©2010 Josephine Close

In the shadows:

Photography of Josephine Close

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Artist Statement:

When Iwas 6 years old, my father gave me my first camera, a hand-me-down, I fell in love and have been taking pictures ever since. Growing up in the woods of New Hampshire has greatly affected my photography, nature being a common theme throughout my work.  After moving to Los Angeles, I developed an obsession with old movies which has greatly influenced my photographs as well, experimenting with old lighting techniques and trying to capture the moodiness and nostalgia of another time and another place.  Always fascinated with what lies in the shadows, what you can’t see, things that are implied, that trigger the imagination, a dream, a memory, another source of inspiration. I am always seeking to illuminate the magic in my life.  -Josie Close

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JOSEPHINE CLOSE Los Angeles, California

josieclose@gmail.com

www.josephineclose.com

Education

university of maine, orono, maine, liberal arts

lacc, los angeles, ca, photography

otis, venice, ca, illustration

art center, pasadena, ca advanced photography

Exhibitions

2010 lacda, los angeles, snap to grid, group show

2010 sf camerawork, san francisco, roll call exhibit

2010 the journal project, brooklyn, ny

2006 faran gallery, new york, ny, solo exhibit, into the wild

2006 dublin lake club, group show

2006 the boathouse, solo exhibit

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© 2010 Josephine Close • All Rights Reserved

©Gabrielle Revere

Lindsey Wixson photographed back stage at the Donna Karan Spring 2011 Runway Show.

The Handwriting’s On Her Wall

by Mike Foldes

September 24, 2010

It’s a beautiful warm day in New York when photographer Gabrielle Revere and I meet for lunch at the Standard Hotel in the Meatpacking District in New York to discuss her career and work. Her photos have appeared in numerous magazines, from Spin to Seventeen, and her celebrity subjects include Justin Beiber, Avril Lavigne, and Carrie Underwood, to name a few.  Along the way to a certain level of success, she combined her time and money with a stipend from the Dove Foundation to create a series titled, “I only have eyes for you.”

The passing traffic – taxis and trucks – make me wary of sidewalk dining; the atmosphere inside is deceptively better, and besides, it’s air conditioned. Deceptive, because the background clatter turns out to be a killer for any but a very high-end, noise-canceling, audio recording device, which I do not have.

The reception  for Revere’s exhibit at Sotheby’s, “I Remain, You Desire,” hosted by Milk Studios founder Mazdack Rassi, and stylist Mary Alice Stephenson, took place a few nights before, and she was still high on the turnout which included among others Anna Sui and Duncan Hanna. The series features 16-year-old model Lindsey Wixson, who Revere met during New York Fashion Week in 2009, and subsequently helped bring to the fashion modeling forefront.

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Revere lives in Brooklyn, which, she says, is living in the city with a bit of country quiet at the same time. It reminds her of San Francisco, or Paris, she says later in our conversation. She does not have a studio, and most often works at Milk.

“For the past six years, their brand has exploded. So, in a way, I’ve grown up with that.  I was one of the first photographers to shoot there, and with that they took me on as one of the family. They have the entire second floor and the entire eighth floor. The way they have it set up is that you don’t really have to do anything but show up and set up in the studio, and your clients show up, and they treat you like royalty. And everything is at your fingertips. It’s fully digital right now. You can rent about any kind of photo equipment you can possibly imagine. They are there for you. Everybody shoots there. I mean like top notch — Vogue, Vanity Fair, TV commercials.

“It’s such a huge organization, yet it’s still very personal. And they’ve branched out into video and film as well. One-stop shopping. They had a video nominated for video awards. They’ve really just come to life.”

“There’s so much celebrity content that goes on at Milk Studios — like the covers for Glamour, covers for Rolling Stone, covers for Spin… They’ll have their video companies come in and shoot videos of “behind the scenes”, and everything goes viral so fast with the internet. The viewer can go on spin.com, look at the cover shoot – look at it as it’s being shot, and it’s all very current and now.

With the advent of digital, a photographer can shoot all day long and not have to worry about the cost of developing film and printing contacts sheets, let alone the time it takes. How much of her own editing does she do?

GR: “Usually what I do either the day of, or the day after, depending on how long the shoot goes for and I might need a little time to digest, I go through all of the images and edit out what I think isn’t acceptable for me to publish. And, you might say depending on what the client needs, I pretty much have to give them every single thing.”

R: You don’t shoot film at all?

GR: Not at all. I would if somebody would let me.

R: What do you mean, “Let me.”?

GR: The industry has become a digital industry…. I grew up shooting an 8×10, a 4×5. I’ve shot Polaroid 24×24. The Mamiya RZ Pro II was my camera for years. I still have it. I love that camera. I took that camera all around the world, but now there’s a (digital) back for the Mamiya, so now I can shoot the Mamiya digital… Digital has inched itself into the world where I support myself. Two or three years ago I had a job and I said, “I want to shoot film, I want to use my Mamiya.” It’s a different quality, it’s a different camera. It will help me make my work beautiful. And now they make (digital) backs that are compatible with these cameras, so it’s hard for the photographers to sell film. And obviously, when you’re shooting with your clients there, you’re tethered to a computer screen. The clients are so used to seeing images come up immediately it’s pretty impossible to compete with that. For even a day. They don’t even want to wait a day.

R: Some people still shoot film and transfer to digital.

GR: When I first made the digital transition a lot of my archives, the quintessential parts of my work, had to be transferred to digital. I had to scan, color correct…. I did it, but it’s $100 to $200 a scan for drum scans, and then you have to take the time to have someone color correct that negative, and adjust it, to make it look like the print that you have.

R: So technically, when you first started shooting, you probably didn’t have the technical facility that you’ve picked up in the past couple of years?

GR: Yes, exactly. I’ve been shooting professionally for 12 years. For my work, and the original work, I was obviously buying my film, buying my Polaroids. I’d take it back to the lab, they develop a contact sheet, the contact sheet goes to the client, they do the edit, prints would be made, the client looks at the prints, and it’s out of my hands. I have boxes and boxes and boxes of contact sheets, all in order, but tons of negs. Oh my god — envelopes, even prior to shooting professionally, living off it, I’ve been shooting since 1990, so I have everything.

R: Twenty years ….

GR: Yes, it’s been most of my life. … I started shooting when I was 17. I still have negs from when I was in college. I first went to FIT, and then to the School for the Visual Arts. One of them was more of a commercial school, and the other more fine arts….

R: How’d you like FIT?

GR: It was great. I was young. I was 17 turning 18. It’s a two-year college. It went by very quickly. At the time they didn’t have a bachelor of fine arts degree program. But I think now they do. I graduated when I was 22. So that’s when SFA took over. They’re both great schools, but different. I will say now that both the colleges have a better combination of what students need to get by. When I was there, FIT was strictly commercial, and SFA was strictly fine arts, and you need both.

R: So FIT has changed?

GR: Yes, I think it has. I haven’t been back in years. I just go past it. But I’m grateful for the education, because the education showed me discipline. I think that is a lot of what education is about, discipline. Completing from start to finish. Having deadlines. Having an idea and bringing it to fruition. Being graded on that idea. In the real world, in the business world, in the real world you’re constantly graded. And there’s no room in the real world for error. In school, obviously, not that there’s room for failure … It’s the training wheels of life.

R: When did you go to California?

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Selections from Portfolios / Gabrielle Revere

[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-mon-ex-1.jpg]Forever Summer #1, 2002
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-mon-ex-3.jpg]Forever Summer #3, 2002
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-bc-2.jpg]Beautiful Chaos #8, 2009
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-bc-3.jpg]Beautiful Chaos #13, 2009
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-bieber.jpg]Justin Bieber
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-lavigne.jpg]Avril Lavigne
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-sv_-2.jpg]Sweet and Vicious #8, 1998
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-untamed-1.jpg]Love Me, 2004
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-sv_-4.jpg]Sweet and Vicious #6, 1999
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/selections-from-portfolios-gabrielle-revere/thumbs/thumbs_revere-untamed-3.jpg]Come Play With Me, 2001

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GR: I worked out there after SFVA. I had never traveled out of New York, and I wanted to explore. I wanted to be on my own. I wanted to be away from my family. I wanted to grow up out from under the umbrella of my family. I moved out there with no job and no friends, nothing, just a lot of wishes and hope. Basically, I went out there, went through the phone book. There was a computer place down the street. I typed up a resume… there were days and days of putting resumes in the mail. That was before the days of the internet, and finally I got a call back. I took on a freelance job as, basically, a photo editor’s assistant at Time Inc.

R: A great way to start.

GR: A great way to start, and I had that background. Back in New York, two of the jobs I had at both colleges …

R: Internships?

GR: No, I never interned. I could never intern. I had to pay for my rent. There was no time for interning. I was working two jobs for five years at (photo) stock houses, where I had this kind of background, where a photo editor would call me for a photo request. So I had an idea of what was going on, and I did that for two years. I was shooting my own work outside. Then I moved back to New York and got in touch with everybody I knew.

R: What kinds of things do you shoot on your own time? If you had a weekend off, to hang out and take pictures, what would you shoot?

GR: The thing that’s interesting about the way that I shoot, or the way I progress is that, my intentions were that I’m an artist. Even in school, I’m the girl who dropped the Photoshop™ classes, who dropped the color printing classes. I’m the girl who didn’t think she needed that. Of course, I want to kick myself years later, but that’s beside the point. I always looked at it as I wanted my art to be seen, to show in galleries, and come out with books, to be a spokeswoman for the little girls out there who are struggling.

Photography was always a means of expression for me, expressing my feelings, and in that, in the commercial end of things, I became a working photographer. Meaning, I was paying my way taking pictures. … Because of the commercial work, my name has been able to get out there. It gives me access to people in my everyday life who I would never have access to. I’m constantly shooting my first photo book. It’s never something that’s planned. It’s not like, “OK, this weekend I’m going to go to my parents’ house … and bring my camera and take pictures of XYZ.” It never happens like that. It’s always very organic. Sometimes I feel like taking pictures and sometimes I don’t. You can’t force it. I can’t. I have to be inspired.

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R: “I only have eyes for you?

GR: A personal project.

R: Personally financed?

