Black and White

Trucks carrying

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 10 Mar 2012 00:58:00 +0700

Trucks carrying the large, precast concrete letters of Mansilla+Tuñón’s Fine Arts museum of Castellón in order of their display in 1999. Previously, today.
“As they moved through the landscape and the towns, the five letters formed a word. The emergence of a word, an intruder, implies a culturization of landscape through thought. A culturization in motion that leaves no lasting mark. An ephemeral action, limited to four hundred and forty kilometres and ten hours of travel.”

Untitled Film Stil

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 9 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0700

If you follow art at all you already know that Cindy Sherman takes pictures only of herself, but she always insists she doesn’t make self-portraits. True enough—it would be more accurate to say that for the past 35 years, she’s been producing a portrait of her times as they flow through the finely tuned instrument of her baroque psyche. Again and again in her spine-tingling retrospective at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City—it runs there from Feb. 26 to June 11, then travels to San Francisco, Minneapolis and Dallas—you also discover she’s made a portrait of you.
Growing up in a New York suburb, Sherman loved to play dress-up. In 1977, when she was 23 and just out of Buffalo State College, she started playing it with a vengeance. For three years, she photographed herself in costumes, wigs and settings that drew from the deep pool of movie images in which we’re all immersed from childhood. In what eventually grew to a series of 70 “Untitled Film Stills,” she took on the role of career girl, housewife, siren and woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Six years before Woody Allen got there, she became the Zelig of the collective unconscious, the heroine with a thousand faces.
Read more »

Beatles

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 8 Mar 2012 01:14:00 +0700

“Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see.
It’s getting hard to be someone but it all works out, it doesn’t matter much to me.
Let me take you down, ‘cos I’m going to Strawberry Fields.
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung-about.
Strawberry Fields forever.”

Kellett Autogiro

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 7 Mar 2012 00:28:00 +0700

Using Cierva and Pitcairn designs, the Kellett Autogiro Company of Philadelphia, PA, produced its own autogiros in the 1930s, which made use of a larger blade area, simplified landing gear, and wider fuselage to accommodate side-by-side seating. Interested in a slow flying aircraft that could observe enemy forces and direct artillery fire, both the American Army and Japanese War Office purchased Kellett autogiros in the 1930s. Thrilling armchair adventurers across the nation, Admiral Richard E. Byrd flew a Kellett K-3 on his Antarctic Expedition of 1933-1934.

filming of the short

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 6 Mar 2012 00:50:00 +0700

Director Marshall Neilan, Thelma Todd, Guinn ‘Big Boy’ Williams and ZaSu Pitts take it easy during filming of the short ”Catch as Catch Can”, 1931.

What really happened

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 5 Mar 2012 00:57:00 +0700

What really happened…
From our previous post, this is the inaugural edition of a planned series of “Behind the Picture” galleries, LIFE.com offers some of the marvelous photographs Bourke-White made that have been long associated with the Great Depression — that LIFE actually published in the aftermath of the Great Ohio River Flood of 1937. In addition, a number of equally powerful, unpublished images from the same assignment — pictures that never made it into the magazine, but that nevertheless commemorate a great photojournalist, and the dignity of a people enduring what must have felt, at the time, like an age of unending troubles.
(read more here)

Liu Zheng

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 4 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0700

Liu Zheng, A Rural Boy in School Uniform, Fengxiang, Shaanxi Province, 2000.
© Liu Zheng, Courtesy Yossi Milo Gallery, New York.
The stunning work of photographer Liu Zheng is also in Yossi Milo’s latest exhibition, First-Look. Head on over to their website for more details.

Going on a Bummer Vacation

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 2 Mar 2012 00:49:00 +0700

The Polish coastline is about 500 km long. On it, there are several sandy beaches, some cliffs and a few villages that are now largely populated by depressed fishermen.

Poland was pretty happy when it was allowed to join the European Union, but ever since it’s been in the EU big boys club, the welfare of the fishing families has got shittier and shittier. Many are forced to sell their boats and open new businesses, or go looking for work elsewhere, meaning that the only people left in the villages are destitute fishermen who don’t have boats.

And what’s a fisherman without a boat? Just a sad guy in a cap who smells faintly of the one thing that he wants most, but cannot have.

Photographer Tomasz Lazar, who was born in Szczecin, a town just 100 km from the Baltic Sea, sent us this set of photographs.

