Photography: Real & Imagined (13 October 2023 – 4 Feb 2024) is the largest survey of the NGV’s Photography collection in the institution’s history and features more than 270 photographs from the past 125 years to present day.

The exhibition will present some of the most iconic photographs ever captured, alongside recent acquisitions that have not been presented before, with work by leading Australian and international photographers including Man Ray, Cindy Sherman, Wolfgang Tillmans, Gilbert & George and Nan Goldin, and Australian photographers Max Dupain, Olive Cotton, Mervyn Bishop, Polly Borland and Darren Sylvester.

The NGV photography collection holds more than 14,000 works and is the second largest collection area in the NGV, accounting for 16% of the entire collection. Four years in the making, this landmark exhibition interrogates the proposition that a photograph can be grounded in the real world, recording, documenting and reflecting the world around us; or be the product of imagination, storytelling and illusion; and on occasion they can be both.

You can read more about the upcoming exhibition on the NGV website.

Photography is a medium, an essential tool for telling and exposing social injustices in the world and for documenting the positive actions taken to combat it: yet images cannot always change our world, they can certainly raise awareness of these issues. The Festival della Fotografia Etica / Ethical Photography Festival, now in its 14th edition, offers testimonies of commitment in 700 images, collected in 20 exhibitions distributed throughout Lodi, with works by nearly a hundred photographers from 40 countries. All the characteristic elements of a photography festival are present, from thematic meetings to portfolio readings, author talks and workshops.

The exhibition program featuring images by international photojournalists is central to the event, starting with the World Report Award, held in Palazzo Barni, with its five sections. Evgeniy Maloletka won the category Master with his reportage The Siege of Mariupol, which tells of the devastation of the Ukrainian city by the Russians. The Spotlight category was won by Bob Miller for the reportage The Last Generation: Zoey’s Dream and Alessandro Cinque is the winner of the Short Story category with Alpaqueros which explores the climate crises and its impact on alpaca farmers in Peru. Gerd Waliszewski won the category Student with Between the Sirens, which depicts the harsh reality of war-invaded Ukraine, where young people try to live their daily lives which are regularly interrupted by alarm sirens; Mohammad Rakibul Hasan won the section Single Shot with the image The Blue Fig, a reflection on global warming. Lodi also hosts the international exhibition of the World Press Photo 2023, with 150 images signed off by major international publications.

The In-depth Analysis Area is dedicated to the project of the non-profit organization Vital Impacts founded by the photographer Ami Vitale, a National Geographic photographer, and journalist Eileen Mignoni. It is staged partly outdoors, in the city’s public gardens, showing some fifty images by environmental photographers who have been recognized in the Vital Impact Grant and Mentoring Program, and partly indoors, in the former Dell’Angelo church. These images are part of a collection that will be offered in the Vital Impact Print Sale from October 2023 to January 2024: proceeds will support the Reteti Elephant Sanctuary in Kenya, the first indigenously owned and managed elephant sanctuary in Africa.

The section A Glance on the World is on at Palazzo della Provincia: created in collaboration with the Agence France-Press, it deals with the climate crisis. Droughts, fires, floods, rising sea levels and melting glaciers: AFP photographers documented the effects and consequences that threaten both wildlife and people.

Since its first edition, the Festival della Fotografia Etica has paid special attention to the use of photography by organizations dealing with socially sensitive issues. The Nonprofit area in the cloister of the former Gorini hospital features four projects: Filippo Venturi for the PSCORE organization with Awakenings, a project that tells the story of the many North Koreans who try to flee the country in search of a better life; the Spaniard Maria Clauss for the NGO Medicos del Mundo with Where Oblivion May Not Dwell, about the victims of the reprisals of the Spanish Civil War; Davide Torbidi for the Camera del Lavoro of Lodi with the project I Will Never Forget What I Witnessed, on the issue of deaths at work in Italy; the project Savour Beauty of the Social Cooperative ONLUS Nuova Assistenza, that transformed some of the most famous works of art into photographs thanks to the operators-photographers and patients who decided to get involved in this collaboration.

Then Elegy from the Po River Valley by the reportagist Gabriele Cecconi, with experience in environmental issues, tells the territory in which he lives. He made a photographic exploration, significant for both the anthropological characteristics of the area and for the water crisis that in 2022 hit northern Italy, with dramatic consequences on the economic and social realities of the area.

