Free photography talk at SMoCA

Everyone is looking for a deal now a days. How about a little education and artistic enrichment too? Arizona State University professor, Betsy Schneider, will be giving a free talk on June 18th 6:30 pm at Scottsdale Museum of Contemporary Art, Stage 2 located in the Scottsdale Center for the Performing Arts adjacent to the museum. She will be discussing her own work as well as those of photographer Harry Callahan. Much of Betsy's recent work explores themes of childhood, culture, and relationships. Harry also focused on loved ones as his subjects for his photography. Callahan's image scene here "Eleanor and Barbara Lake Michigan, 1953" is taken of his wife and daughter. His wife, Eleanor, was the subject of many of his images. SMoCA currently is running an exhibit of Callahan's work along with the work of Aaron Siskind and Fredrick Sommer (who lived in Prescott, Arizona) entitled At the Crossroads of American Photography: Callahan, Siskind, Sommer. The exhibit of 151 photographs has been extended to August 9, 2009.

SMoCA is also holding a series of free events every Thursday night during the summer. For more information about Betsy Schneider's talk or SMoCA's other events check out their website.

Edward Weston: Mexico

The Phoenix Art Museum (PAM) will be showing the work of Edward Weston that was created in a brief window of time when he lived in Mexico. Weston, along with his lover Tina Modotti, lived in Mexico for approximately three years. Tina was the inspiration for many of the pieces shown at the exhibit. A small portion of the exhibit will be dedicated to Modotti's pictures, as well as Weston's letters, journals, and personal snapshots that help tell the complete story of their experience.

The work, drawn from the collection of the Center for Creative Photography, will be on display at their Norton Photography Gallery until November 15, 2008

Full of striking compositions, dramatic still lifes and exquisitely beautiful landscapes, Phoenix Art Museum presents an artistic exploration of Mexico seen through the lens of one of the twentieth century’s most influential photographers, Edward Weston. Edward Weston: Mexico examines a variety of Weston’s early and rare photographs revealing his devotion to the ideals of art, his progression toward the modernist style and his passion for love and life.

This stunning collection of 60 photographs displays the local culture and scenery of Mexico in the 1920s – a rich period for the arts known as the Mexican Renaissance. Weston used a large camera to create technically accomplished black-and-white photos rich in detail and markedly abstract. Mexico allowed him to experiment with new subject matter, such as still lifes and landscapes, making this period one of the most pivotal of his career.

The Commons on Flickr

The Commons is a division of Flickr set up to share public domain archives with the world. They have partnered with archive powerhouses like the Library of Congress, the Brooklyn Museum, and the Smithsonian Institute to name a few.

The project was launched at the beginning of the year and has been wildly successful. Within 24 hours of their appearance, there had been 650,000 viewings of the images, and comments were added to more than 500 pictures. Some 4,000 unique tags were also added. It also lead to the discovery that negatives from Lincoln's inauguration had been previously mislabeled.


There are thousands of interesting images offered on the site. Like this image of Ty Cobb and Christy Mathewson at the 1911 World Series. Many of them large enough to make big prints if you wanted.

The key goals of The Commons on Flickr are to firstly show you hidden treasures in the world's public photography archives, and secondly to show how your input and knowledge can help make these collections even richer.

The program has two main objectives:

1. To increase access to publicly-held photography collections, and
2. To provide a way for the general public to contribute information and knowledge. (Then watch what happens when they do!)

Lincoln images rediscovered

A little piece of history was rediscovered at the Library of Congress. Some previously mislabeled glass negatives were correctly identified as being from Lincoln's inaguration to his second term on March 4, 1865 by Carol Johnson, Library of Congress curator of photography. You can see a good size crowd gathered outside the Capitol building for the event.

"These negatives add to our knowledge of this special event," said Johnson. "They show what that wet Saturday looked like with the massing of the crowd. They also convey the excitement of the people."

Johnson was prompted to examine the negatives after a Library of Congress patron alerted her to the fact that these visually similar photos had radically different identifications in the Library's online Civil War photographic negative collection. But instead of choosing between Grant and the Grand Armies Review, she opened a new door to the past by looking closely at the images and recognizing Lincoln's second inauguration.

