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These photos capture the feeling of wanting to escape

These photos capture the feeling of wanting to escape

‘You’re running from what you’re feeling… you want a window into something else’: we speak to Charlie Tallott as his debut monograph, At Least Until the World Stops Going Round, launches at Photo London

15May 2024

Trigger warning: This article contains references to suicide.

The images in Charlie Tallott’s new photo book, At Least Until the World Stops Going Round, are vivid, unflinchingly intimate, and animated with a sense of energy that’s suggestive of the living world beyond the edges of the frame. Flicking through the debut monograph, the viewer can almost feel the crimson scratches on a boy’s bare back, or the textured strands of wet hair, or the raindrops illuminated by Tallott’s flash. His subjects wear bruises and casts, ripped jeans or nothing at all. The word the Leeds-born, London-based photographer uses for the feeling behind the work? “Agitation.”

This is fitting, given the backstory behind the bulk of the book’s images. “It came from a pretty dark time, a few years back,” says Tallott. “I sort of figured out what I wanted to say while I was under the care of the NHS crisis team, after a suicide attempt. I was getting looked after in a kind of ward, and I was only able to leave for about an hour a day, but I had my camera. That hour, I would go out and hunt something down that I really wanted to see, to look at, to feel something.”

These walks – guided by the images that Tallott wanted to witness and capture with his camera – became a form of “escapism,” he explains. “I was looking for beauty, or something a bit utopian, to look into a different world.” The result of this search was a set of “blissful, utopian, high-saturation” images that stood in stark contrast to the darkness he was experiencing at the same time. “You’re almost running from what you’re feeling,” he adds, of the escapist impulse that drives the series. “You want a window into something else.”

Now 24, Tallott first picked up a camera in his late teens, drawn to point-and-shoots as a way to capture the punk shows he went to at the time, and to quickly get the pictures out to his friends. After that, he started taking the camera to his nan’s house, his grandad’s snooker club, and the factories where his dad worked as a welder. For stylistic inspiration, he looked toward the black-and-white photography of the Provoke era in post-war Japan, as well as more contemporary work by the likes of Albert Elm, Chris Shaw, and Ryan McGinley.

“I don’t know why I gravitated toward all that stuff,” he says, of the factories and family homes that feature in his earlier work. “I think I was trying to tell the stories of [all these] different people.” Some of these are featured in the photo book alongside the “escapist” images he produced under NHS care, and, though the subject matter is very different, the energy – mixed with vulnerability – forms a striking through-line.

Take a look at some of the highlights from At Least Until the World Stops Going Round in the gallery above, and read more about the book in our conversation with Charlie Tallott below.

Where did the title, At Least Until the World Stops Going Round, come from?

Charlie Tallott: The title itself… first and foremost, it’s a line from a Leeds United song. That’s where I first heard it and caught onto it. But it was basically what my mum was saying to me a lot of the time, throughout that period. She used to say, like, ‘The sun’s always gonna come up tomorrow,’ or, ‘The world keeps turning,’ reminding me of life’s temporality, that the whole thing is just temporary. It puts the pressure off you. 

That kind of language, I was writing [it] down a lot, and that’s where you see the script in the book. That’s all from my mum, basically, saying that type of stuff to me, and me writing it down, taking it in, while I was in that period where I was getting looked after. Sometimes you just need reminding… especially in that type of period in your life. It’s basically someone putting their arm around you and going, ‘Don’t fucking worry about it.’

Where does photography fit into that period for you? Did your relationship with photography change over that time?

Charlie Tallott: I think it [changed] massively to be honest. In that period when I was only allowed out for an hour, my whole day was building up to this hour where [I’ve] got my camera, and I need to just go and feel something, and I’m gonna go and get it. And then after that, I had unlimited time with [the camera]. Right now… I don’t think, since making the book, I haven’t shot a photo in about three months, which is really odd for me. 

I’m almost sick of my work at the moment, because I’m flicking through it so much and looking over it. and there’s been a lot of editing down and killing your darlings, and being like: ‘No, get rid of that. It’s a nice photo, but it’s not saying what I want to say.’ I’m so engrossed in [the book] and obviously some of it is from quite a difficult time. It’s heavy to look at every day. It’s good, though. It’s a therapeutic thing to go through, but it’s definitely taxing.

How does it feel, now, to have this physical document – the book – that tells the story of that time?

Charlie Tallott: It’s good. It’s like a gentle reminder. I think you can slip back into those types of feelings, or a similar situation, but like the title itself… it’s like, the world’s just gonna keep turning, things are gonna come and pass, and the tide goes in and out. It’s all temporary. I think that’s the main thing I learned, and it’s quite nice to have a permanent documentation of these temporary things – a once-in-a-lifetime image, or things that you don’t feel very often.

You mentioned editing and killing your darlings if they didn’t serve the book. Why did you keep what you kept?

Charlie Tallott: It’s a difficult one. The subject matter is so varied. It’s like, ‘Why would you keep a swan, next to someone’s scratched back?’ But I think it’s just what you gravitate towards. It’s a visceral feeling almost. You look at it and you know, instantly, if it fits the body of work. I think a lot of them have that same kind of cloud over them. You can almost see my discontent, call it what you want, depression or whatever. You can almost feel that kind of agitation in the images, there’s a texture to them and a mood to them, this kind of escapist want.

There’s an energy in a lot of the photos. They feel like a freeze frame, or like there’s a lot going on outside the frame.

Charlie Tallott: Yeah. They’re quite busy. It feels quite like [a] snapshot ,and you’re in a whirlwind almost. They’re quite visceral, and there’s a lot of agitation and texture and angst to them, I guess.

Why do you think photography is such a good vessel for escapism?

