Saturday, August 27, 2011

Premier International Festival of Photojournalism Visa pour l'Image Opens


Visa pour l'Image Perpignan 2011

Visa pour l'Image is the premier International Festival of Photojournalism held in Perpignan, France. This festival is a unique event where you can join thousands of kindred spirits who share a love and passion for photography. View the greatest photojournalist work from around the world in exhibitions across the city. Experience the evening screenings in the dramatic open air medieval enclosure of the Campo Santo. Take part in symposiums and conferences and meet the foremost photo agencies and manufacturers of photographic related equipment. Explore the web site for full details.

Contact information here. 


Friday, August 26, 2011

SCENES FROM A SHOW (FACES OF GROUND ZERO)

Via Joe McNally's Blog:

We set up the show on Tuesday night. When you need to get something done, it’s always good to have FDNY on your side. Louie Cacchioli rallied the guys, and over 25 firefighters showed up and worked tirelessly from 9pm through till 3am to get this in place for the Wednesday opening press reception. Pushing these frames around, many of which are close to 300 lbs., more than once I was like, “Why’d I have to shoot ‘em so big?”








I was just humbled, really, by the selfless way these guys, many of whom came from way out of town, just pitched in and got this done. My thanks also go out to Related, the owners of the building, which worked with me to allow this to happen. If we had to actually hire shippers and handlers to move it around, it simply would never get done because of the enormous cost. Louie, seen below, has been the face of the show since the book came out in 2002, and he ended up on the cover. I always tell people he’s firefighting’s answer to Robert DeNiro. He’s always been there to help.





It also would never have gotten done, were it not for the tireless efforts of Ellen Price, who has worked with the collection for almost 10 years. Her labors are done behind the scenes, organizing, cataloging, making sure it has been stored properly (24,000 lbs. of photography in museum quality, monitored storage!) and working with the 911 Museum to arrange for its’ eventual home. Below, Ellen works with the guys.




So it got done. It will be on floor of the Time Warner Center, free and open to the public, from 10am to 9pm every day until Sept. 12. After that, we’ll see what happens. More on that tk.




We had lots of press at the opening, and a bunch of subjects from the original project also graciously came. Below, Bill Butler speaks eloquently about the events of 911.




More than 75,000 people a day transit the TW Center. Which means that close to a million people will pass by these over the next couple of weeks. Hopefully, they’ll stop for a moment, and remember.




Interviews: Watch on You Tube

More; http://www.facesofgroundzero.com

Joe McNally prints




Thursday, August 25, 2011

2011 Lucie Awards: Bill Eppridge is Honoree for Achivement in Photojournalism

9th Annual Lucie Awards


The Lucie Awards is the annual gala ceremony honoring the greatest achievements in photography. The photography community from countries around the globe will pay tribute to the most outstanding photography achievements presented at the Gala Awards ceremony. Each year, the Advisory Board nominates deserving individuals across a variety of categories who will be honored during the Lucie Awards ceremony. Once the nominations have been received, the votes are tallied and an honoree in each category is identified.

The 2011 Honoree for Achievement in Photojournalism is Bill Eppridge.

Bill Eppridge already owned a Kodak Brownie Star Flash 620 camera when one day an itinerant photographer with a pony stopped by his house in Richmond, Virginia and asked to photograph Bill and his younger sister. Eppridge was only eight but it was then that he decided he wanted to be a photographer - he could have a big camera, travel, meet lots of interesting people, and have his own pony. That was just the hint of a lifelong career in photojournalism covering some of the most important people and events in history.

Born in Buenos Aires in 1938, Eppridge spent his early childhood in Virginia, and Tennessee. The family moved to Delaware when he was 14. A self-taught photographer, he began shooting for his school newspaper and yearbook, and then sports for the Wilmington Star newspaper. Eppridge was only fifteen, but this early exposure to a real newsroom gave him a taste for journalism.

Eppridge grew up during World War II looking at Life magazine. He was entranced by the work of their war photographers, and later influenced by Gordon Parks and Leonard McCombe. Their pictures looked effortless, as if they just happened in front of the camera and the photographers grabbed them. It was that style of photography that fascinated him –an entire story was told with one significant image.

In 1960 Eppridge graduated from the University of Missouri, Journalism program headed by Clif Edom who had begun the famous Missouri Photojournalism Workshop with Roy Stryker of the Farm Security Administration. While still a student, Eppridge was accepted into that workshop twice during his college years. He got a career boost when his photograph of a white horse against a tornadic sky won first prize for pictorial in the NPPA Pictures of the Year competition in 1959. He was twice named NPPA College Photographer of the Year and awarded internships at Life magazine.


Eppridge’s first professional assignment after graduation was a nine-month documentary trip around the world for National Geographic magazine. After that, he began shooting for Life. During the year 1964 while on a contract basis with the magazine, Eppridge was there when the Beatles first stepped off the plane in the United States, and chronicled their effect on this country. He spent several days photographing a young Barbra Streisand on the verge of stardom, covered Pete Seeger and Bob Dylan who was to sing at his first Newport Folk Festival, and immediately afterward he was sent to Mississippi where the bodies of slain civil rights workers Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner had been found buried in an earthen dam. Eppridge stayed for several days and photographed the solemn funeral of James Chaney. He soon earned a place on the masthead of Life.

As a Life staff photographer for most of the 1960s, until that magazine folded in 1972, Eppridge worked alongside many of the legends he had admired while growing up – Alfred Eisenstadt, Gordon Parks, Carl Mydans, Ralph Morse, and Larry Burrows.

Eppridge’s unique style of photojournalism brought him history-making assignments - he covered Latin American revolutions, the Vietnam war, and Woodstock. Eppridge was the only photographer admitted into Marilyn Lovell’s home as her husband, Jim, orbited the moon in the crippled Apollo 13 spacecraft. His landmark photographic essay on drug use, “Needle Park- Heroin Addiction” won the National Headliner’s Award. He was given unprecedented access to the 50th anniversary of the Russian Revolution in Leningrad and photographed the entire Baltic fleet as it was assembled in the Neva River, something that no westerner had ever seen.

