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

Boston.com: Top Big Pictures in 2013

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

Vanity Fair’s Year in Photographs, 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

Here is the final edit of everyone's photography "Best of" lists for 2012

“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, 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 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." --John Dominis

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

To Do in Santa Fe: Renaissance to Goya: prints and drawings from Spain

Francisco de Zurbarán (1598–1664), Head of a Monk. Black chalk and grey wash, c. 1635–1655. Courtesy the British Museum


 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

 

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.

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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

For information on Mark Shaw's photography prints, please contact the gallery.

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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.

505.982.1338 CONTACT@CCASANTAFE.ORG This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
1050 Old Pecos Trail Santa Fe

Happy Birthday, Alfred Eisenstaedt

In a photograph taken by LIFE colleague Bill Shrout, Alfred Eisenstaedt kisses an unidentified woman reporter in Times Square on VJ Day, August 14, 1945 — a powerful visual echo (in retrospect) of the now-iconic, era-defining "sailor kissing a nurse" picture that Eisenstaedt himself shot that very same day via vintageeveryday


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

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

 

Via photo la

 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.

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.

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

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.

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Day in the LIFE

Wingo calls the period surrounding Kennedy’s assassination a national “state of shock.” - Enrique Limón


Fifty years after JFK’s assassination, Hal Wingo looks back
By Enrique Limón
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 47^th to 50^th 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 21^st 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.

The Lensic, 211 W San Francisco St.,

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:

  “I had no idea what else was available, but I knew Life had to have it.”

   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

    Save the date: November 29 - Book signing with Richard B. Stolley "The Day Kennedy Died"

 ©Bob Gomel: Horse Drawn Caisson Bearing John F. Kennedy's Casket, 1963

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

Second-year UNM law student Michelle Cook has her photo taken by artist William Wilson. (Roberto E. Rosales/Albuquerque Journal)


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)

“I had no idea what else was available, but I knew Life had to have it.”

Richard Stolley poses with a copy of The Day Kennedy Died: 50 Years Later LIFE Remembers the Man and the Moment in his Santa Fe home Nov. 6. Stolley was the reporter who obtained the Zapruder film for Life magazine. Luis Sánchez Saturno/The New Mexican

 

"Stolley was the first reporter to make contact with Zapruder, late on the night of Kennedy’s assassination. Then, facing fierce competition from other members of the press, he outwitted them all to buy the rights to the film for Life magazine, which published 22 frames from it in an issue that appeared on newsstands just three days after the president’s death.

 

The Santa Fe New Mexican has an extensive article detailing how Richard Stoley secured the rights the the recording of John F. Kennedy's assassination.

 

 Photo exhibit

• Exhibit opening of Life Photographers featuring a special selection of photographs of John F. Kennedy

 •Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar Ave.

• 5-7 p.m. Nov. 29 Includes book signing with Richard Stolley

Carl Mydans  On the 6:25 from Grand Central to Stamford, CT, November 22, 1963

 ©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
 

    Save the date: November 29 - Book signing with Richard B. Stolley "The Day Kennedy Died"

 

 

 

 

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 | By Craig Hlavaty


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.

Prepare For Beatlemania

Via The New York Times


The 50th anniversary of the Beatles’ first visit to the United States is shaping up to be nearly as noisy as the original event, but without crowds of screaming fans congregating at Kennedy Airport and the Plaza Hotel and, of course, without the Beatles themselves. CBS announced on Thursday that it would show a two-hour special, “The Night That Changed America: A Grammy Salute to the Beatles,” on Feb. 9 at 8 p.m. – the same date and time slot (and on the same network) as “The Ed Sullivan Show,” on which the Beatles made their live American television debut. The show will include covers of Beatles songs by current stars (none of which have been announced) in performances to be taped Jan. 27.


Two days later, on Feb. 11 – the anniversary of the Beatles’ first American concert, at the Washington Coliseum – a tribute band, Beatlemania Now, will re-enact that concert at the Coliseum (also called the Uline Arena) as a benefit for the DC Preservation League.



Related: Bill Eppridge's photographs of the Beatles.

STEPHEN WILKES - DAY TO NIGHT

 

 

Photograph by Hance Partners/Image Craft ©All Rights Reserved

Stephen Wilkes' acclaimed Day To Night series is featured on today's TIME LightBox, see it here.

The TIME magazine print edition features an 8 page photo essay, and the issue will be on stands tomorrow, Friday dated November 25, 2013.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related: Stephen Wilkes Day To Night featured on CBS Sunday Morning

 

Save the date: November 29 - Book signing with Richard B. Stolley "The Day Kennedy Died"

Kennedy’s Assassination: How LIFE Brought the Zapruder Film to Light

Via Life.com

50 years after JFK’s assassination, LIFE.com presents the story of how an editor named Richard Stolley flew straight to Dallas from Los Angeles within hours of the assassination; how he tracked down Zapruder; how he purchased the film for LIFE magazine — and what all of that ultimately came to mean for LIFE, for Zapruder, for Stolley himself and for the nation, then and now.

Having flown from L.A. that afternoon, Stolley was in his hotel in Dallas just hours after the president was shot, “when I got a phone call from a LIFE freelancer in Dallas named Patsy Swank,” Stolley remembers, “and the news she had was absolutely electrifying.  She said that a businessman had taken an eight-millimeter camera out to Dealey Plaza and photographed the assassination. I said, ‘What’s his name?’ She said, ‘[The reporter who told her the news] didn’t spell it out, but I’ll tell you how he pronounced it.  It was Zapruder.’

“I picked up the Dallas phone book and literally ran my finger down the Z’s, and it jumped out at me — the name spelled exactly the way Patsy had pronounced it. Zapruder, comma, Abraham

Richard Stolley will be signing copies of the new book "LIFE: The Day Kenedy Died" during the opening reception for "The LIFE Photographers" exhibition on November 29,  5 - 7 PM, at Monroe Gallery of Photography. The exhibition continues through January 24, 2014.

Jeremy Scahill with Tom Engelhardt

Via The Lannan Foundation

Jeremy Scahill’s new book and film Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield, is an investigation into the U.S. government’s covert wars which he suggests are drawing the nation deeper into conflict across the globe, setting the world stage for destabilization and blowback. The October 30, 2012 talk was followed by a conversation with Tom Engelhardt.

This event was part of the Lannan In Pursuit of Cultural Freedom series.

Click here for audio and video.

Audio player only.