Not the Image I’m usually drawn to…

We would like to share what we found to be a very thoughtful post by Heidi Straube on an aresting image in the current Carl Mydans exhibition.

Not the Image I’m usually drawn to…

October 30, 2010 by heidistraubephotographer


Yesterday I went to the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico. They’re showing a collection of work by Carl Mydans, a photojournalist who worked for the Farm Security Administration in the 1930s, and for Life Magazine during World War II and beyond. The images are all striking….(see some of them here on the Monroe Gallery website.)


The image I was most drawn to is not found on the Monroe Gallery website…I wish it were, because it’s powerful and I’d love for you to see it.

Carl Mydans: A French woman accused of sleeping with Germans during the occupation is shaved by vindictive neighbors in a village near Marseilles, August, 1944

It’s a picture from World War II time period. Taken in France, a woman is sitting in a chair having her hair shaved off by another woman, with other women and a man looking on, the women laughing meanly. Apparently they suspect the woman in the chair to be a German spy, and this is their way of handling it.

It’s not the kind of picture that I’m usually drawn to…but what caught my attention in this image was the man in the picture and his expression. He is looking over at the photographer, and the expression on his face is…guilty? embarrassed? He’s been caught between the enjoyment that can be felt when you’re part of a group, belonging…and knowing that this isn’t really a good thing to do. And you see the connection between him and the photographer as he sees himself in the middle of this.

This is the beauty of Carl Mydan’s work and that of other photographers that I admire. A picture that would be powerful because of its subject matter (although not necessarily unusual, as many events like this have been documented in images), has one more element in it that reflects the complexity of human emotions and actions, the reflection of all of us in life, elevating it to that aspect of fine art that I look for, connect with, and aspire to myself.

In this image, Carl Mydans reminds us that things are not always clean and simple. I see in it a reflection of the challenges we meet often in our lives, of having to makes choices that may be confusing to us and require us to dig deeply to make sure that we’re acting in alignment with our values.

Perhaps the man in the image was only feeling badly for that one instant in time when the picture was shot…and then went right back to the jeering. Even so, Carl Mydans captured an instant of emotional recognition, and it is masterful.

By the way, Carl Mydans died in 2004, and there are only two prints made by him of this image known to exist at this time. All prints in this collection were printed and signed by Mydans. My understanding is that his estate does not appear to be interested in actively continuing to print his work; the negatives are now in selected institutions.

©Heidi Straube

The Inner Path of Photography

The exhibition, Carl Mydans: The Early Years", continues through November 21.

ELECTION DAY 2010

Steve Schapiro: "Vote", Selma March, 1965

gelatin silver print

HAPPY HALLOWEEN

George Silk: Children in Halloween costumes running together, Westport, CT, 1960

George Silk: Halloween, Westport, CT, 1960

George Silk became interested in the aesthetic possibilities of the distortions produced in race-finish cameras when he covered the 1959 Kentucky Derby. Photo-timers had been in use since 1951 for athletics, and at the Olympics in 1952 and 1956. Photographs made in these cameras stretched or foreshortened the figures leaving only a tiny vertical slit of the film in focus at the exact finish line. Silk had a portable version made, using a phonograph motor to drive the film past the slit which replaced a conventional shutter. The image produced by the slit conveyed the intensely private moment of the athlete straining in his endeavour to win. The slit camera pictures were quite abstract — Silk said: 'I was thrilled when the prints showed strength, speed, design — originality.' For the tryouts story in Life, 18 July 1960, Managing Editor, Edward K. Thompson ran the slit-camera images as large illustrations alongside straight shots of the winners.

Silk had first tried out his slit camera by photographing his children and their friends dressed in Halloween costumes. A sequence of these colour images appeared as 'Spectacle of Spooks to be wary of on Halloween' in the October 31, 1960 issue of Life.

George Silk  was lovably cantankerous, a larger than life character who would break into `Waltzing Matilda’ at the slightest excuse,” said Bobbi Baker Burrows, a senior Life photo editor, in his 2004 obituary.


In December, 1972, he was in Nepal, shooting an assignment on Himalayan game parks when he received news that the magazine had folded.


According to the 1977 book “That Was the Life,” Silk replied by saying “your message ... badly garbled. Please send one-half million dollars additional expenses.”

HAPPY WORLD SERIES

The World series starts tonight, and over the decades the baseball championship has produced many memorable and iconic sports photographs.

