Graeme Mitchell » news

The End

admin — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 13:28:20 +0000

As far as these things go, this blog is ancient (born Nov 2006!), and I think it has been overdue to be put to bed for some time now. So this is it. Hopefully it can stay up as an archive at this URL. I took a moment before writing this and clicked through the old NYC Journal work, and it’s such a trip to look at, feels like a different lifetime. I’m happy that that moment found a home here – it was the best part.

If you want, you may visit this new site, /blog2. It’s not meant to be a replacement for this site at all but instead will have it’s own personality. As the adage goes, we have to change to stay the same.

Thanks to everyone who visited and participated here over the years. It was a lot of fun.

Warmly,
Graeme

Holly, 2

admin — Sun, 18 Sep 2011 15:12:58 +0000

Holly, Bronx NY, 2011, by Graeme Mitchell

New Portfolio Site: www.graememitchell.com

admin — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 03:53:31 +0000

This particular update is overdue, as my last site was long in the tooth.

WWW.GRAEMEMITCHELL.COM

Creative direction and design by Mr. Diggles.

“I have sort of given up on what the best practice would be for presenting photos online. Every photographer looses with the web. It is a terrible way of showing work. Therefore I like this direction because it is at least somewhat fun.” -Mr. Diggles

“Unreal City,” Softcover Edition

admin — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 22:58:10 +0000

There were 4 portfolios in the original edition of this. They were prints hand mounted in leather albums. I still think they are beautiful as artifacts, but they were stupidly expensive and time consuming to make. Moreover, only 4 people have them, and I’m pretty sure they’re not being treated as coffee table books. I wanted a simple small copy for myself to have around, and also since doing the Occurrences newsprint edition, I had a number of people ask if I’d ever do an inexpensive version of Unreal City, so I decided to revisit it and do this.

It’s 8.5×8.5,” 71 pages, 49 pictures, soft cover, perfect bound.

The print-on-demand press quality leaves a lot to be desired, but right now utilizing any tangible medium is good I think. Plus, I think that populace mainstream sort of lo-fi medium is cool, makes the work more eye-level and less precious. Needless to say these aren’t to be shilled as rare or valuable – they’re intended to be enjoyed and shared.

Tara St. James wins Ecco Domani

admin — Thu, 13 Jan 2011 14:32:22 +0000

A big congrats to the designer, Tara St. James for being awarded the 2011 Ecco Domani award for sustainable design. Tara is a testament to adhering to an ethic that’s well beyond business and getting rich and getting famous. This is an unimaginably difficult thing to do. Bravo and kudos.

photo: Tara St. James, NYC, 2009. By Graeme Mitchell.

New Book: “Occurrences”

admin — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 20:04:43 +0000

Occurrences is a new book of 44 photographs. It is 58pg in length, sized 11×8.5,” printed on an archival acid free matte paper, and bound in linen hardcover. This hardcover edition will be extremely limited at 6 signed and numbered books and one A/P. However, an edition of 6 isn’t many, so I may do a newsprint edition later.

This quick little video shows the A/P. There will be a few very minor changes made to the finals, but nothing major.

And a big thanks to, Aaron Binaco for the help editing this work.

Update: this edition is sold out.

Notes from the weekend

admin — Mon, 05 Apr 2010 15:03:34 +0000

Harold Edgerton (the fellow you can thank for all that strobe gear you have laying around):

photo: by Harold Edgerton

And the portraits of Julia Margaret Cameron (who did this stuff way way before any of us were even a consideration of existence’s):

photo: Come Alice by Julia Margaret Cameron

photo: Whisper of the Muse by Julia Margaret Cameron

‘Unreal City’ multimedia presentation

admin — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:15:10 +0000

I’m currently assembling a very small edition bound portfolios of an edit of NYC street photography that will represent that body of work to date, 50 prints to be exact (more on these when a few are finished). The name of the edition will be, Unreal City. This is a slide-show presentation of those 50 pictures. So, please, take a minute, dim your lights, turn up the sound, and let it creep around you.

