13 Scream Queens for Halloween
Posted by David Ozanich — 29 Oct 2010
- Elvira via
- Vampira via
- Jamie Lee Curtis via
- Karen Black in “Trilogy of Terror” via
- Magenta and Columbia in “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” via
- Heather Langenkamp in “A Nightmare on Elm Street” via
- Bette Davis in “Hush Hush Sweet Charlotte” via
- Margot Kidder in “Sisters” via
- Catherine Deneuve in “The Hunger” via
- Zelda Rubinstein in “Poltergeist”via
- Jennifer Tilly in “Bride of Chucky” via
- Janet Leigh in “Psycho” via
- Charlotte Rae in “The Worst Witch” via
Who did we miss? (And, yes, technically it was 14 if you count both Magenta and Columbia.) Happy Halloween!
JPG Member Interview: Penny Nannini
Posted by David Ozanich — 29 Oct 2010
This week for the JPG Member interview we spoke with Penny Nannini, a photographer out of Tennessee.
I like that you are still primarily wedded to film over digital photography. What do you get from film that's different, or better, than what you get with digital?
In a word, everything. For me, in order to get the effect and the feel that I want in my photographs, film is the only way to go. Honestly, I've tried digital photography, and I'm just not very good at it. Also, I hate sitting for hours at the computer trying to get what I want out of pixels. I used to love spending hours in the darkroom though. I love holding an actual photograph in my hand. I guess you could say that I am a tactile person.
Read the full interview and see more pictures here.
Kid Robocop, "Angels" & China: Daily Photo Feed 10/29
Posted by David Ozanich — 29 Oct 2010
- This kid's Robocop Halloween costume is making me super jealous. Many more pictures of his trip around Detroit are here. Via The Awl.
- Those precious white iPhone 4s I know you are so desperately craving are apparently being delayed because of light leaks in the camera.
- T Magazine: "Photography is relevant because it sits at the axis of true, false and fake,'' said Massimo Torrigiani, the Milan-based publisher and editor-at-large behind the year-old magazine Fantom.
- A brief theater break: Last night the first New York "revival of [Tony] Kushner's two-part masterwork" "Angels in America" opened. The review is here, a slide show of productions stills by Sara Krulwich is here.
- A look at Nadav Kander's Yangtze River:
Kander is a master of what might be called "epic stillness". His large-format camera takes in crowded cityscapes and intimate interiors; the empty, still, rural landscapes of the river's source and the scarred, desolate places where the pace of progress has been relentless and total.
- And finally, to all who celebrate, Happy Halloween! Here's a rare treat - KISS performing on the "Paul Lynde Halloween Special." Two great tastes, together at last!
The Oldest Photo of a Human?
Posted by David Ozanich — 28 Oct 2010
There’s been some interesting news coming out in the last couple days about the discovery of images possibly documenting the first humans ever captured in a picture.
Robert Krulwich, of NPR, examined a daguerreotype taken by Charles Fontayne and William Porter in Cincinnati, Ohio on Sunday, September 24th, 1848. In this fascinating article (with interactive pictures!) he lands upon a human form (seen above) which was possibly the oldest known photographic image of a human.
Not so! Gig Thurmond brought to light a 1838 daguerreotype - 10 years the Fontayne/Porter image’s junior:
This is a Daguerreotype taken by the inventor of the process, Louis Daguerre, in 1838. It is a view of the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. To achieve this image (one of his earliest attempts), he exposed a chemically treated metal plate for ten minutes. Others were walking or riding in carriages down that busy street that day, but because they moved, they didn't show up. Only this guy stood still long enough—maybe to have his boots shined—to leave an image.
Other primitive forms of photography had preceded this picture by over a decade. But this anonymous shadowy man is the first human being to ever have his picture taken. There is also the very faint image of the bootblack bent over his work.
Via Techi.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 28 Oct 2010
- There was a rainbow over New York City yesterday and lots of people noticed. Shots here, here, and here. Reports on it being a “freaking double rainbow” went unconfirmed.
Update: It WAS a Double Rainbow as these photos and video from Gothamist prove! Exciting! (Photographic evidence below by John Huntington.)
- Lots of fancy people and famous artists turned out for the Whitney Museum’s annual gala as you can see in these pictures.
- White House photographer Pete Souza picks his 10 favorite images of the Obama presidency on the first anniversary of their “Photo of the Day” feature. He’ll be doing a live video chat and answering questions at 7pm (Eastern time) today.
- Ansel Adams, street photographer? Rare photos of 1940s Los Angeles were unearthed at the Los Angeles Public Library.
Although well-respected by the 1930s, the famous landscape photographer could not have sustained his Sierra series, for example, if it were not supplemented by commercial work. According to the Ansel Adams Gallery: "Clients ran the gamut, including the Yosemite concessionaire ... Kodak, Zeiss, IBM, AT&T, a small women's college, a dried fruit company, and Life, Fortune ... in short, everything from portraits to catalogues to Coloramas."
More examples can be found on this Flickr page. That’s the famed Brown Derby below, via Atomic Photo.
- Photographer Graham Turner has tips on capturing the fall colors from the Guardian’s Camera Club.
Today in Cool Photographs
Posted by David Ozanich — 27 Oct 2010
This striking photo by Joseph P. Meier for Southtown Star accompanied an Associated Press story on the fierce storms that have been raging across the Midwest United States. It was taken in Manteno, Illinois and you can click to enlarge.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 27 Oct 2010
- Some news out of Spain via PetaPixel: The Photographic Association of Toledo “enlisted the help of 50 association photographers who strolled around the city firing off their flashes multiple times per minute. The resulting photograph was illuminated by over 3000 flashes covering 100K square meters.” That’s it just above.
- The Sprocket Rocket camera sounds pretty neat and not just because it has a great name.
- More banned ads, this time in England. Sexy, homoerotic priests will no longer be shilling for an ice cream brand. The pregnant nun one is also deemed offensive.
- Advice on “Creating the Strongest Portfolio” from Photo Argus.
- The Big Picture Blog highlights Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
More on the Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographs
Posted by David Ozanich — 26 Oct 2010
Yesterday we mentioned the 2010 Veolia Environment wildlife photographer of the year award. Today we came across this nifty video of the winners discussing their photographs and work:
Via Towleroad.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 26 Oct 2010
- Those wacky Germans at Der Spiegel are loving this picture of a “Breakfast at Tiffanys” dog costume and it seemed mean not to pass it along to you, gentle reader.
- The Financial Times suggests the reason Annie Leibovitz is so far in the hole (to a tune of about $24 million) is that no one wants to buy her high-priced photos of celebrities because of their “distinctively American taste.” Gawker takes it a step further, saying “the mystery of Annie Leibovitz’s financial collapse solved: nobody likes her pictures!”
- Joao Silva, a war photographer for the New York Times embedded with American soldiers in Afghanistan, was seriously wounded after stepping on a land mine.
- In cheerier news from the Times, they have a really spectacular 85-picture slide show celebrating 106 years of the subway. Truly, this is really, really cool. Below a picture of the fictional Coney Island gang “The Warriors” just because they are awesome.
