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Sometimes I get so busy with the blog that I don't have time to post anything on the blog. That one has to go into the "ironies" folder.
Anyway, I thought I'd toss this out. I was watching a video of a presentation yesterday given by Harry Pearson, the founding editor of The Absolute Sound, and he mentioned a peculiar predicament that he'd gotten himself into, something that's also pretty ironic. Long ago he published his "Super Disk List"—his choices of the best recordings ever put on vinyl (the list was first published many years ago, and many times since); but then he had a fire, and lost all his records—at which point he discovered that he could no longer afford to replace his own record collection, because he himself had driven up the prices on the very records he liked best to the point that they were too expensive for him to buy.
I've had that happen a couple of times—I've extolled the virtues of a particular piece of used equipment, usually a lens, in a magazine, or on the web, or both, only to see its value on the used market go up and up to the point that I can't afford it myself any more.
Obviously the paradigm has shifted now—people aren't using the same cameras, and in many case they're not using the same lenses, either, so I don't know how much of a traceable effect, if any, a "Super Lens List" written by me would have—possibly very little. But every time I think of writing an article about "My Favorite Lenses of All Time," this is the nagging thought stays my hand.
Of my six all-time favorite lenses, for instance, I currently own only two, and one of them is a pretty poor sample that I really should replace with a better one. But what I envision is that if I write about how great my favorite lenses are, the prices of them on the used market will go up, and then I won't be able to buy any of them myself. As I say, I don't even know for sure that this would happen, but it has so far prevented me from writing about the subject.
So let me edge into the subject this way—how about you? Do you have an all-time favorite lens—that you would be willing to name, I mean? I don't mean your "best," or "most expensive," or "most used" lens, but the one you love the best, of all the ones you've ever owned or used.
If you can link to a picture taken with it, so much the better.
And if you'd rather not say—I understand!
Mike
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Featured Comment by Jonas Yip:
"My favorite lens is one that I made myself out of a 99-cent store magnifying glass. It has become so 'valuable' to me now (after several exhibits of images solely from this lens) that I went back to the 99-cent store and bought a stack of those magnifying glasses in case I ever lose the current one. Here is one series."
Featured Comment by Carl Weese:
"Okay, I can't resist. Under your definition, I love my 1967 vintage 35mm Summilux because, simply, it was the lens I used to make the earliest of my pictures that I still consider good. Eight of the 12 shots in this little gallery were made with it in 1969–70. The other four were with the 28mm Elmarit, a lens I never felt as much affection for, but still liked enormously more than anything I currently use on DSLR cameras. And I do really, really, like the 240mm Apo-Sironar S I use for most pictures with my 8x10 Deardorff, like the one above—roughly equivalent focal length to the 35mm."
Sealing Wax Palm, Hawaii, 2002
Fresh Pahoehoe, Mothers Day Flow, Hawaii, 2002 [SOLD OUT]
This is it! Without further ado, I refer you to....
If you'd like to see larger JPEGs of the images, click on the images above or click here.
By the way, "Pahoehoe" (according to the USGS) "is a Hawaiian term for basaltic lava that has a smooth, hummocky, or ropy surface."
To recap, the prints are all about 10" wide in the horizontal dimension, with a generous border. The price for one print is $150, the price for a second print is $130, and if you buy all three the price for the third print is $110.
And now, backtracking a bit, a few more details of the sale I didn't cover last week:
• You can pay either by PayPal or by personal check this time. Ctein actually slightly prefers the latter, because then he doesn't have to pay PayPal's fees. But be sure to read and follow the instructions on the order page if you want to pay by check.
• Shipping costs to the U.S. are included. To Canada, it's an additional $10, and to the rest of the world, it's $30. Those costs are per order, not per print.
Sorry the international shipping is so high, but Ctein has to fill out elaborate Customs forms and stand in line at the Post Office for each order; the time and the cost aren't inconsequential.
As I mentioned earlier, only 125 prints of each picture are available. The sale will last until 8 a.m. Central U.S. Time Thursday, February 4th, or until the prints sell out, whichever comes first. Note that these are not editions, and the prints are not limited edition prints; it's just the number of prints available in this sale for this price. (Ctein's regular price for prints of this size is $400). When a print sells out, the PayPal order buttons will disappear from the Order Page, and I'll try to announce it here in as timely a fashion as I can.
