Page 29 – Photojournalism, Photography, Art, Culture. The Best Links, The Coolest Stories.

I LOVE L.A.: Rick McCloskey: Van Nuys Blvd. 1972 – LENSCRATCH

The idea of cruising is/was a national past time in small towns and big cities. I well remember the cool night air as a carload of girlfriends and I drove down Sunset Strip night after night in someone’s family station wagon, air thick with adolescent per

via LENSCRATCH: http://lenscratch.com/2023/01/rick-mccloskey-van-nuys-blvd-1972/

Los Angeles has always been about car culture and what better project to go back in time and experience those nights of freedom and friends, laughing and looking for love (or trouble) than Rick McCloskey’s series from 1972, Van Nuys Blvd. Filmmaker Paul Thomas Anderson celebrated this world in his movie, Licorice Pizza. In the summer of 1972, Rick McCloskey went to Van Nuys Boulevard, near his parents’ home and for three months, every Wednesday and sometimes Friday and Saturday evenings photographed the action.

tagged Rick McCloskey

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 28, 2023
Corky Lee and the Work of Seeing | Ken Chen

There is a symmetry between Corky Lee’s passing and the rise of Stop Anti-Asian Hate: the departure of Asian America’s greatest documentarian and its most visible recent efflorescence. Years earlier, the brief window of postwar Asian American radicalism s

via n+1: https://www.nplusonemag.com/online-only/online-only/corky-lee-and-the-work-of-seeing/

I DID NOT REALLY BELIEVE that Corky Lee would pass away. I heard early reports that the radical photographer had contracted Covid-19 and stayed overnight at the hospital, but then he began to recover. We weren’t close, but he was so ubiquitous, such a fixture at seemingly every Asian American civic event, that he came to feel more familiar than many of my friends. A secretly shy person, he dodged his introversion by simply taking your photograph, or he’d pounce on you with a harangue, his manner paradoxically imposing and self-effacing

tagged Corky Lee

in Obituaries

January 26, 2023
I LOVE L.A.: Francesca Forquet: Santa Monica – LENSCRATCH

…it comes natural to me, as I try to get to know this country walking through the deserted alleys of Santa Monica, to notice these little clues, and to take pictures of them. I recently met Francesca Forquet while reviewing portfolios at the Palm Spring Photo Festival. It was like meeting an old friend who

via LENSCRATCH: http://lenscratch.com/2023/01/i-love-l-a-francesca-forquet-santa-monica/

I recently met Francesca Forquet while reviewing portfolios at the Palm Spring Photo Festival. It was like meeting an old friend who shared a similar sense of humor and joie de vivre, who happened to be Italian. I have always loved the small, absurd details of city life, not unlike what the brilliant television show, How to with John Wilson has done for New York.

tagged Francesca Forquet

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 26, 2023
“Communism(s): A Cold War Album” by Arthur Grace

“Communism(s): A Cold War Album” by Arthur Grace When I landed at West Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport just over 43 years ago, it marked the beginning of a 12-year exploration of life behind…

via burn magazine: https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2023/01/communisms-a-cold-war-album-by-arthur-grace/

When I landed at West Berlin’s Tempelhof Airport just over 43 years ago, it marked the beginning of a 12-year exploration of life behind the Iron Curtain. As a photojournalist for Western news outlets, I had unique access to both daily life and historic events across what was then known as the Soviet Bloc.

tagged Arthur Grace

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 25, 2023
A photographer visited more than 100 newspapers in rural Kansas – Poynter

Jeremiah Ariaz was looking for signs of democracy.

via Poynter: https://www.poynter.org/business-work/2023/jeremiah-ariaz-photographer-newspapers-kansas/

Leading up to the 2020 presidential election, photographer Jeremiah Ariaz wanted to make images that showed what democracy looked like in rural America. So he traveled across the country, from swing state to swing state. He visited campaign offices, main streets, protest sites and sometimes, newspapers.

tagged Jeremiah Ariaz

in Journalism

January 25, 2023
Marilyn Stafford, a Photojournalist Rediscovered, Dies at 97

She brought a narrative eye and a social consciousness to her work, whether covering refugee crises, celebrities or fashion. But much of it might have been lost.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/24/arts/marilyn-stafford-dead.html

Ms. Stafford retired in the 1980s to learn Mandarin, write poetry and support human rights initiatives. Or maybe her razor-sharp photographic vision had lost a bit of clarity. “Many years ago,” she said, “a photographer in New York told me, ‘Photographers don’t grow old, they just grow out of focus.’”

