The Online Photographer

Michael Wolf

Michael Wolf, from the series Real Fake Art

"If you look at all my projects, the umbrella for them is life in cities. Many different aspects of city life. Megacities."

So said the photographer Michael Wolf, who died in his sleep, apparently unexpectedly, two days ago, at the relatively young age of 64.

He was born in Munich, Germany, raised mostly in the USA and Canada, worked early in his career as a photojournalist for Stern magazine in Germany, and lived most of his adult life in Asia—since 1994 in Hong Kong, where he became one of a line of great photographers of that unique "city-state" in Southeastern China. HK is a shipping hub and financial center, mostly urban, highly cosmopolitan in flavor, and among the top handful of the most densely-populated places on Earth.

Michael Wolf, Bastard Chairs (multiple)

Michael Wolf's work included many series based around ideas, mostly having to do with details. He made street portraits but also photographed city dwellers unawares through uncurtained windows. He was greatly concerned with pattern and repetition, and often showed the same pictures as single works and as part of multiples made of anything from two images to many dozens. One of his series concentrated on lost laundry; one of his multiples was of ancient, patched bicycle seats. His exhibits often looked partly like art installations as much as photography shows. He is perhaps best known for "Tokyo Compression," a series of photographs of faces jammed up against the windows or glass doors of subway cars.

His website is still up. Although difficult to experience as tiny JPEGs, you can get a taste of his preoccupations and concerns from the work there. There is a cursory obituary at the New York Times and a more complete one at Petapixel.

Mike
(Thanks to Kenneth Tanaka, Nico Maijer and others)

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

(Not) everything must fade away

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David Comdico: There are a couple of videos linked from the Wolf website that are very good. In one of the videos he praises the work of Tim Hetherington (his sleeping soldiers series) and Tim's ability to use his creative talent to say something new about a subject we thought we already understood. The same can be said of Wolf. Wolf had a real talent for visualizing ideas. Some of his strategies have become very common in contemporary photography but few have executed as well as he did."

Michael Matthews: "Wolf’s 'Paris Roof Tops' series remains an all-time favorite. If I had an art budget one of those would top the list."

Edwin: "I read the news in a local paper and didn't realise until then that he lived right there among us! I always thought that he lived in Germany and was amazed at the way he looked at Hong Kong, and now I have the answer.

"It's interesting to see Mike, who lives in the US of A the entire time, write about Hong Kong, my home city. Hong Kong is not a 'city-state,' it's a special administrative region, a far cry from a 'state.' 'Shipping hub,' fast disappearing. 'Entirely urban,' not really! Out of the 1,000 sq. km total area, there's 445 sq. km designated as country parks with no residences of any sort, and then some non-designated rural areas. Maybe that's the reason it's one of the most densely populated area on earth."

Mike replies: Okay, I stand corrected. Thanks. I changed "entirely" to "mostly" and put "city-state" is scare quotes. I often have to research very quickly, and the reference I found said that HK is 79% urban and 21% rural. Given that all the urban land in the USA could fit in the Northeast corner of it, I thought that was relatively a lot.

I've never been anywhere near Hong Kong, and, alas, never will be.

Thomas Rink: "If you have a sweet spot for black and white documentary photography, have a look at his master thesis. According to his biography, he studied with Otto Steinert at the Folkwang university in my hometown, Essen, Germany. For his thesis, he had apparently chosen to document the working-class life in this region of Germany (Ruhrgebiet), and photographed in a coal miner's housing estate in a neighbour town of Essen, Bottrop. His pictures are an interesting account of a bygone era, as all local coal mines have closed shop.

"In 1981, Michael Wolf founded the group 'Antrazit' together with Marc Izikowitz and Wolfgang Staiger. Some of the pictures from Michael Wolf's thesis are featured in the book Maloche—Leben im Revier, published by Antrazit. It is out of print, but still available secondhand at reasonable prices. Unfortunately, the book is in German, so most of the audience here will miss the excellent essay by Max von der Grün—but the pictures are impressive!"

Mark Roberts: "The Guardian's obituary."

William Furniss: "I knew Michael Wolf pretty well. We both arrived in Hong Kong around the same time and worked as photographers, and our paths would cross. I can say 'pretty well' because he was a man with a solid carapace, honest opinions with straightforward Germanic delivery, and he could be a little intimidating. First of all he seemed serious, and so certain were his earlier projects (so many completed projects!)—as a fellow photographer one approached him with a lot of respect. But he was competitive enough to make you feel as if you were somehow possibly in his league and that meant the game was on. It actually turned out he had a splendid sense of humour and was a fun and naughty person to be around. I think recently that whimsical side was coming to the fore in his work as his early successes, particularly with Architecture of Density, and subsequent shows at places like Arles meant his cultural contribution was fully recognised. The old imitation adage applied to him more than anyone else I know—he must have felt extremely 'flattered.' One of his self proclaimed secrets was that he was 'two steps ahead of the curve'— see his body of work here and you will see what I mean.

"Sixty-four in this age is far too young and we have been robbed of who knows how much? The fact that his last project was a series of sunsets taken from his home on Cheung Chau feels too ironic to be anything but masterful."

Karl Lagerfeld 1933–2019

Karl Lagerfeld, Modelka, 1996–97

Karl Lagerfeld, a German obsessed by all things French who was the creative director of Chanel among other accomplishments, has died in Paris at the age of 85.

Despite running several of the world's most successful fashion houses, he never gave up his many personal artistic pursuits, one of which was photography. "Lagerfeld took up photography in 1987," reports Artnet News, "starting off by photographing his own designs and later exhibiting his monochrome landscapes and moody portraits in black and white, the same palette he seized on for his signature look." You can see JPEGs of a few of his photographs here.

He was also a collector of photography. And he was the adoptive parent of one of the world's most famous cats, Choupette Lagerfeld, whose jet-set lifestyle at her "father's" side earned her a 120,000-strong Instagram following.

Anna Wintour, Editor-in-Chief of Vogue, said, "To be his friend was an exceptional gift. Karl was brilliant, he was wicked, he was funny, he was generous beyond measure, and he was deeply kind. I will miss him so very much."

Mike

Original contents copyright 2019 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.

Here’s the situation

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Deaths in the Family

...If you accept, as I do, the notion that the far-flung society of Photo-Dawgs (those who love photography and are devoted to it) comprises a sprawling extended family.

Evelyn and Jim Hughes, 1982. Photo by Bill Jay.

I'm extremely sorry to report that our friend Jim Hughes died on the afternoon of the Tuesday before Christmas. Jim was the editor of the original Camera Arts magazine, the best photography magazine I'm familiar with, and he was the biographer of W. Eugene Smith. But those two twin peaks of his accomplishment are only the tip of the iceberg. Jim knew a little bit about everything and a lot about a lot—he was a student and a scholar of photography, and he had a great mind and a great memory. And he was a photographer. He was also my onetime hero, my role model as an editor. I didn't come close to measuring up; he was brilliant at it. We later became friends, and although he could be irascible and I suspect that occasionally he didn't like me very much (I can be difficult too), I loved and admired Jim always. He was principled and insightful and endlessly knowledgeable. His passing creates a void. You can find his many writings for TOP under his name in the Categories in the right-hand sidebar. His wife Evelyn Hughes survives him.

Michael A. Smith

Another huge loss: friend of TOP Michael A. Smith has passed away; I don't know when, but recently. Michael was a force of nature, an independent spirit with a devotion to quality and bounteous energy for following through. When Kodak stopped making his favorite photo paper, he undertook to manufacture a replacement; when he couldn't find anyone to publish his books to the level of quality he demanded, he learned how to do it himself, and started his own publishing house. He called it Lodima, which is the word "amidol," his and Edward Weston's favorite paper developer, spelled backwards. We worked with him several times; we offered the superlative Edward Weston book he published, and we offered contact prints of his work in a husband-and-wife print sale in 2012. Here's another article I wrote about him. He is survived by his wife, the photographer and artist Paula Chamlee.

