If you’re a personal friend, a photography colleague, a graduate of FDA 2008 in Newcastle, on one of my lapsed albeit fictional Xmas card lists, a Twitter or Facebook friend, you will already know how much enthusiasm and energy has gone into this. It’s been a summer of planning and painting. An autumn of darkroom building and gardening.

Tomorrow evening, the 12 wonderful photographers who’ve gathered to create this project, will hold a small celebration and open the very first private view of our pictures. You may well have already received your invitation from one of us in person. If by any remote chance our mighty PR machine has avoided you so far, do not be dismayed, and download one of these.

And if you can’t make it tomorrow, come over another time. This is just the beginning.

The psychogeography of the pictures we make tell a hundred stories, some more obvious than others. After seeing these, one observant commentator noted ‘he’s stopped doing the doors’.

And then there’s Aaron Guy, with this road picture, one emblematic of his story of the truncated life and times of Ashington’s open cast mining workers. Or is it something else? It’s speaking to a lot of us right now.

Like most photographers, Aaron doesn’t like being photographed, so he had to be persuaded to look at the camera. He’s in Brighton right now, at a Magnum workshop, which explains the tension in his face as he tries to explain exactly what was making him anxious about his week to come. More on that asap.

Dr Ian Walker will be giving a seminar on ‘Bill Brandt Underground: Tracing the Shelter Photographs in the Archive’. Ian has published widely on twentieth century photography. His books include:

City Gorged With Dreams: Surrealism and Documentary Photography in Interwar Paris (Manchester University Press, 2002) and

So Exotic, So Homemade: Surrealism, Englishness and Documentary Photography/ (MUP, 2008).

Here’s an abstract of Dr Walker’s presentation. The seminar takes place in Elvet Riverside 1, room A56, and starts tomorrow, 16th October at 5.30pm. Do let me know if you’re going.

Via Jason Hynes, who went to Darlington to pick it up. Thank you.

She was slightly afraid of him, and the photographs show Bacon looking fearsome. Click through to see the short recording of Jane talking: the Guardian refrains from telling us when this was, but since Bacon died in 1992, perhaps in the late 70s or early 80s.

Via Jim Johnson

An exciting opportunity to see Pierfrancesco Celada’s latest body of work in his modern pilgrimages series is beginning on Monday evening with an invited preview.

Italian photographer, Pierfrancesco Celada, presents a new part of his ongoing investigation into the concept of modern pilgrimages. Every year, driven by both religious and cultural beliefs, thousands of pilgrims walk different routes through Spain from all over Europe to the shrine of St. James, in Santiago de Compostela. The last 100 km is where all these routes cross, and where tourists and the curious increase in number; especially in the summer months when St. James’ festival takes place. After weeks of solitary pilgrimage, because of this multitude of tourists, visitors and pilgrims the return into society is sometimes challenging.

Celada won this year’s Michael Ormerod Travel Award, an annual competition held in memory of the Newcastle photographer who died tragically whilst on one of his US road trips. Dan Prince was this year’s judge, and we hope he’ll be there at the opening with a few words about what made Pier’s work stand out among the high standard of entries. We will ask him, although the St James’s Park photographs that won Pier this award are distinctive and compelling. There’ll be an interview with Celada here soon. Milan to Newcastle - hmm. Why here, why now?

See you on Monday.

Mandela Building,
School of Art and Design
Newcastle College
MAP

October 13 – October 31 2008
Opening October 13: 18:00 – 19:00

James Nachtwey’s wish is to “break [a story that the world needs to know about] in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digitial age.” The TED Prize.

Via No Caption Needed and everyone else! Please pass on.

Laura Goodman’s photographic exhibition continues its UK tour in Glasgow at The Gallery at Mussel Inn.

The Coombe End Preview is on Thursday 4th September: mail Laura if you’d like an invitation. The work will be on show until 30th September, and then we’re hoping Laura will come and do a talk about her methods and practice at Number 7, the new private gallery space.

Never a Dawkins fan, his absolutism has always seemed too dogmatic for my more agnostic view of life as we know it, but I do admire his style. Who hasn’t had hatemail? Some of mine has been an absolute hoot. The stuff from Lawrence Windrush’s fanboys adoring fan was pretty much like this.

Via Stef who wrote: “Connoisseurs of True™ Internet abuse will note that the stuff Dawkins is reading out is positively friendly in comparison with, say, the kind of comments directed at people who stick corrupted 1gb+ files onto bit torrent sites.”