An Evening with White House Photographer Eric Draper

Eric Draper: Emma Booker Elementary School. September 11, 2001

Eric Draper, a former Albuquerque Tribune and Associated Press photographer, who lives in Rio Rancho, was selected by President-Elect George Bush to be the White House photographer in 2000. For the next eight years, Draper had a front row seat to history: during Oval Office meetings, aboard Air Force One, and even at intimate Christmas celebrations.

Eric Draper

What: The Society of Professional Journalists, Rio Grande Chapter and Citadel Broadcasting present An Evening with Former White House Photographer Eric Draper

Date: Thursday, Sept. 1, 2011

Time: 6 pm – 9 pm

Where: Central New Mexico Community College’s Smith Brasher Hall (SW Corner of Coal and University — FREE Parking)

Reception and Silent Auction: 6 pm – 7 pm

Program: 7 pm – 8:45 pm

Tickets: The Rio Grande Chapter has a limited number of free tickets available to SPJ Rio Grande Chapter members.

Citadel Broadcasting also will be giving away some tickets through special radio and online broadcast promotions.

 Eric Draper's fine-art photographs are represented by Monroe Gallery of Photography, and two are featured in the exhibion "History's Big Picture" through September 25, 2011.

"Fields of Vision" series features 20th-century photographers Gordon Parks, Arthur Rothstein, and Carl Mydans

 

Carl Mydans: Cafe in Pikesville, Tennessee, 1936 (for the Farm Security Administration) c.Time Inc

via artdaily.com

WASHINGTON, D.C.- The more than 172,000 black-and-white and 1,600 color images that comprise the Farm Security Administration Office of War Information (FSA/OWI) Collection at the Library of Congress offer a detailed portrait of life in the United States from the years of the Great Depression through World War II.

Selected images from the works of FSA/OWI photographers Gordon Parks (1912-2006), Arthur Rothstein (1915-1985) and Carl Mydans (1907-2004) are now featured in the Library of Congress series titled "Fields of Vision."

These new titles join the first six volumes in the series, which feature the work of FSA/OWI photographers Russell Lee (1903-1987), Ben Shahn (1898-1969), Marion Post Wolcott (1910-1990), Esther Bubley (1921-1998), Jack Delano (1914-1997) and John Vachon (1914-1975).

Edited by Amy Pastan, an independent editor and book packager, and published by D Giles Ltd. in association with the Library of Congress, each volume in the series includes an introduction to the work of the featured FSA photographer by a leading author.

Headed by Roy L. Stryker, the government’s documentary project employed many relatively unknown names who later became some of the 20th century’s best-known photographers.

Gordon Parks, the only black FSA photographer, was "a Renaissance man," writes Charles Johnson in his introduction to the volume. Parks was a writer, musician, poet, composer, photojournalist and motion-picture director, with many "firsts" to his credit. "The first black director in Hollywood, he opened the door for young auteurs, such as Spike Lee and John Singleton," writes Johnson.

The youngest FSA photographer, Arthur Rothstein was "the truest child of the New Deal," writes George Packer in his introductory essay. Fresh out of Columbia University with a belief in the government’s social improvement efforts, Rothstein planned to earn money for medical school. But after joining the government project, he changed his career path. By the age of 25 he was a staff photographer for Look magazine and eventually became its director of photography. He joined Parade magazine in 1972 as director of photography and remained there until his death in 1985.

A graduate of Boston University’s School of Journalism, Carl Mydans was an experienced photographer with credits in Time magazine when he joined the documentary project in 1930. He later moved to the new magazine Life, and on to a celebrated career as a war photographer. Says author Annie Proulx, "He identified himself as a photojournalist and his interest in the massive global events of the time became his life."

Each 63-page, soft-cover volume in the series is available for $12.95 in bookstores throughout the U.S. and the UK, from D Giles Ltd. and the Library of Congress Sales Shop, Washington, D.C., 20540-4985. Credit-card orders are taken at (888) 682-3557, or shop on the Internet at www.loc.gov/shop/. Reproduction numbers are provided in the books so that reprints may be ordered through the Library’s Photoduplication Service.

