***Published by Yale University Press in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Author - Lisa Volpe (2023)***

America and Other Myths - Photographs by Robert Frank and Todd Webb, 1955

October 24, 2023

I went into my favorite hometown bookstore, Vroman’s in Pasadena, on Monday for something and before I left, I checked out the Photography section for any new book arrivals. I was surprised to see they already had a copy of America and Other Myths - Photographs by Robert Frank and Todd Webb, 1955 so I grabbed it. I follow the author, Lisa Volpe so I knew the exhibition was opening at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston and that the book/exhibition catalogue had just been released. I thought Vroman’s might get the book in stock before the end of the year, but I never expected to see it on their shelf within two weeks of its release. I like to support Vroman’s because they are independent, and they took care of me when I released my first book.

The exhibition, and this accompanying catalogue, compare the work of photographers Todd Webb and Robert Frank who received separate Guggenheim Fellowships in 1955 to document the United States. Robet Frank’s photographs were published in book form in France in 1958 then in the US in 1960. The book, The Americans, is arguably one of the most iconic photography books of all time. Webb’s 1955 photographs were not widely seen and were basically lost for some time before being rediscovered in a collector’s basement. In 2017 Webb’s 1955 photographs were obtained by Todd Webb’s Archive which began the archiving process of the images. Curator Lisa Volpe became aware of the Webb photographs around the time they made it to the Webb Archive and then had the vision to curate this exhibition comparing Webb’s unknown work Frank’s iconic body of work.

I became familiar with the Lisa Volpe, who is the Associate Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts - Houston, a year ago when she selected two of my photographs for an exhibition in Atlanta. During the submission process I researched Lisa online and found a couple videos of her talking about photography. Lisa has so much passion for photography and that energy comes across when she talks about the medium. I have followed her ever since.

I have seen Lisa’s recent posts about the exhibition America and Other Myths and the pending release of book/exhibition catalogue. The concept and images looked so fantastic that I have even been considering a trip to Houston to see it. I don’t know if I will make that happen but at least I have a copy of the book know so I know how good this exhibition probably is. But this post is a book review so let me get on with that.

Review of the Book:

The book was published by Yale University Press in association with the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. As stated above the author is Lisa Volpe - Associate Curator of Photography at the Museum of Fine Arts - Houston. The book was released this month and contains 184 Pages, is 10.00” x 10.70”, has 115 duotone images, and was printed in China. Directors’ Forwards were provided by Gary Tinterow - Director, The Margaret Alkek Williams Chair - The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and Betsy Evan Hunt - Executive Director of the Todd Webb Archive. Novelist and Professor Susan Straight provided the afterword.

The book is outstanding in every aspect. The design is obviously the first impression with any book. I love the cover image; it represents what it to come well and I like the font selection. The book is a really good size, you can hold it easily if you are lounging, so it has intimacy, but the book is also a little bigger than some other books which allows the images to be bigger so you can see more details in the image reproductions. The duotone printing is very good, the images are beautiful, and the printing quality also helps with seeing the image details. I absolutely love the page design where the image information is on the same page as the photograph, in a font that is easy to read but does not interfere with the experience of looking at the image. I made a point to do the same thing with my Santa Anita book because I always hate hunting through the back of the book to find the information about an image. With the writings, the text spacing is good, the font size is easy to read, and it has a nice font style.

There is an incredible amount of written information in this book. I don’t mean there is page upon page of reading to do to get through before seeing the photographs, that would have been a negative for me. What I mean is everyone who contributed text wrote in a way to share interesting facts about the photographers and their journeys in a wonderfully entertaining, clear, and concise manner. I obviously just brought this book home and have only read the introductions and skimmed the other text, but even with that I have learned so much about both photographers that I never knew. The story of how Webb’s 1955 photographs were rescued from a basement and preserved before ultimately being shared with the world now is amazing. The in-depth examination of both photographers and how they approached their Guggenheim projects is incredible. I look forward to spending a lot more time with this book to learn even more. Volpe’s writing style conveys her passion for the project and Susan Straight’s afterword is a nice compliment to the images and is very appropriate. Normally I wouldn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the Bibliography, Index, and Credits but again there is so much good information here about the images and the exhibition it is worth noting. Lisa and her team documented everything about this project, she could have been a good Detective with her skillset.

