Michael Levin

January 29th | 2012 A New Year

It’s been awhile since I posted a blog entry and there are some exciting things that have happened and are coming up in this new year.

In mid-2010, I was approached by the Knowledge Network, a Canadian cable station, to be the subject of a documentary series on Canadian photographers called Snapshot: The Art of Photography. It was a long process but I appreciated the care and attention to detail the Knowledge Network crew brought to this project. The doc first aired in December of 2011 and the response to the finished product has been overwhelmingly positive.

While I’m passionate about my work, I find it difficult to be articulate on cue. My preference is to be behind a camera rather than in front of it.  But the doc was sharply edited and I was fortunate to have the kind words of others, as much as what I managed to say about myself, to narrate my work and my journey as a photographer. The whole team did a great job. And I feel very honoured to have been chosen for the series.

Due to a licensing agreement, the documentary is currently only available to those in Canada on the Knowledge Network website. The series will be airing in the US and Europe soon.

The documentary also made use of some of the great footage  Brad Kremer, my fellow adventurer, shot of me in Japan early last year. He just finished a short video of an unusual experience we shared in a small Japanese fishing village. While out looking for things to photograph, we stumbled across a bird-whistling competition that was a little weird but entirely wonderful. Everyone can view it here.

I’m pleased to announce that 2012 is shaping up to be another great year of solo shows.  In February, I have a show opening at the Weiss Gallery in Calgary, which always does a great job curating my work.  I will be at the opening on February 2nd,  so please stop by if you are in the area.

I also have a solo exhibition currently on at the Photo-Eye Gallery in Santa Fe. They’ve done an excellent job promoting the exhibition, which opened just before Christmas and extends through February. The show was prominently featured in the Santa Fe New Mexican, and my photograph “Balanced” made the cover of Pasatiempo, a nationally acclaimed arts and culture magazine.

I’m also trying to engage with my audience in a new way by taking part in a live Skype video feed with the Photo-Eye Gallery at 5pm (CST) on February 1st. The event is open to everyone who can attend. I plan to spend some time talking about my work, and will follow that with an audience Q&A. Details on the event can be found on the Photo-Eye blog. I don’t know what to expect but it will be a fun challenge.

I’ve hosted several in-person workshops in different countries over the last couple of years.  In the process, I discovered I enjoy this type of critical engagement with other photographers.  I’ve had great feedback from those who attended, and am looking forward to doing more in the future. For the latest information on location and dates, check the new workshops page on my website.

I hope everyone makes this year have meaning for them.  Thanks always for your interest in my work. If you haven’t signed up yet for my RSS feed, you can do so here. I am hoping to post more often.

Sept 14 | 2011 New Ideas

Most of my photographs come from being out in the great expanse of isolated places. I’m always comfortable being away from the crowd and looking at something no one else is paying attention to.  I’ve found some great images in the least expected and most out of the way places.  Those are my hunting grounds.

But about 7 years ago, I took a photograph of Piccadilly Circus that has stuck with me as an idea.  The photograph is more about the chaos of the space than any individual object or building.  Chaos and clutter are not my interest.  Still, something about that photograph resonated with me in a different way.  At the time, I couldn’t yet see what that was.  I exhibited Piccadilly only once for a solo show and then chose to keep it aside as it felt out of step with my other work. Now I think I’m catching up to it again.

I recently spent a number of days in Berlin making photographs. Great city.  I’m inspired by the German School of photographers and their approach to space and order.  So I set off for Berlin with a curiousity for the public square, those meeting places where all sorts of people come and go.  Previously, I’ve tried to avoid the inclusion of people in my exposure.  But now I’m interested to play more of the role of voyeur.  To stand back from the traffic of all these fleeting characters, and make something of their interaction with iconic spaces.

I’m heading to London and Paris next week to pursue this new thread of awareness.  I’ll be interested to see what develops.

For those who haven’t noticed them, there are some interactive buttons on the website. One can be found on this page below the Piccadilly Circus image; a very cool zoom feature that I feel helps show the amount of detail captured in my images. This feature can also be found on select images in the gallery in addition to the video and outtakes buttons.

On a completely random but fun note, one of my photographs now turns up regularly on the tv show Curb Your Enthusiasm.  I love this connection to Larry David who has such an odd but perfect take on the absurdity of life. Marina is being used as part of the set for his New York apartment.

June 5 | 2011 Welcome to my blog

As I've just launched an entirely new version of my website, I decided to start a blog so I could speak personally about my experiences as a fine art photographer. I appreciate the audience that has developed around my work over the years. I've been honoured by all the attention and recognition that my work has received.

I'll post occasionally about some of the things that matter to me and try to provide some insight on various developments in my career. I have some exciting events coming up so there will be lots to discuss.

I'm very proud of the new website. I wanted to provide more focus on the photographs and allow everyone a bigger and more user-friendly experience. While I've been fortunate to have had exhibitions in many different countries, I appreciate that most of my audience views the photographs on-line, so I decided to make that experience exceptional and rich with content.

Also, the website now features some of the video I shoot when I'm in a particular location. I find it useful to document the places I travel to for future reference. My photographs represent a select and singular moment in time, so the videos will give a sense as to what was happening beyond my camera.

Also new on the website is a feature video I recently shot with an amazing videographer, Brad Kremer. Brad is based in Savannah, Georgia and regularly shoots for Nike and Burton Snowboards; often using very creative time-lapse photography to give his work a kinetic pacing. Brilliant. The feature video we shot together is a stylized view of how I make my way through Japan, a country I feel oddly comfortable in though it still remains very foreign to me. Brad came up with some great ideas and really exceeded my expectations. I'll be posting 2 other feature videos on the website soon that I'm also proud of.

Also, check back here as I'll be updating the sidebar with any new information on the next workshop I will be hosting. The workshops have been done in response to all the requests that I get to provide some instruction and insight for advanced amateur photographers. So I've organised a new workshop and my website provides all the details.

Thanks for everyone's comments and support.