graeme mitchell » other artists

Paul Strand’s White Fence

admin — Thu, 03 Jun 2010 13:15:44 +0000

I was in Cape Cod this past weekend, and the entire time I couldn’t shake this old, brilliant Paul Strand photograph out of my head…

photo: White Fence, 1916, by Paul Strand.

Agnes Martin and Cy Twombly and Alex Steckly The work of Agnes Martin and Cy Twombly had, or...

“Nude, 1925 40N” by Edward Weston

admin — Fri, 23 Apr 2010 14:19:37 +0000

photo: Nude, 1925 40N, by Edward Weston (©Cole Weston)

On the personal project, an ode JeanLoup Sieff lamented the moniker of “personal” when used in...

Portrait: the designer, Tim Hamilton

admin — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 14:12:09 +0000

A portrait of the designer, Tim Hamilton for Ponytail Magazine:

photo: Tim Hamilton, NYC, 2010. ©Graeme Mitchell.

Portrait: Heather Huey for Ponytail Magazine Portrait of couture milliner, Heather Huey for Ponytail magazine. photo:...
Portrait: Derek Cianfrance A portrait of the director, Derek Cianfrance, photo: Derek Cianfrance,...
Portrait: musician, Chris Maher A portrait of the musician, Chris Maher, taken for his...

Portrait: Derek Cianfrance

admin — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 16:46:32 +0000

A portrait of the director, Derek Cianfrance,

photo: Derek Cianfrance, Brooklyn NY, 2010. ©Graeme Mitchell.

Portrait: Cary Fukunaga This is actually from an older portrait sitting I did...
Portrait: Heather Huey for Ponytail Magazine Portrait of couture milliner, Heather Huey for Ponytail magazine. photo:...
Portrait: the designer, Tim Hamilton A portrait of the designer, Tim Hamilton for Ponytail Magazine:...

Random notes from this weekend,

admin — Mon, 29 Mar 2010 16:12:29 +0000

The William Kentridge exhibit at the MOMA (see this!), notably the stop motion movies,

video: excerpt from Stereoscope (no sound), ©William Kentridge

Valerie Belin’s work, incredible black and white prints,

photo: ©Valerie Belin.

David Godblatt’s work, notably this portrait,

photo: Hillrow, Johannesburg, South Africa. ©David Goldblatt.

Karl Blossfeldt‘s work, so German, so exquisite, doing what much later the Becher‘s would do for industrial buildings,

photo: a picture of Monkshood by Karl Blossfeldt.

and also Blossfeldt’s uncanny resemblance to Dash Snow…

photo: a portrait of Karl Blossfeldt, 1895.

Finally, Nicholas Nixon‘s new book, Live, Love, Look, Last, which shows a 4 decade dedicated vision and Nixon’s adherence to something akin to a poetic form, showing how the singular becomes expansive, and furthermore how in the specific resides the universal,

photo: John Grady and Tesair Lauve, Cambridge, 1997, ©Nicholas Nixon.

Notes from the weekend Harold Edgerton (the fellow you can thank for all that...

Portrait: Heather Huey for Ponytail Magazine

admin — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 21:29:12 +0000

Portrait of couture milliner, Heather Huey for Ponytail magazine.

photo: Heather Huey wearing one of her cages, NYC, 2010. ©Graeme Mitchell.

photo: Heather Huey wearing one of her hats, NYC, 2010. ©Graeme Mitchell.

Portrait: the designer, Tim Hamilton A portrait of the designer, Tim Hamilton for Ponytail Magazine:...
Portrait: Derek Cianfrance A portrait of the director, Derek Cianfrance, photo: Derek Cianfrance,...
Portrait: musician, Chris Maher A portrait of the musician, Chris Maher, taken for his...

Portrait: musician, Chris Maher

admin — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 21:58:00 +0000

A portrait of the musician, Chris Maher, taken for his upcoming album release:

photo: Chris Maher, NYC, 2010. ©Graeme Mitchell

Portrait: Heather Huey for Ponytail Magazine Portrait of couture milliner, Heather Huey for Ponytail magazine. photo:...
Portrait: Derek Cianfrance A portrait of the director, Derek Cianfrance, photo: Derek Cianfrance,...
Portrait: Julian Julian is someone I have the pleasure to photograph whenever...

Portrait: the painter, Lisa Solberg

admin — Sun, 21 Feb 2010 04:38:04 +0000

I was in LA recently and had an extra day and the chance to meet up w/ the painter, Lisa Solberg. We talked about art and book clubs and mexican food and schizophrenia and LA vs NYC and ski racing and light and taking things far and further and then further still.

