Tuesday, December 31, 2013
A NEW YEAR
As the final hours of 2013 elapse, we pause to remember two great friends that passed away in 2013: Bill Eppridge and John Dominis, along with so many other truly great photographers.
We are grateful that our lives have made it possible to know, or to have known, so many great photographers personally in our careers, and their humanistic photography and kind hearts have informed us in both our personal and professional lives.
2013 has once again affirmed our steadfast belief in the power of a photograph. To all of the photographers out there, past and present, we honor your commitment and service to humanity.
We are so very thankful to all who have visited the gallery and our booths at art fairs this year (we'll be in booth #302 at photo la 2014 January 16 - 19).
In a small way, this our "thank you" for 2013. We wish you the very best in 2014.
--Sidney and Michelle Monroe
Related: 2013 in Pictures, and more
Monday, December 30, 2013
JOHN DOMINIS: 1921 - 2013
John Dominis via johndominis.us
It is with great sadness that we have learned that LIFE
photographer, John Dominis, passed away Sunday, Dec. 29, 2013 after a long
illness. Obituaries and tributes below.
A consummate photojournalist, Dominis covered the Korean War for LIFE, and recorded the beginning of what became the Vietnam War. He photographed the firing of General Douglas MacArthur, and he covered John F. Kennedy’s emotional “I am a Berliner” speech. Dominis traveled the world constantly, and in 1966 he made two long trips to Africa to photograph the “big cats”: leopards, cheetahs, and lions for a remarkable series of picture essays in LIFE which later became the basis for a book. This project resulted in several awards for Dominis, including Magazine Photographer of the Year (1966).
Dominis also covered five Olympics, the Woodstock Festival, and represented both TIME and LIFE during President Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. Many of the editors and photo-chiefs at LIFE considered Dominis to be the best all-around photographer on staff. After LIFE ceased regular publication, Dominis worked as photo editor for People and Sports Illustrated. Returning to freelance photography, Dominis shot the photographs for five Italian cookbooks, on location with Giuliano Bugialli, food writer and teacher.
“LIFE magazine was a great success. If a man hadn't seen a picture of a native in New Guinea, well, we brought him a picture of a native of New Guinea. We went into the homes of princes and Presidents and showed the public how they lived. The great thing about working with LIFE," says Dominis, "was that I was given all the support and money and time, whatever was required, to do almost any kind of work I wanted to do, anywhere in the world. It was like having a grant, a Guggenheim grant, but permanently."
In the spring of 1963, Steve McQueen was on the brink of superstardom, already popular from his big-screen breakout as one of The Magnificent Seven and just a couple months away from entering the Badass Hall of Fame with the release of The Great Escape. Intrigued by his dramatic backstory and his off-screen exploits — McQueen was a reformed delinquent who got his thrills racing cars and motorcycles — LIFE sent photographer John Dominis to California to hang out with the 33-year-old actor and see what he could get. Three weeks and more than 40 rolls of film later, Dominis had captured some astonishingly intimate and iconic images, photos impossible to imagine in today's restricted-access celebrity world.
Trailing Steve McQueen was Dominis' first Hollywood gig. "I liked the movies, but I didn't know who the stars were; I was not a movie buff," Dominis, now in his nineties, told LIFE.com. But he got the assignment because he and McQueen shared one vital passion point. "When I was living in Hong Kong I had a sports car and I raced it," Dominis says. "And I knew that Steve McQueen had a racing car. I rented one anticipating that we might do something with them. He was in a motorcycle race out in the desert, so I went out there in my car and met him, and I say, 'You wanna try my car?'" Later the two of them would zip around Los Angeles, including Sunset Boulevard (pictured). "We went pretty fast — I mean, as fast as you can safely go without getting arrested — and we'd ride and then stop and trade cars. He liked that, and I knew he liked it. I guess that was the first thing that softened him."
From early morning until late at night, Dominis followed McQueen through his action-packed days — camping with his buddies, racing his various vehicles, playing with his family, tooling around Hollywood. Even back then, Dominis says, he had to be mindful that his constant presence did not become irritating. "Movie stars, they weren't used to giving up a lot of time — in fact they didn't like to give up hardly ANY time," he says. "But I sort of relaxed in the beginning and didn't bother them every time they turned around, and they began to get used to me being there. If they were doing something, they would definitely just not notice me anymore."