One of Eppridge’s most memorable and poignant essays was his coverage of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, first in 1966, and then again on the road with RFK during the 1968 presidential campaign. His photograph of the wounded Senator on the floor of the Ambassador Hotel kitchen seconds after he was shot has been described as a modern Pieta.

After Life ceased publication in 1972, Eppridge joined Sports Illustrated where he continued to use his photojournalist talent to cover both Winter and Summer Olympics; America’s Cup sailing; the environmental disasters of the Mount St. Helen’s volcanic eruption, and the devastating Exxon Valdez oil spill and aftermath. His sporting essays and wildlife photography took him around the world to the Arctic, Africa, Asia, and the Alps.

Eppridge has received some of the highest honors his profession bestows – the NPPA Joseph A. Sprague Award, and The Missouri School of Journalism Medal of Honor. He has been a respected force in training a new generation of photojournalists for more than twenty years at both the Missouri Photojournalism Workshop, and the Eddie Adams Photography Workshop. His photographs have been exhibited at the Smithsonian Museum of American History; The High Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Visa Pour L’Image, and in galleries and museums around the world.

Eppridge currently lives in Western Connecticut with his wife Adrienne and his cat "Bear". After nearly six decades as a photojournalist he is, even now, never without his camera, and is currently photographing several projects including an essay about the new American farmers - but he still doesn’t own a pony.

Several of Bill Eppridge's historic photographs are featured in the exhibition "History's Big Picture" through September 25. A major solo exhibition celebrating Eppridge's Lucie Award will feature many of his most significan photo essays, and will open at Monroe Gallery of Photography September 30 and continue through November 20, 2011.

An Evening with White House Photographer Eric Draper

Emma Booker Elementary School. Sept 11, 2001
Eric Draper: Emma Booker Elementary School. September 11, 2001

Eric Draper, a former Albuquerque Tribune and Associated Press photographer, who lives in Rio Rancho, was selected by President-Elect George Bush to be the White House photographer in 2000. For the next eight years, Draper had a front row seat to history: during Oval Office meetings, aboard Air Force One, and even at intimate Christmas celebrations.


Photographer Eric Draper
Eric Draper


What: The Society of Professional Journalists, Rio Grande Chapter and Citadel Broadcasting present An Evening with Former White House Photographer Eric Draper

Date: Thursday, Sept. 1, 2011

Time: 6 pm – 9 pm

Where: Central New Mexico Community College’s Smith Brasher Hall (SW Corner of Coal and University — FREE Parking)

Reception and Silent Auction: 6 pm – 7 pm

Program: 7 pm – 8:45 pm

Tickets: The Rio Grande Chapter has a limited number of free tickets available to SPJ Rio Grande Chapter members.

Citadel Broadcasting also will be giving away some tickets through special radio and online broadcast promotions.

 Eric Draper's fine-art photographs are represented by Monroe Gallery of Photography, and two are featured in the exhibion "History's Big Picture" through September 25, 2011.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

"Fields of Vision" series features 20th-century photographers Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, and Carl Mydans

 Cafe in Pikesville, Tennessee, 1936 (for the Farm Security Administration) ?Time Inc.
Carl Mydans: Cafe in Pikesville, Tennessee, 1936 (for the Farm Security Administration) c.Time Inc
via artdaily.com

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The more than 172,000 black-and-white and 1,600 color images that comprise the Farm Security Administration Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Collection at the Library of Congress offer a detailed portrait of life in the United States from the years of the Great Depression through World War II.

Selected images from the works of FSA/OWI photographers Gordon Parks (1912-2006), Arthur Rothstein (1915-1985) and Carl Mydans (1907-2004) are now featured in the Library of Congress series titled "Fields of Vision."

These new titles join the first six volumes in the series, which feature the work of FSA/OWI photographers Russell Lee (1903-1987), Ben Shahn (1898-1969), Marion Post Wolcott (1910-1990), Esther Bubley (1921-1998), Jack Delano (1914-1997) and John Vachon (1914-1975).

Edited by Amy Pastan, an independent editor and book packager, and published by D Giles Ltd. in association with the Library of Congress, each volume in the series includes an introduction to the work of the featured FSA photographer by a leading author.

Headed by Roy L. Stryker, the government’s documentary project employed many relatively unknown names who later became some of the 20th century’s best-known photographers.

Gordon Parks, the only black FSA photographer, was "a Renaissance man," writes Charles Johnson in his introduction to the volume. Parks was a writer, musician, poet, composer, photojournalist and motion-picture director, with many "firsts" to his credit. "The first black director in Hollywood, he opened the door for young auteurs, such as Spike Lee and John Singleton," writes Johnson.

The youngest FSA photographer, Arthur Rothstein was "the truest child of the New Deal," writes George Packer in his introductory essay. Fresh out of Columbia University with a belief in the government’s social improvement efforts, Rothstein planned to earn money for medical school. But after joining the government project, he changed his career path. By the age of 25 he was a staff photographer for Look magazine and eventually became its director of photography. He joined Parade magazine in 1972 as director of photography and remained there until his death in 1985.

A graduate of Boston University’s School of Journalism, Carl Mydans was an experienced photographer with credits in Time magazine when he joined the documentary project in 1930. He later moved to the new magazine Life, and on to a celebrated career as a war photographer. Says author Annie Proulx, "He identified himself as a photojournalist and his interest in the massive global events of the time became his life."

