All posts by Thomas Pindelski

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Marion Post Wolcott

Photographers

Depression era masterpieces.

Click the picture for the article.

The New York Times’s splendid ‘Lens’ blog just published a few images from a newly discovered treasure trove from Roy Stryker’s Farm Security Administration documentation of the Great Depression. All the familiar names are there – Walker Evans, Carl Mydans, Russell Lee, Gordon Parks, Ben Shanh, Arthur Rothstein and Dorothea Lange. It seems that Stryker was concerned that his collection of images survive, and had parceled off a substantial subset to New York’s Public Library, just in case. It is this collection of some 41,000 prints, in addition to the 175,000 in Washington DC which the NYT is referring to. Its recent rediscovery provides a treasure trove of rarely seen images.

These are moving pictures but one, above, especially caught my eye as it’s by Marion Post Wolcott, that least known of the FSA’s photographers, yet one of the best. She left the FSA in 1942 after just three years, opting for children, hearth and home, and the photography world was the worse off for her departure. The definitive book on her life and works has been in my library for many years and remains available at Amazon US. You can see it by clicking the picture below. What distinguishes Wolcott’s work from that of her polar opposite, Walker Evans, is its sensitivity and grace. Where Evans is in-your-face, she is all restraint and caring.

Click for Amazon US. I get no click-through payment.

In that book there’s another version of the above picture which includes the man at the right, and it’s every bit as good:

And finally, perhaps her greatest picture. One can only wonder at the bigotry of the American south which had this sort of thing going on 74 years after Lincoln’s assassination:

It would be another 25 years before LBJ signed the Civil Rights Act into law which finally made this dreadful behavior illegal.

Marion Post Wolcott had a great heart to accompany her great eye.

Bernal Hill Park

Photographs

Doggie heaven.

Bernal Hill Park.

You were just fired.

On the way home, the wife called to say she had left you.

It was polling day and a one percenter, smashed out of his gourd, broadsided your new car on the way home, explaining he was celebrating the new world order.

Exiting through the passenger door a smell of charred lumber announced that your home had burned down while Human Resources was busy rendering you resourceless.

You found that little silver box from the mantlepiece in the ruins but the spouse had made off with both the contents and the gym instructor. So much for the grocery money.

But your dog was there, waiting. His nose was cold. His tail was wagging. His body electric with excitement. And he just did not care because you are everything to him. As he jumped up and gave you a wet one on the cheek, you realized that nothing much else really mattered.

One near infallible test of a man is a dog. If a man does not like dogs there’s a pretty solid chance you do not want to know him. Now the obverse is not necessarily true, but at least this test will allow you to weed out half the stinkers. And if the dog is a pit bull, anything with a German name (Rottweiler, Weimaraner, Doberman, German Shepherd, Schnauzer, Dachshund, and so on – in other words anything which relishes killing), the owner is best avoided. There’s a reason people own homicidal dogs and it’s the same one that suggests you avoid both dog and owner.

On the other hand, French dogs, Spanish dogs, English dogs, Scottish dogs, American dogs and even Irish dogs when sober, are the bees’ knees, but I would avoid the Welsh. Corgis, for example, are clearly a genetic experiment gone seriously wrong and their owners’ sanity must be questioned. I mean, how can you love a dog whose feet have been amputated at the elbow, so to speak, has a jonesing for leeks and who gives waddling a bad name?

For SF Bay area dogs, the closest you get to heaven on this earth is likely Bernal Hill Park in Bernal Heights, south-west of the city’s center. Not only does the park allow free roaming dogs, the views are to die for and the only odd thing is that you will be looked at askance should you come here dogless. From a couple of locations you can gaze over the city and enjoy the Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate, all in one panorama.

It’s a steep climb up to the park, some 350 feet, and the area is not well served by public transport, so it’s best to drive to get there. Ugh! But the visit does not disappoint. A warm pullover is recommended as the wind can whip around something chronic, but it’s well worth the trip. Seemingly uniquely for San Francisco, parking is almost abundant, though navigating the Rolls up and down the tight streets was no fun. Ah!, the scent of Connolly hide.

