Costume Shop, Santa Monica, Easter 2014
street photography
April Showers
Western Avenue and Wilshire Boulevard, April 13, 2014
East Hollywood Liquor Store and Bus Stop, April 14, 2014
Pico Boulevard and La Brea Avenue, Los Angeles, California, April 13, 2014
Art, Documentary, or News: Photography and Racial Politics
That title suggests a lot, I know. These are amazing times online. There are at any point, almost surely simultaneous, multiple battles occurring in larger cultural wars over things like racial and sexual politics. The recent Stephen Colbert – Suey Park skirmish was fascinating, the back and forth analysis provided me, at least, with an education in the current taxonomy of racial and gender politics at least framed by a small subset of the larger culture.
Anyway, so it now falls on photography to fire our interest and further the fine-tuning of all of our racial and political sensibilities. Here specifically, in the article I’m linking to, the analysis turns towards two different presentations of the same photographs taken (obviously) by the same photographer and how those presentations differ and cross many lines. Some that are probably okay to cross and some that are, increasingly, not.
None of us really want to offend with our photographs or our presentation of them, or to have our work frowned upon by those who are more in-tuned, sometimes by way of professional experience and sometimes by way of their own personal experiences, to the myriad and shifting protocols surrounding photography that involves the lives of people who are not us. Whoever we may be.
Okay that was tricky. I have included a bunch of MY recent images that I do (or do NOT) think work well with this subject matter. (I refuse to say. ;-)) But I repeat, these are NOT the images referred to in the articles. These are my own images, taken yesterday in downtown Los Angeles. By me.
I would love to hear what others here have to say about all of this. Please feel free to jump in. I think one place to start, maybe most obviously, is what is the responsibility of photographers to click the shutter, or not, when seeing realities that also represent stereotypes in his or her viewfinder. That would be a starting point for one discussion, actually. The blurred line betweens art and documentary photography, presentation and commentary, etc., all are other fascinating angles as well. Anyway.
Here is a quote that describes what the writer of this piece does in the linked article. It’s a great idea. The result itself might elicit a more mixed response from readers.
Below, I step through the images that Politico ran, juxtaposing the caption of the photo from Raab’s site with the Politico caption with a brief comment on how that copy effects the meaning of the picture.
via Art Photography vs. News Photography: Politico, Race and the “Other Washington” — BagNews.
Apropos of Nothing at All
The Troubles I Have Seen
mister mojo risin’
Secrets of Hollywood
Let the Sunshine In
Electra
The Boys in the Band
Construction Zone
Star Gazing
Los Wider Angles – Repost!
Under the Banyan Tree
Vivian Maier’s Moment of Recognition
We were scheduled to fly to Chicago this past weekend.
My plan, in tribute to the newly discovered street photography icon Vivian Maier, was to shoot in black and white and to post only images here cropped to a perfect square, the format produced by the reclusive nanny’s apparently very trusty Rolleiflex. (Although the above image shows Maier taking a self portrait with a Leica M.)
Unfortunately, we all caught a cold here in the big house and were forced to avoid a long flight and the shock of actually being in the Windy City at a time when temperatures there would be in the 20s. We stayed, as the song says, safe and warm in LA and shot the images you have seen (one of) and will see on 50lux in the coming days.
Little did I know, because nobody tells me anything, (wink here) but this was to be a big weekend anyway in the posthumous yet ever burgeoning career and legacy of this now very important photographer and practitioner of a type of photography that I feel so connected to.
The biggest news is that there is a film that premiered last fall but is just now being released and in theaters entitled “Finding Vivian Maier,” … due in some cities last Friday actually. Certainly it won’t be at the nearest mall’s cineplex outside Dayton or Altoona and I’m doing my best to find it here in Los Angeles and will go before it’s quickly yanked.
Here is the trailer.
The release of an actual film, of course, has made a nice ripple in the national media and here are also three excellent write-ups in the New York Times, New York Post, and Slate.
Enjoy, street photographers. It’s a rare moment that none of us will ever likely experience in our lifetimes. Although in Vivian Maier’s case that appears to be, in great part, by the artist’s own design.
