The Online Photographer

'Finding a Visual Identity in the Digital Age'

I wrote the following yesterday: "Cameras have all gotten so 'good' that what's starting to emerge is a certain tyranny of sharp, clear, detailed, correct-color, adequate-DR digital images. It's not all the same equipment, but more and more it's the same, or a similar, aesthetic look."

Richard Palmer emailed this morning to point out that Ralph Gibson addressed that very subject in a TEDx talk called "Finding a Visual Identity in the Digital Age." Indeed, at 2:53, Ralph says more or less the same thing I did: "...software is a key word here because it enables us all to take pictures very easily, and at the same time it makes everybody's pictures look the same."

I'm not sure Ralph entirely answers the question about how to find your identity—not everyone's work is keyed to graphic issues such as shapes—but his talk is good to listen to all the same: it's certainly great to hear about his epiphany in the Navy, what he learned from (and about) Dorothea Lange, his catharsis about his mother in front of the New York City beauty parlor, and other big moments in his life.

I've met Ralph several times, and in his studio darkroom in Manhattan I got to see a curious photographic artifact: his old Leitz enlarger (the Leitz family began and owned Leica for many years). Not only was it the enlarger that printed all the pictures from Ralph's seminal 1970s books (Ralph said he liked negatives that "fought back"), but he got it from another photographer he assisted, Robert Frank, who used the same enlarger to print all the pictures in The Americans. I wrote to Ralph long ago suggesting that that enlarger belongs in the Smithsonian or the George Eastman Museum when he's done with it. Nobody values old darkroom equipment but that's one of the most significant darkroom artifacts in American photography if you ask me. Hope I planted that seed. (I've been aware of several cases where famous photographers sold off significant darkroom artifacts simply as used equipment, with no thought to its provenance.)

If you don't know Ralph Gibson, head to your local library and see if you can find copies of his Lustrum Press books The Somnambulist (1970), Déjà-vu (1973), and Days At Sea (1974) (you couldn't get away with that scandalous NSFW cover today!) to look through. Here's a short backgrounder on Lustrum Press, which he founded and ran. Many of his later books are just as good but weren't nearly so famous or influential. My own favorite book of his, for reasons I don't fully understand, was his first book in color, L'Histoire de France.

Mike
(Thanks to Rich Palmer)

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San Warzoné: "It was obvious early on that Ralph Gibson's images were different...nowhere near the 'same' and certainly not 'MCU back of head with outdoorsy hat.' It was his choice of subjects that made them look so unique and attention grabbing. Being poor and living out of a suitcase didn't stop me from buying his 'Trilogy' in the bookstores along Polk Street back in the '70s, while living in San Francisco. Looking through those books was like going to school...eye opening, provocative, stimulating and direction changing...eyes open and head up."

s.wolters: "There is a lot in here Mike. Here are some loose thoughts:

"Alec Soth is one of my favorites. In Ping Pong Conversations he comments on his postcard picture 'Falls 26' in his Niagara project:
‘Everybody shoots in the same direction as I did here. The cover of any touristic book is essentially this view. What I think is hysterical is that this was my best selling picture. I printed it large and people said “Wow, you just could fall in, it’s so beautiful…” but there are a hundred million people that have taken the same picture.’

Alec Soth, Falls 26

"Looking at many of his pictures you get the feeling that you could easily have made them yourselves. So what is so good about them? Soth is of course very much involved with his his subject. A more personal style (like Gibson or Adams) would have interfered with his story.

"Technically perfect images can be extremely boring and ineffective when it comes to visual communication. In my career as graphic designer I have dealt with these problems so many times. There is always a need to make a difference. You always need something special for grabbing the attention. So if everybody shoots full color with the latest high-end DSLR you might steal the show with let’s say a twenty-five-year-old compact camera and pushed Tri-X. Good illustrations of this can be found at fashion magazines. Real professionals don't always go for the latest high tech. (Graphic designers have of course many more and heavier weapons to pimp boring images, a universe that expands far beyond Lightroom and Photoshop).

"The most important rule in the world of imaging is that there are no rules. Except for: ‘Always be honest.’

Ari Versluis and Ellie Uyttenbroek, Cappuccio Girls, Milano 2011,
from Exactitudes

"The 'MCU back of head with outdoorsy hat' series seems larger than the sum of parts. The cheerleader effect. Also reminded me of this great project [Exactitudes] of photographer Ari Versluis and profiler Ellie Uyttenbroek."

Mike replies: Thanks for that. I'd been thinking of that project but I couldn't remember any of the names. It's really not good for my work to have most of my books in boxes. I need my working library!

It's also fascinating to hear Alec Soth's thoughts about that picture, because it's what I always thought about it. It always seemed out of place to me in the book. Which I also have. Somewhere.

Elephant Tongue and Hypnotized Chickens

Mark Hobson

TOP reader Mark Hobson came by the other day for a visit. Mark was for many years one of the leading professionals in Rochester, New York, and now lives in his beloved Adirondacks, where he has worked as both a wilderness guide and co-producer of the PBS series "Adirondack Outdoors." "Lunch" turned into four hours without much effort at all.

Only one of his projects isn't naturalistic—it consists of grim Photoshopped confabulations showing what the Adirondacks might look like if they'd never been protected. To drive the point home, the same tombstone appears (in a half-hidden, "Where's Waldo?" way) in every shot. An innovative use of fakery for sure. The rest of his work is "as seen," and bears no trace of "the professional look"—he has a distinct artistic style. He works square, and all the work he showed me was in the form of printed books and cards.

Here's Mark's website, where you can see more of his work.

A spread from Mark's book Rain

One of the pleasures of getting together with professional photographers is hearing tales of the weird things they've encountered in their careers. Mark's best two: being encouraged to insert his arm into an Indian elephant's mouth to stroke its tongue (they like that), and learning how to hypnotize chickens for a shoot so they wouldn't run around like...run around like...well, like chickens.

We've already written briefly about Mark's son Aaron, in 2007.

Mike

P.S. For our non-U.S. readers, "the Adirondacks," as I've written before, is a lightly populated, mountainous region of New York State that corresponds closely to the boundaries of a huge park of the same name. The area covered by the Adirondacks Mountains is larger than the State of Massachusetts and larger than Switzerland. The park is about as big as Vermont.

The name also refers to a distinctive folk style of outdoor furniture, especially chairs:

Adirondack chair, showing the distinctive construction (picture courtesy Hayneedle). These are fairly easy to make yourself out of wood, and, as it's a folk form, individualized variations are expected. Many commercial ones these days are made of recycled plastic so they can stand up to the weather. Those are actually fairly pricey, but come in all sorts of colors. The "Red Chair" I've posted a number of pictures of is a cheap molded-plastic faux Adirondack chair. Ironically, and, I must confess, a bit distressingly, the cheap molded imitation is considerably more comfortable to sit in than the real thing.

The ex and I found an old "shabby-chic" Adirondack chair in the warehouse of an out-of-the-way country antiques store down near Elmira, still with its original, nicely worn dark green paint, and I was going to pick it up for my faintly steampunk family room. But it turned out it was 115 years old and they wanted $5,000 for it! Yikes.

