My kind of president

Call for entries: Graphic Intersections

The Exposure Project is starting a really cool “somewhat experimental photographic endeavor” based on the exquisite corpse. To read more about it and to apply to be a part of it, click here. You have until September 30 to apply.

My kind of first lady

Catch me in tinytinygroupshow #6: simultaneous

A while ago, Kevin Miyazaki e-mailed and asked if I’d be interested in participating in his next tinytinygroupshow. The goal: Take a picture at noon Milwaukee time (ten o’clock in the morning here in California) on Sunday, August 17. I was thrilled to be a part of one of Kevin’s tinytinygroupshows (see them all here), but it was made even better because I was participating with photo friends like Andrew Hetherington, Shawn Records, Allison V. Smith, and Amy Stein. You can see the results here. Thanks, Kevin!

Tribute to Teddy

Collect this: Sexworker with Client I and Shahi Mohalla III

Lucked out and snagged the following two images from Kate Orne at 20x200. Get them here and here.

Copyright © Kate Orne

Copyright © Kate Orne

New site . . . again

No disrespect to all the great Web designers out there, including the two I’ve worked with in the past, but I’ve gotten tired of having to pay someone to make minor updates to my site. My grandma always said if you can read, you can cook, and I figured cooking can’t be that far removed from Web design, so I bought a book (HTML, XHTML & CSS: Visual QuickStart Guide, 6th Edition, by Elizabeth Castro), read a couple chapters of it, and designed my own site. I’m really happy with it, and so is my wallet.

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Paolo Morales

Photographer Paolo Morales got in touch with me last night and offered some suggestions of photographers who photograph their own relationships. He also mentioned his own project, which I find completely charming. It’s called There’s Something about Franny, and, well, I’ll leave it to Paolo to explain what it is. Here’s a bit from his site:

I have a crush on a girl. Her name is Franny. We met in prep school. She is pretty and popular. I am awkward and geeky. We developed a working relationship based on scheduled “photo-dates.” My images chronicle our relationship existing within photographs and the struggle for power between the two players. Portraits idolizing Franny as favorite model and muse complement self-portraits sitting between fantasy and reality: gazing into each others’ eyes as we pass in the halls, park photo shoots, and me staring at her in class while she pretends not to notice. It is through these photographs that I want to understand my infatuation and obsession with Franny, a girl I adore and have no idea why.

You can see the project here. My favorites from the series are below.

Copyright © Paolo Morales

Copyright © Paolo Morales

Copyright © Paolo Morales

Peter Kearns

In the comments on my last post, Aline Smithson mentioned the work of Peter Kearns, whom I’d seen in Vewd recently. I spent some more time looking at his work and we exchanged a couple e-mails about projects of this sort. He’s a good guy, and I really dig his work. Check it out.

Here’s some of what he says on his site about the project:

I met Krista on Labor Day at a friend’s Jell-O wrestling party in 2004. It was lime flavored and she was wearing a pink wig. After getting most of the Jell-O out of my hair, we spent the evening drinking, laughing, and flirting. She took me home to her apartment where we shotgunned cans of PBR and listened to old country records. Sometime that evening, probably when she was dancing around in her red cowboy boots while singing along to a Hank Snow record, I fell in love with her.

And here are some of my favorites from his series Krista, about his wife.

Copyright © Peter Kearns

Copyright © Peter Kearns

Copyright © Peter Kearns

Copyright © Peter Kearns

Copyright © Peter Kearns

Photographers who photograph their own relationships

I’m looking to come up with a list (not necessarily exhaustive, but at least a jumping-off point) of photographers who, in their work, explore their own relationship to another person (or people). So, to clarify, not photographers who focus on other people’s relationships to one another, but photographers who focus on their own relationships. Relationship doesn’t necessarily mean “romantic”; it may be a familial relationship or some other type. The key is that the photographer is an active participant in the relationship. The photographer may or may not be in the photographs.

I have some in mind, but I’d like to open this up as a blank slate. Have at it. And thanks!

Jennifer Loeber print sale

Copyright © Jennifer Loeber

Jennifer Loeber is the latest photographer to throw her hat in the ring with a blog-based print sale (here). I think it’s interesting to see different photographers try different models for this. Her print is in an edition of 15, and she’s selling for only $40, as opposed to my edition of 100 for $20. She’s also taking preorders, for only one month, at which point it’s closed. If my image didn’t do it for you, maybe hers will. Go, Jennifer, go!

Tree, cars

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Ben Huff on format

Be sure to check out Ben Huff’s post on format, much of which is from an e-mail exchange we had after my recent post on the same subject. He writes eloquently about two exhibits he saw recently at the Minneapolis Institute of Arts—one of Alec Soth’s work and the other of Lee Friedlander’s—and the beauty of both, proving yet again (to me, at least) that personal e-mail exchanges trump blog comments every time.

New work

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

More of why I love S.

In cleaning his room, he came across the following article, which he had cut out of the Los Angeles Times on November 28, 1976, when I was 3½ years old.