Charlie Tallott: The escapist thing, it’s there if you want it. Like, you can go and grab this feeling, this emotion, and capture it. It’s there, and if you’re not feeling it, someone else is. Especially when you’re in a low point in life… for me, I started making my most euphoric work in that time, because you’re almost running from what you’re feeling, you want a window into something else. 

You’re just desperate to put something through your lens, and then look at it and have a permanent thing that you can hold and look at, that will take you away from where you are. Photography is quite a powerful tool in that sense. You can make tiny little windows, glimpses into other people’s worlds, other people’s feelings, your feelings. It can be pasted onto other people’s lives quite easily as well.

Is it also about cutting out what’s outside the frame?

Charlie Tallott: Yeah, and I think that’s also a big part of [it] once you’ve got the body of work. You need to cut down further, and trim, and then sequence [the images]. You’re cutting off the fat, you’re going full pelt, no filler. You need to be harsh with what you want to say, and, yeah, kill your darlings. Stop having this affection or affinity over certain images, if they’re not saying what you want to say. If they don’t work in the book, then you have to cut them no matter what, even if they’re a special image or whatever. You’re brutally cutting them out in the name of threading that needle of narrative.

At Least Until the World Stops Going Round is published by New Dimension and will launch at Photo London 2024.

If you’ve been affected by any of the issues discussed in this article, you can contact Samaritans by phone or email here

Professional Photographers Reveal The Best Disposable Cameras

Professional Photographers Reveal The Best Disposable Cameras

Kodak FunSaver, Ilford black and white camera and Fujifilm QuickSnap

The best way to party like it’s 1999? Capture your memories on a disposable camera. Whether you’re planning a big event and want your guests to capture candids of each other, going on vacation and don’t want to take an expensive camera or just like the retro feeling and screenless ease of a one-and-done photo, we asked some of our favorite professional photographers for their suggestions on disposables.

If you live for an iPhone photo and are skeptical of going back to film, Kristen Gregor, photographer and founder of Petal & Glass Photography says there are some serious perks to using disposables. Camera-shy people don’t seem to mind them as much, you get off your phone and instead of worrying about getting the perfect shot, you just get to enjoy the photos.

“It’s the best feeling in the world to get your scans back and see your memories played back in such a honest, authentic, candid way. Film is perfect for that,” Gregor told HuffPost.

Sentimentality and nostalgia are the big reasons to use film, per Haley Richter, photographer and owner of Haley Richter Photography, as film can capture modern moments in a way that looks similar to photos from your parents or grandparents. It’s this unmistakable aesthetic: the colors, the grains, the blurs and spots that can only happen with a film camera. “The quality of film is nearly impossible to replicate with digital,” she said.

The final pro of disposable cameras is how user-friendly and un-precious they are, says Josiah Blizzard, professional photographer and owner of Josiah & Steph photography. “The barrier to entry is non-existent, anyone can use one!” Blizzard told HuffPost. “Hand a disposable to your uncle, grandfather or six-year-old and they can have fun capturing memories.”

To help you start collecting memories of your own, the photographers share their top disposable cameras.

HuffPost and its publishing partners may receive a share from purchases made via links on this page. Every item is independently selected by the HuffPost Shopping team. Prices and availability are subject to change. The experts consulted for this story do not necessarily endorse the products ahead unless otherwise noted.

1
Amazon
A Kodak Fun Saver
Photographers Kristen Gregor, Haley Richter and Jason Moody say you can’t go wrong with the classic Kodak. It offers 27 pictures on 35 millimeter film, a built-in manual flash and accurate skin tone reproduction for photos of friends and family.

Moody explains that a disposable camera like this Kodak is highly portable, doesn’t demand chords or chargers and can easily be passed around a party or event to get photos from different people’s viewpoints.

“My number one suggestion though is to always use the flash on a disposable camera,” Moody told HuffPost. “The film in these cameras needs a ton of light, so unless you are photographing a subject in direct sunlight, the flash will be needed to properly expose the film.”

Gregor agrees, noting to “Use that flash!!” as the camera’s apertures (where the light gets through) are tiny. “Film loves light and color so keep that in mind for best results,” she said.

2
Amazon
A Fujifilm QuickSnap
Josiah & Steph Photography, Gregor, Richter and Moody all also suggest Fujifilm’s QuickSnap. “Those brands [Kodak and Fujifilm] have been around for decades and the film stocks are wonderful,” Richter said.

This option also gives you 27 exposures, with a built-in manual 10-foot flash, meaning the flash will capture things within 10 feet. It’s also a 35-millimeter camera that you can use indoors or outdoors.

3
Amazon
Or, the waterproof version
An editor’s choice — this waterproof disposable camera is guaranteed for fun memories at the lake, pool, beach, waterpark, ski mountain and other wet zones. It allows little ones and adults alike to still capture memories without being worried about drowning their phones in water or snow.

Like its dry counterpart, this camera option also gives you 27 exposures, yet this one operates up to 35 feet underwater and has a bigger shutter release so it’s extra easy to use in the elements.

Without getting too technical, the film in this camera has a more powerful light sensitivity, so it doesn’t have a flash option but still allows plenty of light in, making it suitable for outdoor exposures.

4
Amazon
A black and white Ilford camera
While the name may be unfamiliar to you, Moody says that Ilford cameras are part of the “main three” along with Kodak and Fujifilm. If you’re looking for black and white photos, this camera gives you 27 exposures, creating high contrast and fine grain black and white pics. It has a built-in flash, large viewfinder and solid plastic housing, making it a little more kid-friendly.
5
Amazon
A Kodak Ektar H35 reusable film camera
If you’d like the ease of a disposable camera without the waste, know that there are affordable refillable film cameras out there.

“My go-to is the Kodak Ektar H35 and H35n,” Blizzard said. “This camera gives you double the photos by cutting each frame in half meaning you get more bang for your buck. I have two of these and get 72 shots out of a roll of 35mm film.”

