The Online Photographer

Kenny Rogers was One of Us

Kenny Rogers, Lincoln Memorial. Kenny Rogers died last Friday.
This was one of his five favorite shots. The figure to the left
almost feels like a symbolic cameo by the photographer,
doesn't it?

I never knew much about the singer Kenny Rogers, credited with bringing a pop sensibility to country—or a country sensibility to pop, whichever you choose ("I've always been too pop for country and too country for pop," he said in 2001). All I can recall is a song called "Ruby, Don't Take Your Love to Town" that I didn't like when I heard it on my transistor radio walking home from school in 1969. The song turns out to be a cover—it was written by Mel Tillis, the country music star. It didn't seem to go well with the British Invasion and Motown stuff that made up a lot of the rest of what the station played. I confess that 12-year-old me didn't know what the lyrics meant.

What I never knew is that he was a devoted and passionate photographer who was just as talented at photography as he was at his chosen kind of music. He studied under John Sexton and the Canadian photographers George Hurrell and Yousuf Karsh, and made medium- and large-format landscapes and scenic pictures as well as portraits of his famous friends and other celebrity musicians. You can see his five personal favorite photographs (one of which is the posed shot at the Lincoln Memorial above) in an article at Sports & Entertainment Nashville. The article by Bill Hobbs is nice too.

"I am an impulsive obsessive," Rogers said. "I impulsively get involved with something, and then I get obsessed with it. So that’s what happened with photography." Know the feeling?

Another good article about his photography is at The Guardian. All the articles seem to repeat that he started out with "a 35mm Brownie Hawkeye." Repetitions like that are markers of the news getting the news from the news—the Hawkeye was a 620 rollfilm camera. Camera geekery aside, the Guardian author, Thomas Hobbs (any relation to the Sports & Entertainment Nashville author?), said his photographs have "real depth...it's as if he was suggesting that America, even at its most beautiful, had something sinister lurking in the darkness." He adds of one portrait that "arguably, Rogers captured the unnerving bombast of [Michael] Jackson’s eccentric celebrity more clearly than just about any other photographer." Jackson sang backup on one song from Rogers' 11th studio album, Share Your Love, produced by Lionel Ritchie in 1981.

There's a great portrait of Rogers in his prime by the proto-paparazzo Ron Galella at this link. I dare not reproduce it here.

He published a number of books of his work, including Kenny Rogers: This Is My Country (58 Stunning Portraits of Country Music's Heart & Soul), Kenny Rogers' America, and his book of landscapes, American Beauty. None are still in print as far as I can tell; American Beauty might have sold out just since his death, and might be available again.

In his later years, he regularly posted his photos on Instagram. Including "Lincoln Memorial."

We're always diminished when one of our number succumbs, whether they're famous for photography or for something else or not. Kenny Rogers was 81. Godspeed, fellow photo obsessive.

Mike
(Thanks to many tipsters)

Original contents copyright 2020 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—too arty for the geeks and too geeky for the art world

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Dogman: "I met him many years ago during an interview for the paper where I was working. He was a very articulate man who seemed highly intelligent and not at all 'star-like.' I recall him saying something about considering his singing to be a business as much as an art. Later I found out about his interest in photography. I also recall seeing a fellow in the distance who looked remarkably like him photographing in Yellowstone National Park about twenty years ago. But I've been told I used to look like Kenny Rogers myself—tall, grey hair and beard—so who knows. Maybe just another lookalike."

Mike Ferron: "Extra points if you remember Kenny as a psychadelic rocker...."

John Sexton: "Anne and I were deeply saddened when we woke last Saturday morning to the news that our friend Kenny Rogers had passed away. My friendship with Kenny spanned more than thirty-five years. We met in 1984 when I conducted a private printing workshop in his darkroom. The workshop was his Christmas gift from his wife. Our mentoring relationship instantly became a friendship. His passion for photography, and his unstoppable attitude were inspiring.

"We shared many photographic adventures together over the years. Our first photographic trip together was when Kenny was doing a major concert tour with Dolly Parton. We would photograph during the day, and Kenny would perform with Dolly each evening. Early on during that trip I was teaching Kenny the basics of view camera tilts and swings under the seats at the sold out Tacoma Dome as Dolly was performing. Kenny was a moment late getting on stage for the start of his part of the show because he didn’t want to stop the view camera session!