- Also worth checking out are these hysterical photos from the Wall Street Journal of people playing the make-believe game of Quidditch from “Harry Potter.”
- Better Travel Photography is launching two new photo tours of Southeast Asia for 2011.
Photographing the Great Recession
Posted by David Ozanich — 25 Oct 2010
The truly excellent and marvelous radio show ”On the Media” takes a weekly look at the influence of media in our lives. This week they had a superb story and discussion about “Photojournalism and Foreclosure.”
Paul Reyes, author of “Exiles in Eden,” discusses the role of photography in communicating the “emotional weight” of the foreclosure crisis in Florida. He compares the work of today’s photojournalists to the classic images documenting the Great Depression by icons like Dorothea Lange and Walker Evans. He also speaks about it in this piece ”Picturing the Crisis” on the Opinionator blog:
... there is one aspect of the Great Recession that has nevertheless caught the photographer’s eye: foreclosures. And while it remains to be seen if it achieves the social and artistic impact of the Depression-era work, foreclosure photography has already helped define an era that will mark American society for decades to come.
Here’s a slide show featuring examples of foreclosure photography.
Photo by Ellen Brownlee.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 25 Oct 2010
- Lost mug shots of Axl Rose at age eighteen were found by an intrepid Paris Review writer. The story alongside them is great, too, especially if you are a “Guns ‘n’ Roses” fan.
- This shot of silhouetted ants in the Costa Rican rainforest, above, by Hungarian photographer Bence Máté won Veolia Environment photographer of the year award which is presented by the Natural History Museum of England and BBC Wildlife Magazine.
- A Calvin Klein ad, seen below, has been banned in Australia for promoting rape. A watchdog group says the ad "was demeaning to women by suggesting that she is a plaything of these men. It also demeans men by implying sexualized violence against women."
- Reuters talks to Julian Schnabel about those really big polaroids we mentioned a couple of weeks back.
- Meanwhile, NPR has much more on “photograffeur” JR and his TED prize:
JR's projects vary but have one underlying cause: Provoke change by fostering community. "Portrait Of A Generation" showed giant photos of suburban "thugs" outside Paris. "Face 2 Face," which, as the TED site explains, "some consider the biggest illegal photo exhibition ever," explored Israeli-Palestinian tensions. "Women Are Heroes" was an effort to empower women by showing their faces.
JR expo Paris de Women are Heroes from La Boite Concept on Vimeo.
Museum Watch: John Baldessari: Pure Beauty
Posted by David Ozanich — 22 Oct 2010
Kiss/Panic
Everyone’s talkin’ ‘bout the new John Baldessari show at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We even posted a preview picture of “Palm Tree/Seascape” from the show a few weeks ago. Baldessari, primarily known as a Conceptualist, is one of California’s - and America’s - preeminent artists. Much of his work uses photography. Here’s a potpourri of comments on the new show, “Pure Beauty” which sounds like it’s not to be missed:
From Reuters:
Critics regularly refer to Salvador Dali and Marcel Duchamp when describing his humorous, usually colorful creations packed with pop culture references. ...
In "Planets (Chairs, Observer, White Paper)," a 1987 montage, Baldessari combines colored and black and white movie stills with a photo of planets in orbit, letting viewers form their own associations.
Pelicans Staring at Woman with Nose Bleeding
From the New York Times:
The show’s first act concentrates on Mr. Baldessari’s gradual leave taking of painting and his embrace of photo-based works. In 1969 he commissioned paintings from commercial artists, each based on a photograph he took of his hand pointing at this or that. ...
Mr. Baldessari’s excursions into Conceptual photography leave few stones unturned and are consistently amusing. He excels at playing photography off reality; a rudimentary example is a 1973 series of found photographs of natural disasters displayed in frames that are askew, even though the images are not.
From France 24:
The 79-year-old helped build the conceptual art movement, transforming ordinary objects into cultural icons and putting words, photographs and video film on the same level -- if not higher -- as painting and sculpture.
Hands Framing New York Harbor
From WNYC:
.. examine his works closely, in particular, his pieces from the ‘60s and ‘70s, and you’ll find a wry sense of humor, not to mention a fascinating photographic chronicle of Southern California. If you only have time to watch one video in its entirety, opt for the 1977 film “Six Colorful Inside Jobs,” in which a room is painted and repainted with layer upon layer of luminous color. It's all kinds of trippy-cool.
The Met is rarely accused of being “trippy-cool” so this sounds like it’s well worth checking out. The show is open until January 9th.
Heel
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 22 Oct 2010
- Now that summer is at best a fond memory here on the East Coast of the United States, these vintage-style surfer pictures seem like the perfect salve. “Joni Sternbach, uses 19th century’s techniques, such as wet plate Collodion process (tintype, ambrotrype, negative) to make this series of portraits of Contemporary surfers.”
- The Age reports on Facebook censorship over photos deemed unsuitable for children: “An Australian photographer whose pictures of breastfeeding women have been banned from Facebook says the social networking site is wrong to appoint itself arbiter of what constitutes art.”
- More news from Down Under: “‘Annie Leibovitz: A Photographer's Life 1990-2005,’ at the [Museum of Contemporary Art] from November 19, will feature Leibovitz's celebrity portraits with photographs of her family and close friends. The MCA hopes Leibovitz will come to Sydney for the show. Leibovitz, who was struggling to repay $US24 million of debt last year, will receive a fee for the exhibition.”
- Yesterday we talked about those oh-so-scandalous “Glee” photos. NPR weighs in with a thoughtful take:
...the GQ pictorial is nevertheless a disheartening, depressing development that deserves to be roundly and loudly condemned.
It's not because the photos are designed to be sexy and there's something wrong with sexy photos — it's GQ, for crying out loud. Half-naked women are nothing new, and all you have to do is look at a selection of covers to see that much. If Rihanna wants to pose topless and people want to buy pictures of her posing topless, that's really her business and theirs.But not all sexualized photos are created equal, and these, indeed, are in particularly and specifically poor taste.
- And finally, a little Rainbow Timelapse for your Friday:
Rainbow Timelapse from Vincent Laforet on Vimeo.
Those Naughty, Naughty "Glee" Photos
Posted by David Ozanich — 21 Oct 2010
So everyone’s getting their, ahem, panties in a bunch, about these “scandalous” photos of the cast of “Glee.” Here’s the take from today’s episode of “The View” in which Barbara Walters generally shrugs her shoulders but Sherri Shepherd FREAKS out.
Frankly, I don’t see what the big deal is - it’s GQ after all, not Tiger Beat or Seventeen Magazine. And no one loses their minds over Jennifer Aniston (of “Friends” fame - another generally innocuous TV show) posing half-nude on magazine covers.
Diane Agron, the actress in the photos who is not Lea Michelle, wrote today on her blog:
"If you are hurt or these photos make you uncomfortable, it was never our intention. And if your eight-year-old has a copy of our GQ cover in hand, again I am sorry. But I would have to ask, how on earth did it get there?”
To which I say, YES, why DOES your 8-year-old have an issue of GQ? I’m its target demo and I haven’t picked up an issue in years.
