35mm from minnesota

Some more photos from this summer’s Minnesota State Fair.  That small Contax camera makes me take funny pictures, I swear.

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give thanks

© Hee Jin Kang

Times are tough, but do consider donating to these organizations, because though it’s tough for us, it’s a lot worse for so many people around the world.

Happy Thanksgiving!

NY Times Neediest Cases Fund

NYC Coalition Against Hunger

Habitat for Humanity

Peace Corps

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tracey baran

I found out a couple days ago that photographer Tracey Baran died last week.  I didn’t know her personally but I’ve always admired her work. 

She was only 33.

© Tracey Baran, “Today I’m 30”, 2005

My condolences to her friends and family.

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wow

7,552.29…

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life on google

You thought you were going to get A LOT of work done today, but guess not.  LIFE magazine’s photo archive has gone live on google – http://images.google.com/hosted/life – and it’s over 10 million photographs, most of which are available to the public for the first time.  Go ahead, whittle the day away poring over the pictures because you can always call it research.

And here’s a tip:  Add “source:life” to any Google image search and search only the LIFE photo archive. For example, photographer source:life eventually leads you to:

A wonderful picture of photographer Margaret Bourke-White dangling from a helicopter while on assignment for LIFE in 1951.  Though the photo is also credited to Bourke-White… hmm… now that’s a feat.

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zoom

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/

Highly recommended blog of Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker and complex thinker.

Looking forward to getting his latest film – Standard Operating Procedure – on Netflix!

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holiday gear

With the holidays fast approaching, I usually get several queries around this time of year over which camera is best to get for a friend’s mom/sibling/significant other/etc.

So friends, the ultimate website for digital cameras can be found at Digital Photography Review.

They even have an extensive Buying Guide.  (Don’t be afraid of it!).

Even traditionalists using large-format (like me) can’t help but drool over some of these digital wonders.  Camera porn from the dpreview website, the sleek and sexy Sigma DP1:

Swoon, swoon! Santa, you reading this?

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to do this week…

I absolutely must go see the Eggleston show at the Whitney – possibly the best antidote for flagging creative spirits.

Here’s the trailer from Michael Almereyda’s documentary William Eggleston in the Real World:

To state the obvious, Eggleston’s influence is far and wide chez moi.  Whenever I start feeling incurious about the world, I crack open The Democratic Forest. One of my favorite books (and titles) ever.

http://www.egglestontrust.com/

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fairground accordion

During my summer residency at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, I created a limited-edition artist book of my Fairground series.  Here is the inside of the book, before I have it hard-covered (finally):

This is the cover design:

The first image:

© Hee Jin Kang

As always, keeping it simple.

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to the auction

A friend emailed me last month: “hey, kang, you’re being auctioned off at phillips, saturday, lot 430!“

Oh really, I thought, I wonder what image it is.  So I searched online and found this.  The estimate seemed low to me, but the picture ended up selling for more than twice the low estimate.  That seemed like a good thing.

But a few days later, I was chatting with a fellow artist who said, I heard from your husband that your photo was in the Phillips auction – that’s terrible!

Oh really, I thought?  Suddenly, I started to feel uncertain.  If your work shows up at auction, it means that someone doesn’t want it anymore.  I guess that’s a bad thing.

But on the other hand, doesn’t having work at auction establish prices for your work, and more importantly, doesn’t it mean that although the previous owner doesn’t want your photograph, he/she believes that there is a market out there for it?  Especially if the piece sells!

Discuss.

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