Neither was a close personal friend, although I met both in person and we emailed and spoke on the phone occasionally for years. But I knew them in that way you know people in your own field—through their work, through our common interest, through my appreciation for them. I have taken both these losses hard, and procrastinated madly over writing this post. It makes me very sad they're gone. Sincere condolences to Evelyn and Paula, and all the friends and loved ones of these fine men. They are deeply and sorely mourned and missed.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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 Wittig: "Sad news indeed. Michael A. Smith's beautiful panoramic print of a Tuscan village graces my library wall, as do multiple Lodima books. And Mr. Hughes' crackling intelligence came through bright and clear in his admirably pithy essays."

Bill Bresler: "Jim Hughes and his work shaped how I see photography."

Kenneth Tanaka: "I’m very sorry to read of Jim’s death. I very much enjoyed his occasional articles and comments here. He seemed like the kind of fellow I would have enjoyed spending an afternoon with.

"I was also sad to learn of Michael Smith’s death. He was a fellow who I did spend an afternoon with some years ago (perhaps thanks to a connection you made?). Michael, and Paula Chamlee, visited a tiny bygone photo group of which I was a member, ostensibly to talk about book publishing and production. But as the afternoon progressed through lunch Michael and Paula were extremely engaging and informative on a broad range of photo subjects. It’s always fun to be with people who are so relentlessly enthusiastic on their field...and that’s exactly what they were!

"I have two oddly indelible memories of that day. The first was buying my copy of Edward Weston: Life Work from Michael at a slight discount, as he wanted to lighten his traveling load. (And that book is a load.). The second is my memory of the old white van Michael and Paula were driving cross-country. As veterans of the road they had clearly learned that security takes precedence over style on long-distance photo trips. Opening the back doors of that van was a feat that Brinks would have admired!

"My deepest sympathies to Paula Chamlee and to Evelyn Hughes."

Random Excellence: Beth Moon

Beth Moon, Rilke's Bayon

Longer pieces sap more time and effort out of me—for instance, "The Remarkable Persistence of 24x36" took four days to research and write. It wouldn't be a problem except it leaves the blog kind of quiet while I'm off working on something else. Anyway, I'm going to be working on the Fuji X-H1 review all weekend.

In the meantime, have a look at photographer Beth Moon's lovely extended portrait of the oldest trees in the world, some of which are older than Christianity. The picture above is just one—as a set they're more powerful than each alone, and yet each alone, like its subject, is brooding, majestic, and mysterious. Here's Beth's website, as well as her book of this work, which is called Ancient Trees: Portraits of Time.

Another thing you could check out is an article which many readers (such as Wes Cosand) have been telling me about—many loved it. It's a beautiful remembrance by Nobel literature laureate Orhan Pamuk of his friend Ara Güler, the great Turkish photographer who died this past October 17th. It's at the New York Times, which will be behind a paywall for some people. But you get 10 free articles a month, and remember that we recommend a subscription to the Times for its photography content, which is worth it. This one is particularly lovely, a great sampling of Ara's work, and not to be missed whatever you have to do. The article is called "I Like Your Photographs Because They Are Beautiful." The subhead is "Orhan Pamuk remembers his friend Ara Güler, the great photographer, who lovingly captured Istanbul and its people."

Here's one of Ara's excellent books.

If neither of those appeal, talk amongst yourselves while I'm out of the room! Hopefully I'll post my X-H1 verdict by Sunday night or Monday morning.

Have a nice weekend—

Mike
(Thanks to Wes, David Dyer-Bennet, and others)

Original contents copyright 2018 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 Man: "I love Ms. Moon's images. I have a couple of her small platinum prints and they are lovely. She (used to) photograph with a Pentax 6x7 and makes her own Pt/Pd prints."

John Camp: "I have spent some time in Istanbul and it is a street photographer's dream. The reason, I think, is that it is such a striking combination of the new and the very, very old (the Hagia Sophia, once a mosque and before that an Orthodox cathedral, was built almost 1,500 years ago, and is still a centerpiece of the city). The city also has an amazing physical setting, the Bosporus and the Golden Horn and all that, with Asia looming right across the water. Don't even get me started on the history...."

Bob Johnston: "Some time ago I set out to photograph the oldest trees in Britain but after five or six in the bag I gave up thinking that the travelling was too much. Here is this lady who has travelled all over the world to harvest her great images. Respect."

SteveW: "One of the best books I've ever read is A Strangeness in my Mind by Oran Pamuk. Amazingly, when I read the NY Times article and saw some of Ara's beautiful photos, they were almost exactly how I pictured Istanbul while reading Pamuk's book."

Rod Sainty: "Beth Moon's book was reviewed by Australian large format photographer David Tatnall. The review incorporates a beautiful video by Beth Moon showing her platinum printing process. One moment in the video made me gasp. Check it out."

Peter Wright: "Those pictures of Istanbul by Ara Güler in the NYT article are truly extraordinary. Thanks for bringing them to our attention. One of the things that strike me most about this type of photography (Here Far Away by Pentti Sammallahti—another TOP recommendation—is another example) is how absolutely UN-extraodinary the people pictured would have thought the scenes and themselves to be at the time. If Güler could have shown the people the view from his camera, I'm sure they would have been completely mystified as to why anyone would want to spend money on such a thing. I can just picture the puzzled looks and shaking of heads.

"I'm always blown away by this aspect of photography when it is done so well: to make the utterly mundane utterly magical. I wonder, does the audience have to be of a different time and place for this magic to happen?"

R.E.S.P.E.C.T.s

Aretha Franklin 1942–2018
Photo by Molly Riley

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Mike

P.S. For a nice and succinct if somewhat hagiographic (perfectly natural under the circumstances) summary of Aretha's career, see Jack Hamilton's "Aretha Franklin Was the Defining Voice of the 20th Century" at Slate.

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James: '"I say a little prayer'—the only 45rpm single I ever wore out and had to replace. Still love it on CD now."

A Little Local Sadness

I learned something new about the iPhone 7+ camera(s). Smartphones are handy in that you can sometimes get them into spaces where an IL camera won't fit, but the "selfie" camera on the screen side of the phone doesn't focus as close as the main camera modules on the back. I couldn't see to compose this picture any other way than by using the "selfie" camera, and it wouldn't focus on the eggs. The nest is right under the eaves and I couldn't get the phone far enough away.

These eggs have apparently been abandoned, which is making me unaccountably sad, probably because it echoes the rest of the sadness in my life. A mother robin raised an earlier brood in my robin condos under the pavilion (there are now three nests, which are re-used year after year), and I even got to see one of the fledglings make its first flight—a first for me—because I dropped something by mistake and scared the little guy right out of the nest. There has since been a second batch—robins will raise up to three batches of eggs per season—but the mother of the second batch seemed more nervous than the others, and never entirely got used to me and the dogs like the others did.

Then one day she wasn't at her nest, nor the next day either, and I became concerned.  The third day I saw a robin standing on the edge of the nest and I thought, good, she's back! But then two more days went by with no signs of life. That's when I decided to stand on a stool and, carefully, not touching anything, use the phone camera to spy into the nest; I wanted to see if some predator had gotten the eggs and they were gone.

As you can see, the camera showed the eggs still there. But it's been two days now since the photo and I haven't seen any further signs of the mother.

It's such an enormous investment of effort to raise a brood of chicks that robin parents will abandon the task if there isn't a reasonable chance of success. If the mother is killed, of course, the eggs are doomed. The male can't incubate the eggs and doesn't know the other necessary behaviors such as turning the eggs. But the mother will often abandon the eggs if the male is killed, too—one website notes that the male performs "finishing school" for the fledglings, teaching them how to gather food and other worldly skills. Without him, the youngsters' chances of survival go way down.

What I suspect happened in this case is that the mother was killed and the bird I saw hanging around the nest on the third day was the male. But I'm no ornithologist, and of course I have no way of investigating or knowing what became of this poor family. Whatever happened, it appears that the eggs in this blurry picture are never going to become birds to add to the ever-diminishing avian population, alas.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Wednesday Open Mike: Tom Wolfe to Read

Tom Wolfe 1930–2018 by Mark Seliger

As you might already know, Famous Author ™ Tom Wolfe has died. Encomia proliferate.

