Vivian Maier

So Vivian Maier has been big news in the last few years. One of those all too common stories about artists who aren’t recognized for their work until they are dead, or one foot in the grave.

I’m not sure why but I’ve resisted her. I wouldn’t watch the recent documentary or look up her images. My hesitancy doesn’t make any sense. She’s being compared to my great uncle Harry Callahan and she loved to take selfies. Seems like she’d be right up my alley?

However, I’m not especially drawn to street photography and I think her story sounds like it would be depressing. I mean all I know is she spent her life being a nanny.

Anyway, I’ve started shooting with my old Yashica and printing up some black and white medium format film. It has been very exciting and it got me thinking about photographer who worked with twin lens cameras. I thought first of Harry, but I’d already blogged about him. My search brought me once again to ms. maier.

Well, I’ve finally looked her up and I am committed to doing some more research and watching that documentary. Below are my favorite images that I found and a link to her website. I’ll update once I’ve learned more…

http://www.vivianmaier.com/

Gertrude Käsebier

Gertrude Kasebier was an American photographer who studied painting at the Pratt Institute in New York as well as in France and Germany.

Kasebier began her professional photographic career in 1894, as a magazine illustrator, in 1898 she opened a portrait studio in New York. Some of her portrait subjects included Auguste Rodin and chorus girl Evelyn Nesbit.

Käsebier was a founding member of the Photo-Secession group.

She generally printed on platinum or gum bichromate emulsions and often altered her photographs by retouching a negative or by rephotographing an altered print. She was the leading woman pictorialist.

Kasebier’s images are dreamy and romantic. And her story is interesting. She was married at 22, to a socially well-placed and financially able businessman. They had 3 children. But Kasebier was unsatisfied. She wrote that she was miserable throughout most of her marriage and said, "If my husband has gone to Heaven, I want to go to Hell. He was terrible...Nothing was ever good enough for him.”

At that time divorce was a scandalous thing, so the couple remained married while living separate lives. Her husband supported her financially and she decided to attend art school at the age of 37, an age when most women were pretty much done - she was just getting started!

Guy Bourdin

Guy Bourdin was a French photographer known for his sexy, mysterious and often dangerous fashion photography.

 Bourdin met Man Ray in Paris, in 1950 and became his protégé. As an artist Bourdin’s first exhibition was of drawings and paintings at Galerie, Rue de la Bourgogne, Paris.

His first photographic exhibition was in 1953.  Bourdin’s first fashion shots were published in the February 1955 issue of Vogue Paris. He continued to work for the magazine until 1987.

 An editor of Vogue magazine introduced Bourdin to shoe designer Charles Jourdan, who became his patron, and Bourdin shot Jourdan's ad campaigns between 1967 and 1981. Bourdin became known for his quirky anthropomorphic compositions and intricate mise en scene.

Guy Bourdin has had an enormous influence on editorial, fashion and simply photography in general.

Sexy!

William Eggleston

there's always some battle for acceptance going on in the art world when it comes to photography.

initially, the worryworts were sure that the photograph would make painting obsolete, but if anything it pushed and inspired painters to experiment with new forms of expression (ie cubism, abstraction, etc) and new compositions, cropping and framing.

in turn photographers wanted to be taken seriously in the art world and had to fight for their place on the gallery/museum wall.

at first it was the pictorialists and their photographs made to look like paintings.

then in the 30's and 40's straight photography made it's play. paul strand lead the avant garde photographers, who wanted their photographs to look like photographs. now they would be art because the eye of the photographer had composed the shot to be art. 

by the 70's the battle was over color. could a color photo be fine art? william eggleston was one of the first photographers to be accepted into that exclusive world and prove that, yes indeed color photos could be more then simple snapshots.

i love eggleston's vision of his home, the people and places that make up his world. and especially his use of color. eggleston is an artist. artists are weirdos. show me a great artist who isn't a weirdo. i dare you.  there is an interesting documentary on him, a website, lots of articles. here are some of my favorites...

Binh Danh

i visited an amazing photo exhibit yesterday. it was a 2fer. the first part of the exhibit was aperture remix, which featured the work of a number of contemporary photographers doing work in the style of the photographer who influenced them, these photos were exhibited alongside the inspirational work!

the second part was - after ansel adams, a collection of work by adams and contemporary photographers working the the 'adams' tradition. 

the standout work for me were daguerreotypes made by Binh Danh.

i've noticed that as digital mediums become more and more advanced and accessible, traditional process are making a return. Photographers like Sally Mann are working with wet plate collodion and Chuck Close as well as Binh Danh are making daguerreotypes.

