Second edition of the Ostend International Photography Biennial with Mous Lamrabat, Joel-Peter Witkin, Julia Fullerton-Batten and Marie Wynants

At the end of summer 2023, Ostend will host the second edition of the International Photography Biennial. Several locations in the city will be the playground and backdrop for a host of Belgian and foreign talents to exhibit their work. Together, more than 30 renowned photographers will help transform the city into a gigantic photo exhibition, each with their own personal touch. At the heart of this Photography Biennial is the link with other art forms. Sculpture, cinema, religion and painting are all sources of inspiration for the magnificent contemporary and conceptual works of the art photographers. Each of the photographic works at the Ostend International Photography Biennial will reflect this theme in a unique, contemporary and personal way.

With this second edition of the Ostend International Photography Biennial, Stéphane Verheye, curator of the biennial, intends to highlight this interweaving of photography with other forms of visual art, by offering a group of art photographers an exceptional stage on which to exhibit their work.

One of today’s most celebrated and acclaimed living photographers, the American Joel-Peter Witkin, will be exhibiting his work at Fort Napoléon as part of the Biennial of Photography. A truly unique work! Fascinated by ugliness, Witkin tries to sublimate its beauty in his works, which makes for an interesting, sometimes shocking, spectacle. Many of his works have a link with the art of the past, and are therefore perfectly in tune with the theme of this year’s show.

Rising Belgian star Marie Wynants will be exhibiting at the James Ensor Museum. Her catalogue includes record sleeves by artists such as Angèle, Charlotte De Witte, Tamino and Oscar & The Wolf. His lens also features iconic brands such as Delvaux, Ann Demeulemeester, Chanel and Fujifilm. The link with elegance is never far away, an absolute must for the photographer. Athos Burez’s work will also be on show at the James Ensor Museum. In his own words, the camera gives the young photographer a greater sense of freedom than the paintbrush, yet the influence of painting is never far away.

The refreshingly humorous work of talented Belgian-Moroccan artist Mous Lamrabat, on show in the Parc Léopold, is another example of Belgian photography at the highest level. With his multicultural surrealism, he weaves together elements of his two cultural identities. In doing so, Mous carefully chooses universally recognisable symbols to create a fluid visual narrative that can be understood by all.

Fort Napoléon will also be hosting a double exhibition by Belgian photographers Tony Le Duc and Diane Hendrikx. Their visions of photography converge to form a whole. Tony Le Duc is a pioneer of international culinary photography who, like a painter, composes his dishes like a carefully considered painting. The second is a sought-after expert in lifestyle photography.

At Mu.ZEE, you can admire the work of Austrian photographer Aglaia Konrad. Fascinated by the effects of globalisation and homogenisation on urban (and metropolitan) space, she approaches her work like an archaeologist. For the Mu.ZEE spaces, inherent to her practice, she is developing a new spatial installation based on the architecture of the exhibition space. In addition to the objects, the installation includes a new series of photographs.

Other (inter)national artists on show include: Jenny Boot (NL), Julia Fullerton-Batten (GB), Bara Prasilova (HU), Athos Burez (BE), Aglaia Konrad (AUT), Jenny Ymker (NL), Luca Izzo (IT), Soo Burnell (UK), Olivier Valsecchi (FR) and Stefano Bonazzi (IT). The wide variety of styles, both distinct and personal, offers visitors a fantastic experience. Expect a journey mixing surrealism, realism, chiaroscuro, comics, art installation, colour, still life, detail and, above all, leaving room for personal interpretation.

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The photo above depicts Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy, better known in the English-speaking world as Leo Tolstoy. It dates from 1908, when he had nearly all his work behind him: the major novels War and Peace and Anna Karenina, of course, but also the acclaimed late book The Death of Ivan Ilyich. His own death, in fact, lay not much more than two years before him. (See footage of the final days of his life here.) This didn’t offer much of a window of opportunity to the chemist Sergey Prokudin-Gorsky, who had recently developed a photography process that could capture the great man of letters in “true color” — and who understood that such a portrait would score a promotional coup for his innovation.