David Douglas of Newsweek called him "more of a celebrity than the celebrities he describes," which was true at least when I was young. I don't know about the later big thick square novels—I once manfully tried to make it through Bonfire of the Vanities but fetched up against the rocky shores of my own inadequacies, and it was ugly. So will have to leave those discussions to others.

But there are a few of his slighter, lighter books that everyone, or maybe every American, should read. That list would include the early collection of magazine articles that helped make his reputation, The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, which in my opinion is treasurable for the title alone. That essay was about George Barris and the Kustom Kulture movement, which treated hot rods primarily as pop art.

Another must-read for those in these environs is The Painted Word. Although it's primarily a send-up, and has certainly been accused of being reactionary—it inspired almost hysterical criticism when it appeared—the central thesis was dead serious and oh-by-the-way correct: that modern art had moved away from being primarily a visual experience. I'll often ask of a photograph, "but is it good to look at?" And the antecedent there is probably Wolfe.

The virtual "part two" of that line of cultural criticism was From Bauhaus to Our House, a similar but less controversial look at modern architecture. It's a less famous book—the modernist establishment had learned fast to contain and compartmentalize its outrage—but one that's even more entertaining to read. Having grown up summering in northern Michigan, I love these sentences from the book's opening: "Every new $900,000 summer house in the north woods of Michigan or on the shore of Long Island has so many pipe railings, ramps, hob-tread metal spiral stairways, sheets of industrial plate glass, and white cylindrical shapes, it looks like an insecticide refinery. I once saw the owners of such a place driven to the edge of sensory deprivation by the whiteness & lightness & leanness & cleanness & bareness & spareness of it all."

I know just the house he's talking about it. (And that "insecticide refinery" is a small but pure note of his genius—still makes me chuckle.) For entertaining reading, From Bauhaus to Our House is tough to beat.

And of course everybody should read The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, because it's the single book of Wolfe's that, well, everybody should read. But then, you already knew that. All of these are entertaining reads, still. Wolfe was sui generis.

Mike

"Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes editorial page of TOP. Theoretically it appears on Wednesdays.

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Jack: "My wife was once a dinner party seat mate with Tom. His ice-breaker was 'What are you reading?' Fortunately she had just finished a book he was looking forward to reading himself. So she was the one recommending books. He was an excellent dinner partner as one would expect. And yes, he was all in white. But a photo of Tom must be in color."

Luis Aribe: "There is an essay by Tom Wolfe in Marie Cosindas's book, Color Photographs, on her images and on photography and photographers in general. It's a book well worth having just for her photographs, with the added bonus of Wolfe's essay."

John Camp: "I was sad to hear about Wolfe's death—he was a major part of the journalism I read when I was trying to decide what to do with my life, and for my decision to become a journalist, although I was never his kind of journalist.

"About The Painted Word and From Bauhaus to Our House: There is a strain of what I consider to be fairly serious writing on visual art done by journalists. John Updike wrote three nice books of essays on art, all available at Amazon: Just Looking: Essays on Art, Always Looking: Essays on Art and Still Looking: Essays on Art. Robert Hughes was the Time art critic, but he was really a journalist who wrote on art (and other things) and looked with a skeptical eye upon the antics of the art world: 'The new job of art is to sit on the wall and get more expensive.' His books The Spectacle of Skill, The Shock of the New, and American Visions are all important and available at Amazon and are good and fun reading.

"I make a distinction between these guys and 'serious' art critics who are really theorists of modernity and post-whatever. These guys actually went out and looked at art and reported back on what they encountered. Too many serious critics, and particularly those who would get in an uproar and denigrate the work of Wolfe, Updike and Hughes (and they did), might look at some art, but what they reported on were usually artifacts of their own imagination...which was not nearly as rich as they thought it was."

Stephen Scharf: "What the hey, no mention of The Right Stuff? Now, that is a good read."

Rick Denney: "I still love Mau-Mauing the Flak Catchers. It's probably more controversial than the essays you mentioned, though it resonates with my own flak-catching experience. But it follows the notion that the shorter he wrote, the more taut he became. About The Right Stuff, Neil Armstrong opined that a guy who never left his apartment in Manhattan was unlikely to know what really happened. So, sometimes we read for style more than substance. Wolfe was loaded with it. R.I.P."

Bruce Rubenstein: "I can understand having a rough time with Gravity's Rainbow, but Bonfire of the Vanities? Really? Maybe one had to have lived in NYC. I'm also a little surprised by a child of the '60s not mentioning The Right Stuff."

Andrew Lamb: "Bonfire of the Vanities falters towards the end. Not sure that it has aged well. Surely, the one to read is The Right Stuff?"

Chuck Albertson: "The Right Stuff is brilliant and hilarious, about 20 percent of it made it into the (excellent) movie. If you can find it, a draft of the book first ran in Rolling Stone, with photos by Annie Leibowitz. I also like Mauve Gloves and Madmen, Clutter & Vine, a collection of essays from the '70s that is a rollicking takedown of the Me Generation."

Geoff Wittig: "I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Wolfe, despite his writings' tendency to degenerate into self-parody, because of his sincere appreciation for the place of technical skill, of craft, in the visual arts. He wrote a brilliant and heartfelt eulogy for sculptor Frederick Hart exploring this concept; and was predictably criticized for his retrograde philistinism by the gatekeepers of 'contemporary art.' And it's hard not to have a bit of admiration for his ability to pull off the 'dandy' role in an age when it has become largely passé."

Mani Sitaraman: "More than four decades ago, when I was 14, I read Tom Wolfe's The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby, the very first of his books that I was to read. Suddenly, everything my English teacher told me about writing prose didn't matter anymore. What a blast!

"Googling reveals numerous excellent, mannered portraits of Tom Wolfe, who was photogenic. There seem to be two schools of thought regarding images that accompany obituaries of notable public figures who die in old age. The first seems prefer the use of a very recent portrait, to reveal the person as they were in the times just before their passing. The other, like the use of a picture of the person when they first achieved fame. That's my preference, too. Here is a picture of Tom Wolfe in 1968, a couple of years after The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby was published. A perfect New York City environmental portrait by Sam Falk for the New York Times.

"Rest in peace, Tom Wolfe."

Carsten Bockermann: "Back in early 1999 I had the good fortune of meeting Tom Wolfe in New York City, where he was reading out of his then-new novel A Man in Full (great book, in my humble opinion).

"Of course, he was dressed in a white suit, just as one would expect."

D. Hufford: "I must get over my laziness about writing to write just a bit about Tom Wolfe. After all, as a native West Virginian, I owe him for his portrayal of another native West Virginian, Chuck Yeager, in The Right Stuff. Compare that with what we get nowadays with simplistic, shallow stereotyping stuff as Hillbilly Elegy.

"I am not an expert on his work, but that which I have read I have thoroughly enjoyed. I love his ability to gore sacred cows and to irritate those who need to be irritated: "Radical Chic: That party at Lenny’s" [the article in the June 8, 1970 issue of New York magazine —Ed.] is still relevant, today, methinks. And I had started reading Bonfire of the Vanities just a few days ago. I have never watched the movie and although I have only begun the book, I already know the movie would be a disappointment. The scene where the husband who says he is going out to walk the dog and while out mistakenly calls his wife and asks if his girlfriend is there. The surprise and humor and the knowledge that this is the sort of stupid thing real people do would never be shown as well on film. Later, couple living in a small, rather shabby apartment but with pretensions and a British maid are relieved to find that she is racist. Relieved because they had been worried that with her British accent and her past experience of working for wealthier people, she was judging them and looking down on them. Finding her a racist restored their sense of superiority. This seems so real to me. Yeah, that’s the way some of our 'betters' are.

"I am sorry to see him go."

Jack: "Tom wrote The Right Stuff in book form in 1979. It made a hero of Chuck Yeager to the people who hadn’t followed flying by explaining how he first broke the sound barrier in a rocket plane. To me, I didn’t need to read the book for him to be my hero. Months before the book was published, I was with General Yeager on the Bonneville Salt Flats with a small group attempting to break the sound barrier on land in the Budweiser Rocket Car. So naturally we brought the General in for the effort. The test run at 400 miles an hour was scary as the nose raised up off the ground and the nose wheel was how the driver steered. The telemetry was analyzed to determine how much adjustment would be required in the forward fin to keep the front from lifting off without also pushing it into the salt flats. In 1979 things were slow to compute and it took six hours to calculate. Five hours before that, Chuck told me he estimated it would require 6 degrees angle down. After much calculating over the hours, the computer declared a recommended angle of down 5.9 degrees. Chuck looked at me and said, 'See, I’ve still got it.'"