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

I won (something)

In a month where my prints are bombing and at least one reader is telling me I should hang up the blog, I have to look for consolation where I can, and believe me, Andrew Hetherington’s I Heart Photographers is no consolation prize. I won a copy on Shoot! The Blog for correctly identifying Juergen Teller. Not bad.

Copyright © Andrew Hetherington

The bull and I

So I’m gonna let you in on a secret, just between you and me: The print sale . . . a total bust.

After my experience in May, where my edition of 25 prints sold out in nine hours, and given the number of people who’ve asked me to bring back the print sale, and the number of people who read this blog, I honestly thought that the print would sell out in a few days, a week at most. The idea was, sell a hundred prints every February, May, and August, and earn enough money to produce a yearly zine, as well as fund my photo projects. Other photographers go about it in other ways, but this seemed like an option worth trying.

I’ve been praised in some blogs for taking the bull by the horns, but I have to tell you, I may not have been gored by the bull, but I’m standing at the other end of the ring trying to figure out how to win this one. Many people—complete strangers, as well as people whose work and careers I emulate and respect—suggested that doing these editions of 100 would only hurt me in the long run. That would’ve been bad enough. But the damn thing hasn’t sold worth shit, so I can’t even console myself with having enough money to produce the zine I wanted to do for November.

The one encouraging aspect of all this is that, despite the mild embarrassment at having so misjudged things, my reaction hasn’t been at all what I would’ve thought it would be. If you’d told me that I would go live with a print sale and sell only a handful of prints in over a week, I would’ve guessed I’d be really bothered by it in some kind of deeply personal way. Instead, I’m wondering what the hell’s wrong with everyone. I love this photograph, and I know I’m biased but I don’t love everything that comes out of my camera. The fact that I’ve been rejected and come out with my confidence stronger than ever makes me feel as though I have some hope of actually lasting in this crazy art world. Now I just need to get off the ground.

P.S. Given the counsel I’ve received, I won’t be doing any other $20 sales on my blog or Web site. (If Jen Bekman wants to include me in 20x200, I won’t turn her down.) So if you’re struggling to fund your own projects and don’t have thousands of dollars to pay for art, and you’d like to own one of my prints, now’s your chance.

On format

I spent much of last year fawning over large-format work, putting photographers like Alec Soth and Richard Renaldi and Joel Sternfeld and Stephen Shore on a higher level than others (and can you blame me?). A few months ago, I bought Stephen Shore, edited by Christy Lange (Phaidon), and realized that with all my focus on Uncommon Places, I had overlooked American Surfaces. The paperback version of the latter is available from Amazon.com for less than $30, and spending time with it and the Lange-edited book has had an effect on me: I’m thinking more seriously about format.

In Image Makers, Image Takers, by Anne-Celine Jaeger (Thames & Hudson), William Eggleston says, “I don’t think about what camera I should use that much. I just pick up the one that looks nicest on the day.” That may work for Eggleston, but I think for most photographers the choice of format is more conscious. Alec Soth wrote on his blog that he specifically chose to start working in large format because,

At one point, I looked at the photographers I loved and there happened to be an unusual number who use this format (Nicholas Nixon, Sally Mann, Stephen Shore, Joel Sternfeld, Roger Mertin, Joel Meyerowitz). Since it worked for all of these people, I figured it was worth a try. And as it turns out, there is something special about the format. Beyond the resolution and tonal purity of the negative, the 300mm lens renders the world in a really unique way. But what I really love is the viewing process. The image on the ground glass is just so beautiful. While the format is pretty impractical, I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to give up on the view.

I’ve been told by more than one photographer that I should really change to medium or large format. It reminds me a bit of people telling short-story writers that they should try the novel. There’s the assumption, among some, that you get your start with 35mm and then when you’re serious about photography, you move up. (I know there are photographers like Zoe Strauss—and Eggleston, for that matter—who shoot 35mm, but the overwhelming majority of photographers on my bookshelves and in my link list are not shooting 35; a notable exception: Helen Levitt.)

Looking at American Surfaces, though, I was blown away—not just by the photographs, but by how much I preferred Shore’s early 35mm work to his later large-format photographs. I find his 35mm work more compelling, more intimate. It grabs me in its imperfection.

There’s a place for all these formats, of course, and some photographers successfully move from one format to another, like a writer changing pens. But most photographers seem to stick with one format for years. I don’t think this is just about getting in a routine. And I don’t even think it’s entirely about the end result, the photographs. I think it’s also about the process. Some personalities are just better suited to working with a large-format camera, hauling around all those glass plates and the massive camera and tripod, patiently working to get the image they’re after.

Which comes first: the project or the format? You’d think the project would—that the photographer would conceive of a project and then choose the tool, the camera, that would best execute his vision. But I wonder if it isn’t a little fuzzier than that. Maybe the projects a person is drawn to are the ones that are also best suited to the camera he likes. Maybe the two decisions are nearly inseparable. So someone who’s naturally drawn to a larger format might also naturally be drawn to a project for which large format would work best. And the projects that are most successful are the ones where everything comes together—the right photographer, the right format, the right project—like lines intersecting in some kind of improbable way.