The image selection and the sequencing in the catalogue are again, outstanding. I have really started paying attention to how curators edit then hang their exhibitions over recent years. The curator’s process is often far more creative than the average museum visitor realizes. The pairings in the book are interesting, they work, and again I like being able to glance down to see which photographer created each image. Like most photographers, I was well aware of Robert Frank’s work in the exhibition, and I always find value in revisiting it. Like the rest of the world, except those involved in this project, I had never seen this body of Webb’s work before. In reading the descriptions in the book it appears that most all of Webb’s prints in the exhibition are Inkjet Prints printed this year. I assume that means Lisa and Betsy had to go through negatives and digitize images as part of the curatorial process. If so that makes the accomplishment of this exhibition even more impressive.

Image Showcase:

This photograph above of a barber in New Mexico has been on my mind ever since I saw it. The light in this image is amazing, as was Webb’s ability to capture it. I don’t know if there are words good enough to describe the quality of this image, this image doesn’t need words. Thank you, Lisa, for including it.

Two of my photographs compared two images from the book:

William Karl Valentine - NY-061 #07 9/5/00

Todd Webb - 1955

William Karl Valentine - CA-087 #17 5/29/95

Robert Frank - 1956

I had learned from Szarkowski’s book on Garry Winogrand that both Winogrand and Robert Frank had photographed the Father Serra statue in Los Angeles, even though all of them thought the statue was of Saint Francis. Because I knew they both had photographed something close to home, in 1995, I decided to search for the statue and also photograph it. I have written a previous blog post about all that whole process and how the statue had been moved. In September of 2000, almost exactly one year before the attack on the World Trade Center, I was in New York and captured the image above from the Empire State Building. At the time the person looking up at the claw railing had good value but after the attacks the the image became more powerful, and deeper for me. I don’t ever recall seeing Webb’s photograph from my exact same vantage point before, so I was excited to discover this image in the book this week, immediately realizing we had been in the same spot, just 45 years apart. I always find it interesting when I have the opportunity to photograph somewhere, or something, that a great photographer has. There is a unique connection and I like comparing the changes over time, or the lack of changes; it can be fascinating.

Conclusion:

If you like photography books you will love adding this book to your collection. For the $50 price, it is a great value. Every time you revisit this book you can come away with new experiences and knowledge, it truly is outstanding.

Additional Information:

Yale Press had links to a half hour podcast of Lisa Volpe being interviewed about the book which was fantastic as well as a half minute You Tube video of page turns showing off the book. Links are below.

Lisa Volpe - Yale podcast interview about the exhibition

Yale Press - You Tube book reveal (less than 30 seconds)

Dr. Rebecca Senf - Center for Creative Photography - “Ask a Curator” life webcast

Recent Photography Webcast Worth Viewing - Becky Senf & Joel Meyerowitz

October 23, 2023

I have been able to watch a number of great live web events recently about photography and I want to quickly mention them in a post. With all the material out there today, I feel like I was lucky to have found these. The first two I discovered because I follow Dr. Rebecca Senf at the Center for Creative Photography and the last one was an Instagram alert about a live broadcast starting because I follow Joel Meyerowitz.

The first webcast was four weeks ago and was the Center for Creative Photography’s “Ask a Curator” event where Rebecca Senf (Becky) answered questions about being a curator for an hour. I thought this was outstanding and I encourage photographers, or anyone interested in fine art photography, to follow the “Ask a Curator” link and listen to her talk. I have really focused on getting to know curators and other photography professionals lately, just to deepen my understanding of the medium and the direction it is going. I have met Becky several times, have heard her lecture, and read her writings. She shares content in a way that every person who receives the information will gain a better level of understanding of the topic. I love listening to Becky talking about photography, her knowledge of, and passion for, the medium always comes through.

