Art called “Sixteen Americans.” But for a time after “The Rose” was lowered out the window of her Fillmore Street studio, in 1965—an event recorded in a lovely, luminous short film by her friend and fellow Bay Area avant-gardist Bruce Conner—it left a vacuum that brought DeFeo’s work almost to a standstill. She found a way forward in 1970, when she used a Nikon and a Yashica and began teaching herself how to use them. Instead of taking a photography class, she researched and picked up tips from students at the San Francisco Art Institute, where she taught, and learned from her mistakes. A show of the photographs of Man Ray, who invited accidents and exploited the distortions of the darkroom, inspired her to be “more comfortable with my approach,” she wrote to a friend at the time. “I have neither the temperament—nor the facilities—for a hard-core technical path to perfection,” she added, and proceeded to make the best of it for five busy and remarkable years.
The work from those years has been little seen and largely unappreciated until now, with the release of an excellent book, “Jay DeFeo Photographic Work,” from Delmonico/D.A.P., and a jewel-box exhibition at Paula Cooper Gallery. Both are revelatory. Seeing DeFeo’s photographs is like rediscovering a forgotten Surrealist—an intimate of Ray, Dora Maar, Max Ernst, and Raoul Ubac who had fallen off the art-world radar. But DeFeo’s connection to Conner, Wallace Berman, and the Bay Area post-Beat bohemian scene gives her work a funky, occasionally serrated edge. At Cooper, the pictures are, with one or two exceptions, all black-and-white and uniformly quite small; some are no bigger than snapshots. Their intimacy is seductive; the closer you get to each work, the more intriguing and unsettling it is. In an essay for the new book, Justine Kurland refers to the “airy weight” of DeFeo’s photographs, and that oxymoronic phrase strikes me as just right. Even when DeFeo is making pictures of solid, very ordinary things—a crab shell, a chandelier, a wooden staircase, a woman’s tattered shoe—the results look like they were captured in a dream, not ephemeral but haunted.
Like the Surrealists, DeFeo was drawn to discarded, broken, and useless objects, which she sometimes collaged into arrangements that seemed freakishly new: part organic, part mechanical and wholly, sometimes exquisitely, alien. Some of these images look like studies of works in progress, including a series featuring her dog’s gnarly, mummy-wrap cast: detritus as sculpture. Others have almost no basis in the physical world. All of them smooth the transition into abstraction—into texture and movement and pure, pulsing atmosphere—and, ultimately, back into painting. Included in both the book and exhibition are photograms in the Man Ray tradition—the jumbled silhouettes of physical objects exposed to light on photographic paper—and chemigrams, splashes of chemicals on photo paper that suggest volcanic eruptions or brain wave.
“The lens really taught me how to see and to really see,” DeFeo once said. But the more she experimented with the camera and explored the possibilities of the darkroom, the more she was drawn back to other media. Increasingly, she used her camera to record the day-by-day progress of sculptures she made—salvaged paper and cardboard, twisted like a body in motion—or exuberant, gestural paintings. After making work she could hold in one hand, perhaps DeFeo was missing the impacts of scale and weight. If photography allowed her to see, it also gave her a new way out of representation and back to a rough materiality. It gave her a middle ground, fertile and familiar, and a language rich with dialects, diversions, and rude slang. She mastered it, first by losing herself in its endless possibilities, then by turning it little by little, but decisively, to her own ends.
Paris+ par Art Basel’s second edition concluded today, once again showcasing the French capital’s exceptional cultural dynamism and continued ascent as a global art market hub. Featuring 154 premier galleries including 61 operating spaces in France, the show offered a vibrant panorama of the country’s thriving art scene, to which it further contributed with an expanded, freely accessible public program realized in collaboration with the city’s world-class cultural institutions and unfolding across six storied Parisian locations. This second edition was emboldened by a strong showing of leading international participants from Europe, the Americas, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, including 15 galleries who joined Paris+ par Art Basel for the first time. The fair took place at the Grand Palais Éphémère from October 20 to 22, 2023 and attracted an overall attendance of 38’000 throughout its VIP and public days. The fair’s next edition will unfold in the event’s permanent venue, the iconic Grand Palais, from October 18 to 20, 2024.