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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David Comdico: "I admit to being a bit prejudiced against the iPhone-as-camera but his square iPhone shots are really great. Bravo."

Michael Perini: "Mike, each time you highlight one of your readers—or even just reading the comments on daily basis—I am reminded that with hard work, over considerable time, you have created, whole cloth, a community of interesting and interested people. You have maintained a civil and collegial atmosphere for people who would not otherwise get to interact. I think it is a wonderful accomplishment, and one for which I am grateful. Thanks."

Mike replies: I'd say you're welcome, except I'm grateful too! The community self-selected, and you're right, it's pretty wonderful.

Peter Mountford: "In Ontario, Canada, where I live, we also have chairs like the Adirondack chair. We call them the Muskoka chair, named after a region about three hours north of Toronto. Muskoka is Toronto's cottage/camp country. Parts of it are outrageously expensive and posh.

"I have sat in many Muskoka chairs, even in Muskoka, and they are without a doubt the most uncomfortable chairs ever produced. I think the only purpose they serve is photographic. They have nice lines and angles, and if the sun is hitting them the right way they produce some nice shadows. But I would counsel you never to sit in them."

The Sad Fall from Grace of Nicholas Nixon

My friends and I have been following this story for several weeks. The news is that renowned American photographer Nicholas Nixon has been removed from his teaching position at MassArt for inappropriate and unacceptable conduct. All parties are tight-lipped as the lawyers presumably circle in the skies above.

Although not exactly the Terry Richardson of art photography, The Boston Globe reported yesterday that Nick Nixon had long been accustomed to "going too far" as the headline of yesterday's article suggests. "It felt like the conversation always led back to sex," one student said. After Nixon asked students to analyze pictures of his own penis, Robin Myers, a 2012 graduate of MassArt, told the Globe, "Artists are always pushing boundaries between provocative and inappropriate, and then that line gets crossed and it becomes very clear. The penis photo incident was where that line became very clear for me."

I met Nick Nixon only once, when I was a student and he was at the beginning of his fame; he's ten years or so older than I am. He came to the Corcoran to give a talk. I was impressed with the matchless virtuosity of his then-new style of close, candid photography using an 8x10 view camera and a wide-angle lens, and the idea that was impressed on me most strongly at the time was that he had initially determined to change his technical style every year...until, that is, he alighted on the right one, which he has stayed with ever since. I even owned a few of his prints for a while, thanks to cameramaker Keith Canham, although I was too poor to be able to keep them. (My Sally Mann prints I could keep, because she wrote letters on the back of them and folded them up to put them in the envelope!)

In fairness to Nick, no students brought complaints against him. The investigation was pursued by the newspaper. At the same time, it seems undeniable that his behavior was inexcusable. As the Globe article reports, "...some of Nixon’s alleged behavior astounded Lorie Novak, a professor of photography & imaging [sic] at New York University. 'To ask undergraduate students in your class to pose nude for you is unacceptable, and from my point of view one of the very definitions of sexual harassment,' Novak said. 'The student is powerless.'"

Agreed, full stop. Still, a sad story and a precipitous fall from grace for someone who had been one of the leading lights of American art photography over most of my adult lifetime.

The article is entitled "Sex, power, and photography. At MassArt, how far is too far?" and it was written by Kay Lazar and Malcolm Gay.

Mike
(Thanks to Oren Grad and others)

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Kenneth Tanaka: "Sad? Sure. I met Nixon briefly about ten years ago at a small talk/dinner. He seemed rather quiet, modest but secure. Seemed like a rather nerdy academic-type. I never connected well with much of his work with the exception of his Brown Sisters project (which I keep running into) and some of his Boston cityscapes. (His horror stories of making those from windy rooftops with a huge view camera were more memorable than the images.) Honestly, if the BG report is true, and it certainly seems to be well-checked, what the hell was Nixon thinking? I have never taught an academic class but his excuse about helping to get students out of their boundaries is just plain bull. I'm confident I could conjure at least a dozen better strategies for accomplishing that goal with students. I guess we just never really know what's in someone's mind or, worse, what some people will do when they have power over others.

"Just this morning I was reading the most recent recap of architect Richard Meier's antics which also went on for decades. A lifetime of some remarkable work largely becomes anonymous because this guy, like Nixon, couldn't control his urges. Frankly I have no sympathy for these men and their creepy peers; they can live in hell for the rest of their lives. I had to keep it in check when I was in control of many people in a bigger business. Hopefully we're turning a corner on people not tolerating various sexual and emotional abuses in their work places, although human nature never changes."

John Camp: "I have a hard time getting too upset about this level of 'transgression.' You gotta grow up sometime, might as well be in college. You don't like what the professor suggests, tell him to stick it. In the current climate, he'll get the idea, especially since tenure, or the prospect of tenure, is the Holy Grail in 21st Century academia.

"I'm not sure, exactly, why colleges hire serious artists to teach. There seems to be to be an essential conflict there—transgression has been a byword for artistic endeavor at least since the Renaissance, and sex was usually the major vehicle for that transgression. In a major reversal from the later 20th century, colleges now seem to be taking a much more protective attitude toward students and their delicate psyches. If you wish to protect them, why would you hire somebody whose stock-in-trade is transgression? I mean, Robert Mapplethorpe, Sally Mann, Jock Sturges, Helmut Newton, Jan Saudek, Ruth Bernhard, Man Ray, Edward Weston...you wouldn't want any of those perverts influencing your snowflake."

Richard Kelley: Francois Cevert on the Day of his Death

Richard Kelley, François Cevert, 1973

Introduction: The tragic death of of the talented French driver François Cevert at age 29 was one of the epochal events in Formula One history, documented in books and in films such as 1: Life on the Limit and The Quick and the Dead. It ended Cevert's meteoric rise, caused Jackie Stewart to miss his last race, and crippled the then-dominant Tyrrell team. Richard Kelley, at the beginning of his 45-year career in photojournalism, was there. 

Portrait and words by Richard Kelley

I was a 19-year old Indiana University photojournalism student who had been an AP stringer for Chuck Robinson at Indianapolis and begged for an AP pass to shoot the US Grand Prix at Watkins Glen. When the Glen AP editor asked if I was 21, I said, "of course." Luckily, since I had shot for Chuck, it was a wink, a nod, and good enough.

I saw a story in François Cevert that October weekend in 1973. He had patiently learned all of his mentor Jackie Stewart's tricks, and he was now about inherit Stewart's leadership position as well. He confidently told Ken Tyrrell he would put his 006 on the pole. I wanted to try a different approach to capture his character at the Glen. I knew the pictures would be a perfect introduction to his 1974 season. I vividly remember standing next to him that morning in the garages; he was on top of the world. He picked up Helen, Jackie's wife, and gave her a bear hug. François seemed larger than life.

At the beginning of practice, I was my usual "fly on the wall" around the Tyrrell pit, and I noticed François becoming more pensive by the minute. Something was weighing on his mind. I made a series of frames, each one with him alone and lost in his thoughts. I could tell he was replaying his "mind’s tape" of the lap, over and over, looking for a tenth here, another tenth there. I stood up and walked 90 degrees to the left, to stand in the rear of the Tyrrell pit stall, shooting him backlit with a longer lens with Helen Stewart to my left.

