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Christmas Wishes
Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 7:00AM 
Here it is - coming to save you the long walk home - the Christmas Red Bus!
I'm signing off now until the New Year and so I'd like to offer some sincere thanks to everyone who has helped me make Photo-Dialogue happen this year.
Here is my Xmas link-fest (in rough order of appearance) I apologise in advance if I miss any of you... and there are, of course, many who remain anonymous.
Very many thanks to:
David Alan Harvey and Burn magazine
Workshop and PhD colleague Jennifer Rosenzweig
inVisio and the excellent Delta7
Photographer Michael Francis McElroy
Jeff Monday's dots...
Photographer Edward Burtynsky
Photographer Nick Smith
Top-communicator Robert Digings
John Caswell's work at The Opposable Thumbnail
Amazing Photo-Journalist Jez Coulson
Beautiful Malin Svensson
Visual facilitators Mariah Howard and Julie Gieseke
My Hellsten's cows...
Awesome Jeff Charbonneau and Eliza French
Lynda at An Enchanted Forest
Photographer Tom Chambers
Photo-researcher Rob Coley
The brave Brian Lawson at Consilient Consulting
Tim Casswell of Creative Connection
Marie Puybaraud, Anne Marie McEwan and the JCI Global Mobility Network
Stephan Harding and Schumacher College
Slinkachu's little people
Richard Barnes and Animal Logic
Francis Gardler and David Labelle
This has been such a great year; through Photo-Dialogue I have developed new friendships, new projects, looked at and taken thousands of photographs, discovered the joy of buses (!) and developed my work as a consultant in bringing visual learning to my clients.
Thanks again for reading or contributing. I will be looking for contributors to be part of Photo-Dialogue in 2009, so if you would like to join me or show your work here, then please do drop me a line!
Season's greetings,
Steve
Reader Comments (13)
Merry Christmas! It's been a pleasure to visit your blog and to chat with you in 2009. I look forward to chatting and visiting with you in the new year. Many Blessings to you and your family! --- Lynda
Yay, a big red bus! Happy Christmas to you and yours, glad you started sharing your work on this blog. Will enjoy exploring the links.
Hey Lynda,
And a very happy Xmas to you and yours too - let's get that LHR rendezvous organised. And we'll see if we can hook up with JC too!
All the best for the festive season and wishing you a happy new year!
Thanks, Tess!!
All the best to you and yours too! Btw - have you seen Lynda's work - you guys would, I think, have quite a lot in common...
Here's to a great Xmas and 2010!
Tess's Web site is cool! Thanks for suggesting. Hey, when you come back from break, I'd be interested to hear what you think about this photographer's work:
http://lungliu.com/
To see the pictures, you have to click on the "menu" on the right hand side and then scroll down to "editorial" and click on it ... it pulls up the portfolio options in a right hand column.
Happy New Year :-)
Oops, that should say click on "menu" on the left hand side :-)
Hi Lynda,
Happy New Year!
Those pictures are truly astonishing... Whenever I see images like that I feel a whole load of conflicted emotions... My first response is 'How do you get yourself into those kind of situations....?' Then I wonder if the images are explotative... I know that raising awareness of these human conditions can promote change and yet I wonder how much really happens... I realise that I really needed the words - I overlooked the descriptions to begin with but when I clicked through the words really helped me gain some sense of what was happening. The context is important to me..
Wow - you can tell - this is a bit of a stream of consciousness... I need more time to let the images settle...! But.... there is something here that fires up the activist in me - how can we let these situations occur and pass (mostly) unseen...???
Steve
So maybe it's just me ... the www.lungliu.com photos were favored by a majority in the online photography group to which I belong ... but when I popped by to look at them, well ... I didn't really like them. I don't know, something about them seems flat to me. It's just photos of desperate people in horrible situations and seemingly nothing more: no hint of hope or beauty or even some sign or symbol pointing to some greater theme or story or idea.
Thinking of Don McCullin's photos again, even in the midst of horror, death, and war, something of a greater theme or idea, something of hope or transcendence shines through: some hint to a greater story or reality or message. Alas, I didn't find that in lungliu's photos ... but then again, maybe it's just me?
Maybe.... lunglui definitely has impact but I agree with you about the lack of hope - I don't think that I will regularly look at them. And so ultimately, perhaps they fail to communicate. Unlike McCullin..... I met him in the early 80's when I was studying for my photography degree... and I still look at his stuff. It touches me. A personal reaction, I think, to the humanity and connection that he attempts to inspire. For me, McCullin is in a different league.
Okay, I feel better now :-) ... thanks ... I thought perhaps other folks were seeing something that I wasn't. I wish I could take photos like McCullin. I LOVE his work. I'm jealous that you met him. Soooo not fair. And you know, folks can follow the instructions on how to capture humanity all they want, but clearly McCullin's doing something else.
Hey, what do you think of David duChemin's work? Here's the URL to his site: http://www.pixelatedimage.com/
Am reading his "Within the Frame" right now (he's the guy behind VisionMongers too). And (woo hoo!) I'm on a waiting list to start private photography lessons with him ... hopefully in March. I'm kinda psyched about that :-)) (but don't let that influence what you say in any way :-))
"I wish I could take photos like McCullin." Mmmm... you might need to BE McCullin to do that...:-)
I think duChemin's work is beautiful and I seriously loved the portraits. His colour images really grab me. But... there is almost something too perfect about them - I felt curiously disinterested in his 'personal' work - I was looking for something very exciting there; new, revolutionary, pushing the boundaries... but didn't find it. Maybe it's me...;-) But I am very envious of your private lessons - wow - could you (quietly)pass the secrets on.... I'm going to be watching your blog like a hawk!
Hey, I appreciate your thoughts ... yes, oddly his "personal" work didn't grab me at all either, it's almost like the photos are taken by an entirely different person ... his professional work amazes me though ... he has similar photo philosophies as Jez ... that a photo must tell a story and that a picture of a person must be lifted somehow, must point to something beyond the person and say something else, something about humanity. Um, not sure what happened in those personal photos though.
Yes, please watch me like a hawk :-) ... hopefully my photography will improve exponentially once I get started with David. That's the plan anyway!
And speaking of hawks, check out Jezblog today:
http://www.jezblog.com/index.php?showimage=1045
(be sure to read the News Flash!!) ;-)
Lynda
Congratulations! I'm going to order a copy now! ;-))