Galleries reported strong sales across all market segments, including works by 20th-century masters such as Alexander Calder, Ed Clark, Niki de Saint Phalle, Leonor Fini, Jean Hélion, Aristide Maillol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Anna Zemánková; blue-chip contemporary artists such as Mark Bradford, Tracey Emin, Camille Henrot, Loie Hollowell, Lee Ufan, Wolfgang Tillmans, Yan Pei-Ming, and Flora Yukhnovich; mid-career practitioners such as Katinka Bock, Mohamed Bourouissa, Reggie Burrows Hodges, Sayre Gomez, Rachel Jones, Suki Seokyeong Kang, Jean-Luc Moulène, and Laure Prouvost; and emerging voices such as Jenna Bliss, Gaëlle Choisne, Elladj Lincy Deloumeaux, Karol Palczak, Nora Turato, Sophie Varin, Xie Lei, and Trevor Yeung.
Leading art patrons and private collectors from France, Europe, the Americas, Asia, and beyond were in attendance. Paris+ par Art Basel was also attended by representatives of more than 170 prestigious museums and foundations from across the globe, such as Art Gallery of Ontario, Toronto; Aspen Art Museum; Bourse de Commerce – Pinault Collection, Paris; Centre Pompidou, Paris; Dia Art Foundation, Beacon; Fondation Beyeler, Riehen; Hirshhorn Museum, Washington, D.C.; Istanbul Museum of Modern Art; K11 Art Foundation, Hong Kong; KW – Institute of Contemporary Art, Berlin; Los Angeles County Museum of Modern Art (LACMA); M+, Hong Kong; MAXXI, Rome; MoMA PS1, New York; Musée d’Orsay, Paris; Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires (MALBA), Buenos Aires; Museo Tamayo, Mexico City; National Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, Korea, Seoul; National Museum of Modern Art Tokyo; Norval Foundation, Cape Town; Palais de Lomé; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Städel Museum, Frankfurt; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; and Tate, London. French Minister of Culture Rima Abdul Malak and First Lady Brigitte Macron also visited Paris+ par Art Basel.
Clément Delépine, Director of Paris+ par Art Basel, commented, ‘I am deeply grateful to all the galleries, artists, patrons, institutional representatives, and partners who joined us for Paris+ par Art Basel’s second edition and made it such a success. Together, we were able to present art of the highest quality, from the show floor to the Jardin des Tuileries, and the fair’s impact on the city’s cultural life is palpable. We already look forward to our arrival at the renovated Grand Palais in 2024, a move that we believe will anchor Paris+ par Art Basel even more firmly in the city’s creative landscape and amplify its resonance in the global art ecosystem.’
Participating exhibitors remarked on their experiences of the second edition:
‘We could sense a real enthusiasm in Paris as the cultural scene develops, assisted by the arrival of Art Basel and the public and private institutions who present outstanding exhibitions. The first few hours of the fair seemed even busier this year, and we sold a number of works within the first minutes of the doors opening, with sales going to both private and public collections.’
Serena Cattaneo Adorno, Senior Director, Gagosian (New York, Los Angeles, Beverly Hills, Hong Kong, Paris, Athens, Rome, Basel, Geneva, Saanen, London)
‘Paris+ has once again exceeded our expectations. Though the first edition was remarkable, we were struck by the excellent level of the fair this year, which occurred in a very positive atmosphere. The international clientele, most particularly from Europe and Asia, was very well represented, and was equally enthusiastic about Jean Claracq’s pieces, who is an established artist, but also by Nanténé Traoré’s, who as a young photographer is making his first steps on the art market.’
