Elizabeth Chiles @ testsite

ACP’s own Elizabeth Chiles will be showing her work a lot this month. Her solo show, Book of Praise, will open at testsite on Sunday, March 7th from 3-5pm. In the announcement for Book of Praise, Claire Ruud writes:

“Taking compositions found within the landscape as a starting place, Elizabeth Chiles builds syntax out of the formal and affective relationships between darkness and natural light. Her photographs endow light with temporal and spatial presence—a visible presence that nonetheless gestures toward the imperceptible and ineffable. This handling of light transforms the everyday into something to be revered. In this way, the works in Book of Praise become an ode to a presence akin to that of an altar or inspired text, or what may be the aura of the sacred.”

testsite has been a multifaceted advocate of the collaboration between written and visual media since 2003, combining artists from near and far to experiment and freely explore projects in an environment conducive to an intimate conversation. Book of Praise responds to this space by creating an installation that Chiles sees as sacred in its balance and in its feeling of empty expanse.

Elizabeth Chiles is currently a professor of Art History at Texas State University and will be participating in the 2010 FotoFest Biennial, as well as the Texas State School of Fine Arts faculty show this month. Look for more on these events very soon.

testsite is located at 502 West 33rd Street and is open from 2-5pm on Sundays or by appointment.

Read more about testsite here and view Elizabeth Chiles’ work here.

Austin East of I-35: A Photo Essay by Rama Tiru
Book Signing and Artist Talk @ Domy Books 913 E Cesar Chavez
Saturday, February 27th 7-9 pm


I was given this book for Christmas and am so happy to see it picked up by Domy, the authority for fine art books in Austin. I found Tiru’s photo essay vividly captured the varied interests and lifestyles that converge on the ever developing east side of Austin.

Come by and enjoy the book signing and artist talk. Domy is a treasure trove and their openings are always a great time!

More on Tiru’s East of I-35 here.

THE SARAH GREENOUGH LECTURE HAS BEEN CANCELLED - no further information is available at this time. Bummer!

Harry Ransom Center Lecture: Sarah Greenough

This Thursday, February 25th, at 7pm the Harry Ransom Center presents Sarah Greenough with her lecture “Transforming Destiny into Awareness: Robert Frank’s The Americans, 1959.”

Sarah Greenough is the Senior Curator of Photographs at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC and has authored numerous publications on some of photography’s most iconic figures. I’ve never heard Greenough speak before but her interest in and scholarship on Alfred Stieglitz form an instant soft spot in my heart and personally, I couldn’t resist a discussion on Robert Frank.

The Ransom Center announced this event a while back, so here’s your reminder. Don’t miss this one! It’s free, doors are at 6:30 with the lecture scheduled for 7pm and seating is first come first serve.

See more on the Harry Ransom Center’s upcoming events and general event information here.

FotoFest 2010 is opening in Houston soon and there are enough curatorial dialogues, lectures, workshops and portfolio reviews to tide us all over until 2012 (and that’s not even including the numerous exhibitions happening).

Workshops are just $75 and take place on March 16^th and 21^st.

FotoFest’s International Portfolio Review has four separate sessions to attend. You can still register here.

All exhibitions are free to the public, and with this year’s theme being Contemporary U.S. Photography the who's who of the US photographic community will be a plenty.

Whether you’re a student, professor, young artist or seasoned vet, FotoFest is THE photography event to attend and it lasts over a month!

Between the David Alan Harvey workshop and lecture in Austin, FotoFest in Houston, and of course that little thing called SXSW, March stands to be quite eventful for photography in Texas.

Stay tuned and we’ll keep you up to date on the openings, workshops and lectures from FotoFest.

The FotoFest 2010 Biennial, the Thirteenth International Biennial of Photography and Photo-related Arts takes place March 12 through April 25, 2010 in Houston, Texas. The FotoFest Biennial is the longest running and most acclaimed photography biennial in the United States. Five curators are invited to put together the exhibition program, which focuses on Contemporary U.S. Photography. The FotoFest 2010 Biennial will also see the return of its most popular programs: the Meeting Place Portfolio Review, the FotoFest Fine Print Auction, the FotoFest Workshops, as well as Curatorial Dialogues, Symposia, and film and video programs that will encompass the whole city of Houston for a month and a half. In addition to the exhibitions produced by FotoFest, The FotoFest 2010 Biennial features hundreds of exhibitions at Participating Spaces across the city. These spaces include every major museum and non-profit art space, most commercial galleries, corporate office spaces and dozens of retail and restaurant spaces.