About that word "only": 375 prints is a lot of prints, but it's less than half the number that were sold last go-round, and, back then, both Ctein and I received many late requests from people who missed the deadline and still wanted to purchase prints. Last time, one of the two photographs sold more than 100 prints in the first 24 hours. The price this time is higher, so these may take longer to sell out, but please bear in mind that we don't know how long the supply will last. When one photograph sells out, you won't be able to get that third-print price; when two sell out, you won't be able to get the second-print price. We can't guarantee that any particular picture will be available for the whole two-week duration of the sale.
Please do not e-mail Ctein with questions or requests for details or questions until you've read all the information we've posted. He's going to be very busy for the next month, and it would be a kindness to contact him only if necessary. Please read over the order page, this page, and the pre-announcement to see if your question hasn't already been answered.
Originals at your leisure
As in 2008, I'd like to offer my sincere thanks to Ctein for doing this. Obviously, the best way to familiarize oneself with excellent prints in various photographic media is to look at originals. Lots of us see prints in museums, and that's great; but it's even better to own one for yourself, so you can hold it in your hands, view it at your leisure in different kinds of light, see it without a pane of glass in between it and you, or hang it on your wall and live with it if you want to.
Ctein will make a decent amount of money on this sale (and TOP gets a cut too), and that's a good enough reason to do it. But, as any of you who watched the L-L video know, it's still a tremendous commitment and an awful lot of work for him—and, I think, a generous gesture for him to make. He could just as easily sit on his remaining supplies for his big-time clients. These days, there just aren't very many photographers who have even seen a dye transfer print. That situation will only get worse in time, as the remaining printers stop printing and the remaining supplies of materials dry up. So I'm pleased to be able to facilitate this offer to you—'tis a fine thing in my opinion. So, my thanks to Ctein, and thanks also to those of you who bought prints in 2008 and those who will participate this time. I hope you like your print.
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Reviewed by Geoff Wittig
Not available from Amazon; must be ordered from the publisher (UPDATE: There's a 4–6 week delay in shipping from the publisher, by which time the book should be available from Amazon again. As it was just published in November, 2009, it's probably awaiting a second printing. I'll try to remember to alert you when it's available again. —Ed.)
There are lots of different ways to look at the work of other photographers. Exhibitions or books by their nature tend to be (or at least should be!) tightly edited demonstrations of their best work. But it's also very instructive seeing how a photographer actually works: how he or she arrives at the final image, starting from what we'd now call "original capture." Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans provides a very detailed look inside the editing and sequencing of Frank's landmark book, starting from thousands of negatives. Great stuff. Well, how about something along those lines looking at the work of a wider range of photographers?
The Contact Sheet provides a brief look into the editing process for more than forty highly accomplished photographers. Each section includes a biographical paragraph, followed by the photographer's comments on their working style, and sometimes specific observations about the session depicted. The text is followed by a reproduction of a contact sheet, group of slides or negatives from the session. Lastly there is a full page reproduction of the resulting photograph—many of them well known or even iconic.
Among the many examples are original slides by Steve McCurry and David Doubilet, David Hume Kennerly's contact sheet of negatives depicting Nixon's helicopter departure after resigning, Dorothea Lange's negatives of "Migrant Mother," Martin Parr's contact sheet of oiled up sunbathers...in short, a treasure trove of photographic history right down to contemporary work. In each case the reader gets a look at the raw material from which the photographer started, together with the resulting final image.
Pete Turner, Times Square
The entire project is fascinating. Pete Turner's entry notes that film was expensive and pre-dawn light brief, so he shot only a handful of frames, each a completely different composition. Yet the outtakes from "Times Square" are nearly as beautiful as the chosen frame. I wish my best photographs were half as good as Turner's rejects. Jerry Uelsman's entry shows the wide range of negatives from which he assembled one of his better known constructed images.
My only complaint is that I'd like to know more. The book's text is printed in English, French, German and Spanish in adjacent columns, which limits the extent of its content. I would love to read more detail about each photographer's deliberation—why he/she chose that specific frame rather than the one before or after. But even this tantalizing glimpse is well worth your time.
Geoff
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According to an article on the Independent website and another on Wildlife Extra.com, The picture that won the 2009 Wildlife Photographer of the Year award has been disqualified. The picture, as you'll recall, was of a supposedly wild wolf caught by triggered flash jumping a gate. Louise Emerson, of the Competition office, said "The judging panel was reconvened and concluded that it was likely that the wolf featured in the image was an animal model that can be hired for photographic purposes and, as a result, that the image had been entered in breach of Rule 10 of the Competition." Rule 10 states that photographs of animal models may not be entered and will be disqualified if they are entered in breach. [Note: This is according to the two articles referenced. See the commentary below. —MJ]
Emerson noted that the photographer "strongly denies" the wolf is an animal model. The wolf is believed to be one named Ossian, who lives at the Cañada Real Center Zoological Park near Madrid.