Guillaume Sultana, Founder, Sultana (Paris, Arles)
‘Never before has a fair in Paris brought together such a high-quality audience and collectors from such distant and varied regions: Indonesia, Korea, California… even more Americans in general. Paris has many facets to offer, and we had almost 1,200 visitors to the gallery in five days, because collectors are looking for surprise and novelty in the primary market. There’s plenty on offer at the fair and in Paris. Despite the geopolitical uncertainties, this fair is the new place to go to find reliable artistic references and, let’s hope, open optimistic conversations about the world.’
Niklas Svennung, Director, Chantal Crousel (Paris)
‘We presented a solo booth by Roberto Gil de Montes, his first presentation in Europe. It was important for us to present a comprehensive overview of his practice, including paintings and works on paper. The reception has been overwhelmingly positive and we sold all the works on the booth, with prices ranging from $12,000 to $150,000. We sold to a global range of collections.’
Malik Al-Mahrouky, Partner/Sales Director, kurimanzutto (Mexico City, New York)
‘This week, with the inauguration of our brand-new gallery space in the 8th arrondissement and the opening of the second edition of Paris+, we celebrated Paris as a place that has welcomed, inspired, and nurtured generations of living artists but also as a capital of connoisseurship and collecting at the most astute, sophisticated, and ambitious levels. Our first day at the fair was tremendous, with a sold-out booth and major sales to foremost private and institutional collections in Paris and France as well as internationally.’
Marc Payot, President, Hauser & Wirth (Zurich, Gstaad, St Moritz, London, Somerset, Los Angeles, New York, Hong Kong, Monaco, Ciutadella de Menorca)
‘Our experience at the fair reflects the current energy in Paris: eminently dynamic!’
Frédérique Buttin Valentin, Director, Semiose (Paris)
‘This edition of Paris+ par Art Basel has been particularly productive and one of the busiest fairs we have seen for years. The international audience and the solid quality of the artworks on display reflect the growing significance of this fair that coincides with Paris’s art market revival.’
Martin Desfossés, Director, Vedovi Gallery (Brussels)
‘French, Italian, and Mexican institutions flocked to the show right from the start. In addition to strong sales, this year’s audience was of the highest quality: we welcomed a large number of foreign collectors on the first day, as well as new contacts. We look forward to a very promising follow-up.’
Sandrine Djerouet, Director and Partner, Jocelyn Wolff (Romainville)
‘It was an extremely lively opening with the presence of very important institutions. There is a very high quality to Paris+ par Art Basel and positive competition that always encourages us to do our best. There were a lot of interesting international collectors on the first day of the fair. We met foreign collectors who followed us from Art Basel in Basel, so there is positive feedback from one fair to another.’
Raffaella Cortese, Founder, Galleria Raffaella Cortese (Milan)
‘We are proud to be showing again in the Galeries Émergentes section, alongside a great selection of galleries and projects of an extremely high standard. Continuing the tone and high expectations set last year, the fair is a platform for showing experimental projects on the highest stage.’
David Hoyland, Founder and Director, seventeen (London)
‘Our inaugural encounter with Paris + par Art Basel has been fantastic! Connecting with collectors from all around the world has been incredible, and Lu Yang’s new video work has received enthusiastic responses from collectors, institutions, and visitors.’
Mathieu Borysevicz, Founder, Bank (Shanghai)
For the full list of statements from exhibitors, please click here.
Galeries Émergentes
Dedicated to emerging galleries across the globe, Galeries Émergentes featured 14 solo presentations. Exhibitors included Bank (Shanghai), LC Queisser (Tbilisi), seventeen (London), Document (Chicago, Lisbon), and PM8 / Francisco Salas (Vigo), and others Supported by groupe Galeries Lafayette, artist Mohamad Abdouni, represented by Marfa’ (Beirut), was selected by a specially appointed jury to produce a new piece in the workshop of the Lafayette Anticipations – Fondation Galeries Lafayette. The new work will be exhibited at Lafayette Anticipations in 2023. As part of the initiative, Marfa’ will be reimbursed its fair participation fee.
