links for 2007-10-23
October 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment
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The current issue of American Photo features their selection of the top fifteen emerging photographers:
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Gary Knight travelled to Israel, Jordan and northern Iraq on assignment for Newsweek magazine. He used an EOS-1D Mark III throughout and talks to CPN about his experiences.
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But when it comes to totally immersing yourself in the world of photojournalism in its current state as art “du jour,” there’s no better place than New York, backdrop to some of the last century’s best street photography. VIA PDN
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If you haven’t seen Michael Subotzky’s powerful photographs of South African prisoners, now is the time.
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Seen above at right is a Beautiful Mutant titled “Kitty and Child: Youngstown, Ohio” (14.75″ x 18.75″), which I’m thrilled to have hanging right in front of me.
Review: The Joke’s Over
October 23, 2007 | Leave a Comment
The Joke’s Over: Bruised Memories: Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson, and Me, by Ralph Steadman
[rating:5/5]
Ralph Steadman recounts his days illustrating his adventures with Hunter Thompson. It’s very frank:
When I began this book I thought it was going to be a journey of pleasure and warm memories, but as I write I feel more of the icy winds of rejection that were probably there from the beginning. There is a point at which nothing was ever worth the effort, nothing given and nothing taken away. My involvement was nothing more than my own ambition. Quite by chance I became a part of this man’s life, more as an infection than a friend. I fooled myself that there was something in me that he found important. Actually, as time went by, he hated the very idea that something as putrid as a cartoon drawing could ever capture the essence of what it was he was trying to describe. But when I search deep inside myself, grasping at words like air, I believe he may have been right. There was no purpose in my involvement.
To me, Steadman’s work was vital.
Incidentally, the original poster subsequently disappeared - I presumed stolen by a gang of international art thieves. It was, in fact, stolen by Hunter who was often gripped by an insatiable kleptomania. He stole far more of my work than I realized from the offices of Rolling Stone, blaming Jann Wenner whenever something went missing. He did not realize that each time he committed such a felony, he stole a piece of my soul too.
Okay, the book is much more than this, but for some reason I’m left with all of these points. The artist screwed over by the writer, disrespected by the word people. Maybe it’s just me.
I am groaning as I write this piece, that I was systematically screwed over any part of this and other projects I was rightfully entitled to through the years. It was a time of thievery and personal ambition and it has lasted until after Hunter’s death. I simply did not realize that Hunter’s friendship was also a business agreement; he was wise and careful and had surrounded himself with lawyers… and guns and other people’s money. He was much more into deals than personal affection.
With all this said, Steadman remains a true friend to the end. The book isn’t all about Steadman’s treatment at the hands of Hunter.
In the eighties, after The Curse of Lono, Hunter became more circumspect about my involvement in anything to do with Gonzo, as thought the very presence of one of my drawings in a journalistic project of his own represented a serious threat to his domination over the world we had collectively created a decade earlier. My drawings were becoming baggage, best dropped off in some bushy scrub along the trail, halfway across a wilderness, or in a dirty pond along with old bicycle frames and rubber tyres. Writers are like that. Whether they like it or not, whether they attempt to consider themselves actual members of the human race, or chosen spokesmen for life’s underprivileged, winners of prizes or rich and curious seats of learning, I had, as far as he was concerned, exhausted my usefulness. But in his moments of quiet loneliness, I was still there as an integral part of the Gonzo spirit. The poor bastard was as alone as the rest of us when it came to filling a void with what most of us believe the creative spirit to be. These are mere speculations, but even as I write now, in my own chosen loneliness, missing the man like a lost leg, I realize our collaboration was one of those venal necessities I cannot brush aside, and neigther could he.
