nex·us | \ ˈnek-səs \ :  CONNECTION, LINK a connected group

“"Fall in love. Every day. With everything. With life. If you can fall in love, you can be a photographer. I think that is absolutely essential."
~ Ruth Bernhard

Dark Goddess, 2024 © Robert Bergstrom

Portland-based photographer, Robert Bergstrom, has had his work selected to appear in an exhibit entitled "Afrofuturism and Hip Hop" at the James Wise Gallery at Norfolk State University.

Date: February 26 to March 28, 2024

Wonderland part 2, Great Falls Park, VA, 2008. © Kimberly Schneider

"I make what I refer to as spiritual landscape photographs."

In this online interview, Kimberly Schneider speaks about her plans and the processes she uses for the film and cameraless photographs she plans to make for EQUIVALENCE: Spiritual Landscapes of the Western United States, her upcoming handcrafted book published by Veritas Editions.

KImberly has a GoFundMe campaign in full swing to help promote and cover the cost of creating and publishing EQUIVALENCE. She is offering several Rewards in exchange for donations. One reward is the photo above, a limited edition silver gelatin print, made on true infrared film.

This is an opportunity to support an emerging artist.

Kimberly Schneider Interview

Launch Date: April 9, 2024

Last month I mentioned that my wife, Donna, will launch her new novel, The Last Magdalene, in April. Many readers of Nexus have already prepurchased a copy of the book from Amazon. Thank you for doing this for Donna and me.

Donna has received top reviews from the St. Louis Literary Review and The Historical Fiction Company and is featured on this month's Book and Buzz magazine cover.

If you haven't already, you can pre-purchase a copy of the book using the link below. Registering on Donna's site will make you eligible to win one of three signed hardback editions.

St. Louis Literary Review

Pre-purchase The Last Magdalene

Register on Donna's site

Buhtan, 2023. © Nevada Wier

I first became aware of Nevada Wier through her monthly column in Petersen's Photo/Graphic in the 1980s.

In the ensuing years, she has developed her skill and vision to become one of the finest photographers of indigenous people and cultures.

Ms. Wier has photographed on assignment for National Geographic, NY Times magazine, Smithsonian, and many others. In this video, she speaks about her experiences and the challenges she has faced.

Nevada Wier

Down in Dallas Town is a startling film about the shifting terrain of public memory sixty years after the murder of John F. Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Through interviews with people on the street and songs recorded to memorialize JFK in the mid-1960s, the film explores the impact of the assassination on issues in today’s world, from lingering conspiracy theories to the proliferation of gun violence, homelessness, and the scourge of K-2

Personal narratives are juxtaposed with the sentiments articulated in blues, gospel, norteño, and calypso recordings to haunting effect. Especially poignant is the account of Mary Ann Moorman, who returns to the assassination site fifty years later and details the making of her Polaroid photograph of the fatal headshot that killed JFK as the motorcade passed through Dealey Plaza. This resonant new film by Alan Govenar confronts ways we come to terms with the past through the power of storytelling, image-making, and a largely unknown songbook.

Down in Dallas

Deadline: April 11

Social Documentary Network has announced the fourth SDN Online Documentary Portfolio Reviews. SDN has teamed up with editorial, publishing, and fine art leaders to review the work of documentary and editorial photographers, offer constructive criticism, and keep an eye out for new and talented photographers.

Since 2008, SDN has been promoting global documentary photography through its website, ZEKE magazine, SDN Education, and other programs it offers to its network of photographers and others interested in the power of images to tell important stories.

SDN Portfolio Review

Dunes and Mountains, White Sands, 1946. © Brett Weston Estate.

In the 1980s and '90s, Brett Weston was ranked among the top ten photographers collected by American museums.

Between 1939 and 1980, Brett produced eighteen limited edition portfolios of original photographs. He believed passionately in the power of his original prints and chose the portfolio to reach an expanded audience while maintaining control over image quality. Today, Weston’s original portfolios are rare, expensive, and relatively inaccessible in museums, archives, libraries, or private collections.