tagged Marilyn Stafford

in Obituaries

January 25, 2023
Behind the LA Times’ decision to run a controversial photo with its coverage of the mass shooting in Monterey Park – Poynter

The front page of Monday’s Los Angeles Times featured a photo of the shooter dead in his van.

via Poynter: https://www.poynter.org/commentary/2023/los-angeles-times-front-page-newspaper-photo-mass-shooter/

The photo, taken by Times staff photographer Allen J. Schaben, is not gory, and was taken from a distance. But the shooter is dead and the caption reads, “Officials investigate after the suspect died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in Torrance on Sunday.” (If you want to see the front page of the Times, click here.)

tagged Allen J. Schaben

in Ethics

January 24, 2023
I LOVE L.A.: Aline Smithson: LOST Los Angeles – LENSCRATCH

Los Angeles or La Puebla de Nuestra Senora la Reina de Los Angeles (The City of our Lady the Queen of the Angels) was founded by the Spaniards in 1781 and passed into American possession in 1846. It was however of no great importance until the ninth decad

via LENSCRATCH: http://lenscratch.com/2023/01/i-love-l-a-aline-smithson-lost-la/

The work today represents the past and present of my life, places I knew as a child and places I have come to know as an adult, with some levity added in.

tagged Aline Smithson

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 24, 2023
Great Portrait Advice from Award-Winning Photographers, Part 2 | LensCulture

Former LensCulture Award winners share their best creative advice as well as tips for advancing your career as a portrait-maker and photographer

via LensCulture: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/lensculture-editors-great-portrait-advice-from-award-winning-photographers-part-2

As the deadline approaches for the LensCulture Portrait Awards (closing soon — February 15, 2023), we reached out to dozens of former winners and finalists from prior editions of the LensCulture Portrait Awards to ask them for their advice on how to make a great portrait.

in Photography

January 23, 2023
AI Art Platform Hit With Copyright Lawsuit

Getty Images says it is suing Stability AI, creator of Stable Diffusion, alleging intellectual property right infringement.

via Hyperallergic: https://hyperallergic.com/794294/ai-art-platform-hit-with-copyright-lawsuit-getty-images/

Getty Images says it is suing Stability AI, creator of Stable Diffusion, alleging intellectual property right infringement.

in Copyright

January 19, 2023
Link:

“You’re sitting there with thirty or forty contacts books all over the floor, and you find yourself staying up late into the night thinking ‘there has to be something there’ and finding nothing at all. And the people on Instagram write to you and say, ‘oh my God, I’d love to look at your contact sheets’ and I tell them quite honestly, probably not, because they’re gonna disappoint the shit out of you!”

tagged Eugene Richards

in Audio & Podcasts

January 18, 2023
Great Portrait Advice from Award-Winning Photographers, Part I – From past LensCulture Portrait Award Winners and Finalists | LensCulture

Former LensCulture Award winners share their best creative advice as well as tips for advancing your career as a portrait-maker and photographer

via LensCulture: https://www.lensculture.com/articles/lensculture-editors-great-portrait-advice-from-award-winning-photographers-part-i

Former LensCulture Award winners share their best creative advice as well as tips for advancing your career as a portrait-maker and photographer. The first in a two-part series.

in Photography

January 16, 2023
“Reaching for Dawn” by Elliott Verdier

“Reaching for Dawn” by Elliott Verdier Of the bloody civil war (1989-2003) that decimated Liberia, its population does not speak. No proper memorial has been built, no day is dedicated …

via burn magazine: https://www.burnmagazine.org/essays/2023/01/reaching-for-dawn-by-elliott-verdier/

Of the bloody civil war (1989-2003) that decimated Liberia, its population does not speak. No proper memorial has been built, no day is dedicated to commemoration. The country, still held by several protagonists of the carnage, refuses to condemn its perpetrators. This deafening silence, that resonates internationally, denies any possibility of social recognition or collective memory of the massacres, condemning Liberia to an endless feeling of abandonment and drowsy resignation. The trauma carved into the population’s flesh is crystallized in the society’s weak foundations, still imbued with an unsound Americanism, and bleeds onto a new generation with an uncertain future.

tagged Elliott Verdier

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 16, 2023
AP photographer Jack Smith, who shot Mount St. Helens, dies

SEATTLE (AP) — Jack Smith, an Associated Press photographer who captured unforgettable shots of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, boxer Mike Tyson biting off part of Evander Holyfield’s ear, and weeping figure skater Tonya Hard

via AP NEWS: https://apnews.com/article/oil-spills-workplace-culture-mike-tyson-evander-holyfield-jack-smith-92ec14092ba79b7d2182e195f2eee719?fbclid=IwAR3Mo6azGmJZY8v3ooXGPgqumQnNwtTqmKDDrrscCk6zUb2gUE5g4lmlnqA