The Real Chuck Westfall 1952-2018

I'm very sorry to learn of the loss of Chuck Westfall. In case you don't know the name, Chuck was the ultimate tech rep. He later became the main media contact for Canon Camera in America, but he never stopped being a great tech rep—a guy who knew everything about every one of his company's products and who was unfailingly gracious about explaining to you what you needed to know at any time.

I first encountered Chuck on the old CompuServe in the early 1990s, where he represented Canon and I represented Camera & Darkroom magazine. He and I learned together how not to get into "flames" with people—right at first we had both tended to be hotheads and get into arguments, and several times we discussed with each other the best ways not to do that. (He learned faster than I did.) He was a great contact for me when I was the Editor of Photo Techniques in the latter half of the '90s. He was very ethical and had strong boundaries—other tech reps liked to gossip, and I finagled a lot of juicy tidbits out of various people over the years, but never Chuck. At the same time he was unfailingly generous with his expertise, as long as sharing it was within his purview. He never distinguished between Canon shooters and others—if it had to do with Canon products, you could count on Chuck to know it and share it.

I don't think there was ever a better-known tech rep of any camera company in this country. Gordon Lewis wrote to me this weekend, "I thought it curious that someone from a camera company could become a celebrity, at least among photographers. He always struck me as quiet and self-effacing—and yet I can’t think of anyone else with comparable notoriety from Nikon, Sony, Fuji, etc." Nor can I. He even became the victim of a spoof site in the early days of digital, called "Fake Chuck Westfall." He hated it, but he never railed against it—he just kept being the same dependable real Chuck Westfall. Even the real Fake Chuck Westfall, Karel Donk, said this about the real one when he wrapped up his satirical blog: "I don’t know if real Chuck Westfall ever knew who Fake Chuck was, and if he did, he didn’t get it from me. I do have to say that I’ve often communicated with Chuck Westfall regarding feedback and technical information related to Canon cameras and lenses—before and after I started the FCW blog. He’s always been very polite and helpful to me, often taking the time to send me elaborate responses and information, even while I was sending him criticism."

Just my guess, but I think Chuck knew exactly who Karel was and treated him with respectfulness and helpfulness anyway. That would be very typical of Chuck.

There seemed to be no bottom to the well of Chuck's knowledge of all things Canon, both current and historical. I wouldn't have known he was reading my blog except that I'd get little notes of correction from him from time to time. One minor example, from 2013—I mentioned that the Nikon Noct-Nikkor of 1977 was the world's first aspherical SLR lens, and along came this little note from Chuck:

Erm, I beg to differ:

http://global.canon/en/c-museum/product/fd158.html

Canon FD 55mm ƒ/1.2 AL was first marketed in March, 1971.

We had a little game for a while in the '90s when I'd try to devise testers for him, questions designed to foil his mighty Canon knowledge, and over a handful of tries I was never able to stump him. And if he didn't know something (which slightly irked him, although he would barely show it), he would get the answer for you pronto. He was the hardest-working company rep, too: I once received the answer to a technical question, polite and businesslike as usual, timestamped late on a Saturday night.

Chuck Westfall was an integral part, in North America, of the glory years at Canon Camera. And yet he was certainly no robot. Only once over the many years did I get a warmly emotional note from him, and that was after I sent him congratulations on the birth of his daughter. It's safe to say no man was ever more delighted by the arrival of a child. We'll all miss Chuck, but my guess is that the thing he regrets the most about leaving this Earth is having to leave her and her mother behind.

Rest in Peace.

Mike

Original contents copyright 2018 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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Kenneth Tanaka: "A lovely recollection, very fitting as a eulogy. Regrettably I never met Chuck. But as a long-time devotee of Canon’s photo products I feel as though I knew him through his extensive explanatory writings. When I read of his death last weekend I felt I’d lost a friend. And, indeed, I had. My deepest condolences to Mr. Westfall’s family circle."

Michael Perini: "I only met Chuck once, I didn't seek him out, he found me...it was on the show floor of PhotoPlus in NY in October of 2007. I had a very early copy of the Canon 1Ds Mark III and had had a less than enlightening chat with a counter person. Chuck either saw it or sensed it because he walked over, introduced himself, gave me his card, and asked if I was a CPS member. I said not yet. He scribbled a room number on another card and said go downstairs and see these guys, give them this, and tell them to sign you up. They will help you with anything you need.

"I did and have been a member of CPS ever since. I was really struck by the 'above and beyond' attitude—he wasn't looking for chit chat; he wanted to help and be on his way to the next guy."

Michael Tapes: "Chuck was a role model for human respect and interaction. Generous and kind. He will be sorely missed at so many levels. Godspeed, Chuck."

Pete Turner, 1934-2017

By Rob Atkins

Pete Turner died in his sleep yesterday morning at his home in Wainscott, New York. Pete was many things to many people: mentor, teacher, icon, true innovator of color photography. He was all of these things to me, and more, but one role loomed far greater than the others. Pete was my friend. That will endure forever.

The most profound lesson I learned from Pete was this: Color can be used to convey an emotion. Take his image “Road Song” as an example. It’s still a successful image when reproduced in black and white, with its graphic composition and dramatic perspective. Though Pete began shooting while the sun was still up and the fence was lit with the last of the day’s sunlight, he waited until the “blue hour” to make his select image. It’s the blue cast that imbues the image with its moody and somewhat melancholy feel. It’s the use of color that creates the emotional impact.

Pete’s work set me on a life course, that of being a photographer. It’s given me the best life I could possibly imagine. How could a debt like that be repaid?

—Rob Atkins

©2017 by Rob Atkins, all rights reserved

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Jeff: "Interview with Pete Turner, including his comments regarding the 'Road Song' photograph...."

Michael Perini: "One of my true heroes and a very nice man. My second home is not far from his, and we met a couple of times at Reed Photo in Amagansett.(no longer there). We also met in New York at a print signing where I got to tell him that seeing his work in Nikon World in the early 1960s was the thing that pushed me into photography. A kind, generous and immensely talented man. He will be missed."

Dogman: "Back in the early 1970s, Nikon used several pro photographers' photos for their ads. Pete Turner's work was the standout to me. It even persuaded me buy a few Nikon cameras. But I never was able to match those colors from the Turner Nikon ads. I learned later he achieved most of his over-the-top colors by copying his slides in a Honeywell Repronar slide copier and using color compensating filtration. He was one of my early photographer heroes and I still admire his work tremendously."

Peter Turnley: "When I was 16 years old, I called the press office of the Indianapolis 500 racetrack and asked for my first press credential ever, to be able to photograph in the pit area of the Indy 500 track. When I told the gentleman on the phone that my name was Peter Turnley, he replied, 'you're Pete Turner.' Given that I had stated my name clearly, I think I decided not to rectify the confusion. When I showed up to pick up the credential, and the gentleman saw me, my recollection is that he handed it to me with a wink.

"At that age, I believe I did already know who Pete Turner was and had been impressed certainly by his use of color and fame. As a life-long twin I've dealt with a lot of confusion with my name, but all my life since that telephone conversation the name Pete Turner has always conjured up for me that first call for a press credential. And, God knows, if it could have helped me get a press credential, it wouldn't have been past me to use the opportunity. I've always been grateful to Pete for that, and never had the chance to tell him that story. Rest in peace."

 

Open Mike: Steely Walter, R.I.P. (OT)

Walter Becker, 1950–2017

One of my musical friends hates Steely Dan, damning them as "too slick." Me, I'm cheerfully a child of my times. (We all are, it's just that younger people won't know it till they're older.) I love them because a large percentage of their songs are indivisibly associated with memories of times in my life, places that are gone now, and a motley crew of friends and acquaintances. I remember where I was and who I was talking to when I heard that "Aja" had come out; I associate "Reelin' in the Years" with a very memorable Summer interlude at Rehoboth Beach, so much so that every time I catch a few bars of it, it brings up the smell of hydrangeas and salt-sea air and the panicky feeling of running for my life from a gang of drunks who thought I had hustled their friend at pool. "Rikki Don't Lose That Number" takes me back to a transistor radio at a Kentucky Fried Chicken stand that doesn't exist any more, my first job, age fourteen. I have "Can't Buy a Thrill" on yellow vinyl and "Aja" on red. Child of my times, as I was saying.

