...AND THEY'RE OFF!

Neil Leifer: The 1965 Kentucky Derby, with Lucky Debonaire and Bill Shoemaker, Churchill Downs, May 1, 1965.

Neil Leifer: The First Turn,  1965 Kentucky Derby

 

It’s really easy to name the most incredible athlete I’ve ever seen, and I always say it was Muhammad Ali, but when you really sit down to think about it, I’m not so sure that the most incredible performance I’ve ever seen was at an Ali fight. I’ve never photographed Tiger Woods, but watching Tiger on television in 2000 gave you the same feeling as watching Secretariat run away with the Triple Crown races in 1973. This picture was taken at the finish line of the Kentucky Derby. Look closely at it: have you ever seen a more powerful-looking athlete, or should I say a horse? It also clearly shows how convincing Secretariat’s Derby victory was, and this victory wasn’t nearly as convincing as the one he would pull off at the Belmont Stakes five weeks later. The picture is also very different from the traditional under-the-rail finish line shot. I forgot about the famed spires for this picture and isolated Secretariat. It was a gamble, but it worked out beautifully. I had no idea how great Secretariat was, and what a legend he would become. Five weeks later everyone knew. People had always talked about a Triple Crown winner when I was growing up, but it seemed like it would never happen again. Then along came Secretariat, and not only did it happen, but in a style so convincing that it was hard to believe that any single athlete/horse could be so better than his competition.
 -- Neil Leifer

Neil Leifer: Secretariat, The Kentucky Derby, Churchill Downs, Louisville, KY, May 5, 1973

The Kentucky Derby Website

COMPOSING THE ARTIST

Steve Schapiro: Rene Magritte, Museum of Modert Art, New York, 1965

Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce "Composing The Artist", an extensive survey of more than 50 classic photographs portraying iconic personalities from the arts as captured by renowned photographers. The exhibition opens with a reception on Friday, May 6, from 5 to 7 PM. "Composing The Artist" will continue through June 26.


The common definition of an "artist" is one who is able, by virtue of imagination and talent or skill, to create works of aesthetic value, especially in the fine arts. Photographs of artists and writers across the centuries have shaped our sense of what they do. Photographs in the exhibit include images of visual artists and classic writers, at work, in quiet contemplative moments and in portraiture. In these photographs the essential personality of the artist is revealed, and an image of the past becomes visual history. Other pictures also brilliantly match artworks with the personality and appearance of their creators: they are not just at one with their working environment, they are their work.

View the exhibit here.


Related: Guardian Newspaper Series: Photographer Steve Schapiro's Best Shot

THEN, AND NOW: GROUND ZERO

Eric Draper: Ground Zero, New York City, September 14, 2001

May 5, 2011: On a morning so clear, so blue and so sunny that it recalled the morning of September 11, 2011, President Barrack Obama arrived in New York  to lay a wreath at the 9/11 Memorial and meet with families of September 11 victims and, along the way, to meet with firefighters at a Midtown firehouse that lost 15 men on September 11.

Doug Mills/The New York Times

President Obama laid a wreath at ground zero on Thursday, May 5, 2011

Charles Dharapak / AP



Related:

NY Firefighters Gather for News of Bin Laden



Joe McNally - The Faces of Ground Zero

ERNST HAAS: New York: Magic City

Clouds and Skyline, New York, 1957

ERNST HAAS "NEW YORK, MAGIC CITY" IN PARIS

May 6 - June 4, 2011

Details here. (in French)

Gallerie Basai Embiricos

Gallerie Photo 12


Ernst Haas (1921-1986) is considered one of the most important photographers of the second part of the 20th century. Haas attended medical school in Austria, but, in 1947, left to become a staff photographer for the magazine Heute. His photo essay for the magazine on prisoners of war coming home to Vienna won him acclaim and an offer to join Magnum Photos from Robert Capa. Haas and Werner Bischof were the first photographers invited to join Magnum by the founders Capa, David "Chim" Seymour, Henri Cartier-Bresson, George Rodger and Bill Vandivert.

Haas moved to New York City and in 1953 produced a 24-page, color photo essay on the city for Life Magazine. Life then commissioned similar photo spreads on Paris and Venice. In 1962, the Museum of Modern Art mounted a one-man show of Haas' color photos. Haas' first photo book, Elements, was published the next year.

In 1964, film director John Huston hired Haas to direct the creation sequence for Huston's 1964 film, The Bible. Haas continued working on the theme, producing the photo book, The Creation in 1971. Other photography books by Haas included In America in 1975, a tribute to his adopted country for its bicentennial year; Deutschland in 1977; and Himalayan Pilgrimage in 1978. Other films that Haas worked on included The Misfits in 1961, Hello, Dolly! in 1969, Little Big Man in 1970, and Heaven's Gate in 1980. Haas also photographed a number of advertising campaigns for Marlboro cigarettes.