About as simple as a disposable, this camera has a manual built-in flash and operates by pushing the top button to take a photo and rolling the film to get to the next shot. It can use any type of 35-millimeter film, so you can play around with brands and colors like black and white or sepia. You’re gonna need a single AAA battery and some film to get started.

Automated Product Photography Solutions Market Segments, Drivers,Competitive Aspects, And Prospects For Future Growth And Forecast 2031 | Orbitvu, Ortery, PhotoRobot, Packshot Creator

Automated Product Photography Solutions Market Segments, Drivers,Competitive Aspects, And Prospects For Future Growth And Forecast 2031 | Orbitvu, Ortery, PhotoRobot, Packshot Creator

Automated Product Photography Solutions Market

The Latest research study released by WMR “Automated Product Photography Solutions Market with 150+ pages of analysis on business Strategy taken up by key and emerging industry players delivers know-how of the current market development, landscape, technologies, drivers, opportunities, market viewpoint, and status. Understanding the segments helps in identifying the importance of different factors that aid market growth.

The market study report offers comprehensive insights into the entire market landscape, offering strategies for business expansion aimed at boosting revenue. This report entails a systematic collection of vital market data regarding target customers, providing a thorough assessment of the potential success of your product or service before market launch. Market research reports play a crucial role in this process, conducting extensive analysis and delivering pertinent information to key stakeholders. This global report also covers detailed updates on COVID-19 and its major consequences on human health. It also allows checking whether the target market is a good fit for your enterprise as the growth of the enterprise completely relies on the target market.

Get a Sample Copy of this Market Report: https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/sample/859709

Key Players Includes:

✦ Orbitvu
✦ Ortery
✦ PhotoRobot
✦ Packshot Creator
✦ Iconasys
✦ Styleshoots
✦ RotoImage Technology
✦ Rotocular
✦ Picture Instruments
✦ MODE S.A.

By Types:

✦ Hardware
✦ Software & Services

By Application:

✦ 2D Photography
✦ 3D Photography

Market Geography:

The Automated Product Photography Solutions Market provides a diverse geographical landscape, with several areas exhibiting unique market characteristics. While some locations see rapid growth due to factors like economic expansion and technical advancements, other regions may experience slower but more consistent market expansion. Market trends vary greatly throughout regions due to factors including cultural influences, legal frameworks, and population developments. Businesses looking to go global must understand these regional differences and adjust their strategy to take advantage of local opportunities.

→ North America (U.S., Canada, China)

→ Europe (Germany, U.K., France, Italy, Russia, Spain, Rest of Europe)

→ Asia-Pacific (Japan, South Korea, China Taiwan, Southeast Asia, India)

→ Middle East, Africa, Latin America (Brazil, Mexico, Turkey, Israel, GCC Countries

Have Any Questions Regarding the Market Report, Ask Our Experts: https://www.worldwidemarketreports.com/quiry/859709

Competitive Analysis:

✔︎ Global Players Revenue Ranking
✔︎ Revenue by Company
✔︎ Global Players Sales Volume Ranking
✔︎ Sales Volume by Company Players
✔︎ Average Price by Company
✔︎ Manufacturing Base Distribution and Headquarters
✔︎ Product Offered
✔︎ Mergers & Acquisitions, Expansion

Major highlights from Table of Contents:

☛ It includes major manufacturers, emerging player’s growth story, and major business segments of keyword Market Opportunities & Growth Trend to 2031 market, years considered, and research objectives. Additionally, segmentation on the basis of the type of product, application, and technology.
☛ Opportunities & Growth Trend to 2031 Market Executive Summary: It gives a summary of overall studies, growth rate, available market, competitive landscape, market drivers, trends, and issues, and macroscopic indicators.
☛ Production by Region Automated Product Photography Solutions Market Profile of Manufacturers-players are studied on the basis of SWOT, their products, production, value, financials, and other vital factors.

Market Report Answers the Following Questions:

1. At what growth rate will the market be projected to grow during the forecast period of 2024 to 2031?
2. What will be the market value in the future?
3. What are the key opportunities of the market?
4. Who are the major players operating in the market?
5. How feasible is Market for long-term investment?
6. What are the market’s opportunities, risks, and general structure?
7. What does a business area’s assessment of agreements, income, and value implicate?

Reasons to Purchase Report:

• Evaluation of market share for regional and country-level segments.
• Market analysis of top industry players.
• Strategic recommendations for new entrants.
• All mentioned segments, and regional market forecasts for the next 10 years.
• Market Trends (Drivers, Difficulties, Opportunities, Threats, Challenges, Investment Opportunities and Recommendations)
• The report offers a detailed analysis of prime factors that impact the market growth such as key market players, current market developments, and pivotal trends
• The report includes an in-depth study of key determinants of the global market including drivers, challenges, restraints, and upcoming opportunities.
• The report helps existing manufacturers and entry-level companies devise strategies to battle challenges and leverage lucrative opportunities to gain a foothold in the global market.

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Worldwide Market Reports is your one-stop repository of detailed and in-depth research reports compiled by an extensive list of publishers from across the globe. We offer reports across virtually all domains and an exhaustive list of sub-domains under the sun. The in-depth analysis by some of the most vastly experienced analysts provides our diverse range of clients from across all industries with vital decision-making insights to plan and align their strategies in line with current trends

This release was published on openPR.

Education briefs: Logansport photographer earns master’s degree

Education briefs: Logansport photographer earns master’s degree

Logansport photographer earns master’s degree

Julie Marchese of Julie Mar-K-Z Photographer has earned the Master of Photography degree from Professional Photographers of America. The degree will be presented at the association’s convention, Imaging USA, in Dallas in February 2025.