“After many years of work, I have now achieved excellent results in producing accurate colors,” Prokudin-Gorsky wrote to Tolstoy early that same year. “My colored projections are known in both Europe and in Russia. Now that my method of photography requires no more than 1 to 3 seconds, I will allow myself to ask your permission to visit for one or two days (keeping in mind the state of your health and weather) in order to take several color photographs of you and your spouse.” After receiving that permission, Prokudin-Gorsky spent two days at Yasnaya Polyana, Tolstoy’s family estate, where he took color pictures of not just the man himself but his working quarters and the surrounding grounds.

“A few months later, in its August 1908 issue, The Proceedings of the Russian Technical Society ran the following announcement describing ‘the first Russian color photoportrait,’ a color photograph of L. N. Tolstoy,” according to Tolstoy Studies Journal. The resulting fame drew Prokudin-Gorsky an invitation to show his work to Tsar Nicholas II, who subsequently furnished him with the resources to spend ten years photographically documenting Russia in color. “To this day, nobody knows exactly what camera Prokudin-Gorsky used,” writes Kai Bernau at Words that Work, “but it was likely a large wooden camera with a special holder for a sliding glass negative plate, taking three sequential monochrome photographs, each through a different colored filter.” This appears to be a technological descendant of the process developed in the early eighteen-sixties by Scottish physicist-poet James Clerk Maxwell, creator of the first color photograph in history.

To view that photograph, Maxwell “projected the three slides using three different projectors, each affixed with the same color filter that had been used to produce the slide.” Prokudin-Gorsky, too, had to project his photos, though he did later make color prints; “he also published it, in significant numbers, as a collectible postcard,” says Tolstoy Studies Journal, adding that the version seen here is a scan of one such postcard. “How accurately a lithographed reproduction like the one above of Tolstoy represents the ‘real’ colors of Prokudin-Gorsky’s original projected image is debatable”; the basic technological difference between “subtractive” lithography and “additive’ projection means that we can’t be seeing quite the same picture of Tolstoy that the Tsar did — but then, it’s a good a likeness of him as we’re ever going to get.

Related content:

The History of Russia in 70,000 Photos: New Photo Archive Presents Russian History from 1860 to 1999

Behold the Very First Color Photograph (1861): Taken by Scottish Physicist (and Poet!) James Clerk Maxwell

Russian History & Literature Come to Life in Wonderfully Colorized Portraits: See Photos of Tolstoy, Chekhov, the Romanovs & More

The Very Last Days of Leo Tolstoy Captured on Video

Tsarist Russia Comes to Life in Vivid Color Photographs Taken Circa 1905-1915

Colorized Photos Bring Walt Whitman, Charlie Chaplin, Helen Keller & Mark Twain Back to Life

Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletter Books on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.

We don’t toot our own horns very often here at Prairie Farmer, but several of our staff brought home hardware this summer from the Ag Media Summit. The winning entries were part of the annual Agricultural Communications Network awards contest, where ag journalists nationwide showcase their best work in photography, writing and more.

Editor Holly Spangler won Writer of the Year, Honorable Mention — sort of like reserve national champion. The portfolio of stories recognized included:

• Pumpkins: Not for the faint of heart

• Where do Illinois checkoff dollars go?

• Heroes, villains and the folks in between

Associate Editor Betty Haynes brought home a stack of awards, including Master Writer — an incredible feat in just her second year in the contest. Four of her photos were recognized for excellence and her writing awards included:

• 3rd Place Economics and Management: Flexing through volatility

• 1st Place Issues: Why dicamba complaints dropped in Illinois

• 3rd Place Technical Feature: How to choose the right cattle barn

• 3rd Place Team Story with Jennifer Carrico: Better beef biosecurity needed

Haynes also received the Andy Markwart Horizon Award, given to a young ag journalist whose passionate, creative work embodies the dedication of the late Andy Markwart. This award is especially poignant for the Prairie Farmer staff because Markwart served as a field editor here in the late ’90s.

“It’s an incredible honor to be the 2023 Andy Markwart Horizon Award winner,” Haynes says. “It’s remarkable to get to write for the publication Andy once worked for, and to continue in his footsteps of communicating the highest-quality ag news to rural Illinois.”

