Florence Nightingale, taken 1858, rediscovered 2006
From Listverse, subtitled "ultimate top 10 lists," comes this list of ten recently rediscovered photographs—some of which, but by no means all, we have noted in passing here on TOP. A most excellent list, even if future rediscoveries might eventually render it less than the ultimate.
Mike
(Thanks to Paul VanAudenhove)
José Luis Rodriguez has won the the 2009 Veolia Environment Wildlife Photographer of the Year award with this nighttime photograph of an Iberian wolf leaping a rustic gate. Rodriguez reportedly planned his shot carefully and worked out his technique over many years.
The 45-year-old competition is run by BBC Wildlife Magazine and London's Natural History Museum. The winning photograph was one of more than 43,000 entries.
The picture was shot with a Hasselblad 503CW and an 80mm ƒ/2.8 Zeiss Planar lens on Fujichrome film.
You can read more about it and see other winners at BBC News. Congratulations to José!
Mike
(Thanks to Ted Johnson)
John Lennon by Jane Bown
The whole United Kingdom seems to be embarked on a low-key but extended love-fest for Jane Bown, the modest* longtime newspaper photographer who has come to rank with Newman, Karsh and Nadar as one of the medium's greatest portraitists.
Rather urgently recommended is the Observer's Oct. 22 online portfolio, called "The Complete Jane Bown, A Lifetime in Photographs," which is the best online presentation of her work yet. Or that I've seen, anyway. Plan to spend some good time with this one if you're into portraiture (the two pictures here were pulled from that presentation).
There's also an excellent article by Robin McKie called "The Eyes Have It," from Oct. 18th, with a 6 minute 37 second audiovisual presentation.
I can't help mentioning...
Notice the opening frame of the video. This is a photographer who has undeniably scaled the heights of accomplishment in our medium, who for nearly 40 years has photographed with a simple, all-manual SLR, a prime lens or two, and natural light taken as she finds it. Should give pause to any of us who fret about equipment too much (I don't except myself).
There is a touring exhibition in Britain, and last but not least, a new retrospective book called Exposures
Mike
(Thanks to many readers who sent one or another of these links)
*The story is that when she received her M.B.E. in 1985, Queen Elizabeth II asked her what it was she did, and Jane responded, "I'm a hack." She was later invited to photograph the Queen several times, most recently when both women were 80 years old. The Queen, who is known to be fond of photography (she has a Leica M3), asked how many films she'd taken, and then asked her if she'd like to take one more.
"Computer science professor Marc Levoy of Stanford shows off his prototype 'Frankencamera.' It allows programs to be downloaded, much like the iPhone does, and might just change the future of photography." [NPR caption. Photo by Linda A. Cicero]
Scientists at Stanford University are developing a Linux-based open-source camera, hoping to push camera manufacturers into incorporating similar possibilities into commercial products. The article spends a lot of time detailing a not-very-convincing example, but the idea of an infinitely-programmable open-source camera is enticing. Read about "Frankencamera" at NPR. org.
Here's the Project Website.
Mike
(Thanks to Maarten Boerma and Randolph Fritz)
A few updates on recent posts.
• In this post I mentioned that I'd ordered a print of a Francis Wolff picture of Sonny Clark from Mosaic, before the price rise. It arrived, and it's nice enough—clean, well made, on nice paper. Admittedly I have high standards, especially when it comes to black and white, but the print itself doesn't quite reach them. Too light. That means the shadow areas are nicely open, but the highlights (the keyboard, and Sonny's hand) lack detail. Although doubtless made from a scanned neg, it resembles a digital black and white print in the highlights a little too much....
Still haven't decided if I'll hang it on the wall or not.
• I did indeed receive this Canon book from B&H Photo, which I talked about in this post. It's not only still available, it's a much better book now, in its current edition, than it was when it was first published. A fine advertorial effort, sumptuously produced. I really do think it would be of interest to more than just Canon owners, although Canon owners should take advantage of one of the big advantages of being Canon owners and get it. (There's nothing like it for poor Pentax or Olympus E shooters, for example, and no, the Sony Zeiss PDF (Warning: link is a .pdf download) falls way too far on the brochure side of the brochure/book divide to qualify.) If you're not already a Canon owner, though, I have to warn you, the siren song of books like this can sometimes get you hankering to switch systems. I swear I became an Olympus shooter in '94 as a result of repeatedly drooling like a gearhead zombie over The OM System Lens Handbook, which, at the time, I perused front to back, back to front, upside down, and inside out.
• I heard from Mike Ferron, who had offered to design a new layout for my problematic kitchen. He's been inundated with real work, a.k.a. his job, and hasn't gotten around to it yet. He still says he will, and I'll still pass his thoughts on the subject along to you when I get them. (Still amazed at the response to that post.)
• Remember Nick Jbara, who photographed the Melody Gardot album cover
Nick also writes, "I have to stop here and thank you again for posting what you did. It's by far the biggest thing out there for me (as one of your commenters wrote to tell me, I couldn't afford the advertising you've given me with that post). I'm still honored—just honored under a different name."
• Friend-of-the-site Mike Chisholm writes, "I'm having an 80-image one-man exhibition in the Fotoforum West gallery in Innsbruck, Austria—largely, I suspect (not least because of the TOP-derived quotes that Rupert Larl, the gallery director, has chosen to use on the invitations), because of my exposure on TOP's Random Excellence slot [here]. How about that?"
Pretty cool, is how about that! For those of you proximate to Austria, the gallery is at Adolf-Pichler-Platz 8, Innsbruck, and the show will run from September 11th to October 10th. Congratulations, Mike.
• Finally, also pursuant to one of the kitchen posts, my Jim Lager Leica book set drew a lot of interest, and it sold to a reader from Cambridge, Mass. I just hope I don't miss it too much. However, nobody wanted my poor hurt Schneider Super-Symmar-HM 120mm, so it's been relegated to the 'Bay, sorry to say. Lovely lens, though.
Photo by John Florea
LIFE.com launches today. From the press release: "More than 7 million photos from the Life and Getty Images photo collections are now available to consumers in the largest online photography site. The curated site features both rarely seen and iconic photos from the 1850s through today. More than 3,000 new photos from Getty Images award-winning photographers will be added to the site daily. Users will be able to rate, email, share, purchase, license photos and explore their world through the world’s greatest images in this user-friendly web site."
Thank you!
