- The Sublime – Melissa Merritt December 8, 2022
In the world of art and photography, I have long had an interest in the concept of ‘the sublime’. For Burke, the sublime was an ...
Read more... - No More ‘isms’ April 8, 2021
I’ve always quite enjoyed Grundberg, not least because of his rather dismissive views on Camera Lucida, and his early championing of Cindy Sherman. Ingrid and ...
Read more... - On the Sublime March 23, 2021
The Sublime has long held fascination for me, as it applies to both landscapes and The Holocaust / Genocide. Adorno suggested that after Auschwitz, the ...
Read more... - Fine Art – Redux January 21, 2021
A good friend of mine commented on my recent Fine Art post, and raised some excellent questions. Here are some thoughts that I penned as ...
Read more... - Florence Henri January 14, 2021
Florence Henri (1893 – 1982) was born in New York, although she left the USA when she was two years old following her mother’s death. ...
Read more... - Fine Art January 12, 2021
The Oxford Dictionary defines Fine Art as:
1. creative art, especially visual art whose products are to be appreciated primarily or solely for their imaginative, aesthetic, ...
Read more... - Emma and the Aristocrats January 5, 2021
A very interesting conversation transpired in the RPS Distinctions **Official Group** on Facebook, January 4/5 2021, after I posted on G.A. (Emma) Barton (1872–1938) as part of my ...
Read more... - Intention and the Photographer December 22, 2020
Intention is a critical factor in all photography – indeed, in all art. Let me illustrate.
Historically, I have not considered landscape photography as central to ...
Read more... - Daido Moriyama – Farewell Photography August 10, 2020
The Japanese photography of the Provoke era has always held fascination for me, as I love the directness and spontaneity. And Daido Moriyama is a ...
Read more... - Adorno and Aesthetics July 26, 2020
I have been reading Theodor Adorno of late, and in particular Brian O’Connor’s excellent introduction to his work. Here are a few of the many ...
Read more... - Top Ten Paintings April 23, 2020
Rising to a Facebook challenge during lockdown, I am posting a ‘top ten’ of paintings which influenced me over the years, each with a few ...
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- Photographs with Text August 14, 2019
In my teens, I started painting and writing. Pop Art, Op Art, and the beginnings of Conceptual Art were everywhere. Psychedelia either added or confused ...
Read more... - Week Seven Reflections July 23, 2019
Belated reflection, as we are enjoying a family holiday then a trip to Rencontres d’Arles to meet the Falmouth group.
For many reasons, the Netherlands has ...
Read more... - Jae Emerling – Archives and Time July 1, 2019
At Gary’s recommendation, I have been reading Jae Emerling, particularly on time and archives, as being highly appropriate for my FMP.
Whilst I find Emerling’s style ...
Read more... - Practical Aesthetics June 24, 2019
I have been continuing to look at the final processing of the infrared images, prompted by the PhotoBath curation team’s decision to include 4 of ...
Read more... - Beauty and Utility May 27, 2019
This follows on my comments on Harmony and ‘Environmental Aesthetics‘, as well as the post on ‘What is Good‘.
Perhaps my overriding point in those posts ...
Read more... - Prumsodun Ok May 25, 2019
Modern day Cambodia is a complex mix of Buddhist beliefs, the harmony and order of naturism, animism and an increasing influence of Globalism and Western ...
Read more... - Environmental Aesthetics May 24, 2019
I posted a short item on Facebook, as follows:
Tea
Okakura Kakuso, in his 1906 The Book of Tea, builds the case that a better understanding of ...
Read more... - What is ‘Truth’? May 23, 2019
When we talk of a picture being ‘accurate’, we are using a variety of the concept of ‘truth’. Its meaning depends on the context that ...
Read more... - What is ‘Good’? May 18, 2019
Sir William David Ross (1877 – 1971) was a Scottish philosopher who is known for his translations of Aristotle and his work in ethics. He developed a ...
Read more... - Leang Seckon – Art and History May 1, 2019
Leang Seckon was born in Prey Veng Province in the early 1970s, and thus was a child during Khmer Rouge times. He graduated from the Royal ...
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- Allan Sekula – Fish Story, and Critical Realism April 22, 2019
Allan Sekula was one of the most influential documentarians working in the late 20th Century. An incisive critic, he also was part of the re-imagining ...
Read more... - Week Eleven Reflections – Pictures at an Exhibition April 14, 2019
The past couple of weeks have been full of gallery visits – Don McCullin, Vincent Van Gogh and Diane Arbus. Dave Heath was at the ...
Read more... - Coleridge, Imagination and Fancy April 11, 2019
In thinking through the upcoming critical review, I realise that I have been working in two parallel directions.
First, my photography has become increasingly abstract, traces of what ...
Read more... - John Berger – Notes April 10, 2019
Chapter 1 .. seeing
‘Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognises before it can speak’. (pg. 7).
‘The way we see things is affected by ...
Read more... - Towards a Critical Review April 9, 2019
I am collecting some of the most inspirational and appropriate quotes from my research, as used in various CRJ posts over the past 15 months, with the references or ...
