I was able to get up to Danzinger yesterday afternoon and it was absolutely worth the drive. Danzinger is a great space, in Bergamot Station which has so many cool gallery spaces and is actually pretty easy to get to considering how hectic summer traffic can be in Santa Monica. The staff at Danzinger is also outstanding, they know the exhibition well and were actively engaging visitors to explain interesting facts about the work. The staff obviously has a passion for art and are motivated, I wish every gallery was like that.
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Bergamot Station Arts Center - Santa Monica
In the other blog post I am putting up today I talk about the Todd Papageorge exhibition at Danziger which is why I went to Bergamot Station Arts Center yesterday. While I was there, I bounced around the other galleries and found enough other good work that I liked so I decided to do a separate post on the other spaces.
Galerie XII - Los Angeles. French photographer Sacha Goldberger’s first Los Angeles solo exhibition “Alien Love” is a lot of fun. His images are stunning, so well made, and the story line is hilarious. 1950’s Sci Fi feel with the clean look of modern image making. There is an accompanying DIY book of the Alien Love portfolio, which is interesting, but I took pass on it. The book printing is okay, but it doesn’t come close to the beautiful prints in the exhibition, so it wasn’t the same for me. It is a solid exhibition still which runs through September 3rd. Below are my two favorite photographs. I am sure my law enforcement background, my ties to Arizona and its Saguaros, and my appreciation of beautiful brunette women had something to do with these prints standing out for me.
Galerie XII was also showing Matthew Arnold’s “Longing for Amelia”. I was not familiar with Arnold or his work but found “Longing for Amelia” to be a tight exhibition with lots of unique details. I felt it had good value.
Rose Gallery had Life:Still by Godeleine De Rosamel which I would best describe as pottery-based sculpture. I thought it was interesting and fun, I enjoyed viewing it, but it doesn’t fit my collecting interests.
I absolutely loved some of the paintings up at Skidmore Contemporary Art. Jessica Brilli’s “Chrystler in Carport” brought me back to my mom’s blue Chevy station wagon I grew up in and Jessica’s “Morning of the Camping Trip” was equally beautiful. I love her style. Richard Baker’s “Sonoran Sunset” was also awesome. Reminded me of Ed Mell’s work, one of my favorite painters. Lia Skidmore has a solid eye for work and a nice space, I will definitely be back there again.
Peter Fetterman Gallery had his “Power of Photography” exhibition up to coincide with the release of his new book of the same title. I love the fact he chose a Max Yavno photograph for the book cover, I love Yavno’s work, and how he used a long lens to flatten out his subject matter, an interesting different perspective and wonderful prints. The same print is on the wall in Fetterman, and it is such a beautiful rich print. Fetterman always has classic prints up, always something good to see there. It should be noted that Peter also has a book signing and discussion scheduled at Arcana Books in Culver City on Saturday August 13th from 4:00 - 6:00 PM. Arcana is one of the best fine art photography bookstores in the country, their stock is amazing, great space, and knowledgeable staff. John Divola is also signing his new book “Scapes” at Arcana tomorrow, Sunday July 24th from 4:00-6:00 PM. See Map below for Arcana Books location:
PD-029 #33 5-02-92 Bill in front of his laundromat - Los Angeles, California
30 years ago today, I was at the LA Riots
As a documentary photographer, the fact that I was unable to photograph some of the most surreal things I ever witnessed will always bother me.
I was a Police Officer for the City of Chino in 1992 and at work when the LA Riots erupted. Chino is forty miles East of downtown Los Angeles, just outside of Los Angeles County in San Bernardino County. I remember watching Reginald Denny getting dragged from his truck and beaten on the TV in the watch commander’s office as our dispatchers took 911 calls from our citizens pleading for our officers to nbe sent to help stop the things they were witnessing on. I was expecting that there would soon be a mutual aid request soon from LAPD and I started lobbying to go when that call came. I knew Los Angeles better than most my peers and I wanted to get into this fray. The rioting grew that night, but the mutual aid request never came.
I lived in Pasadena then and when I got home, I could smell the smoke from the fires in Los Angeles. One buddy I grew up with was a Pasadena cop and he let me know Northwest Pasadena was rioting too and their department was on tactical alert. It immediately reminded me of my father’s stories from the Pasadena Gambling House riot which occurred during the Watt’s Riots in 1965, just after he had joined Pasadena PD.
I watched a lot of news before my next shift as rioting spread on April 30th. I knew I wanted to get to Los Angeles but was torn because part of me wanted to go photograph it and the other part wanted to go as a police officer to deal with the looting and rioting. I knew to go photograph on my own would be dangerous and logistically nearly impossible.
Finally on May 1st Los Angeles sent out a mutual aid request to San Bernardino and Riverside Counties. I was one of nine officers sent from Chino PD, we took three older police cars. We were to the Los Alamitos National Guard base where we staged and waited for our assignment. I remember we left in the afternoon and traffic on the 57 freeway was so heavy we had to drive down the center shoulder to get there. Looking at the people we were passing most of them looked serious or nervous. I remember people were worried the rioting would spread throughout Southern California. I was focused on what awaited us in Los Angeles, we were not saying much, mostly listening to the Am news radio. I was expecting to get into a lot of conflict, so I had the pregame type of focus. I was thinking of what I had seen on the news, and I was trying to run as many of those scenarios through my mind as possible to prepare.
We sat at Los Alamitos for over an hour then they told us they were cooking steak dinners for us before we went it. The last thing I wanted was a military grade steak dinner, I just wanted to get to Los Angeles while things were still going on. After dinner we were sent to the City of Inglewood in a task force of mostly officers and deputies from San Bernardino County agencies. The only agency from our county that didn’t go with us was Ontario PD because they had been assigned to escort a shipment of ammunition to Compton PD shortly after they arrived at Los Alamitos.
It was evening when we finally started our drive up the 405 Freeway. Our convoy of over 30 police cars, every unit with 3 to 4 cops wearing helmets, and support vehicles was pretty impressive looking, a strong show of force. The San Bernadino Sheriff even sent his mobile communications center semi truck so our radios would still work outside of our normal range. As we got near the 110 Freeway, I could see plumes of smoke all around South-Central Los Angeles. The columns had orange tints from the late afternoon sun, and the scene was almost apocalyptic. I knew a full curfew was set to go into effect at sunset, or 8pm, and I was hoping to get deployed before that. We got to Inglewood and staged in the parking lot of an eight-story hotel on Century Boulevard just off the freeway, today it is a Motel 6. Once again, we all stood around and waited, now as the sun was setting and the curfew was going in to affect. The Inglewood officials didn’t seem to know what to do with us. By that point rioting in their city had calmed down. Los Angeles and Compton were still rioting but Inglewood officials didn’t want to send us over to those areas in case Inglewood had more problems. I also think a lot of people saw us come into the city and officials just liked our presence as a deterrent.
We were eventually sent to guard a gas station on the north side of Inglewood, I think it was on La Brea near Centinela. The small mini mart portion of the Chevron had already been partially looted but I was able to find a map inside so we could figure out where we were (pre-cellphone era when gas stations sold maps). With the curfew in place we hardly saw anyone out and about. I could still hear gunshots occasionally, but everything sounded a couple blocks away, and no one was shooting at us. A couple of us eventually talked our Sergeant into letting us scout the surrounding area. Inglewood residents still had electricity so except for the looted businesses it looked normal. But once we went a few blocks East into Los Angeles where there was no power, so everything was pitch black. In Los Angeles we came across a market that was still burning, LA City Fire engines were on scene working it with CHP officers providing them security. On one block we found a corner market that had burned to the ground, a pilot light for some appliance was still burning and that little two-inch flame was the only light we could see on the entire block. We saw a few people moving around in the darkness but for the most part the streets were deserted in that area.
It was well after midnight when we returned to the hotel at the end of our shift. Things were still disorganized. The San Bernadino County Sheriff’s Department had allocated all the rooms at the hotel for their people, and no one had any idea where to put us. We waited for a long while and I finally got fed up. I told my sergeant if he’d let me drive to a pay phone I would find us a hotel. He asked how and I said I would just come up with something, he agreed since there wasn’t another option. The first hotel I could think of was the Bonaventure Hotel in downtown Los Angeles. I knew they would be empty and assumed they would be happy to have Officers on site given everything that was happening. I made the call, spoke with the manager, and he invited us come on over. They comped us on everything and their only request was that we park our units up front so anyone coming to cause problems would see them.
We decided to drive across Manchester Boulevard to the hotel in downtown LA. I knew Manchester very well, having driven it hundreds of times going to Kings games at the Forum. It was so surreal to see the area pitch black with so much damage and seemingly being the only ones out and about. So many businesses were gone, and it seemed there was a burned-out car in the road every couple blocks. We passed a couple armored vehicles parked on side streets then soon saw a pair of heads approaching from behind us. We couldn’t tell who it was, so we moved to the right lane and were starting to prepare for trouble when we saw it was a convoy of 30 Los Angeles County Sheriff’s units with four deputies in each car. Only the lead unit had headlights on every other unit behind was blacked out, we assumed they might have been out hunting for problems trying to appear as if there was just a solo vehicle. The sight of that LASD convoy passing us was so incredible, put the gravity of the situation in to perspective.
The next couple days we were assigned to guard the general area of Manchester and Crenshaw in Inglewood, it was mostly to show a presence and deter further unrest. We were able to assist Inglewood PD with a few calls, a shots fired and a looting in progress, but those calls were uneventful. It did allow us a chance to talk with the Inglewood officers about the first part of the rioting which was insane, I remember talking with Sergeant John Bell after clearing a Nix Check Cashing store which someone had reported being “re-looted”. I knew who Bell was, he was somewhat of a legend, having survived some intense situations. Bell told us that he was in three pursuits and two shootings on the first night of the riots. He described driving up to the front of a liquor store he thought was just being looted only to discover it was an armed robbery in progress and having to engage the suspects. Later that night I spoke with a couple more Inglewood officers in an unmarked unit on another call. They said their primary assignment that night was to go to “shots fired” and “man with a gun” calls before other officers in marked units arrived. Both officers had been in so many shootings the first two days of the riots the extra magazines on their belts were empty. The department had apparently run out of duty ammo because officers had been in so many shootings. They described the agency being in a “no hits no paper” mode because of how overwhelming things had been. They said if someone shot at them, they would try to return fire and get out of the area as fast as possible then come back later with numbers and check to see if they had hit anyone. I could tell how much stress they had been through with the looks on their faces. One side note about Nix Check Cashing, which is a chain of check cashing storefronts still around today, while we were there a couple guys drove up and asked us if Nix was open. We said they were closed because it had been looted. The guys lamented that they needed to cash their welfare checks but couldn’t find anyplace open because they had all been looted or burned. We suggested they drive out of the area, and they said they didn’t have enough gas because all the gas stations had also been looted and shut down. This interaction highlighted the lack of thought with the rioting. One other incredible thing I saw during the riots was the massive line of 3000 people at the main post office for South Central LA when people had to go down in person to get their welfare checks because all letter carrier service had been suspended because the area was too dangerous.
