http://www.bergwithfries.com/2009/11/then-and-now.html is admirable for its alacrity in shooting the second half for each of these pairs. More importantly, I used to eat lunch at Burgerbar when I was sixteen.
For a dollar.
Small update: here is an addendum for your edification and entertainment: http://www.flickr.com/photos/corydalus/32762838/in/pool-gapers_block/
http://vivianmaier.blogspot.com/ is all over the Interweb today; why not here as well? There’s a lovely story to introduce the pictures, not a clinker in the bunch, and more to come as well. (Thanks, Steph.)
In the words of Aaron Siskind: “Talent or no, it’s the need to work that matters.”
Or the want to work. Ken Josephson wrote long ago that he dealt with photography every day, even if only by reading or through paperwork. It occurred to me that even though the process is episodic by nature, it’s possible (and beneficial) to create a continuum of sorts, just as one does in athletics or in music.
Cecil: “I was watching some writer, and he said, “Yes, I write five hours every day.” And I said to myself, “My, that’s really disciplined,” though I don’t think there’s any one way of going about it. You may not write, but you may read. But you are always thinking about the object of what you’re thinking about.”
Twyla Tharp: Some people might say that simply stumbling out of bed and getting into a taxicab hardly rates the honorific “ritual.” It glorifies a mundane act that anyone can perform. I disagree. First steps are hard; it’s no one’s idea of fun to wake up in the dark every day and haul one’s tired body to the gym… the quasi-religious power I attach to this ritual keeps me from rolling over and going back to sleep… Turning something into a ritual eliminates the question, Why am I doing this?… The ritual erases the question of whether or not I like it. It’s also a friendly reminder that I’m doing the right thing. (I’ve done it before. It was good. I’ll do it again.)
My goofy irregular system for darkroom work probably doesn’t work for anyone else. I’ll fall asleep around 8:30; wake up (with the last mouthful of dinner partially chewed) at 11:30 to drink a “doppio;” print from roughly midnight to two, or two-thirty; leave the prints on minimum flow wash, then finish the night’s rest with no apparent ill affects. But don’t emulate me, find your own ritual.
Bill Dane had the brilliant idea to send his hand-made postcards to John Szarkowski, who included them (dogears, postmark ink and all) in exhibits at MoMA in New York.
Fifteen years ago I acquired the little book “History of the Universe;” many people to whom I show it have no visible reaction, but it still slays me whenever I go through it.
Nobody has clicked on the link on this page to Bill Dane’s site, so let’s all do it today.
Here’s a bit of text from “Bill Dane Photographs Outside Inside:”
WHAT ARE YOU UP TO DOWN THERE
WHAT ARE YOU DOWN FOR UP THERE
The politics of existence – chaos-order-
loss-grief-anger-anxiety-sadness-
sex-love-pleasure-hope-health-death-
histories-circumstances-perspectives
It’s about the timely encounter with pieces:
Brecht-Tebaldi-Chomsky-Van Gogh-Warhol-
Godard-Boll-King-Dylan-the Blues-Frank-
Arbus-Friedlander-Winogrand-Evans-Atget
It’s about Context
Framing
Light
Tension between forces-ingredients-opposers
It’s about JS’s ”The Photographers’s Eye” and
”Looking At Photographs”
Treasure hunting our ‘Mirrors and Windows’
Outside Inside
Focus
Intuition
Diffused vision
Walking and Looking and Finding ‘It’
Seeing what ‘It’ looks like photographed
Editing
Me and the Image and You
It’s about Truckin’
“We are fast becoming an illiterate nation.
“Seldom do our children receive systematic instruction in what their cultures have, over the centuries, deemed important enough to preserve: the tribal dance, the symphonic idiom, Asian poetry, folk tales. These, along with our built monuments, enduring literature, music, and visual arts, define the cultures from which we come.
“Cicero warned that not to know what happened before we were born condemns us always to remain children, and in an aesthetic sense, that is the punishment to which we have condemned our own children.
“It is a mystery to me why our study of history revolves around wars rather than artistic accomplishments, around the writings of politicians rather than those of poets and essayists. To be locked out of sights and sounds, rhythm and meter, is as numbing and dehumanizing as to lack the ability to read.”
-from “Leaving Town Alive”
Here is a telling comment from an interview with Richard Benson in LensWork; read the entire piece in class, and refer to our copy of Benson’s The Printed Picture:
“…I think most photographers would like to believe that the thing that matters is the image that they capture with the camera – the thing they do when pressing the button. We actually are now living in a time when most serious photographers even go so far as to have somebody else print their work, which I think is scandalous…
“Photographers too often think that magical thing they do is gather the image in the camera. I think that’s just stupid. I think photography is art and I think a piece of art resides in the physical object made. It’s appalling to think that somebody else can be in charge of physically presenting one’s image on a piece of paper…
“Historically, it seems to me that artists have been the best craftsmen, the best technically at what they do. And I think it’s a great mistake for photographers to think that there’s some pro in a lab who’s better than they are at printing…
“There are photographers who follow the tradition of Edward Weston and work themselves in the darkroom and make great prints. That’s wonderful, and they do just the right thing. In photography in color, which is a very big deal today, there are an awful lot of cases where the work is printed by somebody else, and I just think it’s a travesty. I don’t make myself popular by saying this. I have photographers say to me, “Why should I have to know about that? I have to know about the subject and the frame and all of this. Why should I have to know about that?” Well, dammit, you have to know about that because you’re making a piece of art that you hold in your hand. Let’s not have it made by committee; let’s have it made by one sensibility working at a very high pitch…
“The way you make the print has a tremendous impact on what the thing means.”
And now a related, more succinct comment from an alumna during the field trip luncheon:
“I miss the darkroom.” -Sam Thorne
Diagram the following sentence: Someone in the Apple heard that to which we were up with regard to our recent field trip film, and based an entire exhibit and book upon it:
http://www.npr.org/blogs/pictureshow/2009/09/contact_sheet.html?sc=fb&cc=fp
1969, by M. Hogan Camp:
2009, by J. Dominski:
Thanks, Ms. Watts.
“If I Had A Nose Full Of Nickels” by Lou Carter.
http://blogfiles.wfmu.org/KF/2006/06/lou/12_-_Lou_Carter_-_If_I_Had_A_Nose_Full_Of_Nickels.mp3
I can’t trace its appearance to any train of thought, and of course the only way to deal with it is to replace it deliberately with another tune, often more trite. TMBG’s “Experimental Film” has done the trick. What’s stuck in your rostromedial prefrontal cortex?
…hie thee to the place named for Jimmy Petrillo (the man who, once upon a time [twice, actually] shut down the recording industry) for the 31st annual Chicago Jazz Festival. http://www.explorechicago.org/city/en/things_see_do/event_landing/special_events/mose/chicago_jazz_festival.html has all the information anyone could possibly want… but I have recommendations anyway.
Friday, September 4
Jeff Parker Quartet
The Trio: Muhal Richard Abrams, George Lewis and Roscoe Mitchell
Gonzalo Rubalcaba Quintet
Saturday, September 5
80th Birthday Jam with Fred Anderson
Dave Holland Big Band
Sunday, September 6
Archie Shepp Quartet featuring Willie Pickens, Avery Sharpe and Ronnie Burrage
A Tribute to Art Tatum, featuring Buddy DeFranco and Johnny O’Neal
Dee Alexander
Creative Camerawork 