Photo&Cameras

В© Bruce Davidson/Magnum Photos Click photo to see more images from Bruce Davidson’s Central Park series.

In the early ’90s, Magnum photographer Bruce Davidson suggested a project on Central Park to the National Geographic editors he’d been working with in recent years. They hadn’t done a piece on the park in decades, so they agreed, but insisted Davidson shoot in color, a thorn in the predominantly black-and-white photographer’s side.

“But I was a good boy and I exposed about 500 rolls of Kodachrome,” Davidson says. “And they hated it.” Upon hearing that National Geographic had decided to give the Central Park story to another photographer, Davidson says he “went right back into the park and worked in black and white for three more years.”

More than a decade later, that project has been turned into a full exhibition, currently part of Madrid’s 2007 PHotoEspaña festival. It was also on view in New York City as part of the Magnum Festival, the agency’s 60th anniversary celebration.

The show’s master prints created by Davidson’s long-time go-to printer John Delaney are a welcome rebirth of the monograph published by Aperture in 1995. A very small selection from that Central Park book was presented at the Aperture Gallery at that time, but since then it had languished in Davidson’s personal collection — until this year when he revisited it while putting together a forecasted retrospective show.

“This project has been dormant so long and it’s just coming out of the closet now,” Davidson mused at the recent opening in Madrid. Davidson has also recently brought another dormant series out of the archive: his circus images. In Madrid he showed off his early copy of Circus (Steidl), which includes images from circuses around the world and reaches back to Davidson’s early days as a photographer.

Central Park is a kaleidoscopic survey of the Manhattan landmark, utilizing square, 35mm, and panoramic images to capture everything from a whited-out great lawn to the homeless men and birdfeeders who call the park home. Davidson worked with Hasselblad, “every lens Canon makes,” and especially the Noblex 120 Panoramic, to capture the “movement” that designer Frederick Law Olmsted envisioned for the park.

“Too many bums” was National Geographic’s purported complaint with the color series Davidson first submitted to them — but the present incarnation hovers between rough reality and grandiose beauty in a way that often leaves the viewer with a sensation of the magical.

The images are also marked by Davidson’s painstaking care for shape and perspective. In one beautiful panorama, an entwined couple sprawls across a rock face overlooking a waterfall, their bodies curving gracefully to mirror the river’s path.

“I look at a rose not for its color, but for its shape,” Davidson explains. “The shape of things in Central Park became important to me; I didn’t need the color.”

Anyone who sees this show is likely to agree.

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© Igor Spilenok Click photo for more images from Russia’s the Valley of the Geysers.

Kamchatka is Russia’s final frontier, a land of big bears, large salmon resources, and fiery volcanoes. Now I am in its heart — the Kronotsky Nature Reserve, one of the
zapovedniks
in Russia’s expansive system of 101 strictly protected areas. I arrive, as do all staff and visitors, by helicopter, following an hour-and-a-half ride skimming the mountaintops from Petropavlovsk, Kamchatka’s capital and only sizable city. My vehicle is a Russian cargo helicopter, which has been brightly painted blue and orange to conceal its age.

Kronotsky Reserve is accessible only in good weather, June through September. I am here in mid-June, in time to see the Valley of the Geysers come to life. In late April and May, the nearly two-dozen large geysers, hundreds of steaming thermal springs, and boiling mud-pots in this valley melted off the deep blanket of snow. Even now, snow covers the mountains surrounding the valley, but green shoots and spring blossoms are visible in the steamy valley below. Brown bears gather here in force in springtime. For the bears, it provides an early respite from Kamchatka’s long winter. Green grasses attract the bears from other parts of the Reserve where the snow will remain until summer. Females treat their young cubs to fresh vegetation, and males woo other females to begin the mating cycle anew.