As is usual in these cases, the photos are MEANT to be shocking. They were taken by Terry Richardson, well-known as a photographer who shoots risque photos all the time. Here’s a recent one of the actor James Franco in drag and another of Batman and Robin kissing:
Neither of those is offensive. They are, however, titillating which is often what photography should be. And please, Obama seems to like the guy based on this shot I found of them on his website:
I really don’t see what the big deal is - “Glee” is overrated in my opinion anyway (and this comes from someone who adores musical theater) and basically everyone (including this blog) are playing into the PR machines of GQ and Fox television. But it’s nice to see photography in the news!
And just to prove that I’m not a “Glee” hater for calling it overrated, here’s the sublime cover they did last week of the classic Barbara Streisand/Judy Garland “Get Happy/Happy Days are Here Again" duet:
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 21 Oct 2010
- Life, Panoramic is a nifty site for the desk-bound traveler. They encourage submissions of photo essays of different destinations around the world. The ones from Antarctica are particularly appealing like the one shown above, shot by a self-described “Vagabond, TV Producer, Travel Junkie, Husband, Dad.”
- The boys at This is FYF claim to have found “the best picture of Cher, ever.”
- The New York Art Book Fair is coming up the first weekend of November (that’s the 5th-7th) as PS1. “Free and open to the public, the Fair hosts over 200 international presses, booksellers, antiquarian dealers, artists and publishers from twenty countries, offering the best in contemporary art book publishing.”
- The Nikon International Small World Photomicrography Competition just announced their 2010 winners. First of all, I don’t think I’ve ever run across the word “photomicrography” before. The Big Picture blog has a selection of the winners. “Peering into the small worlds of animal, plants and minerals using many techniques and different instruments, this year's entries brought us images of crystalline formations, fluorescent body parts, cellular structures and more, valuable for both their beauty and insight.”
- Check out our interview with JPG member Cody Hanu. That’s one of his photos below.
French "Photograffeur" JR Wins TED Prize
Posted by David Ozanich — 20 Oct 2010
The California lecture series TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) announced it is giving its 6th annual prize of $100,000 to the street artist JR - “a shadowy figure who has made a name for himself by plastering colossal photographs in downtrodden neighborhoods around the world. The images usually extol local residents, to whom he has become a Robin Hood-like hero.”
JR likes to go by the designation “photograffeur” since graffeur is French for “graffiti artist.”
Other winners have included Bill Clinton, Bono, and Jamie Oliver (???). The winner also gets to make a “wish” to raise funds for a “humanitarian mission” to which fellow TED-devotees will invariably send donations.
Some more from the Times:
Reached by telephone on Wednesday morning on a bus in Shanghai, where [JR] was headed to work on a largely unauthorized photo-pasting project to draw attention to the city’s demolition of historic neighborhoods, J R said that he had learned of the prize only two weeks ago and that he had not yet had time to think of a wish.
But he said that it would undoubtedly involve his kind of guerrilla art, which he has been creating with the help of volunteers in slums in Brazil, Cambodia and Kenya — where the outsize photographs, printed on waterproof vinyl, doubled as new roofs for ramshackle houses. “I’m kind of stunned,” he said of the prize. “I’ve never applied for an award in my life and didn’t know that somebody had nominated me for this.”
Being reached by the New York Times while you are on a bus in Shanghai is rather amazing, don’t you think? One more bit:
Amy Novogratz, the director of the prize, said that picking an artist like JR — he is 27 and fiercely protective of his anonymity, identifying himself only by his initials — was an unusual choice but that the prize committee felt that his work could “catalyze the whole TED community” to support an art-centered philanthropic project, which will be announced at the organization’s next conference in March.
The whole article is worth a read. They also have a slide show of his work. I've also posted a few examples.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 20 Oct 2010
- National Geographic is peddling a new book by photographer Annie Griffiths titled “Simply Beautiful Photographs” that culls together highlights from their image collection. “Carefully chosen for their beauty, vision, and artistry, the images are organized according to their demonstration of photography’s most basic elements: light, composition, moment, time, palette, and wonder.” Their website has some tips and an extensive preview of the book. The photo above, by Michael Melford, is one of the examples.
- Photographers’ rights are upheld in court reports Gothamist.
- Have you seen those saucy pictures of the cast of ”Glee” taken by Terry Richardson for GQ?
- While we’re on the pop culture kick, here’s the 21 Best Portraits of Luke Perry at DragonCon. My favorite is the one below - that David Bowie in “Labyrinth” shirt is making me super jealous.
- A review of the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX700.
- This video via PetaPixel has little redeeming value other than to remind us all to watch where we’re going. That said, it’s always hilarious to watch people fall down!
Gallery Watch: "From Darkness to a Dream: The Images of Bruce Springsteen"
Posted by David Ozanich — 19 Oct 2010
Sitting on the subway yesterday I saw an ad for ”Who Shot Rock & Roll” at the Brooklyn Museum about music photography. I thought to myself “That looks neat.” But then I came to my computer today and there wasn’t any listing for it at the Brooklyn Museum’s website. Then I realized that the show opened LAST October and that sign had been riding the rails for well over a year. Nevermind what that says about the sorry state of the MTA’s advertising department, but it made me a little sad because I wanted to see it.
However, my sadness has been sated because I came across another rock and roll photography show, this one decidedly more intimate and specific in scope, but still an intriguing show. “From Darkness to a Dream: The Images of Bruce Springsteen” opened this past Friday at the Morrison Hotel Gallery in New York City:
Frank Stefanko and Danny Clinch both residents of New Jersey share a legacy of some of the finest photographs ever shot of fellow Jersey friend Bruce Springsteen. This show features the debut of iconic photographs never available in a gallery show before including the cover shots for "Darkness at the Edge of Town" and "The River" lensed by Stefanko and “The Seeger Sessions” from Clinch.
T Magazine has an illuminating interview with Danny Clinch who has worked with and studied under several major photographers. Here’s what he had to say about his time with Annie Leibovitz:
When I started working on my own, I thought I’m never going to get this. I don’t think about covering people in roses or milk.
I’ve always like that iconic Leibovitz shot of Whoopi Goldberg submerged in a tub of milk and because I’m a nice guy, I’ve included it below. The show is on view at the SoHo space of the Morrison Hotel Gallery at 124 Prince Street and is open 7 days a week.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 19 Oct 2010
- French artist Julien Breton creates calligraphy with light in these photos.
- The venerable restaurant guide Zagat is sponsoring its first photo contest. Upload a picture with the word “Zagat” in the frame and you could win a weekend at the snazzy Wynn Casino in Las Vegas. There are other prizes, too.
- The truth about what really happens to McDonald’s hamburgers when left to the elements?
- Today in weird things: The inflatable photo studio (aka the I.P.S.) via Gizmodo.
- JPG Member Chelsea Rising has a featured article on The Photo Argus titled ”Listening to Color - Photographic Diary of a Synesthete”.