"On more than a few occasions we would work in the darkroom together beyond 3:00 a.m.! He was a legendary entertainer, but most importantly he was a caring, generous, and thoughtful human being who loved his family...and a great and loyal friend. Anne and I will miss him a lot! R.I.P., Kenny."

William Schneider: "Back in the '80s, I recall seeing a magazine story about Kenny's photography. Part of the story showed how he enlisted the police to shut down traffic on a busy bridge so that he could set up a shot. Celebrity has its advantages."

Luigi Colani 1928–2019

Luigi Colani

-

Written by Adam Richardson

The man who made SLRs look and feel the way the do, Luigi Colani, died yesterday at 91.

Until the recent turn toward more angular and retro cameras, a lot of SLRs/DSLRs looked much the same, as you know, and all can trace their lineage back to the work the German industrial designer Luigi Colani did for Canon, specifically the Canon T90. Colani was a flamboyant designer who pushed a concept of biomorphism, and his vehicles in particular were pretty crazy-looking.

Here’s an article about him.

And here’s my own humble write-up/photo essay on the T90, which pioneered not just the shape of SLRs for the next 30 years (seriously, compare the grip and shutter button area of it to the EOS 1D of the last couple years—they're almost identical), and also the button/thumbwheel control combination that we take for granted today, which had never, to my knowledge, been used on any product of any kind up till that point in 1986.

Just to give a sense of how big of a leap the T90 was, compare it to its predecessor, the famous AE-1, which stuck to the classic aluminum/leather sandwich look. Then the EOS 1D, some 30 years later, looks hardly changed from the T90 despite bearing almost no resemblance to it "under the hood."

He designed many products in a wide variety of categories. The T90 was one of his more tame designs. He did some other really wild concepts for Canon, shown lower down on this page.

Luigi Colani died after a severe illness in the town of Karlsruhe, on the Rhine river west of Stuttgart.

Adam

Adam Richardson's Instagram is @massmadesoul

Original contents copyright 2019 by Adam Richardson. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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J Williams: "The modern camera world owes Luigi a big debt. A Canon T-90 was my first 'serious' camera. Nothing remotely like it at the time. The grip felt like Luigi had taken a lump of clay, grasped it in his hands and then said 'make the grip like this.' At the time I could not imagine why anybody would buy any other SLR. That's how far ahead it was compared every other SLR in existence at the time."

JohnW: "The T90 was definitely a seminal design and the culmination of the A series manual cameras. The F1 was around in its native form till 1994. But there's a big evolutionary gap between the T90 and the EOS 1D series. The first 'enthusiast' EOS film camera to followed the T90 design pattern was the EOS 650 in 1987; the family resemblance is unmistakable.

"The 650 was the first of five similar bodies with varying feature sets between March '87 and September '89 when the EOS 1 arrived. The EOS 1 was clearly a modernized T90 with AF and the new EOS lens mount and immediately endeared itself to the pro shooters and the upper-end amateurs. I had bought a 620 the year before and seriously coveted one but never could quite justify the plunge. The film series EOS 1's all had detachable battery grips and the early L series lenses were limited to a 28–70mm ƒ/2.8 and a 80–200mm ƒ/2.8. They were both excellent lenses for their time, but the 80–200mm had a flush rear element so was not tele-converter adaptable.

"With the combination of the T90 derived design and the EOS technology, Canon dominated the SLR market for the next 20 years and ate Nikon for breakfast, lunch and dinner. It wasn't till the arrival of the Nikon D2 that Nikon retook its appropriate place in the market. Canon still has the largest market share even today due in no small part to the lead they leveraged from combining the lessons of the T90 with the EOS system. And yes, Canon set the pace and the market followed in both general design/layout and technology.

"Thank You Mr. Colani. RIP."

GrantC: "I was running a camera store when the T90 was introduced. They were extremely difficult to sell, partly because of the then-extreme styling, but also because the earlier T-series had set the expectation for dubious construction quality. Most customers associated the T90 with the unrelated T50 and T70, and the much higher price tag caused them to look at the more 'traditional' bodies. For years the AE-1 was the most popular SLR sold, and those users who wanted a 'better' camera and wanted to stay in the Canon line bought the A-1. Those customers didn't see the T90 as a viable successor. Some went to the New F1, and others traded in their FD-mount equipment to buy into the EOS system when the 650 and 620 were introduced the following year. Once the EOS cameras were out, T90 sales—at least in our stores—came to a crashing halt. I've always thought that if Canon had made the nameplate more professional looking, rather than using the cheap cartoonish screen-printed logo it used on the lesser models, they'd have sold far better."

