Archive for April, 2011

Musecube lost souls, catching up

April 24, 2011

on friends and acquaintances on the once lovely photographic community. i left their server years ago at the beginning of the decline of their golden years. but some mary included stayed but i think she has moved all of her stuff off and on to photoshelter.

i really liked the layout templates very professional looking and not being able to drag images off on to desktop what i didn’t like was the have the google search rating come up on the 8th page. seems like a metta data error not fitting into google analytics which google changes every once in a while and has just done so. i’d contacted Geoffrey Vail Brown the owner of the site many times about this getting nowhere. so i left to go to Photoshelter.

the wonderful thing about musecube  was the community of photographers who made up the site. at times it did seem to be a mutual admiration society which i was involved in. when i first started posting pictures i was just really learning and by looking at some of the other togs work blew me away.

there was jack cutler who is such a fine gentleman, don’t let that get around and ruin his reputation, we see him almost every year at photoexpo i learned so much from him. also michael aspire whos work covered many a MET magazine cover, another one we get to see every once in a while. edward lampe visited from amsterdam and i took him around to some of the not so touristy views of the city.

last week peter le grand came in from chicago and we had a lovely lunch with him. others who have visited us have been the model red celt who stayed with us for a week or so. just today oleanna potter contacted me on facebook, a site i don’t much go on, talking about her husbands frederick site. one time melissa had a picture showing on Kodak’s times square billboard and i went down and shot it for her .

we’ve made a lot of friends on that site just doing our show and tell on their criquite pages. there still is a long list of people we’d love to meet and maybe someday we will. there is vincent rijs in amsterdam, iowa pech in germany, christopher hart in texas, and maybe as we are passing through ohio we cans say hello to michael mc gowan.

i best be getting back to my chores at hand but i am tired, tired of contacting people and getting nowhere but maybe that’s somewhere and i just don’t know where it is. oh well

yesterday i edited my first birthday video shoot, not my birthday someone else’s, pretty simple if a 10 year old kid can do it i thought i might have a chance. i am here to say i am moving on to 11.

jene

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Acts of Lights, on dancing with Martha Graham

April 22, 2011

another review of a photographic book i bought when we saw the Graham company in their last New York season this past year. Acts of light, Martha Graham in the 21st Century shows a completely different side to Martha’s work. the photography is excellent done by John Deane and text by Nan Deane Cano. I do recommend this book to anyone who loves dance. it’s a worthy one to have laying around on your coffee table, actually both books are wonderful.

book cover

what separates this book from Barbara Morgans lovely B&W book on almost the same subject is color for obvious but the sharing from the dancers point of character. what they are thinking about the different roles they are asked to perform some directly from Martha herself and some maybe from other dancers. this is what i loved about the book, it gave me another dimension  on Martha’s work.

book cover

what is so exciting to me about this book are the pictures of dancers i knew or have worked on their creations. Valerie Bettis, Anna Sokolow, Jose Limon then Merc Cunningham, Doris Humphrey, Charles Weidman and Martha Graham herself but also included are pictures of Dr. Daietz Teitaro Suzuki along with other personal work.

now my images of Martha were more like the cover on Barbara’s  book but what i see in Acts of Light are costumes much different than the fully covered  ones in Morgan’s book. while there is nothing outrageous in either book, also no nude female forms while the men have much less clothing on. i’ve often wondered how female dancers have seen themselves over the years even now.

i love the well toned human form  but cringe looking at how my body has develpoed a mind of it’s own these days. who is that person looking back from the mirror at me. but then again i don’t spend hours in dance class nor wrestling with a bare, more like a bag of potato chips.

Posted in art, dance photography, educational, Photography, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

Intolerance abounds, every where and any where

April 21, 2011

piss christ

Posted by David Ozanich — 18 Apr 2011

The controversial photograph “Piss Christ” by Andres Serrano, which shows a small crucifix submerged in a jar of the artist’s urine, has been (pardon the pun) pissing people off since 1987 when US Senator Jesse Helms first denounced it as sacrilegious. Over the weekend, it was destroyed by Christian protesters while being displayed in a French gallery.

It had been the subject of weeks of protests from Catholic groups in France which led to the photograph being placed behind plexiglass. Two guards were posted to protect the work but apparently that wasn’t enough. The Guardian reports:

Just after 11am on Sunday, four people in sunglasses entered the gallery where the exhibition was being held. One took a hammer from his sock and threatened security staff. A guard restrained one man but the remaining members of the group managed to smash an acrylic screen and slash the photograph with what police believe was a screwdriver or ice pick. They then destroyed another photograph, of nuns’ hands in prayer.Piss Christ is part of a series by Serrano showing religious objects submerged in fluid such as blood and milk. It was being shown in an exhibition to mark 10 years of the art dealer Yvon Lambert’s personal collection in his 18th-century mansion.

