The haunting power of old photographs

More than just forgotten light ... Confederate soldiers as they fell near the Burnside bridge, Maryland, in 1862. Photograph: Matthew Brady/Alexander Gardner

Via The Guardian

Johnathan Jones on Art

The haunting power of old photographs

Really look at a photograph of the American civil war and you can be swept on a hallucinatory journey to the heart of a battle

Old photographs have a compelling power. I am talking about really old photographs, from the early days of the medium in the 19th century. Here is light from more than a hundred years ago caught by a camera; here are the faces of the long dead as they really were: the face of Charles Baudelaire, the face of Oscar Wilde.

But how much meaning can a photograph hold? How much depth is there in these flat renderings of silver and black that happened to be caught on ancient chemically prepared plates and preserved? Inexhaustible meaning and daunting depth, it turns out, when you know how to look and how to show these historic pictures.

I recently saw, for the first time, Ken Burns's documentary series The American Civil War. It is well known that the American civil war was one of the first wars to be recorded by photographers. Matthew Brady and other photographers followed the armies in wagons that contained their hefty equipment. They photographed the aftermath of slaughter, the twisted bodies lying in fields.

But it takes Burns's extraordinary eye and technical mastery to reveal all that photography can show of the horrific war that ended slavery in America. For one thing, the sheer range of photographs that Burns discovered in the archives defies belief. Thousands of images have been lost, yet he seems to find records of every place, skirmish and character. It is eerie to watch what comes to feel like a contemporary film of the war, a live newsreel of events from long ago. But the reason it is so haunting is that Burns does not just passively film the images, he digs into them, excavates their secrets.

In one visual coup, the film tells us that future general Ulysses S Grant worked in the family store before the war. Impressively, we are shown a photograph of the Grant family business at the time. But then Burns closes in on a detail: a man standing outside, the image enlarged to reveal that we are seeing Grant himself, hanging about in the days when he was a nobody.

The civil war is full of jaw-dropping images. It becomes hallucinatory, a deathly journey into the heart of the battle: you are there. Photographs, this film revealed to me, are not cold relics of forgotten light; they are landscapes that you can explore as if they were three-dimensional spaces. The civil war is still happening, and will continue to happen for as long as these shadowy imprints survive. This is also true of the pictures of our own time. A photograph is a world frozen, that imagination can warm into life.

Purple Hearts by Nina Berman opens at Royal Society of Medicine, London. Until 31st July

Via Trolley News

Royal Society of Medicine
Auchi Foyer,
1 Wimpole Street
London W1G 0AE

Since its publication in 2004, Purple Hearts has been widely featured in the international press, and has toured museum, galleries, art shows, as well as civic spaces in the United States and Europe. Most recently Berman’s portraits of US soldiers returned from the Iraq war since 2003, were shown at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, the Milan Triennale, Melkweg Gallery, Amsterdam, and at the Scottish Parliament, Edinburgh. Nina Berman is also the author of Homeland (Trolley Books, 2008)

Nina Berman talks about the photographs she took of wounded Americans on Youtube

Selections Nina Berman's "Marine Wedding" and "Homeland Security" arfe fdeatured in the exhibition History's Big Picture, Monroe Gallery of Photography, through September 25.

Do you think the photographers that put themselves out there on the extreme edge of society do it so they can get a write up in the media about themselves?

©Robert Capa/Magnum: Fallen Soldier, Spanish Civil War, 1936

Duckrabbit recently posted an article that is creating a bit of a debate: The war photographer’s biggest story: themselves. The full article is just below, with links to follow-up comments.

We are always interested in conversation concerning photojournalism, and this is shaping up to be a good one to follow. In conjunction with the current exhibition, "History's Big Picture", we have started a series of posts of selected quotes from photojournalists commenting on their professions. To date, Carl Mydans and Eddie Adams have been featured, more to follow on our blog.



Duckrabbit
July 1st, 2011

Is the ‘best’ story a war photographer can provide these days – the one that will get the most space – themselves? Not just any photographer though. They need to be western and preferably English speaking. And not just any story. They need to be kidnapped, shot, sexually abused or blown up. If they want to hit the chat shows they also need to be a survivor.


Think about it.

How many actual proper photography based journalistic stories from Libya can you recall?

Did anybody follow a Dr for 24 hrs, as opposed to just firing off shots randomly in the hospital? Did anyone hole up with a family for a few days? Did anyone track the journey of a migrant trying to escape, as opposed to just taking a few snaps of them waiting at the docks? They must have done, but I never got to see the pics. Just lots of pictures of men (better if it’s a boy) firing rockets randomly into the dessert and a few charred remains.

Isn’t there something really screwed about the fact that the people in the pictures, what’s happening to them in a conflict, now seems to be of significantly less interest then what happens to the person taking the picture?

It makes a mockery of the already daft concept of ‘objective journalism’. And its dangerous. Because it perpetuates the myth of the heroic war photographer, encourages other young people to go in search of the glamour of the gun and ends with mostly local people getting injured or killed. But for what?

Can anyone seriously argue that there was news value in printing Guy Martin’s Libya photos thirty eight days after he was wounded in Misurata? You can see a few of them here in the News section of the Telegraph. How can a series of photos be published in a News section and not even be dated? It’s inconceivable that they would have been printed as a six page spread if Martin had not been wounded. The message is simple. The photographer is the story.

The Telegraph carries an account of the day Martin was injured:

On April 20 a group of five photographers, including the Oscar-nominated British photojournalist Tim Hetherington and the Pulitzer prize-winning photographer Chris Hondros, came under fire in the besieged Libyan city of Misurata. They had spent the morning following rebel units as they fought at close quarters to clear Muammar Gaddafi’s forces from their town. That afternoon they were hit by a mortar attack.

Something is missing and that’s the Libyans who were also hurt in the attack. What happened to their stories?

The stories of the people that the photographers are risking their lives to tell have been written out of the picture.

And what about the medical team who saved Martin’s life? Nothing. The real heroes don’t count.

In some circles more has been made of a Libyan soldier or two groping a photographer than children being killed in Nato bombings. Again, how fucked up is that? How shameful of this scene that celebrates itself above all else.

Often when a war photographer dies the platitudes focus on the idea that they are involved in some selfless act; that in some way they sacrificed themselves for us. If you really want to make a difference in a warzone become a DR, a water and sanitation engineer, or a human rights observer working for the Red Cross. Yes the media are important but its nuts to be applauding people who turn up uninsured, without assignment and place themselves in the heat of a civil war, which is already well covered by the wires, newspapers, TV networks and content provided by Libyans themselves. Its nuts because it encourages others to do the same thing in the hope of making a name for themselves.

In the world of photojournalism to point out these facts is the equivalent of breaking honor amongst thieves. The feelings of individual photographers, who have been injured, or whose friends have been injured, are seemingly more important than having an honest discussion about the photographers shifting place within the narratives of war.

That’s dumb and its two faced. No-one should point their lens at the world if they’re not prepared to have it pointed back at them.

Why I am writing this now? A few days ago I recieved an email from Sara Terry who runs the Aftermath Grant announcing a new grant of $20000:

We are able to offer this year-long grant to conflict photographers who want to pursue a project about the aftermath in their own lives of covering conflict. The subject can be approached in any way – portraits, landscapes, reportage, collaboration with a family of someone who has been killed, anything that explores the personal aftermath of covering war, whether that be PTSD, the aftermath of sexual assault, the aftermath of being wounded. This is a very open and fluid call for proposals on this subject, and we welcome any and all approaches. We are very interested in supporting a dialogue about this kind of aftermath – both for the photographer who wins the grant, and for the broader audience who we hope will engage with the work when the grant winner’s year is finished.

