An amazing photo from the current Iowa flooding
New photos posted
I have posted some new photos to my flickr account.
Larrabee Beach I
Larrabee Beach II
Larrabee Beach III
Larrabee Beach IV
Larrabee Beach V
No Parking
It’s a rough life
Loss
Flash cube graffiti
Abandoned chevy
All were shot with my Holga 120S.
Comments are, of course, welcome – either here (for the group as a whole) or under each particular photo (on Flickr)
Quake confirms marriage vows
BEIJING, June 12 — Wedding photographer Wang Qiang eyed the gloomy skies with a sense of forboding. In the nearby courtyard, a stylist applied cosmetics to his newlywed friends and clients Deng Li, 28, and Huang Fang, 25, clad in white wedding attire.
Days earlier, the couple had asked Wang’s advice on a suitable outdoor setting for their wedding photographs. Wang, owner of a photography studio in Chengdu, recommended Bailu Academy, a deserted catholic seminary hidden halfway up a mountain slope in Bailu township, Pengzhou county. The timelessly peaceful scenic spot is both a tourist attraction and a popular backdrop for wedding photos.
They arrived at noon. “The weather was weird. It was sunny in the morning, but turned overcast and cold,” Wang recalls. “I saw bees hovering on the way, something I had never noticed on previous visits.”
Wang says there were 33 people at the seminary that day, including five other couples and photographers from two studios.
As his team began their preparations to shoot after a quick lunch, Wang suddenly heard a loud cracking sound overhead. Looking up, he saw to his horror the roof beams in the main seminary building splinter and fall. As he fled to the courtyard he saw panic-stricken people running out of the chapel opposite which was violently vibrating.
He realized he was in the midst of an earthquake. When he looked at his watch, it was 2:28 pm. He was then plunged into a smoky, dust-filled darkness. It was only after the 10-second tremor stopped that the air cleared and he could see and breath freely again.
Every one was gray-haired and coated in thick dust. “The brides and grooms in their smudged makeup and muddy, dust smeared wedding costumes looked really bizarre,” Wang recalls. All present gazed dumbstruck at the pile of rubble where the seminary, which would have celebrated its 100th anniversary a week later, once stood.
The seminary had taken more than two decades to build, but was demolished in just seconds. Only half of the front wall to the church was still standing.
Luckily, no one was hurt. But, all 33 people in the remote village were completely cut off from the outside world; the road to it had been destroyed and there was no mobile phone signal.
Then it started to rain. Other distraught newlyweds and photographers took refuge in cars, but Wang’s team had parked theirs at the foot of the mountain. Bride Huang Fang shivered with cold. The heels of her shoes had broken in her haste to escape, and she was barefoot. A woman villager gave her clothes and shoes that she salvaged from the wreckage of her house. They then worked together with the local villages to build a rude shelter of wooden boards and plastic sheets.
At 4 pm, they heard news on the car radio that Wenchuan was the epicenter. Huang Fang burst into tears. Her Tibetan family members lived in nearby Wolong.
Villagers shared their dinner of porridge and eggs with the couple. As they slept, men took turns keeping watch, in case of aftershocks and landslides.
Photographers and newlyweds walked two hours back to town along ripped up, narrow mountain paths roads, dangerously close to boiling rivers. Wang’s team took a mini van to Pengzhou, while Deng Li and Huang Fang returned to Guanghan, Deng’s hometown, which had suffered surprisingly light damage in the quake.
Huang made contact with her family five days later. All of them were safe.
Deng has since returned to work, teaching history at the local middle school. Huang, an employee of the Lixian county tourism bureau, is still waiting for news from her office.
When the couple spoke to Wang recently, they told him that their love for each other has grown even stronger since the quake. They now want to bring forward the date of their wedding banquet, originally planned for August. They also want to choose another location for the photos that will complete their wedding album.
Wang took a photo of the Deng couple, tremulously hugging and smiling, shortly after the quake. “As I viewed them through the lens, the words ‘zhi zi zhi shou, yu zi xie lao’ (To hold your hand, to grow old with you, from the Book of Odes) came to mind,” Wang recalls.