Book Report: "Herb Ritts: The Golden Hour"
Posted by David Ozanich — 18 Oct 2010
While reading about new trends in men’s fashion this weekend I came across this quote about the photographer Herb Ritts:
Is it entirely a coincidence that Mr. Ritts himself is enjoying a posthumous revival? A new volume from Rizzoli celebrates his work as a photographer and equally the Amazons and Olympians he memorialized in his career. The sort of ripe beauty Mr. Ritts tended to celebrate owed a great deal to the ideals of old Hollywood; lavish, irresistible and lush, it also held none of the dangers that irresistible male beauty would come to symbolize after the appearance of AIDS.
So I was, like, “Hmmm. What’s this book?” First of all, it’s called “The Golden Hour: A Photographer’s Life and His World.” Second of all, it has a foreward by Richard Gere. While I don’t know what exactly qualifies Mr. Gere to write about Herb Ritts, I’m always glad to see that the “American Gigolo” star is keeping busy.
Here’s a description of the book, which comes out later this month, from Rizzoli:
Among the most esteemed and well respected fashion and celebrity portrait photographers, as well as an acclaimed director of music videos, Herb Ritts’ indelible images ranged from Masai warriors and angelic underwear models, to Olympic athletes and one-named superstars.
For THE GOLDEN HOUR, first-time author Charles Churchward, a long-time and distinguished art director at publications including Vogue and Vanity Fair, spent the last five years interviewing Ritts’ family, and scores of his photographic subjects, business associates, curators, staff, closest confidants, and star- spangled friends including Anna Wintour, Madonna, Annie Leibovitz, Cindy Crawford, Elton John, kd lang, Richard Gere, and Christopher Buckley.
So it sounds to me like it will be much more than just a collection of photos and potentially a window into the creative mind of a great photographer.The book can be found on Amazon. The author is signing copies of the book on November 10th at the Clic Gallery in New York.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 18 Oct 2010
- Photographer Lyle Owerko’s new book “The Boombox Project: The Machines, the Music, and the Urban Underground” gets a write-up in the New York Times: “It features his lovingly detailed close-up photographs of vintage portable stereos, as well as commentary by Spike Lee, L L Cool J and members of the Beastie Boys and the Fugees about the role the devices played in New York’s street culture from the late 1970s to the mid-’80s.”
- This is the world’s largest enchilada and it was entered into the Guinness Book of World Records yesterday in Mexico. Photo from the AP.
- ”Is creative fashion photography a thing of the past?” Some think the best work is being censored.
- Moving images are not the usual stock-and-trade here, but this ”60 Minutes” report on the rare 11-minute film “A Trip Down Market Street” is a fascinating glimpse of San Francisco just days before the 1906 Earthquake leveled the city.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 15 Oct 2010
- Photographer Jay Fine snapped this photo of the Statue of Liberty being struck by lightning after waiting two hours through a blustery storm. Fun fact: Lady Liberty gets hit by lightning about 600 times a year. Who knew? The rest of the story and another photo at Metro via Gizmodo.
- Attention Animal Lovers: The Museum of Animal Perspective is a collection of remotely sensed wildlife imagery.
- Photographs from, and an “All Things Considered” story about, Noma, the twelve table Copenhagen eatery just voted best restaurant in the world. Recipes, which require all Nordic ingredients, “include such instructions as ‘submerge in liquid nitrogen’ and ‘load a spray paint gun’ in the ‘Snowman’ recipe — undoubtedly some of the more esoteric directions this food season.”
- ”How to Take Great Autumn Photos” over at Photography Blog.
- Fourteen photos by the Beijing-based Mao Brothers are on view until November 6th at the Duncan Miller gallery in Los Angeles. The LA Times says their “work in sculpture, photography and performance sometimes subtly and sometimes sensationalistically challenges the Chinese status quo.” That’s their 2002 photo “Two Girls and Nine Boys” below.
Book Report: Leo Fuchs "Special Photographer: From the Golden Age of Hollywood"
Posted by David Ozanich — 15 Oct 2010
A sexy new book coming your way is “Special Photographer: From the Golden Age of Hollywood” which collects the works of Leo Fuchs. Fuchs spent decades as a “special photographer” on movie sets capturing stars in intimate, candid moments. The book includes photos like the one of Paul Newman, above, as well as Shirley MacLaine, Frank Sinatra, Marlon Brando, Cary Grant, and never-before-published photographs of “To Kill a Mockingbird’s” Harper Lee. It even comes with an essay by Bruce Weber. Published by powerHouse Books, it comes out later this fall.
The New York Times Thinks Jeff Koons is a Terrible Photographer
Posted by David Ozanich — 14 Oct 2010
Who's a fan of Jeff Koons? I am. I like his big crazy "balloon" sculptures and his globetrotting "Puppy" was rather wonderful when I saw it several years ago. His "Michael Jackson and Bubbles" in porcelain is sublime. He's having a bit of a moment here in New York since he has not only a show of an infamous photographic series at a tony Upper East Side gallery (in a townhouse no less), but also because his “Balloon Flower (Blue)” is going on view in Rockefeller Plaza from October 26th to November 10th when it is auctioned off at Christie's for an estimated $16 million.
You know who’s not a fan? Roberta Smith of the New York Times. DAMN! She laid into him today in this MUST READ review of his “Made in Heaven Paintings” currently on view at the Luxembourg & Dayan gallery.
Some background: Jeff Koons, a major contemporary artist who may be “over-hyped” as Smith says, was married to an Italian porn star/politician (I’m not making this up, folks) known formally as Ilona Staller and informally as Ciccolina. About 20 years ago he made a series of pictures of them in sexually explicit situations. Even though they get called paintings, really they are photographs manipulated with various tools.
I haven’t read a review this harsh in a long while and it’s pretty unreal. She manages to describe the series as “bad art” and “aesthetically unfulfilling” in just the first two paragraphs. But that’s just the beginning. Here is a selection of my favorite quotes:
“The grainy inkjet images printed on canvas are repellent...”
“Since Mr. Koons’s face is never visible within images that feature his supposed erection, rumors of a body double have been, well, rampant for years.”
“...they are visual train wrecks...”
“the inkjet monstrosities of “Made in Heaven” are notable as his first, failed attempt to make paintings.”
OK, OK. I think that’s enough of that. "Inkjet monstrosities" is pretty scathing though and it’s rare for the Times to reference the size of a man’s penis. Smith, who is one of the most influential art critics in the world thanks to her position at the Times, does have a few nice things to say about Koons:
But, interestingly, they were immediately followed by, and maybe even precipitated, some of Mr. Koons’s best work, in sculpture. One was the monumental flower-covered “Puppy” (1992), an exuberance of innocence that many have viewed as an attempt at redemption from the sex pictures. Others include the brightly colored, highly reflective balloon dogs, whose implicitly polymorphous shapes and apertures can be seen as endlessly erotic and far sexier than the hard-core blatancy on view here.
I decided against posting any truly outrageous photos from this series, but have included a couple tamer shots as well as photos of Puppy and Michael Jackson and Bubbles. You know you want to see this show now, right? Anything that makes the Times freak out like this has got to be worth seeing. I think I might have to make a field trip uptown.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 14 Oct 2010
- Thought you might want to know that there were UFOs spotted over New York City yesterday. Via the Daily News. That’s a shot shared on Twitter above.
