The Online Photographer

A Few More Pieces of the Vivian Maier Puzzle

Interest in photographer Vivian Maier, the formerly anonymous, reclusive Chicago nanny whose work burst on to the world stage only as she was on her deathbed, seems to have shifted to the legal fight over the rights to the increasingly valuable work.

Along the way, various private parties have taken it upon themselves to try to unravel the mysteries or influence the proceedings in some way or another. The latest is Ann Marks, a retired New York businesswoman who says Internet research is "...a hobby of mine. I do it to challenge myself."

Marks has scooped Pamela Bannos, another researcher who is writing a book on Maier, in revealing some facts both claim to have uncovered about Vivian's equally obscure brother Charles. The facts of Charles' life might influence the legal ownership of the estate. The Chicago Tribune has the story, in an article called "Hunt for acclaimed photographer Vivian Maier's long-lost brother heats up." (A brief warning: read this one soon—from what I hear, Trib articles only stay free online for a few days after publication. [UPDATE: It's already behind a paywall. Go to Google News and search "Vivian Maier" and you can access it. —Ed.)

The article notes also a "chilling effect" that the legal fight is having on Maier's celebrity itself, noting that exhibits have been cancelled around the world.

Mike
(Thanks to Jeff Goldstein)

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Bernd Reinhardt: "It is so sad how the vultures are circling over Vivian Maier's estate. This is such a rare story and I do believe that without Maloof's efforts, nobody would know about Maier's work. Whether he deserves the full fortune or only a part, which common sense would say he definitely does, it is a shame that exhibitions are cancelled. This is definitely art that should be enjoyed by the public."

'Grab a Hunk of Lightning'

This nice show about the wonderful Dorothea Lange, part of the "American Masters" series from PBS, can be purchased as a DVD, or watched online at PBS for no charge (U.S. only). It's also on YouTube.

And there's a book, with more than 100 plates. (U.K. link.)

Here's the Amazon U.K. link for the video, but it's still a Region 1 encoding DVD that requires a North American or multi-region DVD player and NTSC compatible TV. Here's Amazon's explanation of DVD formats.

Mike
(Thanks to Ken Tanaka, Gary, and Andrew Lamb)

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Steven Major: "I've seen the video...well done and as much about life choices as it is about photography. Here in Maine, Bert of Bert's Bees product line recently passed. His eulogy included 'he lived a life of his own invention.' I believe that to be true of Dorothea Lange as well and one of the highest complements possible."

Two Recent Deaths

The health and popularity of any human endeavor rises and falls in waves—nothing's static—and photography caught a huge swell in the 1960s to the early '80s. Many of photography's great names are from that era...it's our "Greatest Generation," to cop a term used of the WWII age cohort. Many of the greats from an earlier wave were still alive then, and many names came to the forefront that we still recognize. A few, we venerate.

If it seems like there have been a lot of obituaries lately, that might be why. We're losing that generation.

We lost Charles Harbutt on June 29th. A former President of Magnum, he was one of those names who flew low and didn't break into many photographers' radar fields. But he was an accomplished shooter and a longtime teacher. I have a signed copy of his iconic book Travelog that I treasure, although I have to admit I really didn't like his latest book, Departures and Arrivals.

Charles Harbutt in the mid-'80s by his friend and colleague Joan Liftin

There are good articles at PDNonline and The New York Times.

And to catch you up on another exceptional photographer of that generation, there's this link, from The Washington Post, about the sad decline into dementia of the fine gentleman and very accomplished artist William Christenberry. Bill taught at the Corcoran while I was there, but I never took a course from him, because he taught art, not photography. A photographer whose work was all about remembering should have had a less ironic ending.

Curiously, I don't feel quite so sad about Harold Feinstein, who died on June 20th. The reason is because it seems that certain "friends of Harold"—I don't know the backstory at all—had been assisting him in a late-life Renaissance. There was a very successful Kickstarter campaign (the we helped publicize) which resulted in the publication of his retrospective book, which was a pleasure and a treat, and his work is well-represented on his nice website, and he'd been writing a blog. It's sad to hear of his death, yes, but it's also very nice that we got to know him in the first place—and he got some deserved recognition—before that came to pass. 

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad and many other readers)

P.S. If you're tempted to prompt me about the wonderful Robert Frank link, I'll be posting that one later.

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Richard Rodgers: "Sad times. First Mary Ellen Mark and now Charles Harbutt. While at Apeiron in the late 1960s, Mary Ellen enabled my photography skills to grow and Charles, through his teaching skills, enabled me to become a college photography teacher."

David Christensen: "Rondal Partridge also passed away recently. He wasn't well known (by his own designs), but what a link to the past—the son of Imogen Cunningham, apprenticed himself to Ansel Adams, and assisted Dorothea Lange in California during the depression. He was 97 when he died—and according to the SFGate, 'he spent his last 15 years mastering the art of hand-coated platinum printing with a focus on botanical subjects, dead animals and antique tools.' Here's the link to the very interesting SF Gate obituary."

Mike replies: Thanks David. I didn't know that. He's a photographer whose work I know better; I very much enjoy his book Quizzical Eye. It's one I return to.

Rodger Kingston: "I've known Bill Christenberry for nearly 40 years. I met him in the late '70s through a couple of photographic friends, Gus Kayafas and Gerd Sander, and over the years I visited him and his wife Sandy when I was in Washington, or saw him occasionally when he came North.

"Bill could always be counted upon for a good story—after all, his art is a story, a visual narrative of the world centered around his native Hale County, Alabama. He is one of those people who never stops talking—except with Bill, you don't want him to stop talking.

"Bill is undoubtedly a great artist. However, the key to appreciating both Bill and his art is to understand that he is a great Southern artist, steeped in the black Alabama soil, and soft spoken, with a light Southern accent tempered by his many years living in Washington, D.C.

"His studio is a veritable museum of his paintings, drawings, and photographs; his sculptures of the buildings appearing in his two-dimensional works; and the signs he rescued from the towns and countryside around his beloved Hale County.

"I'll never forget the time he showed me his legendary Klan Room, not long before it was mysteriously stolen.

"I have about a dozen of his books, many of them signed, all of them carefully handled and well read. The most recent one I have is, ironically, fittingly, William Christenberry: Working from Memory: Collected Stories. Reading the stories, I can hear him talking, speaking of his friendship with Walker Evans, or describing the circumstances surrounding one of his works.

"The last time I saw Bill, several years ago, before the onset of his Alzheimer's, he and Sandy were in Boston for a lecture, and a group of us went to dinner afterward. Bill sat at the head of the table, and, with his soft Southern accent and courtly manner, entertained and edified us all."

Mary Ellen Mark by Joni Kabana

I realized that in our posts about Mary Ellen Mark the other day—this one about her death last week and the follow-up—we published only two of Ralph Gibson's early, romanticized portraits of her. Fine photographs, but not the Mary Ellen Mark many would most easily recognize. So I went looking for a more recent photograph by someone who knew her.

Mary Ellen Mark by Joni Kabana (republished with permission)

After quite a bit of searching I found some loose and wonderful portraits by Joni Kabana. Degreed in psychology, Joni is a teacher and photographer who has recently worked in places such as Nepal and Ethiopia. And as it happens she was just interviewed about her friendship with Mary Ellen on Oregon Public Broadcasting.

You can see more of her photographs of Mary Ellen Mark at Joni's website here.

Mike
(Thanks to Joni)

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Bill Mitchell: "Much better—thank you."

More About the Remarkable Mary Ellen

Mary Ellen Mark, "Rat" and Mike with a gun, Seattle, Washington, USA, 1983

TOP is usually off on Saturdays, but in case you have a bit of extra time today, I thought it would be valuable to list the best of the great links we collected yesterday.

First, Rat: the boy on the left in Mary Ellen Mark's famous picture "Rat and Mike" above (his real name is Rich) is now a 48-year-old tow-truck driver with a "beautiful wife, beautiful children and grandchildren." He cried when he learned of Mary Ellen's death.

You can read an update about his life and what he's doing now in an article by Chris Macias of The Sacramento Bee. This was suggested to us by Rick D; thanks, Rick.