Founded in 1800, the Library of Congress is the nation’s oldest federal cultural institution. The Library seeks to spark imagination and creativity and to further human understanding and wisdom by providing access to knowledge through its magnificent collections, programs and exhibitions.

45 Years Ago Today: The First Earthrise

NASA: The Lunar Orbiter I took this first ever photo of the Earth from the vicinity of the moon on August 23, 1966

 The Backstory

Via TIME LightBox
Tuesday, August 23, 2011 | By Jeffrey Kluger

Geocentrism died on August 23, 1966. Centuries had passed since human beings first dispensed with the old notion that the Earth was the hub around which the universe turned. But what we know rationally and embrace intuitively are often two different things. No matter where we stood on our home planet, after all, no matter how high we climbed into — or even above — the atmosphere, Earth’s horizon still defined the limits of our vision. We could see how out-there looked from down-here, but what we never saw was the reverse. And then, 45 years ago this month, we all at once could.

In that otherwise unremarkable summer, NASA’s Lunar Orbiter 1 arrived at the moon. As it rounded the far side on one of its early orbits, it snapped this head-turning image of the Earth — carved to a mere crescent like our own little moon — rising over the dominating arc of the lunar horizon. Our species had seen the sun rise and the moon rise, but we had never seen an Earthrise. It was both an illuminating and a humbling experience — one, some scientists hoped, that would help us appreciate the fragility of our little soap bubble world. Two generations on, that’s a hope worth recalling.

Jeffrey Kluger is a senior editor for TIME and oversees science and technology reporting. He has written or co-written more than 35 cover stories for the magazine and regularly contributes articles and commentary on science and health stories. His notable cover stories include reports on global warming, the science of appetite, the Apollo 11 anniversary, and the roots of human morality.


Related: Time's LightBox was cited as one of today's leading examples of photojournalism during the special event Photojournalism: A Conversation

Phoenix Art Museum Exhibition Features Many of Gordon Parks' Most Memorable Images

Gordon Parks, American, 1912–2006; Alberto Giacometti, Paris, 1951, printed 2003; gelatin silver print, 16 x 20 inches; Lent by The Capital Group Foundation, 2002.02 © 2006 The Gordon Parks Foundation

Via artdaily.com

PHOENIX, AZ.- Gordon Parks spent the majority of his professional career at the crossroads of the glamorous and the ghetto – two extremes the noted photographer knew well. Perhaps best recognized for his works chronicling the African-American experience, Parks was also an accomplished fashion photographer. Bare Witness: Photographs by Gordon Parks provides a revealing look at the diversity and breadth of Parks’s most potent imagery. Featuring 73 works specifically selected by Parks for the photographic collection of the Los Angeles-based Capital Group, Bare Witness divulges heart wrenching images, iconic moments, celebrities and slices of everyday life.

Born in 1912 in Fort Scott, Kansas, Parks, who died in 2006 at age 93, was an African American photographer who began working professionally in the 1930’s. Parks tackled the harsh truth and dignity of the black urban and rural poor in the United States. He photographed aspects of the Civil Rights movements and individuals associated with the Black Panthers and Black Muslims. For nearly 25 years, from 1948 to 1972, he served as staff photographer for Life magazine. He also established himself as a foremost fashion photographer, providing spreads for respected magazines such as Vogue.

Bare Witness features many of Parks’s most memorable images such as “American Gothic.” Taken during Parks’s brief time with the Farm Security Agency, the photograph depicts a black cleaning woman named Ella Watson standing stiffly in front of an American flag, a mop in one hand and a broom in the other. Also included in the exhibition is a series of photos from Parks’s most famous Life magazine essay about Flavio da Silva, a malnourished and asthmatic boy living in a Rio de Janerio slum. Portraits of Muhammad Ali, Duke Ellington, Alexander Calder, Ingrid Bergman, Langston Hughes and Malcolm X among others will also be on view.