New York Times: John Dominis, a Star Life Magazine Photographer, Dies at 92
L'Oeil de la Photographie: The death of John Dominis
NPR: The Incredible Versatility Of Photographer John Dominis
LA Times: John Dominis, one of the great Life photographers was 92
TIME: John Dominis, Longtime LIFE Photographer, Dies at 92
International Center for Photography: John Dominis: 1921 - 2013
PDN Obituary: John Dominis, Prolific LIFE Photographer, 92
F-Stoppers: Celebrating the life of LIFE photographer John Dominis
Santa Fe New Mexican: John Dominis, longtime photographer for 'Life', dies at 92
Washington Post: John Dominis, Life magazine photographer, dies at 92
Photographer Spotlight: John Dominis
LIFE PHOTOGRAPHER JOHN DOMINIS' PHOTOGRAPHS OF WOODSTOCK
The LIFE Photographers exhibition
John Dominis Exhibition
2013 Year in Pictures and the..."Best of " Everything Photographic 2013
Love them? Hate them? The lists have begun: everyone's photography "Best of" lists for 2013. (Updated Jan. 1, 2014)
TIME LightBox: In Memoriam: Remembering the Photographers We Lost in 2013
Magnum Photos Blog: 2013 The Year in Review
The Guardian: Photographer of the year: Goran Tomasevic
Guardian picture editors' favourite photos of 2013
Stella Kramer: 2013 in Photography: First the Bad
2013 in Photography: Now for the Good
Year in Photos 2013 by Pete Souza
Time Light Box: All the 2013 Photojournalismlinks posts
New York Daily News: Best of 2013: A look back at the top New York Daily News photos of the year
The Observer's 20 photographs of the year
dna's best pictures of 2013
LA Times: The Year in Pictures | 2013
| Aljazeera: In Pictures: 2013 in review CBS: 2013 The Year in Pictures Huffington Post: The 52 Most Breathtaking Photos From Around The World This Year |
Pulitzer Center: 2013: A Year in Photos
New Yorker Photo Booth: The Year in Photojournalism
The New York Times: 2013: The Year in Pictures
Telegraph: World news pictures of the year 2013: part 1
World news pictures of the year 2013: part 2
World news pictures of the year 2013: part 3
The Guardian: The best photographs of 2013 – in pictures
The Paris News: 2013 in Pictures
ABC News: 2013 Year in Pictures
BBC: Year in pictures 2013
CNET: 2013: The year in pictures
BBC: The UK year in pictures 2013
CNN: 2013: The year in pictures
The Independent: In pictures: 2013 - The year in review
NY Daily News: Photos of the year 2013: Top 30 most striking news images from across the globe
The Week: 2013 The Year in Pictures
The Columbian: 2013 Year in Pictures
The Guardian: The best photography of 2013: Sean O'Hagan's choice
Politico: The 18 Best Washington Photos of 2013
The Guardian: 2013: the media year in pictures
The Daily Beast: 2013 The Year in Photos
Associated Press: AP's Top 10 photos of 2013
TIME Picks the Top 10 Photos of 2013
NBC News: The Year in Pictures: 2013
New Yorker Photo Booth: Thirteen Incredible Outtakes from 2013
The Guardian: Best portraits of 2013 – in pictures
WIRED: The Most Amazing Images NASA Took of Earth From Space This Year
Chicago Tribune/Shooting From The Hip: my best photos of 2013...iPhone edition
The Photoblographer: The Year in Photography Culture: Remembering Seven of the Best Moments
BBC: Press Association photographers' best shots of 2013
The Guardian: 2013: The year in pictures
The Denver Post: Photos of the Year 2013
Desert Sun Photo Staff’s Best of 2013
The Guardian: Wildlife and nature photography award-winning images of 2013 – in pictures
GIZMODO: The 100 Most Astonishing Images of 2013
Fast Company: The 16 Best Photo Essays Of 2013
TIME: David Guttenfelder is TIME’s Pick for Instagram Photographer of the Year
Times of Malta: Signs of the Times during 2013
Greenpeace: Greenpeace Photo of 2013
Huffington Post: 2013's Most Striking Fine Art Photography
Video: Reuters Pictures of the Year 2013
The Washington Post: The 18 best political pictures of 2013
TIME LightBox: Photos of the Year That Almost Got Away: Behind and Beyond 365
Boston.com The Big Picture: 2013 Year in Pictures: Part I
2013 Year in Pictures: Part 2
2013 Year in Pictures: Part III
The BagNews Top 10 News Photos of 2013
The Denver Post: Photos: Best of Getty Images 2013
The best Boston Globe photos of 2013
TIME’s Best Photojournalism of 2013
TIME’s Best Portraits of 2013
All of TIME's The Year in Pictures 2013
The Atlantic: 2013: The Year in Photos, January - April
The Year in Photos May - August
The Year in Photos, September - December
Doublemesh: The 40 Most Powerful Photos Of 2013
National Geographic: Travel 365: Best of 2013
Discovery Channel: Best Ocean Animal Photos of 2013
The Inertia: Monster Gallery: The 100 Best Surf Photos of 2013
Wall Street Journal: Photos of the Year 2013
(You can also Share Your Top Photos from 2013 With #WSJbestphoto)
TIME Picks the Best Wire Photographer of 2013
TIME LightBox: The Most Surprising Photos of 2013
TIME LightBox: 2013: The Year in 365 Pictures
TIME Picks the Top 10 Photos of 2013
Reuter's: Best photos of the year 2013 (with the photographers offering a behind the scenes account of the images that helped define the year.)