Nat Fein: The Babe Bows Out

I Like to Watch, the Blog of Writer and Editor David Schonauer, has a terrific post about how some of those photographs are made, and how one in particular was "lost" for years.

"Tonight is the opening game of the 2010 World Series, and in honor of that I thought we would take a look at what many people consider to be the greatest baseball picture ever taken, Nat Fein's photo of Babe Ruth biding farewell to fans at Yankee Stadium. the house that he built." Read the full post here.

Ralph Morse: Babe Ruth's Farewell

Related: 50 years Ago Jackie Robinson Steals Home

2010 ANNUAL LUCIE AWARDS

The Lucie Awards is the annual gala ceremony honoring the greatest achievements in photography, and this year the award take place in New York on October 27.  The photography community from countries around the globe will pay tribute to the most outstanding photography achievements presented at the Gala Awards ceremony. Each year, the Advisory Board nominates deserving individuals across a variety of categories who will be honored during the Lucie Awards ceremony. Once the nominations have been received, the votes are tallied and an honoree in each category is identified. The honorees are pre-announced months before the Lucie Awards. See the honorees here.

This year, the Eddie Adams Workshop will receive the Visionary Award.


The following awards are given during the Lucie Awards:

Lifetime Achievement (an individual who has dedicated his/her entire life to the photographic craft).

Humanitarian (an individual whose works in the photographic field has advanced the well-being of humanity, and/or provided substantial awareness and assistance to causes and communities).

Visionary (an individual who has made a unique contribution to photography and the preservation of the art form either through education or the creation of a viable photography-related platform or institution).

Spotlight (an individual, organization or corporation whose endeavors have significantly changed the landscape of photography).

Outstanding Achievement Awards are given to individuals who have made a significant contribution in the following areas:

Advertising

Documentary

Fashion

Fine Art

Photojournalism

Portraiture

Sports

Support Category Awards are also given to individuals and organizations who are an integral part of crafting an image. These nominees are submitted by members and voted on by the Photography Advisory Board. The six awards are:
Print Advertising Campaign of the Year - Awarded to Advertising Agencies
Fashion Layout of the Year - Awarded to Magazine Publishers
Curator/Exhibition of the Year - Awarded to Curators
Book Publisher of the Year - Awarded to Book Publishers
Picture Editor of the Year - Awarded to Picture Editors
Photography Magazine of the Year - Awarded to Magazine Publishers

19 Lucie Awards are given out during the ceremony. The Visionary Award and Humanitarian Award are given out every other year.

INTERNATIONAL PHOTOGRAPHY AWARDS COMPETITION WINNERS

The top three winners of the IPA competition are announced during the Lucie Awards. Those top three awards are:

International Photographer of the Year awarded to a professional photographer.

Discovery of the Year awarded to a non-professional, amateur or student photographer.

Deeper Perspective Photographer of the Year awarded to either a professional or non-professional photographer. This award is given to the photographer whose story behind the images are as compelling as the images themselves.
For more information about IPA, please click here.


Monroe Gallery of Photography is proud to attend this year's ceremonies and congratulates all of the 2010 Lucie Awards nominees and winners.

Related: Eddie Adams photographs at Monroe Gallery.

CARL MYDANS: KOREA

Carl Mydans: Korean mother carries her baby and worldly goods while fleeing fighting, Seoul, Korea, 1951



In 1947, Carl Mydans and his reporter-wife Shelly became Time-Life's bureau chiefs in Tokyo, and they remained in the Pacific area for the next several years. Carl Mydans was present during a 1948 earthquake in Fukui, Japan, and also covered conflicts leading up to the Korean War, and the war itself in 1950 and 1951.

We came across an excellent article by Brian in Jeollanam-do describing the recent anniversary of the Yŏsu Rebellion.

"Tuesday, October 19th, marked the anniversary of the "Yŏsu Rebellion," written in English also as the "Yŏsu-Sunchŏn Incident" or the "Yŏsu-Sunchŏn Rebellion," one of several bloody exchanges in Jeollanam-do last century, and one whose background serves to foreshadow the violence of the Korean War two years later. The 여순반란사건 was a crackdown against suspected communists in South Jeolla province, specifically the cities written now as Yeosu and Suncheon, that resulted in hundreds or thousands of deaths, depending on the source.