“People use the word legendary way too often, but in Jack’s case it might be an understatement,” said David Ake, the AP’s director of photography. “He could make pictures and friends faster than anyone I have ever met. If there was a big story in the West, there would be Jack — with his huge smile, beating you to the scene and making pictures you only wish you could have made.”

tagged Jack Smith

in Obituaries

January 14, 2023
Marilyn Stafford, a pioneer of street and fashion photography, has died, aged 97

Social observation was key to the work of the recently rediscovered protégée of Francesco Scavullo and Henri Cartier-Bresson

via The Art Newspaper – International art news and events: https://www.theartnewspaper.com/2023/01/09/marilyn-stafford-a-pioneer-of-street-and-fashion-photography-has-died-aged-97

The photographer Marilyn Stafford, who died on 2 January, aged 97, attributed much of her success to serendipity: being in the right place at the right time. “I think there are leprechauns or little guardian angels hovering over me,” she once said.

tagged Marilyn Stafford

in Obituaries

January 11, 2023
The DJ and the War Crimes — Rolling Stone

Thirty years after a death squad massacred civilians in Bosnia, none of the infamous Arkan’s Tigers have stood trial for their alleged part in those crimes.

Link: https://investigation.rollingstone.com/dj-photo-war-crimes-bosnia/

A young American photographer watched much of it happen. Ron Haviv met the Tigers in Croatia, where he had photographed them. Arkan liked one picture, in particular: the paramilitary commander standing in front of his uniformed men, posing with a baby tiger in one hand and a gun in the other. So Haviv embedded with the Tigers for one day, on April 2, 1992.

tagged Ron Haviv

in War

January 7, 2023
Charting Photography’s Gender Dynamics

“Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers at Magnum” unfolds the complex gender dynamics that women experience behind the camera.

via Hyperallergic: https://hyperallergic.com/789063/charting-photography-gender-dynamics-icp/

Close Enough: New Perspectives from 12 Women Photographers at Magnum unfolds the complex gender dynamics that women experience behind the camera.

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 7, 2023
The Favorite Photograph You Took in 2022 Exhibition – LENSCRATCH

Happy 2023! Thank you to everyone who contributed photographs to this massive 14-part post. We received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of images from every corner of the world. The work shared are favorite photos, not best photos, each ho

via LENSCRATCH: http://lenscratch.com/2023/01/the-favorite-photograph-you-took-in-2022-exhibition/

Happy 2023! Thank you to everyone who contributed photographs to this massive 14-part post. We received hundreds and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of images from every corner of the world. The work shared are favorite photos, not best photos, each holds something special to the photographer. If you don’t see your image, it was probably an incorrect size. We are sorry that we don’t have time to resize images. A HUGE thank you to Kassandra Eller for all her help with this effort.

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 2, 2023
Jesse Rieser: Souvenirs from Paradise – LENSCRATCH

For his exhibition titled Souvenirs From Paradise, Jesse intertwines divergent narratives from his works A Vanishing America Folklore and The Changing Landscape of American Retail in his search to find meaning in the meaningless. I have always been a big

via LENSCRATCH: http://lenscratch.com/2022/12/jesse-rieser-souvenirs-from-paradise/

I have always been a big fan of Jesse Rieser’s way of seeing. We’ve featured his humorous and quirky series focused on the holidays, Christmas in America Happy Birthday Jesus, numerous times and it always makes me laugh. He is a great observer of not only human behaviors but continues to look hard at what is disappearing in our cultural zeitgeist. Rieser recently opened the exhibition, Souvenirs from Paradise, at the The Gallery at Mountain Shadows in Paradise Valley, Arizona that is on view until January 6th, 2023

tagged Jesse Rieser

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 1, 2023
100 Years Since the Birth of the Soviet Union, in Pictures

It is the disintegration of the U.S.S.R. that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says he wants to remedy by waging war against Ukraine; it is the legacy of Moscow’s dominance that Ukrainians hope to free themselves of by defeating Moscow.

Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/30/world/europe/soviet-union-100-years-in-pictures.html

With the layered realities of the Soviet past looming over the war in Ukraine, editors of The New York Times pored over thousands of archival photographs to create a look back at the Soviet Union and its people. Here is their selection.

in Portfolios & Galleries

January 1, 2023