"The judging panel looked at a range of evidence and took specialist advice from panel judges who have extensive experience of photographing wildlife, including wolves," Emerson said. "They also considered the responses to specific questions put to the photographer José Luis Rodriguez."
The image will be removed from the Competition's exhibit and tour, and the £10,000 winner's prize will not be awarded. José Luis Rodriguez will be allowed to keep a £500 category winner's check in lieu of royalties.
First place in the 2009 Competition, which is owned jointly by the Natural History Museum and BBC Wildlife Magazine, will not be awarded, because the judging can no longer be carried on blind as per the Competition's standard procedure.
Mike
(Thanks to David Goldfarb)
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Featured Comment by Miserere: "When they say 'model animal,' I'm assuming they mean 'an animal that saunters around and gets its picture taken.' But it seems this rule was lost in translation at this Spanish website, where they think the photographer is being accused of using a stuffed animal.
I thought I'd look into the rules, and here is the text of the much-reported Rule 10:
Rule 10: Judges
These will be appointed by the Owners to choose the winners. The Owners’ decision on all matters relating to the competition is final, and no correspondence will be entered into concerning the competition’s judging and organisation. Should the quality of entries fall below the standard required, the Owners reserve the right not to award prizes.
Maybe some journalistic checking of the facts was in order. The rule that was allegedly broken was Rule 8 below (emphases mine).
Rule 8: Subjects and Ethics
Only pictures of wild animals and plants and landscapes are eligible subjects. Images of domestic animals (cats, dogs, farm animals, etc) and cultivated plants (species or hybrids grown in a cultivated setting) do not count as wildlife. Pictures of captive animals (animals that do not live a free and wild existence) or involving baiting using live bait are not eligible, and any other baiting must be declared. Pictures of animal models or any other animals being exploited for profit may not be entered. Images of animals being restrained in any way are only accepted in the One Earth and Wildlife Photojournalism categories when illustrating an issue. The competition asks photographers to put the welfare of animals first and to safeguard their environment and that they do not do anything to injure or distress animals or destroy the environment in their attempt to get the shot. If the Owners or the Judges suspect that a picture was taken using cruel or unethical practices, the entry will be disqualified.
The rules of the contest can be found here.
ADDENDUM by Mike: Note that the rules you found, Miserere, are for the 2010 Competition. It's possible the 2009 Rules, which I've not been able to find, could have had different ordering and numbering. The "Rule 10" citation did come from the official Competition spokesperson, as quoted in The Independent, so this explanation is at least possible.
ADDENDUM from Ed Kirkpatrick: A composite of the digital (larger) and film (inset) images.
Tony Stromberg, Fierce Grace
I really did stumble across this very randomly: I was browsing the newsstand at the grocery store on Saturday and picked up the March, 2010 issue of a magazine I'd never seen or heard of before called Cowboys & Indians. (It bills itself as "The Premier Magazine of the West.") Flipping through it, this simple but evocative picture caught my attention (y'all know how much I love horses). It was in a feature by equine photographer Tony Stromberg, whose work can be seen at his website.
I think he mentioned in the magazine that this is a favorite among people who like his work. And no wonder.
Mike
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By Jim Hughes
I was saddened to learn last week of the passing of my old friend Dennis Stock. I was surprised to read in obits and tributes references to him as unknown or under-appreciated, since in my circles back in the day he was a legend of sorts—although not, like some, of his own making. Dennis was never by nature a glad-hander, nor would he willingly suffer fools. By some accounts, he was "difficult," but I never found him to be.
If memory serves, I first met him in 1969, when the magazine I was briefly editing, Travel & Camera (formerly U.S. Camera and soon to be reinvented, without me, as Travel & Leisure), used his wonderful color photographs for a National Parks issue. "I'm glad to see you're not a member of the 'old boys' club' around here," I remember him announcing with a wry grin some time later at Pop Photo, where I had landed to do the Annual. Thereafter, we had many a long conversation, over lunch or in my office. He had strong, well thought out opinions, and they might spill out at the drop of a hat, so to speak. I found him to be as much philosopher as photographer. For some reason, he brought to mind a Talmudic scholar, although we never talked religion. In any event, there was nothing shallow about Dennis Stock.
