Many of the cigarette ads from the last century make claims that seem laughable today.
In bold colors and vintage fonts, they boast that cigarettes can help us stay thin, cure a cough and digest our food. They won't irritate our throats, make our voices raspy or affect our athletic performance.
Today, most of us are well-versed in the dangers of smoking. But vintage cigarette ads can show a timeline of America's changing perceptions of smoking -- and how tobacco companies adapted their ads in reaction to ever-increasing knowledge. An exhibit at the Stanford School of Medicine takes a look at the evolution of these ads through the years.
Japanese astronaut Soichi Noguchi has been at the International Space Station since December and has recently started Tweeting photos of Earth from space. Here are a few, which you can find on Twitpic. Based on the metadata, he's using a Nikon D2Xs and a ridiculous 800mm lens to capture aerials of, for example, Haiti three weeks after the earthquake and noctilucent clouds over Antarctica. He's not the first to Tweet from space, but is definitely the most interesting to follow! The captions, which he Tweets along with the photos, are also enjoyable. "Here's looking at you, kid," he writes while zooming in on Casablanca.
At a glance, Kate Stone's photographs might look like normal landscapes and living rooms. But wait, that house is kind of warped ... and that buffalo is standing on a hardwood floor? Stone begins by photographing a scene. She then prints the images, reassembles them in a 3-D sculpture, and photographs them again. The result: these unusual montages.
Our acceptance of photography as reality makes the images hard to understand, especially for those who know the original place. At first glance the rooms and buildings in these photographs appear real. Upon closer examination, however, something is clearly wrong. Doorways are misplaced and once rigid walls are twisted and torn. Distorted perspective creates incongruous angles and improbable shadows. These spaces are literally falling apart at the seams.
Her work will be featured in an upcoming show at Eleni Koroneou Gallery in Greece. You can see more of her work on her Web site.
Thanks to Alexander Mayer, intern at NPR West, for introducing me to Stone's work!
A classic Ron Gallela backstage face. (Brad Elterman)
Why would a talented 14-year-old and an influential 79-year-old insist on calling themselves paparazzi? The word, derived from the sound a mosquito makes, has taken on far worse connotations in recent years. If you had the skill to photograph something else, why would you choose to link yourself to that?
This is a question explored at length in two documentaries that premiered at Sundance -- Smash His Camera, directed by Leon Gast; and Teenage Paparrazo, directed by Adrian Grenier of Entourage fame. One focuses on legendary celebrity photographer Ron Galella the other on Austin Visschedyk, a mini-"pap" with a lens nearly as big as his torso. The underlying narratives of both films are the same; My pap is different from all the other sleazy-cheesy paps.
Austin Visschedyk can be spotted crouching at the bottom center of the crowd of paparazzi waiting for Paris Hilton and Adrien Grenier. (Courtesy Teenage Paparrazo)
In the case of Galella, he is presented as different primarily because he was first. Back before sneaking up on stars and chasing them across the world was a common Hollywood sport, Galella was perfecting his tactics. In the film, he proudly recalls some of the key elements of his winning strategy: hiding in bushes, forging credentials, and wining and dining the help. He was a man before his time, camping out in a rat-infested warehouse just to get a shot of Elizabeth Taylor in her yacht below.
Beyond just the chase, he's clearly addicted to the possibility of what might happen. Photographer Harry Benson, who once told NPR that he believes the best celebrity photographs are taken in the supermarket, frequently comes to Galella's defense in the doc, summing it up with the statement, "His photos are just so alive."
The result of Galella's dedication and creativity: There are few celebrities from the past 50 years who don't have a file in his archives. In many cases, as you can see in the gallery below, they are trying to block his shot or tell him off. But he has many allies, as well. He was famously Warhol's favorite photographer.
His approach: hold the camera down low, keep your eye on the star and shoot before they can tell you not to. This didn't go over so well with his primary muse, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis.
"I don't think she knew it was me, that's why she smiled a little," he admits about the photograph above, which he calls his "Mona Lisa."
Never great with rules, he reacted to a court order to keep his distance from her by posing behind her with a tape measure.
Ron Galella mocks the ruling against him to keep his distance from Jackie.(Courtesy Brad Elterman)
Brad Elterman, who now runs the L.A. paparazzi agency Buzz Foto, took that photo when he was only 17. My request to use it on this blog turned into a much longer conversation about Galella, who Elterman sees as his mentor and likened within a few minutes to both Matisse and Walker Evans. Galella's many detractors would likely vomit at the analogy. (Let's just say, some heads exploded when his work ended up at the MOMA.) It's hard to dispute, however, that the man is seriously passionate about his craft.
Not one of Galella's finest photos, but one of his archivist's funniest finds in the documentary. He explains that Galella didn't label Michael Richards (left) and Larry David (right) in the 1981 photo, because he had no idea who they were in the pre-Seinfeld era. Also, from left; Andy Kaufman, Melanie Chartoff and Brandis Kemp. (Courtesy Ron Galella)
Amid the modern pap frenzy portrayed in the other documentary, Teenage Paparazzo, craft is notably absent -- except when it comes to cutting people off in SUVs. In fact, some of the "photographers" appear unaware how to use a camera. A "good shot" has nothing to do with composition, but rather how big the star, the potential scandal and, therefore, the price tag.
And that's where waiflike 14-year-old Austin has his chance to heroically shine. Though we see few of his photos, the home-schooled hipster is portrayed as a great talent. Gossip-rag editors talk about how he plays beautifully with light.
As the boy chases celebrities on his skateboard and in cabs, and pushes through men three times his size, it's fun to hold onto the idea that the boy is some sort of renegade artist.
Even Grenier gets sucked into this notion, stepping in at one point and showing the boy the Pulitzer-Prize winning Kent State photo. He waits expectantly, assuming that the boy is ready for something bigger.
This is from early on in the documentary, before Austin Visschedyk bought an even better, bigger camera. (Courtesy Teenage Paparazzo)
The boy looks bored and makes a disinterested comment. A tip-off comes about a celebrity sighting. And off he goes again, comfortable being just a teen pap, addicted to the adrenaline-filled chase.
You can see more photos from Galella's recent books Man in the Mirror: Michael Jackson, Viva L'Italia, and No Pictureshere. You can see Austin's photos here.
There are so many critters and crawlers that we big, blundering humans fail to notice. That's why photographer David Liittschwager decided to zoom in on the little things. He placed a green metal frame measuring 1 cubic foot in various locations, and photographed as many organisms living in -- or passing through -- the cube as possible. The photos, which appear in the February issue of National Geographic magazine, show the amazing biodiversity you can find in even the most contained environments.
These photographs were made at Temae Reef off the Pacific island of Moorea in French Polynesia. Collaborating with scientists from the Moorea Biocode Project, a venture to inventory all non-microbial species on Moorea, Liittschwager photographed more than 600 creatures over the course of about three weeks. He also brought his green frame to Table Mountain, South Africa; Monteverde, Costa Rica; and Duck River, Tenn. You can see more of his photographs on ngm.com. Also, check out this video, which shows Liittschwager's process in New York City's Central Park.
As a designer, one of the things that fascinates me about photography is camera language. In design, we talk a lot about creating visual grammar through choices of color, line, form and typography. These are the building blocks we use to create a grammatical system with which to construct visual communication.
In photography, the same concept is referred to as camera language (although in practice, the term is more frequently used when discussing cinematography and filmmaking). As in design, color, line and form are important elements that help define a visual grammar. But technical and mechanical forces are also at work: lighting and lens choices, film speed, paper choice, aperture settings, shutter speed and camera angles are all mechanical controls you can use to define a signature camera language.
For example, I came across photographer Vicky Slater a couple of years ago on Flickr through her amazing digital pinhole portraiture. The camera language is soft, ethereal and celestial. It speaks in whispers and hushed smiles to me. These are created with her DSLR, using a pinhole lens cap. When I interviewed her for this post, she had this to say about the aesthetic quality of her pinholes:
These collages are very, very odd. Comically whimsical and borderline frightening -- a la Alice in Wonderland. And I have to say: I have a newfound respect for the Victorian women who made them. In the late 19th century, photography was all the rage -- but it was dominated by men.
Women posed for photographs and collected photos of friends and family, but they rarely snapped the shutter. (OK fine, there were some female photographers, but they were way outnumbered.) So it's interesting to see some of the other things women did with their photo collections. Playing with Pictures, a new exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, takes a look at those Victorian photo collages.
Malcolm Daniel, curator in charge of the Department of Photographs at the Metropolitan, had this to say in the exhibition's press release:
What is so exciting about this exhibition is that we see a different type of artist -- almost exclusively aristocratic women -- using photography in highly imaginative ways, and
creating pictures meant for private pleasure rather than public consumption. It is an
aspect of photography's history that has rarely been seen or written about.
It's funny to compare this crafty stuff with, say, the photo montages of the Dadaist, abstract expressionist or surrealist movements. You might say it really spiraled out of control.
NPR's David Gilkey traveled to Haiti just after the earthquake left the capital in ruins. Back in D.C., he reflects on his experiences photographing amid the wreckage.
Pictures like these are downright cruel and unusual if you're already experiencing the winter doldrums. I heard about this book on The Splendid Table (sorry, NPR!) -- in an interview with the editor in chief of National Geographic Traveler magazine. Food Journeys of a Lifetime: 500 Extraordinary Places to Eat Around the Globe is a foodie/traveler's coffee table dream. (Or nightmare, again, if you're stuck in a cold, cloudy city.)
It actually inspired me to look up national dishes from around the globe, and I found this list on Wikipedia. America's national dishes are stuffed turkey, steak and hamburger -- surprise! Some other highlights include octopus curry in Mauritius, skoudehkaris in Djibouti (don't act like you've never heard of it) and the ever-polarizing vegemite on toast in Australia.
Have you had any crazy adventures in food and travel? Even if they're not up to the National Geographic standard, upload your photos to our Flickr group pool.
When I first saw the title of the book Darwin's Camera, I reacted much like the man in the photo below. Darwin was a photographer? Why haven't we ever seen his photos before?? How shocking!! My imagination ran wild before I realized that the book is actually about Darwin's use of photography in his illustrated study, Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. But even though he didn't take the photos, it's still pretty neat. It was "the first photographically illustrated science book ever published," according to art historian Phillip Prodger.
Can you write a caption for this engraving? (From Darwin's Camera, 2009 Courtesy of Oxford University Press)
It makes sense that Darwin, a champion of change and innovation, would be the first to move from drawings to photography. Prodger writes that the scientist searched high and low in studios, bookshops and galleries for photographs that would illustrate the ideas in his book. Without much luck, he turned to the pioneering Victorian photographer Oscar Rejlander to make the images he needed.
Darwin's Camera is a detailed study of that use of photography. But mainly it's just interesting to flip through and look at the odd expressions -- like this guy's. Leave your caption in the comments section.
Actually, they're not very funny. Not at all funny, really. But they are pretty -- and really weird: Did you know that clownfish change sexuality?? An article in the January National Geographic magazine gives a close-up view of the little orange guys immortalized by Nemo. And David Doubilet -- who I'm convinced is half-photographer, half-fish -- is the man behind the underwater camera.
Doubilet has been photographing underwater since age 12. So, with 50 years of practice, one might say he has perfected the art of bringing far-flung, deep-sea environments to the page. The photos in this series illustrate the symbiotic relationship between clownfish and their host anemones. The fish are impervious to the anemones' stinging tentacles, which in turn are fertilized by fish feces.
And they are odd little creatures. There's no explaining the slimy membrane that protects them from stings. And among the occupants of each anemone are only two sexually dominant fish. If the dominant female (always the larger of the two) dies, then the dominant male becomes a female. Weird. The strange science is almost secondary, though, in light of these brilliant pictures.
Famous war photographer Robert Capa, founding member of Magnum photos, was in China in 1938. He was covering the Chinese resistance against the Japanese invasion that had begun in July 1937. Capa was a seminal figure in the world of photojournalism; his work is familiar to many. But how many of you can say you've heard of Sha Fei, the Chinese photojournalist who was covering the same events as Capa?
Until recently, many Chinese hadn't even heard of him. Sha Fei's promising career in photojournalism took a turn for the worse when he fell mentally ill in his late 30s. He was tried and executed for murder in 1950, and his story was thereafter repressed.
An exhibition of Sha Fei's work debuts today for the first time in America -- at Ohio State University's Urban Arts Space. The curator, Eliza Ho, was awarded a Presidential Fellowship by OSU to complete a graduate dissertation on Sha Fei. As she writes, the photographer lived "in one of the most turbulent periods in China's modern history. During his lifetime, China was radically transformed by a succession of revolutions and foreign invasions..."
Having witnessed their country in crisis, a new generation of Chinese youth grew up with a strong sense of patriotism. Sha Fei was part of this generation, and he shared with his peers a conviction to reform and modernize China. To contribute to that effort, Sha Fei chose photography as his medium because of its unique potential for representing the reality of the current age.
Ho divides the exhibition of 38 photographs into three phases: the fine art photographer, the social documentarian and the propagandist. You can see Sha Fei's career develop from his early pictoralist photograph, Song of the Fisherman, to images from later in his life of Communist propaganda.
His photographs show a China in transition. Sadly, at the young age of 36, Sha Fei was hospitalized after contracting tuberculosis in 1948. Ho writes:
Tragedy arrived ... on December 5, 1949, in the Bethune Hospital in Shijiazhuang, Hebei province where he was receiving treatment for tuberculosis. Sha Fei became delusional and fired several gunshots that killed a friendly Japanese surgeon serving the Chinese Communist Party in China. As a result, he was charged with murder and was subsequently sentenced to death... and his name was to be erased from the Chinese Communist Party's version of the history of Chinese photography.
Many years later, China's improved cultural climate allowed for the resurrection of Sha Fei's work. His reputation was restored in 1986, when his family appealed the manslaughter verdict. The military court ruled in the family's favor, reinstating Sha Fei's Communist Party membership that had been revoked. His work has been displayed and published in China and is now visiting the States for the first time. There's much more to Sha Fei's career, and you can learn about it on OSU's Web site.
Olaf Otto Becker goes out of his way to make a photograph. He'll travel up to 10 hours carrying his weight in equipment to find the right location -- then maybe even wait a few more hours for the right light. He's also using a large format film camera, which is pretty much the furthest thing from convenient. His photos of Greenland accompany Celine Clanet's series from Norway, currently at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Ore.
While Becker, who was trained as a painter, is interested in making visual documentation of a changing environment, Clanet is interested in people: her project documents Sami -- people indigenous to Maze, a small Norwegian village above the Arctic Circle with a population of about 350.
Between 2005 and 2009, I traveled regularly to Maze, a small Sami village located at the highest point of the European map, far above the Arctic Circle, in Norwegian Lapland. There, I met quiet people, sometimes melancholic, captivating, very proud of their village and territory, of these landscapes they are constantly gazing at with binoculars they never separate from, even at home.
This photo series was sent to me by Andy Adams over at Flak Photo. Photographer Jeff Antebi was in Port-au-Prince twice in 2009 and has this reflection post-earthquake. We pulled the photos from his Flickr stream. It's long, but please read through to the end. -- Claire O'Neill
By Jeff Antebi
Haiti is on my mind and I am very sad tonight. I was in Port-au-Prince twice in 2009. When I arrived the first time, and walked around the streets, the people stared at me cold. It was at first glance, an unwelcoming place.
My dear friend Jean-Marc de Matteis, who I hope is alive and well tonight, smirked a bit and said, "The thing with Haitian people is that they've been through a lot. It's a hard life here and people wear it on their faces. But that's not the true nature of Haitian people. Watch what happens if you make eye contact and simply say 'bonjour' to someone."
Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer
I did. 100 percent of the time I got a smile. Sometimes a quick flash of a smile and back to a glare, but the glare became an easier glare. Sometimes they'd smile a massive smile and say 'bonjour' back. I can't stress enough the amazing feeling of getting a smile 100 times out of 100 attempts. The country, in its entirety, was a welcoming place. ...
Even then, before the earthquake, Port-au-Prince was an unbelievable mess. Practically no infrastructure worth talking about. In many parts of the city, there was no electricity. So as night began to fall, whole swaths of the capital became deserted for a lack of light and security. Bonfires the only way to move about without getting lost. Traveling as moths to flames.
One night, after a marketplace turned from lively to utterly apocalyptic, I decided to walk very far into the depths of the darkest, dangerous part of town rather than flee. Deeper than Alain was comfortable going, and he had lived in the city all his life. But I kept saying to him "one more bonfire, that one in the distance, then we'll head back."
In retrospect, it was an almost suicidal mission. It's hard to believe I made it in as far as I did and was able to return to a safer quarter. But it's important to say that what kept me from being fearful was my continuing to make eye contact. No one wanted to say hello and I didn't speak either. And even though I was conspicuous, carrying two cameras out in the open, no one bothered me. I would look at them; they would look at me. Over the course of the evening, this happened maybe a hundred times. They were ghosts to me, and I was an apparition to them. I passed through a nightmarish, spectral landscape alive and they allowed me to, unharmed.
I spent a lot of time in Cite Soleil, considered by most to be the worst slum in the Western Hemisphere. The Wikipedia entry for Cite Soleil states, "Armed gangs roam the streets. Murder, rape, kidnapping, looting, and shootings are common as every few blocks is controlled by one of more than 30 armed factions."
The conditions in Cite Soleil are unimaginable, almost like a village built on top of a huge garbage heap. But one of the most striking features of this spot are the number of children. It was impossible to move without being surrounded by kids. Most didn't have shoes, sharing the ground with pigs, waste and excrement. But they were sort of a happy bunch, considering it all. Holding up half-melted robot toys or playing cards. Smiling and playing around with laughter and curiosity.
On the other hand, they were starving. Some looked at me and ran a finger across their throats. Hard to express the feeling you get when a child indicates he is going to die. Keep that image in your head. Which is why I can barely contain my sadness. These little ones had almost nothing going for them but a sense of humor. Barely a chance for literacy, let alone any kind of education. An astoundingly high probability of falling ill and dying from bad water, let alone a job when they got older. More likely HIV/AIDS or human trafficking.
I can't watch the news on television or listen to the radio. I can't look at Web sites. I've been there and now I picture it in my head after a 7.0 earthquake. Nothing going for them and now the earthquake. I am praying for the best for them. They deserve it.
Please donate to both Oxfam and Doctors Without Borders and donate generously. ASAP. I promise, it will make a huge impact.
In August I had the pleasure of speaking with Dennis Stock on the phone about an exhibition of his work in Woodstock, N.Y. At age 81 he was still thoughtful, articulate and humorous. This morning, Magnum announced the sad news that the master of photography had died late last night. Listen to part of the phone conversation here (and please forgive the audio quality):
"You gotta love the medium..."
Venice Beach Rock Festival, Calif., 1968. (Dennis Stock)
Just when you think you've got your own unique look, you'll run into someone wearing the same thing. Exactitudes (exact attitudes), a photo series by Rotterdam-based Ari Versluis and stylist Ellie Uyttenbroek, profiles pretty much every style on the streets. They've photographed "Ghoullies," "Yupsterboys," "Fluffies" and "Grannies" -- just a few of their invented classifications. When you see 12 mohawks in a grid you can't help but think that the fashion statement has a lot less impact.
Wim van Sinderen, senior curator at the Hague Museum of Photography, wrote that the series provides "an almost scientific, anthropological record of people's attempts to distinguish themselves from others by assuming a group identity." But when people are photographed straight-on in front of a sterile, white background, the lines between individuality and uniformity become a lot less clear. Check out the Web site to see the whole series.
The problem with landscape photography is that it's hard to do something new. How do you take something like the Grand Canyon, which has been photographed millions of times, and capture it creatively? Jim Richardson, who has landscapes of the Scottish Hebrides in January's National Geographic magazine, had a few thoughts to share. For one, he likes working in the wee hours.
The Hebrides (pronounced "HEB-ri-deez") are a group of islands off Scotland's west coast. For centuries the mystical atmosphere has inspired musicians, writers and artists -- even National Geographic photographers. Richardson, who had been to the Hebrides before, pitched the photo series to the magazine in hopes of making another photographic pilgrimage.
For about five weeks in the summer -- when there's up to 18 hours of light in Scotland, and when "magic hour" is actually about 4 hours long -- he traveled the islands on his own. "If you have people with you, they want to eat and they want to sleep," he joked. "It's a real damn drag." But solitude really is only one part of Richardson's equation for interesting landscapes. What he's after, he wrote in an e-mail, is "the sense that things are happening on a very grand scale."
I guess if I do anything in particular to take these pictures it is to enter that mindset. To put my mind into a geologic time frame, or into some sense that the whole thing in front of me is living and it's my job to see it. Not always easy and I often fail.
And maybe that's why I am better off when I don't have anyone traveling with me. I know that in documentary photography I have to enter the lives of the people I am photographing. ... I have to be with my subjects and with them alone.
You can read more of Richardson's thoughts about this photo journey on his blog. Go to his Web site and click "BLOG" on the bottom right. And go to ngm.com to read the article.
You might have heard of the Guggenheim fellowship for photographers, but have you heard of the too much chocolate grant? If not, that's probably because this is the first year it's been awarded. The online blogzine too much chocolate teamed up with Eastman Kodak to award 10 emerging photographers with a year's supply of film. The winners, announced on Tuesday, were chosen from more than 450 entrants.
