Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is April 29!

 

Via Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day
What is Pinhole Day?

Anyone, anywhere in the world, who makes a pinhole photograph on the last Sunday in April, can scan it and upload it to this website where it will become part of the annual Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day celebration's online gallery.

The next pinhole day is April 29, 2012

Locate a workshop near you.

Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day is an international event created to promote and celebrate the art of pinhole photography.

On this unique day, we encourage people throughout the world

• to take some time off from the increasingly technological world we live in and to participate in the simple act of making a pinhole photograph.
• to share their visions and help spread the unusual beauty of this historical photographic process.

VIVIAN MAIER: Deceased April 21, 2009; Exhibit Closes Today

Via The Obit Patrol

....John Maloof set out to learn more about Vivian Maier. His first Google searches had fizzled, but in April 2009, he spotted her name scrawled on the lab envelope of a roll of developed film. He tried again.

This time, he found an obituary in the Chicago Tribune. "Oh, my God," he said.

Vivian Maier had died just days earlier.

"Vivian Maier, proud native of France and Chicago resident for the last 50 years died peacefully. ... A free and kindred spirit who magically touched the lives of all who knew her. Always ready to give her advice, opinion or a helping hand. Movie critic and photographer extraordinaire ..."

Her 83 years on earth, summed up in 96 words. But one sentence stood out: "Second mother to John, Lane and Matthew." Maloof wondered. Perhaps she was their stepmother?

Maloof called the Tribune, but the newspaper's leads turned out to be dead ends.

Then came one of those serendipitous moments: As he was filing loose negatives and about to throw out a shoe box that had been stuffed in the larger box, he spotted an address in north suburban Highland Park.

Bingo. A starting point.


 And, as they say, the rest is History. Today, Sunday, Aprl 22, 2012 is the final day of VIVIAN MAIER: DISCOVERED.  The gallery will be open from 10 to 5.

STEPHEN WILKES: DAY TO NIGHT

 

 

Coney Island, Day To Night

Santa Fe--Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to present "Day To Night", an exhibition of large-scale color photographs (up to 50 x 80 inches) by leading contemporary photographer Stephen Wilkes. The exhibition opens with a public reception with Stephen Wilkes from 5 - 7 PM on Friday, April 27. The exhibition continues through June 16. 

For more than two decades Stephen Wilkes has been widely recognized for his fine art, editorial, and commercial photography. With numerous awards and honors, as well as five major exhibitions in the last five years, Wilkes has made an impression on the world of photography. His most recent series features vibrant photographs of Times Square, Park Avenue, Coney Island, and Central Park, among other iconic New York locations, and capture, in a single frame, the transition from “Day to Night”. Using digital composites of images of the same site taken over a period of up to 15 hours, the photographs have a time-traveling quality, with the hustle and bustle in the afternoon sun giving way to the glow of city lights in darkening, cloud-streaked skies.

 "Anything one can imagine one can create. Over the last several years, photographic technology has evolved to a point where anything is possible. I imagined changing time in a single photograph. I began to explore this fascination with time in a new series of photographs called: “Day to Night”. Photographing from one camera angle continuously for up to 15 hours, capturing the fleeting moments throughout the day and night. A select group of these images are then digitally blended into one photograph, capturing the changing of time within a single frame."

"Day to Night embodies a combination of my favorite things to photograph; documentary street photography melded with epic cityscapes. The work is a personal reflection of my deep love for New York. As this series has evolved, I discovered that the photographs began to highlight a form of emergent behavior within the daily life of the city. Studying the communication between pedestrians on sidewalks, cars and cabs on the street, these individual elements become a complex life form as they flow together to create the chaotic harmony that is Manhattan."

"Henri Cartier Bresson once said, “Photography is the recognition of a rhythm in the world of real things.” I am forever fascinated by the rhythm that is New York, the city’s relentless energy from “Day to Night”'.--Stephen Wilkes

Selected photographs from the Day To Night series were exhibited at 2011 Art Basel Miami, and just recently at the 2012 AIPAD Photography Show in New York to widespread acclaim. This exhibition will be the first time the full collection has been exhibited together.