The next live webcast I saw was also promoted on Rebecca Senf’s Instagram. This event was the Photographic Arts Council - Los Angeles’s A Picture a Minute where well-known photographers, collectors, and curators each selected a single photograph and spoke to why the image was important to them, ideally for just one minute. You can see with my screen shot above the list of participants was impressive.

With the picture in a minute webcast, speakers were moving fast and my note taking was not perfect, but here is what I got down – I researched as much as I could to prevent errors, my apologies if I missed anything.

The concept for the event came from a project Agnes Varda had done for French television where she did 170 episodes called “un minute for un image”. Agnes wanted to how a single photo could impact people. Agnes felt that viewing photographs gave her space and time to think and wanted to share that with others.

Here are a selection of the presenters and their chosen photographs:

Alia Malley shared the photograph “Earth rise over the Moon” taken on 12/24/68 by Apollo 8 astronaut Bill Anders and spoke about how incredible that moment was for all of mankind and how important the image was capturing it. She also mentioned how intriguing it is to think the camera only captured 1/250th of a second in time but how powerful that fraction of time was.

Andrea Liss highlighted Carry Mae Weems photograph “Moody Blue Girl”

Arpad Kovacs’s photograph was David O. Alekhuogie’s 2015 image “Bandana Hearts”.

PAC LA’s Director, Bayley Mizelle, talked about Alvin Baltrip’s 1975-80 series “The Piers” documenting the gay cruising spots in New York City before the Aids epidemic.

Cesar Rueda showcased a photograph by Magnum’s Yael Martinez.

Paula Ely shared Vik Muniz’s “Ecstasy of St. Theresa after Benini” 2015

Clare Kunny and her husband Colin Westerbeck spoke about a photograph in their personal collection which is a dual portrait of Colin by Joel Meyerowitz. They spoke about how the image was photographed and how special it is to them (There is more about this image below including Joel’s comments about it which I heard in a separate web cast).

Dan Solomon spoke about Deborah Turbeville’s American Vogue editorial in the 1970’s and mentioned there was a ‘sense of decay, Photos are about memories”.

Gallerist Douglas Marshall paid tribute to Lawrence McFarland, who passed this year by talking about the power of his photograph “Wheatfields Nebraska/Kansas border 1976”.

Elena Dorfman’s choice was an 1872 Eadweard Muybridge print.

LACMA’s Eve Schillo chose Yan Wang Preston’s 2017 image Egongyan Park.

Hiroshi Watanabe didn’t understand the “one-minute” aspect of the event, but he gave an interesting talk about a Robert Frank print he had owned once, “New Orleans Trolley 1955”. Hiroshi paid $8,000 for the print in 1992 and when he decided to sell it a few years later, because it had started to fade slightly, it sold at auction for $36,800.

Jeanne M. Connell showed a 1948 print of Solarized Calla Lillies by Carlotta Corpron. I was not familiar with Corpron, who a teacher at Denton College in Texas, but this image was beautiful.

Jo Ann Callis shared Daido Moriyama’s famous 1971 photograph “Stray Dog”.

Rebecca Senf chose a photograph by Ansel Adams which was printed early in his career, a 1927 print of Mount Galen Clark. I found her selection interesting because I have seen exhibitions of Adams’s photographs where multiple prints of the same image, from different stages in Adams’s career, are hung together to show the evolution of his technique. I also found it interesting to see which Adams image Becky chose since she has expert knowledge of most all his work.

Robert Berman selected a Julian Wasser image that I know and like of Duchamp playing chess with a nude model. I did a blog post earlier this year when Wasser passed away. I have seen video of Wasser talking about his life and photography before, he definitely lived life to the fullest and made some great images. I also liked the fact this particular image was made in Pasadena, California in 1963, because I was born there that year.

