Michael Sebastian

K, West Virginia, June 2010

I am delighted to be part of the New Directions 2011 show, Moments of Being, in January at wall space gallery in Santa Barbara, California.

My thanks to juror David Bram for including my work, and to Crista Dix and her staff at wall space for making the whole thing possible. It was my pleasure to have met Crista as one of my reviewers this past June at Review Santa Fe (Crista, if you’re reading this—FILM!)

The show opens January 4th, and runs through the month. An opening reception is planned for January 12, at the gallery.

I am delighted to be the current featured photographer in the Virtual Gallery of the Griffin Museum in Winchester, Massachusetts.

For conferring this  honor, my thanks again to Executive Director Paula Tognarelli, whom I was pleased to meet as a reviewer at last December’s PhotoNOLA.

Furthermore, if you find yourself anywhere close to Winchester, you should visit the museum in person. Thrills and Chills, the splendid work of my my friend and fellow photographer Isa Leshko, will be on exhibit in their Griffin Gallery from April 8 through May 9.

You should really see Isa’s lush silver gelatin prints in person if  you can.

Hotel room view, Central Business District, New Orleans, 12/09. iPhone camera.

I’m a week status post PhotoNOLA, and finally starting to more fully assimilate the experience. Bottom line: I’m so glad I went. I learned a lot; got useful feedback; gained some much-needed direction and confidence; and saw a boatload of first-class photography. And all the while throwing down on epicurean food and drink. Not even the cold drizzle could ruin the trip. I’m still trying to make sense of all of it; but herewith, a few preliminary thoughts.

Read the rest of this entry »

I’m honored to be featured on Aline Smithson’s Lenscratch today, right here.

Thanks a bunch, Aline, for rolling out the welcome mat.

Also, I have been doing a bit of Facebook housekeeping. I’m trying to gain a bit of space between the personal stuff and the photographic stuff there. I’ve set up a separate Facebook page dedicated to the photography, and I’d be pleased to have you all as fans.

…and I am honored to be included in this one-year anniversary issue as one of their featured photographers.

Thank you, David Bram and Josh Spees, for inviting me to participate.

Check it out here and follow the link at lower right.

After nearly a month at SK Grimes getting worked over, my new/old Dogmar 10-3/4″ lens—it doesn’t sound right to call it a 10.75, as firmly ensconced in the analog world as this thing is—and its mated Compound #4 shutter finally returned to me via Brown Truck. Two days of skanky weather yielded to dry, if overcast, conditions a couple of days ago, so I broke it out for a trial run.

Grimes, as usual, did a heck of a job on it. They did a CLA and partial rebuild on the Compound shutter, whose speed-selector dial and aperture lever had been nearly immovable. They also cleaned the lens and remounted the whole in a Linhof-compatible lensboard with a slight forward offset to enable it to clear the front of my Chamonix 45n-1 camera. It looks great, and now functions smooth as silk.

I have no experience with a lens/shutter this age, and didn’t know what to expect. The lens is uncoated, as far as I can tell; the shutter is calibrated in the old-style speeds: 1/75, 1/50, 1/25, 1/10, 1/5, 1/2, 1 sec, B, and T. In order to shift the shutter to “T”—also the only way you can open the shutter to compose and focus—it must be uncocked; before the rebuild, this interlock was loose enough to allow T selection while cocked, a serious no-no, and the principal way many of these old shutters were damaged by unschooled users like myself. Read the rest of this entry »

We spent last week in that sprawling, wind-blown megalopolis known as the Metroplex, aka Dallas/Fort Worth, visiting relatives during spring break. Because my kids were not already bored and cranky enough, we dragged them to Fort Worth for the day to see the Stockyards. Although they were entertained watching authentically-kitted cowpokes coax into desultory asphalt march a phlegmatic mini-herd of elderly longhorn cattle, this bribe proved to be insufficient compensation for our trip to the Amon Carter Museum afterward. Count it as a smashing success for the adults, at least.

Make time for a visit to the Carter if you ever find yourself in the area; it is worth the jaunt south and west from the airport. The museum houses a fine collection of photography, including the original Richard Avedon In The American West prints, among many others. Of the three current exhibitions there, my favorite was “Challenging Vision“, the work of Barbara Crane. I must sheepishly admit I had never heard of her before seeing this exhibit; the breadth and depth of her work defy easy description. She’s been making images for decades, and seems to straddle the fine art and commercial divide (such as it is) with an astoundingly diverse and beautiful body of work.

Best of all, all of this kull-cha comes with free admission. And the kids did like the gift shop; after all, their acculturation has to start somewhere.

The Louisville Courier-Journal has published an article about my fellow Louisville photographer Michael Brohm. He’s curating the Perm, Russia show I mentioned in this post.

Michael flew out this past Monday. 25 hours of travel. Whew.

I am proud to be a part of the exhibition “The World Is A Family”, in Perm, Russia starting later this month (January 2009). Two of my portraits were accepted for inclusion in this group show featuring the work of photographers from Perm and from her sister city, Louisville.

My fellow Louisville photographer Michael Brohm is the the show’s curator. He has been working for several years on a portrait project in Russia, and through his contacts in Perm, was asked to serve in that capacity. He is also acting as photo-courier: he’s hand-carrying the Louisville contingent’s work with him on the airplane!

I’ll post a link if/when one is available in english.