I know we’re not usually big on artsy, black and white shots of gloomy things, but come on, this is Eastern Europe, people there are born seeing black and white.
See more: Going on a Bummer Vacation

Dancers

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 1 Mar 2012 00:00:00 +0700

Dancers, Mott Haven, August 1979, from the Faces in the Rubble series
Photo Credit: David Gonzalez

Adolf Hitler

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 00:42:00 +0700

Proof That Hitler Had an Illegetimate Son?
New evidence has emerged to support the controversial claim that Hitler had a son with a French teenager, the French magazine LePoint reported on Friday.
The man, Jean-Marie Loret, claimed to be the Fuhrer’s son in 1981, when he published an autobiography called “Your Father’s Name Was Hitler.” He died four years later aged 67, not being able to prove his family line.
But Loret’s Paris lawyer, François Gibault, told the French magazine that a number of photographs and documents can now support the claim.
He also revealed how Loret got to know about his parentage.
keep reading
Image: Hitler with a daughter of Reich Minister of Propaganda Joseph Goebbels, 1933 (killed by her parents the day they both committed suicide). Credit: Deutsches Bundesarchiv (German Federal Archive)/Wikimedia Commons.

Sasha Pivovarova

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

Sasha Pivovarova by Craig McDean

Yale Joel

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

© Yale Joel / Getty Images, Nov. 1951, People race from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange during an air raid drill
Yale Joel began his career as a professional photographer when he was 19 years old, served as a combat photographer during World War II, and several years later became a member of the famous LIFE magazine photography staff.

Jet Airliner

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

I’ve been looking at just tons of photography this past week and my eyes hurt it’s been a blast. Fall is a very exciting time for photo geeks- all the galleries turn the lights back on, and a new season of photo books hit the racks. I’ve got several on my wish list, but one I most covet is Josef Hoflehner’s Jet Airliner. What beats pictures that are square, black-and-white, have babes and planes? I mean, come on?!
Hoflehner has a ton of other great work as well- check it out. He does love the stark square, and I love his consistency. Creamy, dreamy pictures.

Singboaids street

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 25 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

Award-wining photographer Fan Ho has won 280 awards from international exhibitions and competitions worldwide since 1956. Ho has been elected Fellow of the Photographic Society of America, Fellow of the Royal Photographic Society and Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, England; Honorary Member of the Photographic Societies of Germany, France, Italy, Belgium, Brazil, Argentina, Singapore and etc, and was honored with One-Man-Shows in the above countries. Ho’s works can be seen and have been published in many International Photographic Annuals all over the world.

Source

Lovers by Weegee

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

Lovers by Weegee

There is a very extensive Weegee exhibition called Murder Is My Business at the International Center of Photography right now. It’s pay what you want every Friday from 5-8pm.

New York City

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

New York City — For us here at LIFE, it’s the place we call home.
From the countless images of the Big Apple stored away in its unparalleled archives, LIFE here presents a small selection of classic black-and-white photos that show off the the spirit, the architecture, the culture (high and decidedly low) of Gotham — visual testaments to a city that, through darkness and in light, remains one of a kind.

(see more — Love Letter to NYC)

Le Secret

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 22:17:00 +0700

Le Secret, Eglantine et Laurence

photo by Jean-Philippe Charbonnier, Paris 1979

I'm the shit

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

John Malmin

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 00:09:00 +0700

© John Malmin, ca. 1969, A sea of Volkswagen vehicles
A sea of Volkswagen vehicles – mostly the famous Beetle model — sit at Terminal Island after unloading from a ship. In 1969, Beetle sales in the United States peaked at 367,607. By 1977, the model had been discontinued — annual sales having dropped below 50,000. Taken from the Goodyear blimp, this image by staff photographer John Malmin was published as stand-alone art in the Jan. 13, 1969, L.A. Times.
The Volkswagen was officially named the KdF-Wagen by Hitler when the project was officially announced in 1938. The name refers to ‘Kraft durch Freude’ (‘Strength Through Joy’), the official leisure organization of the Third Reich. After World War II, the car was known as the Volkswagen Type 1, but became more commonly known as the Beetle.
Just before the start of the Second World War, Tatra had ten legal claims filed against VW for infringement of patents. Although Ferdinand Porsche (who developed the car) was about to pay a settlement to Tatra, he was stopped by Hitler who said he would “solve his problem”. Tatra launched a lawsuit, but this was stopped when Germany invaded Czechoslovakia in 1938, resulting in the Tatra factory coming under Nazi administration in October 1938.

