Leibovitz on Lange

As I wrote recently, Annie Leibovitz's new book "At Work" is an engrossing and insightful read. In addition to the stories about her own work, it's always interesting to hear one great photographer talk about another and I was particularly taken with the backstory Leibovitz recounts to Lange's iconic "Migrant Mother" of 1936 - a story I did not know.

Looking for a j-peg to illustrate the post with, I found this one which struck me as as a particularly sharp and well-rendered scan. While I've seen literally dozens of original prints of the image, I'm not sure I've seen anything quite as succinct.

Anyway, here is the passage about the picture from "At Work":

After spending a month on the road in southern California she (Lange) was finally heading home. It was raining and she was exhausted and she had a long drive ahead of her. She had been working up to fourteen hours a day for weeks and was bringing back hundreds of pictures of destitute farm workers. Somewhere south of San Luis Obispo she saw out of the corner of her eye a sign that said “Pea-Pickers Camp.” She tried to put it out of her mind. She had plenty of pictures of migrant farmers already. She was worried about her equipment, and thought about what might happen to her camera in the rain. She drove for about twenty miles past the sign and made a U-turn. She went back to the sign and turned down a muddy road. A woman was sitting with her children on the edge of a huge camp of makeshift tents. There were maybe three thousand migrant workers living there. Lange took out her Graflex and shot six frames, one of them of the woman staring distractedly off to the side while two of her children buried their faces in her shoulders.

The image of the woman and her children became the most important photograph of Dorothea Lange’s life and the iconic picture of the Depression.

When I’m asked about my work, I try to explain that there is no mystery involved. It is work. But things happen all the time that are unexpected, uncontrolled, unexplainable, even magical. The work prepares you for that moment.

Fantastic Space for Rent!

In March, I am moving my gallery, Danziger Projects, two blocks away to a new space directly on the street. (The big reveal will come later!)

In the meantime I still have my current space through June, so it occurred to me that it might be an opportunity for any interested person or company to rent it and put up their own exhibition, pop-up shop, whatever. I’m not trying to profit, just to cover my cost.

If anyone is interested in a rear ground floor showcase in Chelsea where all they have to do is open the door and turn on the lights, it’s $1,300 a week – minimum two weeks. You can contact me through the blog or at jd@danzigerprojects.com.

Mystery Solved - Again!

It's Manny Garcia - a freelance photojournalist based in Washington D.C.. I think!

This is a separate frame of the photograph from which Fairey's Obama image was taken. Who knew George Clooney would figure in the story! (In April 2006, Clooney was joined by then Senator Obama as he was addressing the National Press Club on his recent visit to Darfur.)

The credit for this discovery goes to Philadelphia Inquirer photographer Tom Gralish. Here's his account.

I just spoke to Garcia who is currently on White House duty, but by next week expect to see Garcia's print in my exhibition CAN & DID. GRAPHICS, ART, AND PHOTOGRAPHY FROM THE OBAMA CAMPAIGN.

What would we do without the internet!

The Mystery Deepens

Oh dear. After my scoop "identifying" the source photograph and photographer of Shepard Fairey's iconic HOPE poster, Purchase College digital photography teacher Nathan Lunstrum came up with a different image that appears to be a better and less convoluted match. Click here.

But no-one can identify the photographer and no-one has as yet identified themselves. So again, could the photographer who took this picture or someone who knows who took it please contact me?

The Lincoln Photo-Op

Bruce Springsteen performing at “We Are One,” a concert on Sunday at the Lincoln Memorial celebrating Barack Obama’s inauguration. Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Clearly the second big star of the inauguration is old Abraham Lincoln. Not only is he Barack Obama's constant reference, but as these pictures show, he is also the photo-op de jour. I love Sullivan's photo of Bruce Springsteen which ran on the front page of today's New York Times Arts section (while at the same time the paper's business section ran a story highlighting the paper's dire financial situation). It will be a sad day if great papers like The Times fade away.

My favorite Lincoln story of the week, however, involves the Obama family's visit to the Lincoln Memorial, as recounted by the President-elect. After looking at the words of Lincoln's second Inaugural Address and answering some of his family's questions about his own forthcoming speech, the Obamas' daughter Malia turned to her father and said "First African-American President ... Better be good."!

Jim Young/Reuters

Doppelgangers!

An Indonesian photographer who bares a striking resemblance to U.S. President Barack Obama has shot to fame after pictures of him surfaced on the internet. Also of American and Kenyan descent, Ilham Anas is now earning income as an Obama double.

For those unable to afford Mr. Anas, I was a big hit in Palm Beach this Christmas where I was regularly approached by elderly women asking if I knew I looked like the President's Chief of Staff, Rahm Emmanuel.