In 1974, he did a book for Kodansha, A Haiku Journey, for which he undertook to follow the path of "The Narrow Road to the Far North" traveled by the 17th century Japanese poet Bashó, whose haikus Dennis illustrates with photographic poetry of his own. As Dennis wrote in a text for the book:
While reading haiku, I have often sensed a visual perception that must be at work while the poet writes. The haiku form, in its conciseness and with its candid expression of detail, reminds us of what is also necessary in photography. We reach into nature, frame poised and focus selective. Then with shutter-speed response, we freeze the fleeting moment—leaving just enough unsaid for the viewer to add or extract at will. There is a subtle collaboration between artist and audience—and so it is with appreciating a haiku.
...We were separated only by three centuries and the breadth of a blade of grass, and I sensed Bashó at my side.
Jim
(Thanks to Tyler Monson)
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Featured Comment by Rod S.: "I recall reading a fascinating interview with Dennis Stock that appeared in Popular Photography around 1977–78. What stood out to me then as a 21-year-old was the clarity of his insights into his actions and responsibility as a photographer. His comments impressed me to the extent that I put the interview into the hands of a best friend and insisted he read it (he, too, was impressed). Indeed, I can still visualise one of the pages, a left-hand page that had a central photo of Mr. Stock leaning on one knee."
Jim Hughes replies: Rod's memory is correct. A black-and-white and color portfolio by Dennis Stock was published in the March 1978 edition of Popular Photography. I know because I have the yellowing, dog-eared copy right here in front of me, which I saved, of course, because I wrote the text, helped select and sequence the photographs, and conducted the interview you mention, which appeared separately at the back of the magazine.
Here's a little of what I wrote back then, in the intro: "[Stock's] color photographs of nature are as sensually lyrical as his black-and-white pictures of people are intellectually cutting, and his opinions on the current state of photography make a lot of people uncomfortable, myself included. "I look for humor and beauty in life, and that's an unfashionable position these days," he says. The fact is, Stock has mellowed a lot. When I first encountered him in the late 1960s, I had the audacity to ask what lens he used for one of his National Parks photographs. 'Tell your readers that I shoot through the bottom of a Coke bottle,' he barked as he hung up. Now, he can note, 'Equipped with 35mm SLRs and a collection of lenses, I trip, stumble, trek, and climb into a playground of promise....'
"He has a lot more to say, and he says it with the zeal of a man whose religion is photography."
By the way, the photograph Rod recalls so vividly, of Dennis on one knee, a camera in one hand and a daisy in the other, was made by Dan Budnick, another old friend.
When Dennis was 18 and just out of the Navy, he took a course with Berenice Abbott under the GI Bill. "It wasn't quite right," he told me during the interview. "I asked her where I could get a job as an assistant." She sent him to "a man by the name of Smith. So I went up to see this man by the name of Smith—it was W. Eugene, of course—and he said he needed an assistant and hired me. Well, Gene can be very naive. I was this brassy kid off the street, who [still] knew nothing about photography. Gene needed somebody with real qualifications. So I worked for him about two weeks. But in the parting moments, he said in his sweet way—you know, I adore the man—'You ought to work for a guy by the name of Gjon Mili; he'll really kick your ass around.'"
Dennis worked for Mili for four years, and presumably the ass-kicking worked—"four years of real apprenticeship, European style. $25 a week, unlimited time for developing, printing until three in the morning, learning, learning, learning. Smith was right. Mili was a very good master, very demanding but very generous. I had a classic upbringing in photography."
In 1951, Stock won first prize in LIFE magazine's young photographers' contest, soon joined Magnum at the invitation of Robert Capa, and the rest, as they say, is history.
When I asked Dennis to comment on the then-current (1978, remember) state of photographic education, he replied in typically direct and irascible fashion:
"Bear in mind that a large portion of our critics, educators or historians cannot take a good picture or recognize one. So it's very easy for them to lionize the [William] Egglestons and the types who indulge in craftless banality. Push them up. It's perfect for them. Damn it, when I came into photography, a Smith, a Mili, a Haas, a Cartier-Bresson...boy, they were hard to reach for. You never believed you would reach that level, but you tried like hell. But they were immense distances ahead of you. Well, look who's coming down the pike now. How many people are doing Les Krims photographs? Ralph Gibson? I'm sorry, who's doing Diane Arbus? Everybody and his brother! They're easy to imitate. It's most distressing."