 Photography has been Stephen’s passion since age 12, when his fascination with science led him to take photographs through a microscope. He began working on his own at age 15, attended Syracuse University’s Newhouse School of Communications, graduating in 1980. In 1982, Wilkes opened his own studio in Manhattan.

 “Ever since I took my first pictures, photography has always been the joy of discovery for me,” says Wilkes. “The excitement not only lies with what I see and how I see it, but mostly when someone looks at the finished photograph and feels the same emotions I felt when I took the picture. There is something sacred about the right moment. The frame where all the energy comes together and, in one instant, a story is told.”

Wilkes' photographs are in the permanent collection of The Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.; George Eastman House, Rochester, New York; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Dow Jones & Company, New York City; The Jewish Museum, New York City; and in numerous important private collections throughout the world. His work has graced the covers of numerous international publications, including Sports Illustrated, Fortune, Vanity Fair, The New York Times Magazine, Life Magazine, and Time Magazine.

PHOTOGRAPHY MARKET APRIL, 2012

ArtMarketInsight [Apr 2012
 Via ArtPrice
 

Photographs [Apr 12]

Sotheby's photography sale on 6 April last year (2011) was particularly successful, generating a sales revenue of $4.5 million (excluding fees) and 82% of the works sold. Two days later (8 April), its rival Christie’s generated nearly as much ($4.2m) from a photography sale, and then on 9 April 2011, Phillips de Pury & Company ended the week with a massive photography sale (259 lots, 90% sold) that generated $4.6m. Together the three leading auction houses generated $13.3m from their New York Photography sales in April 2011. A year later, this figure has been revised downward by $1m primarily due to a sharp decline at Sotheby's, whose unsold ratio rose from 18% to 31%. The other two auctioneers maintained their sales figures with $4.2m at Phillips de Pury & Company on 4 April 2012 (19% unsold) and no less than $5.38m at Christie's on 5 April 2012 (19% unsold).

The Sotheby's total would not have been so low had it not failed to sell its star lot: a box containing 10 photographs of Diane ARBUS, each numbered as one of a limited series of 50. These photographs, taken by Neil SELKIRK in the early 1970s (Diane Arbus died in 1971) were estimated at between $400,000 and $600,000. And yet the most famous pictures of this limited edition can fetch $80,000 at auctions, as we saw with Identical twins acquired in April 2010 at Phillips de Pury & Company. The same subject, printed during the artist’s lifetime and signed by the artist, fetches between $200,000 to $400,000 on average! If the classic favourites such as Ansel Easton ADAMS, William Henry Fox TALBOT, Robert FRANK, Irving PENN and Robert MAPPLETHORPE sold without much trouble, more contemporary signatures have not yet caught up with their 2007 prices. For example, Andres SERRANO’s Black Mary (100.3 x 68.6 cm, limited edition of 10) did not reach its low estimate of $30,000, although it fetched $34,000 in 2001 and $36,000 in 2007.

Christie's did better thanks notably to 25 photographs by Irving PENN. His famous Black and white Vogue Cover reached $360,000, the second best hammer price for this very graphic 1950 photo (the best was $400,000 in April 2008 at Christie's). In fact, the old Vogue cover generated the best result of the three days of sales dedicated to photography.

