Herb, one of my favorite living photographers growing up!

That WAS the photo business in LA as far as i was concerned from my little german perspective.

The light, the locations, all exotic and yet very bare elements, and modern at the same time. It just amazed me working in a studio in grey rainy Germany that this world exists, Thank you HR.

I always loved the simplicity, reduction to the most significant element, that was basically the hallmark of his photography, and who can forget his music videos or ad movies…

Well, The Getty in LA took it on to mount a retrospective, so go see it till August 26, 2012. They’re closed Mondays, otherwise 10-5:30, stay for the view and have a bite.

After a short preview in NY the “Pilgrimage” show of Annie’s recent still life book is opening today in Washington, DC. We’re just on the train going back to NYC after a great opening evening at the Smithsonian Art Museum and a later night at the Hay…

I highly recommend a visit, it’s free, open every day (till May 20, 2012), and most obvious a fantastic collection of mostly American Icons and pieces of history that sometimes just missed the spotlight. It’s really great to see the prints on the wall and i highly recommend collecting the prints if they become available…

One of my favorites, Sigmund Freud’s couch in London (a rare international artifact), ahh the days…

From the Telegraph, London:

Camen Dell’Orefice is showing her body of work as a model over the last decades at the London College of Fashion.

She’s such a great character and one of the most standout models i ever met and had the pleasure working with in Paris.

I can’t wait  to see this and if you’re in London i highly recommend this treasure of fashion photography history.

Carmen: A Life In Fashion’ runs from Wednesday, November 16, 2011 to Saturday, January 14, 2012 at the Fashion Space Gallery, London College of Fashion, John Princes Street, London W1; fashion.arts.ac.uk

If you find yourself in LA these weeks spend an hour at Fahey/Klein Gallery and see the Sarah Moon show (LaBrea and 1st ave.), till May 21, 2011.

Just exquisit photography that just seemes to me like it happened yesterday.

True genius is timeless and never goes away, it just gets neglected by the mainstream.

And the best part, you can actually own these pieces, beats the auction market.

Spring auctions are on these days and the most intriguing piece i saw was the georgeous portrait of Cate Blanchett by Irving Penn, 2007.

Just brilliant and in the usual manner perfectly printed, mounted and signed, just oustanding.

Now i hope it gets the price it deserves, estimate is very fair considering the other IP’s for sale:

Always loved his work, straight forward  that reminds me of August Sander great look at the Germans early 1930ties, just with african charm. The eye of Bamako is a great show in a great space, up till April 9, 2011 , so if you’re in LA you have to swing by

M+B
612 NORTH ALMONT DRIVE
LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90069

En Route pour la pêche

The Luminescent ocean view, the scenes on the beaches. Interesting how it can all remain in the vision of the sea in photographs. I felt very connected to the light and decisive play of light, shadow and clouds that create such a great pallet of colors. One can nearly smell the ocean and salt in the moist summer air.

Still up for a couple of days at the Royal Academy of Arts, London, just around the corner of our new favorite, the Brown’s Hotel on Albermarle.

Shot with my little iPhone and the Hipstamatic app.

Great snapshot setup, back to the 50/60/70′ties i say.

Messed up colors, burned edges and nothing is controlable…

Love it

Finally we’re moving into serious snapshot territory with the new iPhone. While it’s all nice and new (and quicker, with higher res. screen), the best part of this is that i finally discovered Hipstamatic.

I thought i have to move to Williamsburg to truly enjoy it, but the stuff i shot so far are dangerously fun by themselves. Thanks Steven for the intro on my birthday…

I promise i’ll post more snaps in the future

What a great selection of photographs.

I always loved the Atget view of Paris. I still it believe it exists, those quite moments in a large city and especially in Paris. They make every city magical, otherworldly, quite; an emotion that’s very hard to comunicate. And Atget stands the test of time.

On the other hand the great self build camera and the resulting images that Miroslav Tichy creates, come straight out of his phantasy, well excuted with a handmade edge that seems to be disapperaing very rapidly these days.

Both are at the ICP in NY til May 09, 2010

I just saw the play on 48th street. Great cast and great use of the set. Even the clothes felt strangely modern yet classic. Flowing coats and skirts and the men somewhat reminded me of the current inspirations of Steven Alan, J. Crew etc.

Anyhow, Scarlett was great, we saw her quickly after the show, nice as ever, with her hat pulled down and smoking away.

I think it’s her first big show on Broadway and she said she’s exhausted from the schedule, but that’s theater. I remember her, sitting in the back of the car, singing Disney tunes wile we’re driving all the way from MRY to the Ventana for a shoot a couple of years back.

Walking out into the street, flashlight mayhem with hundreds of fans, and that according to her, every night. All the while the rest of the cast just walks into the night or even rode their bikes home, love it…

It runs for only one more week and i highly suggest to go and see it, if you can score tickets.

Again a great collection.

Unfortunately we’ll only ever see it photographed…

And obviously the themes are dark, as his perspective diminished.