Danh has been making daguerreotypes of places like angkor wat and desert scenes, but the daguerreotypes i saw were of yosemite. 

oh good god, they were the most beautiful things i've seen in a long ass time. little jewels. these photos don't do them justice. 

daguerreotypes are sheets of silver coated copper, exposed and traditionally developed using warmed mercury. you can't enlarge or make copies, you could scan and make photos of them, but the original on metal is a singular thing. they glisten and shimmer.

now you know what to get me for x-mas.

Brassaï

Brassaï was a Hungarian-born French photographer, sculptor, writer, and filmmaker, known primarily for his dramatic photographs of Paris at night. His images evoke a sense of memory and mystery.

I love them

Arthur Tress

I always feel so proud of myself when I discover a photographer whose work I’ve never seen. Yesterday I made a new discovery.

Arthur Tress is most well-known for a body of work he created in San Francisco in the 1960’s. He began his photographic practice with an interest in social documentary but his style soon evolved to a sort of magical realism.

The work that really caught my eye was a series he created by asking children to describe their worst nightmares. He then directed and reconstructed the dreams. I absolutely love some of these surreal and terrifying images.

What do you think?

Michael Kenna

current mood: Michael Kenna. he makes me want to travel, to get up early and stay up late, to make pictures.

Kenna is an English photographer who's known for work typically taken with a medium format camera - a hasselblad which accounts for the square format. his images are usually shot early in the morning or late in the evening. he captures long exposures, some up to 10 hours long.

his process and vision creates quiet, contemplative images

here is a link to his website

michael kenna

Joel Sternfeld

today, i'm just gonna share a few of my favorite photos by mr. sternfeld. enjoy :)

how i spent my summer vacation...

well it has definitely been a one of a kind summer. i saw so much amazing art work that i'm still processing it all. and now that it's nearly time to go back to work i'm very thoughtful about many things. 

i've been thinking about how different teaching and learning are. how i already miss being in school. having purpose and standards and having to defend my ideas. i probably go a little crazy without that structure.  

what moved me most this summer? marble sculptures. how the fuck did they make those. i can understand the additive method. building out. but the subtractive is nearly impossible for me to comprehend. how does one start with a block of stone and remove just the right amount?

oh there's so much more, but the question is now what? so i've thinking about my new series of self portraits in masks and what it means, besides being fun and a distraction and i think i need to maybe put that one on the shelf for a bit. 

so the new idea rambling around the dusty corners of my brain has to do with the landscape, rorschach tests and photoshop. i'm wondering about how i could provoke a viewer's imagination by creating a kind of rorschach out of the environment, maybe i would add hidden imagery like in those old - was it called hideaway? magazines where you would try and locate a face in the trunk of a tree?  i don't know obviously this is new. if you were here to talk me through it, it would probably go much smoother. here are a couple of very rough drafts...

Philip Lorca diCorcia

when i first discovered the work of philip lorca dicorcia i wasn't sure how much of an influence the photographer had had over the scene he was depicting. it was clear there was intentional lighting and composition, but at the same time there was something spontaneous and discovered about the images. i loved that aspect of the work. those first images that i saw were from his series the hustlers and his use of lighting was what really got my attention.

dicorcia knows how to light a scene. he's like caravaggio with a camera 

these last two images are probably the ones that have had the most impact on me. it's the sense of mystery and unknown narrative that pulls me in and keeps me thinking long after i've stopped looking

Harry Callahan

Harry was my father's uncle, my grandmother's brother. I think this has had an influence on me. It's difficult to track influences, but I still recall my summer vacation visits with my grandparents and looking, intently at Harry's prints which lined her walls. I won't attempt to convey my thoughts about them.

my father gave me a print of this image - I think when I graduated from college. It's on my wall and I look at it every day.

this might be one of my favorite of Harry's images. It's something about the deep black shadows and that light. damn that's nice.

I never saw this as a print but I'd love to. It reminds me of carnivals and traveling circuses. There is something adventurous and slightly dark. I love this picture.

This is an image I looked at again and again - and then again as a child. This to me was what I thought love must be. I was maybe 10. Looking at it now, it still somehow pulls my heart strings. So beautiful.

Rodney Smith

Here's a short story, wow it must have been 5 or 6 years ago already, but I'm a high school photo teacher and each year I have my students do a famous photographer research project. Master's of photography type thing. 

Well 5 or 6 years ago a student approached me with a request to research a photographer who wasn't on my list. Rodney Smith. I hadn't heard of him. I did a quick search and was just amazed at how beautiful his work was and the fact that I hadn't come across it before. Made an impression.