GR: Credit card, and the Dove stipend. That was fun, but at that point in my commercial career – I was seen as the face of young Hollywood. All the young celebrities and young musicians and magazine covers – it was all fantastic. I wouldn’t trade it in for anything in the world. I’m so grateful for all that time of my life, but I felt like at that time I needed to do something I wanted and no one was going to give me any funding to go overseas and photograph what I wanted (such as “I only have eyes for you”). They wouldn’t think of me to do that. The industry is very compartmentalized, you know, this person shoots beauty, this person shoots celebrities, this person shoots still live. There isn’t a lot of crossover. There are some people in powerful positions that can see the crossover, but for the most part you make your own destiny in this way. So that was me basically giving myself the project; I had the production experience behind me. When I jumped into it, not that it was easy,  not that it happened to me. I made it happen.

R: Would you do it again?

GR: There’s something to be said for your own experiences. It’s like riding a bike. I grew up on that experience. It was the next chapter in my heart. In my mind. You get on it and you just go with it. I grew up with that experience, to be on a boat in Bangladesh, or traveling down the Ganges River.

R: I don’t mean do it again in the same way you did it before. But in terms of your philanthropic projects, what kind of philanthropy project would you embark on if you were to do it today?

GR: I still do philanthropic work. I recently did a Make-A-Wish with Mary Alice Stephenson. I was asked to be part of a big photo exhibition for fundraising for kids with cleft palates… I was one of 20 photographers. Out of the goodness of my heart, I would do it again in a second, go overseas, go back to South Africa, Go to Brazil, go to Outer Mongolia, work with kids who feel they’ve been forgotten. Photography is a means of expression, of connection.

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R: Do you have other kinds of projects you work on, hobbies?

GR: I write. I must have a hundred journals up in my closet. I do a handwriting thing, you’ve probably seen it. Handwriting is becoming a important part of my work and photography. I only have eyes for you. I remain you desire. So the handwriting has become another means of expression. But people are buying the handwriting, which has been interesting. Thankfully, they’re buying it, the signatures. I do a lot of shoots for book publishers, and they see the handwriting, “We’d love you to write something out, you should sell your font ….”

R: How many books have you done?

GR: You mean like coffee table books? I haven’t done any yet. It’s on the agenda.

R: When you’re in a studio, how much direction do you give, for a fashion shoot, for example. Is a lot of it yours? Do you work with a fashion editor or director? Do you work as you go along?

GR: I do a little bit of everything. Usually in a commercial job, where you’re hired by a company you have a feel for the work. It’s usually the people who hire you, obviously they know you. Everybody has their job. If I shoot, I direct the models, but it’s not demanding in a directorial way. But if I have a vision of what it is we’re trying to show or showcase, I’ll give direction.

R: Is it the same if you’re doing an album cover or ads?

GR: Yes, with something like an album cover it’s about the artist, it’s about that personality, it’s a little different, it’s about who they are. If it’s a commercial assignment or an advertising assignment, you’re creating an illusion of that idea, so it’s more like acting, the model is acting and I’m directing a movie. And, like a signature artist, I’m drawing things out of that.

R: What do you shoot with?

GR: A 35 mm Canon 5D Mark II. What’s amazing about the camera is you can shoot hi-def video. A lot of videographers are shooting with that camera now.

R: I read an interview with you that you did just after fashion week in which you commented that you were surprised to find so much sexism and ageism in the business. With youth and beauty being so prevalent in the business, why was that a surprise?

GR: That’s not who I am, not how I operate. But you have to remember that how you operate is not how others operate. In this world, there are a lot of personalities, egos, a lot of money on the line. There are powers that be that set the rules before I was alive. And maybe it’s taken me a little longer, I know it’s taken me a little longer, but I can’t question the path that I’m on. Honestly,  I feel good about what’s happening now, rather than when I was 22. Twenty-two is pretty young.

R: Who are your favorite photographers? Do you have any?

GR: Yes, Sally Mann, Nan Goldin, Cindy Sherman.

R: What do you like about their work

GR: They went with their hearts. They didn’t have an agenda. They were shooting subject matter that they were compelled by, like an unseen force. Obviously Sally Mann for her children, was photographing children. Nan Goldin was photographing her friends. Cindy Sherman was photographing herself in relation to other people. It doesn’t get more intimate for putting your heart on the line than that.

R: And if you were collaborating?

GR: I’d be honored.

R: What’s next for you? What are you working on now?

GR: The Sotheby show comes down Monday. … The show will travel. We’re working out the details.

R: Where might it be going ?

GR: I can’t tell you that.

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See Revere’s other portfolios at www.gabriellerevere.com

© 2010 Gabrille Revere • All Rights Reserved

©Aline Smithson

Arrangement #5

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Arrangement in Green and Black:

Portrait of the Photographer’s Mother Series

This series had serendipitous beginnings.  I found a small print of Whistler’s painting, Arrangement in Grey and Black: Portrait of the Painter’s Mother, at a neighborhood garage sale.  The same weekend, I found a leopard coat and hat, a 1950s’ cat painting, and what looked like the exact chair from Whistler’s painting.  That started me thinking about the idea of portraiture, the strong compositional relationships going on within Whistler’s painting, and the evocative nature of unassuming details.

The series incorporates traditional photography techniques, yet becomes richer with the treatment of hand painting.  It is my intent to have the viewer see the work in a historical context with the addition of color, and at the same time, experience Whistler’s simple, yet brilliant formula for the composition.

My patient 85-year-old mother posed in over 20 ensembles, but unfortunately passed away before seeing the finished series.  I am grateful for her sense of humor and the time this series allowed us to be together.

The images were taken with a Hasselblad and printed on Ilford warm tone matt paper in two sizes, 11×14 and 16×20.  It is an edition of 25 with 4 Artist’s Proofs.

– Aline Smithson

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Aline Smithson

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Smithson on Smithson

I came to photography through the back door.  My father and uncle were photographers and my career was centered around it, but it was not until I found my uncle’s twin lens Rolleiflex that I embraced photography fully as my own.  Seeing the world with my own photographic vision has become a wonderful obsession.

I graduated from the College of Creative Studies at UC Santa Barbara with a BA in Art and moved to NYC to make my living as a painter, and although I continued to paint, my career moved into the fashion world.  I worked as the Fashion Editor for Vogue Patterns and Vogue Knitting Magazines in New York City for a decade, and then continued on in Los Angeles as a freelance photo stylist.  As a Fashion Editor, I had the privilege of working with many exceptional fashion photographers including Horst, Mario Testino, Patrick Demarchelier, Arthur Elgort and Burt Stern.  I did not realize it at the time, but I was working with the most amazing teachers.

After standing next to the camera for many years, I have discovered that it is behind the camera that I find my joy and passion. My work has been featured in numerous publications including the PDN Photo Annual, Communication Arts Photo Annual, Eyemazing, Artworks, Lenswork Extended, Shots, Pozytyw, and Silvershotz magazines. I have exhibited widely including solo shows at the Griffin Museum of Photography, the Fort Collins Museum of Contemporary Art, Galerie Tagomago in Barcelona, and Wallspace Gallery in Seattle. In addition, my work has been included in many group exhibitions and has garnered numerous awards. I continue to shoot film and use cameras that are decades old.

Along with creating my own photographs, I work hard to promote the work of other photographers. I have been the Gallery Editor for Light Leaks Magazine; I founded and write daily for the well-read photography blog, Lenscratch, which has been noted as one of the 10 Best Photography blogs by Source Review.  I am also a contributing writer for Diffusion, F Stop, Light Leaks, and Lucida magazines and write book reviews for photoeye. In addition I have curated exhibitions for a number of galleries and on-line magazines, including Fraction and Too Much Chocolate. For the past decade, I have been teaching workshops and hosting lecture series at the Julia Dean Photo Workshops in Los Angeles. I was nominated for The Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award in 2008 and 2009 and for The Santa Fe Prize in Photography in 2009 by Center. In 2009 and 2010, I was selected to be a juror for Critical Mass through Photolucida, and a reviewer at Review LA in 2010 and 2011.

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See Simthson other portfolios at  http://www.alinesmithson.com/

©Albert Waston

Omahyra, New York, 2004

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Albert Watson in his New York City studio reflects on his 40-year career.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

A Life On Film

By Mike Foldes
with photographs by Chuck Haupt

Albert Watson’s iconic photographs have touched  the lives of millions of men and women over the past forty years. With more than 250 Vogue covers, 40 covers for Rolling Stone, movie posters, movie star portraits, and more, it’s unlikely anyone who’s ever browsed a magazine rack in a bookstore, bus station or airport hasn’t at one time or another seen an Albert Watson cover.

The following interview was conducted in mid-July at Watson’s  ground floor loft-office-studio in Tribeca. We’re let into the building lobby by security and met at the studio door by a young lady who disappears into the back room to announce our arrival – and, I gather, to see if we are even expected. We stand at the door for a moment and then move inside to a foyer with a big-as-life photograph of a NASA space suit on the wall.

Albert Watson comes into the room looking as he does in many of his published interviews and photos, dressed in a black shirt buttoned to the neck, black pants, black beret more or less tilted backwards as if the wind were forever blowing in his face, and a pretty cool pair of sneakers.We introduce ourselves to one another, exchange some pleasantries, then face off across a stainless steel table from deep seats on black leather sofas for what is expected to be about a 45-minute Q&A leaving little time for warm-up.

The interview has been arranged by Watson’s son, Aaron, who manages the photographer’s demanding schedule of museum exhibitions, interviews, commissions and gallery shows that have taken him most recently to Scotland (his native land) and Spain. Aaron is a former Associated Press sports editor, and spent many years traveling from one main event to another, including the Athens Olympics, the World Cup in Japan, the British Open, and more. He is not at the studio when we arrive, but comes in later looking very comfortable in jeans and T-Shirt, and carrying a motorcycle helmet.

Photography historian Gail Buckland, who wrote the introduction for UFO, one of Watson’s forthcoming books, was present for the interview.

The following is an edited version of that session.

Chuck Haupt/Ragazine

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Regarding Strip Search:

 AW: The pictures go way back. The Vegas book was shot the year 2000, 2004 about 16 weeks of shooting off and on for two years, a six-month break and then another year. But basically those weeks were dropped in, in like one and two week periods over that period of time. Several things held up the production of that book, just projects I was doing, museum shows, gallery shows I was doing, then it really came down to the wire because we were able with the publisher to really package two books together, UFO and Strip Search. So basically it meant that, basically I sat before a computer for four-and-a-half to six months pulling material for UFO.

