Friday, July 8, 2011

The haunting power of old photographs


Confederate soldiers in the American civil war
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.

Thursday, July 7, 2011

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.











Wednesday, July 6, 2011

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?

Fallen Soldier, Spanish Civil War, 1936
©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.

Tuesday, July 5, 2011

"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

Monday, July 4, 2011

INDEPENDENCE DAY, 2011

White Barn, New Preston, CT, 2007
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.

Sunday, July 3, 2011

"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

Saturday, July 2, 2011

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

Friday, July 1, 2011

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.”


Street Execution of a Viet Cong Prisoner, Saigon, 1968


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.

Thursday, June 30, 2011

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?


Tuesday, June 28, 2011

HISTORY'S BIG PICTURE

Marines of the 28th Regiment of the 5th Division Raise the American Flag Atop Mt. Suribachi, Iwo Jima, 1945
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.