Each 63-page, soft-cover volume in the series is available for $12.95 in bookstores throughout the U.S. and the UK, from D Giles Ltd. and the Library of Congress Sales Shop, Washington, D.C., 20540-4985. Credit-card orders are taken at (888) 682-3557, or shop on the Internet at www.loc.gov/shop/. Reproduction numbers are provided in the books so that reprints may be ordered through the Library’s Photoduplication Service.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions.

Tuesday, August 23, 2011

45 Years Ago Today: The First Earthrise

NASA: The Lunar Orbiter I took this first ever photo of the Earth from the vicinity of the moon on August 23, 1966

 The Backstory

Via TIME LightBox
| By Jeffrey Kluger

Geocentrism died on August 23, 1966. Centuries had passed since human beings first dispensed with the old notion that the Earth was the hub around which the universe turned. But what we know rationally and embrace intuitively are often two different things. No matter where we stood on our home planet, after all, no matter how high we climbed into — or even above — the atmosphere, Earth’s horizon still defined the limits of our vision. We could see how out-there looked from down-here, but what we never saw was the reverse. And then, 45 years ago this month, we all at once could.

In that otherwise unremarkable summer, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1 arrived at the moon. As it rounded the far side on one of its early orbits, it snapped this head-turning image of the Earth — carved to a mere crescent like our own little moon — rising over the dominating arc of the lunar horizon. Our species had seen the sun rise and the moon rise, but we had never seen an Earthrise. It was both an illuminating and a humbling experience — one, some scientists hoped, that would help us appreciate the fragility of our little soap bubble world. Two generations on, that’s a hope worth recalling.

Jeffrey Kluger is a senior editor for TIME and oversees science and technology reporting. He has written or co-written more than 35 cover stories for the magazine and regularly contributes articles and commentary on science and health stories. His notable cover stories include reports on global warming, the science of appetite, the Apollo 11 anniversary, and the roots of human morality.


Related: Time's LightBox was cited as one of today's leading examples of photojournalism during the special event Photojournalism: A Conversation


Monday, August 22, 2011

Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Features Many of Gordon Parks' Most Memorable Images

Gordon Parks, American, 1912–2006; Alberto Giacometti, Paris, 1951, printed 2003; gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches; Lent by The Capital Group Foundation, 2002.02 © 2006 The Gordon Parks Foundation
PHOENIX, AZ.- Gordon Parks spent the majority of his professional career at the crossroads of the glamorous and the ghetto – two extremes the noted photographer knew well. Perhaps best recognized for his works chronicling the African-American experience, Parks was also an accomplished fashion photographer. Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks provides a revealing look at the diversity and breadth of Parks’s most potent imagery. Featuring 73 works specifically selected by Parks for the photographic collection of the Los Angeles-based Capital Group, Bare Witness divulges heart wrenching images, iconic moments, celebrities and slices of everyday life.

Born in 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas, Parks, who died in 2006 at age 93, was an African American photographer who began working professionally in the 1930’s. Parks tackled the harsh truth and dignity of the black urban and rural poor in the United States. He photographed aspects of the Civil Rights movements and individuals associated with the Black Panthers and Black Muslims. For nearly 25 years, from 1948 to 1972, he served as staff photographer for Life magazine. He also established himself as a foremost fashion photographer, providing spreads for respected magazines such as Vogue.

Bare Witness features many of Parks’s most memorable images such as “American Gothic.” Taken during Parks’s brief time with the Farm Security Agency, the photograph depicts a black cleaning woman named Ella Watson standing stiffly in front of an American flag, a mop in one hand and a broom in the other. Also included in the exhibition is a series of photos from Parks’s most famous Life magazine essay about Flavio da Silva, a malnourished and asthmatic boy living in a Rio de Janerio slum. Portraits of Muhammad Ali, Duke Ellington, Alexander Calder, Ingrid Bergman, Langston Hughes and Malcolm X among others will also be on view.

“Whether photographing celebrities or common folk, children or the elderly, Harlem gang leaders or fellow artists, Parks brought his straightforward, sympathetic ear and mind to bear witness to late 20th century civilization,” commented Hilarie Faberman, the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Cantor Arts Center and organizer of the exhibition. “His photographs balance the dichotomies of black and white, rich and poor, revealing his strengths and struggles as an artist and a man.”

In addition to his documentary and fashion photography, Parks was a filmmaker, author, musician and publisher. He was the first black artist to produce and direct a major Hollywood film, “The Learning Tree” in 1969, which was based on his early life experiences. He subsequently directed the popular action films “Shaft” and “Shaft’s Big Score.” He was a founder and editorial director of Essence magazine and wrote several autobiographies, novels and poems. In 1988, he received the National Medal of Arts award and throughout his lifetime was the recipient of 40 honorary doctorates from colleges and universities in the United States and England.

“Parks was a renaissance man whose career embodied the American ideal of equality and whose art was deeply personal."

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Sunday Focus: Joe McNally and the Faces of Ground Zero



Via JerseyStyle Photography
Because There's Style…And Then There's JerseyStyle…


The sky was falling and streaked with blood
I heard you calling me then you disappeared into the dust
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs into the fire….
- Into the Fire, Bruce Springsteen, from The Rising


Sometimes it’s hard to believe it happened 10 years ago already.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe it didn’t happen just yesterday.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe 9/11 even happened at all.

There are a number of things I’ll remember from that time. I was working for a pharmaceutical company back then, and living in Central New Jersey, about an hour from NYC. I remember my boss at the time coming into my office, on a beautiful early fall day, saying “A plane just hit the World Trade Center. It’s on CNN.” I remember going into his office to watch…and watching as reports broke that another plane hit the WTC.

I remember dust and rubble. I remember all of us there at work just not sure what was happening.

I remember, as I was driving home later that day, American flags flying at half mast. I remember going back to my apartment, walking my dog, still under an impossibly gorgeous sky, and then pouring myself a glass of Jack Daniels and watching the news for the rest of the night.

