Book review: Friedlander, L. (1996). The desert seen

Friedlander, L. (1996). The desert seen. New York: D.A.P/Distributed Art Publishers.

I live in a desert and have seen plenty of it.  There are different kinds of desert.  There is the kind with soft rolling hills of orange sand, like ice cream or yogurt.  Not much grows in these deserts.  Then there are the rough and crumbly deserts, hills of cracked rock, valleys of soft-edged stone worn by years of occasional rain.  Stuff grows here, like acacia trees and thorny bushes.

In the Sonora desert of the western United States, you get all kind of odd shaped cacti, of which Lee Friedlander took many photos in the 1990s.  He’s known more for what might be called his street photography, but late in life he got into landscape and spent some time exploring the desert.

Contemplative Photography: Color 3

I’m wondering how much longer I ought to focus on color.  I had a chance to walk a bit through Qusais and managed a couple of interesting shots, one emphasizing color and form (the guy at the ATM), the other the quality of light (the eyeglasses).  Perhaps I can do one more round this weekend, and then move on to the next set of exercises. 

More images here:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/80283129@N03/albums/72157663263927130

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Film: Meshi, Naruse dir, 1951

It was an interesting film until the last five minutes.

Setsuko Hara and the changing face of Japanese womanhood

http://tinyurl.com/hj9p2tg

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Video: A Photojournalist Walks Away From His Profession

"I don't believe that photojournalism is a very important job. My pictures and the pictures of my colleagues, they don't really change anything...so let's not pretend like they do." 

http://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/419754/a-photojournalist-walks-away-from-his-profession/

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Two views of Emperor Meiji

Theses two portraits Emperor Meiji, made one year apart by photographer Uchida Kiuchi, suggest how Japan used photography to shape its global image.  According to Fraser, govt officials were unhappy with the 1872 image as it portrayed the Japan as feudal, backward looking nation.  A second portrait was commissioned, shot a year later in 1873, with the Emperor seated in a western chair and dressed in Prussian military uniform, his top-knot replaced by a contemporary western hair style.  This image better displayed Japan as modernizing and an equal of the Western powers.  Fraser suggests this type of image may have been calculated to help Japan win better treaty conditions.  

Fraser, K. (2011). Photography and Japan. London: Reaktion Books.

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Book review: Steinmetz, G. (2009). Empty Quarter: A Photographic Journey to the Heart of the Arabian Desert

Steinmetz, G. (2009). Empty Quarter: A Photographic Journey to the Heart of the Arabian Desert. New York: Abrams.

This is perhaps the only photographic project of the Arabian desert shot from a motorized paraglider.  George Steinmetz had experience documenting desert environments in Africa and China before finally getting permission in 2002 and again in 2004 to explore the Rub al-Khail and fly his aircraft across four countries:  Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Oman and Yemen. The book opens with a text review of previous expeditions across this territory before documenting the extensive preparations required for this project.  The images are presented thematically, including:

In search of the anonymous American photographer who recorded the Indian countryside in 1945

Fascinated by old photographs found in a shoebox, a US couple travelled halfway around the world to trace its mysterious origins.

In 1988, a couple in the windy city of Chicago visited an estate sale of a deceased friend and stumbled upon a shoebox of old photographs tucked under a couch. It contained more than a hundred envelopes filled with negatives and contact sheets for photographs depicting India in 1945. The identity of the photographer: unknown.

How did this set of sepia-toned images end up at a sale in Chicago four decades after they were taken? Alan Teller and Jerri Zbiral, who ended up buying that box full of pictures for $20, have been trying to solve the mystery ever since. "We are curious people, we always want to see what's in boxes," said Zbiral. "We found these pictures and were immediately drawn to them." The curiosity of the two artists took them halfway around the world to identify this anonymous photographer.

