Yesterday, I received an e-mail from someone who found my post on Irving Penn. In the message, she mentioned that they created a nice visual, Irving Penn remembered, summarizing his career and the development of his style and that I could post the visual if I wanted to. That was a kind offer from an art and design site and I asked to see the … [Read more...]
Photography Auctions
Photography auctions like the ones run by Sotheby's, Christie's, etc. present otherwise hard to see photographs. Clearly, I cannot afford to bid on any of the items, but seeing them is a useful learning experience. The recent auction at Sotheby's got remarkable results, perhaps a sign of increasing interest in photography as collectible art. The … [Read more...]
Portrait Narratives – An Exhibit
I met the Rhode Island photographer Jonathan Sharlin at another photographer couple's house at a pizza party. As we talked about, what else, photography, I found out about his then upcoming exhibit and talk titled Remembrance featuring Rhode Island Holocaust survivors. The opening reception and the first artist talk was this afternoon, I picked up … [Read more...]
Irving Penn at Lesley University
Thanks to Lesley University and Smithsonian Museum, we were able to see the works of Irving Penn. Many were his platinum print originals and some new prints reflected his style very well. It was a fun, enjoyable, and highly educational trip to Boston with Jan and Jim. Leaving around 10:30 AM on November 16, we arrived at the exhibit location around … [Read more...]
Abelardo Morell Lecture
At the end of 2015, I wrote a post titled "A Gift Of Learning" to talk about several photographers and interesting photography Web sites. It is a pleasure to let the readers of this blog that one of the photographers I very briefly mentioned will be in Rhode Island. Abelardo Morell will have a lecture at Roger Williams University on March 30, 2016. … [Read more...]
Answers or Questions
Do you want photographs to answer your questions, or question your answers? Answering the questions will address who, what, where, when and will invariably be tied to the object photographed. You will know that you are looking at an egret, during its mating season, photographed on the shores of Rhode Island. Ergo, most of these photographs will be … [Read more...]
John Sexton Talks About Photography
Photography has always been a blend of art and craft and Ansel Adams has long embodied a good mixture of the two. One of his former assistants and an accomplished photographer John Sexton shares his thoughts on photography with anecdotes sprinkled in his narrative from his years of working with Ansel Adams. There are good, very good pieces of … [Read more...]
Sebastião Salgado: The silent drama of photography
The Salt of The Earth I have been familiar with Salgado's photography through magazines, newspapers, and the Web but I did not know him or his work as closely as many other photographers. During our visit to Istanbul in October 2015, we watched with Binnaz and Ergun a documentary on Sebastião Salgado, The Salt of the Earth by acclaimed director … [Read more...]
The Americans
Over 60 years ago Robert Frank photographed with an outsider's eye the Americans as he traveled from coast to coast over a year. The result is the seminal book, The Americans. I highly recommend the book as it put a mirror to the nation at the time, which offended some viewers as the photographs were too edgy for most. Indeed, it was not published … [Read more...]
Melancholic Tulip – Kertész André
André Kertész is one of the great photographers of the 20th century although he did not get the fame and recognition in his lifetime. His eye was exacting in structuring the elements in the frame and extremely curious in finding elements to photograph. His subjects ranged from a simple fork resting on the edge of a plate to extreme angles of the … [Read more...]