We also had the chance to take her portrait:

photo: Lisa Solberg, LA, 2010. ©Graeme Mitchell.

And a gawldamn-good painting by Lisa:

painting: Land Red Down, 101×80,” by Lisa Solberg

Portrait: painter, Alex Steckly, again again. I’ve posted a number portraits of the painter, Alex Steckly...
Portrait: Heather Huey for Ponytail Magazine Portrait of couture milliner, Heather Huey for Ponytail magazine. photo:...
Portrait: Derek Cianfrance A portrait of the director, Derek Cianfrance, photo: Derek Cianfrance,...

Old Japanese photography and French New Wave ramble.

admin — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 16:40:14 +0000

It’s not news that I like Japanese photography from the 60s and 70s (see posts, here, here, here, here). Why is for much the same reasons I return often to French New Wave cinema. Call that reason a stripped down aesthetic which verges on a sensual brutality. Nearly able to chew on it. But what saves it from being trite w/ brutality, is a delve headfirst into the subconscious – wait, no, subconscious might prompt something psychoanalytic. That’s too much for here. But by subconscious I mean the very deepest and most uncontrolled and most fundamental mechanisms taking place in our minds. I guess it’d be easiest to just call it, our dreams. (Makes me think of Joyce writing in Ulysses, “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”) It’s a documentation of an entirely different sorts, and it makes the work not brutal, but rather almost unbearably human and gentle.

I’m not informed enough to make theories on the reasons, the whys of parallel creative evolutions, but just look at Shomei Tomatsu’s work and then go watch Chris Marker‘s short film, La Jetee (here). Breathe deep.

photo: still from Chris Marker’s film La Jetee

Or, make a literal French to Japan connection w/ Hiroshima Mon Amour by, Alain Resnais (like Marker – and also Agnes Varda – one of the Left Bank New Wavers).

photo: still from Alain Resnais’ film Hiroshima Mon Amour

There isn’t going to be order here though. Ramblings. B/c what I really wanted to do was just list some old Japanese photography. The inspiration being a well done new book out by Aperture Foundation called Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s, which reminded me recently how important this work is.

Jun Morinaga, namely his book River: It’s Shadow of Shadow:

photo: from River by Jun Morinaga

(These tiny and poor jpegs are not doubt not representative of the quality of this work – this stuff is not easy to find on the internet…a fact that gives me a little hope this morning.)

Masahisa Fukase, and his series Solitude of the Ravens:

photo: from Solitude of the Ravens by Masahisa Fukase

Tetsuya Ichimura, who’s work is almost impossible to find online, but he’s done a number of books, all now very rare I think:

photo: from Salome by Tetsuya Ichimura

Nobuyoshi Araki, who we all know as a photographer of gorgeous flowers and gorgeous bound women, but his book Sentimental Journey reveals a side of him little known. This older work is, again, almost non-existent online.

photo: from Sentimental Journey by Nobuyoshi Araki

Eikoh Hosoe, who I’d not heard of until just recently:

photo: by Eikoh Hosoe

And a few more obvious ones I’ve touched on before on this site and who are very well known, Shōmei Tōmatsu,

photo: by Shōmei Tōmatsu

For God’s sake, now that (↑) is photography.

photo: by Shōmei Tōmatsu

and Daidō Moriyama:

photo: by Daidō Moriyama

A friend recently offered me a simple and apt definition of good art, saying it “is something people want to experience again…after seeing it they immediately want to relive it, and then again and again.” This work then, to me, is good art.

Yes Yes. Tremendous.

No related posts.

Portrait: painter, Alex Steckly, again again.

admin — Wed, 06 Jan 2010 14:09:45 +0000

I’ve posted a number portraits of the painter, Alex Steckly over the years, and will continue to do so. Like Julian in the last post, Alex is someone who I try to take a portrait of when the opportunity arises. There’s an old writing saying that goes, “write what you know.” I believe in this for photography too.

photo: Alex Steckly in his studio, Portland OR, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell

Agnes Martin and Cy Twombly and Alex Steckly The work of Agnes Martin and Cy Twombly had, or...
Portrait: Alex Kaluzhsky, for Interview (Opps, had to pull and re-post this. I thought it...
Portrait: the painter, Lisa Solberg I was in LA recently and had an extra day...