The jury was composed of Guillaume Houzé, President, Lafayette Anticipations; Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel, Director, Lafayette Anticipations; Ruba Katrib, Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs, MoMA PS1; Diana Campbell Bétancourt, Artistic Director, Samdani Foundation and Dhaka Art Summit; as well as artist and fashion designer Akeem Smith, the 2022 laureate.
For the full list of exhibitors in Galeries Émergentes, please visit parisplus.artbasel.com/galeries-emergentes.
Public Program
Freely accessible to the public and realized in collaboration with the City of Paris and local cultural institutions, Paris+ par Art Basel’s expanded, citywide public program featured three exhibitions, two monumental outdoor installations, and a series of talks and debates, presented in six iconic locations across the city. Select projects remain on view beyond the fair dates.
A group exhibition realized in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre, curated by Annabelle Ténèze, Director of the Louvre-Lens Museum, and titled ‘La Cinquième Saison’ (‘The Fifth Season’) was on view in the Jardin des Tuileries – Domaine National du Louvre. It brought together 25 artworks by artists from different generations and continents, including Alex Ayed, Claudia Comte, Nicène Kossentini, and Gaetano Pesce.
Two new venues were added to the program: The Palais d’Iéna, hosting a duo exhibition by Daniel Buren and Michelangelo Pistoletto through October 29, curated by art historian Matthieu Poirier and supported by Galleria Continua; and the parvis de l’Institut de France, hosting a monumental textile sculpture by Sheila Hicks, presented by galerie frank elbaz in collaboration with Meyer Riegger and Massimo Minini, through October 25.
A multimedia installation by Jessica Warboys was on view at the Chapelle des Petits-Augustins des Beaux-Arts de Paris, presented by Gaudel de Stampa.
A five-meter-high aluminum sculpture by Urs Fischer, titled Wave, will be shown on the Place Vendôme through December 1. The work is presented by Gagosian.
Curated for the second year by Pierre-Alexandre Mateos and Charles Teyssou, the show’s Conversations program took place at the Musée national Picasso – Paris and was realized in collaboration with Centre Pompidou.
To view all the projects, please visit parisplus.artbasel.com/public-program.
Download the full press release here.
Located in Durham’s City Center District, the newly-opened Ella West Gallery lies inside an old brick warehouse. Within this gallery, the exhibition “Return to Parrish Street: A Dream Realized” showcases and honors Black artistic expression.
This purpose lines up perfectly with the vision of Ella West Gallery founder Linda Shropshire, who wanted to create a fine art space that recognized and celebrated the diversity in the Durham community. Her dual passions for art and creating a space for Black artists is illuminated throughout the gallery, which features many works by North Carolina artists.
The gallery is located in what was once Durham’s “Black Wall Street,” the home to a variety of Black-owned businesses during the late 1800s and early 1900s. Once called the “mecca of the Black South,” this area suffered greatly from desegregation and Urban Renewal, a government initiative that resulted in the construction of Durham Freeway 147 through the heart of the district.
The building is also a part of “Black Wall Street’s” history, as it was once home to the printing presses of The Durham Reformer, a 1920s-era Black newspaper. By opening the gallery, Shropshire recognizes just how important it is to remember and take pride in what was “Black Wall Street.”
“Return to Parrish Street: A Dream Revisited” is dedicated to Durham native and artist Ernie Barnes, displaying several of the late artist’s paintings that visually show his life experiences from Durham to Los Angeles.
Upon first entering, the title of the gallery can be seen on the back wall, its black letters standing out against the wall’s white paint. Next to the title is “The Dream Keeper,” a poem by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, and an explanation of why that poem was chosen.
The aforementioned poem and “A Dream Deferred”, another of Hughes’s poems, provide the inspiration for the exhibition title. The poems embody the “aspirational elements of dreams as goals.” Showcasing work by Clarence Heyward, Kennedi Carter and Ransom, the exhibit is meant to “traverse the terrain of dreams through portraits and photography that probe perception, identity, and vulnerability.”
