Help Japan

I was struck by the simplicity of designer James White's "Help Japan" poster he designed and posted on his personal blog. He's set up a pre-order at his store were all profits will be donated to relief efforts in Japan.

You can also donate via text to the Red Cross
Canada: Text REDCROSS to 30333 to donate $10
USA: Text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10

Meanwhile, there's a photography benefit shaping up called "Life Support Japan". It is amazing how with social media and technology today that people are able to come together so fast. There's a gallery auction set up for March 19th though not sure which cities or if all cities will be involved - Santa Barbara, Atlanta and Seattle. If you like to participate, they have set-up a Facebook group here.

I thought Marla H Bane's words on the group's page struck at the heart of it.

Where ever we all are from geographically, we have watched the news in various forms of media since this tragedy struck. We have seen overwhelming and staggering images and footage. We have heard tragic stories from those who have suffered the loss of loved ones and the occasional miracle story of survival against all odds. Possibly someone in the group even shares a personal connection to this tragedy.

But what resonates so poignantly to me is how 553 people - some real life friends or colleagues, some digital ones and some total strangers - have joined forces in such a short period of time to create something truly meaningful and I just wanted to say thanks to 552 of you.

I am in awe of how much talent, creativity and compassion has germinated since yesterday and is still to emerge. This is "The Social Network" at its best.

I'll keep y'all up to date with what's going on.

UPDATE (3/14) : Okay, there's a website now : http://lifesupportjapan.blogspot.com/

I Want To Be Your Assistant

David LaChapelle was down under in Melbourne shooting for a Nokia promotion so I thought I'd jump on the opportunity to try and grab his attention. I did this by pasting a 43 foot banner on a bridge right next to the shoot the night before. Here's a peek into how it all unfolded.

IWantToBeYourAssistant.com

Seriously, that was an epic idea ! When I first started assisting back around '99, I had a makeup artist painted up a bruises on my face and had my photo taken in the police line-up style. My pager was listed -remember when assistants used to carry pagers ? - as well as my name and email. I remember years later I walked into a photographer's office and saw my little 4x6 promo card hanging there. lol.

SPD's "Cover of the Day"

SPD's Cover of the Day

Bloomberg Businessweek March 7-13, 2011
Creative Director: Richard Turley
Photo Director: David Carthas
Photographer: Fredrik Broden

"Grip Truck Secrets: How All That Stuff Can Save Your Production !" (3/16)

Next Wednesday, the LA/OC Chapter of MCAI/New Media Meetup Group presents Craig ‘Burnie’ Burns at OC Sound Stage.

Hidden in the bowels of a professional grip truck are exotic problem-solvers with strange names: from hi-rollers to pancakes, cardellini clamps to cello cukes and floppy cutters to speed rings. At the March 16th meeting of the New Media Meetup, The Media Communications Association (MCAI) you’ll get answers to questions you never thought of. Doesn’t everyone need a speed rail spreader? And how do you say ‘Fresnel,’ anyway?

As a Master Grip and Gaffer for over 25 years, Burnie will reveal all! OK, maybe not all but enough so you’ll feel confident when ordering that 5 ton package. The effervescent Burnie is full of knowledge and great warstories. This will be a fun and informative evening.

Non-MCAI Members pay $17 at the door or $12 if prepaid via PayPal at the OC New Media Meetup Group. Students and MCAI Members pay $5. More info here.

Wednesday March 16, 2011
6:00 - 10:00 pm

OC Sound Stage
17518 Von Karman
Irvine CA 92614

Fresh Look Portfolio Review Still Accepting Submissions

Click image to enlarge

Full details here.

Open Show : Los Angeles #4 (3/23)

The next Open Show is coming up about 2 weeks and they are accepting submissions. Open Show is a free monthly social screening event that provides photographers, filmmakers and multimedia producers a chance to present their work and interactive with the audience. The event lasts about 2 hours and takes place at a different venue every month.

This month it'll be at The Forge over in Highland Park. If you like to submit, full details are their site : http://openshow.org/losangeles/. The deadline is March 16, 2011. to submit your images.

Wednesday March 23 7:30-9:30 pm

The Forge
2636 Huron St.
Los Angeles CA 90065

ASMP/LA + MOPLA "Pints & Pixels - The Cell Phone Edition"

"Pints & Pixel" is a chance for photographers to hang out, have a drink and some pizza and watch slideshow of photographer's images. This time though, it is the cell phone edition so submit three of your favorites by March 24, 2011 11:59 pm. This event is open to anyone and you don't need to submit a photo to check it out. Full details here.

BTW : the best images will be put in a book which will be available on that night. Proceeds are to Snapshop, a local charity aimed at kids learning photography. Books $10.

