Bill Eppridge: White Barn, New Preston, CT, 2007
Thursday, June 14, 2012
Wednesday, June 13, 2012
100 books, 56 cameras and 6,000 photographs
100 books, 56 cameras and 6,000
photographs
Pinhole Resource Collection Joins
the History Museum’s
Palace of the Governors Photo
Archives
Santa Fe (June 13, 2012)—Mysterious,
artistic, and as low-tech as an oatmeal box, pinhole photography has captivated
everyone from schoolchildren to professional photographers for more than a
century. The Pinhole Resource Archives, the world’s largest collection of
images, books and cameras, just joined New Mexico’s largest archive of photography, the Palace of the Governors Photo Archives at the New Mexico History Museum.
The collection was a donation from
Pinhole Resource Inc., which is based in New Mexico and led by Eric Renner and
Nancy Spencer.
“In looking at
other possible repositories for the Pinhole Resource Collection, we felt the
Palace of the Governors Photo Archives had a tremendous web presence, which
would make the collection accessible to people worldwide,” Renner and Spencer
said in a prepared statement. “In addition, with the staff’s enthusiasm and
interest in pinhole images we felt the collection would have a good home here in
New Mexico."
The Photo
Archives has already digitized hundreds of the images, which can be searched here
(http://econtent.unm.edu/cdm4/indexpg.php ); click on “Browse Pinhole Resource
Collection” or type the word “Pinhole” into the search box. In 2014, the museum
will mount an exhibition, Poetics of Light, celebrating pinhole
photography.
“The Photo Archives and the state of
New Mexico is fortunate to be the repository for this world-class collection of
pinhole photography. There is no other collection like it and is a tremendous
addition to the resources made available to the public through the Photo
Archives,” said archivist Daniel Kosharek.
Even in this digital age, pinhole
photography remains an intriguing medium. Its popularity has been celebrated
every April since 2001 with Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. The 2010 event
drew 3,387 images from 67 countries.
An exhibition of images from this
unparalleled collection of pinhole photographs, representing images from New
Mexico and around the world, is scheduled for April 2014 at the New Mexico
History Museum. Poetics of Light will coincide with Worldwide Pinhole
Photography Day.
In the 5th century BC, a
Chinese philosopher noted the inverted image produced through a pinhole—an
effect that led to development of the camera obscura and serves as the
fundamental quality of pinhole photography. Renaissance artists Leonardo da
Vinci, Filippo Brunelleschi, and Leon Battista Alberti advanced the knowledge of
pinhole camera obscura imagery, creating a basis and understand of one-point
perspective. In 1850, Sir David Brewster, a Scottish scientist, took the first
photograph with a pinhole camera. By the mid-1980s, a variety of pinhole
cameras could be purchased by anyone who wanted to create images without
creating the camera.
In its most simple description, a
pinhole camera is a lens-less camera with a small aperture. The interior of the
“camera” (which can be, yes, an oatmeal box…or a traffic cone…or the human
mouth…) contains a piece of film that records the projected image over periods
of time that can range from a second to a year.
Pinhole Resource Inc., a nonprofit
organization dedicated to pinhole photography across the globe, was formed in
New Mexico in 1984 by Eric Renner. He began working in pinhole photography in
1968, while teaching three-dimensional design for the
State University of New York at Alfred. Images from his 6 pinhole panoramic
camera were shown in the first exhibition of the Visual Studies Workshop Gallery
in Rochester, New York. Consequently, one of Renner’s images was included in the
Time-Life Series The Art of Photography, 1971. Through exhibitions and
workshops, he met pinhole artists throughout the world and worried that their
work might become as lost as the thousands of images taken during the Pictorial
Movement from the late 1880s to early 1900s.
After forming the
nonprofit, he created the Pinhole Journal, and in 1989 was joined by
Nancy Spencer, co-director of Pinhole Resource and co-editor of the journal,
which ceased publication in 2006. Their collections included images from Europe,
the Mideast, Asia and the Americas, books about pinhole photography, and dozens
of pinhole cameras, one of which dates back to the 1880s.
