"Things To Be Thankful For"

Via Joe McNally's Blog:


"I’m thankful Ernst Haas made a book called The Creation. At the end of a tough day in the field, just looking at it is like taking a shower....


I’m thankful I’ve been around long enough to have known Eisie, Gordon, Carl, and Mr. Mili. And to still know John Loengard, Ralph Morse, Jim Stanfield, David Douglas Duncan, Neil Leifer, Walter, Johnny I, and so many, many legends who have taken up a camera over time. Their work is the bedrock on which we all stand."


We add:   Thank you to all photographers.

NYPD orders officers not to interfere with press

Breaking News Via the Associated Press:

Nov 23, 6:53 PM EST

NYPD orders officers not to interfere with press

By COLLEEN LONG
Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) -- The New York Police Department's commissioner on Wednesday sent an internal message to officers ordering them not to unreasonably interfere with media access during news coverage and warning those who do will be subject to disciplinary action, after several journalists were arrested covering Occupy Wall Street demonstrations last week.

Read full article here.

Related: Columbia University School of Journalism letter to Mayor Bloomberg and NYPD

"Thanksgiving Table With Turkey": The Carbro Process

(Photo by Richard (Dick) C. Miller )

"Daughter Linda At Thanksgiving Table With Turkey, Saturday Eve". Dick shot this image of his daughter Linda as a one-shot Carbro print that was built into the final cover for the Post. Dick did this by making multiple shots and carbros of various items such as the turkey, cranberry sauce and tableware, cutting and pasting the images together and re-shooting and reprinting the final carbro. Because that image became the first photograph to displace Norman Rockwell on the cover of the Saturday Evening Post, when Dick told Paul Hesse, who had tried unsuccessfully for years to sell the Post a cover, Paul said that Dick was lying, since he believed that it was impossible to sell the Post a photograph. But Dick wasn't lying and it became a cover in 1941, launching Dick's commercial carreer.

The Carbro Process by Paul Martineau

Over a decade before the 1935 introduction of Kodachrome colour film by Eastman Kodak, a subtractive colour process was developed that made it possible to create vivid prints from black & white negatives. The tricolour carbro transfer printing process - or carbro - demanded strict technical control but produced highly-saturated and permanent colour prints.

BECAUSE OF its complexity and high expense (some practitioners reported a finished print took about 10 hours to produce at a cost of $125), the carbro process was rarely the province of the amateur. By 1937, full colour illustrations made from direct colour prints were being used regularly in the big subscription magazines such as Ladies’ Home Journal, Vogue, Vanity Fair, and House Beautiful. Colour photography in the form of carbro prints was also being shown in museums and in popular touring exhibitions. In the United States, photographers Anton Bruehl, Nickolas Muray, Paul Outerbridge, Edward Steichen, and H.I. Williams, among others, became identified with the quality and artistry of their carbro prints through a participation in these publications and exhibitions. The demand for colour advertising photography was such that a few of the top photographers regularly commanded prices ranging from $300 to $1000 per print. Continue reading here.

Happy 75th Birthday, Life Magazine

Life Magazine was first published 75 years ago tomorrow, November 23.


The magazine, once criticised as being "for people who can't read," became an instant hit in 1936 and went on to feature defining images of the Second World War, natural disasters, the lives of Hollywood movie stars and the turbulent events of the 1960s. At its peak in the 1940s it sold 13.5 million copies a week.

The magazine was last published in 2007 and it is now a website. The website editors looked back over more than 2,200 cover photographs to chose their 75 favourites, which included portraits of Winston Churchill, Marilyn Monroe and a notoriously racy cover of Sophia Loren.

The magazine's place in the history of  photojournalism is considered its most important contribution to publishing.

The 75 Best LIFE Covers of All Time   

The 75 Best LIFE photographs

The Connecticut Post: Ridgefield man brought LIFE magazine to life

Related: Visit Monroe Gallery of Photography to view original prints by Margaret Bourke-White, Robert Capa, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Bill Eppridge, Carl Mydans, and many other great LIFE photographers.

