Cartoons, grafitti and photographs

Photography

A great English tradition.

One essential aspect of my evening paper round when I was a kid was to check the daily JAK cartoon in The Evening Standard. Raymond Jackson (JAK) was their political cartoonist and from that paper round through my emigration many years later all I can remember is permanent labor discord in a nation soon to have its manufacturing base destroyed by its unelected representatives. So JAK was always a reassuring spot of sanity in a world gone mad.

His work covered all aspects of life but it was when he looked at the labor movement that he was at his best. You can see more of his work here.

When the electrical unions went on strike in mid-winter many old people died from hypothermia and JAK was there, in December 1970:

That one had the print unions refusing to run the day’s paper until an apology was published alongside. It was about then that I started having the first inklings that England was not to feature strongly in my future plans.

JAK was one in a long line of English political satirists which started with William Hogarth (1697-1764). Hogarth’s brand of social commentary was typified by Gin Lane (1750) where he graphically illustrated the depredations of alcohol on the poor. The woman on the steps is so soused she fails to notice the dog gnawing on her foot.

After Hogarth, David Low (1891-1963) became the mantle bearer for those with a heart. No more need be added to the fact that Low’s cartoons were banned in fascist Germany.

The contemporary descendant of these great satirists is the English graffiti artist Banksy. His carefully concocted schtick of secrecy and anonymity is in keeping with his art (“Once we catch you we’ll throw the key away”) and disguises one of the world’s highest earning artists. His image would never survive the money. Indeed, go to his web site and click on “Shop” and you are rewarded with …. a blank page!

What prompts these ruminations is that while the work of Banksy is in a line of direct descent from Hogarth, Low and JAK, his is the only genre that cannot survive without photography. You see, the people running The System are so threatened by Banksy’s work that no sooner than a new batch is spotted than it is painted over. So most of it survives only in photographs. You can see why from the following images.

There’s a very funny documentary on US Netflix titled Exit Through the Gift Shop which claims to show a competitor of Banksy’s vying for recognition; the whole thing is a spoof but so well done that you are fooled into thinking it’s a real piece of reporting. Right in keeping with Banksy’s man-against-the-system mindset. Check it out if this is your sort of thing. And keep a camera handy to record Banksy’s ephemera for posterity.

A bigger MBA SSD

Computing

Looks like an easy ugrade.

When I first reviewed the new 11″ MacBook Air (MBA) I mentioned that a larger 256gB Solid State Drive (SSD) was coming to the aftermarket as a replacement for the small 64gB or 128gB versions Apple ships. Well wouldn’tyou know it, Apple put a kibosh on PhotoFast threatening to pull all their other procurement from the manufacturer if PhotoFast did not cease and desist from making the MBA a more useful tool. You can guess the rest.

Well, that tyranny just ended as MacSales now sells much the same SSD under the name of Mercury Aura Pro Express in capacities of 180, 240 or 360gB for $500 – $1,180. The 240gB is the sweet point in terms of gB per $ at $580. It ships with the required pentalobe screwdriver; Apple arrogantly thought that fitting these unique retainers would stop anyone from opening up the MBA (the company feels increasingly like it’s run by tort lawyers – so much for ‘Think Different’). This special screwdriver is used to remove the ten screws holding the rear cover. It will also work on the latest versions of the iPhone 4 which uses like retainers. Jerks. Removal of one more regular Torx screw frees the SSD for replacement, and MacSales provides that screwdriver also. Like drives are also available for the 13″ MBA.

The PhotoFast SSD promised to ship an external enclosure to make use of the removed original SSD; MacSales does not include that (shame) so you must first make a bootable backup before replacing the original SSD. Use Carbon Copy Cloner to do this. Hopefully aftermarket enclosures will crop up to make use of the removed SSD.

10 external and one internal screw, and the new SSD (circled) is a plug-and-play replacement.

So for $1,000 for the 11″ MBA and $580 for the 240gB SSD upgrade you have an extremely light and capable notebook computer which my earlier tests showed is more than up to the task of running Lightroom 3 and Photoshop on the road. You will need a plug-in adapter for CF cards on either the 11″ or 13″ MBA and an SD card adapter for the 11″ (the 13″ has an SD slot). That’s still a lot of dollars per gigabyte but in the recorded history of man slim, light and fast have never been cheap.

