JANUARY 1, 1892: ELLIS ISLAND OPENS

Stephen Wilkes: Curved Corridor, Isolation Ward, Island 3, Ellis Island

From 1892 to 1954, over twelve million immigrants entered the United States through the portal of Ellis Island, a small island in New York Harbor. Ellis Island is located in the upper bay just off the New Jersey coast, within the shadow of the Statue of Liberty. Through the years, this gateway to the new world was enlarged from its original 3.3 acres to 27.5 acres mostly by landfill obtained from ship ballast and possibly excess earth from the construction of the New York City subway system.

 

Stephen Wilkes: TB Ward, Statue of Liberty, Island 3, Ellis Island

Prior to 1890, the individual states (rather than the Federal government) regulated immigration into the United States. Castle Garden in the Battery (originally known as Castle Clinton) served as the New York State immigration station from 1855 to 1890 and approximately eight million immigrants, mostly from Northern and Western Europe, passed through its doors.

 

Stephen Wilkes: Woman's Ward, Island 2, Ellis Island

It soon became apparent that Castle Garden was ill-equipped and unprepared to handle the growing numbers of immigrants arriving yearly. Unfortunately compounding the problems of the small facility were the corruption and incompetence found to be commonplace at Castle Garden.

The Federal government intervened and constructed a new Federally-operated immigration station on Ellis Island. While the new immigration station on Ellis Island was under construction, the Barge Office at the Battery was used for the processing of immigrants. The new structure on Ellis Island, built of "Georgia pine" opened on January 1, 1892; Annie Moore, a 15 year-old Irish girl, accompanied by her two brothers entered history and a new country as she was the very first immigrant to be processed at Ellis Island on January 2. Over the next 62 years, more than 12 million were to follow through this port of entry.

Source: ellisisland.org

View Stephen Wilkes' full Ellis Island collection here.

Related: American Express Gives $100,000 to Help Ellis Island Group




Ellis Island: "Ghosts of Freedom" is a collection of large format color cibachrome photographs of the abandoned buildings on the southern side of Ellis Island. Photographed over five years (1998 - 2003), "Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom" is visual history of the benign neglect of the medical facilities and dormitories of the historic immigration center, which at that time, unlike the Great Hall, had not yet been restored. Wilkes' photographs capture the haunting beauty of this century old building. "Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom" is a rich visual tapestry evoking the ghosts of the millions of immigrants who passed through these halls on their first stop in America.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Harry Benson: Berlin Kiss, Berlin, 1996



WISHING YOU ALL THE BEST IN 2011!

Alfred Eisenstaedt: Molyneux Model, 1934

To all of our dear clients, friends, followers, and fellow Photography enthusiasts, we wish you All the Very Best in 2011.

Slim Aarons: Clark Gable, Van Heflin, Gary Cooper, and James Stewart  enjoy a joke at a New Year's party held at Romanoff's in Beverly Hills, 1957

Follow the official countdown to 2011 here.

"NO FIREARMS ALLOWED"

Via Joe McNally's Blog:

The show at the Monroe Gallery I mentioned a couple weeks ago went well. You can always tell you’re having an exhibit in New Mexico when you see one of these:



Sorta makes you wish anybody who shows up really likes your work, ya know? More tk…." --Joe McNally



Related: Holiday Book Signing and Exhibit With Joe McNally

BEST OF 2010

Andreas Feininger: The Photojournalist, 1955

The web is full of year-end "Best Of" lists to commemorate the close of 2010, and pictures are a popular theme. Here is a selection of "The Best Photographs of 2010":

The Big Picture

The Top 20 Photos of 2010 (NY Daily News)

The Best Photographs From TIME 2010

SPIN'S Best Photographs of 2010

Yahoo's Iconic Images From 2010

Pictures Of The Year (Reuters)

Best Bloomberg Photographs of 2010: Images From Around World

2010: The Year in Pictures (New York Times)

2010 National Geographic Photography Contest

The world's best underwater photographs 2010 (The Guardian)

2010 Pictures Of The Year (Life.com)

MERRY CHRISTMAS 2010

PEACE



Eddie Adams: Shepard, Bethlehem, 1970

SANTA CLAUS COMES TONIGHT!