We patrolled around the neighborhoods some and interacted with people the best we could. I consider a lot of Inglewood as middle class, definitely nicer than South Central LA, and most the residents are good people. The neighborhoods were very well cared for, lots of older well-kept single-family homes. The homes were in good repair, lawns were mowed, hedges trimmed, most with a decent car in the driveway, and almost everyone with security bars on the windows. But it also seemed like every block had one house that was the local gang or crack house. Trash in the yard, broken down car out front, and bullet holes in the stucco. It still pisses me off to think of how many decent people were living behind bars because of the gangsters on their block, and how many more people today are subjected to crime. It was blatant who was involved in the looting and rioting. We stopped in front of one of those gangster houses and chatted with a guy putting a new car stereo in his ride. The guy said he had just bought it but we all knew where it came from but there was no way to prove it. All the stores had been closed for several days and he didn’t have a receipt. We then drove the alley behind the house and found a pile of old furniture and an old TV, they were not even trying to hide the fact they had been out looting. Most the people I spoke to were happy we were there and supported us. About a quarter of the people were just pissed off. Pissed off at how LAPD treated people they contacted but at the same time pissed off at the gangsters that committed the crime which created the law enforcement response. They were also livid with the people who destroyed their neighborhood. The rest of the people, mostly the ones involved in crime and causing problems, just hated us and didn’t mind letting us know about it.
I was able to photograph some while I was there although I was limited in how much time I could spend doing it. Somehow I lost one of my rolls of film, one that had images of the burned-out cars in the street, If I remember correctly from the area of Florence and Normandie, but I still have the images in my mind. My portrait of “Bill”, who owned a laundromat, in front of burned-out business is one of my favorites. He was such a gentleman, in talking to him I knew how much effort he put in to building his business and it made me mad they destroyed his business for something he had absolutely no responsibility for. His faith was impressive and I assume he rebounded well. I have other photographs which document the devastation of the fires and looting. I remember photographing a bank where the giant main steel support beam for the roof bent from the intensity of the fire being left to burn out, the only thing left inside the walls was the vault, it was insane to think how hot that fire must have been.
I knew at the time that I pretty much missed out things with the riots. I had so many friends at other agencies who were in the middle of the fight as were a lot of press photographers at the time. I was able to witness and document the aftermath still and have a good understanding of the atmosphere, but that was about it.
With the 30th Anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots this weekend I wanted to take a moment to share these photographs and the story of my experience. I am fearful how history is being rewritten lately, and it is important we remember things as accurately as possible to prevent repeating previous mistakes or creating new problems.
PD-029 #07 5-02-92
Harry Carey - HoHoKam Park - March 1983
40 years Photographing the Cactus League
2022 marked the 75th Anniversary of the Cactus League, Spring Training in Arizona, and the 40th Anniversary of my first trip to Arizona to watch, and photograph, Cactus League games.
In 1983 my buddy Steve DeWitt suggested we road trip to Arizona to go see some Cubs Spring Training games. Two other friends also went along. I think I drove us out there in my small Toyota truck, and I know we stayed at the Motel 6 in Scottsdale. That “Six” was in even worse condition than you would expect from that motel chain, the pool was solid green, and the room was dated, so it was ideally suited for a low budget road trip by 20-year-old males.
CL-094 #33 3-28-87
Don Zimmer, Manager Roger Craig, Bob Lills, and Jose Morales - Old Scottsdale Stadium
Spring Training then was nothing like it is today. Back then the teams didn’t count on the games as revenue sources like they do today. Teams seemed happy with whatever ticket sales they picked up to cover some of the training costs, it wasn’t a production like it is now. Most tickets were $5, the stadiums were very simple, and they would even let you bring in your own coolers of beer. When we went to see the Cubs at HoHoKam Park we sat right under the press box, behind home plate, and we could literally stand up on the bench seating and talk to the announcers who were eye level on the other side of their worktables (as you can see with the lead photograph of this post). We sat there specifically to be close to the legendary announcer Harry Caray who was starting his second season calling Cubs games. We infuriated long time Cubs radio broadcaster Lou Boudreau by asking him to get Harry’s attention for us. Lou was already in the Hall of Fame as a player by then and he hated the fact we were more interested in Harry than him. Lou was also probably upset that we had passed a few Budweisers from our cooler to Harry by then too; he wasn’t supposed to drink during the game but then it was Harry. Harry was famous for leading the crowds in the singing of the 7th Inning Stretch, especially since joining the Cubs in Wrigley. Harry was not supposed to lead the crowd during that spring training game, but everyone encouraged him to sing it and he did. Afterword he leaned over towards our section and said “I remember the first time they asked me to sing the 7th inning stretch in Comiskey (The White Sox home park, Harry had called White Sox games for ten years before joining the Cubs and the White Sox started the tradition of Harry singing the stretch). They asked me what “key” I wanted it in, and I told them the only “key” I’m familiar with is “whiskey”!” Then he bellowed out laughing with the rest of us. Access to the players and personalities back then is what made Cactus League so special. It was an epic road trip at the start of my love for the Cactus League.
I transferred to Arizona State University in 1984 and spent each March I was in school going to as many Cactus League games as I could. Being a photography major I started to photograph games as another school project, a portfolio that now documents 40 years. Things were so relaxed then that I often would be able to put my 500 mm Mirror lens on a monopod and just walk out on to the field and photograph from the photography wells without anyone questioning me. At Scottsdale Stadium when games were over-sold, they even let fans sit on the field in foul territory beyond the bullpen mounds. It would never happen in today’s world but back then the fence for the stands was only about three feet tall and no one cared. People respected the players, and no one was on a cellphone, so people paid attention to the game. One day the Giants Assistant Director of Public Relations Dave Aust finally noticed me on the field and asked who I was and how I got there. I told him I was a student at ASU documenting Cactus League games, and I didn’t really admit that I knew I wasn’t supposed to be on the field. Dave got me off the field but told me to meet him at his office before the next game. Dave was just starting out in his career, we talked, and I think he respected how hard it was to get established and he liked the idea of my project. He issued me a photo credential for the rest of the season and for a couple years after that too. Tempe Diablo Stadium was another favorite of mine when I was in school because they always left the service gate on the third base side unlocked so I never had to pay for games there. A plus being a college student needing all the extra cash I had to buy film and paper.
When I was photographing Cactus League in the mid 1980’s there were only 8 teams that I remember. In the Phoenix area the Oakland A’s played at Phoenix Municipal, the Milwaukee Brewers were at Compadre Stadium in Chandler, The Chicago Cubs were at HoHoKam in Mesa, the Seattle Mariners at Tempe Diablo, and the Giants were at Scottsdale Stadium. The San Diego Padres were in Yuma, Arizona, the Cleveland Indians were in Tucson, and the California Angels were still based in Palm Springs, California. Today there are 16 teams in the Cactus League, playing in 10 state of the art Phoenix area facilities. Scottsdale Stadium, originally built in 1956, was rebuild in 1992 and Tempe Diablo Stadium, built in 1969, are the only two remaining Cactus League parks from when I started (Phoenix Municipal still exists but it is now the home of ASU Baseball). Modernization of the Cactus League really began in 1994 with the opening of the Peoria Sports Complex for the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres. Peoria is still a great facility to watch baseball in, and probably has the friendliest staff. Most all the stadiums are surrounded by multiple training fields and training facilities now. The newest stadium is Sloan Park, the Chicago Cubs home in Mesa, which opened in 2014.
I see Baseball as a Metaphor for American Society, that is one of the reasons I like photographing it so much. Spring Training is baseball in its purest form. You have the current players getting prepared for the season, aging stars trying to find one of those last roster spots, and young players chasing the dream to get to “The Show”. It is a rebirth, signaling that the new season approaches. It is casual experience for the fans, since all games don’t count, it is easy for spectators to relax and just enjoy being at a ballpark. A popular component of every stadium now is lawn seating beyond the outfield fences. Players have more time to interact with fans and don’t have the demands of the regular season schedule. It is unfortunately changing though, as is our society. Safety netting at Camelback Ranch, the Dodgers and White Sox home stadium, now goes the entire length of the field so the interaction between fans and players is harder now. I assume attorneys worried of liabilities championed changes like this, but then when I see how many people attend games now with the eyes glued to their cellphones, I guess I can understand the reasoning. Pricing has also changed, and Spring Training is now as much of a business venture as the regular season is. I am admittedly a romantic and I not usually a fan of change. My Cactus League portfolio has documented these changes fairly well, and because baseball is such an integral part of American society I think this portfolio also speaks to the changes in our society these past 40 years.
Even though Spring Training was cut short this year with the MLB lockout, I made it out to Phoenix last week to photograph a couple days of Cactus League games in honor of both anniversaries. Included below in this blog are a selection of my photographs from the trip. I also authored this post honor of Major League Baseball’s Opening Day yesterday.
Brianna Kupfer was stabbed to death inside her work on 1-13-22, the suspect was arrested on 1-19-22 in Pasadena several hours before I photographed this memorial at the murder scene.