“Whether photographing celebrities or common folk, children or the elderly, Harlem gang leaders or fellow artists, Parks brought his straightforward, sympathetic ear and mind to bear witness to late 20th century civilization,” commented Hilarie Faberman, the Robert M. and Ruth L. Halperin Curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at Cantor Arts Center and organizer of the exhibition. “His photographs balance the dichotomies of black and white, rich and poor, revealing his strengths and struggles as an artist and a man.”

In addition to his documentary and fashion photography, Parks was a filmmaker, author, musician and publisher. He was the first black artist to produce and direct a major Hollywood film, “The Learning Tree” in 1969, which was based on his early life experiences. He subsequently directed the popular action films “Shaft” and “Shaft’s Big Score.” He was a founder and editorial director of Essence magazine and wrote several autobiographies, novels and poems. In 1988, he received the National Medal of Arts award and throughout his lifetime was the recipient of 40 honorary doctorates from colleges and universities in the United States and England.

“Parks was a renaissance man whose career embodied the American ideal of equality and whose art was deeply personal."

Sunday Focus: Joe McNally and the Faces of Ground Zero

Via JerseyStyle Photography
Because There's Style…And Then There's JerseyStyle…

August 21, 2011 by Mark

The sky was falling and streaked with blood
I heard you calling me then you disappeared into the dust
Up the stairs, into the fire
Up the stairs, into the fire
I need your kiss, but love and duty called you someplace higher
Somewhere up the stairs into the fire….

- Into the Fire, Bruce Springsteen, from The Rising

Sometimes it’s hard to believe it happened 10 years ago already.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe it didn’t happen just yesterday.
Sometimes it’s hard to believe 9/11 even happened at all.

There are a number of things I’ll remember from that time. I was working for a pharmaceutical company back then, and living in Central New Jersey, about an hour from NYC. I remember my boss at the time coming into my office, on a beautiful early fall day, saying “A plane just hit the World Trade Center. It’s on CNN.” I remember going into his office to watch…and watching as reports broke that another plane hit the WTC.

I remember dust and rubble. I remember all of us there at work just not sure what was happening.

I remember, as I was driving home later that day, American flags flying at half mast. I remember going back to my apartment, walking my dog, still under an impossibly gorgeous sky, and then pouring myself a glass of Jack Daniels and watching the news for the rest of the night.

Fast forward a few months. I’m on the road, doing some corporate photo shoots with Joe McNally. I had known him for a couple of years at that point, and was always happy to get to work with him again (though my passion for photography hadn’t broken the surfaced yet.) I remember being somewhere in the Midwest with Joe and his assistant, and him telling me about this portrait project he did in the days right after 9/11..had something to do with a huge Polaroid camera.

Then came the first showing of the exhibit in NYC in 2002. Joe invited me to come see the opening. Joe, others, made speeches. Jewel sang. It was a big night out for me and this gal I was seeing then. I shot some crappy images with a 1.2 megapixel digital camera. (see above, regarding passion for photography item…)

NYC was rebounding.

Fast forward even further…ten years down the road… the gal I took to that opening is now my wife. People have married and divorced. Babies have been born, and children have grown up under the cloak of terrorism and war. We got Osama. NYC continues to rebound.

Joe is now blogging and tweeting. And he keeps shooting.

The portraits Joe shot soon after 9/11 continue to live on and draw inspiration. With the exhibit opening again this Wednesday, with some new portraits and video interviews included, I wanted to find out from Joe what has changed in the last 10 years, and what has stayed the same.

So, enough with this long preamble to the good stuff. Read on…
.
JSP Q: Take me back to 2001….after 9/11, how did you conceive this project and how did it all come about?

JM: In the days immediately after the attacks, I was home, with the kids. Like everyone, I was a mixture and a mess of various feelings and sensations – sorrow, shock, anger, confusion. Being a photog, there was also that part of me that was screaming to get the cameras and just go there. But I didn’t. I couldn’t have added much at all to the immediate photographic record that was being compiled by the hundreds of photographers already on the streets of lower Manhattan. I stayed at home and tried to come up with some way of making a contribution, and harked back to this camera I had used once, a very singular, one of kind camera that made huge, instant photos – the world’s only giant Polaroid camera the brainchild of Dr. Land himself.
Fortuitously, it was located in a studio not too far from Ground Zero, and very near several FDNY firehouses that had suffered losses. I had the notion that this particular camera, which renders people life size, with a great deal of formality and stature, might be an appropriate instrument to use to document the people whose lives had intersected with 9/11 in dramatic fashion. I secured funding almost immediately, from Time-Life. We moved into the camera within about 10 days of the event, and started to work. All the shooting was completed within a month or so. During that month, I lived at the studio, sleeping in a loft bed over the camera, rarely straying more than a few blocks from it. We were taking crews from the pit at 2 a.m., 12 noon, late at night, you name it. We told everyone – if you come to the studio, we will take your picture.

Ladder Nine, Engine 33 was the first firehouse to come by. Word of mouth spread pretty rapidly about this project, and this giant camera. Ultimately the effort came to be known as Faces of Ground Zero, and it became a book and a traveling exhibit that assisted in the raising of nearly $2 million dollars for the relief effort. This is the core of the show that will be on the floor of the Time Warner Center, 10 years later.

JSP Q: You’re including a number of new portraits and interviews for the new showing of the Faces of Ground Zero. I know you’ve kept in touch with some of your Faces portraits subjects, like Louie Cacchioli, over the past 10 years. Have you kept in touch with others?

JM: Yes, quite a number. I’m a “friend of the house” at a couple NYC firehouses, and I do photography for them when they have things like medal days etc. I’m close with a few people, and families. Doing this update 10 years later has been a welcome excuse to reach out to all these people again. They’re an amazing, resilient group of folks.

JSP Q: What were some of your biggest challenges working on the project back then and what were some of the challenges this time around?

JM: A big challenge back then was simply trying to not sound like an unhinged lunatic on the phone with people. I mean, imagine getting a call during this highly emotional, stressed time period from someone you don’t know, trying to convince you to come to some outlandish, giant camera on the lower east side of NY. People were in shock, people had experienced grievous losses. The idea of coming to pose for a photo sounded ridiculous, even to me. But I think what overrode other feelings was people’s need at the time to be part of something, to tell their story, and to have a voice. The project gave them a dignified way of doing that.

So our success rate of persuading people to come to the camera was very high, indeed. The cumbersome nature of the giant Polaroid actually played in my favor here. Every sheet I used cost $300. So when people asked those familiar questions, “How long will this take? How many pictures are you going to shoot?” I could honestly say that it wouldn’t take long at all, because I would only make one picture. And that proved to be true, most of the time.

Challenges this time around involved updating the show with a series of photos that have power and clarity all on their own, and speak to the person’s life now, ten years later. Additionally, we did video interviews as well, so there’s an additional component to the visual reporting that we have done. The new photos have to compete with their very large counterparts, all these years later, in terms of interest and pictorial power. That was a big challenge.

JSP Q: Any surprises this time around?

JM: No real surprises, I would say, maybe more of a refreshing feeling of relief. I knew right from the get go, from back in 2001, that these were very strong people. And sure enough, here they are 10 years on, still strong, still doing their jobs, still being who they are. They were not crushed by 9/11. There’s an enormous sense of the positive they exude. Ten years of raising kids, fighting fires, doing their work, helping other people – the power of life ongoing is very strong. I remain in awe of the whole bunch.

JSP Q: It seems as though you have special connection with the people that you shot for this project. Do you expect to continue shooting portraits to for this project?

JM: Yes, I hope to. We will continue, and also continue our efforts to raise money for the support of the collection as it makes its’ transition to the 9/11 Memorial Museum, where it will reside in perpetuity.

It has been a bit of a saga, for me, as a lone freelance photographer, to shepherd this project for the last decade. But, it is a part of me, and I owe a great deal to the subjects of the project to safeguard their images, and to continue.

I guess to me, photographs have always been, very importantly, about memory, and the preservation thereof. Hence I continue to preserve these pictures and add to it as time goes on.

JSP Q: What’s next for Joe McNally?
JM: I would imagine, the next picture, the same way it has been for the last 35 years.
******************************************************************

Joe McNally and I have known each other for over 10 years now – first as business associates, then as friends. I’ve never asked him to be part of the my little Sunday Focus’. While he’s given me equal parts encouragement and inspiration towards my passion for photography, I never wanted to intrude on his time or play off that friendship for one of these posts.

But this one is a little different. I want to try to help get the word out about the new Faces of Ground Zero exhibit, so I asked Joe if he’d do this interview. I appreciate Joe taking the time to answer these questions in such a thoughtful manner. It was more than I expected, frankly, but then again, Joe doesn’t do anything halfway.

Nikon Inc. is the exclusive photographic equipment sponsor of the Faces of Ground Zero – 10 Years Later exhibit at the Time Warner Center. The free exhibit will take place from August 24 to September 12, 2011, and is open from 10:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. Monday – Saturday and from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on Sunday.

Adorama, Johnson & Johnson, JP Morgan Chase & Co. and others are also sponsors.
If you’re in the city and you get to see the exhibit, stop back here to let us know what you thought about it. Or if you Tweet about it, hashtag it #FGZ so that we can find it. It’s going to be powerful, I’m sure.

To find out more about the exhibit, or any of Joe’s work, follow him on Twitter and/or subscribe to his blog.

© Mark V. Krajnak 2011 | JerseyStyle Photography | All rights Reserved
Unless otherwise noted, images captured with a Canon 50D, SanDisk digital film, finished with PS4 or PSE6 and Nik Software.

FACES OF GROUND ZERO: TEN YEARS ON

Faces of Ground Zero: Louie Cacchioli, Firefighter, Engine 47, FDNY

 

"Faces of Ground Zero" on Display at Time Warner Center 8/24 - 9/12 in New York City

Starts Wednesday, Aug 24 10:00a to 9:00p

at Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle, New York, NY

Marking the 10th Anniversary of Sept. 11 Time Warner Center Presents Joe McNally's "Faces of Ground Zero, Portraits of the Hereos of Sept 11, 2011."
This special exhibition will feature the original life-size Polaroid’s, along with new digital images and exclusive video interviews shot with Nikon D-SLR cameras revealing where the subjects are today and how 9/11 affected their lives. read more

Price: Free

Marking the 10th Anniversary of Sept. 11 Time Warner Center Presents Joe McNally's "Faces of Ground Zero, Portraits of the Hereos of Sept 11, 2011."

This special exhibition will feature the original life-size Polaroids, along with new digital images and exclusive video interviews shot with Nikon D-SLR cameras revealing where the subjects are today and how 9/11 affected their lives.

Exhibit will run daily from 8/24 - 9/12 and is FREE

Event Website

Read more: Ten Years On via Joe McNally's blog

Related: Joe McNally: Faces of Ground Zero

Stephen Wilkes Explores New York as an Emergent Life Form in 'New York: Day to Night'

Via The Village Voice Blogs



Things We Like

By Jen Doll

Thursday, Aug. 18, 2011

When we first saw the photographs making up Stephen Wilkes' "New York: Day to Night" series, we gasped. We have long loved Magritte's "Empire of Light" painting, which plays with simultaneous experiences of darkness and light (you know, the one with the blue, day-like sky, the dark house, and the glowing lamppost?). And Wilkes' new offerings do that, but on the backdrop of New York, with so much detail and energy...not to mention, they're photos. Truly, they are so cool. We spoke with him recently to find out how he did it, and what inspired him.

How did you come up with the idea for the series?
The inception of the idea came about 15 years ago, when Life magazine was still in existence and I'd been commissioned to go to Mexico City to do a four-panel gatefold of all the people involved in Baz Luhrmann's Romeo and Juliet. I ended up discovering that the main set where the movie was filmed was a square, so I couldn't do a gatefold unless I created another technique. At the time David Hockney was doing his montage technique, and I thought, I'd open the square and shoot it that way. I shot Claire Danes and Leonardo DiCaprio, and on the side of the set there was a mirror in which you could see their reflection. In the center in the photo they were embracing, and in the mirror they were kissing. That was the only difference. That's when the idea of changing time in a photograph became intriguing to me. Fifteen years later, I can take a photo and literally change time in it -- that's become a reality.

More recently, I was commissioned to do a photo of the Highline for New York magazine, and in a conversation with Jody Quon, I said, I've got this crazy idea -- the Highline is an amazing place, you're intimate with New York but also distanced enough to take in the breadth of the city. I wanted to photograph it and show that. I had this cherry picker, and that's how it sort of evolved, looking from south to north, and thinking, what if it goes from day to night?

That was the first one I did, and that led to another image, also for New York, of Washington Square Park. That was a vertical day to night. After that I realized this was a unique thing, and I felt compelled to do more. I started exploring New York for these views.

"Gramercy Park," by Stephen Wilkes

​How do you identify the views you want to photograph?
I'm looking for these iconic views of New York, views we all sort of think about, areas we can relate to. But I'm trying to look at them in a way that people have never really seen them. It's like a voyeur, it's intimate, but there's also this breadth going on. I'm trying to work on a scale in which you can read body language and gesture. What are the people in the photograph all doing? It dawned on me, I'm studying New York as an emergent life form, and the way you can see the city flow, it's a form of emergent behavior. You realize that the pedestrians are communicating, the cabs, all these elements are coming together and creating a complex life form. In a way that's how the city works. And, in a strange way, photographically, it's almost an emergent form, the concept of a single photo is being changed in this way.

Do you have a favorite photo in the collection?
I'm finishing one that's quickly becoming my favorite. It's Coney Island on a Saturday afternoon. The perspective is from floating above the boardwalk. The amusement park is night, the beach is day, and it's full of activity. The level of detail -- I'm working with a large-format camera, and it's exciting that people can see the detail online, but in person, you can see it 60 inches big, and the photos look like windows, and you can actually see into people's windows...

"Coney Island" by Stephen Wilkes

​
Tell us about the process of taking the photos.
We've been working with the city to get perspective that people haven't been able to see before. We'll be in the center of Park Avenue, 100 feet in the air. When I'm in the cherry picker, my eye is scanning every square inch of what the photo is. There is this sense of awe, when you make these discoveries: There's a person in that window, and she's having dinner, there's a person on the rooftop...
In the Park Avenue shot, we were taking pictures and this truck pulled onto the right-hand side of the street. It was a black truck with a logo that said "Day and Night," and you can see that in my photo! There have been all kinds of serendipity moments, and that's what New York is about.

Very much so...
I get to the location and I have no control of who's in or out of my photo, and all the hustle and bustle and documentary aspect is what it is....it's like a fusion of documentary street photography and at the same time, the epic study of the city and architecture and scope of New York. It's really been exciting to meld those two things together.

What's your goal for the completion of the series?
I plan on doing a book with this work, so the finished amount is still up in the air. I have another opening in the spring in Santa Fe, and we'll probably have at that point 15 images. It just keeps evolving. I'm shooting very specific seasons, like Rockefeller Center with the Christmas tree. Combining seasons is something in the back of my mind, showing how unique New York is through the seasons and how different it feels.

It's the most complex thing I've ever done photographically. I think when people look at the medium of photography today, there's a sense of everything's going to video, but I look at still photos, and I think there's lots of room to push that medium. The bottom line is, do you discover something new every time you look at it? I shoot for 15 hours at a time and people ask, "How do you possibly do that?" I say, New York is such a wondrous place, and to sit above it like that...people spend afternoons sipping coffee and people watching...you can just imagine my views!

"Times Square," by Stephen Wilkes

​
Wilkes' show runs from September 8 to October 29 at ClampArt. He'll also show at Santa Fe's Monroe Gallery in the spring of 2012. (April 27 - June 30, 2012)

[JDoll / @thisisjendoll]

At 83, subject of ‘American Girl in Italy’ photo speaks out

Keith Beaty / Toronto Star

Ninalee Craig, 83, is the woman in Ruth Orkin's 1951 photograph "American Girl in Italy." This photo taken on Aug. 12 shows Craig standing next to Orkin's iconic image and wearing the same orange shawl she wore in the photo nearly 60 years ago.

In case you misssed the TODAY Show on NBC today:

By Laura T. Coffey




You know the photo. You’ve seen it a hundred times. A beautiful, statuesque young woman is walking down a street in Florence, Italy. She’s clutching her shawl, and she seems to be moving swiftly. More than a dozen men are staring at her longingly. One of them is grabbing his crotch.
The iconic 1951 image “American Girl in Italy” turns 60 on Monday. As its anniversary approaches, the stunning woman in the photo — Ninalee Craig, now 83 — is speaking up about it. She wants to explain what the photo represents, and what it doesn’t.


“Some people want to use it as a symbol of harassment of women, but that’s what we’ve been fighting all these years,” Craig said in a telephone interview from her home in Toronto. “It’s not a symbol of harassment. It’s a symbol of a woman having an absolutely wonderful time!”

Back in 1951, Craig was a carefree 23-year-old who had chucked her job in New York and secured third-class accommodations on a ship bound for Europe. She spent more than six months making her way through France, Spain and Italy all by herself — something very few women did in the years following World War II.

She traveled as inexpensively as she could, so she was thrilled when she found a hotel right on the Arno River in Florence where she could stay for $1 a day. There, she met another adventurous solo female traveler: Ruth Orkin, a 29-year-old photographer who came to Italy after completing an assignment in Israel.

© 1952, 1980 Ruth Orkin

Ruth Orkin's "American Girl in Italy" photo has become so famous over the years that a Canadian newspaper recently described it as "the image that has endured from dorm-room walls to French bistro loos."

“She was living from day to day, nickel-and-diming it,” Craig recalled. “We talked about traveling alone and asked each other, ‘Are you having a hard time? Are you ever bothered?’ We both found that we were having a wonderful time, and only some things were a little difficult.”

In the course of that conversation, an idea was hatched: They would head out together the next morning, wander around Florence and shoot pictures of what it was really like to travel alone as a young single woman.

From about 10 a.m. to noon the following day, Orkin shot photos of Craig — who then called herself “Jinx Allen,” a name she invented and assumed because it sounded “exciting” — admiring statues, asking for directions, haggling at markets and flirting in cafes.

“We were literally horsing around,” Craig said, reminiscing about the bright orange shawl she wore that day.

Orkin captured her famous “American Girl in Italy” photograph during those two hours of silliness and fun. Her contact sheets from that day reveal that she shot only two frames of that particular street scene.

“The big debate about the picture, which everyone always wants to know, is: Was it staged? NO!” Craig said. “No, no, no! You don’t have 15 men in a picture and take just two shots. The men were just there ... The only thing that happened was that Ruth Orkin was wise enough to ask me to turn around and go back and repeat [the walk].”

Orkin died in 1985. Her daughter, Mary Engel, has devoted her life to protecting her mother’s photographic archive and promoting her legacy as a documentary photographer. Engel agreed with Craig’s account of what happened on that August day in Florence, and she added one more contextual detail.

“She told the man on motorcycle to tell the other men not to look at the camera,” said Engel, director of the Orkin/Engel Film and Photo Archive. “But the composition, it just happened. And my mother got it. That’s what she was good at. ... She didn’t take loads and loads of photos. She waited for
shots.”

This photo is called "Jinx and Justin Flirting at the Cafe," Florence, Italy, 1951.

Of course, a good documentary photograph welcomes viewers into a scene and invites their interpretations. That’s understandable, say Craig and Engel — but both of them stress the same point about “American Girl in Italy”: The photo is primarily a celebration of strong, independent women who aren’t afraid to live life.

“Men who see the picture always ask me: Was I frightened? Did I need to be protected? Was I upset?” Craig said. “They always have a manly concern for me. Women, on the other hand, look at that picture, and the ones who have become my friends will laugh and say, ‘Isn’t it wonderful? Aren’t the Italians wonderful? ... They make you feel appreciated!’”

Craig said she certainly did feel appreciated in Italy and elsewhere in Europe. She turned plenty of heads wherever she went because she was 6 feet tall and traveling alone. She knows the men in the photo appear to be leering and lascivious, but she insists they were harmless.

“Very few of those men had jobs,” Craig said. “Italy was recovering from the war and had really been devastated by it … I can tell you that it wasn’t the intent of any man there to harass me.”
OK, but how about the man committing that not-so-innocent-looking gesture with his hand?

During a whimsical, two-hour photo shoot, Ruth Orkin captured Ninalee Craig negotiating with shopkeepers and having other adventures as a solo female traveler.

“That young man is not whistling, by the way; he’s making a happy, yelping sound,” Craig said. “And where you see him touching the family jewels, or indicating them, with his hand — well, for a long time that was considered an image people should not look at. That part was airbrushed out for years ... But none of those men crossed the line at all.”

 

After she felt ready to end her European tour in 1951 — and after spending less than $1,000 on her entire trip — Craig returned home to New York. She taught school for a time, then got a job writing advertising copy, then married an Italian widower and moved to Milan. That marriage ultimately ended in divorce, so she returned to New York, worked in advertising again, met a Canadian man on a blind date and married him. She first came to Toronto in the 1970s.

Today, she’s a grandmother of 10, a great-grandmother of seven and an avid supporter of Toronto’s arts scene. She’s elated that her friend Ruth Orkin’s photographs and other works are on display at the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto, in part to honor the 60-year anniversary of the moments Orkin captured on that unforgettable day.

“My life has been wonderful,” Craig said. “I’m ready for more.”

Ruth Orkin’s “American Girl in Italy” photograph and other works are on display now through Aug. 27 at the Stephen Bulger Gallery, 1026 Queen St. W., Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Ninalee Craig and Mary Engel will attend a public reception at the gallery from 2 to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 20.

The 60th Anniversary of the "American Girl in Italy" photograph by Ruth Orkin

August 22, 2011 marks the 60th anniversary of the photograph “American Girl in Italy by Ruth Orkin (1921-1985). The subject of this famous photograph is Ninalee Craig (then known as Jinx Allen), who now lives in Toronto.

The two were talking about their shared experiences traveling alone as young single women, when Orkin had an idea. “Come on,” she said, “lets go out and shoot pictures of what it’s really like.” In the morning, while the Italian women were inside preparing lunch, Jinx gawked at statues, asked military officials for directions, fumbled with lire and flirted in cafes while Orkin photographed her. Orkin’s best known image, “American Girl in Italy” was also created as part of this series.

Ruth Orkin was 17 when she took a cross-country trip by herself, bicycling and hitchhiking from her home in Los Angeles to New York, snapping pictures along the way. She later moved to New York, where this spirit of adventure continued. She  photographed Tanglewood’s summer music festival, honed her craft in nightclubs, joined the Photo League, and with her first published story in Look magazine, became “a fullfledged photojournalist.” In 1951, Life sent her on assignment to Israel and from there she went to Italy.

Exhibition: Stephen Bulger Gallery

VJ-DAY, TIMES SQUARE, NEW YORK, AUGUST 14, 1945

The V-J Day picture of the white-clad nurse by photographer Alfred Eisenstaedt captured an epic moment in U.S. history and became an iconic image marking the end of the war after being published in Life magazine.

It is probably the most iconographic image associated with LIFE, photojournalism, and World War II. Eisenstaedt recounts how he got the shot: “I was walking through the crowds on V-J Day, looking for pictures. I noticed a sailor coming my way. He was grabbing every female he could find and kissing them all – young girls and old ladies alike… The sailor came along, grabbed the nurse, and bent down to kiss her. Now if this girl hadn’t been a nurse, if she’d been dressed in dark clothes, I wouldn’t have had a picture. People tell me that when I’m in heaven, they will remember this picture.”

Via Monroe Gallery of Photograpy Blog

"V-J Day, Times Square" is featured in the exhibition "History's Big Picture", through September 25