$10 / $5 students

April 14, 2011 7-10 pm

Julia Dean Photo Workshops
755 Seward St.
Los Angeles, CA 90038

2:30 PM - 3:30 PM

Mark Taper Auditorium @ Central Library
630 W. 5th Street
Los Angeles, CA 90071

Events This Weekend

_ THURSDAY _




+ Chenoa Maxwell "Introspection : India" opening reception 7-11 pm @ Papillion Institute of Art 1835 South Main Street, Los Angeles, CA 90015. She'll be doing an artist talk on Saturday March 12, 2011 8-9 pm at the gallery.

I’m a voyeur. I like to watch, or rather, I love to observe to take in and capture the human experience- moments. Beauty, pain, their complex nature, evokes in me a desire to capture life, making my subjects their own icon. Life fascinates me, humans inspire, seeing is my meditation. - Cheona Maxwell

+ IRIS Nights Lecture Series - Donna O'Meara "Blown Away" 6:30-8:00 pm @ Annenberg Space for Photography 2000 Avenue of the Stars Los Angeles, CA 90067

Donna O'Meara is recognized worldwide as an award-winning photographer, author and expert on volcanoes. Her talk will describe her start shooting active volcanoes, and some of the fun, scary and strange adventures of her work.

+ Andrew Zuckerman "Wisdom" @ Bank of America Plaza Concourse Level 333 S. Hope Los Angeles, CA 90071. Through April 11 / 8am to 6pm, Monday through Friday.

Arts Brookfield is hosting the Los Angeles premiere of “Wisdom: Portraits by Andrew Zuckerman” at Bank of America Plaza. This collection of photographs includes interviews that “capture the combined wisdom of legendary leaders.” Subjects include Nelson Mandela, Ted Kennedy, Willie Nelson, Billie Jean King, Clint Eastwood, Madeline Albright and Chuck Close. (via)

+ Linda Alterwitz "Discarded Dreams" opening reception 7-9 pm@ Los Angeles Center for Digital Art (LACDA) 102 W. 5th Los Angeles, CA 90013.

"Linda blends digital layers of diverse imagery. The layers are combined, moved and manipulated until the recognizable imagery in each piece has a dual sense of the abstract. The use of color and light creates a special depth that competes with the two dimensional surface of the prints. "

+ California Biennial Closing Weekend @ OCMA 850 San Clemente Drive Newport Beach, CA 92660. 11am–8pm Thursday, 11am–5pm Friday–Sunday


_SATURDAY_



+ Wolfgang Tillmans opening reception 6-8 pm @ Regen Projects II 9016 Santa Monica Boulevard Los Angeles, CA 90069.

This will be the artist's first show at the gallery since 1995 of exclusively camera-based works. Tillmans will present compelling new pictures of his familiar territories (London, Berlin, and New York) intermixed with images from his recent world travels.

+ "Picturing Health: Photographs by Youth Across Southern & Central California" opening reception 5-8 pm @ Venice Arts 610 California Avenue Venice, CA 90291.

Picturing Health visually explores both the strengths and challenges of 8 Central and Southern California communities as seen through the eyes of teens. Through a two-year project run by Venice Arts with the support of The California Endowment, 80 youth explored what they felt were barriers to a healthy life including trash-filled streets, lack of park space, teen pregnancy, and the presence of gangs. They also documented community heros, vibrant culture, friendship, and family. Please join us as we celebrate their achievements.

+ Jeff Seltzer "Harmony" opening reception 6-10 pm @ drkrm gallery 727 S. Spring Street Los Angeles, CA 90014

I find comfort and solace in this otherwise anxiety-producing world by creating a sense of harmony among the seemingly unrelated, mundane data around me. There are so many things I can’t control; but what I can control is what I see through my camera and how I present it to the world through careful framing and composition. My need is to create and restore order (harmony) around me. - Jeff Seltzer

+ ASPP West Chapter "Photography from the New China Docent Tour" @ The Getty. RSVP -> ASPPLosAngeles@gmail.com. Meet in the foyer by the info desk at 11:45. Tour starts at noon. 1200 Getty Center Drive Los Angeles, CA 90049

+ "Sunrise to Sunset" group show opening reception 4-7 pm @ OCFA’s Showcase Gallery / South Coast Plaza Village 1631 W. Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA,92704

+ Chenoa Maxwell Artist Talk 8-9 pm @ Papillion Institute of Art 1835 South Main Street, Los Angeles CA 90015

+ G2 Gallery 3rd Anniversary Party 5-9 pm @ 1503 Abbot Kinney Blvd Venice, CA 90291

Take My Picture, Gary Leonard

Oh, I love Gary Leonard - I even have one of his t-shirts that read "Take My picture". By the way, he has a little gallery over on Broadway (860 S. Broadway @ 9th). Stop on by next time you're in downtown. Here's a video where he talks about his work.

