Friday, September 30, 2011

EXHIBITION OPENING TONIGHT

The Chaney family as they depart for the burial of James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi, August 7, 1964
© Bill Eppridge: The Chaney family as they depart for the burial of James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi, August 7, 1964


Exhibition Celebrates 2011 Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Photojournalism Recipient Bill Eppridge. Join us at tonight's opening reception from 5 to 7 PM at 112 Don Gaspar Avenue.


More here.

View available Bill Eppridge prints here.

Steve McQueen by John Dominis

Med_1-steve-mcqueen-swinging-from-rope-at-gym-jpg
Steve McQueen swinging from rope at gym, 1963 © John Dominis


Via La Lettre de la Photographie
September 30, 2011

It was 1963 when Life Magazine sent its photographer, John Dominis, to cover Steve McQueen in his Palm Springs home. Since the end of the 1950’s, he had become one of America’s most popular actors, and at 33, was about to celebrate his greates success with the release of The Great Escape.

During their three weeks together, John Dominis took some of the star’s most beautiful pictures. We discover the “King of Cool”, his family life, his villa, and his love of speed, beautiful cars and motorcycle races.

He shared this passion with Dominis, creating a friendly bond between the two men. Never actually posing for the camera, Steve McQueen is graceful and incomparably photogenic. Nude by the pool, in a tuxedo or returning from a dirty car race, he exudes a rare elegance.


Med_1-steve-mcqueen-swinging-from-rope-at-gym-jpg
Actor Steve McQueen walking naked outdoors in his backyard, Hollywood, 1963 © John Dominis

Steve McQueen, the King of Cool
Until december 11, 2011
La Galerie de l’Instant
46, rue de Poitou
75003 Paris
Tél. 01.44.54.94.09

Links

http://www.lagaleriedelinstant.com

Med_1-steve-mcqueen-swinging-from-rope-at-gym-jpg
Actor Steve McQueen and wife taking sulphur bath at home © John Dominis

Thursday, September 29, 2011

For the Record: Searching for Objectivity in Global Conflict

Stealth Bomber, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 2007 - by Nina Berman
Stealth Bomber, Atlantic City, New Jersey, 2007 ©Nina Berman

Via Montserrat College of Art

Bombarded by information from a variety of sources, it is often difficult as observers of current affairs to fully make sense of the concepts and facts presented. Artists offer us the opportunity to engage and interpret this information in an alternative way. They were the first compelled to record and present the events of the world. Artists illustrate and record many aspects of war in a variety of ways, whether through genuine factual representation (witness accounts of war) through war reportage drawing and/or documentary work or as artistic interpretation (visual response to war). The artists in For The Record offer a testament of the effects of war and conflict on people, societies and the physical earth.

For the Record Symposium This Weekend, September 30 and Saturday, October 1:

A two-day symposium highlighting the Montserrat Gallery exhibit, "For the Record" will open Friday, Sept. 30 with panel discussions with veterans, talks by artists and writers, a showing of Sebastian Junger's film, "Restrepo" and a keynote address by American art critic, curator and Dean of the Yale School of Art Robert Storr.

The exhibition, curated by Montserrat faculty members artist Rob Roy and social historian and author Gordon Arnold, along with Gallery Director Leonie Bradbury, came in part from a 30-year conversation between the two faculty on the topic of conflict, how it is interpreted, and leaving the viewer to draw their own conclusions.

The symposium activities are free and open to the public, but registration is requested.

WHEN Friday, September 30 and Saturday, October 1, 2011.
WHERE Montserrat Campus and various surrounding venues
Cost Free: Registration is required. CLICK HERE TO REGISTER
Contact Leonie Bradbury leonie.bradbury@montserrat.edu

Friday, Sept. 30

Dane Street Church, 10 Dane Street, Beverly, MA
7:30 pm
Symposium Welcome

7:45 pm
Awarding of an Honorary Docorate to Keynote Speaker Robert Storr, Dean of the Yale School of Art
8 - 9 pm
KEY NOTE SPEECH by Robert Storr
Topic: Gerhard Richter September by Robert Storr American curator, academic, critic, and painter.

Saturday, Oct. 1
Dane Street Church, 10 Dane Street, Beverly, MA
9:00am
Symposium welcome with coffee

9:30 am
AUTHOR TALK Susanne Slavick

Topic: OUT OF RUBBLE, an anthology of artists responding to the aftermath of war by Susanne Slavick, Andrew W. Mellon Professor of Art at Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh. She will discuss a selection from nearly 40 international artists who consider the causes and consequences of rubble, its finality and future, moving from decimation and disintegration to the possibilities of regeneration and recovery. Approaching the 10th anniversary of our military engagement in Afghanistan and continuing conflict in Iraq, the book and related exhibits remain all too timely.
10:30am
ARTIST TALK Nina Berman

Topic: the American experience by Nina Berman a documentary photographer with a primary interest in the American political and social landscape. Her powerful images of wounded American veterans from the Iraq War are internationally known with recent exhibitions at the Whitney Museum of American Art 2010 Biennial. She is the author of two monographs, Purple Hearts - Back from Iraq and Homeland.

11:30 am - 1 pm Break for lunch on your own

1 pm
LECTURE Steven Dubin, Ph.D.

Topic: Peace and Art, a lecture by arts and culture scholar Steven Dubin, Ph.D. Dubin has written and lectured widely on censorship, controversial exhibitions, the culture wars, popular culture, and mass media. He is interested in the intersection of culture and politics; the evolution of the arts from providing ideological support as well social resistance during South Africa's apartheid era, to becoming a force in building and critiquing democracy. He examines the interplay between the arts, ideology and power; the tension between creative freedom and social control; the arts as a vehicle of expression for otherwise socially marginalized people. Dubin will demonstrate how the visual and performing arts can also critique and thus challenge established social power.
2 pm
LECTURE Gordon Arnold, Ph.D., author and professor at Montserrat College of Art

Topic: Arnold will address how art, film, and other modes of cultural production reveal and probe the shape and scope of the overarching ideological system that informs much of contemporary American culture. Gordon Arnold, Ph.D. is an active scholar, writer and social historian who teaches courses in the social sciences and mass media at Montserrat College of Art.
2:30 pm
FILM SCREENING Restrepo by Sebastian Junger

Winner of the 2010 Sundance Film Festival Grand Jury Prize for documentary, Restrepo chronicles the deployment of a platoon of U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley, one of the most dangerous postings in the U.S. military. The movie focuses on 15 soldiers based at Outpost Restrepo, named after a platoon medic killed early in the deployment. Filmed by author Sebastian Junger and award-winning photographer Tim Hetherington, Restrepo takes viewers on their own 90-minute deployment, without comment or agenda.
Co-director Tim Hetherington, an experienced photojournalist who reported on reported social and political conflict worldwide, was killed in fighting in Libya on April 20, 2011.
4 pm
PANEL DISCUSSION

Topic: Media Representations of Global Conflict moderated by Vietnam War Veteran Wayne Burton, President of the North Shore Community College. Panelists include: Steven Dubin, Montserrat Professors Gordon Arnold and Rob Roy; James O'Neill, Nina Berman, Susanne Slavick
5 - 6:30 pm
CLOSING RECEPTION

Location: Montserrat Gallery, Montserrat College of Art, 23 Essex St., Beverly(the college is a three minute walk from the Dane Street Church.)