“The Master of Photography degree is an achievement of the highest caliber,” A press release from PPA stated. “It means that Marchese has met the standards of excellence set by PPA. She has been awarded this degree in recognition of her superior photographic aptitude demonstrated through image excellence, advanced education and service to the profession.”

Marchese also holds her Certified Professional Photographers Certificate and Photographic Craftsman degree.

Ivy Tech teams with Conexus

Ivy Tech Community College and Conexus Indiana today announced the details of a new collaboration aimed at increasing the number of advanced manufacturing firms across the state that have integrated digital technologies such as the Internet of Things, cloud computing, artificial intelligence and machine learning in their operations and manufacturing processes. The partnership calls for the creation of new skills training courses that Ivy Tech will pilot for employers seeking to develop specialized talent that can drive digital adoption and technology change in advanced manufacturing.

A 2022 report from Conexus Indiana found that half of all advanced manufacturing firms in Indiana plan to adopt technologies that provide flexibility, improve quality, facilitate innovation and offer a collaborative mix between labor and automation – including cobots, sensor technology and the Internet of Things – by 2027. But finding local talent with the digital skills needed to support this transition presents a significant barrier: just 52% of Indiana firms have a dedicated Industry 4.0 team or leader in place, the same report found.

Ivy Tech and Conexus Indiana will also engage advanced manufacturing firms to inform curriculum development and market the pilot to current and prospective employees. Ivy Tech will conduct site visits and issue surveys to ensure pilot courses are aligned with employer needs. Courses anticipated for summer 2024 pilot include Supervisory Leadership for Industry 4.0, Programmable Logic Controls Applied Applications and Introduction to Artificial Intelligence.

Staff reports

Tearing Away at the Time Escaping: Lou Stoppard on Pairing Photographs with Annie Ernaux’s Exteriors

Tearing Away at the Time Escaping: Lou Stoppard on Pairing Photographs with Annie Ernaux’s Exteriors

When the French writer Annie Ernaux delivered her lecture upon receiving the 2022 Nobel Prize in Literature, the announcement cited the “the courage and clinical acuity with which she uncovers the roots, estrangements, and collective restraints of personal memory.” Almost a year earlier, the curator and writer Lou Stoppard had been noticing the Ernaux phenomenon take hold organically around her. “It seemed that every time I took the underground in London, where I live, I would see women in their twenties or thirties intently reading Simple Passion or The Years,” she writes in her essay accompanying Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography (Mack, 2024). They seemed to be vividly, intensely identifying with the autofictional qualities of Ernaux’s work.

Stoppard, meanwhile, found herself drawn instead to a relative anomaly of a title in Ernaux’s bibliography, Exteriors, a diary-like book of observations which represents a period from 1985 to 1992, in and around Cergy-Pontoise, where Ernaux had just moved. In Exteriors, Ernaux attempts to reveal as little intimate truth about herself as possible, instead aiming “to describe reality as through the eyes of a photographer and to perceive the mystery and opacity of the lives I encountered.” What might the act of comparing a book like that with photographs by others reveal about the way we approach literature, as opposed to photography, Stoppard wondered? Over the course of a residency at Maison Européenne de la Photographie (MEP) in Paris, while in conversations with Ernaux, Stoppard paired a long excerpt from Ernaux’s book of the same name with dozens of photographs, inviting and reinvigorating a new reading of Ernaux and the themes of her book.

As Stoppard observes at one point in our conversation below, “Photo people don’t really talk to literature people.” For those of us who occupy both worlds, this rings absolutely true, though Stoppard’s essays on photography (for Aperture, The New Yorker, The New York Times, and The Financial Times), offer a consistently fresh and engaging conduit between those realms. Stoppard previously edited the books Shirley Baker (Mack, 2019), a survey of the work of the street photographer and Pools (Rizzoli, 2020), an exploration of swimming in photography.

Her latest book from Mack shares a title with the exhibition “Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography,” on view at MEP through early June. In a recent phone conversation between New York and London, Stoppard and I spoke about photographic and fictional truth, the “pulsing strangeness” in the everyday worlds of Ernaux’s work, and meeting Annie Ernaux herself.

*

Rebecca Bengal: Before you landed on the idea of doing a project like this, before you were thinking about Ernaux’s work in terms of photography, what drew you to her writing?

Lou Stoppard: The way her books have been disseminated and talked about, is primarily centered on the way she plays with the idea of the self, of herself, the way she interrogates the self. But I read Exteriors and felt that it was nothing like that at all. It disrupted that narrative that I felt people were associating with her, this almost confessional style of writing. I thought no, this is something much more complicated.

Exteriors isn’t “about” her in the sense of this internal-looking heroine that people were describing, it’s someone who’s having this complex relationship with reality. I thought, hang on, there’s something more interesting going on here. What I also found fascinating about Exteriors is that there are many, many references to pictures of her parents, her memories, elements of pop culture, all rendered in very photographic ways. It was really this journal of observations.

Daido Moriyama, ‘Untitled, 1969, Gelatin silver print, MEP Collection, Paris, Gift of Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. in 1995,’ from Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography (MACK and MEP, 2024). Courtesy of Daido Moriyama Photo Foundation, Akio Nagasawa Gallery, MACK and MEP.

RB: “Someone should exhibit these texts as photographs,” you write. It’s such a compelling pairing that it seems obvious, yet no one had done it before.

LS: I’m always interested in writers who engage with photography in complex or unexpected ways. Ben Lerner and Sheila Heti are good examples of that. Photography in relationship to reality. Photography as element of classism, consumer culture. I was interested in the way Ernaux writes about being of the working class, and about her father’s awkwardness around photography.

I remember having the idea and typing it into Google. I was expecting someone to have done a book or a Tumblr or something. And there is some writing about Annie and photography, but it exists more prominently in academia. I was surprised to find some of the bigger profiles of her don’t mention photography. But, then again, photo people don’t really talk to literature people.