On one side of the exhibit, Clarence Heyward’s works are displayed under “Painting His Truth.” In these works, Heyward portrays his subjects as “emissaries of lived truth in his exploration of identity and Blackness.”
“George,” one of Heyward’s paintings, shows George Floyd with his head positioned sideways facing the viewer. Behind his head is a canvas that’s entirely white with the exception of a plain black strip at the bottom. The whiteness of the painting dominates over George Floyd and the black strip, visually illustrating George Floyd’s death and the oppression of the Black community. In his more recent work, Heyward seems to play with color, with the portraits of his family, friends and colleagues all having a green skin tone. This reflects the author’s fascination with the use of “green screens” in film and media. Giving his subjects a green skin tone also lets Heyward address how Black people are portrayed in the media and encourage viewers to “examine how their own perceptions distort reality and shape identity.”
Next to Heyward’s work is Ransom’s artwork. Centering on his African-American lineage, Ransom traces his story back to sharecroppers who migrated to cities in the northeastern United States. Ransom plays on this idea of “making something out of nothing” by combining acrylic paint with found, made and purchased papers. He also highlights his upbringing in soul and R&B by using symbols in his piece to showcase the rhythmic properties of music. Each of Ransom’s works uses vivid and bold colors and include a portrait of one or more Black individuals.
The rest of the exhibit is full of works by photographer Kennedi Carter. Through images, she “creates lush images that celebrate beauty, the body, and Blackness.” Carter uses her photography skills to capture some of life’s unknown, unexpected and often overlooked moments. In one of her pieces, a little Black girl is shown wearing a white dress with her arms crossed over her head, a white sheet behind her and the blue sky overhead. Her eyes are closed as she appears to soak up and enjoy the sunlight.
Carter’s work also captures the relationship between mother and child, with her including many pictures of young children being held by a mother figure. This helps shed light on how we often overlook the relationship between a Black mother figure and a child.
Overall, I believe the exhibit does a great job of recognizing the significance of Black art culture to Durham. The most rewarding part about this gallery is its focus on creating a space for marginalized communities. It’s not too often that you will find a gallery oriented in this way which sets it apart from the rest.
“A Return to Parrish Street: A Dream Revisited” opened on Aug. 19 and remained on view until Oct. 21.
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Kerria Weaver is a second-year master’s student in the Graduate Liberal Studies program and an associate news editor of The Chronicle’s 119th volume.
STRASBURG — Whether he’s wandering the majestic mountains of local national parks or traveling abroad, George Hoffman never leaves home without his camera.
Known for his vivid landscapes as well as macro-detailed shots of bumblebees dancing on flower petals, Hoffman uses his lens to reveal details about locations and objects that others might overlook.
“I’m an artist,” Hoffman said. “In the sense of two-dimensional stuff. I like to draw, to paint. I’ve made jewelry. But photography — for me, at least at this point in my life — it’s what I enjoy most of all.”
Hoffman, who also likes to sing, garden and sew, frequently seeks new creative outlets to fill his time after his recent retirement. He also gives back to his local arts community. With a simple point a click camera, Hoffman — who prefers something light and easy to work with — never misses an opportunity to stop for a photo.
“I need to create,” he said. “It’s as simple as that.”
Nature is Hoffman’s biggest inspiration. As the sun wakes up Strasburg, he is often already outside capturing the sunrise and its soft hues of pinks, oranges and blues. When the moon is at its fullest, he patiently waits for clouds to pass to capture the Man in the Moon. When he sees a fawn impatiently waiting on its mother, he snaps the special moment. If he sees a flower he’s unfamiliar with, he’ll note its location and capture its essence.
“I’m also interested in plants and their biology,” he explained. “I like to photograph plants — I do a lot of flowers. We’ve gotten lucky here recently, as I’ve noticed more mushrooms on our walks.”