I concentrated on isolating the men, first Ken Tyrrell and later Jackie Stewart and designer Derek Gardner bent over François, all in deep conversation concerning his setup. They formed a circle, with François in the center. As the men whispered, I raised my camera and made a frame of François's strained face focused on Jackie as he went through his ideas. I made another frame just as François looked directly into my eyes for a long moment and then, I made a final frame as his eyes seemed to look through me into the distance. Three full-framed images in all, and then I lowered my Nikon FTN. I will never forget the chills that surged through me as I looked into his vacant face surrounded by the total silence of Jackie and Derek. I could not bring myself to make another frame.

A moment later, François buttoned up to leave the pits. He looked up and blew a kiss to Helen; then visor down as he slowly slipped out onto the track. I wanted to make images of him going through the Esses on the back of the circuit; something, anything to erase the memory of his thousand-mile stare. I started walking to the access point; halfway there I noticed that the engines had gone silent. It had only been two minutes. When I arrived at the Esses, I saw his car inverted atop the twisted armco; François was still in the car. Heinz Klutmeier from Sports illustrated ran up, blocking my path and whispering, "...don't go over. He's gone."

I stood there and cried uncontrollably. I can't remember how long. With unspeakable horror in front of me, I couldn’t stop thinking about François' turmoil those few moments before he left the pits and the real significance of what I had seen in his eyes. I had experienced it alone, not recognizing the clue of what was to happen moments later. I felt soul-shaking sadness.

This last frame has haunted me for 44 years. Had he survived, François would have just turned 73 years old. Many believe he would have won multiple F1 World Championships, and how many more Grands Prix races? Present-day Grand Prix history would be different, and François would be reflecting on his long career with his children and grandchildren. As a trained pianist, he would have been into his music, wine, and life.

Today, he would be one of the giants of French motorsport and would revel in the stories that could finally be told. I can accept that being a Grand Prix driver was his dream, and he left this world doing what he loved, then. It's his missing the rest of his life that's an absolute shame, now.

Richard

©2017 by Richard Kelley, all rights reserved

The photo was taken with a Nikon FTN and 200mm ƒ/4 lens at 1/500th sec. at ƒ/4, on Tri-X at ASA (as ISO was called then) 400. You can see more of Richard's excellent and dramatic motor racing work at his website. He originally submitted this picture for the "Baker's Dozen Black-and-White" feature, but I felt the story and photograph deserved its own post and Richard kindly consented. —Ed.

[UPDATE Thursday 2 p.m. from Richard Kelley: "Thanks to you all for your kind words and comments. The moment I walked onto the Formula One pit lane, I knew my life would never be the same. At 19 years old, I could have gone a number of ways, but the 'decisive moment' and 'full-frame' had been drummed into my mind by Dr. Will Counts at IU, and so that was all I was searching for...sometimes I went a half hour between images, other times, it was rapid fire (for a Nikon FTN in those days).

"I just felt as though I had been given the privilege of being with those gentlemen to tell their stories and having a style that was different than all the other shooters, I wanted to do it the right way through my eyes. These images have only been introduced to the public in the last four years. I've had overtures from less than sincere entrepreneurs who wanted to print a book, but wanted to return only pennies. Your words and impressions here give me the determination to carry on and someday make that presentation a reality.

"Thanks again to Michael for the chance to spread these images to quite a few more eyes, and thanks to you all again for seeing what I saw in those men and how I tried to capture those moments."]

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Manuel: "Here's a post on a subject close to my heart. Having a rather rational approach to most things in life, it's odd that I have a fervid passion for cars and motorsport, but I do.

"The blue Tyrrells of Jackie Stewart and François Cevert cast such a spell on me I used to drive my father insane by incessantly asking him to give me a diecast model replica. When I got—I was nine by then—I was the happiest kid in the world.

"Then the news came about the death of François Cevert. Strangely, my acquaintance with the French driver's career came through comics: Jean Graton was the author of the popular adventures of Michel Vaillant, which featured real Formula 1 drivers as well as fictional characters. That's how I got familiar with François Cevert, but also with Jean-Pierre Beltoise, Jacky Ickx, Clay Regazzoni, Jochen Mass, and some other drivers.

"One of the features Jean Graton reproduced admirably in his comics was François Cevert's eyes. They were bright, expressive and intense, just like in real life. (At least as much as pictures and TV coverage allowed me to perceive them.) The picture in this entry captures that intensity in an admirable way, and in hindsight it's a rather troubling look. A bit like the last TV images of Ayrton Senna before he died, which show his anxiety and strain. Both leave us to wonder—in a rather frightening way—whether that was some kind of premonition. That's what's so disturbing—but not in a morbid manner, mind you—about Mr. Kelley's photo.

"Brilliant text, brilliant photo. It's such a shame people in the US have so little contact with Formula One. It has such rich history. The only part of the entry I can't agree is when Richard states that Cevert would be one of the giants of French motorsport if he were alive. Actually, he is one of the giants of world motorsport—despite his single Grand Prix win. As with Gilles Villeneuve, Chris Amon and a few others, talent prevails over stats."

Lenya: "A very sad story, very gracefully told. But my comment is also a thank you to Mike for an introduction to other Richard Kelley photographs via this guest post. The Portraits and Duos on the website are quite extraordinary, even to someone who knows nothing of motor sports whatsoever. Makes one long for a book that does not seem to exist...or does it?"

Earl Dunbar: "I am not much of a car guy, and even less of a racing fan. I consider auto racing an environmental sin. But this is a great, wonderful post and an amazing story, one of the best on ever on TOP, with a most haunting image. Thanks."

James Weekes: "I was at that race. A friend and I went to Watkins Glen for seven straight years. This was the last. Jackie Stewart was our hero and Francois Cevert was poised to replace him in our regard. What a loss. He was an incredibly smooth yet aggressive driver. This is a wonderful picture.

"Richard's website is well worth the viewing, especially if you loved Formula 1, but if you love the look of 35mm Tri-X well interpreted, it will reward you as well."

Meet Your Photography Teacher

I don't know about you, but I find those "Master Class" advertisements pretty moving all on their own. People with real authority in their fields offering to let you in on their secrets and tell you what they know. I mean really, Herbie Hancock teaching jazz and Helen Mirren teaching acting? Kinda gets me verklempt. I enjoy the ads and always watch new ones to the end.

I'm not recommending this per se, because I don't know anything about the organization or the classes...haven't taken one, haven't looked into it. But none other than Annie Leibovitz is teaching an online class in portraiture, and, well, wow. I don't know, but I think I'd pay $90 for that. I did quite enjoy her book At Work (now out of print and getting expensive...I hope you bought it when I told you to.)

Gotta think about it. Maybe after Christmas.

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.

