How Photography Has Transformed the U.S. Presidential Election

 

Via Blind
October 19, 2020
By Miss Rosen

A new exhibition looks at how photography has been used to shape public image and garner public support for candidates campaigning for the most powerful office in the world.

Hillary Clinton during the 2008 Presidential Campaign, New Hampshire © Brooks Kraft / Monroe Gallery of Photography

“Politics is theater. It doesn't matter if you win. You make a statement. You say, ‘I'm here, pay attention to me,’” said Harvey Milk, the first openly gay elected official in California. Invariably photography, with its paradoxical ability to convey fact and fiction at the same time, has long played a major role in shaping political messages without ever saying a word.

The new exhibition, The Campaign, looks at how photographers have documented the race for the most powerful office in the world — that of the U.S. Presidency — over the past 80 years from the campaign trail to inauguration day. The exhibition, which features work by Cornell Capa, Bill Ray, John Leongard, Alfred Eisenstaedt, Neil Leifer, Brooks Kraft, and Nina Berman, among others, dates back to Thomas E. Dewey’s run in 1948, which resulted in one of the greatest upsets in election history.

1948 Republican Convention, Philadelphia, PA © Irving Haberman / Monroe Gallery of Photography

Irving Haberman’s vibrant crowd scene shows just how influential the photograph was, as countless members of the crowd bear placards with Dewey’s confident visage gazing intently at us, emoting the perfect blend of assurance and artifice Americans have grown to know and love.

The Tragic Hero

Bobby Kennedy campaigns in Indiana during May of 1968, with various aides and friends: former prizefighter Tony Zale and (right of Kennedy) N.F.L. stars Lamar Lundy, Rosey Grier, and Deacon Jones © Bill Eppridge / Monroe Gallery of Photography

“Reporters listen, photographers look,” photographer Bill Eppridge said during the Robert F. Kennedy’s 1968 tragic run, which ultimately resulted in his shocking death on the campaign trail before he could clinch the Democratic nomination. Kennedy, whose public profile was closely welded to his brother’s legacy, understood the language of visibility and representation long before they became buzzwords. 

In Eppridge’s photograph of Kennedy campaigning in the Watts section of Los Angeles on the last day of the primary — just three years after riots against police brutality devastated the neighborhood — we see the former Attorney General symbolically standing on the shoulders of Black men, his wide smile standing in stark contrast to the cautious looks on their face. Eppridge’s image underscores the complex mixture of naïveté and hubris that privilege provides when confronting the rapacious specter of American violence.

The Kennedy campaign travels through the Watts section of Los Angeles on the last day before the primary, 1968 © Bill Eppridge / Monroe Gallery of Photography

The Power of Photography

This September, more than 73 million people tuned in to the first debate between Donald Trump and Joe Biden — just the kind of ratings the President loves. As a failed businessman who rebranded his image through reality TV, Trump understands better than most the power image holds over the American public.

President Barack Obama campaigns in the rain, Glen Allen, Virginia, 2012 © Brooks Kraft / Monroe Gallery of PhotographyBeing camera ready became a necessity in 1960 when John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon held the first televised debate. Standing in the control room, Irving Haberman photographed the television studio as the scene unfolded, giving viewers a behind-the-scene look at this historic event. 

We focus our attention not on the action but on the TV monitor that beamed Kennedy’s radiant face into millions of American homes. The camera showed Kennedy as the picture of vitality an image that belied his actual health. Calm, cool, and collected, Kennedy soared while Nixon faltered — allowing the public to happily forgo the enduring wisdom of Edgar Allen Poe: “Believe nothing you hear, and only one half that you see.”

John F. Kennedy, on-set monitor at the first-ever televised Presidential debate in 1960 © Irving Haberman / Monroe Gallery of Photography

Richard Nixon giving a speech to the residents of Suffolk County, NY while on the campaign trail in 1968 © Irving Haberman / Monroe Gallery of Photography

 

By Miss Rosen

Miss Rosen is a New York-based writer focusing on art, photography, and culture. Her work has been published in books, magazines, and websites including Time, Vogue, Artsy, Aperture, Dazed, and Vice, among others.

The Campaign 

Through November 15, 2020

Monroe Gallery, 112 Don Gaspar, Santa Fe, NM 87501

https://www.monroegallery.com/

On the campaign trail

 

Via The Albuquerque Journal
October 18, 2020

By Kathaleen Roberts

Presidential candidate Jack Kennedy conferring with his brother and campaign organizer Bobby Kennedy in a hotel suite as they are silhouetted by the sunlight coming through the drawn window drapes. Photo by Hank Walker/The Life Picture Collection. (Courtesy of The Monroe Gallery Of Photography)

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — As the pandemic forces our politics into virtual reality, a Santa Fe gallery is taking a look back at the grueling, crowded and ultimately dangerous presidential campaigns of decades past.

Open at Santa Fe’s Monroe Gallery of Photography, monroegallery.com, “The Campaign” explores the human dimension of the process by which Americans choose their presidents. These photographers sought (and often got) an intimate access far beyond the campaigns’ carefully curated images. The images will remain online through Nov. 15.

“Reporters listen, photographers look,” the late photojournalist Bill Eppridge said about the 1968 Robert F. Kennedy campaign.