Wednesday, September 28, 2011

1961 Mark Shaw Photo of Jacquline Kennedy on Cover of People Magazine





The new issue of People Magazine features a 1961 photograph of Jacqueline Kennedy by Mark Shaw. This photo of Jackie, taken by Mark Shaw for the cover of “Look” magazine in 1961, has been seen frequently due to the fact that it was mistakenly distributed all over the world by the White House as an “official White House photo.” In fact, Mark Shaw retained the rights to all his photographs, an unusually forward thinking decision at that time.

Mark Shaw lived from 1922-1969. He was born in New York's Lower East Side, the only son of a Lower East Side seamstress and an unskilled laborer. He was a student at New York's Pratt Institute where he majored in Engineering. He became a highly decorated World War II Air Force pilot. Shaw was chosen to fly Russia's famous tank commander, General Zhukov, to his meeting with the Allied Command. He was also chosen to be part of the command that flew General MacArthur and his staff to sign the armistice papers in Tokyo.

After the War, Shaw started working as a professional photographer and soon became a freelancer for LIFE magazine.

As a photographer he is perhaps best known for his images of Jacqueline and John F. Kennedy and their family which he originally shot as their family photographer. After JFK's death a selection of photographs was published as a book "The John F. Kennedy's - A family album". This book sold over 200,000 copies when it first came out, very impressive even today. In 2000 Rizzoli published an updated version of "The John F. Kennedy's - A family Album," featuring many never before seen color and black and white photographs. Most recently, Mark Shaw’s images of the Kennedys were widely used in the exhibition “Jacqueline Kennedy – The White House Years”, originating at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York and later traveling around the country.

 Only two weeks before John F. Kennedy was assassinated, Jacqueline Kennedy wrote a note to Shaw, one of many, thanking him for photographs of her with her three-year-old, John F. Kennedy Jr.: "They really should be in the National Gallery! I have them propped up in our Sitting Room now, and everyone who comes in says the one of me and John looks like a Caravaggio—and the one of John, reflected in the table, like some wonderful, strange, poetic Matisse. And, when I think of how you just clicked your camera on an ordinary day in that dreary, green Living Room. I just can't thank you enough, they will always be my greatest treasures. Anyone who puts a finger-print on them will have his hand chopped!"

 Also leading fashion photographer, Mark Shaw worked for Harper's Bazaar, Mademoiselle, and a host of other fashion magazines. He started working for Life magazine in 1952 and in 16 years shot 27 covers and almost 100 stories. Throughout the 1950s and 1960s Mark Shaw shot the European fashion collections for Life, and was one of the first photographers to shoot fashion on the runways and "backstage" at the couture shows.

Related: mptv Mark Shaw image on the cover of People Magazine

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

“I was frustrated with photojournalism, and I was frustrated with society back in the U.S. being indifferent to the war”



Must Read, Must See: "Hell and Back Again" Afghanistan Documentary

Via The New York Times Lens PhotoBlog:

As the Afghan war neared a decade’s worth of combat, casualties and headlines, the photographer and filmmaker Danfung Dennis was looking to jolt people’s consciousness.

“I was frustrated with photojournalism, and I was frustrated with society back in the U.S. being indifferent to the war,” said Mr. Dennis, who had covered Afghanistan as a still photographer in 2006. “I moved into video and new media to try to shake people up — to show the war’s brutal reality in an honest way.”

Did he ever. “Hell and Back Again,”  his new award-winning documentary film about the war, is a tour de force that breaks new ground in the documentary tradition, combining chilling reportage with sometimes dreamy or drugged-up sequences. The film – with clinical precision – peels away the daily headlines to expose the reality of the Afghan war and the devastating burden carried by American service members back home.

Full post here with video.

Monday, September 26, 2011

GETTY MUSEUM DISPLAYS FIRST COMPREHENSIVE OVERVIEW OF PHOTOGRAPHS BY LYONEL FEININGER



A Selection of Bauhaus Photographs from the Getty Museum's Permanent Collection Complements the Exhibition

Lyonel Feininger: Photographs, 1928–1939

Via The Getty Trust

LOS ANGELES—Widely recognized as a painter, printmaker, and draftsman who taught at the Bauhaus, Lyonel Feininger (American, 1871–1956) turned to photography later in his career as a tool for visual exploration. Drawn mostly from the collection at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Lyonel Feininger: Photographs, 1928–1939 at the J. Paul Getty Museum, Getty Center, October 25, 2011–March 11, 2012, presents for the first time Feininger's unknown body of photographic work. The exhibition is accompanied by a selection of photographs by other Bauhaus masters and students from the Getty Museum's permanent collection. The Getty is the first U.S. venue to present the exhibition, which will have been on view at the Kupferstichkabinett, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin from February 26–May 15, 2011 and the Staatliche Graphische Sammlung, Pinakothek der Moderne in Munich from June 2–July 17, 2011. Following the Getty installation, the exhibition will be shown at the Harvard Art Museums from March 30–June 2, 2012. At the Getty, the exhibition will run concurrently with Narrative Interventions in Photography.

"We are delighted to be the first U.S. venue to present this important exhibition organized by the Harvard Art Museums/Busch-Reisinger Museum," says Virginia Heckert, curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum and curator of the Getty's installation. "The presentation at the Getty provides a unique opportunity to consider Lyonel Feininger's achievement in photography, juxtaposed with experimental works in photography at the Bauhaus from our collection."

Read the full Press Release here.

Related: Andreas Feininger

Thursday, September 22, 2011

Exhibition Celebrates 2011 Lucie Award for Lifetime Achievement in Photojournalism Recipient Bill Eppridge

A sign in rear window of car in Philadelphia, Mississippi:
©Bill Eppridge:  sign in rear window of car in Philadelphia, Mississippi, 1964


Monroe Gallery of Photography is honored to announce an extensive exhibition of more than 50 important photographs by Bill Eppridge, recipient of the 2011 Lucie Award for Achievement in Photojournalism. The exhibit opens with a reception on Friday, September 30, from 5 - 7 PM; and continues through November 20. 

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 Bill Eppridge, who will receive the 2011 Lucie Award for Achievement in Photojournalism at a special ceremony October 24 at Lincoln Center in New York.

