Pictures I like to look at

John Divola at the Eastman House

2009-04-14T15:47:00.001-07:00

From Zuma series. © John Divola

On Thrusday, April 30th at 7PM, John Divola will be giving a lecture at the Eastman House to, I assume, promote his new book being released by Nazraeli later this month. Divola's almost 40 years of work has been seeing lots of attention lately for very justifiable reasons. I'm sure the lecture will be great and well worth the admission fee

From Dogs Chasing My Car in the Desert, © John Divola

From As Far As I Could Get. © John Divola

2009-03-30T15:51:00.000-07:00

2009-03-30T14:38:00.000-07:00

I am part of a new blog devoted to interesting photography books at the RIT library and we would love it if you joined

2009-03-12T10:29:00.000-07:00

Does anyone want to go to this? We could stay at my house and I'll pitch in for gas money

Linkage

2009-03-10T10:04:00.000-07:00

From Sundays series. © Eric Ruby

My friend Eric asked if I'd link him on here months ago and I completely forgot until now. Eric was my TA for Photo Arts 3 and will be graduating from RIT in the spring. He recently spent the entire winter quarter home in Connecticut on independent study, working on his new project titled DMV.

From Sundays series. © Eric Ruby

One of my good friends from home also recently made a website called On City Streets, showcasing Philadelphia graffiti. It's starting off small, but I have really high expectations for it's future

ATTN: RIT Students

2009-02-19T14:37:00.000-08:00

Would anyone be interested in starting a collective blog devoted to photography books in the RIT library? It would just be a listing of important/interesting books in the library accompanied by their call numbers/location, identifying tags, and maybe a few pictures. Contact me if you're interested

P.S I'd like absolutely anyone to help me with this. The wider variety of interests, the better it will be

A week from tomorrow (2/26)

2009-02-18T18:54:00.000-08:00

If you're (still) in Rochester next Thursday night, you should check out the Draft magazine release show. A few friends of mine and I are in it as well as a bunch of great photographers from RIT, it is sure to be good

2009-02-18T18:53:00.000-08:00

"I'm sad, stressed out and overwhelmed", B/W silverprint, 8”x10”, 2001 from Conversation Maps. © Warren Neidich

2009-02-18T18:45:00.000-08:00

Necros

Youth of Today

Cro Mags

Wasted Youth

Society System Decontrol

DYS

Dag Nasty

Circle Jerks

The History of Photography in Pen and Ink

2009-02-02T19:08:00.000-08:00

Last week, I received The History of Photography in Pen and Ink, the latest publication from A-Jump Books. The book consists of forty-three pen and ink drawings made by Charles Woodard which were used as flash cards while studying for his history of photography survey while still in school. For me, the crudeness and humor of these drawings fill in what was missing from Kota Ezawa's History of Photography Remix (at least in book form, I've never seen any of them in real life). I scored mine for $10 autographed at photoeye, I recommend that you do the same

Cowboy, 2006. © Kota Ezawa

Dead Soldiers Talk, 2007. © Kota Ezawa

Blast Furnaces. © Charles Woodard

Pastry Cook and Varnisher. © Charles Woodard

Self Portrait as a Drowned Man. © Charles Woodard

2009-02-02T19:07:00.000-08:00

Cyanotypes by Thomas William Smillie, who worked as the Smithsonian's first photographer from 1870-1917 and was an early advocate of the history of photography. More work can be found here.

Untitled © Thomas Smillie/Smithsonian

View of Stuffed Animals Installation. © Thomas Smillie/Smithsonian

Untitled. © Thomas Smillie/Smithsonian

Chinese Kite Frame. © Thomas Smillie/Smithsonian

Untitled. © Thomas Smillie/Smithsonian

2009-01-21T06:55:00.000-08:00

Oil Fields No. 13. Taft, California, 2002. © Edward Burtynsky

In case you forgot, Edward Burtynsky will be lecturing at the RIT campus tonight at 8. He'll be talking about his work regarding oil. It's sure to be one of the best RIT lectures of the year, so don't miss out!

2009-01-20T08:31:00.000-08:00

"I find it aggravating that so many young photographers busy themselves with self-promotion when they should just be taking pictures. Let’s use the analogy of the young novelist. When you are writing your first novel, you don’t try to get it published based on a single chapter. First you need to write the book. Too many photographers are shopping for galleries and publishers with unfinished portfolios."- Alec Soth

2009-01-19T20:45:00.000-08:00

The Heart of Lodore, Green River, 1871. © E. O. Beaman

From 18 Landscapes. © Mark Wyse

2009-01-19T19:55:00.000-08:00

Alice Liddell, 1859. © Lewis Carroll

Untitled, nude 2008. © Bill Henson

2009-01-19T19:54:00.000-08:00

Whirlpool Galaxy (M51), 2007, Chandra X-ray Observatory

Found photograph, via Neilson Tam

Andrew Wyeth

2009-01-17T23:27:00.001-08:00

Andrew Wyeth. © Arnold Newman

I was really sad to hear that Andrew Wyeth, easily one of the most influential artists of the 20th century, died yesterday. I grew up not too far from his hometown of Chadds Ford and remember going on a few trips to the Brandywine River Museum for art classes throughout middle school and high school. In addition to having a strong influence on an entire generation of painters, his influence has also been heavily felt in the world of photography.

From I Know Where Summer Goes. © Ryan McGinley

Spread from Jens F, published by Stiedl/Mack 2005. © Collier Schorr

Spread from Jens F, published by Steidl/Mack 2005. © Collier Schorr

P.S Does anyone know where to find the portrait Newman made of Wyeth in an old house with light coming through the window, shot in 1976? I have it in a book, but couldn't find it anywhere on the web. It's a much better portrait than the one above.

Thursday Night!

2009-01-12T20:41:00.000-08:00

The Meeting of the Union Pacific and Central Pacific Railroads. May 10, 1869. © Andrew J. Russell

Thursday night, Glenn Willumson will be giving a lecture at the Eastman House titled “Iron Muse: The Pictorial Legacy of the Transcontinental Railroad." Naturally, the lecture will be finished in time for The Office. If you drive me, I'll buy you a mega-slice on the way home.

2009-01-12T20:40:00.000-08:00

Railroad Station, Toulon, 1861 or later. © Édouard Baldus

"In photography, there are artists of absolutely the highest tier about whom little research has been done. We think the person's already been done if there's a catalog on Gustave Le Gray or Édouard Baldus. They're not. There are many great photographers about whom there's a single book or no book. So that's exciting. It's exciting as a curator, as a researcher, as a writer. Hopefully it's exciting for the public to come in and have that experience." -Malcolm Daniel

New Years Resolution

2009-01-04T13:08:00.001-08:00

Sunday Photo

2008-12-28T13:31:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

2008-12-25T07:34:00.000-08:00

From 10 D.70 V1. © William Eggleston

Stranded in Canton

2008-12-24T19:21:00.000-08:00

This afternoon, I got a chance to watch William Eggleston's Stranded in Canton (at least a certain version of it?) in it's entirety, via 2point8 blog. If you have an hour, I'd really recommend watching all of it, you won't regret it

Sunday Photo

2008-12-21T20:22:00.000-08:00

I spent the entire day delayed at the airport

From CDG. © JH Engström

Books of 2008

2008-12-19T13:58:00.000-08:00

Just for kicks, here are my top 10 books of the year. Like everyone else, my wishlist is overflowing. The amount of books I have the privilege of purchasing or seeing is a small fraction to those I'm interested in. For example, there's a handful of books that I'm sure would have made the list, but aren't accessible to me (IE Leigh Ledare's Pretend You're Actually Alive, Rei Sato's Sun, or Andrew Phelps' Baghdad Suite). Nonetheless, here are the ones that had the biggest impact on me this year

1) Judith Joy Ross- Protest the War. I love everything about this book. The design and price of only $5 is made to reflect an anti-war pamphlet and does so as much as possible without degrading the quality of the reproductions. Ross' portraits of protesters are dignified, brave, and will keep you coming back. At $5, it's an obvious must have

2) Luigi Ghirri- It's Beautiful Here, Isn't It? Italian photographer Luigi Ghirri was my favorite discovery of the year via this book. The ultimate treat is learning about someone as great as Ghirri who could fly under my radar for so long. William Eggleston's introduction in the book isn't particularly great, but it's still cool to read something by him and how he perceives the obvious parallels with his own work.