ANSA presents top photos of 2013
Mashable: 100 Most Powerful Moments of 2013 in Photos
Milwaukee Business Journal: Best photos of 2013
2013 Year in Review: The year's most-viewed photo galleries on MassLive.com
The Brian Lehrer Show: Best of 2013: The Year's Best Pictures (That Are Sitting On Your Phone)
ESPN: Best photography of 2013
USA TODAY Sports' pictures of the year
Mashable: 50 Stunning Sports Photos From 2013
Forbes: The Most Science Fictional News Stories Of 2013 In Pictures
Vulture: 2013’s Best Entertainment Photography
LA Weekly: Best LA Concerts of 2013 in Photos
Salon: The most incredible nature photography of 2013
Pitchfork: Year in Music Photos 2013
LA Times: The best political photos of 2013
The Post Game: Best Action Sports Photos From Red Bull In 2013
2013 Arcaid Images Architectural Photography Award Winners
The Telegraph: Royal Navy photographer of the year 2013
Books:
photo-eye: The Best Photo Books of 2013
Elizabeth Avedon: BOOKS 2013: My Top Ten and More
Conscientious: My favourite photobooks in 2013
Telegraph: Inspirational photography books for 2014
photo-eye: photo-eye's Top-10 Bestsellers of 2013
LensCulture: 2013 Photobooks of the Year
New York Times' Sixth Floor: The Top 10 Photo Books of 2013
Photo District News: Best Photo Books of 2013: Part 1
Best Photo Books of 2013: Part 2
Best Photo Books of 2013: Part 3
Mother Jones' Photographers Picks the Best Photobooks of 2013
1000 Words Photography: Top photobooks of 2013
Slate: Eight Amazing Photo Books From 2013 You May Have Missed
Raw File: Holiday Gift Guide: A Photo Book for Everyone on Your List
The Guardian: The best independent photobooks of 2013
The Telegraph: Inspirational photography books for 2014
The Telegraph: Black and White Photography books of the year
The Guardian: Photography books of the year – review
Oh Top Book! Best Overlooked Photobooks of 2013
The Telegraph: Ten photography fanatics share their favourite books of the year
British Journal of Photography: The Best Photobooks of the Year: Martin Parr takes his pick
British Journal of Photography editor Simon Bainbridge's 10 favourite photobooks of the year
The Telegraph: Best photography books of the year
TIME Picks the Best Photobooks of 2013
Washington Post: 5 best photography books of 2013
Photo.net: Best Photography Books of 2013
The Telegraph: Alec Soth: My Top Ten Photo Books of 2013
Other categories:
Gizmag: The best cameras of 2013
BBC: Your pictures of the year
Digital Trends: Best photography product of 2013: Sony Alpha A7
New Yorker Photo Booth: The Weirdest Photo Research of 2013
Bag News Notes: The BagNews Best Posts of 2013
Gallerist: The Year in, and Beyond, the Galleries
PhotoShelter 54 Reasons to Love Photography in 2013
Tech 2: Gadgets of the Year: Best camera-centric smartphones of 2013
Ideas Tap: Our Favorite photography articles from 2013
PhotoShelter: Photo Projects That Made For A Better 2013
CNN: Best smartphone travel photos announced
The Guardian: Selfies of 2013 – the best, worst and most revealing
The Onion: Top Photojournalism Of 2013
TIME LightBox: Report from 2013 Paris Photo: 13 of the Best Exhibitions from the Fair
The Phoblographer’s Top Ten Stories of 2013
Imaging Resource: Top 13 for 2013: the best cameras, lenses and technologies of the year
LA Times: Photography Christmas gift ideas 2013
Popular Photography: 2013 Camera of the Year: Sony a7R
Holiday Gift Guide 2013: The Phoblographer’s Editor’s Choice List
Wednesday, December 18, 2013
“LIFE magazine was a great success..."
“LIFE magazine was a great success.
If a man hadn't seen a picture of a native in New Guinea New
Guinea
The LIFE Photographers continues through Januray 26, 2014
Related: “I had no idea what else was available, but I knew Life had to have it.”
Bob Gomel got closer than he wanted to JFK’s funeral
Friday, December 13, 2013
To Do in Santa Fe: Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain
Our View: Goya exhibition a coup for state
Via The Santa Fe New Mexican
New Mexico’s state museums manage, despite tight budgets and many demands, to continually engage their audience.
That’s true for homegrown exhibits such as Cowboys Real and Imagined, now at the New Mexico History Museum, or New World Cuisine: The Histories of Chocolate, Mate y Más, at the Museum of International Folk Art, or Here Now and Always, at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture. Then there are those inviting traveling exhibits. Who can forget the exquisite, hand-lettered exhibit featuring the St. John’s Bible, treasures from the court of Czar Nicholas or Gee’s Bends quilts, all of which have spent time in New Mexico?
Joining those stellar exhibitions starting Saturday is an exhibit featuring Spanish works — Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain, at the New Mexico Museum of Art.
New Mexico is fortunate indeed to be the only location in the United States to exhibit this collection of drawings and prints — created at the British Museum and seen in Spain and Australia. Its chief attraction, naturally, is the opportunity to see work by the master Francisco de Goya. An Australian reviewer wrote, “Renaissance To Goya is stunning, packing that unique graphic punch across themes of religion, daily life, myth and — in the case of Goya — social commentary and insanity.” Museum director Mary Kershaw is to be congratulated for bringing the exhibition to Santa Fe. It’s an opportunity not just to see great works on paper, but to revisit what had been a settled question in art and discover new answers.
For whatever reason, the Spanish were not considered to excel at drawing in comparison with Flemish and Italian masters. This exhibition, gathering a range of drawings and prints from all across Spain from 1662 until the death of Goya in 1828, shows masters at work, presenting a rich body of pieces that encompasses religion and changing Spanish society. Many of these works haven’t been displayed — the British Museum is so rich in collections that exhibition curator Mark McDonald pulled these from the vaults. The previous view by some, that Spanish artists excelled more in color and painting, but not drawing, can be set aside.