And they first stirred my inner hunger for the spikier dissonances of jazz, which became my major listening passion for a solid fifteen years or so. Victor Feldman, Joe Sample, Larry Carlton, and Wayne Shorter all played on "Aja."

Steely Dan, the reclusive songwriting duo of which Walter Becker was half, was a band of the 'seventies. By 1981 they were gone, not to return until years later when they reincarnated as a live nostalgia act. I never blame bands for becoming nostalgia acts, by the way; I'd do it if it were me. Everyone's choices in this life are limited; why not celebrate whatever your high point was? Why not make your living doing what's most fun for you?

I don't know how Walter Becker died, but then, when did we ever know anything about Walter Becker? The best line in his obituary is "Mr. Becker moved to Maui, where he detoxed and became an avocado farmer." Well that is something I did not know. I suppose old artists have to go somewhere, and do something.

The band's best album was "Aja," but my favorite will always be "Katy Lied," a record that helped me survive a time in my life about which the less said, the better.

We never knew you, Walter, but that's the way you wanted it. Thanks for your half of the long soundtrack, and goodbye.

Mike

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.

Reelin' in the days
Give TOP a “Like” or Buy yourself an old record

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RubyT: "This post really meant a lot to my husband, who was reeling with the news. Yours is the only memorial that captured his feelings."

Jim R: (partial comment): "I was fortunate enough to have seen one of the Steely Dan Beacon Theater 'full album' shows about six years ago (we chose 'The Royal Scam'). It was one of the best things I've ever spent any amount of money on. The house lights dimmed, the band slipped into place in the dark, and a single spot illuminated an old red turntable on a stool. A lovely dressed woman (one of the backup singers) came into view, turned on the turntable and placed the stylus on the album. Vinyl crackle and hiss lasted three seconds and then wham—house lights on bright and they tore into 'Kid Charlemagne.'"

John Krumm: "I had to laugh when you said 'I'd do it if it were me,' because the first thing I thought is that TOP is a bit of a nostalgia act, even down to the somewhat old-fashioned blog format. And I suppose if you changed things radically we'd protest and want you to play more of your old hits, so to speak."

Mike Chisholm: "'Aja'? 'Katy Lied'? No, no. Great albums, but don't be silly: 'Countdown to Ecstasy' is the best. Album. Ever. By anyone."

Mike replies: Actually Howe Gelb's "'Sno Angel Like You' is the best album ever by anyone. It has a gospel choir! But since no one has ever heard of that one, I'll let it slide.

No wait, it's the Pixies' 'Doolittle'.... Wait....

John Morris 1916-2017

Written by Peter Turnley

John Morris. Photo by Peter Turnley.

This morning I received a phone call in Cuba from my brother David in Paris to tell me that John Morris had just passed today. I went to see John just a few weeks ago on a Saturday afternoon. As I walked into his room in the residence where he was staying, John lay, part asleep. I didn't want to bother him, but needed to see him, and whispered into his ear, "John, I love you." He responded clearly, "Peter I love you too." These were our last words, but the most important to me. John was not only my friend for the past 45 years, but truly a father to me and David.

One day a few years ago, as I sat eating dinner alone with him, I asked John, as possibly only a lifelong friend could ask, "John, what would you like me to say about you when you are gone?" John looked at me, and gently responded, with a smile: "I tried." He not only tried, but succeeded in touching the hearts of most everyone he met, and his story, and his passion and care for the world and for life, and his ability to love life, and to be in love, will be an example that anyone that knew him will carry with them forever.

John's life story was the story of our world and of photography over the past 100 years. The names of the great photographers of the world, Capa, Cartier-Bresson, W. Eugene Smith, and on and on, were his family. I was very fortunate to be part of his family since first meeting him with my brother David when he first saw our McClellan Street photographs when we were 17 years old.

John's interest in success was not status, and no one felt more compassion for the left behind than John. His passion was in living life with love, doing the best one can, and fighting for a world where peace, care, decency, generosity, and honesty prevail—and his passion for public service was greater than anyone I've ever known. My relationship with John was not professional; he was my friend, and like a father to me. But he was demanding, and expected greatness—for him, there was nothing more natural. Every conversation was sprinkled with comments about Capa, Chim, Henri, and on and on, and these were not names on a pedestal, but lives of friends with feelings, stories, ups and downs, and heart. To achieve anything great in life, one must dream. Being around John always made dreams easy, because his life, like a dream, was reality.

Whenever I would return from some place where my heart had been scarred, Somalia, Rwanda, Chechnya, Bosnia, Kosovo, Irak, and on and on, the realities I had felt and witnessed were not, for John, something from a television set. They were part of his life blood and fabric and what he cared and lived for—trying to always somehow impact the world for the better. He also was extremely engaged politically, in a human sense. As we go forward, it won't be awards, or honors, or accolades that John will appreciate us for. It will be simply a kind and loving gaze upon our life with the question, did you do your best, did you try, did you try to make the world a better place? And have you loved. And when the answer to any of those questions will be a yes—John will raise his glass with a smile, and you will feel that as always, you are part of his amazing family of life.

John and Peter. Photo by Jan Kwarnmark.

I love you John. You are not gone, you will always be with me, and with us.

Peter Turnley
Havana, Cuba
July 28, 2017

[Ed. Note: There is a full obituary of John Morris by the critic and curator Andy Grundberg in the New York Times. Our thanks to Peter for sharing his very personal thoughts.]

©2017 by Peter Turnley, all rights reserved

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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Jim Metzger: "Beautiful."

Steve Rosenblum: "Five years ago I had the great privilege to participate in Peter's Paris Street Photography workshop. The highlight of the whole week for me was an evening when Peter arranged for all of us to go to John Morris's apartment where he (at 95 years of age) stood for an hour and gave us a lecture about the history of documentary photography over the last 70 years and his involvement in it. He told us the intimate stories behind many of the most iconic photographs of the 20th century, the people who made them, and the struggle to get them published. Then we all went out for dinner together.

[Photo by Peter Turnley]

"My wife and I agree that it was one of the most amazing experiences of our lives. We will always be grateful to John for sharing his vast life experience with us and to Peter for arranging it."

David Elesh: "Like Steve Rosenblum, I met John and his partner, Patricia, at Peter's Paris Street Photography Workshop in 2011. My wife and I were amazed by John's stories, vitality, and engagement with the present at 95. He spoke of his history, his current political activities, and his gratitude of finding a loving partner in Patricia Trocmé. As Peter writes so aptly, 'his passion and care for the world and for life, and his ability to love life, and to be in love' were fully on display.

"The New York Times has a five minute interview with John on its website recorded in 2006. There are also several photos of John taken at various points in his career. They are worth your time as his autobiography, Get the Picture."

Jan Kwarnmark: "Thank you, Peter, for these words. From our workshop and meeting with John in September 2013 I remember especially that John, after having seen so many war photos, wanted to be an ambassador for peace. And thank you for using my photo, taken with your Leica, at this precious moment."

[Ed. note: Jan's work was featured once before in these pages, as readers might remember.]

Richard Benson 1943-2017

Lee Friedlander, Richard Benson, Newport, Rhode Island

Very sorry to learn this morning of the death of the fine printmaker and the expert on the reproduction of pictures Richard Benson, who died either on June 22nd (Wikipedia) or 23rd (Artforum). A fine printmaker for many years, master of many processes and involved in many fine books and exhibitions, Richard Benson was a polymath of the subject, recipient of a MacArthur "genius" grant and the subject of a profile (in the Dec. 17 1990 issue) in The New Yorker. 