3) Michael Schmelling- The Week Of No Computer. Released as part of the first batch of books from TV Books, The Week Of No Computer is a collection of images and objects from Schmelling's life. I think I've already wrote about this book a few months ago, so I won't elaborate any further. It's a great book though from a very exciting new publisher

4) Christian Patterson- Sound Affects. The most expensive book that I bought this year, but also probably my favorite. Patterson's sensibility just blows me away every time I look at it, plus it matches my shirt.....

5) Mark Steinmetz- South East. I've been coming back to this book more than any other this year. It sits as a nice companion to South Central and I can't wait for the third in this supposed trilogy to be released, although I'd imagine it's still going to take a few years.

6) Robin Schwartz- Amelia's World. I don't know about anyone else, but I thought that the 5 Tiny Vices books released by Aperture this fall were done excellently. The quality of the printing gave them a great life off of the computer screen and the simple designs won me over right away. I was tempted to just give all 5 this position, but Robin Schwartz's really does stand out the most to me. I really hope to see another 5 done next year.

7) William Henry Fox Talbot Phaidon monograph. I looked at way more 19th century photography this year than anything else and it really urks me that this is the only title to reflect that. I've had this book checked out from the library since they've gotten it in and I can't get enough of it. Geoffrey Batchen is a serious badass and his essay and commentary on each image puts Talbot's artistic intentions into a serious light (in case they weren't already?). The great reproductions and essays make it a must for anyone interested in Talbot or the calotype

8) Zoe Strauss- America. From the few people I've talked to, this book seems to be love or hate. I'm obviously on the love side, although it took a few reads to really start seeping it in. The book works on many different levels that I'd suggest spending extended time on it. It was also really cool to be able to read her whole thought process on her blog while sequencing the work.

9) Larry Towell- The World From My Front Porch. This is actually my roommate Anna's copy, but since she keeps her collection in my bookcase, I like to pretend that it's mine. Towell starts the book by tracing back the history of his farm through old snapshots taken by the previous residents and eventually leads into his own photographs of his family. It ends with his more photojournalistic work regarding conflicts over land. This work was exhibited at the Eastman House earlier this year and I got to see it a few times along with a lecture by him, I gushed about the show here. This book rules and I can't believe that I haven't seen it on anyone else's books of 08' list yet

10) Takashi Homma- Tokyo. I've also been looking at a lot of Japanese photography this fall and it feels super weak to only have one book from a Japanese photographer. This is Homma's first internationally published book and includes various work about Tokyo. I feel like most books trying to abbreviate and blend multiple bodies of work fail, but the transitions in this feel pretty natural. It's a great introduction to one of Japan's most prominent photographers

Top 5 Re-prints of 08'

Reprints are (typically) the only way for young people, like myself, to get access to classic titles at a reasonable price. This year I tried to be keen on staying on top of new reprints

1) Robert Adams- The New West

2) Alec Soth- Sleeping By The Mississippi

3) John Szarkowski- The Face of Minnesota

4) Robert Frank- The Americans

5) William Eggleston- William Eggleston's Guide

Honorable Mention

Alec Soth- The Last Days of W. Although this little artist book/newspaper didn't make it to my top list, I can't leave it out completely. The idea of an artist of Soth's status self publishing 10,000 of these is pretty commendable. I'd love to see this trend catch on more even more next year with artists who CAN get book deals but opt for full control and do it themselves.

Stranded in Rochester!

2008-12-19T13:53:00.000-08:00

Bob

2008-12-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

Bob © Tony Mendoza

When looking through Eduardo del Valle and Mirta Gome's book from the Nazraeli/JGS Witness series yesterday (which I think is my favorite one so far), I came across Tony Mendoza's featured project about his dog, Bob. This series isn't very different than his most well known project/book about his cat, Ernie, that was made in the early 80s. I don't know if it's a generational thing, but the Bob pictures, which I hadn't seen before yesterday, work so much better to me. I say generational because there's a huge difference between his old black and white film work and his recent color digital work. The photos are simultaneously cute and funny without being overly corny or gimmicky, which is a very hard line to walk when working with photography.

Ernie. © Tony Mendoza

Bob © Tony Mendoza

Hands down my favorite picture from the project....

Bob © Tony Mendoza

Sunday Photo

2008-12-14T08:59:00.000-08:00

From Vandalism series (folder 2/D). © John Divola

Students at the Rochester Institute of Technology, 1970

2008-12-12T21:35:00.000-08:00

Student preparing to process photos. © Bill Epridge

Photography student setting up a tripod. © Bill Eppridge

A student in class learning to use a photo enlarger. © Bill Eppridge

Students preparing to process photos. © Bill Eppridge

via Google Life collection

2008-12-10T08:15:00.000-08:00

John Szarkowski, 1975. © Richard Avedon

Does anyone know where to find a complete list of exhibitions organized by John Szarkowski at the MOMA? So far this is all I can find, but I know it's far from complete

-The Photographer and the American Landscape (1963)
- his rediscovery of Jacques-Henri Lartigue (1963)
-The Photographer's Eye (1964)
-André Kertész (1964) offered the first critical appraisal of a major master
-Dorothea Lange (1966)
-Once Invisible, (1967) Science photographs
-Brassaï (1968)
-Cartier-Bresson (1968)
-Bill Brandt (1969)
-E. J. Bellocq (1970)
-Walker Evans (1971)
-New Documents (1967) introduced Diane Arbus, Lee Friedlander, and Garry Winogrand
-Traveling Arbus exhibition (1972)
-Looking at Photographs (1973)
-From the Picture Press, (1973) News Photographs
-New Japanese Photography (1974) introduced major new talents—including Domon, Fukase, Hosoe, Moriyama, and Tomatsu
-Photographs by William Eggleston (1976)
-Mirrors and Windows (1978) American photography from the 60s and 70s
-Photography Until Now (1990)

Retirement (1991)

Prints!

2008-12-07T17:54:00.000-08:00

It's the holiday season, if you're looking to get that special someone a nice gift, consider a print!

Justin James Reed recently got two really nice prints up on 20x200

Idaho Springs, Colorado. © Justin James Reed

Juliana Beasley is also selling prints from her project Rockaways, there are 3 prints ranging from $250-$300 out of 15 with 2 artist proofs sized 14.5''x14.5'' on 18''x18'' paper

Miss Reingold. © Juliana Beasley

Molly Landreth is selling prints from her series Embodiment, they are 11x14'' and unlimited for only $50!

Meg and Renee Seattle, WA. © Molly Landreth

Last but certainly not least, Pete Halupka is also selling prints at 16''x16'' or 16''x20'' for $120, edition of 1

Mike, Nashville Speedway. © Pete Halupka

O. Winston Link

2008-12-07T16:41:00.000-08:00

Hawksbill Creek swimming hole, 1956. © O. Winston Link

This afternoon, I took a trip to the Eastman house and got a chance to see the O. Winston Link exhibit for a second time. Some of the pictures in the show are really starting to grow on me, but I don't know if it's for valid reasons. Because using flash during the daytime was very difficult and produced less than satisfactory results, Link chose to do a majority of his work at night. However, the scenes that he chose aren't necessarily night related activities, yielding some really bizarre pictures. My favorites pictures are groups of kids playing, usually swimming. To me, it creates a really playful narrative of children sneaking out late at night during the summertime and creating their own fantasy worlds. However, I've never read anything to suggest Link thought of it like this, should that matter?

The Keith Children Fishing, 1955. © O. Winston Link

Swimming Pool, 1958. © O. Winston Link

When looking at these photos by Link, I can't help but feel the same as I do when looking at the work of Julia- Fullerton Batten and her series Teenage Stories.