Hoffman also photographs wildlife, including the occasional animal he might see walking along the river banks or the bird in the front yard. But his Facebook feed, where he shares his most recent images, isn’t all animals and foliage. Occasionally Hoffman, who likes to cook, will share an image he captured of his dinner, reminiscing on the good-old days — when social media was used for just that. He also shares intimate details, behind the lens of his own life including the most recent addition to the family, his grandson.
“Digital cameras just opened up the world to a creative person. You can take pictures of something from 27 different angles and throw 26 of them away if you want.”
Hoffman said today’s technology is far advanced from the beginning of his photography journey, which started with a 35-millimeter camera.
“There’s hardly any comparison,” he said with a chuckle. “Those old pictures were just so rudimentary.”
“I didn’t have access to the development stuff,” he said. “And I didn’t have the money to pay for it. So I happened to find a place that would develop my photographs the best and I would say a prayer and hope they did okay.”
Hoffman said he enjoys looking back on his old work and seeing not only how he’s grown as a photographer but the changes in technology. Just in the past 20 years, the photography industry has witnessed major developments in camera technology.
Sharing a recent cell phone photo he took, Hoffman confessed it doesn’t get much better than that. Using a photo editor on his phone, he sometimes retouches minor details and may increase the saturation, but typically he just places his name on the photo to prevent theft and then shares it on social media for his fans and followers.
As part of a local Facebook photography group, Hoffman shares his inspiration and helps those seeking to better their own images with friendly critiques and words of wisdom. The group has over 100 members with roughly 30 photographers participate on a weekly basis, which keeps the momentum going for all, he said. Each week the group is given a theme — such as dinner — and then they capture their story and discuss it at a later date.
Hoffman has enjoyed various jobs before retirement, including teaching photography at Shenandoah University, and has fond memories of his students. At SU, he taught students how to compose photographs and how to apply their knowledge to creating their own two-dimensional artwork.
“We used some of the tried-and true-things that would guide them in taking good photographs and then they would go out for two weeks, take their own photographs and turn them into me. Their favorite ones. We would come together as a class and do critiques and discuss why they were good or not.”
He also participated in the college’s Global Experiential Learning trip and visited orphans in Ethiopia with students, which he said was an eye-opening experience. He returned home with a series of portraits he still talks about to this day.
“They still, when I look at them, they just grab me.”
Sitting in his basement are many of his 35 mm images — developed and framed along with his more recent works — including the faces of the Ethiopian children.
Hoffman hopes to take more international trips with his wife, seeing what the world holds for his camera. His wife, who he said complements him well, sometimes takes in the beauty around her with her own camera. Hoffman said the couple then sit down and see what the other saw.
“Honestly, it all started with just recording memories,” he said. “Now I have that combination of recording memories and the feeling of creating a nice or cool picture at the same time. You know, when I was younger, I didn’t really pay attention to the aesthetics of it. But over the years that’s been equally as important to me to create that sense of nostalgia.”
When travel photography is successful, it should feel like an invitation—to a place, an adventure, a fantasy—a preview of a memory you want to capture for yourself. It toes a delicate line between intimacy and escapism, something otherworldly yet attainable. As a photographer for Condé Nast Traveller, in addition to several other publications, New York-based photographer Julien Capmeil has honed this artful balance over his decades-long career.
Having grown up with a penchant for nature photography inspired by his “mad professor-type” father’s underwater photos of the Barrier Reef, Capmeil pursued his passion in a series of apprenticeships in Sydney, Paris, and New York. Inspired by greats such as Herb Ritts and Irving Penn, he developed a deft sense of composition and storytelling within his body of work. Now, as an established travel photographer with thrilling anecdotes of his adventures, Capmeil discusses his art practice, advice for aspiring photographers, and how he maintains a sense of playfulness in his work.
Do you remember the first photo you took that felt like art?
I think it was a photo of a little puppy that I had. I made a setup with a little backdrop and everything. It wasn’t particularly creative; there were kids in school who were definitely doing more creative things, but I couldn’t draw, which made me so frustrated. That was probably part of the reason I was lured by photography.