The Vegas material was all together because that was one project. But pulling stuff, material for UFO that went back a long period of time, required a massive amount of research. Sometimes we’d be spending four or five days just looking for specific genre, or a specific thing. Basically, from ‘84 … ’83, the archives are very, very, ridiculously well organized… and previous to that, previous to that, things between ‘78 and ’84, things were quite well organized, and before ‘78  things were in boxes. And that’s pretty much how it went…. so it enabled some of the old stuff to come through …

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• STRIP SEARCH:
  Hardcover, two volumes • 14″ x 11″ (portrait)  11″ x 14″  (landscape)
  180 pages each  • 400 images approx.
  Hardcover with rubber silk-screened case.
  Boxed Edition: Two books presented in a clamshell cloth box with foil debossing
  Publication date: Fall 2010
  Introduction an essay by Tom Wolfe
  Published by PQ Blackwell, www.pqblackwell.com

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A project with a plan?

 AW: Vegas was always very specific. And I had done a book on Morocco (Maroc), and I had shot in a classic style, classic photographic style, because of the nature of the country. I mean you can shoot anything. Just because a country has an ancient tradition doesn’t mean you have to shoot it in an ancient way.  You can shoot it in different ways, and like it’s an old country you can shoot it in an old style.  I was comfortable with that and after shooting Morocco I wanted something completely, absolutely different, and I found that in Vegas. I was fairly familiar with Vegas, and therefore it was easy for me to start that project. … I’ve been going to Vegas for years and years. A lot of times, sometimes for photographing people for jobs, for advertising jobs, and I’ve directed quite a lot of TV commercials based out of Vegas. You’d use the desert around Vegas, but Vegas would be the base for shooting.

About the Web, and a video of Henry Rollins shot in the old Folger’s building in New Jersey:

AW: We don’t place any of that stuff. Aaron does things on the website. So he controls the web site. But beyond the website, all the interviews just get posted. Sometimes Rolling Stone will posts things, because they do music videos that get posted.

What about Hat Blocks?

AW: For quite a few years I collected hat blocks. When I say for quite a few years it sounds like I have a lot of hat blocks. I don’t. I maybe have about 24 of them but I collected the 24 of them over a period of about 10 years. So they’re interesting objects and very sculptural. And interestingly enough you can collect them in England, you can collect them in France, Germany and America. Obviously around the turn of the century hats were gigantic business and therefore hat manufacturing was a big thing all over and I just found hat blocks interesting.

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View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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What’s left to shoot, and are you casual about finding ‘it’?

AW: I’m never casual. I’m always pretty determined about finding things, you know. Basically I’m always looking for things. Any good photographer should always be looking for something, you know.

If you’re casual you’re not going to be successful in what you find. If anything’s too relaxed and laid back, and so on. I’m not saying casually… If you sit in your library going through 150 photo books, or books on painters, or reading, you’re right, that can be construed as casual, but you’ll be looking for something. For inspiration. Very often it might be that you would find something in a book, you might look at something in a still life that might inspire you to do something in portraiture. You don’t necessarily find a portrait and suddenly say I’m going to go ahead and do a portrait because that inspires me to do a portrait of somebody.  I’m fairly lucky. When you’re passionate about something it’s the passion that’s the driving force to find things. Looking and working. Of course you go to museums and galleries, and New York is fabulous for that.

I think I can go to an entire museum show and not get any inspiration but I can immensely enjoy the show. Other times you go and see something quite casual, an exhibition of furniture which is not related to painting – I mean it’s a three-dimensional object, and for some reason that can be inspiring, and can help you see something.

How quickly up the ladder?

 R: When you first got into taking pictures of personalities in California, how did that evolve so rapidly? Was it the Hitchcock portrait? Or was it a variety of circumstances?

AW: No, I’m not that lucky. You don’t just happen… It’s pretty unusual in the magazine business for somebody who’s producing, say, Harper’s Bazaar magazine, which Hitchcock was for… it’s not so casual that someone says, “My nephew has a camera. Would you like him to photograph Alfred Hitchcock?”

R: From other interviews it sounds like someone gave you a camera one day, and the next day you’re taking pictures of Alfred  Hitchcock.

(Laughter)

AW: Well someone abbreviated things. I was at university for seven years having a visual education pumped into my brain. So it wasn’t seven years of photography, but it was four years of graphic design and three years of film school. During that period of time, of course, I had a camera as a graphic designer, and photography was viewed as a craft subject towards graphic design. So you’re not really a photographer, but you’re using it. If you want to do a poster and you say, “Well, I need a picture of a flower for the poster,”  they would encourage you to take a picture of the flower and then you lay the typography on your own picture.

And that was my first real contact, as it were, with photography. So I had a lot of training. And then when I went to California I began shooting fairly rapidly for, doing cosmetic advertising for Max Factor — and that was kind of fortuitous. But between 1970 and 1973, I really developed a commercial business. I was working as a professional photographer. You know, a very raw one. But I was working and making — not so much raw as when I was doing cosmetics advertising. But somebody in the advertising agency that handles Max Factor says to me, “I loved those pictures you did of that girl in the ocean. Have you ever thought about photographing cars?” And I said “No.”  “Well, would you be interested? I’ve got a car that needs photographing, and we were talking about doing it at the beach, a truck at the beach…”And I did it, and it was very successful, and then I started doing a lot of cars.

But by that time I was more and more becoming aware of light and using studio lighting. I was getting jobs but I was also learning at the same time and I was always doing a lot of testing on my own. So I might have a job on Tuesday and Wednesday, but Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Monday I wasn’t shooting, so I would always be shooting.

I would invent something, I would call up a modeling agency and say send me over a girl. I’d call up a designer for clothes and say send me over some clothes. Get hair and makeup people to work with, and so on. And bit by bit, in California, we built up a reputation as being a very productive studio. And from that, somebody from New York called, in ’73, and said, “We need a photographer out there to photograph Alfred Hitchcock. Are you available to do that?” You know… and I said “Yes,” and that was the first celebrity I photographed.

CONTINUED: Albert Watson / Part II

…………………………………………

The opening for Albert Watson’s solo show
at the Hasted Hunt Kraeutler Gallery
in NYC is scheduled for Oct. 21,
with a book party/signing scheduled for Oct. 23.
(http://www.hastedhuntkraeutler.com)

ALL ALBERT WATSON PHOTOS ARE COPYRIGHT
ALBERT WATSON & USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER.

Chuck Haupt Photos © Chuck Haupt & ragazine.cc, 2010

CONTINUED from Albert Watson / Part I

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…………………………………………

On working with stylists:

R: When you’re shooting with a sylist, do you give a lot of direction, or do you let the stylist do their work, and then you kind of step in? Or say, I’ll work with what I’ve got?”

AW: Well I can actually help you with that, because I’ve done a gigantic, humongous amount of that kind of work, and believe it or not, even photographers working in the business don’t quite concentrate and realize this. A really good fashion editor at a magazine, a really good fashion editor, is a perfect combination of two human beings. They are stylists… but they are also art directors. The funny thing is that I was working for years and years and years for Vogue magazine and Conde Nast … and a lot of times people outside would say, “Oh, the art director of a magazine is, uh – might be Roger Schoening…” He was the art director of Vogue magazine. So we imagine Roger Schoening would be at the shooting, art directing them.

But, of course, art directors from magazines never go to the shootings, almost never. I’m not saying that they might not go once or twice a year, but they, art directors from magazines, almost never go to shootings. So who handles the shooting, based on what the magazine might want? That’s the editor, the fashion editor. And the fashion editor is part art director, and part stylist. So not only do they get an idea how the clothing might come together, they might be doing ten pages on cashmere, or something, but how are we going to shoot this? Who is the model? What’s the hairdresser going to do? What’s the makeup artist going to do? How does that come together? So therefore, a stylist is working with you to book a hairdresser and a makeup artist. What photographer they’re going to use. How it’s going to be shot.

If it’s a cashmere story, are we going to shoot in Scotland? Or are we going to shoot in an apartment in New York? Therefore, that’s something an editor works out.

Now a stylist is slightly different. A stylist is predominately putting together the clothes. So they may well get the belt, the shirt, the sneakers, the socks and the stylist might say, “I think this works pretty well together, let’s shoot this,”  and you go ahead and shoot it. And a really good stylist would be watching whether or not, if you’re shooting a shirt, whether or not the buttons are showing, or whether or not they are they like that… (holds up a cuff to hide a button)?  A good stylist will say, “Is there any chance we could just see that metal button?” You know, especially if you’re advertising a shirt.

Automatically, ultimately the buck stops with the photographer, and any good fashion photographer, if it is fashion, should have an awareness of that. Running back very quickly to photographing cars, you know very often that with cars you put 40 sandbags in the trunk of a car to weigh the back of the car down so it looks more streamlined, as opposed to a car that doesn’t have anything in it. So consequently, you would know to turn the sleeve on the shirt to show the metal button. So the photographer has a responsibility to that, and a good stylist. You’re working with those people, so always: it’s hair, makeup, stylist, editor. These things are a partnership. If you’re shooting, for example, a TV commercial, or directing a TV commercial, it’s very much a partnership.

Where it’s a group effort, so a lot of that happens. In a TV commercial you need a director.  As a photographer, there needs to be somebody in charge. You need good people around. The photographer doesn’t usually do makeup for the models, so you get a good makeup artist. These things are fairly obvious, but they’re very often overlooked.

R: Do you say to yourself, “I’ve worked with that person before. I know they know their job, they’ll do it, and go from there?”

AW: Even if it’s a makeup artist I’ve worked with a lot – it can be very often if  you work with a makeup artist and something comes out and you go….”I don’t like it.”  I’ve worked with this person 100 times. One hundred times he’s done a beautiful job, and suddenly it’s not working

In the end the buck stops here. You’ve got to control all these things. And the funny thing is, sometimes with fashion photographers, not all the time, but fashion photographers in my opinion are sometimes a little bit guilty of not being really strongly thinking about the makeup, and the clothes, and so on. Whereas sometimes a NASCAR photographer, he can tell by the sound of the engine what the car is.

You should know the difference between a low level silk, a high level silk, or regular cotton or brushed cotton. You should know these things. You should obviously know the difference between lambs’ wool and cashmere, or a four level cashmere. You should know these things.

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View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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What about the print?

R: You’ve mentioned that you think the real end product of photography is in the print, and that makes a lot of sense. And you work with an HP (Hewlett Packard) 3100 …?  What makes that suitable for your work?

AW: First of all the machine has to perform well. What does that mean? It means if you are looking at a screen and you’re looking at something that has 31 percent magenta on the screen, you want 30 or 31 or 32 percent magenta on the piece of paper. So the translation from the screen image to the piece of paper should be very, very good. So if you’re looking on the screen at an apple green green and it comes out acid green green, you’ve got a disconnect.