Bill Eppridge is one of the most accomplished photojournalists of the Twentieth Century and has captured some of the most significant moments in American history: he has covered wars, political campaigns, heroin addiction, the arrival of the Beatles in the United States, Vietnam, Woodstock, the summer and winter Olympics, and perhaps the most dramatic moment of his career - the assassination of Senator Robert Kennedy in Los Angeles. Over the last 50 years, his work has appeared in numerous publications, including National Geographic, Life, and Sports Illustrated; and has been exhibited in museums throughout the world.

 For the first time, this exhibition presents many of Eppridge's most important photo essays together, including:

 The Beatles: Bill Eppridge really didn't know who the Beatles were, but "One morning my boss said, 'Look, we've got a bunch of British musicians coming into town. They're called the Beatles.'" Eppridge was at John F. Kennedy airport on February 7, 1964 awaiting the arrival of The Beatles. He continued to photograph The Beatles that day, and over the next several days. He was invited to come up to their room at the Plaza Hotel and "stick with them." He was with them in Central Park and at the Ed Sullivan Show for both the rehearsal and the historic performance. He rode the train to Washington, D.C. with them for the concert at the Washington Coliseum, and photographed their Carnegie Hall performance on February 12, 1964.

©Bill Eppridge: Beatle Fans scramble for Jelly Beans, Washington Coliseum, 1964


"These were four very fine young gentlemen, and great fun to be around," Eppridge recalls. After he introduced himself to Ringo, who consulted with John, the group asked what he wanted them to do while being photographed for Life. "I'm not going to ask you to do a thing," was Eppridge's reply. "I just want to be there." An exhibit of Eppridge's Beatles photographs has been touring since 2001, and was seen by over 2 million people at the Smithsonian Museum.

Mississippi Burning: The James Cheney Murder: In late June of 1964, three civil rights workers in Mississippi went missing, kidnapped by Klu Klux Klansmen. One man was black, the other two were white. Their names were James Cheney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. Bill Eppridge arrived in Neshoba County shortly after the bodies of James Chaney, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Goodman were pulled from the muck of an earthen dam on August 4, 1964. There are no pictures of the crime, just the brutal aftermath and the devastating grief and sorrow brought upon a family.



©Bill Eppridge: Mrs. Chaney and young Ben, James Chaney funeral, Meridian, Mississippi, 1964

 In 1967, eighteen men faced federal charges of civil rights violations in the slayings of Chaney, Schwerner and Goodman. Seven were convicted by an all-white jury, eight were acquitted and three were released after jurors deadlocked. The state of Mississippi prosecuted no one for 38 years. But in 2005—after six years of new reporting on the case by Jerry Mitchell of the Jackson Clarion-Ledger—a sawmill operator named Edgar Ray Killen was indicted on charges of murder.

On June 21, 2005, exactly 41 years after the three men were killed, a racially integrated jury, without clear evidence of Killen's intent, found him guilty of manslaughter instead. Serving three consecutive 20-year terms, he is the only one of six living suspects to face state charges in the case.

Robert F. Kennedy: 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. On June 5, 1968, at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles, he was instructed by his boss to "stay as close as you can to Bobby". Kennedy assured Eppridge that he would be part of his immediate group, which meant that wherever the Democratic candidate went, Eppridge wouldn't be far behind. 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. Among the thoughts Eppridge had at that moment was a very loud and clear one: "You are not just a photojournalist, you're a historian."


"I believe our world is at a time right now in which it should be documented completely. If we can influence people with photographs, maybe we'll be able to maintain our planet." -- Bill Eppridge

 View the exhibition here.


Wednesday, September 21, 2011

"There are many historically crucial artworks at the Instanbul Biennial"

Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner | Photo by Cemre Mert
Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner | Photo by Cemre Mert

Via Instanbul The Guide

The 12th Istanbul Biennial came in much secrecy but it was totally worth the anxious wait. In the press opening, curators Jens Hoffmann and Adriano Pedrosa stated that the reason for the secrecy was to prevent pre-consumption of the artists and their works. This year, it was not only the secrecy that was new but also the decision in limiting the exhibition spaces. The show used to be scattered around the city, taking advantage of its intricate urban structure; however, this time around the curators chose to house the exhibitions in two large warehouses in Tophane, famously known as Antrepo 3 and Antrepo 5.

When: September 17–November 13

The Venue
Having cut down on the exhibition spaces, the curators commissioned the Office of Ryue Nishizawa to design the interior. The unique architecture clearly reflects some aspects of Istanbul. Rooms of different sizes leading one into passageways, shortcuts, and multiple rooms create distinct interior-exterior relationships. The architecture, thus, manages to create the city structure that it borrows from Istanbul, while adding a touch of Gonzales-Torres’s minimal and elegant approach to art.

The Concept
The Cuban American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996) is the point of departure of the 12th Istanbul Biennial. Gonzalez-Torres was one of those artists who constantly demonstrated that the personal is political. As in previous years, the twelfth edition of the Biennial delves into the relationship between art and politics. There are both politically outspoken works, and formally innovative and curious art pieces. One of the refreshing aspects of the Biennial is its balanced use of diverse artistic mediums.

The Sections
The venue houses 5 group exhibitions and 50 solo shows. Each of the group exhibitions are marked by gray walls, occupying a room for each subdivision: Untitled (Death by Gun), Untitled (Ross), Untitled (History), Untitled (Passport), and Untitled (Abstraction). Marked by white walls, the solo shows are situated around the group exhibitions. All continents are represented in the show but there is a special focus on Latin America and the Middle East.

The Works
There are many historically crucial artworks at the Biennial. For instance, in the section Untitled (Death by Gun), there is Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner taken in three frames by the American photojournalist Eddie Adams in 1968. As shocking and gruesome as they were, these photographs brought a much-needed discussion around the Vietnam War.


Bullet Hole | Photo by Cemre Mert
Bullet Hole | Photo by Cemre Mert
 

Jacques-Henri Lartigue, The choice of happiness


 Med_lartigue-1930-a_1-jpg
The choice of happiness © Jacques Henri Lartigue

Via La Lettre de la Photographie

Forma, the Foundation of photography in Milan presents an exhibition of photographs by Jacques-Henri Lartigue, one of photography’s precocious prodigies, a genial enthusiast and a professional of happiness.

Jacques-Henri Lartigue achieved fame during the sixties, on the threshold of his eight decade, when his photographs reached the spaces of the MOMA in New York.

He was born into a wealthy French bourgeois family at the beginning of the twentieth century. From an early age the young Lartigue began to capture the romance of his family life in images, images seen through the eyes of a child, full of wonder and laughter. From then on, this ‘boy’ who spent his long life without ever having to worry about making ends meet, would manage to create images of infinite poetry and rare grace, thanks to his spontaneity and intimacy and a magic that still enchants us today.