Here's an excerpt from a 1948 report by Carl Mydans---the man who took some of those photographs for Life---that appeared in Time magazine:

"When darkness came, Communist execution squads went from house to house, shooting "rightists" in their beds or marching them to collection points where they were mowed down. In 2-3-days, 500 civilians were slaughtered. U.S. Lieuts. Stewart M. Greenbaum and Gordon Mohr, Army observers in Sunchon, narrowly escaped death. The rebel sergeant assigned to kill them was an old friend, who had drunk beer with them in their billet many times. He took the two officers into a field, fired into the ground and then led them to the Presbyterian Mission of Dr. John Curtis Crane, who was barricaded in with his wife and four other missionaries.

From one of the doctor's shirts and a few colored rags the ladies made a 16-star, eleven-stripe U.S. flag and put it up. The rebels began pounding at the compound gate, yelling: "Let's kill the Americans!" Suddenly one shouted: "No, no, not them; they are my friends." It was the lieutenants' friend, the sergeant. The rebels went away.

For the first few hours the loyal troops who retook Sunchon were as savage as the Communists had been. On the big compound of the Sunchon Agricultural and Forestry School we found what was left of the entire population of Sunchon. Women with babies on their backs watched without expression as their husbands and sons were beaten with clubs, rifle butts and steel helmets. They saw 22 of them marched away to the primary school nearby, and heard the volley of rifles which killed them.'"

Read the full Blog here.

Carl Mydans: Exhausted Marine catching a nap while sitting on a cart full of ammunition, Korea, 1951

American corpsman carrying a wounded GI from Jeep to a medical station, Kwan-Ni, Korea, 1950

Related: Carl Mydans: The Early Years Oct. 1 - Nov. 21
 
Previously posted: October 20 is the anniversary of the day General Douglas MacArthur set foot in The Philippines
 
Remembering Carl Mydans

THE ALBUQUERQUE JOURNAL: REMEMBERING LENNON

By Kate Mcgraw


(C)The Albuquerque Journal
Friday, October 22, 2010


Remembering Lennon
Hamill’s works with the iconic star are shown at Monroe Gallery

Brian Hamill: John Lennon, The Dakota, New York, 1975

John Lennon would have been 70 years old on Oct. 9. For those whose college days came alive to the Beatles' music, that's an almost unbelievable statistic. One advantage of dying young — Lennon was only 40 when he was murdered on Dec. 8, 1980 — is that the victim remains forever young in memory.

Brian Hamill, for instance, is a longtime celebrity photographer who's aging, like the rest of us, but who has indelible memories of the three intimate sessions he had with Lennon in the '70s. Fortunately, his memories are on film. Many of the photographs from those sessions are being shown in an exhibit opening today at Monroe Gallery of Photography on Don Gaspar.

Brian Hamill: John Lennon, The Dakota, 1975

Hamill has written movingly abut his memories of Lennon in a blog on the Monroe website.

"... I will always remember John Lennon as a quick-witted, vulnerable, stand-up, soft-spoken but unafraid guy," Hamill wrote. "In my short time hanging with him, he spoke only the truth. I only spent time with him twice. I photographed him three times. They were all as memorable in my brain and in my heart as the awful day when he got murdered by a two-bit swine. On Dec. 8, 1980, I was sitting in a rocking chair of my living room at my country house in Rhinecliff, N.Y., holding my 3-week-old infant daughter Cara in my arms. Just the two of us were there, listening to music together on the radio, me with the goofy faces and smiles and the baby talk, when suddenly the music was interrupted by a bulletin stating that John Lennon had been murdered. Projectile tears instantly shot out of my eyes onto my beautiful daughter. I had never cried like that. They were such immediate, forceful tears. I will never forget the combination, a one-two punch on the chin, of celebrating the wonderful joy of fatherhood one moment that was completely shattered in a split-second moment by that painful, horrible news bulletin. John Lennon, dead!? Nooooooooooo!... for my generation, for many generations, he was a major musical force and a phenomenal creative icon of the 20th century who influenced the world. No doubt about that. Everybody knows."

Brian Hamill: John Lennon, Madison Square Garden, New York, 1972

Brian Hamill has moved among the famous for most of his career, and this exhibit shows that, according to Sid Monroe, gallery director. Monroe Gallery specializes in classic black and white photography with an emphasis on humanist and photojournalist imagery. The gallery features work by more than 50 renowned photographers and also represents a select group of contemporary and emerging photographers.