“You’re searching for a perspective everybody isn’t getting,” gallery co-owner Sidney Monroe said. “You’re trying to get something beyond their image machine. It’s grueling.

“Campaigns were not as big; they were not as fast,” gallery co-owner Michelle Monroe added. “You could do a cross-country train trip. Everything now is not staged, but they try to control it. The very relationship with the press has changed everything – when you think of the press being complicit in hiding (Franklin) Roosevelt’s disability.”

Richard Nixon giving a speech to the residents of Suffolk County, New York, while on the 1968 campaign trail. By Irving Haberman.

Not a comprehensive exhibit, the show features only the artists in the gallery’s stable and their most significant campaigns.

The exhibition examines a time when photographing presidential campaigns often required patience and endurance: long days were the norm, and getting beyond the carefully constructed stagecraft and tightly scripted events proved difficult. Campaign staff and security frequently monitored (and controlled) the movement of media; capturing iconic visual symbols of democracy in action was the forte of the successful campaign photograph.

Hank Walker’s 1960 silhouette of John and Robert Kennedy conferring in a Los Angeles hotel bedroom shows the two brothers in deep conversation. Walker covered the campaign for Life magazine.

“Bobby was acting as campaign manager for Jack,” Sidney Monroe said. “That’s the moment Jack told Bobby he had chosen (Lyndon) Johnson as the vice presidential candidate. Bobby and Johnson were sworn enemies.

“Later, in the hallway, Walker saw Bobby storm out, swearing, ‘S—, s—, s—.’ ”

“Jack thought it was the only way he could win Texas,” Michelle added. “Bobby referred to Johnson as ‘an animal.’ ”

Sen. Robert F. Kennedy and members of  the “Fearsome Foursome” of the Los Angeles Rams football team in Indianapolis, 1968. By Bill Eppridge.

Joe McNally’s 1988 portrait of then-presidential candidate Joe Biden riding a train captures the candidate in a contemplative mood.

“It was also after Biden had suffered an aneurysm and this was his return,” Sidney said. “(McNally) said he came across as a stoic, very relatable candidate.”

Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign. Photo by Brooks Kraft.

Irving Haberman’s campaign silhouette from 1968 shows the unmistakable shadow of Richard Nixon.

“It’s a prime example of a great campaign photograph,” Sidney said. “It’s dramatic, it carries a lot of weight; it’s kind of heroic.”

Most photographers captured Hillary Clinton emoting, with her mouth open, during the 2008 presidential race. Brooks Kraft took the opposite approach, shooting her listening to a constituent as she held a cup of coffee.

“He was the White House photographer for Time magazine for 10 years,” Sidney said.

John F. Kennedy, on-set monitor at the first-ever televised presidential debate, 1960. By Irving Haberman.

Kraft’s portrait of Barack Obama speaking in the rain reveals the determination and grit necessary to run for president.

“That’s actually Brooks’ favorite photograph,” Sidney said. “It really is a transcendent image.”

President Barack Obama speaks in the rain during a campaign rally in Glen Allen, Virginia, 2012. By Brooks Kraft.

In 1960 Haberman captured the Nixon-Kennedy first-ever TV debate from both the stage and its monitors.

“He was working for CBS as a photographer, so he had intimate access,” Sidney said. “It was the first time when candidates had to look good on TV. Everybody says the way Nixon looked is what sank him. There’s a lot packed into that picture.”

Joe Biden commuting on a train in 1988. By Joe McNally.

A trio of Eppridge’s Life magazine photographs capture both the excitement and the danger of Robert Kennedy’s 1968 presidential bid. The images include the famous “Fearsome Foursome” Los Angeles Rams football players who served as his bodyguards. His passionate supporters ranged from people of color to women and immigrants. Eppridge said it was hard not to be inspired and retain his journalistic neutrality.

“It was after (Kennedy’s) brother’s assassination, which was an open wound,” Michelle said, “and the sense of hopelessness that the Vietnam War would go on forever.”

Eppridge said as the crowds swelled into pandemonium on a daily basis, even the press were in fear for the candidate’s life.

Eppridge would go on to take the famous photograph of a dying RFK at the Los Angeles Ambassador Hotel.

If you go

WHAT: “The Campaign”

WHEN: 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 10 a.m.-4 p.m. Friday-Saturday

WHERE: Monroe Gallery  (Face masks required; limited to 10 visitors at a time)

HOW MUCH: Free to attend. Information at 505-982-0200, monroegallery.com

PBS program "Driving While Black: Race, Space and Mobility in America" features Bill Eppridge's photograph of the Chaney Family

 

Via PBS

The key art for the new PBS film "Driving While Black" features Bill Eppridge's photograph of the Cheney family driving to James Chaney's funeral in Meridan, Mississippi, August, 1964

Discover how the advent of the automobile brought new mobility and freedom for African Americans but also exposed them to discrimination and deadly violence, and how that history resonates today.

A ground-breaking, two-hour documentary film by acclaimed historian Dr. Gretchen Sorin and Emmy–winning director Ric Burns– will air on PBS on Tuesday, October 13, 2020 at 9:00 p.m. ET

   

View the full film here

 View the full press release here. 