Portrait: Julian

admin — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 15:01:12 +0000

Julian is someone I have the pleasure to photograph whenever our schedules allow. It is always a great pleasure.

photo: Julian in my basement, NYC, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell

He is a friend, a musician, and a wonderful mind.

Here is a song:

song: Dolls Aren’t Supposed to Bite by Julian Tulip’s Licorice

And – peelug - he also did the music for the Unreal City Slideshow.

Unreal City, Portfolio Edition Hopefully this will be the last time I mention this...
Portrait: painter, Alex Steckly, again again. I’ve posted a number portraits of the painter, Alex Steckly...
Tunes for your New Years Will have some new work to share after the holidays,...

Bresson and Weegee audio recordings

admin — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 22:42:01 +0000

A photographer (thanks, James!) sent me these great little finds that were originally posted on this photographer’s record collection blog.

I’ll start with Henri Cartier-Bresson.

audio: Henri Cartier-Bresson, 1958. From Famous Photographers Tell How

The Weegee one is almost comical…given his subject matter: “The easiest thing to photograph is a murder.”

audio: Weegee, 1958. From Famous Photographers Tell How

photo: originally from: http://boogiewoogieflu.blogspot.com/2009/06/weegee-speaks.html

Portrait: Julian Julian is someone I have the pleasure to photograph whenever...

Things I liked this week…

admin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 17:38:40 +0000

The portraits by Lucia Moholy were the one thing at the MOMA Bauhaus exhibit that stopped me dead in my tracks:

photo: Franz Roh, 1926, by Lucia Moholy

And then this is a portrait of Lucia by her husband and photographer, László Moholy-Nagy. Both of these pictures are really something else.

photo: portrait of Lucia Moholy by László Moholy-Nagy

At nearly the same time as the Moholys, the painter Balthus was in Paris reaching a stride that would define his work as controversial, erotic, and, I think, brilliant. It’s great to read his biography revolving around his early years in Paris and the circles he ran in, including, Giacometti, Many Ray, Camus, Miró, Picasso, Lacan. The heavy hitters of culture, those that shaped our modern and even our post-modern sensibilities. Which brings me to a discussion I was having last night w/ a friend in regards to movements in the arts and culture, those little sparks that ignite and burn and sometimes manage to change everything thereafter. Namely we talked about how they’ve always been geographically based and how the internet has changed that old need to actually be somewhere and in a physically community to participate (Post-war Paris, NYC in the 50s and 80s, as two modern Western examples). Does physical dissipation lead to cultural dissipation? I think so. Does that kind of ruin, or at least make much more difficult, the chances for those paradigm shifts of culture, the arts, and how people think? Maybe. Sure, it’s an over simplified view, b/c I really don’t know what I’m talking about, but I figure it’s something to roll around in your head while we have this discussion. (Over our computers…oh, the irony).

painting: by Balthus

Anyway, there’s an excellent portrait of Balthus by Irving Penn, w/ Balthus in a chair wearing a robe and a belt made of simple rope, with that infinite air of human-ess reaching into eternity that Penn instilled in so many of his sitters. I’d seen it in one of Penn’s books, and thought it’d go nicely here, but can’t find it online anywhere, so I guess for now the internet does have it’s limits.

Painter’s and photographer’s makes me think of George Bernard Shaw’s quote that if Velazquez was alive today he’d be a photographer. I mean, could you imagine! Conde Naste contract. B/c the guy sorta was doing what Leibovitz does, except he did it over 300 years ago w/ a paint brush

painting: Las Meninas, 1665, by Diego Velazquez

Shaw, now there is a mind! The guy must have been a photographers dream: self aware, smart, and, the icing, the cliche look of a wise man. I mean, he was someone who believed death was only real b/c it was an idea put in our head, an idea that one really didn’t have to abide by. Faaarrrrr out. I guess he took the Nietzschian ubermensch literally. If you want to get to know him, his plays Major Barbara and Man and Superman would be the two I’d suggest as seminal.

photo: George Bernard Shaw, ©The Estate of Yousuf Karsh

The threads holding this post together were thin to begin with, and they’ve completely disintegrated by this point. So I’ll spare you any more of what was on my mind and will instead bid you adieu.

On the personal project, an ode JeanLoup Sieff lamented the moniker of “personal” when used in...
Portrait: painter, Alex Steckly, again again. I’ve posted a number portraits of the painter, Alex Steckly...