The Palace of
the Governors Photo Archives contains more than 800,000 prints, cased
photographs, glass plate negatives, stereographs, photo postcards, lantern
slides and more. Almost 20,000 images can be keyword searched on its website.
The materials date from approximately 1850 to the present and cover the history
and people of New Mexico from some of the most important 19th- and
20th-century photographers of the West—Adolph Bandelier, George C.
Bennett, John Candelario, W.H. Cobb, Edward S. Curtis, Charles Lindbergh, Jesse
Nusbaum, T. Harmon Parkhurst, Ben Wittick, and many others.
The Archives
actively seeks material from contemporary photographers as well in order to
document the past 50 years of visual history in New Mexico. Recent acquisitions
include works by Jack Parsons, Herbert A. Lotz, Tony O’Brien, Steve Fitch, David
Michael Kennedy, John Willis, Ann Bromberg, and Cary Herz.
Image:
Top, "Community," by Linda Pearson, 2002.
Palace of the Governors Photo Archives HP.2012.15.357.
Media contact: Kate Nelson, Public
Relations and Marketing
New Mexico History Museum/Palace of
the Governors
(505) 476-1141; (505) 554-5722
(cell)
The
New Mexico History Museum is the newest addition to a campus that includes
the Palace of the Governors, the oldest continuously occupied public building in
the United States; Fray Angélico Chávez History Library; Palace of the Governors
Photo Archives; the Press at the Palace of the Governors; and the Native
American Artisans Program. Located at 113 Lincoln Ave., in Santa Fe, NM, it is a
division of the Department of Cultural Affairs.
Sunday, June 10, 2012
“That the First Amendment right to gather news is . . . not one that inures solely to the benefit of the news media; rather, the public’s right of access to information is coextensive with that of the press"
Via National Press Photographers Association June 8, 2012
"I read with disappointing disbelief your recent statement in the Queens Chronicle “that only one journalist was arrested during the operation, despite stories to the contrary,” which you called “a total myth.” I also found it incredulous that given our media coalition letter of November 21, 2011, which addressed the arrests of journalists in and around Zuccotti Park; and during our meeting with you and Commissioner Kelly on November 23, 2011, no one ever raised the issue that “Occupy Wall Street protesters were forging press credentials in an effort to get through the police lines.” To hear you now deny your department’s culpability by claiming that “actual reporters” were not arrested is an absolute revision of history and is more appropriate as part of “1984 Newspeak” than coming from the Deputy Commissioner for Public Information for the NYPD."
Via SaveTheNews.org
NYPD Tries to Rewrite History
"After becoming the epicenter for press suppression and journalist arrests over the last nine months, the NYPD is trying to rewrite history and pretend like nothing ever happened."
Via New York Observer Politicker June 8, 2012
NYPD Spokesman Says Stories Of Reporters Arrested At Occupy Raid Were ‘A Total Myth’
Setting the Record Straight on NYPD Journalist Arrests
February 1, 2012: The New York Times fired off another letter to the Police Department today on behalf of 13 New York-based news organizations about police treatment of the press over the last several months.
"You got that credential you’re wearing from us, and we can take it away from you.”
November 18, 2011: As faculty members of the Columbia University Graduate School 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.
Saturday, June 9, 2012
Tahrir Square in 17 Months
Hundreds of thousands (photo taken after many left) gathered in Tahrir on June 2nd, in objection to the verdict in Mubarak trial. Mubarak and Habib El-Adly (ex-Interior minister) were sentenced to life imprisonment regarding the killing of protesters during the eighteen day. Gamal and Alaa Mubarak along with Adly's assistants were acquitted, and their verdict can't be appealed.© Jonathan Rashad
Jonathan Rashad is a Cairo-based photojournalist covering the Egyptian Uprising. He was in Egyptian custody for 54 days for covering clashes near Interior Ministry.