View Bill Eppridge's photography here.

 

Via TED Countdown Global Launch

October 10, 2020

24 hours on Earth — in one image

Stephen Wilkes • Countdown • October 2020

"Nature reveals itself to us in unique ways, if we stop and look at the world through a window of time," says photographer Stephen Wilkes. Using a special photographic technique that reveals how a scene changes from day to night in a single image, Wilkes exposes the Earth's beautiful complexity and the impacts of climate change — from the disruption of flamingo migrations in Africa to the threat of melting ice — with unprecedented force.

"Watching the Earth Melt Away", directed by Joe McNally, at the Ridgefield Independent Film Festival

Via Ridgefield's Hamlet Hub

October 9, 2020

"Watching the Earth Melt Away" directed by Joe McNally, an internationally-acclaimed, award-winning photographer and filmmaker will screen live on Friday, October 16 @ 4:00 pm at the Ridgefield Theater Barn and is also available to screen virtually.

Watching The Earth Melt Away is a wake-up call to climate change. In 2001, McNally covered a story about George Divoky, an ornithologist who, at that time had spent three months every summer for the past 28 years, living on a Cooper Island, a forbidding stretch of ice north of Alaska, where he studied artic seabirds. Over the course of his study though, which has now spanned 46 years, Divoky had inadvertently amassed one of the world’s largest experiential accounts of global warning. In 2001, McNally took a breathtaking photo of Divoky standing on a stretch of ice with the artic sky behind him. When McNally returned to Cooper Island in 2019, he recreated the photograph. The glaring difference between the two said it all—Divoky was standing knee deep in water. The magnitude and speed with which the landscape had melted and changed is heartbreakingly evident in the haunting film, Watching The Earth Melt Away.

Bones to pick: Obscure items in the Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

 

Via Pasatiempo

The Santa Fe New Mexican

September 25, 2020

Georgia O'Keeffe: Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow, 1945

©Georgia O'Keeffe Museum

...“I think, in particular, of the way she uses the pelvis bone,” (Museum Fellow Victoria) Plotek says. “It becomes a device she uses to frame her compositions. One of the centerpieces of her New Mexico paintings is a pelvis painting where the pelvis is sort of framing this oval of blue sky. It would be impossible for anyone to know what the motif was without looking at the label. But it becomes a recurring motif for her.”

Take, for example, Pelvis Series, Red with Yellow (1945). It looks like an abstraction: a yellow ovoid form surrounded by a nebulous, organic shape rendered in shades of pale white and ochre. Once it registers that the pale-and-ochre shape is a pelvic bone, you no longer view the painting as an abstraction but as a painting of a representational form.

“That painting, where O’Keeffe abstracts the bone, is the subject of a very famous photograph by Tony Vaccaro,”  ...

©Tony Vaccaro: Georgia O'Keeffe with painting, New Mexico, 1960

Full article here.

BOB GOMEL: EYEWITNESS NOW AVAILABLE

 

When history was made, Bob Gomel was there. This documentary examines the stories behind the stories of some of the most significant events in the 20th century. Hear and see the history unfold from the perspective of a legendary LIFE Magazine photographer.

Now available from Amazon Prime

View a selection of available Bob Gomel prints.

Photograph Daily Podcast: Meet Ryan Vizzions

 

Via Photograph Daily


September 16, 2020

Meet Ryan Vizzions, a photographer who started making pictures at the most difficult time of his life after losing his father to suicide. He quit his job at a Fortune 500 company, travelled half way across the world to Bangkok, a place chosen randomly from the spin of a world globe, to find himself alone in the midst of civil unrest in Thailand during the 'Red shirt protests' of 2010. It was to be a trip that shaped his photographic future covering stories of injustice and protest.

Ryan has since photographed protest and the plight of protestors whilst building what you could describe as a more ‘regular’ successful commercial photography business, but it’s clear where his passion lies, in making photo documentaries about social injustice. It’s a journey as you’ll hear in the continuation (part 2) of this story that has landed him with a government agency file. Today he is one of the growing voices in the photography community that believe it has become harder to tell photo stories with the freedoms once enjoyed.

Ryan Vizzions: "Defend The Sacred", Standing Rock, Cannon Ball, 

North Dakota, 2016

Photographs copyright Ryan Vizzions. Not to be reproduced or used without express permission of the photographer. 

Today's show is kindly supported by www.imagesalon.com - outsource your post production and spend more time shooting and working on your business with 25% off your first order in 2020.

Comment on the show: studio@photographydaily.show




Photographs copyright Ryan Vizzions. Not to be reproduced or used without express permission of the photographer.

FURTHER REFERENCE:

Thailands reds and yellows, a story published on the BBC website and a further article on the protests of 2010

NPR’s report on COINTELPRO

Jürgen Schadeberg, Whose Photos Chronicled Apartheid, Dies at 89

 

                 ©Jurgen Schadeberg: Nelson Mandela's return to his Cell on Robben Island 1994

The New York Times

Jürgen Schadeberg, a German-born photographer who survived the turmoil of wartime Berlin, then emigrated to South Africa, creating some of the most potent and enduring images of Nelson Mandela and chronicling the increasingly violent imposition of apartheid on Black lives, died on Saturday at his home in La Drova, Spain. He was 89.