Last week the gallery complained of “extremist harassment” by Christians who wanted the image banned. The archbishop of Vaucluse, Jean-Pierre Cattenoz, called the work “odious” and said he wanted “this trash” taken off the gallery walls.

Previously “Piss Christ” has been vandalized both in Australia and a Serrano show in Sweden was “ransacked” by Neo-Nazis in 2007.

The culture minister, Frédéric Mitterrand, condemned the vandalism as an attack on the fundamental freedoms of creation and expression. A police complaint has been filed by the gallery and the guards.The gallery’s director, Eric Mézil, says he will keep the exhibition open to the public with the destroyed work on show “so people can see what barbarians can do”.

The show, Je crois aux miracles (I Believe in Miracles) is open through May in Avignon, France. More on the story from French News Online and Animal which posted this insightful discussion about the photograph with the sublime Catholic art critic, Sister Wendy:

originally published in  JPG news

whether one likes the art or artist, why do people raise their hands to destroy others work? no one compels them to look at art it’s a voluntary act. who gives us the right to judge others least we not judge ourselves first? it seems an ungodly thing to take away other peoples right to create.

written from an imperfect mind.

Posted in art, art exhibits, Artist, photography exhibits, public art, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »

i felt a loss in the photographic force tonight

April 20, 2011

Tim Hetherington, Chris Hondros are killed documenting Libya fighting

MISURATA, Libya — On Saturday evening, Tim Hetherington, the director of the Oscar-nominated documentary “Restrepo,” and Chris Hondros, a Pulitzer Prize-nominated photographer, hitched a ride to this besieged city on the Ionian Spirit, where they prepared sandwiches for refugees and talked about their plans back home. On Wednesday evening, the ship ferried the bodies of the two renowned journalists back to Benghazi.

 Washingtonpost.com for full story

when i first encountered Tim Hetherington work ‘Restrepo‘ at NYPhoto Festival i was stunned standing there watching the events before me. hearing the sounds of combat, seeing grown men cry, hearing bullets flying around, how could i not be affected and glad i wasn’t there, yet there is something communal about men in combat if you’ve ever know that. i felt a loss of humanity on hearing this sad news of their deaths tonight.

NY Photo Festival had prints of the portraits of the troop Hetherington served with. he told the story that he no longer took pictures while on patrol, had lost interest in covering the war as it wears one down but came upon a bunker that had wonderful light.

he asked a member of the platoon to sit for him not making much of it, but slowly people would come to him asking for him to take their portrait. that body of work shows the horrors of war in their faces. very powerful.

i would have linked Tim Hetherington web site but tonight the connections are broken.

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Edward Steichen, the Conde Nash years 1923-1937

April 20, 2011
Seine river

Paris, Seine river

when mary and i first visited Paris we were very lucky except for the grey sky’s most everyday, after all  it was at the end of October a bit chilly and who cared it was Paris and we were together. the streets seeped with history and the museums budged with art and cafes everywhere with fresh baked croissants.

we rented an apartment through Craigs List and sight unseen were located on the right bank two blocks from the Louvre, somewhere around the Rue du Roule talk about luck and location whoo. by the way Paris has a great jazz radio station with even a feed from WBGO here in Newark NJ. the apartment was small but clean with a kitchenette and a double bed.

but not everyday was gloomy there were some lovely days and being with my honey made up for any rainy days

Seine river with Eiffel tower

Museum passes in hand we headed out into the great city of lights to see what we could discover. no we didn’t do the Louvre first as we wanted to be outside enjoying Paris. we walked around a lot since we were in the middle of everything. mary was taking a photography class back in NJ so she had homework assignments, not a bad place to do your homework.

but this isn’t about Paris yet connected in every way in my mind. we discovered the photographic exhibit called Edward Steichen In High Fashion, The Conde Nash Years at the Jeu de Paume Museum, organized by the Foundation for the Exhibition of Photography, Minneapolis and The Musee de L’Elysee,Lausanne.  We never had a clue it would be there nor did we know too much about Steichen’s work.

the photography  exhibit blew me away and how much of it that was on display wow. the portrait of Gloria Swanson 1924 has to be seen in person it’s just amazing. all of the prints were wonderfully done as one would expect from an artist such as Steichen even though he’s long gone. along with all the prints there was a movie interview with him in his studio which i fell in love with because it showed all his lighting equipment and he sat next to a huge camera sort of a Steichen at work type of thing. the floor was covered with big black wires powering the plato convex spotlights, floods etc of that period.