All 33 people at the seminary that day have pledged to revisit its ruins in the future.
DAY TRIP The UC Riverside California Museum of Photography
Updated: Wednesday, May 28, 2008 10:49 PM PDT
The UC Riverside California Museum of Photography describes itself as an “intellectual meeting ground” for the university and the general public. The museum puts photography at the forefront through various exhibitions, a multitude of collections and various publications of which it is a part. As media change, the museum has also dedicated itself to examining the changing face of photography, its role in the media and the relationship it holds with its traditional role of expression and how that role has shifted to contemporary practice. The museum is celebrating its 35th anniversary this year. The museum was founded in 1973 and carries with it a record of its history, which serves well as a record of those decades. One of the major achievements has been the museum’s ability to move with changing media. It celebrates itself as one of the first public institutions to integrate public web access into its gallery programs.
The museum hopes to continue that tradition of carrying the future of media and photography by displaying the marvels of today.
GETTING THERE
Take the CA-55 North for about 12 miles. Exit onto the CA-91 East toward Riverside for about 30 miles. Exit Downtown/University Avenue and merge onto Mulberry Street. Turn left at University Avenue.
If you want to avoid the CA-55 North and catch the CA-91 a little further east, take the I-405 South to the CA-133 North and merge onto CA-241 North to the CA-91 East.
The CA-133 and CA-241 are toll roads.
HOURS
The Gallery and Museum Store are open from noon to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday. Both are closed Sunday, Monday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Independence and New Year’s Day.
The museum is open and admission is free on the first Sunday of February, March, April, May, October, September, November and December.
The museum extends its hours from 6 to 9 p.m. the first Thursday of every month, and admission is free during that time.
ADMISSION
General admission to the museum is $3, but it is free to members, students and seniors.
Children 14 and younger must be accompanied by an adult.
WALKER EVANS
One of the featured exhibits at the museum is the Walker Evans selection. The exhibit includes 61 photographs and covers the breadth of his career, including his portraiture and work with architectural interiors and exteriors.
— Daniel Tedford
Photographer’s images capture heady days of jazz
5/21/2008, 12:43 a.m. PDT
By BETSY TAYLOR
The Associated Press
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Herb Snitzer’s photography from a half-century ago shows there’s more than one way to record a jazz musician.
Beyond the turntable or downloaded tracks, his black-and-white photographs capture for the eyes what music does for the ears, freezing moments to allow for replay later.
The self-described “white, Jewish guy” moved to New York City in 1957 after college and soon developed a reputation for his photography. Much of it focused on the black jazz stars of the day.
His camera caught both the on-stage electricity of live performances, such as heavyset singer Velma Middleton shaking it for all its worth, and the unguarded after-hours moments, like trumpeter Louis Armstrong having a smoke on a hot tour bus.
About 50 of Snitzer’s photos went on display last weekend at the Sheldon Art Galleries in St. Louis. “Herb Snitzer: Photographs from the Last Years of Metronome, 1958-1962,” runs through Sept. 20.
While Snitzer took photos for decades and worked for publications from Life to Look, the show focuses on his images for Metronome, then one of the country’s leading jazz magazines. It also includes his images of New York City.
“The city just grabbed me. It was so dynamic and electric, I just wanted to be part of that,” Snitzer said. While he sometimes traveled with performers for his shots, he often didn’t need to.
“Basically, it was happening in New York. I didn’t have to go very far. That’s where the musicians were; it was happening there,” he said.
Snitzer, now 75, lives in St. Petersburg, Fla., with his wife, artist Carol Dameron. He was born in Philadelphia to parents who left the Ukraine during a pogrom.
He attended the Philadelphia College of Art, where he first studied interior design. Drafted into the Army during the Korean War, he started taking photos of parachute jumps. He studied photography when he returned to school and later got jobs in New York assisting well-known photographers. Soon he was selling his own work.
For Snitzer, photographing jazz was more than making a living — it was “an act of solidarity with Americans suffering injustice,” wrote the show’s curator, Benjamin Cawthra.
