"Water" Photography Exhibit at Vermont PhotoPlace Gallery

People at Fountain, NYC, 2011 © Robert Forlini

My photograph, People at Fountain, NY, 2011, has been selected by juror Connie Imboden to appear in an exhibition entitled "Water" at Vermont PhotoPlace Gallery's Online Gallery. To quote from the juror's statement, "Water is a subject near and dear to me.  I have spent almost thirty years exploring the mesmerizing qualities of it – how it can distort, magnify, elongate and reflect ... I found myself attracted to the photographs that rely on a special way of seeing – of using the water to see in a new way, rather than finding a special subject or event and making a picture of it.  It is through the seeing and the exploration, that the image becomes unique and original and can transform an ordinary subject into something extraordinary". In addition, the picture will be published in an exhibition catalog which will be available through the gallery website.

"Black and White" Is Vermont PhotoPlace Gallery's New Online Exhibit

Ice Skating, Lake Peekskill, NY 2004     ©Robert Forlini

My photograph, Ice Skating, Lake Peekskill, NY 2004, has been selected by juror Dan Burkholder, to appear in and exhibition entitled "Black and White" at Vermont PhotoPlace Gallery's Online Gallery Annex. To quote from the juror's statement,   "

The images thrust me onto another plane of appreciation for those practitioners who have honed their vision into shades of gray, embracing one of photography’s earliest and most honored ways of expressing the photographic image...t

he black and white photograph distills our range of perception, forcing a contemplation of the shapes, the light, and the stories behind the image before us...

 Put simply, it’s magical!" In addition, the picture will be published in an exhibition catalog which will be available through the gallery web site.

"Street Photography Now": A New Book Featuring the Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Street Photography Now, edited by Sophie Howarth and Stephan McLaren (Thames & Hudson, London, 2010) is a recent compendium of street photography which features some excellent photographers of the genre but is inconsistent in the quality of the work presented. "Street photography" itself is an imperfect definition. It is a term that Garry Winogrand despised ("Just because I did a book about zoos doesn't make me an animal photographer," he said). For him, still photography was the distinctive term. And so arises one of the problems of trying to put together a collection of so-called street photography. As is true with so many areas of photography, it places a misleading emphasis on subject matter and literalness, rather than on artistic approach and underlying meaning. As Richard Lacayo aptly put it in Time magazine, "I'll call it, imperfectly, subjective street photography, though nearly all photography is to some degree subjective and this kind doesn't have to take place in the streets." So right off the bat, you're constraining yourself based on subject and perhaps including work of lesser merit simply because it took place in the street. Another limitation of this book is that it seems to draw heavily upon photographers who happen to be members of the iN-PUBLIC web site. We are informed in the accompanying essay that street photography is enjoying a Renaissance, perhaps because of interest generated on the Internet. Well, I'm glad it's getting attention, but for some of us it never went away. What this book really needed was some stricter editing. Many of the pictures are trite and cliched, or too easy (what Phil Perkis has called "shooting fish in a barrel"). Some of the photographers are outstanding, however, in both their styles and messages. The stand-out bodies of work for me include those of Richard Kalvar, Trent Parke, Martin Parr, Raghu Rai, Otto Snoek and Ying Tang. Others, such as Cristobal Hara and Alex Webb, have some brilliant individual images but lack a sustained vision. The accompanying essay does provide some insight into the historic traditions, even if incomplete (it seems to start with Walker Evans and has many glaring omissions). A cogent analysis of the pitfalls of practicing street photography in these paranoid times is also provided, although the text is sometimes prone toward hyperbole ("Street photographers still wait patiently on dismal street corners while gales of diesel fumes clog their lungs and sting their eyes.") All in all, this is a book worth having; you'll just find yourself skipping around a bit.

• Street Photography Now is available at amazon.com and elsewhere.
• Many of these photographers' work can be seen at the iN-PUBLIC: The home of street photography website.

Qibao, Shanghai, 2007  ©Ying Tang

A rickshawman taking a nap in Jama Masjid Market, Delhi, 2005
© Raghu Rai

2010: The Year in Pictures

Midtown Shoppers, NYC, 2010 © Robert Forlini

Mother's Day, Elmsford, NY 2010
© Robert Forlini

The pictures in this case are not newsworthy, but they are new and noteworthy. I have just posted Recent Work from 2010 on my website, Robert Forlini Photographer. Please have a look, and as always I welcome everyone's interesting comments and general greetings and salutations. Happy viewing and Happy New Year!

Prize Winner, State Fair, Syracuse, NY, 2010
© Robert Forlini