Jake Stangel, who runs the blogzine and spearheaded the grant contest, answered a few questions for The Picture Show.
Picture Show: Can you ever really have too much chocolate?
Jake Stangel: Oh, of course not. Here is the story behind the name: As I was brainstorming the site back in December, I had heard the Jack Johnson song "Banana Pancakes" on the radio, which got me in the mood to make some pancakes one morning.
I added bananas and thought some chocolate chips would be a good addition, so I poured a bunch in. Far too many. I basically made inedible melted chocolate disks. I couldn't eat them and thought to myself, "This is too much chocolate," and the site was born.
It's weird to think of Elvis as a 75-year-old man. In my mind -- in most people's minds -- he'll always be in his 20s. That's due, in part, to the iconic images taken by photographers like Alfred Wertheimer.
'The 75th Anniversary of Elvis Presley's birthday'
Wertheimer had the unique opportunity to photograph Elvis in 1956, back when the young musician was quickly gaining popularity, when Tennessee lunch counters were still segregated, when America was still getting acquainted with the sound of rock. Hired by RCA Victor, Presley's new label, Wertheimer had access that would never again be equaled -- onstage, at home and in transit with Elvis, who was only 21 at the time.
On the 75th anniversary of The King's birthday, Wertheimer's photographs have been compiled in a new book, Elvis 1956. It's the exhibition catalog for a traveling Smithsonian show called Elvis at 21, opening tomorrow at The Grammy Museum in Los Angeles, and at The National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., later this year.
And if you haven't had enough Elvis yet, another cool exhibition opens in D.C. tomorrow. "Echoes of Elvis" examines the pervasive face of Elvis in art and pop culture. Andy Warhol immortalized him and William Eggleston photographed his home. Where have you seen the face of Elvis? Upload your photo to our Flickr pool.
Untitled (Elvis and Priscilla), from the portfolio Graceland by William Eggleston (Eggleston Artistic Trust and Cheim & Reid, New York / Courtesy Smithsonian American Art Museum)
A deaf baby can now hear; a blind woman can now vaguely see; a quadriplegic can now hold a fork. The January issue of National Geographic tells stories of what has, until now, always been the province of science fiction: bionics.
Amanda Kitts lost her arm in a car accident in 2006. A mere three years later she is doing the impossible: lifting, touching and moving with a prosthetic arm controlled by her brain. Todd Kuiken is the physician who helped develop the technology at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. "He knew that nerves in an amputee's stump could still carry signals from the brain," the article reads. To make a long story short, he rewired Kitts' nervous system, connecting her brain to the nerves that would control the arm. Honestly, I don't know how it works. It shouldn't. But it does.
The implications of bionic innovations are both exciting and kinda scary. It's wonderful news for Aiden Kenny, who was born deaf but can now hear the sound of his mother's voice. But where is it headed and what is the end? Will we continually have body parts replaced until we are almost entirely robotic? If you have a human brain and a robotic body, what does that make you? What do you think? Leave your comments, and check out more photos on ngm.com.
Last February was a sad month for analog lovers. Polaroid announced that it would no longer manufacture instant film as it steered in a digital direction, and many of us dolefully put our boxy cameras back on the shelf. Then Florian Kaps and a team of Dutch scientists came to the rescue. Since February they have been reinventing a new instant film pack. Almost a year later, The Impossible Project is nearly complete.
Florian Kaps is analog film's biggest advocate. His first major foray into film was as leading manager of the Lomographic Society, an online community devoted to the Russian toy Lomo camera. He also set up Polanoid.net, an online gallery, and a real gallery called Polanoir. So it was just the next logical step to single-handedly save an entire photographic process.
Well, maybe not single-handedly. He teamed up with Andre Bosman, a former manager at Polaroid, and a group of about 10 film specialists, chemists and engineers. Together they acquired the Polaroid machinery, which was doomed to be destroyed, as well as a 10-year lease on the Polaroid factory in the Netherlands.
They will be launching a monochrome film line in February and a color film pack this summer. So you can dust off your Polaroid camera; you just might have film for it in the near future. Check out their Web site to learn more, and view photos from The Impossible Project group pool on Flickr:
As a photo editor, I spend a lot of time sequencing images. When I build an online gallery, I want there to be a specific flow to the piece -- a story with a distinct beginning, middle and end. I want to engage the viewer's eye, making him look into the distance in one shot, then pulling back to examine the details of an extreme close-up in another. In my mind, I refer to the process as "Zen editing." I couldn't explain in words just how I know the correct order of the photos; I just know when the sequence feels right.
Perhaps that's why I was drawn to Matt Nager's iPhone montages. Instead of sequencing photos linearly, he places his images in a grid. The viewer's eye wanders over these composites, not settling anywhere specific, but skating around while the brain processes the larger feeling created by the framework.
The montage that first appealed to me was Winter, which coincidentally was the first montage that Nager built. I love the simplicity of the color palette -- crisp whites, deep blues, and that pervasive winter brown. I first look at the clouds in the center frame, then toward the clouds in the upper right, then to the Ferris wheel in the upper left. My eye then wanders to the frosty leaf in the top center, then back down to the middle, and finally around the edges. Individually, the photos are striking, but as a group, the canvas truly draws me in.
For being so complexly edited, the photos are shot surprisingly simply. Nager uses his iPhone camera in conjunction with the CameraBag application to add a stylized filter to the images. He then imports them into Photoshop, tweaks the curves, adds some sharpening, and assembles them into a grid.
"It was never meant to be anything, I did it just for fun," he said. But then he started showing the images to friends, and their reaction persuaded him to publish them on his Web site and start shopping them around to galleries.
Nager, a freelance photographer, shoots professionally with a Nikon D700 and Mamiya 6 medium format camera. However, when he goes out casually he doesn't like to carry so much gear, so he started using his iPhone camera as his point-and-shoot.
"It usually happens that I'll be shooting and I'll think of a theme, then it happens all at once," he said.
He shot the collection Grass in three days in Boulder, Colo., deliberately thinking about which direction the grass was flowing, and where each image would fit on the grid. The result is a calming natural field of stalks and reeds -- a lovely example of editing in Zen.
David Levine, famed in certain circles as one of the best cartoonists of this past century, died Tuesday at age 83. For decades, his drawings -- like this caricature of Lyndon Johnson revealing a Vietnam-shaped scar, or the numerousnasalportraits of Stravinsky -- were found in publications like Esquire, The New York Times, The Washington Post and, most famously, The New York Review Of Books.
In an interview with NPR's Linda Werthheimer, Pulitzer Prize-winning cartoonist Mike Luckovich discussed what made Levine's drawings so significant:
David Levine drawing on the beach at Coney Island, circa 1974 (courtesy Forum Gallery, New York)
"What a beautiful artist ... I just love his cross-hatching work, the way he shaded. He had very fine line work, and he was just such a master at capturing a likeness. ... He could distort a face but still capture that likeness and sometimes even get closer to the person's essence."
Levine had both artistic skill and discerning humor on his side. His subjects were most often public figures who, despite the exaggerated noses and teeth, remained recognizable. He famously reduced Kissinger to a brute and Osama bin Laden to a beard. With a sleight of hand, the world's most powerful, popular people would be rendered laughable.
Through the years he did more than 3,000 drawings for The New York Review Of Books alone -- 2,800 of which can be viewed online. "When it comes to caricature," Luckovich said,"he is the go-to person, and no one will ever quite capture what he had." Levine's influence is undeniable, and his legacy will be indelible.
America's so-called Golden Age of Hollywood gave rise to a pandemic obsession with the stars. Magazines like Life and Look fed that fascination, providing a home for documentary photography and behind-the-scenes portraits of Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Marilyn Monroe, etc. During this era, a new kind of documentarian emerged: the Hollywood still photographer.
Elizabeth Taylor, Bob Willoughby and Eva Marie Saint on the set of "Raintree County," 1957 (Copyright 1978 Bob Willoughby/MPTV)
Bob Willoughby was one of the best-known film photographers -- recognized by magazines and Hollywood alike. During his 20 years in the industry, his work was never out of print for even one week. He died this month at age 82.
Born in Los Angeles in 1927, Willoughby studied cinema at the University of Southern California and design with Saul Bass at the Kann Institute of Art. His career began in New York, where he photographed performing jazz musicians, and his first magazine assignment came in the early 1950s for Harper's Bazaar.
It wasn't long before Willoughby was discovered by film studios; in 1954, Warner Brothers hired him to photograph Judy Garland in the final number of the film A Star Is Born. The studio was happy to have the publicity, the magazines were happy to have the candid photos, and Willoughby was happy to have his first magazine cover. Thus began a 20-year collaboration.
Through the years, Willoughby worked on innumerable film sets such as My Fair Lady, The Graduate and Catch-22. He developed close relationships with actors and actresses like Audrey Hepburn, and directors like George Cukor. And he presented a Hollywood that had previously never been seen: a director demonstrating a scene, an actress laughing, the crew behind the scenes.
Willoughby's archives are a celebration of American film, showing not only a love of cinema, but also a mastery of his craft. He devised a number of technical innovations to advance his type of set photography: He financed the first successful sound blimp to reduce shutter noise and used radio-controlled cameras to get unprecedented access on the set.
He died Dec. 18 at his home in Vence, France. According to The New York Times, the cause was cancer. But Willoughby's Hollywood lives on. You can see more of his iconic photographs -- as well as some personal work -- on his Flickr stream:
Five years after the Indian Ocean tsunami destroyed the Indonesian city of Banda Aceh, San Francisco photographer Lianne Milton wanted to see how the city was faring. She traveled there in November and documented a surprising recovery.
In Milton's words, the people of Banda Aceh are almost better off now than they were before the devastation: "They lived with 30 years of war in a politically unstable region ... It was as unstable as the earthquakes that haunt the country," she wrote in an e-mail. The upside of demolition was the opportunity to rebuild from scratch.
Almost exactly five years ago, on the day after Christmas in 2004, enormous swells of water engulfed the city at the tip of the Indonesian island of Sumatra. The tsunami was the result of a magnitude 9.1 earthquake that shook the entire Indian Ocean, causing devastation all along the water -- and an estimated death toll of 230,000 people.
In the wake of total destruction, hundreds of international aid organizations stepped up and rebuilt the city, enabling a new economy and a "renewed sense of peace and progress," as Milton wrote. And in addition to the new infrastructure is a new political climate. The 2005 Helsinki peace agreement between the Indonesian government and the rebel army of the Free Aceh Movement ended much of the political strife that had plagued the area for years. Despite the wreckage, the future is looking auspicious for Banda Aceh.
It's holiday season, and for some that means vacation! Unfortunately, not everyone can travel to the beach to see water, or to the mountains to see snow. Which is why attractions like Dubai's indoor ski arena and Epcot's France Pavilion exist. Photographer Reiner Riedler has taken interest in these bizarre geographic aberrations. His photo series "Fake Holidays" is on display for a few more days at Blue Sky Gallery in Portland, Ore.
Riedler's wit takes the form of man-made snow and miniature monuments. Born and based in Austria, he focuses his documentary work on man's attempt to outsmart nature; if the snow doesn't want to come to the desert, we'll build a giant spaceship-looking thing and MAKE it snow inside! "Fake Holidays" makes light of our sometimes ridiculous consumer habits, but along with humor comes guilt. Perhaps after seeing these silly scenes, we'll think twice about building another mini-Eiffel Tower. View the whole series on his Web site.
The Picture Show is going on a hiatus this week, but we wanted to leave you with something. The following are five gift ideas based on photo books we've covered throughout the year. If you've already made all your holiday purchases, you could consider treating yourself. Or if you are a bit behind, call it a New Year's gift. It works every time.
1.) For that adventure-seeking nephew you almost left off the shopping list: Paul Nicklen's Polar Obsession.
4.) For that cousin who is always talking about Cuba: Ernesto Bazan's Bazan Cuba.
$80. You can impress your relative by being one of few people who know how to get ahold of the book. Email ernesto_bazan@hotmail.com directly and make your request. It should eventually arrive.
5.) For your Cobain-loving brother, in honor of the dirty plaid he once wore. Michael Lavine's Grunge.
Artist Pablo Picasso "painting" with light at the Madoura Pottery. (Gjon Mili/Courtesy of Life)
Welcome to the future, where you no longer need a surface on which to paint. Actually, the process of painting with light dates back to Picasso -- and probably before. But three art teachers -- two in California and one in Shanghai -- are using it as a teaching technique. They are collaborating on a project for their students: urging them to paint with light to learn about exposure and light.
Ultimately, the images from this project will be published in a book, and the book will be used as a fundraiser to help the Jacaranda School for AIDS orphans in Malawi build a computer lab. You can view more light painting by the students here and here.
Learn how to do it yourself, and add your photos to The Picture Show's group pool.
Few photographers can say they've had the privilege of photographing The Beatles. Even fewer can say that they had the opportunity, but didn't want to. In January of 1964, photographer Harry Benson was packed and ready to leave for Africa on a news assignment. The night before his flight, his editor called and assigned him to photograph "a relatively unknown pop group" in Paris instead. Fortunately, Benson had no choice. "Unbeknownst to me at the time," he writes, "that was my lucky day." That unknown pop group became one of the most popular in history.
This story, and dozens more, can be found in Benson's new photography retrospective, Harry Benson: Photographs. Having photographed for nearly six decades, the Scottish-born Benson has seen a lot -- and shared his experiences with the public. He has captured candid moments of ordinary people, wartime tragedy, civil unrest, celebrities and politicians behind the scenes. Now in his 70s, he has lived to see his work in major publications like Life, Vanity Fair and The New Yorker; on gallery walls, and now in a fifth book.
The photos take us through the second half of this past century. John Loring writes in the introduction:
From the frivolous 50s and swinging 60s, to the excessive 70s, opulent 80s, and self-obsessed 90s, and on into the post 9/11, war-torn world of the at once murky and frenetic dawn of the 21st century, Benson has proved himself a man for all seasons -- adaptable and prepared for every extreme.
Harry Benson: Photographs (courtesy of powerHouse books)
He's a man for all seasons -- and has a way of making people reveal themselves. While Benson was photographing James Brown in Georgia in 1979, Brown drove the photographer around town. "He would stop the car when he saw someone sitting in their yard," Benson writes, "run up, do the splits, yell out, 'I feel good,' and jump back in the car and drive off." It's moments like these that fill his book.
And he's still photographing. This year he has already captured President Obama at the White House and Brad Pitt in New Orleans. "To me," are his first words in the introduction, "photojournalism is freedom."
Although cameras keep getting bigger and better, there are still some things that they just can't capture -- mainly the things that are smaller. In National Geographic's December issue, Swiss molecular biologist Martin Oeggerli used a scanning electron microscope to look at grains of pollen. The 3-D images, originally black-and-white, and then enhanced with color, look oddly alien. And I hate to say it -- because I hate pollen -- but they're surprisingly pretty.
Today on All Things Considered, host Melissa Block speaks to photographer Theodore Cross about his new book, Waterbirds. Hear the story:
"It's like a disease, I suppose," says bird photographer Theodore Cross in an interview with NPR's Melissa Block. "Except for my family and friends, there are few things I care more about." He is talking about his love for waterbirds -- a love that has taken him to four continents, from the Canadian Arctic to the Russian Far East tundra to Texas lagoons, over the course of nearly 40 years.
Cross is now 85 years old, but his love for birds came mid-life. He has had a long career in law and publishing -- and is an expert on economic development. But birds are his passion.
"This is the book John James Audubon would have made if he had used a camera," reads the jacket to Cross' new book, Waterbirds. And it's true. This collection of 179 color photographs is an ornithologist's dream. But Cross' interests are more specific: He's drawn to birds that exist in and around water -- especially the birds known for incredible migrations. "It's the courage of these guys that appeals to me tremendously," he says in the interview.
Photographer Theodore Cross (Denver Holt)
Cross was born during the Coolidge administration and fought during World War II. At the time, he says, "There were millions of birds around me all the time, and I didn't notice them ... At wartime, you have other things to notice -- like being seasick or having some terrible disease in your armpit." But he does recall certain things -- like the Marines' beloved white tern, famous for laying its eggs on barracks and gun emplacements. Perhaps because of subconscious memories like these, Cross eventually developed an affinity for waterbirds. "Whammo! Twenty years later ... they became a very important part of my life."
It makes sense that a former naval officer would be drawn to these aquatic creatures -- water-loving but also possessing incredible stamina and strength. Cross has, for example, traveled to Texas' Laguna Madre for 30 consecutive years to capture the beautiful reddish egret.
He writes in the book's preface: "In my mind, I visit these islands almost every day. The memories of them help me accept the brevity of the time that lies ahead."
If you want to see a work of art by Edgar Miller, you basically have to go to Chicago. And even then, you won't find it in a museum. Finding his artwork entails a wild goose chase through private homes and public buildings. That's one reason the prodigious craftsman has been largely forgotten by the art world. But Chicagoans Richard Cahan and Michael Williams have made it easier; their new book, Edgar Miller and the Handmade Home, photographed by Alexander Vertikoff, is an introduction and road map to Miller's work.
It's hard enough to be a master of one craft, but Miller was a painter, sculptor, woodcarver, printer, ironsmith ... the list goes on. "Born two weeks before 1900," the first chapter reads, "Miller produced art almost every day of every decade in the twentieth century."
Famously practical and resourceful, Miller was "green" before that term meant anything: He worked almost entirely with recycled materials, turning old bathroom tiles into roofing, or discarded glass into an ornate mosaic. His greatest masterpieces are found in four artistic studios that he built on Chicago's North Side. Every inch of each building has his personal, detailed touches.
Self-portrait by Edgar Miller
Miller's influences were manifold, which is another reason he's been overlooked: It's impossible to pinpoint his aesthetic. There are traces of deco and art nouveau, frontier folk art, medieval art and even fauvism -- as well as a strong Native American influence. Miller's taste was about as diverse as his skills. In an age of IKEA furniture and prefab homes, his work now seems particularly extraordinary. What once might have been considered mere craft has now been elevated to fine art.
In this country there's a festival for just about everything. Of course there's Mardi Gras, the Fourth of July and Bonnaroo. But there's also the Wooly Worm Festival, the Middle of Nowhere Celebration and the National Hobo Convention. For 14 months, photographers Ross McDermott and Andrew Owen, with the help of a National Geographic Young Explorer's Grant, have been traveling the country to find and document America's most obscure celebrations.
This documentary undertaking, aptly titled The American Festivals Project, has taken Owen and McDermott literally all over the country. They've blogged the whole thing and put their photos on Flickr. I could write more... but you should really just check out their Web site.
Ross McDermott and Andrew Owens of the American Festivals Project.
Sometimes art is worth a pilgrimage -- like a trip to the Sistine Chapel, or to Paris to see the Mona Lisa. For lovers of modern art, there's a new mecca: North Adams, Mass. That's where 105 of Sol LeWitt's large-scale drawings now live -- and will continue to live for the next 25 years in a historically monumental exhibition.
LeWitt, whose career spans from the late 1960s to 2007, when he died, was a pre-eminent minimalist and conceptual artist. His works are straightforward in conception: They begin as comically simple instructions for line drawings and color blocking. But in execution, they are a sight to behold.
With a predilection for order, simplicity and geometry, LeWitt "stressed the idea behind his work over its execution," as the exhibition release reads. From wall-sized charcoal line drawings, to gentle waves of matte and glossy paints, to psychedelic color-block patterns, LeWitt's drawings famously fly in the face of traditional art: They're not trying to say much; they're not trying to evoke much. But in an odd way, his drawings actually do both, maintaining the old aphorism that less is more.
Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective occupies an entire three-story building, renovated specifically for this project, on the campus of the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. The installation of LeWitt's works took six months, 65 artists and art students, and nearly an acre of wall space. The artist began making instructions and detailed plans in collaboration with the Yale University Art Gallery before his death. Execution of the project was undertaken by Yale, MASS MoCA and the Williams College Museum of Art. Now, for the first time, an enormous collection of his works can be found in one place.
Watch this time-lapse video to get an idea of the installation process:
Perhaps it's ironic that one of the art world's most anarchistic exponents would create such beautifully ordered and simple works. But it's the very simplicity that prompted viewers to reconsider what it means to make art -- a reconsideration we can now make over and over again for the next 25 years in a small Massachusetts town.
This is the story of 40,000 photographs and 4,000 hours of analog audio tape.
W. Eugene Smith circa 1957 (W. Eugene Smith/(c) 1957-1965, 2009, The Heirs Of W. Eugene Smith)
In 1957, the celebrated photojournalist W. Eugene Smith left his wife and four children in the New York City suburbs and moved into a run-down five-story loft in lower Manhattan. The building already had been colonized by artists and musicians, and by the time Smith moved in, it was a frequent late-night hangout for the city's top jazz musicians: Charles Mingus. Zoot Sims. Thelonious Monk. Bill Evans. Roland Kirk.
Surely some of you photography junkies know the work of Eugene Smith. He shot iconic images of World War II, of a country doctor, of Albert Schweitzer, of his own children. When he moved into 821 Sixth Avenue, he was immured in an ambitious freelance assignment about Pittsburgh. (It was supposed to take him three weeks; it took him four years, and wound up a self-described failure.) Gradually, his backdrop became the very subject of his inquiry. He set up tape recorders so he could capture everything he heard, whether an epic jam session, a candid conversation or a late-night television program. And he took endless rounds of photographs in and around the loft. Like these:
Every Sunday this December, NPR is airing a new story about 821 Sixth Avenue -- aka The Jazz Loft -- using the tapes that Smith left behind. To get a taste, and for a good introduction to the space, check out last Sunday's first episode. These four NPR stories are part of a 10-part radio series originally broadcast on WNYC. And all that draws from The Jazz Loft Project, the massive initiative spearheaded by the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University to take oral histories about the space, while preserving, archiving and transcribing Smith's tapes. It has all resulted in a new book.