Fast forward a few months. I’m on the road, doing some corporate photo shoots with Joe McNally. I had known him for a couple of years at that point, and was always happy to get to work with him again (though my passion for photography hadn’t broken the surfaced yet.) I remember being somewhere in the Midwest with Joe and his assistant, and him telling me about this portrait project he did in the days right after 9/11..had something to do with a huge Polaroid camera.

Then came the first showing of the exhibit in NYC in 2002. Joe invited me to come see the opening. Joe, others, made speeches. Jewel sang. It was a big night out for me and this gal I was seeing then. I shot some crappy images with a 1.2 megapixel digital camera. (see above, regarding passion for photography item…)

NYC was rebounding.

Fast forward even further…ten years down the road… the gal I took to that opening is now my wife. People have married and divorced. Babies have been born, and children have grown up under the cloak of terrorism and war. We got Osama. NYC continues to rebound.

Joe is now blogging and tweeting. And he keeps shooting.

The portraits Joe shot soon after 9/11 continue to live on and draw inspiration. With the exhibit opening again this Wednesday, with some new portraits and video interviews included, I wanted to find out from Joe what has changed in the last 10 years, and what has stayed the same.

So, enough with this long preamble to the good stuff. Read on…
.
JSP Q: Take me back to 2001….after 9/11, how did you conceive this project and how did it all come about?

JM:
In the days immediately after the attacks, I was home, with the kids. Like everyone, I was a mixture and a mess of various feelings and sensations – sorrow, shock, anger, confusion. Being a photog, there was also that part of me that was screaming to get the cameras and just go there. But I didn’t. I couldn’t have added much at all to the immediate photographic record that was being compiled by the hundreds of photographers already on the streets of lower Manhattan. I stayed at home and tried to come up with some way of making a contribution, and harked back to this camera I had used once, a very singular, one of kind camera that made huge, instant photos – the world’s only giant Polaroid camera the brainchild of Dr. Land himself.
Fortuitously, it was located in a studio not too far from Ground Zero, and very near several FDNY firehouses that had suffered losses. I had the notion that this particular camera, which renders people life size, with a great deal of formality and stature, might be an appropriate instrument to use to document the people whose lives had intersected with 9/11 in dramatic fashion. I secured funding almost immediately, from Time-Life. We moved into the camera within about 10 days of the event, and started to work. All the shooting was completed within a month or so. During that month, I lived at the studio, sleeping in a loft bed over the camera, rarely straying more than a few blocks from it. We were taking crews from the pit at 2 a.m., 12 noon, late at night, you name it. We told everyone – if you come to the studio, we will take your picture.


Ladder Nine, Engine 33 was the first firehouse to come by. Word of mouth spread pretty rapidly about this project, and this giant camera. Ultimately the effort came to be known as Faces of Ground Zero, and it became a book and a traveling exhibit that assisted in the raising of nearly $2 million dollars for the relief effort. This is the core of the show that will be on the floor of the Time Warner Center, 10 years later.

JSP Q: You’re including a number of new portraits and interviews for the new showing of the Faces of Ground Zero. I know you’ve kept in touch with some of your Faces portraits subjects, like Louie Cacchioli, over the past 10 years. Have you kept in touch with others?

JM:
Yes, quite a number. I’m a “friend of the house” at a couple NYC firehouses, and I do photography for them when they have things like medal days etc. I’m close with a few people, and families. Doing this update 10 years later has been a welcome excuse to reach out to all these people again. They’re an amazing, resilient group of folks.




JSP Q: What were some of your biggest challenges working on the project back then and what were some of the challenges this time around?

JM:
A big challenge back then was simply trying to not sound like an unhinged lunatic on the phone with people. I mean, imagine getting a call during this highly emotional, stressed time period from someone you don’t know, trying to convince you to come to some outlandish, giant camera on the lower east side of NY. People were in shock, people had experienced grievous losses. The idea of coming to pose for a photo sounded ridiculous, even to me. But I think what overrode other feelings was people’s need at the time to be part of something, to tell their story, and to have a voice. The project gave them a dignified way of doing that.

So our success rate of persuading people to come to the camera was very high, indeed. The cumbersome nature of the giant Polaroid actually played in my favor here. Every sheet I used cost $300. So when people asked those familiar questions, “How long will this take? How many pictures are you going to shoot?” I could honestly say that it wouldn’t take long at all, because I would only make one picture. And that proved to be true, most of the time.

Challenges this time around involved updating the show with a series of photos that have power and clarity all on their own, and speak to the person’s life now, ten years later. Additionally, we did video interviews as well, so there’s an additional component to the visual reporting that we have done. The new photos have to compete with their very large counterparts, all these years later, in terms of interest and pictorial power. That was a big challenge.



JSP Q: Any surprises this time around?

JM:
No real surprises, I would say, maybe more of a refreshing feeling of relief. I knew right from the get go, from back in 2001, that these were very strong people. And sure enough, here they are 10 years on, still strong, still doing their jobs, still being who they are. They were not crushed by 9/11. There’s an enormous sense of the positive they exude. Ten years of raising kids, fighting fires, doing their work, helping other people – the power of life ongoing is very strong. I remain in awe of the whole bunch.

JSP Q: It seems as though you have special connection with the people that you shot for this project. Do you expect to continue shooting portraits to for this project?

JM:
Yes, I hope to. We will continue, and also continue our efforts to raise money for the support of the collection as it makes its’ transition to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, where it will reside in perpetuity.



It has been a bit of a saga, for me, as a lone freelance photographer, to shepherd this project for the last decade. But, it is a part of me, and I owe a great deal to the subjects of the project to safeguard their images, and to continue.

I guess to me, photographs have always been, very importantly, about memory, and the preservation thereof. Hence I continue to preserve these pictures and add to it as time goes on.