Like I say, forget the people in the photos. The biggest story is yourself. The more fucked up the better.

Yesterday, Duckrabbit selected two responses from renowned photographers, read their comments here.

"A photograph can change the world and move mountains"

From History's Big Picture:

"Some assignments have been fun, others have been important photography because they came from the heart. A photograph can change the world and move mountains. It is through a photograph that we remember people and places the way they were. Some of the pictures I have taken tore my heart out. I have seen all kinds of things in my life and I have walked away from taking many pictures. I found out that I put myself in other people’s shoes and often feel that I became my subjects. When someone was wounded I felt the pain. I got tired of crying. Each year we have a memorial service for my friends killed in Vietnam and I still cry.”  --Eddie Adams

INDEPENDENCE DAY, 2011

Bill Eppridge: White Barn, New Preston, Connecticut, 2007

• When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
-- Declaration of Independence


• Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves.
-- Abraham Lincoln

• Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, to assure the survival and success of liberty.
-- John Fitzgerald Kennedy

• Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
-- Thomas Paine

• Freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.
-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

• Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.
-- Benjamin Franklin

• Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom.
-- Albert Einstein

• Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty.
-- Thomas Jefferson

• Freedom has its life in the hearts, the actions, the spirit of men and so it must be daily earned and refreshed - else like a flower cut from its life-giving roots, it will wither and die.
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

• In the truest sense, freedom cannot be bestowed; it must be achieved.
-- Franklin D. Roosevelt

• We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.
-- Declaration of Independence.

via Times of Trenton Editorial Board The Times, Trenton, NJ



Across the Western United States and particularly here in New Mexico, at this time we honor all firefighters and give a very special thanks to the Wildland Firefighters.

"I am making a record of historic times"

From History's Big Picture:

“Sometimes people have asked me why I devoted so much of my life to to covering these terrible scenes, these disasters, these wars. And there is an important reason. When I began as a photojournalist I was interested in the history that was developing around me, whether it was the hundreds and hundreds of people I photographed who were the homeless wandering along the roads during the days of the Farm Security Administration, or other pretty heart-rending scenes that I saw in those days.

Why did I pursue those scenes ? Because they were evidence of one of the most important developments of my time, and I have been attracted all my life to important historical developments Some were good, lots of them were not. And I had and still have a compulsion to record history. Remember, after LIFE was born, we went through years of war. Now it is true that I could have done what some photojournalists did and in some way avoided war. But I have never avoided covering a development of our time because it threatened me. I do not think of myself as being tough. Determined is a much better description. It has never been too hot or too cold or too hard or too tiring for me to keep on going on a story worth telling. And war is one of those stories.

I want to make it clear it is not because I liked war. They were awful periods. I have often been in places where it was so terrible, where I was so frightened, where I could criticize myself for being there by saying what are you doing, why are you here? The answer always has been that what I am doing is important, and that's why I am here. --Carl Mydans

JULY 2, 1962: THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACT

President Lyndon Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law, with Martin Luther King, Jr., looking on. July 2, 1964

Photograph by Cecil Stoughton

Photograph courtesy of National Archives and Record Administration, LBJ Library #276-10-64

At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem. Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have the right to vote...Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes... No law that we now have on the books...can insure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it... There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong--deadly wrong--to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States' rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.


President Lyndon B. Johnson

CELEBRATING 10 YEARS IN SANTA FE

Monroe Gallery of Photography, 112 Don Gaspar, is pleased to present an exhibition celebrating the gallery's ten years in Santa Fe. "History's Big Picture" opens with a public reception tonight, Friday, July 1, 5 - 7 PM. The exhibition of 60 iconic photographs continues through September 25.

We are very pleased to welcome Eric Draper as our special guest Friday evening. Draper served as Special Assistant to the President and White House Photographer for President George W. Bush. Draper documented the entire eight years of the Bush administration and directed the conversion of the White House Photo Office from film to digital, and two of his photographs from September 11, 2001 are featured in the exhibition.

Among the exhibition’s many recognizable images:

Robert Capa: D-Day, Omaha Beach, Normandy, 6th June, 1944. Capa is perhaps the best known of all World War II combat photographers. For a split second this short exposure places us shoulder to shoulder with the soldiers of the 16th regiment landing at Omaha Beach. Epitomizing Capa’s remark that "...if your pictures aren't good enough, you aren't close enough” the photograph of the GI’s struggling through the churning surf has survived as the definitive image of the Normandy invasion.

Joe Rosenthal: Marines Raise the Flag on Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945: It had been four days since the AP's Joe Rosenthal landed on the Pacific island of Iwo Jima. The hail of Japanese fire had not let up. During one of the bloodiest battles of World War II, U.S. Marines captured Mount Suribachi, a volcanic peak on the southern tip of the island. Jubilant, they raised a flag and Rosenthal made a photograph that has been called "the greatest photograph of all time".

Robert Jackson: Jack Ruby Shoots Lee Harvey Oswald, November 24, 1964
When Oswald was brought out, Jackson raised his camera as Jack Ruby stepped in front of him. Jackson described the moment: “My first reaction was, ‘This guy’s getting in my way.’ Ruby took two steps and fired—and I guess I fired about the same time.”



Eddie Adams’ Execution in Saigon, South Vietnam, February 1, 1968
This is one of the most memorable images in the history of war photography. We are witnessing an individual’s fear a fraction of a second before the loss of his life. Adam’s photograph appeared on the front page of The New York Times the day after it was taken and was syndicated worldwide, mobilizing public opinion against the Vietnam War.

Nina Berman's photo essay "Marine Wedding" is a series of unstaged photos of Sergeant Ty Ziegel, then 24, back home as he prepares for his wedding to his high school sweetheart Renee Klein, then 21. Ziegel survived a suicide bomber attack in Iraq, but was severely disfigured and needed 50 reconstructive operations. Exhibited at the 2010 Whitney Biennial, the photographs are a stark reminder that these wars have consequences and many of our sons and daughters are having their lives permanently altered in faraway lands. Berman has said in interviews that she started photographing disabled veterans soon after the war began mainly because she didn’t see anyone else doing so.

Please join us tonight, Friday, July 1, from 5 - 7 PM. The exhibition continues through September 25, 2011.

--Former Life, People, and Time Inc. editors Richard Stolley and Hal Wingo will lead a discussion on the impact of Photojournalism through history at a special salon at the gallery during the exhibition August 5, from 5 - 7 PM.

Monroe Gallery of Photography was founded by Sidney S. Monroe and Michelle A. Monroe. Building on more than five decades of collective experience, the gallery specializes in classic black and white photography with an emphasis on humanist and photojournalist imagery. The gallery also represents a select group of contemporary and emerging photographers and exhibits nationally at prestigious Photography Fairs. Monroe Gallery was the recipient of the 2010 Alfred Eisenstaedt Award for Excellence in Photojournalism.

London Street Photography Festival July, 2011

World-class photography and a diverse programme of exhibitions and events at venues including the National Portrait Gallery, the V and A, the British Library, the German Gymnasium and St Pancras International.

What's on at the festival

The festival programme has been announced, check out the What's on page for up to the minute info on exhibitions, events, workshops and photo-walks.