A couple years later one of my first assignments in graduate school was to find a professional photographer in my specific field (fine art) and arrange and interview. 

Ok, that was my worst nightmare. I was frantically trying to think of ways I could just fake the assignment and decided that if I was going to interview anyone it was going to damn well be someone I felt was worthy of an interview. 

I thought of the photographers I knew and loved - and that were alive and I thought of Rodney Smith. I found his website and sent him an email. I did not expect a response.

What a generous, kind and just generally great guy, photographer, artist, etc. He contacted me and set up a call. He's on the east coast or I would have figured out a way to interview him in person. I read his entire blog in preparation and had a lovely conversation with the man. 

I am a huge fan.

http://www.rodneysmith.com/

Robert & Shana ParkeHarrision

Robert & Shana ParkeHarrision began collaborating on their constructed photographs shortly after graduate school. Their series Architect’s Brother first caught my attention. These dreamy cinematic narratives stir the imagination.

They have a great website to check out

http://www.parkeharrison.com/

Their newest series Gautier’s Dream is inspired by French artist, writer and critic, Théophile Gautier, and explores dramas unfolding both in front of an audience and behind the velvet curtain.

Roger Ballen

Today I'm sharing the work of Roger Ballen. I first encountered his work a few years ago through his video collaboration with Die Antwoord - I Fink U Freeky. I was definitely struck by his work, like a mac truck. Last spring Ballen spoke at the Palm Srings Film Festival and the Palm Springs Museum exhibited his work. I was most certainly curious about his disturbing imagery.

Ballen is hot right now, I think the notion of his imagery lies in the tradition of Diane Arbus. There is something intriguing about staring at the safe distance of a photograph at these extraordinary characters. It's not art work I'd want hanging on my wall. I couldn't live with it. But as a work of art these images are powerful, you can't leave them without thinking about them and having them etched into your memory.

Lewis Baltz

Lewis Baltz is a local boy, born in Newport Beach; he was one of the original photographers to participate in the seminal New Topographics exhibit during the 1970’s. The exhibit, or more importantly the work exhibited has had a major impact on landscape photography and planted the seeds of the current Wasteland movement.

Baltz is currently based in Paris and Venice. He also is a professor of conceptual photography at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he conducts an Intensive Summer Seminar. Someone should send my there! I need a patron. Or a shot of patron.

I feel like I know quite a bit about the New Topographics movement, so if there are any questions – let me know.

Baltz’s exquisite photographs are small by today’s standards. But they are real prints and you can practically see the silver halides glimmering in the blackness. Definitely worth seeing in person if you get the chance.

Gregory Crewdson

taking photographs vs. making photographs.

Gregory Crewdson is sort of the Jeff Koons of photography. He envisions grand large-scale scenes that could be film stills. The images are reminiscent of movies like Close Encounters. Something other worldly and quite possibly dangerous has just happened or is just about to. He's a director with a big budget, equipment, lighting and a crew that could rival a hollywood production. He doesn't even snap the shutter release, his dp does. 

there's a great film out about him.

http://www.gregorycrewdsonmovie.com/

Jeff Wall

Oh god – when I get excited about something I have no patience. Just like my Instagram account I can’t post a single pict I have to post 20. & now that I’m considering who I want to feature/share on my blog my list is becoming endless and I want to share all of them NOW!

Patience, patience, patience. Leave something for tomorrow!

Okay so here is today’s share

Jeff Wall link to more info

Jeff Wall is smart. He writes really long essays explaining the deep meaning hidden in his images. He references art history and literature. He constructs images that hardly look constructed. He prints on giant transparencies and displays the work in large light boxes. He’s cool.

A Sudden Guest Of Wind (after Hokusai) 1993

Katsushika Hokusai Yejiri Station, Province of Suruga, ca. 1832

PHOTOGRAPHY NOW

Writing a random blog post on my personal website reminds me of that tree, falling in the forest. Does it make a sound?

https://blog.oup.com/2011/02/quantum/

http://www.theguardian.com/notesandqueries/query/0,,-82446,00.html

I’m sort of surprised that so many people not only have an opinion about this, but have taken the time to find a discussion thread and share their thoughts. This is a novel idea to me and helps me understand why I haven’t been able to update this page in over a year. However, what is the point of keeping a blog page on the site, if not to blog.

Perhaps no one will stumble upon this page, but I have committed myself to making a better effort. So on and so forth.

Here is someone I think I deserves your attention: Julia Fullerton - Batten

http://www.juliafullerton-batten.com/