In The Independent newspaper, reviewer Michael Glover had an interesting reaction, writing: “We go through it dutifully, glazed cabinet by glazed cabinet … And then, at a certain point, something marvellous happens. The year is 1762. The Tiepolos, father Giambattista and his two sons Domenico and Lorenzo, have just arrived in Madrid from Venice. The sheer brilliance of their etchings takes Spain by storm. … Then, alongside the brilliance of the Tiepolos, come other great practitioners — it all seems to happen in the last third of the show, after we have almost been lulled asleep — Ribera, Zurbaran and, greatest of all, selections from various suites of etchings by Goya, who is so wild and untrammelled and no-holds-barred emotionally that it is sometimes quite difficult to look without wincing.”
Until March, New Mexicans and other visitors (we trust both the city and the state are promoting the exhibition to travelers) will have the chance to gaze upon a Goya, and wince for themselves.
For New Mexicans, to see work made in Spain is particularly relevant. By 1662, when the exhibit opens, the settlers who had left Spain for Mexico and then traveled north to what is now New Mexico, had begun to put down roots in this new land. These great works are made by the contemporaries of the colonists; the beginnings of our own Spanish Colonial art tradition are linked to those artists of the mother country. This exhibition, in other words, will show New Mexicans more about their own origins, making it an even more essential offering. It is not to be missed.
Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain
December 14, 2013 – March 9, 2014
New Mexico Museum of Art
More information and contact
Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain
December 14, 2013 – March 9, 2014
New Mexico Museum of Art
More information and contact
Saturday, December 7, 2013
MARK SHAW: DIOR GLAMOUR
A collection of the lavish and iconic gowns of Christian Dior, from the
1950s and ’60s, captured by the legendary photographer Mark Shaw. Iconic
photographer Mark Shaw documented the ultra-exclusive Parisian fashion world,
focusing on Paris’s long-standing top couturier Christian Dior. Shaw’s
photographs—some of the first fashion photographs ever shot in color—capture the
most stunning and extraordinary fashion of the era. This lavish volume embodies
the glamour of that time, from rare moments of Christian Dior during fittings to
editorial-style photographs of models, socialites, and actresses posing in
Dior’s ballgowns, day suits, and haute couture collections. Shaw’s
photojournalistic style changed fashion photography forever: his approach was to
photograph wide, giving the subject a sense of context, creating an environment
as exquisitely transformative as the subject and garment. With an eye for
intimacy and opulence, this book features more than 200 color and black-and-white photographs, many never published before, having only recently
been found in a secret vault by his estate. Dior Glamour: 1952–1962 captures the
drama and elegance of the period’s style and will be treasured by lovers of
photography, fashion, style, history, and cultured living.
The Telegraph "Best Photography Books of 2013": "Dior: Glamour, 1952-62 shows off Mark Shaw’s photographs from the iconic fashion house, including some of the first fashion shots in colour."
Vanity Fair: Mark Shaw’s Dior Glamour, Photos from the Paris Fashion House’s Heyday
Paris Vogue: A Decade of Dior by Mark Shaw
Wall Street Journal: Photo-Op: Damsel in Dior
Paris Vogue: A Decade of Dior by Mark Shaw
Wall Street Journal: Photo-Op: Damsel in Dior
For information on Mark Shaw's photography prints, please contact the gallery.
Friday, December 6, 2013
A Mushroom Cloud and the Twin Towers: the role of images in contemporary consciousness
Via CCA
Sunday, December 8, 2pm
LIVING ROOM
$5 Dollar Suggested Donation
How do images become placeholders for historic moments? What happens in the brain when images are no longer pictures, but rather icons loaded with emotion or politics? How is meaning-making changing as our world is increasingly flooded with images? This multi-media discussion event features short presentations by a panel of artists, journalists, and visual critics followed by a lively conversation about the ways that images (or the lack thereof) shape perception. Panelists include Nina Elder, Claudia X. Valdes, Dr. Khristaan Villela and others.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
Happy Birthday, Alfred Eisenstaedt
Born on December 6, 1898 in West Prussia, Alfred Eisenstaedt received an Eastman Kodak Folding Camera when he was 14. Renowned as the father of modern photojournalism, Eisenstaedt’s career as a preeminent photojournalist spanned eight decades. “Eisie”, as he preferred to be called, began taking photographs in Germany in 1914. As a pioneer in his field, “Eisie” had few rules to follow.
Diminutive in stature, he worked with minimal equipment and was known for an aggressive yet invisible style of working. Regarded as an innovator of available light photography, Eisenstaedt dispensed with flash photography early on in order to preserve the ambiance of natural lighting.
He photographed throughout Europe, Africa, and the Middle East until he came to LIFE magazine in 1936. As one of the four original staff photographers for LIFE, “Eisie” covered over 2,500 assignments and created 86 covers for the magazine. Acknowledged as one of the most published photojournalists in the world, he took photographs at the first meeting of Hitler and Mussolini, of Albert Einstein teaching at Princeton, Churchill’s campaign and re-election, children at a puppet theater in Paris, Marilyn Monroe at home, and hundreds of other significant people and events around the world. He was an editor’s dream, and his work had what became known as “Eisie’s eye”. Portrait assignments became his specialty, and in the process he accumulated many little-known secrets about his subjects.
It is unlikely that anyone could have lived during the last 60 years without having been exposed to the photographs of Alfred Eisenstaedt. “Eisie” worked almost ceaselessly until his death in 1995, even photographing President Clinton and Family in 1993.