In case you never have and you'd like to read the original 1983 LIFE magazine "Streets of the Lost" article first, you can find it in readable form on Mary Ellen's website. I'd recommend reading this before reading the update. It's a great classic of photojournalism and of the photo-essay form at its best.

Next, Kyle: Old friend-we've-never-met Kyle Cassidy, a fascinating photographer in his own right, wrote a very beautiful short piece about Mary Ellen on his Live Journal website, pointed out by Kathy Li. It's of special interest to practicing photographers, giving a window into Mary Ellen Mark's attitudes and determination and the way she taught. Not to be missed.

(Kyle says Mary Ellen used to introduce him by saying, "This is the weirdest photographer you'll ever meet. He's good, but he's weird. Aren't you?" Funny.)

Kyle's piece really points up the truth about what reader latent_image said in the Comments: "Following news of her death, I saw Mary Ellen Mark referred to in one article as a 'street photographer.' To me street photography is characterized by anonymity. Mark's work was always about connection and intimacy...just the opposite."

Finally, 'Mary Ellen presents': If you really have some time to spend today (the video is more than an hour long), Robert Hudyma found this great video of a slide lecture given by Mary Ellen, at Ryerson University's Ryecast. Many of us have heard her speak in person, but if you haven't, this will be the next best thing. The images are not always coordinated but it's valuable to be able to see better-quality versions of the pictures on the right. Studying the pictures in the slideshow emphasizes one of Kyle Cassidy's insights about the work: "You don’t need to know that someone’s a movie star or someone’s a prostitute or someone else just won a mustache contest, they’re all beautiful images first."

We'll be back on Monday with the Spring season's exciting Kate Kirkwood Print Offer announcement.

Mike
(Thanks to Rick D, Kathy Li, Robert Hudyma, and everyone else who commented yesterday)

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Mary Ellen Mark Has Died

This simple tribute appeared on Mary Ellen Mark's website four days ago.
The portrait is by Ralph Gibson.

Mary Ellen Mark, one of the great American social documentary photographers of the second half of the 20th century, passed away last Monday of myelodysplastic syndrome at the age of 75.

Although she ranged as far afield as fashion and advertising photography on occasion, her most famous photographs were intimate extended documentary projects of people at the fringes of society, such as Erin "Tiny" Blackwell, the Seattle street kid whose life Mark documented for more than 30 years.

Since her death the Internet has exploded with articles, announcements, obituaries and tributes. The New York Times obituary quoted Mary Ellen herself (originally printed in Communication Arts in 1997): "I remember the first time I went out on the street to shoot pictures. I was in downtown Philadelphia and I just took a walk and started making contact with people and photographing them, and I thought: 'I love this. This is what I want to do forever.' There was never another question."

In a short personal reminiscence at The New Yorker, Adrian Nicole Leblanc wrote, "I thought professional distance in documenting hardship meant not showing the joy in doing the work that I loved. The ego in that assumption would take years to unpack, but Mary Ellen opened a door for me. She was a master photographer and an actualized human being. I am very lucky to have witnessed her at work."

One nice short slideshow is at cnn.money. You can see her seminal photo essay from LIFE magazine, "Streets of the Lost," in its entirety at Time Lightbox.

Her work was published in innumerable magazines and she published nineteen books, including a title in the Photography Workshop series (recommended), Marianne Fulton's retrospective 25 Years (the earlier An American Odyssey 1963-1999 is very expensive now), and Cry for Help: Stories of Homelessness and Hope. Her other books explored prostitutes in Mumbai, the patients of a mental institution, and an Indian circus, but she also published a book of photographs taken on movie sets and one called Prom.

Her natural form was the photo essay, and a friend of mine who encountered her on the street in New York a few years ago reported that she complained bitterly about the lack of work and the dearth of serious venues for photo essays.

Her original book about Tiny Blackwell, Streetwise, is unobtainable to mortals, but the follow-up, Tiny, Streetwise Revisited, is scheduled to be released by Aperture in the Fall.

Hank Burchard, writing in The Washington Post in 1994, said, "One picture by Mary Ellen Mark is almost too many, yet a hundred of her photographs is not enough. Few photographers have ever had both the visceral impact and the intellectual depth of Mark."

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Robert Hudyma: "I met her briefly twice: once in New York City in 1992 for a slide-show presentation of her circus images, and again in 2007 when she came to Ryerson University in Toronto to give one of the final Kodak Canada sponsored lecture series. Unfortunately her lecture was cut short since there was a fire alarm and that is the last time I saw her. You can watch her lecture here. I especially enjoy her Christmas dog images."

Richard Rodgers: "Had the opportunity to study and learn from the young Mary Ellen in late 1960s while staying at Apeiron in upstate New York. Among the many joys was a day spent with her while we photographed a country fair. Still retain and use many of the skills learned from that time. She was and still is a very important person in my life."

JK: "The day after Mary Ellen Mark died I spent a couple hours watching video interviews she had done. I especially liked this one. Her famous shot of Fellini comes at the end but there are couple other nice ones along the way."

Stan B.: "No matter her subject matter, you always knew she would create strong, compelling compositions full of empathy and passion. The epitome of the dedicated documentary photographer, she was the antithesis of today's fly-by, sound-bite journalists. And every one of her essays serve as a 'how to' for photographers who want to know how it's done—technically, aesthetically, humanely."

Jim Hughes: "The photograph of Mary Ellen that you use to lead off your tribute was made by her long-time friend Ralph Gibson, according to the credit below the picture in the Washington Post obituary. [Jim's comment was written before the correction appeared; Steve Rosenblum mentioned it earlier today. —Ed.] I hadn't previously seen this image, but I have seen others Ralph made with Mary Ellen, including this famous one of his left hand touching hers, their fingers entangled at the moment of exposure:

Photograph by Ralph Gibson

I published this picture in Camera 35 as part of the first large magazine portfolio from his then upcoming book The Somnambulist.

"I met Mary Ellen in 1967. I remember a beautiful woman passing in the hallway outside my open office door, carrying a large portfolio. Turns out she had just returned from six months photographing in Turkey on a Fulbright. The office next to mine was occupied by Mary P. R. Thomas, whose job it was to select photographs for the U. S. Camera Annual. Eventually, my curiosity got the better of me, and I went next door to look in. There were deeply printed photographs of people, most of them looking directly at the photographer as if they were lifelong friends, spread out to cover every surface of Mary Thomas's office. In the text to accompany Mary Ellen's portfolio in the 1968 edition of the Annual, Mary Thomas wrote: 'Mary Ellen Mark is a torrid combination of youthful energy and curiosity plus an innate sense of perception that enables her to see and "frame" the scene or subject before her almost immediately....All these photographs portray great beauty and strength. Look at them carefully.'

"Mary Ellen and I remained friends over the subsequent many years, and I had the privilege to publish her wonderful pictures in various of my magazines. I will miss her. And I will continue to look carefully at her pictures, which live on."

Kathy Li: "Just want to also point folks to Kyle Cassidy's LJ post on what he learned from Mary Ellen Mark."

James Dean and Dennis Stock

Our old friend Jim Hughes writes to mention that we published a photograph the other day by his old friend Dennis Stock without proper attribution. Here's a better one:

James Dean with a Rolleiflex, by Dennis Stock

Jim tells me that the snow where he lives (Maine) has been incredible this year. By way of proof he included this photo he took at the beginning of this month in a hospital waiting room:

Dennis Stock, who died in 2010, took one of the best photos of Dean. (By the way, that show that's announced at that link? Took place two years ago.)

Mike
(Thanks to Jim)

Jim Hughes adds: "Robert Pattinson plays Dennis Stock on assignment for Life magazine to photograph James Dean, played by Dane DeHaan, while on an extended cross-country road trip in a Hollywood take on reality for the movie, also titled Life, which recently premiered in Berlin. Here's a review from Variety.

"I have not seen the film. I can only hope I recognize Dennis, whom I knew to be an engaging, intelligent and outspoken person—and a very good photographer to boot."