At the end of the exhibit comes the book store and trinket shop. i picked up the accompanying book and wanted to buy it right away but alas i am just a dumb american who can’t read French, besides it’s a pretty big book to lug around europe. Steichen worked in B&W photography which is pretty amazing in it’s own right. What he did with his limited space and flats is pretty amazing.

so i am in a book buying binge now and i ordered one from amazon having just finished it this week. i must say it to is a wonderful book especially for people who never had an opportunity to see the traveling exhibit which has long gone into retirement. i wish i had been able to read the book and then see the exhibit again. i think would have gotten more out of the exhibit at the time but one can’t, at least i haven’t found a way to time travel yet.

i recommend this book to anyone who has a love of B&W photography or fashion history, it’s a real treasure.

some say artist working in commercial endeavors looses touch with the art. we all got to eat and would like other people to enjoy our work, i always feel that i am sending my children to a foster home when someone buys a picture. Steichen had this to say  in a letter to

Mrs Chase;

“in connection with our idea about dignified and distinguished presentation of ‘Beauty’ pictures if they can be done in Duotone they will be greatly enhanced. there are some works of art in the Louvre that if presented in a peep show would be condemned s pornographic. in the Louvre they are art – make Vogue a Louvre.”

don’t we all just want to be loved for what we do? i’ve fallen in love here with a master of B&W photography and this book shows why he’s considered such.

this is the next place i want to stay in Paris or maybe Amsterdam

house boats

jene

www.jeneyoutt.com

Posted in books, educational, fashion, film cameras, galleries, Magazines, photography exhibits | Leave a Comment »

reading Minor White books instead of making photos

April 5, 2011

i’ve been buying photography books and reading them lately. i’ve an old time relationship with books, walking into a used book store smelling paper just overcomes any hesitation i have to spend money. i usually walk out of the store with an arm full of books. yes one could say all the books on my shelves are useless until one picks them up and opens them.

i get dizzy remembering them, my copy of the ‘Rainbow book’, put out by the Fine Art Museums of San Francisco explaining everything you wanted to know about rainbows is just so cool sitting on top of Hollywood Glamor Portraits , next to Barbara Morgan’s dance photography, see the list goes on. be still my heart.

one of my favorite teachers whom i never had the chance to meet is Minor White. his name has been spoken reverently around me by photographers i’ve known and liked so that has created in me a hunger to learn about him.

my first purchase was Minor White’s ‘Rites & Passages’ an  Apeture foundation book, which i found very interesting, because in included his photographs and excerpts from his diaries and letters and biographic essays by John Baker Hill.

minor white 'rites & passages'

i don’t think by reading a book one can get close to the teacher but maybe some word or phrase might make a wheel or clog move and mesh causing a connection. looking at pictures stimulates my imagination because i am sort of seeing through the photographers eyes. not always do i get it but it’s like sex, the fun is in the doing, not the final outcome.

for anyone interested in Minor White’s work and opinions this is a worth while sit down. i really enjoyed this book

the second Minor White book is ‘The Moment of Seeing’, Minor White at the California of fine arts, by Stephine Comer & Debroah Klochko with an essay by Jeff Gunderson is printed on lovely paper but most of the book was a disappointment for me. i really don’t care who attended California Fine arts school when. i am sure by now a lot of them are dead and gone as i soon will be.

the moment of seeing.great cover  photo reminds me of cartier bresson’s work

there is a twenty page pedagogy of some Whites teachings but just getting to page 79 was a chore. maybe i should have sped through the beginning chapters  but i didn’t.  i did like reading minor white’s ‘seeing a photograph’ in the pedagogy but getting there was a big boring chore as i was looking for information about minor’s teaching’s, not who he taught. what he thought and taught was what interested me. the portfolios of the students and teachers are nice, not cluttered with words just pictures and who was there is history in itself.

what happened in the school started by Ansel Adams who then went off doing his Zone system landscape work and left to minor white and other great names in photography is pretty cool but i wanted to hear from the various creatives their views on working.

oh well not everyone likes everything. spring is here time to explore the world around us again lovely flowers poke their fragrant bodies in the air.

have a good day

jene

http://www.jeneyoutt.com

Posted in educational, Photography, photography teachers, Uncategorized | 2 Comments »