Snitzer said several photographers who focused on jazz at the time were white, Jewish men. He thinks they shared an affinity with the black musicians they photographed, though he doesn’t know exactly why. Maybe something spoke to them in the wail of the music. Maybe it was because they understood trying to overcome tough histories, he mused.
For years, jazz magazines rarely featured black artists on their covers. But stars such as Coleman Hawkins and Miles Davis were featured on Metronome when Snitzer served as its photo editor, Cawthra said.
In one his best-known photographs, Snitzer captured a side of Armstrong the public rarely saw. Armstrong’s shirt is open, showing a Star of David necklace, and the performer looks frankly at the camera. There is no trace of the beaming smile fans are accustomed to seeing.
“It surprises people. There’s no question about that. It’s the human side to Pops,” Snitzer said of the photo, using Armstrong’s nickname. The Star of David necklace was worn in honor of a Russian Jewish family that befriended Armstrong when he was a boy in New Orleans.
Snitzer said Armstrong didn’t have a prejudiced bone in his body, though he once saw the performer denied access to a bathroom “in Connecticut, of all places.”
Still, Snitzer said, he never felt any racial tension with the musicians.
“I was simply taken into the so-called jazz family,” he said. “It wasn’t, hey, there’s a photographer in the house. It was, hey, Herb’s here.”
Snitzer recalled photographing Dizzy Gillespie in Boston while the musician was on a publicity tour. At the last stop, Snitzer realized he’d left his car on the other side of the city.
“Take my limo,” Gillespie told him.
“I said: `I can’t take your limo. How are you going to get to the hotel?'”
Snitzer said Gillespie pretended to be pained, placed his hands over his heart in mock anguish, and insisted the photographer take his ride.
“He said: `Herb, I’m Dizzy Gillespie. I’ll get to the hotel.”
One of Snitzer’s shots of Gillespie shows little of the performer, but there is no mistaking who’s in the picture. A horn raised to Gillespie’s mouth runs along one side of the frame, while his eyes are closed behind glasses and his right cheek is puffed out as he plays with a hand sporting a pinkie ring.
Snitzer also has an upcoming show at The Arts Center in St. Petersburg, Fla., chronicling his first and last five years of work. The photographs will be on display from Nov. 14 to Jan. 3.
____
On the Net:
Herb Snitzer Photography: http://www.herbsnitzer.com
Sheldon Art Galleries: http://www.sheldonconcerthall.org/galleries.asp
The Arts Center: http://www.theartscenter.org
Missing suitcase of Capa war photos found after 70 years
Wednesday, May 07, 2008
A suitcase containing thousands of undeveloped photographs of the Spanish Civil War shot by the great war photographer Robert Capa has reappeared after being lost for 70 years.
The haul of some 3,500 pictures – 120 rolls of film and sheaves of envelopes of cut negatives – taken by Capa, his companion Gerda Taro and fellow photographer David “Chim” Seymour was taken from Paris to Mexico in 1940 by a diplomat, and came to light only in the 1990s.
New York’s International Centre of Photography, which was founded by Capa’s brother Cornell, has acquired the suitcase containing three flimsy cardboard boxes of film. Researchers are still examining its contents, the centre’s curator, Kristen Lubben, said this week in Barcelona at a conference on “historic memory”.
The historic find came too late for the ICP’s exhibition last September of works by Capa and Taro, but some rediscovered pictures may be included when the show travels to London’s Barbican this autumn, and then to other European capitals, Ms Lubben told El Pais newspaper.
The ICP’s chief curator, Brian Wallace, has described the discovery as “momentous… the raw material from the birth of modern war photography”.
The cut shots in the envelopes already scrutinised have revealed previously unknown images of the brutal closing stages of Spain’s civil war in 1939.
They date from 1937, and do not therefore include any that might form part of the sequence containing the famous “falling soldier” picture taken in Cordoba in 1936, Ms Lubben said.
Ms Lubben promised that the images would be posted on the ICP’s website “as soon as possible”. The uncut rolls of nitrate stock will take longer to study and be made public, she said. They are in remarkably good order for their age, but special equipment must be built for them to be scanned and copied safely because of their fragile and unstable state.
Careful peeks at the rolls have revealed pictures of Ernest Hemingway and the poet Federico Garcia Lorca.