RB: In Exteriors, Ernaux has just uprooted and moved to the outskirts of Paris in the mid-1980s, a new area for her at the time. You get a sense of her activated, heightened seeing, the way a photographer might encounter a place or a new body of work. Even more so than in many of her other books, her “I” protagonist here really reads as a character of her own making. How did you see her protagonist? Did you see her as a bit of a photographer?

LS: I thought about this a lot. Though Exteriors is made of observations, it has an element of refinement and ordering. It’s different from a diary in that sense. At some points Ernaux is kind of anonymous; she could almost be anyone. Though she’s engaged with what she’s witnessing, the people she’s watching and writing about never really interact with her—she’s a bit of a ghost in that way. Perhaps that invisibility is part of her self-conception.

There are moments, though, where she inserts herself in the text. At Saint-Lazare Station, she eavesdrops on a couple, and the guy is talking very intensely about how he wants to be burned after he dies, instead of being cremated in an oven. And there’s such a strong interior line from Annie after, a moment where you see her reacting to what she’s heard. She writes: “I am visited by people and their lives—like a whore.”

That line comes back to a question that I think is one of the most clichéd in photography, and in writing: of trying to be an observer, finding a place where there’s no bias, where it’s all truth. She describes her intention almost in those terms. You see the truth of that in her reflecting: Why do I describe in detail that particular scene? She’s encountering and engaging with that, the self and how we see. I found that ebbing and flowing of her—as a character and a decision-maker and an observer—really fascinating. When I met her, we talked about that: how she wrote herself into that scene more than she expected she would.

I was surprised to find some of the bigger profiles of Ernaux don’t mention photography. But, then again, photo people don’t really talk to literature people.
Mohamed Bourouissa, ‘L’impasse (The impasse), 2007, from the series ‘Périphérique’, 2007, C-type print, MEP Collection, Paris, Acquired in 2008 thanks to the support of the Neuflize Vie Fondation,’ from Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography (MACK and MEP, 2024). Courtesy of the artist, Mennour Paris, MACK and MEP.

RB: You write, at one point in your essay: “Perhaps Ernaux is not only photographer and subject but camera too.” With photography, as you said just a moment ago, there’s this presumption of the “truth” of the camera, which is also an expectation that a writer like Ernaux, who uses the first-person deliberately, comes up against. In her case, the presumption that the first-person is “true” and not fictive.

LS: Annie uses the word inaccessible. Meaning she aimed to write that scene so that nothing would help you enter it—there would be no moralizing, no justification from her. But I said to her, through the act of writing about it, in choosing what you focus on and describe, you do put your judgments on it. She replied, In a way perhaps I failed my project. But for me that felt even more photographic. In writing it becomes evident, how you see something, how you presume, what you notice.

RB: When I was reading Exteriors, I thought of a review you wrote a few years ago of The Shabbiness of Beauty (Mack, 2021), a book in which the artist and writer Moyra Davey responds through her work to the archives of the photographer Peter Hujar. You discussed what Davey says about observation and Janet Malcolm, who wrote so extraordinarily about so many things, including photography:

“Malcolm’s perceptions thrill because they signal ‘truth’ in the way that strange, eccentric details nearly always do.”

“Strange, eccentric details” help conjure a sense of honesty, of the oppressive mask of polite life slipping away, and of a conspiratorial association between the viewer, whoever is revealing something in the photo, and whoever saw fit to capture it, to celebrate it.

I’m curious, how did “strange, eccentric details” inform your photographic choices with Exteriors?

LS: I think that it’s that sense of simultaneous banality… how banal things become strange and eccentric in public spaces. For Annie, a supermarket has as much meaning and human truth as anywhere else. We’re used to seeing people in really difficult circumstances and turning a blind eye. Annie describes these things as a kind of violence in the everyday:

I believe that desire, frustration and social and cultural inequality are reflected in the way we examine the contents of our shopping trolley or in the words we use to order a cut of beef or to pay tribute to a painting…that the violence and shame inherent in society can be found in the contempt a customer shows for a cashier or in the vagrant begging for money who is shunned by his peers – in anything that appears to be unimportant and meaningless simply because it is familiar or ordinary…. It is other people —anonymous figures, glimpsed in the Metro or in waiting rooms—who revive our memory and reveal our true selves through the interest, the anger or the shame that they send rippling through us.

I wanted to find pictures that captured that balance between the banal and the extreme, where there’s a real pulsing strangeness the way there is in everyday life. Talking to Annie absolutely confirmed this book didn’t need to be illustrative, and I also set out to find pictures across photographers from all ages, nationalities, and locations, including not necessarily the locations of the pictures.

Janine Niepce, H.L.M. à Vitry. Une mère et son enfant (Council estate in Vitry. A mother and her child), 1965, Gelatin silver prints. MEP Collection, Paris, Acquired in 1983,’ from Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography (MACK and MEP, 2024). Courtesy of the artist, MACK and MEP.

RB: How did you achieve that balance? Do you want to talk about any particular passages and photo pairings?

LS: I had insisted on keeping Annie’s text in the same order it appears in the book, but at one point there was a member of MEP who was really keen to reorder Annie’s text, to tie it more directly to the images. I told them that would be literally turning them into captions and illustrations, and also why? I do like to think of myself as a nice person to collaborate with, but my reaction to that suggestion was so strong it helped solidify to me how integral it was that the images and text weren’t relating in a sense of obvious content. It had to be certain shared themes or ideas. Often, it’s about how normal shocking things are in our lives.