Avedon show at the PAM

The Phoenix Art Museum continues their great series of loan exchange with the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson with a new showing of Richard Avedon's work. Avedon, perhaps one of the most recognizable names in photography, captured portraits of the famous from Henry Kissinger to Marilyn Monroe. He never stopped working, even up until his death at age 81 he was on an assignment for the New Yorker magazine. Constantly re-inventing himself and his subjects. One of his most famous images "Dovima with Elephants" shown here. The PAM's exhibit opens January 12th and runs until April 20th.

Essence of Avedon: Photographer's evocative works offer insight into his subjects, himself By Richard Nilsen for he Arizona Republic

When he was just 23, Avedon began taking photographs for Harper's Bazaar magazine and turned fashion photography on its ear.

"For the first time, you saw fashion photography taken into the streets," says Dennita Sewell, curator of fashion design at the Phoenix Art Museum, whose collection includes several of the gowns Avedon photographed in his first work.

"Before that, women posed properly in front of a chandelier in a beautiful hotel, or in a studio with perfect hair, but Avedon gave the pictures a bit of adventure.

"He captured this excitement, that if only you were in Paris, if only you were in that suit, if only you ran across these scenes, fabulous things would happen to you, too."

Suzy Parker, Dovima and other models leaped over the sidewalks in the Marais district or stood in evening gown in front of elephants. It was all new, all energy, all somewhat outrageous.

"Mixing that beautiful satin with the wrinkled skin of the elephants was so striking, so unusual for the time," Sewell says.

The Met makes room for big prints

The largest art museum in the western hemisphere, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, (encompassing four blocks and and totaling 2 million square feet) has found some extra space to open a photography gallery. Their inaugural installation entitled Depth of Field will showcases large scale photographs that has been part of the museum's collection for several years, but did not have a proper place to display them. The show will run from September 25th through March 23rd of 2008.

New Gallery for Modern and Contemporary Photography to be Inaugurated at Metropolitan Museum in September

The Metropolitan Museum will inaugurate the Joyce and Robert Menschel Hall for Modern Photography on September 25, 2007, establishing for the first time a gallery dedicated exclusively to photography created since 1960. With high ceilings, clean detailing, and approximately 2,000 square feet of exhibition space, the Menschel Hall is designed specifically to accommodate the large-scale photographs that are an increasingly important part of contemporary art and the Museum's permanent collection. Photographers represented in the collection include such modern masters as Thomas Struth, Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, Jeff Wall, Richard Prince, Cindy Sherman, Doug Aitken, and Sigmar Polke.

...During the last seven years, we have built up a following—especially among artists—with our rotating installations outside the modern art wing, but many photographs are simply too large to fit there. Now we can really show what we have been collecting," concluded Mr. Eklund.

Now that is big

This is the largest photograph ever produced in one sheet. The Legacy Project turned an aircraft carrier in to a camera obscura and hand applied the emulsion to a custom made canvas to create it. The specs on what it took to make this image are mind boggling.

The Legacy Project to Exhibit the World’s Largest Photograph -Photo Reporter

The world’s largest photograph, the Great Picture, which is 3,375 square feet, premiers at Pasadena’s Art Center College of Design at the South Campus Wind Tunnel Gallery in a showing that will be held September 6–29, 2007.

Only a handful of museums are large enough to display the photograph, which is a history-making gelatin silver image 3 stories high by 11 stories wide. The photograph was created over nine months in 2006 by six well-known photographic artists collectively known as The Legacy Project and 400 volunteers, artists and experts. The $65,000 photograph was made using a shuttered Southern California F-18 jet aircraft hangar transformed into a gigantic camera obscura. The largest camera ever made, it measures 44' 2" high by 79' 6" deep by 161' 6" wide. To darken the hanger, 24,000 square feet of 6 mil black viscuine, 1,300 gallons of foam gap filler, 1.52 miles of black gorilla tape and 40 cans of black spray paint were needed. The aperture was a one-quarter inch (6mm) pinhole 15 feet above ground level, with no lens or other optics used.

Working in their jet hangar/camera, the group hand-applied 80 liters of gelatin silver halide emulsion to a seamless 107' 5" by 31' 5" canvas substrate custom made in Germany. Development was done in an Olympic-pool-size developing tray using 10 submersible pumps and 1,800 gallons of black-and-white chemistry.

The Guinness Book of Records preapproved and is now evaluating applications in two categories: world’s largest photograph and camera.