Former gallerist Stephen White shared a Bill Brandt nude.

Virginia Heckert, who is the curator of photographs at the J. Paul Getty Museum talked about Shigemi Uyeda’s 1925 photograph “Reflections on the Oil Ditch” from their collection.

Michael Hawley, Chairperson of the Getty Photographs Council, chose a Graciela Iturbide photograph, titled “Angelita” 1979. Listening to Hawley, he obviously has great insight into the medium and he said a couple good things worth sharing: “The art of photography are pictures that offer more questions than answers” and he reminded people to get to know their artists who are still here.

Long time Los Angeles gallerist Paul Kopeikin shared a vernacular photograph of a cowboy and a girl from his collection and spoke to how anyone can collect photographs which I thought this picture was an awesome share. Paul’s words reminded me of some of Bill Jay’s lessons on the value of a photograph back when I was studying at Arizona State.

I am thankful the Photographic Arts Council - Los Angeles put this event on, it had a lot of value.

**Darius Himes - Christie’s**

Interviewing Joel Meyerowitz along with Alejandro Cartagena

The final live webcast I saw was Darius Himes and Alejandro Cartagena interviewing Joel Meyerowitz about his recent venture into the NFT market. I follow Joel on Instagram and got notification that the live video was starting, and at that time I was able to watch it. Alejandro is an artist in his own right, but he is collaborating with Joel, helping his go through his massive archive to find images from the past. Darius is the International Head of Photographs for Christie's. The conversation between these three was interesting enough but then Alejandro brought up the fact he had participated in the Photographic Arts Council - Los Angeles’s A Picture a Minute and mentioned one of Joel’s photographs had been featured in the event. The photograph was a dual portrait of Colin Westerbeck, one image in the morning and the second image in the afternoon in his apartment, I believe in Chicago. In the pre-digital age, it was a slightly complex image to compose so the frame edges lined up correctly. During the PAC LA event Colin and his wife, Clare Kunny, spoke about the print which still hangs in their house and how important it is to them because of their relationship with Joel. When Alejandro brought it up in this webcast Joel then talked about his photographic process for the image. It was fascinating hearing the perspectives from the three people involved in making the image. Colin is the former Curator of Photographs at the Art Institute of Chicago and an educator. Clare Kunny specializes in education programs within the museum environment. Colin and Clare have lived in Los Angeles for some time now. Joel Meyerowitz is another photography icon that is always worth listening to. He is one of the best image makers of all time and has such incredible energy.

There is so much content online now and it’s hard to navigate through it all, but when you do you often find some amazing content. Hopefully you will find the time to explore some of the links I have shared here.

William Karl Valentine and Mark Hilbert at the Hilbert Museum’s temporary gallery space in Orange, California. 9/23/23

Hilbert Museum - Catching up with Mark Hilbert

September 30, 2023

I had a chance last week to catch up with Mark Hilbert, who with his wife Janet, founded The Hilbert Museum of California Art at Chapman University in Orange, California. The Musem houses their collection of 1,000 20th century paintings documenting California and one of my first blog posts documented a private reception I went to when it opened in 2016. The original space, at 7,000 square feet, was beautiful and it is currently being expanded to 22,000 square feet due to open early next year. The Hilbert collection includes works by Maynard Dixon and many of my favorite California Painters. They opened the Hilbert Temporary gallery off The Circle in Orange to stay engaged with the public as they prepared for the unveiling of their beautiful new museum space.

Mark Hilbert explaining the expansion of his museum which will be completed early in 2024.

The temporary gallery space is obviously only a fraction of the size of the coming new museum, but the space is still decent and located right off the Circle in Orange. The area has great restaurants, eclectic shopping, and is a great place to spend a few hours on a weekend. I’m hopeful that someone maintains this space as a gallery after the new Hilbert Museum opens. I also encourage everyone to visit the Hilbert Temporary while it is up because the works on display are worth the trip to see them.