For instance, there’s a passage where she writes about walking into an underground car park where the “rumble” of the exhaust fans is so loud, that if she were attacked down there, no one would hear it. The left-facing photograph, which is by Henry Wessel, shows two boys playing in a front yard, as seen through the open window of a car. One boy has pushed the other to the ground, and from a passing car, it’s hard to tell if it’s just play. You sense violence, or the possibility of that: When kids play, it’s almost like dogs, there can be a very fine line between innocence and violence, and it can just jump instantly between the two.

Dolorès Marat, ‘Neige à Paris (Snow in Paris),1997, Fresson four-colour pigment print, MEP Collection, Paris, Acquired in 2001,’ from Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography (MACK and MEP, 2024). Courtesy of the artist, MACK and MEP.

RB: There are plenty of photographs in Paris and France, where her book is set, but there’s quite a bit elsewhere too: Japan, St. Petersburg, the UK. You have work by Henry Wessel. William Klein, Moriyama, Garry Winogrand, Luigi Ghirri. The material of the pictures hops around between supermarkets, streets, television screens.

When we first met, Annie described to me what she wants to do as a writer, with time: that time is escaping, and she wants to tear away at that escaping.

LS: I like the way you say “hopping around.” I had this image in my head that the photographs could have been Annie’s scenes, that you could slot them right together but also that they could have be what she’d have seen in a parallel time, they could represent her in another possible moment. There’s an idea Annie has about herself in her work about being multiple Annies: She sees women in the supermarket and imagines they’re future and past versions of herself, like Russian dolls, where you could pull them apart and put them back together. They’re multiple Annies exploding across time: exploding things and being exploded. And I worked on the book while I was pregnant and while I was starting to raise my child, which felt like an Annie-ish moment in my own life.

Epreuve aux sels d’argent
” data-medium-file=”https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-300×201.jpg” data-large-file=”https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-1240×830.jpg” class=”wp-image-237176 size-large” src=”https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-1240×830.jpg” alt width=”1240″ height=”830″ srcset=”https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-1240×830.jpg 1240w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-300×201.jpg 300w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-768×514.jpg 768w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-60×40.jpg 60w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-1536×1028.jpg 1536w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14-50×33.jpg 50w, https://s26162.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/14.jpg 1575w” sizes=”(max-width: 1240px) 100vw, 1240px”> Bernard Pierre Wolff, ’Shinjuku, Tokyo, 1981, Gelatin silver print, MEP Collection, Paris. Bequest from the artist in 1985,’ from Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography (MACK and MEP, 2024). Courtesy of the artist, MACK and MEP.

RB: The book is also an exhibition. How did you approach the curation of that, versus the book?

LS: Annie is someone who people connect with intensely, but after she won the Nobel, I knew the project would be even more visible. That familiarity that exists when people engage with Annie’s writing, this sensation of having yourself being reflected back at you from the page, I thought about how to elicit that in the exhibition. It needed to feel instinctive. It needed to have that sense of recognizability, the simplicity that is so wondrous in Annie’s writing.

In the same way she’s said she wants her work to be “flat writing” and “a cut below literature,” I felt like this needed to be a cut below an exhibition. I didn’t want it to feel as if you were being schooled. I wanted almost no text on the walls (we settled on captions that you can choose to read with a QR code). I wanted people to see and feel the exhibit as if their experience of it would be the most valid thing. The most important person in the exhibition is not me, I was keenly aware, but the person experiencing it.

RB: In encountering someone in real life who’s written so much about herself, what surprised you most about meeting Ernaux?

LS: I met her really early on in the project. I remember getting her email: “Your project sounds interesting.” It was really intimidating. I went to her home, I took a train and then a bus, and I went to the Cergy-Pontoise neighborhood where Exteriors is set. I felt I was entering the book, walking in her footsteps. Annie is so unsentimental in her writing, that I was caught off guard by how warm she is, how she’s got a real conspiratorial demeanor about her. It was refreshing to see someone of that position to be so open, to be so willing to give up control when it came to this project. But Annie’s never been particularly enamored of literature in the first place.

We fell into this thing where we write to each other pretty frequently now. Speaking to her about navigating pregnancy, about the total annihilation of the self that happens with a child, was really clarifying.

RB: At the outset of the project, you posed for yourself the question of discovering what curating a speculative show tied to Ernaux’s work would reveal about how we approach literature. What connections did emerge for you?

LS: What surprised me was how concretely her texts became images to me. That happened very, very quickly. I still struggle to understand why. Other writers make descriptive scenes. But I’ve never felt this so intensely with anything else, maybe because I was spending so much time with her work — though Barthes’ Incidents comes close. His observations are so similar to hers; there’s a funny synergy.

When we first met, Annie described to me what she wants to do as a writer, with time: that time is escaping, and she wants to tear away at that escaping. To me, this recalls that Susan Sontag line about photographs being like “casual fragments”: this idea of wanting to rip out reality and hold it, and have this physical thing, that physicality, these torn-off moments in reality.

Clarisse Hahn, ‘Ombre (Shadow), 2021, C-type print,’ from Exteriors: Annie Ernaux and Photography (MACK and MEP, 2024). Courtesy of the artist, Galerie Jousse Entreprise, Paris, MACK and MEP.

RB: “Tearing away at the time escaping” is a stunning and perfect phrase. It makes me think again, of the presence of the writer, or of the photographer: Why did the hand tear that particular bit away, and does the presence of the hand make it any less real?

LS: It’s always a question of interpretation, and these are always the questions we’ll turn back to. And still: You know, I’ve spent so much time thinking that it’s a cliché that we can take photography as truth. But hearing Annie describe this, the attempt at capturing the sensation of reality, it undid some of my cynicism. It ignited something for me in photography again.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

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2024 Release for Canon EOS R1 Flagship Camera

2024 Release for Canon EOS R1 Flagship Camera

Canon have confirmed today that the long-rumoured EOS R1 flagship full-frame mirrorless camera is currently in development and will be launched in 2024.