Together with his diary, photography was Lartigue’s record of his experience and the things he wished to experience; an attempt to find happiness for himself and his charmed little world, happiness that might last for ever. Thus, every day he would collect amazing images with his camera, waterfalls and fountains, happy friends, beautiful smiling women, fluttering dresses, car races, seaside outings, fragments of carefree joy, wishing, with aching nostalgia, that that day might never end.

From 5 October, the exhibition will be further enriched with select pages from the great photographer’s diary and his albums of large photographs: JH Lartigue. Diary in Images.


 Med_lartigue-1930-a_1-jpg

Jacques Lartigue was born in Courbevoie, in France, on 13 June 1894. At the age of six he took his first photographs using his father’s camera and began writing a diary which he continued to keep throughout his life.

From 1904 he began to photograph his childhood experiences, family games and then the beginnings of aviation and the first automobiles, the “beauties of the Bois de Bouologne” and social and sporting events. As a curious amateur he experimented with all the available photographic techniques. As a tireless collector of the moments of his own life, he took several thousand photographs which he diligently gathered in his large albums. It would appear, however, that this was not his vocation, instead, he wanted painting to be his profession. He met several artists, such as Sacha Guitry, Kees van Dongen, Pablo Picasso and Jean Cocteau. As a film enthusiast he photographed the sets of various films by Jacques Feyder, Abel Gance, Robert Bresson, François Truffaut and Federico Fellini.

It was the great exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and the publication of an important photo portfolio in Life, which earned Jacques Lartigue, at the age of 69, a place among the great photographers. Adding his father’s name to his own he became Jacques Henri Lartigue, and three years later his first book Album de Famille, and later Instants de ma Vie (designed by Richard Avedon), brought him worldwide recognition and appreciation. Lartigue died in Nice on 12 September 1986.

Emiliana Tedesco
The choice of happiness
From September 23 to November 20, 2011
Fondazione FORMA per la Fotografia
Piazza Tito Lucrezio Caro 1
20136 Milano
02.58118067

Links

http://www.formafoto.it

La Lettre de la Photographie: "Born from a dream and from our assessment that in the current new medias no one was covering photography in its entire extent, our Lettre shares and informs daily on the events in the world of photography.

The web site is deemed free and all the featured contents are free to the viewers, without any previous engagement from them. The web site covers entirely all the current events in the world of photography, with the exception of the technical aspects.

Available in English and French, La lettre is featured in the form of a “newsletter”, a web site and an iPad application to all audiences interested in photography."

-- a highly recommended daily source for photography information.

Monday, September 19, 2011

THOUGHTS ON AN EXHIBITION


 HISTORY'S BIG PICTURE



This is the final week for the exhibition "History's Big Picture". We always find ourselves discussing our impressions and thoughts and the feedback we received from gallery visitors and collectors as each exhibit concludes. This time, it is different.
We have each been involved in the art world for 30 years. We couldn't begin to count the number of exhibits we have visited - or hosted as galleriests - over that period.

"History's Big Picture" coincided with the start of the 10 year anniversary of our move to Santa Fe, and after more than 55 exhibits here we wanted to present a very special exhibit, one that somehow emphasized the necessity of understanding and appreciating photojournalism.

There have been many exhibits that we wished could have run longer. This will be the first that will be actually difficult to take down. Since the opening on July 2, the exhibit has been seen by many thousands of viewers, timed as it was to coincide with the busy Santa Fe summer season. Visitors from all over the world have experienced a walk through the past 80 years in history: young, old, tours, school groups, veterans, politicians, museum curators, collectors, the "famous", and even a few homeless. We have seen parents quietly explaining the situation behind a photograph to their children, we have seen people softly weeping, and the quiet of the gallery has occasionally been startled by someone gasping "Oh my God!".
The exhibit progresses chronologically, starting in 1930's Germany with photographs of Dr. Joseph Goebbels, and the first meeting of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini that have caused several visitors to whirl about and face the front desk and exclaim "This is serious!"

The photographs from Depression-era America have instantly resonated with gallery guests as they compare that time with the current economic condition. Interestingly, the same comparison has just recently been addressed in articles in the Los Angeles Times and The Guardian.
And from there the exhibition continues, a roller coaster through World War II, the 1950's; the brief hope of John Kennedy and the violent and shocking end of that hope; through the civil rights struggle and another shocking assassination, the shining hope of Robert Kennedy, the devastation of his assassination; the horror of Vietnam, the shock of 9/11, and the complicated consequences of America's involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The final photograph is by Eric Smith of the casket of an Iraq War soldier on an empty stage prior to his memorial service delivers visitors near the exit and the front desk, and often a conversation ensues. Some need to talk, some need comfort, some have been angry, and some have been inspired to find out more.
This exhibition has affirmed our steadfast belief in the power of a photograph. The exhibit's press release stated "Photographers in this exhibition illustrate the power of photography to inform, persuade, enlighten and enrich the viewer's life." And on the About Us page of our website we state " The way a photograph can capture time, emotions, and feelings makes photography a unique art form". We have witnessed this first hand and in a very powerful confirmation during this exhibit.

We are so grateful for all of the participating photographers, so many of whom we have been privileged to have known know personally. For those who are no longer living with us, we thank their families. For those still working, we honor your commitment and service to humanity.

We are so very thankful to all who have visited the exhibit. There are discussions about the possibility of travelling the exhibit to some museums, so if you missed it stay tuned. It will continue to live on our website in the Archived Showcase section as well.

Thank you.






Saturday, September 17, 2011

"If you think you're going to create an unposed photograph, think again. There is no such thing."

 Some believe photographer Roger Fenton placed the cannonballs on the Ukrainian road during the Crimean War himself.
Roger Fenton /Smithsonian/AP
Some believe photographer Roger Fenton placed the cannonballs on the Ukrainian road during the Crimean War himself


Errol Morris Looks For Truth Outside Photographs
 September 17, 2011
Via NPR


Believing Is Seeing
Believing Is Seeing
Observations on the Mysteries of Photography
Hardcover, 310 pages | purchase


Errol Morris is regarded as one of the world's most important filmmakers and is best known for his documentaries The Thin Blue Line and the Oscar-award winning Fog of War.

But before he was a filmmaker, he was a detective and he's always been interested in uncovering the mysteries of photographs. In his new book, Believing Is Seeing, Morris focuses on the things you can't see in photographs and the importance of what lies outside the frame.

Morris tells weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz that his obsession with photos began when he was a small boy and his father died.

"I was only 2 years old [and] don't have any memory of him at all. But there were photographs of him all over the house," he says. "I remember looking at these photographs; this is someone that I should know, probably should remember, but there's this mystery."