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Marco Maroccolo: "These courses are very well done—I tried some. From a technical point of view, shooting, location, and lighting are exemplary. The importance of the teachers who teach speak for themselves; I would like to recommend one of the first courses that they did, the one taught by Werner Herzog; in all probability it is not for everyone, but considering the duration and the number of pearls of wisdom profused by the director there is absolutely no proportion to the cost of the course. I think it is also of great interest to photography enthusiasts because it mainly talks about how to tell a story through images."

Random Excellence: Olivia Locher

Photo by Olivia Locher

Photographer Olivia Locher, born 1990, is from Pennsylvania and now lives in Manhattan, in the Flatiron District. Her website says she is "known for her sarcastic approach to studio photography with a heavy focus on color and concept."

The photo above is from her new book I Fought the Law, illustrating the strangest laws in each of the 50 states. The picture is captioned "In Ohio it is illegal to disrobe in front of a portrait of a man." Made me laugh. From the look on Ike's face, maybe it should be illegal to "disrobe" in front of his portrait. It's a strangely appealing photograph even unexplained, too, somehow—I like it. I'm not sure whether I like it more with the caption, or how I first saw it, with the meaning left inscrutable.

She's represented by the Steven Kasher Gallery, which has links to recent interviews in Vogue and Dazed.

I bought the Kindle version of the book and looked at it on my iPad, which is a good way to see it. The picture above is captioned, "In Connecticut, pickles must bounce to officially be considered pickles."

I liked the written material of the book too. Olivia's concise statement is an excellent description of how to develop a concept for a photographic art project.

The only note that jarred for me is that I thought one or two of the "weird" laws weren't weird at all. For instance, "In New Mexico defacing rocks is a crime," sounds perfectly reasonable to me—it's meant to protect ancient Native American petroglyphs and petrographs out in the wild that aren't otherwise marked or protected.

Olivia Locher

But that's minor. Anyway, it's always nice to see an idea I've never seen before, and I'm getting to that age when that doesn't happen very often.

Mike

P.S. I should also mention from a NSFW viewpoint that a few of the pictures have some mildly objectionable content.

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.

Law unto itself
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Random Excellence: Judy Dater

Judy Dater, Graham Nash, 1978

Even if you don't know the name Judy Dater, you probably do know her most famous picture, "Imogen and Twinka at Yosemite" (there's an "art nude" at that link, just so you're warned), one of the most famous American photographs of the 1970s.

This picture of musician Graham Nash was in the section of Judy's website titled "Photo World." Aside from being one-third of the famous '70s folk-rock group Crosby, Stills & Nash (and one-fourth of CSN&Y), Graham Nash is a longtime photographer and photography enthusiast. He also has a firm place in the history of digital photography, in that his atelier, Nash Editions, was one of the pioneers of digital printmaking. You can read more about that in Richard Benson's The Printed Picture, or from the book Nash Editions: Photography and the Art of Digital Printing. Both were previously TOP recommendations.

Judy has a new book coming out soon which, understandably, is occupying her attentions right now. I'm looking forward to the book and I'll tell you about it when it gets here.

Mike
(Thanks to Judy)

Judy Dater comments: "The photo was taken at Graham's house which was just off of Haight Street and across the street from Buena Vista Park. I remember being excited when I discovered the skylight at his house and realized he could climb up on to it. I wanted to make it look as if he were floating.

"I rarely photograph famous people but I knew him slightly because he had some of my work in his private photography collection. That collection became an exhibition and catalogue titled 'The Graham Nash Collection' that premiered at the de Saisset Museum at the University of Santa Clara."

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Wayne Levin on Lenscratch

"When I descend into this wonderland I want to make images not to explain
or clarify that world, but to deepen the mystery" —Wayne Levin

There's a fine new interview by Tara Cronin with B&W underwater photographer Wayne Levin on Lenscratch today. A very well-done presentation throughout. Nice, and worth your while.

A brief sample, from Wayne, related to the quotation above: "I don’t feel that I am able to live my life in realization of the mystery. In my day to day life, I’m a bundle of uncertainties, hopes, anxieties, anger, joy, tension, and relaxation, just like most humans. I do however often have a strong philosophical bent, and a drive that borders on obsession with my photography. I do feel that often I learn and get new ideas or concepts from my photographs. They teach me and open up new possibilities."

At the very least, head on over and look at the photographs. Not like anyone else's.

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.

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Jack: "Whoa, thanks, Mike, that was a treat. Sometimes I see photos and think, I can do that too. In this case I say I'm glad Wayne can do that, because I can't, but really like his work.

Random Excellence: Lori Swadley's '52 Addicts'

The June 5 & 12 issue of The New Yorker features a long "Reporter at Large" article by Margaret Talbot called "The Addicts Next Door: West Virginians fighting to save opioid abusers—and their town—from destruction." It's a long, engrossing article, if one that's difficult to read.

The article includes a series of mini-profiles of a number of people, and one of the first ones featured is Lori Swadley, a successful wedding, portrait and boudoir photographer from the Martinsburg, West Virginia area. Despite obviously having lots else to do, Lori started an Instagram series called "52 Addicts."

Courtesy Lori Swadley, used with permission

Lori says in The New Yorker story that she herself was inspired by a reporter named Jenni Vincent, whose byline was on many of the stories about overdose deaths in The Martinsburg Journal online. "You could tell she wanted the problem to be known," Lori told Margaret Talbot. "Because at that time it seemed like everybody else wanted to hide it. And, to me, that seemed like the worst thing you could do."

That took me back to my son's first girlfriend, a bright, personable 14-year-old named Katelyn who I know I'll never be able to forget. Despite a loving mother (we didn't know her dad), Katelyn died of an overdose at 20—and there was no mention anywhere of how she died.

I spoke to Lori on Saturday, and she said she wondered when she was talking to the reporter whether there would be any negative blowback for her business, but she's found that all the responses to the work and the publicity have been positive.

Great admiration to Lori for taking on her "sideline" project for the sake of transparency and honesty and to honor those among her neighbors and her community who are struggling against the epidemic.

Mike
(Thanks to Lori)

Random Excellence = excellence randomly encountered.

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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Random Excellence: Cody Cobb

Paired photos by Cody Cobb from the series "Mojave"

If you're interested in landscape you'll want to pay a visit to the website of Cody Cobb, who is self-described only as "a photographer based in Seattle, Washington," born in 1984 in Shreveport, Louisiana.

I had never heard of him before yesterday, when a reader named Fernando mentioned him in a comment (thanks). But I enjoyed visiting his site and admired his work, which combines creativity and tastefulness. Fernando said, "how challenging [it] is to create landscape photos that at the same time are moving, feel real, subtle and not overly cooked."

I wasn't especially convinced by "South" (apart from the marvelous first photo, of the horse), but every other series offers pleasures. He has a real feel for bleak, open land, and especially for the play of tone (for example the geodesic dome over the hilltop), and light (you won't miss the ones I mean). Pay him a visit if you get a chance and see what you think.

Mike
(Thanks to Fernando)

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Playing with light
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Dennis: "Very nice. So much landscape photography is the same. This is clean (though bleak) and new. My favorite is 'Panamint Valley' which I did not see in any of the portfolios, but shows up under 'Prints.'"