JSP Q: What’s next for Joe McNally?
JM: I would imagine, the next picture, the same way it has been for the last 35 years.
******************************************************************

Joe McNally and I have known each other for over 10 years now – first as business associates, then as friends. I’ve never asked him to be part of the my little Sunday Focus’. While he’s given me equal parts encouragement and inspiration towards my passion for photography, I never wanted to intrude on his time or play off that friendship for one of these posts.

But this one is a little different. I want to try to help get the word out about the new Faces of Ground Zero exhibit, so I asked Joe if he’d do this interview. I appreciate Joe taking the time to answer these questions in such a thoughtful manner. It was more than I expected, frankly, but then again, Joe doesn’t do anything halfway.

Nikon Inc. is the exclusive photographic equipment sponsor of the Faces of Ground Zero – 10 Years Later exhibit at the Time Warner Center. The free exhibit will take place from August 24 to September 12, 2011, and is open from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday – Saturday and from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday.

Adorama, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and others are also sponsors.
If you’re in the city and you get to see the exhibit, stop back here to let us know what you thought about it. Or if you Tweet about it, hashtag it #FGZ so that we can find it. It’s going to be powerful, I’m sure.

To find out more about the exhibit, or any of Joe’s work, follow him on Twitter and/or subscribe to his blog.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2011 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved
Unless otherwise noted, images captured with a Canon 50D, SanDisk digital film, finished with PS4 or PSE6 and Nik Software
.

Saturday, August 20, 2011

FACES OF GROUND ZERO: TEN YEARS ON

Faces of Ground Zero: Louie Cacchioli, Firefighter, Engine 47, FDNY

Faces of Ground Zero: Louie Cacchioli, Firefighter, Engine 47, FDNY

 

"Faces of Ground Zero" on Display at Time Warner Center 8/24 - 9/12 in New York City

Starts Wednesday, Aug 24 10:00a to 9:00p
Price: Free
Marking the 10th Anniversary of Sept. 11 Time Warner Center Presents Joe McNally's "Faces of Ground Zero, Portraits of the Hereos of Sept 11, 2011."

This special exhibition will feature the original life-size Polaroids, along with new digital images and exclusive video interviews shot with Nikon D-SLR cameras revealing where the subjects are today and how 9/11 affected their lives.

Exhibit will run daily from 8/24 - 9/12 and is FREE


Read more: Ten Years On via Joe McNally's blog

Related: Joe McNally: Faces of Ground Zero

Friday, August 19, 2011

Stephen Wilkes Explores New York as an Emergent Life Form in 'New York: Day to Night'



Via The Village Voice Blogs

Welcome to blogs.villagevoice.com

Things We Like

Thursday, August 18, 2011

At 83, subject of ‘American Girl in Italy’ photo speaks out

Image: Ninalee Craig with "American Girl in Italy" photo
Keith Beaty / Toronto Star
Ninalee Craig, 83, is the woman in Ruth Orkin's 1951 photograph "American Girl in Italy." This photo taken on Aug. 12 shows Craig standing next to Orkin's iconic image and wearing the same orange shawl she wore in the photo nearly 60 years ago.

In case you misssed the TODAY Show on NBC today:

By Laura T. Coffey

Today Show


You know the photo. You’ve seen it a hundred times. A beautiful, statuesque young woman is walking down a street in Florence, Italy. She’s clutching her shawl, and she seems to be moving swiftly. More than a dozen men are staring at her longingly. One of them is grabbing his crotch.
The iconic 1951 image “American Girl in Italy” turns 60 on Monday. As its anniversary approaches, the stunning woman in the photo — Ninalee Craig, now 83 — is speaking up about it. She wants to explain what the photo represents, and what it doesn’t.


“Some people want to use it as a symbol of harassment of women, but that’s what we’ve been fighting all these years,” Craig said in a telephone interview from her home in Toronto. “It’s not a symbol of harassment. It’s a symbol of a woman having an absolutely wonderful time!”

Back in 1951, Craig was a carefree 23-year-old who had chucked her job in New York and secured third-class accommodations on a ship bound for Europe. She spent more than six months making her way through France, Spain and Italy all by herself — something very few women did in the years following World War II.

She traveled as inexpensively as she could, so she was thrilled when she found a hotel right on the Arno River in Florence where she could stay for $1 a day. There, she met another adventurous solo female traveler: Ruth Orkin, a 29-year-old photographer who came to Italy after completing an assignment in Israel.

Image: "American Girl in Italy," Florence, 1951
© 1952, 1980 Ruth Orkin
Ruth Orkin's "American Girl in Italy" photo has become so famous over the years that a Canadian newspaper recently described it as "the image that has endured from dorm-room walls to French bistro loos."
“She was living from day to day, nickel-and-diming it,” Craig recalled. “We talked about traveling alone and asked each other, ‘Are you having a hard time? Are you ever bothered?’ We both found that we were having a wonderful time, and only some things were a little difficult.”

In the course of that conversation, an idea was hatched: They would head out together the next morning, wander around Florence and shoot pictures of what it was really like to travel alone as a young single woman.


“We were literally horsing around,” Craig said, reminiscing about the bright orange shawl she wore that day.

Orkin captured her famous “American Girl in Italy” photograph during those two hours of silliness and fun. Her contact sheets from that day reveal that she shot only two frames of that particular street scene.

“The big debate about the picture, which everyone always wants to know, is: Was it staged? NO!” Craig said. “No, no, no! You don’t have 15 men in a picture and take just two shots. The men were just there ... The only thing that happened was that Ruth Orkin was wise enough to ask me to turn around and go back and repeat [the walk].”

Orkin died in 1985. Her daughter, Mary Engel, has devoted her life to protecting her mother’s photographic archive and promoting her legacy as a documentary photographer. Engel agreed with Craig’s account of what happened on that August day in Florence, and she added one more contextual detail.