Earlier this year, on 12 March 2012, Christie's New York dispersed no less than 36 photographs by William EGGLESTON of which 16 found buyers between $100,000 and $480,000. The work of this pioneer of colour in art photography rose in value by 23% between 2004 and 2008. The subsequent contraction in his prices over the 2009-2010 period provided an excellent buy opportunity. Nowadays his small formats are reaching unprecedented prices, such as his Untitled (1973) (21.1 x 47.7 cm) which seems to crystallise the America of the 1970s and which fetched $200,000 on 5 April against an initial estimate of $70,000 – $90,000. Indeed, Christie's mammoth photography sale in New York on 5 April offered another 15 works by William EGGLESTON, most of which were priced between $5,000 and $15,000. Other notable results at the Christie's 5 April Photographs sale included $180,000 for Schadographie Nr. 17 by Christian SCHAD, champion of the New Objectivity, well known for his paintings, setting a new record for a photo by the artist.

The collectors of legendary photographs hotly contested Helmut NEWTON’s famous Self Portrait with Wife and Models ($75,000, whereas his less famous shots generally fetch between $9,500 and $12,000) and Robert FRANK’s Trolley - New Orleans which sold for $360,000 against a high estimate of $150,000. There was also a lot of 29 photogravures by Edward STEICHEN which fetched $100,000. Meanwhile, the Contemporary signatures maintained their prices next to the great classics and works signed by Massimo VITALI, Adam FUSS, Vik MUNIZ, Candida HÖFER or Hiroshi SUGIMOTO found buyers for between $45,000 and $55,000.

The prices of pictures from the 1960s to 1980s have also climbed steeply: Phillips de Pury & Company recorded an impressive record for Candy Cigarette (1989, ed. 25) by Sally MANN which sold for $220,000 against a high estimate of $60,000, as well as a new record for Francesca WOODMAN whose Untitled, Rome,1977, was acquired for $140,000 against an estimate of $15,000 to $20,000. Above all, there was a result of $520,000 for Cindy SHERMAN’s Untitled Film Still # 49(1979) against an estimate of $400,000!

As usual, these mammoth sales also offered plenty of affordable works such as chromogenic prints by the famous Cindy Sherman or albumen prints by Eugène ATGET from $2,000.

The next major photographs auctions will be held in London in May: Christie's will be offering a hundred lots estimated between £30,000 and £120,000 on 16 May with a Diptych by Andreas GURSKY (Art Market Confidence Index, est. £80,000 - £120,000), the Guggenheim Museum, New York seen by Hiroshi SUGIMOTO (est. £70,000- £90,000) or a large format print of Helmut NEWTON’s Self-Portrait with Wife and Models ‘Vogue’ Studios, Paris 1980 (est. £70,000 - £90,000).

A week before these sales, the world of Contemporary photography will be looking forward to Christie's Post-War & Contemporary Art Evening Sale in New York on 8 May which includes an Untitled # 96 by Cindy SHERMAN from her Centerfold series (1981). Recall that another copy of the same work fetched no less than $3.4m in May 2011, becoming for a while, the world’s most expensive Contemporary art photograph. The copy submitted for auction on May 8th will be a good test of the high end of the art photography market.

Copyright © Artprice.com- Breakdowns / figures cover all catalogued sales of fine art works recorded by Artprice (paintings, sculpture, print, poster, drawing, photography, etc.) excluding antiques and furniture.

Artprice accepts no responsibility for any use made of the information it provides. Any reproduction or representation of all or part of the information or graphics by any means whatsoever that does not include a mention stating source © Artprice.com or copyright © Artprice.com is illegal and represent a breach of copyright.

 Related: Drutt Report - Photography Reconsidered

Instagram Joins The Brownie As The Next Great Photography Disruptor

Which explains how a company with 13 employees can replace a now bankrupt company that once employed 30,000 as the “manufacturer” of a device to bring photography to the masses.

APhotoEditor

A Photographic Legacy: the Career of Japanese American Icon Carl Iwasaki

One of photographer Carl Iwasaki's (pictured right) subjects was Japanese Prince Akihito during his tour of North America.

From President Dwight Eisenhower and the Civil Rights Movement to Football Legend Joe Namath, Iwasaki’s photography career tells the story of U.S. history.