Nikhil Ramkarran: "Some of Cobb's images make me shiver. Amazing. And I don't typically like landscapes."

Stephen Voss on Trump's First 100 Days

Photo by Stephen Voss

Longtime TOP reader Stephen Voss, a photographer who lives and works in Washington DC, has been "documenting the upheaval and psychological tumult of the Trump Administration here in DC on both a local and federal level," as he says, and now has a major portfolio published at Politico.

Politico's introduction: "For anyone who lives in Washington, it was clear Donald Trump campaigned against the city in two ways. He ran against 'Washington,' the metaphorical seat of unchecked government power, and also against the actual city of Washington, a multicultural, Democratic stronghold that embraces immigration, marijuana and seemingly every other progressive policy Trump voters rejected. Since the inauguration, photographer Stephen Voss has been documenting the city’s uneasy relationship with its highest-profile new resident."

Outstanding documentary photojournalism, well worth taking a look from a photographic perspective regardless of your politics. Big congratulations to Stephen.

Mike

P.S. Here's Stephen's website.

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No tumult
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Random Excellence: Takashi Kitajima

Takashi Kitajima, Entrance to the Exit, Ebisu, May 2015

Sometimes Random Excellence points to a particular single photograph, other times to an entire set, still other times to a photographer. Takashi Kitajima plays with effects like focus and bokeh and motion blur in his work, and everything at his website is of interest. It's creative and sensitive work, wide-ranging yet with a sense of individual viewpoint. "Crosswalk" is a very successful use of multiple exposure, for example.

"Entrance to the Exit" is from the series "Myopia Hyperopia."

Mike
(Thanks to Lubo)

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Elementary, my dear Watson
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Two More Wonderful Portfolios

What's called "Street" appears to be one of the main currents of photography among ambitious and skilled practitioners these days. It's a photography of found subjects that takes its style cues and approaches mostly from reportorial and documentary photography*, but without the focus on an event or a story, and with aims closer to pop art. Its closest analog might be populist art such as tattoos, customized hot rods (famously the subject of Tom Wolfe's The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby), or pop-songs-by-the-people before the music industry gets sinks its chompers into them.

...But I shouldn't get started on deconstructing Street as a genre. (There's a rabbit-hole.) Basically just wanted to pass on two more photographers in case you have a hankering to look at more:

Photo by TC Lin

"Street photographs" don't actually have to include the street...they can, though. This is by TC Lin, one of the photographers in the Burn My Eye collective, who comments here on TOP as "poagao" or "TC." You can see more of his work here. I particularly like Portfolio 2, and the one of the new-style photographers and the bored guard in the museum.

Photo by Alexander Petrosyan

Alexander Petrosyan is a staff photographer at коммерсант (kommersant, or "businessman"), a daily newpaper in Russia that covers business and politics. He also enjoys a growing reputation as a chronicler and poet-photographer of St. Petersburg. A good article published at Huck magazine this past week emphasizes the street-photographer aspect of his work. More of his St. Petersburg photographs and his photojournalism can be seen at his website.

Mike
(Thanks to several readers)

*...with a smaller dose, perhaps, of those "amazing happenstance" kinds of photos that crop up on certain populist clickbait-type websites, such as these for example...

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At street level
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Jeffrey MacMillan: "Am stunned by the photos of Alexander Petrosyan. As said in the Huck article, they are short stories, each of them. Poetic. Comedic. I made the mistake of going to his blog. My cameras may be going on Craigslist soon. He has such a ridiculous number of notable shots. It may help that Petrosyan is in such an insanely photogenic city."

TC: "Wow, thanks for the kind words, Mike. I always enjoy opening up the browser each morning to see what's new on TOP, but it was kind of a surprise to start reading the post, scroll down and think, 'Hey, that looks familiar...is that...oh!'"

Two Genius Street Photographers

Photo by Richard Sandler

I make plugs here about the wide-ranging and far-flung photographic content at The New York Times, but TIME Lightbox also does a nice job. I got in the habit of ignoring them because early on I couldn't access them: some glitch in the Tubes of the Interwebs somewhere made it so the front page would open and then get stuck. So if I saw a link to TIME Lightbox I would ignore it.

Photo by Harry Kydonakis

No need now. Whatever was broke is fixed. And it's a good source for excellent, thought-provoking, eye-gratifying, mojo-revivifying slideshows. Consider these two: Richard Sandler, written about by Alexandra Genova, and Charalampos "Harry" Kydonakis, written about by Gus Powell. Harry Kydonakis is from the Greek island of Crete (home of the Minotaur and birthplace of Zeus) at the southern edge of the Aegean Sea. He's known as "Dirty Harrry" [sic] online, and a search will yield many breadcrumb-trails to follow if you're so inclined. Richard Sandler, who is currently a videographer, has been getting increasing amounts of attention stemming from a book of his classic street photography done in the 1980s and early '90s, mostly in New York City. There is more of his work at his website.

Stout stuff, both. Drink it in.

Mike

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Kenneth Tanaka: "Very compelling work samples by both Kydonakis and Sandler. Most interesting to me is the contrast in their styles of choices and presentation. Sandler's work reminds me a bit of Bruce Davidson's style, perhaps because of those trashed subway scenes. Kydonakis's work is much looser, not as generally figuratively impactful as Sandler's but much more conceptual. At least that's my take. Thanks Mike."

Looks Like It's Great Britain's Turn...

1985 and now: a brother and sister, or a couple who are still
together? Don't know. Photo by Chris Porsz.

I love projects like this, and (the Design You Trust article's claim notwithstanding) there have been many of them over the years, from The Rephotographic Survey Project on down.

Rephotography is thought to consider only sites, but just as many have been done of people (for example, Young Me / Now Me). The new one from which the photos above were taken was done by a professional paramedic and amateur documentary photographer named Chris Porsz from Peterborough, Cambridgeshire. The project is called Reunions. (I don't think Chris has much of a gift for titles—his earlier book, New England, is not about New England, but about newer towns in England. You know what I always say, "editors needed everywhere." But I digress.) Over the course of a decade, Chris tracked down the same people in Peterborough who he originally photographed as much as 40 years ago, and recreated the poses, sometimes in the same places.

Some examples of such comparative rephotography inevitably work better than others, but it's always fascinating to me how photographs themselves change in time, as well as how photographs show change. There's a book of Chris's project, Reunions, that you can buy directly from him, or you can see various examples of his work in this article at Design You Trust or elsewhere.

Fascinating.

Britain's turn for the great GX8
Looks like it's Great Britain's turn for the excellent deal on the Panasonic GX8, the Micro 4/3 camera I liked so much and keep yammering on about.

My further rummaging in the wilds of the Internets has suggested that the "shutter shock" problem that the GX8 has been asked to shoulder alone is only relevant with certain lenses...a statement which of course I am in no position to guarantee, which is why I have to be careful when I talk about it. But although I have read many good things about this kit lens, the 12–60mm ƒ/3.5–5.6—lenses generally really are good these days, and this one seems to be a case in point—I haven't heard anything about people detecting any evidence of shutter shock with this camera/lens combination.