- Everyone’s talking about the “Miner Miracle.” The Big Picture blog does what it does best and collects several arresting images of the event.
- The seven things you should never photograph again.
- American Photo hands out their 2010 Editor’s Choice awards. “For American Photo's editorial team to choose them, they had to qualify as "game-changing"—to have transformed, or have the potential to transform, the very way photographers work.”
- The Guardian’s man on the photography beat, Sean O’Hagan, interviews Susan Lipper about her Grapevine series. She “discusses sexual segregation in West Virginia and avoiding stereotypes about the American south.” An example from her series is below, part of the show “Myth, Manners and Memory: Photographers of the American South” at the De La Warr Pavilion.
Wilco's Patrick Sansone Publishes "100 Polaroids"
Posted by David Ozanich — 13 Oct 2010
Patrick Sansone, of the bands Wilco and The Autumn Defense, will be celebrating his new photography book “100 Polaroids” tomorrow night at The Impossible Project in downtown Manhattan.
“I guess you could say the book is a result of my love affair with the SX70,” explains Sansone, an amateur photographer. “Though I have dabbled with many different cameras over the years, nothing gets me excited about making pictures as much as that particular camera does. Since the first pack of film I shot with it about five years ago, I became obsessed with its magic nature and the images it creates.”
Sansone’s culled his own collection of polaroids for a show on view this sumer at MASS MoCA in the Berkshires.
“The photos are really more of a collection of abstracted moments and impressions,” he says. “Small details of the day….”
You can find out more about the book at Sansonicabooks.com. The event starts at 6pm tomorrow (October 14th) at the brand new Impossible Project Space, the first in the United States.
Sounds like a great opportunity to check out the Impossible Project as well as meet some fellow photo enthusiasts. Hope to see you there!
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 13 Oct 2010
- Do take a moment and check out our interview with JPG member Faisal Almalki. That's his photo above.
- Award-winning Lonely Planet photographer Richard l’Anson discusses”6 Common Photography Mistakes (and How to Avoid Them)”.
- Photo Rumors says the Pentaxt 645D is coming to America. “The Pentax 645D body will cost $9,995.95 and the Pentax-D FA 645 55mm F2.8 lens will sell for $1,199.95. Both will start shipping in December of 2010.”
- Vince Aletti of the New Yorker on the MoMA New Photography 2010 show: “It’s possible to like this show - it’s smart and it’s stylish - and still find it annoying. If this is the direction photography is heading, I’m taking the off-ramp.”
- Today in time-lapse photography: Ken Murphy documents MUNI construction in San Francisco. “This was shot using a Canon A590, with CHDK installed (a firmware replacement for Canon cameras that enables all sorts of additional features). An image was captured approximately every 15 seconds,” writes Murphy on his Vimeo page.
Church and 30th St. San Francisco MUNI Construction from Ken Murphy on Vimeo.
Photographer Documents Never-Decomposing McDonald's Hamburger
Posted by David Ozanich — 13 Oct 2010
I love a Chicken McNugget as much as the next guy, but I may be taking McDonald’s off my lunch list after seeing photographer Sally Davies’ Flickr project. She photographed the same hamburger and fries from the venerable fast food chain once a week for 6 months and, well, not much changed. It hasn’t even grown mold! From an article about the artist:
"I told my friend about a schoolteacher who's kept a McDonald's burger for 12 years that hasn't changed at all, and he didn't believe me when I told him about it," Davies told us. "He thought I was crazy and said I shouldn't believe everything that I read, so I decided to try it myself."
What’s even more terrifying is that Davies does indeed have a friend who kept her McDonald’s burger for 12 years and it never decomposed. Karen Hanrahan bought her burger from 1996 and wrote about it in 2008. No word on the current condition of said hamburger which would now be 14 years old.
Gallery Watch: Julian Schnabel Polaroids
Posted by David Ozanich — 12 Oct 2010
Famed artist and filmmaker Julian Schnabel (“The Diving Bell and the Butterfly” among others) has taken up Polaroid photography, reports the Guardian. But its not just any old Polaroid camera:
It is one of only six in existence: a 20x24in 1970s handmade machine. It is huge, cumbersome, intended for studio photography and greedy for flash lighting. But for Schnabel, it has been a revelation. He started taking photos as a personal record but became amazed by what his camera could do. "This camera works like photosynthesis. It is as if you were Xeroxing your own face. The pictures have such physicality: their surface is like fine leather, stained from chemicals. Each one has a body and is more than an image."
The London gallery Colnaghi is displaying the photographs until November 12th. Their website describes the works on view:
Curated by Petra Giloy-Hirtz, the exhibition will present a selection of photographs, mostly previously unpublished, which offer an insight into the enigmatic character of the artist and a glimpse into his working environment. Works on view include images of Schnabel’s family and friends, such as Lou Reed, Placido Domingo and Mickey Rourke, alongside Polaroids of the artist's private spaces within the Palazzo Chupi on New York's Lower West Side and the interiors and surroundings of his studios in Brooklyn, Montauk and Manhattan. Schnabel took these extraordinary large-format Polaroids, both in brilliant colour and black-and-white, using a dolly-mounted 20 x 24 in. 1970s camera, and in some cases the artist has painted on the surfaces of the photographs. Together these Polaroids create a unique tableau, both intensely personal and poetic.
Below is a photo by Jennifer Trausch of Schnabel’s crazy hand-made Polaroid camera.
Art Watch: Jonathan Hobin's "In the Playroom"
Posted by David Ozanich — 12 Oct 2010
The Awl highlights the “intentionally scandalous” photo series “In the Playroom” by Canadian Jonathan Hobin that features kids in tableaux taken from news headlines. Macleans has the full story as well as a slide show of the photos in question. Above is “The Twins” and below are “A Boo Grave” and "The Saints."
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 12 Oct 2010
- This AP story about an Alaska couple and their Radio Flyer car seems important to share. Via Gawker.
- Gizmodo says “Olympus is Ditching Entry-Level SLRs for Micro Four Thirds Cameras”.
- New Yorker staff photographer Platon has a portfolio of Burmese refugees like the exiled monk, Ashin Issariya, below. The photos are all accompanied by video interviews with Human Rights Watch.
- Pop Photo has instruction on how to photograph your own eye. I know you’ve been wondering!
Gallery Watch: Simone Lueck's "The Once and Future Queens"
Posted by David Ozanich — 11 Oct 2010
Meow! Ladies of a certain age are on view in Simone Lueck’s “The Once and Future Queens” at the Kopeikin Gallery in Los Angeles. The artist apparently found her models by posting an ad on Craigslist seeking older women who wanted to pose like movie stars. The Culture Monster blog at the LA Times describes some of the resulting portraits:
In “Mara as Brigitte Bardot,” a confident, mature woman strikes a kittenish pose in the bath. “Fabie in the living room” channels Joan Collins in “Dynasty”: a glittering, tough-as-nails matriarch lying on a fur coat against a backdrop of vertical blinds.