Thanks, and I hope you enjoy.

Used Condom Print, at Museum of Sex

admin — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 13:22:21 +0000

This is interesting: this print was just delivered as a loan to The Museum of Sex in NYC for their exhibition on rubbers, on view Dec 1st through April, I believe.

photo: Used Condom 2008 (from NYC Remnants), 40×50″ archival pigment print, edition of 3, by Graeme Mitchell.

R.I.P. Irving Penn

admin — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 21:58:32 +0000

Here.

The last to go of the greats of the previous century of photography; Irving Penn who, like Avedon and Newton and Strand and etcetera, we’ll all forever, forever stand in the long shadow of. B/c the man LIVED:

So take a picture for him today. So pour a drink for him tonight.

“When you are old and gray and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire, take down this book and slowly read, and dream of the soft look your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep.” -William Butler Yeats

Break from this

admin — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:36:57 +0000

This blog has been a great exercise, but I’m taking an indefenite leave from posting here. I may throw up the occasional new work or NYC Journal posting, and I may revisit the blog idea with my work in a different form down the road, but for now my picture making ideas are focused elsewhere. Thanks!

Jeff Koons at Strand

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:12:11 +0000

There is a lot of art I love, most of what is considered good I can manage to find some bit of sanctuary in, or come to some sort of terms with, but on the other hand, when I consider owning art, or decorating with it (a completely hypothetical consideration, as I neither own nor decorate with it in any manner as of yet) there’s really remarkably little I’d be genuinely interested in. (Of course this is aside from photography). So it is surprising even to myself to admit that I could enthusiastically imagine a Jeff Koons‘ “Balloon Dog” in my foyer…or front yard. (A glorious (and gloriously priced) middle finger to nearly any neighborhood association).

photo: Jeff Koons “Balloon Dog” on the roof the the MET, ©Lloyd Ziff (in NYMag, here)

I can’t help but marvel at most of his larger installations. They’re beautiful in their grotesqueness. Adorably troubling. Like a child’s dream after going to Coney Island then watching Gilliam’s, Brazil.

photo: still from Terry Gilliam’s film, Brazil.

What’s attractive about that, about some subaltern-figment-of-the-psyche getting it’s say in huge colorful steel? Well I’m not sure exactly. Except to say that there’s a lightheartedness to it, a punctuated absurdity, a “b/c I can,” and there’s sometimes not enough of that in life that isn’t fabricated/fed to us, that is honest like art is.

I’m bringing this all up b/c Koons is speaking at Strand bookstore downtown on April 13. Details, here. If you live in NYC, and can sweat the crowd, I’d check it out. (Although, last time I was there Eliot Erwitt was signing books and, maybe, 15 people showed up, which sorta depressed me (is this what it comes to?) but that’s another story.)

out, again

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:48:36 +0000

Damn, I’m leaving again. Stepped in NYC for a week, shot like one roll on the street, discussed a fashion story with a stylists that we were going to get going, then got called out West for another commercial job.

Will be out for about two weeks. Telling you this is getting old, right…

Now, complaining about any money job these days would be wrong, so I bite my tongue about having to vanish again, and I just keep pics like these open on my desktop, small, in the corner, to keep things legit, to keep sanity legit.

photo: Untitled, 1971, ©Kohei Yoshiyuki.

(Meisel did a play on Yoshiyuki’s park photos for Vogue Italia. Supposedly it was too much, (see it, here). And while I prefer the original, as is most often the case, still a fine fash ed.)

photo: Nude, Seaford, East Sussex Coast, 1957, ©Bill Brandt.

(As far as I can remember, I’ve yet to see a fashion take on Brandt’s work. Ripe to be done though. Ripe. Inez, maybe?)

photo: Brooklyn School Children See Gambler Murdered in Street , 1941, ©Weegee.

