“And feather canyons everywhere, I’ve looked at clouds that way…”
Joni Mitchell, Both Sides Now
A triad of pictures I’ve recently taken remind me both of indelible lines by a legendary songwriter (of whom I am an acolyte), and the sublime and ephemeral elements that make up these enigmatic miracles of nature. As Mitchell so beautifully put it in a verse from her song for the ages, they’re like “ice cream castles in the air” — and that never cease to capture the imagination.
John Lennon on Star Island in Miami Beach, 1964
The time frame was late 1963 into the beginning of 1964, when what was known as “Beatlemania” was at its zenith. For a then 21-year-old Paul McCartney, it was also an opportunity to hone his photography chops by chronicling the experiences shared by him, John, George and Ringo in cities from Liverpool and London to Paris, New York, Washington, D.C and Miami Beach. Fast-forward to 2020, when McCartney presented the nearly 1,000 photos (taken with a 35mm camera) to the National Portrait Gallery in London, which curated the collection that now comprises the exhibition Paul McCartney Photographs 1963-1964: Eyes of the Storm, which is on view through October 1st. A companion book with a forward by McCartney and 275 images, along with his reflections, accompanies the exhibit… as does an early “selfie” of his own, below. 😊
Self-Portrait, 1964
This resplendent image of a rare Philippine eagle, taken by British photographer Tim Flack, is from his latest collection, Birds, featuring a stunning assemblage of many little-known feathered creatures from around the world. “For many of us,” Flack told London’s Daily Mail, “the global pandemic has heightened our awareness of nature, and specifically birds, which have with their very presence awakened our senses and elevated our spirits… I hope this book will further reveal just how extraordinary they really are, while inspiring empathy and encouraging conservation and support.”
Of his latest book, Flack (an honorary fellow of the Royal Photographic Society who has traversed the globe in his exploration of the animal kingdom), says: “Connecting people to the natural world has never been more important.”
Two images by photographer Alan Burles, winner of this year’s Leica/Street Photography International photographer of the year award. The British-born Burles, who began his career as an advertising art director at Saatchi & Saatchi, says of his prize-winning work, “I love ideas, I love humour, I love photos that are what I call ‘never ending photos.’ They reward you every time you look at them.”
The eyes certainly have it in this striking trifecta of composition, timing, and evocativeness that garnered an honorable mention in the “People” category at the 2017 National Geographic Travel Photographer of the Year awards, announced last week. Taken at a railway station in Bangladesh, the photo is a mix of moodiness and mystery (what’s with the umbrella sticking out the open window?) punctuated by the penetrating gaze of the rider next door. The photographer, who titled his image “The Man’s Stare,” succinctly summed up his achievement with the comment, “I got the moment.” Which is what all great photographers do.
PHOTO: MOIN AHMED
The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s retrospective of the unparalleled work of the American photographer Irving Penn (1917-2009), on the centennial of his birth, is an opportunity to marvel again at the creative genius of a true legend of the arts – one who left his indelible mark in portraits, still lifes, and most famously, his fashion photography for Vogue, where he began his career in the 1940s. The magazine provided fertile ground for his artistic labors, which also included stunning food-oriented essays that graced many an issue or two. The culinary portfolios captured Penn’s singular intuition for the unexpected, coupled with whimsical touches that tripped lightly on the eye. (Don’t miss “The Big Cheese”!) Penn once said, “Photographing a cake can be art” – and to that we can add some delectable ice cream, and a few perfectly placed fruits and vegetables, as well.
Irving Penn: Centennial is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art through July 30.
In the finding-wonderful-art-in-unexpected-places department, I ran across the work of a French photographer, Christopher Hibbert, as a backdrop image from Google Open Gallery on my streaming device one evening. It sparked my curiosity enough to search for more of his pieces, two of which are shown here. A spectral blend of soft whimsy and technical prowess, the “light paintings” as they’re called, harbor a lingering quality, bringing a dash of the preternatural to settings that would ordinarily be typical, if lovely, landscapes. A process in which exposures are created, usually at night, by manipulating light sources or by the movement of the camera, the end result transcends technique; or, as the artist says, “Light is life.”
Photos: ©2016 Christopher Hibbert
One of the most celebrated stars in the photography firmament, Cindy Sherman is back with her first series of images in five years – and she’s playing a few old-time Hollywood “stars” herself.
In an exhibit of 16 life-sized color portraits that opened May 5 at the Metro Pictures gallery in New York City, Sherman (who, as her followers know, utilizes her own lights and cameras, as well as costumes and make-up), conjures the ghosts of such cinematic legends as Swanson and Garbo in later years. “I relate so much to these women,” she told the New York Times in April. “They look like they’ve been through a lot, and they’re survivors. And you can see some of the pain in there, but they’re looking forward and moving on.”