Floating in Harbor, 2006. © Julia Fullerton-Batten

There is also a show up devoted entirely to train related photography, which is sooooo good. It shows a wide variety of photographers working in a wide variety of processes. The meeting of the Union and Central Pacific rail lines, one of my favorite railroad pictures, is up along with it's original newspaper clipping as well as many huge albumen prints, a ton of great Hines, and much more. It alone is definitely worth the admission

Meeting of the rails, Promontory Point, Utah, 1869. © Andrew J. Russell

RFK Funeral Train #2439, 1968. © Paul Fusco

Sunday Photo

2008-12-07T09:11:00.000-08:00

Wells Cathedral: Stairway to Chapter House, © Frederick Evans

Sunday at the Eastman House

2008-12-03T21:05:00.000-08:00

On Sunday, at the Eastman House, Rachel Stuhlman, curator of the museum's library, is lecturing about her recent book, Imagining Paradise. Published last year by Steidl, it is an introduction to the rare books within the museum's library. Does anyone want to go with me? I have no way of getting there and it's going to be a great lecture. She'll also be doing a book signing afterwards if you're inclined to buy the book. Please go with me!

Eggleston Notebooks

2008-12-03T20:51:00.000-08:00

Yesterday, I received the new Eggleston book, The Democratic Camera, made in conjunction to his retrospective exhibit currently showing at the Whitney. For me, the most interesting pages were the three spreads from his various journals. I found a few on the Eggleston Trust website in the archive section. His abstract drawings in these journals coupled with the photographs in them (none with pictures are shown on the site) is the sickest book of all time just waiting to happen. Gerald Steidl, if you're reading this, please get on that

Sunday Photo

2008-11-30T11:18:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posting last week, I was home watching TV.

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-27T01:02:00.000-08:00

Thanksgiving turkey animated stereograph, via Square America

Sunday Photo

2008-11-23T00:10:00.000-08:00

Unidentified Woman, 1852. © Southworth and Hawes

Christie's Goodness

2008-11-22T23:55:00.000-08:00

Lot 121, Promotional poster for Rough Trade, Estimate $800-$1,200

Every few weeks, I go to the Christie's website to look at the auctions on the ridiculously priced artwork that I'll never be able to afford. While browsing earlier this week, I stumbled upon a Punk/Rock auction that is happening on Monday. While most of it was super lame, there were a few flyers that would look really sharp on my wall.

Lot 339, 36 Early Hip Hop Flyers, Estimated $10,000-$15,000

Lot 115, Misfits Poster, Estimate $1,000-$1,500

It was also really cool to see a few Black Flag posters by Raymond Pettibon. Ever since I got into that band, I've always loved their iconic flyers. The coolest thing about the NY Art Book Fair was that one of the tables had an entire binder full of them that you could look through.

Lot 103, 10 Black Flag Flyers, Estimated $2,000-$3,000

Lot 100, Black Flag Print, Estimate $1,500-$2,000

Lot 101, 12 Black Flag Flyers, Estimate $2,000-$3,000

I can't mention Black Flag and Pettibon's flyers without throwing a reading recomendation out there. Get In The Van is a published journal of their singer, Henry Rollins, and includes a ton of Pettibon's flyers and a ton of great photos of the band throughout their lifetime.

Lot 116, US Hardcore T-Shirts, Estimate $600-$800

Also, for some reason, they managed to include some graffiti related memorabilia I don't know how KAWS or DALEK really fit into this criteria, but the figures are sick nonetheless

Lot 141, Kaws 4ft Figure, Estimate $7,000-$9,000

Lot 133, Dalek art toy, Estimate $300-$500

The coolest thing in the whole auction has to be this yearbook featuring Jean Michel Basquiat. Website's description:

1978 City As School, Brooklyn, N.Y., paper-bound yearbook featuring photos of and early works by student contributor Jean Basquiat. The teenage Jean Michel is pictured in the yearbook along with early artistic collaborator Al Diaz, as well as an image of their now famous SAMO graffiti tag. At least four early drawings by Basquiat also illustrate the yearbook. Accompanied by the paper program for the June 1977 graduation ceremony, with cover illustration by Basquiat. All pieces come directly from a former student at City As School.

Lot 320, Jean Michel Basquiat, City Yearbook, Estimate $2,000-$3,000

Internets

2008-11-22T23:44:00.000-08:00

Untitled. © Neilson Tam

Lots has been happening on the internets lately! For one, my friends Neilson Tam and Anna Mack updated their website, This Never Happens. Take a look!

From Blue Black. © Anna Mack

I've also been spending a ungodly amount of time at the new Life magazine photo archive hosted by Google. It's amazing, there's over 10,000,000 images, 97% of which have never been made public.

6th graders playing tug of war with 7th and 8th graders, 1959. © A. Y. Owens

Fans of Mohammed Ali, 1970. © Bill Ray

Weary American Troops Catch Sleep, 1965. © Paul Schutzer

Young inventor Thomas Edison and his first phonograph or speaking machine, 1878

Flickr Collections

2008-11-18T00:29:00.000-08:00

Portrait of an articulated skeleton on a bentwood chair, from the Powerhouse Museum Collection

I briefly mentioned The Library of Congress on flickr in a post last week and thought it would be nice to mention other public collections on the site as well. If you don't have a flickr already, it would be worth it just to subscribe to these great collections.

-Bibliothèque de Toulouse

-The Library of Congress

-National Maritime Museum

-George Eastman House

-The Library of Virginia

-The Australian War Memorial

-National Archief of the Netherlands
-Musée McCord Museum

-The Smithsonian

-The Powerhouse Museum

-Brooklyn Museum

-The National Media Museum

-State Library of New South Wales
-Biblioteca de Arte-Fundação

-The Imperial War Museum

The hillotype!

2008-11-17T23:41:00.000-08:00

I find the story of Levi Hill to be absolutely fascinating. Hill was a Baptist minister living in upstate NY, in a remote area near the Catskill Mountains, who claimed to have invented the first color photographic process in 1850, just 11 years after the announcement of the daguerreotype to the world.

After a brief break from preaching, due to controversial sermons, Hill's photographic life began when he worked briefly as a traveling daguerreotypist. Like many people of the time, he saw the daguerreotypes lack of color as a huge drawback and supposedly started his experiments with color photography in the spring of 1947. He had made no progress until 1850 when he suddenly made a color reproduction of a lithograph. However, he forgot to write his steps down! Eventually, he was able to make a second color reproduction. But soon after, he and his wife signed a pact that neither would show the pictures "except for security and protection", giving no further reasoning. In this time, Hill practically crippled the daguerreotype industry; because of his pre-mature announcement, thousands put off having their pictures made in hope of getting color ones done a few months later. Needless to say, Hill was very unpopular and had many threats made on his life. To save his reputation, he had a few reputable people visit him to vouch for the discovery, one being Samuel Morse, who is responsible for bringing the daguerreotype to America in the first place. Morse's account of his trip to visit Hill is reproduced online here and is worth a read. Throughout his career, Hill knew extremely little about chemistry. And in addition to the occasional explosion, a number of his mixtures proved to be lethal. He died not long after he began deliberately inhaling these fumes, convinced that they would cure his bronchitis.

Until last year, when the Smithsonian finally tested his "hillotypes", Hill remained a rather elusive and controversial figure in the history of photography. The results of these tests prove to be fairly surprising and a little elusive themselves. As it turns out, both sides of the Hill debate were right to some extent. The tests show that the reds and blues had been legitimately reproduced, however vaguely, and that all of the other colors were hand painted. In addition, photo historian Joseph Boudraue also experimented with Hill's process in the early 1980s and found relative success, recreating a large range of colors, not just red and blue. Boudraue's experiments suggest that the original plates were very prone to fading, so what we're seeing today is drastically different than what he and Morse saw. Nonetheless, it's now indisputable that Hill actually did produce some sort of color image, however crude it may have been.

I'd love to be able to see some of these in person because I've been running into problems on the internet with the quality of color in the reproductions.