DOWNLOAD THE FESTIVAL MAP TO FIND YOUR WAY TO THE EXHIBITIONS


Contributors include:

Anahita Avalos, Polly Braden, Susanna Brown, David Campany, Damian Chrobak, Cheryl Dunn, John Falconer, George Georgiou, David Gibson, Mishka Henner, Tiffany Jones, Nils Jorgensen, Walter Joseph, Witold Krassowski, Vivian Maier, John Maloof, Mimi Mollica, Johanna Neurath, Grant Smith, Toby Smith, Ying Tang, Nick Turpin, Dougie Wallace

Venues include:

British Library, Centre for Creative Collaboration, Collective Gallery, German Gymnasium, HotShoe Gallery, Housmans, Minnie Weisz Studio, National Portrait Gallery, Photofusion, St Pancras International, Tate Modern, Victoria and Albert Museum

Not quite sure what we are about? Have a look at What is Street Photography?

Keep up to date: Subscribe to the LSPF mailing list

HISTORY'S BIG PICTURE

Joe Rosenthal: Marines of the 28th Regiment of the 5th Division Raise the American Flag Atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, 1945 ©AP




HISTORY'S BIG PICTURE

July 1 through September 25, 2011


Monroe Gallery of Photography is pleased to present an exhibition celebrating the gallery's ten years in Santa Fe: "History's Big Picture"; July 1 through September 25, 2011. The exhibition opens with a public reception Friday, July 1, from 5 - 7 PM.

On April 19, 2002, Monroe Gallery of Photography presented "LIFE Magazine Master Photojournalists" for its first exhibition in Santa Fe. Over the past ten years and over more than 55 exhibitions, Monroe Gallery has consistently exhibited the masters of 20th and 21st Century Photojournalism.

"History's Big Picture" mines the depth and breadth of Monroe Gallery's archives and is combined with new, never-before exhibited photojournalism masterpieces, from the early 1920's to the present day. "History's Big Picture" highlights both the significant and the idiosyncratic and embodies how Monroe Gallery has helped shape the understanding and appreciation of photojournalism locally and worldwide. In March of 2011, the respected E-Photo Newsletter named Monroe Gallery "the most influential gallery devoted to photojournalism".

Photographers in this exhibition have captured dramatic moments in time and illustrate the power of photography to inform, persuade, enlighten and enrich the viewer's life. Universally relevant, they reflect the past, the present, and the changing times. These unforgettable images are imbedded in our collective consciousness; they form a sort of shared visual heritage for the human race, a treasury of significant memories. Many of the photographs featured in this exhibition not only moved the public at the time of their publication, and continue to have an impact today, but set social and political changes in motion, transforming the way we live and think.

Photographs in the exhibition relate to events that represent the culmination of a development or the eruption of social forces. Looking at the pictorial documentation of such revolutionary events we often get the impression that we are feeling the pulse of history more intensively than at other times. Although often not beautiful, or easy, they are images that shake and disquiet us; and are etched in our memories forever.
 
View the exhibition here.

HAPPY 9Oth BIRTHDAY JOHN DOMINIS!

John Dominis: Steve McQeen and his wife, Neile Adams, in sulphur bath, Big Sur, California, 1963

From the tumult of battle to the glamour of movie stars, from the wonders of nature to the coronation of kings, queens, and presidents, the work of LIFE photographers is as much a history of American photojournalism as it is a history of the changing face of the latter part of the Twentieth Century. On the pages of LIFE, through the images captured by these masters, the eyes of a nation were opened as never before to a changing world.


John Dominis was born June 27, 1921 in Los Angeles and attended the University of Southern California, where he majored in cinematography. However, he credits a teacher, C. A. Bach, from Fremont High that offered a three-year course in photography for his skills. Remembers Dominis, "He'd give assignments, ball you out, make you reshoot." Eight of the photographers that Bach trained later got staff jobs with LIFE magazine. From 1943 to 1947 Dominis served as a second lieutenant in the U. S. Air Force photographic department. After three years as a free-lance photographer, he became a member of the LIFE staff in 1950.

A consummate photojournalist, Dominis covered the Korean War for LIFE, and recorded the beginning of what became the Vietnam War. He photographed the firing of General Douglas MacArthur, and he covered John F. Kennedy’s emotional “I am a Berliner” speech. Dominis traveled the world constantly, and in 1966 he made two long trips to Africa to photograph the “big cats”: leopards, cheetahs, and lions for a remarkable series of picture essays in LIFE which later became the basis for a book. This project resulted in several awards for Dominis, including Magazine Photographer of the Year (1966).

Dominis also covered five Olympics, the Woodstock Festival, and represented both TIME and LIFE during President Richard Nixon’s 1972 trip to China. Many of the editors and photo-chiefs at LIFE considered Dominis to be the best all-around photographer on staff. After LIFE ceased regular publication, Dominis worked as photo editor for People and Sports Illustrated. Returning to freelance photography, Dominis shot the photographs for five Italian cookbooks, on location with Giuliano Bugialli, food writer and teacher.

“LIFE magazine was a great success. If a man hadn't seen a picture of a native in New Guinea, well, we brought him a picture of a native of New Guinea. We went into the homes of princes and Presidents and showed the public how they lived. The great thing about working with LIFE," says Dominis, "was that I was given all the support and money and time, whatever was required, to do almost any kind of work I wanted to do, anywhere in the world. It was like having a grant, a Guggenheim grant, but permanently"

John Dominis' photographs of the 1968 Black Power Salute and President John F. Kennedy's vosot to Berlin are included in the exhibition "History's Big Picture" July 1 - September 25, 2011.


More from Life.com

STANLEY FORMAN: "WHITEY BULGER, AMERICA'S MOST WANTED, AND ME"

David Boeri, for­mer WCVB reporter,currently with WBUR Radio wear­ing his Whitey Tee shirt after he was cap­tured. David is a great his­to­rian of Whitey and his exploits.

Via Stanley Forman

Whitey Bul­ger was cap­tured and I got the call at 2: am to head into the City (Boston) for cov­er­age of the big story. It brought back mem­o­ries of a con­fronta­tion I had with Whitey almost 40 years ago, way before I knew who or what he was.


The Plaza at the Pem­ber­ton Square Court House on Bea­con Hill was a gated area (still is, but now with a guard shack) and in order to park vehi­cles on the Plaza to cover a court issue you had to knock on the door lead­ing to the bow­els of the build­ing and get who­ever was on duty to unlock the gate. It was the same entrance where the pris­on­ers com­ing for a court appear­ance were brought and then put in hold­ing cells.

One day about 40 years ago I had to go in and out of the Plaza sev­eral times. Each time I knocked on the door look­ing for the “key per­son.” The man with the key got pissed off at me as he thought I was both­er­ing him. I was young, strong (I thought), and if noth­ing else I could take any­one on ver­bally. We spared back and forth yelling and swear­ing at each other, he opened and closed the gate and I moved on.

Later that day I called Dis­trict Attor­ney New­man Flanagan’s pub­lic rela­tions direc­tor Dave Rod­man. I told him the story and he knew imme­di­ately who I was talk­ing about and told me it was Sen­a­tor William Bulger’s brother Whitey and to let it go.

I did not real­ize what dan­ger I had been in till 20 years later when I started to know more about Whitey, read he had worked at the Court House and real­ized who I had had the con­fronta­tion with on that par­tic­u­lar day. It was a scary thought after read­ing he had dis­patched peo­ple for var­i­ous rea­sons and I prob­a­bly gave him good rea­son that day.

A cou­ple of years ago I was at a book sign­ing event for “The Soil­ing Of Old Glory” and Billy Bul­ger was the mod­er­a­tor as we talked about forced bus­ing in Boston in the 70s. I told him about the inci­dent. We both laughed as he said “I guess you are lucky to be alive!”