But -- this being a photo blog -- what about the photographs? The Jazz Loft Project and the W. Eugene Smith estate were kind enough to grant NPR access to 25 pictures and fascinating little excerpts from the tape. As you can hear, top-flight talent stopped by regularly; as you can see, Smith documented his space from all angles. Check out the online interactive we've put together for this radio series: The Jazz Loft Project: Sights And Sounds.
There are shots of great musicians in action, or in inaction. There are scenes from the neighborhood, which happened to be the wholesale flower district of Manhattan. And there are wonderfully random observations, too: one of Smith's cats, for instance, or cameos from the likes of Salvador Dal??. But one of my favorite images is that of an empty practice room: an upright piano on the left, an upright bass on the right, each illuminated by a single light source. In an adjacent room, two unidentified men are talking about who knows what -- maybe they're musicians discussing harmony, or painters talking about exhibitions, or random visitors engrossed in a friendly bull session. Whatever the case, the impression is one of downtime.
Down time in The Jazz Loft. (W. Eugene Smith/(c) 1957-1965, 2009, The Heirs Of W. Eugene Smith)
It's easy to romanticize The Jazz Loft as a group of bohemian artist types, up at all hours of the night, improvising and painting and restlessly seeking new founts of creativity. But it wasn't all a breathless Jack Kerouac novel all the time -- it couldn't be, with real life having to go on somehow. The beauty of The Jazz Loft Project is that in those 40,000 photos, those 4,000 hours of tape, a story emerges that is much bigger than music: It's a full cross section of New York's cultural life at one of its richest, most exciting junctures.
Patrick Jarenwattananon edits A Blog Supreme, NPR's jazz blog, and helped to facilitate the Jazz Loft Project online for NPR Music.
Are you in need of a new ensemble for your sojourn in Rome? Or perhaps some loungewear for serenading the moon on your fire escape? Today in London, Kerry Taylor Auctions will sell off an important collection of Audrey Hepburn clothing during its Passion for Fashion sale. The collection has been widely publicized and anticipated across the globe.
For a woman who saw herself as "too skinny, too flat and too tall," Hepburn played a major part in the way women looked and behaved in the 20th century. From ballet flats to skinny black jeans, Hepburn's wardrobe staples continue to influence another generation of fashion. In 2006, Gap went so far as to have Hepburn star in a commercial by using old film footage for its line of skinny black pants, similar to the ones she wore in the film Funny Face.
During a time when the feminine ideal was "the perfect size 10," Hepburn broke the mold of what it means to be feminine. She sported a pixie-like frame among voluptuous contemporaries like Elizabeth Taylor and Sophia Loren. McCall's claimed that she had "all the curves of a piece of melba toast viewed from the side." And playwright Anita Loos once quipped, "Her hat size is bigger than her waist!" Despite the jokes and criticisms, many women still saw Hepburn as a symbol of elegance and grace.
The auction collection contains 40 lots and is the product of a lifelong hand-me-down tradition. Hepburn, who hated to waste anything, would send her old clothing to her former neighbor and lifelong friend, Tanja Star-Busmann. "Over the years a cavalcade of boxes filled to the brim with haute couture gowns and divine little cocktail ensembles arrived at my door. Unpacking them was always like Christmas, a thousand times over," Star-Busmann wrote in the auction catalog.
The auction also tells the story of Hepburn's lifelong friendship and devotion to designer Hubert Givenchy. Almost half of the collection consists of Givenchy originals, many haute couture and inspired by the actress. Instead of trying to hide Hepburn's petite frame behind bustles of fabric, Givenchy embraced her slender figure and emphasized it with clean lines and form-fitting silhouettes.
Many of the high-ticket items are Givenchy haute-couture gowns, including the black lace cocktail dress Hepburn wore in How to Steal a Million and the black silk dress worn to promote Paris When it Sizzles, which looks like the cocktail-length version of the famous gown worn in Breakfast at Tiffany's. One gown, which was worn during the opera scene of Love in the Afternoon, was sent to Star-Busmann shortly after she gave birth to her daughter with a note from Hepburn saying she thought the dress might remind Star-Busmann "what it was like to have a waistline again."
"It has been the most amazing experience to work with this collection," said Kerry Taylor in an e-mail. "We had an exhibition of the pieces at Sotheby's Paris and in two days 2300 people visited the exhibition."
Star-Busmann plans to donate 50 percent of the proceeds to the Audrey Hepburn Children's Fund.
Update: The Associated Press reports that the cocktail dress Hepburn wore in How to Steal a Million (slide #11), sold for nearly $100,000 -- more than three times what was predicted. The auctioneer told the AP Tuesday's sale brought in a total of $437,000.
After several weeks and more than 200,000 submissions, National Geographic has finally announced the winners of its international photo contest. Each participating country had a national contest and sent one photo from each category to the National Geographic headquarters in Washington, D.C. Lucky winners received a Leica D-Lux 4. You can view more photos on the contest Web site.
The extent of my origami experience consists of those little square fortunetelling devices from fourth grade, so I had my doubts about the prospect of an origami documentary. But Vanessa Gould's Between The Folds -- and I risk sounding like a total nerd here -- is awesome.
Folding paper seems like an unlikely vocation. Very few can look at a plain, two-dimensional piece of paper and see its potential as a complex paper sculpture. But the stars of this documentary, such as Erik Demaine, the youngest-ever MIT professor, and Eric Joisel, a former French sculptor, actually get excited about paper. To them, origami lies at the intersection of math, science and art.
Traditional Japanese paper-folding has been around for centuries. By the 1980s it became standardized with the use of instructional diagrams. But only recently did it become a serious art and scientific pursuit worthy of origami clubs, conferences and competitions. The small origami community has become obsessed with refining the math -- certain sculptures require over 900 folds! There are even focus groups studying the scientific applications of origami in genetic sequencing and air bag folding, for example.
The most amazing part, though, is not the scientific application, but the art. With only one piece of paper -- no scissors, no glue, no tears -- origami artists can craft sculptures of unimaginable complexity. The documentary, which premieres on PBS on Dec. 8, shows how they do it. Here's a trailer to get you excited about paper, too:
It doesn't matter if you're Jack Nicholson or a hunter-gatherer in remote Tanzania. If you're sitting for Martin Schoeller, you'll be photographed in exactly the same way: up-close, beneath big, bright lights, and on film.
Schoeller, a renowned portraitist whose work has appeared in numerous major magazines and in museums like D.C.'s National Portrait Gallery, has a distinct style and sensibility. Although he spends much of his time doing commercial and celebrity work, he's also been commissioned for documentary projects, including a project in the December issue of National Geographic magazine. Using his "Indiana Jones instinct," as he calls it, is his preferred way to work.
Samay, a Hadza hunter-gatherer (Martin Schoeller/National Geographic)
Last year, Schoeller spent about a month in the far-flung bush of Tanzania, equipped with two trucks of equipment, water and tents. His goal was to document and preserve the faces of the Hadza people, one of the last remaining hunter-gatherer societies in the world, with a population that now numbers about 1,000. The Hadza are not entirely unchanged by modern society, but contact with surrounding cultures has been minimal. For thousands of years, they have remained largely unchanged because of their remote and inhospitable habitat.
Edward Burtynsky will go to great lengths to get the perspective he wants for a photo.
"If it's 300 feet, then I'll go to 300 feet," he said before a recent lecture at the Corcoran Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C., where his work is currently on display. Using cherry pickers, trucks, helicopters and even slow-flying Cessna airplanes, "I've been able to liberate myself from a fixed point of view," he explained.
And in this way, his art is dependent on the very force he has spent the past 12 years chronicling: oil. Refineries, rigs, decrepit planes and race cars; this Canadian-born photographer creates strangely beautiful images from landscapes affected by the production or use of the world's most valuable fuel.
The gallery above does not do justice to his work, which is 5 feet tall, dwarfing the viewer. Shot from above -- even at this size -- Burtynsky manages to turn massive groupings of tires and homes into tiny toys.
Though his eery images of waste and consumption make him a natural ally for environmentalists, he said there's no political message in his art. Asked why the oil workers are barefoot in Bangladesh, he offered an explanation without outrage. (Hear him discuss the image below.)
Edward Burtynsky
"I'm interested in the theater of the things we make, in how we are reshaping our planet," he offered, stopping short of saying that reshaping is bad. At a recent lecture, he left that to his co-presenter, an academic who threw out terrifying statistics about what humans' dependency on oil means for the Earth.
In his elegant, almost corporate-looking suit, it's hard to imagine that Burtynsky was once a laborer at the sorts of places he now photographs. He worked in a gold mine and a GM factory -- among others -- to put himself through photography school.
"It paid well, just wasn't the right job for me," he said, again staying neutral. He did add, however, that he's glad he's successful enough to push a shutter rather than a production line button.
You can see more of Burtynsky's photos here and here. His work will be at the Corcoran until Dec. 13.
In October, NPR photographer David Gilkey spent a few weeks with the Army medevac team known as "Lucky Dustoff." They are members of the Army's 82nd Airborne Division, currently deployed in southern Afghanistan's Zabul province.
It's their job to evacuate anyone on the battlefield as quickly as possible, whether it's an American soldier, a NATO troop or a local Afghan. While embedded with them, Gilkey watched them take a badly burned Afghan girl from her father and treat her many feet in the air.
"I think that nothing is going to help us make the people of Afghanistan understand we are here to help more than when we go in there and pick up some guy's daughter," says Chief Warrant Officer Jim Drake, one of the pilots. "When we help her, and she gets better ... I think that does a lot for the whole cliche, the hearts and minds thing."
The medevacs, who carry out their duties unarmed, say they don't discriminate in their evacuations. That means they could potentially be treating a member of the Taliban and an American soldier side by side in the small helicopter. They carefully navigate so as not to upset their patients' injuries, flying in low light and massive dust clouds if need be.
"It's nice to be on the helping end," Drake explained after a mission, echoing the sentiments of many of the other men.
Hear the Weekend Edition Sunday story by NPR's Jacki Lyden:
Who can forget the vulnerable childhood experience of going to the doctor? I remember sitting nervously on that white butcher paper, feeling like a particularly choice deli cut, and staring at a painting of a little boy pulling his pants down for a shot -- a foreboding image of what might be in store. That image, a Norman Rockwell illustration, stuck with me for years. And that's the nature of Rockwell's legacy: his work is everywhere, and has become an indelible part of American culture. So, as someone who looks at photos all day, imagine my shock when I saw a photograph of the exact doctor's office scene in that painting.
Launch Photo Gallery:
The Runaway, 1958, is an example of Rockwell's photorealism. (Norman Rockwell Art Collection Trust)
Rockwell used photos, taken by a rotating cast of photographers, to make his illustrations -- and all of his models were neighbors and friends, including that little boy! Rockwell never kept it a secret, but for some reason this little fact has been neglected in recent decades. Although he may not have clicked the shutter, Rockwell directed every facet of every composition.
A little girl with a black eye, an elderly woman saying grace with her grandson, a boy going to war: Rockwellian scenes represent a certain sentimental America -- an ideal America, or at least Rockwell's ideal. Over the course of 47 years, he had more than 300 cover images for Saturday Evening Post magazine. Then he went on to create more for Look Magazine. But those illustrations might never have existed without the help of photography.
A new book, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, reveals Rockwell's use of photographs in his illustrative process. There's also a companion exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum in Stockbridge, Mass. While getting permission to use some of the photographs for an online gallery, I was told that for two of the images, I would need to speak to Clemens Kalischer -- a name that appears nowhere in the book or in the exhibition. On the other end of the phone line came a gravelly and reticent voice -- a voice with quite a story. NPR's Jacki Lyden went up to Stockbridge to speak to him in person.
Clemens Kalischer stands in his studio in Stockbridge, Mass. (Jacki Lyden/NPR)
A German immigrant and young artist-photographer, Kalischer, now 88, moved to Rockwell's small town of Stockbridge in the 1950s. He was approached by one of Rockwell's usual photographers, Bill Scoville, who had a nervous condition and needed support while working. Kalischer reluctantly assisted Rockwell through the years -- driving him to the White House to photograph Lady Bird Johnson, for example. But he has kept the photographs to himself and has remained quiet until now.
Read more and view a gallery of Kalischer's personal photographs, after the jump:
The Tibetan struggle for sovereignty is a story often sung. It's hard not to sympathize with a cause headed by the lovable Dalai Lama. But there is a story in December's National Geographic magazine about a contemporaneous struggle for survival in China: that of the Uighur people, a Turkic Muslim ethnic group in Central Asia. Photographs by Carolyn Drake bring this previously marginalized story into the fold.
The history of the Uighur people, who now live mostly in China's northwestern Xinjiang region, is incredibly vast and rich. A sort of buffer between Europe and China, the Xinjiang region has historically been a hub for trade and travel, but it has also benefited from its remote and sometimes inhospitable location: It has, until recently, retained a cultural identity. In recent years, though, the Chinese government has come to recognize the valuable resources indigenous to Xinjiang, which contains 40 percent of China's coal reserves -- more than a fifth of its natural gas, as well as gold and mineral deposits.
It's been a hot zone for development -- and thus a region of escalating violence and unrest. As the Uighur struggle to preserve their culture, they are also, in some cases, forced to modernize. Learn more about the Uighur people and their situation by reading the full article and viewing more photos on ngm.com.
It's not often that a photographer can literally stand inside of his camera. But Shaun Irving, who has transformed a truck into a giant, mobile camera obscura, does it all the time. And he says it's the largest, mobile camera in the world.
Shaun Irving's Cameratruck
Like many a great idea, the Cameratruck was conceived over beers -- in Irving's college dorm room. Three years later, he bought a truck on eBay and put the idea to the test.
It's a simple construction: There's a small hole with a lens on one side of the truck's lightproof interior. This lens projects an upside-down and backward image on the opposite wall. On that wall, Irving hangs 4-by-8-foot sheets of photo paper, which, when exposed to 5-30 second exposures, serve as giant negatives. He then takes his jumbo negatives to a darkroom, or just a room that's dark, and processes them. The whole process, he says, takes anywhere from 30 minutes to a few hours.
Irving's Cameratruck is a simple device, with a hole and lens on one side, which projects the image on the opposite wall.
The pinhole and camera obscura date back centuries. But the idea of a mobile camera in which the photographer can be the mechanics -- that's novel. Irving received funding to photograph on a tour of Spain, and some of the photographs are below.
Irving takes time away from his one-man ad agency to photograph with his Cameratruck on the weekends. He's also finally devised a way to generate revenue for what was once a money pit by selling some of his enormous prints. Learn more about Irving's projects on his Web site.
Irving's Cameratruck prints are displayed in a gallery.
The winners from National Geographic's International Photography Contest will be announced in early December, but viewers have been voting on their favorites for the past few weeks. Here's a selection of a "viewer's choice" photographs. You can see more, or even vote yourself, at the contest page.
Tim Burton is probably the only person who could get away with using a monster's mouth as the entrance to an art exhibition. You know him for his films Edward Scissorhands and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Of all film director-producers today, Burton probably has the most singular vision: one of whimsy, gothic gore and hallucinogenic fictions.
Tim Burton on the set of Corpse Bride (Derek Frey)
But Burton has been an artist his whole life. Well before Beetlejuice and Batman, he was escaping into illustrated fantasy worlds as a child in Burbank, Calif. To celebrate his career, New York's Museum of Modern Art has curated a major retrospective exhibition, opening Sunday.
The exhibition contains hundreds of creations from throughout Burton's career, including little-known short films, sketches of unrealized projects from his days at Disney and seven new pieces, created just for the show.
MOMA asked Burton to produce a trailer for the retrospective and, in collaboration with Mackinnon & Saunders, the animation and puppeteer firm that helped with Corpse Bride, he produced this little short. Learn about the making of it on MOMA's site.
Has Google joined the ranks of Robert Frank and Helen Levitt? Can Google capture what Cartier-Bresson referred to as the "decisive moment"? Does Google have the cool, objective perspective that photojournalists strive to attain? Jon Rafman might argue so. By scouring the street view offered by Google Maps, he has culled dozens of image that Google can add to its art portfolio.
In 2007, Google dispatched a fleet of cars -- each one bearing a pole with nine cameras -- with the goal of documenting the streets of the world. The images taken by these cameras have been available on Google Maps for a while, but Rafman took it upon himself to find the views worth looking at.
"This very way of recording our world," he wrote in a recent article, "this tension between an automated camera and a human who seeks meaning, reflects our modern experience." Of course the Google camera is completely indifferent to what it sees -- which makes its fleeting images of burning houses or stolen kisses all the more intriguing.
Surprisingly, Rafman remarked, the Google car was met with delight as much as it was with dismay, which may be a testament to our time: we've become habituated to lost privacy and heightened surveillance -- sometimes we even welcome it. Here's NPR; what does your street view look like? Upload it to our Flickr group pool.
David Maisel is a visual artist who recently completed a residency at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles. It was there that he came across the museum's archive of X-rays, used in the process of conserving artwork. "The ghostly images of these X-rays," he writes, "seem to surpass the power of the original objects of art." And so he began to photograph them.
Maisel has photographed and scanned these X-rays to create an eerie body of work. The photos in his series, History's Shadow, explore his recurring themes of memory and excavation. According to Maisel, "They make the invisible visible, and express through photographic means the shape-shifting nature of time itself, and the continuous presence of the past contained within us." View his Web site to learn more.
There's a crazy landform in Madagascar called a tsingy, which, euphemistically translated from Malagasy, means "where one cannot walk barefoot." It's basically a treacherous forest of limestone spires that could impale anything, and cut straight through ropes and harnesses. It's one of the few places on Earth that, because of its remote location and dangerous landscape, has remained relatively unexplored. And it took National Geographic photographer Stephen Alvarez five days to reach it to shoot the story "Stone Forest" in November's magazine.
Alvarez, like many other National Geographic photographers, is known for photographing extreme, remote places. Much of his time is spent beneath the Earth's surface, exploring some of the most majestic cave systems on the planet. For this story, though, he spent his time above the ground. Way above the ground.
At a recent National Geographic event, Alvarez described the process of moving around this tsingy. He compared it to walking through New York City -- but instead of using the sidewalks, it's like climbing up one side of a building, then back down the other side, over and over again. "We were lucky to cover half a mile a day," Neil Shea writes in the magazine article.
This stone labyrinth, Shea describes, is a type of karst system, formed by porous limestone dissolved by water over time. "The exact processes that carved such an otherworldly stonescape," he writes, "are complex and rare." Only a few landforms like this exist in the world. And, surprisingly, this seemingly inhospitable place is home to rare plants and wildlife still being discovered -- such as the white-furred Decken's sifaka lemur. Fortunately, photographers like Alvarez can do the legwork to bring these surreal, remote landscapes to us with beautiful pictures.
To learn more, check out the article and photos on ngm.com, and view more work by Alvarez on his Web site.
For Americans, the days of extreme cultural revolution have arguably subsided. The heyday of rock has come and gone, as have new wave and punk -- even post-punk -- and grunge. So it seems like we've gotten a lot of musical subversion out of our system. But, spin to the Earth's other hemisphere, and the musical revolution has only just begun. According to photographer Matthew Niederhauser, simply listening to rock constitutes rebellion in China.
Niederhauser, a freelance photojournalist based in Beijing, first stumbled into a dive bar called D-22 in 2007. It was there that he happened upon Beijing's underground music scene, and he has been documenting it ever since. His new book, Sound Kapital, shows this burgeoning scene in photos.
As he writes, "For now, China remains in a liminal state between the socialist idealism of old and a calamitous drive for wealth spurred by free-market reforms." And the rockers are rejecting both. It may be a small scene, but it's exploding. NPR's Zoe Chace went to see one of Beijing's rock bands in Brooklyn, and the line wrapped around the door. Tune in to All Things Considered today to hear the story, and check out Niederhauser's Web site to view more of his work.
Today on All Things Considered, host Melissa Block speaks with National Geographic photographer Paul Nicklen about his new book, Polar Obsession. Listen here.
How many people can say with nonchalance, "I've had good friends of mine ... eaten by grizzly bears"? Paul Nicklen can, for one. He's a National Geographic photographer who was raised in Canada's Arctic and has spent the past 20 years documenting extreme polar regions.
Nicklen blends in with the surroundings during a whiteout in East Svalbard
Nicklen had a unique childhood. He grew up in a small and remote Inuit community on Baffin Island with no radio, no TV and no telephone. His idea of fun included lying in blizzards until his body went numb, building sleds and tending pet seals. It was a secluded youth -- and to anyone else, a bit extreme. But to Nicklen, it was as idyllic as childhood gets. "I was taking care of dog teams by the time I was 5," he tells NPR's Melissa Block. "It's just a completely different world, and ... I fell in love with it."