Davey

2008-11-17T14:46:00.000-08:00

Untitled from Davey II. © Brian Sorg

My pal Pete Halupka recently posted about Brian Sorg's ongoing project, Davey. I initially got introduced to the work through that Blurb book contest earlier this year, but it was nice to be able to "soak it in again" as Pete puts it. One of the reasons the pictures work so well for me is because I can relate them directly to my own childhood. Like Davey, I grew up skateboarding and causing mischief. I grew up in (what seems to be) a pretty modest, middle class neighborhood; in fact, every picture looks like it could have been made in my hometown. The personal recognition in almost every picture makes the project so good for me. For example, in the below picture, the kid is wearing Es' Scheme sneakers, these were the shit growing up and I remember owning at least 2 pairs. He is also sitting on a short, flat rail. I knew at least 5 kids who owned these and I'd usually never go more than a week without skating one.

Untitled from Davey I. © Brian Sorg

My friends and I spent countless nights doing stupid shit out of pure boredom. Throwing rocks at houses and/or cars was common on the list of our activities and got us into trouble more than once

Untitled from Davey I. © Brian Sorg

Like any kid into skateboarding, I spent countless hours with my friends in front of the TV watching skate videos, I still have most of my collection at home. I remember getting so hyped on the videos and magazine, and the pictures in these magazines sparked my interest in photography

Untitled from Davey II. © Brian Sorg

And of course, no childhood can be complete without writing pointless messages all over every wall and sign possible, this picture makes me laugh every time

Untitled from Davey II. © Brian Sorg

I remember wondering if this photo was a homage to Larry Clark's Tulsa. It probably isn't, but I'd still like to think so

Untitled from Davey I. © Brian Sorg

Tulsa, 1963. ©Larry Clark

The MySpace screenshots and letter also add a really nice dynamic to the project. It's interesting to see how he projects his life free from the photos and his girlfriend's picture of them at a school dance is an interesting new aspect of his life and growing up

I can't wait to see how this project grows and what it looks like in a few years, I'm sure it will be great.

Untitled from Davey II. © Brian Sorg

Sunday Photo

2008-11-16T08:12:00.000-08:00

I haven't been able to get the idea of Szarkowski off of my mind once this week

Mr. Anderson and son, near Sandstone, Minnesota, 1957. © John Szarkowski

VIVO

2008-11-16T01:08:00.000-08:00

Ordeal by Roses #32, 1961. © Eikoh Hosoe

"The creation in 1959 in Tokyo by Shomei Tomatsu, Eikoh Hosoe, Ikko Narahara and Kikuji Kawada of the agency “VIVO” marked the birth of a new generation of photographers whose intent was to go beyond mere experimentation to establish a real practice. With a sharp, critical eye on reality, clear concepts, a real sense of composition and framing, coupled with heavy emphasis on the symbolic, this group exerted a tremendous influence on the generation that followed."- From Photography In Japan essay, written by Mariko Takeuchi

Untitled, Tokyo, 1969. © Shomei Tomatsu

The Japanese Flag, 1965. © Kikuji Kawada

More bad trivia

2008-11-15T09:47:00.000-08:00

Identical Twins, Roselle, NJ, 1967. © Diane Arbus

More, not so good, movie trivia. Did you know Stanley Kubrick's twins in The Shining were inspired by this iconic Diane Arbus photo?

Trivia!

2008-11-13T17:23:00.000-08:00

Zissou in his tire boat, 1911. © Jacques Henri Lartigue

There has been slight hype on the upcoming auction from the estate of Dan Berely, which includes 3 crucial Lartigue prints. The above picture, of his older brother nicknamed Zissou, is one of my favorites. DID YOU KNOW, that director Wess Anderson is a huge Lartigue fan and has referenced his works in a few of his films. In fact, the character Steve Zissou in Life Aquatic is a direct homage. AND in the movie, there's a portrait of Zissou's mentor, Lord Mandrake, which is directly based off of a portrait of Lartigue, Anderson even gives Lartigue credit in the credits as playing Mandrake. It even says it on IMDB! So sick!

Assorted daguerreotypes

2008-11-12T11:42:00.000-08:00

Abraham Lincoln, 1846-7

I spent many hours last week writing a fake letter for H&A pretending that I was a man living in Rochester in 1845 who just got his first daguerreotype made of himself. For extra credit, we could find a specific daguerreotype to write about. So, I hit the up the Library of Congress collection to find one. Needless to say, I got caught up in the enormous collection and found soooo many gems. Here are just a few of my favorites.

Adams Family Portrait, 1846

Foremen, Phoenix Fire Company and Mechanic Fire Company

Cardinal John McCloskey

Unidentified man with cat

The White House, 1846

Still life with tree and two small stuffed mammals

Robert Cornelius, self portrait

Occupational portrait of salesman

Group portrait of two unidentified girls

Pair of oxen with the their drovers, 1848

Gertrude Mercer Hubbard Grossman, Roberta Wolcott Hubbard Bell, and Mabel Hubbard Bell as girls

Joseph Avery standing on rocks in the Niagra River

"Three men boating in the Niagara River were overwhelmed by the river's strong current, lost control of their boat, and crashed into a rock. The current carried two men immediately over the Falls to their deaths. The daguerreotype shows the third man, stranded on a log which had jammed between two rocks. He weathered the current for eighteen hours before succumbing to the river. The image is an early example of a news photograph."

Occupational portrait of two men, holding floor rammers, foundry tools used for packing sand against molds

Unidentified Man and Woman, 1848

And finally the one I ended up using.....

David and Ellen Bell, seated

And just as a side note, the Library of Congress is also on flickr, see their page here

Jasper De Beijer

2008-11-12T09:41:00.000-08:00

The work of Jasper De Beijer is so close to perfect that it blows my mind every time I look at it. Beijer's interpretation of history is vivid and his process produces something completely unique. His project Le Sacre Du Printemps, about WWI, is probably my favorite. His website says this about the project....

Jasper de Beijer (1973 Amsterdam) presents his new photo series: Le Sacre du Printemps.
For this photo series the artist has used photographs from the First World War as a starting point to investigate the esthetics of these images. Because of the particular nature of this imagery and the emotional distance that has existed through the course of time the artist saw an opportunity to look at the abstract quality of his sources; the rearrangement of iron, mud, stone and flesh by means of destruction. As in Strawinsky's famous ballet performance, the new order can only emerge if the old one has been burned down.
The past years de Beijer has been reconstructing imagery that has become autonomous in the course of history, using existing sources to create a new reality.

Within his work, I see some parallels with Italian photographer Paolo Ventura. I love how they can both take iconic events in our history and reconstruct and interpret them to fit their own personal narratives. The above statement also points out how crucial that there is "emotional distance that has existed through the course of time" and how different it would be interpreted if it were a recent event. This emotional detachment allows both artists to make an almost whimsical, romantic interpretation and let their imaginations wonder a little (although that's probably more readable in some of his other projects). The uniqueness of Beijer's process and ultimate product holds me longer than most of Ventura's work. He also has a great nack for choosing compelling periods in history. His most recent project 'The Riveted Kingdom' shows the Victorian era in a forceful and convincing light, honing in on the progression and innovation. (all below images are from Le Sacre Du Printemps)

Sunday Photo

2008-11-09T10:07:00.000-08:00

Untitled. © Rinko Kawauchi

William Eggleston

2008-11-09T09:07:00.000-08:00

William Eggleston's big Whitney retrospect and Christie's auction have been creating a lot of stir around the photographer in the last few months. Luckily that hype has brought about a few new books regarding the photographer! Firstly, the Whitney is publishing The Democratic Camera in conjunction with the the show. The aim of the book is like the exhibit, simply a retrospect of all his work, including early black and white and some video work.

Another newish book of his work is The Spirit of Dunkerque , highlighting his work from Dunkerque, France that he made in 2005. This is the second print, I don't know what's exactly different about this edition except the fact it's from a US publisher. The photos in this book aren't exactly his strongest in my opinion, but it's a Eggleston new title nonetheless

I'm particularly excited to get my hands on his new book from Twin Palms, Stranded in Canton. This book highlights this video work with 40 still images and a DVD with the full film of video, shot in his native Memphis and New Orleans. I'm not too familiar with his video work at all, there were very brief clips in William Eggleston In The Real World and there are a few more on the Eggleston artistic trust website. But it will still be a surprise to see it all start to finish.