Through the years Whitey’s rep­u­ta­tion as the “Sav­ior of South Boston” cer­tainly dimin­ished and fear set in. There used to be news­pa­per arti­cles say­ing Whitey played it safe against the bad ele­ments of South Boston; only run­ning some gam­bling oper­a­tions and keep­ing drugs out of the area. Works out he was the drug run­ner and involved in pretty much every­thing ille­gal in the area, plus mur­der­ing peo­ple at will. He has been charged with 19 known mur­ders and believed to be involved with many more.

Paul Corsetti, a for­mer reporter I worked with, also had an inci­dent with Whitey. Paul was chas­ing a story on a South Boston bookie and not think­ing much about it when he got a call at the office. It said it was Whitey him­self telling Paul “I know where you’re fam­ily lives and the school bus your daugh­ter gets on every day.” Paul told Whitey it was not him he was look­ing into and gave him the bookie’s name he was watch­ing. Whitey light­ened up and gave Paul all the infor­ma­tion he needed to do the story and the two moved on.

Another time in South Boston at Pre­ble Cir­cle there was a call for a shoot­ing. I raced there and the area was hec­tic with EMTs work­ing a vic­tim and cops run­ning around look­ing for sus­pects. Dick Fal­lon, another news pho­tog­ra­pher, kept telling me they were look­ing for Steven “The Rifle­man” Flemmi, who it turns out, was Whitey Bulger’s part­ner both being FBI infor­mants. Steve’s brother Michael was a Boston Cop who later got him­self in trou­ble and ended up in jail like his brother.

In the late 60s I was cruis­ing with Record Amer­i­can pho­tog­ra­pher Gene Dixon my col­league for 16 plus years when he heard the call for a per­son in the snow. It was on Har­vard Street in Dorch­ester and when we got there one of the Ben­nett broth­ers was curled up, bloody snow around him as he had been assas­si­nated. As I read up on the his­tory of Whitey it seems his mur­der was all part of the gang wars of those past days.

I grew up in Revere, Mass­a­chu­setts where it was said there was a bookie or gang­ster on every cor­ner. Not true– just on a lot of cor­ners but not all of them. My first “Mafia” hit took place dur­ing a gang war between local gangs. There was an infor­mant by the name of Joseph Baron Bar­boza. Joe was some­how involved in help­ing the police get to rival gang mem­bers and he and his friends were on a hit list. On a week­day night 35 plus years ago I cov­ered the mur­der of Domenic Dam­ico, and East Boston man. He was an asso­ciate of Barboza’s and had gone into a club in what was then called the Com­bat Zone on lower Wash­ing­ton Street in Boston to try and straighten things out. He had police pro­tec­tion and lost them think­ing he could make things right.

He was told to go to Revere and meet some­one near the Squire Club on Squire Road in North Revere. He did meet some­one or should we say some­one met him. When I got there he had been blown apart and was sit­ting slouched against the steer­ing wheel of his car about 100 yards from the club.

Another one of the group was Patsy Fabi­ano. Patsy was in hid­ing and at one point was put in the Charles Street Jail for pro­tec­tion. Kevin Cole, my col­league at the paper, got his pic­ture as he walked in the front door. Patsy was later killed gang­land style in the Boston area. I actu­ally knew Patsy; he hung out in Revere and went to Revere High.

Dur­ing this gang war time our great writer Harold Banks did a book on Bar­boza and word was out there was a “hit” on him. Harold was the City Edi­tor on Sat­ur­days at the paper and his Assis­tant City Edi­tor was Tom Sul­li­van. Harold was ner­vous about what might hap­pen and had police pro­tec­tion, One Sat­ur­day, Tom Sul­li­van put up a big sign on the back of his chair which read “I am not Harold Banks” with an arrow on the sign point­ing to the Harold. It brought on a lot of laughs.

We were tight with the Dis­trict Attor­ney back then and we were set up to pho­to­graph Bar­boza as he was being escorted from one court room to another at the Pem­ber­ton Square Court House. A very ner­vous Dick Thom­son a col­league was sent on a Sat­ur­day morn­ing and the sus­pect was led across the cor­ri­dor well pro­tected by police. Our Sun­day edi­tion was the only paper that cap­tured the image. The end finally caught up with Bar­boza on the streets of San Fran­cisco report­edly by a Boston area hit man!

I was on Prince Street in Boston’s North End when they raided the offices of Gen­naro Angiulo the local crime boss. The office had been bugged and after culling the infor­ma­tion that was needed they pulled out all of the files, safes and what­ever else was mov­able. Of course the late and great Globe reporter Dick Con­nolly was there, note­book in hand and watch­ing the scene. Dick was so good at what he did I would be sur­prised if he did not get to lis­ten to the tapes that were recorded.

I had a friend who was told after offi­cials lis­tened to those record­ings he was on a hit list. My friend had pissed some Mafia peo­ple and it was time to even the score. The “law” wanted him to help them but instead he fled the Coun­try for sev­eral years till things cooled down.

The Angiulo office was less than a mile from the Man­ches­ter Street garage Whitey used to hang out with along with his part­ner Steve Flemmi. Most of the pho­tos we see of Whitey and Steve were taken in the area of that garage. Mass State Police had set up sur­veil­lance in a build­ing across from the site. All of a sud­den the pair stopped going to the garage and the rife between the FBI became more pro­nounced as they thought there was a leak com­ing from that office. Works out they were cor­rect and his name was John “Zip­per Connolly.”

Reporter Pam Cross and I were in a dis­trict court fol­low­ing Frank “Cadil­lac” Salemne, a Mafia boss and hit man. He sur­vived an attempt on his life dur­ing a day­time try on Route One in Saugus, MA, when sev­eral shots were fired at him and although he was hit he sur­vived. Salemne at one time had fled Mass­a­chu­setts and was liv­ing in New York. FBI Agent John Con­nolly hap­pened to see him amongst 8 mil­lion peo­ple on a down­town Man­hat­tan Street and made the arrest. It was always felt he was one of the peo­ple Bul­ger and Flemmi dimed out and let Con­nolly know where he was. Salemne was sup­posed to be a friend of the pair.

Ray­mond Patri­arca with his attor­ney Joseph Bal­liro leav­ing a Boston court around 1967. Over Patriarca’s right shoul­der is Record Amer­i­can Reporter Tom Berube.

Ray­mond Patri­arca with his attor­ney Joseph Bal­liro leav­ing a Boston court around 1967. Over Patriarca’s right shoul­der is Record Amer­i­can Reporter Tom Berube.

The big boss of the Mafia in New Eng­land was Ray­mond Patri­aca, the Mafia Don from Rhode Island. Get­ting a photo of him was a big deal as he put the fear of God in every­one and he always had his tipar­illo cigar in his mouth and did not say pleas­ant things to the media.

The first time I saw him was at Fed­eral Court in Boston. We were all wait­ing for his appear­ance, every­one was talk­ing, and I was the only one that spot­ted him when he walked by us. I raced in behind him as he got in the ele­va­tor and got the only photo as the ele­va­tor door closed. About an hour later he came out the same door and walked right through the crowd, every­one was alert this time. Both the AP and UPI pho­tog­ra­phers got bet­ter images than I did and the Edi­tor of the paper hung them up in the photo depart­ment to make sure we all knew we got beat.

The last time I saw Ray­mond was at a New Bed­ford Court when they brought him in by ambu­lance and stretchered him into his hear­ing. I got a great photo of him laid out. When he died we all went down to Rhode Island to the funeral home and cov­ered peo­ple going in and out of the wake.