So it makes sense that his idea of fun today includes many of the same things: extreme temperatures, exploration and animal friendships. After a brief stint at the University of Victoria to earn a biology degree, Nicklen made a prompt return to Canada's Arctic, where he began a career as a nature photojournalist. "As I got to be older, as a biologist and photojournalist," he says, "I realized that these are the tools I can now use to protect the place that I fell in love with as a kid."
It's not an easy job. "In pursuit of the photographs I've taken over the past 20 years," he writes in the book's introduction, "I've crashed my ultra light airplane, fallen through the sea ice ... and suffered frostbite... I've also become lost in blizzards and been bitten by fur seals and elephant seals, charged by a grizzly bear, sniffed through the thin fabric of a tent by a polar bear."
All in a day's work. To Nicklen, though, it's worth the risk. "How are people supposed to care about the environment when they're living in a cement jungle?" he wonders in the interview. To make them care, he goes to extremes. Nicklen is on a mission to bring these remote habitats to those of us who may never see them, to make us care about the endangered polar ecosystems and the animals that inhabit them. His photos appear in a new book, Polar Obsession, published by National Geographic.
Not to sound too Pollyanna, but according to spontaneoussmiley.com, smiles are everywhere, even on the worst of days. This site has promised to donate one dollar to Operation Smile for every user-submitted smile. Add yours to their site -- and to our Flickr group pool, while you're at it!
As recently as last month, reading material on photographer Robert Bergman was really scarce. There were a few reviews of his 1998 book, A Kind of Rapture, floating around, but that's about it. So it was hard to figure out why, after nearly 60 years as a photographer, he is just now exhibiting his work -- and not just anywhere, but at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C. Listen to the story here.
The opening of this exhibition last month, succinctly titled "Portraits, 1986--1995," yielded an explosion of material about Bergman. We now know that he was born in New Orleans, the son of an eye doctor; began photographing at a very young age; and has read pretty much every philosophy book under the sun -- or so it seems. But the questions still remain: Why has he been off the radar for so long, and what makes his photos special?
At first glance, Bergman might be easily labeled a street photographer. The people in his photos seem to be ordinary folks in ordinary environments doing ordinary things. And yet the more time you spend with them, the more they come to life.
For one, Bergman includes no information with his photos -- no captions, no titles, no names. These people are total strangers ... but they're presented in such an intimate manner -- tightly cropped around the face, eyes piercing through the lens -- that they somehow seem familiar. At the museum, the portraits are life-sized -- they loom and they disconcert. These are the people we pass every day on the street but never really look at. And here they are, staring at us.
It's easy to assume that these portraits, like a lot of those in street photography, represent a certain demographic -- and that there just might be an agenda behind it. But according to Bergman, "There's a housewife, there are three artists, there are two actors, an affluent owner of a bar, there's the son of a millionaire and the granddaughter of a billionaire." So much for stereotypes. His agenda, if he even has one, is simply to see people artfully.
Most of all, credit is owed to Bergman for technique. He has an unusual command of light, using only what's available -- from the hanging sun at dusk to eerie neon street lights. His personal printing process is both elaborate and time-intensive. And this particularity is precisely why we're only just now hearing about him: Bergman waited a lifetime for what he felt was the right moment to reveal his work. He waited for a book deal, waited a year for Toni Morrison to agree to write the introduction and waited 14 years for this particular exhibition to come together. A patient man, he's now "springing out of the head of Zeus like Athena," or in other words, bursting onto the scene. His work will be met with mixed reviews, but according to Bergman, "waiting pays."
His work is also on display at P.S.1, the Museum of Modern Art's Contemporary Art Center in New York City, where it will be up through January. It remains at the National Gallery through January as well. Tell us what you think. Worth the wait? Do you see familiar strangers?
Clyde Butcher and Ansel Adams have a few things in common: big cameras, a love of landscapes, and beards. (Although in a beard contest, Butcher would undoubtedly win.) He's an award-winning environmental photographer based in the Florida wetlands; he actually has a house in a preserve called "The Loose Screw Sanctuary." His black-and-white images show a surreal land of gnarly tree limbs, drooping Cyprus branches and the puffiest of clouds.
Greg Allen for NPR followed Butcher through the swamps, waist-high in water on the job. An intrepid documentarian, Butcher carries a large-format camera around the swamps on his back, like a time traveler hailing from the days of uncharted America.
Butcher is currently shooting photos for a project that will document the entire Everglades ecosystem, from the headwaters near Orlando all the way down to Florida Bay. He's working to turn that into a multi-media exhibit that will tour the country called, "The Everglades: America's Amazon." Learn more on his Web site.
National Geographic's International Photography Contest has come to a close, and winners will be announced in early December. Here's a selection of a few submissions, but you can view more on ngm.com, or check out some winners from the past.
If Louis Daguerre could see Canon's Mark II, his head would explode. Cameras have come a long way since 1839, and Smithsonian's National Museum of American History currently has a display of 22 cameras to celebrate the camera's evolution. From the earliest daguerreotypes to view cameras to early digital models, the exhibit shows off just a fraction of the holdings in the Photographic History Collection. View the photos here, but check out the Flickr site to learn more about the cameras.
Smithsonian has made great efforts to develop (pun intended) its photography collection over the past few years. It has an incredible reservoir of first-edition prints, primitive photographic ephemera, equipment and oddities. So expect more to come! And for more pre-digital history, check out this darkroom exhibition at the National Gallery of Art.
Photographer Pam Spaulding took the concept of the long-term assignment to an extreme -- spending more than 30 years photographing the McGarvey family of Anchorage, Ky.
Working for the Louisville Courier-Journal, Spaulding originally planned to photograph the young John and Judy McGarvey for a year after the birth of their first child, thinking the project about new parents would end after the newspaper published the images. But after that first year, Judy McGarvey didn't realize the project was over -- so she kept calling, and Spaulding kept going back. The project grew to span the growth of their three children, David, Morgan and Sara, as well the important moments, both joyful and frustrating, of the family over the years.
'An American Family: Three Decades with the McGarveys'
At a recent lecture at the National Geographic Society in Washington, Spaulding presented work from her new book, An American Family: Three Decades with the McGarveys. Quiet and soft-spoken, Spaulding was holding back tears as the first slide graced the screen. She wasn't the only one. Audible sniffles filled the room as Spaulding showed the audience images of a young Judy McGarvey learning to mother newborn David, of father John snuggling with a distraught Morgan, and of daughter Sara buying her high school prom dress.
The images of the McGarveys elicited such emotion because by compacting 30 years into an hour presentation, Spaulding underscored the fragility of life, the importance of family, the joy in the small moments, and how quickly it can all pass by.
"I was in no hurry, I didn't care, I didn't expect it to be published," she said when reached later by phone. "I wouldn't have kept going back if it didn't meet some need, personally and professionally. This work gave meaning to my photography, and when you have that, you can always keep going."
After the lecture, the whole McGarvey family, minus David, took the stage to answer questions from National Geographic photographer Sam Abell, who had inspired Spaulding to keep shooting the project even after her original one-year assignment was over. When he asked the family members what it was like to have a photographer shooting them constantly, one theme emerged -- because Spaulding had been around since their birth, the kids never thought it was odd that she was always there. She had simply become part of the family.
"On a personal level the McGarveys have meant so much to me," said Spaulding. "Judy is a great mother, and by observing her, I learned how to be a great mother as well. I saw that they did things just for fun, and that was a pretty foreign idea to me because all I grew up knowing how to do was work."
Adding to the emotion of the evening, Spaulding's own daughters Alicia and Lauren surprised their mother by driving from Kentucky for the lecture. It was the first time they had seen the scope of her work, and realized how close their mother was to the McGarveys.
"I was afraid that no one would be interested in a family of people who were normal," she said. "We see so many dysfunctional families, but there are a lot of successful families out there too."
Spaulding's images seem to reflect her personality -- the photographs are not flashy or sensational, she doesn't use any tricks. Instead, the moments are subtle and quiet, calm and beautiful, reflecting the classic moments of an American family. We see the kids' birthdays, from their first to their 21st. We see them in school plays, on vacation, and saying goodbye to the family dog. But mostly what we see is life unfolding, quietly, gracefully, one moment at a time.
An American Family by Pam Spaulding/National Geographic
In the early 1990s, The New York Times sent a list of questions to Sub Pop records in Seattle. The paper wanted to know more about the elusive West Coast "grunge" scene and asked for a lexicon of grunge terminology. Mocking the reporter, Megan Jasper, a Sub Pop employee (and now vice president of the label), made up a bunch of nonsense words on the spot, mostly out of boredom. (For example, according to Jasper, "swingin' on the flippity-flop" was grunge speak for "hanging out.") Her attitude was emblematic of a counterculture that simply didn't care.
The grunge scene was a medley of wayward youth, largely left to its own devices. And it was documented heavily by now-renowned photographer Michael Lavine. At the time, he fit right in, although his meticulous attention to detail and technique was slightly at odds with the reckless nature of his subjects. Regardless, Lavine was there to capture the heyday of a very distinct musical culture.
Unlike some of his musical cohorts, Lavine was able to parlay his grunge time into a long-term, successful career beyond the counterculture. His photos from the '80s and '90s grunge scene now form the content of a new book, aptly named Grunge, with an introduction by none other than Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth. Shredded jeans, plaid flannel and lots of hair: This may not be conventional beauty, but Lavine's photos are still nice to look at. In some ways, the grunge look is back and more beautiful than ever: Go to any indie music venue and behold the sea of plaid. But if Kurt Cobain had seen scruffy lumberjack shirts in the windows of Macy's, he probably would have laughed.
October has come and gone, as has Halloween. Only a few more weeks of colorful fall foliage remain. But at least we can enjoy fall photos year-round! Katie Barnes and Max Bittle, New Hampshire-based photographers, submitted their seasonal snapshots to The Picture Show. You should do the same by adding your photos to our group pool on Flickr!
Oddly enough, the season "fall" may be inaccurately named. According to NPR's Robert Krulwich, leaves don't fall; they're pushed. Check out this science story: Why Leaves Really Fall Off Trees.
In the 1950's, photography was hardly considered art. If you wanted to be taken seriously as a photographer, you snapped mountains and models -- not your neighbors. It also helped to be white. But Roy DeCarava, turned all of that on its head. He died this week at the age of 89. Listen to the NPR story, or this Fresh Air interview.
DeCarava was born in Harlem in 1919 to a single Jamaican mother. He had plenty of odd jobs before he picked up a camera. He was a shoe shiner, a newspaper salesman and an ice hauler. But his natural artistic gifts eventually led him to art school, where he began as a painter. It wasn't long before the lens replaced the brush.
In 1952, DeCarava applied for the prestigious Guggenheim Fellowship. He was the first black photographer to receive the grant, and he used it to photograph Harlem. The photos from this period eventually became the contents of a book. The Sweet Flypaper Of Life was made in collaboration with Harlem Renaissance writer Langston Hughes. It showed Harlem as a mix of quiet ordinary moments, everyday struggles and tiny triumphs.
DeCarava continued to photograph throughout his life, most notably the New York jazz scene. He captured all the greats; the musical genre suited his improvisational style and democratic eye. But the most important thing to DeCarava was that the old woman next door deserved a photograph just as much as John Coltrane. The black man on the stoop merited a frame as much as the white supermodel.
According to Ron Carter, legendary jazz bassist, DeCarava had a sixth sense. "My impression of his photographs is that he sees the music," Carter said in an NPR interview. DeCarava saw the music in jazz performances -- but also in kids playing in the street, in a young woman staring out her window, in men on park benches. He saw the music and the beauty in black Harlem, and he showed that face to America.
More people live along the banks of the Yangtze River than in the United States. One can only imagine the environmental impact of that population. Photographer Nadav Kander took an interest in this subject, and his work was recently rewarded with the Prix Pictet. The prize is relatively new but prestigious, and the first devoted to photography and sustainability.
The Prix Pictet rewards photography that focuses on large-scale environmental issues -- photography with a large-scale communicative impact. Each year the contest is themed; "water" was the prompt last year, and this year it was "earth." Twelve finalists were recognized in July, but Kander's series, "Yangtze, The Long River," took the prize. Learn more on the Prix Pictet Web site.
"The first five minutes of any run always feels like a bad idea," said occasional NPR contributor Greg Miller over the phone. "Same thing with photographing." He was explaining the self-doubt that crept up on him during the first few weeks of his Guggenheim Fellowship, which he had chosen to spend not in a distinguished European city or dangerous developing country but in Nashville, Tenn.
It was a bold move to devote this coveted fellowship to a place so seemingly prosaic and borderline kitschy (I'm allowed to say that; it's my hometown). But it's Miller's hometown, too, and he had his work cut out for him. In the past, Miller explained, he'd been daunted by the prospect of photographing something so familiar. But after several years away from home, he decided it was time to go back and explore.
When asked what he was looking for, he said, "It's a memory, in a way." In the series Nashville, you won't see any photos of honky-tonk bars or country stars. Rather, there's a typical suburban street, a couple gone fishin', his grandmother's house after a storm. The series, which is currently on display at the Cheekwood museum's Temporary Contemporary gallery in Nashville, feels like a dreamlike, somewhat melancholy walk down memory lane.
What is it about this place, and these photos, that is distinct from the rest of Miller's work? "It's a feeling I've been depriving myself of," he said after deliberating. "It's a feeling of belonging." Like many photographers, Miller moved to the Big Apple without looking back. Now he's finally looking back and exploring the idea of "home."
Can't decide what to dress your pet as for Halloween? How about a mummy? An article in the November issue of National Geographic magazine shows that animal mummies were all the rage in ancient Egypt.
Among the many things that would be taken to the grave in ancient Egypt were pets and sacred animals. Some even had shrines of their own. That way, the deceased could be joined by their beloved in the afterlife. Over the past two centuries, archaeologists have uncovered thousands of animal mummies, and through them learned a great deal about Egyptian culture. Learn more by reading the article, and view more photos on ngm.com.
So adorable, that one is willing to accept the truth from bird photographer and naturalist Paul Bannick: that despite their massive eyes and aristocratic beaks, owls aren't actually that smart.
"Ravens and crows are probably smarter," he offers over the phone.
Regardless, Bannick, who has spent years tracking down all 19 species of owls in their various states of life, is as enamored as it gets. And apparently so is the Picture Show. Noticing, a few weeks ago, that we'd coincidentally featured projects involving owls two days in a row (here and here), we decided to dedicate a post entirely to those glorious head-whipping carnivores. It was easy because Bannick just came out with a book, The Owl and the Woodpecker, aimed at raising awareness about the iconic birds' importance as environmental indicators.
Bannick's photos highlight the humanness of these (mostly) nocturnal creatures. Ultimately, the book feels less nature document than portrait series; each birds' face and stance captivatingly distinctive.
How does one go about tracking down dozens of owls? With a full-time day job and only one year to put the book together, the key for Bannick was research and patience.
In search of the great gray owl, for example, Bannick planted himself in the snow of the boreal forest for so many hours that his limbs went numb.
"I couldn't feel my fingers. When it flew by, I had to use my whole hand to pull the shutter," he recalls.
Chasing a bird does not make for a good photo -- so anticipating its behavior in this way was necessary.
Bannick's images don't have the glossy, polished feel of some nature photography -- and that is intentional. A environmental purist, he doesn't believe in using flash (despite photographing nocturnal birds) or doing much of anything in Photoshop.
The message when you change a photo, he laments, "is that you have to improve nature" and he prefers to leave it as is.
You can see more of Bannick's work and listen to the sounds owls make, here.
National Geographic's International Photography Contest will be coming to a close a week from Saturday, and winners will be announced in early December. Here's a selection of some submissions from this past week, from an aerial interstate view to a coyote literally frozen solid. Enter your photos at ngm.com, or view some winners from the past.
I recently had the luck of finding a small community art center darkroom where I can spend Tuesday nights sealed away from the buzz of the real world. Only a darkroom can afford that sort of intimate seclusion -- where even cell phone light could be catastrophic. Things could go awry at any given step, so it requires constant attention, deliberation and patience. "Are you crazy?" my father the darkroom apostate asks, perplexed by my decision to master the darkroom as he makes strides with a digital camera.
I eschew these paternal inquiries -- vive la darkroom ! So although I was happy to discover a new exhibition at the National Gallery of Art -- "In the Darkroom: Photographic Processes before the Digital Age" -- it also struck a melancholy chord.
The exhibition is a random collection of works, from an Alfred Stieglitz carbon print, to a gelatin silver print by Robert Frank, to an Andy Warhol Polaroid. It seems to be a historical introduction to the darkroom -- to the many, many elaborate processes that have evolved over the past century or two -- for those who may never step foot in one. But also, sadly, and perhaps prematurely, it seems like a eulogy for a dying art. I, for one, don't plan on stopping my Tuesday night ritual anytime soon. And I can only hope that there are enough of us vampires out there to preserve and perpetuate the darkroom.
Johnny Cash gives the camera "the bird." John Lennon sports a New York City tank top on a high-rise rooftop. Kurt Cobain clutches his hair and weeps backstage. On the album cover of London Calling, Paul Simonon of the Clash famously raises his guitar on stage to smash it. These are the iconic photographs that have created our vision of rock 'n' roll. We know the rockers, but who took the photos?
Jim Marshall, Bob Gruen, Ian Tilton and Pennie Smith are their names, respectively. They are four of more than a hundred photographers featured in a new book: Who Shot Rock & Roll: A Photographic History 1955-Present. From a gyrating Elvis in 1955 right up to the big-haired Amy Winehouse -- from early pop rock to the British Invasion, from punk to New Wave -- the book covers not only some of the most iconic rock moments, but also the stories behind them.
The musical genre has evolved dramatically since Elvis, and so has the photographic genre. In the beginning, there were very few "rock photographers." And the few that existed had no problem getting into shows and photographing throughout the entire performance. Nowadays, a photographer is lucky to get in, and even luckier to be able to shoot during more than one song. Tilton explained in an e-mail:
When I was taking live pictures at big gigs in the '80s and early '90s, we were able to photograph the whole set. Then in the mid-90s, someone said, "You can do the first 3 songs only." ... Now the first 3 songs are useless -- the band hasn't gotten into their stride; they aren't even sweating! And that's what great live rock 'n' roll photography is all about: atmosphere and sweat and the band getting "lost in music." That's never gonna be at the beginning of a set. It's always near the end! Do you think I would have gotten those classic photos of Kurt Cobain smashing his guitar in the first 3 numbers?
Written by photographic historian Gail Buckland, the book is one of the first to tell the story of rock 'n' roll with an emphasis on those who fashioned its image. What would rock be without that photo of the Freewheelin' Bob Dylan, or of Elton John doing a handstand on his piano? Photography didn't create rock, but it certainly helped create our vision of it.
The photos will be on display at the Brooklyn Museum in New York from Oct. 30 through Jan. 31.
James Nachtwey is in a league of his own. If you haven't heard of him, you've probably at least seen his work. It's been in local papers, national papers, Time and National Geographic magazine and has won numerous awards, including the Robert Capa Gold Medal (five times). He's a war and conflict photographer, and his images can be paradoxical: They're beautiful, but often really hard to look at. Some of them appear in the October issue of National Geographic, to tell the story of Islam in Indonesia.
Of the 240 million people inhabiting the 17,000 islands, 86 percent are Muslim -- making Indonesia the most populous Muslim country in the world. And the face of Islam is as diverse as the country is populated. From violent extremists to practitioners of a more tolerant "Smiling Islam," the citizens of Indonesia are slowly adjusting to a democratization process that began about 10 years ago, after the fall of the authoritarian President Suharto.
Things are still uncertain, and the question of Islam's rapport with democracy is still on the table. Nachtwey's photos in National Geographic's October issue show the various incarnations of life in Indonesia, and the article is an approachable introduction to a culture that is both predominantly Muslim and richly complex.
View more of Nachtwey's work on his Web site, or check out this TED talk in which he accepts an award and discusses his career.
Exactly 400 years ago in 1609, one Galileo Galilei popularized a new invention: the telescope. The man had crazy gadgets to support crazy theories -- such as Copernicus' idea that the sun was at the center of the universe. He was condemned by the church for his subversive ideas, but both his telescope and ideas lived on.
Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle by Michael Benson, Abrams 2009
To celebrate the telescope's 400th anniversary, journalist/photographer Michael Benson has written a new book. Far Out: A Space-Time Chronicle, similar to his previous award-winning book Beyond: Visions of the Interplanetary Probes, is a compilation of those humbling deep-space images that never cease to amaze (me, at least). The images come from some of the largest and most powerful space-based telescopes scattered across the globe, such as the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii and the European Southern Observatory in the Chilean Andes.
Placed in chronological order, from within a few hundred light-years of Earth to 13 billion light-years away, the images tell the story of our universe. The coolest part of the book, though, is that Benson simultaneously tells the history of Earth. For example, next to images of Orion's Nebula is a map of the Carolingian Empire (i.e., France about 1,300 years ago). That's because it was about 1,300 years ago that light from Orion started traveling toward Earth. In other words, if a human were to look at Earth with a telescope from Orion, he would see the world of Charlemagne. It's pretty neat.
National Geographic's International Photography Contest will be coming to a close in about two weeks, on Oct. 31, and winners will be announced in early December. Here's a selection of some submissions from this past week, ranging geographically from California to India to Namibia. Enter your photos at ngm.com, or view some winners from the past.
Can you guess which one is a photo and which one is a painting?