Alfred Eisenstaedt possessed the unique talent to capture a story in a single, tell-all moment. The photographer’s job, he once wrote, “is to find and catch the storytelling moment.” “Eisie” received awards and recognition far too numerous to list. His photographs have been exhibited in prestigious museums and galleries throughout the world and are in the permanent collections of many important art institutions. Several of his acclaimed photographs are featured in "The Great LIFE Photographers" exhibition at Monroe Gallery of Photography, Santa Fe, through Januray 26, 2014.
Related:
This Week in Photography History: A Look Back at Alfred Eisendstaedt
Alfred Eisenstaedt's 112th Birthday
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
Save The Dates: photo la January 16 - 19, 2014
LOS ANGELES PHOTOGRAPHIC ART EXPOSITION ANNOUNCES NEW LOCATION FOR 23rd ANNUAL EVENT JANUARY 16th – 19th, 2014 AT THE HISTORIC LA MART BUILDING IN DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES
Los Angeles, CA, photo l.a. (www.photola.com), the longstanding photographic art exposition, is proud to announce its 23rd edition in a new location: downtown at one of the most distinctive venues in Los Angeles - the historic LA Mart (1933 Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90007) built in 1958. photo l.a. is joining the massive celebration of the arts throughout the downtown area, where the L.A. Art Show and a large number of popular galleries will all be working in unison to drive a massive collaboration of the arts downtown precisely for the weekend of photo l.a.’s exposition.
photo l.a. was the first, and is the longest running photographic art fair in Los Angeles. Beginning at Butterfield’s Auction House, then moving to the Barker Hanger and the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, photo l.a. has always been a destination event. Celebrating its 23rd year, photo l.a. 2014 is moving to the artistic hub that is now downtown Los Angeles, at the LA Mart building.
photo l.a. is excited to be a part of the growth of downtown L.A.’s artistic expansion along with major art establishments like the new Broad Museum, The Geffen Contemporary, MOCA, and the Japanese American National and Chinese American Museums, along with many new contemporary galleries. photo l.a. is connecting with this specific area to present a phenomenal art experience in 2014.
From January 16-19th, 2014, photo l.a. will present its widest collaboration of photography yet, exhibiting works dating from the 19th century, up through the most cutting edge contemporary photo-based art in LA Mart’s massive 60,000 square foot Exhibition Hall. photo l.a. 2014 will continue its celebration of the photographic arts, both through the exhibition of internationally renowned galleries and as a platform for education and discussion. Known for its excellent programing, photo l.a. will once again spearhead a unique series of lectures, roundtable discussions and docent tours as a valuable supplement to our exhibitions.
photo l.a. 2014 will combine the photography and arts communities under one roof, truly raising the bar for both the cultural and collecting experiences in Los Angeles. This vast collection, along with a variety of outstanding programming and installations, promises an impressive 23rd edition of the fair.
Monroe Gallery of Photographjy will exhibitiong at photo la 2014.
Monday, December 2, 2013
To Do Wednesday: Ashley Gilbertson in conversation with VICE's Rocco Castoro
Via VII
Featuring Ashley Gilbertson
December 4, 2013
Brooklyn Brewery, 79 N. 11th Street
New York, NY
$25
For a discussion about war reporting, VII photographer Ashley Gilbertson will speak with VICE’s Rocco Castoro about his book Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, hosted by the Brooklyn Brewery.
Gilbertson’s book is a collection of images taken over the course of four years in Iraq. The book charts path of Iraq from the post-invasion excitement to the extreme violence that later occurred in the country.
The event will begin at 7:30 pm. Tickets are required to attend and include a free Brooklyn Brewery beer. All proceeds from the events in this series benefit RISC (Reporters Instructed in Saving Colleagues
More information here.
Friday, November 29, 2013
Giving Thanks for Photography
“Richard and Mildred Loving” (1965), by Grey Villet.
Courtesy of the estate of Grey Villet.
Via The New Yorker: a selection of eight writers on photographs that they are thankful for.
Recently, I’ve been travelling in the Deep South, pausing at civil-rights sites along my reporting route—Martin Luther King, Jr.,’s’s bomb-pocked parsonage in Montgomery, Alabama, for starters, and Birmingham’s Sixteenth Street Baptist Church. Most of the landmarks that I’ve visited display iconic photographs of the movement’s labors, largely rooted in the politics and aesthetics of struggle: black youth and integrated Freedom Riders standing, disobediently civil, before snarling police dogs and sneering lunch-counter crowds. Here, though, I’ve plucked a photograph from the movement that draws its strength less from struggle than from domestic affection, which seems well-suited to file under “Thanksgiving”: an image from Grey Villet’s 1965 series, for Life magazine, on Richard and Mildred Loving, the interracial couple in Central Point, Virginia, who helped to end the interminable era of anti-miscegenation statutes. The power of the series lies in the quiet intimacies that it captures. Mostly, the photos depict everyday life: eating, idling, kissing, conferring. In this particular shot, the Lovings watch TV and laugh—a reminder that to lounge about in simple communion can sometimes be beautifully subversive, too.