I don’t know the answers to these questions—everything I’m saying could be bunk for all I know. But I do know that, as I’ve gotten some distance from my In Store project, I’ve started to wonder if one of the reasons that the project doesn’t feel right to me is the format. (This is the second key reason I referred to but didn’t elaborate on here.) Nothing is ever that clear-cut. But the lines aren’t intersecting, and I want to figure out why—and learn from it.

Part of why I love S.

A few weeks ago, I said, in passing, somewhat jokingly (but, truth be told, only somewhat), “God, how did I miss it? Angelina had the twins.”

He said, “Angelina?”

“Angelina Jolie.”

“Who’s Angelina Jolie?” S. said.

“She’s an actress. . . .” No response. “She’s married to Brad Pitt. . . .” No response. “She’s Jon Voight’s daughter.”

“Oh . . . Jon Voight! He has a daughter?”

Copyright © People Magazine

Art-world etiquette

After I posted about my print sale (which is still going, by the way—more on that in a bit), quite a few people commented—some favorably, some not—about the idea of doing an edition of 100 for $20. I was curious about what other people thought of this, so I e-mailed a handful of photographers, gallerists, and art collectors to pick their brains. I’m still waiting on responses from a couple people, but I think I can safely give a synopsis.

The overwhelming consensus was that, though the issues raised by some of the commenters regarding edition sizes and prices, are important ones and worth considering, it’s not a black-and-white issue.

On the issue of print size and whether the artist can produce an edition of the same print or from the same series at a later date, at a different print or edition size, one person I consulted pointed out that the Museum of Contemporary Photography sold an edition of 9¼-x-11½-inch prints from Alec Soth’s Sleeping by the Mississippi series for $300, and that it hasn’t hurt the big prints at all (or kept Alec from commanding a much higher price as his reputation has grown). The same person pointed out that Creative Time sold an edition of 11-x-14-inch Marilyn Minter prints for $500. Yes, $300 and $500 are more than $20, but I’m hardly in the category of Alec Soth and Marilyn Minter (yet!). Plus, I’m selling my prints through my blog (which several people pointed out is different from a gallery), and I’m doing it to raise funds for future projects.

Someone also pointed out that Zoe Strauss, who’s deservedly earned all kinds of recognition for her work, sells $5 photocopies of her photographs under the I-95 every May, and she’s also held print sales on her blog.

One person said that the marketplace determines the value of a person’s work, and that the value changes as the person’s standing in the art world changes. Another said that the artist herself determines the value, and that if the “value” of a particular print is that it enables you to get it in the hands of more people or to fund a photographic project, that’s just as valid as selling it in a gallery to a limited number of collectors. She added

It’s fully up to you and that’s why these “serial monogamy” editions are great ways to make some cash and to allow someone to own a piece of work that marks a specific time. I do agree that, as an artist, you do need to think long-term and short-term at the same time, but only you can determine how you want to put your images out into the world and figure out a way to have it be beneficial. It‘s a struggle to figure out how to do it, but there’s not really another option because we don’t have an economic framework that everyone can just plug into and make work.

More than one person said that, at this very early stage of my career, I have nothing to lose by selling prints in this way. Even if it is a “mistake,” all artists make mistakes as they negotiate the system and try to find their places in it.

As I said, I’m still awaiting responses from a few people, and if they have different perspectives on this that will deepen the discussion, I’ll be sure to post them. Feel free, as always, to leave your comments.

In the meantime, my goal with my current print sale is to use the proceeds to produce a zine in a few months. I’ve gotten quotes on the upfront costs of the kind of zine I want to do, and it’ll be close to $2,000. If I sell out of this print, I’ll have enough money to produce the zine—but I’m not there yet. So if you want to see a zine from me in the coming months, you can help by buying a print. As Barnaby from the U.K. said of this image, “It has grace and seems honest. I like those things.” And when have you ever known Barnaby to be wrong?

UPDATE: Another photographer got back to me and was more in line with Christian’s viewpoint, saying, “I would say that the benchmark is set with the editions. If you do high editions at the beginning, your prices will always stay lower. This has to do with the supply-and-demand issues of the secondary market.” The photographer added, “Venue probably matters. But commercial galleries will become aware of those high-edition prints.”

Print sale: Cara’s Bed, Guilford, Connecticut

The print sale is back! And this time around, I’m changing things up a bit: I’m increasing the edition size, and I’ve gotten wise to the woes of Google Checkout and switched to PayPal (which should be much easier for everyone outside the United States, and plenty easy for those inside, too).

My plan is to make this print sale a quarterly thing, or at least every February, May, and August. (I have something special up my sleeve for November. Stay tuned.)

I offer up for you this time around Cara’s Bed, Guilford, Connecticut, an image of my little sister’s bed at the Comfort Inn, the day before she got married. Here are the details:

Print size: 8½ x 11 inches (with a ½-inch border to allow for framing), signed and numbered on the verso
Edition size: 100
Cost: $20 plus shipping ($5.50 U.S., $6 Canada, $7.50 Mexico, and $9 everywhere else)

Copyright © 2008 Liz Kuball

Note: This print is no longer available online. To inquire about availability or purchase a print, please e-mail me. (You can find my contact information here.)