Read more... - Informing Contexts – Oral Presentation – Feedback April 9, 2019
From Pierre:
Well done video Mick.
Good to see your journey from where it began to where it is now. The painterly influence never goes away, it ...
Read more... - Marx and Aesthetics April 8, 2019
Karl Marx (1818-1883) has continued to be influential in many schools of philosophy, including aesthetics – even though he did not publish a specific treatise ...
Read more... - Informing Contexts – Oral Presentation April 7, 2019
Partly because of some misguided feedback at the Falmouth F2F, and partly because I felt a need to ‘go back the beginning’ to explain my ...
Read more... - Don McCullin April 5, 2019
Ingrid and I have seen a lot of exhibitions over the years, but the current Don McCullin show at Tate Britain really rates as one ...
Read more... - Week Nine Reflections – The Two Headed Monster March 31, 2019
There has always been at least two Micks.
There is the artist, the poet, the dreamer. And there is the logician, the business-person, the practical problem solver.
Where ...
Read more... - My Artistic Practice vs. My Photographic Practice March 30, 2019
Right from the beginning of the MA, in fact even a bit before it started, I wrote about Landscape. Given the way that my Cambodian ...
Read more... - Charles Baudelaire March 27, 2019
Charles Pierre Baudelaire (1821 – 1867) was a French poet, essayist, art critic, and a translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His work reflected the changing ...
Read more... - Edward Kienholz – The Beanery March 26, 2019
Edward Kienholz (1927-1994) is one of my favourite artists, any media. The Beanery is a life size, walk-in assemblage, and it is often considered his ...
Read more... - Sebastião Salgado March 19, 2019
A couple of years ago, the PhotoBath collective, of which I am a member, mounted a successful exhibition of Sebastião Salgado’s work. It featured 8 ...
Read more... - Congruence February 9, 2019
In my post on Index and Icon, I noted the idea of congruence – defined when two things are in agreement, have harmony, conformity, or correspondence ...
Read more... - The Index and the Icon February 8, 2019
Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) was an early semiotician. His work was based on the pursuit of scientific and logical truth, and he developed his semiotics ...
Read more... - Las Meninas February 4, 2019
I am intrigued by the way that Velazquez’ Las Meninas has been used as inspiration through the years.
The painting itself seems to meet most of ...
Read more... - Walter Benjamin – The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction February 3, 2019
Walter Benjamin’s work is refreshing, in his attempt to deal with photography as a unique medium, rather than transpose the traditions of painting and sculpture ...
Read more... - Photography, Photographies February 3, 2019
This week’s task: Post a brief commentary below that identifies the inherent characteristics and contexts of the ‘photographic’ nature of your own practice.
Specifically refer to ...
Read more... - Nine Inspirations January 13, 2019
One of the vacation exercises is to comment on nine inspirations. So, here goes.
1. Annemarie Prins. I have only recently discovered her work, through conversations ...
Read more... - Artist’s Statements – Part Two December 30, 2018
I have written an earlier post on Artist’s Statements. I then posted links to this on Facebook, and asked for input, the ‘wisdom of the ...
Read more... - Artist’s Statements December 29, 2018
Arty Bollocks has an ‘Instant Artists Statement Generator‘ … and here is an example:
‘My work explores the relationship between postmodern discourse and vegetarian ethics. With ...
Read more... - How John Berger changed our way of seeing art – Yasmin Gunaratnam & Vikki Bell December 16, 2018
Berger considered how through history and visual representation the male gaze has constrained women.
John Berger’s Ways of Seeing
Yasmin Gunaratnam, Goldsmiths, University of London and Vikki ...
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- 26 Vinyl Records May 23, 2018
Ed Ruscha (1937 – ) created Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations in 1963, a small, self published book.
Ruscha set in motion a new way to think about photography ...
Read more... - Theory in Practice – Wassily Kandinsky April 15, 2018
The first purely abstract painting is generally recognised as Wassily Kandinsky‘s ‘Untitled – First abstraction‘ of 1910. This is in the header above.
Kandinsky had been ...
Read more... - Faux Pas March 11, 2018
I was at the so-called Leica ‘mothership’ in Wetzlar, a few months back, and was wandering around the campus. I noticed some really interesting plants, ...
Read more... - Three Images – Contexts & Disciplines February 7, 2018
For this week’s webinar with Gary, we have been asked to consider the disciplines other than photography, and the critical contexts which are relevant to ...
Read more... - Joseph Wright of Derby February 7, 2018
Several of my fellow students have noted painters such as Caravaggio and Rembrandt as inspirations, with their mastery of both light and compositions, delivering works ...
Read more... - Qs week 2 – 1st presentation – “Multiple media and Interdisciplinary practices” February 5, 2018
Q: What does the moving image tell you about the still photographic image?
The presentation did a great job in illustrating the similarities and differences of ...
Read more... - A Poet not a Logician February 3, 2018
I am a rather ‘logical’ person. My BA is in Mathematics and Philosophy. I have an MSc in Consulting and Coaching for Change from HEC. ...