Aimed predominantly at sports and news photographers and videographers, Canon claim that the EOS R1 will deliver much better stills and video performance than the EOS R3 model thanks to a new CMOS sensor and the implementation of dual processors.

For the very first time, the Canon R1 will feature the brand new DIGIC Accelerator image processor alongside the pre-existing DIGIC X processor.

This will enable the camera to quickly process large volumes of data whilst providing brand new Auto Focus functions, including the “Action Priority” AF mode which can detect when a sports player is performing a specific action and automatically focus on them.

Currently being tested out in the field, the EOS R1 will also be present at international sporting events throughout this year.

Canon UK Press Release

Canon develops EOS R1 as first flagship model for EOS R SYSTEM

New image processing system further improves AF and image quality

London, UK, 15 May 2024 – Canon Inc. announces today that it is currently developing the EOS R1, a full-frame mirrorless camera, as the first flagship model for the EOS R SYSTEM equipped with RF mount, launching in 2024.

The EOS R1 is a mirrorless camera geared toward professionals that brings together Canon’s cutting-edge technology and combines top-class performance with the strong durability and high reliability sought in a flagship model. This camera will dramatically improve the performance of both still images and video (in comparison to the EOS R3) and meet the high requirements of professionals on the frontlines of a wide range of fields including sports, news reporting, and video production.

This camera employs the newly developed image processor DIGIC Accelerator in addition to the pre-existing processor DIGIC X. The new image processing system, composed of these processors and a new CMOS sensor, enables a large volume of data to be processed at high speeds and delivers never-before-seen advancements in Auto Focus (AF) and other functions.

By combining the new image processing system and deep learning technology to an advanced degree, Canon has achieved high-speed and high-accuracy subject recognition. For example, subject tracking accuracy has been improved so that in team sporting events where multiple subjects intersect, the target subject can continually be tracked even if another player passes directly in front of them. In addition, the AF “Action Priority” function recognises subject movement by rapidly analysing the subject’s status. In moments during a sports game when it is difficult to predict what will happen next, this function automatically determines the player performing a certain action, such as shooting a ball, as the main subject and instantly shifts the AF frame, thereby helping to capture decisive moments of gameplay.

The combination of the new image processing system and deep learning technology will help to improve image quality. Canon implements the image noise reduction function, which has been previously developed and improved as part of the software for PCs, as a camera function to further improve image quality and contribute to user creativity.

Canon is working on field tests for this camera and will support capturing definitive and impactful moments at international sporting events to be held in the future.

Going forward, Canon will continue to expand the EOS R SYSTEM lineup of cameras and RF lenses, thereby continuing to meet the demands of a wide range of users and contribute to the development of photography and video culture.

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McKinneys put photography on display at library

McKinneys put photography on display at library
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Campbellsville photographers Stan and Joan Cottongim McKinney have a photography exhibit on display this month at the Taylor County Public Library in Campbellsville.

The library has a rotating artistic exhibit each month that is open to the public at no charge.

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A Photographer’s Visual Diary Explores Sorrow, Trauma, Identity

A Photographer’s Visual Diary Explores Sorrow, Trauma, Identity

Oliver Raschka studied and holds a doctorate in the field of behavioral economics. This helps him to capture the dynamics and specifics of social relationships

in his photography. For many years, the photographic autodidact has been dealing with the subject of family and the search for his own identity in documentary format. He lives with his family in Stuttgart (Germany). His second book Tween was published in 2023 via BUMMBUMM Books.

Tell me about this project and your process of curating this “archive work”. As you’re going through your archive, what are you looking for? What questions do you ask yourself during this process?

    “In Sorrow Is All The Pain Of Love, I keep a kind of photographic diary exploring the unintentional and unconscious documentation of states of mind and how personal traumas of drastic family events, serious illnesses, and profound burnout manifest visually. The work itself deals with the personal sorrow of loss and pain in the search for identity.

    “All photographs are from the archive (2010-2024). By using photographs that I took unintentionally and unconsciously, I gain authentic and deep access to what really concerns me.

    “My family history is characterized by love but also by the loss of my mother, drastic family upheavals, addiction issues, and communication disorders. The essay reveals how negative and depressive feelings can transform into photographs in order to process these feelings.

    “For me, creating the archival project supports healing and strengthens mindfulness in a way of curiosity and self-confidence in the presence of severe events. Catharsis leads to self-acceptance, the unconditional acceptance of one’s own person with all their strengths and weaknesses and the endeavor to draw strength from difficult life circumstances.

    “This is the project in a nutshell. But I hadn’t planned the work at all. Rather, it found me. Maybe over 25 years ago, when I took my first serious photograph. However, the timing, so that a project is now emerging and we can talk about it, is a coincidence. 

    “When I was completely confined to my home for several months in 2023/2024 due to the rupture of my Achilles tendon, I started to reorganize my photographic archive.  Working on my laptop was one of the few things I could do while sitting or lying down.   

    “As I coped with this recent trauma and had to learn to walk again, I was particularly struck by photographs that I could never match to a specific project, but with which I associated strong feelings and memories of drastic and personal events.

    “I went into resonance with the individual photographs and also searched through the original memory cards and negatives for further images. 

    “The years from 2010 to 2024 were a very intense time for me. The birth of my sons was followed by the unexpected death of my mother. Followed by brain haemorrhages, I was also accompanied by burnout. After that, I had to deal with the pandemic and isolation. In recent years, life has taken on new meanings in rapid succession.

    “While working on this project, I came across existential questions about life by means of the photographs: Why do I take (unintentionally) particular photographs in moments of personal upheaval or extreme situations? What do the photographs want to reveal? How can I learn from visual disclosure and gain positive energy for difficult life situations that I want to face with ease and self-confidence?”

    Can you share something you discovered about yourself when going through your archive in this way?

