3 Portraits Part 5

Robin Schwartz


Nicola Kast



Jessica Roberts

Life photo archive available on google

This is awesome. Search millions of photographs from the LIFE photo archive, stretching from the 1750s to today. Most were never published and are now available for the first time through the joint work of LIFE and Google.

3 portraits part 4

Jacques-Henri Latrigue "Zissou, Rouzat" 1911


Gordon Parks "American Gothic" from his work with the Farm Securities Act 1924


Andrew Newman photo of Robert Moses 1959

from the magnum blog...

Magnum advice for young photographers.

Destruction / Decay

Ralph Eugene Meatyard: El Mochuelo (Boys with a Noose), 1962



Danny Lyon's 1967 project documenting the destruction of lower manhattan

Abandoned buildings.

Last class Nathan told me he was interested in photographing abandoned buildings. I went to school with Tom, who has a series called abandoned but not lost. Some of these images are really beautiful, and Tom writes his accounts of going to the places as well. Some of the stuff is just out there.







I know this is photo history, but the more you guys tell me what you are interested in, the more photographers I can show you, and that includes contemporary work as well, so keep it coming. I'll try to find some older work along these lines as well.

ICP assignment.

All 4 shows at ICP were great! Now, here is your assignment. Choose one of these. Write a short informal response (< 1 page) Post it here as a comment or bring it in to class (I'm gong ot end up posting it here anyway, so either way you better make sure it's good) If anyone wants to do 2 reviews, I'll give you a little extra credit.

a) Pick two of the shows and review them together. If you would like, you could pick one specific image from each instead of reviewing the shows as a whole.

b) Are Susan Meiselas or Cornell Capa taking advantage or their subjects, empowering them, both, or neither?

c) Compare Eugene Smith's work to Natcheway's.

d) Knowing what you learned in class and seeing the America and the tintype show, what relation can you make of the medium to Polaroids.

From the Washington Post

When photography, activism meet

ICP on Sat.

Class, please bring $8 (and a metrocard) with you to class as we will be going to ICP to see these 4 shows. I know there are tons of free galleries out there, but every one of these shows is so relevant to what we are learning about; we have to go! Robbie, I know you said you will probably be missing this class, so make it up by going to see this next week. There may be a really short assignment about it, so keep checking back here. We'll be leaving class at around 2:15 to give us enough time to get up to 43rd st. and really get a look at the 4 shows.



America and the Tintype


Susan Meiselas: In History


Living with the Dead: W. Eugene Smith & WWII



Cornell Capa: Concerned Photographer.

Stephanie Lyn Slate

Last class we had a guest lecture by Stephanie Lyn Slate Here's some examples of her work.

NY Times audio slideshow about John Coffer.

This is an interesting 3 minute audio slideshow about an artist named John Coffer who lives / creates photographs as if he were still in the 19th century.



John Coffer website

2 articles, 1 $5 event.

Contemporary portrait photography: magical realism



Day of the Dead: Memorial Photography

And next Tuesday:




"The world now contains more photographs than bricks, and they are, astonishingly, all different." - John Szarkowski

The Photography Editors

They began in philosophy and film, retail and environmental studies; but today they are all photography editors: passionate about the images they produce, and the photographers they work with. On Tuesday night they'll talk about what sparks their imagination, their inspirations, and the assignments that keep them questioning, "how should this look?"

Please join us on Tuesday, November 11th at FIT for an evening of informal conversation and a crash course in ways of seeing. Moderated by Catherine Talese.

Lisa Berman, Entertainment Weekly
David Carthas, Blender
Nancy Jo Iacoi, Orchard Represents
Michele McNally, The New York Times
Michael Norseng, Esquire
Zana Woods, WIRED

LOUPED IN
Tuesday, November 11, 2008
Katie Murphy Amphitheatre, F.I.T.
27th Street & Seventh Avenue, NYC

7:00 - 8:30 PM, doors open at 6:30

Tickets:
SPD Members, $10 in advance ($15 at the door, CASH ONLY)
Non-Members, $15 in advance ($20 at the door, CASH ONLY)
Students & faculty with valid ID: $5

Please call SPD at 212-223-3332 by noon on Friday, November 7th for advance tickets; after Friday the 7th, tickets can be purchased at the door Tuesday evening, CASH ONLY.

RSVP early! All tickets, and seating, are first come, first served.

Shameless Self Promotion part deux.

Check my website

Phil Toledano & Rebecca Memoli show on Thursday.

Phone Sex: Real and Imagined
Nov. 6, 6-9pm at Pochron Studios (one night only!)
20 Jay St., 11th floor, at Plymouth Street in DUMBO Brooklyn.



Article about the show
Phil Toledano
Pratt graduate: Rebecca Memoli
Pochron Studios

3 portraits part 3

Starting next week I am going to be doing 3 current portraits and 3 from the photo history archives, but here is all you get for now.


Peter Beste


Dan Eckstein


Poppy de Villeneuve

Two early portrait photographers ahead of their time.

Nadar used direct lighting on his subjects to bring out the features he would normally be accentuating for his caricature work. He used his portraits to assist with his first “PanthéonNadar,” (1854) a set of two gigantic lithographs portraying caricatures of prominent Parisians. Nadar also went on to pioneer aerial photography which was an important advance in map making. He took his first aerial photograph from a hot air balloon in 1858.


Portrait of our favorite critic and photography hater Baudelaire. Late 1850s.


Daumier's satirical lithograph of Nadar elevating the heights of photography.

After receiving a camera as a gift about 1863, Julia Margaret Cameron converted a chicken coop into a studio and a coal bin into a darkroom and began making portraits. She photographed such people as: John Herschel (name sound familiar from previous classes?) and Charles Darwin. Though initially often criticized for her not so perfect technical abilities like having some photos being out of focus, she was later applauded for her value of spiritual depth.


She also collaborated with poet Alfred Lord Tennyson (referenced in post below) for his Idylls of the King (1874–75 )to photograph her friends and servants in imitation of popular Romantic and Pre-Raphaelite paintings of the day.

Next class, photography for social change. Including: Henry Mayhew, Jacob A. Riis, Richard Beard, John Thomson, Thomas Annan, Paul Martin, Lewis Hine, Dorothea Lange, Walker Evans, and so on.

More War.

Roger Fenton was most likely the first war photographer.


Roger Fenton self portrait.

Along with his assistant Marcus Sparling, their documentation of the Crimean War predated the American Civil War by about 7 years. Fenton had set up their dark room in a wagon and took about 360 photos using the wet plate collodion process. Instead of showing a lot of the action of war, Fenton concentrated more on the mundane. Due to his involvement with the government he chose to show only the “acceptable” parts of the conflict, even his account of the Charge of the Light Brigade (also a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson) was put in a heroic and glorious account.





Fenton was able to return to London and actually exhibit some of his work. The more noted photographs were turned into wood engravings and printed in the Illustrated London News. After the war, Fenton kept up with architectural and landscape photography until his retirement from the field in 1862 when he decided to to return to practicing law.

Dr. Robert Leggat article about war photography.

EXQUISITE CORPSE: CHINA SURREAL

Not exactly war photography. Check out the group show, exquisite corpse. Round trip tickets start at around $1375, but through the powers of the internet, I bring you to m97 gallery