Quartet by Ralph Goings
If you're going to do a painting that looks exactly like a photo, why even paint it? When asked this question in a written Q & A, photorealist painter and octogenarian Ralph Goings responded, "What I'm about is making paintings, and my camera is one of the tools I use. It's the artist's job to take the painting beyond the photograph."
A California native with a master of fine arts degree, Goings has been painting diners, ketchup bottles and trucks -- this blogger's beloved Americana -- for decades. "My fascination with the condiment containers," he says, "lies in the way light plays on them." His paintings are so beautiful, and so lifelike, that we wanted to see the photos that inspired them. The pictures that he dug up were, no surprise, really great. And he took them all.
Picture Show: Has anyone ever told you you're a great photographer? Did you ever consider pursuing it?
Ralph Goings: I doubt that anyone ever used the word "great," but people who come to my studio seem to enjoy looking through my files. ... I consider myself a self-taught "picture taker. " I've always been fascinated by the way photographs capture the effects of light on space and form -- the camera doesn't seem to care about "things, " but what light does to them. The camera can record effects that the naked eye can't perceive. Also, I just like the idea of capturing images. "Taking" photographs is fun. ...
Photographs are not the subject of my paintings. They are the source of visual information ... an armature to build the painting on. The painting is made of canvas and wood and organic materials (pigments, glues, solvents, etc.) and exhibits an obvious touch of a human hand. Paints are malleable materials and applied by hand.
Bureaucracy, oh bureaucracy. How easy it is to curse that amorphous force that sucks up time, binding productivity and creativity in red tape. But how do you show what it looks like?
Six years ago, photographer Jan Banning sat, stumped by this question. The self-declared anarchist had been given what seemed "the most horrible assignment of my entire life:" A magazine had asked him to illustrate decentralization of administration in Mozambique.
Then it occurred to him; "Let's go meet the people involved." Having spent his life carefully steering clear of government officers, he was surprised to find they were far more varied and interesting than he'd imagined. The one-time assignment morphed into a four-year project, involving "Bureaucratics" -- as his clever book is titled -- across the world.
There's a sheriff sitting under deer heads in Texas, an urban planner with a taste for girlie calendars in Bolivia. There's a narcotics officer in France, who helps his informers "feel at home" by filling his government office with drug paraphernalia. There's an agriculture adviser in Yemen, only her eyes peeking through her chador, keeping her a mystery behind her stark desk. (Don't be fooled, says Banning -- she runs a team of men.)
Each of the square photos is taken the same way -- straight on -- from the level of someone entering the office. Before making the portrait, Banning asked only, "Would you please look at the camera?"
Meanwhile, writer Will Tinnemans took down details about these low- to midlevel government executives' lives; background, monthly salary or -- more pertinent in Liberia -- if they'd been paid at all.
Because the pair of documentarians didn't tell anyone they were coming in advance, they sometimes encountered people snoring on their desks. Banning met people across the world whose job is to do nothing more than literally shuffle paperwork from one room to the next. But, he adds, he also met people who work hard, driven by hopes of improving their lives and their countries.
Perhaps most surprising, Banning, who is from the Netherlands, was most impressed with bureaucrats in the U.S. -- who not only seemed to take their jobs seriously, but gave their offices a "strong personal touch."
Banning's work is currently on display at The Stadthaus in Ulm, Germany.
95 percent of Libya is desert. The southwestern region, called Fezzan, is the heart of the Sahara and almost entirely inhospitable. Although ancient tribes inhabited this area, especially during more lush seasons, the harsh winds, oppressive sunlight and freezing nights make it no place for the faint of heart. In the October issue of National Geographic magazine, photographer George Steinmetz used an ultralight paraglider to show this region of the Sahara as it's never been seen before.
If you haven't already seen NPR's Emmy-nominated Project Song, you must stop whatever it is you're doing (after you read this, of course), and watch it immediately. All Songs Considered host Bob Boilen, as well as multimedia producer John Poole and our sound engineers, invite musicians into NPR's performance studio 4-A and give them a mere two days in which to produce a song. The whole thing is taped, resulting in backstage-type access to the songwriting process. As inspirational fodder, the musicians are given a choice of five photos and five words.
The newest installment of Project Song, featuring Chris Walla (of Death Cab for Cutie) and J. Robbins (of Jawbox and Burning Airlines), has finally been released. Bob showed them photos by Tom Chambers. And from a choice of five images, they selected Black Dog's Retreat. Here is a larger selection of Chambers' work -- and there's even more on his Web site.
What do you think? Do you feel inspired to pick up that old guitar?
National Geographic's International Photography Contest has been running since late August and has attracted some pretty amazing submissions from both professional and amateur photographers. It will be coming to a close on Oct. 31, 2009, and winners will be announced in early December. Here's a selection of some submissions from this past week. Enter your photos at ngm.com, or view some winners from the past.
The power of photography can be summed up by one incident in 1872. Way back in the day of Lewis and Clark, when photography was just a baby, a bunch of explorers surveyed the land around the Yellowstone River. In that bunch was a photographer named William Henry Jackson, whose photographs inspired President Ulysses S. Grant to sign a law creating Yellowstone National Park, the very first of its kind. It was a big deal, considering that not one member of Congress had ever seen Yellowstone. Since then, hundreds of parks have been created.
Today, conservation photographer Ian Shive is like a contemporary Jackson -- but with a much better camera.
His photos appear in a new book, The National Parks: Our American Landscape. "The book is a culmination of four years of image gathering across the entire country," Shive wrote in an e-mail. Shive, a National Parks magazine photographer and member of the International League of Conservation Photographers, took several trips across America, including a 7,500-mile, 20-day journey in which he hit 17 national parks.
PBS actually has a similar project, the Ken Burns PBS series The National Parks. But when it comes to photography's role in conservation, Shive writes that the "power of a single image can never be replaced ... One image has the power to tell a story, spark imagination and educate people within a few seconds ... versus sitting down and watching a 30-minute documentary."
Like Jackson, Shive's mission is to inspire the creation of new parks, as well as the protection of what we already have. His hope, he wrote, is that "the book simply inspires people to connect with the outdoors and our parks." When asked which single place, of all the photographs in his book, readers should visit, Shive offered a response that would have pleased Jackson: "Yellowstone National Park, because it has the ability to let a person step back in time and see the United States in a way that has been completely lost to development and expansion." View more photos by Shive on his Web site.
As far as photo editing goes, this was a serious challenge. National Geographic just released a new book featuring 500 pages of their best photography, which had to be whittled down to a mere nine photos for The Picture Show. That's nothing, though. The real challenge was for National Geographic editors, who had to dig through 11.5 million photos spanning the 120 years of their photographic history.
Book cover photo by Michael Nichols/National Geographic
Page after page, National Geographic Image Collection offers both iconic and never-before-seen photography, from the earliest days of glass plate autochromes to contemporary digital images from outer space. To coincide with the book's publication, an exhibition of nearly 90 images from the book will be on display at National Geographic in Washington, D.C., through April 12, 2010.
Carol Sauvion, the mastermind behind the PBS series Craft In America, says that the crafting climate in America is "stronger now than it ever was." This may seem surprising, considering the increasing number of us glued to iPhones and BlackBerrys. But this past weekend, even in a city addicted to mobile technology, D.C.'s annual "Crafty Bastards" arts and craft fair was brimming with people of all ages -- possibly more packed than ever. Perhaps it's because more and more of us, after hours in front of the computer, are suddenly recognizing the need to unplug.
The second season of Craft In America, which airs on PBS this Wednesday, illustrates Sauvion's point. The traditional spirit of crafting in America is alive and well -- and infectious. Sauvion described the satisfaction that comes with creating something from start to finish, like turning a block of wood into a working violin. The greatest thing about it, she said over the phone, is that "you can lose yourself in something. And time has no meaning. ... and in your in your own world, just working." The photos in this gallery are just a few examples of creations from this season.
Another great thing about crafting is that anyone can do it. You don't have to be a great "artist" to build a pot from clay, or sew a quilt, or hammer wrought iron. You just need a desire to work with your hands. Cliff Lee, for example, an artist featured on the program's Web site, was a brain surgeon before he discovered his love for pottery. After a sabbatical of art classes he returned to the hospital and said, "Every time I take care of patients, I look at their skulls, I think about pots -- how to make a pot like it." He's now on his second sabbatical and doesn't plan to go back.
"That's my hope," said Sauvion. "That people will see this as an alternative to other careers, that they will want to express themselves in this way, and they will be making a contribution to our national culture." Even I was inspired to find a community art center where I can now spend my Tuesday nights in a darkroom. Perhaps you'll be inspired to do the same. Here's a preview of this week's premiere, but you can watch episodes from last season online, and see more people like Lee on the Craft In America Web site. Or you can just turn off your computer.
Only a few more weeks remain in National Geographic's International Photography Contest. Photos can be submitted between now and Oct. 31, 2009, and winners will be announced in early December. Here's a selection of some submissions from this past week. Enter your photos at ngm.com, or check out these cool jigsaw puzzles they've made from submitted photos.
A photo of balls floating in air recently joined the Corcoran Gallery of Art collection. When Jehsong Baak was in his early 20s, he would have scoffed at the idea that such an establishment would ever be interested in his work. The Korean-born artist was living in New York, confused by how one was supposed to make a living with a camera. It was going so badly, in fact, that he gave up photography entirely for seven years, and took a job with an investor.
He appreciated that his boss had taken a chance on him, he recalls on the phone, but ultimately, "I was bored to death with that job, slowly rotting away at the age of 29."
The allure of that other artists' capital sucked him from his haze.
"At least I'd know I'd tried," he said of his decision to move there and dedicate himself entirely to photography, yet again.
Upon arrival, he was unable to sleep. He wandered the streets at night with his Leica M6, finding it easier to make good photos in the darkness.
"During the day, there is way too much information. We see too much. At night, with so much darkness, you can better select the details or situations that are visually pleasing," he explains.
His work over the next ten years -- which he is in the process of turning into a book -- is filled with reflections and enigmatic women's faces. Only slivers of light bubble through. Sometime his own hand or reflection enters into the frame. He had made Paris his.
The legendary Robert Delpire, who edited and published Robert Frank's The Americans, took note of Baak's work during this time. In 2006, Delpire published and edited La ou Ailleurs, a collection of Baak's work. Given that Frank is one of the photographers Baak most admires, it was yet another sign that Paris had been the right choice.
Ironically, he says he sometimes envious of his young photographer self, the one no one seemed to like. Those he knows he's far more skilled now, he misses that "youthful and furious hunger" that dissipates as one becomes more aware.
I'll admit it: I haven't done much traveling in the areas west of the Mississippi and east of California. Translation: I haven't really seen much of my own country. I'll also sheepishly admit that when I think of that vast region, I envision dry grass plains and corn. Lots of corn. This ignorance of mine is exactly what photographer Michael Forsberg is trying to turn on its head. His work is in a new book called Great Plains: America's Lingering Wild and, needless to say, it put my mental images to shame.
Unfortunately, my ignorance is probably shared by many. This often neglected, underappreciated and misunderstood "region" of our country actually comprises a great majority of our land, and in just the past 100 years has undergone a dramatic transformation as a result of human migration and industrialization. It is now one of the most endangered landscapes in North America, and easily the least protected. So Forsberg teamed up with writer/biologist Dan O'Brien, writer/geographer David Wishart and former American Poet Laureate Ted Kooser to make us care about our big backyard.
Over the course of about four years, Forsberg trekked 100,000 miles across 12 states and three provinces, from southern Canada to northern Mexico, to produce the fieldwork for this project. Underwritten by The Nature Conservancy, this book shows both the splendor and the vulnerability of America's Great Plains. Corn? Ha!
National Geographic photographer Michael Nichols is one of the world's foremost wildlife photographers. But he recently said that he'd happily spend the rest of his life photographing trees. Of course, the folks over at National Geographic would almost certainly never hear of it. Nichols' newfound love developed after a serious, yearlong relationship with redwoods.
At least 1,500 years old, this 300-foot giant in California's Prairie Creek Redwoods State Park has the most complex crown ever mapped. (Michael Nichols/National Geographic)
National Geographic sent Nichols to spend an entire year in California's redwood forest. His mission was to capture the majesty of some of the tallest trees on Earth, some of which date back before Christ. And if you've ever photographed in a forest, you'll understand the challenge this presented. There's no capturing the awe one feels before these monoliths that measure, in some cases, upward of 300 feet.
In a recent lecture at National Geographic in Washington, D.C., Nichols described his frustrations. Eventually, though, he devised a way to do redwoods justice. It involved three cameras, a team of scientists, a robotic dolly, a gyroscope, an 83-photo composite and a lot of patience. (And, OK, maybe it's not the Biggest, Tallest Tree Photo Ever -- but it's the biggest one I've ever seen.) Here's how they did it:
The photograph appears as a huge foldout in the the October issue of National Geographic magazine, which hits newsstands today and is definitely worth reading. The magazine, with the help of the Wildlife Conservation Society and Save The Redwoods League, also sent explorer-in-residence Mike Fay on a transect from the southernmost redwood in Big Sur to the northernmost tree near Oregon's Chetco River. It took him and his hiking partner, Lindsey Holm, more than a year of non-stop hiking to complete the trek of more than 2,000 miles. It also took three pairs of shoes.
Redwoods have been heavily forested over the past few decades and are only just now beginning to replenish in numbers. With the enormous collection of data compiled by Fay and other conservationists, we now know more than ever about this thin stretch of ancient forest along the California coast. To learn more, check out the extensive coverage on ngm.com.
Those beautiful magazine portraits of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie are usually accepted at face value. But the perfect cover photo is usually the product of much trial and error; it's one of dozens of frames (or hundreds, if we're talking digital) -- and just might even be an accident.
To see the entire contact sheet from a photo shoot is a rare and strangely intimate experience, almost like reading a photographer's diary. It's fascinating to see how the artist's eye wanders, how the mind works, how a scene evolves. This is the idea behind a new book, The Contact Sheet, published by Ammo Books, which explores the process behind some of the most iconic photographs.
It's also disconcerting to think that, because of the photographer's own editorial process, the majority of photographs go unseen. There's no telling how many works of art remain buried in dusty binders and old shoe boxes. Fortunately, this book provides a rare glimpse at a few of those contact sheets.
And there's more. An exhibition just opened at New York's Whitney Museum of American Art. "A Few Frames: Photography and the Contact Sheet" explores the use of the contact sheet in art, with works by such artists as Andy Warhol and Robert Frank.
Untitled, by David Wojnarowicz, 1988, from the exhibition "A Few Frames: Photography and the Contact Sheet" (Courtesy of Whitney Museum of American Art)
National Geographic's International Photography Contest continues to draw thousands of photos from users around the world, and the submissions are anything but amateurish. Photos can be submitted between now and Oct. 31, 2009 and winners will be announced in early December. Here's a selection of some submissions from this past week. Enter your photos at ngm.com, or download some of the popular images as wallpaper.
It makes perfect sense that Jack Kerouac, an unofficial poet laureate of his beatnik generation and author of On The Road, would write the introduction to an unassuming -- but revolutionary -- body of photographs called The Americans.
"That crazy feeling in America when the sun is hot on the streets and music comes out of the jukebox or from a nearby funeral, that's what Robert Frank has captured in tremendous photographs taken as he traveled on the road around practically forty-eight states in an old used car ..."
With only 83 photographs, this Robert Frank, a Swiss immigrant and Guggenheim fellow, single-handedly altered the course of photography in 1958 when his book was published. The product of a few years on the proverbial road, The Americans was a simple documentary project about the American people. And although the subject was a familiar one, it was unlike anything that had come before it.
Alfred Eisenstaedt is known for his photograph V-J day in Times Square. That image has been in virtually every textbook, every photographic anthology, every war documentary since it was taken, or so it seems. But Eisenstaedt also has some lesser-known photographs. In fact, this collection was almost entirely forgotten until recently.
In 1952, Life magazine sent Eisenstaedt to Cuba to photograph writer Ernest Hemingway. The photographs would accompany a Hemingway novella that was to be published in the magazine before becoming a book. The story was "The Old Man and the Sea," and that issue of Life went on to sell 5.3 million copies in two days. Unfortunately for Eisenstaedt, Hemingway wasn't quite as cooperative as that famous kissing couple.
An infamously surly character, Hemingway was resistant to Eisenstaedt's camera. Only after much cajoling would the writer put on a shirt, and only with the help of his wife and a cocktail would he acquiesce to a portrait. Eisenstaedt resorted to taking stealthy candids of the writer, and for years after recalled it as his most difficult assignment. Very few photographs from the assignment ran in the magazine; some were rendered as drawings. But today, almost 60 years later, the photographs have resurfaced.
Eisenstaedt photographed the small fishing town of Cojimar, the novella's inspirational setting, as well as one old fisherman in particular -- somewhat misleading, as Hemingway insisted that his character was based on no one specifically. More photos from Eisenstaedt's arduous assignment are on life.com.
This is one of those examples of pictures being worth more than words. How can words do justice to a photojournalist who has worked in more than 75 countries and covered every presidential election since 1976, the Summer Olympics since 1984, the Vietnam War, Bob Marley, the aftermath of Katrina and, most famously, the Iranian Revolution of 1979?
In the winter of 1979, David Burnett found himself in a unique position. He was one of the few Western journalists to remain in Iran during the throes of revolution -- to witness and report live the historic overthrow of Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi's corrupt monarchy, and its replacement with the modern world's first Islamic republic, under the rule of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini.
Over the course of those 44 consecutive days that shocked the world, Burnett photographed the initial uprisings that culminated in mass demonstrations, violence and mourning. He also captured the celebrations of revolutionary Shiites upon the fall of a monarch. At the time, Burnett's photographs were featured extensively in Time magazine. And now, 30 years after the event, many of the photos can be found in one place: the new book 44 Days: Iran and the Remaking of the World, published by National Geographic.
The photographs have an eerie resonance in light of Iran's recent demonstrations. They also have a certain eloquence that can't be translated in copy -- although Christiane Amanpour's foreward, John Kifner's introduction and Burnett's narration certainly help. View more of Burnett's work on his Web site.
In the world of visual vocations, to be featured in a Communication Arts annual is like receiving a superlative in your high school yearbook -- only better. The magazine, founded in 1959, is an industry handbook for design, illustration, advertising and photography. In addition to six regular issues per year, editors also assemble an "annual" for each category, featuring the best work selected by a small jury. It's considered one of the most prestigious competitions in the creative arts, and this year's photography category was no exception.
The winners in the 2009 photography annual are divided into subcategories such as editorial, advertising and unpublished work. From Callie Shell's Obama campaign series to a Vaseline ad to a portrait of Tim Gunn, the wide-ranging photographs cover the breadth of... well, the art of communication.
One notable difference this year was the digitization of both the content and the competition. Over 90 percent of the submissions were sent electronically. The jury also noted, some with dismay, the undeniable evolution of photography -- how many submissions leaned more toward illustration than photography after heavy post-production.
To get an idea of who's who in the photography annual, owner and editor Patrick Coyne sent us a selection of winners in various categories. For more information, check out the Communication Arts Web site.
Every year, National Geographic's International Photography Contest draws thousands of photos from users around the world. Winners will be entered into the Worldwide International Photography Contest. You can submit up to six photos in three categories -- People, Places and Nature -- between now and Oct. 31, 2009. Winners will be announced in early December. Here's a selection of some recent submissions. Enter your photos at ngm.com, or just vote for other photographs.
Two weeks ago we saw what New York Harbor would have looked like way back in Henry Hudson's day. Now fast-forward to see how time has rendered that lush landscape in steel and concrete. The Edge of New York: Waterfront Photographs, an exhibition currently at the Museum of the City of New York, shows the ever-evolving landscape of New York's urban coast, with both historical images and the work of contemporary landscape photographers Diane Cook and Len Jenshel.
Cook and Jenshel's project, several years in the making, is about "the confluence of recreation and commerce, development and conservation, nature and architecture," as Jenshel put it. They were granted special access to areas previously restricted along the waterfront, bringing a rarely seen part of the city to public attention. Over the course of just a few years, they've documented many parts of the waterfront evolving from post-industrial banks to recreational hot spots, although much of it remains in disrepair.
Fitting with this week's theme of married photographers, Cook and Jenshel have been collaborating since the early '90s and are two of America's pre-eminent landscape photographers. Dilapidated buildings, railroad tracks and shipping yards may not be typically associated with traditional landscape photography. But Cook and Jenshel focus on man's interaction with the natural landscape -- examining our footprints while omitting us from the frame.
Berenice Abbott, Downtown Skyport, Foot of Wall Street, 1936
Courtesy Museum of the City of New York
Cook works almost exclusively in black and white and Jenshel does color, but somehow the alternating rhythm works. Studying with the likes of Garry Winogrand, Jenshel was one of those first photographic rebels to decide that color had a place in fine art photography in the 1970s. Cook, on the other hand, got her start in painting and sculpture before an internship with esteemed photographer Larry Fink. Together they are two of the foremost living fine art photographers, still working in medium format film and frequently crossing over into commercial work.
Learn more about the exhibition, which will run through November 29, on the museum's Web site. And be sure to check out the photographers' site.
It's hard to imagine two people spending 20 years in the middle of nowhere and not getting sick of each other. Dereck and Beverly Joubert are Emmy Award-winning filmmakers, photographers and conservationists based in Botswana. To an outsider, one of their most impressive accomplishments is simply surviving each other. Ask them about it, though, and they don't seem at all fazed. The Jouberts have a greater cause to keep them energized. No, they don't get bored; they wouldn't live any other way.