In The Lives of Others Area, visitors can delve into the anthropological and cultural variety of peoples, to be discovered and preserved because therein lies the word “humanity” as a universal value. Laura Morton, a freelance documentary photographer based in California, in Wild West Tech, focuses on San Francisco, from the original gold rush to today, when the technology industry has created a modern-day gold rush in the city and Silicon Valley in recent years. Paul Ratje tells about the provinces of Sichuan and Qinghai, in China, where he spent time focusing on modern life on and off the Tibetan plateau, where the younger generations, though bound to the customs of the past, are in search of a modern way of life. Toby Binber has spent many years on the streets of Belfast together with young people who want to break out of the old patterns and live a life as it happens in other parts of Europe today. But they still live in a place where violence and lack of perspectives are pervasive. Lastly, Lukas Kreibig documents climate change in Greenland and its impact on Inuit culture.

Parallel to the Festival FFE – OFF takes place too. It’s a circuit of photographic exhibitions, hosted in shops, bars, galleries and public spaces of the city.

Paola Sammartano

Festival della Fotografia Etica / Festival of Ethical PhotographyDate
26900 Lodi – LO
Italy
www.festivaldellafotografiaetica.it
https://www.festivaldellafotografiaetica.it/mostre-2023-eng/

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photo by Mansa K. Mussa

(SUMMIT, NJ) — Vivid Stage, in residence at Oakes Center at 120 Morris Avenue in Summit presents the work of artist Mansa K. Mussa on display in the Oakes Center lobby through the end of November. The artwork of Mansa K. Mussa is presented in collaboration with the Montclair Art Museum’s Yard School of Art, where Mussa is an instructor.

Mansa K. Mussa is a visual artist, arts educator, curator, and arts consultant.  A native of Newark, New Jersey, he has used the camera to document “the unfolding of human events” in the United States, the Caribbean, Africa, Central America, and Europe for the past forty-six years. During his career in the arts, he has worked professionally as a photographer, dancer, graphic artist, writer, fabric artist, and iPadologist.  He earned a BA in Media Arts/Television Production from New Jersey City University, and studied visual art there with Professor Emeritus Ben Jones.

Mussa is best known as a documentary photographer, collagist, and mixed media artist. His photographs and collages have been featured in numerous solo and group exhibits, both nationally and internationally. They have also been published in several books, including the landmark Reflections in Black: A History of Black Photographers, 1840 to the Present.

He is currently an instructor of photography and visual arts at the Visual Arts Center of New Jersey, the Montclair Art Museum, Arts for Kids, and Arts Horizons.

The instructors at the Yard School of Art are New Jersey-based professional artists who have exhibited their work across the country.  Vivid Stage is proud to showcase the work of local artists and to highlight the talent and vibrancy of the New Jersey arts community. The Yard School of Art is part of MAM’s Vance Wall Art Education Center, offering classes, camps, and workshops for kids, teens, and adults. To learn more about their educational offerings, click here.

The art exhibit coincides with the world premiere of Grief at High Tide by Richard Willett, which runs from October 5 through 15. In the play, when struggling New York photographer Jennifer Evers tells her husband Christopher that the photo she took of him by his mother’s deathbed—the one he never gave her permission to take and asked her not to show anyone—was secretly entered in a very prestigious competition, it doesn’t go well. To try to investigate the role that art plays in real-life relationships, Jennifer goes out on assignment to California, to create a piece on a Pulitzer Prize−winning photograph, Grief at High Tide, which changed the lives of everyone involved.

Grief at High Tide will appear at Vivid Stage at 120 Morris Avenue in Summit from October 5 through 15. Performances are Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights at 8:00pm, and Sundays at 2:00pm. A talkback will follow the October 15 matinée performance. Before the October 15 matinée, guests Andrea Stein, author, and Lisa Brown, artist, will speak on the topic: “Truth Be Told: Whose Story Is It?,” which will investigate who has the right to tell private stories, and whether they can harm, heal, or both.

Tickets range from $25 to $42, with special rates for subscribers and groups. Tickets are available for purchase online. Season passes, which offer patrons a 20% discount, are available through October 15. For more information, call 908-514-9654. The theatre at Oakes Center is wheelchair accessible. Assisted listening devices are available at all performances. The parking lot is accessible from Ashwood Avenue, behind the theatre

Vivid Stage was founded in 1994 as Dreamcatcher Rep, and is a non-profit professional ensemble of actors who build community with the audience by sharing contemporary, life-affirming stories that challenge, energize and entertain. Their work has at its heart a belief in the essential goodness of people and the power of live performance to connect people through our shared humanity. They expose theatregoers to ideas and lives like and unlike their own with the intention of awakening their imaginations and creating empathy for others. They deepen the experience of all their patrons with personal contact through receptions, talkbacks, and interactive programs. The company’s activities include mainstage productions, improvisational comedy and cabarets, new play readings and a variety of educational and senior outreach programs.