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Random Excellence: André Kertész

Copyright the Estate of Andre Kertesz, courtesy James Hyman Photography, London

André Kertész, Self-Portrait, 1926

I like, admire, and enjoy Mozart, but love Haydn. The Papa Haydn of photographers was André Kertész, who was born in Hungary but lived in Paris between the World Wars and, after fleeing the Nazis, in America, in New York. His work was somewhat limited in emotional range—I believe one writer likened it to the range a composer for piano who avoids either end of the keyboard; he doesn't go grim and he never gets sappy—but warmth and humanity radiates through his pictures. His biography is touching: his midlife years were difficult, because he was ignored in America after his emigration here, after having found success easily in Europe. But his pictures never showed his bitterness. Kertész had a wonderful heart. As with Mozart and Haydn, I like, admire, and respect Cartier-Bresson, but love Kertész. His work is gentle, humane and humanistic, and one always got the sense from it that he had a naturally beautiful soul.

Compare and contrast these two treatments of the same motif, two people peering through a barricade:

Kertész

Cartier-Bresson

There's the difference between the two photographers in a nutshell; Kertesz's photograph is more about the relationship between the two people; Cartier-Bresson's is more enigmatic, with an edge of the surreal, and the relationship between the two figures is only visual, separated by that hard dark spearing line of the pole, which the second man's face oddly appears to be pressed against.

Kertész's reputation was at its peak in the 1980s, in the years surrounding his 1985 death. He was "rediscovered" and accorded great honor at the end of his life. The "holy grail" book of his work dates from those years—1986's André Kertész: Diary of Light 1912–1985. Crafted in Japan, it's printed by tripletone offset on a special cotton rag paper called sala. There were only three thousand copies printed. The Editions Hazan book by Michel Frizot is much more recent (2010) and should be easier to find. In any event, any decent library will have Kertész titles in its photography section, and it would be worth a visit to see what yours has.

His great love for his wife Elizabeth was especially touching; they were very close all their lives, and he adored her. In old age, housebound, grieving for her, he made a series of Polaroid photos of a small abstract glass bust on his windowsill, because the curve of its shoulder reminded him of Elizabeth.

The self-portrait at the top is from an upcoming show at the James Hyman Gallery in London, UK, which starts on May 13th and runs until the same day in June. (One of the treats of the recent Thomas Walther Collection show I got to see at MoMA was a row of original Kertész prints.)

Oh, and speaking of Cartier-Bresson, Kertész took the warmest picture of the famously camera-shy Henri, with his wife Martine Franck.

Mike

P.S. I'll be working on the Olympus 17mm ƒ/1.8 crowdsourced review for the rest of today. I'll try to get it posted tonight, but there's a lot. Could be Monday.

UPDATE: There's also a Kertész show coming on May 2 at the Stephen Bulger Gallery in Toronto, Ontario. Thanks to Larry Manuel for this. —Ed.

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Nigel Voak: "André Kertész: Sixty Years of Photography is a book a reach for when I’m a bit down in the dumps. It always cheers me up. There is a warmth and joy of living in this photographers work that make him my favorite photographer. The photo you chose of the couple peering through a hole is a perfect example of why his work connects to me so strongly."

expiring_frog: "You echo my thoughts! Your first paragraph is exactly how I have always felt about Kertész. My favourite photographer."

Jan Kwarnmark: "When asked about Kertész, Henri Cartier-Bresson showed his reverence by saying: 'We all owe something to Kertész.' and even 'Whatever we have done, Kertész did first.' I found it in an article by Eric Kim, but it is easy to find in other articles about Kertész. And, referring to Mozart, Mozart was one of many who said 'Papa Haydn,' as a term of affection."

Bill Pierce: "I lived on East Fourth St. in NYC and used to wander around the Lower East Side taking pictures. There was an older gentleman who I would occasionally see shooting on the same streets. I would smile and wave, and he would smile and wave back. It took me a little while to realize that the older gentleman was Andre Kertész, who lived on Fourth St. on the north side of Washington Square Park."

John Camp: "I completely agree with you. Three other nice books on Kertész are Kertész on Kertész from Abbeville Press [that's another particular favorite of mine as well —MJ]; the big retrospective catalog published by the Jeu De Paume (the English-language version is distributed by the Yale University Press) called Kertész [that's the Michel Frizot title I linked —MJ], and the smaller Stranger to Paris published by the Jane Corkin Gallery of Toronto.

"Stranger to Paris looks so much like Diary of Light that I thought I might own the latter, went to look, and it was Stranger to Paris instead. Both have 'Chez Modrian' on the cover.

"As a large format book of 359 pages, the Jeu de Paume retrospective is by far the most comprehensive Kertész book, to my knowledge, and includes a brief selection of his color Polaroids. I'm lucky enough to own signed prints of 'Chez Modrian' and 'Satiric Dancer' acquired through the Mayans Gallery in Santa Fe, back when photography was still affordable. The gallery owner, Ernesto Mayans, was a good friend of Kertész, and hosted him here in Santa Fe shortly his death."

Jim Hughes: "In the mid-1980s, shortly before André's death, a man named Stan Kulesa found himself face to face with Kertész at an exhibit of the great photographer's work at a Manhattan gallery. They seemed to be alone in the white-walled space, surrounded by André's prints. According to a comment he posted on the American Masters PBS online site many years later in 1999, Kulesa spoke first, and announced to Kertész that '[you are] my #1 favorite photographer of all time.'

He graciously thanked me, and asked if I was a photographer. "Oh no, I'm only an amateur," I responded. His response floored me when he said, "I'm an eternal amateur." ...He made me feel like a million dollars.

"From my perspective, I've always regarded André Kertész to be the most graceful photographer who ever lived, as I wrote in a piece for TOP in 2011. The article can be found in the right-hand sidebar under my name. Just scroll all the way down to 'Chez Mondrian and Other Small Pleasures.'

"In that piece, I quote the poet Paul Dermée, who wrote, on the occasion of André's first Paris exhibit in the 1920s: 'No rearranging, no posing, no gimmicks, nor fakery. Your technique is as honest, as incorruptible, as your vision. In our home for the blind, Kertész is 'Brother Seeing-Eye.'

"Roland Barthes evidently agreed. He called André's work 'a photography that thinks.'

"I call it poetry."

Rodger Kingston: "In February of 1973, on our wedding trip to NYC, Carolyn and I wandered into the Hallmark Gallery on 5th Avenue in what turned out to be the last hour of the last day of a large Andre Kertész show. As luck would have it, who should be there but the master himself.

"A young poet recently turned photographer, I recognized him immediately, and dashed across the street to a Doubleday Bookshop, where I bought a copy of his On Reading. I'm quite sure I gushed. He was very warm and gracious in a courtly, European manner.

"He signed the book for us, and sometime after we got home, I wrote to him that meeting him at his exhibition was one of the highlights of our wedding trip. Almost nine months later, I received the following letter in reply:

2 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10011
November 17, 1973

Dear Mr. Kingston:

This reply to your appreciative letter has been so long delayed that you may have thought the written word had by now completely succumbed to the visual image.

I am indeed touched by the fact that you feel the Hallmark Gallery exhibit will remain memorable over the years as a part of your wedding trip. You see, that way I know my photographs will have as many happy anniversaries as you and your wife Carolyn!

With every good wish for your success as poet and photographer, and my warmest regards to both of you—

Sincerely,
André Kertész

"A year or two later, Kertész delivered a lecture in Boston. When I approached him during the reception, his eyes lit up; he reached out his hand to me and exclaimed, 'Ah, the bridegroom!'

"It's been over 40 years, and Andre Kertesz was right: his photographs have had many happy anniversaries with Carolyn and me."

Dave Jenkins: "I think Kertesz was probably one of the two or three greatest photographers of the 20th century. He was a seminal photographer, meaning he began ways of photographing that other photographers picked up and expanded upon. John Durniak, who was successively editor-in-chief of Popular Photography, picture editor of Time, and picture editor of the New York Times, wrote an article for the first issue of Popular Photography's 35mm Photography magazine (which soon thereafter became a long-running quarterly). In that article, titled 'Some Heroes of 35,' he said that "...35mm photography had three fathers—Oscar Barnack, Erich Salomon, and Andre Kertész...look at this photographer's work. One can see the start of what Bill Brandt later did with nudes, one can see 'decisive moments' before there ever was that phrase, one can see the basis for a solid generation of honest photography. Young men, one named Brassai...saw his pictures and in them found a whole new world of art and communication.'"