FYI - that's the real President on the left and the real Rahm on the right.

This Just In...

People have been talking about how surprising that in this day and age no-one captured the "Miracle on the Hudson" on a camera or cellphone. Well, they did. This just in by Roy Gates (via desertwind).

It's quite beautiful in a cubist/impressionist photo way. Takes a moment to even see what it is.

Stop the Presses!

It’s been a great week for picture agency Reuters. First the attribution of Jim Young’s Obama photograph. And now their photographer Gary Hershorn took this picture which made the front page of both The New York Times and The New York Post in what is now being called ”The Miracle on The Hudson”.

The miraculous tale of survival came when pilot Chesley B. "Sully" Sullenberger III made an astonishing controlled crash landing into the frigid Hudson River after a flock of birds knocked out both engines 15 minutes after takeoff. By landing the plane at exactly the perfect angle and shutting off all the valves that would let water in, he kept the plane intact and afloat and all 155 people on board were rescued with the most severe injury being a broken leg.

In this picture, airline passengers wait on the wings of the plane to board one of the dozens of boats that sped to the crash within minutes, further saving the passengers from hypothermia in the sub-freezing temperature. As my wife commented, "It looks like a sick puppy being taken care of by its mother!"

Weekend Video - M.I.A. & Slumdog

I can just hear it. First the complaints about too much Obama, next up - complaints about too much "Slumdog Millionaire"! Nevertheless, in addition to calling it as the movie of the year before the Golden Globes, it's got one terrific song "Paper Planes" by M.I.A., seen here in its original version (above) and in the more Bollywood style re-mix done for the movie.

Mystery Solved!

Jim Young / Reuters

I am completely sympathetic to the reader who posted the comment yesterday "Enough with the Obama stories!", but the Shepard Fairey source mystery is quite a story and has eluded photo watchers for quite a while.

After my post yesterday, Mike Webkist (if that's his real name) came forward with a link to a 2007 story in time.com that credited the photo to Jonathan Daniel of Getty Images. He also showed how the picture was flipped which made the source almost unrecognizable. (See below.)

So I managed to contact Jonathan Daniel who responded that the picture was not his.

Then I contacted TIME where I ended up talking to time.com picture editor Mark Rykoff who was extremely helpful in trying to find the correct attribution. After investigating, he called me back and pointed me to Jim Young of Reuters. (FYI – Time.com have already corrected the credit.)

Reuters are understandably somewhat put out on their own and Young's behalf, but like it or not, Fairey's use of the picture are well within the parameters of "fair use". His transformative use of the image – both in flipping and re-orienting it, adding jacket and tie and the "O" Obama logo, and converting it to his block print style make it consistent with all legal precedents for use. Of course all of this is not to say that some Solomonic out of court settlement would not be appropriate, but at the end of the day I hope it's a win-win situation for everyone.

Perhaps the strangest proof of the transformative nature of Fairey's work is that Young, a D.C. based Reuters photographer was not even aware that the most ubiquitous image of the entire election campaign was based on his picture!

Anyway, mystery solved. It's extraordinary how many people it takes to get to the answer of a question that has eluded me for several months and how a response to this blog helped finally solve the problem. (Score a big one for truth, justice, and the internet.)

Finally, I'm talking to Reuters about editioning Young's print. Sorry to Anon. of "Enough with the Obama stories", but I think we're in for four (or eight) more years!

Will The Photographer Who Took The Image This Ilustration Is Based On Please Stand Up?

An e-mail today from Tom Gralish, staff photographer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, re-kindled my interest in one of the great photographic mysteries of the year. Namely – who is the photographer whose image of Barack Obama was the basis of Shepard Fairey’s iconic HOPE poster (as well as the prior PROGRESS and subsequent YES WE DID and BE THE CHANGE posters)?

Fairey has gone on record saying he found the image from a Google Image search, while his wife, Amanda, told me it was a screen grab. But you would have thought that by now the photographer would have stepped forward to claim credit – either for monetary gain or simply to get his or her authorial credit. As Gralish points out in his blog, there have been no shortage of people claiming to be the subjects of Eisenstadt’s famous VJ Day kiss photograph, and the same thing with Dosineau’s “Kiss”. So what’s the story here?

I do want to go on record as saying this is in no way a criticism of Fairey – who I’m a big fan of. His work is "transformative", the key legal issue where appropriation is concerned, and in most other cases Fairey does credit the source. So I think that ethically and artistically he's in the clear. I also believe it when Fairey says he does not know the source. Google Images often have no credit.