My Favorite Painting in the Exhibition

Dean Cornwell (1892-1960) “Mission San Antonio de Padua - 1949 Oil on Board

I have heard many photography scholars talk about how a viewer’s past experiences influence how they perceive a photograph. People will connect, or not connect, with a photograph often because of their past experiences, their understanding of the subject matter, or even their believes. Every viewer’s experience is unique, so their response is also unique and that is a good thing. Every person’s opinion has value, even if only just to that person. In talking with Mark he expressed frustration with political viewpoints impacting viewing experiences and an increasing lack of tolerance for differing opinions, I completely agree with him. As in the world, the art world also needs to be inclusive to differing points of view, including conservative ones. The First Amendment is important for all of us.

Dean Cornwell’s 1949 painting Mission San Antonio de Padua really stood out to me and I think may be of value to my blog post readers to explain why so I can expand upon what I wrote above about a viewer’s past experience influencing their reaction to an image.

I have written blog posts before about the Father Serra statue that was in downtown Los Angeles. For me it was an important monument because both Robert Frank and Garry Winogrand had photographed in the 1950’s. I searched for the statue and photographed it on May 29th, 1995, and returned again 25 years later to the day and rephotographed it. Two weeks after photographing the Father Serra statue a second time Indigenous activists invited Los Angeles Times reporters to the statue to witness them tear it down as part of the George Floyd protests. I don’t get how it was connected other than tolerance was being shown to civil unrest at the time.

I am respectful of the opinions that Indigenous Americans have towards colonization and the influence that Catholicism had upon their culture, they have a right to be upset with injustices of the past. But that shouldn’t give them the right to destroy public property or cancel things they don’t believe in. We need to remember history, not erase it. Cancel culture is a slippery slope and should never be tolerated. For me when they tore down the Father Serra statue for that minor LA Times article, they took away my connection to two of my favorite photographers, they destroyed an artifact of California history. They did it all for a soon forgotten moment of attention that was quickly overshadowed by so many other events with the pandemic. Having that experience impacted my thoughts when viewing this painting. I was drawn to the graphic shape of the cross and the stylization of the people in the painting. I took note how the priests were supervising (ordering) the indigenous people doing all the labor to accomplish their task. I also noticed how the indigenous people were colorful and bright and the priests were ashen and less dynamic. I saw elements in this painting supporting the outrage of the indigenous people who tore down my Father Serra statue. For someone of strong Catholic Faith they might see the impact the church had bringing the ministry to the new world. Both viewpoints are valid. No matter what opinion a viewer has the painting is an amazing piece of artwork, wonderfully crafted, and is something to be enjoyed by all. Hopefully it will inspire various dialogues for years to come.

Father Serra Statue two weeks before being torn down by indigenous protestors in 2020 - William Karl Valentine

Selected images in the exhibition at the Hilbert Temporary

Anton Otto Fischer "Peach Harvest"

Phil Dike "California's Best"

Charlie Dye "Big Catch"

Arthur Saron Sarnoff "Supervised and Unsupervised"

Steven Dohanos "Mutually Beneficial Friendship"

Maurice Logan "Ghirardelli's Pioneers"

John Phillip Falter "Schlitz tastes so good"

John William Walter "I own this dream"

Pruett Carter "Depression Kid"

Walt Disney Productions

Howard Greenberg Collection - Museum of Fine Arts Boston

January 14, 2020

The Viewpoints exhibition , photographs from the Howard Greenberg Collection at the MFA in Boston was one of the most impressive exhibitions I have seen, I am unfortunately getting to posting this later than I had hoped, I saw the exhibition shortly before it closed last December.