Bill Ray: Three Santa Clauses leaving Downtown IRT Subway, New York, 1958

Martha Holmes: Brother and sister on the phone talking to Santa Claus, New York, 1947

Martha Holmes: Dean of Santas giving a lecture at the Waldorf Astoria Santa Convention, New York, 1948

Steve Schapiro: Chicago, December, 2009


Follow Santa's journey tonight here, courtesy of Norad .


Ready For Christmas?

BEARING WITNESS

Wounded by a land mine, Joao Silva, a New York Times photographer, shot three frames before becoming too weak to hold the camera.


The New York Times
 
By Michael Kamber

Published: December 23, 2010

TWENTY-FIVE years ago, Joao Silva was a troubled high school dropout on the streets of Johannesburg. His future looked bleak until the day a friend took him along on a photo shoot. Joao fell in love with the camera.


He was drawn to battle. Within a remarkably short time, his photos of conflict were on the front pages of newspapers around the world. His camera became a prolific instrument, helping the public understand the wars of the last two decades.

His photographs from Iraq — where he was embedded with both the American troops and the insurgents fighting against them — created, in my opinion, an unequaled record of the war: a Marine pulling a bloody comrade through the mud to safety; an Iraqi mother wailing in anguish as her dead son lay nearby; an enraged militia member firing a machine gun from a window ledge at American soldiers; a car bomb victim engulfed in flames.

The danger was extraordinary. As his colleagues were killed and wounded over the years, Joao became the last working member of the fabled Bang-Bang Club to cover conflict. A tight-knit group of South African photographers who covered the township wars near the end of apartheid, they soon branched out into photographing other conflicts. Yet even with two young children, Joao persevered, making trip after trip to Iraq, Afghanistan and other war zones.

“I’ve always somehow managed to walk away unscathed,” Joao said. “I’ve been very, very lucky.”

Joao’s luck held until Oct. 23, when he stepped on a cheap plastic land mine outside Kandahar, Afghanistan. The blast ripped his legs off. Shrapnel tore through his abdomen, causing massive internal injuries. He is currently undergoing rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, where he will remain for the foreseeable future.

Talented, humble and generous, Joao was the rock for many photojournalists in the field. It would be no exaggeration to call him probably the best-loved and most respected photographer working today. So his wounding has created a crisis of confidence of sorts for many photojournalists.

Like Joao, I am a contract photographer for The New York Times and have covered conflict over the years. I have taken his place in Afghanistan. In the wake of Joao’s wounding, friends ask me why I keep returning to photograph men inflicting suffering upon one another. I have asked myself and my fellow photojournalists this same question over the years.

I grew up in the 1960s, learning of Vietnam by poring over black-and-white photos in Life magazine and The Portland Press Herald. The classic images of Eddie Adams, Nick Ut and Henri Huet brought home to me the politics and drama of the war, a sense of my country’s history unfolding on the page. Photojournalists gave us a visceral understanding of the link between foreign policy and the violence done to people’s lives.

And photojournalism helped create a culture of visual literacy that was instrumental in the activism of the 1960s. It is a culture that is slowly receding into a storm of visual, aural and written white noise: the weekly wait for Life is replaced by a stream of cellphone photos, blogs and Twitter feeds. And as papers close around America, front-line photojournalism is in decline.

Still, the frustrations of photojournalists today are outweighed by many rewards. We venture into remote corners of the world to watch incredible dramas. We are often the sole objective witnesses. We find that much history would happen in a vacuum, save for our cameras.

“I get a lot of messages from people saying that we show the world what they cannot go see firsthand,” Joao told me last year.

This is the reward and the magic of photojournalism.

I know that Joao Silva’s camera has not finished its work. Once Joao finds balance on his new legs, he will venture again to the corners of the world. He loves photography like few I have known. Photojournalism remains a profession that allows a dedicated, courageous high school dropout from Johannesburg to help record the history of our times.

READY FOR CHRISTMAS?

Mick Rock:  Truman Capote and Andy Warhol 1979

Related: "The Man Who Shot The Seventies"

CHRISTMAS WISHES

Verner Reed: Christmas Reflections, Boston, 1955