I glimpse a mother bear leading two cubs across the opposite slope of the valley. I have crossed paths with dozens of bears here in my two years working as a volunteer in the Valley of the Geysers — one of the major attractions of Kamchatka and the section of Kronotsky Nature Reserve I help to protect. In summer, when dozens of tourists are flown into the Valley each day for brief excursions, I serve as a buffer between them and the bears. While my job is to protect the bears and their habitat from human pressures, more often than not I end up protecting the people from the bears.

The Kamchatka brown bear is the second largest in the world, after the Alaskan Kodiak bear, but the Russian population is not as well managed. Poaching, poor monitoring, and insufficient capacity for enforcing protected areas threaten the population, which hovers around 10,000. In addition, over-fishing threatens the local salmon population, which is the bears’ main food source. One-quarter of all wild Pacific salmon come from Kamchatka, meaning that depletion of Kamchatka’s fish resources could have consequences for more than Kamchatka’s bears.

Volcanic mountains and geysers dominate the valley’s landscape. Yet the geysers were not discovered until April 1941. Russian hydrologist Tatiana Ustinova and her Itelmen guide Anisifor Krupenin were exploring the unmapped interior of Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula, where a federal nature preserve had been created seven years earlier. As storm clouds gathered, they briefly stopped to rest in a narrow canyon before returning to camp. Suddenly, they were sprayed with hot water bursting from an opening in the snow across the stream. They had discovered the first geyser on Kamchatka, and indeed in all of Russia. Subsequent expeditions found more than 20 large geysers and other unique natural phenomena, such as bubbling mud-pots. The seven-kilometer-square area now known as the Valley of the Geysers was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1996.

Some of the geysers emit steam constantly. Others, like the one Ustinova first encountered, erupt periodically, showering the landscape and unwary visitors with hot, sulfuric water. The steam is framed by steep hillsides and an azure sky. The bears and I have found a beautiful, wild place. We hope it will remain so. With my pictures, I hope to show the world the beauty of this bear filled valley and evoke in them the desire to conserve it.

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Photo by Miki Johnson Click photo for more images from PHotoEspaГ±a 2007.

When is a gallery not just a gallery? How about when it is Madrid’s gigantic Conde Duque cultural center built as an army barracks in the early 18th century and considered the apex of typical MadrileГ±o architecture. Or when it is a 16th-century Baroque church in the historic Spanish town of Cuenca.

These and the other beautiful buildings appropriated by Madrid’s PHotoEspaГ±a photography festival set the mood for this year’s 10th anniversary program, which ends officially July 22.

For the past nine years, Spain’s largest photography festival has been run in three-year blocks by lead curators who choose specific themes for each year. The last director, Horacio FernГЎndez, designated his term of 2004 through 2006 the years of
History, Cities,
and
Nature
.

But 2007’s modus operandi seemed to be celebration itself: of the festival’s decade birthday, of Spanish and international photography, and of the ever-growing list of exhibition locations. This year’s biggest venue addition came in the form of an entire town, Cuenca, known for its stunning views and “hanging” cliff-side houses. Seven exhibitions were housed in five of Cuenca’s re-appropriated spaces, from the museum-esque FundaciГіn Antonio PГ©rez to the vaulted ceiling of Iglesia de la Merced.

In a European festival scene sometimes dominated by the French — by Rencontres d’Arles and Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan in particular — PHotoEspaГ±a also is also eager to celebrate the influence of Latin photographers on the industry.
Five European Gazes,
a show bringing together five photographers of Latin and Spanish decent, speaks to this directly. Five curators were tapped to each bring in an emerging photographer, for a show that the festival organizers hope will continue in future years. This year’s photographers were Pedro AlvГЎrez, MatГ­as Costa, Juan GonzГЎlez, David JimГ©nez, and MarГ­a Isabel Rueda.

Then of course there are several individual exhibitions by Hispanic photographers, including SebastiГЈo Salgado’s treatise on Africa, Lordes Grobet’s project on Mexico’s Lucha Libre wrestling league, and Ricky DГЎvila’s beautiful, methodical portraits of the faces of the Iberian Peninsula.