When I first began at the news­pa­per, bookie raids were big and we had sources to tell us when, where and every­thing we needed to know to be there when it hap­pened. I was dis­patched to the 411 Club on Colum­bus Avenue in Boston’s South End. The sus­pects were being carted out and from there I fol­lowed the group to the Fed­eral Court House in Post Office Square. There were not any metal detec­tors in those days so keep­ing up with the group was no problem.

I got into an ele­va­tor but lit­tle did I know I got on with some of the sus­pects. One of them being a major player in the rack­e­teer­ing group, Dr. Harry “Doc” Sagan­sky, a Brook­line den­tist and big time bookie. He was smok­ing a cigar and he turned to me flick­ing his ashes and said “If you take my pic­ture I will burn your eyes out.” I still have my eyes so you know what I did not do that day.

Another time the FBI was pick­ing up Mafia sus­pects along with Boston Police and they paraded the group across the street to the JFK build­ing from the Dis­trict One Police Sta­tion on New Sud­bury Street. It was a very orga­nized show and tell by the cops and at one point Vin­nie “The Ani­mal” Fer­rara, one of the key fig­ures, looks at me and says “get that light out of my eyes,” I said “yes sir” and moved onto some­one else.

I knew some of the vic­tims of Mafia hits. The beau­ti­ful wife of gang­ster Richie Cas­tucci, San­dra, used to shop at Arthur’s Cream­ery where I had my high school deliv­ery job. I loved going to his Revere Beach Boule­vard home as the tip was big and she was good to look at.

He report­edly felt oblig­ated to the FBI after they pro­vided some infor­ma­tion to him so he became a con­fi­dant. They found him wrapped up dead in the trunk of his car less than a mile from where Dam­ico was mur­dered on Lantern Road in Revere. This was sup­pos­edly part of the Whitey Bulger’s group of killings. Another mur­der tied to FBI Agent, John “Zip­per” Con­nolly, who is serv­ing what should end up being life sen­tence in a Florida Jail.

When these gang wars first began my col­league Gene Dixon took a great photo of one of the vic­tims near the back of the old Boston Gar­den. Gene had gone up on the express­way and even told Globe pho­tog­ra­pher Ollie Noo­nan, Jr. where there was a good view. The pho­tos the two of them made with the light­ing, gird­ers and high­way made it look like the scene from a movie.

The Record Amer­i­can did not use the photo as they thought it was too grue­some and Gene walked around for weeks show­ing and talk­ing about all the sug­ges­tive pic­tures on the movie pages of the paper where every­one appeared to being hav­ing sex (not the words he used). What really got him pissed was see­ing Ollie’s photo in a dou­ble page spread in Life Mag­a­zine doing a story on under­world mur­ders and this was a good example.

Today, while chas­ing the story sur­round­ing Whitey’s cap­ture I was first sent to his brother’s Billy house then to his brother Jack’s house, both in South Boston. I was sit­ting there look­ing around work­ing to stay awake and as I looked up at two men talk­ing I real­ized one of them looked like Jackie. I picked up my video cam­era and zoomed in, it was him.

I started tap­ing the scene, jumped out of the car as he began walk­ing towards me. He had this big umbrella in his hand and all I could think of was I escaped the wrath of his brother and now he would do me in. Not to be, I said “Hello, would you like to talk to me?” he very angrily said “I am not talk­ing” and he walked back to his apartment.


Stanley Forman's Pulitzer-Prize winning photograph "The Soiling of Old Glory" is featured in the exhibition "History's Big Picture" July 1 - September 25, 2011,

Looking Back | The Fillmore East

Amalie R. Rothschild: A huge crowd formed around the Fillmore East in May 1970 when tickets went on sale for Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.




June 24, 2011, 4:00 pm


Looking Back
The Fillmore East
By STEPHEN REX BROWN

The push to preserve blocks of the neighborhood through a landmark district has, not surprisingly, led to a lot of conversations about the history of the area. The proposed district covers roughly six blocks, and perhaps no property within the tract has hosted more important figures in American culture than the former Fillmore East building at 105 Second Avenue.

Now, the entrance to the building is an Emigrant Savings Bank, and the 2,600-seat theater has been replaced with an apartment building. But the Fillmore’s three-year existence had a lasting impact culturally; Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker and Miles Davis all recorded well-regarded live albums there. The Who played their rock opera, “Tommy” in its entirety for the first time in the United States in 1969 at the Fillmore East. And the first rock concert to be broadcast on television was taped there in 1970.

But the Fillmore’s impact went beyond the performers onstage. Numerous technological innovations during the theater’s short existence were adopted at concert venues across the country.

“I was blown away by what a creative, experimental theater environment there was at the Fillmore East,” said Amalie R. Rothschild, a photographer who was among the many NYU students who landed dream jobs at the Fillmore when it opened in 1968. “It was a real place to do real things. The students had a live laboratory within which to work.”

Amalie R. Rothschild Jimi Hendrix at the Fillmore East, 1969.

The man behind that environment was Bill Graham, the rock promoter who first made a name for himself with the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. After his success on the West Coast hosting some of rock’s biggest names, Graham returned to his native New York to open another venue.

He purchased the building near Sixth Street, which had previously been a music venue, a Loews cinema, and a Yiddish theater. Within the first year Graham had booked the likes of Janis Joplin, the Who, and Jimi Hendrix.

“It was the top of the heap, guys were just jazzed to be there,” said Jerry Pompili, the house manager of the Fillmore East for most of the time it was open.

With its top-notch sound system, elaborate psychedelic light shows that accompanied performances, noble, theater-like environment and first class treatment of musicians, Graham’s East Village Xanadu attempted to elevate rock music from mere spectacle to art.

“Bill had hit on it. He gave us dignity,” Pete Townshend of the Who said in “Bill Graham Presents,” an oral history of the rock promoter’s life. “We were dignified people. We were artists.”

But that atmosphere that so attracted the Allman Brothers, the Grateful Dead — and on one occassion John Lennon and Yoko Ono for an impromptu 2 a.m. performance following a show by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention — proved unsustainable in the face of arena rock.

“The business began to transform from coffee houses and theater venues to Madison Square Garden and stadiums,” said Ms. Rothschild, author of “Live at the Fillmore East: A Photographic Memoir.” “Woodstock made it clear that hundreds of thousands of people would come out for this type of music.”

On June 27, 1971 the Fillmore East closed. Of course, there was a heck of a show featuring a lineup that would make the most jaded of music buffs drool: the Allman Brothers, the Beach Boys, Albert King, the J. Geils Band and others.

“The concert went until 6 a.m.,” Rothschild recalled. “Nobody wanted it to end.”

Amalie R. Rothschild The Fillmore East.


More: Slideshow and memories of the Fillmore East

ASHLEY GILBERTSON BEDROOMS OF THE FALLEN VIA MEADIASTORM

LOOK3 – Ashley Gilbertson



By Matthew McAllister
Published: June 23, 2011

One of the most powerful talks that I attended during the LOOK3 festival in Charlottesville this year was given by Ashley Gilbertson. Gilbertson presented his latest project titled, “Bedrooms of the Fallen.” The project consists of a series of pictures of the dormant bedrooms left by soldiers who died at war. Gilbertson explained that he had become frustrated by the public’s lack of response to his photographs coming out of Iraq that depicted the violence surrounding him and the soldiers assigned to protect him.

It was moving to hear him talk about the soldiers in his pictures, and in many cases, explain how they were killed. His wife suggested that he photograph their bedrooms as a way for people to relate to their lives. Since then, Gilbertson has photographed dozens of bedrooms across the US and Europe. In many cases, the rooms are arranged in the exact same way as the day the soldier left, except for the occasional folded flag to remind us of why the room is vacant.