By Christine McFadden, Pacific Citizen Correspondent
March 2, 2012
Via The Pacific Citizen

Most Americans do not know famed photographer Carl Iwasaki personally, but they are likely familiar with his iconic work that has graced the covers of Time Magazine, Life and Sports Illustrated during his six decades long career.

Iwasaki was there in person to capture the desegregation of schools in the South. It was his vivid photo of Linda Brown and her sister Cheryl walking to school that so aptly covered the story of Brown v. Board of Education during the height of the Civil Rights Movement.

He was also lucky enough to photograph President Dwight Eisenhower three times, getting to know the former president on a personal level. He would eventually capture the lives of the likes of Presidents Richard Nixon and Harry Truman, Winston Churchill and he spent over a year following famed football icon Joe Namuth whose image graced the August 2004 Sports Illustrated cover.
“Not many people know about this, but (Eisenhower) loved to paint,” said Iwasaki, 87, who counts the former president as one of his favorite subjects to photograph. “I photographed him painting and he autographed it for me … I got to know him very well.”

“I try to shoot the pictures naturally, without too much posing,” he adds about his famous works.
Although now retired in Denver with three kids, Iwasaki’s work is still shown in galleries and exhibits across the country including the Monroe Gallery in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Sid Monroe, owner of the Monroe Gallery, marvels at Iwasaki’s ability to tell an individual’s story from one single photograph.

“That’s something that a lot of [Iwasaki’s] photographs do, and especially the [one of the] Brown sisters,” he said.

But Monroe admires Iwasaki not only for his talent, but for how he embarked on his career in photography. It was during his incarceration at Heart Mountain that he began his professional career.
“His background and his entry into photography is really extraordinary,” said Monroe. “I can’t think of any other photographer that has even a remotely similar story.”

Iwasaki was 18 and a senior in high school when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. He and his family were eventually sent to Heart Mountain, Wyoming during World War II along with tens of thousands of Americans of Japanese ancestry who were incarcerated along the West Coast.
One of his first jobs at the camp was as an X-ray technician because of his limited photography background. Eventually he became friends with some of the editors at the camp newspaper, the Heart Mountain Sentinel.

One day some War Relocation Authority photographers were on site to take pictures of some of the scenes and people. Iwasaki struck up a conversation with the photographers when he learned that there was an opening for a darkroom technician at their Denver headquarters.

Iwasaki was soon hired for the position and recalled how difficult it was for him to leave behind his mother and sister who were still incarcerated at Heart Mountain.

“That was the hardest part,” he said. But he was also wary of how Japanese Americans would be treated while the U.S. was still at war with Japan. “It was a little scary because I just didn’t know how the people felt about [us].”

At first, Iwasaki spent most of his time in a photo lab processing film and making prints. In his spare time he photographed some Japanese Americans that had relocated to the Denver area.
Soon his photos got noticed and he was hired to work in the WRA’s Photographic Section, or WRAPS, which documented relocated internees adjusting to life outside the camps.

“I guess they liked what I shot,” said Iwasaki.

“Mr. Iwasaki was the only Japanese American who was hired full-time as an official photographer for the WRAPS,” said UCLA professor Lane Hirabayashi, who featured Iwasaki in his book: “Japanese-American Resettlement Through the Lens: Hikaru Iwasaki and the WRA’s Photographic Section, 1943-1945.”

Several famous photographers worked at the WRA including Dorothea Lange, Russell Lee, Francis Steward, Tom Parker and Charles Mace. Iwasaki is now the only living photographer from this distinguished group.

Although the only JA to be documenting his community’s struggle for the WRA, Iwasaki says in general he was treated well. Still that didn’t stop his feelings of anxiety at the beginning, especially fearing that some would think he was a spy.

“At that time I was afraid,” said Iwasaki. “Here’s the Japanese person carrying cameras.”
When the war finally ended, Iwasaki was the first WRA photographer to head back to California to document the return of the evacuees.