Paulo Bizarro: "To this day, the EOS 1V remains the camera I most enjoyed shooting with. A large part of that is due to the ergonomic design of the EOS family, coming from the T90."

Fred Herzog 1930-2019

Fred Herzog. Photo by Ward Perrin.

In an odd coincidence, Fred Herzog died the same day Robert Frank died, far on the opposite side of Canada. Frank was a photographer whose essential work was poorly received and denigrated in its day; its importance was primarily in its outsized influence on other photographers over time. His fame and importance have done nothing but advance and increase. Herzog was a photographer who worked quietly in anonymity because he couldn't afford to print his work when he made it. He had no influence in his time. He was discovered and became known only late in his life, when his Kodachrome slides could be digitized and printed by inkjet and the value of his archive was recognized and published in books. His fame is modest and still in flux, still provisional. He's still understood as only a regional photographer, primarily a documentarian, which I think will change as more people come to appreciate his work. (Is Wright Morris a regional photographer? Is Edward Hopper a regional painter? No.)

For me personally, Herzog was one of the best discoveries of the present century. I love his work. I own a copy of Frank's The Americans (of course, because anyone who cares about and owns books about American photography ought to), and Lines of My Hand (which I like more and have spent more time with). I also own Sarah Greenough's formidable tome Looking In: The Americans, Expanded Edition, which I confess intimidates me and which I've barely cracked. I bought those books out of respect and appreciation.

I sought out Fred Herzog's books out of love, love for the work. This is just my opinion, but I think Herzog's work is more relevant to photographers now, as photography is practiced now. I can get in thrall to particular pictures, get lost in their world. They're as satisfying as good food when I'm hungry. Of course it isn't a contest. It just strikes me as ironic that even Herzog's death will be overshadowed by the same-day death of a far, far more famous photographer, that's all. It seems fitting, cynically speaking, in a sad way.

On a bright note: he did get to live to see his work recognized, in stark contrast to another famous 21st century late discovery with whose story his will probably always be linked, Vivian Maier.

The main obituary is at the Vancouver Sun. (Herzog was German-Canadian). His only book in print is:

Modern Color ($36.10)

And his out-of-print books are:

Fred Herzog: Photographs (Hatje-Cantz)

Fred Herzog: Photographs (Douglas & McIntyre)

and

Fred Herzog: Vancouver Photographs, which is still cheap enough to buy, and was the book we discussed when we first featured Fred. (Get it while you can—it's well worth having.)

He is represented by Equinox Gallery.

I hope it's not in bad taste to discuss his books in an obituary notice, but he's not very well known and his fame is fragile and I feel a certain urgency in advocating for, even proselytizing, his work. Interest in artists blooms at their deaths. I really want this guy to remain part of the conversation. I want photographers working now to know who he is.

Because for me there's little qualification needed: Fred Herzog is one of the greatest of street photographers, and one of the great color photographers. No asterisks or hyphens needed.

R.I.P.

Mike
(Thanks to Glenn Brown for pointing out that Frank and Herzog died at the opposite ends of Canada.)

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.

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Tommy Brown: "Mike, Agree 100% with your take on Fred Herzog. I've loved his pictures from the moment I saw my first. I saw some of his prints last year at AIPAD and they're beautiful. Weird coincidence his passing on the same day as Robert Frank."

Mike replies: His pictures remind me of some of yours, Tommy....

Steve Jacob: "I agree about Fred. In fact, it was TOP that made me aware of Modern Color, and I have been a huge fan of Fred's work ever since. For those of us that engage in a similar kind of contemplative documentary style, his work is a masterclass in economical composition. He was the Walker Evans of his time, and it was a great shame he was not recognised earlier in his lifetime."

Tom: "I think Modern Color first came to my attention here on TOP. To anyone who might hesitate I can say it is one of the most often visited books in my collection, particularly whenever I need to refresh my eye."