Do you remember the name of the puppy?
Yes, his name was Tex.
I read that you were inspired by your father’s underwater photos from the seventies. Do you remember what drew you to those photos?
My father was French, and when he came to Australia, he got into scuba diving, all before PADI (Professional Association of Diving Instructors) existed. My dad was a bit of a mad-professor type. He’d made a kind of submarine without a cover that two people could sit in with scuba gear and then dive underwater. He would go out to the Barrier Reef back when it was pristine and dive in the Sydney Harbour. He built a case for his camera out of plexiglass so he was able to take close-up photos of underwater creatures like moray eels. From a young age, I had a real love for the ocean, so we’d go looking for sea anemones and explore the shoreline.
Anguilla
Photo: Julien Capmeil
Aspen
Photo: Julien Capmeil
You took up photography more seriously after college, do you remember what made you feel like it could be a career instead of a hobby?
I just remember seeing old Armani catalogs from that period—there were these big splashy images on beautiful paper. I was immediately drawn to that form of expression. What I saw in fashion magazines had this kind of European allure to it, and I had a moment of thinking, “I would like to do this.”
As a student of fine arts, my field of study wasn’t captivating me in terms of a career. In Sydney, I decided to work six months for free in a photographic studio for a fashion photographer. It was hard work, but it was invigorating and collaborative. I learned the key elements of still life, fashion photography, and other techniques of professional photography.
Eventually, Sydney started to feel a little too limited in terms of what I could achieve on my own. It felt like a dead end in an oversaturated market. That’s when I decided to move to France and do the same thing there—working for free for six months. In Europe, the opportunities were far more expansive, and I got an insight into all these different markets.
When you started out, who were your biggest influences? Who are you looking to now?
I just love the clean aesthetic of Herb Ritts; the simplicity is incredibly evocative. I was drawn to Ritts as much as I was to Irving Penn in terms of composition and a certain pursuit of perfection. Looking back to the 1800s, I am a big fan of Nadar—back then, he was restricted by the technology of photography, but the imperfect lenses and long exposures lent themselves to these beautiful ephemeral images even though his subject matter was mostly artists and other personalities in Paris. Interestingly enough, Paolo Roversi, an Italian fashion photographer I love, has also adopted a similar kind of methodology. He often shoots with medium- and large-format cameras with old lenses that create these imperfections in a beautiful way.
Weligama
Photo: Julien Capmeil
What techniques do you employ to tell a story in your photos?
Over time, I’ve developed many subtle techniques to create a feeling or mood in an image–either a sense of contrast or focus in the frame–whatever helps create more dynamic imagery.
Before each job, I create a detailed shot list of ideas and setups and then just free myself up to the subject or situation when it’s time to shoot. I try to meld my vision with the reality of the circumstances by trusting the process and letting the images unfold.
I definitely try to extract the most out of every situation, using different techniques or angles while staying attuned to the present—whether I’m shooting a person, a still life, or a landscape—I want to stay open to all possibilities and retain a certain playfulness.
What ingredients make up good travel photography? What separates the amateurs from the professionals?
Patience is paramount in differentiating photographers. As opposed to just hastily grabbing something, you need to be patient; wait for the light or for someone to actually walk into a frame. If my photo needs a human element, I will wait endlessly for someone to come into the frame.
It’s also important to create scale to pull a reader into an image. You can achieve this by changing your proximity to your subjects, playing with shadows, and adjusting from micro to macro to allow your viewer to understand your scale through contrast and balance.
Post-production is another area where you can create an atmosphere for your viewers. Are they bright and airy or more moody? What effect does this have on a reader? Does this complement the subject you are shooting? Does the photo need brightness and air to breathe a little easier? Does it need more warmth?
Sri Lanka
Photo: Julien Capmeil
That’s great advice. On that subject, what is the best advice you’ve gotten in this field? What advice do you wish you had when you started?