You can see the FotoFest calendar here, and a list of participating spaces here.

Travis Kent at SOFA


Travis Kent recently relocated to Austin from New York, and has just opened his first solo exhibition entitled Hope You’re Well, at SOFA Gallery at the beginning of the month. SOFA was started by Katie Geha, former curator at The University Museum in Wichita, Kansas. The name SOFA is not an acronym, but is a nod to the term Sofa Art. A pejarotive in the art community referring to generic art bought for display over your sofa. (My personal sofa art is a diptych of Roy Lichtenstein's "Whaam!")

Kent's photographs are dynamic, yet his images remain somewhat diaristic due to their low-fi, snapshot feel. He presents unusual moments collected from experience and meticulously sequenced. This exhibit explores whether a photo taken in a way that does not imply composition and screams spontanaity can be considered as serious art. This would be akin to a musician choosing to record their album in a basement on the worst equipment they could find because they wanted that sound to help express their medium. It does not take away from the piece, but adds to it because the choice was specific and calculated.

SOFA has a wonderful and we hope to see even more great things from them. The show has been noted in ArtForum and will be on display until February 21st at SOFA Gallery, 301 E 33rdStreet.

Learn more about SOFA and Travis Kent here, and let us know what your Sofa Art is in the comments.

Hope In Haiti

Austin based photographer Esther Havens was in Haiti within a week of the earthquake. Haven's is a humanitarian photographer and works primarily with water charities. She does not consider herself to be simply a photojournalist because in any situation she is involved with she wants to do more than document those she is around. In her words, "sometimes you have to just put down the camera." She is driven by a desire to bring real, and lasting change to the areas of the world that she is able to visit. Using her photographic ability to raise awareness and help organizations raise funds to do their work.

Esther took her most recent trip with safewaternexus, and will be returning to Haiti with them next week. Then she will be doing a two week trip for Charity Water. The images speak for themselves, and are below. If you would like to know more about Esther and her work you can go to her website, and follow her twitter for the latest updates from wherever she is working.

Thinking of Buying a New Camera?

I recently bought a used film camera off of eBay. This was an incredibly stressful experience. Would the shutter work? Will there be light leaks? Is the glass scratched? Does the camera even take good images? The fears about my specific camera were reasonable, but there was a lot that I could do in advance to make sure that the specific model of camera I wanted would perform well.

When I started shopping I knew that I wanted to get a medium format camera, and I knew that my budget would not allow me to buy a Hasselblad. I started my search by going to eBay and searching for any variation of medium format camera I could think of, and then narrowing the results by limiting them to my price range. I was then able to see all the camera's that would be available to me.

The next step was to figure out which camera would give me what I wanted. My price range restricted me to Twin Lens Reflex cameras. Photojournalists used these in the fifties and sixties. If you've ever seen La Dolce Vita the "Paprazzo" can be seen chasing everyone around with them. I knew that I wanted the camera to have a 1x1 aspect ratio, and many of the cameras that I was looking at would not provide that. I was able to cross those off of my short list.

I then went to flickr.com, and started searching for the specific model of camera I wanted. I was able to see pictures that people had taken in the last few years with the very camera I was planning on buying. Being able to see that I might be able to get images I would like out of the camera greatly increased my confidence.

The last step I went through was searching photography forums to see what people had said about their experiences with the camera. I was able to see that for a few of the models I was considering that quality was a serious issue, and that some people would get broken cameras right out of the box. That would explain why the camera was in my price range, and helped talk me out of that purchase. For the Rolleicord I settled on the forums all had wonderful things to say. They were well built, lasted, and it looked like anyone who had owned one had fallen in love with it.

When I finally returned to eBay to make my purchase, after I had checked a few local camera shops for the chance at instant gratification, I was able to click the bid button without any fear aside from the normal worries about my specific camera working.

The internet is a powerful tool that can make buying a camera sight unseen a great way to save money, and experiment. What are some other ways you have been able to research cameras online without knowing much about them before buying?