Okay, enough of my trip down memory lane. But a little history does go a long way, don't you think?
Despite this, I am only a so-so reader of books. I only read about fifty a year, which is paltry. I don't have sufficient attentiveness for fiction, and I'm a slow reader and easily distracted; putting that in the affirmative, I could claim that I use reading as a series of triggers for the cascading multiplicities of my own thinking—ahem. For those reasons and more, essays (and articles too, because the best articles are essays) are to me the most natural, most appealing form of writing to read. Home territory, if you will. I read all sorts of things, and love all sorts of the things I read, but it's essays that I love the best.
Here's a list I've been meaning to put together for some time now, of my favorite essayists, more or less in order. If you have your own favorites, by all means share; I hope to learn something here.
There are lots of links in this, but what am I gonna do, not link to the books? Hope you don't mind.
1. George Orwell. A rationalist with a passion for the truth, a man of few illusions and of both personal and intellectual courage, and in my opinion one of the great prose writers of the modern era. And he got more predictions right than Nostradamus. Thoreau is my favorite writer, but whenever I feel my faith in humankind lacking or lagging I pull my well-thumbed Everyman's Library edition of the Essays
2. E. B. White. The consummate essayist, White's is a voice close to the soul of the mid-century middlebrow middle-class moderate American, the literary counterpart to the politics of, say, Walter Lippmann*. But while he had his age's great faith in liberal democracy and Americanism (and more of a comfort level with the conceits of that age than he might have been comfortable with, if he could see himself at our present remove), he was also a crank, and a humorist, and magic with words. Some people (Coetzee, Barthelme, Hemingway) have an alchemical ability to invest their distinctive style into even short strings of words—how, I know not. White was one of those. The Essays of E.B. White
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John Szarkowski by Eamon McCabe
3. John Szarkowski. This choice should surprise no one, as Szarkowski writes—exceedingly well—on photography. Not perhaps a natural writer, there is an effortful, sometimes overcrafted quality to his expression—he was never glib—and he wasn't prolific; his collected works (I hope I live to see the day) will probably be shorter than almost any other great writer's. But the quality of his thought is lucid and erudite, and his writing, one senses, is as faithful as a ray-tracing to his thinking. As I said in the most famous essay I ever wrote myself, "Szarkowski the writer will never waste a reader's time."
4. Hendrik Hertzberg. On a quotidian level perhaps not an atypical New York Jewish liberal intellectual, on a higher plane Rik Hertzberg is the ideal observer: reasonable, compassionate, astute, articulate, incisive, often right, and never not good to read. He has a book out—several, in fact—but I don't actually recommend them, because Hertzberg is best read in the moment. The way to do it is to get a subscription to what could well be the last magazine for readers, The New Yorker
5. Gail Collins. I never heard of her before she retired from wasting her time making a living and began doing what she ought to have been doing always, and I still don't have a sense that I "know who she is" in the way I feel I have the measure of, say, Tina Fey, or Shaq. But I adore this woman's wonderfully wry and playful sense of humor. Every column she writes is full of indirection and gentle zingers and chuckles that linger. Like this, from the most recent one, about our troubled times: "It’s pretty clear that no matter what happens, the voters are sending a message that they are in a bad mood. You cannot fail to notice that people are ticked off. The economy feels awful. The weather feels awful. Did you know that the cold snap in Florida hit the people who breed tropical fish so hard that there is a national guppy shortage? Things are bad, bad, bad." She has a book out too—about the rise of women since the 1950s—it's in my stack—but you can read her columns for free, online.
6. Michel de Montaigne. The standard translation is Donald Frame's, which can be purchased in a highly kempt hardcover omnibus
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Francis Bacon. Detail of a painting in the National Portrait Gallery, London.
7. Francis Bacon. Not the painter, but the Jacobean polymath credited with inventing, or at least laying the philosophical groundwork for, the scientific method. It's an oddity of language that translations of antiquarian writers who wrote in other languages can be more clear and accessible than antiquarian writers of one's own tongue (I'm personally an aficionado of the worst of both worlds, having had a lifelong interest in Elizabethan translations). It takes a bit of patience, now, for an English speaker to read the language of Bacon. But in the small bites of the essays, hardly an insurmountable task. The book should be available for free or nearly so with any e-reader
For a nice immersive reading experience, let me recommend a leisurely traverse of Catherine Drinker Bowen's 1963 pop biography Francis Bacon: The Temper of a Man, which you can find at your local library or readily available used
8. Bernard Darwin. Not well known today, there is only one book
Mike
*Himself the subject of one of those improbable great books that I occasionally stumble upon in a motley of unlikely subjects—which could make a good list for another Sunday—Ronald Steel's Walter Lippmann and the American Century
.
