Friend of dvafoto Andrew Spear directed my attention to the work of Daniel Shea last month, specifically his project Removing Mountains.

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Coal, the number one energy-based resource domestically, is often extracted through a process of mountaintop removal mining. Through this process, mountains are literally blown apart to efficiently access coal seams. The physical overburden is pushed into the valleys and streams below, leveling a once dynamic landscape. Through this violent process, coal is eventually extracted, processed, shipped, burned and then distributed through electric grids to much of the United States. Simply turning on the lights suggests a complex matrix of ecological, industrial, and human implications. (link)

Shea is also funding the travel for a related (and also terrific) project called “Plume” entirely though a print sale on his blog, and still has some prints available at great prices to help fund the exhibition of the work later this year in Kentucky.

But don’t stop with just having a look at this project; Shea has a number of other impressive works on his website. And see Pete Brook’s post and interview about Shea’s Baltimore Project over on Prison Photography. Also cool: Shea did a terrific interview with Alec Soth for Too Much Chocolate last year.

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Trent Parke - Bedknobs & Broomsticks - Little Brown Mushroom

Trent Parke - Bedknobs & Broomsticks - Little Brown Mushroom

Trent Parke - Bedknobs & Broomsticks - Little Brown Mushroom

Trent Parke - Bedknobs & Broomsticks - Little Brown Mushroom

Alec Soth’s Little Brown Mushroom has released the first book in what the group says will be “a series of photographic storybooks for grown-ups” inspired by the Little Golden Books of old (my favorite was The Color Kittens!). The first in the series is “Bedknobs & Broomsticks” by Trent Parke. Only 1000 are available. I’ve already ordered my copy; I’m not letting this one get away like Dream/Life, 3 used available at Amazon starting at $849.99.

Little Brown Mushroom Blog

After a couple years away from the keyboard, Alec Soth is back to blogging with his DIY publishing operation Little Brown Mushroom. Not much on the blog yet, beyond a somewhat tongue-in-cheek response to LiveBooks call for ideas on the future of the photo book. I hope there’s more to come at the Little Brown Mushroom Blog.

(via Soth’s old blog)

Alec Soth’s work from the US and China from last summer seems downright prescient in hindsight. Time and the New York Times Magazine have been playing catch-up with recent pieces on Cleveland and Detroit. And of course, there’s Anthony Suau’s excellent work from Cleveland, which we’ve recently written about previously, and which just got the Digital Journalist treatment.

And while Soth’s work was created for the Telegraph, the pictures seemed to have vanished from their website, except for a couple of instances. I grabbed the video above, created by the Telegraph, from Exposure Compensation. And a few pictures are available in the Magnum archive.

Looks like A Photo Editor beat me to this with a post earlier today, but M. Scott can attest that I first zeroed in on this comment by Alec Soth on the (newly revitalized) Magnum Photos Blog last night (Seattle time).

“When the photographers ask you why they should participate in such a thing, what’s the answer?”

What a great question Mike. Here is my thinking in a nutshell:

If Magnum is still around in ten years, I think it will be because Magnum has learned how to become its own producer. Rather than waiting for some new online magazine to rise from the ashes of print media, Magnum has the opportunity to become its own content-provider. But to do this, Magnum needs to learn how to work in quick-moving media like this blog. I see the Magnum Blog as a kind of training camp for things to come. (Such as InSight, but more on this later).

Beyond the ‘if we’re still around in 10 years’ sentiment (damn I hope they’re still around in ten years), Soth brings up an interesting point about the idea of an agency, or any group of photographers, getting together to produce the work themselves and provide their own outlet. Beyond being a really smart idea, it might just be the only way we survive as photographers in something like the model of the past. We can attest: it is damn, damn hard to get work out there.

In some ways, this is exactly what M. Scott and I are trying to do here with dvafoto… provide an outlet, develop our own audience. And not just for our own work, but to develop this for the work that we love and think needs to get out there. Reminds me of what our friends over at Luceo Images have also been talking a lot about this last week or so about collaboration and sharing and this is manifested in their own collective. Read for yourself at Kevin German’s blog Wandering Light, but also on the blogs of Matt Slaby and (coming full circle, huzzah!) A Photo Editor.