One of the most interesting PHotoEspaГ±a projects was native not only to Spain, but to Madrid specifically. In a gigantic brick building known as El Matadero, a group of local artists called NOPHOTO set up shop, not only turning the old slaughterhouse into a gallery space and cultural center, but also documenting the process of transmutation itself. The NOPHOTO show, conceived along the “three axes of past, present, and process,” was presented in El Matadero’s chilly, dark main room entered through hanging plastic panels reminiscent of its abattoir days. Historical images of the building mingle with documentary photographs of the rather beleaguered neighborhood El Matadero calls home, drawing attention to one of the reasons NOPHOTO has set up shop in a space so far from the rest of the festival. “We want to introduce people to an unknown area, and a new way of working,” explained NOPHOTO artist Juan Valbuena.

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Photo courtesy Christie’s Images LTD, 2007 Click photo to see the Kate Moss London Auction photos.

She’s appeared on over 300 magazine covers, been the focus of attention for hordes of paparazzi, not to mention the subject of various scandal over her weight and drug use. But now Kate Moss is something else: A certified art world icon.

On May 31, a selection of four well known images of Moss sold at Christie’s in London for a total of ВЈ183,000, or $366,841. The top selling lot was a series of six daguerreotypes of a nude Moss by the artist Chuck Close, which went for ВЈ84,000, or $166, 194. The images were originally made for a tribute to Moss that appeared in W magazine in 2003.

A 1993 photograph by British photographer Corrine Day, who is often given credit for turning Moss into a supermodel, sold for ВЈ6,600, or $13,058. The image, titled “Kate at Home,” was considered controversial because it depicted the then 19-year-old model as a representative of the fashion movement known as “heroin chic.”

A 96 x 72-inch print of a photograph of Moss by Albert Watson, made in Marrakech in 1993, sold for ВЈ54,000, or $106,000. That was more than five times the pre-sale low estimate.

And a platinum print by Irving Penn of his image “Kate Moss (Hand on Neck)” sold for ВЈ38,000, or $75,183.

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© Andres Serrano
A History of Sex (Antonio and Ulrike). 1995
Click photo for more images from PHotoEspaГ±a 2007. The PHotoEspaГ±a photography festival in Madrid, Spain is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year, and
American Photo
’s Miki Johnson is there taking it all in.

Miki will be reporting from the festival over the next few days, shedding light on some of the great European photographers rarely seen on this side of the Atlantic.

The first report, which includes a look at some of the best photo books released over the past year, can be found on the State of the Art blog (subscribe to the RSS feed so you don’t miss a beat). Stay tuned for more dispatches, or check out our PHotoEspaГ±a preview.

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Photographed by Lawrence Schiller © Polaris Communications Click photo to see more images from Marilyn Revisited.

The year was 1962, the last of Marilyn Monroe’s short life. In April she began shooting a comedy for 20th Century Fox called
Something’s Got to Give
, a remake of the film
My Favorite Wife,
cast opposite Dean Martin. This came about a year and a half after her starring role in
The Misfits,
with Clark Gable, and a little over a year after her divorce from playwright Arthur Miller.

The story of the filming of
Something’s Got to Give
has long since become Hollywood legend. Monroe’s frequent absences from the set, due to personal issues but also to health problems resulting from a severe respiratory infection, delayed shooting and angered the studio and the film’s director, George Cukor. Then, on May 19th, she added to the studio’s irritation by flying to New York City to attend a Democratic fundraiser and sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F. Kennedy, with whom she’d been having an affair.

When Monroe returned from New York, there was far more drama on the movie set than in the film itself. And the blonde star had a surprise in store for everyone when she arrived to shoot a scene in which she was to frolic in a swimming pool.

“There was a line in the script that said she appears nude,” recalls Lawrence Schiller, the famed photographer/writer/film producer, who was on the set that day to shoot a story about Monroe for
Paris Match
magazine. “[The script] didn’t say that she was going to be nude. [It said] she ‘appears’ nude. So you figured she was going to wear a flesh-colored bathing suit, but you had no idea what was going to take place.”

