Today we’re happy to announce that we’ve received the first varnished, unbound copy of Rebecca’s “My Dakota” book in the mail from the printer in Singapore. Here’s a rough, home made video of Rebecca reading the first text piece in the book, “Lost & Loss.” By mid April, we hope to have the first advanced copies of the book.––Alex Webb
SPRING EVENTS
––THURSDAY, MAY 24TH, 6-7:30 PM: “My Dakota” book launch, party and signing at ICP, 1133 Ave. of the Americas at 43d St. Come join us to celebrate Rebecca’s new book. I’m bringing the champagne!–Alex Webb
“This leads me to another very, very important aspect of photobook making: You’re almost always better off involving other people. Maybe you’re a genius, maybe you can do it all on your own. Chances are you are not. Actually, it’s very likely you’re not. And even if you are a genius, then you’re genius enough to know that you need to involve other people.”––Joerg Colberg, March 13, 2012, Conscientious Extended
––WEEKEND WORKSHOP @ APERTURE, NY, Friday evening, March 23, thru Sat., March 25, 2012. Do you know where you’re going next with your photography –– or where it’s taking you? An intensive weekend workshop with Alex and Rebecca. You can reserve a spot in the workshop at the Aperture Foundation website. THIS WORKSHOP IS NOW SOLD OUT.
––WEEKEND WORKSHOP IN MILANO @ FORMA; Friday evening, May 4, thru Sunday, May 6th, 2012. An intensive weekend workshop @ Forma with the Webbs during Alex’s upcoming spring exhibition there, “The Suffering of Light.” Included in the workshop will be a gallery talk by Alex as well as a copy of Alex’s recent survey book of 30 years of his color photographs, “La Sofferenza della Luce,” (Contrasto). The workshop will be taught in English with Italian translation. For more information here’s the link.
––FINDING YOUR VISION WORKSHOP @ CAPTION GALLERY, BROOKLYN, NY. Sunday May 20 thru Friday May 25, 2012.* A week-long photographing and editing workshop where each photographers begins to explore his or her own way of photographing and how to edit intuitively. Will include exercises, light room tutorials, and a presentation by a noted book editor.Check the workshop page of the webbnorriswebb website for fees, application process and further details. Apply to this email: webbnorriswebb@gmail.com
Alex Webb, cover of "The Suffering of Light," Aperture, 2011
Please join us on Saturday, August 27th, at the CENTER FOR PHOTOGRAPHY AT WOODSTOCK, for our slide talk and book signing, “Together and Apart,” at 8pm.
We’ll have more soon about Alex’s upcoming Aperture show later this fall in New York, as well as September gallery openings in Chicago and Boston.––Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
WEBB WORKSHOP UPDATE
There are two spaces left for the BOOK WEEKEND WITH RADIUS BOOKS the third weekend in September in Santa Fe, which will involve both David Chickey, the prize-winning book designer and creative director of Radius Books, and Darius Himes, Radius editor and noted photo book expert. Please contact me at the below email ASAP if you’re interested in attending. Former Webb Workshop participants are invited to apply without submitting a portfolio, but other photographers will be considered as well. For more information, please visit this link on the Magnum Events page. This workshop is not only a great way to support your own long-term project, but also Rebecca’s upcoming “My Dakota” book as well.–Alex Webb (email: rnorriswebb@yahoo.com)
Alex Webb, cover of "The Suffering of Light" (Aperture), with an essay by Geoff Dyer
Please join us to celebrate the launch of Alex’s new book, The Suffering of Light, at Aperture at 6:30pm, which will include a conversation with photographer and critic Max Kozloff and a booksigning afterwards. (To take a look inside Alex’s new book, follow this link to thePhotoEye site.) And here’s a link to a portfolio of Alex’s work from the new book on the La Lettre site, courtesy of the Robert Klein Gallery in Boston, which will have a joint show of our work on Saturday, September 17th, from 2-4pm.
And below you’ll find a rough, homemade video of our Violet Isle show at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, an exhibition mentioned in The New York Times on Sunday and reviewed in The Boston Globe on Tuesday, May 31st. For those who are part of the “Two Looks” online community, please let us know if you get a chance to see Violet Isle at the MFA, Boston, which will be up until January 16, 2012.