IRIS Nights - Emory Kristof (3/17)

"Making the first images of new animals thousands of feet deep with new technology is my favorite part of the job. I know mankind is pushing the oceans very hard without enough knowledge about how the ocean food chain really functions. I am working with marine scientists to try to present a better picture of the animal life in the great deeps"

National Geographic photographer Emory Kristof will be speaking at IRIS Nights @ Annenberg Space for Photography next Thursday (3/17). These lectures are free and just require RSVP (only 280 available). The first batch is available today at noon and tomorrow at 9:30 am.

Thursday March 17, 2011 6:30 - 8:00 pm

Annenberg Space for Photography
2000 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067

Chenoa Maxwell "Introspection : India" (3/10)

I’m a voyeur. I like to watch, or rather, I love to observe to take in and capture the human experience- moments. Beauty, pain, their complex nature, evokes in me a desire to capture life, making my subjects their own icon. Life fascinates me, humans inspire, seeing is my meditation.

Chenoa Maxwell will have an opening reception @ Papillion Institute of Art this Thursday night in downtown LA.

March 10, 2011 - April 7, 2011

Opening reception : March 10, 2011 7 - 11 pm

Papillion Institute of Art
1835 South Main Street
Los Angeles CA 90015

“Doubt, and wondering whether you have what it takes to succeed. You probably don’t get over it, you just learn to manage it. The way I do it is to be really committed to my personal work—to just produce work all the time, do the work you enjoy doing, and hone the style.”

- Nick Hall

CURRENTLY : "Wide Angle View" @ OCCCA

(photo : Tim Wimborne)

Behind their wide-angled lens, photojournalists are consummate photographers who will risk their lives, go anywhere for that special shot, and have given the world some of its most memorable images. The work in this show is largely humanistic, concerned with justice in the face of injustice. We get a whole range of black and white and color pictures that are stirring, special, and at times excruciatingly painful. But there are also lovely, every day images of people in distant cultures. The title of the show encompasses not just a type of lens, but the broader vision the photojournalist tends to have.

The exhibition "Wide Angle View" curated by Gina Genis is currently up at the Orange County Center for Contemporary Art until March 26, 2011.


Photographers include :

Abir Abdullah, Ackerman Gruber, David Bathgate, Christopher Booker, Michael Robinson Chávez, Carolyn Cole, Deanne Fitzmaurice, Sandy Huffaker, Pierre Kattar, Omar Khalifa, Heidi Laughton, Rick Loomis, Benjamin Lowy, Donald Miralle, Hazel Thompson, and Tim Wimborne


Orange County Center for Contemporary Art‎
117 North Sycamore Street
Santa Ana, CA 92701-5211

Streetwise - Street Photography and the 1960s

Streetwise builds on Swiss photographer Robert Frank’s snapshot aesthetic, which gained attention following the release of his groundbreaking book, The Americans in 1959. Frank’s focus on a more personal documentary style influenced a new generation of photographers, including legendaries such as Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, Jerry Berndt, Ruth-Marion Baruch, Garry Winogrand, Bruce Davidson, Danny Lyon and Ernest Withers.

Currently on exhibit at the Museum of Photographic Arts in San Digeo, CA. Bruce Davidson will be at MOPA on Friday, April 8, 7:00 pm to give an artist talk. Tickets available here.

Museum of Photographic Arts
1649 El Prado
San Diego, CA 92101

Events this Weekend

_FRIDAY_



+ "Nature LA: Paula Goldman" opening reception 6:30 - 9 pm @ G2 Gallery in Abbot Kinney. Check out LAist's review "Death and Decay Abound in Paula Goldman's 'Nature' Series at The G2 Gallery"

_SATURDAY_



+ David Levinthal "Photographs: 1974 - 2008" opening reception 4-9 pm @ Gallery 169 in Santa Monica.

"Setting up the toy figures is just the beginning. The set itself is just the background. It is a scene. And it is within and from that scene that the images themselves are found. No matter how often one poses figures in the studio, there is always a difference between how the set is envisioned and how it comes to life with the camera.”

+ Juan Luis Garcia "Cuba Y Cubans" opening reception 5-8 pm @ Eastside Luv in Los Angeles.

From cigar-factory workers to prostitutes, children playing during recess in Havana to farmers in the rich countryside of Holguin. Juan Luis believes his photos will reveal surprising similarities between various cultures and the unfamiliarity of the Cuban lifestyle. Prints will be on sale as well as limited availability of the book

+ "Holga Inspire" group show opening reception 6-9 pm @ The Icon in Miracle Mile.