The Sports Photography of Neil Leifer

NEWSEUM
Concourse level
On exhibit through August 12, 2012



WASHINGTON — Experience some of the greatest moments in sports history through the lens of legendary sports photographer, Neil Leifer.

The exhibit, "Photo Finish: The Sports Photography of Neil Leifer," includes 50 images from the prolific career of a man who began taking pictures as a teenager and went on to become one of the most celebrated sports photographers in history.

The exhibit opens Nov. 18 and features Leifer's best-known photos, including one of the most famous sports photographs of all time: boxer Muhammad Ali standing over Sonny Liston after knocking him out in the first round of their 1965 title fight.

Each photograph in the exhibit is accompanied by the story behind the image, told in Leifer's own words. The exhibit also includes an original Newseum-produced video in which the photographer talks about his photos and his subjects.

This exhibit was created in collaboration with Sports Illustrated.

Slide show here

"We are alarmed at the arrests of working news professionals..."

Mayor Michael Bloomberg

City Hall

Commissioner Raymond Kelly

NYPD
1 Police Plaza
 
November 18, 2011

Dear Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly:

As faculty members of the Columbia University GraduateSchool of Journalism, we are alarmed at the arrests of working news professionals during the ongoing Occupy Wall Street protests, and deeply concerned that the NYPD blocked reporters' and photographers' access to Zuccotti Park during the recent eviction of the Occupy Wall Street encampment.

The NYPD has had a distinguished track record in cooperating with news professionals in the coverage of demonstrations in New York City. For this reason we are greatly disappointed by what appears to be a pattern of arrests of credentialed journalists over the last two months, most recently a reporter and a photographer from The Associated Press, a reporter from The Daily News and a photographer from DNAInfo, all arrested at the Trinity Church lot during a demonstration on November 15.

We are equally troubled by the consistent blocking of reporters' access to the Zuccotti Park eviction earlier that morning. Numerous journalists attempting to monitor the actions of police and protestors, and to capture images of an important news event, have reported how they were forced away from the scene and prevented from doing their jobs.

We are particularly disturbed that at least one journalist reportedly had his press credentials seized by officers, and some other journalists have reported themselves or colleagues being physically assaulted by police. Such intimidation is in flagrant violation of the First Amendment and runs counter to the best traditions of New York City.

The First Amendment guarantee of a free press has long been understood to embrace a robust presence for news professionals reporting on public protests, among other events. In the case of Occupy Wall Street, both the protests themselves and the actions of police are matters of intense local, national and international public interest. The arrests of credentialed journalists and the blocking of news access to the clearing of Zuccotti Park impeded journalists' ability to gather independent information, and substantially curtailed the public's right to assess the actions of public officials and protestors alike. This is a blunt infringement on the First Amendment and does not contribute to public safety.

As Occupy Wall Street and related protests continue, we urge you to ensure that working journalists receive the full respect and support of the NYPD, included unfettered access to cover events as they unfold. Charges against journalists arrested in recent actions should be dismissed, and the circumstances of the arrests of news professionals should be fully investigated. We urge that commanders and rank-and-file officers be reminded of, and held accountable for, their Constitutional responsibility to protect and respect the First Amendment rights and privileges of journalists covering this important and ongoing story.

Sincerely,

Emily Bell, Professor of Professional Practice; Director, Tow Center for Digital Journalism

Helen Benedict, Professor

June Cross, Associate Professor

John Dinges, Lowell Cabot Professor of Journalism

Josh Friedman, Director, Maria Moors Cabot Prize for Journalism in the Americas

Todd Gitlin, Professor and Chair, PhD Program

Bill Grueskin, Dean of Academic Affairs; Professor of Professional Practice

LynnNell Hancock, H. Gordon Garbedian Professor of Journalism; Director, Spencer Fellowship Program

Michael Hoyt, Executive Editor, Columbia Journalism Review

Marguerite Holloway, Professor and Director, Science and Environmental Journalism