Romping about. 50mm.

On guard. 50mm.

Retrieving. This pup had an uncanny ability to clamber up the rocks and find the ball. 135mm.

Shaggy pup. This chap had a personality as warm as a summer’s day. 135mm.

Alert pup. This pointer-retriever had the charm of Claudette Colbert, with looks to match. 135mm at f/3.5.

A bit of love; an old family friend gets a snack. 135mm.

So if any or all of the misfortunes mentioned in the opening to this piece should befall you, or if you just want a longer life, make your way to Bernal Hill Park with your dog, and you will find life is OK after all. And if you do not have a dog, you will find the urge to fix that oversight quite insurmountable after your visit.

All on the Nikon D700 using ‘all metal era’ Nikkor 24, 50 and 135mm MF lenses, aged 35 years or more.

Sarah Moon

Photographers

An intense video.

This brief movie shows the dreamy images of Parisian fashion photographer Sarah Moon, and dates from 1993. It’s accompanied by her narrative, an intense, unpunctuated, stream of consciousness piece which works really well.

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Moon pioneered the use of very grainy images, both monochrome and color, to convey a unique look in the fashion world.

60 years

Bio, Photographs

A sad demise.

The only thing I have in common with the Queen is that my time on this earth closely coincides with hers on the throne. Britain celebrates its Queen today, with displays of bunting and small craft on the Thames as have not been seen since the US won the last world war.

During that time Britain has destroyed what was left of her magnificent industrial heritage, forgotten what Englishness is all about by virtue of a seemingly non-existent immigration policy, and sold whatever was left to foreigners. Thus, somewhat comically, what lucre is to be made from the upcoming London Olympics will largely end up in the Swiss coffers of tax avoiding American global enterprises. You know, people like Kraft and its newly American Cadbury’s, whose unspoken goal is to kill as many of its consumers with its junk food products as nature allows. Think of it as the Tobacco Lobby business model.

What prompts these thoughts was a question from a very English friend asking whether I was watching the Jubilee celebrations on TV. “Well, not exactly, dear” I responded, “you see, America is a republic”.

After a carefully crafted British education, complete with public schooling by pederast Catholic monks and a proper degree from a proper university, I was all set to join Rolls Royce aircraft to help make better engines when RR went bust, taking Lockheed with it. Bother. Scouting around I found a job with a multinational in finance (where the numbers bit was child’s play compared to fluid dynamics) and, inevitably, started working with and for Americans. Now this was a greatly distasteful experience. That same schooling on which I prided myself had carefully inculcated a deep xenophobia directed at all things American. Yanks, you understand, were still regarded as “Over loud, over sexed and over here” as the pointed epithet aimed at Britain’s savior Eisenhower had it a few years earlier. But as one trained in analytical ways I stood back, observed and shortly thereafter …. emigrated. Rarely has a decision been so easy to make on grounds of sheer obviousness.

Meanwhile, since that November day in 1977 which saw me leave, Britain has continued to sink. Its serial theft of centuries past, known euphemistically as ‘The Colonies’, came to a rapid end, though the English always had a reason until then to pillage, plunder, rape and steal, for as the toast in the Officers’ Mess had it: “Gentlemen, the Queen!”. Now they still have the Queen but little to toast.

Still, it doesn’t take a computer to figure out that Mrs. Windsor is one heck of a good deal for a nation that has little left to sell. Sure, she’s a poorly educated philistine with awful taste in dogs. However, receiving a modest stipend from the taxpayer and paying substantial taxes on her investment income, she costs little or nothing in upkeep. As for all the tales of her wealth, they are meaningless. She can no more sell Buckingham Palace and its stolen Leonardos than the US taxpayer can sell the White House. It has zero value, as do her other residences as they cannot be transacted. In exchange, she fills the Treasury’s coffers mightily with tourist dollars, at least those dollars as are left after Kraft et al have kept theirs.

So happy Jubilee Your Majesty.

Nothing to wave the flag for. Hyde Park, 1977, right before I left.
Leica M3, 35mm Summaron, TriX.