In addition to all of that jazz, I think that Twin Palms is doing a 2nd edition of 5x7? God only knows when that will come out, but it will definitely be a must have for everyone who missed out on the first edition last year.

As if that weren't enough Eggleston, there is also a new documentary coming out simply titled William Eggleston, exploring his Memphis roots and how his early work came to define his unique vision.

DONE!

2008-11-09T09:03:00.000-08:00

I'm finally finished with the first quarter of my second year at RIT (with the exception of one writing paper due Tuesday). I have 3 weeks until I start classes again and absolutely nothing to do, except sit around eating mega slices and watching The Simpsons. I want to go home to Philadelphia for a week, but have no way of getting to or from. My photo final was yesterday, last minute I changed things around a bit. I'm still not even sure if I like them, but they did fine in critique, so at least I'll get a decent grade.

The one good thing that did come out of it was that I scored a sweet print from Nick in a exchange for one of mine.

Ahhhhh

2008-11-05T07:05:00.000-08:00

Over the last week, I've been scanning and editing 15 rolls of film down to 5 pictures for my PA4 final on Friday that will please the unpleasable Jasna. My head feels like it's going to explode!

2008-11-04T21:31:00.001-08:00

Obama is the next president and the Phillies are the world champions, everything is right in the universe.

Election Day!

2008-11-04T06:30:00.000-08:00

Voting booth storage. © Tim Davis

Tonight (or early tomorrow) we will know who the next president of the United States is going to be, that really scares the shit out of me

Sunday Photo

2008-11-02T09:25:00.001-08:00

Mom in New Home, 2006. © Leigh Ledare

Japanese photography

2008-11-01T13:13:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to dip my feet into the sea of Japanese photography over the last few weeks and have been failing miserably. It's been really hard to get a grounding in it and grasp a starting point to work from. The library only has 8 of 63? books from Ferdinand Brueggemann's compiled list of Japanese photobooks. However, one artist that I stumbled upon and keep coming back to is Rei Sato. I can't really pinpoint what I like so much about her images, they didn't have a huge impact on me the first time I saw them last week, yet I can't seem to get enough. They are very influenced by the idea of "kawaii", which in my mind seems to be a strictly Japanese concept, probably especially coming from a Western point of view. In addition to seeming uniquely Japanese (which is probably irrelevant in the grand scheme of things, I know), the child-like approach proves to be uplifting, tender, and ultimately keeps me coming back.

I'm Sure They Love You, 2004. © Rei Sato

Is It Like This Everyday?, 2004. © Rei Sato

Lets All Go To A Party, 2008. © Rei Sato

Gentle Plants, 2008. © Rei Sato

Robert's True Colors

2008-11-01T11:28:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T04:57:00.001-07:00

Halloween, 1971. © William Eggleston

Laura Letinsky!

2008-10-29T15:28:00.000-07:00

Untitled #6, 1997. © Laura Letinsky

Just as reminder, Laura Letinsky will be lecturing in the Webb Auditorium at RIT 7 o'clock tomorrow (Thursday) night. If you need a refresher on her, Mouth to Mouth magazine did a great interview with her last year that can be found here. Enjoy, see you tomorrow night!

These Birds Walk

2008-10-28T16:22:00.000-07:00

If I had all the money in the world, all I'd do is buy photobooks. Hearing about the new subcription series from Paul Schiek's These Birds Walk today was painful. All four books look pretty sick, especially Abner Nolan's book of found photographs. Alec Soth's book looks pretty different from his previous work too (at least from that one picture they show). There's still signed subscriptions avaliable (limited to 50) so get it while they last!

Liberty Enlightening the World

2008-10-28T11:05:00.000-07:00

Last night, instead of working on a paper dealing with gun control laws, I got pumped on the picture from the last post and decided to learn all I could about the Statue of Liberty's photographic life. Construction on the statue started winter 1875, falling well into the era of the collodion wet plate documentation craze, so there's a slew of great pictures of it's construction. My favorites are by French photographer Albert Fernique who was assigned to document the construction by designer Frederic Bartholdi. He later made a book of the pictures; however, I can't find any info on the book anywhere.

Men in workshop hammering sheets of copper for the construction of Statue Liberty, 1880. © Albert Fernique

Head of Statue of Liberty on display in a park in Paris. © Albert Fernique

Assemblage of the Statue Of Liberty in Paris. © Albert Fernique

Islands- Bedloe's Island- Statue of Liberty. © Associated Press Phtographer

Not of the statue, but I couldn't help myself.....

18,000 man Statue of Liberty. © Mole & Thomas

The restoration of the statue in the 80s was also very heavily documented.....

Nose and mouth detail, March 28, 1985. Library of Congress

New York City, Subway, 1980. © Bruce Davidson

And lastly, my favorite Statue of Liberty pictuer ever,

Square America!

2008-10-27T15:48:00.000-07:00

Square America, the best website in the world, has a wonderful new show up titled Of Politics and Patriots. Just in time to get into the voting mood!

Sunday Photo

2008-10-26T17:57:00.000-07:00

New York City was fun

Pike and Henry Street, 1936. © Bernice Abbott

PopPhoto's Emerging Artists

2008-10-20T16:41:00.000-07:00

PopPhoto recently published this year's list of emerging photographers of the year. Despite a rather obvious bias, the quality of the list really suprised me. There are a few favorites (Sarah Small, Alejandra Laviada , Julie Blackmon, Eric Percher, Kelli Connell and Martine Fougeron) but a few really great projects that I've ever even seen before, which is always exciting. The first one I looked at and was really impressed by were fashion team Pamela Reed and Matthew Rader. Lately I've been really interested artists embracing digital technology and using it within their work in a new way, and this is right on.

Yann Gross is also new to me. His project Kitintale Skates is dope. I have a soft spot in my heart for any skateboarding related work and this is hard not to love.

Sunday Photo

2008-10-19T11:05:00.000-07:00

East From Flagstaff Mountain, Boulder County, Colorado. © Robert Adams

Go Phillies!

2008-10-16T05:37:00.000-07:00

1913 Team Card, issued by Liggett & Myers Co.

Sunday Photo

2008-10-12T11:06:00.001-07:00

I went camping for the first time this weekend

Emily and Hanna, 2002. © Ryan McGinley

Tom Brady?

2008-10-08T20:32:00.000-07:00

Do you know anyone who looks anything like Tom Brady? For stupid photo class, I have to recreate an ad. So, being the slacker that I am, I chose a Terry Richardson picture from campaign he did with Nike last year. The only problem is, I don't know anyone who looks like him! Help a brother out.

Amelia's World

2008-10-08T11:04:00.000-07:00

Robin Schwartz's series Amelia's World is one of my favorite projects I've seen so far this year. All of the pictures are of her daughter Amelia interacting with all sorts of exotic animals. There's a brilliant fantasy-like feeling about the pictures that I can't get enough of. The work has been featured in Women In Photography and is being published by Aperture as one of the five books showcasing work off of Tiny Vices, due out later this month.

Deer Butt. © Robin Schwartz

Amelia and Ricky. © Robin Schwartz

Jenny, Amelia, and Vicky. © Robin Schwartz

Investigation. © Robin Schwartz

Sunday Photo

2008-10-05T19:28:00.001-07:00

Eleanor, 1951. © Harry Callahan

Tomorrow Night

2008-10-01T15:54:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, The Office is not on tomorrow night due to vice presidential debates. Luckily, there's a lecture on the RIT campus to fill that void. Three photographers from PDN's 30 under 30 list are speaking at the Webb Auditorium at 6:30. Among them is Taj Forer, a photographer I'm pretty into. I was first introduced to his work last December when Brian Ulrich interviewed him on his blog. The interview offers some great insight to his work and is well worth a read if you're checking out the lecture tomorrow night. See you there!

Jeff and Mary by Long Hungry Creek. © Taj Forer

Gardening Tools. © Taj Forer

Gnome Houses/ Meeting Places. © Taj Forer

TV Books

2008-10-01T05:58:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Tim Barber's book project, TV Books, announced 4 new titles! TV Books is proving to be one of my favorite publishers. Michael Schmelling's The Week Of No Computer was my last purchases this summer and among my favorite books of the year.

