Yes, yes, I know Picture Envy is a day late. But, well, I was busy as can be yesterday - actually, all last week - and didn't have a chance to get to it. Lots o' cases. Lots o' conferences. Lots o' typing.
Today, however, made up for it. I hadn't been taking pictures lately. I wasn't inspired, and I wasn't leaving the office until well after sunset, so there wasn't much to shoot. However, today, I went up to NYC in the Suburban Assault Vehicle (which I am growing to love more and more each day) to visit the Met with I.Y., my lobbyist friend. IY was kind enough to accompany me to the Metropolitan Museum of Art for the special exhibit on Walker Evans, street photography, and photography books. Entitled Few are Chosen: Street Photography and the Book 1936-1966, the exhibit showcases a small collection of Walker Evans' work for the photography book Many Are Called, along with samples from:
- Robert Frank's The Americans: The European version of this, I learned today, had quotes from sociological works, such as The Kinsey Report, opposite images so as to reflect American culture; the much cleaner, more powerful American version (I believe) simply has a masterful introduction by Jack Kerouac and a listing of locations of shots.
- Bill Brandt's The English At Home: A look at the English class system in the 30's; pretty damn cool shots with a strong sense of order... which one would expect from a Brit.
- Henri Cartier-Bresson's magnum opus, The Decisive Moment: This includes one of my favorite shots, The Traitor, of a quisling being denounced outside of Dachau.
- William Klein's Life is Good and Good for You in New York: Okay, I guess... lots of out of focus silver gelatin prints with a strong grain to them; it almost feels like found photography.
- Helen Levitt, A Way of Seeing: Like Many Are Called and Life is Good and Good for You in New York, A Way of Seeing is set in the Five Boroughs. I think New York is a great setting for photography, as you can see by my collection of shots taken there (or you can check out the ever popular, yet rarely updated, Quarlo for much more refined shots of the city). Levitt had a good sense of it. I liked her sense of order amidst the chaos (she has a great shot of the elevated - what was that? the No. 2 line? - train platform and children blowing bubbles that is almost symbolic of a musical staff).
As special exhibits go, I think that this one was way too small. The Met has enough space to house an Egyptian Temple - and it does, in fact - along with an Abyssinian temple, a room designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, a Greek statuary, two beautiful Medieval chapels and nearly an entire floor of schlocky Impressionistic paintings (i loathe - loathe! - impressionism; impressionism is to painting what friggin' Yanni is to classical music. It's "art lite."). This place is (I think) about 10 blocks long, and only shows a small portion of its collection (Thank you, Messrs. Morgan, Rockefeller, and Annenberg). Still, Few Are Chosen only took up two ten-by-ten rooms, showing no more than forty shots or so. I would have preferred a larger exhibit.
Nevertheless, you should visit the Met. If, like me, you're lucky enough to go during quite possibly the most absurd protest in American history - the "Pale Male" protest, a battle betwen largely inane bird watchers with largely idiotic co-op owners - and get to take pictures of New Yorkers behaving stupidly (for a city that prides itself on being street smart, somewhat cynical, and sophisticated: may I remind you that you had 100 people protesting in the street today because someone doesn't like having a raptor nest near their apartment? Let me put it another way: this is the best protest you could come up with?!), then enter the Met and take pictures of utterly beautiful antiquities from Greece, Cyprus, Abyssinia, Babylon, and Rome, and then get to realize that there are almost no restaurants in the Upper East Side.
And then - and this is my favorite part about Manhattan - I get to leave.
Mm... Home. Home to my new book (I just finished Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, and am now reading Robert Kaplan's Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos. Both books are recommended.) And, as I wrap up this little travelogue, I also note with pleasure that I took pictures today for the first time in weeks (ah yes, the point I started with before this tangent). Two-and-a-half rolls. You'll need a photographer's pass to shoot in the Met if they think your camera looks professional (I'm not sure why security gave me one, but they did), and you'll need at least ISO 800 film, as no flash photography is allowed (I used ISO 1600 at f 125 and f 90; hopefully, this will give me enough light and shadow to make my statue shots work). Still, as I re-learned today, it's great inspiration to shoot in New York. Sometimes, when you lack inspiration, it's precisely what is needed. (This means I really owe IY a serious round of drinks. I'm talking bombay-and-tonic-and-make-it-a-double.)
All right. On to the belated Picture Envy.
First up: Chromasia's Tide Down, a shot of what David J. Nightingale, who runs Chromasia, refers to as some sort of mooring point near St. Anne's, England (well, I assume it's England; better to just say that it is somewhere in the United Kingdom). I like the structural symmetry of the "mooring point," which looks more like some sort of large-scale sculpture than a practical object (such as a place to tie up a boat; besides, it looks to be metal, and therefore it would destroy any boat that was washed into it). I also like the somewhat barren quality to the shot. It makes me think of the sculptures used to represent a sort of futuristic style in the film Gattaca.
Second: Not really a photoblog post, but rather a selection of essays about, and photos by, the recently deceased photojournalist, Eddie Adams. Adams is the photojournalist responsible for the famous shot of a North Vietnamese irregular being executed by a South Vietnamese Brig. General. Interestingly, even though Adams won the Pulitzer for that shot (or because he won the Pulitzer, perhaps), he regretted ever taking it. Apparently, Adams thought Vietnam was a good cause. Anyway, Adams also took this lush, foreboding shot that was used for the film Unforgiven. Adams knew how to portray Clint Eastwood as the sort of man that would "kill just about anything that walked or crawled at one time."
Adams died of Lou Gherig's Disease this year, and The Digital Journalist created this Nikon-sponsored page, A Tribute to Eddie Adams. While the gallery of Adams' pictures are amazing, I ended up finding the essays even more compelling. Adams seemed like the sort of guy I would have gotten along with just fine....
Last selection for Picture Envy (are you happy, Kristen? Picture Envy's back, and this time with lots o' words): Sam Javanrouh's very... orange, I suppose... shot of Toronto, Orange Clouds. I love the inorganic quality of this shot, as it makes the city alien and somewhat evil-looking (which is all-together strange considering that Canadians, if you'll permit this generalization, are pretty much non-evil, all things considered).
Next week, I'll shoot for timeliness. Right now, I'm just trying to keep up with the Joneses.
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