As National Geographic explorers-in-residence, the Jouberts have devoted their conservation efforts to big cats. For their most recent project, they followed one leopard for nearly five years, from her infancy to her motherhood. Her name, Legadema, means "light from the sky" in Tswana (good luck pronouncing it). She was named after a lightning storm, during which she sought comfort by the Jouberts' truck.
Over the phone from an edit studio in South Africa, the Jouberts explained how it's possible to live so close to an animal without intervening:
"The non-intervention is purely because we want to be able to understand these animals in a way that [will help] them survive in the future. ... What we are out there to do is to hopefully show people how similar we are to animals, and how these wilderness areas are so precious."
Dereck and Beverly Joubert with a 600 mm lens.
The photographs from this most recent project have been compiled in a book called Eye of the Leopard, released yesterday. Supplemented by a corresponding film, the images are meant to provoke readers to protect the swiftly diminishing big cat populations. With the help of National Geographic, the Jouberts have also spearheaded the Big Cat Initiative, a global conservation effort.
Beverly Joubert explained that leopards are special in that, unlike lions, they are incredibly solitary creatures. Perhaps the Jouberts' photographs are resonant because they share this affinity with leopards: a comfort with solitude and a proximity to nature.
Hear the Jouberts talk about the book:
Photos by Dereck and Beverly Joubert, from Eye of the Leopard, courtesy of Rizzoli New York, 2009.
The magazine has been around for a long time. Since 1888, actually -- way back when photography was still in its infancy. As the medium continued to improve, so did photojournalism, resulting in the cachet of that little yellow rectangle. Perhaps National Geographic is feeling wistful in its old age: It has recently decided to not only dust off some treasures from its vaults but also -- for the first time -- offer a limited series of photographs and illustrations for purchase.
New York's Steven Kasher Gallery will be hosting an exhibition of the prints, titled "The World in Black and White: Vintage Prints from the National Geographic Archive." It is the first of four exhibitions coordinated by National Geographic and Steven Kasher Gallery, in an attempt to share the archival history contained in National Geographic's Image Collection -- a reservoir of over 10 million photographs, of which fewer than 2 percent have been published.
The Dome Room, Carlsbad Cavern National Monument, New Mexico, 1924. (Ray V. Davis/National Geographic Society/Steven Kasher Gallery)
Iron Hoop Cave, 2009. (Stephen Alvarez/National Geographic)
For one month beginning Thursday, 150 unique black-and-whites by more than a dozen photographers from the society's earliest days will be on display. There are photographs of Capt. Robert Falcon Scott's ill-fated Terra Nova Expedition to Antarctica (a conquest for the British Empire ending in the death of an entire crew). A photograph of Carlsbad Cavern National Monument in New Mexico, taken in 1924, shows the early days of cave photography continued today by National Geographic photographers like Stephen Alvarez. Photographs from all over the world illustrate a congenital dedication to exploration and discovery.
This initial exhibition is merely a preview of the National Geographic Society's vast reserves. Stay tuned for more exhibitions in the coming year.
Hear music by the photographed musicians at Take Five, NPR's weekly jazz sampler.
When the jazz label Blue Note Records was formed 70 years ago, jazz had a sound, but hardly an identifiable face. Although the music was known and beloved by its followers, it wasn't until photographers like Francis Wolff entered the scene that the faces of jazz emerged -- and become iconic. Wolff, a refugee from Nazi Germany, was the eyes of the fledgling label beginning in the late 1930s. Initially intended as studio documentation, his black-and-white photographs became Blue Note's go-to marketing materials.
Now, for its 70th anniversary, Blue Note is looking back through its notably long history with a new book, Blue Note Photography. Divided in two sections, the book compares the jazz world of Francis Wolff with that of contemporary Blue Note photographer Jimmy Katz. To get a more personal perspective on the book, NPR jazz savant Felix Contreras caught up with Katz.
FELIX CONTRERAS: Which have you been longer, a photographer or a jazz fan? JIMMY KATZ: I have been photographing since the age of 7, but I became a jazz fan in high school when Nat Hentoff, the father of one of my classmates, gave me a ticket to hear Thelonious Monk and Art Blakely and the Jazz Messengers at Carnegie Hall. That concert changed the world as I knew it.
It's nice to think that those underwater scenes in Atonement were filmed on the site of a lovely English manor. Or that the fiery scene in Elizabeth: The Golden Age, in which horses and seamen are jettisoned into the Thames, was shot along the famous river. The reality, though, is a lot less romantic. Those scenes, and many more, were actually filmed in a giant tank at a place called Pinewood Studios in the United Kingdom.
It's one of the largest studios in England and the place to go when in need of a watery scene. Sharon Stone, Keira Knightley and Guinness have all been there, and Phoebe Rudomino has photographed them. Taking versatility to the extreme, she has photos ranging from ethereal ballerinas in Parisian parlors to horses and chubby babies. A selection of her underwater work will be displayed at London's Movieum throughout October, in an exhibition titled "Water on the Lens."
Style spectator sports like Project Runway and online boutiques such as Etsy.com point to a new trend in fashion: democratization. Although there's still nothing like sifting through a clunky brick of Vogue, the style zeitgeist of late has been to look around for inspiration -- to be innovative and creative even if on a dime. That's the spirit of Scott Schuman's blog The Sartorialist, something of an anthropological study of street wear.
After 15 years in the fashion industry, Schuman has grown to prefer the trickle-up trendsetting of ordinary folks. Camera in tow, he wanders the streets of New York, Milan, Paris, etc., photographing strangers and dispatching daily inspiration -- from snug Italian suits to high-top sneaks and studs. Just in time for New York Fashion Week, which starts today, we caught up with Schuman about his new book. The Sartorialist, published in August, is a stout, coffee-table look book of Schuman's blog content.
But Schuman's interests surpass the sartorial. He said in a phone interview that he considers himself first a photographer, then a blogger and style connoisseur. His photographs, especially in book form, become less of a shopping list and more of a lens on self-expression. Much like his documentary predecessors August Sander and Mike Disfarmer, Schuman finds intrigue in the quotidian.
The cover image to Schuman's book, courtesy Penguin Group.
From his book we can learn a lesson about what we wear. Take a second look at that hoary-headed hobo on the street, Schuman instructs; it might actually be a creative director at Ralph Lauren. Think twice before chucking your mom's frumpy wool sweater; it could pair well with those plaid pants you thought you'd never wear -- if you're confident enough to give it a try.
Schuman is under no pretense that his blog -- or that blogs in general -- should replace fashion magazines and the styles introduced by designers. He's simply giving a voice to those who take fashion seriously outside of the magazine world. During this week's events at Bryant Park, he said, he'll give equal heed to both the runway and the surrounding scene. It should be interesting, he said, to see how the recent recession has informed the designers. Check his blog for potential updates, and to learn more about his book.
A luminous "butterfly" nebula fans out from a dying star, a turbulent cloud of gas and dust gives us a peek at the birth of a constellation, and multi-colored stars fill the frame like a tray of glowing jellybeans. All these dazzling images -- and more -- come from the newly refurbished Hubble Space Telescope in a collection of photos released today by NASA.
Thanks to new imagers installed in May 2009 during a visit from the space shuttle Atlantis, Hubble can now see farther, clearer, and across a wider spectrum than ever before.
NASA says it's a new beginning for the 19-year-old orbiting observatory, and will extend its life into the next decade. For astronomers, it's a chance to probe deeper into space, capture never-before-seen images from the early days of the universe, and perhaps observe the birth of planets like ours.
And for ordinary folks who like to look up at the night sky and dream, it's what some astronomy enthusiasts call "space porn."
To learn more about the new and improved Hubble Space Telescope, and see more far-flung images, visit HubbleSite. Also, check out this audio slideshow of astronomers discussing their favorite Hubble photos.
Way out in the middle of the Indian Ocean, somewhere between Antarctica and Africa, wildlife photographer Stefano Unterthiner forged his way up a volcanic ridge and, when he finally reached the summit, stared out at the sea. Strangely, the sea appeared to be white and black, and spotted with orange -- it also appeared to be waddling. Unterthiner was staring at the sea of king penguins gathered on Possession Island in the Crozet archipelago -- tens of thousands of them ready for mating season. His photos appear in National Geographic's September story, "Every Bird a King."
Penguins are known as being "serially monogamist." Mating pairs remain together at least until their young are self-sufficient. Unterthiner is something of a monogamist as well: When he chooses to tell an animal's story, he stays with them for an extended period of time. A relatively new member of the International League of Conservation Photographers, he has authored five wildlife books, although this is his first appearance in National Geographic.
By Jim Wildman, producer for Morning Edition Photographs by David Gilkey, NPR staff photographer
When we show these photographs to NPR colleagues, nearly every one of them gasps. Perhaps that's because they're not images of detonated car bombs or ink-stained fingers or any of the other images we've come to expect out of Afghanistan.
Perhaps our colleagues are gasping because these images present an arresting display of neon lights, bright enough to rival Las Vegas. Or maybe this gasping comes with the realization that Afghans party too. Hard.
Whatever the reason, the most surprising thing about David Gilkey's photographs taken on a warm July evening in Kabul -- is that they introduce us to something that has become wonderfully ordinary in Afghanistan.
Each week, thousands of people attend weddings in Afghan wedding halls. Young people. Old people. Children. They dress up. They dance. (Men and women party separately.) They feast. They laugh. These celebrations last well in to the night.
During these times of bad economic news, it's easy to overlook the fact that millions of people in America still have work. NPR has launched a multimedia feature today called "The Way We Work" -- three profiles of people and their careers.
Domonique Taylor is a 29-year-old native of Washington, D.C. He's working at a Target store on the night shift, unloading trucks and stocking shelves. The hours are not ideal, but they do give him a chance to spend his days looking for more meaningful work. As someone who's just spent seven years in prison, he's anxious to get something going. His dream is to start a non-profit organization to record music written by prison inmates.
17th-century explorer Henry Hudson had a real knack for making his crew miserable. Among numerous failed attempts to find an all-water passage to Asia, Hudson somewhat accidentally explored what is now Manhattan -- exactly this time of year, 400 years ago. Little did his mutinous crew know, this lush landscape would become a global epicenter. It goes without saying that, were they to stumble upon it again today, they would find it slightly altered.
Although Hudson could never see today's Manhattan, we can now get an idea of what he saw that September of 1609 -- thanks to The Mannahatta Project, the brainchild of ecologist Eric Sanderson. His project, featured in National Geographic's September issue, shows New York like we've never seen it before: rural enough to make any Manhattanite shudder.
The project began when Sanderson came across a topographical map of the region dating to around 1782. The hills and ponds piqued his curiosity, so he matched that map with one from today to see what exactly preceded the Empire State Building, the Brooklyn Bridge, Times Square, etc. Artists Markley Boyer and Philip Straub re-created the old New York to contrast with Robert Clark's contemporary photographs. The result: a before and after spanning nearly half a millennium.
NPR reporter Tom Bowman and photographer David Gilkey recently returned from Afghanistan. Searching through Gilkey's unpublished photos, we came across some images that seemed to merit a dispatch.
By Tom Bowman
The Combat Search and Rescue helicopters operated by the U.S. Air Force in Afghanistan transport medics who are trained to treat the injured during that "golden hour," the moments that can mean the difference between life and death.
The medics listen to the radio from their wooden hut at Kandahar Airfield in southern Afghanistan, waiting for the call. They are briefed about combat operations that day, including where they may be sent. A large map pinpoints the locations.
They share lunch, heaving pieces of chicken onto paper plates, drinking sodas, chatting and waiting.
Suddenly, a voice squawks over the intercom, and they dash from the hut to their specially designed Black Hawk helicopters on the nearby tarmac.
Within minutes they are in the air. Two pararescuemen, Staff Sgt. Mark Bedell and Senior Airman Andrew Rios, sit with their feet dangling hundreds of feet above Kandahar province. Known as PJs (pararescue jumpers), they are trained to bring back downed pilots or provide emergency treatment to soldiers and civilians caught up in fighting.
The helicopter is all business. All the seats have been taken out, and supplies are neatly stocked to one side. There is only a wide and empty metal space. Senior Master Sgt. Walter Bacio mans an M4 machine gun, while the flight engineer, Senior Airman Andrew Gibson, gazes out the window.
In a blur, we pass over mud huts, grazing sheep, and then bank a bit too close to a mountainside. A sort of super seat belt is holding me to the floor, but I'm convinced I'll roll out of the helicopter like a marble into the dust below. NPR photographer David Gilkey is somehow snapping pictures without holding on for dear life.
The pilot, Maj. Tom Roberts, and his co-pilot, Capt. Hung Nguyen, then turn in a sharp angle and drop into a compound, less than 10 miles from Kandahar Airfield. The whoosh of the helicopter blades is almost deafening. Two Americans are carrying an Afghan man, who has stepped on a mine, on a stretcher. He looks bewildered.
The man has lacerations and an injured groin. Within seconds they are hustling him onboard, the stretcher fastened to the metal floor. His head lolls back and forth as the PJs work on him. An IV needle is put into his arm. As he is stabilized, a peaceful look covers his face.
The helicopter banks again and drops into a dirt field next to an Afghan military hospital. The man is carried out and placed inside an ancient ambulance. The CSAR crew rises once more into the sky, heading back to the wooden hut, waiting for still another call.
In the late '90s a private jet transported a group of Houston public school students to Saudi Arabia to hone their photography skills. Ray Carrington III relates this fact over the phone as if it is the most normal thing in the world. That's because Carrington is not your typical teacher.
Fifteen years ago he developed an intensive photography course for the students of the Magnet School of Communication at Jack Yates High School in Houston. The former chief photographer for the Port Authority of Houston, Carrington crafted it not because he had always wanted to be a teacher but for rather the opposite reason: The idea of teaching seemed stifling to him. A friend talked him into the position, but if he was going to do it, he was going to do it his way -- pushing young photographers toward work good enough to hang in museums.
His method involves a complex subject: Third Ward, the neighborhood where the school is located. Year after year, he lets his students loose in the neighborhood, near downtown Houston, pushing them to see the traditionally black area's people and buildings with a fresh set of eyes. Whether they happen to already live there or are bused from across town, the students all discover something new.
This photo, taken by Ylonda Rodgers in 1996, is one of Carrington's favorites.
Every year, the best photos are exhibited in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston. (The photos in the gallery above were all exhibited in the popular show.)
"I'm a traditionalist. If it ain't broke, don't fix it," Carrington declares, explaining why he has no plans to alter his approach; his students will spend their first year getting down the basics of aperture and shutter speed on a film camera. Only later will they experiment with digital photography.
He has been awed by the results in the past.
"There are some that really just hit my heart -- because the image is so clean and pure with light and contrast -- and sometimes it's a combination of what they write."
Carrington's students write about the people and moments they uncover in the school's backyard; a mother combing her daughter's hair; a boy offering a first kiss; boarded-up homes and fancy new condos.
The one element of the project that has changed over the years is the neighborhood itself, which is quickly becoming gentrified. Old buildings have been torn down; fancy new condos have gone up.
"My only regret is not to have taken more architectural photos," Carrington says. Some of the buildings his first students took for granted are now gone.
At some point, Carrington says, he'd like to put together a book with images from over the years -- more than a few of which were taken by students who are now professional photographers.
A photograph of a 53-year-old naked man, sitting on a child's chair, beat out 15,000 other entries from across the world in the Art of Photography competition in San Diego this weekend.
Benoit Paille, who made the unusual portrait, met the man on the street one day. Paille, who often asks elderly strangers if he can photograph them, was invited to the fellow's home. To his surprise, the man, who had recently lost his mother, chose to express his loneliness by removing his clothes and crouching on a tiny chair.
"It is a remarkable photograph in its piercing representation of an acute and specific human state," explains the show's sole judge, Charlotte Cotton, the head of the photography department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
Cotton, who sifted through thousands of photos by amateurs and professionals alike, says she was searching for photos that capture the wonder of the world -- whether through connections with strangers or kin. Another one of Cotton's favorites was Martine Fougeron's photograph of her teen sons and their friends, reclining on colorful bean bags.
"What I love about it," says Cotton, over the phone after the show, "is that she has a digital maturity, but there's also that sense of someone taking out the camera for the first time, this freshness."
She calls the fourth-place winner, "one of the best biographical stories that photography has crafted in the 2000s." See if you agree, by exploring more of Fougeron's Tete a Tete project here.
The Art of Photography exhibit, featuring the submissions, is open until Nov. 1.
Dennis Stock is a living testament to the fact that dropping out of school may not be the worst idea. Still sharp as a tack at 81 -- maybe even sharper -- he says euphemistically, "Formal education is not my cup of tea." In his youth, he probably wasn't even the tea-drinking type. Stock's idea of rejuvenation involved road trips, camp-outs, cultural immersion and long-term photo essays for Life and other publications. Nowadays, his archive is a treasure trove to the Americana-loving historian. And it's largely because he had the guts to quit school and hit the road. In the late 1960s, he was photographing the Woodstock Generation, but he was also one of its free-spirited, anarchistic exemplars.
A collection of Stock's photographs from the late '60s is now on display in his hometown, at the Center for Photography at Woodstock in New York. It's a timely exhibit, coinciding with the free-loving festival's 40th anniversary this month, and it was also a good excuse to get the renowned Magnum photographer on the phone.
In workshops and lessons, Stock teaches what he calls the "articulate image" -- that is, an image that conveys the "essence of a situation." He's certainly more comfortable explaining what makes a good photograph than, say, his infamously taciturn predecessor Henri Cartier-Bresson, who influenced nearly every photographer in the late 20th century but refused to admit it.
It seems that there's an inherent intuition to great photographers -- something that cannot be taught, and something that Stock just has. There are a few photos I've encountered in life, for example, that have really resonated -- images that, for whatever reason, I cannot get out of my mind. And one of them is Stock's Venice Beach Rock Festival, 1968.
Venice Beach Rock Festival, Calif., 1968. (Dennis Stock)
Hear Stock discuss his photo:
It was taken, as the title says, at a rock festival in California, when a girl jumped in front of Stock's camera on stage. It was a fleeting, accidental moment, and yet the photo itself is timeless. Perhaps it's because Stock was both curious about and accepting of his (counter) culture that, when it comes to articulate images, his are some of the most eloquent. If there's one lesson to be learned from Stock, it has nothing to do with composition or lighting or f-stops -- it's about being adventurous and observant and, heaven forbid, maybe even a bit rebellious.
Hear Stock discuss some of his greatest photos on Magnum's Web site: James Dean, jazz musicians, his award-winning immigrant series and, most importantly, hippies.
Harold Feinstein's career took off in 1950, when photography legend Edward Steichen purchased his work for the Museum of Modern Art's permanent collection. Since then, Feinstein has compiled books of 100 flowers and 100 seashells -- and now he has become something of a lepidopterist.
You guessed it: Feinstein's latest pursuit is butterflies. His new book, One Hundred Butterflies, is a simple concept that shows off the variegated wingspans. Magnified and removed from their natural environments, they appear as flying, flapping works of art -- although they are actually in the same taxonomic class as ants and wasps. In any case, it's pretty cool to see butterflies the size of your face. Visit Feinstein's Web site to see more of his work, especially the section dedicated to Coney Island. Look out for the book this November.
When we think of photography "greats," we usually rattle off names like Ansel Adams, Richard Avedon or Henri Cartier-Bresson. It often seems as if we've forgotten an entire hemisphere of photographic history. But two exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art aim to change that. "The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography" and "Photography Now: China, Japan, Korea" show off SFMOMA's extensive postwar Japanese photography collection, and also incorporate some more contemporary photography from China and Korea.
"The Provoke Era: Postwar Japanese Photography," the museum's first survey of postwar Japanese photography, includes nearly a hundred pictures from the 1960s through the 1990s. These photos document Japan's transformation in the wake of its World War II defeat. Evolving from a traditionally conservative society to a democratic, capitalistic nation took time. But over the years, Japan embraced change, which often meant embracing the West.
In 1959, for example, a group of Japanese photographers united in a group called VIVO, modeled after Magnum Photos agency -- something of an industry powerhouse in the West. Likewise, a small-press photography magazine was formed in 1968. Provoke: shiso no tame no chohatsuteki shiryo (Provoke: Provocative Materials for Thought) aimed to bolster the photographic community and facilitate artistic dialogue. It also gave this exhibition its name.
Photography Now: China, Japan, Korea features photographs from 13 emerging photographers in China, as well as a selection from Korea. Here's a very small sampling of images from the exhibitions, which both open Sept. 12, and an even smaller sampling of Japanese photography -- more of a teaser introduction, if anything.
A few weeks ago, NPR's multimedia director Keith Jenkins went on All Things Considered to discuss which camera is best for you. We also asked listeners to submit summer photos to Flickr, and here are some of our favorites.
By Claire O'Neill Tune in to Weekend Edition to hear author Michael Pollan tell host Scott Simon how orchids are "the inflatable love dolls of the floral kingdom."
In 1994, John Edward Laroche was arrested for allegedly "poaching" orchids, which goes to show just how precious they are. Eight years later, Laroche was a character in Charlie Kauffman's film Adaptation, and this is what he had to say about those furtive flowers:
... what's so wonderful is that every one of these flowers has a specific relationship with the insect that pollinates it. ... And neither the flower nor the insect will ever understand the significance of their lovemaking. ... In this sense they show us how to live -- how the only barometer you have is your heart. How, when you spot your flower, you can't let anything get in your way.