Just as Gilbertson was describing how viewers can relate better to loss through these images, a picture of the bedroom belonging to PFC. Richard P. Langenbrunner of Fort Wayne, Indiana appeared. I immediately recognized a poster on the wall from the movie “The Matrix” and realized I have the same poster on my own wall. The room immediately became far more personal to me and I felt like I knew more about this soldier through this photograph than any description in a newspaper article could provide.

Bedrooms of the Fallen - Ashley Gilbertson

Ashley Gilbertson’s Website: http://www.ashleygilbertson.com/index.php

Via MediaStorm



HAPPY SUMMER



As we head into the first "official" summer weekend, we thought of sharing this photograph by Life magazine photographer John Dominis: "Going Fishing, Texas, 1952".

The photograph was taken on assignment for a Life magazine story about the "Mesquite problem" throughout Texas. John Dominis covered a lot of territory for this assignment, but did not indicate where he shot each picture. The story was published in LIFE on August 8, 1952, although this picture was not used in the story. The fishing pools are made from area Mesquite

Related: John Dominis: A Natural Shooter

THE SUMMER ART SEASON IN SANTA FE

It is almost July, and many of the art-cities of the world are on hiatus for the summer. Which means the season is just getting started in Santa Fe. Here are few highlights.

Start the summer season at the opening reception for "History's Big Picture" at Monroe Gallery of Photography. The reception celebrates Monroe Gallery's ten years in Santa Fe, and takes place Friday, July 1, from 5 - 7 PM. "History's Big Picture" mines the depth and breadth of Monroe Gallery's archives and is combined with new, never-before exhibited photojournalism masterpieces, from the early 1900's to the present day. Through 60 significant photographs, "History's Big Picture" highlights both the significant and the idiosyncratic and embodies how Monroe Gallery has helped shape the understanding and appreciation of photojournalism locally and worldwide.

The Santa Fe Opera starts its season July 1 with Faust, followed by a summer of great performances. The following weekend, July 8 - 10, features the The Santa Fe International Folk Art Market, now in its 8th year, and Art Santa Fe, celebrating its 11th year. The final major event of July is the 60th Traditional Spanish Market, which will be celebrated Saturday and Sunday, July 30 and 31, 2011.

Site Santa Fe has two concurrent exhibitions of note throughout the summer: Pae White: Material Mutters and Suzanne Bocanegra: I Write the Songs.


Throughout the month there are dozens of gallery openings across Santa Fe, as well as many other arts events. And August holds more!

Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America

Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America
Date: Tue 28 June 2011

Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, is a visual testament to lynching as a form of social violence in the United States of America from 1880 to the 1960s. The photographs, postcards and memorabilia featured in the exhibition are shown in the UK for the first time. The images collectively reveal how deeply ingrained racist ideologies had become, to the extent that by the early 1900s, lynching was transformed into a major participatory form of entertainment and through photography into a space of commercial exchange and celebration.

Taken at various lynching events, the images of Without Sanctuary were not confined to any one period, place, or race and depict, in graphic detail, victims from a variety of backgrounds and characteristics: white, black, young, old, men, women, Jews and gentiles. However, most of the Americans lynched were African Americans: as many as 4,000 black men and women.

These photographs uncover a horrific American visual legacy, one that has often been left hidden, but which collector James Allen uncovered: ‘I believe the photographer was more than a perceptive spectator at lynchings. The photographic art played as significant a role in the ritual as torture or souvenir grabbing - a sort of two-dimensional biblical swine, a receptacle for a collective sinful self. Even dead, the victims were without sanctuary.’

Without Sanctuary serves as a stark reminder that freedom comes with a solemn responsibility on all citizens to treat others with dignity, respect and fairness. The exhibition bears witness to the victims, and to those whose individual and collective efforts helped end lynching, and serves as a reminder that there are still vulnerable populations today who need sanctuary from intimidation and oppression. Lynching is a distortion of human and civil rights, and so represents an assault on civilisation itself.

The Panel Includes:

Mark Sealy is the director of Autograph ABP and joint CEO of Rivington Place. He has a special interest in photography and its relationship to social change, identity politics and human rights. In his role as director of Autograph ABP he has initiated the production of well over 40 publications, produced exhibitions worldwide and commissioned photographers globally. He is a PhD candidate at Durham University, where his research focuses on photography and cultural violence.

Candace Allen is a screenwriter and political activist. She received her BA from Harvard University before attending the New York University School of Film and Television. She became the first African-American female member of the Directors Guild of America. In addition to writing screenplays, she has worked as assistant director since the 1970s. In 2004 she published her first novel, a fictionalized biography of jazz musician Valaida Snow.

Brett St. Louis is a Senior lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Goldsmiths, University of London. His research interests crystallise around: the conceptual and practical status of race.

Event Type: Panel discussion

Event venue: Human Rights Action Centre
Time: 7pm

Contact: 020 7729 9200
Email: info@autograph-abp.co.uk

Website: http://www.autograph-abp.co.uk/
Price: £5.00
Online tickets: http://amnestypaneldiscussion.eventbrite.com/

June 21, 1964: The Murders of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner

August 1964: An earthen dam where bodies of Chaney, Goodman , and Schwerner were found. Federal agents can be seen collecting evidence. Photographer Bill Eppridge was not allowed access to the site so he rented a helicopter and flew overhead to get this picture. © Bill Eppridge


On June 21, 1964, three young civil rights workers—a 21-year-old black Mississippian, James Chaney, and two white New Yorkers, Andrew Goodman, 20, and Michael Schwerner, 24—were murdered near Philadelphia, in Nashoba County, Mississippi. They had been working to register black voters in Mississippi during Freedom Summer and had gone to investigate the burning of a black church. They were arrested by the police on trumped-up charges, imprisoned for several hours, and then released after dark into the hands of the Klu Klux Klan who beat and murdered them. It was later proven in court that a conspiracy existed between members of Neshoba County's law enforcement and the Ku Klux Klan to kill them.

LIFE magazine sent Bill Eppridge to Neshoba County, Mississippi immediately after the news broke. There are no pictures of the crime - just the brutal aftermath, and the devastating grief and sorrow brought upon one family.

Bill Eppridge: Mrs. Chaney and young Ben, James Chaney funeral, Meridian, Mississippi, 1964

Bill Eppridge: The Chaney family as they depart for the burial of James Chaney, Meridian, Mississippi, August 7, 1964


The FBI arrested 18 men in October 1964, but state prosecutors refused to try the case, claiming lack of evidence. The federal government then stepped in, and the FBI arrested 18 in connection with the killings. In 1967, seven men were convicted on federal conspiracy charges and given sentences of three to ten years, but none served more than six. No one was tried on the charge or murder. The contemptible words of the presiding federal judge, William Cox, give an indication of Mississippi's version of justice at the time: "They killed one ni---r, one Jew, and a white man. I gave them all what I thought they deserved." Another eight defendants were acquitted by their all-white juries, and another three ended in mistrials. One of those mistrials freed Edgar Ray "Preacher" Killen—believed to be the ringleader—after the jury in his case was deadlocked by one member who said she couldn't bear to convict a preacher.


Related: Neshoba: The Price of Freedom



Bill Eppridge's photographs of The Cheney Family and his coverage of Robert F. Kennedy's 1968 presidential campaign were included in the exhibition "History's Big Picture", Monroe Gallery, July 1 - September 26, 2011

The photographs will also be featured in the exhibition "The Long Road: From Selma to Ferguson", Monroe gallery, July 3 - September 28, 2015.