Photo Manipulation

Trying to recover the context of photographs is a theme in Morris' book. In one example, he takes his critical eye to two photos of the Crimean War taken by Roger Fenton in the 1850s. Both images are shot from the same spot, but one shows markedly more cannonballs on the road than the other. Photography scholars have long considered the photo with more cannonballs as the first instance of a photo manipulation. They say it was done by Fenton to drum up drama about the war for his British readership.

But Morris disagrees. He says no one can be sure if Fenton added or removed the cannonballs from the frame.

"I walked away thinking I really don't know. We all know that staging is that big no-no in photography. I would call it a fantasy that we can create some photographic truth by not moving anything, not touching anything, not interacting with the scene that we're photographing in any way," he says. "If you think you're going to create an unposed photograph, think again. There is no such thing."

Staged Dust Bowl

Morris says photographers have been posing photos as long as they've been taking them. During the Great Depression, President Roosevelt sent out photographers to capture what life was like during the Dust Bowl. An iconic image taken by Arthur Rothstein of a cow skull on a barren landscape was meant to show the drama of the drought.

"Then they found out he had taken multiple photographs of the cow skull and clearly it had been moved," he says. "Well, people who were opposed to the Roosevelt administration seized on this. They became outraged, they felt manipulated, deceived; [there were] allegations that Rothstein had actually brought the cow skull with him from Washington."

Even though there actually was a drought, Morris says, critics were quickly caught up in the deception.

 
 
Overgrazed Land. Pennington County, South Dakota (1936) is one of several photographs Arthur Rothstein took to document dry, sun-baked earth of the South Dakota  Badlands.
Arthur Rothstein/Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division, FSA/OWI Collection
Overgrazed Land. Pennington County, South Dakota (1936) is one of several photographs Arthur Rothstein took to document dry, sun-baked earth of the South Dakota Badlands.


"Was he trying to deceive the public? Was he trying to use the photograph for propaganda? If not him, was it the newspaper editors who placed it in their newspapers?" he says. "And it goes into that whole question of what is propaganda. Can any photograph be used for the purposes of propaganda?"

Parallels Between Filmmaking, Photography

Morris says when he first started making films, he was accused of making documentaries the wrong way.

"People would say, 'You're not supposed to use Philip Glass music, you're not supposed to use reenactments.' And my answer then — and it's still my answer over the years — is that style is not what guarantees truth," he says.

Morris says there's no such thing as a true or false photograph, and that doesn't really matter anyway. He says the most important thing is to ask any documentarian — in film, photography or print — to pursue the truth.

Friday, September 16, 2011

Photographing the Great Depression, then and now



Migrant Mother

Florence Owens Thompson, a migrant worker and mother of seven children. Photograph: Dorothea Lange/Getty Images

Framing the debate

Dorothea Lange's stark portraits of poverty-stricken Americans in the 1930s seem terrifyingly contemporary



 
Faces from the Great Crash of 1929 and its aftermath are haunting the 21st century. Wall Street brokers fleeing the trading floor in panic, or putting their cars on sale because they are suddenly broke, appear in old black-and-white photographs beside analyses of the current state of the markets composed by sombre authorities. Not only the collapse of confidence that shattered investors 82 years ago but the long years of misery that followed now seem to call out to us, to warn us, to show us a truth that is urgent and immediate. Can this really be so? Can that nightmare history be repeating itself?

This week an American paper, the Los Angeles Times, republished one of the most renowned of all depression photographs. Dorothea Lange was working in 1936 for an American government agency called the Resettlement Administration, documenting the journeys of desperate farm labourers in search of work. In Nipomo, California she met Florence Owens Thompson and her children. Lange's picture of the road-weary family has endured because it is an intimate human portrait, that cuts through statistics and abstractions to show us real life in the Depression. The weather-beaten, stoical, dignified face of Thompson, her children burying themselves in her for protection, speaks of poverty that is not destined, or deserved, or inevitable, of people whose suffering is random, cruel and, surely, preventable.
Out of the Great Depression in 1930s America and Europe came a broad acceptance that society needed to do better, that markets could not guarantee universal wealth or even survival by themselves, that governments needed to do two things as a matter or course: manage the economy, and ensure the welfare of citizens. At least the western democracies reached this consensus by 1945, after 16 years of chaos, during which far more dangerous alternatives to capitalism took the world by storm. Lange's photograph was shocking in 1936 because it revealed that extreme poverty now existed on a frightening scale in the United States, the country where wealth was freest, industry most advanced, whose business was business. If capitalism was failing in America, did that mean it was finished?

In 1936, when this picture was taken, many believed Karl Marx right in his prediction that capitalism would be broken by its contradictions. They looked admiringly to Russia or even joined communist parties. Meanwhile, Hitler's Germany blamed the troubles on Jewish financiers and created work through massive public schemes. Liberal, capitalist democracy would only regain strength with the new consensus for welfare and planning that emerged from the second world war.

The face of Florence Owens Thompson in Lange's photograph is hemmed in by shadows of this dark period in history. So why did she make her appearance on the LA Times the other day, on the breakfast tables of film producers and television executives? The article was asking why today's artists have not risen to the challenge of depicting what it claimed is already a new depression – where is our Dorothea Lange? Yet the real question seems to be why we suddenly find images of the 1930s pertinent and recognisable and … contemporary.

The stark images of the 1929 crash and the 1930s depression that currently haunt us are forebodings, night terrors, nervous jitters. They express something essential about the state of the world in 2011: fear.

Nothing is scarier than the thought that we might be repeating the history of the 1930s. There is no more terrifying period in human history. The economic travails of that time tore apart societies. Americans suffered catastrophic poverty, as shown in Lange's photograph. Germans succumbed to the politics of hate, Spain became a battleground, soon Europe would be one. All that is evoked in chilling photographs of the depression era.

This is a moment of sweat and nerves. Over the summer, financial news got eerie. As it happens, the nightmare scenarios have not yet come to pass – some were predicting a collapse of the euro in August. The threat of Washington failing to raise the American debt ceiling was another panic averted at the last moment. But the fears continue.

Fear is a historical force. At the beginning of the French Revolution in 1789 peasants were driven to violence by a "great fear", a panic that swept the countryside. It was, of course, during the Great Depression that president Franklin D Roosevelt made his famous speech denouncing the irrationality of fear. He used his inaugural address in 1933 to urge "that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself – nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyses needed efforts to convert retreat into advance".
Here is something truly eerie – the thing we have in common with the people of the Great Depression is a mood of deepening fear, "nameless, unreasoning …"

In America in 1933, Roosevelt faced down fear and insisted that rational measures could defy the forces of destruction. Meanwhile, that same year Hitler took power with a politics of pure unreason that feasted on terror.