Seriously, people, any show that “channels Joan Collins in ‘Dynasty’” is my kind of show. I think these pictures are quite remarkable even if, as Culture Monster notes “Cindy Sherman casts a long shadow here.”
“The Once and Future Queens” (a title I also love) is on view until October 23rd.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 11 Oct 2010
- First up, Happy Columbus Day to American readers and Happy Thanksgiving to Canadian ones!
- The Paley Center for Media is offering up an exhibit of “rare early [John] Lennon images” from his Liverpool days as part of their expansive tribute to the Beatle who would have celebrated his 70th birthday this month.
- Europeans and those traveling through London in late January may want to check out Adventure Travel Live expo. There will be several photography seminars including “renowned travel photographer Steve Bloom, top wildlife photographer Chris Weston, and adventure and expedition photographer, Martin Hartley. Hosted by Chris Coe, photographer and founder of the prestigious Travel Photographer of the Year awards, these seminars offer a mixture of informative lectures and open panel discussion including audience questions.” All the info on attending here.
- Bill Cunningham, whom I’ve written about before, gives us his street style take on the wild and luxuriant Chanel show that was the highlight of Paris Fashion Week.
- This cast photo from the upcoming musical “Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown,” with Patti Lupone looking luscious in the blond wig, was the greatest image I saw all weekend. Tony Cenicola took it for the NY Times. You can read more about the show here.
Museum Watch: New Photography 2010 at MoMA
Posted by David Ozanich — 9 Oct 2010
The New York Times weighs in on the Museum of Modern Art’s “New Photography 2010” show, its 25th anniversary.
The four artists in this year’s stimulating show — Roe Ethridge, Elad Lassry, Alex Prager and Amanda Ross-Ho — care about visual literacy, not theory. They revel in color, and in the physical presence of the photographic print. And they’re openly nostalgic, while their predecessors were critical.
“New Photography 2010” was organized by Roxana Marcoci, a curator in MoMA’s photography department. Ms. Marcoci, who also put together the museum’s current sixth-floor exhibition “The Original Copy: Photography of Sculpture, 1839 to Today,” has a keen eye for how photography interacts with other mediums. Her installation combines photography, 16-millimeter film and sculpture, often seamlessly. It also sparks conversations among the separate bodies of work, which hasn’t always been the case with the New Photography series.
About the photo above, “Old Fruit” by Roe Ethridge, they write:
Mr. Ethridge’s most evocative works are still lifes with a twist, rooted in catalog illustrations and painterly trompe l’oeil. His shot of a bowl of moldy fruit, which appeared on the cover of Vice magazine, is a standout — a raffish take on pictorialism.
The show is up an running at MoMA in New York City until January 10th, 2011. The whole review is here.
All That (Honda) Jazz!
Posted by David Ozanich — 8 Oct 2010
The number of Australians I see socially has recently increased dramatically. One of them sent me this groovy commercial from Down Under for the Honda Jazz. (Side note: Jazz is easily my favorite name for a car EVER.) Part of the “Imagination” campaign, it first aired in November of 2009, so this isn’t exactly breaking news, but I still thought this time-lapse video was worth a mention:
Pretty neat, right? Wondering how they did that, I found this behind-the-scenes article describing production:
The complex task of bringing 'Imagination' to life was entrusted to director Kris Moyes of Revolver Films. Known for his (award winning) direction of music videos for Wolfmother and Franz Ferdinand, Kris' work shows a playful mathematical aesthetic characterised by intensely colourful and ingenious animations.
The production process for the commercial was highly detailed. First, the technical team measured the interior of the Honda Jazz, calculating the total volume of the car to be equivalent to 1,469,333 Mega Bloks. Each object in the TVC was then designed using this full complement of blocks, and the commercial finally stitched together from 366 still photographs taken over 12 hours.
I like that they were so specific about just how many Mega Bloks fit inside a Jazz. Thank God for math! Thinking this Kris Moyes fellow was interesting, I checked out his website and particularly enjoyed this commercial for Cadbury. It’s not really photo-related but it’s cool so I thought I’d include it. And finally, just because its Friday, here’s a video of a girl dancing to “All That Jazz” at the Hall of Fame Dance Competition:
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 8 Oct 2010
- The earliest known photographic images of Tibet to have left that country were auctioned off earlier this week in London. Taken by a British political officer in 1903 during a military campaign, they reveal an unseen world unfamiliar to even contemporary Tibetans. NPR’s Morning Edition has the full story and a slide show of the pictures.
- The Lens Blog asks “Can photography bookstores survive?” They talk to Timothy Whelan who is closing his much loved bookstore in Rockport, Maine.
- In space, no one can hear you ... sing? British singer Dido (you know, the one who sang with Eminem) is being sued by NASA astronaut Bruce McCandless for “unauthorized use of his likeness.” A 1984 photo of him in the midst of a space walk (see below) is the cover of her new album “Safe Trip Home.” The rest of the story here.
- The Photo Attorney has posted videos from the recent Telluride Photo Festival. They include her own seminar “Legal Issues for Photographers” as well as talks on “Macro Photography,” “SEO (Search Engine Optimization) for Photographers,” and “Extreme Photography Makeovers,” whatever that is.
- Pee-wee Herman ran around Manhattan snapping pictures yesterday and posting them to his Twitter feed. The one below on the subway is my favorite.
Museum Watch: "Looking After Louis Sullivan" at the Art Institute of Chicago
Posted by David Ozanich — 7 Oct 2010
There’s a show on right now called “Looking After Louis Sullivan” at the Art Institute of Chicago. Louis Sullivan, often called the “Father of the Modern Skyscraper,” was terribly influential in the Chicago School that came to define much of the architectural taste in the late 1800s. The bright kids at MIT describe his architectural style and influence:
He replaced the standard classical ornamentation of the day with highly original, organic architectural details inspired by nature. One of Sullivan's most notable contributions was the creation of a form appropriate to the tall commercial office building. Rather than stressing the horizontal layers of each story, he emphasized the vertical rise of these buildings. Verticality was made possible by steel frame construction and the use of light materials such as terra cotta, which had a malleability appropriate for carrying out his ornament.
Here’s an example, the Guaranty Building in Buffalo, New York:
I’ve always admired Sullivan’s work. There’s a landmark one in New York City at 65 Bleecker Street called the Bayard-Condict Building:
So that’s a little taste of Louis Sullivan is in case you weren’t aware. Meanwhile, the curators describe the show “Looking after Louis Sullivan: Photographs, Drawings, and Fragments” at the Art Institute:
In the 1950s, the photographers John Szarkowski, Aaron Siskind, and Richard Nickel embarked on in-depth photographic explorations of structures designed by the renowned architect Louis Sullivan, whose commercial buildings and theaters of the 1880s and early 1890s broke with historical precedents, displaying a radical, organic fusion of formal and functional elements. Attracted to Sullivan’s renegade American spirit and uncompromising values, Szarkowski, Siskind, and Nickel also found inspiration in the play of light over his ornamented facades and the dynamism of his buildings within the bustling city of Chicago.