Brianna Kupfer Murder Scene - 326 N. La Brea, Los Angeles
I remember standing over a guy once who had just been shot in his apartment. There was a drive-by on the street out front and instead of taking cover he went to the bedroom window to look and caught what appeared to be a stray round meant for someone else. He was a “Veterano” so I was somewhat surprised he did that, I expected he would know better. We had arrived on scene right after it happened, and paramedics were close behind us. Medically there wasn’t anything I could do for him beside encourage him to keep fighting to stay alive. His breathing was shallow, and he was not saying anything. His color started to fade and by the time the paramedics transported him his skin was turning grey, I knew he was going to die, and he did soon after reaching the hospital. I have seen a few murder victims die; most I guess were in shock because they were not saying much. I have also seen someone who was shot and made it, he was scared and calling out for his mother as he was laying there on the ground. Watching someone in the process of dying an unnatural death is surreal. I’ve sensed some people giving in to their wounds and death’s call, while seeing others fighting with all they had to survive. I have sensed fight, fear, regret, loneliness, and calm witnessing the dying process.
I went to the Croft House to photograph Brianna Kupfer’s memorial because I saw it as opportunity to document an incident which represents our society today, raging crime and the deterioration of safety in our communities.
What happened to Brianna showcases everything that has and is going wrong with the new approach to the American criminal justice system in a supposed “woke” society. It is beyond unacceptable that Shawn Laval Smith, the murder suspect, was still roaming the streets after at least 11 previous arrests and his obvious mental health issues. At a minimum he should have been in a mental health facility years ago, instead, somehow, he was most likely shipped to California from South Carolina so they could get rid of their problem quickly. Based on all his criminal history Law Enforcement did their job, they arrested him and brought him before the courts. The system from there obviously did not do their part by putting Mr. Smith in some type of custody where he could not harm others. Every day there are incidents of violent attacks on innocent people by unstable persons living on our streets. This past week the victims included a nurse at a Los Angeles bus stop and an accounting consultant on a New York subway platform, plus who knows how many others.
I feel my images from the Croft House accurately convey my feelings about Brianna’s murder and allow for thought and interpretation by other viewers. I see them as powerful documents of what happened, even though they do not actually document the criminal act or crime scene. I hope these photographs allow some viewers the ability to consider the reality of such a horrific loss and contemplate society’s approach to public safety moving forward. I think there are many layers for the viewers to deal with in these images.
When I photograph, I try and be respectful of the people within my frames and not exploitative. With an incident like this, I was looking for images with deeper meaning, not just a press image where I was looking for dramatic shot to illustrate a story before moving on.
Here are some of my thoughts on specific images:
The wide-angle view of the entire store worked well. The lead image in this blog captured how intimate this furniture store is by documenting its scale. I used a 14-24mm Nikon Aspherical lens for this since the sidewalk is so narrow and news vans were parked all in front of Croft House. For me I see the outside of the building with all the big windows as a location I would never expect a violent crime to occur. The wide-angle lens also captured the volume of flowers well. In the image above the young man walking past the wanted poster of Smith symbolizes much of society for me. Something horrific happened here, I want everyone to take notice and be enraged about it, but this man appears to be walking by as if he is oblivious to that fact. I imagine him saying to himself: “Oh well something bad happened here, thankfully it wasn’t me, bad things happen all the time, just accept it, I have things to do, it’s nothing I have to deal with.”. Obviously, I don’t know this young man’s thoughts, nor do I know if he has already walked by here multiple times and has already stopped to experience the moment. His presence in the frame, although a documented fact, is really only symbolic of life going on and people passing by. I also think his attire helps with the documentation of the area and the people who live here.
This image is intense for me. The arrangement is so beautiful, as was Brianna Kupfer, the flowers are representative of her. The interior of the store is organized and clean. There is order in the display and the designs of the pieces are awesome, the space looks cool, normally I would love to check out. But then there is the reality that order was shattered by the blade of the murderer’s knife. The reflection of the news van and the wanted poster in the window tell the horrific truth. Having seen the coverage of the murder on television I know the suspect had walked right where I was now standing to make this photograph. Perhaps he peered into this same window before he entered Croft House. He interacted with Brianna in such a way that she became so scared of him she texted a friend about him, he then savagely murdered Brianna, before comely walking out the back door of the store and North up the ally. The most chilling part is the rear door of the store is so clearly visible in this image and positioned just to the left of the wanted flyer for the suspect. This image brings to my mind the terror Brianna must have endured at the end of her life, how alone she must have felt.
I assume this image above is pretty obvious for most viewers. Televised news is so influential today. Here I have the production crew for the live shot, masks documenting the period, and mobile equipment which reminds the viewer that the crew is only on scene temporarily before moving on to the next story. Society’s focus on this event will quickly fade, and then I think of her family who will carry the scars of this loss forever. I am angered with the thought that victims, and their families are not the focus today. The slight view of the memorial in the background wanted poster giving context to their story. The reporters practiced speaking their copy while the crews checked their lighting and camera angles. They were doing their jobs, they were not being disrespectful, but the reality was obvious this wasn’t personal for them, it was just another tough story, it probably has to be that way in their business. Maybe this image also represents public desensitization to crime.
A few more images of the news crews, I specifically liked the woman casually walking by NBC’s Angie Crouch as she prepared for her segment, again symbolic of the acceptance of the reality of our society today.
I personally have no respect for District Attorney Gascon so when I found this sign here when I arrived, I was happy someone else had made this statement. It is good that there is an element of anger along with celebrating the Brianna’s life and mourning her loss. The old metal security gate is also an important element in all these images, adds to the layers.
The powerful element in this image is subtle but strong. Just before I photographed it someone came up and asked a couple questions about the murder. He seemed like he didn’t want to believe such a violent act could have happened there, I assume he lived in that Hancock Park neighborhood. He read the wanted poster, then put his hands up to the glass so he could get a better view of the store’s interior. It was obvious he was trying to comprehend what had happened, I assume he felt compassion for the victim and quite possibly fear for his own well-being. It would have been a great photograph of him peering in the window, but I didn’t take it. I guess I wanted to let him have his moment to himself. The smudges on the window are a good representation of everyone who had stopped and peered inside. I am sure many were fearful they would see a bloody crime scene but at the same time they were too curious to not look. From that point I can imagine people thinking thank God that wasn’t me or my daughter.
I liked the image of the vigil flyer; it is a simple document that gains value with the Christian candles. The note in the right-side image stood out to me. It isn’t the typical card you write on when you send flowers. It’s a page ripped from a small personal notebook. I don’t know any facts about who wrote this, but I can envision someone who stopped to view the memorial feeling the emotion of the loss and having a need to do something to share with others how they felt. For me the note is so genuine and personal, I love it, especially with the shapes and forms of the image, the beautiful, delicate flowers, and their contrast to the iron security gate. More layers of interpretation with this image than are initially obvious.
This may be the most powerful of my images that day, even though it was such an obvious image. I was lucky to be there when the sunlight was at a perfect angle to illuminate Brianna’s portrait and the wanted flyers taped to the window. The light also gave me interesting hard shadows in the store with an interesting element of a reflection of a security fence in the top of the frame; for me those elements allude to the darkness of the crime. Again, the staging of the portrait reminds me how unexpected it was to have a homicide occur at a location like Croft House. I don’t know who photographed the actual portrait, it is a solid portrait which I assumed captured Brianna’s personality. I felt a little weird photographing someone else’s photograph but with all the other elements in my frame I knew it was totally appropriate.
Hopefully I will find fewer things like this to photograph in the future and that I will never have to fully comprehend the pain Brianna Kupfer’s family is experiencing now. I will keep documenting my world because that is how I experience life and I trust these images will also have an impact on everyone who views them.
Screen Shot of KQED article
Photographer Ted Pushinsky
While working on another post today I came across the work of documentary photographer Ted Pushinsky which I was not familiar with before. It caused me to take a detour and explore some of his images. I enjoyed his photographs and related well to most of his subject matter. The fact he photographed with Garry Winogrand on the street and photographed Andre the Giant in the ring definitely makes me a fan.
This is a quick post to give some links to his work so others can also discover his work.
It started with this Mother Jones article on Garry Winogrand with a Pushinsky photograph of Winogrand on the street photographing.
From there I went to his website which is a little rough in design but showed the range of his work.
I also found this KQED article which is memorialized his passing in 2018.
Lensculture Street 2021
One of the images I submitted to the 2021 Lensculture Street Photography Awards was recently selected by the editors to be featured in the Street Photography Awards 2021 Competition Gallery. This on-line gallery is visible to everyone who visits the Lensculture’s website. Lensculture describes their Competition Gallery as a highly curated group of images selected by their editors to showcase some of the best submissions in the competition.
I am thankful that the above image was featured in this on-line gallery and would encourage you to visit the link above to see all the other great images that the editors have chosen to showcase. This image is standing out as one of my top images from last year. Sarah Kennel, Curator of Photography at the High Museum, also selected the photograph for a group exhibition in Alabama which just concluded this week.
P.C.622 Gallery - The Old Pasadena Police Station at 142 North Arroyo Parkway
The P.C. 622 Gallery
California Penal Code Section 622 states the following: Every person, not the owner thereof, who willfully injures, disfigures, or destroys any monument, work of art, or useful or ornamental improvement within the limits of any village, town, or city, or any shade tree or ornamental plant growing therein, whether situated upon private ground or on any street, sidewalk, or public park or place, is guilty of a misdemeanor.
The first time I exhibited any of my photographs was in April 1985 at the Northlight Downstairs student gallery at Arizona State University. it was a small space near the darkrooms but it had lots of traffic and great visibility with my peer group. It also gave me my first experience editing and sequencing an exhibition. I exhibited some early images from my Pasadena Police Department series , which to this day is still my strongest body of work.
I began photographing the Officers of the Pasadena Police Department during Spring Break in 1985 as a class project while studying at Arizona State University. My father was a well-respected Reserve Police Officer, and he arranged the opportunity. I rode with Sergeant Tom Oldfield the first night who was one of my dad’s close friends. Being a Sergeant, Tom had the ability to respond to any interesting call to try and get me as much action to photograph as he could. The most eventful thing was a woman named Tina Hart who committed suicide in the middle of a street by shooting herself. The rest of the week I rode with individual officers and photographed whatever incidents they were involved in. When my professor, Tamarra Kaida saw my early images she realized how good the series was and encouraged me to continue photographing the department beyond the class assignment. Another professor, Bill Jenkins (best known for curating the important New Topographics exhibition) also liked the early images in this series. Bill gave me some outstanding advice when he suggested I start using a wide-angle lens to photograph this series. Initially I had used a 50mm lens and in some instances, I had stood back from incidents to stay out of the way. Bill explained that using a wide-angle lens would force me to get closer to my subjects and make the images more powerful. The combination of putting on a 35mm lens and gaining more trust from the officers I was photographing to my images to another level. Using wide angel lenses has helped me capture most of my best images.