That's a pretty romantic way of thinking about a plant. Michael Pollan (The Omnivore's Dilemma, In Defense of Food), on the other hand, isn't quite as charmed. His article in the September issue of National Geographic magazine, accompanied by Christian Ziegler's photography, expresses admiration -- but no such adulation.
Orchids are manipulative, self-centered, wily and sometimes downright sadistic. And yet insects and humans alike are ensnared -- perhaps for those very reasons -- by their ethereal beauty. Unlike most flowers, orchids require the help of insects and birds and pollinate. And so they have adapted, in some cases, to both look and smell like their pollinator's female counterparts. You can imagine how supremely frustrating this must be for a male insect, and how smug the orchid must feel -- that is, how it would feel if it were sentient.
We humans are by no means impervious to the orchid's charms. Pollan and Ziegler, for example, trekked around the world in an attempt to demystify some of the orchid's secrets. But while Pollan's entertaining narrative gives us pause in our orchid fever, Ziegler's photos, in this editor's humble opinion, only serve to perpetuate that flower frenzy: They are spectacular.
In the 1940s, a photographer named Gordon Parks broke into a scene that had previously been dominated by white men. He was the first black photographer to work for magazines like Life and Vogue, and the first to work for the Farm Security Administration and the Office of War Information. Born into poverty and the youngest of 15, he had a sensibility about poor living conditions. But as a renowned photographer, he also had access to some of the most famed athletes and celebrities, like Muhammad Ali and Ingrid Bergman.
This summer, it was announced that more that 4,000 prints and 20,000 negatives of Parks' work will be moved to Purchase College/State University of New York to be preserved, cataloged and made available for public view and study. The groundbreaking photographer died in 2006, and the Meserve-Kunhardt Foundation acquired his work the following year. The foundation will also be sending photos by Timothy O'Sullivan, Mathew Brady and Ed Clark along with Parks' collection to be housed by Purchase.
You can see some of Parks' photos in this gallery, some from Purchase College and others from the Library of Congress, which also has a large collection of his early work. To learn more about Parks, check out this retrospective feature put together by PDN and Kodak.
El Salvador has technically been in peacetime since its civil war ended 17 years ago. But as photographer Juan Carlos says, it "has come a long way but has not moved forward." For many Salvadorans, postwar recovery has been almost as devastating as the war itself: The country is plagued with violence, drugs and a stagnant economy -- not to mention the various natural disasters that continually impede development. Carlos, currently living in El Salvador, has documented the country's postwar struggle in his series "Duro Blandito."
"Duro Blandito" (hard soft) is a type of cheese and, in popular Salvadoran speech, an oxymoron expressing the ambiguity of life. For Carlos, the phrase also conveys the difficulty of defining peace in a postwar era. The country had been defined by civil unrest for several decades, culminating in the 1980s and '90s in a civil war to overthrow a repressive government. Peace accords were finally signed in 1992, and with that came hope for the Salvadoran people.
But El Salvador is still among the 10 poorest countries in Latin America. "In various parts of the country," Carlos says, "one can still catch sight of the stillness of time." That is, those regions have remained socio-economically stagnant for the past three decades. While things are changing slowly for Salvadorans, daily life is a struggle for many. The photos in this series say more.
Juan Carlos, like many other Salvadorans, moved to the United States in the mid-1980s and settled in California. He has since returned to El Salvador to live and work. He offered to share his story with The Picture Show, hoping that it might reach those unfamiliar with El Salvador's situation. View more of his work on his Web site.
At least in Washington, D.C., today feels like the swampiest, most oppressively hot day of the year. And in the impossible attempt to beat the heat, this collection of photos somehow seems appropriate: Gigi Cifali, London-based photographer, has a series depicting abandoned swimming pools that practically scoff at the idea of cooling off.
These photos are part of an ongoing series called "Absence of Water." Cifali, originally trained as a topographer in Naples, is interested in creating a historical archive of derelict public pools in the United Kingdom. These pools, first built in the late Victorian period, reached the height of popularity in the 1930s. But an increasing number have recently fallen into decay -- either because of diminishing civic funds or general lack of interest.
These ghostly vestiges show what happens to the things we build then abandon. Times change, and apparently so do our tastes. To view more, check out Cifali's Web site.
At first glance, there's something comical about a man chasing a runaway donkey with a country's presidential ballots on its back. But actually, that man and donkey are responsible for delivering the vote to some of the most remote regions of Afghanistan for this Thursday's election -- regions only accessible by donkey that could very easily be neglected and, until now, pretty much have been.
For this year's election, Afghanistan's second democratic election, the United Nations and the Afghan Independent Election Commission have mapped out ballot deliveries by helicopter, truck and donkey to ensure rural citizens the right to vote. NPR staff photographer David Gilkey joined election officials in the trek to deliver voting materials in the Badakhshan province in northern Afghanistan.
Despite his remote location and patchy reception, we were able to get Gilkey on the phone for a few minutes to ask him about this experience. After embedding with Marines and dodging constant fire in southern Afghanistan, and after covering the presidential campaign, Gilkey seemed grateful to see this side of the election -- a more positive side. "It gives you a whole new appreciation for our right to vote," says Gilkey. "We can't even get in the car and drive a half a mile to the elementary school to vote. But these people, don't ask me how -- they don't have phones, power or water -- will walk for two days to vote."
To learn more about the Afghanistan election, and to view more of Gilkey's photographs, check out our Afghanistan hub page.
Most photographers in Venice wield small point-and-shoot cameras and attempt to capture something like a postcard city. It's the Venice of dreams rather than the sinking, struggling Venice that exists today. But National Geographic Photographer Jodi Cobb went to Venice with a different mission: to show it as it is -- beautiful, yes, but also sad and suffering. Her photos appear in the August issue: "Vanishing Venice."
Cobb has traveled the world to document places and people. She was the first woman to win the White House News Photographer of the Year award (in 1985). She was one of the first to document intimately the lives of Japanese geishas, and to photograph in China after it was reopened to the West. Compared to her other assignments, Venice, probably one of the most photographed cities in the world, must have seemed like old news.
But there's definitely a story to tell there. Venice, which indeed has a longstanding tradition of tourism, has in recent years faced an identity crisis. As acqua alta, or high tide, causes irreversible infrastructural damage, the cost of maintenance is almost unsustainable. One funding solution has been to open the flood gates to the tide of tourism. It's a mainstay for the Venetian economy, but also a curse for Venice locals. The population has diminished remarkably in the past few decades. Will there still be a Venice in 50 years? Or will it merely be a drowning museum?
Cobb's photos show us the Venice rarely seen in guidebooks. View more of her photos and read the story here. Also check out an interactive map of Venetian flood patterns.
The year is 1956. We're deep in the throes of the Cold War. And as European powers are divested of colonial possessions, the Soviet Union is shrewdly dispatching cultural envoys around the world -- dancers, musicians and artists -- to win the trust and loyalty of newly emerging nations.
Meanwhile, the U.S. government is clambering in search of its own diplomatic edge. A voice of reason then emerges from the panic: Adam Clayton Powell Jr., a Harlem congressman, steps up and says, "Let's send Dizzy." There's no better way to win hearts and minds than through the irrepressible forces of jazz, he proposes.
Dizzy Gillespie plays for snakes. Karachi, Pakistan, 1956. (Courtesy of the Marshall Stearns Collection, Institute of Jazz Studies, Rutgers University)
"Of course!" thought the State Department. Not only was jazz a uniquely American art form, but also a democratic one. The rules were loose, the music free-flowing -- and the musicians were ideal diplomats: All they wanted was to jam with "local cats." In turn, these jazz artists spread the image of an accepting, inquisitive and just plain cool America.
Jazz had already been popularized abroad through various circuits, namely Willis Conover's "Music U.S.A.," a Voice of America radio program. Intimate interviews and live performances were broadcast globally, providing diversion and comfort to those behind the Iron Curtain and beyond.
But the real leg up for jazz came when the U.S. State Department decided to officially sponsor a series of ambassadorial jazz tours that would run through the 1970s. (A form of these tours still exists today.) With government funding, musicians like Dizzy Gillespie could assemble all-star bands to tour the world as cultural diplomats -- "jambassadors," if you will -- keen to expand their musical horizons by experimenting with new instruments and new people. And the international crowds loved it.
Miles Davis and the Yamaha group at the Newport-Belgrade Jazz Festival. Belgrade, Yugoslavia, 1973. (Courtesy of Special Collections, University of Arkansas Libraries, Fayetteville)
This diplomatic experiment was not documented by one particular person. But photos from the jazz tours have found their way to various archives and collections around the country. Not until recently could many be found in one place to present a coherent vision of the jazz tours. With the help of libraries and special collections -- as well as avid fans -- Meridian International Center in Washington, D.C., has assembled an exhibit called "Jam Session: America's Jazz Ambassadors Embrace The World."
The exhibit itself isn't news; it's been around for about a year. What's exciting is that "Jam Session" has been copied six times and has recently embarked upon a three-year, worldwide tour with the State Department. Meridian is thus igniting something of a second life for the original diplomatic tours. Hear Meridian's Curtis Sandberg, co-curator of the exhibit with Penny Von Eschen, discuss a few of the exhibit's most iconic images in this audio slideshow.
Meridian International Center, founded in 1960, is a leading nonpartisan, not-for-profit institution in Washington, D.C., dedicated to building sustainable global partnerships through leadership exchanges, international collaboration and cultural diplomacy. Its international art exhibitions present the social and political dynamics of countries around the world and have reached 44 U.S. states and 27 countries.
Has your appetite for jazz knowledge been piqued? If so, head over to NPR's jazz blog, A Blog Supreme, for an impossibly vast outpouring of jazz-related things.
There's no doubt you've seen the iconic National Geographic image of the "Afghan Girl." That photo was made by photographer Steve McCurry in Pakistan in 1984 -- and, although indeed one of the most memorable stills of this past century, it has almost come to overshadow the rest of his portfolio. But McCurry's work has been featured in nearly every major magazine around the world, and he is undoubtedly one of the best living photographers in his field.
McCurry's career took off when he moved to India in 1978. A young freelancer, he bought a one-way ticket, stashed a few thousand dollars, and packed two suitcases: one full of clothes, and the other full of 250 rolls of Kodachrome film. Since then, he has produced award-winning photographs and stories in Beirut, Cambodia, Afghanistan, India -- literally all over the world.
He lives the solitary life of a traveler almost nine months out of the year. Immersing himself in every culture he encounters, McCurry is as much an anthropologist and humanitarian as he is a documentary photographer. He's a master of light, of composition and color, and his photographs tell the story of not one culture, but of humanity on the whole -- struggles and triumphs alike.
An exhibition of his work will be opening at Colorado's (solar-powered!) Open Shutter Gallery Aug. 21, and will continue through Oct. 1.
Kodak recently honored McCurry with the very last roll of Kodachrome film, a retired product as of this past June. Listen to the NPR story on All Things Considered.
Read this story about McCurry's return to Pakistan to find Sharbat Gula, the Afghan girl, in 2002.
Sharbat Gula, or the "Afghan girl," in 1984 and 2002, Peshawar, Pakistan (Steve McCurry)
For nearly 40 years, Richard Misrach's eye has been drawn to landscapes -- or maybe the more accurate term would be topologies: studies of shapes and movement and light, whether the subject be a mountain chain or a forest fire or a collection of people on a beach.
As is the case for many photographers, Misrach's early influences were landscape artists like Ansel Adams and social documentarians like Dorothea Lange. With a fastidious technical approach, he surfed the creative artistic wave of the 1960s, arriving at a distinctive vision: large-scale color photographs, teetering on the verge of surreal. Part of this vision, his On The Beach series, is now on display at Atlanta's High Museum Of Art.
It's not easy to capture fleeting beach scenes with a cumbersome 8x10 camera, Misrach once explained in a National Gallery of Art interview. Even when working quickly, it can take over a minute to successfully make a photograph -- just enough time for a swimmer to float right out of the frame. But it's that painstaking process that makes Misrach's photos so interesting. His post-production experiments help, too. Using digital tools, Misrach has played with cropping and what he calls "digital intervention" -- or removing extraneous objects and figures.
Cropping both the horizon and the sky from the frame, Misrach provides an aerial, seemingly omniscient view of swimmers and sunbathers below. Although the beach is typically a destination for relaxation, there's a certain foreboding and vulnerability to these photos. Which is partially because they were made in the days after September 11, when anxiety was high, as was the desire to just get away. It's these nuances of human behavior that distinguish Misrach's landscapes from those of his predecessors.
To learn more about Misrach and his "On The Beach" series, check out the High Museum's Web feature.
Hear the artist discuss his work with Sarah Greenough, senior curator of photographs at the National Gallery of Art, in a three-part podcast.
It can be said that photographer Anthony Hernandez has a "street-level" view of Los Angeles. He captures everyday life in the city, often buried beneath perceptions of the glitz and glamour of red carpets and Hollywood stars. Hernandez's work represents local L.A. -- his L.A.
Born in Los Angeles in 1947, Hernandez began his career in the late 1960s with no formal artistic training. He hit the city sidewalks with a pre-focused 35mm camera, searching for subjects to represent the urban character of his hometown. Thus began a career of "street photography."
The Vancouver Art Gallery is hosting an exhibit that guides visitors through 70 photographs encompassing Hernandez's work from 1970 to 1984.
"His work captures the alienated and the unexplored locals of LA beyond the cliche glamour of Hollywood to tell greater truths about urban life," Vancouver Art Gallery director Kathleen Bartels said in a release.
Hernandez eventually moved from a small 35mm Leica, which allowed him to take quick, reflexive photographs, to a large-format camera and tripod in the late 1970s and early '80s. With this setup, he mostly focused on transitional spaces throughout the urban landscape, photographing people in public transit areas, public use areas, public fishing areas and automotive landscapes.
The self-titled exhibit runs until Sept. 7. To learn more, check out the exhibition Web site.
"The rain forest is really messy," says photographer Christian Ziegler. Armed with a camera and a headlamp, he would plunge into the wilds of Panama at night, foraging for what look like sticks and leaves. But when the sticks started crawling and the leaves walked up branches or hopped about the forest floor, Ziegler knew to raise his camera.
No, it's not magic, it's mimicry. Ziegler, first a tropical ecologist, then a photographer, was working on a story for the August issue of National Geographic magazine. "The Art of Deception" is a tale of evolutionary marvels: insects and creatures so well adapted to blend in with their surroundings that they practically disappear during the day.
National Geographic provided The Picture Show with desaturated images to show these creatures in relief. Click through the gallery to see them emerge from hiding. Learn more about mimicry behavior from the photographer in this National Geographic interactive.
I have never seen so many rainbows in my life. They were everywhere -- fat ones, skinny ones, straight ones, bowed ones. But what did I expect? I was in a rain forest. And I had traveled through one of the wettest places on the entire planet, Quince Mil, a town named after the 15,000 millimeters (that's about 50 feet) of rain it got one year.
NPR's John Poole shows shares some photos from his recent voyage through the Amazon.
But one rainbow took the cake. Actually, it was two rainbows -- a double rainbow. And not only did it appear over my head, but also all the way around and underneath me and the little prop plane I was in. Looking back on it, I'm not sure I'd believe it ever happened at all, which makes me happy to have grabbed a digital image of it.
But rainbows weren't the main reason I was flying over the Peruvian rain forest. NPR had sent me and reporter Lourdes Garcia Navarro to Peru to travel overland along the soon-to-be-completed Interoceanic Highway that will, for the first time, connect the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of South America through Brazil and Peru. It's part of larger plan to more closely connect the countries of South America through trade, but it has conservationists and scientists worried about what it will mean for the rain forest species and ecosystems that lie in its path.
We're currently working on a radio and Web series about what we heard and saw along the way, but in advance of that, The Picture Show wanted a preview. So, with no more delay, here are some pictures from the Andes and the Amazon (with a few of Machu Picchu and the Sacred Valley thrown in for fun).
Also, as a bonus for any GPS nerds out there, I plotted the pictures on a Google map -- which can also be viewed in Google Earth -- possibly my favorite app. Click the screen shot below to have a look:
Sebastian Copeland went to the Earth's southernmost continent -- Antarctica -- with a mission to take one specific picture. He never planned on making a book. But six weeks and 6,000 pictures later, Copeland had enough images to create what is now a book: Antarctica: A Global Warning.
Based on a similar effort in the Arctic, Copeland traveled to Antarctica on behalf of Global Green USA in order to arrange people in a way that would issue a warning to the world about climate change:
Sebastian Copeland
Photographing a region like Antarctica took what Copeland describes as "constant adjustment" in order to get the pictures he wanted. He faced geographic hurdles in trying to reach the regions he wanted to photograph. And even when he managed to physically get where he needed to be, nature took its toll: "It's cold, it's wet, distant from any type of civilization ... or help if something goes wrong," Copeland described.
Despite the conditions, he did manage to get on land to take his favorite picture featured in the book. He even managed to wrangle up a tripod and photograph this image as a large format panoramic:
Sebastian Copeland
As for his decision to photograph Antarctica in the first place, Copeland's answer was simple. "Nothing communicates climate change as effectively as ice," he said. In six months, he will be heading back to again photograph Antarctica and the effects of global warming. This time, however, he won't have a problem hitting land to shoot. He'll be covering 800 miles of the territory on foot.
At 86, Herman Leonard has seen and photographed a lot. Born in Pennsylvania in 1923, he moved to New York City after serving in the army during World War II. He was young, photography was evolving and jazz was in its heyday. Packed, smoky nightclubs became Leonard's regular haunts. But he also had special access to jazz events and festivals. In light of the upcoming 55th Newport Jazz Festival (check out NPR Music's special coverage), Leonard looks back at some of his earliest festival photographs of the jazz greats -- taken nearly 55 years ago.
Louis Armstrong, Newport Jazz Festival, 1955 (Courtesy Herman Leonard Photography, LLC)
Herman Leonard in Studio City, Calif. (Corey Takahashi)
The inaugural Newport Jazz Festival, established by jazz impresario George Wein, was held in 1954. The following year, Wein hosted the festival at his home, where these images were taken. Through the years, Leonard has photographed Einstein, Brando and Sartre -- but it's his images of jazz musicians that have the most soul.
Having seen nearly nine decades of both musical and photographic evolution, Leonard shared his stories with reporter Corey Takahashi. Hear the veteran reflect on the digitization of his vocation:
Previously based out of New Orleans, Leonard lost a large part of his photographic archives in Hurricane Katrina. Hear him discuss this experience, as well as his photographic career, on All Things Considered.
Leonard was also recently awarded a $33,000 Grammy grant to digitize his archives.
Somehow it's already August! That means much of the summer has passed, and soon we'll be retiring our swimsuits and preparing for fall. In America, this is also the season for state fairs: wonderfully gluttonous gatherings where fried foods, centrifugal force and prized livestock reign supreme. In the most recent issue of National Geographic, A Prairie Home Companion's Garrison Keillor writes an ode to the state fair, accompanied by Joel Sartore's photography. Hear Keillor discuss it on Talk of the Nation.
With dry humor Keillor describes that strange love/hate relationship so many of us have with these festive affairs. We're seduced by the food, the crowds, the rides, the carnival culture in general. And, oddly enough, those are the same things that leave us feeling sick and exhausted by the end of the day.
Sartore, best known as a wildlife photographer, was seduced by the fair as well -- probably by the same observational inklings that routinely land him in the wild. Fairs are, after all, a breeding ground for odd and visually interesting behavior. Livestock and look-alike competitions, the whirring lights of roller coasters at night, "carnies" performing tricks and feats -- Sartore's photographs take us on a tour of the distinctly American adventure that is a state fair.
To view more photos, and to read Keillor's article, check out ngm.com. Also take a look at this gallery of user-submitted fair photos.
Polaroids may be retired, but Denver-based photographer Matt Slaby hasn't stopped using them. Contrarily, he takes them all the time. The instant, lo-res quality of his personal work provides a contrast to his professional, digital assignments. And, because he takes them all over the country while covering various stories, the images together present a unique vision of America: black and white, blurred, seemingly vintage but contemporary.
An Abe Lincoln impostor next to a Barack Obama painting creates a strange sense of suspended time. Flags, guns, neighbors grilling, political conventions, front-yard portraits: Slaby captures the candid moments that typify life in America.
He calls his Polaroid series "Along The Way," but he says it's a working title -- which is appropriate, because the series itself is a work in progress. It's always growing and always changing, but it still provides a thread of consistency through all of his work.
View more of Slaby's Polaroids, as well as the rest of his work, on his Web site. Be sure to check out his series "My Diving Bell:" road trip photos taken through a small car window.
The main topic of conversation at the World Swimming Championships in Rome this week has been those new-fangled swimsuits. The neck-to-ankle suits, enhanced with polyurethane, and now rubber, popped onto the scene in 2000 when they were cleared for competition at the Sydney Olympic Games. A number of world records have been broken since then, prompting swimming's governing body, FINA, to ban "non-textile" suits and limit the amount of coverage -- between the waist and knees for men, not past the shoulders or below the knees for women. The new standards, passed on Friday, will take effect in May 2010.
With the new ruling, who knows what we will see at the next Olympic Games? We take a look at the history of competitive swimsuits, from the teeny-tiny Speedo briefs to full-body coverage and back.