HP is working very, very well, so that the translation from the screen to the paper works very, very, very well. Contrast-wise and color-wise. So the translation is excellent. The other thing that’s very good about these printers, which in my opinion is really remarkable, is that you put through 500 prints or 1000 prints, and they’re consistent. And very low maintenance. Remarkably, incredibly low maintenance. At the moment, we’re servicing our machines about once a year. And we’re not talking about a little old print coming out on 8×10. We’re talking about one of these (waves his hand around toward a number of very large prints on the studio walls).

Not the one at the door, that’s a C print. And not the monkeys. That’s a C print. But all the rest of them are HP.

R: Do you do the C prints in your darkroom?

AW: No. C prints that big I send them out and I have them done outside, but they’re all done from our files and from our master prints. So that, as far as I’m concerned, when we send them out they’re already done.

R: So, for example, you take a Batman picture, or a chrome, how much do you play with that?

AW: It could be gigantic. Look, the basic thing, you’ve got to, you can never rescue totally, if the picture’s not there — the essence and the soul and the power of the picture is not there when you take it, the computer is not going to rescue it.

R: I’m not talking about rescue…

AW: It depends on the image. You can move it gigantically in one direction, and you can actually pull it back in another. Look at the girl by the Frigidaire. I put a small strobe inside the refrigerator, OK? I filtered the strobe quite strongly with an orange red, OK?

I then lit the rest of the room by bouncing off the ceiling a neon green gel. If you look at the contact sheet, that’s what the contact sheet looks like. Now, if you actually look at the green, you go well, there’s a 10 per cent, an 8 per cent more gamma in it than the original That’s because in the original we might bring the original to a certain level and be comfortable with that level in the knowledge that possibly later, on the computer, we can go just a little bit further on  the gamma. But we don’t want to overload the negative, so consequently, we know that going in we can push it a little bit more, with something like that.

So, depending on the image, it’s a hard question to answer because, depending on the image, we are at that point not… We don’t know. Sometimes things are just straightforward things. But the soul and the essence and the power of the picture has to be in the taking.

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Kids / Albert Watson

[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/kids-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_bunny.jpg]
Callie the Rabbit, Sherman, Conn., 2008[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/kids-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_hidenseek.jpg]
Kylie, Hide n Seek, Sherman, Conn., 2008[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/kids-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_cowgirl.jpg]
Callie the Cowgirl, Sherman, Conn., 2008[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/kids-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_loungegirl.jpg]
Ceili at the Lounge, New York City, 2008[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/kids-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_basement.jpg]
Lorelei in Basement, New York City, 2008

Strip Search / Albert Watson

[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_92-cig-closeup-of-burning-ashes-lips.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_58.jpg]
Breaunna, Las Vegas Hilton, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_11.jpg]
Dogs in Car, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_poolaction.jpg]
Wet n' Wild Water Park Series, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_104-woman-in-red-hair-and-red-glasses.jpg]
Paula, Gold Coast, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_129.jpg]
A Motel, Fremont Street, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_003_41.jpg]
Tod Hotel, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_90.jpg]
Fun City, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_105-bw-portrait-of-guy-w-hand-on-face.jpg]
Kris Bossong, Gold Coast Hotel, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_55.jpg]
Adult Movie Sign, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_85.jpg]
Astronaut, Dr. Hammergren's Backyard, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_58a.jpg]
Breaunna, Las Vegas Hilton, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_girlw-tattoo-onback.jpg]
Linda Husjerd, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_103.jpg]
Main Street, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_65-high-heel-lag-on-stovetop.jpg]
Heel, Budget Suites, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_74-women-in-pink-and-white-wigs.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_21a.jpg]
Road to Nowhere, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_55-poolside-shadows-w-red-chair.jpg]
Poolside at the Del Mar Motel, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_44-guy-in-briefs-at-bar.jpg]
Girls' Night at the Olympic Gardens, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_69.jpg]
Breaunna, Budget Suites, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_148-red-green-lighted-nude.jpg]
Breaunna, Budget Suites, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_146-woman-in-orange-on-a-lime-background.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_35-strip-club-spread-face-down-on-floor.jpg]
Mia, Palomino Club, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_21-yellow-couch.jpg]
Couch in The Venetian Hotel, Las Vegas, 2000[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_108-eat-on-building.jpg]
Eats, Old 15, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_stripper.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_002_61.jpg]
Breaunna, Budget Suites, Las Vegas, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_004_4.jpg]
Breaunna, Las Vegas Hilton, 2001[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/strip-search-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_001_56.jpg]
15 North, Exit 25, Las Vegas, 2001

UFO / Albert Watson

[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_19-model-in-black.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_1.jpg]
Radishes, "Lost Diart" Series, New York, 1997[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_watson-sebastian.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_watson2.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_watson3.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_159-model_convertible.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_watson-mossveil.jpg]
Kate Moss in Torn Veil, Marrakech, Moracco, 1993[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_7.jpg]
Gabrielle Reece, Paris, 1989[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_watson1.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_carmendpigment.jpg]
Carmen with Cup & Saucer, New York, 1996[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_charlotte-prada.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_89-redyellowsurroundsmodel.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_7-conflict-between-two-black-men.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_43-multi-slices-mjackson.jpg]
Michael Jackson, New York, 1999[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_mirror.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_19-model-in-red.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_41-bw-model-with-head-on-a-dinner-table.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_177-bw-of-guy-on-floor-with-guitar.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_173-model-on-right-with-ball-and-large-brim.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_150-multi-images-jack.jpg]
Jack Nicholson, New York, 1998 [img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_132-prince.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_112-rapper.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_10-model-in-yellow-with-bird-cage.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_99-dancers-forms.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_96.jpg]
15th-Century Aztec Fan, New York, 1990[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_westwoodshoe.jpg]
Vivienne Westwood shoe, New York City, 1993[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/ufo-albert-watson/thumbs/thumbs_31.jpg]
Gisella, Paris, 1990

Hat Blocks / Albert Watson

[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/hat-blocks-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_hatblock1.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/hat-blocks-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_hatblock2.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/hat-blocks-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_hatblock3.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/hat-blocks-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_hatblock4.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/hat-blocks-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_hatblock5.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/hat-blocks-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_hatblock6.jpg]
[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/hat-blocks-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_hatblock7.jpg]

Classics / Albert Watson

[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_17.jpg]
Monkeys With Mask, New York, 1994[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_26.jpg]
Kate Moss, Marrakech, Moracco, 1993[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_119.jpg]
Abas Chaeai, Marrakech, Moracco, 1997[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_74.jpg]
Kate Moss, Marrakech, Moracco, 1993[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_9.jpg]
Leslie Weiner, Yohji Yamamoto, London, 1989[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_115.jpg]
Keith Richards, New York, 1988[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_25.jpg]
Mick Jagger, Los Angeles, 1992[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_13.jpg]
Gabrielle Reece and Michaela Bercu, Los Angeles, 1989[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_5.jpg]
David Bowie, New York, 1996[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_15.jpg]
Danny Hall, Louisiana State Penitentiary, 1991[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_2.jpg]
Halima Ben Taj, Essaouira, Morocco, 1998 [img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_22.jpg]
Nadege, Paris, 1990[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_42.jpg]
Maria Baba Ahmed, Dawra, Morocco, 1998 [img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_12.jpg]
Tupac Shakur, New York City, 1991[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_117.jpg]
Gardener, Dar Tamsna, Marrakech, Moracco, 1998[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_6.jpg]
Michaela Bercu, Paris, 1989[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_101.jpg]
Gun, London, 1993[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_102.jpg]
Naomi Campbell, Palm Springs, 1989[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_104.jpg]
Mike Tyson, Catskills, N.Y., 1986[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_114.jpg]
Leslie, Yohji Yamamoto, London, 1989[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_130.jpg]
Golden Boy, New York, 1990[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_71.jpg]
Christy Turlington, New York, 1990[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_82.jpg]
Mestapha Elhanch, Marrakech, Moracco, 1997[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_watson-monica.jpg]
Monica Gripman, St. John, U.S. Virgin Islands 1988[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/classics-albert-waston/thumbs/thumbs_59.jpg]
Leslie Navajas, Miami, 1989

View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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What about printers, and does everyone need an HP 3100?

AW: Well, you know the other thing is this, and I understand that many of your readers may be photographers, may be looking at something like that, it’s the 3100 that has the maximum width of a 44” print, which to your average photographer is gigantic. Forty-four inches, you know, and they scale down there. The interesting thing to me is that I consider those machines dirt cheap…. I think those machines are cheap…

R: Really. How much are they?

AW: I think you can get the machines now for 7,500 to eight grand. That’s cheap.  That’s cheap. Now. Eight grand is not cheap if you’re a photographer taking pictures of your kids, or your wife, or your aunt at a birthday party, or a kid blowing out a candle. You’re not going to spend eight grand on a machine like that, but if you’re a working professional photographer, eight grand he should be able to handle even if he pays it off for a year. That is dirt cheap for a machine like that.

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View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

UFO (Unified Fashion Objectives): “A 40-year retrospective of Watson’s best work, pulled from his vast archive. In its pages, a memorable era of style, beauty, fashion, personality, and power is captured for posterity.”  Foreword by Gail Buckland.

Hardcover, 14″ X 11″ (portrait), 400 pages, 350 images approx. Saifu cloth case with printed band Boxed Edition: Hardcover presented in clamshell cloth box with foil debossing.

Published by PQ Blackwell, www.pqblackwell.com

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What the future holds?

R: Do you have another book planned?

AW: Well, that’s not a good question, but of course I do. But it’s not a particularly good question because we’ve just spent six months getting these two books out of here … And basically, the last one, the Vegas book, left on Friday of  last week. So I’m just happy… all I see now is the dust of those two books getting out of here.

There are a couple of projects floating around, some … There’s a project that a whiskey company sponsor wants me to do. A book on landscapes in Scotland. And there’s another project I’m quite interested in… But, I’m quite happy to not be doing another book for the rest of the year.

The daily grind …

AW: You know, I had a lot of that… I had tons and tons and tons and tons of that in my life, too…. Shoot a catalog and get it out … 20 outfits a day, and guess what we do the next day? 20 outfits. And guess what we do the next day? 20 outfits. ….

… and how long can you take pictures?

