Negativeless

Michael Hoppen Gallery

Here we have beautiful photos not just for some of the subject's aesthetics, a simple nude or a pink flamingo but the medium itself, the daguerreotype. The chemical texture itself is far superior to a common C-print. It goes without saying that without a negative, every photograph remains unique. The negative was invented by Henri Fox Talbott.

The exhibition presents old daguerreotypes as well as contemporary takes on the medium.

Richard Learoyd's nudes,taken with the help of a camera oscura the size of a room and a strobe light, seem from another time period. or maybe it's because we're so used to digital and iphone cameras, anything with an instant result. The mood is romantic, a woman's long hair in a simple interior. The mood is slightly dark, the model's gaze distant.

Adam Fuss has created the biggest daguerreotype which shows stretched clouds.

Constructing Worlds- Barbican

This exhibition has for its main focus architecture and spans from a photograph of the Rockefeller centre under construction to photos of Americans during the Depression, present day Afghanistan, empty towers in Dubai or parking lots seen from above.

Most of these 18 photographers are known but I would divide the exhibition's theme in three:  photographers who work with architects, either in a collaborative way like Lucien Herve with Le Corbusier or Julius Schulman's California homes.

Architecture is not always an element that is visibly at the forefront in some of the series. We see how some people react to their surroundings. In Simon Norfolk's photos of Bagdad the surroundings are deserted, the remnants of the war.

S'il y a lieu je pars avec vous - Le Bal

A group exhibition, project commissioned to 5 photographers: Sophie Calle, Julien Magre, Antoine d'Agata, Stéphane Couturier, Alain Bublex.

The theme of the exhibition is a trip and in particular, road trips. Not the road trip in the Kerouac fun exciting sense but all those long car rides on highways. Time passing by, the highway itself, a non descript place. Julien Magre's whose photos depict intimate portraits of his two daughters and wife mentions in his statement how we always remember the trip, if we had a good time or felt sick in the car but rarely do we think of that in between place, the highway itself.

It is in that vein that Sophie Calle appropriated and humanized a highway. The mundane signs that indicate speed or basic information boards are literally calling out to the driver "Voulez vous me parler" says a sign next to a highway toll or the invitation "Faites moi voyager et je vous offre le peage".

All five photographers took over the highways in different locations but highways remain true to themselves, indistinguishable. Antoine d'Agata chronicles the highway and "aire de repos" at night between Paris and Marseille but these night scenes could take place anywhere.

Stephane Couturier dissected the image of the countryside. Mosaic pieces of landscape that can be put back together as if in a puzzle.

The ongoing moment-Geoff Dyer

The Ongoing Moment

one of my favourite books about photography.

Looking at different tropes, Dyer, without going through too many digressions, scans the history of photography by describing specific photographs. A series on benches to talk about street photography or Nudes through anecdotes about Edward Weston, who always had a girlfriend ready to pose for him. We learn that Weston was fascinated by photographing urinals. Dyer's aim isn't a comprehensive one. Like most of his books, these are his personal choices which he writes about in an unaffected manner.

Alfred Stieglitz's relationship with the younger Paul Strand stands out as the fun, juicy story revealing details of the two couples lives. In the past, photographers were fewer, and Dyer shows the links and influences between photographers. Paul Strand's pictures were admired by Walker Evans when he saw them in "Camera Work" and Evans was subsequently a great influence on Diane Arbus among others. Not only do photographers inspire each other but they also take photos of similar motifs, what surrounds us, which in Dyer's view is influenced by time and place. When Bruce Davidson takes a picture of a blind man in the New York subway, he has in mind Paul Strand's famous portrait, "Blind Woman" taken in 1917.