On the personal project, an ode

admin — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 21:25:48 +0000

JeanLoup Sieff lamented the moniker of “personal” when used in regards to defining his work. Actually, lamented is probably a poor choice of words being an extrapolation on my part; rejected, is probably more precise, but regardless, he considered all of his work personal. That’s an attitude I, and I imagine most, agree with, and that Sieff was able in the end to live by it is something we can go as far to admire. For most though, and in these days, the practice of successfully defining yourself in a market of commerce is a bit more difficult and riddled, unless you’re a pure-bred fine art or pure-bred commercial photographer or one of the upper-tier photojournalists, or basically, either someone who does only one thing or someone who can have someone else (a rep) make your definitions for you. (On that note, I had a discussion along these lines the other day with another photographer who was cheering on the lifestyle of Koudelka (which has become nearly mythological; probably rightfully so) and also a recent interview of Solve Sundsbo with him commenting how he never googled himself. Both comments amounted to a celebration of being a photographer and doing it outside of the feebleness of dealing with marketing or money or the rest of that, well, shit. My response to these examples was, yep, but rest assured that they have someone doing the shit for them. Someone is making the money, doing the googling, etc.)

photo: ©Josef Koudelka/Magnum

Most photographers aren’t there though (and with a comparison to Koudelka’s life, many probably wouldn’t want to be there even if offered – a comment, which, Josef, you can consider my highest compliment), most shoot work for money that is a commercial service and in being so usually amounts to certain compromises, in which case, efforts are usually made to say, yeah, I do this to pay the bills, but this over here is my baby, what I don’t but someday hope to get paid for. Now, I call my work, work, but I still will usually delineate when I’m discussing something that is personal, otherwise people seem to get confused, as if doing something simply for the sake of doing it is not natural…and it also turns out most people are more interested in who you’re doing something for than what you’re actually doing (hype hunger). But for the sake of this conversation, let’s just assume personal work is something we do for ourselves, not to sell, not to use as promos, but pictures we take out of curiosity, tests, boredom, love…work that has no excuse for any compromise other than the limits of our own ingenuity and creativity, and the limits of our capabilities and capacities. (Story has it that, Edward Weston, in shooting his peppers couldn’t achieve the depth of field he wanted at the smallest f-stop (he’d of been using a very simple 8×10, natural light, and exposures in the hours and hours). He didn’t change the idea; he didn’t back the camera up; he didn’t decide maybe peppers weren’t a great idea; nope, instead he figured out how to cut an even smaller f-stop hole in a sheet of black tin and insert that into his shutter as an even smaller fstop (a waterhouse stop). A special lesson resides in this photograph then I think: that is the willingness to take an idea to that length, the ability to go that far with a pepper.)

photo: Pepper, 1930 by Edward Weston, ©edward-weston.com

You still make pictures with that kind of heart, right?

Well, the thesis of this post is that I think you should be, b/c this work to me is incredibly important. The most important. It is the work I want to hear you talk about. I want your voice to speed up and for you to forget to blink when you tell me what you’re working on for yourself. Emerson went to the lake and came back telling people to take everything they own and get rid of half of it; well, I’m gonna say, take the time you’re putting into those personal projects and double it.

The unfortunate part is most personal work isn’t good. The pictures might be good, sure, but they still may not amount to much in your work’s grand-scheme. You start the idea, get into it, it doesn’t work, or even if it does, just doesn’t fit, you stop, and then, as Faulkner would say, you kill off another darling. Rinse and repeat. It costs money and time, and morale, as the enthusiasm of the process fades when you’re interest is the final product…not operating a film scanner. The painter, Alex Steckly, who I mentioned in my last post, and I discussed this recently while I was shooting his portrait. How in both are areas of work, we begin ideas, put ourselves into them, but then how it ends up that you really won’t know if it will amount to anything until after a year or so of working on and digesting it, and then, if you’re lucky enough to be onto something, it’s probably at least another year or two exhausting it. One must be tireless in their belief that it has the possibility of mattering.

photo: desert landscape as example of a project I started and never got anywhere with, except to sad places, ©Graeme Mitchell.

But here’s the upside. When you do manage to find a project that works, and learn to let yourself freely explore photographs w/o the hinders of classifying it, say, on your website, it is this work that I believe will enable your survival no matter what. It becomes that thing that no one can touch. And I’ll bet it’ll probably end up being the best work you’ll ever do. There’s not much to this. It’s obvious, blatant, written and said before, most photographers who’ve made it more than a few years know it and do there best to live by it. Regardless, I wanted to bring it up b/c of a few recent discussions in regards to and changes I’ve made in how I approach photographs, most changes amounting to simplifying the noise to a succinct hum of trying to make photographs I believe to be valid. Everything else, swept to the side, as best as possible.

photo: from a personal still project I worked on that ended up as big prints on some walls, ©Graeme Mitchell.