In 1986, Haas received the Hasselblad Award for his photography. He died September 12, 1986. (More here)

The Paris exhibitions are conducted under the direction of Victoria and Alex Haas will include a selection of previously unpublished photographs. It will include vintage prints, contemporary prints and dye transfer prints.

Related - New Book: Colour Correction by Ernst Haas, published by Steidl

The Cross, New York, 1966

50 years later, Freedom Rides still resonate

The first Freedom Ride took place on May 4, 1961 when seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional.


In the first few days, the riders encountered only minor hostility, but in the second week the riders were severely beaten. Outside Anniston, Alabama, one of their buses was burned, and in Birmingham several dozen whites attacked the riders only two blocks from the sheriff's office. With the intervention of the U.S. Justice Department, most of CORE's Freedom Riders were evacuated from Birmingham, Alabama to New Orleans. John Lewis, a former seminary student who would later lead SNCC and become a US congressman, stayed in Birmingham.
 
 

Joseph Postiglione

(Collection of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute)

The aftermath of a mob attack on a Freedom Ride bus in Anniston, Alabama

CORE Leaders decided that letting violence end the trip would send the wrong signal to the country. They reinforced the pair of remaining riders with volunteers, and the trip continued. The group traveled from Birmingham to Montgomery without incident, but on their arrival in Montgomery they were savagely attacked by a mob of more than 1000 whites. The extreme violence and the indifference of local police prompted a national outcry of support for the riders, putting pressure on President Kennedy to end the violence.

The riders continued to Mississippi, where they endured further brutality and jail terms but generated more publicity and inspired dozens more Freedom Rides. By the end of the summer, the protests had spread to train stations and airports across the South, and in November, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules prohibiting segregated transportation facilities.  (via CORE)

More: It’s been 50 years now, but there are times when Charles Person still finds it hard to talk about the summer of 1961 without his voice breaking.

Steve Schapiro: Summer of 1965 Freedom Bus Riders

MAY 4: ANNIVERSARY OF KENT STATE SHOOTING



"On May 4th, 1970, John Filo was a young undergraduate working in the Kent State photo lab. He decided to take a break, and went outside to see students milling in the parking lot. Over the weekend, following the burning of the ROTC building, thousands of students had moved back and forth from the commons area near to the hill in front of Taylor Hall, demonstrating and calling to an end to the war in Vietnam. John decided to get his camera, and see if he could get an interesting picture. He saw one student waving a black flag on the hillside, with the National Guard in the background. He shot the photograph, and feeling that he now had recorded the moment, wandered to the parking lot, where a lot of the students had gathered. Suddenly, G company of the Ohio National Guard opened fire. John thought they were shooting blanks, and started to take pictures.

A few second later, he saw Mary Vecchio crying over the body of one the students who had just been killed, Jeffrey Miller. He took the picture.

A few hours later, he started to transmit the pictures he had taken to the Associated Press from a small newspaper in Pennsylvania."
©Dirck Halstead, The Digital Journalist

The photograph won him a Pulitzer. To take the picture John used a Nikkormat camera with Tri X film and most of the exposures were 1/500 between 5.6 and f 8.

Note: An altered version of John Filo's famous picture has over the years been published a number of times instead of the real Filo Pulitzer Prize Winner shown on below. The altered version appeared as recently as May 1st, 1995 in the LIFE magazine article, "Caught in time" , page 38. At some point in the early 1970s someone removed a pole that was apparently sticking out of Vecchio’s head. Time has all of it’s articles on line, unfortunately without photos. Life ran the altered image in an article in May, 1995. David Friend, Life’s Director of Photography, attempted to justify this use – he stated that “LIFE did not and does not manipulate news photos. The photo we published was supplied to us by our photo library–the Time-Life Picture Collection….Amazingly, the fence post had been airbrushed out by someone, now anonymous, in a darkroom sometime in the early 1970′s. The picture had run numerous times–without the fencepost, and without anyone taking notice–in TIME (Nov. 6, 1972, p. 23) PEOPLE (May 2, 1977, p. 37), TIME (Jan. 7, 1980, p. 45), PEOPLE (April 31, 1990, p. 117) to name just a few publications. (via http://www.hennemanphoto.com/)



Related:
National Public Radio: "Shots Still Reverberate For Survivors Of Kent State"

"Out in the world, when people talk about the shootings at Kent State University on May 4, 1970, they call it "Kent State." But in the small town of Kent, 35 miles south of Cleveland, and on the university campus, they call it "May 4th." The full multi-media article is here.

Listen to John Filo recount the making of the photograph here.

John Filo was reunited with the photograph's subject, Mary Vecchio.

NY Firefighters Gather for News of Bin Laden

Michael Appleton for The New York Times



Via The New York Times Lens Blog

Firefighters Gather for News of Bin Laden

By DAVID W. DUNLAP


Michael Appleton managed to bridge a decade in a single photograph on Sunday night

His perfectly distilled picture showed the firefighters of Ladder Company 4 — which lost seven men on 9/11 — perched together on their aerial ladder, watching a news bulletin in Times Square declaring that Osama bin Laden was dead. Though their backs were to the camera, the men’s body language spoke eloquently, beginning with Firefighter Stassi’s obvious exultation. “Each individual has his own reaction,” Mr. Appleton said. “One is celebrating. Others are about to embrace. They’re tight. They’re close.