All 4 of the newbies look sick. The first one to catch my eye was Santiago Mostyn's Excerpt: All Most Heaven. His pictures from floating down the Mississippi river were mad popular on the blogosphere a few blog years ago, so I'm sure most of you are familiar with it. I think this book includes some of that and even more from his travels. I'm especially interested the "artifacts" in the preview that are going to appear in the book (notes, sketches, etc.)

Cover of Excerpt: All Most Heaven. © Santiago Mostyn/TV Books

Spread from book. © Santiago Mostyn/TV Books

TV Books, like most good publishers, isn't entirely photographic. In fact, two of the new four books aren't. One is Brad Phillip's Hope Against Reason, a book of his paintings. And the other is Ben Schumacher's Don't Look Down, a compilation of his autobiographical drawings. I have no knowledge whatsoever about either artist, but they both look sick, especially Don't Look Down.

Cover of Don't Look Down. © Ben Schumacher/TV Books

The last, and in my opinion most important, is a complete catalog of Tim Barber's show at the New York Photo Fest last spring. The fest happened the last week of school, so I couldn't go. Since then, I've been really bummed about missing it, especially his and Martin Parr's exhibits. The catalog is 300 pages long and a dream team of photographers that he showed. I can't wait to get my hands on it....

Cover of Various Photographs. © TV Books

Spread from book. © TV Books

Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water

2008-09-30T19:53:00.000-07:00

Taking the summer off was detrimental to this blog! There was so much good stuff that I didn't get to write about! My favorite thing about the entire summer photography wise was Asako Narahashi's series/show/book, Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water. This project is probably one of my favorite ever. Apparently, this work has been exhibited in Tokyo since 2003, it really opens your eyes to all the great work going on all over the world that never even reaches us or takes 5 years to. The book, number 2 in the Parr/Nazraeli 10 book project, only has one little essay by Martin Parr. It's seriously getting to the point where if he told us to jump off a bridge I would. In the essay, he writes

"There is an element of magic in the best photography and explanations distract from their natural ambiguity"

With that said, here are some of the pictures.....

Atami 2001. © Asako Narahashi

Kawaguchiko 2003. © Asako Narahashi

Iwasehama 2004. © Asako Narahashi

Zeze 2005. © Asako Narahashi

Yunohama 2004. © Asako Narahashi

Sunday Photo

2008-09-28T09:05:00.000-07:00

2008-09-27T12:42:00.000-07:00

Who wants to start a photo zine with me?

Art for Obama!

2008-09-25T20:49:00.001-07:00

Art for Obama is sick! Who wants to split a print?!?! I think I'd have to go with Doug Dubois.....

Tomorrow Night

2008-09-24T15:15:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is a big day. FIRST OF ALL, photographer Phyllis Galembo is giving a lecture at the Eastman House at 6. If you haven't seen her West African Masquerade exhibit yet, it's a must see. The prints are absolutely gorgeous, so why not see it tomorrow and hit two birds with one stone?

Her exhibit and another of pictures from their collection dealing with Africa closes after this weekend! Don't miss out! They have one of my favorite Nickolas Muary pictures of all time hanging up right as you walk in, so cool!

And most importantly, this lecture is only supposed to end around 7. Which will get everyone home in more than enough time to see the SEASON PREMIER OF THE OFFICE!!!!! Get excited!

SNOOOWGLOBES

2008-09-24T14:53:00.000-07:00

Seeing the snow globe picture in Phillip Toledano's spectacular new series American Gift Shop this morning got me thinking. There's a heck of a lot snow globe action going on these days. And I like it.

Kent Rogowski also has an entire series devoted to snow-globes in Future=Perfect. His snow globes are about common and everyday aspects of life that go overlooked.

For me, Walter Martin and Paloma Munoz's snow globe work takes the cake. Like Kent Rogowski's globes, they have a very strong narrative quality, but they go even further with very elaborate and detailed settings. There's also a very dark humor to them that I just love. Their website is full of great work, I had the hardest time choosing just a few to put on here. Luckily, they also have a new aperture monograph that just came out called Travelers, named after the series of photos below (although it also features work from another much more elaborate series of theirs entitled Islands?) I'm going to try to start posting the call numbers of the books I talk about on here for the RIT library since I think 99.99% of my readership goes to school here, but naturally our shitty library isn't on top of it yet, so no call number.

Intervention.

2008-09-23T14:05:00.000-07:00

Dear RIT,

Please stop taking yourself too seriously. Lets face it, you're not the best school out there. If any of us were really all that smart we wouldn't be going here. Especially you photo department, lets not shit ourselves. Jerry Uelsmann graduated 50 years ago, move on! You're starting to bug me out!

Sincerely,

Will

Sunday Photo/ 100th post

2008-09-21T13:44:00.000-07:00

WOOHOO!

2008-09-20T12:04:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to get rid of some of the more neglected titles in my photobook collection. Help a brother out

Sam Abell- The Photographic Life ($85)

Linda McCartney- Light From Within (Bulfinch Edition) ($10)

Elliot Erwitt- Snaps ($35)

Elliot Erwitt- Hand Book ($20)

Mona Kuhn- Mona Kuhn (Signed) ($85)

Mary Ellen Mark- American Odyssey (Hardcore Aperture 1st edition) ($110)

Arnold Newman- Arnold Newman ($15)

Glen E. Friedman- Fuck You Too ($10)

Ughhhh

2008-09-18T20:16:00.000-07:00

I've been doing a little bit of point and shoot lately (about a roll a week) and putting it into a journal. I've been thinking about ways to combine it with other stuff I find digitally, but I'm not doing anything I like at all yet. Today I picked up last week's roll at Wallfart and I accidently got a cd made of all my roll. Oops. I didn't want the scans to go to complete waste and I figured it's no secret I really suck at photo by now, so here's some photos to reassure that notion, wallmart quality and all...

Yes, Yes, Yes, Yes

2008-09-16T05:45:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I like to dabble in collecting photography books. So, when I read about the new Errata Edition Books this morning while getting ready for class, I got pretty excited. Jeffrey Ladd, a co-founder and the author of photobook blog 5b4, announced it in a post last night explaining

"The Books on Books series is an on-going publishing project dedicated to making rare and out-of-print photography books accessible once again to photobook enthusiasts. Each in this series presents the entire content, page for page, of an original master bookwork which, up until now, has been too rare or prohibitively expensive for most of us to experience."

And goes on to say....

"I have a strong belief that people, especially students, should be able to access these great works of art to learn from them and that a valuable part of the dialogue with this medium has been stunted because of that limited access."

That's SO badass and I couldn't agree with him more. Being a student, it's hard to afford a book collection. I feel like some publishers never take their audience into consideration. A good example could be last year's release of Paul Graham's A Shimmer Of Possibility through Steidl. It consists of 12 separate books, so it's not too, too far fetched that it could retail for $250. It seems a little on the steep side, but whatever. What's stupid about it is that it's limited to 1,000 copies. What's the point of that? Obviously 1,000 is a good sized edition for a smaller publisher, but not for a groundbreaking book by one of the the world's most popular contemporary photographers. At most 1,000 people can own this book, that's crazy! RIT's library doesn't even own a copy, so I've never even had a chance to see it in person, only through shitty internet jpegs. Since it's such a recent release, there's probably no chance that it'll get an edition from them, but I can always dream. However, one of the first four classics that will see some new life is Walker Evan's American Photographs! It's been on my list forever and the shitty RIT library only has the 1975 edition tucked away in the 3rd floor archives. Not to mention Photograhie de Paris and In Flagrante (I must admit I've never heard of Sophie Ristelhueber's Fait). Unfortunately, they won't be available until February! I want them now!

Sunday Photo

2008-09-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

To continue doing Sunday photo or to not continue doing Sunday photo......