What happened on the set was this: After a few minutes of swimming in the flesh-colored bathing suit, Monroe slipped out of the suit’s top, and later its bottom. Shooting began. There are those who say Monroe, who had lost some 25 pounds since her last film, never looked more radiant and beautiful.

“I shot everything with a Nikon SLR and a 180mm Sonnar lens sold to me by [photojournalist] David Douglas Duncan for $50,” Schiller recalls. “The lens had been specially modified at
Life
to fit the camera. The color film was high-speed tungsten Ektachrome pushed one stop, and the black and white was Tri-X.

It was the first nude scene ever shot by a major Hollywood star, and the film might have gone on to be a major hit — except that it was never completed. In early June, angered at Monroe’s behavior, the studio fired her from the movie, only to rehire her at Dean Martin’s insistence and reschedule shooting for the fall. But on August 5, 1962 Marilyn was found dead in her home in Brentwood, apparently of a suicide or accidental overdose of pills.

Since then, Schiller’s pictures of the swimming pool scene have become historic photographic artifacts. Most of them have been published over the years, but not all. And while Schiller himself made prints of them from his negatives for
Paris Match
and other organizations, he never thought of the work as art or collectible, and never made archival prints for galleries and museums.

Recently, however, Schiller has done just that, working with the venerable Modernage lab in New York City to create a limited-edition set of his
Something’s Got to Give
images, as well as other work from 1960s and 1970s.

The Marilyn pictures are on display now at an exhibition called “Marilyn Monroe 12,” at the Pop International Galleries in New York City. The magnificent prints add a new footnote to Marilyn’s much-photographed life. They also should launch a reassessment of Schiller as a photographer.

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© Trent Parke/Magnum Photos Click photo to see more images from the Magnum Festival 07.

To celebrate its 60th anniversary this year, Magnum Photos New York is honoring the documentary in all its forms: photography, film, and the written word.

The Magnum Festival lineup, a series of New York City exhibits, film screenings, talks, and parties during the month of June, will feature several highlights, among them a selection of seminal documentary films curated by legendary director Werner Herzog. More than a dozen museums and galleries are displaying work by Magnum photographers in all, and the Panasonic billboard in Times Square will run celebrity edits from the Magnum archives throughout the month.

And because the festival was planned for June to coincide with the agency’s general meeting, New York will be graced with Magnum shooters from around the world and staff from Magnum’s offices in London, Paris, and Tokyo. Many of them will participate in a series of panel discussions at the New York Public Library. Check www.magnumphotos.com for a full schedule.

“Magnum is an amazing group of people who are dedicated to telling stories in a visual, articulate way,” says Mark Lubell, the agency’s New York director. “I’m trying to move the conversation and open it up a little.”

Magnum Festival ‘07 Highlights:

New York Genius


A selection of prints from the Magnum Archives curated by Lou Reed.
Steven Kasher Gallery. June 2 to June 20.

Selects by Werner Herzog: (Non) Fictions and Vertical Series


A retrospective of the master director’s works and his selection of seminal documentary films.
The Film Forum. May 25 to June 14.

David Alan Harvey: Hip-Hop Images of an international phenomenon.


The powerHouse Arena. May 31 to July 8; live music event June 14.

Panel discussions

: Magnum photographers and other luminaries debate issues of truth and advocacy within the documentary tradition.
New York Public Library. June 16.

Magnum In Motion: Photographers and the Moving Image


The popular selection of films “by and about” Magnum photographers from Berlinale comes to the Walter Reade Theater. May 30 to June 7.

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As guests arrived at the 23rd annual Infinity Awards on Monday, the flash bulbs were popping — and for once, the photographers were in front of the cameras. The awards, given by the International Center of Photography, were held this year at Pier 60 in New York City, where the entry hall bristled with cameras angling to capture photography and fashion glitterati, as well as supportive celebrities like Julianne Moore, Sean Lennon, Calvin Klein, and Infinity Award winner Karl Lagerfeld.

