Shadow & Light is a list of curated photography stories, features, techniques, news and inspiration that I’ve come across this month.
In this month’s edition we look at the stunning beauty of Greenland and find out how one war photographer turned his lens on his family. We see a stunning historical series capturing the North of England and look at what might be the most pointless thing I’ve ever seen.
So, with no further ado, I give you this month’s Shadow & Light Monthly. Go grab yourself a cuppa and enjoy this month’s selections below. Please let me know in the comments what you think.
Pick of the month – A Song for the Arctic: The Overwhelming Beauty of Greenland
The beauty of the Arctic is overwhelming. The biting cold and the pristine silence is punctuated by occasional extraordinary sounds, as the glacier ice creaks and falls. At the centre of this beauty are the enormous structures of freshwater ice calved from the glaciers, the great icebergs.
Over on PetaPixel, London-born photographer Jonathan Critchley writes about his work travelling to Greenland and documenting its landscape. He talks about the impact climate change, reckless exploitation and drilling have had on the area.
“I always have an emotional connection to the subjects I shoot, but this was different. It was like photographing a beloved relative with a terminal disease — horrifying, but beautiful.”
Jonathan Critchley
Head over to PetaPixel to read the full interview and see more of Critchley’s beautiful work. You can find out more on Critchley’s website.
Additional reads
Christopher Anderson: The War Photographer Who Turned His Lens to Family
Christopher Anderson is a Paris-based Canadian photographer who has spent years documenting war and conflict around the world for publications such as Newsweek and National Geographic. However his latest monograph centres around his wife, Marion.
The departure from conflict photography to capturing his loved ones was organic in a number of ways. “I’ve produced bodies of work or books that on the surface seem totally disconnected with each other, and sometimes even play with different visual styles. People think that I was one kind of photographer, and I stopped being that photographer and became a different photographer,” Anderson says.
“They’re all connected points on a spectrum. And you don’t have one without the other. So to me, when I look at the bodies of work, there is no distance between them.”
Christopher Anderson
I always tell people I consider myself a documentary photographer. I’ve always focussed on capturing natural, authentic images that capture a story. This article really caught my attention and the way Anderson speaks about his approach to capturing images really resonates with me. It’s well worth a few minutes of your time.
You can read the full interview and see more images from this series over on AnOther magazine. Marion is published by Stanley/Barker and is out now.
Chris Killip’s groundbreaking portrait of the North
During a 1969 visit to the Museum of Modern Art, Chris Killip had an encounter that would fundamentally change his relationship to photography.
Gazing at the work of Paul Strand, Walker Evans, and August Sander, Killip understood that making photographs for their own sake was enough. “You just do it,” he once determined. That year, Killlip returned to the land of his birth, the Isle of Man in the Irish Sea, to embark on what would become the foundation of a singular career.
He began chronicling the impact of the economic shifts of the 1970s and ’80s on communities across the North of England with empathy and tenderness, his photographs affirming the lives of those all too often ignored.
Sadly, Killip died in 2020 but his work is being celebrated in a new retrospective at The Photographers’ Gallery in London until February 2023. You can find out more about Killip’s work over on Huck Magazine.
And finally – Xiaomi concept clips a full-size Leica lens onto a smartphone
What’s that? You want me to finish this month’s post with one of the stupidest concepts I’ve ever seen? you got it! Have you ever wished you could mount your £6k Leica M lens on your phone? No, me either but apparently someone thought it might be useful to be able to.
Phone📱? Camera📷? BOTH!
— Agatha Tang (@aggasaurus) November 2, 2022
What would you classify this as? #Xiaomi12SUltraConcept pic.twitter.com/uzJVzifou4
Don’t ask me, I can’t explain it but the video is below. You can make your own mind up…
Until next time…
I hope you enjoy the articles above. Don’t forget you can follow my Shadow & Light magazine over on Flipboard if you’d like to see more of what I’m reading if you like what you’ve seen here.
Shadow & Light Magazine
Shadow & Light is a list of curated photography stories, features, techniques, news and inspiration that I maintain on Flipboard. It’s a great way to create myself a ‘read later’ list. Feel free to follow the magazine for updates or keep an eye on my blog where I regularly post Shadow & Light monthly highlights.