Enlarge your photobooth strips

Remember cramming you and 4 of your friends in to a tiny photobooth making faces at the camera? Ahh memories. Well, it is not too late to recreate one of those days from your youth. Photobooth.net offers a comprehensive list of photobooths that still exist out there waiting for your best silly grin. I was pleased to see that there is one in Phoenix at The Trunk Space. They also offer resource on renting one for your wedding or a big event, like Ron Cowan did for these shots taken at his wedding. They also have listings of movies and TV shows that have used photobooths, books featuring the hazy vignetted shots (MTV's TRL has a great one if you want to see celebrities striking a pose), as well as artists that have utilized photobooths to create their work; most notably Andy Warhol.

These little strips look amazing when blown up. You can make a large 10x50 panoramic print or cut it in to 2 up strips and place them side by side for a square print. If you are more in to the art side of it, you can montage several shots together for a surreal effect ala Herman Costa. If you have an old strip sitting in a drawer somewhere, making an enlargement of it for your fellow photobooth companions would make a great gift. All you need to do is scan the strip large enough to make the print size you are going for, or we can scan it for you.

Thanks to John Nack for the find. It brings back so many memories.

Streets of New York

If you are located in the Southwest then right now, like me, you are searching for activities to beat the heat and potential boredom of the summers here. Spending a day gazing at photography in the comfortable climate controlled environment in the Phoenix Art Museum fits the bill nicely. In their own words, "Cool art. In a cool place." Since their renovation earlier this year the PAM has been showcasing work on loan from the Center for Creative Photography in Tucson. Their current exhibition entitled On the Street: The New York School of Photographers will run until September 2, 2007 and features work from such greats as Diane Arbus, Garry Winogrand, and the infamous Weegee.

Photographic pioneers honed their craft on the streets of New York: Richard Nilsen for the Arizona Republic

In the 1930s, new technology transformed photography.

The introduction of the Leica and Contax cameras that used 35mm film meant that photographers no longer had to lug around enough equipment to sink a small boat. These handheld cameras - then known as "miniature cameras" - gave their users mobility, anonymity and speed. And it put them out on the street.

The new genre, usually just called "street photography," changed the way we looked at photographs.

In Europe, the Leica freed Henri Cartier-Bresson and André Kertész. In America, it gave the Farm Security Administration photographers, including Russell Lee, Ben Shahn and John Vachon, a lightness and agility that gives their photographs a sense of life caught on the fly that the more formal work of, say, Walker Evans - who used the old large-format cameras - could ever have with his equipment pinned to the top of a tripod.

The 35mm camera put the photographer in the immediacy of the moment.

But it is the urban streets, and especially those of New York, that gave the genre its classic look. It was in New York that the "grab shot" on the street became almost gospel. New York is a city just waiting for its close-up.

God Save the Queen

The Sex Pistols' song that helped spur the punk rock revolution of the late 70's serves as inspiration for an art show Panic Attacks! at the Barbican Art Gallery in London. They are will be displaying work from Cindy Sherman, Robert Mapplethorpe, and Peter Hujar just to name a few. Whether you are a fan of the music or not it is hard to dispute the impact the movement had on culture and art.

BBC News has a slide show that features a sampling of the pieces at the show. It made me want to see more, but alas, a trip across the pond is not in my immediate future.

Panic Attacks! will run until September 9th.

Rare early color photography

These autochromes were recently re-discovered and will be on display for a limited time this October at the George Eastman House in Rochester New York. Autochrome processing was an early form of color photography that utilized color dyed potato starch that would transfer the image on to the photo-sensitive glass plate creating a positive image. This is the story of how they were re-discovered and came in to the museum's possession.

A Splash of Photo History Comes to Light: by Randy Kennedy for The New York Times

At first glance the two pictures seem to be gorgeous anachronisms, full-color blasts from the black-and-white world of 1908, the year Ford introduced the Model T and Theodore Roosevelt was nearing the end of his second term.

But they are genuine products of their time, rare ones, among the few surviving masterpieces from the earliest days of color photography, made using a process developed by the Lumière brothers in France and imported to the United States by the photographer Edward Steichen a century ago this year. They were taken by Steichen, probably in Buffalo, and are thought to be portraits of Charlotte Spaulding, a friend and student who became his luminous subject for the portraits, which resemble pointillist miniatures on glass.