Hamill was born in Brooklyn, NY and studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In the late 1960s, he began a career as a photojournalist covering the rock 'n' roll scene as well as the boxing world. He also worked as an assistant to several top fashion photographers. In the early 1970s he traveled to Northern Ireland to photograph the troubles there, and widened his scope into unit still photographer jobs on movie sets. Since then, he has worked as a unit still photographer on more than 75 movies, including 26 Woody Allen films, resulting in a coffee table photo book titled "Woody Allen At Work: The Photographs of Brian Hamill" (Harry N. Abrams, 1995).

The redoubtable director is in fact quoted marveling at Hamill's ubiquitousness: "His currency is knowledge, information, connections, street smarts. There's not a person he doesn't know or he doesn't have the skinny on or know about, not a restaurant, not a broad — it's really quite astonishing."

Hamill's work also has appeared in other books, publications and exhibitions, including a one-man show at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1995. In 2005 he had solo exhibitions in New York City, Los Angeles and Austin with his images of John Lennon, Muhammad Ali, Mick Jagger, Robert DeNiro from "Raging Bull" and Woody Allen from "Manhattan." In addition to his movie work, Hamill has an extensive file of photographs that includes the "Troubles In Northern Ireland — 1972," rock 'n' roll, boxing, travel photographs from around the world, and a collection of nudes from the 1970s to the present that he plans to include in a forthcoming book.

He still mourns the gentle music man he met in those Lennon sessions not long before the singer-songwriter's tragic death. "John Lennon never got to fully mature as a man," Hamill writes. "The dude was only 40 years old! He never really got to bring his full genius to all of us, although he certainly brought us some real genius. He never got to share more of that fun and laughter and wackiness with Yoko that we all were lucky enough to glimpse in a small way, and you certainly know a lot more of that was on their horizon. He never got to spend a lot of quality time with his nice sons. Yet he gave us all so much. Those John Lennon tears of mine will never fully dry. He will be missed forever."

Brian Hamill: John Lennon, The Dakota, New York, 1975

Opening Reception and Special Film Festival Exhibit For Brian Hamill
Friday, Oct. 22  5 - 7 PM
Exhibit continues through Nov. 21.


Related: LENNONYC at The Santa Fe Film Festival Saturday, Oct. 23. Ticket info here.
Brian Hamill will introduce the film and take part in a panel discussion afterwards.

MONROE GALLERY OF PHOTOGRAPHY
112 Don Gaspar
Santa Fe, NM 87501
505.992.0800
505.992.0810 (fax)
info@monroegallery.com
http://www.monroegallery.com/

SANTA FE FILM FESTIVAL THIS WEEKEND

Fewer titles, but much to love for film fest fans
Santa Fe Film Festival scales back annual event



Robert Nott
The New Mexican
October 21, 2010

Film buffs will have their pick of movie fests this week as the Santa Fe Film Festival kicks off its 11th (some say 12th) year Friday while the relative newcomer, Santa Fe Independent Film Festival (which started Tuesday evening), continues its second year through the weekend.


Both fests promise film screenings, informal panel discussions and social events, but in terms of quantity, the Independent Film Festival is offering some 60 titles this year — mostly indie titles. The Santa Fe Film Festival, by contrast, has contracted its schedule considerably, cutting back from the usual 100 to 200 titles to eight feature films, 15 short movies, four panel talks and one party.

Yet organizers of both fests say the buzz is high and ticket sales are brisk. Michael Hare, co-artistic director of the Santa Fe Film Festival, said Wednesday that seven of the festival's eight major titles are selling very well and may be sold out by Friday.

Those films, which include The Four Times (Le Quattro Volte), an Italian spiritual fable that was just selected for the Directors' Fortnight showcase at the Cannes Film Festival, and French film director Bertrand Tavernier's The Princess of Montpensier, are all playing at the Center for Contemporary Arts Cinematheque on Old Pecos Trail, which only seats about 140 patrons.

The eighth big title, the 1970 Mike Nichols' film Catch-22, runs at the much larger Lensic Performing Arts Center on San Francisco Street on Sunday afternoon. That screening will be followed by a discussion with Catch-22 actors Richard Benjamin and Paula Prentiss (and maybe star Alan Arkin, a Santa Fean who is currently filming a movie on the East Coast).

Hare acknowledged this year's festival is smaller as the organization attempts to rein in the spending and refocus its mission.

"We are just reducing the scale," he said. "There are smaller, more intimate and relaxing festivals around the country, and we want to be at that end of the spectrum." He and co-artistic director Rose Kuo are laying out a three-year plan for the festival, which was founded in the late 1990s by film buffs Jon Bowman, David Koh, Michelle Kiley and others. (Accounts differ as to whether it was officially founded in 1999 or 2000.)