I can't guarantee that.

Anyway, you can pre-order the camera and lens in the UK for only £869. It's also available with the 14–42mm lens, with the excellent 12–35mm ƒ/2.8 (which also is allegedly immune to shutter shock), or with the 14–140mm. The body only is already out of stock.

Jane the incomparable
Finally in the UK category is a new book that came out a year ago of the work of Jane Bown. (No, not "Brown"—no "r." It's Bown. I believe it's pronounced not like "bone" but like the bow of a ship with an "n" added on—rhymes with crown.) A modest photojournalist who made unfussy pictures with minimalist equipment, Jane's spare yet eloquent style puts her into the very top rank as far as my opinion is concerned—she's among my own favorites, certainly. I admire her greatly and always find things to love in her work, as well as things to admire and emulate. She died around this season of the year two years ago, after a successful career that saw her receive appropriate appreciation and recognition as the years warped and woofed onward, and at the end. The trajectory of her career was something that went just about right for her, and stands as a model for what every photographer of her talents ought to get.

(A brief insight into her character, quoted from Wikipedia: "She described her childhood as happy, brought up in Dorset by women whom she believed to be her aunts. Bown said she was upset to realise, at the age of twelve, that one of them was her mother and her birth was illegitimate. This discovery precipitated her into delinquent behaviour in her adolescence, and acting coldly towards her mother.")

The book is A Lifetime of Looking. It's also available in the U.S., but barely (a handful of used and new copies from third-party sellers).

Like Harry Gruyaert's book was for color photographers—inspirational!

Mike
(Thanks to Marcin Wuu)

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Peter Wright (partial comment): "I have A Lifetime of Looking by Bown (and the Gruyaert). I agree, it's inspirational, and should be in your collection if you have any interest in street, portrait, or the UK in the second half of the 20th century. However I was astonished when I read that there is no 'r' in her name. I had to go and check the covers of my books by her—and right enough! All this time I was 'seeing' an 'r' where one didn't exist! (Especially ironic given the title of the book!) So that's my humbling experience for the day...."

Tom Burke: "I haven't seen that particular Brown book, but I have seen other collections of her work. She worked for The Observer, a U.K. Sunday newspaper, and her work didn't necessarily appear every week, so normally you just saw one portrait in isolation, once a week or less. In that context I think it works brilliantly. But I did wonder when I saw a number of her images all at once if perhaps there was some similarity, possibly even a certain sameness, to the collection. Of course, it could also be that portraits aren't my thing. Certainly her work is highly regarded here, and has been for a long time."

Tom Burke: "(D**n spelling auto-correction! I wrote her name correctly....)"

Visitors Log

TOP reader Adam Isler dropped by remote TOP Rural Headquarters last week with his family (they were on a college trip for his daughter, who is interested in Cornell in neighboring Ithaca). Note the Zipcar—Adam is a systems engineer in Manhattan, one of the few places in America where automobile ownership seems to be a liability. We had a nice lunch and a nicer conversation down in Hammondsport, at my favorite restaurant there, which is about to close down for the Winter.

The Future Arrives, the Past Recedes, a photo by Adam Isler, from his website

Nice to meet the Islers!

Mike

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.

Site maintenance
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Jon Peterson: "Thanks for posting these occasional visitor's logs. It's fun to get a pseudo-random sampling from your legions of fans. As a Cornellian, a systems engineer, and a non car driver, I think I would have enjoyed chatting with the Isler clan."

190 Bowery Update

You might remember the first time we talked about Jay Maisel's house, one of the more famous buildings in Manhattan.

First, Jay: he was one of the top advertising photographers in America in the '70s and '80s and into the '90s. Since then he's been revealed as an actual lover of photography as well, having continued to do personal work and teaching, and publishing books such as Light, Gesture, and Color and It's Not About the F-Stop (both of which are good and worth reading).

That first comment wasn't intended to be demeaning; it's just that lots of photographers who made as much money as Jay did are mainly interested in making money, not necessarily in photography. A normal person can only do so much. Jay had enough energy, not to mention the skill and talent, for both.

The Germania Bank building at the corner of Bowery and Spring, a cornerstone of Manhattan's former Kleindeutschland ("Little Germany"), in about 1975. Jay Maisel already owned it at that time. Photo by Edmund V. Gillon, courtesy Museum of the City of New York.

Jay's famous "house": he bought 190 Bowery, the former Germania Bank building, for $102,000 in 1966, when the area was a dreadful slum. He rented parts of it for a while but eventually just lived in it, filling it with interesting things and hanging out on the rooftop garden. Although definitely bohemian and not all fancy-rich, it was for a period the largest private residence in New York, with 72 rooms. The outside got covered with graffiti (including some by artist Keith Haring, late friend of our friend Hugh Crawford who comments here) and for years, New Yorkers assumed the building was abandoned.

Jay, meanwhile, had an indoor basketball court.

Jay is now 85, and although I once opined that he should be allowed to live forever, he apparently isn't planning for that to happen, because he recently sold 190 Bowery...to Manhattan "he's-everywhere" developer Aby Rosen. For 55 million dollars, which, you've got to admit, is a nice rate of real estate appreciation.

And he got to live there for 50 years, too.

I'm a little concerned about Jay now. He no longer has a place to live! We might have to pass the hat to help him get a place. Anyone have a 72-room bohemian hangout to rent? Maybe at his age he'd be satisfied with 40 or 50 rooms. You know, downsizing. But I digress.

[UPDATE: He's landed okay, and now has the nicest house in Brooklyn. Those photographers sure do well, don't they? Thanks to Techfan for this. —Ed.]

The News [buried lede dept.]: The point of this post is that Untapped Cities found its way inside 190 Bowery and has posted a series of picture-posts. Start here but if you're interested, be sure to follow the links for further dimensions of the story. A great story and great fun.

Finally: Here's Jay on "How to Be a Better Photographer." Note that although it's nothing pretentious at all, pretty much every word he says in this is profound. Listen to and consider every sentence and you'll take away something good.

Mike
(Thanks to Grant Williams)

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Hmbl. Ed. just pines for a place to put his pool table.
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Mark Hobson: "I was able to visit the basketball court and, more impressively, view the large display of large dye transfer prints (30x40–40x60) of his work ringing the basketball court. I gained entrance simply by knocking on that corner door.

"My next encounter with Jay was in the early '80s when I was asked to be the backup choice for doing the Corning Annual Report (10 countries around the globe picturing Corning products in real world use). They wanted Jay but weren't sure they could afford his fee. When told of the project budget, Jay wouldn't even send his portfolio because the project budget number (US$60,000 in early '80s dollars!) was not even in the same neighborhood as his fee would be.

"Next month I have been invited to accompany a good friend and fellow photographer and close friend of Jay for a visit to his new digs. Looking forward to it."

Mike replies: I heard a story from a guy who lost a job to Jay. It was for a series of brochures for a cruise line. My friend was sure he would get the job because his fee, although high, was much lower than Jay's. But they hired Jay. When asked for an explanation, the agency person said, "I had to be able to tell the client that we hired the very best."