Judith Matloff, Adjunct Professor

Arlene Morgan, Associate Dean, Prizes and Programs

Victor Navasky, George T. Delacorte Professor in Magazine Journalism

Edward Schumacher-Matos, James Madison Visiting Professor

Bruce Shapiro, Executive Director, Dart Center for Journalism and Trauma

Paula Span, Adjunct Professor

Alisa Solomon, Associate Professor; Director, Arts Concentration, M.A. Program

Duy Linh Tu, Professor of Professional Practice; Coordinator, Digital Media Program

Andie Tucher, Associate Professor; Director, Ph.D. Program

Betsy West, Associate Professor of Professional Practice

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM

2950 Broadway New York, NY 10027

www.journalism.columbia.edu

JOHN LOENGARD EXHIBITION CELEBRATES "AGE OF SILVER"

John Loengard: Henri Cartier-Bresson sketching in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, 1987

Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to announce an exhibition of photographs by John Loengard celebrating his new book, "Age of Silver", an ode to the art form to which he dedicated his life. The exhibition opens with a reception and book signing on Friday, November 25 from 5 to 7 PM. The exhibition continues through January 29, 2011. Signed copies of the new book will be available throughout the exhibit.


La Lettre de la Photographie: John Loengard  Age Of Silver

Life: John Loengard's 'Age of Silver'

David Schonauer's "The Big Picture": Books: Loengard’s Ode to the Age of Silver

Wall Street Journal Gift Guide: Photography Books

FRENCH PHOTOGRAPHY AUCTIONS SET NEW RECORDS

by ARTINFO France

Published: November 17, 2011

The market for fine photography has had a pretty spectacular week in France. Last Friday night at Christie's 100 photographs by the legendary Henri Cartier-Bresson hit the auction block, sold by the Henri Cartier-Bresson Foundation and netting a hefty €2 million ($2.8 million). Ninety-one lots sold, and a 1946 silver print of "Derrière la Gare Saint-Lazare" ("Behind the Saint-Lazare Train Station") achieved an artist's record when it soared to €433,000 ($590,455), more than doubling its high estimate of €180,000. This sale was followed the very next day by a sale of 51 Irving Penn photographs from a private French collection, which achieved a rare 100 percent sell-through rate and totaled €2.1 million ($2.9 million).

During the Cartier-Bresson sale, an anonymous telephone bidder won a five-way bidding war for "Derrière la Gare Saint-Lazare," which was one of the photographer's first silver prints. A 1999 print of "Alberto Giacometti à la Galerie Maeght, 1961" fetched the impressive price of €75,400 ($102,818), five times its low estimate of €15,000. An anonymous European collector purchased the photo, which shows the sculptor in blurred movement, looking very much like his "Walking Man" sculpture, which is in the foreground. A 1957 print of "Coronation of George VI, Trafalgar Square, London, 12 May 1937" sold for €70,600 ($96,273), and "Sringar, Kashmir, India, 1948" achieved the same price. Most of the buyers were European collectors, though an Asian buyer snapped up "Ubud, Bali, Indonesia, 1949" for €63,400 ($86,455). (The proceeds of the sale are go towards the Cartier-Bresson Foundation's move to a larger space in the Marais near the Pompidou Center.)

As for the Irving Penn sale, it may not have set any records, but it did mark the second-highest price ever for a Penn photo. The 1951 print, "Woman in Moroccan Palace (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn)," sold for €361,000 ($492,273), surpassing its high estimate of €300,000. (Penn's auction record was set at Christie's New York in April 2008, when his 1948 photo "Cuzco Children" fetched $529,000. ) While all the Cartier-Bresson images except for the top lot sold for less than €100,000, two other Penn photographs reached six figures. A 1979 print of "Harlequin Dress (Lisa Fonssagrives-Penn") sold for €265,000 ($361,364) and "Poppy, Glowing Embers, New York, 1968" achieved a price of €193,000 ($263,182).

"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.