“Looking after Louis Sullivan” explores how these photographers employed the camera to document and interpret Sullivan’s architecture and, in the process, helped shape his legacy.
Chicagoist went and checked out the show, though didn’t seem to like the placement, thought the overall show was a winner.
The Art Institute has relegated a gem of an exhibit to the basement, sandwiched between offices and long, dim hallways, but “Looking After Louis Sullivan: Photographs, Drawings, and Fragments is worth leaving the airy Modern Wing for. ...
The exhibit is organized by photographer, making it easy to see how Nickel’s close studies of geometry and form contrast to Szarkowksi’s more epic views. ...Together, the three photographers’ works are an excellent primer for those uninitiated to Sullivan’s architecture, and will give Sullivan enthusiasts plenty to salivate about.
All in all it sounds nifty to me. I’ve always liked architectural photography and this sounds like a thoughtful and appealing show. Go check it out. It’s on view until December 12th.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 7 Oct 2010
- Leica M8 camera built out of Legos.
- The Federation of European Photographers (FEP) announced that the competition for 2010 European Fine Art Photograph of the Year is open for entries. You have until December 31st to enter. All the details here.
- Despite a shaky start to the proceedings, the Commonwealth Games are underway in India. Life Magazine has a gallery of the best sports photos.
- Cathy Horyn has her last audio slide show of the season with a wrap up of what happened on the runways during Paris Fashion Week. Gosh, I love her.
- The Big Picture blog has a photo roundup of that toxic sludge nightmare that’s Hungary’s currently dealing with. Apparently its ended up in the Danube despite efforts to prevent that. Yuck.
Levi's Photo Workshop Takes Manhattan
Posted by David Ozanich — 6 Oct 2010
I swear I’m not shilling for Levi’s since I posted about them just yesterday. I don’t even wear jeans (just corduroy for me, thanks!) However I came across the Levi’s Photo Workshop, today and thought it seemed worthwhile to mention. Billed as a “community-based venue for collaboration and creative production,” it opens tomorrow at 18 Wooster Street in the part of Manhattan known as SoHo. So say the PR team at Levi’s:
These public facilities feature a professional--grade studio, vintage camera rental, and a myriad of other bits and bobs to keep you shooting in style. For several months, we are inviting leaders from a variety of cultural fields, non-profit organizations, artists and the general public to share valuable resources.
As I said, it opens tomorrow, October 7th, with an exhibition called “New York: New Work” which leaves a bit to be desired in terms of creative titling, but does promise work from 30 different photographers. You can RSVP for that event, which starts at 8pm, here. In the meantime, here’s a video they put together:
Seems like a potentially cool thing and it might be worth checking out for those in or around New York.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 6 Oct 2010
- Hey Australians! “Farrel and Parkin: Topography of a Collaborative Mind” is ongoing until October 17th. The Age describes the show and the duo:
A large retrospective at Glen Eira City Council Gallery reveals 25 years of inquiry, with a remarkable diversity of images and themes. Curated by Diane Soumilas, it includes film stills, faux-propaganda, allegories and sacred pictures, surgical histories and self-portraiture.
Working collaboratively, Farrell & Parkin have come up with highly original content through labour-intensive techniques. To produce a single photograph, they think nothing of constructing a world, painting a large scenic backdrop and building life-size sculptures that act as participants in the scene.
That’s their work “The Young Collective Farmer” above.
- Just thought this photo by Hiroko Masuike of the installation of John Baldessari’s “Palm Tree/Seascape” at the Metropolitan Museum of Art was neat.
- Trip the light fantastic on the sidewalks of New York: The folks at PetaPixel unearthed the short documentary video below of street photographer Joe Wigfall from a WNYC contest.
- Paris Fashion Update: Karl Lagerfeld, designer and master photographer debuted his collection to great fanfare. You can check out the frocks, supposedly inspired by the 1961 Resnais film “Last Year in Marienbad” here. The show was also graced by the ”Littlest Chanel Model”, the 2 year old son of model Brad Koenig. Not sure how I feel about the denim on denim look though.
Are Your Pictures Stupid?
Posted by David Ozanich — 5 Oct 2010
Choire Sicha, of the superb website The Awl, does not like all your fancy digital camera tricks. This afternoon he posted an incensed opinion piece titled ”Your Beautiful Pictures Are Stupid: Against Trendy Digital Photography.” A snippet:
This epidemic of easy-to-manipulate "arty" images infesting our blogs and our Facebook pages is way out of control. And it's not just photography. Take a look at the Vimeo HD channel.
Every trick in the book is showing up in pretty much every photograph and video these days. Super-limited depth of field! Film emulation! Diffraction! Long exposures, tilt-shifting, faux Polaroid, high contrast, faux lomography! When was the last time you saw a video without a beautiful, sweeping time-lapse segment?
He follows with a few examples of things that annoy him and since lots of things annoy me too, I like it when people are specific (though admittedly this particular one was not on my radar). But one of his examples is the nifty “Dark Side of the Lens” a short film that is well worth watching and even Sicha admits it is “pretty incredible.” You can see that below. Afterwards, check out the whole diatribe. (Don’t worry, it’s not too long!)
DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 5 Oct 2010
- Californians looking for a weekend excursion should think about heading to Morro Bay (seen above) for the Morro Photo Expo taking place October 22-24th. $129 gets you three days of classes with over 30 choices aimed at all skill levels. Among them will be a class taught by George Lepp, a noted nature photographer.
- I talked a little while back about the town of Braddock, PA whose residents are now the face of a new Levi’s campaign. NPR takes a deeper look at the deal, the campaign, and it’s desired effects, both for the town and for the brand.
- Recently deceased actor Tony Curtis was buried with his iPhone. Just thought you should know. Via Gizmodo.
- The Gaurdian’s Sean O’Hagan writes about the state of art photography in Britain. He thinks it doesn’t enough respect and wonders if the Brighton Photo Biennial, under its new leadership, can change that.
- Do take a moment to check out our interview with JPG member and instant film lover Ritchard Ton.
The New Pornographers
Posted by David Ozanich — 4 Oct 2010
It’s not everyday that the New York Times decides to write about the current state of pornography or, as the chattering classes might call it, “erotica.” The article focuses on the husband-and-wife team of Jonathan and Danielle Leder, publishers of Jacques magazine, a boutique publication of “artistic” erotica.
They represent the new forefront of pornography and its return to the “vintage Playboy” aesthetic:
Jacques is offering a self-conscious throwback to the magazines of the late 1960s and early 1970s, before the days of silicone implants, Photoshop and streaming HD video.
It’s a highly stylized aesthetic that evokes a bygone age of Polaroids and Kodak Instamatics. Mr. Leder shoots on 35-millimeter film, uses only existing light and never retouches or digitally manipulates a photo — blemishes and body fat be damned. “A lot of quote-unquote porn is just simply disgusting,” Mr. Leder said, offering his view of the adult entertainment industry. “It’s so cheap and so vulgar, it just turns everybody off.”His cultural influences are mid-period Hugh Hefner and Norman Rockwell. “We’re trying to do something kind of wholesome, kind of family,” he said.