(Wow)

All of those are from the Moma collection btw.

Enjoy. Will keep you posted.

Kodak Propass Magazine

admin — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 23:45:52 +0000

There’s a nice write up on Mike McGregor, Taj Forer and I in the current Kodak Propass magazine.

You can check it, here.

Back but slammed

admin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 00:04:17 +0000

I promise some posts to come soon. Promise. Got back from London and had 3 shoots pile onto my phone while I was still on the tarmac. Hit-ground-running-stumbling-correcting-cont.running. You get the idea. And I’m looking at this pile of Tri-x on my desk that ‘s begging for a long rodinal soak. Sigh. Sigh again. B/c alas, digital does beckon even I…

I wallow in self-disgust at the notion of doing a post on not posting, but just know web-land that I’ve not abandoned you! So log off and go shoot or do whatever it is you do to get your scooter going, and I’ll see you back here before you know it.

(BTW, I’ve been way interested in the aesthetic of older sci-fi for a little while now, something that the cold, gray architecture in London further set off, so a movie list for homework until I can lay down a real post:

1) Jean Luc Godard’s Alphaville:

2) Roman Polanski’s Repulsion

3) Herk Harvey’s Carnival of Souls

Away

admin — Mon, 09 Feb 2009 20:19:27 +0000

Going to be in St Barts working this week. Then in London for fashion week. So there won’t be anything here for a bit.

I’ll try to come back with some pics and a good story.

‘Til then.

John Updike Passes

admin — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 09:40:47 +0000

One of the canons of the contemporary American canon, John Updike, died yesterday.

photo: “Massachusetts – John Updike, 1962. ©Dennis Stock / Magnum.

“We do survive every moment, after all, except the last one.”
-John Updike

…though I much prefer,

“Existence itself does not feel horrible; it feels like an ecstasy, rather, which we have only to be still to experience.”
-John Updike

Andrew Wyeth Passes

admin — Thu, 22 Jan 2009 01:54:21 +0000

For those of you who didn’t hear, Andrew Wyeth passed away last Fri. Christina’s World is the one painting I’ll always stop to visit with when at the MOMA.

RIP

photo: “PENNSYLVANIA—Painter Andrew Wyeth, 1991.” ©David Alan Harvey/Magnum.

Busy and a something swell

admin — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:56:13 +0000

Concentrating on a few shoots right now.

In the meantime, this is that something swell:

photo: Avedon, Penn, and Newton, from left to right, © unknown, found here.

Merry Christmas

admin — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 23:31:32 +0000

Happy Holidays.

2 years ago

admin — Wed, 26 Nov 2008 00:06:55 +0000

My friend, Benjamin pointed out that this blog turned two years old today. So happy birthday, site. If you click on the categories nyc journal, family, or inspiration, I’ll think you’ll quickly recognize what’s kept this thing going; that is: a love for learning and sharing; there’s never been any motivation or strategy beyond that, and I hope to keep it that way.

And a random pic, b/c a post isn’t a post w/o a picture.

Kodak Opening

admin — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:39:51 +0000

Thought I’d offer this up, b/c I’ll have a picture hanging there.

Benjamin Diggles’ Portfolio

admin — Fri, 10 Oct 2008 23:01:39 +0000

While away for work over the last few weeks I crashed with my close friend, Benjamin, on his couch to be precise, b/c there’s hotel rooms in life and there’s friends in life – and I choose the later. For work Benjamin is a web director/strategist (i.e. he uses the internet to make people $). While staying with him, he and I worked together on his new resume/portfolio. I’m mentioning this for two reasons: first, simply to help get the word out that he’s on the professional market, so to speak; secondly, and moreover, I bring it up b/c of the strong, dare I say ingenious, use of photography on his site: the utilization of mainstream-culture’s web disseminated imagery (i.e. our generation’s visual idioms) as the backdrop for his portfolio is progressive. Not progressive like walking to work, not progressive in a clever manner, but progressive in a critical and thoughtful manner that at at the same time gets in your face as it sneaks up behind you. Furthermore, it’s not often to see a site that’s not photography related at all yet hinges on the very medium. Benjamin is resituating these images, rewriting them into completely different texts than they were initially intended, and in doing so he speaks much louder and clearer than any amount of copy could.