The Sound of Ansel Adams

Curiously, I don't think I'd ever seen this short film before I stumbled across this other day. Written by Nancy Newhall, narrated by Beaumont Newhall, shot by David Myers, Ansel Adams, Photographer is a 1958 mini-documentary that features Ansel not only speaking—I'm quite sure I'd never heard his speaking voice before—but also playing the piano! I'm not sure that you can tell through all the layers betwixt it and thee, but Ansel was very particular about the tone of his piano, and went to great lengths to get the one he liked best.

Brought to us by:

DEVELOP Tube has collaborated with A/V Geeks to make this full 20 minute film available to you here. Ansel Adams, Photographer is just one of more than 24,000 16mm educational films rescued to be digitized by A/V Geeks. Please help A/V Geeks to continue their good work: http://www.avgeeks.com/wp2/avgeeks100... Watch DEVELOP Tube on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/channels/developphoto and on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/DEVELOPPhoto.

Charming little period piece from 57 years ago. Note that Director Myers uses the "Ken Burns Effect"!

Mike

Original contents copyright 2015 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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scott kirkpatrick: "Lovely music, familiar images, but the most fascinating thing to me was to hear both Adams and Newhall speaking in the round tones that the movie studios taught all actors in the '40s. They sound like the voice-overs from 'Victory at Sea.' It is also fascinating to see just how much carefully organized stuff Ansel Adams could fit into his trademark shooting wagon."

Charles Cramer: "Some musical observations: Ansel asked his then photographic assistant, Don Worth, to compose the music for this documentary. Like Ansel, Don started off as a musician, attending Juilliard, and then getting a Master of Music degree from the Manhattan School of Music. That's Don playing the piano part. I got to travel with Don on several occasions in Australia about 30 years ago (yikes!) When a piano was available, our hosts would ask us to play. Don usually performed one of his own arrangements of big band tunes from the '40s.

"In the '80s, Don added a room to his home for his new prize possession—a 9 ft. Steinway concert grand! Like Ansel, he continued to love the piano. Ansel was renowned for the tone he created at the piano, and I find it interesting to observe his hand movements. Most pianists would keep their hands close to the keys, but Ansel's hands are often in the air, adding some visual flourishes and showmanship."

Mike adds: Our friend Charlie is a very accomplished pianist himself. I don't know if he's recorded any commercial CDs, but I very much enjoyed a CD he sent me. You can read a bit about his connection to music on the bio page of his website.

Kenneth Tanaka: "Way, way over the top even for 1958. But it was probably effective for Adams's brand-building strategy at the time."

Mike replies: ...As far as that went. Ansel didn't have much of a brand at the time. It would be 13 or 14 years until Harry Lunn more or less singlehandedly created the photography art market, and he did it with Ansel Adams—Harry's first Adams show, in 1971, created a sensation by selling $10,000 worth of Ansel Adams prints at $150 for a 16x20. Harry was known as the man who made Ansel a millionaire. Consider that in 1970, when Lunn opened his gallery, there was only one single gallery in the U.S. that concentrated on photography—and that one, Lee Witkin's, opened in 1969. Sotheby's didn't even have a photography sale until 1975.

Ansel certainly saw himself as an artist in 1958, of course, as many of the left coast art photographers did. But to accuse him of brand-building is too cynical.

Wayne: "Great film. I guess the greatest impact on me was the portion in which he is setting up for the beach rocks. The final image is, of course, pure art; but it impressed me, just how ordinary the the seascape, from which he extracted this bit of art. What an illustration of the importance of the photographer's eye."

Mike adds: And notice that he doesn't even look at the scene when he makes the exposure—he glances at it and then looks back at the camera for a few seconds, using the darkslide as a lens shade, before shooting (at about 7:26). Interesting in that the negative (at about 8:00) contains a breaking wave.

Incidentally the light meter he's using is an S.E.I. Photometer, an early spot meter.

Klein and the Anti-Technicians

Written by John Kennerdell

From Life is Good & Good for You in New York by William Klein, 1955. Klein once described the book, one suspects not without pride, as "a crash course in what was not to be done in photography."

You might have seen him had you been walking the streets of New York City exactly 60 years ago this winter. Although trained as a painter, he was carrying a camera. And while he lived in Paris, he moved through the city of New York and photographed its people with the ease of a native son. His name was William Klein and he was 26 years old.

When Klein tried to find a publisher for his New York photos before returning to Europe the next year, 1955, the reaction could hardly have been less encouraging. He made the city look like a slum. His framing was random and incoherent. Technique? Fugeddaboutit. As Popular Photography described it on first sight of his work, "meaningless blur, grain, muddy exposures, drunken horizons and general sloppiness." Whatever his game might be, mid-century America clearly wasn’t ready.

Chet Baker, from Jazz by Ed van der Elsken. Dutchman van der Elsken's career ran in parallel to Klein's but increasingly fell under its influence, as seen in this superb 1959 photobook.

Back in France, Klein managed to put out a small volume of 120 of the photos, titled, with Beat irony, Life is Good & Good for You in New York. "I wanted to do [it] as a tabloid gone berserk," he later said, "gross, grainy, over-inked, with a brutal layout, bullhorn headlines." While the European establishment didn’t quite know what to make of it, young, avant-garde photographers loved its raw, anything-goes energy. It was largely through those young photographers, whose names included Ed van der Elsken and Mario Carrieri, that the style if not necessarily the substance of Klein's photography began to ripple out to the world at large.

Nowhere did this new sense of photographic freedom find richer ground than in Japan, a nation still grappling with the ravages of war and the search for a new identity. Restless young Japanese photographers immediately saw in Klein a visual language that they could apply to their own ends. Collectively, five of them became known as the Provoke group, after a short-lived magazine of the time, and described their aesthetic as "Are, bure, bokeh" ("Rough, blurred, and out of focus"). But individually they very much went their own ways. Shomei Tomatsu, the photojournalist of the group, took what he called a "subjective documentary" approach to social and cultural issues. By contrast, Takuma Nakahira's dark urban abstractions felt like equal parts sumi-e and radioactive nightmare. And then, somewhere between those two, Daido Moriyama, the most directly influenced by Klein and soon to become the best known of the group in the West. To this day he roams the back alleys of Shinjuku with a little digicam and wide-angle lens, a street photographer to the last.

From Chewing Gum and Chocolate by Shomei Tomatsu, 1959. The postwar Japan photographer par excellence, Tomatsu admitted to being "obsessed" with the U.S. Occupation and the cultural impact of the West on Japan.

And Klein? He still lives in Paris and seems to savor the role of eternal rebel. Fully 40 years passed before his Life is Good photos were put out in book form in the U.S. The expanded collection, titled William Klein, New York, 1954–1955, more powerfully than ever shows us a young man working at white-hot intensity, following his instincts as an artist rather than a trained photographer. Had his original book been published in the U.S. rather than Europe it's hard to imagine it would have had any less impact than Robert Frank's The Americans, which appeared two years later.

But in the end the point is moot, so ubiquitous has Klein's influence become. Whether in fashion, advertising, or documentary photography—never mind motion pictures—nothing has ever been quite the same since William Klein and that winter on the streets of New York six decades ago.

John

John Kennerdell writes two articles a year for TOP.

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Chris Y.: "John Kennerdell should write a lot more for TOP. This was gold as far as I'm concerned. Thank you."

Mike replies: Yeah, but I don't look a gift horse. If ya follow.

Julian Love: "Tate Modern held a large Klein/Moriyama retrospective a couple of years ago. While the photographs themselves were wonderful to look at, full of visual interest, it was the large collection of first edition books that really stood out (most of them loaned by Martin Parr, who seems to own several copies of each). The dramatic layouts combined grainy full-bleed images covered in bold text and graphic shapes. The results were both chaotic and mesmerising."

Jeff Goldstein Sells His Vivian Maier Holdings

Jeffrey Goldstein, the second largest holder of Vivian Maier archives with about 17,500 negatives (to John Maloof's 150,000*), has sold all his holdings to Toronto gallery owner Stephen Bulger.