Printed by Dual Graphics in 400-line screen quadtone on heavy-coated stock, the photographs have been reproduced in actual size whenever possible.

To recreate the feeling of the original portfolios, great care has been taken to reproduce the photographs and every aspect of these books. Where there is text in the portfolios, it is reproduced in facsimile, and the color of each book’s cover has been selected to match the covers of the original portfolio cases.

If, like me, you enjoy collecting the work of great photographers, then I recommend this collection of Brett's greatest work.

Brett Weston Portfolios

How often should you post to Instagram each week?

It’s a question that elicits a lot of opinions from social media managers, creators, and solopreneurs alike. Does Posting Frequency on Instagram Really Matter?

Short answer: yes.

Read More

While working to complete the fifth edition of The Darkroom Cookbook, I came across the amazing ars-imago Lab Box.

The Lab-Box allows you to develop a single roll of 35mm or 120 film without a darkroom. You don't even need running water, though you must have about one gallon available in a container for washing.

ars-imago (sic) also makes Monobath Eco Film Developer. A Monobath combines the developer and fixing agent in a single solution. As you're developing the film, you're also fixing it so it will be permanent when you're finished. All you need is to rinse the chemicals off the film (that's what the one gallon of water is for) and a place to hang it for drying (that's what bathrooms are for).

After that, you can scan your film with a scanner or camera, make digital prints, or enlarge your digitized negative and enter the world of alternative processes, such as gum printing, cyanotype, or platinum/palladium.

Lab-Box is the easiest and quickest tool to develop your films in full daylight, anywhere, and anytime, bypassing the need to load the rolls in the dark.

Just remember, digital may be the future, but film is forever.

The Lab Box

The Polaroid I-2 is the first analog instant camera with built-in manual controls. Paired with the sharpest-ever Polaroid lens and the unique chemistry of Polaroid film, you have an instant craft tool made for the tactile pursuit of analog photography.

A continuous autofocus 3-lens system creates the sharpest images of any Polaroid instant camera. You can use the I-2’s wide aperture to create stunning, bright portraits with beautiful depth of field.

Polaroid I-2

Photography is the art of isolation; choosing what to leave in or take out is the first step for the visual artist to create order from chaos. This is accomplished in the viewfinder of a handheld camera or on the ground glass of a view camera through framing. Also known as composing, framing is the fundamental choice all photographers make when deciding what to include or exclude from their image.

What is important is what you show the viewer to impart your vision and message. Here is an example of what I mean. The top photo is a statement about the impact of humans on the landscape.

For the second image, I moved the tripod about twenty-feet forward, just under the electric wires. Now it is a statement about the pristine beauty of the Willamette River.

Follow the link below to view a three-minute film I made about the art of isolation.

Art of Isolation

Batman & Robin, NYC, 2003. © Steve Anchell
Leica M6, 50mm f/1.4 lens, f.5.6 @ 1/15 second with flash. Ilford HP5+, EI 320.

Deadline: April 15

Street photography is a unique art form associated with a photographer's skill in capturing a moment that would have gone unseen without their intervention. A street photographer thrives in a time and place where the mundane transforms into the extraordinary, with their surroundings serving as a canvas for artistic expression. Whether it's capturing the energy of bustling streets or the quiet solitude of hidden alleyways.

The Art of Street Photography is an international open call for photographers ages 18 and older. All forms of two-dimensional images, traditional and non-conventional media, and conventional or alternative processes with a subjective analog or digital photographic base are welcome.

Art of Street Photography

Deadline: April 4

Passepartout Photo Prize aims to support the development of talented photographers worldwide by awarding 1,000 euros in monetary prizes yearly, organizing an exhibition in a fine art gallery in the heart of Rome, publishing in our partners’ magazines, and providing other opportunities for international exposure.