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Instant ClassicsIntroduction: For a number of years, Jim Hughes, one of the best writers on photography around, wrote a well received and always-eagerly-awaited regular column for the newer iteration of Camera Arts magazine called "The Long View." (Jim was also the founding editor of the original Camera Arts, circa 1980–1983). When the newer Camera Arts ceased publication, Jim's last column got caught suspended in the production pipeline, and never saw the light of print. Here for your reading pleasure, and for the first time, is the long-lost last Jim Hughes Camera Arts column. It's called "Instant Classics."
Jim is also former editor of 35MM Photography, Camera 35, and the Photography Annual, and the author of W. Eugene Smith: Shadow and Substance
-, Ernst Haas in Black and White
, and The Birth of a Century: Early Color Photographs of America
. He and his wife Evelyn, after 42 years in the same Brooklyn brownstone, last July moved permanently to the small town in Maine where they have summered for many years. —Mike
By Jim Hughes
There was something vaguely familiar about the face zeroing in on me from the slick magazine cover in front of me. Rashida Jones was depicted holding a Polaroid SX-70 to her hip and a circled thumb and forefinger to her eye as if to form a viewfinder. "Quincy Jones' Daughter Shoots from the Hip," the blurb announced. Inside were more pictures of Rashida flashing us looking at her. The cameras in her hands, a different one for each image, were all throwbacks: another Polaroid, a Kodak Instamatic, even a wallet-sized Disc camera (hailed as "revolutionary" when it was introduced in 1982). It was then that I recognized not the name, but the face: she is the very image of her mother, iconic actress Peggy Lipton, star of the hip '60s television series "The Mod Squad," a show I watched with some regularity.
The significance of the obsolete cameras finally struck me. All once represented cutting edge breakthroughs. Now they are conversation pieces. Gestures to the past, as it were. In their moment, however, they were wondrous to behold.
I remember my excitement when the SX-70 was introduced in 1972 to such great fanfare (it even made the cover of Time). A folding single lens reflex that could be slung flat under a shoulder or snugged into a purse or a coat pocket, this elegantly designed camera spit out 3.5-inch square, one-of-a-kind, full-color prints that developed themselves as we watched. They had both presence and dimension.
Aimed at providing instant gratification to the mass amateur market, the SX-70 soon was quickly adopted by a parallel universe of so called fine-artists: Andy Warhol, David Hockney, Lucas Samaras, even Walker Evans and André Kertész, took to this newest form of instant photography like ducks to water. I, too, was seduced; for an extended period in the 1970s I put aside my sharper-than-life 35mm Kodachrome in favor of the soft palette of the enormously malleable SX-70 print film. I carried the ingeniously designed camera everywhere, along with a bag full of flashbars, some bamboo shish kebab skewers to manipulate the plastic-encapsulated emulsion when inspiration struck, and a small plug-in warming plate to enhance and extend the film’s remarkable workability.
Dr. Edwin Land was already a legend in the photography business. Instant photography was his brainchild, literally—his daughter was said to have asked why she couldn't see a picture right after he snapped it, so the inventor of Polarized lenses went on to devise the Land camera for instant photography, which was introduced in 1948. Over the subsequent years, a full line of remarkable black-and-white cameras and film ensued—progressing from simple to professional. Some versions also provided, in addition to true contact prints, excellent negatives from which to make traditional enlargements in the darkroom. Each film had its own unique properties. Ansel Adams was a fan, and Dr. Land became a patron, sponsoring, among other projects, an Adams book on what became known as Polaroid Land Photography.
I knew one man, Tom Maloney, publisher of U. S. Camera—he gave me my first job in photographic publishing—who very early on believed in Land when few others did, and invested, I was told, $10,000, a large sum for the time. Years passed. Stocks split. Again and again. By the 1980s, my last personal contact with this man, he had become a millionaire many times over, due in large measure to Polaroid’s performance....
I'm happy to pass along the news that longtime friend and frequent TOP contributor Carl Weese is the subject of the newest feature on The New York Times' "Lens" photojournalism blog, which this morning is presenting a selection of his 8x10" and 7x17" platinum/palladium pictures of drive-in theaters across the Continental U.S.