—Sarah Stillman
Thursday, November 28, 2013
The LIFE Photograpers Opening Reception Friday, Nov. 29, 5 - 7 PM
Alfred Eisenstaedt ©Time Inc., President John F. Kennedy in the Oval Office, Washington, D.C., 1961. Courtesy Monroe Gallery of Photography
Via Photograph Magazine Newsletter
Looking Back at Camelot: On the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the country is remembering and paying its respects. At the Monroe Gallery of Photography in Santa Fe, The LIFE Photographers opens November 29, an exhibition concurrent with the publication of LIFE: The Day Kennedy Died: 50 Years Later LIFE Remembers the Man and the Moment. LIFE photographers had unusual access to the Kennedy family, and their photographs no doubt helped create the mystique surrounding the family. LIFE editor Richard Stolley will be at a reception and book-signing at the opening Friday, November 29, 5 - 7 pm.
Wednesday, November 27, 2013
To Do Friday: The LIFE Photographers
| ©Bill Eppridge: John Lennon on the train to New York from Washington after the Beatles' concert at Washington Coliseum, Feb. 11, 1964 | |
Via The Santa Fe Reporter
Monroe’s latest celebrates some of the most striking images of our time—and the men behind them.
President John F Kennedy’s funeral procession, Japanese surrendering on board the USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, John Lennon unwinding on train trip from Washington, DC to New York. These are some of the iconic photographs celebrated in LIFE magazine during photojournalism’s golden age.
That mythical era might be long gone, but the poignancy of those images lives on in Monroe Gallery of Photography’s The LIFE Photographers, which opens on Friday.
“The exhibition of more than 50 photographs includes iconic moments in our collective history and indelible photographs of everyday life,” the gallery’s Michelle Monroe tells SFR.
Displaying images that are now steeped in the American conscience, the opening coincides with a presentation of the book signing of The Day Kennedy Died and a signing by Richard Stolley, the man responsible for securing the Zapruder film for LIFE.
“LIFE magazine photographers had unparalleled access to John and Jacqueline Kennedy, from even before they were married,” Monroe continues. “The exhibit features a special selection of well-known historical Kennedy photographs and several seldom-seen, rare images of the now-famous Kennedy mystique that was Camelot.”
The LIFE Photographers +
the day kennedy died signing
5-7 pm Friday, Nov. 29. Free.
Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar Ave., 992-0800
the day kennedy died signing
5-7 pm Friday, Nov. 29. Free.
Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar Ave., 992-0800
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|
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
A Day in the LIFE
Fifty years after JFK’s assassination, Hal Wingo looks back
Via The Santa Fe Reporter
Former senior editor of LIFE magazine, Hal Wingo remembers the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963 vividly. He was working as a reporter in the publication’s Big Apple headquarters and was walking back from lunch.
Wingo recalls how the Time & Life Building, one of the four original structures in Rockefeller Center, was one of few tall buildings on the block. Its neighbors were all “itty-bitty” two to three story-tall buildings filled mostly with electronic retailers selling radios and black and white TV’s.
“I was walking back up Sixth Avenue and I noticed all these people standing in front of the windows of these shops,” Wingo says. “I got up close and I saw they were all watching this broadcast saying the president had been shot.”
He then set “the world speed record from 47th to 50th Street,” and upon arriving at his workplace, was immediately dispatched to Washington DC.
“When Dick and I talk about these things, I’ve always said that every person with a memory that reaches back that far can stand up and tell us exactly where they were and exactly how they heard that the president had been killed.” He pauses and takes a sip of coffee. “Our story is no different, it’s just that we were closer to it, but everyone shared the experience.”
Dick is Wingo’s colleague Richard Stolley, who at the time served as the magazine’s Los Angeles bureau chief. Stolley was alerted of the news via AP Teletype and not an hour later was on a plane to Dallas working on a tip that a local businessman by the name “Za-proo-dur” had captured that precise moment of the president’s motorcade on film.
In a swift move and amongst cutthroat competition, Stolley secured the 26-second clip he calls “the most famous home movie in American history” for $50,000.
“He’s the man,” Wingo gushes. “There’s no getting around that’s the most important thing LIFE ever published.”
The pair, who later teamed up to launch People magazine, and who, by a twist of unrelated events moved to Santa Fe, join forces on Friday for a presentation at the Lensic titled From Zapruder to Taskim Square: Media and Culture in the 21st Century.
The intention, Wingo says, is “to turn this—from just a total reflection—to thinking about where are we now and where do we go from here, in terms of events in the future and how they get handled, reported and treated by the media.”
A week later, Stolley is set to sign copies of LIFE: The Day Kennedy Died at Monroe Gallery.
“We’re in that pivotal sphere, I think, in terms of everything being different,” Wingo says. “We live in a world dominated by Julian Assange and Snowden. There are no secrets; it’s just a different world—a totally different world.”
With today’s ever-competing 24-hour news channels and sharing at the push of a button, Wingo notes how the information panorama has changed dramatically since the faithful Texas afternoon.
“People stayed glued to their TV sets all weekend and never once saw a single picture of what happened, because it was in the Zapruder film only and that came out in LIFE magazine on Monday.”
At the time, Wingo says, the move to pull an already printed product and replace it with a revised one was nothing short of Herculean.
“You gotta remember, the assassination occurred on a Friday,” he says. “The magazine had closed on the Wednesday before that. We were done; it was on trucks being sent out around the country.”
So, the issue featuring Heisman Trophy-winner Roger Staubach was pulled and replaced over the weekend. Short on time, the magazine published the film’s stills in black and white.