Today it is avowedly democratic politicians who seem ready to exacerbate terror. Deficits are talked up as ghoulish menaces, social ills blamed on moral decay. In America, government itself, as any kind of rational agent for reform, is widely portrayed as a monster.

When Lange took her photograph, times were terrible. But there were powerful voices of optimism and rationality, from Roosevelt to John Maynard Keynes, and these voices would win through in the end. In 2011 American politics seems headed in the opposite direction to the forward-looking road it took in the 1930s, while everywhere primitive gloom is in the ascendant. In this sense the situation does not resemble the 1930s. It is potentially far worse.


Related: Facing Change: Documenting America

Thursday, September 15, 2011

Untitled (12th Istanbul Biennial), 2011

12th International Istanbul Biennial


The art world's moveable feast takes up residence in Istanbul this week, as the opening of the 12th Istanbul Biennial, Sept. 17-Nov. 13, 2011, corresponds with the launch of a new art fair, Art Beat Istanbul, Sept. 14-18, 2011. Also on the schedule are the inauguration of several new galleries. More here from Artnet.

12th Istanbul Biennial, “Untitled,” 2011

Sept. 17-Nov. 13, 2011

Art and politics is the theme of the 12th Istanbul Biennial, which promises to present artworks that are both formally innovative and politically outspoken. It takes as its point of departure the work of the Cuban American artist Felix Gonzalez-Torres (1957–1996), whose work was able to “integrate high modernist, minimal and conceptual references with themes of everyday life.” The festival, which is organized by Jens Hoffmann and Adriano Pedrosa, embraces Gonzalez-Torres’ idea that the world can be made a better place, and that art can be a catalyst for change.

To paraphrase Gonzalez-Torres, the 12th Istanbul Biennial is “Untitled” because meaning is always changing in time and space. The biennial consists of five group exhibitions and more than 50 solo presentations, all housed in a single venue, Antrepo 3 and 5 exhibition halls. Each of the group shows (“Untitled (Abstraction),” “Untitled (Ross),” “Untitled (Passport),” “Untitled (History)” andUntitled (Death by Gun)”) departs from a specific work by Gonzalez-Torres. Visitors are encouraged to become active readers, not just silent recipients.

Participating artists, whose names have still not been officially released, include Eddie Adams, with a rare series of three vintage photographs from Street Execution of a Viet Cong Officer, Saigon, 1968, on loan from Monroe Gallery of Photography. The photographs are featured in the "Untitled (Death by Gun)" exhibition.

Related: The New York Times: A Simplified and Secretive Istanbul Biennial

               The Guardian has compliled a list of 10 of the best modern art galleries in Istanbul and  a slide show: Vintage Istanbul - in pictures.

10th Aids Impact Conference in Santa Fe



We were very honored to host a champagne reception last night for the 400 researchers, delegates and guests from 60 countries attending the 10th AIDS Impact conference.

The conference was the first among a number of AIDS conferences to return to U.S. soil after a close to 20-year boycott over immigration restrictions for persons living with HIV that were recently lifted.

Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Where's Today's Dorothea Lange?



latimes.com

Hard times have spawned great art — but not these hard times, it seems.

September 12, 2011

By Jaime O'Neill

Economists and politicians told us that the recession was over, though some of them now worry about it taking a double dip. For those of us living farther from the ledger sheets and closer to the reality of what's happening in our towns and on our streets, this has been and remains a depression. It's hard to make the word stick, however, because we haven't developed the iconography yet. We don't have bread lines, dance marathons, guys selling apples on street corners or men jumping from high buildings because they've been wiped out in the stock market.

The pain and suffering has only been superficially covered by the news media, but it has surely not been addressed by our artists. In the 1930s, John Steinbeck chronicled the Depression as it played out in the lives of the Joads, his fictional Okies. He invented those memorable characters to vivify all the abstractions of the policymakers and to give literary voice to the suffering so many nonfictional Americans were experiencing.

There were a raft of other artists who also were telling the tale, making people see, hear and feel the pain as only the arts can do. There was Dorothea Lange taking photos and Woody Guthrie writing songs. Hollywood was doing its part too, and not only with a movie version of Steinbeck's novel. Unlike current audiences, moviegoers in the '30s were persistently reminded by what was on the screen of what awaited them when they resumed their lives outside the theater. Even "King Kong," generally conceded to be pioneering escapist fare, begins with Fay Wray in a bread line.

In our own times, when Iraq and Afghanistan war vets are suffering double-digit rates of unemployment, you can't find much mention of those veterans and their struggles in our movies. But, in 1932, "I Am a Fugitive From a Chain Gang" gave cinematic life to the kind of men who would march on Washington as part of the Bonus Army, a legion of out-of-work World War I vets who squatted in the nation's capital to bring attention to their plight — an appeal that was ultimately met not with aid but with violence.

Even musicals like "Gold Diggers of 1933" (which gave us the song "We're in the Money") is structured around the story of war heroes who were shamed by the need to seek inadequate public assistance. There also were more overtly political films in 1933, movies like "Wild Boys of the Road," a gritty portrayal of unemployed young men jumping freights to find work.

A few recent indie films have provided glimpses of what the Joads might look like in this new century — "Winter's Bone" comes most forcefully to mind — but mostly the moviemakers are far removed, in their own lives and in their products, from what the majority of Americans are living through now.

Musical artists too are looking the other way. What hit song of the last three years gives voice to our times in the way "Brother Can You Spare a Dime?" gave voice to the 1930s? Where are the songs that evoke images of vacancies in the shopping malls, people driven from their foreclosed homes and couples whose marriages are shattered by the frustrations of their hardships?

A long time ago, during an early peace march through San Francisco, I remember a young guy in an apartment a couple of floors above the street putting a speaker in his window and blasting Bob Dylan singing "The Times They Are A-Changin' " to the protesters marching by. The feeling of support and solidarity that music contributed on that day was palpable, and it came at a time when public sentiment had not yet turned against the Vietnam War.

Years later, in a none-too-brave new world, I attended a Dylan concert in the months following 9/11. The "senators and congressmen" Dylan had once referenced in his old song were then talking about taking us to war in Iraq. I hoped on that night that the protege of Woody Guthrie would say a word or two about the times we were living in. But he said nothing, having long since decided he didn't want to be an oracle, didn't want to speak except through his songs. For many fans, it would have been balm to us had Dylan used even the slimmest portion of his art to provide the sense of solace he'd given so many dissenters long ago.

A few months after seeing Dylan, I saw Jerry Seinfeld. It was a few weeks after the shoe bomber had attempted to blow up an airplane. No one goes to see Seinfeld for political commentary, but he made a joke about the shoe bomber, and it was therapeutic, allowing us to laugh at the boogeyman. It was art employed in the interest of sanity. It's been said that humor is our shield against insanity. So far, we've mostly been crazy this century, and there hasn't been much shielding us from it. The comedians, such as Jon Stewart, Will Durst and Bill Maher, have filled the vacuum the other arts have abandoned.

