Happy Hog Rot

That’s the title of a fine piece, published today by the New York Times Magazine, and written by Nicholas Dawidoff, about legendary photographer and filmmaker, Robert Frank.  Recently I was showing some of my photography book collection to my daughter and made special note of Frank’s landmark book, “The Americans“, when I came upon it, so I have something else now for her to see and appreciate.

Dawidoff suggests that Frank is the most influential photographer living today, and that would be hard to argue against.

This brings back memories, years ago, of the first time I visited S. D. in her small Los Angeles studio, and saw affixed to her bulletin board, a postcard from Robert Frank.

Find a copy of “The Americans” if you can, and study it, remembering that it dates back to 1958.  Or at least look at the NYT special feature on the book here.

 

Berndnaut Smilde creates carefully controlled environments that let him produce a quickly-disappearing rain cloud that he captures in a photograph.  Read more here.

In a followup to an earlier notice of her death, I am linking here to what is said to be Mark’s most memorable LIFE magazine photo essay.

http://time.com/3896742/mary-ellen-mark-streetwise/?xid=newsletter-life-weekly

Here is a 1967 photo of Mark (recently passed away), taken by one of my early mentors, Ralph Gibson (whose hand also appears with Mark’s in this photograph).  She refers to this photograph as “The Enchanted Hand”.  Mark says that she and Gibson once shared a darkroom in the Chelsea Hotel in New York. In notes to one of Mark’s books, I see that Ralph gave her some of the same advice about lens choices and shooting technique that he gave me when I  saw him in California in 1973.  

photo by Ralph Gibson

Mark Ellen Mark died on Monday.  Her documentary work came along early in my photographic career — we were of the same generation — and served as a great influence to me.  This is just one of many images that I will not forget:

Learn more of Mark and her work at links like these:

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/27/arts/design/mary-ellen-mark-photographer-who-documented-difficult-subjects-dies-at-75.html

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/mary-ellen-mark/

Herman, an old friend from Kansas City, reminds me, following my posts about Lynsey Addario, that David Douglas Duncan came out of Kansas City and was recently the topic of this very interesting Kansas City Star piece:

http://www.kansascity.com/entertainment/books/article21602583.html

Duncan was one of the most important war photographers of the 20th century.  He was a Marine officer covering World War II, Korean War and the VietNam War; was a former Life photographer; and is also noted for his work in other subjects (for example, I have his 1969 Self-Portrait: U.S.A. book).

And I enjoyed Duncan’s Picasso photos, like this one:

 

A while back, we caught interviews on Charlie Rose, Fresh Air, the PBS NewsHour and elsewhere of Lynsey Addario, a “conflict” (i.e., war zone, etc.) photographer who has covered situations in almost every global trouble spot, from Africa to Afghanistan and much more) of the past fifteen or so years. Notified Friday by the local library that my special order of several weeks ago for her memoir had arrived, I eagerly picked it up, concluding my read yesterday and turning it over to my wife for a turn.

I soon got past my initial reaction that it was something of a self-serving (probably by definition what autobiographical work is intended to be) piece that had the benefit of hindsight, realizing that I had found a real page-turner. More than once, it inspired tears. I kept thinking that surely this one could be adapted as a movie, and, sure enough, last night a little research showed that Steven Spielberg is slated to direct, with Jennifer Lawrence to play Addario’s part.  (Not sure when it is to be released.)

Discovering this book, by the way, came about shortly after we happened to watch “A Thousand Times Good Night”, a 2013 Norwegian/Irish film directed by Eric Poppe (and inspired by his own experience as a war journalist) and starring Juliette Binoche as an obsessed war photographer.

While we’re at it, you should know about the stunning “War Photography”, a 2001 documentary film on the work of acclaimed photographer, James Nachtwey.   Also see this previous post. 

See Addario’s website: http://www.lynseyaddario.com/

And learn more about her book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00L9B7CSM/ref=rdr_kindle_ext_tmb