ARE YOU REALLY MY FRIEND?

"Dinner with Karin & Barry, Auburn, Maine" (2010)

Maine-based photographer, co-founder and member of the Bakery Photographic Collective Tanja Hollander recently began a complex and worldwide adventure called "Are you really my friend?: The Facebook Portrait Project" in order to examine "how we define friendship and who we let into our private yet very public online lives" through the social terrain of online media. 

"Ben Waxman, Washington, DC" (2011)

The Project began with 626 facebook friends, and has since grown as she continues to travel to her friends' homes revealing intimate portraits of her "real friends". She keeps the website updated in a blog format, chronicling in between shoots a Cambodian pig roast in Gray, Maine, late nights in New Orleans during Jazz Fest, the consequences of Matisse buying a portrait at the Ogunquit Museum of American Art, as well as letters written in support of a pay-what-you-can sale. 

"What started out as a personal documentary on friendship and environmental portraiture has turned into an exploration of American culture, relationships, generosity and compassion, family structure, community building, story telling and meal sharing, the economy and class, our relationship to technology & travel in the 21st century, social networking, memory, and the history of the portrait. Following in the footsteps of the FSA photographers and Robert Frank she has out to see America and to record how our society uses photography, the portrait social media to create and define our existence."(*)

"J. Nordberg & Pamela Albanese with Fluffita the cat, Los Angeles, California" (2010)

"Nell, Peter & Deb Whitney, Portland, Maine" (2010)

"Emma Hollander, Boston, Massachusetts" (2010)

Still very much in its birth, the project has already been awarded a Good Idea Grant from the Maine Arts Commission, and is sponsored by Color Services (Needham, MA) and any individual who takes part in one of her fundraising efforts. 

Tanja also encourages anyone she can to "like" the facebook page in order to spread the influence.

Cheers,

Not to be disregarded

Many apologies for the lack of posting in the past year...
This will start again in the very present future.
With love, BPiC.

There is this amazing website out there called Yeah. Yeah allows anyone to post a picture from their camera on their site, which is just a constantly changing montage of cell phone pictures. Its pretty amazing, fascinating, and well genius I think.
to upload a picture email your photos to yeah@yeahyeahyeahyeahyeah.com

sooooo yeah, check it out.

Tonight for First Friday The Maine Historical Society is presenting ....

Photographs from 1860-1975
Exposed: Rare Photographs of Life in Maine
Black and White Historic Photographs

Don't miss it!

I've recently come across two photo books of portraits that struck a chord. Usually black and white portraiture doesn't really strike my fancy all that much. Part of the appeal of the two books here are the photographers personal stories. I suppose portrait photographers have to have an interesting story themselves in order to successfully translate other peoples stories through film.

Portraits from the Belly of the Whale by Michael Garlington is a sardonic collection of portraiture of the mad, the grotesque and the dramatic. He examines the dark peripheral of humanity. What makes his adventures in portraits so fascinating to me is that he would drive around in a "photo car." This was his car, but it was covered in his work. The car was part self promotion, part subject enticer, and part ice- breaker. A strange bird that one.

DISFARMER; The Vintage Prints, is a series of glass negative portraiture prints salvaged from the Barn studio of Mike Disfarmer in rural Arkansas. Disfarmer, born Mike Meyers legally changed his name to Mike Disfarmer in order to disassociate himself with the agrarian roots that connected him to his family and community. He even claimed that as a baby, a tornado swept him up and dropped him at his family's home. This book is a cohesive collection of his portraits. His story matches the intriguing and peculiar nature of his work.

Sorry about the extended delay in action here. It's been a while and there is plenty of news to post....

For starters I recently took an trip that landed me in Austin, TX for a hot second. One of the best thing that city has to offer is a little place called Domy Books. A well curated and merchandised selection of art books swallows you whole upon entering. The place really eminates a sort of charismatic chaos, chock full of comics, zines, photo books, collage, contemporary art etc. Essentially its a beautiful mess of a store full of cool. Not to mention the manager Russell took pity on our hobo-ness and landed us a great place to stay! Great staff, great books, great city. What more could you ask for!?

Check it out if you are ever in town.

EVENT - PHOTO TALK - COLE CASWELL & JESSICA GEORGE

EVENT - PHOTO TALK - MIKAEL KENNEDY

Mikael's website : www.mikaelkennedy.com

I posted earlier about the salons/ lectures that we plan to hold.

Well, the time has come and Bakery member Tanja Hollander kicks it off with a slideshow and discussion about the work she has created from her residency at La Napoule Art Foundation

TUESDAY MARCH 9th

7:30pm -- 9:00pm

Time to revisit a beautiful favorite...... ladies and gentlemen

Richard Misrach

Natalie Conn and Peter Smith will be presenting their ongoing, collaborative documentary photography project "The Sunday Best" at Space TOMORROW evening for Pecha Kucha. Pecha Kucha is a night chock full of ideas. It allows all sorts of designers, and artists to present their work and thoughts in a panel format. The rule is 20 slides, 20 seconds each.

Don't miss it!

Former Portland hotshot and current San Francisco renegade (and friend) Jay Carroll has a pretty neat thing going with One Trip Pass. On the website there lies a virtual inspiration board..... a thematic collection of cross-generational, cross-cultural photography. It's pretty great, check it out.

Bakery Collective Member Tonee Harbert

I am currently attempting to raise funds for a collaborative project with Sara Lemieux. I wont bore you with all the details, just follow the link and watch our video! Take a look, if you are interested to know more or have any suggestions for the project, the trip, or just want to meet up and/or have cool spots to guide us to or maybe a friend of a friend who has a couch in mississippi that would all be great!

Sally Mann, an already legendary contemporary photographer who works primarily within alternative processes has just released a new book published by Aperture titled "Proud Flesh." The subject has always played the primary role in her work, this time she turned her antique camera on her husband. Conscientious blog published an essay or statement about the work prepared by Mann.

"I am a woman who looks. Within traditional narratives, women who look, especially women who look unflinchingly at men, have been punished. Take poor Psyche, punished for all time for daring to lift the lantern to finally see her lover... It is a testament to Larry's tremendous dignity and strength that he allowed me to take the pictures that I did. The gods might reasonably have slapped this particular lantern out of my raised hand, for before me lay a man as naked and vulnerable as any wretch strung across the mythical, vulture-topped rock. At our ages, we are past the prime of life, given to sinew and sag, and Larry bears, with his trademark god-like nobility, the further affliction of a late-onset muscular dystrophy. That he was so willing is both heartbreaking and terrifying at once."