Bay Area Photologgers

Coal Hollow

There will be a reception, book signing, and panel discussion of Coal Hollow by Ken Light and Melanie Light on Friday, February 10th at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

The reception and signing (in the j school library) begins at 6 pm and the panel in is from 7 to 8:30 pm at 121 North Gate Hall at the corner of Hearst and Euclid.   More details.

Photographs from the book will be exhibited through April 28th in the Graduate School of Journalism Photo Gallery at North Gate Hall.

Ken Light teaches photojournalism and directs the Center for Photography at the journalism school.  Melanie Light is the executive director of Fotovision which offers classes on photojournalism (it is worth signing up for their newsletter).

She wrote about the death of the miners in West Virginia in the Chronicle.   They were created a DVD with some of the audio from the interviews along with the photos.  It was produced by David Snider of the Photography Channel.

Photography at the SF Int. Film Festival

The San Francisco International Film Festival opens Thursday and runs through May 5th.  There are several photography related films.

Agnès Varda's Cinévardaphoto is made up of three short films on the theme of photography.  The first is from 2004, Ydessa, the Bears and Etc...  It examines an exhibit of hundreds of photographs with teddy bears in them curated by Ydessa Hendeles.  Ulysse from 1982 looks at a single photograph Varda took in 1954. Salut les Cubains from 1963 animates thousands of photos she took in Cuba (including the one above). This Artforum  article gives an overview.  The film will screen Friday, April 22, at 5 pm and Sunday, April 24 at 2 pm at the Kabuki and Wednesday, April 27 at 7 pm at PFA.

The Life of Kevin Carter is a short documentary about the South African photojournalist who won a Pulitzer Prize for his 1994 photograph of a starving child in the Sudan.  Dan Krauss made the film as his thesis project in the documentary program at the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.  It screens with Omar and Pete at the Kabuki on Monday, May 2 at 6 pm and Wednesday, May 4 at 3:45 pm.

Courteney Cox Arquette plays a photographer in November by Greg Harrison.  It was shot over two weeks using consumer DV camcorders for $150,000, far less than the star got for a single episode of Friends.  It screens at 7 pm  on Tuesday, April 26 at the Kabuki with a part afterwards at Ruby Skye.

Photography plays a role in Me and Everyone You Know by Miranda July as well as in how it was made. She says "except for the tricky scenes, we didn't use a shot list or story boards. I would rehease the scene with the actors in the location, feeling out the blocking and [Chuy Chavez, the cinematographer] would take photographs. He would flip through them on his digital camera, and I would either like how it looked, or immediately see the problem in what I had blocked. This was especially helpful for the scenes I was also acting in."

She is blogging (including photos and video) and will be at the screenings on Sunday, May 1 at 9 pm at the Kabuki and on Tuesday, May 3 at 7 pm at PFA. She also is co-creator of the photography based How will know her? and Learning to Love You More which includes a number of photography related assignments.

Jenni Olson's 16mm film, The Joy of Life consists of a series of still shots of San Francisco, often looking like photographs.   Harriet Dodge provides the narration and Lawrence Ferlinghetti provides a poetic interlude. There is more on the film's website and in a story by Susan Gerhard.  It screens at the Kabuki on Sunday, May 1 at 6:45 pm.

Harvest Time begins with photographs and returns to them just before the end. Director Marina Razbezhkina (who had previously done documentaries) will be at the festival. It screens on Sunday, April 24 at 4 pm at PFA, and at the Kabuki on Friday, April 29 at 1:45 pm and Sunday, May 1 at 6:15 pm. There is much more at the festival including a free panel at the Kabuki on Sunday, April 24 from noon to 2 pm, New Distribution Platforms: Opportunities for the Independent Filmmaker, with Jim Ramo, Movielink; Alexander Cohen, Underground Film.com; Steve Shannon, Akimbo; Blair Harrison, ifilm; Ed Lichty, TiVo; and documentary filmmaker Jon Else.

There is a photo gallery from past festivals mostly by Pamela Gentile. I'll be posting photos and coverage on my weblog. Some of my photos from last year: Golden Gate Awards, Jon Else, Milos Forman, and Chris Cooper.