Category Archives: Photographers

Photography in Mexico

Photographers

MOMA SF show.

March 10 through July 8, 2012.

This show at MOMA in San Francisco contains exactly what it says. Work not so much by Mexican photographers but photographs taken in Mexico. As you can see, I took Winston, our ten year old, with me and he enjoyed it as much as I.

The early content – Paul Strand, Tina Modotti, Edward Weston, Manuel Alvarez Bravo – is the usual agglomeration of poor, dank, drab, awfully printed results, masquerading as classics. Some are so bad it’s almost impossible to make out anything. The content may be great. I have no way of telling.

The later work is fine, well printed and exhibited and the price of entry is rewarded by one extraordinary sequence by crime snapper Enrique Metinides. The best of the bunch I have left obscured by the patron below, because you really need to see it for yourself. What looks like a balletic sequence of bridge builders turns out to be cops rescuing a would be jumper. Beautiful, moving and extraordinary in every way.

Work by Enrique Metinides, . D700, 35-70 AF D.

The show is well laid out and the volume of content just right.

General view. D700, 35-70mm AF D. Click the picture.

Worth a visit. Be sure to check out Susan Meiselas’s work, which is a stand out.

Martin Parr

Photographers

An English street snapper.

Martin Parr’s street photography is funny, specializing in amusing juxtapositions of people with their backgrounds.

You can see him at work at the Ascot races, where English ladies parade their finery and silly hats, in the video below.

Only the introduction is in Dutch, the rest is in English.

Dirigibles

Photographers

Magic.

The magic, romance and infinite possibilities of lighter-than-air flight were never better suggested than in these magnificent early pictures of dirigibles from the New York Times at it’s extraordinary ‘Lens’ blog.

Click/touch the image for the photo essay.

George Hurrell

Book reviews

Photographer to the Stars.


On the cover – Joan Crawford and Franchot Tone. Click the image.

George Hurrell’s star shone brightest when the Hollywood studio system was in full flow. Stars may not have made the extraordinary compensation packages of today and, indeed, their long term contracts pretty much made them indentured servants to the studio bosses, but they had regular work and who would argue that today’s movies are better?

I was reminded of this splendid book when setting up the lights for our son’s tenth birthday session, and surprised to find I had never mentioned it here. The boom light used on the hair is pure Hurrell, and you will see its effect in almost every picture in the book. I have had this book in my collection for years and it’s still in print, though my Scottish gene reminds me that I almost certainly bought it at a remaindered price.

Highly recommended not just for Hurrell’s tremendous skill with lighting – and we are talking large plate cameras here – but also because of the many memorable images of stars of the golden age of Hollywood. My favourite is Loretta Young – a face of quite exceptional beauty.

The placement of the subject under the boom light is critical with the relatively small light sources used today. Hurrell used enormous light boxes which gave off a broad soft beam, making placement of the subject easier. With small strobes, if your subject is as much as an inch or two too far back the face will wash out into a ghastly death mask. I make things easier for Winston by marking the placement of his toes on the ground with tape, once the right position is determined. The cover photograph, above, interestingly uses the single boom light only, to superb effect.