This is an open-theme contest. Photographic works of any artistic style, size, and technique (digital, film, experimental processes, digital collages, and other mixed media) are accepted. AI-generated images when used as part of the photographic process are accepted.

Passepartout Photo Prize provides cash awards, exhibition in a fine art gallery in Rome, publication, and international exposure opportunities. The 8th edition is now accepting entries.

Passepartout Photo Prize

iPhone Photography Awards

© Rhonda D. - IPPAWARDS
iPhone 13

Deadline: March 31

IPPAWARDS has been instrumental in launching the careers of some of the best iPhone photographers worldwide. Since the inception of the awards in 2007, the winning photographers have gained worldwide exposure and have been celebrated and acknowledged by the most respected media outlets around the world.

iPPA

Hoi An at Night

Hanoi - Hoi An -Hue - Phong Nha - Hanoi

If you have been waiting for the photography
experience of a lifetime, this is it.

Prepare to immerse yourself in authentic Vietnam culture. With Hanoi as our starting and ending point, for ten days we will traverse the mountains and forests of the northern region of Vietnam. During that time, we will engage with the people of Vietnam in small towns and villages, photographing and experiencing their way of life.

From Hanoi, we will fly to the UNESCO World Heritage town of Hoi An and begin our way back through the beautiful Hai Van Pass to the imperial city of Hue. In Phong Nha, located on the Con River, we will have three days of homestay on a farm with daily excursions to photograph villages and the countryside. There will even be an optional day traveling the back roads on motorcycles (alternate transport will be provided for those who do not want to ride on a motorcycle). As a special treat, we will visit the spectacular Phong Nha Cave which has underground rivers, passages, and Cham altars from the 10th century.

And finally, back to Hanoi.

You may work with digital or film capture with any camera, from a cell phone to a DSLR. I can help you improve your photography with either.

Vietnam Photography Workshop

Red Ride. © Steve Anchell

September 6 to 8, 2024

Limited Enrollment

Sooner or later all artists begin to repeat themselves, their work, however good it might be, becomes predictable. When this happens, and it does for all of us, the way to reawaken your vision is to try something new.

Photography is dependent on technology, whether it is film or digital. Are you always using a Leica? Do you only use a Fujifilm digital camera? Are your images always sharp and in focus? Time to shake up your game.

In September 2024 we will spend one weekend photographing in the streets of Rome with a plastic Holga film camera. During the weekend we will develop the film using a Lab-Box and digitize it for enlarging and printing, creating images that are a melding of the best of film and digital.

You will be amazed at how this will change your vision and how much fun you will have.

As part of your tuition, you will receive a Holga camera.

The weekend workshop will be sponsored by ars-imago, a premier camera store in Rome. "Holga Weekend in Rome" is not yet posted on my website. If you are interested in attending send me an email as enrollment is limited.

Keep Me Posted

If you want to extend your stay in Italy and maximize your experience, immediately following HOLGA weekend, join me for 5 days of street photography in Rome

If you enroll in both the Rome workshop and HOLGA Weekend, you will receive a discount on both workshops. Street Photography in Rome is not yet posted on my website. If you are interested in participating, email me, as enrollment is limited.

Keep Me Posted

© Steve Anchell

Street photography is a genre that records unmediated chance encounters and random incidents in public places. The very publicness of the setting enables the photographer to take candid pictures of strangers, often without their knowledge. Street photographers do not necessarily have a social purpose, but they prefer to isolate and capture moments that might otherwise go unnoticed. The street photographer is an outsider, a voyeur in the true sense, in that they watch and wait until the right moment occurs and capture it using a camera.

The workshop will begin Friday evening with a presentation that will guide you through many techniques and pitfalls for creating successful street photography, followed by a Q&A session. On Saturday and Sunday, we will visit two different areas of Portland to practice street photography with Steve’s guidance.

The Oregon Society of Artists sponsors this workshop.

Taking It to the Streets