A NEW ICONIC "KISS" PHOTO?

The kiss ... Vancouver riot police surround an embracing couple. Photograph: Rich Lam/Getty Images


An Interesting article from the Guardian Newspaper:

Vancouver's kiss of life

The last thing we expected was an authentically romantic picture to emerge from this rioting city of glass

Douglas Haddow
Guardian.co.uk, Friday 17 June 2011 18.10 BST

Vancouver, "the world's most livable city", has been devastated. Not so much by the riotous violence that came soon after the Canucks lost the Stanley Cup, but by what the international media's coverage of the carnage may mean for the city's image.

City hall, the province of British Columbia, and indeed the federal government of Canada, are worried that potential tourists will no longer think of Vancouver as a city of yoga pants, sushi and skiing, but of mayhem and fire.

Despite all the sorrow and disgust expressed by Vancouverites over the PR fallout, one image, absent of violence or destruction, has come to define the riot.

We see a young couple laid out on the street, embraced in a kiss, juxtaposed between a blurry riot cop running towards the camera and a line of police charging a crowd in the background.

Once the photograph hit the internet, it became a viral phenomenon in minutes. Already the uncontested frontrunner for the photo of the year, it's being compared to other historical kisses like Robert Doisneau's 'The Kiss' and Alfred Eisenstadt's picture of a kissing couple in Times Square on VJ day.

At first glance, the photo seemed too good to be documentary fact. For many internet flâneurs, myself included, it was too romantic and poignant to be of this world. The breathless idealism of the lover's embrace was in such stark contrast to the mindless rampage occurring around them that the internet's cynical instincts kicked in.

How could such authenticity exist in Vancouver, a city of glass that has spent the last 20 years standing in as a discount soundstage for New York and Los Angeles. You'll find no romance in these streets, unless it's a bit of marketing-related artifice.

Shortly before going to bed in the very wee hours on Thursday morning, my suspicions seemed to be confirmed when I came across an alternate angle of the couple's moment, shot on a camera phone from above, that surely proved the kiss was either contrived or worse.

I immediately posted it on my Tumblr blog and woke up eight hours later to discover that I had unwittingly broken the story that the photograph was indeed not what it seemed. Thousands debated, some kept the faith, others declared that they didn't care if was real or not, and a few claimed they had lost all faith in humanity. A mystery was born. Was it real or not?

Over the following hours the story evolved.

An Australian woman contacted the media with what is apparently the inside scoop. Yes, the couple had been knocked to the ground, but they were fine – the photo taken at the very second the boyfriend gave his girlfriend a reassuring kiss amid the chaos.

When we look at the riot photos, images that are said to have permanently soiled Vancouver's reputation, we see young men acting out for the camera, revelling in the worst kind of apolitical theatre. Through the haze of this absurd and dispiriting pantomime, Richard Lam has captured an image of the rarest form. One that is as authentic as it is romantic and speaks to a present cultural context but also contains a certain timeless virtue.

What differentiates this riot from the countless other sports riots of the last decade is that Vancouver is pathologically self-aware. Its economy is dependent on the city's ability to portray itself as a quasi-utopia, and its citizens and politicians are obsessed with achieving the nebulous status of "world class".

The irony here is that Vancouver has at last produced an iconic image that rivals those of Paris and New York, but it needed to shatter its own fantasy to do so.

HAPPY FATHER'S DAY

John Dominis: Jacques D'Amboise Playing with his Sons, Seattle, Washington, 1962

Mélanie Light: Thoughts on Photojournalism

Be certian to read today's article by Mélanie Light - "Thoughts on Photojournalism" in today's La Lettre de la Photographie.




"War is troubling. Reporting on war is equally troubling. Is there any sane way to report on insanity?"

"I have no words for what I saw there"

Kaho Imai, Watanoha Elementary School

By eyecurious

Published: 15 June 2011
 
After the earthquake and subsequent tsunami struck the Tohoku region of region on 11 March 2011, the photographer Aichi Hirano decided to distribute 50 disposable cameras to the people in the shelters around Ishinomaki. He succeeded in retrieving 27 of these 50 cameras and subsequently published the results on a website created for the project http://www.rolls7.com/ This is a piece I wrote about the Rolls Tohoku project. It was first published in Foam magazine issue #27, ‘Report’, which has just been released (the issue is really an fascinating exploration of what reporting means in photography today… don’t miss it). This summer the museum of photography in Stockholm, Fotografiska, will be exhibiting the Rolls Tohoku project from 7 July to 28 August. Rolls had a deep impact on me (as you will see from the following) and I urge you to take the time to spend some time looking at these photographs.

Japan lives with the constant threat of natural disasters. Located in a highly unstable sector of the Pacific Ring of Fire, it experiences hundreds, if not thousands of earthquakes every year and has become the best-prepared country in the world for quakes and the tsunamis which can follow. But nothing could have prepared the population for the gigantic quake and tsunami that devastated the Tohoku region of north-eastern Japan.

The earthquake and tsunami of 11 March 2011 was very likely the most highly-mediatized natural disaster ever. Although a large tsunami hit parts of Southeast Asia in 2004, very few images emerged of the brief moments of impact of the tsunami, but rather of the destruction that it left behind. Amateur footage was released in Japan shortly after the quake and within minutes the Japanese national broadcaster NHK sent helicopters out in anticipation of the tsunami that was expected to hit the Tohoku coastline. The resulting images showed the black wave swallowing everything in its path. Over the next few hours more footage was released, most of it shot by amateurs, showing the impact of the wave up and down the Tohoku coast. The spellbinding images, which played back on television and computer screens around the world, captured the brutal power and relentlessness of the tsunami. Some of the footage was also imbued with an eerie sense of dread as houses and cars floated down streets that had been full of activity just a few minutes before. The scale of the devastation quickly became apparent and, although the number of confirmed deaths was initially low, the images suggested that a huge death toll was inevitable.

Yet, within days the situation in Tohoku had all but disappeared from the international media as the troubling developments at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant began to monopolize the headlines. The towns of Minami Sanriku, Ishinomaki, Miyagi and Sendai that had been the center of attention until then receded into the shadow of Fukushima. A little over a week after the quake, I picked up a free newspaper on the Paris metro. The cover was a photograph of the Eiffel Tower on a hazy day, presumably taken weeks or months before. The headline read, ‘The Radioactive Cloud Arrives in France.’ The story had shifted from the tragedy that had befallen the people of Tohoku to the fear of what might happen to ‘us’. Within a week potassium iodide tablets had sold out as far away as Finland and the United States. Words like ‘meltdown’ or ‘radiation’ are so charged with meaning composited from science fiction and the very real horrors of Chernobyl or the fall-out from the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, that there was little space left in the collective imagination for scientific fact. As a narrative, the nuclear threat was infinitely more powerful: this was no longer just another tale of people’s suffering somewhere on the other side of the globe, but an invisible and very personal threat to each and every one of us.

Masaki Abe, Shidukawa Elementary School

Although, I have never lived in Japan I have visited the country regularly in recent years. My involvement with Japanese photography somehow made the events of 11 March feel deeply personal. In the days following the disaster I watched the news obsessively, hungry for any information at all, but finding very little. In the era of the 24-hour news cycle, information and stories are constantly recycled and updated, as the same images, the same tiny scraps of information get repeated over and over every hour. It was not until I heard the personal stories, of friends—a dear friend trapped in a bullet train in a freezing, pitch-black tunnel for over 24 hours and then travelling for two days to get back home, another who lost his mother to the giant wave and whose native town was totally destroyed—or indeed strangers—an 80-year-old woman and her grandson who survived together for nine days after the quake and who, when asked what he would like to be when he is older, replied ‘an artist’—that I was able to get beyond the huge, abstract idea of a natural disaster. As with these stories, the photographs in the Rolls project were the first that I saw that went beyond the surface of this tragic event.