The Joke’s Over: Bruised Memories: Gonzo, Hunter S. Thompson, and Me, by Ralph Steadman
[rating:5/5]
Review: March of the Hooligans
October 22, 2007 | Leave a Comment
March of the Hooligans: Soccer’s Bloody Fraternity, by Dougie Brimson
[rating:4/5]
“Former hooligan” Dougie Brimson provides a nice, concise history of football hooliganism, mainly of the English variety:
Another weapon that came into use at that time was the dual-cut Stanley blade. This was simply two blades taped together with a matchstick in between them. The resultant cuts, being so close together, were all but impossible to stitch properly, which meant that the scars were huge. One favorite place for being slashed was across the backside, because it meant that the victim could not sit down for weeks or at least until the scars had healed. Other weapons that saw the light of day at about that time were golf balls with small slivers of razor blade stuck to them with superglue, cigarette packets full of rocks, and small nasal spray bottles full of ammonia that were sprayed into peoples faces.
There are accounts of crazy situations, like this, from “Steve of Bristol”:
It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in a row with a group of local lads. Although we stood and had a go, we had to back off in the end when more Irishmen started joining in. Luckily, this bouncer let us into a bar just around the corner. We’d only been in there about ten minutes when this f*cking bicycle comeds through the window! ‘Course, first thing we do is steam outside and we find a f*cking huge mob on the other side of the road. So we turn to go back into the bar only to find the bastards have locked the doors. In a situation like that, all you can do is front it up.
Probably my favorite parts of the book were the glossary and the “Mob Breakdown” at the end of the book, which lists the names of teams and their “Associated Hooligan Firms,” such as The Treatment, Zulu Army, Frontline, etc.
March of the Hooligans: Soccer’s Bloody Fraternity, by Dougie Brimson
[rating:4/5]
First Video - Utah Soccer Championships
October 22, 2007 | Leave a Comment
My first shot at video. First touched the camera Friday night. The next day I shot and edited these two pieces, on the Utah high school girls state championship soccer matches.
Big learning experience.
Funny stuff, being a video guy. Whenever I’m at an assignment I try to acknowledge the still photographers I haven’t yet met. But as I walked up and down the sidelines with a video camera, none of them even looked at me. They had me completely tuned out like I wasn’t worth their time. Of course, the ones I did know were avoiding me as if I had some sort of contagious camcorder disease.
Then at the end of a game, I had still photographers continually getting in the way of my shot. The shoe was finally on the other foot.
I also learned that the quality on YouTube is atrocious. I always knew that, but when it’s your own work it really becomes apparent. Maybe I’ll post quicktimes of these later.
Alta vs. Lone Peak, 5A State Championship:
Orem vs. Highland, 4A State Championship:
links for 2007-10-22
October 22, 2007 | Leave a Comment
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In keeping with my recent obsession with Russian avant-garde book design, I have a new addition to my library that is now one of my favorites. No…sorry it is not a photography book but it is a great work of art.
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Rick Loomis, a photojournalist with the Los Angeles Times, is giving back the knowledge he learned as a student to others at the Photojournalism Mountain Workshop that concludes here today.
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photographer Simon Norfolk talks about several of the shoots he’s done (here). There’s good insight to his approach on each story but I love to read between the lines as he tells us about shooting this Sunday’s Perfect Drought story.
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IT IS RARE for a curator to reign with virtual sovereignty over an entire medium, but during his nearly three decades as director of the Department of Photography at the Museum of Modern Art in New York (from 1962 until 1991), John Szarkowski did
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A symposium discussing the impact of digital technology on documentary photography and photojournalism drew a crowd of over 300 to Annenberg Auditorium this weekend.
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Over the last six years, photographer Simon Norfolk has occasionally roamed the world for the New York Times Sunday Magazine. Here is a selection from that body of work.
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“Because you are the author who wrote about the closed psychiatric system, which is forbidden, we are sending you to a psychiatric institution,” the psychiatrist said, according to Arap.
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The life of a talented young photojournalist and UCLA alumna was tragically cut short last week. Bridget O’Brien, 26, died when she swerved to avoid a deer on a highway near Cleveland.