You may recall that Jeff suspended all his sales and activities in the wake of legal action involving a second claim on the rights. Jeff and John had previously believed they had cleared the rights with the person who was most likely Vivian's closest locatable relative (she also had a brother who has disappeared). In September, however, a lawyer named David Deal dropped the bomb that he had located a second claimant and was making a play for the rights.

The most amazing part of the present chapter of the ongoing saga is that Cook County, Illinois, is allegedly also making a play to profit from the rights to the photographs, insisting that the former Charles Maier, the brother who is believed to have changed his name and disappeared way back in the 1950s, is the only rightful heir. Legally he has six years to step forward and claim his inheritance. In the meantime, Cook County, as custodian of the estate, would like to license the rights, according to Bulger.

StreetShootr.com did the original reporting on this most recent development in the ongoing saga and you can read about it there.

The mysterious Vivian Maier

One thing's for sure—this whole tale is going to make for an excellent book someday, when things finally get sorted. If they ever do.

Mike

*Both numbers according to Stephen Bulger.

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Jane Bown's Working Method

The full "Jane Bown obituary" at The Guardian is a gold mine of information about how Jane worked as a photographer. Interesting for any photographer, I would think, but must reading for any editorial or photojournalistic environmental portraitist.

A two-paragraph sample, two substantial paragraphs being about the allowable limit for quoting under Fair Use (some punctuation and spelling has been corrected):

In stark contrast to her mostly male peers, Jane was supremely uninterested in camera equipment. With some reluctance, she abandoned her beloved Rolleiflex in the early '60s, first migrating to a 35mm Pentax before settling on the Olympus OM1—she owned about a dozen Olympus cameras, all bought secondhand. Throughout her career she referred to herself as a 'hack,' and even when her reputation was at it height, she always deferred to the picture editor. She worked almost exclusively with natural light and ignored the camera's in-built light meter, preferring instead to hold a clenched fist away from her body to see how the light fell on the back of her hand. In fact, Jane once admitted to me that her preferred setting was ƒ/2.8 at 1/60 second and that she would, if at all possible, conspire to make the environment work at this setting—indirect sunlight from a north-facing widow would usually achieve it.

Jane tried colour in the mid-'60s—largely in response to the launch of the Observer colour supplement—but abandoned it after three years, finding the medium too inflexible. But I think her true motivation had more to do with aesthetics—using available light to dramatise the subject with the infinite gradations of grey between pure black and white provided the subtlety that was her stock in trade. 'Colour is too noisy,' she once said. 'The eye doesn't know where to rest.'

Very fine article. Written by Luke Dodd and Eamonn McCabe.

Alun J. Carr provides a link to a collection of Jane's work at the National Portrait Gallery. Note that Fair Use needs to be observed if downloading these images! Or I would have used this one to illustrate this post (from her Rolleiflex years, in this case 1959).

Richard Parkin tells us that Looking for Light, the Jane Bown documentary, is available for rent or purchase from the UK iTunes Store. Not the USA one, though. Here's the trailer:

Mike
(Thanks to Carl Weese, Alun, and Richard)

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Scott Johnston: "This lady is just so wonderful—I wish I could be her, quietly crafting beautiful pictures with nothing but the essential character of the subject in mind. Wow. Thanks Mike."

John Sarsgard: "As a portrait photographer, I have no higher ambition than to imitate Jane Bown as well as I possibly can. Her process is exactly how I feel called to work. I have no need to do anything differently, only to work with people as she did. RIP, lovely lady."

Jane Bown 1925-2014

Jane Bown at home, surrounded by some of her photographs.

We are reached this morning with news of the death of the great Jane Bown. The quintessential photojournalistic portraitist, she worked for the world's oldest Sunday newspaper, the UK's The Observer, for more than half a century, beginning 65 years ago.

Renowned for modest reticence and for the simplicty of her style, she worked quietly and quickly, without calling attention to herself, using natural light.

An earlier photograph of Jane from her home.
Both photos are screen grabs from the Channel 4 profile below.

The picture above is this one, by Madame Yevonde, 1967. This is from a bromide print in the Yevonde Portrait Archive of
Britain's National Portrait Gallery.

Just this year a film documentary of her life was released, called Looking for Light. It's not available online that I know of. [UPDATE: The DVD is available from Amazon UK. There is also a Limited Premium Edition that includes a signed original print. NOTE that these will be Region 2 (European Union) DVDs. These play on Apple Computers (what I use) if you reset the region, but you are only allowed to reset the region five times!! Be careful. Thanks to Gill R and Bob Curtis for this. —Ed.]

Here's a brief recent profile of her from British television:

She published many books, most out of print now, including Exposures (UK link) from 2009, Unknown Bown (2007) (UK link), Faces (2002) (UK link), and The Gentle Eye (1982) (UK link).

The book Faces is subtitled "The creative process behind great portraits," but Jane sums it up in a jot: "What people say to me is how do I do this. And I say, just look."

Observer Editor John Mulholland, quoted in the Guardian obituary, said "her contribution to the paper’s history, as well to Britain’s artistic legacy, is immense, and will long survive her. She was loved by her colleagues and adored by our readers. We will miss her hugely."

She was 89.

Mike
(Thanks to Guy Batey and Leslie Ashe)

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Elaine: "Oh, I loved Jane Bown's work! I still have her book Faces. She used Olympus film cameras. Her work really inspired me. She used natural lighting, which is what I love. She was such an inspiration to me. R.I.P., Jane.  :-(  "

David Paterson: "In the '70s and early '80s I worked quite regularly for the Observer's Sunday magazine and was fortunate to meet Jane Bown a couple of times. She was friendly but brisk and there was a strong impression of an acute intelligence in spite of her quiet manner. She was a legend even then—cameras in a shopping bag—and will be greatly mourned and missed even though she retired quite some time ago. A true great."

Alan Hill: "Ars est celare artem (art is about concealing art)—has there ever been a better example of the truth of this old saying?"

One of Us

Perhaps it just relates to what I've always done for a living, but I have this strong sense of photo-geeks of every description and stripe being a community of equals and friends. We are young and old, male and female, rich and poor, and we stretch from the greenest newcomer to the greatly accomplished, but we are connected by the filaments of our common interest. (It's why, for instance, I have a policy of referring to everyone by their first names even if they're far from me in social standing or accomplishment or job position. Elsewhere, they could well be Ms. of Mr.; here, we're friends.)

Hugh Mangum died way too young, at age 44, of the flu. (Had your flu shot yet?) But somehow I just know that if he were around today he'd be hanging out here, or on RFF, or the LUG, or on dpreview, and he'd be posting his portraits to a flickr group and getting lots of likes. Another one of us.

Hugh Mangum. Screen grab courtesy CBS News.

Check out the nice piece CBS News did about Hugh and his portraits. A short life, sadly, but there are worse lives. I enjoyed shaking hands with Hugh. Maybe you will too.  

Mike
(Thanks to Tom Kwas)

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René Burri 1933-2014

René Burri died on October 20th. (Magnum Collection/Magnum Photos)

I'm not the right person to write an appreciation of Magnum photographer René Burri, who died last Monday. He was just the sort of photographer I should like, and I always thought of him sympathetically, but in trying to engage with his work I never caught enough friction to make contact. I still don't quite get him, although I've always thought I should. Along with the rest of the world I admire his most famous pictures.

I heard of him as a younger gadfly of Henri Cartier-Bresson's, who measured himself against his older and more distinguished colleague, provoking and inspiring and perhaps sometimes irritating Henri, through a shared affection. And over the years I heard intriguing stories of how Burri refused to take certain pictures because they were too obvious or too exploitative—and how could I not like that? "One of these days I'm going to publish a book of all the pictures I did not take. It is going to be a huge hit," he said.