Tom Foster: "In 2007, Luminous-Landscape published a video in 'Luminous Landscape Video Journal—Issue 17' that contains a one-hour interview of Jay Maisel by Michael Reichmann. This includes a half-hour tour of his building at 190 Bowery. A fascinating interview and video tour."

Specialists

It's easy for humans to be dismissive. It's an integral feature of human nature.

I am not good with plants, so I've always been happily dismissive of flower pictures. But in buying a new house I have inherited the previous owner's garden, which I have to say has been an ongoing surprise and delight throughout the whole Spring. There is always something new coming along, sometimes where you least expect it.

So naturally I have been taking pictures of it. Not because I have any deathless need to commemorate flowers, but because I tend to take pictures of whatever interests me at any moment.

And I have to say, it's not actually that easy.

Who knew? I always assumed taking flower pictures was sort of drop-dead easy. Wrong-O, tulip-bulb-head. I've actually had kind of a hard time with it.

As with anything else it requires observation. Flowers come and go. You basically get to say, "Oh, that's nice," and then a few days goes by and you forget to look at them again and that's it, they're gone.

And everything's sort of chaotic, too. But if you stay sharp-eyed, you can kind of guess that something might be about to happen.

I'm no expert, but doesn't it look like something's about to happen here? I'm keeping my eyes on these bad boys, and will keep you posted.

Specialists
I had occasion to exchange words yesterday with a reader named Tony Roberts, who is a very accomplished golf photographer. (Check out his CV—if you follow golf, you've seen his work.)

Specializing has always struck me as a smart business strategy, and one that has the potential to make your life more fun, too, because you get to spend your life around what really interests you. I've known of people who specialized in thoroughbred racehorse portraits, motorcycle racing, cars (for advertising), cars (for editorial), sailboats, weddings of course, portraits of children, portraits of babies, architecture (interiors, exteriors), all sorts of things—the list is probably very long. I probably wouldn't have made a good specialist, because I'm distracted easily and have lots of interests. But the idea has always appealed to me.

Even art photographers specialize, in a way, some of them. Amateurs too—you might know people who are passionate about landscapes or trains or animals or something else.

I wouldn't want to specialize in flowers, myself. But I have more respect lately for those who do.

Mike
(Thanks to Tony)

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jeffdmontgomery: "I consider myself to be a generalist as a photographer because I am a university photographer. I shoot athletics, grip and grins, theater, campus life, portraits, summer camps, architecture, food, and the list goes on and on. However when I take photos for myself I tend to point my camera in the direction of flowers. I like all kinds of flowers from wild ones growing on the side of the road to those in gardens. I really believe that being a generalist at work helps me be a better flower photographer."

Rene: "Mike, Over the years of reading your blog, I must admit that I did notice your distain for flower photography which always rankled me as I spent a solid decade doing mostly just that. I'm glad you've finally seen the light, as it were.  :-)  Shooting flowers (especially macro shots), particularly in the wild, can be devilishly hard. I've frequently spent as much as an hour and a half or longer on one flower, just waiting for the wind to die down and the light to be just right same time. After obsessing on flowers for a decade, I finally did burn out on them and couldn't shoot another one no matter how nice."

Kenneth Tanaka: "Specialization is very much essential to achieving success in many (most?) fields, particularly photography. Within what most people would call "flower snapping", for example, there are folks who specialize in photographing gardens and those who are expert in botanical documentation. I've met one of each and can tell you they are just as manic as neurosurgical specialists, particularly the botanical shooters. Then, of course, there are art photographers who shoot flowers, usually dead ones. LFI has a very nice feature on the work of such a photographer named Mike Tinney."

Steve Jacob: "To be financially successful as a photographer it's almost compulsory to specialise in one area, understand the market thoroughly and make sure you know where the commercial meat is. Only then is it possible to define a strategy and build up the competence, contacts and client base necessary to make money.

"The problem is that it becomes very hard to do anything else. You become type-cast, you are constantly competing for work, and if the market turns down, you can't reinvent yourself easily.

"Moreover, constant repetition of the same routines can become boring, and it gets increasingly hard for some to maintain any enthusiasm. A well established market is generally conservative. Taking risks is, well, risky.

"If you are one of those at the top of your game, you have some scope for taking the odd risk, in which case everyone else will soon follow, but in the main your paycheck still depends on giving customers what they want. I think many well known photographers are in that very rut—Steve McCurry included.

"Being an artist by nature makes it even harder. The market for 'art photography' is predominantly one of well worn stereotypical clichés of the kind you see on the walls of coffee bars and new apartments. The main market is interior decorators.

"To be a successful artist on one's own terms requires an extraordinary level of integration with the art establishment itself, which creates a market for you through its contacts with wealthy patrons. It is very seldom something you do in isolation, and in its own way, it is just as prescriptive. 'Be different' is just as tedious as 'be the same.'

"Hobbyists have no such concerns. Much of the time, hobby photography is just an extension of another consuming interest (or set of interests) such as your kids, travel, ornithology, motor racing, trains, horticulture, etc. It's a way to be involved in an activity you love, as is blogging or writing books.

"It just so happens that some hobbyists are also exceptional artisans and artists, and having complete freedom to do whatever they want, they sometimes come up with ideas and styles that are truly interesting. Not often perhaps, a very small minority possibly, but it does happen all the same. You just have to do a lot of trawling to find them."

JOHN GILLOOLY (partial comment): "I believe in most cases the type of job you end up in is a direct reflection of your personality type. For me specializing would not work as I need to be doing something different all the time. I would assume I first chose photography as a profession because it satisfied many of my needs as a person. Then once a photographer, you gravitate to certain areas of the business based upon what is suitable for your personality."

Carl Weese Platinum / Palladium Prints

My friends Carl Weese and his wife Tina are visiting TOP Rural Headquarters from their home in Connecticut. They're out today on a sortie in the direction of Rochester, scouting a drive-in theater for Carl and farm landscapes for Tina's paintings, hoping they have enough time to fit in a visit to George Eastman Museum. I stayed behind to work and mind the dogs.

I got to see a whole lot of Carl's gorgeous platinum/palladium prints last night, and you know it always makes me happy to look at prints. He's now doing Pt/Pd prints from digital internegatives of film originals, from digital negatives of digital originals, and from in-camera film negatives—from Pt/Pd renderings of some very early 35mm work to 7x17" contact prints. Lovely.

Although he has taught the art of platinum printing for many years (and is available for private workshops, by the way, in case you want to learn), he continues to refine and improve his superlative craftsmanship, exploring the nuances and shadings of formulas and papers. Some of his extremely delicate, quiet landscapes and nature photographs almost dissolve in low contrast, collapsing into the middle of the tonal scale, while at the same time managing to render fine detail that almost descends into the microscopic. The effect is both soothing and revelatory, and I got kind of fascinated.

One thing he said last night that I thought I'd pass on was, "If you can print, you can print." Paraphrasing, he said it doesn't really matter if your medium is platinum, conventional silver, or Canson paper in an Epson—the techniques can be mastered; the real skill is having good judgment and knowing what you want the print to look like.