“She told the man on motorcycle to tell the other men not to look at the camera,” said Engel, director of the Orkin/Engel Film and Photo Archive. “But the composition, it just happened. And my mother got it. That’s what she was good at. ... She didn’t take loads and loads of photos. She waited for
shots.”

Image: "Jinx and Justin Flirting at the Cafe," Florence, Italy, 1951
This photo is called "Jinx and Justin Flirting at the Cafe," Florence, Italy, 1951.

Of course, a good documentary photograph welcomes viewers into a scene and invites their interpretations. That’s understandable, say Craig and Engel — but both of them stress the same point about “American Girl in Italy”: The photo is primarily a celebration of strong, independent women who aren’t afraid to live life.

“Men who see the picture always ask me: Was I frightened? Did I need to be protected? Was I upset?” Craig said. “They always have a manly concern for me. Women, on the other hand, look at that picture, and the ones who have become my friends will laugh and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful? Aren’t the Italians wonderful? ... They make you feel appreciated!’”

Craig said she certainly did feel appreciated in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. She turned plenty of heads wherever she went because she was 6 feet tall and traveling alone. She knows the men in the photo appear to be leering and lascivious, but she insists they were harmless.

“Very few of those men had jobs,” Craig said. “Italy was recovering from the war and had really been devastated by it … I can tell you that it wasn’t the intent of any man there to harass me.”
OK, but how about the man committing that not-so-innocent-looking gesture with his hand?

Image: "Negotiating with the Shopkeeper," Florence, Italy, 1951
During a whimsical, two-hour photo shoot, Ruth Orkin captured Ninalee Craig negotiating with shopkeepers and having other adventures as a solo female traveler.
“That young man is not whistling, by the way; he’s making a happy, yelping sound,” Craig said. “And where you see him touching the family jewels, or indicating them, with his hand — well, for a long time that was considered an image people should not look at. That part was airbrushed out for years ... But none of those men crossed the line at all.”
 

Today, she’s a grandmother of 10, a great-grandmother of seven and an avid supporter of Toronto’s arts scene. She’s elated that her friend Ruth Orkin’s photographs and other works are on display at the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto, in part to honor the 60-year anniversary of the moments Orkin captured on that unforgettable day.

“My life has been wonderful,” Craig said. “I’m ready for more.”

Ruth Orkin’s “American Girl in Italy” photograph and other works are on display now through Aug. 27 at the Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 Queen St. W., Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Ninalee Craig and Mary Engel will attend a public reception at the gallery from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 20.

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

The 60th Anniversary of the "American Girl in Italy" photograph by Ruth Orkin



An American Girl in Italy, 1951


August 22, 2011 marks the 60th anniversary of the photograph “American Girl in Italy by Ruth Orkin (1921-1985). The subject of this famous photograph is Ninalee Craig (then known as Jinx Allen), who now lives in Toronto.

The two were talking about their shared experiences traveling alone as young single women, when Orkin had an idea. “Come on,” she said, “lets go out and shoot pictures of what it’s really like.” In the morning, while the Italian women were inside preparing lunch, Jinx gawked at statues, asked military officials for directions, fumbled with lire and flirted in cafes while Orkin photographed her. Orkin’s best known image, “American Girl in Italy” was also created as part of this series.

Ruth Orkin was 17 when she took a cross-country trip by herself, bicycling and hitchhiking from her home in Los Angeles to New York, snapping pictures along the way. She later moved to New York, where this spirit of adventure continued. She  photographed Tanglewood’s summer music festival, honed her craft in nightclubs, joined the Photo League, and with her first published story in Look magazine, became “a fullfledged photojournalist.” In 1951, Life sent her on assignment to Israel and from there she went to Italy.

Exhibition: Stephen Bulger Gallery

Sunday, August 14, 2011

VJ-DAY, TIMES SQUARE, NEW YORK, AUGUST 14, 1945


The V-J Day picture of the white-clad nurse by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured an epic moment in U.S. history and became an iconic image marking the end of the war after being published in Life magazine.
It is probably the most iconographic image associated with LIFE, photojournalism, and World War II. Eisenstaedt recounts how he got the shot: “I was walking through the crowds on V-J Day, looking for pictures. I noticed a sailor coming my way. He was grabbing every female he could find and kissing them all – young girls and old ladies alike… The sailor came along, grabbed the nurse, and bent down to kiss her. Now if this girl hadn’t been a nurse, if she’d been dressed in dark clothes, I wouldn’t have had a picture. People tell me that when I’m in heaven, they will remember this picture.”

Via Monroe Gallery of Photograpy Blog

"V-J Day, Times Square" is featured in the exhibition "History's Big Picture", through September 25

Why Study History?


The Surbanan Dweller
Via The Westport Patch

  • By Sally Allen

  • Whether or not we remember the past, we're probably still 'doomed to repeat it.' But studying history has an enduring--and hopeful--purpose.

    The idea that we should study history in order to learn from and prevent the mistakes of the past is a lovely notion but not an entirely convincing mandate. A cursory survey of major historical developments reveals that, in fact, we frequently make the same mistakes, even when theoretically we should ‘know better.’

    A very silly example from my own life: I continue to consume popcorn at the movies when I know, with absolute certainty, that doing so will result in a horrible stomachache three hours later. I mean, I will feel like a porcupine is doing somersaults in my stomach, and I will fervently wish I’d just gotten the chocolate-covered peanuts instead. But the next time, I always get the popcorn anyway.
    Is this a random folly, a single example of a foolish individual who refuses to heed the lesson of her history?

    Well, back in 1912, the White Star Line said The Titanic was ‘designed to be unsinkable.’ As we all know, it sank on its maiden voyage. After this tragic outcome and massive loss of life (over 1,500 of the over 2,200 passengers perished), the press latched onto this phrase with the fervor of a starving infant, and the words ‘unsinkable’ and ‘The Titanic’ have since been inextricably linked in history, a stark and horrific reminder of the price of hubris.