Here he posts gallery of aerial photos of Tahrir Square taken over 17 months
Friday, June 8, 2012
EDDIE ADAMS DAY: June 9, 2012
NEW KENSINGTON, PA - The Pennsylvania hometown of the great photojournalist Eddie Adams has proclaimed June 9, 2012, to be "Eddie Adams Day." The celebration in New Kensington includes includes a gallery opening, a screening of the documentary "An Unlikely Weapon," and a gala dinner with speaker and Pulitzer Prize winner John Filo.
Thursday, June 7, 2012
June 5, 1968: “How many people died because of that assassination?"
Via Conneticut Magazine
When the gunshots that mortally wounded Sen. Robert F. Kennedy rang out in a California hotel that fateful night 44 years ago, Life magazine photographer Bill Eppridge was right behind the Democratic presidential candidate. Eppridge didn’t panic or run; instead he did what he had risked his life to do in Vietnam—he took pictures and recorded history.
“I was about 12 feet behind [Kennedy] and I heard the shots start,” Eppridge says in the living room of the New Milford home he shares with his wife, Adrienne. In his 70s, Eppridge has dark hair and a deep, penetrating stare. When he talks about his days with Kennedy he speaks slowly and deliberately, as if he’s reliving each moment.
The assassination took place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. The shots were fired by 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan, and Eppridge himself was nearly hit by a stray bullet.
“One man [Paul Schrade], who was about four or five feet in front of me, standing directly in line with me and Sirhan, took a bullet in the head,” he says. Immediately, Eppridge began taking pictures. “One of the first thoughts that came to my mind was that JFK, when he had been shot, there were no still photographic records made of that. I thought now you’ve changed your job, you’re a historian.”
Among the photographs Eppridge took that night is the haunting image of a fallen Kennedy being cradled in the arms of Juan Romero, an Ambassador Hotel busboy who had shaken hands with the candidate just moments before. That powerful picture captured by Eppridge has become one of the enduring images of the assassination.
It was just that day that Kennedy had agreed to let Eppridge be a part of his immediate entourage for the night. Eppridge says that after making his speech, Kennedy left the hotel’s Embassy Room ballroom the same way he came into it—through the kitchen, despite the repeated protests of his lone bodyguard, William Barry. (It was only after the shooting that the Secret Service began protecting presidential candidates.)
“Barry knew the ropes and he knew that you don’t go out of a room the same way you came in,” Eppridge explains.
He had photographed Kennedy two years earlier and on the campaign trail they’d become friends, but at first Eppridge could not take time to grieve for his fallen friend. “After Frank Mankiewicz [Kennedy’s press secretary] announced that Bobby was gone, I went back to New York and met the plane there when they brought him in, photographed the funeral at St. Patrick’s, took that train ride to Washington, and then I cried,” he says.
If Kennedy hadn’t been murdered, Eppridge believes that history would have taken a vastly different course. “I don’t think people realize the significance of that assassination and what would have happened had he not been shot,” Eppridge says. He believes Kennedy would have became president instead of Republican Richard Nixon and would have ended the Vietnam War immediately—saving the lives of more than 20,000 American soldiers and tens of thousands of North and South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
“How many people died because of that assassination?” Eppridge asks. “That’s stuck with me, it bothers me.”
In addition to the tragic end of the Kennedy campaign, Eppridge covered many iconic moments in the 1960s for Life magazine, including the Beatles’ arrival in America in 1964 and the Woodstock music festival in 1969. In 2008, he compiled his photographs and wrote about his time with Kennedy in the book A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties.
Eppridge doesn’t subscribe to any of the many conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination, especially that there was a second gunman and more than eight shots fired that night.
“Somebody had supposedly taped 16 gunshots; there were not [16 shots],” he says. “I counted the number of shots and there were eight. So all this stuff about there being somebody else there shooting—no, there wasn’t.”
