Category Archives: Photographers

Horst in colour

Photographers

A master.

One of the pleasant outcomes of the V&A’s Horst show was the scanning and printing of his colour transparencies.

Introduced in 1935, and much improved shortly thereafter, Kodak made Kodachrome slide film in sizes up to 11″ x 14″. Horst opted for 8″ x 10″ and the Vogue magazine archive of his slides holds many originals never before printed.


Click the image for the video.

The video explains that high quality drum scans of these originals preserved all the detail and dynamic range, something only recently improved upon by large format digital imaging. However, the vaunted curators really need to go back to curator school. Early in the video you see old copies of the magazine handled with cotton gloves. All well and good. Now jump to 4:22. Yup. Those fish and chip greased up fingers are used to manhandle the priceless originals. Let’s hope those drum scans are well backed up because the originals are not going to make it at this rate.

One of the key points the video illustrates is that Horst, during his 60 year career at Vogue, made the transition from monochrome to colour seamlessly, unlike many others. (Ever seen an HC-B colour snap? Ugh!). Horst’s classical, static compositions, using simple sets, helped but this master excelled at everything photographic. The video is well worth watching, especially if this is your first introduction to Horst’s work.

How to make $100 million

Movies

There’s one born every minute.


For that sort of money, you would think they would
at least get the order of the names correct.

The press would have us believe that Martin Scorsese’s latest (let’s hope it’s his last) gangster flick cost $160mm to make.

Uh huh.

Let’s see now, $10mm apiece to the three stars and the director, $20mm for everyone else and there’s $100mm missing. Doubtless The Mob got it for providing all the ‘de-ageing’ technology the movie is being sold on.

I have no issue with long movies if the content and delivery are good. The Godfather series, anything by Sergio Leone, they are all long and very good indeed. But this car wreck of a self-indulgent three-and-one-half hour snoozefest is an abomination, pure and simple. Plotless and directionless, it does at least have one purpose – to serve as background noise when you make the Thanksgiving turkey feast.

Mercifully, mine was free on Netflix as part of a new subscription, now cancelled. You would do well to contemplate like action for a public company so naïve as to waste its shareholders’ money thus.

Willy Ronis

Photographers

Parisian street snapper.

A contemporary of HC-B and Robert Doisneau, Willy Ronis (1910-2009) is best known for his Parisian street images.

There’s a quiet, self effacing charm to these pictures which are all about the most beautiful city on earth.




1948.


1947.


1967.


1954.


You can read more about Ronis here.

Wegee and The Public Eye

Movies, Photographers

Joe Pesci at his best.

Arthur Fellig, who went by the name Weegee, was a 1930 and 1940s New York street snapper who made his name with gruesome monochrome images of street murders, as often as not involving the mob. He installed a police band radio in his car, allowing him to listen in on the dispatcher and arrive first at the scene, scoring hundreds of scoops.

He was arguably the first freelance photographer, one to whom any latter day self respecting paparazzo owes his living. A larger than life – if small in stature – man like that would be a natural for a biopic, you would think, and indeed such a movie was made. It is called The Public Eye and stars one of the finest actors of his generation, Joe Pesci. Sadly, a confused plot along with poor editing and marketing made the movie a flop, but there’s lots for any photographer – and any Pesci fan – to enjoy.




At one of many scoops.


The 4 x 5 Speed Graphic he used was huge.
5 seconds between shots – flip the dark slide and film holder and pop in a new bulb.


The oversize hat emphasizes Pesci’s diminutive stature.


Just look at this attention to detail – Remington typewriter,
spare flash bulbs, Speed Graphic, you name it. Ford Deuce Coupe.


Integrity was not Weegee’s guiding force.
Here he sets up a shot of a dead bum in an alleyway.


Noo Yawk at night – a magic moment.


A much underused actor with great range.


More of the same.


Recommended to all photographers and movie lovers who are willing to overlook the movie’s shortcomings.

As for Weegee, he was quite probably the worst photographer to ever take a breath, but then it was shock not art that was his stock in trade. He did once take a really great photograph, and it is this he is remembered by:




Weegee’s ‘The Critic’, 1943.

And like Doisneau’s ‘The Kiss’, it was carefully posed. And, like with his mainstream work, the picture shows nothing but corpses.

The latest from Patek Philippe

Photographers

Another masterwork.




Father and son

The latest father and son image from the long running campaign for the world’s best wristwatch.

The last time I saw a book this large it was one of the volumes of Audubon’s Birds in the Dartmouth library.

Mercifully, my son is every bit as beautiful as these models:




Winston at the Gill Tavern, near his prep school. Click the image for the map.

That’s just one of the many advantages of the cell phone camera over traditional digital hardware – a GPS location, accurate to a foot or two.

iPhone 7 snap, background blurred in Focos.