AW: Somebody asked me about that, and I said, it’s a weird thing about photographers. Photographers just seem to go on forever. I remember three years ago bumping into Irving Penn’s assistant, “How’s Mr. Penn?” I asked, and he said … he was shaking his head and he said to me, he said, “He just likes, really, to do three days a week now.” Of course, he was 90.  “He only likes to do three days a week now,” not the full five. At 90. We should be so lucky.

(Watson turns to Gail Buckland.)

Gail, how old was he? Ninety-two when he died?

GB: He was born in 1917

AW: Yeah, that’s right. And Avedon was born in 1923. So he was six years… so he lived actually longer than Avedon did. And he died a year and a half ago now, or was it a year ago?

GB: Maybe a little bit more. He was ninety three.

AW: Yeah, I think he was pretty close to 93.

GB: He was (still) having exhibitions.

R: And going to them, too?

GB: No, he stopped that.

AW: He never liked anybody taking his picture. I remember that. He had a big show at the Museum of Modern Art. There was a big dinner afterwards that we were invited to. We sat at the table adjacent to him, and it was a funny moment, when the Museum of Modern Art photographer came up to him during the whole thing, and went to take his picture, and he had a napkin in his hand and just as the photographer got there to take his picture the napkin went up in front of his face, and the photographer just got the napkin….. (laughter).

R: Did you ever show at the Witkin?

AW: No. …  We’ve been very low key in New York and what we’ve been doing for the past four years is working galleries and museums in Europe.

R: Is that because you don’t want ….

AW: No, it’s not because we don’t want to. I think it was just … I don’t really have a great or weird answer, or something strange about it. I think that we really wanted to, really practice in Europe, almost. I mean, I could have done a small show in New York, or a bigger show in New York, but we’ve been actually quite low key.

R: So you wanted to get it right?

AW: Well, I think it’s not a matter of  getting just the show right. It’s a matter of  getting the entire system right, of galleries, museums…. What’s the difference between a gallery show and a museum, except that people say we just do less in a gallery than in a museum,  because they have a lot more space.  But there’s more to it than that. Then, also, when you sell prints, how do you sell prints?  And how are you organizing that? And how mucked up is that, and that kind of thing? And really, in the past five, six, seven years, Aaron has done a fantastic job of it.

CH: I find now that I’m retired from the newspaper I take photos of things I’d never have looked at before….

AW: But that happens because you now have allocated some time to that. In other words, you’ve allocated time to suddenly, …  rather than Monday you’ve got to do this, and Tuesday you’ve got to do that, and Thursday do that. And maybe you’ve got to go into the office to do some printing on deadline, or organize something on a Saturday and maybe for 10 minutes on Sunday you do something you’ve got to do. And Monday you’re back into the whole system.

Now you’ve got a little bit of time, and you suddenly say you know there’s some nice looking rocks in my garden that have always interested me and I think I’ll photograph rocks. And then when you go and photograph the rocks, you say I’m not a rock photographer, and the next thing is you photograph the rocks and you make a print of it and then one of the twenty shots you take works, and then you say “That worked really well, I should apply that to the other ones, that technique,” and you go down a different road.

But a lot of what you learn by doing your daily grind… I would say the biggest thing for a photojournalist is to move up in his camera size, because you have time, you know. Obviously the nature of photojournalism is that you need mobility, you have seconds to grab pictures, moments, sometimes a little bit longer, but not long, you know.

You can buy an old 4×5 camera for nothing, with some nice lenses, some beautiful Zeiss lenses, and you can buy that, and suddenly …  And it will be uncomfortable for you, and awkward for you, and annoying for you, and so on. But maybe if you have a darkroom, or if you can load that stuff onto your computer, you might be pleasantly surprised. And, as always, when with something new, even when you get a new car, things are not quite what you remember of your last car. It’s annoying, but then eventually, of course, you figure it out. The more you do it, the more fluent you become with it.

R: Thank you very much.

AW: Thank you for coming all this way.

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To view Watson’s portfolios visit:

www.albertwatson.com

Video interviews and gathering behind the scenes content from the shoot, The Macallan Whisky, one of his latest projects.

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ALL ALBERT WATSON PHOTOS ARE COPYRIGHT  of ALBERT WATSON & USED WITH PERMISSION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHER.

© 2010 James Friedman

U435

Interior Design

Curiosity led me to cut my collection of golf balls in half to see what the cores looked like. To my surprise, what I found inside inspired me to consider that I could discover, in the unlikeliest of places, elegant formal qualities, unpredictable color schemes and metaphor. Interior Design has moved me to be enthusiastic about abstraction, an exciting corollary to my work as a documentary photographer.

Incidentally, I do not play golf.

View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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Friedman on Friedman

As a five-year old using a Kodak Brownie camera, I took a self-portrait, became fascinated with photography and have been photographing ever since. Self-taught in photography until college, I was a participant in The Ohio State University Honors Program and earned a B.F.A. degree with Distinction in Photography. Subsequently, I was chosen to participate in Toward A Whole Photography, an experimental graduate program directed by Minor White at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Later, while earning an M.A. degree in photography from San Francisco State University, I worked as an assistant to Imogen Cunningham, one of the preeminent figures in the history of photography. As a teacher, curator, picture editor, and as a portrait, architectural, commercial and personal documentary photographer, I’ve enjoyed a wide-ranging career in photography. My work has been exhibited internationally and been published in numerous books and discussed in Artforum, Arts, Afterimage, The Boston Globe, The San Francisco Chronicle, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Selected from 800 international applicants, I was awarded the Aaron Siskind Foundation Individual Photographer’s Fellowship and have been the recipient of seven Individual Excellence Awards from the Ohio Arts Council. I was nominated for the 2008, 2009 and 2010 Governor’s Awards for the Arts in Ohio. In 2008, as an independent photographic educator without institutional affiliation, I was nominated for the prestigious Excellence in Photographic Teaching Award, which recognizes outstanding international teachers of photography. I am based in Columbus, Ohio, and offer classes, workshops and individual instruction in photography anywhere. My commissioned projects include architectural, fashion, curatorial and documentary assignments, photography for publication, and large-scale murals for interior or exterior commercial and residential spaces. My photographic portraits include Andy Warhol and Tina Turner, as well as lesser-known but equally vibrant subjects.

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Links

http://www.fractionmag.com/pastIssues/issue7.htm
http://2waylens.blogspot.com/2009/06/james-friedman.html
http://mwernertruth.blogspot.com/2009/06/two-way-lens-and-james-friedman.html
http://theonlinephotographer.typepad.com/the_online_photographer/2009/06/random-excellence-james-friedman.html

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Copyright 2010 James Friedman

Another tree bites the dust ...

The Art of Being Lucky

We photographers in general are convinced that the key to great photography is found in the equipment and in the talent of the photographer.  There is great truth in this, especially when the subject is standing still.  Once the subject starts moving, the burden shifts a bit, and given sufficient equipment and sufficient talent, the deciding factor then shifts to the individual’s ability to anticipate “the” moment or moments.
Baseball, because of the pace and nature of the game, probably provides more opportunities than any other sport for the photographer to predict the next moment, but for all the planning one does, there is never any guarantee that the action will be what was hoped for or expected.  The action of baseball is unpredictable, and therefore, photographing it well not only requires the combination of skill, equipment, anticipation, but also possibly the most important element, luck.
Branch Rickey is best known as the man who signed Jackie Robinson to a professional baseball contract, and in so doing, changed baseball and America forever.  He was not known as a photographer, but may have given us a piece of advice well worth heeding:  “Luck is the residue of design.”

Big fan in Syracuse.

So – heeding Branch Rickey’s words, the best I can do is make a plan and then hope I get lucky with the results.

I’ve spent most of my nearly 64 years on baseball fields as player, coach and umpire.  Now, most of my baseball work is done from the stands or photo pit with a camera.  My experience allows me the ability to anticipate plays, to think ahead a bit to predict the flow of a play, to know where the action is likely to take place.
Shooting baseball is a lot like playing shortstop.  You need to think a play ahead.  The player must consider what he will do with the ball if it is hit to him, while the photographer needs to consider where he will aim his camera.
The questions each must consider are the same – What is the situation?  The score, inning count, outs are all factors.  What will the pitcher throw?  Will the runner steal?  Will the batter bunt?  What to do on a ground ball – go for two, take the out, throw to the plate?  Where will the outfielder throw on a base hit?  On a fly ball?  Will the runner try to score from second?  These are all part of the anticipation.

My questions also have to include the contingencies.  If I am positive the runner will steal, I might manually focus on second base and hope something good doesn’t happen  elsewhere.  From the photo pit on the third base side, I can manually focus on home plate and second base because they are nearly equidistant from me.  This overcomes the auto focus problem that is caused when the shortstop cuts in front to the camera long enough to disrupt the focus from the runner to him.

Flying catch ...

Location, location, location

The photographers pits – at the far end of each dugout, are generally thought of as the best place to shoot from.  Not necessarily.  It is a great spot for shooting the pitcher, the action at home plate  and plays at first base if I’m on that side.  A down side is that since it is at ground level a lot of people on the field can get in the way.  I also shoot from behind the plate, but only for batter-pitcher-catcher-umpire shots.  It gets crowded around home plate, but some interesting shots happen.
For many action shots, I prefer to shoot from the aisle, about 12 rows back from the field, in the front row of the second deck, or from other spots high in the ball park depending on what type of shots I want.
I use a 70-200 f2.8 lens for most of my shots, and can add a 2x extender to shoot from upstairs.  There are a couple of spots where I use an 85mm f1.8 lens to shoot batters, especially when the light gets a little iffy.  Sometimes I will use a 50mm f1.8 to get action shots at first base from the pit or the front row of the seats.  I mix in other lenses depending on the shot or effect I want. It helps to have more than one camera body to make the switching easier, but it’s pretty much impossible to do it in the three-plus seconds that it takes for the batter to hit the ball and run to first.
Like many sports photographers (most?) I am guilty of wanting to get every possible exciting shot.  There is something distressing about  preparing for a steal of second and have the better hit a home run.
So – I generally have to be content with what I have in front of me, and not moan too much over the shots I miss.  An important factor here – rather than just cursing my fate for missing the batter hitting a home run, I aim for the outfielder and hope to catch him doing something interesting. Sometimes, a shot of the outfielder watching the ball leave the field is the best that can happen in that situation, but can still create an interesting photo

It’s hard not to be a fan

"OK, you guys, let me explain the rules."