Vivid Stage, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) corporation, incorporated under the laws of the State of New Jersey.

Vivid Stage’s programs are funded by the New Jersey State Council on the Arts/Department of State, a Partner Agency of the National Endowment for the Arts, the Union County Department of Cultural and Heritage Affairs, and many other corporations, foundations and individuals.  Vivid Stage is an Equity Producing member of the New Jersey Theatre Alliance.

Celebrating 100 years since his birth in December 1923,  Saul Leiter: The Centennial Retrospective is a powerful tribute to a legendary New York photographer who pioneered the art of modern street photography.

Ironically though, in Leiter’s time, there was no such term as “street photography”. Leiter simply took photographs of subjects that were close to him, most of this happening in the three blocks around where he resided in Manhattan’s East Village. There are parallels to the street photography that floods your social media today, but Leiter captured his 70 years ago, at a different time – using color when his contemporaries were still using black and white for this kind of photography. 

The book shows us the extent of the change as well as his influence on modern photography. This definitive monograph includes essays alongside evocative color photographs, intimate portraits, and abstract watercolors – including previously unseen work. 

• Visit our guide to the best cameras for street photography

Michael Parillo and Margit Erb of the Saul Leiter Foundation wanted to put together a body of work to celebrate what would have been Saul Leiter’s 100th birthday. They knew this substantial milestone needed to be both a celebration and a deep dive into his work, and decided to look at everything Leiter had created. Much to their surprise, in their research they came across hundreds of boxes of photographs and thousands of paintings, many of which had never been shared. So, as well as old favourites, there are also new unpublished gems that help to give an insight into Leiter’s life and the way he worked. 

The book is made up of five distinct sections, Beginings, On the Street, Fashion, Painting, and Intimate Views. Much like the way in which Leiter worked they are not in any chronological order. I think my jaw was open throughout the entirety of the book, as each section showcased a different side of Saul Leiter. This was most pertinent for me in the section On the Street. 

I have adored and studied Saul Leiter’s work for many years, and have used his work to extract street photography tips and techniques for my own photography. This book, however, made me see it in a whole new light. Leiter was just taking in the world around him and capturing what he was drawn to, or what was drawn to him. Leiter didn’t travel far when photographing, he didn’t have to. Instead, he stuck to the neighborhood where he lived and that he knew like the back of his hand. “He was profoundly attuned to the rhythm of the streets”, as Michael Greenberg said in his included essay Close to Home: The Key to Saul Leiter’s Genius. 

This is evident in the work. His work is a masterclass in both color theory and composition, often using a frame within a frame as a technique. This is highly effective as it frames the intended focal point and all but screams look here! 

The other noticeable feeling you get from his images is that Leiter was very much an observer. The images in this book could not be created by rushing around and quickly firing, which seems to be the approach for most modern-day street photography. You really have the sense that he was present in the images, taking in all that was in the frame and really seeing.  

Saul Leiter is renowned the world over for his color street photography, but what is less known about Leiter is that before he picked up a camera he was a painter. He painted every day from the age of fifteen until to two weeks before his passing in 2013. His painting archive, much to the surprise of the Saul Leiter Foundation when putting the book together, was comprised of around 4,200 abstract and representational paintings. Most never have been published before, until now. These paintings show another side of Leiter which tells us more about the person he was. 

Saul Leiter: The Centennial Retrospective was a phenomenal read and one I will return to time and time again. It provides a history lesson about one of the greats as well as inspiration through his work and his approach to making art. Only a quick scroll through Instagram will show that Leiter’s legacy and inspiration are undeniable, if not all are aware of the influence. Common shots such as the empty cafe window seat, the head framed in a car window, and street-lit raindrops, were all pioneered by Leiter – 70 years ago! 

Saul Leiter: The Centennial Retrospective is published by Thames & Hudson and is scheduled for release on October 26, 2023.

If Saul Leiter has inspired you to take to the streets, you can find articles and guides for the best street photography cameras and lenses, street photography tips, and how to get started in street photography.

Attention photography enthusiasts! Fujifilm is back at it, and this time, they’ve got something seriously cool up their sleeves. Say hello to the Instax Pal, a camera that’s shaking up the Instax game like never before. It’s not your run-of-the-mill point-and-shoot – it’s the first all-digital camera in the Instax family, and it’s here to make capturing spontaneous moments a breeze.