Carl Weese. Photo by Bill Mitchell.

This is on another topic altogether—food—but I learned something else about Carl I thought was interesting. He's a lifelong vegetarian, but only because he doesn't like the taste of meat and never has. Even as a kid, he says, he hated meat and fish of all kinds and went to great lengths to avoid having to eat it—he only wanted the veggies, fruits and starches.

I just thought that was interesting because it seems to me that all the vegetarians and vegans I've known have been motivated at least in part by some mix of humanitarian/ethical concerns, or personal health concerns, or because the efficiency of production (global health concerns?) appeals to them. There's usually some amount of virtuousness in the mix. Carl says he doesn't mind those aspects of it but he can't take any credit for being virtuous in any way. With him it's just what does and doesn't appeal to his tastebuds, and that's it.

I fixed a lentil curry over rice, which cleared the bar and was pretty tasty, to boot.

Mike
(Thanks to Bill)

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JG: "I have a couple of Carl's platinum prints from an earlier TOP sale and agree they are gorgeous, both technically and artistically. The inkjet prints of his that I have (and have seen) are quite nice, too. And of course, he's also a nice guy! I had the pleasure of his company for a few days when he stayed with me and my family during his Drive-In Theater roadtrip back in 2012 and he's welcome back any time."

Steve McCurry Defends Himself, Sort Of

You probably remember the discussion about famed photojournalist editorial photographer visual storyteller Steve McCurry's overuse of Photoshop cloning, which provoked heated debate here and elsewhere. Steve McCurry today addressed his critics—well, sort of—in an exclusive article published this morning at TIME magazine's website. 

It's a strange, unsatisfying little article. McCurry vaguely claims it's all a category error: "I’ve always let my pictures do the talking, but now I understand that people want me to describe the category into which I would put myself, and so I would say that today I am a visual storyteller."

Alternated with his comments are comments by National Geographic’s director of photography, Sarah Leen. She first explains how great he is, then says sternly that his manipulations would never be tolerated by National Geographic. He then tells the story of how a National Geographic cover photo of his was doctored, and she says yeah but that was a long time ago and "it would never happen now."

Who's on whose side here?

The article concludes with McCurry saying that he can do anything he wants to do but that "going forward, I am committed to only using the program in a minimal way."

The original PetaPixel story has been shared over 25,000 times, according to Sharkey James's PetaPixel Photography Podcast episode 76, titled "Is Steve McCurry’s Legacy Imploding?" An update to the second of PetaPixel's articles notes that McCurry's entire blog was taken down after a number of manipulated images were discovered on it.

Meanwhile, McCurry himself appears to be hiding—more than one outlet reports that they can't get an answer to repeated emails and requests for comment.

In the podcast, James compares McCurry's fall from grace to Bill Cosby's, given the high stature and wide admiration his work once enjoyed and the dismay and disillusion these revelations have caused. Which seems a bit over the top, unless you concede that the scandal is having wider repercussions across the whole profession. Perhaps most damning, though, are these harsh words from a long article published by the NPPA (National Press Photographers Association), in an article called "ETHICS MATTERS: A commentary from NPPA’s Ethics Committee regarding the photographs of Steve McCurry," written by Steve Raymer, professor emeritus of the Media School at Indiana University and a former NPPA Magazine Photographer of the Year:

NPPA Ethics Committee chairman Sean D. Elliot says that no matter what McCurry calls himself today, “He bears the responsibility to uphold the ethical standards of his peers and the public, who see him as a photojournalist. [...] Any alteration of the journalistic truth of his images, any manipulation of the facts, regardless of how relevant he or others might feel they are to the deeper ‘truth,’ constitutes an ethical lapse.” Elliot also called McCurry’s attempt to blame an assistant “disingenuous” and questions the professional standards of a studio in which a lab assistant “feels they have the authority to radically alter the work of Steve McCurry.”

So was it our fault, for thinking he was a photojournalist and editorial photographer and was following the very clearly delineated and universally accepted rules of ethical practice of those professions? Guess so. In this morning's TIME article he says, "Reflecting on the situation…even though I felt that I could do what I wanted to my own pictures in an aesthetic and compositional sense, I now understand how confusing it must be for people who think I’m still a photojournalist."

Doesn't sound like much of a mea culpa.

The moral of this mess seems to be, if you want to claim you're only tellin' stories, best do it up front.

Mike
(Thanks to Pak WAN)

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Steve Jacob: "Tellin' tales? Sounds about right...."

John Camp (partial comment): "This Sean Elliot quote really annoyed me: 'He bears the responsibility to uphold the ethical standards of his peers and the public, who see him as a photojournalist.' Oh, really? It's now the viewers who determine what the photographer can do? Maybe it's just me, but I haven't really thought of McCurry as a straight-up photojournalist for a while now...years, anyway."

glenn brown: "I do corporate headshots for blue chip companies and now people are asking for no Photoshop instead of lots.

"I also collect photographs, mostly B/W and pre-1980, but I did have a colour McCurry photo in pride of place in the entrance hall of my home. After a week I moved it to bathroom in the rear of my house. Just did not want it to hang with other images by Towell, Bailey and Newman. I feel better now."

Mark: "Let it be known that, while I am a photographer, I am not now, nor have I ever been, nor do I ever plan to be, a photojournalist. Now, back to my Photoshopping. did i get the commas right?"

Mike the Ed. replies: You did. But not the capitals in your final sentence.  :-)

Rich Reusser: "...A more apt comparison than Cosby might be Lance Armstrong. Seems like Lance and Steve both blame the uneducated layman's expectations for their 'rule breaking' or simply doing what needed to be done as they'd have you believe."

Mike replies: The exact same thought occurred to me earlier. Cosby is better known, fell from far higher, meant more to more people, and did real harm.

Andrew Molitor: "It's just another nail in the coffin, another small step toward a world in which everyone assumes everything is 'Shopped.

"We've reached a world in which anyone who's paying attention knows that anything which looks like a photo could be 'Shopped. Anything that looks too good to be true should be viewed with suspicion.

"McCurry, with his venal 'Shopping of trivialities, is showing us that even if it doesn't look too good to be true, even if it looks perfectly possible, even mundane, it still could be 'Shopped, still should be viewed with suspicion.

"On the one hand, it was inevitable. That Pandora's box was opened a while ago, and it was only a matter of time before that particular creature escaped. On the other hand, way to go McCurry (heavy sarcasm)."

Ted: "Back around 15–20 years ago I considered trying to be a photojournalist/travel photographer. I had a lots of encouragement from friends and such and I had traveled extensively taking many photos. However I was always frustrated and discouraged by how my photos would somehow have so many more distracting elements and somehow just did not have the punch and pure style a guy like McCurry had, one of my absolute idols. I was a good photographer, very good, and still am. For a variety of reason I'm glad I did not pursue that direction (not that I would have succeeded but let's just say I found a way to make way more money and still very much enjoy my hobby), now seeing all this it all makes so much more sense now why so much of his work was so 'perfect.' It was a 'created/false perfection.' My impression of him and my awe of his work has shriveled considerably. Frankly I'm very depressed about it."