The Howard Greenberg gallery has long been one of my favorite stops when I am able to get to New York. His gallery’s focus on documentary photography, and selection of what work to show, is fantastic. The gallery space is awesome, the staff is so personable & knowledgeable, and their exhibition designs are always so well crafted.

The aspect of the MFA exhibition I loved the most was it gave the viewer insight in to Howard’s vision. It explained his approach to the medium, and what interested him. The collection includes many of Howard’s favorite prints and the stories behind why the images are important to him. In some cases it tells how he came to obtain the prints. There are so many amazing one of a kind prints in this collection, it is such a good exhibition for documenting the history of the medium and the presentation of the collection by the MFA staff is perfect. It is as good an exhibition design as I have seen. I think the best way to approach sharing this with you here is to start posting my photos of the exhibition in groups and just make comments about them.

While drafting this post, one interesting thing I learned about the MFA collection was it began in 1924 when Alfred Stieglitz donated 27 of his photographs to the Museum. The collection now includes approximately 15,000 photographs

The short video accompanying the exhibition was perfect. I loved hearing Howard explain the importance of the different items in the exhibition then being able to go look at them on the walls. The MFA also included quotes with the titles next to the prints which was good too, but seeing the video then going to see the prints he talked about was the best way to experience things. I have looked for this video on line and have not been able to find a link to it. These three still his opinion on the importance of making prints not just capturing images.

The above images show how the exhibition prints were grouped under themes.

Gloria Swanson, 1924 , by Edward Steichen (1879-1973)

Steichen’s print of Gloria Swanson is one of the most beautiful prints I have ever seen. It is also one of Howard’s favorite prints as he describes in the video. in person it is truly amazing.

Above - examples of personal prints photographers made

The exhibition had images I was not familiar with before like the Winogrand and Frank prints above. I really found the Frank print interesting. His “Americans” series was so important in the history of the medium, to see an image he took when he was on his way here to do the project is incredible. I envision him “sharpening the saw” some knowing about the journey he was about to embark on.

The concept for displaying iconic images with their press notes and publishing stamps visible was brilliant. I loved being able to see both sides of these prints, the small wall cut out and the dual glass frame was perfect.

The Henri Cartier-Bresson print below was pretty incredible too. I was familiar with the image, and to see what is the very first print of the image is so special. Enjoyed the story of how Howard confirmed this was Henri’s first print and the path it took to get in to Howard’s collection.

More amazing Steichen prints below. Where Instagram and other social media platforms, like this blog, are fantastic to share information to broad audiences quickly there is also a downside in that many photographers today do not fully understand the medium, especially what a fine print really is. I have written about it before, to truly understand what a good print is you have to view good prints. In person, slowly, and by examining every detail. Unfortunately this can not be accomplished in 2 to 3 second digital views.

After the Steichen print of Gloria Swanson , the two prints below were probably my favorite prints in the exhibition. W. Eugene Smith’s printing skills were amazing, I remember seeing his working prints of the Jazz Loft Project on display at MoPA in San Diego and I was in awe of how beautiful his working prints were. The display in that exhibition was also perfect. I am so glad his archive is also at the Center of Creative Photography where it will properly cared for and shared.

The Diane Arbus print was good to see. I remember seeing her own enlargements years ago and they were not clean. So much dust on the negatives that it was distracting, and no where close to the images which professional printers produced. To see this smaller print which you know she made was another special experience.

Although I have long been familiar with this famous Lewis Hine image and how important it was for bringing about change, I think this is the first time I have seen this print in person. Powerful experience to view it.

Below is a selection of other prints in the exhibition which stood out to me.

I am very thankful that Howard Greenberg donated this collection to the MFA. First so I could see the prints exhibited in this format, which again was an outstanding presentation, but more importantly to assure that such an amazing part of the history of the medium will be preserved together in an institution like the MFA.