Merle: "Aww. I picked up Modern Color a year or three ago, probably from your recommendation here. I've very much enjoyed it. I think it's helped me understand why I like the photographs I like."

JohnW (partial comment): "Sigh. Sigh. Sigh. Two of my photographic heroes gone on the same day.

"In 2012 I stumbled into an area of Vancouver named Strathcona, a trendy up-and-coming old neighbourhood with some interesting buildings. One afternoon while roaming the streets looking for material worth photographing, a car pulled up to the curb ahead of me, parked, and out stepped this very European-looking elderly gentleman with a jaunty beret.... Is that who I think it is? I hitched up my courage, approached him and asked 'are you Fred Herzog?' 'I am,' he replied. He was on his way to meet some photo buddies for coffee and a photo walk around the neighbourhood and invited me to join them for coffee. What a treat, and such a genial gentleman. I saw two of his exhibitions, one of them at the Equinox Gallery. If you think the books are impressive, imagine the images printed 30x40" on a white gallery wall...jaw-droppingly stunning. Fred belongs in the pantheon with the likes of Ernst Haas for pioneering the art of colour photography. He's a hometown boy and I got to shake his hand and have coffee with him. What a joy! Sleep well Fred."

Henning Wulff: "Fred Herzog was a good friend and photographic companion as we walked around his favourite neighbourhoods in Vancouver.

"We met in the early '70s, at a time when my photographic business grew and I decided I should maybe take some photography courses. Fred was head of Biomedical Communications at the University of British Columbia at the time and taught a mid-level course on photography from there. I endeared myself to the teacher by pointing out some technical errors he'd made in the middle of class. I stayed afterward in part to apologize and we talked a couple of hours and he showed me around his domain; many copy stands and micrographic equipment. The upshot was that he asked me to become co-teacher of the course, and that was the start of our friendship.

"Over the years Fred sometimes presented slideshows of this (mostly) 1950s Vancouver Kodachromes to groups of friends, and all of us knew how great his work was, but, as noted, there was no good way to print the images to his liking, so slideshows were it.

"He retired early, and from the mid '80s explored other photographic interests like shooting butterflies, and travelled worldwide in pursuit. Later, the galleries showed no interest in anything other than his early pictures. In his later years I often went to see him, and we went on walks, for the sake of walking, talking and shooting, usually followed by lunch or supper.

"I haven't seen him in a number of months, but having no contact with his son or daughter and knowing his increasing frailty, I suspected the worst. That moment has come. Many people will miss him."

Jeff: "The best thing about the expanded version Looking In, even if you ignore the rest, is studying the contact sheets in the back. A mini-tutorial of sorts on Frank’s shooting, and editing, approach. Highly recommended."

Rens Horn adds: "Be aware that only the hardbound copy has this goldmine, not the softcover. I used to work in the library of the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam, which unfortunately only had the softcover. I brought my own hardbound copy for students to study."

Nic M: "Jack Simpson of Vancouver was a friend and posted a bit about Fred Herzog. In his thread someone posted a link to a four-minute video about Mr. Herzog by a local TV station."

Robert Frank 1924-2019

Robert Frank, self portrait

As you surely know by now, Robert Frank died this past Monday in Nova Scotia. I'll have a more about this in the coming days (and hopefully a good story to pass along) but just one comment for the moment: people around the Internet are making a to-do over Robert's pronouncement from a 2004 Guardian interview: "The kind of photography I did is gone. It’s old. There’s no point in it any more for me, and I get no satisfaction from trying to do it. There are too many pictures now. It’s overwhelming." They seem to be treating that as a sort of self-indictment, or self-negation.

But look—this is entirely consistent with Frank's iconoclasm. It's blunt. When was he ever one to promote and glorify himself? He's the last person you'd expect to groom his own legacy with corpulent self-satisfaction. He was a true nonconformist, not a poseur nonconformist, not a model photographer for anyone. And of course he's right—photography has moved on, and naturally what was revolutionary in 1959 is commonplace now. That note of resignation is typical of older artists who have lost their powers as they've grown old or have said what they wanted to say and moved on. The only artists who don't feel that way in old age are conductors.

I kinda hate that the Guardian [in its US edition] ended his obituary on that quote. Wrong note to sound.

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.

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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

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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.

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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.