THE best photographers short video I have seen for ages….so well done. Congrats to Simone Donati and editor Alessandro Daquino. There is some other very good work (stills and video) on the site of Simone’s collective TerraProject.

Benning makes very long single shot films about the American landscape, sometimes singles, sometimes multiple frames. There are a few interesting tasters on youtube but I’m sure they would be far more powerful as a proper projection. The video above is an interview with him and those below 2 excerpts from his work….one of which was amazingly shown on 3sat, European TV network.

Richard Mosse’s, Another Green World, Kisangani to Bukavu, Eastern Congo, 2010, discussed in the essay ‘The Flash made Flesh’

There are some excellent online magazines cropping up which really try to use innovative formats. I recently came across Triple Canopy, an arts funded site which is full of fresh and intelligent approaches to conveying arts practise and thinking online.

Their series of essays ‘Thinking through Photography’ encourage analysis of the way we use imagery. Each essay is funded through a small commission grant and the writers are given artistic, editorial, and technical support to build on their ideas during it’s creation over 3 to 6 months. This is a slow approach to internet journalism and the results are stronger for it. See for example ‘The Flash made Flesh’, an academic conversation about imagery and war.

I also really enjoyed the mix of media in Ellie Ga’s essay on her experiences stuck in the POlar icecap on the boat Tarka; A hole to see the ocean through.

There is a call out now for proposals (deadline Feb 13th) in catergories including Immaterial Literature, Internet as Material, Thinking Through Images, New Media Reporting, and New Programming. More info on the categories and submissions here.

Image © David Huguenin via

Deadline 20th Feb for entries for this years Voies Off, the Arles fringe festival. Screenings of new work from the Voies Off happen most evenings during the opening week of the festival, and shows continue throughout. To apply go here.

To keep up to date with photo related opportunities do check the excellent Curator Ship blog.

The happy skeleton and the running horse! Just nice. Happy Friday.

The opening at the German Gymnasium for last years’ London Street Photography Festival, a precursor to this years London Festival of Photography.

I’m very happy to say I’ve been asked to be a judge for the London Festival of Photography’s Prize, which has both stills and multimedia categories. The theme for this years festival is InsideOut: Reflections on the Public and the Private and entries are invited on this theme. There is £1k up for grabs for the winner of each category, as well as a key slot in next years festival.

Can’t wait to see the entries!

We are happy to see the brilliant Natasha Caruana going from strength to strength. Natasha’s energy in setting up studioSTRIKE (alongside Afshin Dehkordi) was a sight to behold and we were very lucky to work with her on the big studioSTRIKE VS Contact night last year.

Her own work and personal take becomes stronger and stronger as each project builds on the last. Starting with her own examination of her feelings about seeing a married man she has gone on to produce 3 very strong bodies of work examining her (and our) feelings about marriage in ways which are in turns playful, poignant, warm, angry, deceptive and despairing.

Natasha has an exhibition of all 3 projects at Photofusion until 23rd March, with a special Speed Meet for Photographers, hosted by Natasha this Thursday. Based on the idea of speed dating, each photographer will have the opportunity show their work to a member of the photography industry for three minutes only, before moving on to the next reviewer. Expect a high energy review!

Also this Friday is the launch of Natasha’s book ‘ONO’ published by HERE press, of her ‘found’ wedding dress images (pictured here), used to advertise second hand wedding dresses on ebay and gathered by Natasha by posing as a bride to be. Launch is at Hanbury Hall, Spitalfields from 6.30pm.

Bertien van Manen’s latest book, Let’s Sit Down Before We Go, is a series of images from Russia, Moldova, Kazachstan, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Tatarstan and Georgia taken between 1991 and 2009. The editing and sequencing of the images was a collaboration between her and Steven Gill, who revisted her initial edits and worked with her on reprinting some of the images.

There is a nice interview with her about the work here. For more of van Manen’s work go here.

I like the compression of space in Jean-Christian Bourcart‘s series ‘I Shot the Crowd’. Especially those on elevators play with scale and distance, so you feel like there is less depth in the scene than there is.

Some nice, slick, dark images from Florian Beckers. Bit old and not quite sure what the point of them is! but they are very beautifully constructed.