Sherman, whose works have commanded as much as $6 million at auction, shot to fame in the early 1980s with her now legendary Untitled Film Stills, a set of 69 black-and-white photographs, one of which is shown left, depicting herself as an imaginary actress in a series of cliché moments that symbolized notions of homogenized femininity. Iconoclastic and trailblazing, the Film Stills launched a career that in a way comes full circle with the Stills now on view in New York.
In other words, the fresh-faced ingénue has morphed into middle-age amidst a culture obsessed with youth. Sherman, now 62, also told the Times that, “I, as an older woman, am struggling with the idea of being an older woman.” She says that the new photos are “the most sincere things that I’ve done — that aren’t full of irony, or caricature, or cartooniness — since the Film Stills.”
Next month, the new Broad Museum in Los Angeles will launch its first special exhibition with a lifetime retrospective of Sherman’s work, which the artist has perfectly titled Imitation of Life. The name comes from a 1959 Technicolor melodrama by director Douglas Sirk, whom Sherman has cited as an influence. It’s said that the wardrobe for the movie’s star, another Hollywood glam queen, Lana Turner, cost in the neighborhood of a million dollars at the time.
Something any one of Sherman’s memorable leading ladies would definitely appreciate.
Rural art with an eye on politics, taken in Kirby, Vermont 3/15/16.
Is it a photo, a pencil sketch, a painting? A photo, actually, and it most definitely can be considered its own kind of art in my book. It’s one of the pictures that’s been shortlisted for the Sony World Photography Awards to be presented next month, a competition that’s fielded more than a quarter of a million entries and is now down to 115 potential winners. As for the lingering image I’m so taken by, it depicts a fisherman farming the sea amidst bamboo rods erected for aquaculture off the coast of southern China. Bet you wouldn’t have guessed that; as always, the creative eye surprises.
New Year’s Day #4580Photograph by Bill Jacobson
His “name” may be more associated with a famous soap-opera villain of long ago, but the mysterious street artist who goes by the initials JR has already become a legend in photography circles. I first ran across his work in a stunning mural he produced in conjunction with the New York City Ballet last year, and more recently many others were exposed to his imagination via the incredible piece, shown above, that appeared on the cover of the New York Times Magazine in April, for a theme issue titled “Walking New York.” A massive image of an Azerbaijan immigrant named Elmar, pasted on the Flatiron Plaza in New York City, and made up of 62 supersized strips of paper and more than 16o feet long, it was photographed from above by JR (talk about meta!) via a helicopter, so the awe-inspiring expanse of the project could be appreciated.
Barely out his twenties, and determinedly anonymous, JR has already been called “the Cartier-Bresson of the 21st Century”; the photographer himself calls the world of the street “the largest art gallery in the world,” and his work is now celebrated in a recently published retrospective which asks the question, JR: Can Art Change the World? Much as in the case of his visionary (and equally enigmatic) contemporary Banksy, the short answer is most definitely “yes.”
Two stunning images by Australian photographer Warren Keelan were among the winners announced last week at the International Landscape Photographer of the Year Awards, where over 2,600 photos by both amateurs and professionals alike were narrowed to a “Top 101” of the finest shots submitted to the competition. “I love the raw, unpredictable nature of water in motion, and the way sunlight brings it all to life, from both above and below the surface,” said Keelan, who aptly – and simply – titled his photos “Kryptonite,” above, and “Teal” (and what a lovely shade of teal it is!) shown below. A gallery of other amazing shots from the portfolio of winning entries is featured here.
The cornucopia of contrasts afforded by the enigmatic vistas of Los Angeles are no doubt a photographer’s dream, and the work of some of the very best has been collected in the recently published Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles, featuring sharply insightful interpretations of a city where paradox tinged with the surreal lies around every corner. Legends such as Bruce Davidson and Garry Winogrand as well as edgy contemporaries like Alex Prager are just a few of the photographers who have set out to define their visions of what makes LA a place like no other.
The two images shown here capture the unexpected juxtapositions that somehow make perfect sense in a locale known for the fantasies it manufactures; the angularities, if you will, that in their own way shape a metropolis that can be said to be more a state of mind than anything else. John Baldessari’s shot at top, along with its title, is an apt summation of the experience – a metaphorical attempt to bring alignment to imbalance (no matter how long it takes).