Meanwhile, the upstart Santa Fe Independent Film Festival is trying to make a name for itself as "the premiere exhibition platform for independent film here," according to David Moore, who co-directs the event with Jacques Paisner.

On Tuesday, 120 people attended a free screening of Salt of the Earth (the 1954 labor drama shot in New Mexico), Moore said. "To get that many people in one room on a Tuesday night I consider quite an accomplishment. I'm surprised at how people responded and applauded at the end; if that's a harbinger of things to come, we're very pleased," he said.

The Independent Film Festival's screening venue is Warehouse 21 on Paseo de Peralta, though it hosts informal coffee chats about the film business at the Aztec Cafe on Aztec Street.

Hare said he thinks the two events will complement one another. "I'm kind of a 'the more the merrier' guy," he said. "We know we are creating a relatively small footprint, so we encourage people to do their own thing and make it a good weekend."

Moore and Paisner have said they think it's a smart idea to hold their festival at the same time as the more mainstream Santa Fe Film Festival — as they did last year when both fests took place in December.

Both festivals are expecting participation from filmmakers who have products playing here; Hare said each of the feature films in the Santa Fe Film Festival will be followed by a question-and-answer session with either film artists associated with the movie or film historians and critics familiar with the work.

He said this is a year for the changing festival to "test-pilot some ideas. We want to make sure we do it well.

"Hopefully people will be patient, and next year it will be a little bit bigger — we may have 16 titles next year and by year three get into the low 20s."

Moore said he wants the Independent Film Festival to be "the best fest that it can be to bring independent film to people."

Visit http://www.santafefilmfestival.com/ and/or http://www.santafeindependentfilmfestival.com/ for a schedule of events and details on both festivals.



Contact Robert Nott at 986-3021 or rnott@sfnewmexican.com.
Copyright The Santa Fe New Mexican

Related: Secial Film Festival Exhibition for Brian Hamill

On October 20, 1947, the House Un-American Activities Committee opened hearings into alleged Communist influence and infiltration in the U.S. motion picture industry.



Martha Holmes: Actors standing (L-R) Danny Kaye, June Havoc and Humphrey Bogart, with his wife actress Lauren Bacall sitting beside him, listening intently amid seated crowd at House Un-American Activities Commission Hearings on communists in the film industry. Washington, DC, US, October 31, 1947
Gelatin silver print

SPECIAL FILM FESTIVAL EXHIBIT FOR BRIAN HAMILL

Brian Hamill: Diane Keaton and Woody Allen, 59th Street Bridge, New York, 1978, "Manhattan"

Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to welcome Brian Hamill for a very special exhibit in conjunction with the Santa Fe Film Festival, which takes place October 22 - 24. There will be a public reception with Brian Hamill on Friday, October 22, 5-7 PM at Monroe Gallery of Photography.

On exhibit will be a selection of Hamill's photographs from the sets of  movies, including Raging Bull, Annie Hall, and Manhattan. Additionally, an exclusive series of intimate photographs of John Lennon will be on exhibit, coinciding with the anniversary of what would have been John Lennon's 70th birthday and the screening of LENNONNYC at the Santa Fe Film Festival October 23. (Brian Hamill will introduce the film.)

Brian Hamill: Robert DiNiro,"Raging Bull", 1979

Additionally, Monroe Gallery has curated an exclusive exhibit of photographs from the sets of classic movies for the festival venue, Center for Contemporary Arts.

Steve Shapiro: Homage, The Godfather

Brian Hamill was born in Brooklyn, NY and studied photography at the Rochester Institute of Technology. In the late 1960s, Hamill began a career as a photojournalist covering the Rock & Roll scene as well as the boxing world. He also worked as an assistant to several top fashion photographers. In the early 1970s he traveled to Northern Ireland to photograph the troubles there, and widened his scope into unit still photographer jobs on movie sets. Since then he has worked as a unit still photographer on over seventy-five movies including twenty-six Woody Allen films, resulting in the much acclaimed coffee table photo book entitled “Woody Allen At Work: The Photographs of Brian Hamill". Hamill’s work has also appeared in numerous other books, publications and exhibitions including a one-man show at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in 1995.

Steve Schapiro: Robert DiNiro, Taxi Driver, 1975 (Enlarged Contact Sheet)

More about the Santa Fe Film Festival here.