Have a look, and be sure to view the pictures in full-screen mode. (Large-format platinum prints are one of those media that in their natural state are pretty far from small JPEGs.)
Carl Weese, Self-Portrait in the Restroom at Jerry's Artorama
Big congratulations, Carl!
Mike
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Featured Comment by Mike Plews: "It broke my heart to see the Council Bluffs Drive In picture. It was the last drive in theater in the Council Bluffs/Omaha area. Lovely work. Thanks for doing it."
Featured Comment by Robert Howell: "Many good memories of drive-in theatres, especially the mid-summer sunsets behind the screen, and trying to sneak in with my girl in the trunk of a friend's car. Can't to this day figure how they knew we were in there. The only movie I remember seeing was The Illustrated Man, in a downpour. Now there's an image!
The last drive-in theatre in my hometown closed in 2007. This is an excerpt from a Canwest article on its history: 'In 1996, a tornado destroyed one of the theatre's two screens and ripped the roof off the concession building as staff were preparing for that evening's showing of the movie Twister.'
"The city is Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, and it is a magic place. There were two drive-in theatres on one stretch of road just a few miles apart, both screens facing east. As a kid I enjoyed seeing these big images in the twilight, no sound, just the hum of my Dad's Invicta as we headed into town. Surreal. They had a lot to do with my becoming a photographer.
"Thanks Carl."
Carl replies: About how they knew you were in there—that's easy, actually. But first I must digress. The book I'd like to do won't lack for text. Dull people don't run drive-in theaters in the 21st century. At each theater I find still in operation, I get fantastic interviews. Ask one dumb question, and just make sure the tape recorder is going. The text I can assemble from these interviews will be a treat for anyone. So, back to getting caught. Human beings are heavy—even skinny teenagers. A car with two people in the trunk doesn't sit right, and the ticket booth people spot it in an instant.
It seems the last post but one, about principles of collection, is getting some blowback from a subset of our commenters (who are a subset of our readers). I had thought first principles might be the first thing to write about when writing about collecting, but it appears I may need to back it up a bit.
What is a "collection," anyway?
On the mantel
Let's say you like art, and these are the things you have: a Dürer etching on the mantlepiece; a LeRoy Neimann palette-knife acrylic painting of your favorite quarterback from the '70s, Roger Staubach; a Thomas Kincade print for your daughter's bedroom; three pieces of African carving some guy in a dashiki was selling on the sidewalk outside your hotel when you went on a safari vacation; a piece of 3D fabric art by an accomplished local lesbian artist who is sometimes on TV, which you won at a cancer awareness charity auction; a painting by a classmate of your son's from a senior show that you thought was the best thing there; a 19th century trompe l'oeil oil painting in a gilt frame of a vase of flowers you inherited from your great-aunt; a primitive folk painting of indeterminate age you found at an antiques shop; and an original Mondrian that took you four years to pay off, during which time you didn't buy any other art because you couldn't.
...But of course you also like Staubach, because, according to you, who doesn't?
Is that "an art collection"? Of course it isn't. It's a motley. It may all be stuff you totally love and that has great personal meaning to you, but nobody, including you, has any need to look at it all together, or would even want to; and there is no reason to think of it as being all of a piece; and there is no imperative that it be kept together rather than broken up; and so forth, and so on.
So what distinguishes a collection from a motley? A collection is something more than the sum of its parts. It's a grouping in which each piece enhances and informs and enriches the others, and is enhanced and informed and enriched by the others in return. A collection puts things in context and brings them out, makes them clearer, easier to understand and appreciate. It also might bring out or make more plain some other aspect of the culture the art belongs to—make some point about history, or the prevailing milieu, or connections or links of some sort, or some other point that can't be made by one work alone.
A good collection says something more than just "oh, look at this. Oh, look at that."
Being reasonable
If only as a practical matter, you need some focus, unless you have
infinite resources and infinite space. I don't; I doubt many of you do.
The two major collectors I can think of in our audience don't. Personally, I'm going to have an extremely limited budget for this
process. I certainly can't collect "high points" (the practice of
collecting only the acknowledged greatest masterpieces)—I can't afford
one high point, much less a whole roomful of them. The way I allocate
my resources is going to be a big part of putting together a
collection, and my creativity in working around my lack of resources is
probably going to have an outsize effect on the success or failure of the venture. For practical purposes, you can't collect everything you like. I don't know anybody who likes so little that he or she could collect it all.