Similarly, Dan Lopez – who calls Los Angeles “a virtually endless and ever-changing treasure map of transient landscapes” – manages to imbue the image shown above with an innate understanding of atmospherics and context: it’s compositionally precise, and at the same time, oddly evocative.
Along with so many other photos in Before Sunset, it demonstrates how LA will always defy cliché.
They’ve been a source of inspiration for artists since the beginning of time, and for Czech-born photographer Jitka Hanzlová, a deeply felt affinity for horses led to a series of images that focus on the enigmatic side of this most spirited of animals. A wisp of an ear, shown right, an omniscient eye surrounded by shadows, left, are parts of a moving whole both detached and quietly affecting. The artist, whose works often feature elements of distant isolation, says of her equine subjects, “Their stillness seems to be endless, far in their own time.” An exhibit featuring the pieces, entitled One to One, is on view at New York City’s Yancey Richardson Gallery through early next month.
In one of those artsy coincidences that harbors a touch of the unexpected, I ran across the picture shown above, which was taken last month with a multicamera rig and a 360-degree time-lapse technique to create a phantasmagoric scene of celestial splendor above the Devils Tower National Monument in Wyoming.
Of course, Vincent van Gogh didn’t have to go to so much trouble when he painted the highly reminiscent The Starry Night from 1889, above. I wonder whether the photographer (who also shares a first name with the Dutch post-Impressionist) had the masterpiece in mind when he fashioned his strikingly similar digital image.
Or maybe just a case of lucky stars?
Water droplets cling to a spider’s web on a foggy morning in London 9/16/14.
Photo: Dan Kitwood / Getty Images
Two graceful, almost balletic images from a series on egrets, taken recently by an AP photographer with a creative eye for nature, call to mind these beautiful closing lines from the poem “Egrets,”
by the American poet, Mary Oliver.
Even half-asleep they had
such faith in the world
that had made them – –
tilting through the water,
unruffled, sure,
by the laws
of their faith not logic,
they opened their wings
softly and stepped
over every dark thing.
Photos: Anupam Nath / AP
It may not be a Leica and it’s a bit on the rudimentary side, but the Campbell’s soup can shown above was actually used by photographer Julie Schachter to shoot the synergetic “100 Andies: The Soup Can’s Revenge,” right, a silver gelatin print from 1976.
It’s also a creative example of how pinhole photography has been employed since its conceptual inception dating back thousands of years.
Pinhole photographs are usually created with a self-made camera that lacks a lens and which has a single tiny aperture (or pinhole) that processes outside light into a lightproof can or box. The art of what’s often called “camera obscura” is celebrated in a new book, Poetics of Light: Contemporary Pinhole Photography, by Nancy Spencer and Eric Renner. The husband and wife team donated a treasure trove of images to the New Mexico History Museum in Santa Fe, where more than 200 photographs and dozens of examples of pinhole cameras are on display through next year.
A sense of the mysterious and preternatural pervades many of the pieces, and “Ticul Schoolyard, Ticul, Mexico,” below, taken by Renner himself in 1968, captures some of that ghostly feeling. (The lack of sharpness that characterizes pinhole photography is often one of its most artistic elements.)
It really is a kind of poetry, and the aptly titled Poetics of Light luminously depicts the evocative side of this age-old and alternative form of photographic expression.
(Photos top and middle: Julie Schachter /New Mexico History Museum; bottom: Eric Renner/New Mexico History Museum)
Coney Island is synonymous with nostalgia, and the images by photographer Aaron Rose, taken along the beach and boardwalk between 1961-1963, and now on exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York, also spark remembrances of summers past that extend well beyond the shores of that storied locale.
On view for the first time, the prints are awash in both languor and bustle as they depict the crowds converged on the seaside resort more famous for its amusement parks, in a time just before the ‘60s embarked on their tumultuous trajectory. Rose, who’s been described as a “photographer’s photographer,” recently told American Photo magazine that “to be amongst people in the flesh, with such an array of shapes and styles, I just felt it was the best way for me to get into my work with humanity.”
With their vaporous yet burnished tones, and assemblage of colorful characters, the pictures reminded me of many an old photo or two taken during childhood along my own nearby seashores of Miami Beach. They also recalled some lines from a poem inspired by that experience which I wrote many years ago:
Songs of the current nostalgia
Blaze in the seafood air
[Sky-floating bubble of iron welcomes you]
Skins, hotter than carrots
Droop in the summery indolence
Of the southern vein
A summery indolence now remembered with more than a touch of wistfulness… for a time, a place, and a season. (In A World of Their Own: Coney Island Photographs by Aaron Rose, 1961-1963 runs through August 3.)
Photos: © Aaron Rose, courtesy Museum of the City of New York
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