Dehydration, sleep deprivation, boots soggy with sweat, 100 pounds of gear and 15 miles in 126-degree heat. Lance Cpl. Joseph Dills says you have no idea how bad it is until you do it. Luckily, NPR's staff photographer David Gilkey was embedded with Dills' battalion in Afghanistan, which gives us a rare glimpse of what life is like for Marines in the field.
Ahead of the 2009 presidential elections in Afghanistan, U.S. Marines with the 2nd Battalion, 8th regiment trekked miles each day, facing heavy resistance, in order to secure parts of Helmand province in the south. Watch Gilkey's video to get an idea of what it was like.
Photographing a model who is both beautiful and comfortable before a camera is one thing. But how do you capture the intellect of a writer? Marion Ettlinger may not have an answer or a formula, but she still knows how to do it. She's worked with Truman Capote, Haruki Murakami, Joyce Carol Oates, David Foster Wallace, Cormac McCarthy, Alice Munro... the list goes on. And despite the fact that these authors are not quite as comfortable as models, Ettlinger has done it with apparent ease.
"How do you photograph that invisible thing?" Ettlinger mused aloud in an interview. That "thing" she's referring to is the elusive gift that produces good literature. Fascinated by questions like these, and by the contrast between a person's interior and exterior, she has been drawn to portraits since her early days. She took to sketching strangers at a young age, and translated those observational skills into photography while at art school.
Ettlinger's deference for her subjects shows in both her insightful images and her reluctance to talk too much about the authors. She did, however, share with Fresh Air's Terry Gross one particularly interesting story about photographing an intractable Truman Capote. Ettlinger doubts she'd make a good street photographer because she would "probably always miss the decisive moment," as she put it. But there are decisive moments in private, consensual settings as well -- and those, it's safe to say, she never misses. For that reason, she has become the nation's industry expert in author portraiture.
If you check out her Web site, you'll most likely see many of your favorite authors. Or just pull a book from a shelf and you might see her work on the jacket. Some of Ettlinger's most recent photographs can be viewed in the gallery above.
Imagine attaching yourself to a rope and plunging down a 437-foot shaft into a pitch black pit. A "room" so dark you can't even see your hand in front of your face, and so immense that your friends can't hear you, even if you shout. Imagine trying to coordinate four other people dangling from walls to ignite magnesium flash powder (i.e. explosives) at the exact same moment so that for one split second, the space is brilliantly illuminated -- like a burst of lightning -- just long enough for you to click the shutter and say, "Got it!"
Stephen Alvarez does this sort of thing for a living. He's a National Geographic photographer, expert spelunker and, incidentally, a pyrotechnician. And he knows dedication. Each of his photographs, he says, can consume up to three days of his life. And in the end, only a few of them are published. Alvarez spent nearly 50 days in the field for a story in the June issue of National Geographic magazine, for example. The writer of the story spent about five.
But Alvarez really has something going for him: he's one of the few people in the world with the expertise for this rare genre of adventure photography. He's been all over the world photographing not only the most complex cave systems, but also all "places that haven't been cut down yet," as he puts it. This recent National Geographic story took him through the deep South: the caves of Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia -- commonly known to cavers as the TAG system.
"It is uncharted territory," says Alvarez. "If you want to do original physical exploration, you don't have a lot of choices. You can go to the deep ocean, which is prohibitively expensive. All the mountains have been climbed; the whole surface of the earth has been mapped. So that leaves you the underground world."
An underground world that has been millennia in the making and, in most instances, has remained untouched by man. Which is why cavers are reluctant to talk about discoveries and why, one would think, they'd hesitate to share their secret spots with a national magazine. But, as Alvarez says, the cavers in this story "were very receptive to the idea that this thing that they love would be shared with millions of people." They're protective of their caves, but more than anything, they want to share their excitement.
Alvarez shares a few stories about his background, about his life as a National Geographic photographer, and about the making of this magazine story. Here's a video of some field footage from the making of this article.
Most foreigners seeking tranquility do not choose Caracas. Other parts of Venezuela perhaps -- the coast or Angel Falls. But photojournalists often have a skewed sense of calm. So when Christopher Anderson decided he was done photographing Mideast conflict zones, a few years back, he headed straight for Venezuela's capital. This was in 2004, as the country was preparing for a referendum on whether to keep President Hugo Chavez -- and as crime there was building to a crescendo that would gain it recognition as "murder capital of the world."
"I thought, let's go check it out. Then I kind of got sucked into the place," Anderson recalls over the phone.
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His latest book, Capitolio, coming out next month (Picture Show got a sneak peak) is the product of his five years there. The project recently pushed him to the top of a short list of photographers nominated for the environmental Prix Pictet award, another notch on his long awards belt.
The stunning black-and-white-photos hit on various aspects of life in the capitolio; shoot-em-ups between drunk police on motorcycles and streets gangs, slums writhing with sex and violence and, naturally, Chavez lovers and haters.
Even for a seasoned conflict photographer, Caracas proved a difficult place to photograph, he says. At first the government welcomed him, but then life got more complicated. He was arrested numerous times; people were perpetually suspicious of him.
"In Venezuela, the camera is a weapon for both sides of the issue, whether you are pro- or anti-Chavez," he recalls.
And so he took to using a small Contax T3 point-and-shoot which he says fit nicely into his fanny-pack, where no one would suspect that he was a serious Magnum photographer. (Note: the Picture Show endorses the use of fanny-packs only in special circumstances.)
The police let Anderson tag along during their frequent gun battles with gangs, which often occurred while drinking on motorcycles, he says. Christopher Anderson/Magnum
For the most part, he didn't take assignments during this period, he says, because he "didn't want to be controlled." He wanted to let the experience unfold without any predetermined plan.
Amid the rallies and oil fields, it's apparent that he did find moments of tranquility: an ethereal reflection in a window; a dog prancing through a cobweb of shadows; mist floating over tiny houses. In the book, these moments of peace are often juxtaposed with more jarring imagery -- a reminder of the contradictions inherent in Chavez Land.
Magnum put together an interesting audio slideshow of his photos, as well, that is worth checking out. The book, published by Editorial RM , should be available in late August.
The best way to photograph a culture is to first understand it. This is what makes Alexandra Avakian such an effective photojournalist: For nearly two decades, she has traveled the world from Mississippi to Iran studying, documenting and immersing herself in various Muslim cultures. For Avakian, her new book, Windows of the Soul: My Journey in the Muslim World, is a stunning visual recollection of the things she has seen. For the rest of us, it's an intimate introduction to a richly diverse Muslim world.
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Avakian has arguably seen the worst: war, poverty, repression, death. A regular contributor to National Geographic and a member of Contact Press Images, she has also been published in The New York Times Magazine, Life and Time, to name a few. Even from a young age, she was drawn to stories of struggle, revolution and conflict. In her words:
Focal Point/National Geographic, 2008
I had been fascinated by revolution and civil war and longed to learn more about the lengths to which people go to change their living conditions and achieve basic human rights. I was less interested in ideology than in the human capacity for bravery in the fight for freedom.
Her photos take us from Gaza to Iran, from Somalia to Pennsylvania. A young boy in Morocco, arms crossed, maybe 9 years old, smokes a cigarette with a smirk as others play foosball; a Sufi worshiper wails on his knees after having swallowed glass shards -- a gesture of religious penitence; children glow in evening light as they play in a rusty, abandoned car at a refugee camp in Gaza. Avakian has traveled the world working on many different kinds of stories, but has found herself often drawn back to the Middle East.
Some of her photographs are difficult to look at -- images of famine, bloodshed and loss. But putting herself in such situations, Avakian says, was facilitated by a certain sense of mission. She writes that many Americans "see only brief news reports, which tend to prominently feature violence and anger. While my own photographs contributed to these quick news bites," she continues, "there is much more to the story." Her work tells that story, because although some photos are difficult to look at, many others show quiet moments, both happy and sad, that humanize what for many is just a news story. One might say that Avakian is as much an anthropologist as she is a photographer.
D.C. readers will have a chance to see Avakian present her work tomorrow at the Middle East Institute. Read more about the event.
Millions across the world took to the streets early this morning to relish a rare sight: a total solar eclipse. The moon moved directly between the sun and the Earth for as long as 6 minutes and 39 seconds in some parts, making it the longest such event of the 21st century. And here's an even rarer sight: millions of people wearing dorky glasses.
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Starting off in India just after dawn, the eclipse was visible throughout parts of Asia before moving over southern Japan and then into the Pacific Ocean. From Hawaii to South America, young and old gathered with their special viewing devices, watching in wonder as the sky turned black. Dogs barked, people cried, cows acted strangely.
Meanwhile, photographers from across the globe gave up their own precious viewing moments and snapped away. Check it out. There won't be a longer eclipse until 2132.
The eclipse as seen in the Indian city of Varanasi on Wednesday. Pedro Ugarte/AFP/Getty Images
New iPhones have three. Most point-and-shoot digital cameras have about 10. The Canon 5D Mark II has a ridiculous 21.1. Megapixels, that is. So imagine what 0.3 megapixels look like. (Here's a hint: pretty terrible.) That's what inspired Michal Daniel to use a camera of that size. While everyone else was shopping around for the highest quality camera, he was hunting for the worst.
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The real source of inspiration for Daniel was Star Trek, his favorite show in the early 1970s. "I dreamt of an electronic notebook with a camera, like the personal communicators on the Enterprise," he writes. He purchased a now-obsolete Eyemodule2 -- which offers the lowest resolution possible -- attached it to a digital organizer (something like a Palm Pilot), and was instantly stealthy as a spy.
Daniel's camera
Typically a photographer of theater, he was seeking candid, offstage moments, but felt hindered by clunky cameras that made his presence too obvious. The hand-held device offered a disguise. His series and book In Your Face is a small selection of images taken with this small camera, all extreme close-ups of people without guards.
Daniel quotes James Agee:
"Only in certain waking moments of suspension, of quiet, of solitude, are these guards down, and these moments are only rarely to be seen by the person himself, or by any other human being."
"This is my collection of some of these unguarded moments," he writes. Captain Kirk would undoubtedly be impressed.
By now the moon buzz may be a bit tedious. But here's an interesting fact:
In 1962, Mercury astronaut John Glenn bought a cheap 35mm camera at a Cocoa Beach, Fla., drug store, because he alone thought America's first orbital spaceflight deserved to be documented with still images. Photographer Michael Light shares this bit of information in his project Full Moon. Over time, Light explains, NASA recognized the value of in-flight photography and invested in medium-format Hasselblad cameras for the Gemini program -- arguably the best cameras out there.
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There's a selection of NASA images that we've seen over and over again. The iconic photograph of Buzz Aldrin's footprint on the moon, for example, has become something of a cliche. Nevertheless, it is a provocative image; it symbolizes both the enduring American myth of Manifest Destiny and the human impulse to explore. Mostly, though, that footprint shows the forever-altered surface of the moon that for 4.5 billion years had remained completely pristine.
Nowadays, it's easy to take the moon for granted. But on the 40th anniversary of the very first Apollo moon landing, it's still interesting to take a step back and look through NASA's photo archives -- to remember what made that first moon mission so incredible. Michael Light's Full Moon, published in 1999, is dedicated to precisely that.
As a landscape photographer drawn to new and unusual terrain, Light has something in common with the moonwalking astronauts. In an ideal world, he would have donned a spacesuit and taken photographs of the moon himself. Instead, he did the next best -- and more reasonable -- thing. He resurrected master negatives and transparencies from the NASA archives, and created a book of artfully digitized prints, mostly never before seen. The photos are from various Apollo and space exploration missions and were taken by the astronauts themselves.
A few moments with the photographs, and you'll find yourself immersed in a surreal world of cosmic winds, low gravity and 273 degrees of lunar heat. It's hard to imagine existing in those conditions, let alone photographing in a place where light and atmosphere are so far from what the human eye is used to. That's the real source of awe. And Michael Light's reverence for both the art of photography and the thrill of exploration imbues every image.
A similar project, 100 Suns, documents the era of nuclear testing, featuring previously classified photographs and spectacular explosions. Check out his Web site for more info on Full Moon and other works.
The recent death of renowned architectural photographer Julius Shulman has prompted us to take a look back at that particular genre of photography. In a rather timely coincidence, The Huntington Library in San Marino, Calif., recently announced the online opening of The Maynard L. Parker Collection -- an exhaustive catalog of the photographer's work. Much like Shulman, Parker's most successful photographs were of California homes.
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Born in Vermont in 1901, Maynard Parker was a Los Angeles-based photographer, specializing in architecture, gardens and design. Throughout the mid-century, his images were found in many of the country's most popular magazines, such as House Beautiful, Better Homes & Gardens and Architectural Digest. Not only did he photograph the homes of celebrities like Alfred Hitchcock and Judy Garland, but he also chronicled the work of the country's best architecture and design pioneers, such as Frank Lloyd Wright, Paul Laszlo and Thomas Church.
Maynard Parker sets up his camera on a forklift, Courtesy The Huntington Library
As a library statement reads, Parker's work "captured a postwar era of suburban middle class homes that celebrated an indoor outdoor lifestyle and burgeoning consumer culture. ... He captured California's outdoor lifestyle in sun washed images of the patios, lush lawns, and backyard swimming pools."
Jennifer Watts, curator of photography at The Huntington, put together an introductory presentation of Parker's work called California and the Postwar Suburban Home, which is well worth a read:
Between 1950 and 1970, the nation's suburban population doubled (from 36 million to 74 million residents), with 83 percent of the nation's growth in the suburbs. California's abundant land, cheap labor, and mild climate put it in the vanguard of the new housing movement. ... Home and garden magazines ... capitalized on housing trends and provided a blueprint for modern living.
A sleek and minimalist poolside bungalow; an office with the same stark and sleek appeal as an episode of Mad Men; a "top of the line" kitchen that to us seems so quaintly vintage: together these images create a vivid view of a distinct time and place. But the work of photographers like Parker and Shulman often goes unrecognized. Every day we flip through magazines and rarely do we stop to wonder who took the photographs. Especially in hindsight, though, we can recognize the value of photographic collections like Parker's. He and his contemporaries not only documented what at the time was modern, but they also preserved an era of design in American memory.
The Maynard L. Parker collection consists of approximately 58,000 negatives, transparencies and photographs, of which nearly 6,000 have been digitized to view online. Learn more about Parker and the collection on The Huntington Library's Web site.
The Prix Pictet is a world photography award dedicated to environmental sustainability. Twelve international photographers were named to a shortlist July 9, one of whom will be selected later this year to receive the prize.
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The prize reinforces the fact that photography has a communicative purpose. Last year's theme, water, prompted photographs of desertification, flash floods and glacial melting that showed the merciless forces of nature, as well as the environment's vulnerability to man. This year, the theme is Earth -- and the imagery is no less stunning.
Among the subjects featured by this year's finalists: a photo collage of colonial Congo and today's neglected oil infrastructure; a seemingly infinite wasteland of trash in Mexico City; displaced communities along the Yangtze River; and the horrific effects of oil production in the Niger Delta.
The images testify to the environmental cost of human "progress" and show the irreversible toll of exploiting the planet's resources. More importantly, though, the ideal is to provoke action. The artists shed light on places and issues that might otherwise seem inaccessible to people. Take a look at this gallery of nominees, and check out the Prix Pictet Web site to view entire series from each photographer. Who do you think should win?
Philip Trager has spent his life photographing two seemingly disparate subjects: architecture and dancers. In his latest exhibit, Form and Movement at The Building Museum in D.C., the two bodies of work appear side by side.
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Positioned in this way, parallels emerge between the structure of chiseled dancers and concrete walls, shadows on faces and staircases.
"Considering buildings and bodies side by side, we are invited to see the organic in what we build and the structural in who we are," the show's curator explains.
The exhibit evokes the peculiar feeling that the world has been frozen by a futuristic time-stopper. Dancers are suspended in midair, cityscapes are free of any signs of life.
"I've always had the feeling that the presence of people would interfere with my feeling of the building," Trager says, explaining his compartmentalized approach over the phone.
Likewise, when photographing dancers, he removes distractions by taking them far away from stages and by capturing them -- as he does buildings -- in natural light.
Trager never expected to make a living from photography. He started out as a lawyer. Even as he became well-known for his architectural photography in the 1970s and '80s, he spent his days in an office.
"Making a living from fine art photography was virtually impossible back then ... the prices were much lower," he says.
These days, he has moved from black-and-white film to digital color. We can look forward to a very different sort of exhibit from him, he says, a few years down the line.
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Music inspired by photography is not unheard of. Film scores, for one, rely heavily on visuals to tell a musical narrative, as the story in turn relies on the music. Jazz guitarist Bill Frisell has taken the idea to another level with a new album Disfarmer, inspired by the lifetime photographic corpus of Mike Disfarmer.
Disfarmer seems an unusual name -- and that's because the man made it up. Born Michael Meyer to immigrant German parents in 1884, he changed his name to indicate a rift with both his kin and his agrarian surroundings -- believing Meyer to be German for "farmer." This alone might set him apart as singularly unusual, but his vocation as a small town portraitist in Heber Springs, Ark. estranged him still further from his farming contemporaries.
His photographs trace the emotional ebb and flow of town life from World War I to the Great Depression, from the solemn scene before World War II to the war's more optimistic aftermath. A notoriously unfriendly oddity, Disfarmer's presence behind the camera hardly elicited grins from the townsfolk. His eccentricities and social quirks are palpable in his portraits: the subjects stand solemnly, often awkwardly -- a token of their unfamiliarity with a big camera as well as Disfarmer's personality.
This somewhat recently assembled collection of photographs provides a rare big-picture portrait of a small town and all its various faces. Chuck Helm, director of performing arts at the Wexner Center in Columbus, Ohio, had a hunch that musician Bill Frisell would be inspired by Disfarmer's photography. He could not have been more correct.
In Frisell's words:
I try to picture what went on in Disfarmer's mind. How did he really feel about the people in this town? What was he thinking? What did he see? We'll never know, but as I write the music, I'd like to imagine it coming from his point of view. The sound of him looking through the lens.
Take a listen to Frisell's album Disfarmer while clicking through these images. The haunting reverberations of steel guitar and melancholy strings will transport you to an era mostly lost to American memory -- save what's preserved in these photos. Read more about the album and the photos on NPR music.
For the Pacific Northwest, times have changed since the frontier days of Darius Kinsey. Back when both the American West and the art of photography were still young, Kinsey used a large format camera to document the logging and lumber industry. Contemporary photographer Eirik Johnson has a similar documentary project, but his images show a landscape much altered by years of deforestation.
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Johnson's series and Aperture book, Sawdust Mountain, "encompasses not only fishermen and hatchery specialists, lumber workers, and reforestation projects, but also the disenfranchised: abandoned buildings and vehicles, makeshift stores only one step above yard sales," says the introduction. It provides a glimpse of life in the overcast, wooded hinterlands of Oregon, Washington and California, and compares our romantic notions of the American West with ecological concerns of today.
Johnson has an upcoming exhibition at Henry Art Gallery in Seattle. To view more of his work, take a look at his Web site.
Images courtesy of Eirik Johnson, from the book Sawdust Mountain (Aperture, 2009).
Influence is a mysterious thing. Just when you think you've done something original, you discover something impossibly similar -- and 30 years older. To say that American photographers are influenced by Edward Hopper does not necessarily mean they're imitating him. But when you place a 1930s Hopper painting next to a 1960s Robert Adams photograph, you might be surprised by the resemblance. Perhaps the similarities can simply be attributed to a shared history and culture, but it's hard to dismiss Hopper's legacy.
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Fraenkel Gallery's new book Edward Hopper and Company takes a look at Hopper's influence on photography. He is known as a painter of loneliness and desolation. When other artists were painting abstract splatters and blocks of color, Hopper was still painting landscapes and portraits. But an eerie use of light created a sense of foreboding in his work -- an ironic type of noir that was unlike the paintings of his predecessors. With scenes of rural abandonment and urban solitude, Hopper illustrated the gothic side of the American spirit: empty, lonely and vast.
He had a deadpan way of portraying the world, and that same voice resonates in the photographs of Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans, Diane Arbus, and more. After all, these photographers, roughly around the 1960s and onward, were doing a similar thing. They were departing from the traditional landscapes of Ansel Adams and moving toward a new aesthetic: snapshots of quotidian places and faces. Jeffrey Fraenkel writes in the introduction:
Edward Hopper's relevance to American photography becomes clearer with each passing decade. His respect for humble subjects, his interest in the psychological, his depth as a landscape artist, and his astonishing sensitivity to color as a means of communicating feeling, are only some of the elements that may have led the writer Geoff Dyer to theorize that Hopper 'could claim to be the most influential American photographer of the twentieth century--even though he didn't take any photographs.'
The book compares 10 of Hopper's works with carefully selected photographs of eight masters: Adams, Friedlander, Evans and Arbus, along with Harry Callahan, William Eggleston, Robert Frank and Stephen Shore. The sole quotation from a photographer comes from Adams who recalls the first time he saw a Hopper painting as a child. "The pictures were a comfort," he writes, "but of course none could permanently transport me home. In the months that followed, however, they began to give me something lasting, a realization of the poignancy of light. With it, all places were interesting."
What do you think? Can a case be made for Hopper's influence? Or did the painter simply share an aesthetic, a culture and history with the photographers that ensued him?
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