When Fairey began his support of Obama not only was there was no certainty he was backing a winner, but it could be argued that his work was key in helping Obama by reinforcing the message that here, at last, was someone different and whose values (or brand if you want to be cynical) he so skillfully drew attention to. But the particular picture Fairey chose - where the expression is just the right combination of purposeful, enigmatic, and thoughtful - was singularly effective and smart.

So if anyone can shed some light on the identity of the HOPE image photographer – please let me know!

Print Giveaway #3

For my third print giveaway, my friend Leslie Simitch - recently featured in the Top Ten - sent us the original file from which to print up a 13 x 19 inch print of the her wonderful picture (above) taken just last month in Rome. And now a signed print is waiting to be sent to the lucky winner.

As usual just post a comment over the next week and a winner will be randomly selected.

Good luck!

Weekend Video - Slumdog Trailer

I finally caught up with "Slumdog Millionaire" this week and in spite of all the critical praise being heaped on the film I was unprepared for the incredible originality, vitality, and beauty of the movie.

This is what the experience of going to the movies should be - a gripping story opening up new worlds, great acting, and inspired direction and cinematography. Even the way the (very few) subtitles are handled is fresh.

This trailer is about the only uninspired thing connected to the movie, but there's so much they didn't want to give away that I'll excuse it by saying it's not like one of those trailers like "Bride Wars" where after you've seen it there's no need to see the film.

Happy weekend viewing!

Save The Date - Jan 20

Photo by David Turnley

Perhaps like me, your invitation to the Inaugural Ball got lost in the mail. Not to worry. From 6 to 8 p.m. on Inauguration night (and most likely later) we're having an opening to which all are invited. Bring friends! Celebrate the new President! There will be champagne and door prizes. And meet the photographers, designers, and artists whose work is featured in the show - "Can & Did - Graphics, Art, and Photography from the Obama Campaign".

Danziger Projects. 521 West 26th Street. New York.

Poster by Shepard Fairey after David Turnley

Tierney Gearon

This remarkable image is a double exposure from Tierney Gearon's new exhibition opening tonight at Phillips de Pury & Company in London. One of 40 new works each printed at 40 x 50 inches, the entire series titled "Explosure", is comprised of combined images where the compositions and themes act in counterpoint to each other. It's difficult to follow the image above with anything better, so to see a selection of other images click here.

A Good Browse

There's nothing like a good browse through a bookstore and this weekend I found myself passing by Rizzoli on West 57th Street where they not only have a terrific photo section on the second floor, but one that's laid out horizontally so you can see a long line of covers rather than spines. First stop, however, was downstairs where Kelly Klein's latest opus, "Horse" was displayed on an impressive pedestal. Yet another oversize book, it is nonetheless admirably edited and printed and full of surprises like the above Herb Ritts picture of Pee-Wee Herman. I'd forgotten how funny Ritts (and Pee-Wee) could be and this picture is a rarity in that it's a set-up that's nevertheless still funny. (I have a thing about how unfunny most set-up pictures of comedians tend to be.) The funniest pictures are usually the most spontaneous accidents imaginable.

If any one has a larger j-peg of the above picture please e-mail it to me at info@danzigerprojects.com.

I'm just going to point out one other book, which upon further investigation seems to be over a year old, a surprise given how good it is. "Books of Nudes" by Alessandro Bertolotti, is a Martin Parr/Gerry Badger style round-up of the best books on nude photography from the earliest days of photobooks to the present. Presented in a completely non-salacious manner, each book is shown with its original cover and a selection of photographs laid out on double-page spreads. Organized both chronologically and by category, the most riveting chapter for me was on Japanese books of the 1960s and 1970s, from which the image above comes. I'm afraid I did not note the photographer, but that should encourage you (and me) to buy the book - now $26 (down from $50) at Amazon.

P.S.
A quick internet search revealed various quibbles about who was included and who was not, but the point for me is that you have to start somewhere.

Top Ten #1 – The Obama Effect

Shepard Fairey

With no great sense of originality, I am pleased to put not just Barack Obama, but “the Obama effect” at the top of my list of the 10 things that culturally enriched my life in 2008. The outpouring of support from the visual and creative community was predictable in all but its intensity and effectiveness, the victory as unpredictable as it was imaginative.

We have become so used to artists raising the banner of protest that it will take an unusual revision of the natural order for art to begin to realign itself with the positive, but what an interesting process that could be! I’m not suggesting artists give up their right to challenge any issues they feel the need to confront, but let’s pull ourselves together and not apart.