For instance, I began taking pictures on the streets in NYC three years ago as personal work, as therapy, having NO clue what I was doing other than exploring what this city conjured. In the last year that work, which was shoebox work never intended to be cared about, has grown and come to play a completely unpredicted and large part in what I’m doing in other areas, ditto for a lot of my personal portrait work. Right now, usually late at night, I’m working on floral still lives like sad brethren of Mapplethorpe, and I’m as excited about this almost as much anything I’m currently working on. And I have absolutely no use for it…yet…but I believe there’s something there worth keeping at. This is all coming from someone who used to be worried of being confused with anything other than a fashion photographer.

photo: a portrait I shot of my best-friend Benjamin b/c we had a free afternoon, ©Graeme Mitchell.

One similarity of the careers of photographers is that there are no similarities between our careers. We’re all different in personalities and the way we build the pictures we take around ourselves. But just consider this post an ode to the personal project, to get out and breathe something worth living for into the world with no reason or expectation. That will be a beautiful act of freedom in itself.

“Nude, 1925 40N” by Edward Weston photo: Nude, 1925 40N, by Edward Weston (©Cole Weston)...
Things I liked this week… The portraits by Lucia Moholy were the one thing at...

Agnes Martin and Cy Twombly and Alex Steckly

admin — Sat, 28 Nov 2009 04:29:21 +0000

The work of Agnes Martin and Cy Twombly had, or rather, more surprisingly, stole my full attention this evening. Both took my mind to another place. If you haven’t, I’d suggest looking for their work.

painting: Untitled by Agnes Martin

painting: Untitled (New York City) by Cy Twombly

It was the painter, Alex Steckly who I who had a nerd-out over art today, that brought them both to the conversation. He currently has a solo show up at Fourteen30 in Portland OR, showing some really impressive new sculptures.

painting: by Alex Steckly

On a side note, on a long weekend out of the city for the holiday, hiding out and working on some new web stuff with Benjamin Diggles that I’m really looking forward to sharing here. Hopefully soon.

And really exciting, reading Roberto Bolaño’s book 2666, which is really really worth picking up and going head first into. Goddamn good Lit.

Portrait: painter, Alex Steckly, again again. I’ve posted a number portraits of the painter, Alex Steckly...
Portrait: Alex Kaluzhsky, for Interview (Opps, had to pull and re-post this. I thought it...
On the personal project, an ode JeanLoup Sieff lamented the moniker of “personal” when used in...

Minor White

admin — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 06:51:01 +0000

This picture of Minor White’s is the best argument towards the existence of G_d that I’ve ever come across:

photo: Windowsill Daydreaming, by Minor White.

It is a photograph that poses ineffable questions while at the same time offering inherent answers. One risks vanishing into it.

No related posts.

Vivian Maier

admin — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 14:53:08 +0000

A fascinating story of a found body of work of a street photographer who lived, shot, and passed unknown. Here. An example of someone making something regardless; or as Gaddis would probably iterate, an example of the need to create, no notions of wants or desires or thoughts of, but only the fundamental must to.

No related posts.

Portrait: Kevin Baker, for Interview

admin — Tue, 15 Sep 2009 23:29:52 +0000

The painter, Kevin Baker for Interview, Aug 09.

photo: Kevin Baker, NYC, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.

Styling: Miguel Enamorado
Grooming: Mary Douglas (w/ The Wall Group)
Photo Assistant: Aaron Binaco

Portrait: Alex Kaluzhsky, for Interview (Opps, had to pull and re-post this. I thought it...
Portrait: Trattie Davies Portrait of the architect, Trattie Davies, originally shot for Interview...
Portrait: Cary Fukunaga This is actually from an older portrait sitting I did...

MET, the model as muse

admin — Mon, 11 May 2009 14:13:15 +0000

I did a quick yet idea provoking walk through the MET’s exhibition “model as muse” yesterday. The exhibition’s been getting a lot of press, rightfully, as it’s both excellently curated and art directed. Two things struck me while walking through the show. First, how incredible Dior has been in the history of fashion (duh), and how it remains to be under Galliano. The recent Dior Couture they had on display was incredible. It’s the sort of stuff that makes me want to photograph clothing. Second, I was amazed at both how many people were at the exhibit and how interested they were in it. Which seems like a silly thing to say, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many people so interested in any exhibit I’ve been to. It was a reminder of how fashion and this aspect of our culture really is mass, and while it feels like it can become isolated to the little bubbles of NYC, Paris, London, etc, it’s so much larger than that. Maybe Penn summed it best in stating, to paraphrase, I take photographs for the housewife in the mid-west.