I am finding that the 11″ MBA is the perfect size for occasional computing, lacking the added optical drive and backlit keyboard of the MacBook Pro but weighing in at 2.3 lbs vs. 4.5 lbs for the 13″ MBP. The MBA has a 5 hr battery life vs. up to 10 for the MBP. This piece was written on my MBA.

If you want to make the MBA into your primary computer (it accepts external large displays for home use) the addition of increased SSD capacity described above may make sense.

A bit of fun

Photographs

Four for Sunday.

Some recent snaps just for fun:

Market Street steam. Where does all that steam come from?

Battery Exchange. Wear a hat and you become invisible!

The Embrace.

The Gnome. He has it down, even to the walking stick. Real luck with the lighting.

All snapped on the Panasonic G1 with the kit zoom.

To get ahead ….

Paintings, Photographs

…. get a hat.

“To get ahead, get a hat” was a famous slogan of men’s hat makers in the middle of the last century when every respectable man wore a hat. Come to think of it, a lot of not-very-respectable guys wore them, too.

Speaking for myself, I wear a hat, more correctly mostly a cap, 365 days in the average year, more in a leap year. My choice is one of many English Tweed (sorry, Scottish Tweed) caps in my collection, though now and then you might find me under a Trilby or, on particularly eccentric days, a Sherlock Holmes Deerstalker. This one is ideal for taking street snaps as everyone writes you off as a harmless nut which, of course, you are. Summer, as often as not, finds me sporting a Borsalino linen number and I confess to always having had a hankering for a straw boater but have yet to own one. For years you could have found a Greek fisherman’s number gracing the old noggin and if I ever owned a bowler I am most certainly not admitting that here.

The milliner is a special kind of hat maker, catering solely to the gentler sex. No finer expression of his work – or his clientele – exists outside Degas’s priceless renditions.

And it’s not like he did it once. There are many renditions.

So show me a hat shop and you can bet on one thing. I’m going inside.

Here’s one in San Francisco’s Little Italy and, yes, you know who I was thinking of:

In the hat shop. Panasonic G1, kit lens 1/3rd sec., f/6.3. ISO 320.

1/3rd second, hand held? Yup. Sometimes you get lucky, and no way I was letting this one get away. No time to mess with the wretched little buttons on the Panny to increase the ISO, so 1/3rd it was. Snapped at the Goorin Brothers Hat Shop on Washington Square in Little Italy, San Francisco, which has been selling hats since 1895, when Degas was still doing his thing.

Helen Levitt

Photographers

A New York street snapper.

A friend of the blog pointed me to a Helen Levitt show at the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University in Palo Alto and I finally manage to toddle along. The show, named “In a New York Minute”, is worth attending if you can make it; unlike the overblown Cartier-Bresson one earlier this month at SF MOMA, this one has relatively few pictures on display and leaves you wanting more. That’s how it should be done. Plus you can see a great collection of Rodin sculptures and tour the Stanford campus while you are there.

The distinguishing feature of Levitt’s work is that it is never less than witty. Often it’s laugh-out-loud funny. You could never accuse HCB’s output of that.

You can read Levitt’s biography here. The theft of many of her color originals from her home only further emphasizes the need for every photographer to have multiple back-ups – there is no excuse in a digital age not to, using technology not available to Levitt.

Though there’s a paperback of Levitt’s work available for browsing in the gallery, their bookshop only has a very costly $60 hardback of her work. Duh! I asked the salesperson and she didn’t even know there was a paperback ….

No matter. Do the smart thing and order the same hardback from Amazon for much less. It’s beautifully printed and an essential addition to any street photography fan’s book library. I just ordered one of the last ones, so you may have to wait! But a search of remaindered booksellers will get you there for a like price.

Levitt’s work often features children and many of the images in the show are in color, which only adds to their impact. Color is another thing largely missing from HCB’s work which, if you have seen his color snaps, is just as well.

* * * * *

Here’s a typical Levitt photo, full of wit and whimsy:

The show is not lacking in humor either. There are but two props, visible in the following snaps, which I took once the ever watchful guard’s back was turned. (Excuse me, but why exactly are they ‘guarding’ machine made prints?) If you want to get a camera in there, don’t take a backpack as they make you check those. My shoulder bag, Panny G1 and all, survived the strip search ….

All snaps on the Panasonic G1 with the Olympus 9-18mm MFT superwide zoom at 9mm and at ISO 1600. In truth, that’s really pushing the poor little sensor in the G1 which starts emitting creaking sounds at anything much over ISO 400, but it works at a pinch when the light is really low. Levitt – and HCB – would have loved it!