Independent Online

Jürgen Schadeberg, the photographer who took the iconic picture of former president Nelson Mandela looking through the bars of his cell on Robben Island, has died. He was 89 years old.

The Citizen

With a large body of work and critical acclaim internationally, Schadeberg will be most remembered by younger generations for his famous photograph of Nelson Mandela looking through the bars of his Robben Island prison cell.

Arts 24

The things we will remember about Jürgen Schadeberg

MONROE GALLERY LAUNCHES NEW WEBSITE

Santa Fe, NM -- Monroe Gallery of Photography proudly announces the launch of its new website www.monroegallery.com with a short video “Photography: The medium of our time”. 

 The new site has been completely revised for easier viewing of exhibitions and photographer’s collections. A new short video highlights Monroe Gallery of Photography’s specialized focus of 20th and 21st Century photojournalism—images that are embedded in our collective consciousness and which form a shared visual heritage for human society. Many of these photographs not only moved the public at the time of their publication but maintain the power to stir the consciousness (and conscience) today. These images set social and political changes in motion, transforming the way we live and think—in a shared medium that is a singular intersectionality of art and journalism. 

 Monroe Gallery of Photography was founded by Sidney S. Monroe and Michelle A. Monroe in 2001, following decades of experience in New York City. The Gallery is currently open to the public and is New Mexico Safe Certified in Covid-19 operating procedures. Current modified Gallery hours are 10 to 3 daily, admission is free. In accordance with mandated health guidelines face masks are required and visitors must maintain social distancing of at least 6 feet. The gallery is limiting the number of visitors to approximately 10 people at a time. Private viewing is available by appointment. 

The new website was created by WebSight Design, a Bay Area web development company that provides clients with creativity, dependability, and value since 1995.

Photographer Stanley Forman discusses his iconic Anti-Busing photograph with subject Ted Landsmark

 

Ted Landsmark was an attorney going to a meeting at City Hall who came face-to-face with protesters. The clash was captured in this iconic photo by now WCVB photojournalist Stanley Forman.

Men behind iconic Boston photograph to be part of Antique Roadshow special

Hide Transcript Show Transcript -- THAT TOOK THAT PICTURE NEWSCENTER 5 PHOTOJOURNALIST STANLEY FORMAN MET UP AT THE , SPOT WHERE THAT PHOTO WAS TAKEN. NEWSCENTER 5'S MATT REED WAS THERE. >> IT'S FUNNY LOOKING BACK THE PICTURE, TAKES ME BACK TO THAT DAY MORE THAN MY MEMORY DOES.

Ashley Gilbertson: 'I am here today because another man died'

 

Via BBC

 

 Iraq War: 'I am here today because another man died'

At the start of the Iraq War in 2003, over 600 journalists and photographers are given permission by the US government to follow the conflict as embedded reporters.

Photographer Ashley Gilbertson is working for The New York Times when he enters the city of Fallujah with a US marine battalion.

Fallujah, 40 miles outside Baghdad, would be the deadliest battle the marines would fight since the Vietnam War.

Just over a week after entering the city, a small group of them is ordered to escort Ashley on a recce of a local minaret - what happens next will change their lives forever.

The Story Behind TIME's Commemorative John Lewis Cover

'It's a Picture of Someone Who Knows Who He Is.' 

The Story Behind TIME's Commemorative John Lewis Cover

Via TIME
By Okivia B. Waxman
July 21, 2020


In 1963, Steve Schapiro, then 28, was on assignment for LIFE magazine, photographing prominent civil rights activists, from James Baldwin to Fannie Lou Hamer. One day, while following Jerome Smith, a participant in the Freedom Rides that raised awareness of interstate bus segregation, he went to Clarksdale, Miss., to document one of the many training sessions that were taking place in church basements across the South. In those meetings, volunteers studied how to react to the racism they would encounter in their work. That day in Clarksdale, as Schapiro watched a line of ministers file into the church, he noticed among the group another well-known Freedom Rider, in a tie and button-down shirt: John Lewis. He asked Lewis if he could take his photo, and the young man agreed.

Weeks later, Lewis would become the youngest person on the speakers’ slate at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, addressing some 250,000 people from the Lincoln Memorial as the chairperson of the student arm of the 1960s civil rights movement, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Lewis, then 23, went on to represent Atlanta in Congress for three decades until July 17, when he died at the age of 80 after a battle with cancer. The picture Schapiro shot more than half a century ago is featured on the cover of the Aug. 3-10 issue of TIME, which dives into Lewis’s life, career and legacy.

“You can feel the determination in him to be who he is,” Schapiro tells TIME, reflecting on the photograph. “In this picture, you see he’s looking forward with an enormous amount of strength, in terms of how he sees the future. It’s a picture of someone who knows who he is, knows what he has to do, and for the rest of his life, after this picture, he did it.”


After that moment, Schapiro kept following the civil rights movement, too. He would go on to cover the March on Washington and voter registration efforts throughout the South. He covered the march from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., photographing Martin Luther King, Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young and Rosa Parks. LIFE also sent him to Memphis to cover the aftermath of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination on April 4, 1968. In recent years, Schapiro, now 85 and living in Chicago, has covered the Black Lives Matter movement.