The Icon's Gallery space is pleased to announce the photographic exhibition Holga Inspire. The exhibition has previously traveled through Bangkok, Texas, New York, Massachusetts, and most recently the Brooks Institute in Santa Barbara, CA. The 42 photographs displayed feature 10 talented artists and their unique view of the world through the lens of their Holga.

+ Sonya Louise Barham "A Search for Heartbreaking Beauty " opening reception 6-9 pm @ Fifth Floor Gallery in Chinatown.

A one weekend exhibition of photographs by Sonya Louise Barham. Proceeds will support her "Experiment About Experience" as she sells nearly all of her earthly possessions and takes off to explore the world and blog about her adventures. Find out more and follow along at her blog.

+ Austin Young "Your Face Here" Closing Reception 7-10 pm @ pop tART gallery in Los Angeles.

For the duration of the exhibition, Young will establish his art studio for a 5 week residency at Pop tART Gallery. The artist will be present during gallery hours for portrait sittings, which will eventually fill the walls of the gallery. The public is invited to participate as the subject of the exhibition through the purchase of the pop cultural real estate of the gallery walls. ..... During his five-week residency, the celebrated photographer is taking the photo studio to new heights by collaborating with his sitters and building an evolving gallery show that culminates in a closing party March 5.”

Oops, I've been alerted that this is next Saturday, not this Saturday.



+ Ken Gonzales-Day "Profiled" opening reception 7-10 pm @ Las Cienegas Projects

For this exhibition, Gonzales-Day clusters and combines large photographs of historical sculptural works that reflect the idealization of whiteness, the emergence of racial typologies, and the latent sensuality found in so many museum collections. ...Using works he photographed from The J. Paul Getty Museum, The Getty Villa, École des Beaux-Arts in Paris, and the Field museum in Chicago, Gonzales-Day reconsiders the complex history of racial formation and gender normativity, providing a new perspective on what it means to be profiled in our own time.

+ Group Photo Show @ Chad's Loft 6000 Avalon Blvd suite #2 Los Angeles, CA 90001 ... 6 pm - 2 am w00t !

Hi All! What else do you do when you live in a 5,000 square ft loft? Throw a photo exhibition! Celebrating the amazing, kick ass photos of my friends, photo assistants, and mobster connections ... 3 dollar beer, wine and taco truck. Plenty of street parking around the building. Contact me for more info. nebraskachad@gmail.com 323 445 9127. Please come out and support all the talented photographers. Holla!

_SUNDAY_



+ Anita Bunn "The Sun Tells Quite Another Story" closing reception 2-5 pm @ Offramp Gallery in Pasadena

Greg Day "Gullah: Living Soul of Africa 1970-1977" (3/3)

In the 1970s, photographer Greg Day lived in the African American basket-making communities along the Gullah/Geechee Coast, documenting a way of life on the verge of change. Casting for shrimp with nets made as they are still made in Africa, making sweet grass baskets, scraping bristles off a freshly slaughtered hog, dancing at a juke joint on a Saturday night—these rural pastimes would soon be displaced by suburban sprawl, hastened by the destruction of Hurricane Hugo in 1989.

Greg Day's images were previous exhibited at the Fowler Museum at UCLA in September 2009. Check out his work tonight at his opening reception in downtown Los Angeles.

Opening Reception
Thursday March 3, 2011 6-9PM


Art Share Los Angeles
326 Hewitt Street
Los Angeles, CA 90013

JR @ TED gallery

(photo : Phantom Galleries)

JR@TED
TED Prize launch is open to the public
One Artist, One Wish, to change the world.
And you can partcipate.

In the spirit of JR's work and in an unusual move, this typically exclusive TED experience will embrace the general public and invite everyone in for a visit. You can help JR launch his wish by visiting the JR @ TED gallery

Hours
Noon to 7pm on Thursday, March 3, 2011
10am to 7pm Friday, March 4, 2011

JR @ TED at Phantom Galleries LA
170 N Promenade
Long Beach, CA 90802

IRIS Nights - Donna O'Meara "Blown Away" (3/10)

Donna O'Meara is recognized worldwide as an award-winning photographer, author and expert on volcanoes. Her talk will describe her start shooting active volcanoes, and some of the fun, scary and strange adventures of her work.

In 2001, O’Meara received a grant from the National Geographic Expeditions Council. Today she is a National Geographic Society contract photographer and videographer. O’Meara’s photographs, videos and samples of volcanic rock are part of the permanent archives of the Smithsonian Institution.

O’Meara’s dazzling photographs instill a sense of respect, appreciation, admiration and value for the planet’s natural volcanic wonders. She believes that the more we learn about and respect volcanoes, the better off humankind will be.

Passes to this IRIS Nights will be released at 9:30 am today here.

Thursday March 10, 2011 6:30 pm to 8:00 pm

The Annenberg Space for Photography
2000 Avenue of the Stars
Los Angeles, CA 90067