Designer: Fujifilm

Fujifilm’s Instax series celebrates its 25th anniversary this year, and the introduction of the Instax Pal couldn’t be more timely. What sets the Instax Pal apart from its predecessors is its compact size and unique functionality. Unlike previous Instax models, the Instax Pal doesn’t include an integrated printer. Instead, it relies on a seamless connection with a Fujifilm Link printer, such as the Mini Link, Square Link, or Link Wide. This means you have the flexibility to choose between mini, square, or wide formats for your prints.

The Instax Pal comes loaded with an array of features that redefine instant photography. One standout feature is the remote shooting capability, allowing you to control the camera using your smartphone. This feature empowers you to take group photos, and selfies, and capture moments from unique angles effortlessly. Additionally, the interval shooting function lets you create captivating narratives by capturing a series of images at different time intervals. You can even personalize the camera’s pre-shutter sound to add your own touch to every shot.

To enhance your vintage-inspired photos, the Instax Pal Smartphone App comes to the rescue. The app offers a variety of filters, text overlays, and stickers to add creativity and personalization to your prints. Whether you want to create a nostalgic look or add a touch of whimsy, the possibilities are endless.

One of the most exciting features of the Instax Pal is the Instax Animation feature. This innovative function transforms your photos into animations, reminiscent of traditional flipbooks. What’s more, you can even “print” these animations, and each resulting film includes a QR code. Scanning this code with your smartphone allows you to play the animation, breathing life into your cherished moments.

The Instax Pal boasts internal storage capable of holding up to 50 images. For those who need more space, you can easily expand storage by using a Micro SD card. Fujifilm is set to offer the Instax Pal as part of a bundle, which includes the Instax Mini Link 2 printer and a 10-pack of film, all for a price of US$199.95. While the individual price of the camera is yet to be disclosed, it’s expected to be an attractive option for photography enthusiasts.

Fujifilm’s Instax Pal is a testament to the brand’s commitment to preserving the charm of instant photography while embracing the convenience of the digital age. With its compact design and innovative features, the Instax Pal promises to redefine the way we capture and share spontaneous moments. Set to launch in late October, this tiny marvel is poised to become a must-have for those who crave the nostalgia of instant prints with a contemporary twist. Keep an eye out for the Instax Pal and be prepared to embark on a new era of instant photography.

Photography is an art that allows us to freeze moments in time and capture the beauty of the world around us through the form of photographs. Among the many tools a photographer can utilize to create their art, a telephoto lens stands out as a distinctive and excellent choice for those seeking to easily capture attractive and compelling images. In this article, we will discuss the advantages that telephoto lenses offer and also how they can help you get attractive images easily.

Unique Perspective Beyond the Human Eye’s Capability

Firstly, an obvious function that a telephoto lens has is the capability to capture a unique perspective that goes beyond what the human eye can naturally see. By zooming in and capturing details from a distance, these lenses unveil a world of possibilities that might otherwise go unnoticed by the general public.

Enlarging and Focus on the Subject

A telephoto lens also has the ability to magnify distant subjects. Photographers often used this enlargement effect to their advantage by filling the frame with the subject and highlighting intricate details to create a more engaging and impactful photograph.

Pulling Background Closer

Telephoto lenses enable photographers to virtually pull the background closer to their subject by narrowing the field of view. This effect of compressing the perspective enhances the appearance of distant elements, making them appear larger and more prominent in the frame. This technique is commonly used in travel photography to pull prominent landmarks closer to your subject as a background.

Removal of Distractions

By virtually compressing the background through the narrow field of view from the telephoto lens, photographers are able to easily isolate the subject and remove unwanted distractions from the background. This, in return, gives an overall cleaner and more focused composition.

Better Background Blur (Bokeh)

Part of the reason why telephoto lenses excel in isolating and emphasizing a specific subject within a scene is their capability to blur out backgrounds through a shallow depth of field generated from their focal length regardless of their aperture values. This out-of-focus background helps to separate the subject from the surroundings and also adds a visually pleasing aesthetic to the images.

Impactful Composition

A telephoto lens empowers photographers to compose impactful images by combining all the above advantages and capturing scenes in remarkable details. Whether it’s a sweeping landscape or a bustling cityscape, a telephoto lens enables the creation of compositions that stun the viewer due to the extravagant look of the photographs.

In conclusion, mastering the use of a telephoto lens opens up a world of creative possibilities, allowing photographers to easily capture captivating and attractive images with a distinct and professional touch. Going out and experimenting with different focal lengths, compositions, and aperture values is the key to fully harnessing the potential of this versatile lens and crafting your own artwork. Your photography work will start to transform when you start to embrace the unique qualities of a telephoto lens.