Read more... - Landscape January 25, 2018
I have been studying the materials for Positions and Practices, and was quite taken with the chapter on Territorial Photography by Joel Snyder, in the ...
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- Intimacy August 16, 2018
‘… all good photographers have a deep commitment to, and involvement with, their subjects, and through photography they are communicating their understanding and passion to ...
Read more... - Bookshelf July 14, 2018
Given that books are a major part of our home and our (collective) way of life, this task was pretty easy to do.
Go to a ...
Read more... - Cambodian Photography – Part 2 July 12, 2018
As noted in the previous post, Cambodian photography is developing, though it’s clear that the hiatus of the Khmer Rouge years and subsequent Vietnamese administration ...
Read more... - Preciousness July 11, 2018
Two things happened in the last 24 hours, which I would like to connect.
First, I saw Sian Davey‘s guest lecture. Second, I had a conversation ...
Read more... - Cambodian Photography – Part 1 July 5, 2018
Arguably, Dith Pran (1942 – 2008) is the most famous of Cambodian photographers. His story, working with foreign journalists, before the Khmer Rouge takeover, and subsequent ...
Read more... - Windows on the Hidden June 30, 2018
I have found the last couple of weeks most enjoyable, exploring new kinds of imagery, both to learn new techniques and to consider ways of ...
Read more... - Documentary & Art June 29, 2018
Had a very good webinar today with Cemre and Yas. Just want to jot my thoughts down here, not in any particular order.
Cemre asked about ...
Read more... - Glitches – Because You Can June 26, 2018
Been playing with Glitch Art. That’s when you take a digital image file, mess with the code, and get unexpected results.
The header is from a ...
Read more... - Postcards June 25, 2018
In Week Three Reflections, I noted some thoughts about how I might bring alive an installation / exhibition of the Cambodia project.
That, pause being pushed ...
Read more... - Artificial Intelligence & Photography June 23, 2018
It is hard to consider any photograph completely devoid of human intervention. Images taken on Mars are only possible because humans created the recording and ...
Read more... - Pop June 21, 2018
I have been experimenting with some of the ‘traces’ work, not least as a couple of the images have been chosen for the PhotoBath exhibition ...
Read more... - The Morris Minor June 20, 2018
Having re-visited the Day Before Christmas, I decided to look again at the Flickr archives.
Towards the end of 2005, a group entitled ‘Manipulate This!’ was ...
Read more... - Collaboration & Participation June 19, 2018
This module is dealing in detail with the issues of collaboration and participation.
I am reading Claire Bishop‘s ‘Artificial Hells‘ in combination with the week’s recommend papers. I like the distinctions ...
Read more... - Appropriation June 10, 2018
Top: Susan Meiselas (1979) The Molotov Man;
Bottom: Joy Garnett (2003) Molotov from the series Riot
The brief: Joy Garnett is known for her paintings inspired ...
Read more... - Ghosts, Traces & Stories June 9, 2018
I am looking for ways to tell today’s story whilst also bringing yesterday’s in front of the viewer.
Anyone who has visited a Genocide Museum, anywhere ...
Read more... - Vinyl Records and Photography June 7, 2018
This book reads like a history of photography …
Robert Frank, Dorothea Lange, Saul Leiter, Andy Warhol, Berenice Abbott, Herb Ritts, Jeff Wall, William Eggleston, W. Eugene ...
Read more... - 26 Vinyl Records May 23, 2018
Ed Ruscha (1937 – ) created Twenty-Six Gasoline Stations in 1963, a small, self published book.
Ruscha set in motion a new way to think about photography ...
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- A Prayer from Hell November 5, 2018
In Phnom Penh last week, I met Youk Chhang for the first time. The visit including a lot of such networking activities, in order to ...
Read more... - Discordia – Moises Saman October 21, 2018
Moises Saman is an American / Spanish photojournalist, and a member of Magnum. I just got a copy of his 2016 book, Discordia. It is perhaps the ...
Read more... - Week Four Reflections – and Photographic DNA October 20, 2018
I have done my best to fulfil the requests of the course this week, despite my misgivings. I will not dwell much on this, other ...
Read more... - David Salle October 17, 2018
So why should I be fascinated with David Salle’s work?
On the one hand, his figurative, painterly (pictorial?) style was a welcome break from conceptual art ...
Read more... - Begin at the Beginning – My Photographic DNA October 13, 2018
Review your earliest work and reflect: What do you see in it?
I have to really start at the beginning here. I was a painter (and ...
Read more... - The Photograph as Contemporary Art October 13, 2018
I have been looking again at The Photograph as Contemporary Art, by Charlotte Cotton, 2014 3rd edition, and decided this time to write a few ...
Read more... - Banksy and Tejaratchi on Advertising & Going Viral October 11, 2018
I was thinking about this weeks’ ‘viral’ exercise, alongside the latest Banksy escapade. By way of background, I have spent a large part of my ...
Read more... - David Hume – Photography’s Patron Philosopher? September 12, 2018
David Hume has been a ‘philosophical hero’ since I was a teenager. Here’s a quote (in classical, sceptical, style) which illustrates partly why that is:
Hume ...
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