Redding, California

God, Country and Family. Redding, Califoria.

From Yuba City we drive slowly to Redding, setting the GPS to avoid the freeway as much as possible.
As we drive into town, the shopping malls alongside the freeways seem to be busy and we arrive in Redding around 4pm and decide to take a walk around downtown. Hardly a soul in sight apart from a few homeless people and a few people buying takeaways.
We met a guy who asked for some change, we started talking and he turned out to be a white racist. Having spent 10 years in Prison, he was proud of his tattoos, showing us this one on his back, inscribed "God, Country, Family". His dream was to ride a horse through Ireland.

When we got back to the motel we found out that Redding had a infamous double murder in 1999.
Gary Matson and Winfield Mowder were a gay couple who were murdered by white supremacist brothers Benjamin Matthew Williams and James Tyler Williams. The Williams brothers confessed killing the couple because they were gay.

Reno and Yuba City, Pic of the day

It's a little strange to start our trip in Reno.
The downtown area has a few big casinos that are all interlinked by walkways, so you don't need to move around outside. The clients are fairly elderly and mainly working class. It's very depressing seeing them glued to slot machines losing money they can ill afford.
Apart from one area that's poor and rundown, most of the town is made up of shopping malls and suburban housing.

Peppermill hotel and casino, Reno.

 From Reno, we decided to head back into California and stopped in Yuba.

Yuba

Reno, Picture of the day

Our road trip has finally started, first stop Reno. Our first day in Reno was 82 f or 32C and a full day of sun, not what we were expecting or hoping for in the middle of October. It means an alarm call at 6am tomorrow morning.

Reno

Reno

Pier 24 Gallery

Todd Hido invited us to go with his class to Pier 24 Gallery, in San Francisco to see the exhibition "Here". This exhibition presents a selection of works produced by Bay Area photographers as well as a range of images of San Francisco, with an emphasis on the late-twentieth century. HERE. highlights the vibrancy of San Francisco and the surrounding areas through the work of 34 photographers and over 700 images.
The gallery is huge and the exhibition was one of the best photography exhibitions we have seen in a long time. All the work was truly inspiring, beautifully curated and presented. Here is a selection of some of those on show, would have like to have put them all up but takes to much time.

Lewis Baltz

©Leon Borenszstein

 We didn't know the work of Leon Borensztein before this exhibition. Amazing Portraits, looking forward to seeing his new book, Leon Borensztein: American Portraits 1979-1989 published by Nazraeli Press which is due out any day soon.

© Jim Goldberg

© Todd Hido from Homes at Night.

© Richard Misrach

 We've never seen this early work by Richard Misrach. Mostly portraits around Telegraph Ave in Berkeley.  An interview with Aaron Schuman in Seasaw magazine.
We also went to an opening in Berkeley of his exhibition  1991: Oakland-Berkeley Fire Aftermath, which he has only just released, 20 years after the event! Interview with some of the images here, well worth a look.

SF Police department.

   © Larry Sultan,  from the Homeland series, a series he had just completed before he passed away.

© Anthony Hernandez

© Anthony Hernandez

Anthony Hernandez  article here and a slideshow of one of his books, Waiting, Sitting, Fishing and some Automobiles.

© Henry Wessel

© Henry Wessel

© Henry Wessel

Henry Wessel. Capturing one of Honolulu’s most famous neighbourhoods, Waikiki is the photography book by Henry Wessel.  A video here.

Bill Owens an early influence

Today we took a drive around the San Francisco Bay area, starting in Oakland, heading south and up north to San Francisco. Miles and miles of Suburbia. When we got to San Jose, we went past the San Jose Museum of Art and noticed a poster advertising a Bill Owens exhibition. Seeing the exhibition was an unexpected treat.

©Bill Owens

 

 

 

 

Bill Owens statement about this work and the American dream.

3 articles about Suburbia  and Bill Owens can be found on the excellent American Suburb X, here, here and here

Bill Owens was one of my earliest influences, I used to spend hours at the college library looking at his book, Suburbia. I really felt a strong infinity with his work, it touched my own alienation with being bought up in the London Suburbs, as well as my own relationship to my extended family.
The following 2 images are part of my first real photography project, I was around 21 years old at the time and this was the time I knew I wanted to be a photographer.

©George Georgiou

©George Georgiou

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

San Francisco. Picture of the day

San Francisco

Vanessa's new camera

Vanessa has bought a new Fuji 667 rangefinder to compliment her 5x4.

Oakland, California. Picture of the day

Cemetery, Oakland, USA

Black Sea at Fotoleggendo, Rome

I'm showing the Black Sea in Rome at this years Fotoleggendo festival 
Amongst other exhibitors are Donald Weber's Interrogations,  Alessandro Penso and Michele Palazzo's Migrant Workers.

Alessandro Penso and Michele Palazzo

Donald Weber'

Also take a look at Little Big Press who have a show of some of their publications.

 Donald Weber, George and Myself will be showing our work together again at the Photography festival in Hereford in a couple of weeks, more on that later.

Talk at California College of Arts

Today we did a presentation at the California College of Arts in Oakland and had an informal chat with the students.

Looking at Vanessa's Georgia book dummy.

We were invited by photographer, Jim Goldberg, a professor at the college and this years Deutsche Borse winner with Open See, a project he completed when he received the Henri Cartier Bresson award in 2007. You can see more of his images here and a Guardian review of Open See.
Also on the staff at the college is  Todd Hido,  a photographer Vanessa has had some email correspondence with these last 2 years. Todd is the author of a number of beautiful books. He also has a huge library of photobooks, which he has promised to show us, hopefully we will have time to see them.

©Todd Hido

©Jim Goldberg

©JimGoldberg

Oakland

We arrived in San Francisco on the 4th and are staying with a friend from our days in Turkey, the photographer, David Gross and his partner Mieke Strand. David is not only a photographer but also the designer of our websites. He has now developed and designed a program for making iPad books and is currently working on one with Ed Kashi.

David and Mieke

Just before we left London, my laptop broke. I ordered a new one to arrive at Mieke's place. David is getting it into shape for me.
Mieke has recently changed careers to become a photographer, and has been a really generous host. Also she is originally from Minnesota, where much of Fargo by the Coen brothers was shot. Every now and again she slips into that accent, which is the main reason we will eventually go there. If you haven't seen the film, you must.

Delta flight 127 New York to San Francisco

Our hostess to San Francisco

Richard Renaldi

This morning we had brunch with Richard Renaldi.

Richard Renaldi at Home Cafe, West Village. NYC

Richard is not only a fine photographer but, along with his partner, Seth Boyd, runs a small independent publishing house, Charles Lane Press.
The quality of their books are stunning, real attention to detail, with some of the nicest hard covers and dust covers we have seen for a long time.
Check out Richards book Fall River Boys

Fall River Boys by Richard Renaldi

Also 2 newly released books
Chinese Sentiment by Shen Wei and  Interior Relations by Ian van Coller.
We will be meeting Ian when we get to Montana.

Fault Lines at MoMA, NYC.

 

The New Photography exhibition at MoMA opened on Tuesday evening. As always with openings it's a little overwhelming and hard to take things in. However I did have a great night and it's amazing to see my photographs on the walls of this great institution. 

On the Friday we went back to the gallery and sat and watched people engaging with the work. I was delighted to see the sheer volume of people passing through. It's not often you get a chance to watch people looking at your work, as an experience I was filled with pride. 

New Photography 2011         September 28, 2011–January 16, 2012