richard avedon . . .

The New Yorker magazine as frame . . .

 John Bayley and Iris Murdoch in London, December 1, 1995. For a Life and Letters piece by Ian Hamilton.

Salman Rushdie in London, September 26, 1994.

 Saul Bellow in 2003. For a Life and Letters piece by Joan Acocella.

Toni Morrison in 2003. For a Profile by Hilton Als
.

The New Yorker has been around since 1925, but didn’t publish a single photograph for its first forty-six years. That changed in 1971, when a tiny photo of a bonnet-clad piglet made an appearance on page 64 of the issue of January 30th. Twenty-one more years passed until the magazine took on its first staff photographer: Richard Avedon.

“When Tina Brown brought him to The New Yorker, in 1992,” Adam Gopnik wrote in his 2004 Postscript on Avedon, “she was rupturing a long-standing taboo against photography, and even those who loved his work must have had their doubts. But his photographs, in their epigrammatic compression of a whole subject into a single black-and-white image, were New Yorker profiles in miniature, and within weeks it was as if he had always graced these pages.”

Two years ago, The New Yorker’s embrace of photography expanded to include Photo Booth—the blog you’re looking at now—and today we’re introducing a new design for Photo Booth, including a new fullscreen slide-show function. (Just click on the red arrows  in the upper right corner.) In celebration of our renovation, here’s a look back at Avedon’s portraits of writers commissioned by The New Yorker, including the portrait of Salman Rushdie that appears in our current issue, alongside Rushdie’s account of his life after the fatwa. “A portrait is not a likeness.” Avedon wrote in his book “In the American West.” “There is no such thing as inaccuracy in a photograph. All photographs are accurate. None of them is the truth.”

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth#ixzz26ZI4xyfn

rashid johnson . . .

The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club (Emmett), 2008. Lambda print, 48 ½ x 73 in. (123.2 x 185.4 cm). Edition 1 of 5, aside from 2 artist’s proofs. Collection of Elliot and Kimberly Perry, Memphis.

This September, Miami Art Museum presents Rashid Johnson: Message to Our Folks, the first major solo exhibition for Johnson, a preeminent artist of his generation. Johnson’s practice encompasses photography, sculpture, painting and video and explores diverse questions relating to the self, identity, metaphysics and art, rooted in his individual experience. On view September 7 to November 4, 2012, the exhibition includes more than a decade of Johnson’s work with an emphasis on major works from the last five years. 

"Rashid Johnson’s unusual vocabulary of materials and innovative mixing of diverse forms and cultural references makes him one of the most vital and interesting artists working today," said Tobias Ostrander, MAM chief curator and deputy director. "Johnson’s work has been supported for many years by our collecting community and we are thrilled to present his first museum exhibition in South Florida." 

Throughout his work, Johnson evokes shared memories by referencing icons and figures from American and African-American culture. The exhibition fosters a dialogue by inviting viewers' free associations with familiar figures -- such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Sun Ra, Miles Davis, and Public Enemy -- and everyday objects that appear in Johnson’s work, including plants, mirrors, rugs, record albums, CB radios, shea butter and books. 

Johnson’s conceptually loaded and visually compelling works also allude to alchemy and transformation though his materials and play with the significance and symbolism of different media. His work creates a sense of wonder in the unknown and allows the viewers to draw their own meaning from his works. The exhibition also presents examples from ongoing bodies of work such as Cosmic Slops, abstract paintings made with melted black soap and wax; The New Negro Escapist Social and Athletic Club, portraits of members of a fictional black bourgeois secret society; recent "shelf sculptures" featuring found objects, such as The Shuttle (2010) and Triple Consciousness (2009); and early photographs made using the nineteenth-century Van Dyke Brown printing process. 

Johnson was born in Chicago in 1977 and currently lives in New York. He has a BA in photography from Columbia College and attended graduate school at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. His work is in the collections of the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Art Institute of Chicago, Whitney Museum of American Art, Seattle Art Museum, Brooklyn Museum of Art, and Detroit Institute of Art. His work has been featured in major group exhibitions including 30 Americans: The Rubell Collection (2008); Only Skin Deep: Changing Visions of the American Self at the International Center of Photography (2003); and Freestyle at the Studio Museum in Harlem (2001); and in 2011 was featured at the International Pavilion of the 54th Venice Biennale. He is one of the nominees for the Guggenheim’s 2012 Hugo Boss Prize, and the winner of the 2012 High Museum’s David C. Driskell prize that honors excellence in African-American art and scholarship.

lee friedlander . . .