After cocktails in the photo gallery, the approximately 700 guests took their seats in the adjoining dining room lined with video screens, on which were presented short video interviews and photo montages for each winner (see photos). The night’s most raucous applause went to William Klein, who ended his acceptance speech for the Lifetime Achievement award in his characteristically implacable way with, “F*%# ‘em all.”

2007 Infinity Award Winners

Christopher Morris
,
My America

Photojournalism

Ryan McGinley

Young Photographer

Gap

Applied/Fashion/Advertising Photography

Karl Lagerfeld

ICP Trustee Award

David Levi Strauss

Writing

Sommes-Nous?
, by
Tendance Floue

Publication

Tracey Moffatt

Art

Milton Rogovin

Cornell Capa Award

William Klein

Lifetime Achievement

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Madrid’s PHotoEspaña turns ten this year, and the lineup proves that Spain knows how to throw a birthday party. The photography festival’s 2007 schedule, which starts May 30, is studded with exhibitions promising “largest ever” and “never-before seen” and “for the first time since.”

Headliners Bruce Davidson, Lynn Davis, and Sylvia Plachy will be exhibiting in Spain for the first time. Plachy’s
Out of the Corner of Her Eye
show will include more than 100 photographs from her books
Unguided Tour, Red Light,
and
Self Portrait with Cows Going Home
. Davis’s series Icebergs, which marked the beginning of her celebrated landscape work, and
Persia Antigua,
will be on view, as well as Bruce Davidson’s mystical study of Manhattan’s plush green heart,
Central Park
.

In an exhibit produced especially for PHE07, master photographer Sebastião Salgado will portray Africa through 50 large-scale photographs in an exhibit titled
Work, Migration and Nature
. Another big-name PHE07 co-production, Andres Serrano’s
Salt on the Wound,
will survey the photographer’s career and some of his most controversial series —
Nomads, Ku Klux Klan, Budapest,
and
The Morgue
–including images on display for the first time.

Other “firsts” include the largest Spanish exhibition of frequently censored Chinese multimedia artist Zhang Huan, chosen from his last seven years of work and accompanied by a previously unseen documentary, as well as an impressively comprehensive Man Ray exhibition with more than 300 works and pieces on display for the first time since the surrealist photographer’s death in 1976.

The tenth anniversary of Spain’s forefront photo festival is a perfect chance to showcase some of the country’s native photographic talent — with exhibits such as Ricky Dávila’s survey of Iberian culture,
VideoSpain: 10 Years of Videoart in Spain,
and NOPHOTO’s in situ interpretation of the refashioning of Madrid’s Matadero warehouse-cum-cultural landmark.

But this year’s PHotoEspaña lineup also recognizes the international community it draws from, especially in its group shows.
Five European Gazes: Spanish and Latin American Photography,
recognizes the worldwide reach of Hispanic photographers, while
Neorealism: The New Image in Italy, 1932-1960,
examines that country’s history through the lenses of more than 75 photographers.

One show,
Local: The End of Globalization,
will even deal overtly with the trend toward a global community, drawing together work by 12 photographers to defend the autonomous local community. Likewise, the Encuentros PHE seminar will bring in more than 50 photographers, collectors, and intellectuals to trace the path photography has taken since PHE began in 1998, and to discuss its future route.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a festival without the awards. PHE’s top honor is the 12,000-euro PhotoEspaña Award for an outstanding professional career, awarded in past years to Hiroshi Sugimoto, William Klein, William Eggleston, and Nan Golden. Most exciting for the less established photographers is the PHE Discoveries Award, given for the best portfolio from the festival’s review. The Bartolomé Ros Award is presented to a Spanish photographer for an outstanding career, and prizes also go to the best photography book of the year, the best off-festival show, and the public’s favorite.