Schapiro says Lewis saw the photo in 2014, after the Monroe Gallery exhibited it, and Schapiro sent Lewis a signed copy. Then, in 2015, Schapiro saw the Congressman in person for the first time since 1963. As the nation marked the 50th anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery, the two saw each other at different events where veterans of the 1960s civil rights movement gathered. Lewis told Schapiro that 1963 image was one of his favorite photos of himself; Schapiro says that earlier this year, aides to Lewis reached out to him requesting a version of the photo for a belated birthday party for the Congressman.

Schapiro hopes the TIME cover will inspire young people to pick up Lewis’ lifelong fight for racial equality and human rights.

“This is who he was in his time,” the photographer says. “Let’s see who you are in your time.”

Video: Photographer Steve Schapiro on capturing moments of John Lewis during the Civil Rights Movement

LIFE ON EARTH Exhibit in the News

We are grateful the current exhibition "Life On Earth" has received extensive coverage in the press:


The Eye of Photography: Monroe Gallery of Photography: Life on Earth

©Arthur Rothstein Legacy Project: Heavy black clouds of dust rising over the Texas Panhandle, April,1935

The Albuquerque Journal: Humanity’s footprint: Monroe Gallery photography exhibit “Life On Earth” a survey of environmental and climate issues

©Adam Karls Johansson: Greta Thunberg’s first school strike for climate outside the Swedish Parliament, 2018

The Santa Fe New Mexican: Life on Earth, a survey exhibition of work by photojournalists that spans more than 80 years 

Margaret Bourke-White/©The Life Picture Collection: Margaret Bourke-White, Louisville Flood Red Cross Relief Station, Kentucky, 1936

View the exhibit on-line here, and on our YouTube channel.

Gallery Photographer Ryan Vizzions Work Included in Magnetic West: The Enduring Allure of the American West at Figge Museum

Via The Figge Museum

Organized by the Figge Art Museum, Magnetic West features over 150 photographs by some of the most renowned photographers of the 19th and 20th centuries. Picturing the west as a metaphor for promise and peril, the exhibition explores issues of identity, implications of living in a changing landscape, and the centrality of Native and immigrant communities to the essential dynamism of the region. Including images made by artists from the U.S. and abroad, the exhibition expands the dialogue of how our view of the west has evolved from the 19th century to today.

Assembled from many public and private collections, the exhibition includes important works by Robert Adams, Edward Burtynsky, Laura Gilpin, Zig Jackson, Elaine Mayes, Chandra McCormick, Cara Romero, Wendy Red Star, Victoria Sambunaris, Ryan Vizzions, Carleton Watkins, Wim Wenders and many others.  The exhibition will also appear at the Sioux City Art Center, Sioux City, Iowa October 24, 2020 to January 17, 2021.  A catalogue will be published in conjunction with the exhibition.

The exhibition features two of Ryan Vizzions iconic images from the NODAPL protest at Standing Rock. Please contact Monroe Gallery for print information.

“Defend The Sacred”: Standing Rock, Cannon Ball, North Dakota, 2016

Last Child Camp: Protesters face off with police and the National Guard on February 1, 2017,

 near Cannon Ball, North Dakota.

Monroe Gallery of Photography presents two exhibitions in the gallery concurrent with on-line viewing

Monroe Gallery of Photography presents two exhibitions in the gallery concurrent with on-line viewing at www.monroegallery.com. The exhibits are on view July 3 through September 13, 2020; the Gallery is open to the public with Covid-19 safe operating procedures. Private viewing appointments are available by reservation. 

Ryan Vizzions: : A church flooded by Hurricane Florence stands silently in its reflection

 in Burgaw, North Carolina, 2018

LIFE ON EARTH

“Life on Earth” is a survey of 20th and 21st Century environmental and climate issues documented by photojournalists. Our world is changing faster – and in more ways – than we could have ever imagined. With social and economic disruption on a scale rarely seen since the end of World War II 75 years ago, the Covid-19 pandemic is also forcing us to completely rethink the notion of ‘business as usual’

The Earth’s climate is changing faster-and in more ways-than we previously imagined. This exhibit of climate related images hopes to promote awareness and motivate advocacy for the health of our planet. A narrated tour is available on our YouTube channel.

Tony Vaccaro: GThe Pink  Balcony, Puerto Rico, 1951

TONY VACCAO

GRIT AND RED WINE

“Grit and Red Wine” is special exhibition of photographs by Tony Vaccaro which includes several new discoveries from his archive being exhibited for the very first time. Tony Vaccaro, now 97, is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and COVID-19.  Tony was drafted into WWII, in June of 1944 he was on a boat heading toward Omaha Beach, fighting the enemy while also photographing his experience at great risk. After the war, Tony remained in Germany to photograph the rebuilding of the country for Stars And Stripes magazine. Returning to the US in 1950, Tony started his career as a commercial photographer, eventually working for virtually every major publication: Look, Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Town and Country, Newsweek, and many more. Tony went on to become one the most sought after photographers of his day. Tony attributes his longevity to “blind luck, red wine” and determination.

