Category Archives: Photographers

John Szarkowski

Book reviews

A mid-West photographer.


Click the image to go to Amazon. I am not paid if you do that.

John Szarkowski (1925-2007) is best known as the Director of Photography at New York’s MOMA (1962-1991), where he succeeded Edward Steichen in the rôle, curating some 160 exhibitions of photography during his tenure.

What is less well known is that he was also a fine photographer with what I can only describe as a mid-West sensibility. A love of the land and of the architecture of that most wonderful city where it is generously on show, Chicago, pervades his work. As an early adherent of Walker Evans, he took Evans’s style and made it into something subter and gentler. Much of his best work was done in the 1950s, coinciding with one of the peaks of America’s prosperity. His architectural work of that period is replete with images of the buildings of Louis Sullivan (1856-1924), the man who brought the skyscraper to the mid-West.

The book above is copiously illustrated with his photographs, aptly interspersed with extracts from his always elegant letters, written in an era of attention spans and no Twitter. Szarkowski, thorugh his curatorial work at MOMA together with his love of photography, probably had more to do with bringing photography into the artistic mainstream than anyone before him. The book is highly recommended.

Inge Morath

Photographers

An exceptional talent.

The Austrian photographer Inge Morath (1923-2002) was that rare beast, a woman photographer in a male dominated Magnum photo agency.

Inge Morath
1954 – untitled. (Probably in Ireland).

Inge Morath
Spain.

Inge Morath
Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits

Read more about this talented photographer on Wikipedia.

Inge Morath
Inge Morath’s Leica M2. Yes, you can pull the other leg on that wear pattern.

You can see more of her work on the Magnum site where the cleanliness of her composition is abundantly in evidence.

William Stout books

Architecture, Book reviews

Architecture.

William Stout books is located in the heart of San Francisco’s interior design area of Jackson Square and has been in its current location for 27 years. The focus here is on architecture, urbanism, landscape, design and art. There’s even a small pure photography section though obviously photography pervades much of their inventory.

Spread over two floors, this sort of place can do serious damage to the architecture aficionado’s wallet.


The upper level.


The lower level.

Curiously, signs on the lower level proclaim “Please do not Photograph Books” (eh?) but the atmosphere is friendly and browsers are encouraged to take a seat and enjoy what the store has to offer. There are so many books here that the best way to put the sheer range of choice in context is to point out that tomes on California garden design alone take up a large bookcase. You will not find Amazon style discounts, but then you will not find this sort of selection on Amazon either.

I snapped up a copy of History’s Anteroom which is a photo book showing the effects of the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire as well as the heroic subsequent reconstruction of the city. You can get this through Amazon but not discounted – the book is actually published by William Stout themselves, and is highly recommended, if not cheap at $40 + tax.


Click the picture for William Stout’s site.

Jay Maisel

Photographers

Outstanding.

This brief documentary on Jay Maisel is a fine portrait of one of the hardest working and most successful photographers.

Click the picture for the video.

A self-confessed technophobe, Maisel took to digital when encouraged by a friend, realizing that he no longer had to “…. check 600 rolls of film….” at the airport.

I was especially taken by his statement that the greatest fear he has when snapping is that he will miss an image.

“There is nothing I am not interested in shooting. I am open to anything that is out there. I have no agenda.”

“Pain is not a conduit to art or joy.”

Hooray for that.

Paulette Tavormina

Photographers

Gorgeous neo-Dutch work.

A reader put me onto the work of still life photographer Paulette Tavormina. Much of her best work is done in the style of the great Dutch painters of still lives who originated the movement in the late-16th Century.

Here’s a typical Dutch piece, oil on copper:


Painting by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, 1614.

And here’s a photograph by Ms. Tavormina:


Click the image for Paulette Tavormina’s web site.

An avid collector of butterflies, shells and ephemera, Tavormina makes a living from her still lives and it’s easy to see why. Her work is quite exceptional and gorgeous to look at. Take some time to look around on her elegant blog. And thank you Peter S. for the lead.