      “Working with the archive confirmed what I had been feeling for some time, the fact that sorrow is “my theme”. Including all aspects of worry, grief, sadness and loss. Today I can see from the photographs what sorrow can look or feel like to me visually, what different facets and feelings it has.

      “Over the years I have repeatedly taken spontaneous and unpretentious self-portraits. What I’ve noticed while working on Sorrow Is All The Pain Of Love is that in the early years, I took self-portraits that were like silhouettes; today, they are direct facial images. Behind this is a process of self-acceptance, of accepting oneself with all one’s strengths and weaknesses without reservation and of understanding that the whole of life is a journey.”

      In your excellent interview with Too Tired Project, you say about this work, “I’m trying to find a deeper approach to mindful photography with this work in order to develop myself personally.” Can you expand on what you mean by “a deeper approach to mindful photography”? How is this project helping?” 

        “In general, I find the question of what photography can contribute to the individual and how it can support a mindful life and mental health exciting.  

        “I have discovered that by using photographs that I took unintentionally and unconsciously, I gain authentic and deep access to what really concerns me. If I understand what is really going on with me, I can take action so that I can deal with it and move forward. The photographs help me to visualize what touches and drives me. Beyond all rationality and attempts at suppression.

        “The photographs reveal fundamental questions of social relationships of any kind: What do I have to burden myself with? What things from my family history do I want to face? Which problems have to do with me or are the problems of others? How can I use my deepest fears in a positive way for myself? How do I gain strength instead of falling into fear and rigidity?

        “Sorrow Is All The Pain Of Love gives me the opportunity to initiate a constructive course of action and advances mental health through photography. The work supports the process of healing and strengthening mindfulness in a way of curiosity and self-confidence in the presence of past traumas and severe family events. For me, this a new and exciting approach to a kind of mindful photography. The aim is to derive constructive new courses of action from this awareness-raising process. The further development of the personality opens up a new level of relationship with loved ones and strengthens empathy, but communication with strangers also becomes more intense and personal. This releases a whole new strength of liberated life and deeper inner feelings.”

        You’re concentrating on images from 2010-2024. Are you only revisiting times that were particularly difficult for you on a personal level? If not, how do you recall what you were going through when you took X image during the Summer of 2012?

          “As this archive work takes a lot of time, I have started by limiting myself to the last 14 years. But the work is ongoing. So, I will review my whole archive, but at the same time I want the series to be coherent.

          “I think that events in particular, such as a serious accident or death, remain in our consciousness forever. At the same time, the themes that resonate with them, such as the emotional and physical consequences or the relationship with a person, are prevalent throughout a long period of life. Looking at the archive inevitably brings these emotions back to mind and the memory of the personal situation at that time is there. Sometimes it is the little things in the photographs that point directly to this.”

          You mention photographs of trees, landscapes, and self-portraits as the images that you used to help overcome trauma. Any thoughts as to why these three?

            “No, not really. 

            “When I feel unwell or to gain clarity about my thoughts and feelings, I primarily look at nature for reflection and trees as a resonance board for growth and development. Since these photographs are taken spontaneously and without a plan based on the specific emotional state at that time, I only came across this behavioral pattern when I was looking through and processing the archive.

            “In principle, trees and nature in general are a kind of life companions. I find the abstract idea that trees are contemporary witnesses to the events around them over decades, even centuries, and are therefore also contemporary witnesses to my own life and that this information is stored in them here on site, so to speak, fascinating. Perhaps I hope that the trees will give me feedback on my current situation or simply give me shelter and trust, as they are always there. The same applies to the portraits. Here, too, I try to use photography to confirm that I am “there” and that I really exist. A kind of proof. But that’s very philosophical now.”

            Aside from photography, what other modalities do you use in your process of self-discovery/understanding?

              “As a behavioral economist, my professional interest also lies in analyzing and reflecting on human behavior. This helps me to capture the dynamics and characteristics of social relationships and psychological states in my photography. However, when viewed in its entirety, photography is only one component. The triad of photography, music and literature is my source from which I gain strength and inspiration.

              “At the same time, I am committed to personal development and continue my education in seminars and workshops. At the same time, the daily exchange with my wife, who is very active in the field of coaching, is central for me.”

              What advice do you have for someone going through a rough patch that may not have an extensive archive to pull from? What tips do you have for photographers who are ready to walk out of their door now and photograph?

                “Working with the archive is actually the phase of processing and further development. In that respect it doesn’t matter.

                “If someone is currently in a difficult life situation, that person should make sure that taking photographs or feeling of having to capture something does not create more pressure or stress during this difficult phase. This can be very counterproductive.  

                “During the pandemic, long walks, which I did every day as a routine, helped me a lot. I always took photographs without any ulterior motives or concepts as to what the photograph might be good for. But I often didn’t take any photographs at all. I’ve also only been taking photographs with a small camera with a fixed focal length for years. This helps me to focus and get rid of any unnecessary ballast. It also strengthens your own visual language. You can then see which theme or concept you have based on the resulting images and not the other way round. Listen to the photographs!  

                “It doesn’t help to look at what’s currently trending on social media. Strong works are characterized by their own approach an imagery. It’s important to look at yourself. 

                “It’s the immediate and daily environment that shapes a person. This means that everyone has a very personal story that makes it unique to be told. Therefore, every photographic work basically offers a new story for everyone. The work thus allows others to reflect on their own life experiences and engage with themselves. This creates a new web of connections between us as humans. This opens up the opportunity to exchange ideas with one another, as we are doing here with the interview.

                “The key is to identify what the specific personal theme could be, what makes it interesting to document it visually, what the person knows best about and can therefore portray it authentically. It can take a long time to identify the real underlying issue. My work has always been long-term projects spanning several years. But it is worth it. For yourself, because you grow from it, and for all viewers, because a new network is created.”

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