for the second time in 34 years I spent some time at the New Topographics show at GEH.  the house has re-hung the seminal show from 1975 not in the original gallery but the adjacent one, 100 prints from the original exhibition.  Talk about a personal history of photography.  I distictly remember having a railing experience about Hank Wessel’s work for at least an hour as Paul Hester and I drove back to Providence from Rochester.  How impactful the show became when my generation began to teach the edicts of the show and then those students carried on the tradition.  My feelings have changed about the work in the show over the years and now taking a class there yeaterday heard my speaking in reverential terms about the work.  True, photography has moved along and different ideas are embraced now, and Rick Hock said “it was no big deal”,  it still remains a seminal work.  I am delighted to spen time with it.

Waiting during a 2 hour delay at DFW in March with Mark Malloy.  Joys and pleasures of business travel.

It goes on (and on).

Light grid v. 2.  Where is it going?  Stay tuned.

Miguel Zenon, Puerto Rican alto sax player/composer winner of Guggenheim and MacArthur grants is very smart, very accomplished, and a fine musician.  He played last night in the Yale Law School courtyard as part of the International Festival of Arts & Ideas in New Haven.  Quite extraordinary.

A new/old picture made yesterday but shot a couple of years ago at the Addison Museum at Andover, MA.  Taken at the Southworth & Hawes exhibition curated by Grant Rohmer from GEH.  He contributed the title.

This coming fall I will be having three concurrent exhibitions in Boston:

Panopticon Gallery in Kenmore Square at the Hotel Commonwealth will show recent Grids

September 16-November 8, 2009;

New England School of Photography in Kenmore square as well will show Extended Landscapes

August 24-October 2, 2009;

and the Griffin Museum in Winchester, MA will show Suite Niagara

August 27-October 5, 2009.

Last night was the first of the free on the New Haven Green concerts.  Buckwheat zydeco kicked off the summer music…not bad for the money either.

Recently seen at Firehouse 12 in New Haven, CT, Ben Allison is my current hot must listen to performer.

This new work seems to be about mark making…b&w too, stay tuned.

Visual Studies Workshop has the Summer Institute running for the month of July.

I am teaching the Extended Landscape June 29-July 3.

Keith Johnson: Finding the Social Landscape

Center for Photography at Woodstock

Sat-Sun, June 13-14

Upstate New York is full of both natural and man-made wonders. From the Hudson River to the Catskill Mountains, from wildlife to industry and from the local residents to the visiting tourists; this workshop will investigate how the natural landscape and the social landscape collide to offer up grand photographic possibilities.

Walking in the footprints of some of history’s greatest artists, we will investigate our surrounding area and all the wonders that encompass it. This workshop will encourage you to find a personal way of seeing and interpreting a multi-layered environment. We will seek out the social landscape that surrounds us and begin to create stories and observations about it. Students will share their individual opinions about what photographing the landscape means within their work. There will be lectures, critiques and shooting trips in the surrounding area and beyond in search of the photographic holy grail. This is a workshop for fine art photographers, professional photographers and experienced amateurs who want to explore the photographic possibilities that are just outside the door.

Come spend the weekend in Woodstock photographing a wonderful array of landscapes, towns and history.

Please bring: a portfolio of 10-20 images, your favorite camera and lots of film/memory cards.
Class limit: 15 / Tuition: $325 / CPW members: $295

An interesting show curated by Debbie Hesse and Donna Ruff about the use of social networking tools in art making.  Good tuff.

Syntax, a fine show curated by Leslie K. Brown, is an intelligent, well selected show of photographers working on the edge of the bubble using photography to often talk about photography.  Luke Strosnider has his book of New Ansel Adams Landscapes which are the histograms of famous Adams landscapes presented to be viewed as reseen landscapes, they are quite wonderful.  Benno Friedman challenges what a photograph should/might look like. These two plus seven other artists do challenge nicely.  See the show at Photographic Resource Center (PRC) is at 832 Commonwealth Ave., Boston, MA.

Leslie has hit her stride with this and her reecent show at the Fruitlands Museum show.  This lady is bright, inciteful and truly one to be watched, her work is of the highest order.

Bruce has his MFA Thesis show up at the Benton Museum on the UConn Campus in Storrs, CT and a fine show it is.  15 new 24×30 prints from 8×10 film of Fort Juniper made over the past six months.  The one above is a particular favorite, a strong bit of seein.  Additionally, The View Home, shown in a grid this time was shown and written about last year from his Gallery Kayafus show.  Kudos.

The beginning of it anyway; a day that falls midway between the Ides of March and April Fool’s day.  what can that mean?  March remains the cruelest of months.

SWC/M 1997-2009

Today is the first day in 33 years that I do not own a Hasselblad.  My good friend for 12 years produced a mess of pictures has gone off to a new home in Austin, TX.  Although emotionally attached to the idea of film and to the venerable Hasselblad name, dropping it off at FedEx today only brought relief knowing that it is going to a good home and that picture making is not (necessarily) camera specific.  It was kind of like dropping your kid off at school.  I have to say: the camera had soul.

As a result of this transaction, a Canon 5D Mk2 will be the replacement (not sure about the soul part) and with it will be pretty big files made through good glass (Zeiss 25/2.8) and I won’t be scanning negs and cleaning them for hours.  I can live with that.  Not much soul though.  Lots of buttons.  Batteries, too.

Life moves along.

David Taylor has a show at the Aldrich Museum in Ridgefield, CT.  The exhibition is photographs and video installations entitled Frontier/Frontera looking at the border between Mexico and the US.  A document through the eyes of a somewhat neutral but impassioned viewer of the land and the people on both sides.  Regardless of your political position, the work shows us something about us.  I was particularly taken with the video work with three multiple monitor installations.  The museum is a marvelous jewel of a pocket museum with about ten galleries of first rate current work, including Taylor’s.

I have heard a bunch of terrific guitarists but boy can Elliot Fisk play.  We saw him last night at Yale at their annual Guitar Extravaganza.  He is Segovia’s last student and played baroque to contemprorary with three ovations in two hours.  That boy sure can play.  Do not miss him if he comes around again.  He is a world traveler extraordinaire.

Recent work (2008) of David Hilliard at Carroll & Sons Gallery at SOWA in boston is first rate.  His work continues to evolve and is beautiful to boot.