Happy Hog Rot

Finally …

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/