Former art director Melissa Landgraf’s work was also recognized, placing in the design category for her infographic in Haynes’ “How to choose the right cattle barn” story.

‘Sometimes,” says Henry Diltz, “the great picture is the one that happens before you set everything up.” The legendary music photographer, speaking from his home in north Hollywood, has taken shots that became stamped into the annals of rock history. Not only was he was the official photographer at 1969’s Woodstock festival, he has also shot more than 200 album covers, including Morrison Hotel by the Doors, and has an archive that’s more like a Who’s Who of musicians. But it is his six-decade association with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young that means the most to him.

“Nobody ever gave me the finger more than David Crosby,” he says. “It was almost automatic. I’d raise the camera and he’d go like that.” He mimics the action. “But then he would break out into a laugh and I’d get a great shot.” He pauses, remembering his friend, who died in January. “I loved David.”

Returning to his “great picture” theory, Diltz says: “There is a picture of Joni Mitchell looking out the window of the house in Laurel Canyon that she shared with Graham Nash. It was where he wrote Our House. I had received a call, saying, ‘Joni needs some new publicity pictures. Will you go up to her house?’ So I went over there late morning with Gary.” That’s Gary Burden, the graphic designer who did all of Neil Young’s album covers, except for Harvest (and therein hangs a tale, which we’ll get to).

“As we walked up, Joni was leaning out the window waiting. She said, ‘Hey, good morning!’ and started talking to Gary for five or 10 minutes, which left me to walk around and take photos. Later, we took pictures while she played the dulcimer and sang. Those were nice, but the great picture was the first one when she was waiting for us in the window.”

Born in Kansas City in 1938, Diltz’s early years were nomadic. “My father was in the diplomatic corps,” he says, “so we moved around a lot. We lived in Tokyo, Bangkok and Munich.” He later spent a year at military school in West Point, before studying psychology at the University of Hawaii. Then, one day in 1966, he saw a table full of cameras in a second-hand store, bought one, and a lifelong love affair began. “I just started taking photos of my friends in Laurel Canyon,” he says. “Then, one by one, they became famous.”

Now 85, Diltz exudes warmth and geniality, his white hair scraped back into a ponytail, a sharp curiosity flickering in his eyes, a camera ready in his pocket everywhere he goes. Even when not working, he takes about 100 pictures a day. We are meeting, via Zoom, to discuss his new photobook CSN&Y: Love the One You’re With. Boasting 835 photos, many previously unpublished, and eyewitness accounts from the supergroup and luminaries such as Jackson Browne and Joni Mitchell, it is an unprecedented document of CSN&Y’s journey from Laurel Canyon choir angels to stadium-conquering superstars. “Henry was our friend who happened to have a camera,” Graham Nash later tells me. “He was one of us.”

CSN&Y were a phenomenon. An intoxicating blend of soaring harmonies, pastoral folk and swirling rock, Crosby, Stills and Nash’s eponymous era-defining 1969 debut album (pre Young) was followed less than a year later by their first as a four-piece, Déjà Vu. Stratospheric success led to rampant egos, drug addiction and in-fighting. As the 70s wore on, relations hit the skids and the band fell apart.

Diltz was there every step of the way. He had become friends with Stills in 1963, during the folk revival in New York’s Greenwich Village, and their paths crossed again three years later in LA. “I walk by a house one day and I hear guitar music,” he recalls. “I go to the door and Stephen is inside.” Stills invited him to a club where his new folk-rock group were playing that evening. They were called Buffalo Springfield.

While the band soundchecked, Diltz hung around the parking lot. “On the back of the club was a huge mural: a colourful painting of a guy on a bicycle. I was focusing on that when the back door opened and Buffalo Springfield walked out. I said, ‘Hey guys, would you just stand in front of that mural for a minute? I want to show how big it is.’ They stood making faces and I kept clicking away.”

A few days later, Diltz received a call from music magazine TeenSet, which had interviewed the band and required a photo. They offered $100. “I’d never made a nickel taking a picture,” Diltz says, his disbelief still palpable after all these years. “That was a revelation.”