When the earthquake hit on 11 March, a young photographer, Aichi Hirano, was showing his work in an exhibition entitled Rolls of One Week. Hirano explains, ‘At that time, I felt so powerless, being in the same country yet unable to do anything to reach out and help directly.’ To combat his sense of helplessness, he decided to distribute fifty disposable cameras to survivors displaced by the tsunami who had been evacuated to shelters in Ishinomaki, Miyagi prefecture. Hirano provided some loose directions on sheets of paper: ‘Please take photos of things you see with your eyes, things you want to record, remember, people near you, your loved ones, things you want to convey… please do so freely. And please enjoy the process if you can, even if it’s just a little bit.’ Of the 50 cameras he distributed, Hirano was able to retrieve 27, which he uploaded in their entirety to the website http://www.rolls7.com/

Anonymous, around Ishinomaki

Until Rolls, most of the images emerging from the Tohoku region focused on the spectacular devastation caused by the tsunami – cars piled on top of houses, forests of debris where villages had once stood. In the face of disaster, when we cannot believe our eyes, photography has often been used to fill that breach: to provide a visual record that captures events so shocking or spectacular that they are impossible to digest. Perhaps the most powerful recent examples were taken from satellites. Several news websites created an interactive display superimposing a satellite image taken on 12 March over an image taken some time before the tsunami. By swiping across the image the user shifts between before and after, revealing the huge areas of land that had been wiped clean by the wave. Although images like these are undeniably powerful, they have a strangely impersonal quality. They provide a macro perspective of the disaster, a kind of quantification of the scale of the devastation, but one which gives us no insight into the individual lives of those affected. By contrast, Rolls offers a deeply personal vision of the disaster from the perspective of those who have been directly affected. These images do not just show the pain and suffering of the victims, but also their joy, their relief and even the boredom and tedium that they experience as they seek to pass the time in their evacuation shelters.

For each roll we know only the photographer’s name, sex and whether they are an adult or a child. But perhaps it is wrong to use the term ‘photographer’. The very point of these images is that they were taken by amateurs. In contrast to the spectacle of the images that appear in the press, there is little that is at all remarkable about these photographs. In one roll a boy has photographed his stuffed toys one by one on a mat. In another (anonymous) roll, a donkey appears tied to a tree that is just beginning to blossom. The rolls are made up of small fragments like these which we cannot understand beyond the knowledge that they are parts of individuals’ lives, details which to them seemed important enough to photograph. They do not employ the visual language of photo-reportage or of fine art photography to convey a specific message. Their quiet, artless, unselfconscious quality makes these images all the more powerful, investing them with the directness of words spoken by a young child. Although images of destruction are also present, it is not the subject of the photographs, but instead a visual backdrop to the ordinary details of these people’s lives. In one roll such images appear as blurry glimpses from the window of a moving car, as if the reality of the destruction had yet to sink in.

Hirano’s exhortation to the survivors to ‘enjoy the process if you can’ can be seen in the shots, particularly those taken by children. We see laughter, friendship, play – elements that do not appear in conventional images of disaster, but which provide a fuller picture of the reality of life in its aftermath. These are not photographs of what has happened to these people or images that construct a narrative that seeks to make the disaster understandable. Instead, they form a part of people’s ongoing struggle to digest and comprehend what they have experienced and, more simply, of the need to carry on with their lives.

Masahiro Yamada, Ishinomaki day-care center

During my short visit to Japan in early April a powerful aftershock struck the Miyagi region. At the time, I was with a friend in a bar in Tokyo, after having been to yozakura, the tradition of viewing the cherry blossoms by night. This was my first experience of an earthquake: the entire room swayed back and forth for a few seconds before the shock subsided. Although everyone stayed calm, not moving from their seats, the recent events made the tension palpable. We spent the next minutes anxiously watching television for news from Miyagi. My friend was aware of the damage this aftershock would cause, particularly as she was due to visit the area soon afterwards. A few days later I received a message in which she wrote, “I have no words for what I saw there.” This failure of words has its parallel in photography: rarely do images effectively describe an event of this magnitude. These rolls of film from Tohoku come closer than anything else I have seen yet.

Photographic hep for Japan

MARGARET BOURKE-WHITE: BORN 107 YEARS AGO JUNE 14

Margaret Bourke-White working atop the Chrysler Building, NY 1934

Photographed by her assistant, Oscar Graubner


Margaret Bourke-White was born on June 14, 1904, in New York City, and graduated from Cornell University in 1927. Choosing photography as a profession, she immediately began her dramatic career by experimenting with industrial subjects.


By 1929, Bourke-White’s reputation attracted the attention of the publisher Henry Luce, who engaged her as an associate editor for his FORTUNE magazine. Bourke-White was FORTUNE’s only photographer for the eight months prior to the publication of the first issue in February 1930. Throughout the next several years, there was no location or type of photography too difficult or too mundane for Bourke-White. She covered assignments throughout the United States, and traveled to Germany and Russia. In what would be just one of many “firsts," Bourke-White became the first foreign photographer allowed to take pictures of Russian industry.

Between 1930 and 1936, Bourke-White would return to Russia twice more and become the first foreign cinematographer to leave the country with motion pictures of its industry. In 1934 she photographed the Dust Bowl, and in 1935 began aviation photography for TWA and Eastern Airlines. In 1936, Bourke-White joined Peter Stackpole, Tom McAvoy, and Alfred Eisenstaedt as the first staff photographers for LIFE magazine. Her photograph of the great Fort Peck dam appeared on the first issue’s cover.

Bourke-White went on to cover the world, traveling to Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Turkey, Syria, Egypt, China, and again to the Soviet Union. She was the only U.S. photographer present in Moscow as the Germans attacked Russia in 1941. Bourke-White became the first woman accredited as a war correspondent in 1942, and became the first woman to accompany an Air Force bombing mission (1943).

 

 Margaret Bourke-White In Her High Altitude Flight Suit (holding aerial camera, standing in front of B-17 "Flying Fortress" bomber), 1943. (c.Time Inc.)


In 1944, Bourke-White covered World-War II from Italy, eventually joining Patton’s army as it traveled through Germany in 1945. Among Bourke-White’s most haunting and memorable work are the pictures taken at Buchenwald.

 

Margaret Bourke-White: Buchenwald Prisoners, 1945 (c. Time Inc.)

Assignments for LIFE took Bourke-White throughout India, Japan, Korea, and South Africa. Bourke-White authored several books, including You Have Seen Their Faces, Shooting The Russian War, Purple Heart Valley, and Halfway To Freedom. There are numerous books written about her life and work as well as a 1960 made-for-television movie. She fought a heroic 20-year battle with Parkinson’s disease prior to her death in 1971.

Bourke-White’s photographs are included in many important museum collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, New York. In 1998, Sidney Monroe curated the the first significant exhibit of her work in many years at his New York gallery that featured the premiere of Estate authorized prints, and the centennial anniversary of her birth was celebrated with the exhibition “Margaret Bourke-White At 100” at Monroe Gallery of Photography, April 2 – June 27, 2004.

Several of Bourke-White's iconic photographs will be included in the exhibition "History's Big Picture", Monroe Gallery of Photography, July 1 - September 25, 2011.