“It’s like the weight is off their shoulders, perched up there, enjoying each other’s company, shoulder to shoulder. And it was over very quickly.”

Like most of the best news photographs, Mr. Appleton’s composition was the product of pure luck and the experience — and the sharp eyes — to know what to do when such good fortune comes along. Asked by The Times to get himself to Times Square for President Obama’s announcement on Sunday, Mr. Appleton found a somewhat mellow mood at about 10:30 p.m., as news of the killing was not yet generally known. As the president began to speak, however, the crowd grew larger and more attentive.

“There was a crescendo when the Fire Department showed up,” he said.

Ladder Company 4 — the “Pride of Midtown,” together with Engine Company 54 and Battalion 9 — parked its rig in the middle of Broadway. Mr. Appleton tried to get aboard the truck to photograph the appreciatively cheering crowd. But lots of other onlookers had the same idea until the firefighters chased them off before seating themselves on the ladder.

“They were starting to line up,” Mr. Appleton said. “I looked across street at Bubba Gump’s and I could see there was a second-floor window that would give me the vantage I needed. I envisioned the photo before I went up.”

It took a moment to persuade the manager. In that time, Mr. Appleton feared this precious confluence would simply evaporate. Instead, by the time he positioned himself in the restaurant’s window, there were more firefighters side by side on the ladder. Then it was a matter of waiting for the illuminated zipper across Broadway to display the full message.

Mr. Appleton, 33, has been engaged with this story since it began, when he was assigned by The Daily News to cover St. Vincent’s Hospital and wound up instead with extraordinary pictures of the towers’ collapse.

“My career really started on 9/11,” he said by telephone on Monday, after covering the mayor’s news conference on no sleep whatsoever. “It was my baptism by fire.”

Related: Then and Now: VJ-Day and the death of Osama bin Laden

THEN AND NOW: V-J DAY AND THE DEATH OF OSAMA BIN LADEN

©Michael Appleton for The New York Times


The news of the death of Osama bin Laden by US Forces has led to a huge spike of hits to our blog post about VJ-Day. Alfred Eisenstaedt's photograph of a sailor and a nurse kissing amidst the celebrations in Times Square for "Victory over Japan" has become a visual symbol of the joy surrounding the end of World War II. Today, images of celebrations and reactions to the news of Osama bi Laden's death are being published everywhere (the Newseum's daily post of notable front-pages of newspapers from around the world crashed earlier today from overwhelming traffic).

Will a single image come to represent the defining moment in the American-led fight against terrorism?

EXHIBITION PREVIEW: COMPOSING THE ARTIST

John Loengard: Richard Avedon, New York, NY 1994

THE Magazine
Santa Fe's monthly Magazine of and for the Arts
May, 2011

Composing The Artist
May 6 through June 26
Monroe Gallery of Photography
112 Don Gaspar Avenue, Santa Fe, 505.992.0800
Reception: Friday, May 6, 5 - 7 PM

There are rarely sufficient words to describe an artist's personality and work. Often it takes a fellow creator to capture the essential nature of the artist. Richard Avedon's severe, black and white images dramatically expose the nature of his subjects. His portraits of Marilyn Monroe, Twiggy, and mental hospital patients are defining images in the annals of American photography. John Loengard's photo essays for LIFE magazine, which include series on Georgia O'Keeffe and the Shakers, earned him the title of one of America Photo's "one hundred most influential people in photography". in 2005. In 1994, Loengard captured Avedon seated before the clutter of his studio. Loengard's photograph of Avedon, straddling a chair and twiddling his glasses, captures the quiteness of a photographer known for his intense and energized images. On may 6, the Monroe Gallery of Photography will open an exhibition entitled Composing The Artist, where viewers can see Loengarg's image of Avedon in addition to many more photographs of renowned creators. Over 50 images will be shown, capturing iconic artists and writers at work or in portraiture. The short list includes Salvador Dali, Georgia O'Keeffe, William Faulkner, Allen Ginsberg, Andy Warhol, and Vladmir Nobokov. In these photographs, the essential personality of the artist is revealed, and an image of the past becomes visual history.

The Vietnam war ended on April 30, 1975. Many of the photographs that came out of that war are still etched in our minds

In this March 1965 file photo, hovering U.S. Army helicopters pour machine gun fire into a tree line to cover the advance of South Vietnamese ground troops in an attack on a Viet Cong camp 18 miles north of Tay Ninh, northwest of Saigon near the Cambodian border, in Vietnam. (AP Photo/Horst Faas

 

Little has been made of this anniversary. Thanks to TampaBay.com All Eyes Blog.