But with artists I don't know yet, "meeting" them is always a possibility for the future. René Burri is well served by in-print books—one a "how I worked" memoir called Impossible Reminiscences [now back-ordered —Ed.], another a major retrospective book of photographs. I haven't seen either one (have you? Tell us what you think if you have). There are numerous obituaries on the web. I'm sorry I don't have more to add, but I would welcome comments from others who do.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Bill Pierce: "this is a comment I made earlier on another website that had a thread on René Burri. René Burri died on Monday. A lot of you know he was an exceptional photographer. He was also an exceptional human. He had a few years on me and still outran me. When my airplane flight got rescheduled and I had no place to stay when we were covering Tiananmen Square, he shared his hotel room. As an extra bonus I got a guided tour through his book The Germans. I spotted one picture that was actually a print comprised of two adjacent frames. He laughed and said I was one of the few people who realized what it was, that Cartier-Bresson hadn’t spotted it. I finally got my plane out. René stayed to rewalk the mountainous part of Mao’s Long March. As I said, he could outrun me.

"Every time we crossed paths, it was an exceptional pleasure. I suppose there are a lot of good photographers in the world. There are few that had his kindness, his generosity and his genuine love for the people around him. The cliché 'he will be missed' is an understatement."

Clive Evans: "Met René at Les Rencontres d'Arles in 2010—a really warm generous nice guy."

Remembering Ray

Ray K. Metzker, 1931–2014

-

Written by Keith F. Davis

Photographs by Rachael Jane

After a long illness, the great photographer Ray K. Metzker died on October 9th, 2014. He will be dearly missed by his family, friends, and many others in the world of photography.

I treasure the time I was able to spend with Ray over the years. I first met him in the early 1980s, after Harry Callahan encouraged me to contact him. I had already been a fan of Ray’s work for at least a decade, and had begun adding his prints to the Hallmark Photographic Collection. At this time he was living in a wonderful space: a renovated nineteenth-century firehouse in an old area of Philadelphia.

Our visit that afternoon was relatively brief, but fascinating. Ray was not excessively outgoing; he always had a good deal of Midwestern reserve. He spoke quietly and carefully: everything he said—and did—was deeply considered and deliberate. And of course, his working space was beautifully organized. As we climbed the stairs of the old firehouse, I remember passing one level with a well-equipped wood shop. When I asked what use that served, Ray told me that he made his own frames. As simple as that idea might have been, I remember being surprised—and impressed. I had never heard a photographer say that before, and it made me realize that Ray put far more than "average" thought and effort into what he did. I got the unmistakable idea that everything about his photography mattered to him: there were no shortcuts.

It was clear that everything in Ray’s meticulously organized space served his process of art making. He was completely devoted to an artistic life. This was not a matter of any superficial “lifestyle”—it was an all-encompassing commitment. This, in turn, stemmed from an unwavering enthusiasm for the process of photography and a deep faith in the validity of his effort. As quiet as he typically was, Ray had an iron will and a profound belief in the significance of what he was doing. As a result, he had arranged his life in order to pare away all but the bare minimum of real-world distractions.

After seeing him several times in subsequent years, my contact became more regular after about 2007 as I began exploring the possibility of a major acquisition and show. As a result, I made four or five in-depth studio visits to look at work and to talk. Usually, I was accompanied by his dealer, Laurence Miller, who knew the work only slightly less well than Ray himself. Larry had shown Ray’s pictures during their mutual years at Light Gallery in the late 1970s, and became his primary dealer in the early 1980s. It was a partnership of enormous mutual respect and support.

On the first of these extended visits, I realized that I had only presumed to know Metzker’s work. The quality and range of what I saw was genuinely amazing. Organized in boxes by date and project, the prints were a revelation. Ray was definitely “old school” in his printing, and he was a true master. His prints had an amazing life and presence. He could use the extremes of the tonal scale—from deep black to gleaming white—like no one else. The prints tended to be small in size—many of them were on 8x10 or 11x14-inch paper—but they had more visual impact than vastly larger prints by most other photographers. They exuded intentionality, care, and integrity. Metzker never released prints that were mere approximations of what he wanted to say. The placement of tones, the overall quality of light, and the formal structure of the image were all precisely determined. Metzker wanted his viewers to look long and seriously at his prints—and so he worked hard to make every one worthy of that attention.

In addition to their physical quality, the sheer range of what I saw was stunning. For every picture I knew, there were dozens that were completely new. There was some difference, of course, between the best-known images and some of the unknown ones—famous pictures do not become famous for entirely arbitrary reasons. That said, the overall level of quality was staggering—one box after another was full of fascinating and exquisite photographs. Some of these were variants of better-known images, revealing Metzker’s process of working up to and around a given subject. In other cases, entire boxes of pictures were new—complete projects or thematic pursuits that had gone unmentioned in any of his several monographs.

The sheer variety of work made me consider the relationship between Ray’s “place” in photo-history and the reality of his working method. It is probably safe to say that he is best known for his Composites of the mid-1960s, with his early Chicago and Philadelphia pictures, his double-frame works, his Sand Creatures series, his 1980s City Whispers, his landscapes, and his Pictus Interruptus works bringing progressively less recognition.

While understandable, this limited familiarity obscures the true genius of Metzker’s process: his endless curiosity, his willingness to take risks and to change, and the sheer breadth of his creative interests. From his boldly graphic city pictures, to the geometric tapestry of the Composites, to the delicacy of his landscapes, to the optical abstraction of the Pictus work, Metzker was engaged in a relentless quest to see how the photograph worked, and to challenge himself over and over to discover new ways of seeing. While the means of photography mattered a great deal to him, he was also deeply attentive to subject matter—he cared, in some real way, about the people and places he photographed. They were special because they were his: they were part of his world, and thus of his identity.

Metzker was a humanist, but not a sentimentalist. He had a real feeling for the lonely figures he photographed on the streets of Philadelphia and Chicago. But he did not pity them—he gave them a fundamental human respect, and he saw something of himself in all of them. In a slightly different way, he also loved the cars and buildings he recorded—as well as the basic beauty of light and shadow. That is, he accepted the reality of the world around him, recognizing that it held all kinds of treasures and revelations. The transformative power of his images is a product of his surgically precise vision—his ability to find, to isolate, and to magnify very particular facets of experience. He is the great visual poet of Philadelphia. That is not a subject that most photographers would instinctively think to claim, and yet consider what Metzker was able to do with it! He created an amazing visual world that was entirely his—because his dedication to seeing it was like no one else’s.

While Ray was a “formal” master, the emotion of his work has been less widely acknowledged. In a broad way, the tenor of his pictures was a reflection of his inner, emotional state. His shadowy “City Whispers” work of the early 1980s, for example, was produced in a period of unusual moodiness and emotional darkness—a time pervaded by a sense of melancholy and mortality. It is also significant that the open, light, and vibrant landscapes of the mid-1980s were made when he was falling in love with his soulmate and future wife, Ruth Thorne-Thomsen. All of Metzker’s pictures have this duality: they record some facet of real perceptual experience, while suggesting the photographer’s state of mind.

It is important to note that, for all of his seriousness, Ray had a great sense of humor. He loved to laugh, and even to be silly. In this regard, the wonderful names he gave to some of his images or series—“Spring Tingle,” “Glo Man Glo,” “Flickety Oops”, “Hula Cola,” “Pictus Interruptus,” and “The Whimsies”—reveal an important side of the man. Just as he loved music, he loved the playful sound of particular words and phrases.

My visits resulted in my museum’s project, “The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker.” We presented our exhibition in 2011 (and a book of the same title came out in 2012). At the time of our show, we had Ray and Ruth out to Kansas City. Ray and I did a public conversation in front of a near standing-room-only crowd in our main auditorium. Ray’s energy had been somewhat up-and-down in the preceding months, but he was totally “on” that day. He was thoughtful, witty, clear, and inspiring. It was an honor to be with him on stage for that hour. We could never have guessed it, of course, but this turned out to be his last major public appearance.

Ray is one of the giants of modern photography. He was never a critical “flavor of the month,” but that is fine. What he leaves is a true artistic monument: a body of work of genuinely lasting importance. I got the sense over the years that Ray never wanted to waste a minute: he knew what his life was about and he got on with it with a passion that was renewed every day, day after day. He certainly appreciated the attention he received, when curators and writers like William Ewing, Anne W. Tucker, Richard Woodward, or Evan Turner undertook important projects. However, in the end, the motivation for what he did was self-generated. The work expressed—and satisfied—an internal sense of curiosity and intellectual adventure. Until very near the end, he was always looking forward—always on the hunt for the next good picture, the next visual discovery.