The museum also posted it’s curator talks in 9 parts, which are a nice history of models and fashion’s social/cultural functions in general:

1 of 9:

2 0f 9:

3 of 9:

4 of 9:

5 of 9:

6 of 9:

7 of 9:

8 of 9:

9 of 9:

Things I liked this week… The portraits by Lucia Moholy were the one thing at...
Print Edition: Legs in Hotel This post is the first of a new category of...
Random notes from this weekend, The William Kentridge exhibit at the MOMA (see this!), notably...

Roger Ballen’s, “Boarding House”

admin — Sat, 09 May 2009 21:56:23 +0000

I think Roger Ballen‘s new book, Boarding House, takes the previous themes he’s explored and winds them into the most coherent vision of his work yet. It’s dark stuff. It’s scary stuff. It digs deep, surfacing forgotten recesses of the psyche, troubled archetypes your mind does it’s best to loose in the furthest and deepest mine shafts of your soul. But it’s also brilliant stuff, some of the most real and touching work I’ve seen in a while, all at once sublimely terrifying and terrifyingly sublime.

photo: “Fragments, 2005″ ©Roger Ballen.

photo: “Cornered, 2004″ ©Roger Ballen.

photo: “Boarder, 2005″ ©Roger Ballen.

No related posts.

Some movies and solar vision

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 02:42:44 +0000

I was having a super late post-party supper with a group from Tank while in London and the fash ed started talking about this really far out stuff and, as you’d guess, my interest piqued. It was a film. I won’t belabor the specifics here, but will only repeat what she said, it is amaaaaazing, then said again after a dramatic pause to assure my full attention, amaaaaazing. So I watched it. It’s called The Holy Mountain, by Alejandro Jodorowsky, and, I agree, it is most certainly incredible, but…wow.

video: trailer to The Holy Mountain

Nearly makes Barney’s Creamaster Cycle seem par for, er, normal.

video: Trailer for Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle.

On a completely different note, standing applause for Visionaires #56 solar-powered book. Putting up a good fight for why the printed magazine/book will always have it’s place.

photo: from Visionaire 56, ©Richard Burbridge

No related posts.

A conversation: Friedlander on Avedon, then bicycles, then Bill Cunningham

admin — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:50:42 +0000

More a regurgitation of a conversation, but after all, it’s a blog: so: while having lunch in Tompkins Sq. yesterday with photo-friend, Aaron Binaco he gave me some, how should I put it, neat shit. My first sun-drunk-enthusiasm was for that by now well known moment when Avedon went to take Freidlander‘s portrait at his home, and how Freidlander, being a really real photographer (see note), also took Avedon’s portrait. I said I could find the Avedon picture, but have yet to be able to find the Friedlander. Well, Aaron found it and sent it to me. I imagine a sort of stand-off of great personalities, great wills face to face, and even if they were cordial and kind on some level it must have been profound-intense. Either as a matter of attrition of neither ever giving in, or maybe rather of two old masters being able to wink and nod, knowingly.

photo: from Aperture #188, Lee Friedlander by Richard Avedon (left) and Richard Avedon by Lee Friedlander (right)

Both Aaron and I grew up racing bicycles, so then he started on about this Scottish trials rider, saying, “he’d ride up that tree over there and just chill out,” while pointing at this giant bloody elm that a cat could maybe climb. I called, hyperbole!, but then he emailed me this link and jesusmurphy…if you’ve ever ridden a bike you should be able to appreciate this video:

And, yes, I am in fact posting on extreme sports youtube video…sigh, probably a slippery slope, so I’ll post this to balance it out:

photo: Corvette I saw in soho which I voted best possible prop of the day and sent it to a fashion editor with a synopsis of a story involving Death Valley, Bottega heels, and a Camio by Dennis Hopper (as eminence grise, naturally). Fashion editor responded, I weep.