He served as Dean of the Yale School of Art (long an incubator for photographers—Walker Evans once taught there) for the decade from 1996 to 2006. In 2008 he co-curated the exhibit "The Printed Picture" at the Museum of Modern Art, which, as Artforum said, "traced the changing technology of making and distributing pictures from the Renaissance to the present." The book that resulted from that show, also called The Printed Picture, was our Book of the Year that year and has given me much pleasure since. It's our best single connection to his far-flung and far-reaching career.

I didn't know him but I'm aware that he was well connected in the New England and East Coast photography worlds and that he had many friends. Surely an obituary will be forthcoming from the Times, which I will try to alert you to when it appears. Our condolences to his friends, family, and loved ones.

Mike
(Thanks to Robert Newcomb)

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.

TOP/Yale Spring Photo Book Offer
(Ends June 30th or when supplies run out)

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John Holland: "By a strange coincidence, I'd been thinking a lot about Richard Benson the last couple of weeks, prompted by my purchase of your Yale book sale. Benson himself appears in several photographs in the two Friedlander books (he's well regarded in the biz as the printer for many of Friedlander's best books); Benson first made his name as a darkroom and book printer for Paul Strand; and, to bring things full circle, Benson's apprentice, Thomas Palmer, did the plates for the Friedlander books.

"Going through the Yale books prompted me to re-read The Printed Picture, which was probably the first book I ever bought as a TOP recommendation. Then I re-watched the video series Benson did for MoMA back in 2009, available here. Just finished that on Saturday. Now I learn that he passed.

"The Yale book sale now feels to be a bit of an inadvertent but timely tribute to Richard's long career, especially to the many ways he improved the printing of photographs in books, reflected in the superb quality of these three. Such a talented, smart and vital person. Condolences to his family and many, many friends."

Mark Sampson: "I only met Chip Benson once, about seven years ago at a non-photographic gathering. I knew of him through books about Paul Strand, as well as the MoMA exhibit of 'The Printed Picture.' He was great company and was pleased to see me using a view camera. I wish I'd had the chance to know him better—he was one of the best of us."

Stanley Greene 1949-2017

Stanley Greene at Photokina 2012. Photo by Sara T'Rula.

Stanley Greene, the "poet of war photographers" and the founder of the NOOR Agency, died five days ago in Paris, of cancer, at the age of 68.

Olivier Laurent has written an outstanding article about him at TIME.com, equal parts biography, obituary, and tribute. Highly recommended.

"Since the death of her child, Zelina often stares at something far away, elusive. She says she is already dead herself, if only time would hurry up."
Grozny, April 2001. Photo by Stanley Greene/NOOR.

Among conflict photographers, Stanley Greene had a way of keeping in touch with what was truly important. The reminders of his life in the wake of his passing may have that effect on photographers of all kinds.

Mike
(Thanks to Steve Caddy)

ADDENDUM: Reader Michael warns: "Mike, there is an interview with Stanley Greene in that Time.com article which needs a warning. He describes an experience he had when filming for Doctors without Borders which was more powerful and sickening than any of the war photos I have ever seen. It was sublime, in the sense of overwhelming and frightening. I'm serious: I think you should say something about that by way of warning in your post.

"But thank you very much, as usual, for opening my eyes—and here, my ears—to the larger world I live in."

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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Steve Sanders R.I.P.

I'm sorry to report that Steve Sanders has died at the age of 64. His website "Steve's Digicams" was one of the English-speaking world's main go-to sites for digicam reviews during the wide-open heyday of the digital transition; his "Steve's Conclusion" pages were often the best source of sober, well-considered, well-written, down-to-earth summaries of new cameras. Steve was also one of the people who published my old "Sunday Morning Photographer," a weekly column that appeared on three major review sites and at its peak was translated into five different languages.

Current Steve's Digicams Editor-in-Chief Billy Chambers writes, "Steve was a very inspiring person. What most folks don't know is that Steve was bound to a wheelchair for most of his life, due to a motorcycle accident in his mid-20s that left him paralyzed from the waist down. Which, over the course of many years, led to him becoming a quadriplegic. The amount of work this man could do in a day, despite his handicap, was awe-inspiring, with many often referring to him as a 'one-man army.' His infectious personality will be truly missed by the staff here at Steve's, as well as [by] his close friends and family."

Sincere regards and condolences to the many people who will miss Steve.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad)

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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Dennis Ng: "This was the site to go to in those years. RIP." 

Chuck Berry 1926-2017 (OT)

Photo by Donal F. Holway/The New York Times

The album era has recently ended in music, something that deserves more discussion than it has gotten. It lasted roughly a half century, from the introduction of the LP record by Columbia in 1948 to the early 2000s, when CD sales began to tank decisively and downloads started to dominate.

Early in that era, the single was king, and to the single we have largely returned—the huge majority of people now purchase single cuts of music and make their own playlists, something not dissimilar to the 45s and jukeboxes of an earlier era.

Chuck Berry was a singles artist, an innovative entertainer and an influential pioneer of guitar rock and roll. His songs have a rollicking energy that can still get listeners' blood up. Everyone has their own favorite; personally I love "You Never Can Tell" (sometimes called "C'est La Vie"; Berry himself sometimes called it "Teenage Wedding"). It's not on "The Great Twenty-Eight," the best compilation of Berry's singles, released in 1982 by Chess Records.

It's always fun to revisit the Rubber-Legged One, and somehow his music makes it impossible to stay sad. Farewell, Mr. Berry. Wherever you go from here, B. Goode.

Mike

UPDATE: As originally published this post contained a number of errors. Guess I am not back on my best form yet. Thanks to those who provided corrections!

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.

Like what you read?
Give Mike a “Like” or Buy yourself something nice

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c.d.embrey: "I worked on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert in 1977(?). Chuck Berry was our featured act one show. The singer who was on before him had problems and went way over his scheduled time. Mr Berry told the stage manager he was going for a drive. When it was his time to preform, the audience was told that he would be late. No one left, and everyone enjoyed a great Chuck Berry performance when he returned.

"One of the highlights of that season was Robert Gordon featuring Link Wray. It had been almost 20 years since Rumble, and the audience was blown away. Chuck Berry and Link Wray were two of the best guitar players of the early years. Glad I was there."

Mark Kinsman: "As a young teenager, I saw Chuck perform as an opening act for the Rolling Stones in the late '60s. The fondest memory of that concert was watching Kieth and Mick clap and sway behind the amps watching Chuck perform. Clearly two fans watching a hero do what he did best."

Blue, Teddy Jack, Tina Rose, Sugaree, Honey and Coco

Record company promo photo of Leon Russell
from 1980, when he had short hair.

I know I should title my posts with words more likely to be searched. It's the business I'm in. But I couldn't resist this post's title. Those are the names of Leon Russell's children.

The man could write.

Leon, a piano player, died a week ago last Sunday. His resumé includes a dazzling list of accomplishments, yet he never really did become a household name. He played piano on the Beach Boys' Pet Sounds and on Sinatra records; he put together and led the band Mad Dogs and Englishmen for Joe Cocker; his album Carney reached #2 on the album charts; he was at George Harrison's "Concert for Bangladesh" in New York City, where he shook up the proceedings with a rollicking medley of the Rolling Stones' "Jumpin' Jack Flash" and the Coasters' doo-wop classic "Young Blood," complete with revival-tent-style vocal interludes; he wrote jazz guitarist George Benson's biggest hit; and he collaborated with Elton John and also Willie Nelson. He started his own record label, Shelter Records, which released Bob Marley's first song outside of Jamaica. Leon both played for an immense number of other artists and bands and also wrote many songs that were hits for himself and many others. But he didn't relish the spotlight, and such fame as he achieved slipped quietly away. Gradually, Leon settled back into semi-obscurity—maybe better called "semi-fame"—remembered mainly by old hippies and (no question) other musicians.

Not apocryphal: he actually did get his start playing piano in honky-tonks. The first guy to hire him was Jerry Lee Lewis. He wrote a song for Ray Charles that won a Grammy. He played on a Monkees album; he played on an Aretha Franklin album. He wrote a hit for Karen Carpenter. Eric Clapton, three Rolling Stones and two Beatles were guest performers on his first album. He played on "Strangers in the Night" and also "Monster Mash." Read one of the longer obituaries; it was quite an astonishing career, never quite at the center but never far from the center of a tumultuous era in American and international music.