During the first few weeks of the summer of 1985, I started to develop good rapport with most all the officers. I knew how to stay out of the way and not let my photographing interfere with their job even though I was usually making exposures at night in low light conditions using a large off camera flash. I would make prints for the officers, and everyone liked seeing photographs of themselves working. Early in the summer of 1985, I become a Level 3 Technical Reserve Police Officer, which allowed me to volunteer in Police Department’s own photo lab most days before going on ride a longs with officers at night to photograph. It was an ideal situation because it gave me darkroom access while I was away from ASU.
One day I noticed a large empty bulletin board in the main hallway of the Police Station. The area had lots of foot traffic, department personnel as well as public visitors. I recognized the bulletin board could be a decent gallery space to showcase my photographs. I figured my photographs would be good for department morale as well as having a public relations benefit for public visitors. I asked for permission to turn the bulletin board into a gallery and it got approved. The photograph above it from the first group of prints I exhibited. I tried to change out images on a regular basis to keep interest.
I named the space the P.C. 622 Gallery to discourage any of the officers from adding comments to the prints or vandalizing them. Being around the officers I knew how much banter and teasing went on. Lockers were routinely written on highlighting recent exploits or mistakes and I knew officers started doing similar things to my photographs I would lose the space. I searched the Penal Code for sections which would cover that and discovered P.C. 622 which specifically covered destroying or defacing artwork. For the year plus the gallery was up we only had one instance where a print was written on and that was when the group of prints were not changed out for three months during a spring semester. I came across the above photograph of the gallery this week while organizing files and decide to share the story of the gallery. I also think this post also pairs well with my post on the opening of the exhibition at the Atlanta Airport Exhibition space this week, I, like most photographers, always enjoy seeing my photographs exhibited in traditional gallery and museum spaces, But I also love showing my images and prints in non-traditional spaces that have high traffic volume. There is always value in having images seen and experienced by others, especially in print form.
CCP's "Why Photography?" Video Presentation 6-24-21
I watched the on-line video event by the Center for Creative Photography’s titled “Why Photography” on Thursday. The 45-minute presentation was a collection of video interviews where different people talked about why photography was important to them. The group was varied, photographers, curators, collectors, and educators. What I enjoyed most was hearing a diverse group of people describing why photographing was important to them and saying time and again to myself “me too” when they described why photography was important to them. I have included the link to the presentation here and I will highlight some of the comments I really connected with below: CCP “Why Photography” 6/24/21
Curator Susan Bright and Art Collector / Retired Dance Professor Douglas Nielsen were the first pair to discuss photography.
Nielsen spoke how he was often photographed while he was dancing and that he would tell photographers to “Catch me in the Act”. He went on to say “Any photography that is interesting is catching someone doing something, not just sitting there”. He continued, saying “Knowing Dance evaporates the second you see it I wanted proof I existed”, which photographs provided him. Nielsen went on, “A photograph tries to defeat time, death. It captures a second in time and its there. But with Dance, its just gone”.
I completely understand his comments. I respect portraiture photography, and it seems to be trending now in galleries and museums, but it rarely speaks to me. I really began to understand photography when I started seeing the images by the great documentary photographers. For me I love being able to capture a moment in time, and know that image is completely factually accurate for that 1/500th of a second. As a child I loved to draw but I was frustrated because my pictures weren’t perfect. Features were distorted, the perspective was slightly off, they just didn’t look exactly how I saw something. Photography fixed that problem for me. I am also a romantic and I am constantly wanting to preserve memories and freeze moments in time forever, the camera allows me to do that.
Nielsen made an interesting comment about his collection that I loved: “When I collected photography, it kind of collected me”.
I get it, in life we gravitated towards things which catch our interest and draw us in. His statement is dead on. I was fortunate to have dinner at the home of a prominent wealthy art collector a couple years ago. The house was amazing on its own and everything I saw on the walls was museum grade, mostly paintings but also an installation piece, and some of Cindy Sherman’s prints. As he gave me the tour of his collection he spoke about was why that piece of artwork was important to him, why he connected to it, and why he liked that artist’s work. He never mentioned price or collectability, every work spoke to him and wife personally. It was an incredible opportunity for me to get that insight. I should also say it was a great night socially too, good people there.
Susan Bright spoke of her background and how when she was studying Art History in the late 1980’s to early 1990’s that photography was not considered “Art”. She described when she was nearing the completion of her studies how she felt when she realized she had just spent three years only studying art by men. She also told us she had not seen a Fine Art Photographic Print without glass in front of it until after she graduated. She was shocked with how beautiful a well-crafted print looked in person and wonderful the experience was.
I know exactly what Susan meant about the wonder in seeing a good print. I was lucky to see fantastic prints when I was Arizona State University. I was on the Northlight Gallery staff when we exhibited works by photographers like Mary Ellen Mark and William Christenberry. After graduating I went to one of the first Photo LA events and I remember going over to a bin at one booth and being able to pick up a Weston print. Holding it, examining, realizing Weston himself did the same with that print was powerful. I believe a photographer has to spend time with really goof prints before they can fully understand the medium. It is unfortunate that in today’s two second Instagram post view we are getting away from the concept taking our time to experience, and understand, a well-crafted print and good image. I have been lucky to have seen as many good prints and exhibitions in person as I have, but I have also made an effort to do that including travelling to see the best exhibitions.
Bright stated, “I feel like Photography is the bastard child of the Arts, that’s why I like it”. She went on saying when she was younger how much she enjoyed the images on album covers , and that when she went to museums she enjoyed the post cards in the gift shop more than the paintings on the wall because they were obtainable, she could collect them.
I understand her comments about photography being considered a second-class citizen in the art world, and I agree with her, and I see how that could attract her to the medium. There is something special when you are involved in a less popular community. The relationship you have with others in that community is often more unique, and usually a closer bond. I feel those bonds when I am at a racetrack or an ice hockey rink. Everyone there has a common interest in something that many people do not fully understand. I tend to be more of an individual when it comes to photography, I truly enjoy community interaction, but the act of photographing and seeing the world is very personal and usually a solo activity. The process of photographing is my “Why Photography”. Being a photographer is how I experience life.
University of Arizona President Dr. Robert Robbins spoke next and said something I definitely agree with: “Photography opens questions, teaches us history, and keeps our memories. It shows us the beauty of the world and of the universe, it shows us what we know and what we have left to discover”.
Dr. Meg Jackson Fox, The CCP’s Associate Curator for Public Programs introduced Valerie Trouet who is a University of Arizona professor in Tree Ring Research who spoke about the use of photography in relation to the study of science. Trouet talked of the importance of “Repeat Photography” to identify changes in landscapes over time and mentioned the importance of photography being able to document and retain evidence related to scientific research. A good reason for “Why Photography”, the same should be said for forensic photography.
I don’t ever recall hearing the term “Repeat Photography” before but I well aware of this type of work. I know Mark Klett from my ASU days and know his Rephotographic Survey Project well. Good for me to learn a new term.
Photograph Conservator Peter Mustardo was next up. For his “Why Photography” he said he was drawn to how photography is ambiguous. He pointed out how photography is everywhere and most everyone has the ability to photograph. He also noted photography’s ability to create a “preserved moment” within the passage of time.
I think it would be valuable to take a moment and focus again on the definitions of Ambiguous – “open to more than one interpretation; having a double meaning.” And “unclear or inexact because a choice between alternatives has not been made.”. I love that characteristic of photography. I think back to my days at ASU in Bill Jay’s class and how he was able to really demonstrate how different images have different values depending on the viewer and the relationship the viewer has with that image and its subject matter. With most of my street photography or city based images I usually title the work as “Untitiled” , except for a file number, because I don’t want to influence the viewer’s experience beyond having them contemplating the elements I have included in to the frame. I know what I see and what I am trying to convey but I think it is important for the viewer to have the ability to come to their own conclusion based on their experience and perception.
Mustardo’s inference that everyone is a photographer reminds me of my favorite Photography quote, which was by László Moholy-Nagy’s in 1926: “The illiterate of the future will be those who can not photograph”. That quote always amazes me, his foresight was dead on. We all live in a selfie and Instagram world today.
The next part of the presentation had shorter individual segments with more individual insight. CCP Senior Registrar Megan Clancy commented how she enjoys how photography can freeze a moment in time, that split second, allowing us the ability to see something important. CCP Chief Curator Rebecca Senf shared how she enjoys specializing in a relatively new medium with such a wonderfully short history to explore. I think her point was its easier for a historian to have a more complete knowledge of the medium since it is only 182 years old unlike most all the other artforms. Joan Lifton spoke of the creative process and shared a Dorothea Lange quote about her photographic process: “How do we organize the chaos of our individual experience in to a narrative that carries a collective meaning?” This quote inspired me to look up more Lange quotes, I found a nice list on John Paul Caponigro’s site which are worth the read.
W.Eugene Smith’s widow, Aileen Smith, had a conversation with photographer, and educator, Aaron Turner next. She told how W. Eugene Smith always wanted his work to be as close to the truth as possible and how he was dedicated to have integrity in his images. She pointed out how almost every experience is subjective not objective and I very much agree with her. Aileen went on to say “We are subjective beings, we have subjective eyes, its not unfair, a person is subjective, that’s it”. She also said the goal of journalism for W. Eugene Smith was to convey the reality of other people. Aileen then recalled how people would ask W. Eugene Smith if he was an Artist or a Journalist and that he would reply “No, its just one and the same for me, to be a good journalist, and to really convey it, it has to be art”.
I truly enjoyed the passion Aaron Turner conveyed for the medium of photography. He spoke of love of the process of photography, especially the darkroom. He then said “I see in pictures. The act of walking around and envisioning what I see.”