That last bit is hilarious. Here’s another good one about the models:
The Summer 2010 issue featured an 18-year-old student, Audrey, who goes to Parsons the New School for Design, and lists free trade, gay rights and women’s rights among the issues she feels strongly about. Her perfect date? “Vegan dinner, vegan dessert and a concert.”
Ugh, that date sounds like my personal nightmare. Except for the concert part.
Anyhow, the article also brings up Jacques’s brethren in the emerging pin up trade like Richardson, S Magazine and BUTT which are described as “unabashed in their approaches to erotica, yet remain artsy enough to be left on the coffee table.”
Here’s where things get interesting in a broader way:
Butt’s pink paper and Jacques’s oversize 9-by 12-inch format are no accident. While most publishers are tweaking their periodicals to be more digital, these titles are proudly analog. They are also priced more like hardcover books: Richardson sells for $28 and S is $19.95. Jacques, by comparison, is a modest $9.
“As magazines become more-premium objects, they use the paper and the physical experience as part of the narrative,” said Andrew Losowsky, editor of the Magtastic Blogsplosion, a blog that chronicles the global magazine industry.
So, actually, this could be construed as reasserting that print is not in fact dead. I think we can all agree, no matter what our personal opinions about erotica, that photography always looks better in a glossy magazine than over the internet. With the iPad and the internet eating away at print publishing’s ability to make payroll, these periodicals seem to indicate that the public is still hungry for a traditional magazine experience. Sales of the first issue of Jacques were only 1,000 and it was available only in a few select New York boutiques. The last issue had a print run of over 14,000 copies and was sold in national chains like Barnes & Noble and American Apparel.
Just wanted to let you know this is happening and its apparently seeping deeply enough into the culture to warrant the full Sunday New York Times treatment. You can read the whole article here and I really recommend it.
And while I’m sure that none of you, dear readers, would ever be interested in such SMUT, but if a “friend” wants to learn more or if you want to take a closer look for “purely professional reasons,” you can visit Jacques magazine here. (Warning: Site NSFW)
Jonathan and Danielle Leder with their son. Picture via pigmag.com
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 4 Oct 2010
- Quite a shot was captured by Daily Mail photographer Mark Pain at the Ryder Cup when Tiger Woods chipped a shot straight at him, briefly interrupting play.
- If you were in the Austrian Alps over the weekend you were no doubt attending the European Beard and Mustache Championships. The Telegraph has several pictures of the contestants and winners.
- The Observer has a neat slide show highlighting “the 20 best photographic exhibitions and books, with images by William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Chris Killip, Alixandra Fazzina, Philip Jones Griffiths, Tim Hetherington, Paul Strand, Mary Ellen Mark and many more” in their monthly review.
- News out of Spain: Centre d’Art La Panera has a new iPhonography show focusing entirely on images taken in this new medium. The show, which opened Friday and is up through November 14th, is described thusly:
Movements like those created by Polaroid or Lomography have marked periods in which distinct art groups have approached the immediacy of photography. Today, Apple’s iPhone has taken up the baton of these movements. [...] As this device has several apps for postproduction and immediate sharing of pictures, whether in social networks or photoblogs, a broad group (photographers, filmmakers, designers, journalists…) has turned it into an everyday tool of creation.
A corresponding Flickr page has lots of examples of what caught the curators’ eyes.
50 Free Photography Lectures
Posted by David Ozanich — 1 Oct 2010
If you were a perennial college student for much of your 20s like me, you no doubt love nothing more than a good old fashioned lecture! Amirite? It was that love for musty smelling classrooms and even mustier smelling professors that piqued my interest in “50 Fantastic Open Lectures for Photographers.” It’s a collection of 50 free (that’s right, kids, FREE!) recorded talks available with the click of a mouse on subjects that should appeal to almost any photographer. They are broken into such categories as Photographers, Creativity, Photojournalism, Technology, Environment, and History.
So here’s the deal: This ended up in our JPG inbox unsolicited from someplace called OnlineSchools.org. I’m not really sure just what their purpose is so don’t take this post as an endorsement of their programs, especially if you have to pay for anything. THAT SAID, all these lectures are free and I’ve spent the past while clicking through some very interesting stuff. So I’d recommend getting out that blazer and pipe and maybe even a little scotch and settling in for some scholarly conversation.
Like I said, there are 50 different choices, but these are a few of my favorites after a brief perusal of the choices.
- Elizabeth Gilbert of “Eat, Pray, Love” fame gives a TED talk on the nature of creativity. This came across my desk a few months back and whatever your feelings about Ms. Gilbert (mine are neutral at best) this was worth a listen.
- Miru Kim, a Korean photographer, gives another TED talk on her underground photography with urban explorers. The TED website describes some of her work this way: “Kim explores industrial ruins underneath New York and then photographs herself in them, nude -- to bring these massive, dangerous, hidden spaces into sharp focus.”
- White House Photographers discuss their work documenting the presidency.
- Famed documentarian Ken Burns discusses “documenting history.”
- Alfred Steiglitz’s photography of Georgia O’Keefe is the jumping off point for this discussion of the two artists’ work.
Your Daily Photo Feed
Posted by David Ozanich — 1 Oct 2010
- Roe Ethridge (shown above), Elad Lassry, Alex Prager (shown below) and Amanda Ross-Ho are the focus of the Museum of Modern Art’s 25th annual “New Photography” show which just opened. MoMA says:
Infusing the seductive language of film and advertising with a touch of sly conceptualism, the artists included in “New Photography 2010” explore the relationship between straight and constructed photograph, image and picture.
More on the show here.
- While we’re talking about MoMA, they also just opened their “undeniably splendid landmark exhibition” called “Abstract Expressionist New York: The Big Picture.” Roberta Smith, in her glowing review for the New York Times, describes what you’ll see:
This exhibition digs deep into the bedrock of the first American art style of international stature, formed by a hard-drinking, self-destructive band of mostly brothers who wrested a brave new style from European art...
To accommodate the installation, the Modern has cleared its fourth-floor permanent-exhibition galleries and put Ann Temkin, chief curator of the department of painting and sculpture, in charge. Ms. Temkin has orchestrated a spacious, often brilliant installation of nearly 100 paintings and some 60 sculptures, drawings, prints and photographs, along with related ephemera, much of which traces the museum’s longstanding support of the style. Everything on view is from the Modern’s collection; some of it hasn’t been seen in decades.
- NPR’s Picture Show blog turns the spotlight on the Bangladeshi photographer Rashid Talukder who just won the “pioneer photographer award” from National Geographic.
- Gosh, everyone seems over the moon for this new Lee Friedlander book “America by Car.” (All 192 photos are also on view at the Whitney Museum of American Art). Today its the LA Times taking a look:
His intentional method of including reflections in the vehicles' side-view and rear mirrors creates another perspective for digesting the scenery. The result is a distorted effect of dimensionality as elements of the car appear to be bumping up against landmarks, churches, bridges and roadside follies, including a familiar Paul Bunyan statue in Pennsylvania.