I was trying to remember where I'd heard about Leon recently, and then I remembered it was because of one of the last musicians Leon collaborated with, Elton John—who has always been famous and has never been forgotten. Elton was one of those other musicians who never forgot Leon. He aided and abetted Leon getting inducted in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame a few years back. It was a nice thing Elton did for Leon—returned a long-ago favor and helped him get a little late-in-life appreciation. Leon was grateful.

R.I.P., Leon, and respects to Blue, Teddy Jack, Tina Rose, Sugaree, Honey, and Coco, and all of Leon Russell's family and friends.

Switch gears
Segue to Elton. Soon after Elton John got sober, for some reason he got lit up by a passion for photography. Since then, he's gone from knowing virtually nothing about photography to being one of the world's major collectors. Now there's to be a major show drawn from that collection at the Tate Modern in London.

Most of us don't live in London (I'm jealous if you do), but you can take a virtual tour of Elton's photography collection via YouTube:

I had a brief flirtation with Elton John's music when I was young due to a marvelous song called "Bennie and the Jets" that my little brother and I both liked (I still do). Then I sorta didn't like him for a long time because he was kinda poppy and I got turned off by his Liberace-style stage persona (never quite grokked the whole thing with all the wacky eyeglasses). But that was a very nice thing he did for Leon. And then—well, anybody who collects photography and actually hangs it so he can live with it? Our kinda guy.

I've come around. Elton's a good guy.

The show is called "The Radical Eye: Modernist Photography from the Sir Elton John Collection." See it if you can.

Mike
(Thanks to several readers)

Original contents copyright 2016 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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Doug Thacker: "I remember seeing an interview with Leon Russell where he talked about how he got his start, his first break. As a young man he was living somewhere in the deep south and working at a convenience store, when one day none other than Richard Penniman—AKA Little Richard—came into the store. I don't remember exactly what happened next, or if indeed he ever said—and a cursory search doesn't turn up the story—but I do remember Leon saying that it was Little Richard who told him how talented he was, and who encouraged him to pursue a career in music. In later years, of course, Leon penned and performed a musical tribute to Little Richard called 'Crystal Closet Queen.'

"I was living in Ohio during the height of Leon's popularity. He was huge, with an almost fanatical following. Many of these followers, at least in Ohio, were self-styled rednecks, proud of their southern roots when they had them, and pretending to have them when they didn't. In their eyes Leon Russell could do no wrong.

"But then, at the apex of his popularity, Leon Russell did something no one expected. He married Mary McCreary, a black woman, and released Wedding Album, featuring the two of them together on the cover. 'I always said if I ever met someone who was a better musician than me, I'd marry her, and that's what I did.'

"I recall hearing many of his suddenly former fans react with great hostility to this. Among these fans Leon Russell went from redneck golden boy to persona non grata, in one fell swoop. His new album got little airplay.

"In the year following Wedding Album, Leon released 'Leon and Mary Russell Make Love to the Music,' with an equally defiant album cover. By this time his career was really on a downer and it never recovered. He released a number of albums after this, but none of them did well and Leon Russell faded into obscurity—until rescued from it late in life by Elton John.

"In the America of the 1970s, such a public interracial union as Leon and Mary had was a brave and defiant thing, and a powerful political statement. There's no doubt he knew what it would mean for his career and he didn't care, he did it anyway. I've always admired Leon Russell for this, and don't think he gets enough credit for it. His convictions and defiance were as strong as his music."

Mike replies: I had kinda forgotten about that, although I knew Mary was black. Maybe we should all go see that new movie, "Loving," as a way to honor Leon's memory.

PhotoDes: "I went to high school with Leon Russell (Russell Bridges) along with David Gates (Bread) in Tulsa in the late '50s. They played together for student functions and dances on many occasions and recorded a couple of 45s, I think locally, on small labels—Perspective and Robbins. The Perspective hit was 'Pretty Baby' and David was the vocalist, though at the time he used the name Ronnie Franklin (with the Vibes). The other was 'Lovin' at Night' with David Gates and the Accents. Russell played piano for both. We all bought their records and cheered them on, but I was surprised when they both headed to the West Coast after graduation and frankly didn't expect to hear a lot from either of them. I think it was in the '70s when I was told that Leon Russell, who I never recognized on the album I had (wearing what you call 'short hair,' was Russell Bridges. At first I thought 'hometown boy made good,' but I discovered several of his songs on other singers' albums I owned and realized that would be short-changing him. He was a genuine and unique talent."

Mike replies: What a great comment! Thanks for letting us hear from you.

Marc Riboud 1923-2016

"The eye is for seeing, not for thinking." —Marc Riboud

A passage from Claude Roy's introduction (translated) to Marc Riboud: Photographs at Home and Abroad, first published in France in 1986:

"When you are a teenager so taciturn that your older brothers say things like 'You don't use your mouth, so maybe you'll use your eyes,' when you are retiring, fitful, vulnerable, anxious, then being able to take refuge behind the eyepiece of a camera, behind a mask that enables you to see without being seen, is a great comfort. When you are a young man at odds with yourself and later admit that you were torn between 'the fear of getting too close to people and another force that egged me on to get a closer look,' then being the man with the invisible face who makes other faces visible is rather a neat solution. When you are the fifth child in a large middle-class family involved in business, banking, and stocks, when you've been schooled in engineering, groomed for the workaday world, and destined for a job at the plant, then your father's Vest Pocket Kodak, or the Leica he's given you, become instruments to guide you towards wide open spaces, and photography gives you a license to roam."

Roam he did. More than thirty books have been published of his work, including many pictures from Asia and the Indian subcontinent. What I remember most about him is something another Magnum photographer told me about him: that, despite being a photojournalist, he declined on principle to photograph mayhem...no violence, carnage, blood, war, or suffering. "I have always been more sensitive to the beauty of the world than to violence and monsters," he said.

He took many pictures you have no doubt seen, of the Watergate hearings, the Great Wall of China, an improbable painter poised on a girder of the Eiffel Tower looking like a cross between Buster Keaton and a mime, or two black boys, blurred, shadowboxing on a beach in the gloaming.

His signature image distills the "flower power" of the 1960s: a young woman holding a flower in front of a line of National Guard soldiers with bayonets at the ready. Like many big hits I tired of that one long ago; in the Riboud picture that first comes to my mind when I think of him, we are looking down from above at a broad marsh, with a strip of sky at the top and a patch of dry land at the bottom, where a distant man in a white shirt is lying on the ground with his hands behind his head, as if to say, ah! This is the life.

Although his style and his concerns have moved back in time significantly since I first engaged with him, his work remains well worth getting to know if you don't know it already, with its gentle arm's-length humanism. He died last Tuesday, at 93. There are many obituaries, including those at the New York Times; at Magnum where he was a member until 1979 and still revered; at TIME magazine; at PDN, and at The Guardian, among others. He is survived by his wife and four children.

Mike
(Thanks to numerous readers)

Note: TOP claims Fair Use in reproducing the photo of Marc Riboud from his website, but we have applied for permission to use it and will remove it on request.

Original contents copyright 2016 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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Joe Holmes: "Digging around, I stumbled across a couple of outtakes from the more famous shots of the flower power protester and the Eiffel Tower painter. Unfortunately, they're pretty small images, though here's a giant reproduction of that flower power outtake. And finally, this is actually my favorite Riboud image. Talk about framing!"

Two Deaths in Photography's Family

I'm very sorry to report that Dave Heath has died.

And that Bill Cunningham has died.

Bill Cunningham. Photo by Hugh Crawford.