I absolutely understand what Aaron meant because I am exactly the same way. To be in a darkroom, and printing is a spiritual experience for me, I am at home in my darkroom. When I walk or drive around doing normal activities, I find that my eyes are constantly looking for items, grouping them, framing them, and considering what would make an interesting photograph. I am so conditioned to look for images in the world, and have been doing it for so long, that I can not turn it off. It is how I experience the world. Especially as documentary photographer who photographs on the street so much, I am constantly hunting for imagery.
I will wrap this up by saying I am thankful for programs like this from the Center for Creative Photography. When I was at Arizona State University, I was in such an amazing photo environment every day, I miss that. But that was college, you have the experience, it is your base, and from there you go out and do what you studied (hopefully). Presentations like this one I shared allow me to get refocused on my photography and experience that education environment again. To be good at your craft you have to know the history of your medium and stay up to date with the current trends, never skip a chance to learn or grow.
Historian Lucy Worsley with a Kodak Box Brownie from her documentary on photographing the royal family
Lucy Worsley's Royal Photo Album
“A king, or a queen, is less mighty than the power of a camera.”
Lucy Worsley
First and foremost, I need to say I am not in to all the current television series about the British Royals or Victorian life, so that is not the reason for authoring this post. I decided to author this post because of the solid job Lucy Worsely did showcasing how important photography has been for the British monarchy since the beginning of the medium.
1839 is generally considered to be the year photography began. Louis Dagueere announced his Daguerreotyope process in France and William Henry Fox Talbot announced his calotype negative and salt print process in England. Nicéphore Niépce also needs to be recognized for his work in the mid 1820’s capturing and fixing images with a camera, although those photographs took hours and days to expose.
Photography, including videos & film, is arguably the most powerful tool for communicating. Images can be understood universally, nothing needs to be translated, a person does not even need to literate to experience a photograph.
The saying “A photograph is worth a thousand words” is so true. But I think it is important that we need to recognize a photograph that documents 1/400th of a second of time in history has limitations. It often does not tell the whole story and can be taken out of context as can video clips. We are experiencing this daily now as everything seems to be livestreamed or documented by someone. As a quick sidenote I looked up the saying above for the history and found that in March 1911 the Syracuse Post-Standard attributed Tess Flanders as the first to say “Use a picture. It’s worth a thousand words”. Tess was at banquet to discuss journalism and publicity at the time.
I have long been aware of photographic portraits of Queen Victoria; she most likely was photographed more than anyone else in her period. I had not given any real thought to the fact she was using photography as a means of communicating to her people. Lucy Worsley highlighted this fact in her PBS episode Royal Photo Album. Lucy showed how Victoria changed how her portraits were done to reflect her life. Emotionless face with black garments following the death of her beloved Prince Albert and the decade of morning then realizing she needed to be more personable to reengage people after that. It was fascinating how the royal family used photography early on to maintain their public image by documenting their lives, then how photography began to damage their family brand when the royals were no longer able to control the images and subject matter. Scandals were captured and exposed to the world.
I had no idea that Queen Alexandra was such a prolific photographer, obtaining a Kodak Box Brownie soon after it was released to the market. Because of her access she made incredibly intimate photographs of the royal family and I had no idea she published a hugely popular book of her photographs. Alexandra highlights the fact photography was accessible to women photographers since the beginning. I also believe the medium has progressed since then to be the most inclusive artform.
This documentary also highlighted the work of Anwar Hussein, a long time official royal photographer, and some of Cecil Beaton’s images including how he created Queen Elizabeth’s official coronation portrait.
I happened to see this 2020 documentary this morning by accident while changing channels. It is on PBS, if you have a membership, you can access it online, otherwise I would encourage you to check TV listings for the next airing. For anyone with an interest in the history of photography, the history of the royal family, or the impact imagery has on our world it is well worth the time to watch this program.
Queen Alexandra with one her of cameras
Ponyhenge - Lincoln, Massachusetts March 6th, 2021
PONYHENGE
Ponyhenge - Lincoln, Massachusetts a final home for rocking horses and a memorial for those gone too soon
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Sony A1 and Sony RX 100 VII
SONY A1
I have often been asked by friends looking to buy a camera, “What’s the best camera to get?”. My answer has always been “A camera is a tool, it depends on the job you want to do”. I sometimes relate cameras to cars, if you have a heavy load you want a truck, you want to go fast get a sports car, or if you have a tight budget look at a used car. It is no different with a camera, what do you want to photograph? Sports, landscapes, portraits? How will you use the images? Are you making large prints, posting to the web, publishing them? Finally what is your budget? No camera has ever done it all, and perfection really does not exist in life. Then this week Sony just announced the A1 which comes as close to the perfect camera as I have seen and appears capable of doing it all.
I have not seen one in person yet, and have not seen many image examples from it, but after seeing the release videos and hearing the specifications the A1 sounds utterly amazing, and if it is all they claim it to be I will be getting in line to get one. Sony appears ro be justified for reserving the A1 name for this model.
I will put some links in this post about the camera so I won’t go in to much detail about all the features. For my photographic needs I am interested in some of the following features:
- 30 fps
- 50 MP
- Superior autofocus
- The ability to use high end SD cards for storage
- a flash sync at 1/400th
It’s not a camera for everyone. It is a professional camera body so it doesn’t fit in your pocket and it has a $6500 price tag. I foresee this camera crushing the Nikon D6. Other than if you have Nikon lenses you love I don’t see why you would buy a D6 now? A D6 has 20.8 MP, only 14 fps, only uses XQD type media storage and weighs 44.8 oz which I am sure is heavier than an A1, both are currently the same price (expect a price drop in the D6 as the A1’s hit the marketplace). The D6 may have a superior battery life, because Sony has lagged behind there some, but with the extra battery pack you can put on the A1 that should hardly be an issue.
As I said above, I have not seen image examples yet, but knowing how good Sony sensors are I expect the A1 images to be amazing. This camera will be a game changer and it will force Canon and Nikon to counter it. I have also heard the Sony A1 is now the official camera of AP. One rumored delivery date is March 4th 2021 and I assume lots of reservations are being placed.
LINKS:
SONY RX 100 VIII
One of my go to cameras is a Sony RX 100 VI which fits in my pocket and I get great results with it. I did not upgrade to the Sony RX 100 VII because there were not enough improvements on the camera but I will most likely upgrade to the Sony RX 100 VIII which is rumored to be released soon. The improved autofocus, an f/2.8 aperture for all focal lengths are my primary reasons plus I like the hot shoe addition as well as it being a little wider lens. Below are the rumored specifications:
Rumored Sony RX100 VIII Specs
Sensor remain the same as 20MP sensor
New 10x zoom lens (two versions of the lens is in rumors a 20-200mm f2.8 and a 16-50mm f1.4) *
4k@60p for 5min
The camera will have the newest AF modes
USB-C connection
Hot shoe
Announcement expected in CES 2021
*The current Sony RX 100 VII has a ZEISS® Vario-Sonnar T* 24–200 mm2 F2.8–4.5 high-resolution zoom lens
Elsa’s self portraits with her husband and son.
Elsa Dorfman - "Me and My Camera" - at MFA Boston
On March 11th, 2020 my son and I stopped by the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, which is one of my favorite museums. Even though at the time I knew COVID cases had reached the United States and things were changing, I didn’t think this would be the last exhibition space I would see up until now and till who knows when. The following day all Boston area museums closed.
The Herb Ritts Gallery, the MFA’s primary photography gallery room, was showing Elsa Dorfman’s 20” x 24” Polaroid Prints in an exhibition titled “Me and My Camera”. It was scheduled from February 8th through June 21st, 2020. Dorfman was an American photographer born in 1937 who lived in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Her first notable work was her 1970 book: Elsa’s Housebook: A Woman’s Photojournal, which was seen as prominent within the women’s liberation movement of the 1970’s. Her notable work is her portraiture and this exhibition featured her images made with the very rare Polaroid 20” x 24” view camera, of which only five cameras were made. Dorfman began using this camera in 1980 and in 1987 she was granted a full-time rental of the camera. She was the only individual to have full time use of one. Over her career she made over 4,000 portraits with this camera.
The MFA described Elsa as having a “Bohemian Spirit” and I think that spirit really shows in her self portraits.
There are a couple things I really came to appreciate about this exhibition. Walking in the MFA door that day I did not know anything about Elsa or her work. But when I left that day, I had an appreciation for who Else was and how passionate she was about photography. We all know that we now live in the “Selfie” culture, where millions of self portraits are posted and shared daily on social media. It is how so many of us just say hello to each other. I do not want to deviate into a long discussion about self-portraits, but what I want to mention is the difference between Elsa’s portraits and the “Selfie” of today. The most obvious thing is the process. To create a 20” x 24” Polaroid print takes time, effort, and expense. But as simple as Elsa’s portraits seem they really are crafted in a way which really seem to reveal herself to the viewer. I think she portrays herself exactly as she truly is, and does so being very comfortable in herself. The MFA describes the exhibition of Elsa’s work perfectly with this statement: “Like all of Dorfman’s work, the photographs in this exhibition radiate warmth, inviting visitors into the intimate moments of an extraordinary life.” While looking for links to included in this blog post I discovered that Elsa passed away from kidney failure on May 30th, 2020, while her prints still hung on the walls of the MFA. The New York Times obituary had a fantastic quote by Elsa about the subjects she photographed: “I do not try to probe or illuminate their souls.” “They embrace their uneven features and the cowlick that won’t stay down — even the few extra pounds. The Japanese have a word for this pose of total naturalness and total attention — ‘sonomama.’” The Times also had another great quote from Elsa: “The camera is like a fork or a spoon. It’s an instrument you eat your soup with. It’s not the soup.” I just love the insight.