Besides security being light around the candidate, the campaign was very open, making Kennedy an easy target. Also, Sirhan is on record saying that he hated Kennedy because of his support of Israel.
“One plus one equals two sometimes,” Eppridge says. “I really think it was just one wacko, and a number of guys who were on that campaign have also said that, but you know, you can always be wrong. Always.”
When the gunshots that mortally wounded Sen. Robert F. Kennedy rang out in a California hotel that fateful night 44 years ago, Life magazine photographer Bill Eppridge was right behind the Democratic presidential candidate. Eppridge didn’t panic or run; instead he did what he had risked his life to do in Vietnam—he took pictures and recorded history.
“I was about 12 feet behind [Kennedy] and I heard the shots start,” Eppridge says in the living room of the New Milford home he shares with his wife, Adrienne. In his 70s, Eppridge has dark hair and a deep, penetrating stare. When he talks about his days with Kennedy he speaks slowly and deliberately, as if he’s reliving each moment.
The assassination took place at the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles shortly after midnight on June 5, 1968. The shots were fired by 24-year-old Palestinian immigrant Sirhan Sirhan, and Eppridge himself was nearly hit by a stray bullet.
“One man [Paul Schrade], who was about four or five feet in front of me, standing directly in line with me and Sirhan, took a bullet in the head,” he says. Immediately, Eppridge began taking pictures. “One of the first thoughts that came to my mind was that JFK, when he had been shot, there were no still photographic records made of that. I thought now you’ve changed your job, you’re a historian.”
Among the photographs Eppridge took that night is the haunting image of a fallen Kennedy being cradled in the arms of Juan Romero, an Ambassador Hotel busboy who had shaken hands with the candidate just moments before. That powerful picture captured by Eppridge has become one of the enduring images of the assassination.
It was just that day that Kennedy had agreed to let Eppridge be a part of his immediate entourage for the night. Eppridge says that after making his speech, Kennedy left the hotel’s Embassy Room ballroom the same way he came into it—through the kitchen, despite the repeated protests of his lone bodyguard, William Barry. (It was only after the shooting that the Secret Service began protecting presidential candidates.)
“Barry knew the ropes and he knew that you don’t go out of a room the same way you came in,” Eppridge explains.
He had photographed Kennedy two years earlier and on the campaign trail they’d become friends, but at first Eppridge could not take time to grieve for his fallen friend. “After Frank Mankiewicz [Kennedy’s press secretary] announced that Bobby was gone, I went back to New York and met the plane there when they brought him in, photographed the funeral at St. Patrick’s, took that train ride to Washington, and then I cried,” he says.
If Kennedy hadn’t been murdered, Eppridge believes that history would have taken a vastly different course. “I don’t think people realize the significance of that assassination and what would have happened had he not been shot,” Eppridge says. He believes Kennedy would have became president instead of Republican Richard Nixon and would have ended the Vietnam War immediately—saving the lives of more than 20,000 American soldiers and tens of thousands of North and South Vietnamese soldiers and civilians.
“How many people died because of that assassination?” Eppridge asks. “That’s stuck with me, it bothers me.”
In addition to the tragic end of the Kennedy campaign, Eppridge covered many iconic moments in the 1960s for Life magazine, including the Beatles’ arrival in America in 1964 and the Woodstock music festival in 1969. In 2008, he compiled his photographs and wrote about his time with Kennedy in the book A Time It Was: Bobby Kennedy in the Sixties.
Eppridge doesn’t subscribe to any of the many conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination, especially that there was a second gunman and more than eight shots fired that night.
“Somebody had supposedly taped 16 gunshots; there were not [16 shots],” he says. “I counted the number of shots and there were eight. So all this stuff about there being somebody else there shooting—no, there wasn’t.”
Besides security being light around the candidate, the campaign was very open, making Kennedy an easy target. Also, Sirhan is on record saying that he hated Kennedy because of his support of Israel.