Each deserves attention and respect individually, but I was personally struck by the contrast between the two of them. It could hardly be greater, given that each photographed real people on the street. For Bill Cunningham, a groundbreaking and influential fashion photographer who pioneered the practice of catching fashion "on the hoof" so to speak, wandering Manhattan on his bicycle photographing real people for the New York Times, the Times has published a widely read obituary, written by Jacob Bernstein. It's a rich read and a mini-profile of a very successful but dedicated and uncompromising life as a photographer. Although Bill Cunningham himself regarded the publicity he received and the fame he achieved as a hassle that interfered with his work, he received many honors—he was awarded the Legion of Honor by the French government, saw a lifelike mannequin of himself installed as an homage in the window at Bergdorf Goodman, and, when a documentary was made about him in 2010, it premiered at the Museum of Modern Art. He was so beloved in New York that he was designated a "living landmark" by the New York Landmarks Conservancy. His work and the way he went about it influenced many other photographers and their projects, from Scott Shuman's "The Sartorialist" to Brandon Stanton's sprawling Humans of New York. And, for such a humble man, he was highly revered in the high-powered world of fashion: as Anna Wintour, the legendary British editor of American Vogue, famously said, "we all get dressed for Bill."

Dave Heath's fortunes, on the other hand, are succinctly summed up in this headline from Philadelphia Magazine, especially considering that Dave Heath died on the day of his 85th birthday: "84-Year-Old Philly-Born Photographer, Dave Heath, Finally Gets His Due." No obituary yet, in the Times or anywhere else. Searching the Times for Bill Cunningham reveals a cascade of articles about him; searching the same site for Dave Heath brings up a hodgepodge of unrelated articles, many having to do with Heath Ledger.

What a dazzling "due" Dave Heath did finally get, though, and all of us are the richer for it, now and going into the future. I missed the show in Philly, no doubt something I'll regret for a long time, but the late-in-life career summation Dave Heath received from the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art not only rescues him from obscurity but will preserve this great photographer for posterity. Keith F. Davis's superb book Multitude, Solitude: The Photographs of Dave Heath was TOP's Book of the Year last year and is one of my personal favorite photobooks of recent times. I find it both incredibly rich and very moving.

Their deaths only days apart (Bill Cunningham died on Saturday, June 25th, and Dave Heath died on Monday, June 27th) is merely a coincidence, of course. But, especially if you're not acquainted with either gentleman, I highly recommend both Bill Cunningham's Times obituary and Dave Heath's introductory/retrospective book as a study in contrasts and similarities as well as rewarding glimpses into two long lives in photography, well lived.

Mike

Dave Heath. Photo by Kendall Townend.

[UPDATE Saturday 8:30 a.m.: The World's Best Photography Magazine (a.k.a. the NYT) now has an obituary for Dave Heath. Thanks to Craig for the tip. —Ed.]

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Ned Bunnell: "I had the pleasure of bumping into Bill once. Literally. I was photographing the famous Easter Day Parade in NYC, in 2008. I had darted to get a better view of this one lady with a neat hat coming through the crowd. Out of the corner of my eye I saw this blue arm extending in front of me with camera in hand. We bumped. I immediately turned and said something like Bill, so sorry to get in your way. He gave me a genuine smile and said 'nice camera, I didn't think Pentax was still around.' Here's the lady we were both going after. I checked and didn't see his version of the lady in his gallery in the NYT from that day. It was probably blurry from my bumping into him."

Kenneth Tanaka: "I knew about Bill Cunningham. Sorry to hear about Dave Heath. Cunningham was just a truly wonderful character. Anyone who wants to see pure, persistent joy of photographing a subject for decades must see the film Bill Cunningham New York. Warning: It's not about photography. (Cunningham used an old Nikon film camera and one lens for all of his daily work. As the NYT no longer has a darkroom he developed his film at a nearby quick-mart-type shop.) Rain, snow, or shine he was out shooting NY street fashions. Many nights he'd be photographing gala gals. He lived like a monk and devoted all his energies toward documenting the ongoing ever-changing parade of what people were wearing. What a life Bill Cunningham had!"

Sven Erikson: "I highly recommend the documentary Bill Cunningham New York (2010), an interesting and touching look into his life and works."

Rick: " I had the unusual (for me) experience of not just seeing Dave Heath’s art at the Philadelphia MOA last fall, but also hearing him speak about his work. It was unusual in the sense that despite a lifetime of photographic art appreciation, I was unfamiliar with his photographs until that very day, when I was at the Museum to see some classical paintings but wandered down to the Honickman and Berman Galleries almost by accident. I thought up until that moment that I knew most of the best work in contemporary fine art photography. I was wrong. Dave Heath was a revelation. And the pleasure of such a discovery is hard to overstate. I shall buy the book, which I should have done last year!"

hugh crawford: "I'll miss Bill a lot. I first started running into him at parties ( his lesser-known body of work is society party photographs) when he was about twice as old as me, and somehow we eventually got to be more or less the same age.

"Really wonderful afternoon light would attract street photographers to the corner of Fifth Avenue and 57th Street, one of the few places that you can routinely get sunlight coming in at a low angle from three directions and a pretty amazing assortment of people who are oblivious to photographers. If Bill was on the corner, impromptu discussions would coalesce around him.

"I was always fascinated by what else was going on in the photos, sort of like how Wegee's photos would be interesting if they only showed the bystanders without the murder victim at the center. I hope his archives are in good hands. Bill always said that no one was interested in old clothes or old news, but I think he was wrong.

"Here is a photo I took of him a couple years ago [I added it to the main post, and thanks much, Hugh.  —Ed.]. Note the manual-focus Nikon with the autofocus lens and the C-41 color negatives fresh from the one hour photo lab sticking out of his bag with a copy of the previous Sunday Times. I think we were talking about waist level vs. eye level photography and he pointed out that he needed to get the shoes in the picture.

"Sweetest nicest guy."

Mike Stanton: "For those interested in seeing the documentary 'Bill Cunningham New York' (2010), it is on Amazon Prime, free to Prime members."

Fan Ho 1931-2016

 Guest post by Manuel Vilar de Macedo

An example of Fan Ho's lyrical window on Asia: White Windows, 1962

"Brexit" overshadowed the news of the passing away of Chinese-born photographer Fan Ho, who died last Sunday. Fan Ho was one of the most important and influential photographers of the second half of 20th century; his exploration of the relationship between light and shadow was remarkable, and made for a very strong and recognizable style, which is something only a few photographers can claim without sounding too pretentious. And his compositional sense was simply brilliant. His body of work is extremely rich and diverse, and it can't be limited by labels such as 'street photographer.' He was great at that, but his pictures weren't confined to street photography.

I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Fan Ho's pictures about a year and a half ago; since then he became one of the photographers I look up to.

The late Fan Ho. Courtesy South China Morning Post.

There are obituaries and selections of work at the South China Morning Post, Quartz, and PetaPixel.

Manuel

"Manuel" (the handle under which he comments) is one of the cadre of TOP's best commenters, which is saying something. He reads TOP from Porto (Oporto em inglês), Portugal. —Ed.

©2016 by Manuel Vilar de Macedo, all rights reserved

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Michael Miller: "Any chance of a TOP book sale around this stunning photographer? Amazon lists The Living Theater for $75 and A Hong Kong Memoir for $300. Such amazing imagery, such manipulated pricing. Doesn't he deserve a reasonably priced edition of his major ideas?"

Mike replies: Not "manipulated," I don't think, just out of print. The standard edition of the latest reprint was available until recently. It's common for the prices of photobooks to rise sharply when they go out of print. Sometimes they fall again after the "oh no I missed it" demand spike is over. Check back in a year or two.

I'd love to have A Hong Kong Memoir too, so I sympathize.

Rich: "I was fortunate enough to meet Fan at a couple of his book releases at Modernbook Gallery in San Francisco a few years ago. A warm, very friendly man. And his photographs just magnificent. A true inspiration for me and I can only strive to emulate his talent and photography. I treasure the two books of his I own (Hong Kong Yesterday and Living Treasure) and his autographs within. I peruse them regularly for inspiration but now will do so with a heavy heart. He will be missed."

Emmet M. Mann

Emmet Mann as child and adult

Well this is one post I hate like hell to have to write. We are terribly saddened to learn of the death of Emmet Mann, most famous to the world as one of the luminous subjects of one of the great American photobooks of the 20th century, his mother Sally's Immediate Family. As an adult he suffered from schizophrenia, and worked as a landscaper. He had many interests and causes; he was a musician, aspired to be a writer, and had many friends.

Our sorrows and heartfelt condolences to Sally and Larry, his sisters Jessie and Virginia, and all his family members and friends. He was 36.

Mike
(Thanks to Niall M. and Kent P.)

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