I have trained myself to not watch the game through the viewfinder, which is difficult.  I try to watch the pitcher with one eye to get the timing of the play, then shift back to the viewfinder for the shots.  This helps me to get in sync with the batter or stealing runner.  As in batting, follow through is important. Even though the ability to fire seven or eight shots per second does a lot, the goal is still to get “the” shot every time, and many times the best shot is one that happens just after the main action.   I have to fight the tendency to stop when the action does.
I will probably never lose the image (it’s in my mind still, but not on my camera)  of a pitcher on his knees, laughing at himself for fouling up a play.  I have the play itself  recorded, but that was not the winner of a shot – the pitcher laughing at himself would have been.
The lesson here – keep shooting and throw away what isn’t useful during post production – not from the camera.  Bring enough CF cards so you don’t have to erase from the camera – you really can’t see the shot till it’s on your computer.
An important post production tip is to actually look at the photos.  I have often been surprised that in what I thought was a throw away shot there was actually something that turned it into a pretty interesting photo.

Quantity and quality

When I shoot professional baseball (mostly the AAA Syracuse Chiefs or the class A Auburn Doubledays) I usually shoot some 400-500 shots of the on field action if I shoot the whole game. Most are of the batter, since that is where most of the interesting things happen.  I get a lot of the pitchers, but pitcher shots tend to be very repetitive, so there is a great deal of choice in getting the “right” photo.  The shots tend to deal with grip, arm flexion and an occasional defensive gem on a ball hit back at him.  I try to spend part of the game concentrating on defense – the hardest thing for me to do because of the difficulty in anticipating where the ball will be hit.
I also throw in umpire photos and away from the action photos of players, coaches vendors and fans.  If I am assigned to shoot for a story about a specific player, most of my shots will be of him, both on offense and defense.
In AAA baseball, there is always the chance of catching a player in a rehab assignment.  John Smoltz made a start against Syracuse last year, so I spent two innings taking shots of him.  Steve Strasburg, Washington National’s star of the future is putting in a short tour in Syracuse on his way to the majors.  These become news shots, but most shots are background to a story or part of a collection.  There is a big difference between what is a news photo and what is simply a good photo – and most of us are really after the latter.
The inflatable man seeming to cheer the home run, the slightly blurry baseball in front of the even more blurred eye surgery billboard, the bat shattering, the batter in an uncommon position, the ball seemingly attached to the bat on its backswing – all make for good photographs and make a day at the ballpark, camera in hand, time very well spent.

-Herm Card, Syracuse, NY

Stephen Strasburg pitching for the Syracuse Chiefs

Chiefs' infielder Seth Bynum before suspension for amphetamine use.

Beat you to it ...

It's behind you ...

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email: hermphoto@aol.com

Candice Watkins

Candye Kane, 2009

Building the Cultural Bridge

Candice Watkins

ragazine.cc: As an organizer of the annual Comfest Street Fair, among numerous other items listed on your resume in the About Candice Watkins graf in your blog, you’ve done about everything and anything a person can to promote the arts in and around Columbus. What motivates you to participate?

CW: There is an inner need to work toward a better world, a place where people of all kinds are equal and talent is nurtured so everyone can be the best they can be. The arts and humanities have been venues for me as they translate well to community work and bridge cultural and economic gaps allowing for public opportunity to participate in sometimes heretofore unaccessible activities.

rag: You’re a visual artist engaged in neon and other light studies, but you’re also a musician and photographer. What’s your ‘favorite medium’?  The one that puts you in the driver’s seat of expression?

Roger Wilson, The Majestics, High Beck Tavern, Columbus, Ohio, 2008

CW: I enjoy being flexible, working in light is like working in photography so if I had to choose it would be both neon and photography. Both are the result of manipulation of light. Thought I also really enjoy event production, in that it allows me to share a vision with thousands of people at a time.

rag: You take a lot of photographs of musicians …

CW: I am a music historian or what is sometimes called an ethnomusicologist, as well as a collector of historical photos and documentation for mid-western artists. I continue to document performances myself and have a collection ranging from the 1960s through 2010.

rag: Is this a special subject for you, or one of many?

CW: I also shoot a lot of beaches and flowers – favorites for me. Check out my myspace.com/jazzneonfestivals4u and facebook albums.

rag: If you could sit down for a couple of mojitos with any musician at all, who would it be, and why?

CW: I  would like to drink with Rahsaan Roland Kirk and Art Tatum – both favorites of mine that I did not get to meet. Of course, I did get to hang with many folks who are gone but whom I loved, like Royal “Rusty” Bryant, Hank Marr, Jimmie McGriff and Frank Foster, and still do hang with Gene Walker, Sean Carney, Bobby Floyd, Derek Dicenzo and Shaunt Booker, among many, many more I am blessed to know.

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A recording done at Jazz & Eggs Jam Sessions, The River Club, Columbus, Ohio, in 1998, titled “Jam For Jitney” in honor of Candice Watkins’ father, Jitney, who had just passed away. The piece was a small part of the Jam’s ongoing music that day. Based in Horace Silver’s “Song for Our Fathers”, it sailed on for more than half an hour.

“Jam For Jitney”

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ABOVE: Derek DiCenzo, top, at the Rahsaan Roland Kirk Scholarship Fundraiser in 2008, in Columbus. Sean Carney, bottom left, of the Sean Carney Band, winner of the International Blues Alliance award in 2008. Taken at Blues for a Cure. Danielle Schnebelen, lower right, of Trampled Under Foot, at the 2009 Blues for a Cure concert in Columbus.

Willie Pooch Johnson 2008

Marcie Vaughn 2010

Harold Smith, The Lobby, Columbus, Ohio 2009

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Comfest Street Fair:
Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, June 25, 26, & 27, 2010

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Watkins, with her ”time travel buddies”, is the author of a book from Arcadia Press titled “Columbus: The Musical Crossroads”.  The premise is that travel in the early to mid-20th Century was overland; the national road and major train lines went thru Columbus, and the music did too. “It was a major player,  just like those cities that have capitalized on it more.” The book is available online at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Target and other booksellers.

Candice Watkins can be reach at comfeststfair2@cs.com.

New Port Richey, Florida

“A Camera Is No Substitute For Vision”

I had a strong interest in photography from an early age, and while I studied English literature at Ohio State University (B.A., M.A.), I was continually drawn to the work of favorite photographers (at that time Diane Arbus and Gary Winogrand). I took an undergraduate photo class and learned to process black and white film and make prints. After teaching Freshman English for ten years, I returned to school and majored in Advertising Illustration at Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. From there I assisted many photographers in Los Angeles for two years before starting my own commercial studio in 1989.

Shadows

I always look for strongly graphic elements in the subjects I want to photograph. I look for strong primary colors, background negative space, and a subject with some sort of story. It doesn’t have to be a narrative story, but it has to convey an atmosphere or feeling. Sometimes just a beautiful graphic is enough. I prefer to shoot from a tripod simply because the tripod offers more control. You can slow shutter speeds down, and there is less chance of the subject being soft even at faster shutter speeds. I like the fact that a tripod slows you down and makes you think harder about what you’re trying to accomplish. Of course, using a tripod is not always possible, and many of the shots here are handheld shots, but if at all possible I use the tripod.

Because I pay a lot of attention to shutter speed and aperture, I usually keep the camera in its full manual mode. Unless the subject is backlit, I also try to use a handheld incident meter instead of relying on the camera’s metering system. The incident meter will tell you how much light is falling on the subject and give you a reading based on the light hitting the subject in the scene. A correctly exposed scene is often drained of all drama because the camera’s meter is trying to compensate for a dark background. The “correct” exposure is not always the best exposure. I have learned to see the subject the way I want it to look in the photograph, which is often not the way it looks in reality. The incident meter helps with this assessment. While the meters in today’s cameras are very sophisticated, they are no substitute for your vision and how you see the subject and want it to be seen in your photograph.

While I have good equipment (especially lenses), I try hard not to fall into the trap of thinking that good photography is about good equipment. Good photographs are the result of the photographer’s knowledge of light, not so much the result of how expensive his or her camera is. I once assisted a very successful photographer in Los Angeles who said “Equipment is not the answer.” That has always stuck with me. I try to think outside the box. I think hard about how the subject would look when shot with different lenses and at different apertures.

Red Gate

The shot of the red gate, for example, was shot with a 300mm lens on a tripod about twenty feet from the subject. This focal length produced the foreshortening that gave the gate a look I couldn’t get with anything else. This shot was taken right at sunset when the light is especially warm and made the red in the gate really pop. Because light and how it behaves is so infinitely complex, we will never exhaust its possibilities. I learn something new every time I shoot, and I always try to remember that there are new things to be learned. Many, many times I have gone into the studio thinking a shot would take one or two days only to still find myself shooting five days later. The shot of the martini glass was like that, with many problems to be overcome before I finally arrived at the simple, graphic shot I was seeing in my mind’s eye.

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View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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Rob Mustard is retired from teaching, and from professional photography. He lives in El Segundo, California, with his wife, Deborah, and these days finds his time consumed by riding bikes, playing guitar and taking pictures  for fun, not profit.

All work copyright 1990-2010, Rob Mustard.
For contact information, see http://www.robmustard.com

A girl attends a ceremony in Duk Payuel in December 2009. One out of every seven children in southern Sudan dies before his or her fifth birthday, according to United Nations' "Scary Statistics -- Southern Sudan" report.

©2009 Michelle Gable

Lost Boys returned to Sudan

·

In December 2009, I traveled to southern Sudan with former Syracuse Post-Standard reporter Maureen Sieh, who won a World Affairs Journalism Fellowship administered by the International Center for Journalists. We spent three weeks following four former Lost Boys, now living in Syracuse, N.Y., who returned to their home villages to build clinics, schools and wells.

Villagers greet former “lost boys” as they returned to their village in southern Sudan.

In 1987, John Dau, Gabriel Bol Deng, Daniel Amet and Angelo Kiir were among 27,000 boys sent fleeing across the East African desert when northern government soldiers ravaged their villages during the civil war in southern Sudan. Thousands died of diseases, gunfire, and attacks by wild animals. Dau, Deng, Amet, and Kiir made it to refugee camps in Ethiopia and Kenya, and eventually found a home in Syracuse in 2001. Everything they have done to build a new life in Syracuse has been devoted to the cause of helping their communities back home.

As adults, these former Lost Boys of Sudan, named after the fictional characters in “Peter Pan,” are bringing hope to their homeland. Here are some photographs from my travels.