“One plus one equals two sometimes,” Eppridge says. “I really think it was just one wacko, and a number of guys who were on that campaign have also said that, but you know, you can always be wrong. Always.”
Monday, June 4, 2012
This Day in History, June 4, 1989: Tiananmen Square
New York Times: Shanghai Market’s Echo of Tiananmen Date Sets Off Censors
New York Times Lens Blog: Behind the Scenes: A New Angle on History
Via ABC News: "China's internet censors have blocked words and phrases associated with yesterday's anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.
Key phrases relating to yesterday's date and expressions like "never forget" have been blocked by China's internet censors."
Via The Guardian: Chinese censors act to silence Tiananmen anniversary talk
Via BBC News: "China has detained political activists and placed others under increased surveillance in cities around the country to prevent them from marking the anniversary of the massacre in Tiananmen Square on Monday."
Via VR Zone: In yet another crackdown on free speech, China has banned searches for terms relating to the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, where hundreds of pro-democracy protesters were killed by government forces.
Forthcoming Exhibition: "People Get Ready: The Struggle For Human Rights"
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Coney Island's endless summer
To create this image, the photographer spent 15 hours suspended in a crane 150 feet above the Coney Island boardwalk
Via Fortune Magazine
New York City's No. 1 destination for thrill-seekers is in the middle of a high-dollar facelift.
By Anne VanderMey, reporter
By the numbers:
11 million: Number of visitors to Coney Island last summer. Of those, 640,000 went to Luna Park and Scream Zone for the 26 rides -- the highest amusement park attendance since 1964. Two new rides will open this summer.
$4.5 million: Sale price of the Eldorado Auto Skooters building, purchased this spring by Thor Equities. Thor now owns about seven acres of land in Coney Island, and plans to develop some of its properties into ritzy hotels.
90 mph: Top speed of the Sling Shot, Luna Park's fastest ride. The first roller coaster in the U.S. made its debut in Coney Island in 1884. It cost 5¢ to ride and topped out at 6 mph. The Sling Shot costs $20 a pop.
Source: New York City Economic Development Corp.
This story is from the June 11, 2012 issue of Fortune.
Related: Stephen Wilkes: Day To Night exhibition extened through June 24
Saturday, June 2, 2012
IT WAS 40 YEARS AGO...Live Facebook chat with Pulitzer Prize Photojounalist Nick Ut Monday at 2 Eastern
In this June 8, 1972 file photo, crying children, including 9-year-old Kim Phuc,
center, run down Route 1 near Trang Bang, Vietnam after an aerial napalm attack
on suspected Viet Cong hiding places as South Vietnamese forces from the 25th
Division walk behind them. A South Vietnamese plane accidentally dropped its
flaming napalm on South Vietnamese troops and civilians. From left, the children
are Phan Thanh Tam, younger brother of Kim Phuc, who lost an eye, Phan Thanh
Phouc, youngest brother of Kim Phuc, Kim Phuc, and Kim's cousins Ho Van Bon, and
Ho Thi Ting. (AP Photo/Nick Ut)
When photographer Nick Ut snapped the Pulitzer-winning image of Kim Phuc, neither knew what the next 40 years had in store. On Monday, June 4, the AP will be hosting a live Facebook chat with Nick at 2 p.m. EDT. Start asking your questions now on the AP Facebook page, and Nick may respond during the chat.
Joe McNally: Phan Ti Kim Phuc, 1995
Joe McNally was the first to photograph Kim Phuc and her baby, for Life magazine
Joe McNally: "That photo made on that horrible day was made in less than a second. Yet a lifetime spun on its power."
NPR: "Whatever your age, you've probably seen this photo. It's a hard image to forget"
(with audio)
'Napalm Girl' photo from Vietnam War turns 40: David Ono hosts special, 'Witness: Power of a Picture' (video)
The Guardian: Girl from AP's Vietnam napalm photo finds peace with her role in history
Washington Post Slideshow
Related: It Was Forty Years Ago Today (1968)
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