He recalls that some cities were hostile to the returning Japanese Americans with some towns experiencing shooting incidents. He notes that San Jose was the most welcoming city to the returning evacuees.

“I think the WRA did a fabulous job,” said Iwasaki. “Like I said, there were just a couple of incidents, but as a whole, the evacuees were brought back and were very, very happy to be back.”
It was after working for WRAPS for a few years that Iwasaki would have another chance encounter that would further his career. In Denver he happened to accidentally meet a Time Magazine bureau chief. Since no other photographers were available, he was asked to shoot a political campaign in Wyoming for the notable magazine.

The political campaign was Iwasaki’s big break.

“By luck it ran four pages and a half in Life Magazine,” he said. “It was very exciting.”
Soon he was sitting down with Presidents Eisenhower and Nixon for photo shoots. One of his photography subjects was also Emperor Akihito while he was still a prince and touring North America.

 Although now retired and no longer taking photos, Iwasaki’s legacy will continue on in the various works and galleries that continue to show his iconic work and expansive career.

“It’s definitely ironic, given his background,” said Monroe “He was able to succeed not only despite a lack of training and a lack of experience, but also just sort of overcoming that emotional obstacle of being interned.”

VIEW VIVIAN MAIER: DISCOVERED BEFORE EXHIBIT CLOSES APRIL 22

Vivian Maier: September 28, 1959, East 108th St, New York

© Maloof Collection

After sweeping the International press, the Vivian Maier story has captivated the Southwest with numerous reviews and articles. Most recently, AARP has featured Maier's stunning photography.

Please join us to view this exceptional exhibition through April 22, 2012.

Mick Rock Featured on NPR "The Picture Show"

Michael Loccisano/Getty Images

Photographer Mick Rock in New York City, 2011
Via NPR The Picture Show

Mick Rock is really his name — though he's Michael to his mother — and he is exactly what you might imagine a rock photographer to be: tall and hip with shaggy hair. Shaded Ray-Bans, jean jacket, scarf. Oh, and an English accent to boot — so he can drop words like "bloody" and "shag" with allure (though he doesn't shy from the American equivalents, either).

"In any other era, dogs wouldn't have pissed on me," he says. "Thank God for Mick and Keith," who helped make lanky, messy Englishmen cool. He's referring to the Rolling Stones, of course.
Now in his 60s, Rock remembers the '70s well. Or, parts of them. And it goes without saying that the times have changed.

"The world is swamped with media today," he says. "I go to an event and I get photographed. Shoot the bloody photographer? What the hell is that about?"

On a recent night in Washington, D.C., for example, the cameras click incessantly (guilty) as Rock gives a few words at the opening of his aptly titled traveling photo show, Rocked. It originated in New York City, and it's hosted and produced by the W Hotel chain where, these days, Rock can be found shooting live concerts.

.

Claire O'Neill/NPR

Mick Rock gives a tour of his photographs at the opening of his traveling show, Rocked, at the W Hotel in Washington, D.C.

After his remarks, some high-heeled women and suited men (remember this is D.C.) trickle into a ballroom where they sip on cocktails and politely wait for a band to start playing. Meanwhile, Rock's prints of Iggy Pop, David Bowie and the likes adorn the surrounding walls, watching down, it seems, on what has become of rock. (Bowie would have worn the heels AND the suit, for heaven's sake.)
"Back then," Rock says wistfully in an interview the next day, "well, it was the age of sex, drugs and rock and roll, of course."

 

Full post here with slideshow and audio.