Note: “real photograher”: I was shooting on 5th ave by Tiffany’s on Saturday morning, and I saw this old timer shooting people fast with an old Nikon. I guessed maybe he was part of the old-Magnum-guard. I said, hello, asked his name, he said, Bill Cunningham, didn’t ring a bell. I asked him if shot there much, if he’d seen Bruce Gilden out, he’s always shooting on this corner. He said, I have seen him in the afternoon; how is Bruce? I said, I’ve no idea, I just see him, can’t catch him. He said, now that’s a real photographer. I liked that. Since there was truth in it. We chatted a bit more, then he took off after this super chic blonde to photograph. I thought, huh, mildly-licentious, but, yeah! It wasn’t until I mentioned it later in the day in passing that someone explained to me who Bill is. Love it. Before he ran of he waved and said, keep snapping kid. I offer the same good-bye, keep snapping, Bill!

Portrait: Julian Julian is someone I have the pleasure to photograph whenever...

Mikael Jansson’s, “Speed of Life”

admin — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 01:28:40 +0000

Mikael Jansson (w/ Wilson/Wenzel), has been respected in the fashion world for decades, and lately has become know as the cover/feature shooter for Interview, where he’s been defining himself as excellent portrait/celebrity shooter, so I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed his book, Speed of Life, b/c I don’t necessarily figure many fashion guys can shoot motor-sports, and, furthermore, b/c I’m not even into cars, not even a little bit. Maybe it’s not world changing work, but I don’t think photos have to be to be good; sometimes I think it’s enough to see s photographer work on something you can see they’re passionate about.

No related posts.

Steven Meisel Interview

admin — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 11:39:45 +0000

There’s an interview from Vogue with Meisel, here, which as most of you know, is a rare thing indeed.

photo: by Steven Miesel

Portrait: Kevin Baker, for Interview The painter, Kevin Baker for Interview, Aug 09. photo: Kevin...
Portrait: Alex Kaluzhsky, for Interview (Opps, had to pull and re-post this. I thought it...

Jeff Koons at Strand

admin — Tue, 07 Apr 2009 03:12:11 +0000

There is a lot of art I love, most of what is considered good I can manage to find some bit of sanctuary in, or come to some sort of terms with, but on the other hand, when I consider owning art, or decorating with it (a completely hypothetical consideration, as I neither own nor decorate with it in any manner as of yet) there’s really remarkably little I’d be genuinely interested in. (Of course this is aside from photography). So it is surprising even to myself to admit that I could enthusiastically imagine a Jeff Koons‘ “Balloon Dog” in my foyer…or front yard. (A glorious (and gloriously priced) middle finger to nearly any neighborhood association).

I can’t help but marvel at most of his larger installations. They’re beautiful in their grotesqueness. Adorably troubling. Like a child’s dream after going to Coney Island then watching Gilliam’s, Brazil.

photo: still from Terry Gilliam’s film, Brazil.

What’s attractive about that, about some subaltern-figment-of-the-psyche getting it’s say in huge colorful steel? Well I’m not sure exactly. Except to say that there’s a lightheartedness to it, a punctuated absurdity, a “b/c I can,” and there’s sometimes not enough of that in life that isn’t fabricated/fed to us, that is honest like art is.

I’m bringing this all up b/c Koons is speaking at Strand bookstore downtown on April 13. Details, here. If you live in NYC, and can sweat the crowd, I’d check it out. (Although, last time I was there Eliot Erwitt was signing books and, maybe, 15 people showed up, which sorta depressed me (is this what it comes to?) but that’s another story.)

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Helen Levitt, a film, back, Kim

admin — Sun, 05 Apr 2009 00:12:24 +0000

For those of you who didn’t hear, Helen Levitt passed away last week. She was a slightly lesser known but no less wonderful NYC street photographer who did a lot of work circa 1950s. Her person and career gives me a heartfelt grin, since photography, and especially street photography, is so much a boy’s club, that I love that a women came and conquered her own place in it. There’s a NPR interview with Levitt, here.

That last picture made me think of this phenomenal film I saw while away, Killer of Sheep. Really really turned my mind around in a way that I didn’t expect, and it was so remarkably shot that I went back and watched a lot of it again w/o sound. The phrase, far out, describes that quite perfectly. Try it…if you want.

It makes me want to begin to shoot motion.

BTW, I’m back, and while I don’t expect you to be excited, after having been traveling the last 6 of 7 weeks for work I’m glowing to be home and to get back to life here. I’ve been shooting for Adidas, Interview, Dazed. I can’t share anything ’til stuff goes to print. Mostly I’m excited to be back to get personal projects going and some fashion stories.

Oh, and on the topic of fashion, I want to point to the story Sebastian Kim did for Numero in this month’s architecture issue. Excellent. I enjoy his work b/c it’s rare to see heavily conceptual work done so, well, uh, well…or with such taste. (There’s actually an older interview with him, here, which is worth reading if you’re starting as a photographer b/c he had a rather unique start to his career having assisted both Avedon and Meisel for extended periods.)