“What you see in that issue of LIFE are grainy, black and white frames and you think, ‘Really?’ but that’s it, that’s the record,” Wingo says.
Accidentally, the move created the need for instant information in the pre-Internet age. “It was the first time that had ever happened and from that day forward, the reading public expected that if something big happened, you’d get it in LIFE next Monday.”
He chuckles, “We put enormous pressure on ourselves in the process. It was a tuning point, both for what were doing, and I think, in many ways, for the way that people in the country looked at the events of our time.”
In what now would be considered the definition of an atypical media move, the magazine withheld publishing the infamous frame 313—which shows the exact moment the president’s crown is blown away—out of respect to the family and the American people.
“Can you imagine that happening today? Number one, if anybody got killed in any kind of public setting like that, there’d be 10,000 of these things,” Wingo says, picking up his cell phone. “Frankly, if we’d had those back then, we wouldn’t have as many conspiracy theories as we have today, because there’d be much more evidence. But back then, there was only one record.”
As a matter of perspective, Wingo considers the presidential assassination “more personal” in the American fiber than the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11.
“9/11 was beyond imagination in its horror,” he reflects. “But not personal in the way that losing this one person who so many people admired and attached great hope to.”
FROM ZAPRUDER TO TASKIM SQUARE 7 pm Friday, Nov. 22. Free.
988-7050
LIFE: THE DAY KENNEDY DIED SIGNING 5-7 pm Friday, Nov. 29. Free.
Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar Ave., 992-0800
Related:
Tuesday, November 19, 2013
William Wilson, of the Navajo Nation, is making his own kind of history, by using wet plate collodion process to produce portraits of Native Americans
Via The Albuquerque Journal
William Wilson, of the Navajo Nation, is making his own kind of history, by using an old-style process to produce portraits of Native Americans.
Wilson held a public portrait studio this month on the University of New Mexico campus, using a large-format camera and the historic wet plate collodion process.
“The particular beauty of this old photographic process references a bygone era and the historic images that continue to contribute to society’s collective understanding of Native American people,” according to a news release.
William Wilson develops a tintype as part of his collection of Native American portraits. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Wilson’s work will be on display at the Maxwell Museum at UNM through Jan. 31
These are some of the images created by photographer William Wilson. His work will be on display through Jan. 31 at the Maxwell Museum on the UNM campus. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)
Sunday, November 17, 2013
“I had no idea what else was available, but I knew Life had to have it.”
Photo exhibit
• Exhibit opening of Life Photographers featuring a special selection of photographs of John F. Kennedy
• Exhibit opening of Life Photographers featuring a special selection of photographs of John F. Kennedy
• 5-7 p.m. Nov. 29 Includes book signing with Richard Stolley
©Time Inc.
Related:
Former 'LIFE' magazine photographer Bob Gomel is sharing his memories of the president and the day he was laid to rest
Former senior editor of LIFE magazine, Hal Wingo remembers the afternoon of Nov. 22, 1963 vividly
The Hartford Courant: JFK Assassination: The Zapruder Film, Life Magazine And A Gentleman's Deal
LIFE photographer Bob Gomel Got Closer Than He Wanted to JFK Funeral
'Life' photographer calls JFK his most charismatic subject
'Life' photographer calls JFK his most charismatic subject
Saturday, November 16, 2013
Bob Gomel got closer than he wanted to JFK’s funeral
Bob Gomel Courtesy: Erin Powers / Powers MediaWorks
Via The Houston Chronicle
Posted on November 14, 2013 |
As a Life magazine photographer in the ’60s, Bob Gomel saw some of the most pivotal moments in pop culture history through the lens of his Nikon.
A hallway in his Memorial home is lined with crisp, perfectly matted and framed shots that he snapped of Muhammad Ali, Marilyn Monroe, The Beatles, Richard Nixon, and Dustin Hoffman. Each photo comes with a rich story from Gomel that leaves the listener with a perma-grin.
But it is Gomel’s most celebrated subject, President John F. Kennedy, that has brought him the most notoriety — and the most sadness. Capturing the funeral of a man he had grown personally close to was not in his plan.
This fall he’s been a busy man, recounting a week of his life 50 years ago, a week that he wishes he wouldn’t have played such a small, but every important role in.
Gomel was on a team of Life photographers tasked with capturing every step of Kennedy’s funeral in November 1963. Gomel was all of 30 years old, thrust into an American nightmare, and assigned to document it all for folks at home. The somber proceedings threw a dark shroud over the country, but Gomel had to keep snapping photos. The fact that the slain president actually knew his name after years of Life coverage made the situation all the more harder for Gomel, who had been orbiting around Kennedy since before he was even elected president.
There was an afternoon late in 1960 when then President-elect Kennedy, Gomel, and another photog spent a few rather normal hours together that he’ll always remember with great pride.
“Kennedy was working and living in a brownstone in Georgetown picking out his cabinet for his first term,” says Gomel, who was waiting to capture the first shots of newly appointed cabinet members. It was slow going some days. Men in suits would come in and out, with little or no word to the press.
“There was just two of us left outside on a cold, dreary Saturday afternoon, so Kennedy invited us inside to watch the Army-Navy football game,” he says. That other man was noted Washington news photog James Atherton, no slouch in his own right. Atherton passed away in 2011.