The best advice I got was to actually produce work. It’s the best way to stay consistent, evolve your style, and always make sure to show your work. Regardless of where you’re starting, practice makes progress—that’s what I like to tell beginners.
Always try new things. If you see someone’s photo that you like, try to emulate it, create that light, and see if that’s a style you enjoy. That’s especially possible now with all the apps, outlets, and videos we have on hand.
When I started off, it was so expensive to buy film, process, and produce prints. I would actually go to a lab and stay all day and into the night. Now, you can just sit at your desk and produce really beautiful photos with the same impact as professional photographers. The technology is there, you just need the follow-through.
How does your personal style manifest in your work?
My style is quite light, bright, airy, and summery. It’s not especially dark and moody. I’m trying to convey a sense of allure to take you out of a moment and transport you where you want to be. It’s a little bit of escapism.
The images that I shoot versus the ones I want to produce are not always the same. I long for these places that are difficult to get to, that are untouched in a way that you can feel the elements. I was commissioned to shoot an amazing walking story with the Masaii through the Loita Hills in Kenya. It was absolutely grueling but one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve ever had. I’m just thankful that clients still recognise the importance of these kinds of journeys and continue to commission them for their readers.
I love an arduous journey, anything that involves wilderness and escape. I shot down in Chile, and the majesty of the mountains—the way they change with the light and the humidity in the clouds—was really awe-inspiring. I did a trip across the Buddha Trail through India and a bit into Nepal, but I was unfortunately confined by the itinerary. That’s the reality of the business—getting really close to a place you wanted to go and then not being able to do the trip you imagined.
What is the biggest risk you’ve taken to get a shot?
Oh my god, so many. I’m surprised I’m still alive. I’ve done such dumb shit—hanging out of cars, out of helicopters. I’m always putting myself in harm’s way. I’ve dropped a camera off an elephant in Bangalore. I’ve even slipped in a waterfall in Maui and got the camera submerged in water. Sometimes, the camera casualties are just the cost of business.
What projects are you most excited about?
I love shooting travel portraits. That’s a body of work I’m building. I like to shoot places and people that are relatively untouched, people that still have traditions that have not been tainted by modern life in a way. There’s something beautiful about capturing moments that will fade with time. There is a timelessness about those images, but it doesn’t come at the cost of feeling very contemporary. That’s what I’m interested in non-commercially, obviously.
I think oftentimes commercial artists fall into the trap of needing to commodify everything and run the risk of losing that sense of playfulness in their practice. I like to keep experimenting as a way to bring that sense of play back into the work.
It’s such a double-edged sword. People believe, “If you do something you love, you never work a day in your life,” but on the other side, it can mean, “If you turn it into work, you grow to hate the thing you once loved.
So true. It’s funny, my stepdad actually dissuaded me from getting into professional photography for precisely that reason. He said, “You’re going to grow to hate it, and you’re really passionate about it. I don’t think you should pursue this as a career.” I’m glad I didn’t listen to him, but I appreciate his perspective. It’s certainly a double-edged sword.
Pricing is one of the trickiest aspects of being a professional photographer, and there are no hard and fast rules on how to go about setting yours to ensure you bring in the most income from your work. Nonetheless, there are some important principles every photographer should understand. This helpful video tutorial features an experienced pro discusses two common pricing mistakes photographers make and how to fix them.
Coming to you from Keith Cooper, this great video tutorial discusses two common pricing mistakes photographers often make. As Cooper discusses, offering big discounts to get clients in the door will often not have the effect you want it to, as you will have established an unsustainable price level with those clients, and once you try to raise the prices back to a more reasonable place, they will often simply leave you for the next bargain photographer. It is much better to have a few clients from whom you make a good income than many clients from whom you only make a little each. Check out the video above for the full rundown from Cooper.
If you would like to learn more about the business of photography, check out “Making Real Money: The Business of Commercial Photography With Monte Isom!”