“Er läuft und läuft und läuft…” - Volkswagen commercial, 1960s:

Frank Oscar Larson

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Sat, 18 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

Frank Oscar Larson: 1950s New York Street Stories

Frank Oscar Larson (1896-1964) was born in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, of Swedish immigrant parents and lived in Flushing, Queens most of his life. As an adult, Larson spent his days at a branch of the Empire Trust Company (now Bank of New York Mellon), working his way up through the ranks from auditor to vice-president, and spare time on weekends taking photographs of street life throughout New York City. He was an accomplished photographer who eloquently documented 1950s Chinatown, the Bowery, Hell’s Kitchen, City Island, Times Square, Central Park, and much more. This exhibition is compiled from thousands of negatives recently discovered stored away in his daughter-in-law’s house in Maine in 2009. Soren Larson, his grandson and a television news camera man and producer, has been scanning and printing the 55 year old images found stored in over 100 envelopes filled with mostly medium format, 2-1/4 x 2-1/4″ negatives, and neatly noted by location and date in Larson’s own hand.
According to Soren Larson, “Photographs dating back to the 1920s attest to the fact that he was always the family shutterbug. But it wasn’t until the early 1950s that Frank’s passion for photography blossomed. By 1949 both of his sons had left home, and perhaps this new situation, no longer having kids at home freed him up on the weekends to delve into photography with a passion.” For the next ten years, weekend expeditions around New York with his beloved Rolleiflex Automat Model 4 camera around his neck, produced thousands of images which he developed in a basement darkroom. Some were printed and entered in photography competitions where he won awards, but most remained undiscovered until the cardboard box of negatives that had been packed away since Frank’s death in 1964, was found.
Larson was an avid, empathetic observer of the life of the streets, and in his eyes, the mundane becomes miraculous. Larson documents the changing face of New York City in Under the El, Park Row, perhaps a subtle self portrait taken in a dramatically composed photograph under the El just prior to its being demolished. Times Square and Chinatown were some of his favorite haunts, at once photogenic and atmospheric, alluring and even alien. Times Square was notoriously illuminated by countless numbers of incandescent light bulbs on the theater marquees and advertising signs. A state of “permanent daylight” made the use of flash unnecessary at night, allowing the photographer to merge into the crowd. Larson achieved a great intimacy and immediacy in unguarded, candid shots such as the evocative, worm’s eye view of Johnny Guitar 1 taken in front of the Brandt’s Mayfair theater showing the film of the same title starring Joan Crawford, and the eerie Ticket Booth at the Brandt Lyric theater, the ticket taker’s face neatly framed in a small round hole in the curved glass booth, masked with dark sunglasses against the blinding lights.
The everyday person is honored in candid portraits of “working stiffs” — policemen, shoe repair men and shoeshine boys, chefs, painters, souvenir and balloon sellers, and husky men hoisting beer barrels – as honest an appraisal of the human condition as any photograph taken by Walker Evans, Atget, Robert Frank, Berenice Abbott or Brassai. In Grand Central Station’s waiting room, a father muses with a doll and boxed gifts next to him on the bench, reveal a solitary moment in the urban maelstrom of rush hour in Midtown. Portraits of children at play in Flushing or Williamsburg recall familiar images by Helen Levitt and Diane Arbus in their fresh directness. Other striking and timeless images such as AP Window show business men huddled in front of the day’s news at the AP Building at Rockefeller Center in 1955, taken just blocks away from Larson’s daily work at the Empire Trust Company, while in School Girls, four pretty young women relax outside in an intimate, almost vulnerable portrait.
Personal memorabilia and family photographs include a charming shot of Larson’s sons, Franklin and David, taken at the Kodak Pavilion at the 1939 New York World’s Fair where they are posed for the “Kodak moment” with a miniature Trylon and Perisphere. Sadly, on the way to visit the New York World’s Fair in 1964, Larson suffered a stroke and passed away, of complications suffered in WWI due to exposure to mustard gas as a young man.
Larson’s own camera equipment – two Rolleiflex Automat Model 4 cameras using 2-1/4 x 2-1/4″ medium format film, lens, filters and light meter, will be included in the exhibition as well.
The extraordinary body of work in Frank Oscar Larson: 1950s New York Street Stories is having its New York debut at the Queens Museum of Art. In addition, The Queens Museum of Art is honored to have been selected to receive a donation of prints from Frank Oscar Larson’s photographic archive for their permanent collection. We are pleased to exhibit sixty images in this introduction to New York audiences in February 2012.
Frank Oscar Larson: 1950s New York Street Stories has been curated by Louise Weinberg, Archives Manager.
Frank Oscar Larson: 1950s New York Street Stories is supported in part by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs and New York State Council on the Arts.

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Second Painting

noreply@blogger.com (Anonymous) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 00:00:00 +0700

Second Painting

Thomas Hawk