As much as anything, the arts define the times, sketching a portrait of a moment in the life of the nation and the world, marking a period in ways it comes to be viewed by people who live through it and by people who come after. But the tale of our times is mostly being told by our unwillingness to tell it.

Jaime O'Neill is a writer in Northern California.

Suggested - Be sure to visit Facing Change: Documenting America 

Facing Change: Documenting America is a non-profit collective of dedicated photojournalists and writers coming together to explore America and to build a forum to chart its future. Mobilizing to document the critical issues facing America, FCDA teams will create a visual resource that raises social awareness and expands public debate.    


Monday, September 12, 2011

COVER PHOTO BY MARK SHAW FOR NEW KENNEDY BOOK


nb_116_117_v2

Jacqueline Kennedy in April of 1961 © 2000 Mark Shaw


Jacqueline Kennedy: Historic Conversations on Life with John F. Kennedy
By Caroline Kennedy

400 pages, 8 CDs, 85 photos
$60.00 US

In 1964, Jacqueline Kennedy recorded seven historic interviews about her life with John F. Kennedy. Now, for the first time, they can be heard and read in this deluxe, illustrated book and 8-CD set.

From Hyperion Books:

Shortly after President John F. Kennedy’s assassination, with a nation deep in mourning and the world looking on in stunned disbelief, Jacqueline Kennedy found the strength to set aside her own personal grief for the sake of posterity and begin the task of documenting and preserving her husband’s legacy. In January of 1964, she and Robert F. Kennedy approved a planned oral-history project that would capture their first-hand accounts of the late President as well as the recollections of those closest to him throughout his extraordinary political career. For the rest of her life, the famously private Jacqueline Kennedy steadfastly refused to discuss her memories of those years, but beginning that March, she fulfilled her obligation to future generations of Americans by sitting down with historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., and recording an astonishingly detailed and unvarnished account of her experiences and impressions as the wife and confidante of John F. Kennedy. The tapes of those sessions were then sealed and later deposited in the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum upon its completion, in accordance with Mrs. Kennedy’s wishes.

The resulting eight and a half hours of material comprises a unique and compelling record of a tumultuous era, providing fresh insights on the many significant people and events that shaped JFK’s presidency but also shedding new light on the man behind the momentous decisions. Here are JFK’s unscripted opinions on a host of revealing subjects, including his thoughts and feelings about his brothers Robert and Ted, and his take on world leaders past and present, giving us perhaps the most informed, genuine, and immediate portrait of John Fitzgerald Kennedy we shall ever have. Mrs. Kennedy’s urbane perspective, her candor, and her flashes of wit also give us our clearest glimpse into the active mind of a remarkable First Lady.

In conjunction with the fiftieth anniversary of President Kennedy’s Inauguration, Caroline Kennedy and the Kennedy family are now releasing these beautifully restored recordings on CDs with accompanying transcripts. Introduced and annotated by renowned presidential historian Michael Beschloss, these interviews will add an exciting new dimension to our understanding and appreciation of President Kennedy and his time and make the past come alive through the words and voice of an eloquent eyewitness to history.

Click here for an exclusive look at Kennedy trivia and photos

Related: New York Times Slideshow: "She Said That?"

Friday, September 9, 2011

CNN - Witness to History: White House photographer Eric Draper and the images of 9/11

Via CNN


Washington (CNN) -- As the president's personal photographer and head of the White House Photo Office, Eric Draper was with President George W. Bush for nearly every day of his eight-year term, often just a few feet away.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, he was there, too.

"My job was to document the president, to follow him everywhere," Draper told CNN in an exclusive interview. "But I had no idea what stories, what events would play out ... September 11 changed everything."

Draper, a former newspaper and wire photographer who is now a freelancer based in Albuquerque, New Mexico, ended up at President Bush's side on that fateful day and made some of the most iconic and memorable images of the president as the tragedy unfolded.

He was there in the motorcade, driving to Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida, when press secretary Ari Fleischer first got a "page" on his pager -- "Back then, we didn't have BlackBerrys," said Draper -- alerting the White House that a single plane had hit the World Trade Center.

Eric Draper video: 9/11 through Bush's lens

"I remember the president saying, 'What a horrible accident.' That's what everyone thought, that it was a shocking, one-time, how-could-that-ever-happen accident," recalled Draper.

Minutes later, they knew it wasn't an accident.

Draper was there, in the holding room of the elementary school, as Bush and his advisers first saw the second plane, United Airlines Flight 175, crash into the south tower, hitting it between the 77th and 85th floors.

He was there, on Air Force One, as the president flew first to Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana, and then to Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, as events continued to develop that tense day.

He was there, in the room, when President Bush saw the twin towers collapse and he was there, days later, when Bush climbed atop the rubble at ground zero in New York, holding a megaphone, and proclaimed "The whole world will hear us soon."

Draper sat down with CNN for an exclusive interview, walked us through several never-before-seen images from September 11 and the days following, and shared how one of the most significant days in American history unfolded:


President Bush reacts to live video of the burning World Trade Center at a classroom at Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota.
President Bush reacts to live video of the burning World Trade Center at a classroom at Emma Booker Elementary School in Sarasota.

CNN: This photo of President Bush in the holding room at the elementary school in Florida, what is happening here?

Draper: This was literally just seconds after the president left the classroom. And the timing here is pretty critical because there's a clock on the wall, you can see it's around 9:10.

The president was asking questions, trying to get the timing down, what happened in New York. It was tense, it was unbelievable. And then there was the distraction of watching the burning towers on TV. Immediately, I just tried to focus on making the picture.


...as President Bush turns to see the second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.
...as President Bush turns to see the second plane hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.
CNN: And this frame, President Bush is on the phone...

Draper: This was the moment, when the president finally was alerted. We're watching the live screen of the towers burning in New York, and all of a sudden they start replaying the video of the second tower getting hit. ... This was the first time that everyone saw that second plane hitting the tower, the moment of the attack.

President Bush turns around for the first time and sees that image that's burned into everyone's memory.

It was just shocking to see the horrific explosion and knowing immediately that there was going to be a huge loss of life. The roller coaster of emotions really started that day. It started out with shock, then, knowing how many people were in those buildings, it turned to anger, then turned to, at least in my mind, who would do this?


Bush confers on a secure line as "the football" -- the briefcase holding the secure nuclear launch codes -- is watched by a Marine.
Bush confers on a secure line as "the football" -- the briefcase holding the secure nuclear launch codes -- is watched by a Marine.
CNN: In this picture, I noticed the Marine in the background and the briefcase on the floor. Is that what I think it is?