A prescient reader suggested Shepard Fairey, who created the lasting visual image of the campaign with his series of graphic exhortations - HOPE, VOTE, PROGRESS, etc. - be the top of the list. I have been thinking about this for a while, and I am a huge fan of Fairey’s work, but as you will see from the link to my next show, the response from the creative community to Obama came from so many quarters that I think it can be shared by more than one. (Shepard Fairey does indeed have a posse!)

So here’s to thoughtfulness, intelligence, courage, inclusiveness, poetry, imagination, and complete sentences. Here’s to America rekindling its creative fire while rejoining the world. Here’s to the first president ever formally endorsed by both Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

Happy New Year! (I’ll be back next week.)

Paula Scher

David Turnley

Sol Sender, Andy Keene, and Amanda Gentry. (Creators of the O logo)

Lance Wyman

Top Ten #2 – Annie Leibovitz: At Work

Annie Leibovitz's new book "At Work" was perhaps the stealth photo event of the year. Primarily a text rather than a picture book, it is nonetheless one of the most interesting photography books of the year, taking us behind the scenes to reveal not so much the technical aspects of a shoot, but the mental and physical preparations before and the psychological and strategic footwork during the taking of many of her most famous images.

Seamlessly interviewed and edited out of Leibovitz by the skilled editor, Sharon Delano, the book is a smooth and engrossing read from start to finish that entertains with all manner of autobiographical stories from Leibovitz's student days to the present, as well as her almost awestruck perspective and stories about other famous photographers.

There is an interesting selection of photographs - a mixture of iconic images and more obscure ones - and it's surprising to see how well they work printed smaller than postcard size. Much credit is obviously also due to the printers.

For anyone looking for lighting tips this isn't necessarily the book (although Leibovitz does provide a technical glossary as well as answers to her ten most frequently asked questions) but for readers looking to understand more about Leibovitz's art as well as what really counts - what's in an artist's head - this book is a treasure.

Top Ten #3 – Paul Fusco's RFK Rediscovered

In terms of something I was personally involved in, the opportunity to work with Paul Fusco on rediscovering, editing and exhibiting photographs from his RFK Funeral Train series was one of the highlights of my entire gallery career.

I've written a number of times about the pictures (just enter Fusco on this blog's search box) so I won't repeat myself, but to give you a sense of the depth and quality of the work, here are just ten out of the nearly 2,000 images we had to choose from that didn't make the cut of the final 20 selected for the master set. (Simply choosing these ten out of the 50 or so that were under final consideration was heartbreakingly hard.) However, many of the unseen images can now be found in Aperture's newly released book.

Excuse the poor quality of these reproductions, but the images are of the original 35mm kodachrome slides shot in low-resolution off a Library of Congress lightbox.

Top Ten #4 – The Laramie Project

I like to put a recent film release in the top ten list, but this year the most impactful cinematic experience I had was sitting at home watching a 6 year old HBO Film on DVD – Moises Kaufman’s “The Laramie Project”.

As some of you know, I have been developing a film based on the life and autobiography of the legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland. It’s a long process in the course of which I have had the opportunity to meet with a number of renowned directors, most recently Kaufman himself, the founder of The Tectonic Theater Project.

Moises was recommended to me by Colin Callender at HBO, for whom Kaufman had made the film adaptation of his play “The Laramie Project” – an examination of the events and more particularly the people connected either to the murder of Matthew Shepard or the town of Laramie, Wyoming. (Matthew Shepard was the gay college student who in 1998 was kidnapped, beaten, and tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie and left to die.) Both the film and play came out of more than 200 interviews conducted by Kaufman and other members of the Tectonic Theater Project who traveled to Laramie a mere 5 weeks after the murder.

Talking to residents as varied as the bartender who served Shepard his last drink, the policewoman who untied the body, and a local limousine driver, the plays blends a narrative account of the event with an oral history of the townspeople. A stellar cast including Steve Buscemi, Peter Fonda, Bill Irwin, Laura Linney, Amy Madigan, and Christina Ricci, play the various interviewees with remarkable self-effacement, and as the film proceeds, the many subjects covered – crime, punishment, justice, gay rights, hate, values, pride, AIDS…. and on and on – spread like ripples on a pond.

After ordering the film on Netflix I have to say I had to steel myself for the viewing. But just over an hour and half later I felt I had seen one of the great films of the decade – and one, given its horrific subject, that was handled with remarkable creativity, restraint and life affirmation. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.

As a postscript, it should be noted that this year members of the Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie to find out what has happened to the community over the last 10 years. From their interviews an epilogue for the play will be created and added to the script.

Additonally, Tectonic’s newest production, “33 Variations”, about a musicologist who becomes obsessed with a mysterious chapter in Beethoven’s life, will open on Broadway on March 5th starring Jane Fonda.