Bears. Beats. Battlestar Galactica

2008-09-13T08:04:00.000-07:00

I'm back! I just can't stay away! Nothing is new, school is back in session, 2d design is for the birds and my photo teacher is mean. The Office starts again soon though, if you haven't been watching the Kevin's Loan webisodes all summer then you're missing out. Here are some classic Office pranks to get back in the groove

2008-08-01T18:46:00.000-07:00

I need some kind of savior to pull me from this seat. From the people, from the smell, from the price, from the heat. From the way they purchase hope with their last of change, while they try to look different, but they’re all the same.

2 cool 2 be 4 gotten

2008-07-28T13:20:00.000-07:00

It's been almost an entire month since my last update. Since then, I've grown a year older, officially 19, which is a terrible feeling. Other than a birthday, nothing of any significance has happened, I'm not even sure if I've even made any pictures since that last post. My work schedule has been crazy too, I've been starting around 4am and then working until noon. Which wouldn't be a problem if I didn't have work again at the pizza place from 4pm until 9 or 10. That leaves like 5 hours of sleep if I don't take advantage of the afternoon and nap, which I can never get myself to do. So I'm constantly in a miserable/exhausted stooper, it's great. I have had some time to do some looking though. My new favorite thing is looking at cool illustrations. First up is Julien Fevret de St. Memin, a notable practitioner of the physionotrace, a mechanism I still don't really understand. I'm not even sure if his work would fall into the category of illustration, the more I think about it the more I'm thinking it probably doesn't, but for now we'll just pretend. Fevret de St. Memin came to America in 1793 fleeing the French revolution. His pictures of early American forefathers are probably his trademark, but his pictures of Native Americans are 1,000,000x more interesting in my opinion. His work stands out to me because he is one of the only artists using the physionotrace to use color in his work, it was supposedly very difficult to apply color and still maintain detail, but he does it like a champ over and over.

A few days ago, thanks to i heart photograph, I found out about the University of Washington's Vietnam Era digital collection. WOW! The collection is filled with really, really great stuff, but my favorite has to old covers from Helix, a Seattle based newspaper from the late 60s. As far as I know, there's no photography made from that era that can even come close to touching these illustrations. Almost every one I saw was a gem. My favorites are probably by Walt Crowley, one of the original founders. I honestly don't understand how this kind of stuff ever went out of style.....

Helix no. 1 vol. 5 cover. Illustration by G. Eagle

Helix vol. 6 no. 2 cover. Illustrated by Walt Crowley

Helix vol. 4 no. 8 cover. Illustrated by Larry Heald

Helix vol. 2 no. 6 cover. Illustrated by Jacques Thorton Moitoret

Helix vol. 2 no. 4 cover. Illustrated by Walt Crowley

Helix vol. 2 no. 3 cover. Illustrated by Walt Crowley

Helix vol. 2 no. 1 cover. Illustrated by Walt Crowley

Helix vol. 1 no. 9 cover. Illustrated by Walt Crowley

Helix vol. 1 no. 7 cover. Illustrated by William Ward

Helix vol. 1 no. 3 cover. Illustrated by Maryl Clemmens

Helix vol. 1 no. 10 cover. illustrated by William Ward

And last, but certainly not least, my current desktop image....

Helix vol. 1 no. 4 cover and back. Illustrated by Walt Crowley

I also made a muxtape! My last mix cd on the trip to New York City this spring wasn't exactly a hit (thanks Anna...) so I figured I'd give it another try!

In the interest of upholding the title as a photography blog, I guess I should at least mention something photography related. I've been a glutton this summer with buying photography books, my tiny collection is growing rapidly. One of the highlights of my excessive spending has to be Birney Imes' Juke Joint, which I found out about via Will Steacy's blog. The preview pictures I saw made the work seem a little Eggleston-ish to me; so when I actually got a chance to really look at the them, I was surprised to find out they are actually very carefully done with a 4x5 using very long exposures (I still don't know how I missed all the blurred people, durrr). The work in the book is basically exactly how I wish I could shoot.

Richard Ford, well known novelist and fellow Mississippian, writes the intro to the book. In it, he denies almost all social messages about the pictures, which I think is nonsense (IE "Shorty's Place, Artesia, 1988"). Just the context of the book, decrepit black hangouts in Mississippi, suggests at least some social consciousness.

I want to find out about more works like this. Earlier this summer, Ryan was urging me to do some kind of photo project on Philadelphia hardcore and I really wish I could. Seeing this kind of work gives me so many ideas.

This is the Fresh Prince's new defintion of summer madness

2008-06-29T12:09:00.000-07:00

Today is my first day off in almost 3 weeks. I don't know what to do with myself! I just got finished watching Downtown 81 (aka New York Beat Movie), coolest movie I've seen in forever. My fascination/man crush with Jean Michel Basquiat has been multiplied by a million. Other than that things have been chill, all I do is work. But this month I made a little over $1500, so I can't really complain. I've been trying to take photos of my attic, but it's super small and hot as fuck, so I'm not getting anything good yet.

I stumbled upon this picture a few weeks ago looking for something completely irrelevant. Since I found it, I've probably looked at it at least once day, it's pretty awesome. It's about 3 shops down the street from the pizza place I work at nights. Trying to find any more information has been fruitless, the sidewalks were put in town around the 30s and 40s, dating it to after that, which was kind of obvious allready. The corner-store was named Michael's forever, and used to be a big hang out for the students at the college (campus starts just left of the frame).

And one last thing, if anyone knows the name of artist who did this piece, PLEASE TELL ME!!!! I first saw these paintings a few years ago, I was in maybe 8th grade, they had a huge impact on me, but I stupidly never saved the link or name. Since then, I've spent many hours looking for the artist with no luck. I know he/she's relatively popular, a name would be much appreciated. Enjoy your summer!

Vacation's All I Ever Wanted!

2008-06-07T15:13:00.000-07:00

Break has been incredibly boring. I've had no motivation whatsoever to take pictures in my town, instead I've been taking some crappy ones in my house that I don't really like (above). I want to start taking them at work but I haven't quite figured out the logistics yet; there's constantly falling debris, heavy machinery, I'm constantly on ladders and in uncomfortable places, and I don't know how I could shoot all day and still make it look like I'm working to my boss (who all ready doesn't like me very much).

Charles Zoller

2008-05-08T09:03:00.000-07:00

I'm giving up the blogosphere, at least for now. I haven't had the time to pay attention to it lately because of all my work and photo final. I certainly won't have any more time these last 2 weeks at school and I definitely won't have any time over the summer since I'll be working a full time construction job and a night job at a local pizza place. I may do sporadic updates now and again until the fall, but probably nothing of any substance besides babble about a new book or something. As a final post, I think the best possible topic would be one of the most badass photographers I've come across all year, Charles Zoller. Zoller was born in Rochester in 1852 and took up photography sometime after he opened up his own furniture store in 1886 on North Street. In 1907, he traveled to Paris and brought back a ton of Autochrome film that had just been invented that year. He is sometimes credited to bringing color film to America, although that probably isn't too realistic. Zoller became somewhat a celebrity figure and started traveling around giving lectures with his lantern slides and autochromes. He eventually was hired by many prominent Rochesterians, including George Eastman, to photograph their gardens while they were away. When he died in 1932, he left behind thousands of black and white negatives and almost 5,000 autochromes that cover all aspects of life in Rochester nearly a century ago.

Former black Civil War soldiers stand with an unidentified black man and women stand with the Frederick Douglass statue. 1912. © Charles Zoller

Enlarge the last one, it's really, really freaky. I think Zoller's son was possessed or something. Have a good summer!

Sunday Photo

2008-05-04T17:37:00.000-07:00

Projection

2008-04-30T22:47:00.000-07:00

I'm still drudging along with my final, slowly but surely. Last week I managed to get my second picture!

This is the corner where Octavius Barron shot and killed William Lyman, marking Rochester's first murder...