“To me, the greatest thing that you can do is challenge the world. And most of these challenges I win. That’s what keeps me going.” –Tony Vaccaro, May, 2020

Tony Vaccaro LIVE Saturday June 27 at the Virtual Collect and Connect Fair

Kiss of Liberation: Sergeant Gene Costanzo kneels to kiss a little girl during spontaneous celebrations in the main square of the town of St. Briac, France, August 14, 1944


Join us Saturday at 12 noon Pacific time for a live talk with the legendary Tony Vaccaro.


We are proud to represent Tony's vast archive and are exhibiting a selection of his photographs during the Virtual Collect and Connect fair hosted by photo la.

Tickets available here.


Tony Vaccaro, currently 97,  is one of the few people alive who can claim to have survived the Battle of Normandy and COVID-19. Tony Vaccaro survived WWII, fighting the enemy while also documenting his experience at great risk. Post war, he started his career as an editorial and commercial photographer and went on to become one the most celebrated photographers of his day.

Visit Us During Virtual Collect and Connect June 27-28

Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to exhibit at the Photo LA Virtual Collect and Connect Fair.

Join us online June 27th - 28th for our first-ever virtual photo fair. Photo LA has reimagined the traditional fair space to digitally connect galleries and private dealers, collectors, photographers and enthusiasts from around the globe.

No longer confined to four walls, the virtual photo fair will play host to over forty exhibitors via interactive, 3D booths accessed via the Whova app and on the photo l.a. website 

Monroe Gallery will exhibit an exciting range of classic and contemporary photojournalism. We will have live virtual meet the photographer events with Tony Vaccaro and Ryan Vizzions, including Q&A with your questions about their work and careers.

Full details can be found here. We hope to see you in our virtual booth!



UPDATE: We are pleased to have a limited # of FREE passes, first come, first served!

STEP 1. RSVP required: To claim VIP access to Collect+Connect, you must RSVP via photo l.a. Eventbrite page. 

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/virtual-collect-connect-photo-la-tickets-104164900020?discount=SOCIALMONROEPLA25

STEP 2. Access virtual Collect+Connect through WHOVA app on June 27-28:
Follow Whova app download and access instructions in your Eventbrite confirmation email

NY Times Obituary: John Loengard, Life Photographer and Chronicler, Dies at 85

He shot compelling portraits of the Beatles, Georgia O’Keeffe and many others. He also celebrated photography, and Life magazine, in several books.

Via The New York Times

By Richard Sandomir

May 31, 2020

The longtime Life magazine photographer and photo editor John Loengard, as captured by his Life colleague Alfred Eisenstaedt in an undated photo. In 2005, American Photo magazine ranked Mr. Loengard 80th among the 100 most important people in photography  .Credit...Alfred Eisenstaedt/The LIFE Picture Collection, via Getty Images

When Life magazine sent John Loengard to Miami to photograph the Beatles in February 1964, he had a quirky idea: Pose them in a swimming pool, as a Fab Four of bobbing heads. But on a very chilly day, he could find only an unheated pool.

The Beatles were reluctant to take the dip, but their manager, Brian Epstein, urged them in, citing Life’s importance. “It was very, very cold, and they were turning blue, so after a minute or two we let them get out,” Mr. Loengard told The Guardian in 2005.

The picture caught John, Paul, George and Ringo smiling and singing in the water during their introduction to the United States. To Mr. Loengard, it was his most American picture in 11 years as one of Life’s leading photographers.

Mr. Loengard considered this 1964 shot of the Beatles (clockwise from back: George Harrison, Ringo Starr, John Lennon and Paul McCartney) his most American picture in 11 years as one of Life’s leading photographers.Credit...John Loengard

Mr. Loengard died on May 24 at his home in Manhattan. He was 85. His daughter Anna Loengard said the cause was heart failure.

From around age 11, when his father got him his first camera, a Kodak Brownie, Mr. Loengard (pronounced LOW-en-guard) understood that there was magic in photography, that images caught inside a box could endure forever.

At Life, where words were subservient to pictures, Mr. Loengard extended that magic and became one of the magazine’s most influential photographers, following in the path of Alfred Eisenstaedt, Margaret Bourke-White and W. Eugene Smith.

Working almost exclusively in black and white, Mr. Loengard photographed stars like Judy Garland and Jayne Mansfield, and heads of state like President John F. Kennedy, walking in Frankfurt with German officials in 1963, and Queen Elizabeth II on a trip to Ethiopia in 1965.

He captured Louis Armstrong spreading balm over his chapped lips. He created a portrait of grief in Myrlie Evers’s comforting of her 9-year-old son, Darrell, at the funeral in 1963 of her husband, the civil rights leader Medgar Evers, who had been murdered. He caught the poet Allen Ginsberg nearly hidden by a veil of cigarette smoke, its wisps seeming to extend from his hair.

In 1966 and 1967, Mr. Loengard went to New Mexico to photograph the modernist painter Georgia O’Keeffe. He did not want to depict her as other photographers had, among them her husband, Alfred Stieglitz, and Yousuf Karsh. He serendipitously found a new way to portray her when she told him about killing rattlesnakes on her property with a stick.

