Two markedly different New York exhibitions, of new work by Sze Tsung Leong  (left) and Lee Friedlander, test the potential of landscape photography as a vehicle for the exploration of diverse – global, local, political and pictorial - concerns.

New to the Corbis website, you can now download, print and assemble these funky pinhole cameras.

 
The Readymech pinhole cameras from corbis.com/readycam are available in five designs which are downloadable as colour PDFs, complete with assembly directions and suggestions for the best way to get the most out of your film. I tried making a very rough version of the "Dr Livingstone" (without glue, board, ruler, fim, foil etc) to see just how easy it was.

I'm definitely not crafty nor steady-handed but it came out OK, if a bit flimsy and fragile – the actual "cameras" are only a bit larger than the two film cannisters holding the fim inside. It probably won't result in any masterpieces but is definitely fun for those who like a bit of DIY.

Now as to why Corbis would be putting this up on their site, I have no idea. Any speculations?
(click link on left to see their pic and my version)

This is not the cover of the next issue of 8, but rather the cover of Moholy-Nagy's classic Painting, Photography, Film .  On the same day that Christie's auctioned off Michel Comte's portrait of Carla Bruni for $91,000, the auction house sold a collection of photography books. 183 books brought in more than $2.5 million (!) It's interesting to see how a collection of books writes a history of photography- just as their sale at auction establishes the value not only of those books but of that version of history.  In this case, it's a really interesting mix of work that are all the work of artists self-consciously pushing the borders of photography as art.

Meanwhile, nothing against Michel Comte, but for better or for worse, that portrait of Bruni has now entered the pantheon, affirming that the value of collectable photography can be drawn up by celebrity associations  and PR, and not just by the importance of particular images in relation to artist/ provenance/ rarity... and history. (Ok, enough about Bruni)

5B4 did a little run down comparing individual book prices with the annual median incomes of families in different countries around the world. (via 5B4 )

 
The veneration of the photobook as objet d’art continues apace. Next week Christie’s New York will present what is claimed to be one of the finest collections of photographic literature - valued at around $2m - ever to be offered at auction. And later this month the V&A will display a selection of similar titles from their own archives ranging chronologically from Fox Talbot’s Pencil of Nature to Stephen Gill’s muck-encrusted Buried (left).