"In the fall of 1837, among other agents and helpers at the City Mills was on William Lyman who was employed in many ways, and especially bought wheat and other grains for the Mills, and was entrusted at times with large sums of money. He was one of the most faithful and conscientious men that could be found... This man ... one Monday night in October, 1837—not very late in the evening—having closed his business for the day, at the City Mills, started going to his home, on North Clinton Street, near the corner of what is now Clinton Place. At that time the west side of Clinton street, and nearly through to St. Paul, was an open green, and when Lyman was on that green, and not far from his house, a murderer stealthily crept along behind and near him, and shot him through the back of his head, killing him outright! This was the first murder committed in our corporation—the beginning of a long and bloody record..."
—Excerpt from a letter published by Rochester History Vol. IV January, 1942

I've also been having a huge problem with the issue of actually getting this done. The idea of re-creating miniature sets of each event to go along with a photo of the place came up, but I have no experience whatsoever in that stuff. These calls for assistance never yield anything, but if you can lend some expertise and are interested in making some mini-sets please get in touch!

This project is about 75% research and while doing my research I've come across a ton of badass old postcards and pictures. I want to start a mini-project just comparing the places in postcards to what's there today, especially since Rochester is in such a steep decline. Paul Greenleaf did almost the exact same thing in his series Correspondence with found postcards. His is 1000x sicker than mine ever will be though so I don't think I'll have to be worrying about it.

Main Street from Front Street. Postmarked 8/7/1919

I think I'll save some of my found pictures for a later post since this one is sort of running a little long as it is I just can't resist posting this one though, so great...

An unidentified Rochester baseball club. 1894

NOKIA

2008-04-30T22:24:00.000-07:00

It was pouring!

Patti McPatpat

The thing that Emily wanted to take a picture of

"get that mother fucking camera out of my mother fucking face"

My first drive-in

Fun in the sun!

They planned that, they always match

New York Shitty

A Ruthless glare

Disgusting trash that ruined my trip to New York.

Booooooooks

2008-04-27T19:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a rough week in the book buying department, I found some good things and splurged a little. First, I got a copy of Tim Davis' My Life In Politics for $13! What a deal?! He's easily one of the most intelligent photographers working and the book has been on my list for a long time.

I also followed Jason's lead and got 2-4-6-8 by Brian Finke for a cool $17.50, which is in my opinion his strongest body of work.

My new thing is photo history, and it's probably the main reason this blog has been so neglected lately. So Beaumont Newhall's The History of Photography seemed like a natural choice in starting my new life as a photography historian haha.

And to add injury to insult, yesterday I found out about the new 3rd edition of Alec Soth's Sleeping By The Mississippi which is supposed to be released sometime this summer through Steidl. Within minutes of finding out, it was pre-ordered, I've been hoping for a 3rd edition ever since I stupidly passed up buying the 2nd (although this one's cover is 1,000,000x nicer looking).

Knowing I have a full time job and second night job this summer has been so bad because I know I'll have some income to spend. However, I'm proud to say I resisted dropping 75 big ones today at a Larry Towell lecture, his new book looks sweet, but not $75 sweet.

(p.s thank you to photobooth for flipping all of the images and thank you to me for not having any software on my computer capable of simply flipping them around)

Sunday Photo

2008-04-27T17:53:00.001-07:00

I saw Jeff Brouws lecture last week. I forgot to mention it here. I'm not sure how much I like a lot of his work, but some of his roadsides are pretty great.

Work update

2008-04-22T23:58:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been working a ton and have been kind of mixed on whether or not photo is a thing to be learning in school. I'm really learning nothing, no one talks about any of my stuff in critiques and all our lectures are about photographers I all ready know about, the only thing I'm learning is stuff about photoshop, all of which I could be learning from a $30 photoshop book. However, I wouldn't have this much time to be working if I was doing anything else. I'm doing photo related work every day and this is the only way I can be doing so much. It's a weird mix and I'm not sure what to think. But I digress, I'm making a homemade book of empty zoo cages and animal murals, I don't think I'm going to make more than 2, but if you want one I'll make you one.

elephant's cage

log's cage

polar bear cage

I had an architecture project last week too, it was super fun. But the only thing I got out of crit yesterday was that my colors were "eery" and that a client wouldn't like it if I made their building yellow and had my shadow in the frame.

My history project is coming along epicly badly. I messed up 6 of my last 8 sheets. I don't know how I'm going to get 12 prints by the end of the quarter, right now I only have one. On a lighter note, I did narrow down what I'm doing with it exactly. It's going to focus on historic sites that our forefathers didn't think would speak of their ambitions and how they'd like to be remembered, sites that weren't preserved by monuments or parks. I'm trying to hunt these sites down and see how time has changed and destroyed them, to see how successful they were of stashing away their failures or embarrassments. I really need people to take me to these places though, so I'll cut you an epic deal. If you drive me, I'll give you an 11x14 print of the site that we go to. Deal?!

Site of Frederick Douglass' house before it was burnt down

Ernest Cole

2008-04-22T10:08:00.000-07:00

To continue with my little survey of South African photography, Ernest Cole is another logical choice. He stumbeled upon photography kind of by luck. Growing up in Pretoria, the capital of Apartheid South Africa, he dropped out of school at an early age to become an unskilled laborer. He scored his first camera from a white clergyman and just went from there. Like Peter Magubane, his first photography work was as an assistant to Jürgen Schadeberg at Drum magazine. With a grant from the New York Institute of Photography, he began photographing apartheid South Africa on his own, and eventually went on to become South Africa's first black freelance photographer, working for all of the country's major publications.

In 1966, after only 8 years of photographing in South Africa professionally, he somehow became re-classified as Coloured, a slight step up from Black South African, and was able to move to New York City. There, Magnum helped him get his work published in the groundbreaking book House of Bondage, published by Random House in 1967. This was the first time most Westerners saw the struggles of everyday life in South Africa for most blacks. Needless to say, the book was immediately banned in South Africa, and Cole was permanently exiled for the rest of his life at the age of 27, ultimately leading to a lonely death away from his home from cancer in 1990.

I think what I like about his work most is that he, unlike most of the photojournalists at the time that I've researched so far, really looked at everyday things, such as street signs, to show how absolutely crazy and unjustified this occupation really was. He didn't depend on documenting huge conflicts to show the injustice and I think he was really on to something. Just seeing some the signs opens your eyes to how Europeans just waltz in and literally take over a foreign country. Novelist Dan Jacobson summed the work up nicely when saying ''Anyone who looks into the book will at once be aware of the photographer's lack of sentimentality, his tenderness, his anger, his wit. He has photographed his people everywhere - in the streets, in the mines, in the homes of their white employers, in their own homes. Deprivation and discrimination are shown to us for what they are.'' Recently, Journeyman Pictures made a documentary about his Cole and his work. Below is a 10 minute clip from it of Jürgen Schadeberg talking to some of his family and friends and giving some background info on his work.

Sunday Photo

2008-04-20T13:18:00.000-07:00

Peter Magubane

2008-04-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

To continue with my little South Africa theme, a logical start would be photojournalist Peter Magubane. Born in Vrededorp and raised in Sophiatown, a thriving black community until it was bulldozed in 1963 to make way for the white suburb Triomf, apartheid was a constant part of his life. He started his career with legendary Drum magazine in 1955, as a driver at first and then as Jurgen Schadeberg's darkroom assistant until eventually making his way to shooting assignments. After building a name for himself at Drum, he went on to work for Rand Daily Mail in 1967, another hugely important anti-apartheid newspaper.

Some of the craziest stuff in his career happened in the 70s. After being arrested, interrogated, and put into solitary confinement in 1969 for photographing a demonstration in front of Winnie Mandela's jail cell, he was punished by having to check into the police station once a week, not being able to be around more than one person at a time, and he was banned from photography and journalism by the government for 5 years! During this time period, he remained active in the anti-apartheid movement and continued to have run-ins with the law, the worst resulting in 98 days solitary confinement and 6 months in jail without actually having any official charges brought to him.

When he was finally able to photography again, he was assigned to document the Soweto student uprisings of 1976. The pictures he made here are among his most famous. And not surprisingly, this chapter of his career ended with him being arrested and jailed for the reamined of the year.

For as well known as he is, I'm having a ton of trouble finding pictures by him to put on here. Recently, since apartheid has ended, he (like most South African photographers) has had to shift his focuses a little. From what I can gather, he's gone in more of a fine art oriented direction documenting traditional South African tribes in color.

A short interview with him by Peter Barlow can be found here.