By the way, if you visit the MFA by June 16th, be sure and stop by and see the photography show, “Conversations: Photography from the Bank of America Collection,” which includes work by such noted photographers as Lee Friedlander, Diane Arbus, Julia Margaret Cameron, Wright Morris, Alec Soth, William Eggleston, Robert Frank, Mitch Epstein, Larry Sultan, Mike Smith, and Helen Levitt.–Rebecca Norris Webb
We’d like give a special thanks to the Magnum In Motion team, especially to Phil Bicker and Adrian Kelterborn, who produced this presentation of Violet Isle.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
Alex Webb, Cienfuegos, Cuba, 2007, from "Violet Isle"
We’re back in Brooklyn, and wanted to give our TWO LOOKS online community the first glimpse of two new WebbWorks: Alex’s first advance copy of his survey book, THE SUFFERING OF LIGHT, and a new poem Rebecca recently wrote on a ranch in South Dakota for her upcoming book, MY DAKOTA, which is a photographic elegy for her brother, Dave. Again, we both apologize for our rough, at times out-of-focus homemade videos (Unfortunately, the IPOD touch doesn’t focus very precisely, not to mention Rebecca’s shivering hands in the -15 F Dakota blizzard.)
Alex’s book will be available May 1 from Aperture (US), Thames and Hudson (UK), Contrasto (Italy), and Textuel (France). We will keep you posted about upcoming book signings and other events in May and June in New York, Madrid, London, Boston, and Charlottesville.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
In celebration of last night’s snow storm — and the snowiest January in NYC history — we’re posting some of Alex’s photographs taken early the morning after in our Park Slope neighborhood, accompanied by Rebecca’s reading of Wallace Stevens’ “The Snow Man,” filmed by Alex.
We’re dedicating the column today to Deborah Baril, Rebecca’s sister, in celebration of another event — her birthday.–– Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
The Snow Man
WALLACE STEVENS
One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;
And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter
Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,
Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place
For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.
Alex Webb, Matthew Pimm signs off, Hong Kong, 2011
Working with Matthew Pimm, head of production at Aperture, who is on press with us in Hong Kong, is always an education. He’s made me much more aware of the possibilities — as well as the limitations — of four color printing. The limitations come up somewhat regularly with my photographs, which are often taken in extreme or mixed light, sometimes producing colors that are unusual or surprising. As I understand it, the four color dot system simply can’t reproduce certain hues, certain tones that may exist in a continuous tone photograph. Now, having worked with Matthew on two books, I smile to myself a bit when he tells me, as we’re looking at a particularly deep Kodachrome red — or a strange, intense blue — that the color is “out of gamut.” Over the years, I’ve learned to translate this phrase of Matthew’s describing those colors of mine most difficult to reproduce, as — in my best Brooklynese — “Fuhgeddaboutit, Alex!”
Most of the time, however, a small adjustment will make the image sing, which is what happened with this image (below) of the child with cotton candy (the cover of the Istanbul book) after we added just a touch of black.–Alex Webb
Over the next few days, Rebecca and I are going to be posting some images and rough, diaristic video about the experience of being on press in Hong Kong for my survey book of 30 years of color photographs:”The Suffering of Light.” This is the fourth time in five years that Rebecca and I –– who edit and sequence our books together ––have been on press for either one of our individual books or our joint book.
For me, putting together a survey book of 30 years of photographs has been rewarding but also a little unsettling: while on the one hand I am looking forward to printing this upcoming book, on the other hand, I am filled with the doubts that accompany a book that reflects much of my photographic life.
Inevitably, there have already been a few detours. Our flight to Tokyo was delayed, and as a result we missed our connection into Hong Kong and had to spend the night at a hotel near the Narita Airport. On the flight the next day, however, thanks to unusually good weather, we had a rare sighting of Mount Fuji, which Rebecca photographed with her new ipod touch (a remarkable little invention.) And, because we’d purposely scheduled an extra travel day, we haven’t lost any time on press for the book.
Let’s just hope any other unexpected detours on press end up so well.––Alex Webb
For the new issue of VISURA, an online magazine of photography and writing featuring established and emerging photographers, we decided to try something we’ve never attempted before: In the spirit of a duet, we have paired photographs from our joint book, VIOLET ISLE, with stories we wrote about what lies “outside the frame.” On the VISURA site, there’s also a slide show of some 20 images from Cuba, some of which have never appeared online.
So, for our first OUTSIDE THE FRAME column, we decided to extend this notion of a duet of text and images by adding two audio files to this blog posting (click on the arrows below the first two photographs to hear some of the text pieces featured in the 9th issue of VISURA). Lastly, Rebecca has also included a second photograph from Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, heretofore unpublished online, a portrait of the man she met and talks about in her audio piece.—Alex Webb and Rebecca Norris Webb
Alex Webb, "Cienfuegos, Cuba, 2007" from the book, "Violet Isle"
Rebecca Norris Webb, "Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, 2008" from the book, "Violet Isle"
Rebecca Norris Webb, "Sancti Spiritus, Cuba, 2008," from "Violet Isle"
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