    Did we ‘learn our lesson’ about the perils of grandiosity? Not really. Just two years after the ocean liner sank, British author H.G. Wells purportedly popularized the term ‘war to end war’ in relation to World War I. He was one of a number of prominent authors the British government apparently recruited to infuse patriotic sentiments into their work, thus drumming up support for a war that, four years later, would leave 9 million soldiers and an estimated 12 million civilians dead and another 21 million soldiers wounded.

    Oh, and twenty years later, we had World War II.

    Shortly after that came the Korean War, then the Vietnam War, etc. This isn’t a commentary on whether or not these, or any other, wars were necessary or just. I’m observing that they keep happening, even though at one time we imagined that we could end them.

    Even if, by studying history, it were possible to stop making the same mistakes, we’d make other ones. Because making mistakes is a defining characteristic of the human condition. We all make them. Whether large or small, mistakes are inevitable.

    If studying history doesn’t prevent us from making mistakes, what does it enable?

    This week, I visited the Fairfield Museum and History Center (FMHC) at 370 Beach Road in Fairfield, where they are currently showing a retrospective of photojournalist and Connecticut resident Bill Eppridge’s work. His iconic images, which are on display until Aug. 28, capture seminal events of the 1960s that, though I didn’t live through them, shaped the world I live in today.

    Photographs on display include 12-year old Ben Chaney with his mother at the 1964 funeral of his brother, civil rights activist James Chaney. Ku Klux Klan members, in collusion with law enforcement, murdered Chaney along with two other activists, who were working to register African-American voters in Mississippi during Freedom Summer.

    The exhibit also features Eppridge’s photos of Robert Kennedy’s presidential campaign, including images taken immediately after he was shot in the Ambassador Hotel. The breathtaking curating (which also includes campaign paraphernalia, LIFE Magazine covers, and Eppridge’s equipment) tells the story of the day. Images show Kennedy walking through the hotel’s kitchen, busboy Juan Romeo kneeling over him moments after the shooting, and Ethel Kennedy clasping him in her arms as personnel swarm the scene.

    This combination of art and history provides me with a tangible link to events that are not mine through experience but through legacy.

    Director of Exhibitions and Programs Kathleen Bennewit, noted that FMHC—which lies in the heart of historic Fairfield, on the site of the original town green where Roger Ludlowe founded Fairield in 1639 and which then included what we now call Westport—is moving towards a more regional focus. This strikes me as entirely appropriate when we consider that our towns weren’t always separate. When we talk about the history of Fairfield, we are also talking about the history of Westport as well as other surrounding towns.

    And even if it wasn’t my ancestors whose houses the British burned to ash in 1779, for as long as I live here, I’m part of the history of this town, and so the events of both the past and the present belong, in part, to me too. We’re not connected by blood or even by traditions or events but by an idea that is forever evolving in the hands of those who live here.

    In this way, we are all connected, and there is hope in this. Though I probably will still order the popcorn next time I’m at the movies.



    Bill Eppridge's photographs will be on exhibit at Monroe gallery of Photography September 30 - November20, 2011

    Thursday, August 11, 2011

    GOING FISHING



    Going Fishing, Texas, 1952
    John Dominis: Going Fishing, Texas, 1952



    Things might get a little slow here and on our Twitter and Facebook feeds for a few days - as summer begins to wind down, its time to enjoy some swimming, fishing, and grilling. We'll be checking in!

    Wednesday, August 10, 2011

    Ernst Haas: Color Corrections




    Color Correction by Ernst Haas, published by Steidl / www.steidlville.com
    California, USA, 1976

    Out There
    | By Kenneth Dickerman
    Via Time LightBox

    Born in 1921, Vienna’s Ernst Haas is considered by many to be one of the first true masters of color photography, Though he began his career working with black and white. Following the tradition established by Henri Cartier-Bresson, who focused heavily on the decisive moment and rich monochromatic tonality, Haas would receive worldwide recognition for his early work documenting the homecoming of Austrian prisoners of War. Haas eventually moved to color, favoring its ability to work in a more metaphoric, poetic vein that photographers like Saul Leiter and Eliot Porter were examining.

    A significant amount of Haas’s output throughout his career landed in the pages of mainstream magazines such as Life, Look and Esquire. But in addition to this more commercial work, Haas was always making photographs for himself. It is these photographs that the German publisher Steidl has brought together for the new book, Ernst Haas: Color Corrections. The book shows mostly unseen work by Haas, work that is at once rich in color and texture as well as being more edgy and experimental than much of the work he became known for during his lifetime.

    Haas’s Color Corrections will be released by Steidl in the United States this month.

     
    California, USA, 1977


    New Orleans, USA, 1960



    New Mexico, USA, 1975


    USA, circa 1970


    USA, 1967


    Brooklyn, New York, USA, 1952


    New York, USA, 1974


    Color Correction by Ernst Haas, published by Steidl / www.steidlville.com

     

    Tuesday, August 9, 2011

    LONDON RIOTS: PHOTOS, FACIAL IMAGING, SOCIAL MEDIA POSE NEW ETHICAL QUESTIONS

    Photos of alleged looters were posted to Flickr as part of Operation Withern.

    The New York Times reported:

    As rioting continues to roil the streets of London, local police forces are turning to the Web to help unmask those involved in the torching and looting.

    On Tuesday, the Metropolitan Police of London posted a set of photos on Flickr showing people they believed to be participants in the riots. Right now the images are primarily from the Croydon and West Norwood neighborhoods in south London, although the site says that more will be posted soon.
    Click for full article here.