The other thing I came away with was better understanding of the 20” x 24” Polaroid view camera. I was very aware of William Wegman’s images and his use of the Polaroid view camera while I was studying at Arizona State University in the mid 1980’s. I think I even saw one of these cameras in person before. It was during my 1988 trip to New York to see the Winogrand retrospective at MoMA and went all over the city. It was an epic trip, I exposed at least a couple dozen rolls in my Leica walking around the street and I checked out a bunch of galleries. I think it was somewhere near 568 Broadway, there were a few galleries in that area, where I wandered into a space with all these Wegman Polaroid prints of Fay Ray on the walls. At first, I thought it was a gallery then I figured out it was a studio. No one was around so I explored it for a few minutes and I think I saw a 20” x 24” Polaroid camera in there, that was 32 years ago so my facts could be off but I definitely remember concluding at the time it was Wegman’s studio (I have tried some on line searches today to confirm the location, just for my own curiosity, but haven’t had any success). Finally, a woman came out from a back room and asked why I was there. She was super nice, and politely explained it was a private studio. Their fault for leaving the door open, but I thanked her and left while taking another quick glance around the space. Funny thing was someone also left the roof access door open in that building too, and the roof was actually had some nice vistas of SOHO.
I spent some time today researching the 20” x 24” Polaroid view camera today and here are the links to those sites:
Plus since I brought him up, here are some Wegman sites (always healthy to enjoy his images, especially in the stress of today’s world):
https://www.speronewestwater.com/artists/william-wegman
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/fay-ray-the-supermodel-dog-48273759/
Links for Elsa Dorfman:
https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2017/09/elsa-dorfmans-portrait-photography
The MFA also was showing the work of Iranian born photographers Gohar Dashti and Bahman Jalali. The images were beautifully crafted and again I enjoyed seeing work which I had not seen before.
Gohar Dashti - Iranian Born 1980 - “Home 2017” Ink Jet Print
I am missing lots of things in today’s world, writing this post today reminded me of that fact once again. Mask up, be smart, and hopefully we can start doing more of the things we enjoy sooner rather than later.
Museum of Fine Arts - Boston, Massachusetts - March 11th, 2020
Father Serra statue - Los Angeles, California 5/29/20
Father Serra Statue - Los Angeles
I have written posts before about how Garry Winogrand is my favorite photographer. I saw his MoMA retrospective in 1988, his SFMoMA retrospective, the entire Women are Beautiful exhibition at Pier 24 and my library has lots of Winogrand books. One of my favorite books is John Szarkowski’s “Winogrand - Figments from the Real World”, and it was that book which led me to me to photograph the Father Serra statue pictured above.
I have gone through the book many times over the years, and early on I found something intriguing. That both Winogrand and Robert Frank had photographed the same Father Serra statue in Los Angeles in 1955. Neither of them knew one another but both stumbled on to this same statue, in the same year, while exploring America, and independent of one another. A statue that wasn’t famous and was in an unassuming part of Los Angeles. Below are their images from Szarkowski’s book.
Back then I decided that I also wanted to photograph the statue, maybe as a right of passage as a photographer, maybe just out of interest to see how my image would compare to their images. Using the two images I had a good idea where the statue was and I decided to photograph it on my mom’s birthday, May 29th, in 1995. I had a feeling it might become an important photograph for me so I chose a memorable date, and there was no rush since the statue wasn’t going anywhere. On the way home from Pasadena, after seeing my mom, I headed to Sunset to photograph the statue. When I got there not only was the statue not there, that part of Sunset Boulevard had been renamed and the streets were reconfigured. I got out my Thomas Brothers map (iPhones and mobile internet access did not exist yet) and began searching. After driving around for a few minutes I located the statue a couple blocks away in what is now called Father Serra Park at N. Alameda and Los Angeles Street, across from Union Station. Having a new location my background options were completely different. I decided on photographing the statue from behind, looking West, with the sun creating a good silhouette of the cross. I included a couple palm trees to frame it and the 110 Freeway on ramp sign because it said “Pasadena” & “Hollywood” on it. I actually liked my image better than theirs, and a print hangs in my house still (CA - 087 #17).
For whatever reason I started thinking about this image in this past May and wondered how long ago I had photographed it. I checked, it was in 1995, and I then realized 2020 was the 25th Anniversary. I decided to photograph the statue again on my mom’s birthday. On May 29th my son and I headed to Los Angeles on the way to Pasadena. We parked at Union Station, masked up, and headed over to photograph Father Serra.
The palm trees were gone and the tree behind it had grown so much it engulfed the statue. The freeway sign had been moved and there was now a fence around the statue area, I assume to keep the homeless from camping under it. I tried all the angles above and I think the image with Los Angeles City Hall in the background was the best image now.
As I was finishing up we heard sirens, lots of them, and saw several news helicopters South of us. We began walking towards City Hall and saw multiple LAPD patrol cars headed to City Hall and LAPD’s Headquarters, the George Floyd Protests of Los Angeles were beginning.
I photographed some in the area and found the protesters were much farther South and moving away from us. They were attempting to take over LA Live and Staples Center. Because of the distance and not knowing the situation down there we headed back to the car and went to see my mom.
As we all know the protests and civil unrest have continued, and have expanded to encompass so many more things. On June 20th , sixty indigenous activists used the current climate to stage a protest at the Father Serra statue, The activists invited the Los Angeles Times to come document the Father Serra statue being toppled and the Times accepted. The activists pulled the statue down in a ceremony, poured red paint on the head, spray painted “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards) on the torso, and cut the cross from his hand. They left the statue afterward but kept the cross as symbolic souvenir I assume. I have no idea how they linked the anti police narrative to Father Serra but I guess it made sense to someone with a can of spray paint.
25 Days after had I re-photographed the Father Serra statue (my 25th Anniversary of photographing it) I returned and photographed the empty pedestal.
This man saw me photographing where the statue had been and came over to start a conversation and take his own photographs. He said as a kid he had gotten in trouble at school for talking about Father Serra’s atrocities against indigenous people instead of talking about how the missions helped to develop California. No idea if that was true but he was polite enough and I have absolutely no problem with his viewpoint. I respect his argument and I was not here in the 1700’s to see first hand what the conditions were like at the Missions.
What I do have a problem with is 60 people deciding to destroy something that belongs to an entire community of millions of Angelinos . We can not accept acts such as this to be considered an exercise of one’s “freedom of speech” if we are to maintain a Democratic society. If the activists wanted to petition for an Indigenous Statue to be placed next to the Father Serra statue to tell the full story, great!, I would support that 100%. If the public display of the likeness of a man who died 236 years ago is hurtful to the majority of the community, and the community decides to have the statue removed to a secluded place where it won’t offend people, then I am fine with that too. I am also not writing about this to defend Father Serra or the Catholic Church, nor to criticize people who exercise their First Amendment Right appropriately. But you can’t destroy history, no one rights any wrongs with toppling a monument. In this case, for me as a photographer, that statue had so much more meaning than the person it depicted because of the people who have photographed it. Its gone now, and what gain did that group get besides a brief moment in the news spotlight which has already faded, especially in today’s world of constant conflict and health worries.
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
When I studied Photography at Arizona State University, Bill Jay taught me about Walker Evans and the FSA photographers. About 30 years ago I decided to start building my photography collection by ordering a number of my favorite FSA prints from the Library of Congress. The largest print I ordered was a Walker Evans print from Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
I love photographing in cemeteries, I always find it fascinating to work there, and I loved the composition of this Evans print. I made a point to stop in Bethlehem on a 2006 road trip to photograph this cemetery. I got to the same spot in St. Michael’s Cemetery as Evans did in 1935, photographed, but was pressed for time to get back on the road. I put it on my bucket list to return and spend more time there one day.
In March of this year I was in Boston with my son, watching his hockey playoffs, with the plan being to drive his truck back to California through the South after the season. We have never seen the south and were looking forward to exploring it. When COVID-19 hit Boston his season was soon cancelled and it was obvious the country was going to shut down quickly. I decided on the most direct route home so we wouldn’t get stuck, but I still took in to account the things I wanted to photograph along the way, Bethlehem being one of the spots.
Our first night on the road trip was spent in Bethlehem and I used the following morning to photograph before continuing on to Chicago. I had seen one thing driving in that I wanted to photograph, Herbert’s Typewriter , and that led me to a few other discoveries before the cemetery. I got lucky on the way to the Bethlehem Steel Mill when I saw an old timer with a camera waiting by the Norfolk Southern Railroad tracks. I assumed a train was approaching so I got my son to stop. Turns out I was right about the train which arrived five minutes later. I also discovered that the man with the camera was Bob Wilt who lives in Bethlehem and has been photographing trains in the Lehigh Valley for well over 50 years.
Photographer and author Bob Wilt watching a Westbound train - Bethlehem, PA
The Bethlehem Steel MIll
The City helped create an Arts District called the SteelStacks around the old Bethlehem Steel Mill which allows awesome access to photograph the old steel mill. The last time I was there it was somewhat fenced off, now it is a fantastic place to visit, so well designed. It was incredible to get so close to the mill and appreciate the scale of the facility.
The approximate line of Walker Evans’s 1935 photograph
St. Michael’s Cemetery is still not cared for, but that adds to its photographic qualities. The large white cross headstone in Evans’s photograph is gone now, I need to check my files because I thought it was there 14 years ago. Whenever there is change in a subject that I specifically went to photograph I do the obvious, I adjust and see what other opportunities there are. I had plenty of great images there still. All my photographs from Bethlehem are posted on a new second web site which just features my images from 2020. I decided to launch a second website because most of my new work is in color and 2020 just belongs off on its own, its just an insane year.
I was impressed with Bethlehem, I would love to go back there and photograph again.
William Karl Valentine in St. Micahel’s Cemetery - Bethlehem, Pennsylvania Photo by Brent Karl Valentine 3/14/20
Dr. Maurice Berger at the Legacies of LIGHT Symposium at the Center for Creative Photography 1-19-20
Dr. Maurice Berger 1956 - 2020
As I have written before in posts, when I was at the Legacies of LIGHT symposium at the Center for Creative Photography back in January I realized I was participating in something very special. Not only was the event documenting an important period in the history of the medium of Photography but I felt the symposium itself would one day be looked back upon as an historic event. One thing I noted was that the symposium would most likely be the last time all these incredibly influential people, those who helped shape where our medium is today, would be in the same room together. I had no idea how soon this would happen but on Monday March 23rd the Photography / Art / History worlds lost an important professor and curator who was at the symposium.