I found the following articles on the exhibition which may also be of interest:

Howard Greenberg Gallery Statement

Wall Street Journal

The Guardian

Street Photography - 2018 PDN Article

October 23, 2019

So when I was looking up articles about Jill Freedman to share in my previous post I came across a really good article on PDN.com about What Street Photography means to several notable Photographers.

In the article Joel Meyerowitz nailed it when he said “You see tons of [imagery] on the internet labeled street photography, but when I look at it, it looks mostly like portraits of people on the street, usually in the center of the frame, and a lot of that work doesn’t seem to have much invention or intelligence or spirit or spontaneity.” I could not agree more with his statement. I see way too many images today that claim to be “Street Photography” which aren’t. I have seen images that would fit closer to the style of “New Topographics” profess to be street photography. I think with some of the self taught photographers out there the term “Street Photography” is romantic, or hip, so they call all their images street photography when most aren’t. I also think its somewhat humorous because Garry Winogrand, arguably the best “Street Photographer” to date, hated the term “Street Photographer / Photography”.

Martha Cooper & Alex Webb both had great insight for the PDN article too, please refer to the link above to see their comments.

For anyone wanting to learn about Street Photography look to some of the Masters.

Below are some Instagram examples which support my argument that many images “Street Photography” are not. Street Photography Magazine has some images which are Street Photography but there is a mix of others which are obviously not. Street Photography International has some dynamic images, but for me I would say most images there are not “Street Photography”. The images found on the page hash-tagged Street Photography are usually a quagmire of non-Street images.

Street Photographer Magazine

Street Photography International

Street Photography

Thoughts on Robert Frank

September 26, 2019

With Robert Frank’s passing earlier this month I have read lots of tributes since and I have given some thought to how his work impacted my development as a photographer.

There is no doubt that The Americans was one of the most important things to happen to the medium, I remember Bill Jay talking about that fact when I was studying at ASU, listing it as one of the three most important things in establishing the medium in the art world. I have a copy of the book, have seen his prints, know the work well and I absolutely respect and like it. But I would never look to Frank and say he is the photographer whose work has impacted me most. I am a Winogrand fan, and I know Frank’s work impacted him, and so many others that impacted me so maybe, by proxy, Frank had a bigger impact on me than I realize.

I just read A.D. Coleman’s article on Robert Frank which has some fantastic insight. One thing that jumped out to me was the fact that Frank moved on from The Americans to film and other projects. He never did another photography series like The Americans. I think its interesting because when you look at photographers like Winogrand, Friedlander, or whomever you learn a lot by comparing their photographs over a long time period. You learn about the subject matter in greater detail (in most cases our society) and you learn about the photographer personally. It is obviously different with Frank because he leaves the documentary style of The Americans behind and moves on so there is still work that offers insight to the artist but you can not follow the change of society through his work.

For me, I experience life by photographing. Even if I don’t have a camera, visually I am constantly focusing on elements of my world and framing them in my mind. Sometimes it is actually hard not to that. I think there is a lot of value in doing long term series like most of my work. I love being able to compare things over say a 30 year span and hope that many of my series will go well beyond 50 years. It would be interesting to see Frank’s work if had continued over a long period of time, maybe it would have been too much for him. Maybe the great initial success of The Americans prevented that. Lots to consider, but I wanted to take a moment and remember an icon for his contribution to the medium.

Artsy.net

August 22, 2016

I got a request this past week from Artsy.net asking me to share a link to the their website, specifically their feature page on Robert Frank. I wasn't too familiar with Artsy so I looked in to them first, they are basically a clearing house for art on the internet, collecting information from all over and having it in one place. They are definitely worth checking out and I even added their mobile app to my phone. Below is the link to their Robert Frank page and I have their main page in my Links page now as well.

https://www.artsy.net/robert-frank/

Both Sides of Sunset & The Open Road

May 13, 2016

New additions to my library: "The Open Road" by David Campany (2014 Aperture) and "Both Sides of Sunset: Photographing Los Angeles" by Metropolis Books 2015.