Draper: Yes. That's the so-called "football" -- the nuclear launch codes -- that the military carries for the president. Right there. On the floor.


White House advisers plan the route for Air Force One as Bush works in his cabin.
White House advisers plan the route for Air Force One as Bush works in his cabin.


CNN: OK, now you're on Air Force One. What happened once the president was in the air?

Draper: We knew they wanted to get him in the air as soon as possible... I remember walking aboard the plane, and the first thing I heard was (Chief of Staff) Andy Card's voice saying, "Remove your batteries from your cell phones." because we didn't know if we were being traced. I thought, are we a target? I didn't know.

We were hearing a lot of false reports, too. There was a moment when the president came out of the cabin of Air Force One and said, "I hear that 'Angel' is the next target." Angel is the code name for Air Force One.

I also remember those first moments aboard the plane, when the president really tried to rally the staff. He walked out of his cabin and he said, "OK, boys, this is what they pay us for."


With Andy Card watching, President Bush gives the order to shoot down any aircraft that might threaten an attack on the U.S.
With Andy Card watching, President Bush gives the order to shoot down any aircraft that might threaten an attack on the U.S.
CNN: What's going on here? The president appears to be in intense conversation with Andy Card on Air Force One.

Draper: The timing here is pretty critical. This was around the time when the president made the decision that any aircraft that was threatening attack would be shot down.


President Bush watches the collapse of the twin towers aboard Air Force One, with Dan Bartlett and a secret service agent.
President Bush watches the collapse of the twin towers aboard Air Force One, with Dan Bartlett and a secret service agent.
Air Force F-16s fly off the wingtips of Air Force One.
Air Force F-16s fly off the wingtips of Air Force One.


CNN: Did President Bush say much to you that day?

Draper: One time, there was a moment. That's when we're watching live TV aboard the plane. That's when the towers fell.

It was a moment of utter disbelief. It was a moment of silence. I remember the president saying, "Eric, what do you think about this?" I said, "This is unbelievable." That's all I could say.

Just moments after this, this is when we discovered the F-16s escorting Air Force One as we approached Andrews Air Force Base. Everyone was looking out the windows, trying to see them. They were right there, literally, looked like they were touching the wings of the plane. For me, it really hit home, that we were in a war. You could see the F-16s on one side of the plane, then you look out the other side of the plane and you could still see the smoke rising from the Pentagon. It was really a shocking scene.


CNN: Now here, the president is in New York, at ground zero. How did that come together?

Draper: I remember, the firefighters, they were fired up. They were angry. They were sad. Some of them had tears in their eyes. They were looking to the president for leadership. You could see it in their eyes.

There was this area set aside for the president to walk over and speak. At the last minute he was handed a megaphone, and the firefighter marking the spot was there, and the president kept him there. He was just there to make sure the president got to the spot, then he was going to leave, but the president said "Stay here."

I remember the firefighter yelling in the background, "I can't hear you." I still get chills when I remember the quote, when the president said, "I can hear YOU, and the people who knocked these buildings down will hear from all of us soon."


President Bush always kept the badge worn by Port Authority Officer George Howard, who died in the trade center, in his pocket during his presidency.
President Bush always kept the badge worn by Port Authority Officer George Howard, who died in the trade center, in his pocket during his presidency.


CNN: This last photo, of the officer's badge, what is this?

Draper: That is the badge that was worn by a New York Port Authority officer who died on 9/11. That badge was found on his body and given to (President Bush) by his mother around the days following 9/11. The president carried it in his pocket as a reminder, he carried it every day. I felt it was very important, symbolically, to make a photograph of that badge. He would always carry it and pull it out to remind people and to remind himself about what happened that day.

Q: Looking back on 9/11, were you scared that day?

Draper: I had it easy because I had a camera to distract me. I had the technical aspects of being a photographer. But at the same time, I was scared about what was happening in Washington, because that's where my wife was, she had just moved to Washington a few days before 9/11.

So when they finally allowed staff to call from the plane later that day, my first words were "Honey, I'm gonna be a little late tonight."

She laughed.

Two of Eric Draper's photograohs from September, 2001 are featured in the exhibition "History's Big Picture" through September 25, 2011.




Wednesday, September 7, 2011

9.11.01 - 9.11.11



World Trade Center and Washington Square Arch, New York, 1998
Carolyn Schaefer: World Trade Center and Washington Square Arch, New York, 1998



Earlier this week, The New York Times ran an article titled  "Media Strive to Cover 9/11 Without Seeming to Exploit a Tragedy".  "There’s no precedent for something like this,” said Lawrence C. Burstein, the publisher of New York magazine. There has been debate about how the anniversary should be covered. Should it be left to great thinkers and elegant writers to define what the attacks have meant for the country? Or are Americans better served by the accounts of those who experienced the attacks first-hand?"

We relocated from New York City to Santa Fe in January, 2002. Our list of recommended posts (so far):

CNN: Witness to history: White House photographer Eric Draper and the images of 9/11

New York Times Interactive: The Reckoning: America and The World A Decade After 9/11

Wall Street Journal: A Decade After 9/11


New York Daily News: 9/11 Ten Years Later

La Lettre de la Photographie: Archives 9/11

BBC: 9/11 Ten Tears On

VII Photo Agency: 9/11Remembered

POP Photo: 9/11: The Photographers' Stories, Part 1—"Get Down Here. Now."
  
The New Yorker Photo Booth: Ten Years Later

Shutter Photo: 10 Years After 9/11: The Importance of Photojournalism

The Atlantic: September 11: A Story About the History of Digital Photography

Time LightBox: Stephane Sednaoui: 9/11 Search and Rescue

Time Light Box: Twin Towers and the Metropolis: 1970-2011

Time Light Box: Revisiting 9/11: Unpublished Photos by James Nachtwey

Time Light Box:  Flight 93 and Shanksville, Pa: The Forgotten Part of 9/11

Time Light Box: Photo Editors On 9/11: The Photographs That Moved Them Most

David Schonauer: Icons, The 9/11 Series Part One
                              Part Two
                              Part Three
                              Part Four

The Washington Times: Special Section: Sept. 11


The Telegraph: The 9/11 Picture I'll Never Forget (But Wish I Could)

The Guardian: The 9/11 Decade

CBS New York: Remembering 9/11/01 Ten Years Later
(including archive of live newsradio broadcasts)

Photographers revisit 9/11: 'It was that horrific'

Magnum: Susan Meiselas: Ground Zero Artifacts and Construction

Joe McNally: "Like many New York based shooters, I had a bit of a love fest with the World Trade Centers"

Richard Falco: September 11 - To Bear Witness

International Center of Photography: Remembering 9/11
(Including a full list of 9/11 exhibitions and events in New York with locations)

Related: The Newseum has 147 newspaper front pages from 19 countries published on September 12, 2001