Bill Jay has died
Bill Jay - the author, photographic educator, founding editor of Creative Camera magazine and regular contributor to Ag magazine and LensWork - has died in his sleep last Sunday, aged 69.
Bill Jay - the author, photographic educator, founding editor of Creative Camera magazine and regular contributor to Ag magazine and LensWork - has died in his sleep last Sunday, aged 69.
At last The Guardian has got round to printing Eamonn McCabe’s obituary for Peter Goldfield, who died on 9 February -- it’s in today’s issue. It’s arguably a little matter-of-fact but, to be fair, it does occupy ¾ of a page, so fair dos. Better late than never. You can read it online by clicking here.
The Spring 2009 issue of Ag, Ag55,
is in the shops and on its way to subscribers, and includes the final call for
entries to our Brilliant Book Awards. We’re looking for your best photobook
ideas, and the winners will be printed as beautiful hardbacks by Blurb.com --
plus prizes from Adobe of Photoshop CS4 and Lightroom 2. Over £2500 in prizes
to be won! Cover photographer Andy Gotts talks about photographing the stars
and we have exclusive new colour work from John Blakemore. David Lee reviews a
new body of work from Chris Killip -- Here Comes Everybody -- and Bill Jay
advises on how to fake appearing profound about photography. Gerry Badger hails
a series of books on photobooks from Errata Editions and Tim Daly describes how
to reproduce b&w print effects using inkjet output. Eddie Ephraums
discusses the relationship between text and pictures, plus we have six great
portfolios in Scene Around. And we have the usual mix of new and views and some
of our favourite new photobooks. Click the link top left for more.
This site is presently dormant while it undergoes a major revamp.
The October issue of Ag is tremendous: issue 53’s cover story introduces an exhibition of Rob Grierson's Family Pictures; Gerry Badger admires a new Anna Fox retrospective and A D Coleman reports from the Houston Fotofest; we test drive Blurb's B3 book production service for professionals and Tim Daly proposes a logical approach to digital workflow; there's a stunning portfolio of Cumbria by night, from Henry Iddon, taken from the hilltops; David Lee is underwhelmed by a rehash of Josef Koudelka's 1968 Prague invasion reportage and Kyriakos Kalorkoti sets out his philosophy of landscape - plus more new photography in the Scene Around section and our regular selection of newly published photobooks. Click here for the full details.
Ag magazine reader Beth Dow, based in Minneapolis, has won the $25,000 first prize in the inaugural Photography.Book.Now awards with her book In The Garden. The prize is sponsored by Blurb.com and Beth's book was chosen from over 2000 submitted entries. You can find out more about the competition and winning entries by clicking here, and details of Beth's winning book by clicking here.
You have until 25 September to win your share of a £13,000 prize pool in the fourth International Photography Awards organised by British Journal of Photography. For full entry details - click here.
We have added to the library of pdf downloads available at Lulu.com, which include whole issue of Ag magazine, as well as books, individual articles and series. For a full listing click here.
Bill Rowlinson, doyen of black and white master printers, has died age 78, writes Chris Dickie. His funeral was held today at St Paul’s, “the actors’ church”, in Covent Garden. There isn't a “printers’ church”, yet. Bill Rowlinson began making b&w prints at Wimbledon School of Art in the early 1950s where he was supposed to be studying painting. After service in the airforce, marriage and a couple of years as general dogsbody at Wickhams Studio in Victoria Street, London, he emigrated to Canada. He found little photographic work there, other than a spell with a child portrait photographer, but later landed a job with United Press in Detroit by, so he said, being the only applicant among 30 hopefuls who could spell. This was a long way from the fine art printing that was to come: three-minute development, drying in meths, then a print straight onto the wire.
He saved and moved to Paris to “become an artist”, failed to learn French, and in the ‘60s returned to England and opened a nightclub. That venture failed, and an 18-month move to the Canary Islands further depleted his funds. In the late 1960s he was back in England again and in a darkroom job with Ted Hart. Rowlinson noticed that photographers were no longer printing their own work: the era of the master printer was coming and Rowlinson was placed to be among the first of them.