By early 1968, musicians were flocking to the sylvan splendour of Laurel Canyon in the Hollywood Hills. Among them was Mama Cass of the Mamas and the Papas, who threw soirées that everyone wanted to be invited to. Cass had just met British rock trio Cream on a TV show and asked their “shy” guitarist Eric Clapton to a picnic. Diltz was present, along with Crosby and his “protégé” Mitchell.

“Joni’s album hadn’t been released,” says Diltz, “but she sat under the tree and played the whole thing. I walked around taking pictures while Eric sat there staring at her fingers. He’d never heard of her and, because every song was in a different tuning, he’d never seen anything like it either. David loved to have her play for people because he wanted to blow their minds. Everybody would be in awe.”

Mitchell, by then the girlfriend of Graham Nash, saw some sights of her own. “Joni was the only witness to the birth of Crosby, Stills and Nash,” says Nash, referring to the night he joined in with Crosby and Stills singing You Don’t Have to Cry. “Once I started singing, nothing else mattered. I knew I would have to go back to England, leave the Hollies, come to America, and follow that sound. I rolled the dice and the biggest rewards came.”

Diltz adds: “In the beginning, they were all thrilled with the sound they could make. I would always hear, ‘They were at a party the other night and sang Blackbird by the Beatles as a three-part harmony.’”

He shows me a backstage shot where Young is snapped mid-sentence alongside Nash and Crosby. “If I’d have been a ‘proper’ photographer,” he says, “I might have walked up and said, ‘Let’s get a shot here.’ But then you wouldn’t have captured the magic of the moment. I was never in their faces, so they’d forget I was there.”

By 1970, Neil Young had moved to a ranch in Half Moon Bay he named Broken Arrow. It was there he wrote his solo album Harvest, frequently included in “greatest album of all time” lists. “Gary was a really good friend of Neil’s,” says Diltz. “We would drive up to Neil’s ranch and spend the weekend. We’d get up early and walk around with him. And I would just take photos of everything I saw.

“Gary did all of Neil’s album covers except one: Harvest. One time we were up there, Neil was sitting on a hay bale with a hat playing a little guitar. I think that photo would have been the cover of Harvest, except Gary and Neil had an argument or something, so he never designed that cover. It came out with just the word ‘Harvest’ on it instead. It’s not official but that photo is the perfect Harvest photo. In the times that I would hang out with Neil at his ranch, he was very funny. He would laugh about everything. He’s got a great feel for life, but he’s very private.”

By 1988, Crosby had kicked his heroin habit and the rest had addressed demons of their own. Diltz captured a joyous mood as they reunited at Young’s ranch to record the American Dream album. “There was a feeling that we were all back,” says Nash. “Crosby had gone through his drug issues and we’d all stopped snorting cocaine. We were singing together again, getting that blend, that sound.”

Despite their more recent famous falling out, Nash tells me he “desperately” misses Crosby. “He was my best friend for over 50 years. By the end, we were emailing and voicemailing each other. We were getting together. I set up a FaceTime so I could see his face. I waited and waited for the call, but it never came. He passed away a couple of days later.” Nash goes on: “Crosby was a unique musician. He was a great rhythm guitar player. We know that his life was chaotic and he didn’t take care of himself as well as the rest of us did, but we are incredibly sad our partner has died.” He pauses and adds: “All that arguing and shitty stuff that we did to each other, it’s meaningless now.”

As for Diltz, he continues to draw fans. His Instagram page is stuffed with arresting images from music’s yesteryear. And this week, he will receive the Icon prize at the Abbey Road Studios Music Photography awards. “I was flabbergasted,” he says. “I didn’t photograph for awards or rewards, but it’s so lovely to be recognised.”

He adds: “In life, you leave your mark one way or the other. You may have kids, you may do art, you may do something else. I’ve never thought, ‘I made that picture.’ Bullshit. God made the picture. I just pushed the button. I’m happy I captured beautiful moments of people I admired who were also my friends.”

CSN&Y: Love the One You’re With is published by Genesis Publications at £295.