And a lack of focus just breeds diffuseness, and the spinning of wheels. The exercise becomes useless and pointless, the acquisitions conversation pieces or possessions or decor. Do we buy books called Everything That Occurred to the Author All Jumbled Together in No Particular Order? Would you go to a museum show called "A Bunch of Stuff the Curator Really, Really Liked"? Doubtful. Organization, direction, and focus have purely practical purposes too.
Anybody can do whatever they like, of course. You can jump off the roof and call it skydiving if you want to. It's all the same to me. But a motley isn't a collection. Hell, I've already got a motley—hundreds of photographs, perhaps—at least many dozens—acquired haphazardly, the detritus of going on thirty years in photography. (It even includes some significant collector pieces, such as an original Nick Nixon and an original Sally Mann, through no particular fault of my own.) What I'm talking about lately is something different, is all. You don't have to follow along if you don't want to.
Mike
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"Having worked in a curatorial department of a museum, I can say that a very good portion of shows could accurately be subtitled 'A Bunch of Stuff the Curator Really, Really Liked' (see: nearly any works from the permanent collection show, 'highlights' show, or new acquisitions show). I don't see anything wrong with that. Curatorial wisdom also says that too much organization and direction and focus will result in an exhibition that is either boring, tendentious, or both. To be sure, a basic logic to groupings based on formal features, motifs, themes, chronology, geography, media, or any other axis of the curator's devising can lend a show a healthy semblance of cogency. But arguably, many of the decisions ought to be arbitrary. This is what allows the works to assert their own autonomy and 'breathe' as we say.
"In many cases a motley can morph into a collection by construing it as a representation of it's owner's 'taste,' however eccentric or seemingly erratic it may be. In other words, the personality of the collector, based upon inferences regarding collecting habits or taste drawn from the objects within his/her collection, become the axis around which the collection coheres, and garners its status as a 'collection' as such.
"I guess all I mean to say is that 'ooh look at this look at that' isn't necessarily a bad collecting logic at the end of the day, because the alternative usually involves acquiring works based on how they fit within a popular present context or framework, which is almost assuredly going to be completely different a generation later.
"That is one my favorite Dürers."
Mike replies: Thanks for the good comment Carl. You might be amused to learn that my latest formulation of my Principles of Collection is, "It gets me, and I can get it." (Sounds simple, but there's a lot of thought behind that.) Some photographs simply get me, such as this one by Cosmin Bumbutz that I featured on the blog in 2005. Of the ones that do, only a small subset are ones that I can get. The cover photograph of Danny Lyon's recent retrospective is another one that gets me, but I'm sure I can't get it. So it doesn't fit my criteria, by definition.
Speaking of a "Bunch of Stuff" show, I remember a show John Gossage curated at the Corcoran in the '80s. He wanted to be able to feature an unrelated half-dozen or so photographers, and he wanted a title that would be intriguing and enticing and yet be vague enough to give him freedom, so he called it "The Future of Photography." The tactic backfired. In my circles—I was a student at the Corcoran at the time—the individual artists were more or less overlooked as people argued obsessively about the title: why were these photographers the future of photography? What did they have to do with the future of photography? What was the show saying that the future of photography would be? Who could predict the future of photography anyway? Etc. ad. inf. Rather than allowing the work to breathe, the weight of the idea (in four little words!) smothered the art in the show. It would have been much better to call it "Six Photographers." That's indicative of the power that the right or wrong "principles of collection" could have.
Featured Comment by Maggie Osterberg: "Would I go to a museum show called 'A Bunch of Stuff the Curator Liked'? Don't you mean 'The Whitney Biennial'? And apparently, people do go to that."I think I've mentioned before that I keep an eye on Amazon's daily Gold Box specials so I can point out the occasional photographic items that come floating by. Today's is Corel Paint Shop Pro X2 Ultimate
And in a related tidbit, my friend at B&H Photo liked yesterday's "Camera of the Year" post but said that this is the serious camera that's "selling like crazy." Again, one I don't know a thing about. So many cameras, so little time.
Mike
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This is a soak, in an atmospheric, New-Agey kinda way: Alex Roman's The Third & The Seventh, A beautiful meditation on photography and architecture. You'll need about 13 minutes of peace and quiet when you're feeling relaxed. "Fullscreen it, please." (And skip the comments.)
Mike
(Thanks to David Emerick)
