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Harry Callahan Interview 1 (1971)

I always felt you can’t make that many good pictures a year. A friend of mine went to Europe for about six months; he came back and he said, “Let’s see what you’ve been doing.” I said, “I’ve only got one picture that’s any good.” And he looked at it and said, “Well, it’s worth a year’s work.” […]

The Photographs of Wynn Bullock (2010)

Wynn Bullock’s ability to reconcile both these approaches to photographic praxis, the European and American versions of modernism, has few parallels in the field. The consequent breadth of his investigation of the medium makes him one of the most experimental photographers working in the U.S. in his time. […]

Shenzhen Economic Daily Interview, 2007 (a)

I have always imagined my own “average reader” as a reasonably educated and literate member of the general public, broadly interested in cultural issues. Of course I sometimes write specifically for, and am read by, people who work professionally in the arts, and for the audience for contemporary art. But I would not want to have my own writing restricted to that segment of the population, and I don’t think the public discussion of photography should be limited to its function as an art form. […]

What Makes One Photo Worth $2.9 Million? (2007)

[Checking the news this past December 12, I learned from Forbes that “On December 9 PRNewswire announced that Australian photographer Peter Lik sold a photograph entitled ‘Phantom’ for a record-setting $6.5 million. ‘Phantom,’ now the world’s most expensive photograph ever sold, was shot in a subterranean cavern in Arizona’s Antelope Canyon.” (See Rachel Hennessey’s report, […]

Time Capsule 1973: Collier’s Encyclopedia Yearbook

Rereading this encyclopedia entry on the year 1973 in photography at a remove of four decades, I find it pleasantly surprising to see what a diversity of issues I managed to address (even if fleetingly) in the stripped-down style mandated by the encyclopedia’s editorial guidelines. Some of the ideas alluded to here in miniature would ripen into substantial future essays: on the autobiographical mode in photography, censorship in photographym, and the definition and integrity of the body of work. […]