I feel sorry for him and the art he so tragically left behind.

I just got the book a couple of days ago and it’s a brilliant little gem. But i really urge everyone interested in the best photographical portrait work ever done, to see the show in person.

It’s up at the National Portrait Gallery in London until June 6, 2010 and then at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome from July 1st through September 19th, 2010.

What a sad, tragic and early end to a fantastic designer who i expected to continue to fight against the demise of ambitious and great fashion.

I remember well when he first came to Paris in’96, changing Givenchy; not the easiest transition, after the genius John Galliano moved to Dior.

I felt recently he really hit a stride and I thought he’s just warming up…

20 years of exponential improvements of post production (Whatever happened to Quantel??).

I thought i loved photography when the final image was “only” an 8×10 slide and everything had to be in that frame, exposure, contrast and color where you needed it.

I remember when the first rounds of Photoshop hit, i so desperately wanted a Mac and play around with black and white pictures. But at the time it was really a low quality tech geek with very little if any artistic or high end vision involved. Am i happy this changed and the artists were able to take over and claim photography once again for the art form with all the possibilities once the image is recorded electronically.

Today I feel i can push the picture much quicker, more precisely and repeatably to exactly what i want and feel about the subject and situation. And i don’t need a lab or digital technician. I’m still not a fan of artificial constructed visions of never occurred events (that’s called CGI and not photography) but i’m warming to this as well…

Anyhow, thanks to the Knoll brother’s and the team at Adobe to enhance Photography, making it a much more popular art form along the way and bring on discussions of relevance, reality and our image of beauty and distortion.

I always loved that portfolio. It fits right between the Peru studio portraits early in his career and the tent/tribes shoots across the world in “Worlds in a small room”.

I just got back from the show at the Getty center in LA (where admission is free but parking $15, really) and was again impressed by the collection.

The prints had various qualities to them, from fiber based prints to variations in the platinum coatings, but it was a nice treat to see them all lined up for comparison. From the subjects, to the way they carried themselves and their tools, their facial expressions; all very intriguing.

The only disappointing part was that due to the sheer amount of prints some hang a little to high for closer review, but i guess that a nice problem to have with around 250 prints…

And i really enjoyed that the actual print size was not at such a monster scale that are shown i recent years, like this the photograph can be viewed as one whole image and the eye doesn’t have to wander.

As you might be aware the wide spread usage (and resuse) of internet content undermines the legal status of many copyright issues. Even that the usage is clearly regulated, new ways of communicating are taking away licensing fees from artists and writers in a big way.

Therefore i support the Copyright Alliance effort to protect and extend what already is status quo and internationally recognized.

To learn more about this initiative and help bringing this matter to larger attention on a national level i suggest following the link below and signing the letter to the US President.

www.copyrightalliance.org/letter/

Another year, another geek show. Few interesting tech things to see, Canon showed of the new 1D Mark IV cameras, great for movement, dance, jumps etc. With this, I don’t see shooting the RED camera ever again, 1o frames per second, 16MB RAW files. That’s great for a full page and beyond and much less footage (and tech/crew setup) to work with. NICE…

Now, if I actually get my new Canon S90 p&s camera and the printer that Epson promised last month and still has not delivered.

But the better part was a little history talk about The White House Photographers.

Led by Pete Souza, David Hume Kennerly and Robert McNeely it was a nice event that I wished would have been taped for the public with great personal insights and little quips about the daily life in 1600 Penn. Ave. and the obvious history witnessed by these great guys.

But I have to admit that James Nachtwey presentation on Saturday was beyond words.

The world’s misery that he witnessed and brought to the audience over the last 25+ years is just staggering. Probably the best photography done in this field and gorgeously printed by Jim Megargee, if it wouldn’t be for the just excruciating subject matter I could start hanging them in our house. Afterwards it was a standing ovation and had everybody reevaluate their life.

I do want to point to his tuberculosis initiative that he started with the help of TED in 2008.

Tuberculosis is shaping up to the most threatening disease making its comeback. Once though extinct it’s now multi/extremely drug resistant and taking a huge toll on populations across the planet and in conjunction with HIV is eradicating entire generations.

http://www.xdrtb.org/

The Hampton film festival, what a surprise. I have to go there more often. Besides the panel yesterday, I’m again very impressed with a movie.

“Learning from Light”, which photographer wouldn’t want to see this, is a documentary on the great architect I.M. Pei and the construction of the Museum of Islamic Art in Doha, Qatar.

Besides the introduction to his creative process and research, the difficulties of the construction itself, it was a fantastic revelation of one of the greatest minds of our time. And I loved his devotion and observation of light, it’s quality; the appreciation of the singularity of sunlight and the usage of simplistic shapes, along with his humor and Great Spirit.

Mr. Pei himself being present for this world premiere topped all of this. What a treat on a Sunday morning…

Now if I could watch this in HD. Somebody has to pick this up for distribution.

And I would really like to photograph him…