In truth, Ray was always ahead of his audience. To everyone other than him, every body of work was a surprise and, to be honest, a bit of a puzzlement—until, with the passing of a few years, the beauty and the logic of each project would become clear.

With his passing, Ray is giving us all a chance to catch up.

Keith

Keith F. Davis is Senior Curator of Photography at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. He is the author/editor of The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker (2012, no longer in print).

Rachael Jane is an editorial, portrait, and wedding photographer in Kansas City.

TOP extends grateful thanks to Keith and Rachael for this post.

Text © 2014 by Keith F. Davis, photographs © 2014 by Rachael Jane, all rights reserved

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Manuel: "I saved this article for the weekend, in order to read it with enough time and the attention its subject deserved. Now that I finally read it, I want to congratulate both the author, Keith F. Davis, and Michael C. Johnston, for one of the best and most interesting articles I have read on TOP. There are many, of course, but some stand out. This is one of them."

Ray K. Metzker 1931-2014

I am desperately sorry to report that Ray K. Metzker has died at the age of 83, following a long decline. The news struck at me deeply, because nothing makes an artist I don't know personally more alive to me than engaging fully and deeply with his or her work, and I spent several months this past year finally fully engaging wholeheartedly with Ray's art through the medium of the excellent book by Keith Davis, The Photographs of Ray K. Metzker, published by the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, one of the best books of 2012 for me (although very unfortunately no longer in print now).

Ray was an experimentalist with a brilliant sense of graphic composition using deep shadow as bold black shapes, and he was especially sensitive to repetition, minimalism and subtle variation. He was the kind of photographer who is rare in any era but is growing rarer now in that he was fully an artist and also fully and completely a photographer—his work is rooted in straight photography but he was also always alive to how it worked as form and implication. His work seems mid-20th-century to me, his closest compatriots being people like Aaron Siskind and Harry Callahan (with whom he studied), although he wasn't like either one very precisely; I think of him as being just as close to Robert Motherwell and Franz Kline and several other artists.

I highly recommend a good soak in Keith's book if you can get your hands on it, perhaps at the library. Keith Davis makes his usual skilled and humane case for the artist with his selections and sequencing, somehow evincing a fuller picture and implying greater breadth rather than exposing weaknesses. It's a lovely book and a fine way to encounter Metzker. There are of course many books.

There's an obituary by David Walker at PDNonline.com.

UPDATE: The New York Times obituary, by Douglas Martin, is now posted too.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad)

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David Simonton: "I had a wonderful wide-ranging telephone phone conversation with Ray back in 2003. I was about to turn 50, and, for one thing, concerned about what my responsibility was going forward to the decades-worth of work I had accumulated. His advice was simply to 'keep making the work, and get it out there'; which is pretty much what I'd been doing, and absolutely what I've been doing ever since then. Ray helped me to stop questioning the process (which had always come naturally before the half-century mark) and get on with it! He was—he is—an enduring inspiration."

Dalton: "I'm very sorry to hear this, he was one of my favorites. For anyone in the New York area, there's a comprehensive show of his work currently on view at Laurence Miller Gallery."

Kenneth Tanaka: "I, too, am very saddened by this news although I did know his health was in decline. Ray's work has been among the most influential in my my own eye and tastes. I had the opportunity to spend a delightful evening with him years ago when he visited the Art Institute of Chicago to talk with a small group of enthusiasts. I did not know his work well before that event. He was so relaxed, so utterly unpretentious, so utterly...un-artist-like!

"Wearing gray slacks, a plaid shirt and a old comfy brown sweater Ray spoke about his work in calm tones but with unrehearsed enthusiasm. Coming back to the AIC was like coming home for him, as he had been part of that famous group from the Institute of Design.

"My strongest memory of Ray came later that evening. I was seated at a somewhat undersized round table with him and three other people, juggling our dishes and glasses. It was a classic scene of everyone trying to be polite and he was so graceful at it. Last year I sent Ray a short handwritten note thanking him for his work and the vision that he had imparted to me. I'm certain that he would not have remembered me from that evening but I like to think that he read that note."

Vivian Maier Battle Royale

Vivian Maier self-portrait. Photo from the Maloof Collection.

It's possible we might have seen the last of the lady in the reflection for a while.

I received what was subject-lined an "important and sad message" a few mornings ago from Jeff Goldstein, one of the holders of rediscovered photographer Vivian Maier's archives.

"Please note that we are shutting down our Vivian Maier office space immediately," Jeff wrote, "and the reason for this unexpected haste can be read about in today's, Saturday, New York Times.

"The potential legal conflict ahead is of a nature where it is better for us to fold and go into a sleep pattern until this is resolved. As the article mentions, it could be two years (or more)...thanks for the shared experience with Vivian Maier and her work."

The article, which can be found here, begins, "a court case in Chicago seeking to name a previously unknown heir is threatening to tie [Maier's] legacy in knots and could prevent her work from being seen again for years." The potentially tangled case involves a former commercial photographer and lawyer named David C. Deal, and one "very, very surprised" Frenchman.

Note that John Maloof, the holder of the largest part of the archive, has already settled with one potential heir.

The fascination of this story never ends...it's almost to photography pundits and bloggers what Toronto Mayor Rob Ford is to late-night comedians.

John Maloof, Ron Slattery, and Randy Prow were the original buyers of her archives from the storage-locker auctions. Goldstein bought his holdings from Prow.

For my part, I can only say that I've been impressed with what I know of the work John and Jeff and others have been doing to preserve, promote, and—most of all—to respect Vivian's work. Yeah, they're making money from it, but good for them—they've invested a hell of a lot, too, in time, effort, care, and self-education. The important thing is the work, and in that sense Vivian was incredibly lucky that it was John Maloof who happened to buy most of her work that fateful day in 2009, and that more of it ended up with Ron and Jeff. They have all—John particularly—done a responsible and conscientious job as far as I can see. Maybe I'll will my own archive to John Maloof—who knows, maybe that way you will have heard of me too one day!  :-)

Mike
(Thanks to Jeff Goldstein, and Dennis Allshouse and many other readers)

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Craig (partial comment): "The funny thing about this is that without Maloof and the others profiting from Maier's work, there would be no awareness of it, it would therefore have no market value, and the existence of distant blood relatives who never even knew her would be completely irrelevant."

Herman: "Sounds like a bad Deal."

Andy Kochanowski: "Herman—comment of the day.

"But the issue of monetization of a third-party's intellectual property is important. Putting aside the moral issues, for no one objectively knows if VM wanted to sell her work, the buyers of the negatives took a relatively minor financial risk to get the physical negatives. They took a relatively larger risk in spending the time to decide whether VM's story would indeed be capable of being monetized. Getting the rights to keep the profit from the commercialization is key—Deal is essentially claiming that Maloof didn't get the rights from the right relative, the one to whom the VM estate's copyright would pass by virtue of probate law.

"If you want to look at another uncomfortable intersection of art and law, the heirs to Nazi stolen art are still fighting with museums who ended up with it. Heirs of 1930s Jewish families who had their personal property taken by the Nazis, the same legal position that Deal's French client has, are today still litigating with a number of institutions over return of the works."

Sterling: "I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand, the guys who have curated the work have made Maier famous and are sitting on top of a potentially decades-long revenue stream. On the other hand, we have a way of settling property rights that has to be followed. For example, if John Maloof died tomorrow, his estate would include any interest he holds in the photos. Where would that interest end up? Absent some explicit agreement, it would go to his heirs. Do those heirs deserve it any more than Maier's heirs? No, since both groups of heirs had nothing to do with promoting Maier's legacy. We see this all the time in the modern age of copyright. There's the art of photography that we all love, and then there's the business side. In business, people are always going to squabble over money. Always."

'Hard to Proofread Through My Tears'

Ray McSavaney has died. If you don't know that name, and you might not, you have a wonderful exploration in store for you—because Ray's photography lives on.

John Sexton has written a fine tribute to his great good friend. He apologizes for its length and for his typos because "it is hard to proofread the text through my tears." He has written a beautiful piece. I hope you can make a small space in your life to read it over the next couple of days.