 

Related: Mick Rock, The Man Who Shot The Seventies

New York Photography Auction Sales Total $17.9m

Via Art Market News
April 6, 2012 By Marion Maneker


Sotheby's NY

Christies NY

Phillips de Pury
$6.1m ; 193 out of 267 lots sold for 72% sell-through

SWANN Galleries
PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF SALE 2274, April 4 2012:
Sale total: $1,202,122 with Buyer’s Premium
Hammer total: $1,001,230
Estimates for sale as a whole: $1,245,350 – $1,834,950
We offered 435 lots; 304 sold (30% buy-in rate by lot)
Top lots, Prices with buyer’s premium:

6 William Eggleston, Untitled (from the series Los Alamos), dye-transfer print, 1970. $60,000 C
347* Ansel Adams, Portfolio #4: What Majestic Word, In Memory of Russell Varian, with15 silver prints, 1963. $54,000 C
183* Camera Work Number 36, illustrated with 16 photogravures, signed & inscribed by Stieglitz, New York, 1911. $26,400 C
168** Portfolio with 90 photographs of a German dignitary’s travels to Asia and the Americas, silver prints, 1930s. $24,000 C
18 Weegee, Love Story & Ice Cream…Aspirin…Soda Pop…Vitamin Pills…Etc, maquette including two silver prints, with Weegee’s notations, circa 1940s. $20,400 D
292* Margaret Bourke-White, DC-4 Flying over New York City, silver print, 1939, printed circa 2000. $20,400 D
470* Sebastiäo Salgado, Kuwait (oil fields), oversize silver print, 1991, printed 2000s. $19,200 C
187 Edward S. Curtis, Chief of the Desert, Navajo, orotone, 1904. $15,600 D
210 Ralph Steiner, Ten Photographs from the Twenties and Thirties & One From the Seventies portfolio, silver prints, 1920s-30s, 1970s, printed 1977. $15,600 C
419 Adams, Holy Cross Church, Santa Cruz, mural-sized silver print, 1960s. $14,400 C
417 Adams, triptych with three color studies: Rusted Metal, Leaves & Red Rock, offered with four color studies, all unique Polaroid SX-70 prints, 1972. $12,000 C
240 Imogen Cunningham, The Bath & Agave, two silver prints, 1925 & 1920, printed 1952-60s. $10,800 C
14 Helen Levitt, New York (boys playing over doorway), silver print, 1942, printed circa 1980. $10,800 C
385 Brett Weston, Guatemala Hills, silver print, 1968, printed 1970s. $10,200 C
4 Bruce Davidson, East 100th Street Facade, oversize silver print, 1966-68, printed 1980s-90s. $10,200 D
467 Salgado, Dinka Cattle Camp, Southern Sudan, oversize silver print, 2006, printed 2011. $10,200 C
39 Ellsworth Kelly, Grape Leaves II, lithograph, 1973-74. $10,200 C
174 Alfred Stieglitz, Picturesque Bits of New York and Other Studies, containing 9 of 12 photogravures, 1894-97, printed 1897. $9,600 D
345 Adams, Lichens and Rock, silver print from a Polaroid Type 55 negative, 1962, printed 1962-63. $9,600 C
3 Henri Cartier-Bresson, Swan Lake, Bolshoi Theatre, Moscow, silver print, 1954, printed 1980s. $9,000 D

AIPAD: Bill Eppridge and Steve Schapiro Selects

Via PHOTO/arts Magazine

AIPAD 2012 (part 2)

"Susan May Tell is a career fine art photographer and photojournalist, with a very impressive background. She is currently the Fine Arts Chair for ASMP/NY. As one might expect, her magnet draws her towards classic black & white photography, photojournalism and documentary work.

One of the highlights of the afternoon for Susan was meeting, photographing, and being photographed by Bill Eppridge, surely among the greats of modern photojournalism. Eppridge is most well known for his iconic image of the busboy supporting the head of Robert Kennedy as he lay dying from a gunshot wound in 1968. His work was being shown by Monroe Gallery (419). Another image Susan noticed and loved at Monroe Gallery was Steve Schapiro's Freedom Rider Jerome Smith, Mississippi (1965)."

Related: Long Road to Freedom, Steve Schpairo and Jerome Smith

             Santa Fe, Rétrospective Bill Eppridge

            Raw File:  “Hard-Boiled Photog Blends the Old With the New"