— Michelle Gabel, Syracuse, N.Y.  April 2010

Michelle Gabel

[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_01sudan.jpg]
A woman walks toward The Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan. Burning cow dung creates a lot of smoke and is used to repel flies and mosquitoes, which carry harmful diseases. Malaria is hyper-endemic in southern Sudan. The Duk Lost Boys Clinic was initiated by former Lost Boy, John Dau, of Syracuse, N.Y. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_02sudan.jpg]
A woman in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan, cares for her family's cows. Cows symbolize wealth in southern Sudan. Men use cows to pay dowry for a young woman they want to marry. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_04sudan.jpg]
Martha Aman Mayen lead villagers of Duk Payuel in prayer and songs. Southern Sudan is predominantly Christian and animist. Northern Sudan is Islamic. During Sudan's civil war, the northern government attempted to convert the south to Islam. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_05sudan.jpg]
Mary Atit Thong, 75, holds one end of a stick as her daughter leads her home after visiting The Duk Lost Boys Clinic, a five-minute walk from their home. She came to the clinic in December because she had diarrhea, but she also wanted to restore her vision. When northern Arab soldiers returned to Duk Payuel during the Civil War in 1994, a soldier beat her with the butt of his gun. She lost her vision in 2005. "My eye is always in pain," she said. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_07sudan.jpg]
Alang Majuk Manyang, 16, right, traveled two hours to the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel, southern Sudan, to give birth to her son, Akim Mathei. Her husband, Mathei Bol Atem, is shown with her, holding their baby. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_08sudan.jpg]
Juliana Cheruiyot, a Kenyan midwife, cut the umbilical cord off Juliana Mayon within minutes after she was born at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in December. A traditional birth attendant is shown in the background. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_09sudan.jpg]
Achol Akim Aleu holds her 2 1/2-year-old son, Akoy Malual, as nurse Paul Aleer tries to find the child's vein to draw blood. Behind Aleu is Samuel Juma Malual, clinical officer at the Duk Lost Boys Clinic in Duk Payuel. Akoy came with a running nose and cough. He was diagnosed with pneumonia. "Everybody gets respiratory diseases because of the weather and congestion in the village," Malual said. "Sometimes five people sleep in one room on the floor. We try to teach them two people in one room." Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_11sudan.jpg]
Rebecca Aliet dances before receiving her certificate for completing the traditional birth attendant workshop organized in December by the Duk Lost Boys Clinic. Aliet was one of 25 women who learned how to deliver healthy babies. Traditional birth attendants are the mothers and grandmothers who deliver most of the babies in southern Sudan, but many of them are not trained. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_14sudan.jpg]
An elementary school student in Duk Payuel practices English as a classmate rests in the tree above. More than 90 percent of children in southern Sudan attend school under trees. Eighty-five percent of adults in southern Sudan do not know how to read or write. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_15sudan.jpg]
A young boy manages a rice stall in downtown Duk Payuel, where there are no stores or major markets. People usually put their money together and then send someone to a market about 12 hours away to buy lentil, rice, oil, soap and other goods to sell in the village. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_16sudan.jpg]
When southern Sudan officials came to Duk Payuel to encourage people to vote in the upcoming multiparty national election in April 2010, villagers killed a cow in celebration. The officials also encouraged people to stop the interethnic fighting because instability in the area could affect the January 2011 referendum vote for independence from the North. A UN helicopter that carried the officials to Duk Payuel is shown in the background. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_17sudan.jpg]
Three children in Duk Payuel watch a United Nations helicopter take off after southern Sudan officials came to the village to encourage people to vote in April in the first multiparty election in 24 years. They also encouraged people to stop the interethnic fighting because instability in the area could affect the January 2011 referendum vote to separate from the northern government. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_22sudan.jpg]
Saint Josephine Bakita Clinic will focus on women and children said Daniel Amet, a former employee at St. Joseph Hospital and Health Center in Syracuse, N.Y., who built the clinic and drilled two water wells in his home village, Malakalel, in southern Sudan. The clinic is shown in the background middle right. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_27sudan.jpg]
Women sing and dance as Gabriel Bol Deng, of Syracuse, visits Ariang, his home village, for the third time since fleeing the war in 1987. He has raised nearly $200,000 for Ariang to build a school and wells. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_29sudan.jpg]
Gabriel Bol Deng greets Awien Koth, a relative, shortly after he arrived in Ariang on a sunny Sunday morning in December. Koth, 48, showed Deng a painful swelling on her left hand. She said she needed medicine. As villagers marched behind Deng, they told him about their needs; medicine, school uniforms and clinic. "Bol must help us,'' they sang in Dinka. Standing next to Deng is Garang Daniel Amet, one of the "lost boys'' of Syracuse. Amet is building the St. Josephine Bakita Clinic in Malakalel. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_30sudan.jpg]
Nay Kiir Akol, a relative, leads Gabriel Bol Deng to the tree where Deng's mother and his placenta are buried. Deng's uncle, Garang Deng Majok, performed a traditional water ceremony asking God's blessing for his nephew's health and spirituality. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_31sudan.jpg]
People gather water from one of the six wells Gabriel Bol Deng, of Syracuse, drilled in his village, Ariang, in southern Sudan. People from nearby villages walk several miles to get water for their families. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_33sudan.jpg]
Ariang school children march and sing in Dinka, "The SPLA (Sudan People's Liberation Army) has tried through the gun to end the war, but the real peace will come from education." Gabriel Bol Deng, a graduate student at LeMoyne College, has raised about $200,000 for Ariang. He decided to build a school when he saw children learning under trees in his village. He also drilled six wells. A crumbling mud hut is shown in the foreground. Photo by Michelle Gabel[img src=http://ragazine.cc/wp-content/flagallery/michelle-gabel/thumbs/thumbs_34sudan.jpg]
A young boy runs after the vehicle Gabriel Bol Deng rides in as he visits Ariang in December 2009, his third visit to his home village since he fled the war in 1987. He first went home in 2006 to find his parents. He would later learn that they died of natural causes. Five uncles and two brothers were killed during the 21-year-old civil war. Photo by Michelle Gabel

To view larger photos from the gallery, please enter the FS button.

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A link to the multi-media piece that appeared at the Syracuse Post-Standard newspaper website: Lost Boys Come Home.

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Michelle Gabel is an award-winning photojournalist who has worked for The Post-Standard, the daily newspaper in Syracuse, N.Y., since 1993. Her work has also appeared in The New York Times, USA Today and the Detroit Free Press, among other publications.

She has documented a diverse array of human interest stories in the U.S. and abroad, including following the battle of a breast cancer patient during the year leading up to her death; the effects of environmental pollution caused by IBM in its birthplace of Endicott, N.Y.; the closing of a long-time, family-owned dry cleaning business; and the day-to-day reality of a couple raising 15 adopted children. Her recent international work includes a trip to Ghana, West Africa, to photograph a community’s efforts in furthering girls’ education, the building of a local library, and a Liberian family in a Ghanaian refugee camp preparing to resettle in Central New York. In December 2009, Gabel traveled to southern Sudan to photograph four young Sudanese men, now living in Syracuse, N.Y., who are helping to rebuild their homeland.

She has received honors from the National Press Photographers Association, the Associated Press and Gannett newspapers.

Michelle can be contacted at: mgabel@twcny.rr.com

© 2009 Michelle Gable

©Teknari

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From the photography studios of

Photographer, videographer, artist. Brent Williamson. Teknari.

The imagery speaks for itself.

From the blog:
“Up until this point with my photography, I have been mostly shooting for the sake of learning how to shoot, so I have not minded doing all these “one off” model shoots.  A model comes in, and I shoot her with a concept in mind, or I just do what inspires me at the time.  Nothing more was in mind other than learning how to shoot, and get the best pictures possible.”

Teknari:
“I first heard the term Teknari in the years after the Berlin wall came down.  In the Soviet Union after that time, not many people did very will economically, but young technically savy people did well, and the slang to refer to those people was ‘Teknari’.

“For some reason that word stuck in my head and I kind of adopted it.

“Interestingly, I can’t seem to find any documentation backing up my memory of this word and what it’s meaning was.  I am now just making it my own.  I am claiming it ”

Williamson works out of JungleScience Gallery and Art Laboratories in Binghamton, NY. He is currently developing new projects that will document the process of his work.

Images from his series, Edison

View larger photos from the gallery please enter the FS button.

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See also:

http://www.teknari.com/
http://teknari.blogspot.com/
E-mail Teknari@JungleScience.com

©2010 Chip Willis

Painting with Light

The art of motion in still photographs

Chip is based in Columbus, Ohio. We first saw his work in an exhibition at Jungle Science Gallery in March. It was too good not to ask if he would mind sharing. Chip doesn’t say much about his work, or the way he approaches it, allowing the images and techniques to speak for themselves. With this in mind, visit his website at http://chipwillis.com to see other work and to read his blog.

 Biograph: The Southern Tier

Andrei Guruianu, Poetry

John Brunelli, Photography

Artist-Photographer John Brunelli and poet Andrei Guruianu recently teamed up to produce a book documenting with poems and photos the present state of being of the upstate New York area around Binghamton, known collectively as The Southern Tier. In a forward to their book, “How We Are Now,” Guruianu writes of engaging ”in artistic dialogue that benefits both artists and audience,” in other words, a collaborative effort in which one and one make three.

Many of the depictions, in both word and image, characterize changes taking place not only in the aging rust belt cities of the northeast, but also in communities around the world. Here, the new has become old. but there is also the moment of silence or longing captured that in and of itself becomes monumental.

The Last Man Standing

 I am tired of living in a dying village
counting what hasn’t been lost yet
until I am withered and I fall asleep

 … tired of looking outside the window
at dust of the past and plow of the future
kicking up choking on even more dust.

 I am tired of always opening
my two swollen eyes in an empty white room
from which I am conspicuously absent.

 … tired of my inflated non-being
standing there taking up too much space
like a reflection in a hall of carnival mirrors.

 I am tired of distorting the truth
to satisfy an-already-come-to conclusion
writhing in the strangle hold of consequence

 … tired of sweeping the trail day and night
Eternity complicit in the crumbs I find
between the guilty pages of a red carnet.

Perfect Blue Houses

This could be the poster town of uncorruptable good.
The old scent of coffee chasing a distant memory.

 This could be the river screwed into a time and place,
the lights unharvested and steady covering the rust.

 This is silence housed in layers of paint and clapboard,
falling leaves that muscle in on the turf.

 This is the formula for hiding what is empty.
Nights of many matches burning down to your fingertips.

