Thursday, February 11, 2010

How we learned to love Photoshop - Charles Arthur - The Guardian


"Photoshop has, like Google, transcended its origins in the world of ­computing, and become a verb. But whereas "to Google" is almost always used positively to express usefulness, Photoshopping is almost always a term of abuse: "That picture was Photo shopped" has become a shorthand way of saying it is untrustworthy and misleading (Adobe, the company that sells Photoshop, decries its use as a verb: "It must never be used as a common verb or a noun," it tuts. Too late.)"

From Instant Thrill of Polaroid, Enduring Art, Now for Sale - NYTimes.com

From Instant Thrill of Polaroid, Enduring Art, Now for Sale - Carol Vogel for NYTimes.com

"In the 1960s about half of all American households owned a Polaroid camera, according to the company’s own estimates. And while the instant thrill of having a tangible record of first birthdays, prom nights, vacations and Christmas dinners was the driving force behind the company’s success, its revolutionary product also changed forever the way many artists worked. Ansel Adams captured some fabled images of Yosemite National Park using a Polaroid; Andy Warhol and Chuck Close took Polaroid portraits — of themselves, friends and celebrities — and William Wegman used a Polaroid to shoot his beloved Weimaraners.

Now some of those works, as well as conventional prints that Polaroid’s founder, Edwin H. Land, brought together in one of the most storied collections in photography — a visual diary of 20th-century culture — are going on the auction block."

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Sunil Gupta: Rewriting the history of photography


Sunil Gupta at Whitechapel: rewriting the history of photography - Telegraph

Telegraph, "Artist and curator Sunil Gupta has distilled the history of photography in India, Pakistan and Bangladesh into a landmark exhibition at London's Whitechapel Gallery. In a series of articles for the Telegraph.co.uk he picks his favourite images from a collection spanning 150 years."