Maurice Berger was a writer, cultural historian, and curator whose work focused on the intersection of race and visual culture. In 2018 he won the “Infinity Award” in Critical Writing and Research for his NY Times Lens Section columns “Race Stories”. He was also the Research Professor and Chief Curator at the Center for Art, Design and Visual Culture, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. His spouse of 27 years was Marvin Heiferman who was a former LIGHT gallery employee and presenter at the symposium. Maurice passed away in New York from complications related to the COVID-19 virus.
I did not know Maurice personally but I photographed him several different times at the symposium, including the moment he was photographing Marvin with their long time friend a fellow LIGHT gallery alum Laurence Miller, some of my best images from the symposium.
Earlier this month I sent prints to many of the people I photographed at the symposium . Larry Miller got his prints before Maurice and Marvin, Larry showed his prints to Marvin who immediately reached out to me asking for a copies, not knowing I had already made him prints. I am in shock right now with the realization that two weeks ago I was trading emails with Marvin about these images and two days ago Maurice died from the COVID-19 virus. After hearing the news last night I looked on Maurice’s Instagram page and saw a week ago he had posted an image of Marvin photographing in Hyde Park, NY and made a comment in another post about being in a crowded upstate New York market listening to people discuss the virus. Maurice’s decline and passing must have been incredibly fast which is scary. I was in Boston with my son, Brent, when concerns about COVID-19 started to really take hold in this country. We had planned a long road trip back when Brent’s hockey season ended but changed plans for a fast direct route when we realized how serious the situation was becoming. We have been back in California for almost a week now after witnessing the country shut down more and more as we traveled West. Hopefully we will continue to stay healthy as this pandemic passes through our society. Maurice’s passing brings mortality in to focus for me one more time this year (just a brutal year of loss), hopefully others in society will recognize the seriousness of the situation and be even more vigilant in their habits. My thoughts and prayers go out to Marvin, Maurice, and all their family and friends.
Obituaries for Maurice:
Anne Breckenridge Barrett, Peter MacGill, Susan Harder, Laurence Miller, Jack Sal, and Rick Wester.
The Legacies of LIGHT symposium - The Center for Creative Photography
The CCP describes the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition as this: “The Center for Creative Photography’s exploration of LIGHT Gallery is an institutional history that investigates the impact of this commercial space through its role in the larger community.”
When I attended the opening in December, I saw the description was accurate. It’s a unique exhibition in how it recreated certain physical elements of the LIGHT Gallery, displayed works of LIGHT’s artists, had a component for highlighting emerging artist of today (an important function of LIGHT back when it was open), and was able to show how important this gallery was to the history of the medium. One of the most impressive elements for highlighting the impact LIGHT had on photography today was Curatorial Assistant Adam Monohon’s brilliant concept of creating a line map showing the connections of so many important photographers, curators, and photography institutions back to LIGHT gallery. The exhibition also has so many cool interactive elements which I documented in a separate post. I had no idea that so many of the people who effected my growth as a photographer were linked back to LIGHT in some way. I think the entire exhibition really does well to capture the spirit of LIGHT and that time period.
Another important aspect of the exhibition is to highlight the connection between CCP and LIGHT. Harold Jones was the first Director of LIGHT and his vision set the course for the galley. Harold left LIGHT to help with building the Center for Creative Photography and the Studio Photography Program at the University of Arizona.
So this blog post is about the “Legacies of Light” symposium which was held in January at the CCP in conjunction with the exhibition. I signed up for the symposium as soon as I learned of it after having my work included in the exhibition. I thought it would be a good experience to learn more about LIGHT’s history and to have an opportunity to interact with so many people involved in photography. I was blown away with the experience of this symposium, it far and away exceeded my expectations.
Here is a link to the description of the speakers and the subject matter o the “Legacies of Light” symposium on CCP’s website. It is the best way to accurately describe the event in detail.
Another great resource is this link of CCP’s videos of the symposium: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRnlWp7M-YuVQY_okRmQmGA .
Now for my impressions. While attending the Legacies of Light I quickly realized one of the symposium’s primarily goals was to document the history of photography’s evolution to becoming a recognized as fine art. The people connected to LIGHT, many of whom attended the symposium, played so many important roles in photography’s rise in status within the art world. The symposium also talked about the current state of the photography community and our future. Everything was so well done by Anne Breckenridge Barrett, Rebecca Senf, and the entire CCP staff. There is so much to cover I will just jump in and start talking about the weekend and hopefully all my notes and recollections are accurate.
Things started Friday with small tours of the CCP facilities (I covered that experience in this linked: blog post) and a Keynote speech by Britt Salvesen who is the Curator and Head of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department at LACMA. She gave an overview of LIGHT’s impact on the development of fine art photography followed by a panel discussion with Fern Schad and Charles Traub about LIGHT. Fern owned LIGHT with her husband Tennyson. She had an early interest in photography and had worked for Bill Jay in England before coming to the US where she spent time as a picture editor for LIFE magazine. Tennyson was an attorney who had the vision for the gallery and supported it financially. Traub spent time as a Director of LIGHT gallery and later was instrumental in establishing The Museum of Contemporary Photography in Chicago. He is also an established photographer an educator. I was fascinated by how much effort went in to establishing the gallery and maintaining it.
Saturday began with two former LIGHT employees Marvin Heiferman and Sally Stein reminiscing about the gallery and the atmosphere of New York in the 1970’s art world. Marvin spoke about how he learned to “see” pictures at LIGHT. He said Harold Jones taught him to “Just look at stuff” and to learn by the experience of looking. He went on to explain how he came to understand what pictures communicate to viewers. This really resonated with me because I feel too many people today don’t take the appropriate amount of time to actually look and experience images, we live in an Instagram world of the two second page view then “Like and Swipe”. Marvin gave examples of how photography wasn’t always accepted as art then. He remembered how a New York Times art critic had told Harold that photographs were not art. He also remembered an occasion when a woman accidentally got off the elevator on their floor while looking for another gallery He said she stepped off the elevator looked down the gallery wall at all the prints and stated “Oh photographs…” then stepped immediately back on the elevator. Marvin said Weston Neff and representatives from the Fogg Museum at Harvard would come in to the gallery but MoMA’s John Szarkowski would not, speculating because he didn’t want to acknowledge there was another “game in town”. Sally spoke to how the gallery struggled financially to survive.
Michal Raz-Russo, who is the Associate Curator of Photography at the Art Institute of Chicago spoke next of her Master’s thesis research about LIGHT gallery. She talked about how LIGHT was innovated in how they presented work, specifically hanging rows of images in grid form which hadn’t really been done before. She described Light’s 1972 exhibition of Stephen Shore’s “American Surfaces” which was shown three rows high and taped to the wall (No installation prints from this exhibition survived) and the 1975 exhibition of Garry Winogrand where LIGHT displayed over 100 of his prints behind glass and “L” hooks on one wall. Michal said Harold Jones used the grid style to try and show how Winogrand approached photographing: “Rapidly and Quickly”. It was fascinating to learn this because I can see the impact on some of the exhibitions I have seen. Most notably the Pier 24 Gallery exhibition where Winogrand’s complete “Women are Beautiful” series was displaced in a grid in one room while Stephen Shore’s prints were in another room. I can also recall MoMA, MFA, The Milwaukee Art Museum, The Art Institute and other institutions using grids in fantastic exhibitions, so I found it interesting to know where the possible origins of these designs came from.
Andy Grundberg spoke next on the evolution of photography as an accepted art form and LIGHT’s important involvement in that process. For those of you reading this who aren’t familiar with Andy he is possibly photography’s most well known art critic and the author of numerous great books on photography. He has written for the New York Times and is also a professor at the Corcoran School of the Arts and Design at George Washington University. Andy was in New York City during this period and summed it up perfectly when he commented “I was a witness of photography at its most incredible time, the 70’s and 80’s”. I loved hearing him describe the New York scene like the print bins at The Witkin Gallery and studying under Lizette Model at the New School. I am also interested in upcoming new book, How Photography Became Contemporary Art because I understand there was considerable focus on LIGHT gallery’s impact.
Becky Senf lead a Q&A panel session next which focused on the history of photography and LIGHT’s impact. In summary they acknowledged how prior to the Witken Gallery and MoMA showing photographs that photography magazines and publications were the primary source for people to see good photography (way different than today’s Instagram era). They spoke how Winogrand and other photographers all got their start with photography-based magazines. Fern Schad, LIGHT’s co-owner, brought up how LIFE magazine closed in 1972 with the advent of television news, and how images on TV are fleeting. The panel spoke of Susan Sontag’s writing on photography and John Szarkowski’s catalogues at MoMA and how photography began to be looked at for its artistic value and not just a means of describing news. Michal Raz-Russo added to that saying that some Photojournalism is now starting to be accepted as artwork.
The panel recognized the important influence entities like The Society of Photographic Education, The George Eastman House, The ICP, National Geographic, The Visual Studies Workshop and others had on the medium. They also identified that the 1970’s were really when much of the movement occurred; in example the first formal photography department was at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1974. Becky Senf then pointed out something very important when she said “It’s remarkable how much (photography) history from the decade of the 1970’s isn’t documented.” Becky’s comment came in to focus for me more and more as the weekend went on. I realized the symposium was really focused on preserving photography’s history while it was still possible to get it firsthand from people who were part of it. Looking around the room there were so many icons from the industry and I knew because of reality of their ages that this symposium was most likely the last time you would have so builders of the medium together in one room. I also realized that with all my previous history of photography courses the focus was primarily on the photographers. Yes, Beaumont and Nancy Newhall were recognized, and we used their textbook, and we were taught about Stieglitz’s influence but most my knowledge was on image makers. It makes since because I studied at Arizona State University in the mid 1980’s when this New York scene was still strong and the Center for Creative Photography was just getting started. For me personally it was very good to grow my knowledge of the medium. By Sunday I realized the symposium was not only exploring and documenting the history of the medium, and considering its future, but I think the symposium was becoming an historic event in the history of the medium itself by what was being accomplished there.
