Brighton Photo Biennial - Alec Soth talks to Martin Parr

In this brilliant podcast from Daylight Magazine, Martin Parr interviews acclaimed photographer Alec Soth. As part of the Brighton Photo Biennial 2010, Soth was commissioned by Photoworks to be included in the exhibition "Strange and Familiar." For his contribution to the show, Soth collaborated with his daughter, Carmen, to produced a project titled "Brighton Picture Hunt," for which the father-daughter team explored and photographed the towns of Brighton & Hove.

Unless you have been living under a rock for the past few months you will be aware that Alec had some problems with his Visa and was denied permission to work in the UK. If you still don´t know what I´m talking its probably a good idea to have a read of this article in The Guardian to get up-to-speed. To put it simply, that he was barred from taking photographs is outrageous. Why are our border authorities curbing temporary visits by non-EU artists in this way? Thankfully Alec managed to sidestep this regulation in such a clever and inventive way. But then again, there are those that see this whole scenario in an entirely different light. Here is some food for thought from Foto 8 on Twitter:

@Foto8 Soth commission wasn't free. Did his daughter earn it? Not according to " the customs official", What happened to those public thousands?

@Foto8 Alex Soth Brighton tale smells bogus... 2 yrs jail, work permit, 7 yr old, vernacular photography. What says public funded BPB? Mr Parr??

@Foto8 How can picture of Brighton be vernacular if the indigenous photographer is not asked to shoot them.#bogusphotospeak

@Foto8 So apparently its ok to pay a seven year old child labourer in UK and not a commissioned artist? If no pay then customs law is rubbish.

@Foto8 Firstly why does Brighton need to be shot by Soth and secondly how does his daughter not break the same bogus law?

"Independent, outspoken, unfettered" reads the descriptor on their Twitter account profile. Good on them.

Lisa Ross: To Mark a Prayer-Uyghur Mazar

Via the exceptional Daylight Magazine comes this beautiful multimedia piece on Lisa Ross. Go and put the kettle on while you let it buffer and then sit back with a nice cuppa and enjoy!

Michael Itkoff

All images ©Michael Itkoff

Apologies to Michael Itkoff for taking way too long in putting up these images he kindly sent me. They are from his brilliant series called Wrecked. Here is his introduction to the project:

"The Bad Boys, Derby Boys, and All Banged Up are demolition derby teams from Pennsylvania and New Jersey. During the summer months members of the group work on junked cars with the intention of entering them into competition.

Derbys consist of one or more 'heats' where cars or trucks ram into each other until only one is able to move. An ambulance and fire truck is always on hand to evacuate injured participants and control any fires that may break out.

The demolition derby combines the love of cars with the love of destruction. This tradition may become threatened by dwindling oil supplies, but in the mean time, the sound of revving engines and crunching metal will continue to emanate from rural America."

Born 1981 in Philadelphia, Michael Itkoff is a photographer and a Founding Editor of Daylight Magazine. Itkoff has been a recipient of the Howard Chapnick Grant for the Advancement of Photojournalism (2006), a Creative Artists Fellowship from the Pennsylvania Arts Council (2007), and a Puffin Foundation Grant (2008). Itkoff's monograph, Street Portraits, will be published in January 2009 by Charta Books. He earned a BA in Photography from Sarah Lawrence College and will earn an MFA from the ICP-Bard program in 2010