Sunday Was Soft and Warm
Ain’t That Peculiar
Dani California
Light, Shades, Sunset Boulevard
Walk of Fame
Taking a Meeting
Come to Hollywood
If Death Comes I’m Ready
Lucky Dog
Travel Day
High Fidelity
Scenes From a Drug Store
A Rodeo Drive Wedding
As Seen On Oscars Weekend
Los Angeles Times
Medium Shots
Family and Other Strangers
Forever 21
Palm Fronds
Workspace
You’re All Just Pictures To Me
A Monochromatic Palate Cleanser
Is That a LEICA Garbage Can?
A 50 ‘Cron goes to a Los Angeles Clippers game
Despite the name of this blog, my favorite camera lens is Leica’s legendary 50mm 2.0 Summicron. I think both the 50 and the 35 Crons are the bomb. The reason I own and shoot the 50’Lux is because of the additional capability of the f1.4 and the beautiful ‘special’ effects of shootings the lens wide-open or even at f1.7.
I highlight the word ‘special’ because the ability to shoot a lens at 1.4 and take for granted great sharpness and color and contrast AND beautiful lush bokeh is to give your photography almost a special effect capability.
But as you can see from the image above, the 50 ‘Cron, despite the gripes sometimes heard about a busy bokeh, is no slouch in producing almost the same special effect of a razor sharp subject and a wonderfully bokeh-licious background. And don’t even ask about color and contrast at f2. My reading of LFI magazine down through the years tells me that Leica considers their Summicron lenses to be without compromise; perfect in every way. I agree.
My 50 ‘Cron is one of the Canadian jobs. Probably 18 or so years old. I picked it up at BelAir camera for the laughable price of $475. Grab one if you can find it.
Oh, yes, this is a reblog of sorts. Done today in recognition of the NBA All Star Game…. which I won’t be watching and wouldn’t watch if you paid me. But still… 😉
Smoke and Shadow
Hollywood Color
City People
No great shakes here. More like a feeling. All these images were taken this past Saturday and Sunday. Seems to me that LA has shed the tourists and the holiday spirit and settled into itself once again. It’s a colder place than it was a month ago. Anyway, there’s a lot of shots. I do try to give anyone who visits here their money’s worth.
I left the last image, the stunning blonde sitting at a distance in the cafe , so that the image can be clicked on and examined at a larger resolution. It’s not a great or meaningful photograph. I posted it because I find it amazing sometimes what unlikely things you can do with a Leica pressed flat against your face. Thanks for looking!
Nuno Moreira “State Of Mind” – Top Photography Films
“I’m not interested in knowing how the picture will look like either. I trust the machine and my own acquired abilities to do that. I’m much more interested in discovering things around me and noticing what is slightly off-reality or disconnected.” – Nuno Moreira State of Mind
Nuno Moreira (born 1982 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese art director and photographer presently living in Tokyo, Japan. He has a degree in cinema. In this interview he talks about his recently published photography book “State of Mind”.
Read a complete and pretty fantastic interview with Nuno Moreira here…
Vivian Maier exhibition reveals magic of a photographic master unknown in her lifetime
Vivian Dorothea Maier was an American street photographer, who was born in New York City and spent much of her childhood in France. After returning to the United States, she worked for approximately forty years as a nanny in Chicago, Illinois.
During those years, she took more than 100,000 photographs, primarily of people and cityscapes in Chicago, although she traveled and photographed worldwide.
Two years before she died in 2009 at age 83, the eccentric and brilliant amateur photographer forfeited ownership of the contents of the storage lockers in which she had kept truckloads of negatives, prints and other materials.
The contents were quickly auctioned for a pittance to several collectors and “resellers” who found they had made the discovery of a lifetime.
The contents of Maier’s collection included more than 100,000 negatives that charted her hitherto-private career as a superb street photographer who focused mainly on vignettes of New York and Chicago.
CVS Pharmacies to Stop Selling Tobacco Products
Not a lot to say here. Just my tribute to the decision by CVS to stop profiting from the sale of this most dangerous of product lines at their pharmacies. All Nikon shots. Deep in the L.A. street.
This guy has good form. Feet shoulder length apart. Arms loose at his sides. Get it, buddy!
No, really. What are friends for?
So glad I never had kids.
I read somewhere that every great photo, and I’m not suggesting the above photo is great, but that it is said that there’s something just a little weird about every great photo. That’s all I’m saying. 😉
Ditto.
Okay, at least he’s not hovering over my lunch. Yet.
Friends Don’t Let Friends Vote Republican
Life Imitates
50'Lux 
