Weekend Reading: G. Steidl

Well, darn, after all that, I didn't even get around to the post I meant to write today. It was about something weird I've noticed about landscape photography. Hope I'll remember come Monday.

If you have any free time over the weekend and are looking for something fun to read, The New Yorker has published a profile of the protean Gerhard Steidl. I won't comment about the article because I haven't even finished reading it yet, but the beginning was tasty, and it has this to recommend it: about sixteen TOP readers have sent me a tip about it so far, starting with David Lobato. And if that many TOP readers recommend it, it has to be good.

Here's the link. [Note: I had trouble getting to it in Firefox and had to use Safari. If you have trouble, try a different browser.] Thanks to everyone who suggested it. I'm looking forward to reading the rest of it.

Here's another random sky pic taken on the way home from dinner tonight. I just had to stop the car. I really love the skies around here. It's a show!

Have a great weekend. If you're in the northern hemisphere, don't you just love the long days? It really makes me happy to see light in the sky after nine o'clock.

Mike
(Thanks to David et alia)

Original contents copyright 2017 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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Featured Comments from:

psu: "As a telescope nerd, I never liked the short/late nights. Maybe when I retire I'll move somewhere without them. 😃 "

Jim Kofron: "Love the long days? I'm not sure. I get up at 5:00 a.m. and the sun is getting up and birds are singing—and I feel lazy. I leave work at 6:00 p.m., and the sun is still high in the sky and I feel like I should be doing more; get home, grill dinner, and then fall asleep on the couch after too much work during the week....  :-) 

"Yes. I love long days. But I love the spring light with its promise after winter, the smells of the earth warming up, the otherworldly greens as plants and trees leaf out. The summer with its long days, its impossibly beautiful skies dotted with storm clouds, and 'life everywhere.' Fall with the intense blue-beyond-blue, the incredibly textual heavy cool skies (we had one of those yesterday), autumn colors beyond compare, sharp shadows from the sun going low. And winter with skies that contain colors that you never see any other time, the solitude of white landscapes, and the opportunity to focus on shapes and textures. It is good to be alive. And in winter, I don't feel guilty for sleeping in until 7:00 a.m. on a Saturday morning...."

Comments

[Michael Matthews]

Wonderful sky shot. Too few people look up.

[Henry Rogers]

I followed the link and read the article. I admire people who strive to push technical methods to the limit. We all benefit from their efforts, not least when the mainstream technology we ourselves can use improves as a result. The article left me feeling slightly uncomfortable. Do glossy wrappers make the ideas inside more or less effective?

[David Lobato]

I have to credit my wife for sending me that article.

[Tony McLean]

Great link, Mike. Perhaps your readers my also like to look at this link on Steidl:

https://www.ft.com/content/02eb8b14-be9b-11e4-8036-00144feab7de

Regards

Tony McLean

[MikeR]

If you really like long days, try Iceland this time of year. From personal experience (10 days last year, in June), it starts to feel oppressive. On our return, when we landed at Newark Liberty and picked up our car, I was delighted to see a sunset, and dark coming. (Amused my wife, it did.) I guess I just think that our temperate zone seasons are "normal." Living at the Equator, one would probably get accustomed to the sun rising at 6, and setting at 6, EVERY DAY.

That might be a good regimen for someone with SAD (seasonal affective disorder). One of my wife's friends gets really gloomy when the shorter days hit. And unbearably chirpy in mid-summer.

And by the way, prompted by your picture, I just breezed through all of mine from a Keuka vacation in 2016. Lots of sky pictures. There's something about that place that makes the sky beckon.

[Stan B.]

Really wanted to dislike the guy for being such an elitist, but Steidl is quite socially conscious, responsible and generous. That said, that very same aura of elitism, where nothing exists but the very best, still manages to rub me the wrong way. I really don't care if Eggleston gets off on the thickness of the inks.

If anything, it makes me appreciate those who independently publish their work even more- even if only on Blurb. And, of course, still appreciate The New Yorker cartoons..

[Winfried Heyland]

Great article about Steidl. I saw a documentary on German TV a while ago - excellent.

[scott kirkpatrick]

I like long days, too. Our cat wakes me at dawn with a polite paw to the nose to request her morning snack. I don't think I'll take her to Iceland. And daytime photography currently persists until mid evening.

[Speed]

The Halftone Hotel. And for our less discriminating clients we have the Inkjet Inn.

[Hugh Crawford]

I always thought Frederic Church was on drugs until I lived in upstate New York, then I saw that he was pretty much painting what he saw.

[scott kirkpatrick]

Tony MacLean's link to the FT story on Gerhard Steidl is worth a read if you want to know how his operation is even possible. FT cares about business aspects, takes the artistry for granted, and it appears that Steidl is a VERY good businessman.