September 4, 2012

LEE FRIEDLANDER’S NEW YORK CITY MANNEQUINS

Posted by Jessie Wender

This week’s magazine—the Style Issue—includes a spread of images from Lee Friedlander’s recent series called “Mannequin.” From 2009 to 2011, Friedlander photographed shop-window dolls in San Francisco, Los Angeles, Tucson, New Orleans, Newport, New York City, and Washington, D.C. Fraenkel Gallery, in San Francisco, exhibited the work earlier this summer and also published a catalog. This October, Pace/MacGill Gallery will exhibit it here in New York. Here’s a selection of photographs from New York City.

Read more http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/photobooth/2012/09/lee-friedlander-mannequin.html#ixzz25biTz2Se

parallax . . .

Don't miss this!!

paper-thin lens . . .

Paper-Thin, Distortion-Free Lenses Could Make Pint-Sized Pro Cameras Possible

Using an ultrathin wafer of silicon and gold to focus lightwaves, researchers at the Harvard School of Engineering and Applied Sciences have created a revolutionary new kind of camera lens that completely eliminates the image distortion created by traditional glass lenses. It could not only pave the way for lighter cameras that are still as capable as today's swappable lens models, but even cameraphones that snap images as impressive as a DSLR.

Click here to read more about this new technology.

kodak . . .

Professional photographers still value the unique feel that film gives to their pictures

Debt-struck photography pioneer Kodak says it may sell off its still-camera film and photo paper divisions.

The firm has already stopped making digital cameras as part of efforts to reduce its losses after filing for bankruptcy protection in January.

It has also been trying to raise funds by selling off more than 1,100 digital imaging patents.

It had originally planned to announce a buyer last week, but said "discussions continue" and a deal might not happen.

Apple and Google had been reported to have made rival bids for the patents, but the Wall Street Journal reports they have now joined forces and have added Samsung, LG, HTC and others to their consortium

The WSJ's sources suggested the offer price for the portfolio would be about $500m (£315m) - well below the $2.6bn estimate that Kodak had suggested it could be worth.

The company recently reported a $665m net loss for the first six months of the year, putting further pressure on its finances.

Film's feel

In its latest announcement the US company said it had hired investment bank Lazard to help it sell its Personalised Imaging and Document Imaging businesses.

This would mean an end to it making films for still cameras, photo papers, souvenir photo products at theme parks, scanners and picture print-out kiosks at stores.

It would leave the business focused on printers, cinema film stock and chemicals.

The British Journal of Photography said the news would concern the industry.

"A lot of professionals still shoot with film and like the quality it gives them," Olivier Laurent, news editor at the journal, told the BBC.

"The resolution is still a thousand times higher than most digital cameras can offer so long as a good scanner is used.

"A film photograph has a different mood thanks to its grain - it's about the love of the image and digital still has a hard time trying to reproduce that feeling."

francois robert . . .

“Everyone at Photographic Works/ArtsEye Gallery, a local Tucson business, loves the Holga—a plastic toy camera that shoots 120mm film. In fact, they love it so much, they host an annual photo competition that attracts photographers from around the world. The exhibit features work shot with Holgas and other curious cameras (pin hole, phones, and then some). The giant camera was originally conceived as a prop for the exhibit that paid homage to the Holga. About halfway through the construction process, it was decided it could be made into a functioning camera. All the dimensions are the same as the toy camera, only 20 times larger (to scale).” The builder of the giant Holga and the owner of the photo lab invited photographer Francois Robert to take photographs with the giant Holga on location. “I scouted around and in Tucson for 2 days making sure each location would have an easy access for the horse trailer and the pick up truck.The most challenging aspect of working with it is actually moving it from site to site. Luckily, the camera fits inside a two-horse trailer, though just barely.” –Francois Robert.

The camera is loaded with photographic paper, either color or black-and-white. It can handle film, but there isn’t any large enough on the market that will fit (30″X30″). Hence, the paper, which comes in rolls and can be used as film. A typical exposure depends on how the paper is rated and the filtration. B&W paper typically needs an exposure of about 1 to 2 minutes, while color paper, without filtration, needs about 1 minute. To learn more, contact Photographic Works (520 327- 7291).