The festival’s biggest party, though, is sure to happen on June 8 during “The Night of the Photograph.” The city’s vibrant Barrio de las Letras will be filled that night (and well into the morning) with slide projections, dance, and live music, sure to draw not only the world-renowned photographers, but also Madrid’s legendary local partiers. Just don’t forget to wish PHotoEspaña “feliz cumpleaños.”

For more information on the festival and its exhibitions, visit www.phedigital.com.

Read the rest of this entry »

Madrid’s PHotoEspaña turns ten this year, and the lineup proves that Spain knows how to throw a birthday party. The photography festival’s 2007 schedule, which starts May 30, is studded with exhibitions promising “largest ever” and “never-before seen” and “for the first time since.”

Headliners Bruce Davidson, Lynn Davis, and Sylvia Plachy will be exhibiting in Spain for the first time. Plachy’s
Out of the Corner of Her Eye
show will include more than 100 photographs from her books
Unguided Tour, Red Light,
and
Self Portrait with Cows Going Home
. Davis’s series Icebergs, which marked the beginning of her celebrated landscape work, and
Persia Antigua,
will be on view, as well as Bruce Davidson’s mystical study of Manhattan’s plush green heart,
Central Park
.

In an exhibit produced especially for PHE07, master photographer Sebastião Salgado will portray Africa through 50 large-scale photographs in an exhibit titled
Work, Migration and Nature
. Another big-name PHE07 co-production, Andres Serrano’s
Salt on the Wound,
will survey the photographer’s career and some of his most controversial series —
Nomads, Ku Klux Klan, Budapest,
and
The Morgue
–including images on display for the first time.

Other “firsts” include the largest Spanish exhibition of frequently censored Chinese multimedia artist Zhang Huan, chosen from his last seven years of work and accompanied by a previously unseen documentary, as well as an impressively comprehensive Man Ray exhibition with more than 300 works and pieces on display for the first time since the surrealist photographer’s death in 1976.

The tenth anniversary of Spain’s forefront photo festival is a perfect chance to showcase some of the country’s native photographic talent — with exhibits such as Ricky Dávila’s survey of Iberian culture,
VideoSpain: 10 Years of Videoart in Spain,
and NOPHOTO’s in situ interpretation of the refashioning of Madrid’s Matadero warehouse-cum-cultural landmark.

But this year’s PHotoEspaña lineup also recognizes the international community it draws from, especially in its group shows.
Five European Gazes: Spanish and Latin American Photography,
recognizes the worldwide reach of Hispanic photographers, while
Neorealism: The New Image in Italy, 1932-1960,
examines that country’s history through the lenses of more than 75 photographers.

One show,
Local: The End of Globalization,
will even deal overtly with the trend toward a global community, drawing together work by 12 photographers to defend the autonomous local community. Likewise, the Encuentros PHE seminar will bring in more than 50 photographers, collectors, and intellectuals to trace the path photography has taken since PHE began in 1998, and to discuss its future route.

And, of course, it wouldn’t be a festival without the awards. PHE’s top honor is the 12,000-euro PhotoEspaña Award for an outstanding professional career, awarded in past years to Hiroshi Sugimoto, William Klein, William Eggleston, and Nan Golden. Most exciting for the less established photographers is the PHE Discoveries Award, given for the best portfolio from the festival’s review. The Bartolomé Ros Award is presented to a Spanish photographer for an outstanding career, and prizes also go to the best photography book of the year, the best off-festival show, and the public’s favorite.

The festival’s biggest party, though, is sure to happen on June 8 during “The Night of the Photograph.” The city’s vibrant Barrio de las Letras will be filled that night (and well into the morning) with slide projections, dance, and live music, sure to draw not only the world-renowned photographers, but also Madrid’s legendary local partiers. Just don’t forget to wish PHotoEspaña “feliz cumpleaños.”

For more information on the festival and its exhibitions, visit www.phedigital.com.

Read the rest of this entry »