The people who get it, are really going to get it, and in doing so are going to get the author in a big way.

Smart work, friend.

Check it, here.

Photo: screenshot from www.benjamindiggles.com

Enroute, and a mag cover

admin — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:51:26 +0000

Flying back to NYC tomorrow, heaps of work and need-to-dos, but I’ll get back to the ol’interweb-postin’ too. Did see this portrait by Amelia Handscomb of the Flight of the Concords duo on the cover of issue #91 of BPM magazine…caught my attention. It’s always a pleasure to be taken by quality in random places; in that, I’ve never looked at BPM magazine until this, and it immediatly reinforced for me the importance of good photography, or even more generally to extrapolate on that line of thought: that doing things well matters.

Travelling

admin — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 15:06:11 +0000

Away until early Oct for work, so there’s going to be very little to no action here.

Until then.

Fashion week S09

admin — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 22:30:09 +0000

All’s quiet work wise and at the same time insane out-on-the-town wise with fashion week in the apogee of it’s swing. I’ve been laying relatively low, a few smaller parties, a few quiet dinners, no posts here…

Sometimes it’s good to take it in.

I was going to post on Marc Jacobs’ incredible job this season, but I was beat to it, here. I don’t know who styled the show, but they got’er-dun in a major way

photo: Marc Jacobs’ S09 line.

Jeurgen Teller interview

admin — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 11:43:25 +0000

A revealing-on-numerous-levels interview with Tellar in NY Mag (here).

Teller’s work took a looong time to grow on me; even if it’s a mistake %97 percent of the time for an artist to talk about the why of their work, for reasons ranging from authorial trespassing to just sounding like an asshole, especially dangerous when it’s based largely on their sexuality, as is the case here…even if, I still like his pictures.

Montcler, Gamma Rouge (down with the down)

admin — Mon, 25 Aug 2008 19:10:25 +0000

Caught onto the Montcler Gamma Rouge line over at the trendphilia Sans Artiface blog. These are some hawt down jackets, and if they did mens, well, rowyco. Form and silhouette like this practically photographs itself.

photo: Montcler’s Au Chateau jacket, image from their website.

Interview Magazine swings for the fences

admin — Sat, 16 Aug 2008 03:25:12 +0000

Well, got a good look today of Interview‘s Sept 08 issue and the crew there has in a single issue transformed the magazine from the gasping for it’s last breath’s celebrity rag that Warhol invented so long ago to a fashion force to be reckoned with. Fabien Baron and Karl Templar have gradually been upping the ante with shoots like Mikael Jensen’s Eve Mendez spread last month, but this issue is a big, ballsy, and, I think, excellent move deeper in that direction. To drop some names from it: McDean, Sims, Mert and Marcus, Jensen, Templer, Guido, Moss, oh, and an entire spread dedicated to Margiela! And as if that’s not enough, they added an inch to page size and went to perfect binding.

[Insert applause].

photo: Interview Magazine Sept 08 cover, Kate Moss shot my Mert and Marcus.

Yves Saint Laurent

admin — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 13:39:11 +0000

I’m sure many of you have heard, but I thought it worth mentioning here that Yves Saint Laurent died. He was considered one of the greatest designers of the 20th century, not only b/c of his clothes, but also for his use of Fashion (with a capital F) as a vehicle of transformation of womens’ function in society. He was at the forefront of inventing the modern women in mass culture.

A Visual Society has a nice little summary of some of his ad imagery here, one of which being Helmut Newtons’ deservedly famous take on Yves’ tuxedo suit: