"Hard-Boiled Photog Blends the Old With the New"

Be sure to check out the just-posted article about photojournalist Bill Eppridge on Raw File.

"Bill Eppridge knows the rules of photography have changed. The ways of the ’60s, when he was a staff photographer at LIFE magazine, are long gone: Staff photo positions are near extinct, everyone with an iPhone now claims to be a photographer and film seems to be a four-letter word of antiquity.

That said, Eppridge, who has shot many of the historic events of the last half-century, believes the power of documentary photography will always live on, no matter how many photos are out there in however many formats.

“The best still images, they just nail you, you remember them,” he says, as is evidenced by his iconic work."

Full post here.

Slide show here.

Bob Gomel: “Photography is all about having something to say before you pick the camera up to your eye and push the button”

Malcolm X photographs Cassius Clay on February 25, 1964, the night the boxer knocked out Sonny Liston to become heavyweight champion. The next day Clay revealed that he was a member of the Nation of Islam.


Via New York University Alumni Magazine

Former Life photographer Bob Gomel reflects on the many American stories told with his camera

by Andrea Crawford

A brash 22-year-old dancing around the ring, his gloved fists raised in victory as he proclaims himself “the king of the world”: This may be the most famous image of Muhammad Ali when he was still Cassius Clay—and had just defeated heavyweight champion Sonny Liston in one of boxing’s most stunning upsets. Bob Gomel was there shooting photos for Life magazine, having journeyed to Miami Beach in February 1964 to shadow Clay in the days leading up to the bout. But it was an image Gomel (STERN ’55) captured during the afterparty—of Malcolm X snapping a photo of the new world champion—that the Library of Congress deemed worthy of acquiring last year. From behind the bar, the former Nation of Islam spokesperson smiles broadly as he holds the camera to his face. The seated Clay wears a tuxedo and bow tie, his hands resting in loose fists on the counter. He appears to mug for the camera.

It’s a moment of connection between friends, revealing a playful side of two powerful men whose public personas were often serious, angry, or in Clay’s case, downright crazy. The photograph also bares a secret between them: The boxer had been persuaded by promoters not to announce his conversion to Islam before the fight. The following day, he would make the announcement to the world.

Getting behind the scenes and using photographs to tell a story was what Life did best, and it was what attracted Gomel to the picture magazines. As a young man, he turned down other journalism jobs and went without work for nearly a year waiting to break in. When the chance came, Gomel made the most of it. From 1959 to 1969—the magazine’s last decade as the country’s premier newsweekly—he photographed a long, impressive list of world leaders (John F. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Nikita Khrushchev, Patrice Lumumba, David Ben-Gurion, Jawaharlal Nehru), actors (Marilyn Monroe, Warren Beatty, Joan Crawford), athletes (Arthur Ashe, Willie Mays, Sandy Koufax, Arnold Palmer, Joe Namath), and other personalities of the era (Jane Jacobs, Robert Moses, Benjamin Spock). When President-elect Kennedy took a walk with 3-year-old Caroline on the day her brother, John Jr., was born; when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his speech at the March on Washington; when the Beatles appeared on The Ed Sullivan Show; Gomel captured it all on film.

top: Perhaps Gomel’s most famous photograph was this bird’s-eye image of Dwight D. Eisenhower’s casket lying in state at the Capitol Rotunda in 1969. Gomel rigged strobe lights around the 200-foot dome, strung a wire with a pulley to place the camera in the middle, and ran a zip cord—to trigger the camera—to where he would be standing with the rest of the press. The resulting photograph appeared on the cover of Life magazine. above left: This image of President John F. Kennedy inspecting the space capsule in 1962 remains one of Gomel’s favorites. “It’s John Kennedy, but it’s not the way we anticipate seeing him,” Gomel says. “It’s just one of those off-guard moments that nobody focuses on.” above right: Marilyn Monroe attends a party for Broadway’s The Sound of Music in 1961, one year before her death.

Like any enduring image, says Ben Breard, who featured many of Gomel’s works in an exhibition earlier this year at Afterimage Gallery in Dallas, the photographs are important not only because of their historical and cultural significance. “Of course, there’s an element of being at the right place at the right time to capture the moment, but then you’ve got to do it artistically,” Breard says. The images reveal the photographer’s sense of humor and humanity. “There’s a positive feel to his work,” Breard adds. “It’s uplifting. Even though those were hard times the country went through, [there’s] a hopeful aspect to everything.”

Born in Manhattan and raised in the Bronx, Gomel discovered photography as a boy, struck by an image taken by his teacher hanging in his classroom at the Ethical Culture School on Central Park West. It was a black-and-white picture of a manhole cover on a cobblestone street with some pigeons around it. “I sat next to that picture, and I was just entranced by it,” he says. Gomel joined the teacher’s photography club and began learning on a borrowed camera. When World War II ended, he got a job delivering groceries by bicycle to buy his first camera and soon convinced his parents—his father was an optometrist; his mother, an NYU graduate, was a teacher—to let him appropriate a closet for his darkroom.

 

 

top: John Lennon cannonballs into a pool in 1964 as his fellow Beatles Paul McCartney (center) and Ringo Starr brace for the inevitable splash. the band was in miami for their second live performance on the ed sullivan show—which was watched by 70 million americans.above Left: Famed pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock—best-selling author of the common sense book of baby and child care—is entertained by two young patients during an examination in September 1962.above right: After filming concluded, but before the release of The Graduate, Gomel spent a day with Dustin Hoffman—hanging out with his girlfriend, posing for a sculptor, and, as seen here, picking up his unemployment check.

 

When Gomel arrived at his mother’s alma mater in 1950, he began working for student publications, covering basketball games, which NYU then played at Madison Square Garden. There, he befriended “the fellows who worked the night shift” for the Daily Mirror, the Daily News, the Associated Press, and UPI (then called ACME Newspictures), and he started tagging along on their assignments. After graduating from NYU and serving four years in the U.S. Navy, he was promptly offered a job at the Associated Press. But by then, he had changed his mind about what he wanted to do. “I just felt one picture wasn’t sufficient to tell a story,” he explains. “I was interested in exploring something in depth. And, of course, the mecca was Life magazine.” He turned down the offer from AP.

At Life he was able to shoot the stories that appealed to him, and the recent exhibition included some of his favorites. For one photo-essay, he documented what happens to the family dog when the children return to school, highlighting one forlorn basset hound, in particular. For another series, he arranged for humorist Art Buchwald to go back to Marine boot camp incognito for a week, to relive his days as a recruit. The humor and power of these images endure, even for those too young to know Art Buchwald.

Gomel, who later worked in advertising shooting national campaigns for clients such as Volkswagen, Pan Am, Merrill Lynch, and Shell Oil, also tested technological and creative boundaries at Life. His image of the Manhattan skyline during a blackout in November 1965 is striking, with a full moon illuminating the dark sky. But from his vantage point on the Brooklyn waterfront that night, the moon was behind him. “It occurred to me that the only way we’re all getting along this evening is because we have a full moon,” he says. “I wanted to tell that…in a single picture.” So he rewound his film, changed lenses, turned around and clicked, placing the glowing orb just where he wanted it to be in the dark quadrant of the frame. After a long debate, Gomel says, the editors decided to run it—the first double-exposure Life used in a news story.

Gomel believes photographers have the responsibility to be truthful reporters but also must be clear about what story they’re trying to tell. “Photography is all about having something to say before you pick the camera up to your eye and push the button,” he says. “Are you happy about something, displeased about something? And if so, how are you going to express that on a piece of film?”

More of Bob Gomel's photographs here.

VIVIAN MAIER BOOK RELEASE NOVEMBER 22

Vivian Maier: Street Photographer

Slideshow Presentation
and Q&A with John Maloof

Friday, November 18, 6:30–8:30 p.m.
Tickets $5 click here to buy tickets

The powerHouse Arena ·

37 Main Street (corner of Water & Main St.) · DUMBO, Brooklyn
For more information, please call 718.666.3049

Exhibitions: Howard Greenberg Gallery December 15 - January 28, 2012
Monroe Gallery of Photography February 3 - April 22, 2012



"We Are Journalists"

We just discovered a great new Tumblr blog, "We Are Journalists". Happy to recommend.

"I have known what I wanted to do since I was 17. Since then, I have been shot at by the police, I have run from them so that they wouldn’t confiscate my cameras. I have been punched, spit on, yelled at and threatened while doing my job. I love what I do and think I have never worked a day in my life. I am distrustful of authority. I loathe being referred to as a papparazi. I can count on one hand the number of celebrities I have photographed. I hate taking pictures of people like that. My job has taken me to Central America, the Middle East, and all over the United States. Since most of America does not like to go to places like Mississippi post-Hurricane Katrina (or even the bad neighborhoods in their own city), I choose to go for them, so that they might see the condition of their fellow man. People always talk of the sacrifices that journalists make. It isn’t a sacrifice; it is a choice. I chose this path in life, and still choose it, for better or worse. I believe that my camera is a powerful tool to combat injustice. Some of my pictures, in a small way, helped shut down a reform school where children were being abused. I will be proud of that for the rest of my life. I am now 30. I hope I am still doing this in some capacity when I am 60. Hopefully by that time I can afford to move out of my garage apartment.

I am a newspaper photojournalist."

57 YEARS AGO, ELLIS ISLAND CLOSED

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

November 12 marks the 57th anniversary of the closing of Ellis Island, a facility that will forever be linked to the concept of the American dream. From 1892 to 1954, over 12 million immigrants passed through Ellis Island. They came from Ireland, England, Germany, Italy, and many other countries, and together they formed the backbone of America.

beginning in 1998,  Stephen Wilkes immortalized the remaining ruins in his epic "Ellis Island: Ghosts of Freedom" project.

For the anniversary, Life.com has a slideshow "Faces of Ellis Island".

The Most Expensive Photo in the World

Christie’s, Andreas Gursky/Associated Press) - This 1999 photograph provided by Chrisitie’s shows the Rhine river by German artist Andreas Gursky. Titled “Rhein II,” the chromogenic color print face-mounted to acrylic glass was sold for $4.3 million Tuesday, Nov. 8, 2011, at Christie’s in New York City, setting a record for any photograph sold at auction.

Via BBC:


Glass-mounted panoramic colour print Rhein II, created in 1999, is one of an edition of six works.

Others hang at New York's Museum of Modern Art and London's Tate Modern.

It beat the previous record of $3.9m (£2.5m) achieved by an untitled 1981 colour print by Cindy Sherman, who is the subject of all her own works.


"The viewer is not invited to consider a specific place along the river but rather an almost 'platonic' ideal of the body of water as it navigates the landscape” -- Christies

Gursky's print had a pre-sale estimate of $2.5m-$3.5m (£1.6m-£2.2m).

Rhein II is the largest of the six photographs, which are produced in various sizes.

As well as in New York and London, other photographs in the edition are housed in Munich's Pinakothek der Moderne and Glenstone art museum in the US.

Gursky has spoken of "a particular place with a view over the Rhine which has somehow always fascinated me, but it didn't suffice for a picture as it basically constituted only part of a picture".

He said he "carried this idea for a picture around with me for a year-and-a-half".

"In the end I decided to digitalise the pictures and leave out the elements that bothered me," he added.

Christie's said the viewer was "not invited to consider a specific place along the river, but rather an almost 'platonic' ideal of the body of water as it navigates the landscape."

After last year's Fall aucton season, we posted "The just-completed Contemporary sales totaled over $1 BILLION dollars in sales (with Andy Warhol accounting for over $200 million alone); the Impressionist/Modern sales about another half - BILLION; and almost as an afterthought a Qianlong-dynasty vase sold for $85.9 MILLION dollars. The Fall photo auctions in New York brought in $16 million."

No matter how you look at it, the prices for the "masters" of photography are a fraction of the prices for the masters of art.  The reaction to the Gursky sale seems to be "Really? $4.3 Million for That Photo?"

Here are just a few reactions:

@jmcolberg many shocked tweets at Gursky's photo price tag. Would people be so shocked if it were a painting that sold for $4M? Difference?

Raw File is asking " Really? $4.3 Million for That Photo? Let us know what you think in the comments or tweet us @rawfileblog." So far, there are more than 80 comments.

Seattle Post Intelligencer:   Here’s the world’s most expensive (and boring?) photo
via The Atlantic Wire:  "Gursky's photo is also the reason you should have become an art broker, like yesterday", with comments.

Related: Wall Street Journal: "New Art Drives $1 Billion Fall Auctions"

How will you remember?

Eric Smith: Washington, DC, 2006

National Veterans Day Ceremony

The Veterans Day National Ceremony is held each year on November 11th at Arlington National Cemetery. The ceremony commences precisely at 11:00 a.m. with a wreath laying at the Tomb of the Unknowns and continues inside the Memorial Amphitheater with a parade of colors by veterans' organizations and remarks from dignitaries. The ceremony is intended to honor and thank all who served in the United States Armed Forces.

 Presidential Proclamation

Time LightBox: The  Art of War: Honoring the Fallen for a Lifetime

Remembering the wounded via Nina Berman: Purple Hearts


Need help, or someone to talk to? Real Warriors

J. Paul Getty Museum acquires seventy-two photographs by Andreas Feininger

Andreas Feininger, Stockholm (Shell sign at night), 1935. Gelatin silver print. 17.4 x 24.2 cm. © Estate of Gertrud E. Feininger. The J. Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles, Gift of the Estate of Gertrud E. Feininger.

Via artdaily.org

LOS ANGELES, CA.- The J. Paul Getty Museum announced the acquisition of 72 photographs by 20th century photographer Andreas Feininger (American, born Paris, 1906–1999). Son of the Expressionist painter, printmaker, caricaturist, and Bauhaus instructor Lyonel Feininger (American, 1871–1956), Andreas Feininger is best known for his work for LIFE magazine, which spanned 20 years, and his considerable work in nature photography.

The gift from the Andreas Feininger Estate represents a range of subjects from Feininger’s long photographic career, which spanned seven decades, and includes work made in Germany and Stockholm in the late 1920s and early 1930s, most notably several nude studies and experiments with printing techniques. The donation also includes examples from Feininger’s 1942 documentation of weapons factories for the U.S. Office of War Information, his views of New York in the 1940s and 1950s, and his nature photographs, including studies of shells and trees from the 1960s and 1970s. Prior to this acquisition, the Getty held thirteen photographs by Andreas Feininger, as well as 56 photographs by his younger brother Theodore, nicknamed T. Lux (American, born Germany, 1910–2011).

“We are very pleased to accept this gift from the Andreas Feininger Estate,” said Judith Keller, senior curator in the Getty Museum’s Department of Photographs. “His contributions to the art of photography are significant, and this gift enhances our collection of photographs from the Bauhaus, in particular those by his brother T. Lux, as well as our strong holdings of depictions of New York.”

Born in Paris in 1906 and raised in Berlin, Feininger did not live in the United States until the age of 33. He studied architecture in Weimar, where his family moved when his father was appointed to teach at the Bauhaus, Germany’s innovative school for design, art, and architecture. Feininger took up photography at this time, setting up a darkroom with T. Lux in the family residence when the Bauhaus moved from Weimar to Dessau in 1926. After a brief career in architecture, Feininger turned increasingly to photography, setting up a studio for architectural photography in Stockholm in 1934. He moved to New York City in 1939, and took at position with LIFE magazine, where he completed 430 assignments over the span of 20 years. After leaving LIFE in 1962, he dedicated himself to the documentation of nature, focusing on the interrelatedness of natural forms as well as the potential for photographs of nature to inspire environmental action. Throughout his career, Feininger also wrote numerous technical manuals and essays about photography

In 1966, the American Society of Media Photographers (ASMP) awarded Feininger its highest distinction, the Robert Leavitt Award, and in 1991 the International Center of Photography awarded Feininger the Infinity Lifetime Achievement Award.

Feininger’s photographs reside in several museum collections, including those of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the George Eastman House in Rochester, New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

Photographs by Lyonel and T. Lux Feininger, as well as those by other masters and students at the Bauhaus are included in the exhibition Lyonel Feininger: Photographs, 1928–1939, on view through March 11, 2012 at the Getty Center.

BBC Four explores the cultural legacy of 20th century America

Via BBC

From Hopper to Hollywood, Mississippi mud pies to music, Steinbeck and more, controller of BBC Four Richard Klein has announced an ambitious America Season, a collection of thought-provoking programming for Autumn/Winter 2011 which will explore the rich cultural heritage of 20th-century America.

The season will feature a broad range of American culture across visual arts, music, movies, gastronomy, photography and popular culture.

Programming ranges from Andrew Graham-Dixon on the Art Of America to Melvyn Bragg on Steinbeck; Rankin on the photography of Life Magazine to Rick Stein on food and blues in Mississippi; and from a series looking at African-American music legends of the Eighties to a documentary on diners.

America In Pictures (1x60-minute)

Established in 1936, LIFE was an iconic weekly magazine that specialized in extraordinarily vivid photojournalism. Through America's most dynamic decades – the 40s, 50s and 60s – read by over half the country, the magazine's influence on American people was unparalleled.

No other magazine in the world held the photograph in such high esteem; LIFE allowed the pictures, not the words, to do the talking.

As a result, at LIFE, the photographer was king.

In this film, the UK's leading fashion photographer, Rankin, looks at the work of LIFE's legendary photographers, including distinguished photographers Bill Eppridge, John Shearer, John Loengard, Burk Uzzle and Harry Benson, who between them have shot the biggest moments in American history from the assassination of Robert F Kennedy, the Civil Rights struggle and Vietnam to behind the scenes at the Playboy mansion and the greatest names of Hollywood.

Rankin discovers these photographers pioneered new forms of photojournalism like embedding – living with their subjects for weeks – and the Photo Essay, enabling them reveal intimate and compelling aspects of ordinary American life too; like 'The Small Town' or the life of 'The Country Doctor'. Rankin concludes that LIFE not only tells the story of America in pictures, but also taught America how to be American.

Video Shows Oakland Police Shooting Photographer

 Via PDN Pulse:

Video Shows Oakland Police Shooting Photographer

Yesterday we posted a story suggesting that the police are under pressure to respect constitutional rights, now that so many people are photographing their activities (especially at protests.)

But along comes this video of an Oakland policeman shooting the photographer for no obvious reason. The photographer, identified by the San Jose Mercury News as Oakland resident Scott Campbell, was filming the line of riot police last Thursday from a distance of about 50 feet. The police had moved in after Occupy Oakland protesters had defaced a nearby building, but the scene photographed by Campbell appears mostly calm.

As Campbell walked parallel to the line of police, the camera’s audio recorder picks up his voice asking, “Is this OK?” After about 30 seconds, one of the police fires a non-lethal projectile at Campbell, hitting him. As he falls, he cries out in pain and then says, “He shot me!” before the video cuts off.

Read more here.

Via San Jose Mercury News:  Experts in police use of force shocked by Oakland video