In one of those gratuitous lists I write here every so often—you know I like lists—I said, in calling Ray one of the ten best living photographers: "The man has got no rap at all, and seems almost allergic to self-promotion or, indeed, promotion of almost any sort (which could be good things), but he's our modern-day heir to Ansel Adams: a classic West-Coast B&W Zone-System photographer whose work is gorgeous but nuanced, distanced, wide-ranging, probing, rapt, technically perfect and tonally ravishing—and did we mention gorgeous?"

John says "Ray was a humble, unassuming, quiet person, and a bit of an enigma." Later he continues: "Ray approached photography, and life, in a slow and methodical manner. He had countless talents. He was a fine chef, a talented woodworker, he designed and hand crafted clamshell portfolio boxes, was trained in the army as a cartographer, was a talented typographer, and an incisive writer. Once Ray felt passion for a particular photograph, or project, he became obsessed, and there was no stopping him from reaching his goal. His intense dedication was an inspiration to Anne and me, and many others [who knew] Ray. He had the uncommon ability to shed the encumbrances of normal day-to-day life, and focus on whatever was the subject of his attention."

I was surprised to learn that you can still buy Ray's 1992 book Explorations through John and Anne's Ventana Editions. I wish I'd known while there was still time to help Ray himself, but a purchase will still help his work—John and Anne are donating 100% of the profits to the effort to help preserve Ray's archive. Contemplating Ray's "Walking Trees" series in Explorations is one of the profound experiences of nature photography.

And as I said, if you don't know Ray's work yet you are in for a wonderful treat. He was one of the most inventive and wide-ranging of the "West Coast" school of Zone System large-format photographers, and a superlative craftsman. It's a great book.

You can see some of Ray's work at his website, but go with a strong caveat: the small JPEGs just do not begin to do justice to the lovely book reproductions or to Ray's superb prints. The JPEGs are like schoolchild sketches of great paintings, an indication at best. But they will give you an idea.

Ray McSavaney was a photographer who may not have been widely known, but who richly deserves to be remembered. R.I.P.

Mike
(Thanks to John Sexton)

P.S. Sorry for the lack of a portrait as an illustration—pictures of Ray are hard to find and hard to clear. Please don't take it as a sign of any disrespect.

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Dave Karp: "My late father-in-law did a workshop with Ray McSavaney, John Sexton and Anne Larsen. He was very taken with McSavaney. Really liked him. Ray was available to him after the workshop, to answer questions and to further the teaching started at the workshop. Later, my wife and I met Ray at a gallery showing. He remembered my father-in-law, who was gone by then, and we have a very nice talk about his work and photography in general. When the conversation turned to our feelings about his photography, he was genuinely moved by our compliments toward his work. By all accounts and by experience, a very, very nice and gentle man.

"His photography is stunning. This man understood light. His studies of the abandoned Firestone factory are amazing. I have seen similar work by well-known photographers. In my opinion, his is the best example of that sort of work. He could photograph and print snow like nobody else. Explorations is my favorite book of photography.

"He also had broad range as a photographer. He seemed equally comfortable photographing the landscape, architecture (ancient and modern), people, flowers, you name it."

Frank Greenagel: "Ray was an exceptional teacher as well as a superb photographer. I worked the Southwest with him half a dozen times and was often surprised by his deep rapport with several Navajos we encountered, often in a remote canyon; certainly born of his understanding of and empathy with their culture.

"I recall several times when we set up our cameras, all ready to make an exposure, then sat and waited—may an hour or more—for a cloud to move into the right position or for a shadow to fall on the right area of a ruin. He was a very gentle man, one of wide-ranging knowledge and high ethical values. I feel especially fortunate to have a dozen of his prints from the Southwest, each one recalling for me a day-hike, mostly in Southeast Utah. Mike, you are correct that he seemed to avoid all efforts at self-promotion. I think I'll have a beer, or several, in his memory."

A Tragedy in the Family

Yesterday, an antisocial and maladjusted young man named Elliot Rodger, conforming to one of the current homicidal contagions, carried out a longstanding secret plan and killed six innocent young people and himself in Isla Vista, California.

His parents had apparently done everything they could to prevent just such a disaster from happening, making sure Elliott was in therapy, sending the police to his residence on April 30th (where his plot came agonizingly close to being uncovered), and racing to try to stop him at the end.

Unfortunately the twisted young man is related to the wider "family" of photographers. His father is Peter Rodger, who was the second-unit director of The Hunger Games, and he was the grandson of photojournalist George Rodger, one of the founding members of Magnum, a portrait of whom I've published here in the past.

George Rodger was one of the first photojournalists allowed into the concentration camps after the fall of Nazi Germany, and in his later years said he was haunted by the fact that when confronted with the overpowering atrocities, he was preoccupied with finding good photographic compositions. I've always thought that was perfectly understandable, because who wouldn't need to create some sort of pyschological buffer when confronted with such a thing? George Rodger's photographic records turn out to have been very important to history.

The Los Angeles Times reports that the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department identified all six of Elliott Rodgers' immediate victims. Veronika Weiss, 19, and her sorority sister Katherine Breann Cooper, 22, of Chino Hills, were shot in the grass in front of a UCSB sorority. Christopher Michaels-Martinez, 20, of San Luis Obispo, was killed nearby at a deli. Three other victims, Weihan Wang, 20, of Fremont, and Cheng Yuan Hong, 20, and George Chen, 19, both of San Jose, were stabbed to death in the suspect's apartment.

All were students at the University of California Santa Barbara.

All crimes like this have many secondary victims, whose lives will be irreparably changed forever. Including, in this case, Peter and Chin Rodgers.

Our sincere condolences to all of those affected.

Mike
(Thanks to Jim Hughes, and Felix)

Original contents copyright 2014 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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Geoff Goldberg: "All parents are blessed with their children, and worry about keeping them safe. What is in the background is a deeper concern, the joy of having 'gotten a good one' or unhappily, maybe one that turns out bad. In some cases, there is little a parent can do in the face of such difficulties, and the tragedy that has unsued here leaves the parents wondering 'what did I do wrong?' and 'what should we have done?' For every lucky parent, perhaps there is an unlucky one. Those who have been fortunate know the line is very thin, and one could be on the other side of fortune. Our hearts go out to them, and to the families who lost their children in this horror."

Mike replies: Amen. And sometimes the lucky and unlucky parents can be the same people! I had a barber for years whose two sons were opposites. One was very accomplished and well adjusted and high acheiving, the other was a drug addict who caused them constant worry and trouble, was in and out of prison and rehab, who stole from them and sometimes jeopardized them by bringing her and her husband into harrowing contact with dangerous lowlifes. She claimed that she and her husband had done nothing differently with either of the boys. And according to her stories, they had done everything they could think of to try to deal with the "bad" son. First to help him, then to keep him at bay and prevent him from ruining their own lives. Finally the "good" son moved to the Carolinas for a job on a NASCAR pit crew, and the "bad" son had to stay here for parole reasons. So the parents moved to the Carolinas. She said she knew people would judge them for "abandoning" their troubled son, and her bitter comment was "walk a mile in our shoes first and then see how you feel."

A reader who wishes to remain anonymous added the following response to this story: "My wife and I have three children, two girls and a boy. I should say two women and a man, because the youngest, my son, is now nearly 25. He had a troubled childhood, and began using drugs at an early age. He forged thousands of dollars of checks on our checking accounts. He used every known drug, and a year ago was seemingly hopelessly addicted to heroin. He had been in and out of jail more than once. My wife and I had resigned ourselves to losing him, and the best we could do was to try to prepare emotionally for his early death, because the drugs were certainly taking him that way.

"However, and this is why I'm writing, in the last nine months he's completely turned around. He finally agreed to go to rehab at a local facility, because the alternative was another stretch in jail. The stats on recovery from rehab aren't great. But he's made it, at least this far. He's stayed clean, is holding down a good job, and is planning a real future. He's turned into the son we always wanted and thought we'd never have. We know that his recovery is still fragile, but right now all the signs are good.

"If any of your readers are in a similar situation, don't give up hope. It can turn around, and sometimes does."