Where I Lay My Head… 

 When I say girl I am referring to an ideal. 
It crumbles like a weakness in the face of standards.
Impossibly perfect alignments— 

flesh and stars 
steel and patent leather 
hair the color of your own perspective

When I say girl I mean the roundness of blue,
the soft angle of shoulders. 
Two arcs of light folded over the edge of darkness. 

When I say girl I wish to seal a forgotten promise,
begin telling the story whose ending is yet to be written. 
Under a requisite black sky; everything veiled and out in the open.

“How We Are Now” was published by Split Oak Press, Vestal, New York, with financial assistance from the Chenango County Council on the Arts. Copies are available for $10.00 each from the press, and from Brunelli or Guruianu. See also, www.johnbrunelli.com and www.andreiguruianu.com.

© David Aschkenas

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Sleep Walking

Thoughts on my work…

This series is made up of older work along with new work.  My biggest challenge was to give a cohesive “feel” and “look” to the entire series of 28 images. The originals were a combination of black & white film, color film, Polaroid prints, Polaroid SX-70, 8×10 Polaroid image transfers, digital photographs, and chromes of different formats. No plug ins or presets were used.  Each image was treated as an individual image with layering of textures, burning, dodging, hue and saturation adjustments.

The name SLEEP WALKING was arrived at after the series was completed, because that’s the way it made me feel.

-David Aschkenas,  Pittsburgh, Pa., 2010

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David Aschkenas is recognized as a fine art photographer and is a recipient of the National Endowment for the Arts grant. A freelance photographer for 30 years, he is doing Annual Reports, Advertising, and Editorial photography for clients worldwide. His photographs are represented in the Polaroid Collection, Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pa., Minneapolis Inst. of the Arts, Bayer Corp., University of Alaska Art Museum, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, Howard Heinz Endowment, and many private collections. His work has been exhibited at The Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, Pa., Kim Foster Gallery, NYC, Moore College of Art, Phila. Pa., Allentown Art Museum, Southern Alleghenies Art Museum, Friends of Photography, Carmel, Ca., Mendelson Gallery, Pittsburgh, Pa., Clarence Kennedy Gallery, Polaroid Corp. and many others.

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More images and many other subjects, can be viewed on Aschkenas’s web site: http://www.daschkenasphoto.com. He can be contacted by e-mail at: daschkenas@earthlink.net

Angora Goat

Dodging the limelight

Though drawing and painting have been my passion from a very early age, photography has always fascinated me, too. Taking photos allowed me to remember much more of the places I went, the people I knew. It never did evolve beyond the taking of snapshots though, mainly because I spent all my time and efforts in drawing and painting. But a couple of years ago, I gradually started to take it more seriously. I started to get addicted to going to old abandoned buildings and photographing them. I also looked at thousands of photos taken by other people and each day I raised the bar a little for myself.

Frankly, I don’t really care about stuff like the rule of thirds, or any other technical do’s and don’ts. I don’t think when I photograph, but I look. And when what I see feels right, I press the shutter. So I guess you could say I am an emotional photographer, haha. I am not easily satisfied with what I create.

Beside derelict buildings, I really like animals too. They are unpredictable and fickle, but that makes getting a good shot even more rewarding. I hope I can capture a bit of their personality. It bewilders people when you take both cute cat photos and scary dirty deserted rooms. I think most people want an artist to repeat the same thing over and over again, in a slightly different jacket, and looking around, I feel most popular artists give these people what they want. But there’s too much of interest in life to focus on just one thing. And life’s too short – so I will keep dodging the limelight.

-Ineke Kamps, Holland, 2010

Both Doomed

If you’re real quiet you can hear them

Closet ghost having a rest

Oink

Drink Me II

The girl has come undone

Kitchen Stories

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Ineke was born in 1972 in the south of Holland and studied illustration design.  She exhibited her photographs and paintings throughout her native Netherlands and in Belgium and Germany.  “I generally am just unprofitable and maladjusted without prospect of cure,” she says.  To see additional photographs and her paintings, visit: http://www.inekekamps.nl, and you can email her at: i.kamps@tiscali.nl

Welcome

Another New Beginning

The end of one year and the beginning of another … the end of one decade and the beginning of another.  Looking back, it’s kind of hard to believe we’ve learned anything about ourselves we didn’t already know, and many times tried to change. We’ve seen greed unbridled from Wall Street to Dubai, sports figures and politicians  revealed for the human beings that they are, common people with uncommon talents taking center stage, a victorious political party unable to deliver on its promises, and a world still waiting for its next real heroes to surface. Thank god for the arts. When all else fails, they still deliver.  
We’re glad you’re there for us; we’re glad to be back for you. This issue ofWe’re glad you’re there for us; we’re glad to be back for you. This issue of ragazine.cc , the on-line magazine of arts, information and entertainment, continues into its 6^th season with the usual eclectic mix of poetry, fiction, photography, art, politics, the law, and more – all of which has helped keep us afloat these last five years. If you haven’t taken the time to read through the Creative Non-Fiction pieces selected by CNF editor Leslie Heywood, take twenty minutes or a half hour and do yourself the favor.  You won’t regret it. Need a laugh? Find out why everyone should go to law school in the Casual Observer piece by Mark Levy. Wondering how to protect your intellectual property? Check out our Feeding the Starving Artist column by Mark and his associate Ryan Miosek.  Poetry editor Joe Weil has harvested the poetry of Raymond Hammond, and poetry in translation from Mario Moroni. See a world deconstructed by artist Roger Williams, and a long view of Iceland by photographer Chuck Haupt. Step into the fiction of Elizabeth Spencer and Alex Straaik; sneak a peak at Art Basel Miami, and hear Jeff Katz’s take on music, starting with the complex issue of vinyl packaging. Leave us your comments. Your feedback means a lot to us.

Thanks for reading! And don’t forget to tell your friends — we need all the help we can get. But then, who doesn’t?

Happy holidays, and a healthy and peaceful New Year!

 – MRF

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Images of a vanishing present

________________

Project Alexys

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Ely Park Project

Brazilian native Eliane Lima is studying cinema at Binghamton University. More of her  photos from the Project Alexys and Ely Park Project,  as well as other photographic collections and short films, can be seen at http://www.elianelima.us and http://www.vimeo.com/user942850/videos.  Some of these photographs appear in the CNY Artist Database.

Iceland: Land of Contrast

‘Other-worldly” — those are the words that come to mind as you travel Iceland’’s “Ring Road” and try to describe what you’’re seeing. From glaciers to fjords, from black sand beaches to steam-spewing geysers, from desolate “moonscapes” to starkly beautiful mountains and waterfalls, no two places are quite the same. And they’’re all unforgettable.

With its ever-changing weather, Iceland is a photographer’s dream. No two days, no two hours, are ever alike. Wait two minutes and the light will change. The clouds  are among the most dramatic I’’ve ever seen. This island nation, which borders the Arctic Circle, sparks creativity at every turn and is one of the most visually exciting locations I’ve ever visited.

The mountain range, Víkurfjall, with its reflection in a pond,
dominates along the east coast.

A steampot at the geothermal area of Hveravellir. Iceland
is one of the most active volcanic regions in the world.

Barren landscape surrounds  Mount Lomagnupur along
Iceland’s Ring Road in  Suðurland, the south.

The turquoise-colored water at the Blue Lagoon, situated
in a lava field and created by geothermal water.

Clouds hang over the highland desert.

Mountains covered with moss by the coast near Iceland’s Ring Road
in Suðurland, the south.

Four-wheel-drive vehicles drive the Kjolur Route through the
highland desert.

Icebergs in the lagoon at the bottom of Vatnajökull,
the largest glacier in Iceland.

Chuck Haupt is based in upstate New York. His award-winning work during a 30-year career at the Binghamton Press & Sun-Bulletin is recognized throughout the region for its impact and excellence. Chuck is known for his captivating images of residents of New York’s Southern Tier, images that reveal character and evoke a powerful response.

His work as a photojournalist has taken him to a wide variety of places, from hospital operating rooms to professional golf tournaments, to lower Manhattan in the hours after the 9/11 attacks, and into the homes of ordinary people with extraordinary stories to tell.

Ragazine INTERVIEW:

When did you get into photography?

I always had an eye for details and started with a Kodak Instamatic that I got free from saving box tops way back when. In 1965 I got a Polaroid “Swinger” and soon after my first 35 mm. I haven’t stopped shooting since.

How does your approach to photography differ between what you shoot as a news photog and what you shoot ‘for fun’?

When shooting a news assignment you are shooting something specific, usually to accompany a story and reach a specific publication’s audience. When shooting for fun, you are seeing things in a different light.

Have you done much with digital photography?

I have been shooting in digital since the first the first Nikon D1 came out in 1999. I have made the change back to “full frame,” now that models of the “FX” digital camera with 12.1 megapixel sensor has been released. At first you really had size limitations with the 2.7 megapixel sensor of the early digital cameras. Today, if you want to spend the money, you can shoot 35mm with up to a 24.4 megapixel sensor. Shooting RAW format gives you all the control you need in preparing your images for publications or prints, the same, I feel, as when shooting film.

What do you think the future is for young people who want to enter the profession of photography?

If you have the passion for making photographs, nothing will stop you. You’re going to have to work hard at it to get yourself established, creating a niche. Whether you shoot for publications, stock photography, events, or fine art, there will be a market for quality images. While technology has improved the ‘point & shoot’ camera the past couple of years, you still need an eye for composition and for capturing the moment.

Do you worry about what happens with your work when it reaches cyberspace, such as publishing in ragazine?

Yes, it is so easy for people to download photos off of a web page. Most don’t understand photography is copyrighted for use. That’s why it is important to copyright a body of images to protect your work when infringement occurs.

What’s your favorite photo? Why?

Legendary photographer W. Eugene Smith’s “The Walk to Paradise Garden,” a photo of his two children walking hand in hand toward a clearing in woods. It was the first image he made after he was seriously injured and hadn’t been shooting for a long time. The photograph hangs in my home to remind me of the power an image can have on you.

Would you rather photograph people, places or things?

All three — it depends on my mood. I started shooting “rocks and trees” when I first discovered photography. Being exposed to photojournalism during high school got me interested in being able to tell people’s stories visually, which I went on to do professionally for 36 years. Now that I’m retired from the newspaper profession, I’m getting back into those rocks and trees. Still, I’ll never tire of wanting to shoot that interesting face and tell the story behind it.

More images from Iceland, and many other subjects, can be viewed on Haupt’s web site: http://www.chuckhaupt.com. He can be contacted by e-mail at chaupt@chuckhaupt.com.

© 2009 Chuck Haupt