“As we were having lunch, she pulled out from the sideboard boxes of the rattles that she’d collected,” he recalled in “Life Photographers: What They Saw” (1998), a collection of 43 interviews he conducted (and one that someone else conducted of him). “I figured O’Keeffe would like to be known to the readers of Life magazine as a killer. I asked if I might take pictures at the table.

“‘Certainly,’ she said. “I photographed her hand moving the rattles around one of the little boxes, with a wooden match.”

The O’Keeffe photos, some of which appeared in Life, were included in a book, “Georgia O’Keeffe/John Loengard: Paintings and Photographs,” published in 2006.

Publishers Weekly said the side-by-side presentations of Ms. O’Keeffe’s paintings and Mr. Loengard’s photographs afforded “a rich viewing experience that elevates appreciation of both.”

After Life stopped publishing weekly in 1972, Mr. Loengard stayed at its parent company, Time Inc., with its magazine development group; he helped start People magazine in 1974 and served as picture editor for special editions of Life and of a monthly version of Life that began in 1978. He left in 1987 to freelance for various publications, including Life and People, and for corporate reports.

John Borg Loengard was born on Sept. 5, 1934, in Manhattan. His father, Richard, was an engineer and the president of United Chromium; his mother, Margery (Borg) Loengard, was a homemaker.

With his Brownie, young John took pictures of his family and friends and of local landmarks. With his father’s help, he developed his pictures in the bathroom.

“I’ve been hooked ever since,” he told Rfotofolio, a photography website, in 2016.

He took pictures for his high school newspaper. And while attending Harvard University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in American history, he got his first assignment from Life, to photograph a tanker that had gone aground on Cape Cod.

The pictures never ran, but he got more assignments. He was hired by the magazine in 1961.

At Carnegie Hall that year, he took a dramatic photo of Judy Garland as she bent over to touch the hands of audience members. All eyes were riveted on her, including those of one man who seemed rapturous. It is an emotional picture, but Mr. Loengard said it was not a good one.

“I fudged details and relied only on strong form,” like her back and head and the open mouth of her ecstatic fan, he wrote in “As I See It” (2005), a retrospective of his work. “The camera’s veracity was not needed.” It might as well have been a painting, he added.

After leaving Life, Mr. Loengard became as renowned for his books as for his photography. He wrote about his own work in “Pictures Under Discussion” (1987) and “Moment by Moment” (2016); commented on evocative Life pictures of human expression in “Faces” (1991); paid homage to the photographic process in “Celebrating the Negative” (1994); and compiled his portraits of Annie Leibovitz, Richard Avedon, Henri Cartier-Bresson and other photographers in “Age of Silver: Encounters With Great Photographers” (2011).

When American Photo magazine ranked him 80th among the 100 most important people in photography in 2005, it described him as a “wonderful photographer” who had “turned his intimate knowledge and passion for Life into a remarkable career as a writer.”

In addition to his daughter Anna, Mr. Loengard is survived by another daughter, Jenna Loengard; his son, Charles; three grandchildren; and two step-grandchildren. His marriage to Eleanor Sturgis ended in divorce.

One of Mr. Loengard’s photographic heroes was Mr. Cartier-Bresson, the master of street photography, who had done his best for many years to avoid having anyone photograph him.

When Mr. Loengard asked him to pose for pictures that would accompany a Museum of Modern Art exhibition of his early work, Mr. Cartier-Bresson asked, “Can you take all the pictures from behind?”

No, he said, he could not.

“I felt the most important thing was to nail him down, as quickly as possible — get that face — and then he started taking pictures of me, and he went click-click,” Mr. Loengard said on the PBS show “Charlie Rose” in 2011, “and I had a motor on my camera, so I went ‘zeep-zeep,’ and we sounded like two insects getting interested in each other.

“He thought this was amusing, and he giggled.”

Bob Gomel : Eyewitness - When history was made, he was there

Via Bob Gomel Eyewitness

Bob Gomel and David Scarbrough share a love of storytelling through photography.

During the past decade, the two men and their spouses, Sandy Gomel and Mary Scarbrough, became friends. Bob’s shot of The Beatles in poolside lounge chairs hangs in the Scarbroughs’ home. It was Mary’s birthday gift to David for his 60th birthday.

David said, “The history Bob witnessed is important. So are the effort and creativity necessary to make extraordinary images of these historic moments. Many of the images are made even more powerful by Bob’s perspective on how they were created.”

David convinced Bob to reflect on his work for LIFE magazine in the 1960s and his subsequent career. Over dinner one evening, the Scarbroughs proposed making a documentary of Bob’s career. Bob said, “David offered a compelling idea to consider. After a few days, I said, ‘Let’s do it.’”

The documentary project came together quickly. A small studio was set up in Scarbrough’s retail computer electronics shop in Houston. Sessions were shot on Sundays when the shop was closed and outside noise was minimal. As many filmmakers do now, David chose to record the videos in 4K on two iPhones in a two-shot setup. A MacBook Pro and Adobe Premier Pro would be used to edit the video.

The recordings began with a discussion of the Cassius Clay and Sonny Liston fights. The project quickly gained momentum, as David executed his vision for the project, and the stories of more of the epic photos came to life.