The afternoon session on Saturday began with a panel discussion “Engaging Community” moderated by Rick Wester. The first thing they focused on was how we define the photography community. ASU Professor, and current Society for Photographic Education President Liz Allen spoke about SPE’s formation in the 1960’s under Nathan Lyons. She talked about the changing landscape of education the challenges educators have now with colleges having fewer tenure tract professor positions. Dominique Luster who is the endowed Charles “Teenie” Harris Archivist at the Carnegie Mellon Museum of Art spoke about her role with the Harris archive. I was not familiar with Harris who was a Pittsburgh based commercial photographer who documented the African American community. It was highly interesting to hear the impact Harris had on documenting the history of his community with his camera and how their museum is keeping that legacy of community moving forward. Magnum Photographer Alec Soth spoke about once he had a photography career, he craved a community. Something I can related to after graduating from ASU and leaving behind the academic environment. For Soth he started blogging in the early days of social media and found a safe way to engage a photography community. Soth remarked how he now followed by over 100,000 people which he still is awe of considering how few comments he got on his earliest posts. He also mentioned the weekend of the symposium was the 10th Anniversary of Instagram and added the “Corporation of Instagram has taken over” how we interact with photographs. Rick Wester added insight from a gallerist’s point of view when he said “The Internet has replaced the experience with information, people are now getting information and want to get the experience to go with it.”.
Following up on the last two quotes, I want to again talk about a theme I heard throughout the weekend and mentioned above, that you learn about photographs by looking at them. Now this might seem like an obvious thing but it isn’t today. We now live in the age of the “two second page view”, where people scroll through Instagram, or any other social media platform, as fast as they can until an image catches their attention. Unfortunately these “lure images” are usually the ones which catch people’s attention (my term based on the concept of shiny fishing lures). Intense saturation, lots of post-production, or a trending subject. Many people are missing out because they aren’t spending time with images to experience them. One of the best exhibitions I saw recently was the Howard Greenberg Collection at the MFA last November. The prints in the exhibition were some of the best I have ever seen. But to get the full experience you had to spend time inspecting them, noticing details, and thinking about them. I walked through there exhibition twice to make sure I experienced it as well as I could, and if I could have gone back and seen it a second time, like I did the Warhol at the Whitney Museum recently I would have. Everyone I saw at the MFA was taking their time viewing the prints, it gave me hope.
CCP’s Meg Jackson Fox and Emily Una Weirich moderated the next session which was “Valuing Story”. I think the best way to describe this session was an exploration of how institution are preserving history in non-traditional ways; basically history used to be written in text books and now we are capturing oral traditions and digital forms of communication to preserve historical information. Cassie May – an Oral History Archivist focused on the medium of Dance, Molly Garfinkel – Managing Director of City Lore, Dr Matthew Grilli – Assistant Professor of Psychology at the University of Arizona, and Photographer Judy Natal were the panelists. Cassie, Molly, and Judy spoke about the projects and the process in their approach to documenting oral histories. It was interesting because they had diverse approaches and subject matter. They expressed the common theme that telling one’s story was important to create connections between people. Dr. Grilli then went on to examine what motivates people to tell stories, “The Why”. He said this motivation can change over time, often with younger people the goal may be to solve a problem while with older people the goal of story telling may be to teach, to inform, or to contemplate what may come to pass. They all agreed that documenting oral history is often a challenge because it is usually recorded in a long form manner which is hard to create sound bites from to be used in different ways of presentation. Several panel members also spoke of past problems they have with documenting oral histories and use rights. The panelists told of several stories where the original use release signed for an audio recording or filming for a specific project did not include wording in the release such “In all media for perpetuity”. The problem they have encountered is when they want to digitize the original oral histories and share them the original releases do not specifically authorize that and the interviewed persons are now deceased. Where it is obvious the person interviewed wanted to share their story, heirs have at times refused to grant new releases to use the materials in new formats.
Saturday concluded with a screening of Lisa Immordino Vreeland’s new documentary “LIGHT; When Photography was Undiscovered, 1971-1987”
Sunday started with a panel discussion about LIGHT from the perspective of people who worked there. Included in the panel were Peter MacGill, Laurence Miller, Rick Wester, Susan Harder, and Jack Sal. Its too hard to go in to all their comments, and this post is longer than I had intended already, but the thing I really came to understand listening to this group was an understanding of the atmosphere and energy of the LIGHT gallery. Susan Harder and Peter MacGill talked about handing them portfolios of photographer’s work and being sent out to museums across the country to cold call curators to promote photography as art and stir up business. They also told stories of going and staying with iconic photographers as they were preparing to exhibit their work at LIGHT and had so many funny experiences they shared. There is no doubt everyone involved with LIGHT helped pave the way for every photographer today. The panelists also accurately recognized how important the symposium was for recording the history they were part of because much of the knowledge of those days is on the cusp of going away with the aging of those involved. The final event was a celebration honoring Harold Jones who spoke along with several his close friends and family members.
Personally, I am still processing all the experiences of the weekend because it truly was an epic event. I believe this symposium, which was designed to document Photography’s history, will in fact be recognized in its own right as an historic event for Photography. The topic material from the symposium was fantastic but I more so I had so many valuable interactions with people, I am just thankful I was able to attend.
After-party Sunday at Mary Virginia Swanson’s home - Mark Klett and Peter MacGill - perfect finish to the weekend.
Liz Allen working on her “hand” print for the book
Interactive component of the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition at the CCP
An important component of the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition is the interactive element. I focused on it some in my initial post about the opening. Since there was more activity during the symposium I documented it and felt it worked best to highlight it again in a separate post.
So again there were basically three interactive elements people could do. First was someone could have their photograph taken at a replica of Harold Jone’s LIGHT gallery desk by CCP’s David Ragland. Next you could sketch your hand to create a drawing to be bound in a book at the conclusion of the exhibition. LIGHT gallery did this at one point and the CCP was recreating that. CCP’s Camilla Stevenson was in charge of getting people to participate with this at the symposium and added a component by taking instant photographs of people to be included in the book with their hand sketches. I pushed the envelope with my sketch using my left had to sketch my right hand (most hand sketches were of left hands), then I had Camilla sign the instant print she took of me so she could lay claim to having a print in the exhibition then . The final station was where you could draw your own personal line map connecting yourself back to LIGHT gallery. I had completed my line map in December and after the symposium I could have added a lot more connections. I brought home a blank sheet so I will probably eventually update a copy for myself. All completed maps were pinned to the back wall of the interactive space to be shared. All three elements were fun and I especially loved the process of the line map.
Marvin Heiferman and Laurence Miller recreate their photograph from LIGHT gallery 1/19/20
Marvin Heiferman & Laurence Miller - The Qualities of LIGHT
I thought this moment was worth a separate blog post so it didn’t get lost in the larger body of post on the symposium.
On Sunday when there was a break before the final event I wandered around the gallery, which was mostly empty, and was rewarded for it. I already wrote a specific post on meeting Fern Schad which was fantastic. I was also able to photograph Alec Soth talking to Rick Wester about prints in the exhibition. Then I noticed Laurence Miller and Marvin Heiferman preparing to recreate the photo of them when they both were at LIGHT. Emily Una Weirich from CCP was getting a stool for Marvin to sit on and Dr. Maurice Berger was preparing to use his iPhone to photograph it. I saw the opportunity to photograph again so I took it.
For me I am very interested in the use of the cell phone in today’s world. I often look for phone use in my street photography and probably already have a solid body of work documenting phone use. I look for folks photographing with cellphones then see what I can compose. So not only did I capture the image above but I also photographed the photographer. One side note that I found interesting at the symposium was I one of the few people using a camera to document the event. Granted it was a small Sony RX100 vi , it still has a one inch sensor and is a camera. Everyone else seemed to just be using their cellphones to take an occasional photograph. This I found really odd because the lobby of CCP had large proof sheets of images from the parties and openings at LIGHT and it was obvious they used to document and photograph each other all the time. I am thankful they didn’t mind me intruding on their moment to document it.
Dr. Maurice Berger photographing Marvin Heiferman and Laurence Miller
William Karl Valentine and Fern Schad - The Qualities of LIGHT exhibition at the CCP - Tucson, AZ 1/19/20
Fern Schad - Legacies of LIGHT at the CCP
I must admit something, before the inclusion of my print in the Qualities of LIGHT exhibition I didn’t know who Fern Schad was. I graduated from ASU in 1986 just before LIGHT closed so they were still an active gallery and most my history of photography lessons had been about photographers not galleries or institutions.
At the Legacies of LIGHT symposium at the Center for Creative Photography, I quickly learned who Fern was and what an important role she played in helping to establish Photography as an accepted medium of art. I detailed the experiences of the symposium in a separate blog post, but I wanted to do a separate post on Fern to highlight some things.
First, I truly enjoyed listening to her describe LIGHT, the time period in New York City, and her experiences. She is a great presenter.
On Sunday after the last panel session concluded there was a break before the concluding celebration of Harold Jones and his work. Most people were interacting in the lobby but luckily I went back in to the gallery to look around again.
I found Fern walking through the main gallery alone looking at the photographs of the LIGHT artists. I watched her as she spent time with each image and tried to imagine all she was recounting, not only about the images but of that period of her life. I stayed back and took several photographs hesitating for her to between walls before interrupting her.
I introduced myself, and explained I had studied under Bill Jay at ASU because she had spoken about working for Bill Jay. I asked her about what it felt like being in this space and she spoke briefly about her memories. I then thanked her for LIGHT and explained how the ripple effect of LIGHT was still continuing because I had a print in the Emerging Artists flat file component of the exhibition. She was very gracious and asked to see my print. It was a very powerful moment for me to watch Fern holding my print, studying it, and then talking with me about it. Receiving validation from someone with her expertise and experience meant a lot to me considering how many important prints she has handled in her lifetime. I am thankful that I thought to photograph her holding the print because the moment is important to me. Having this print in the exhibition and later having it added to the permanent collection of the CCP is important for my career. I only spent a few minutes with Fern but the experience will be one of the more memorable ones in my photography career.
Fern Schad viewing William Karl Valentine’s print which is included in “The Qualities of LIGHT: exhibition flat file drawers” at the Center for Creative Photography - University of Arizona.
When I returned home from Tucson I wanted to learn more about Fern. I found she remarried Alfred H. Moses after Tennyson passed and that their Alfred H. Moses and Fern M. Schad Fund has sponsored numerous major photography exhibitions, some of which I have seen. More photographers should know about Fern and her contributions to the medium, I am so lucky I was able to get to meet her and learn of her impact.