They went inside and TV trays were brought out. Kennedy, Gomel, Atherton, and some Kennedy staffers ate steak and baked potatoes and watched the game.
“The next thing I remember is Jim waking me up, telling me that Navy won and that I fell asleep on the president,” Gomel says. From then on Kennedy would always have fun with him about it.
Gomel’s photographic journey began at 11 years old, when he delivered groceries on his bicycle for one hot summer in the Bronx, making just enough cash for a Circoflex camera. It cost him $88 — not a small chunk of change in 1944 — but what he wanted more than anything was a camera of his own that didn’t belong to his parents. He wanted to explore the world with a lens, even if it was just the Bronx.
After graduating from New York University, a hitch as a Navy pilot during the tail-end of the Korean War only made him yearn for a life behind the lens even more.
Gomel left Life at the end of 1969 and opened up his own studio in Manhattan. He did commercial work for the likes of Audi, Shell, Pan Am, Volkswagen, and Merrill Lynch before heading to Houston in the late ’70s to to take part in the oil boom.
Now 80 years old, the Manhattan-born, Bronx-raised and proud Houstonian of nearly 40 years hasn’t slowed down a bit, and neither has his trigger finger. When I spoke with him on a sunny afternoon this week, he was giddily telling me about one of his upcoming, month-long photography trips to South India.
“Houston was so exciting at that time, there was so much going on,” he says. “You could work 8 days a week here.”
The hubbub surrounding the 50th anniversary of the assassination of Kennedy means that there are new documentaries, news packages, and online and print stories to resurrect old feelings. Men like Gomel that were on the front lines of history aren’t so cynical about the situation.
“What’s troubling me is the cockamamie work of people trying to capitalize on the anniversary with their assassination theories,” says Gomel. “I have to concur with a preponderance of analysts that Oswald acted alone.”
He was in New York when he found out about the assassination in Dallas. He showed up to work at the Life offices to find that everyone who was on staff was ordered to leave immediately for Washington.
“There was no time to even pack a toothbrush,” he says.
He got into Washington, D.C., on the morning of Nov. 23, just in time to arrive at the White House to see the president’s body being brought back home. From then on, Gomel was shooting everything in front of him.
The mood that week still makes him shudder. The stun in everyone’s eyes, the disbelief and shock was surreal.
“We hadn’t experienced anything like that in our lifetime; it was a series of shocks. It was more than we could comprehend at one time,” he says.
Couriers picked up film every hour to fly it back to New York to get it developed. Sleep was a rarity.
Gomel’s shot of Kennedy’s casket lying in state in the U.S. Capitol rotunda as thousands upon thousands filed in to pay their respects is haunting in its simplicity and scope. The blue hue came from some intervention from the man upstairs, he says. He had been down on the main floor but decided to explore the potential of the balcony above. He found a door that had access and he went up there.
“It was just the right time of day to capture a little bit of light coming through.”
He would shoot from nearly the same vantage point for President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s funeral in March 1969, but from much higher in the rotunda.
The graveside services for Kennedy at Arlington National Cemetery on Nov. 25 featured dozens of heads of state from around the world. There was Charles de Gaulle, Haile Selassie I, Chancellor Ludwig Wilhelm Erhard, and Gomel, somehow right in the mix. He wasn’t exactly supposed to be that close to the world’s leaders.
“I learned only recently at a Life magazine reunion that we didn’t even have credentials for Arlington National Cemetery,” he laughs.
The Life staff had rented a limousine for the funeral and were accidentally put into the official motorcade with all the heads of state.
“I had a front row seat,” Gomel says. His photo, with de Gaulle solemnly saluting the casket of Kennedy and the others looking on in reverence, shows just how packed Kennedy’s service was. He estimates there are 60-plus dignitaries in the photo. Somewhere there is a list of everyone shown.
Getting the best shots sometimes had to come by hook or by crook, on boss’s orders.
“We had to find a way to get pictures. We had an admonition from our editor to not come back with just excuses,” he says.
During the viewing and funeral, Gomel found himself putting aside his personal relationship with Kennedy for work. He was 100 percent concerned with reporting it and capturing all the details with his camera.
“I had to disconnect from my association with the president and the fact he knew my name,” he says.
Gomel was in Houston with the president when he made his famous Moon Race speech at Rice University in September 1962. You can spy the photog in the background of a picture of Kennedy here in town, too.
“We choose to go to the moon,” Kennedy said that day. “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”
“I can remember it clearly today,” said Gomel. “He has his fist clenched on the podium, and his delivery was so dynamic. He made all of us believe this was possible and achievable.”
Gomel captured a candid shot of Kennedy climbing out of a space capsule at NASA, which he’s extremely proud of. It’s in his home gallery, and one of the first photos you see when you come into his house. It’s symbolic of the country finally making it to the moon, just as Kennedy wanted.
After the 50th anniversary specials and tributes die down after Nov. 22, Gomel will continue to reflect on what he was a part of all those years ago.
“I wish I didn’t have to have that experience. I have gotten a small degree of fame from it, but I wish it came from another source.”
Bob Gomel's photographs are featured in the forthcoming exhibition "The Life Photographers", November 29 - January 24, 2014, Monroe Gallery of Photography (Santa Fe). During the opening reception on Nov. 29, Richard B. Stolley will be signing copies of the new LIFE book "The Day Kennedy Died, 5 - 7 PM.