“The challenge was to balance Bob’s unique ability to talk about the images and history, and to ensure the viewer remained immersed in the image itself,” David said. “I hope the viewer can briefly live in the moment of the images.”

Bob said, “The decade of the 1960s was historically powerful. We witnessed so much — from the terrific to the terrible. I’m grateful that David remains interested in the history of the 1960s and that his documentary helped share my perspective on the extraordinary events of the decade and on my life as a photographer.”

Ray Macland, the LIFE Picture Editor in 1960, hired a group of young photographers he dubbed “The Young Lions”. There were 5 of us - 

Farrell Grehan, Ken Hyman, Bill Ray, John Loengard & myself.

"With John Loengard's passing on May 24, 2020, that leaves just me."

Bob Gomel : Eyewitness is now available on Amazon Prime

John Loengard 1934 - 2020

John Loengard: Brassai's Eye, Paris, 1981

LIFE magazine photographer John Loengard passed away May 24 in New York City at age 86.

 

John Loengard was born in New York City in 1934, and received his first assignment from LIFE magazine in 1956, while still an undergraduate at Harvard College. He joined the magazine's staff in 1961, and in 1978 was instrumental in its re-birth as a monthly, serving as picture editor until 1987. Under his guidance in 1986, LIFE received the first award for "Excellence in Photography" given by the American Society of Magazine Editors.

 After LIFE magazine suspended weekly publication in 1972, Loengard joined Time Incorporated’s Magazine Development Group as the picture editor of LIFE Special Reports. He was also picture editor of People magazine during its conception in 1973 and the first three months of its publication in 1974

In 2005, American Photo magazine identified Loengard as “One of the 100 most influential people in photography,” and in 2018 he was inducted into the International Photography Hall of Fame.

In 1996, Loengard received a Lifetime Achievement Award "in recognition of his multifaceted contributions to photojournalism," from Photographic Administrators Inc.

Loengard authored ten books, including: Pictures Under Discussion, which won the Ansel Adams Award for book photography in 1987, Celebrating the Negative, and Georgia O'Keeffe at Ghost Ranch. His book, LIFE Photographers: What They Saw, was named one of the year's ten top books for 1998 by the New York Times

John Loengard: Henry Moore's 'Sheep Piece", 1983

John Loengard: Georgia O'Keeffe with basket, 1966

 

Covid-19 Safe Operating Procedures

Monroe Gallery of Photography will reopen effective May 18, 2020 under state-mandated guidelines to ensure the safest gallery visit possible with your cooperation. The gallery will limit the number of visitors to approximately 10 people at a time. In accordance with mandated health guidelines face masks are required and visitors must maintain social distancing of at least 6 feet. The Gallery will be regularly cleaned and viewers will have a completely touch-free viewing of the exhibitions. The Gallery will provide hand sanitizer and all sales transactions will be contact-free.

In addition, we will be offering private access to the gallery for 30 minutes by reservation. You may optionally bring one additional guest to your private visit. Please reserve your private viewing request via email. All requests for private viewing will receive confirmation within 24 hours. Private appointments will have priority over our public access times.

These procedures may change at any time based on updated guidance from the state. We appreciate your patience as we all navigate this new situation. We extend our concern and gratitude to our community, near and far.

--Sidney and Michelle Monroe

Tony Vaccaro on VE Day - 'We Just Did Our Bit:' WWII Vets Recall War 75 Years Later

Photo by Maria Vaccaro

Via the New York Times
May 8, 2020

LONDON — Seventy-five years after World War II ended in Europe,
The Associated Press spoke to veterans who endured mortal danger,
oppression and fear. As they mark Victory in Europe Day on
 Friday, they also are dealing with loneliness brought on by the
coronavirus pandemic. Here is some of their testimony.

SURVIVING NORMANDY AND COVID-19

Tony Vaccaro is one of the few people alive who can claim to
 have survived the Battle of Normandy and COVID-19.

He was dealt a bad hand early, as his mother died during
childbirth a few years before tuberculosis claimed his father.
 By age 5, he was an orphan in Italy, enduring beatings from
an uncle. By World War II he was an American G.I.

Now, at age 97, he is recovering from COVID-19. He attributes
his longevity to “blind luck, red wine” and determination.

To me, the greatest thing that you can do is challenge the world,”
 he said. “And most of these challenges I win. That’s what keeps
me going.”

Vaccaro’s grit carried him into a lifetime of photography that
began as a combat infantryman when he stowed a camera and
captured close to 8,000 photographs.

One of his famous images,
“Kiss of Liberation,” showed a U.S. sergeant kissing a French 
girl at the end of Nazi occupation.

Vaccaro documented the reconstruction of Europe and
returned to the U.S. where he worked for magazines
such as Look and Life and has fond memories of
photographing celebrities including Sophia Loren, J
ohn. F. Kennedy, Georgia O’Keefe and Pablo Picasso.

Vaccaro lives in Queens, the New York City borough ravaged
by the coronavirus, and next to his family.

He might have caught the virus in April from his son or in
their neighborhood, his daughter-in-law Maria said. He was in
the hospital two days and spent another week recovering.

“That was it,” she said. “He’s walking around like nothing happened.”