    From The Guardian: London riots: police to track rioters who used BlackBerrys

    and:

    Facebook and Twitter mobilises hundreds of people to clear debris from streets in London's worst-hit communities

    From MSNBC: Citizen cameras capture more London looters than cops

    "Yet another indicator of the pervasiveness of social media services, the erosion of anonymity online and perhaps a broader, sweeping change in people’s views about what is public and what is private."

    JOE McNALLY: TEN YEARS ON EXHIBIT OPENS AUGUST 24



    Via Joe McNally's Blog
    In Friends, News at 6:11am

    Bill Butler was with Josephine Harris and five other members of Ladder 6, inside the North Tower of WTC when it came down. They resolutely stuck with Josephine, refusing to leave her, despite her painfully slow rate of descent. Bill half carried her, cajoling her all the way about seeing her grandchildren again. The building came down, and the miracle of Josephine’s pace put all of them in a fourth floor stairwell that remained intact. Somehow, as the building came down, crushing everything around it, they, and Josephine, survived.



    Bill Butler, 2001, Firefighter, Ladder 6, FDNY

    While trapped with Harris and his ladder company in Stairwell B, Butler used a cell phone to call emergency numbers but couldn’t get through. As a last effort, he called his home in Orange County, N.Y. His wife, Diane, answered.


    “I just said, “Hi, what are you doing?” I was trying to be nonchalant. She said, “Where are you?” I said “We’re at the World Trade Center.” She asked, “Is everything okay?” Then I said, “Well, we have a little problem. We’re trapped in the Trade Center, but we’re okay.” Then she started to cry a little bit, because she knew there was no World Trade Center. At that point I said, “Listen, you can’t cry. I have to give you some information. You have to call the firehouse or call someone and tell them where we’re at.”



    Lieutenant Bill Butler, FDNY, Aug. 3, 2011


    Ten years later, Bill is a lieutentant with FDNY, serving at Ladder 56, Engine 48, up in the Bronx. His memories of the day are still vivid, even with the passing of time. Shot this, along with a video interview with Bill, just last week. The interview, and the portraits open at the Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, on Aug. 24th.
    Exhibition made possible with the generous sponsorship of Nikon USA, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan, and friends of the collection.

    More tk….




    Monday, August 8, 2011

    Vanity Fair: The Elvis Kiss Mystery—Solved!

     
    Photograph © Alfred Wertheimer, all rights reserved


    WEB EXCLUSIVE August 8, 20
    Culture

    The Elvis Kiss Mystery—Solved!

    In the summer of 1956, a 21-year-old Elvis Presley, already inciting libidinous mayhem from Kansas City to Jacksonville, impishly touched tongues with a young woman in Richmond, Virginia. Photographer Alfred Wertheimer snapped the shutter just at the moment of contact. The result: “The Kiss,” one of the most storied photos in Elvis lore and “the sexiest picture ever taken in the whole world,” according to Diane Keaton, who owns a print. Yet for five decades, no one, not even Wertheimer, knew the identity of Presley’s date—until now.

    Read the full article on VF.com here.

    Sunday, August 7, 2011

    EXCERPTS FROM AN EVENING OF PHOTOJOURNALISM



    We were honored to welcome two  preeminent names in American journalism, former Time, Life, and People magazine editors Richard Stolley and Hal Wingo for an evening of conversation in the gallery in conjuction with the exhibition "History's Big Picture". The gallery was filled to standing room only as they talked about the power of magazine photography and photojournalism's past, present, and future.

    A few excerpts from the evening:

    Dick Stolley recounted the events surrounding President John F. Kennedy's assassination, and how he arrived in Dallas on the evening of the assassination and met early the next morning with Abraham Zapruder and secured the original and first-generation print of the "Zapruder film" for LIFE magazine. Stolley continued that he went to the County jail for the transfer of Lee Harvey Oswald, only to learn from a TV camerman that Jack Ruby had shot Oswald as he was leaving the City jail. Stolley then singled out Bob Jackson's Pulitzer-Prize winning photograph in the exhibition and continued:

    "Two pictures were taken - a guy named Jack Beers shot a split-second earlier than Bob Jackson and the difference between the two photographs is profound. This captures everything and that split second before just missed. That split second is what makes the difference in so many of the photographs on these walls."




    Both Stolley and Wingo covered stories in South during the most violent years of the Civil Rights struggle. Wingo told how he found assignments in the South scared him far more than any in Vietnam. They talked about the power oF the image, and the influence civil rights photographs had on American public opinion at the time.

    Dick Stolley: "When LIFE showed up there were already a lot of writers covering the civil rights stories. It was one thing to write about segregationist crowds trying to prevent nine teenagers from going into Central High School, but when you showed these photographs of angry, contorted faces it made all the difference in two ways: one, in us understanding of what was going on in Little Rock and throughout the South, and two, the attitude the people in the photographs had.

    It was one thing to be written about, it was a very different thing to wind up in the pages of LIFE magazine with your face contorted in rage...and they caught on to that instantly.

    America saw these photograph and thought "Good God, what is happening?"

    Hal Wingo continued: "I wonder if anyone here tonight might recognize this picture? Does it ring a bell in any of you?"

    He held up this photograph, a double page spread from an old LIFE magazine:




    These are the 18 men arrested, including County Deputy Cecil Price and his boss, Sheriff Lawrence Rainey, for the murders of three civil rights workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. These 18 men were arraigned not on on State charges, because Mississippi did not charge them, but on Federal charges of violating the rights of the three civil rights workers. This is the picture taken just after their arraignment...do they look worried?

    They thought their ace in the hole was they would be judged locally, by a jury of their peers, and that's the safest thing that could happen"

    On the state of photojournalism:

    Photojournalism today maybe has a broader definition than just the creative work of talented photojournalists who can arrange or capture a moment that will be a lasting impression from these situations. It seems to me today photojournalism is any photograph that is in the sense journalism, that tells the story."  Dick Stolley

    We would like to graciously thank Dick and Hal for a wonderful evening of discussion.