“It’s a mystery why these particular pictures were put together. It seems to have been a pre-selection for a joint project that in the end never happened,” Ms Lubben said. “There are no negatives of the famous falling soldier, taken in September 1936. We looked to see if there were any in the same series, but there’s nothing. We’ll have to keep looking.”
Capa fled Paris for America in 1939 on the outbreak of the Second World War, leaving the contents of his darkroom behind. He assumed the work had been destroyed when the Nazis occupied France in 1940, and he died in Vietnam in 1954 convinced they were lost. But his friend and assistant Imre “Chiki” Weisz entrusted the suitcase in 1940 to a Mexican diplomat in Paris, General Francisco Aguilar Gonzalez.
The general took it home to Mexico, where it reappeared among his possessions decades after his death in 1967. The ICP recently acquired the “Mexican suitcase” after protracted negotiations with the general’s descendants.
Homeless capture their street lives on camera
- |judy.bernstein@newsday.com
- 8:47 AM EDT, April 5, 2008
A photography exhibition by and about the homeless — spawned by a good, hot breakfast? Only a creative type could make that leap.
And last weekend, the leap culminated in the opening in Huntington of an exhibit of nearly two dozen black-and-white images taken by a group of homeless men.
The seeds for the exhibit, which runs through April at Temple Beth El and will be shown at other Long Island congregations, were sown in November 2006, when photographer Rob Goldman found the only slot open on a volunteer sign-up sheet at his temple, for a project with the Huntington Interfaith Homeless Initiative, involved getting up in the dark to make breakfast once a week.
The group’s program, which was organized with the Family Service League of Huntington in 2005, shelters Huntington’s homeless during cold weather, providing hot meals and a warm place to sleep at eight local congregations, says Carol Werblin, who chairs Temple Beth El’s social action committee and is also heavily active in the initiative.
Although he cooked for the men each week, Goldman, 45, says it took almost until the end of the program that first season he was involved, in March 2007, for relationships to start to build. That was partly because most of the homeless served by the group are from Central America and Mexico and don’t speak much English.
“I really wanted to find a way to not be a voyeur, not a casual observer…to find out what it’s like to not have what I have,” Goldman says.
He was inspired by photographer Zana Briski’s 2004 film, “Born Into Brothels,” which won a best documentary Oscar and concerns children living in Calcutta’s red-light district who used cameras to chronicle their lives. Goldman enlisted Manhattan firms Flatiron Color and Lexington Labs to process film and produce exhibition prints at low cost. The homeless-assistance group Friends of the Students for 60,000 and Temple Beth El’s Social Action Committee helped buy the 80 disposable cameras the men used.
The exhibit captures the photographers’ lives on the community’s streets and in the woods where they sometimes sleep.
“They take amazing pride in their work,” Goldman says, and they got excited when he displayed their photos for them, saying, “‘That’s mine! That’s mine!'”
At the exhibit’s opening on March 29, the photographers were brought in to see their handiwork. Their pride was evident as they examined their framed photos on the temple’s stark white walls and grinned as they shook Goldman’s hand and embraced him.
Asked what he hopes the exhibit will accomplish, Goldman acknowledges the lack of any simple solutions to the men’s homelessness. “I don’t propose to have any answers; that’s the beauty of art,” he says. But perhaps the show, he adds, will “force people to look at their own questions and see if the solution can begin.”
Photos in the news: new photos of Hiroshima unearthed
Sean Malloy, a professor at the University of California Merced, “recently unearthed 10 previously-unpublished photographs illustrating the aftermath on the Hiroshima bombing.”
These photographs, taken by an unknown Japanese photographer, were found in 1945 among rolls of undeveloped film in a cave outside Hiroshima by U.S. serviceman Robert L. Capp, who was attached to the occupation forces. Unlike most photos of the Hiroshima bombing, these dramatically convey the human as well as material destruction unleashed by the atomic bomb.
Below, you’ll find one of the photos from this collection. See the rest here. Warning: some of the images are graphic and will be difficult for some readers to view. (Via Danger Room)
ED WRITES STUFF (and nonsense) 