On the personal project, an ode JeanLoup Sieff lamented the moniker of “personal” when used in...
Vivian Maier A fascinating story of a found body of work of...

out, again

admin — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 13:48:36 +0000

Damn, I’m leaving again. Stepped in NYC for a week, shot like one roll on the street, discussed a fashion story with a stylists that we were going to get going, then got called out West for another commercial job.

Will be out for about two weeks. Telling you this is getting old, right…

Now, complaining about any money job these days would be wrong, so I bite my tongue about having to vanish again, and I just keep pics like these open on my desktop, small, in the corner, to keep things legit, to keep sanity legit.

(Meisel did a play on Yoshiyuki’s park photos for Vogue Italia. Supposedly it was too much, (see it, here). And while I prefer the original, as is most often the case, still a fine fash ed.)

(As far as I can remember, I’ve yet to see a fashion take on Brandt’s work. Ripe to be done though. Ripe. Inez, maybe?)

(Wow)

All of those are from the Moma collection btw.

Enjoy. Will keep you posted.

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Steven Klein

admin — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 19:45:45 +0000

It took me a a long long time to appreciate Steven Klein‘s work. For that long time I didn’t get it. I didn’t think it looked good, and that requisite was what took me a long time to get over…or not get over, but rather it took me a long time to redefine and learn what “look good” means. Now I think Klein has one of the most compelling visions in the industry for the reason that from a practical standpoint what he manages aesthetically is incredible: he’s one of the few guys that can take, uh, not-pretty pictures that still manage to be completely effective as fashion work. I say not-pretty in the sense that it looks like a lot of his work is shot on an old digital camera at iso 400 under flouro lights and processed by a mini-lab…I’m oversimplifying it, but you get the idea. (One thing not simple in his work though is set/prop design, which is usually pretty bloody amazing.) I think his work, from a photographic standpoint, is of the sort that you have to be a fellow photographer (or creative) to understand how good it is, to understand how hard it is to come to something that definitive.

I’m bringing this up b/c I think Klein’s recent work has shown no sign of backing off:

Bresson and Weegee audio recordings A photographer (thanks, James!) sent me these great little finds...

A poem, a note, and some pics

admin — Wed, 18 Mar 2009 03:31:24 +0000

The author, Haven Kimmel had written this poem during the first chapter of a sprawling and inspiring email conversation I had and remain to have w/ her. Last week for some reason I was possessed by the notion of hearing her read it, for my own pleasure, but also with it in mind to put up here, so I wrote and asked her to record and send. And she obliged!

So, lay back and close your eyes, b/c I doubt you’re going to find this anyplace else.

“The Holy Dove Was Moving Too,” written and read by Haven Kimmel.

Haven has a number of bestsellers riddling the shelf. Go and seek out.

[Change of topic]

Note: my posting here has been pretty thin lately. I’ve been busy. I’ve been busy working on things I’m not in a hurry to go on about here. It’s not my intention to talk work work on this site, at least not in depth. Yes, I’ll drop a post updating the occasional happenings, but only so things don’t wilt here. I suspect these are the thinnest posts. You see, the original purpose of this site was to share the NYC Journal and other work I do that would be otherwise homeless, and also to talk about photography in the most whimsical sense of an art and of what lights the fires in my head and heart. I have no interest in using this site as a marketing tool. Why am I bringing this up? B/c I’ve realized, as I’ve become busier, how the original intent of this blog was very time intensive. The NYC Journal alone is something that I used to spend days on a week, while right now it’s lucky to get a handful of hours in the week. But I’m not complaining, only letting you know I’m learning and making adjustments to keep things going here. Note concluded.

On that note,,,

[Change of topic yet again]

a few random pics:

NYC Journal 77, and a poem Facing the Music by Paul Auster Blue. And within that...
On the personal project, an ode JeanLoup Sieff lamented the moniker of “personal” when used in...

Mario Testino

admin — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 18:57:31 +0000

Someone sent me these 3 videos on Mario Testino (thanks, Brandon!), and they literally came across my phone as I was looking at the current Testino spread in V magazine featuring Natalia. It was all fitting, since I was thinking of how Testino’s work is quit simple in many ways but that it nearly always works, and how he definitely deserves a nod for what he’s done over the years.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

From V:

And an old favorite add that Testino shot for Gucci back in the good ol’days of Tom Ford. I believe this was from ’98, but don’t hold me to that.

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