BPC Member Chris Engles has created an audio slide show portrait of the Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway – a boat yard that caters to wooden watercraft, located in Vineyard Haven on the island of Martha’s Vineyard MA.

Have a look!

Over the last 20 years BPC member Chris Engles has been involved in various media – public radio, broadcast television and motion pictures. Along the way, Chris started exploring still photography as an extension of his work as a filmmaker. His latest effort is a collection of pin up images that echo the illustrative style of the 1940’s and 50’s.

Please join Chris for his one night exhibit Friday December 11th from 7-9pm at the Out of the Blue Gallery, 106 Prospect St, Cambridge MA. Click here to watch a promo video Chris put together!

Five photographs from BPC Assistant Organizer Katherine Kominis’ collection, “Beacon Hill Autumn”, will be on display through January 2010. The Illuminations Gallery at Massachusetts General Hospital brings comfort to cancer patients and their families. “Beacon Hill Autumn” represents some of the seasonal beauty of Boston for all visitors to enjoy. As a cancer survivor, Katherine was inspired to create this exhibit as a result of the wonderful people at MGH. She says, “The MGH cancer centers treat their patients with caring respect. I’ll never forget hearing on nurse tell another, ‘they’re all our children’. I hope, as a photographer, to bring beautiful and peaceful images to add to the serenity of this most unique center.”

 

The gallery is located on the 9th floor of the Yawkey Building at Massachusetts General Hospital.

The BPC’s Boston Neighborhood Documentary Project is gaining attention by featured communities. James Martin Moran spent nearly every weekend this summer and fall exploring festivals around Union Square in Somerville. This month, the Union Square Main Streets newsletter mentioned James’ work and a link to his gallery.

BPC member Lee Cullivan was named Boston.com’s RAW photographer of the week! Read the article here and check out his camera lens rental company, ZipLens, here. Congrats, Lee!

This month’s meetING was held at AtlanticWorks studios, 80 Border St, in East Boston. This is not our new space, but it gets us a bit closer to it, as the new space will be at 175 McClellan Highway in Eastie.

Banafsheh talked a bit about how the space will work: it’ll be a co-op studio and exhibit space for those who sign on and pay a monthly fee, but it will also be used for monthly meetings, workshops, and regular group shows open to all BPC members. BPC members who are interested in joining the co-op need to email Banafsheh asap, and will be able to visit the building to view the available spaces on one of two dates coming up next week.

Next we talked about the Art Market Holiday Photo Fair coming up on December 12. There’s an an informational meeting on Tuesday (11/17) for those already signed up to participate (the event is full).

BPC’s Neighborhood Project is getting some notice around town. The Boston Foundation has just used several images from the project in its annual report; and next summer, Project participants will  have one-two images each on display at the Moakley Courthouse for three months. The third round of the Project is just starting up; if you’re a BPC member and you’d like to document one of Boston’s neighborhoods or an adjacent city/town, contact Katherine Kominis for details on joining the Project.

Banafsheh mentioned upcoming workshops taught by Jeff Langevin (Lightroom) and Steve Dunwell (fill flash), then members were then asked what events/shoots they’d like to see BPC offer in the coming year. Among the ideas discussed:

• Shooting holiday lights in residential neighborhoods
• Shoot assignments as “homework,” then view the results at select meetings a few times a year. This was offered as excellent preparation for anyone interested in doing editorial work.
• More salons-type themed discussions — now that we’ll have our own space we’ll be able to revive these popular events.
• Workshops/shoots covering: infrared; action/speed (horse racing was the example given); shooting on manual settings; shooting animals at the zoo (without ending up with pictures that look they were taken in a z00)
• Holga shoots
• Presentation from a gallery owner or curator on presenting your work as fine art photography.

We ended the first section of the meeting with a brief discussion about film — why we started and want to continue our film group, and what’s so magnificent about film photography (not that your trusty reported is biased in any way ;-)

The remaining time was spent on quick image critiques. We saw great images from a  number of members, including some new folks (hi new folks!).

Watch the meetUP site for info on where the December meeting will be held — B is hoping it can be in the new space, but it all depends on the lease details.

The UK’s Daily Mail has some great photos taken during last night’s massive blackout in Brazil. The 2-hour outage was caused by problems with the power lines that carry electricity from the Itaipu dam  to points across Brazil. Paraguay (yes, the entire country) was also without power for about 20 minutes.

The photos give a rare glimpse of a city full of office buildings and skyscrapers standing mostly dark. The relatively feeble glow from random generators and the head- and taillights of passing cars are nearly the only light in many of these images; I especially love the eerie shot looking out over the rooftops of darkened buildings dotted with the tiny lights of rooftop antennae.

The Itaipu dam is the world’s second biggest hydroelectric producer, supplying 20 percent of Brazil’s electricity. China’s Three Gorges dam (photographed by Edward Burtynsky) is the largest.

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Gail Fischer’s photograph, “Rembrandt Puddle” has been selected by juror Susan Parker to appear in the 15th Annual Juried Exhibition at Zullo Gallery. The photograph is part of her “Not in Kansas” series and will be on display from November 14th through January 10, 2010.

Zullo Gallery Center for the Arts is located at 456A Main Street, Medfield, MA. Please join Gail and the other artists for the opening reception on November 21st from 7-9pm.

Photographer Chris Jordan’s devastating series “Midway: Message from the Gyre” shows exactly what happens to some of those bottle caps and other random bits of plastic garbage we so casually throw away. His photos of the carcasses of albatross hatchlings with stomachs full of plastic are shocking — so much so that a viewer may think the photos are set up. But Jordan anticipates this, and assures us in his project intro:

To document this phenomenon as faithfully as possible, not a single piece of plastic in any of these photographs was moved, placed, manipulated, arranged, or altered in any way. These images depict the actual stomach contents of baby birds in one of the world’s most remote marine sanctuaries, more than 2000 miles from the nearest continent.

In addition to the photos on his site,  Jordan has produced a six-minute slideshow, embedded below and available in HD for download.

The images are beautiful and disturbing at the same time, and they’re a sobering reminder of the destructive effects of all the trash we’re piling the planet up with.