More: http://scroll.in/article/801771/on-the-box-trail-in-search-of-the-anonymous-american-photographer-who-recorded-the-indian-countryside-in-1945

Dubai Street Photography: Jalal Abuthina’s unseen side of Dubai

Jalal Abuthina’s unseen side of Dubai - in pictures
January 13, 2016

Jalal Abuthina has spent more than a decade taking photographs of Dubai’s older neighbourhoods. He has compiled them into three books. The Best of Dubai Shop Names, a collection of misunderstood and mistranslated shop signs. Dubai: Behind the Scenes takes the reader on a journey through the neighbourhoods of Deira, across Dubai Creek and into Bur Dubai. Memories of Satwa is a portrait of the ramshackle, low-rise neighbourhood.

Images
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/the-review/jalal-abuthinas-unseen-side-of-dubai---in-pictures

Article
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-life/the-review/dubai-uncovered-how-one-photographer-has-captured-the-other-side-of-the-city#full

Books are available from Gulf Photo Plus:  http://gulfphotoplus.com/search?q=jala

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Contemplative Photography: Color 2

Apart from mom’s holiday, I haven’t done any shooting since the first CP color shoot about a month ago.  I was sick this past week so didn’t do a thing but work and sleep. This weekend I finally had some energy and went for a haircut and then walked around Satwa for a bit trying to shoot color.  What I noticed most is how out of practice I felt.  There were a couple of good opportunities for portraits, but I just didn’t have the energy to interact with strangers.  Again I note that shooting color apart from shape or contrast is difficult and rather uninteresting.  

More images here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/80283129@N03/albums/72157663263927130

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Film: Maihime, Naruse dir, 1951

Perhaps the most "literate" film I've yet seen by Naruse.  I'm sure the book (based on the novel by future Nobel Prize-winner Yasunari Kawabata) must be better.  His follow-up film (Meshi) explores some of the same themes and uses some of the same actors, at least one in an identical role (the male love interest waiting patiently for the female lead).

This line came from out of the blue, wasn't developed further,and doesn't much connect with anything in Naruse's previous work.

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Hello

Eliphalet M Brown Jr, the first to make photographs in Japan

Eliphalet Brown's portrait of Namura Gohachiro 1854

Brown was the official photographer to Perry's 1853 expedition and made his first images in the contested territory of Okinawa, about which there is a frequently reproduced lithograph (below).  Of the possibly hundreds of images taken, according to Bennett (2006), only 16 have been positively identified.

A collection of lithographs made from Brown's images can be viewed here.

Bennett, T. (2006). Photography in Japan, 1853-1912. Tokyo: Tuttle.

Brown at work, center, in Okinawa, ca 1853

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Book Review: Westerbeck, Colin, and Joel Meyerowitz. Bystander: A History of Street Photography. New York: Bulfinch, 2001. Print.

The first few chapters were of interest, but about halfway through I grew disappointed with the Great Artists approach. Westerbeck provides little in the way of technological, psychological or sociological perspectives on the prerequisites for street photography.  Having covered mostly France in the book’s preceding chapters, Westerbeck introduces "foreign" practitioners in Chapter 10, though what exactly constitutes foreign in this context is not clear.  The English are included (in the person of Bill Brandt), the Mexican (in Manuel Alvarez Bravo) and the Japanese (in Kineo Kuwabata).  Westerbeck notes all three produced work that could be said to mimic or be derived from that of Cartier-Bresson and wonders to what to degree they may have been consciously exploiting CB’s techniques or style.  Further still, he wonders if the nature of the medium and the city coalesce in the production of a particular kind of imagery.  This is precisely the kind of question that begs to be explored, but is largely ignored. 

Video: What makes a photographer when everyone is taking pictures?

Ken Van Sickle says:  

If you were there when the Hindenburg caught on fire, and you took a picture of it, that’s a great photograph. But you’re not a great photographer, because you can’t repeat that in everyday things.  

What a great photographer does is, they are consistently able to make something in a style that’s personal to themselves. My pictures don’t depend on extreme sharpness. They depend on the composition and on the subject and on the way I see it.

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/what-makes-a-photographer-when-everyone-is-taking-pictures/#

"On the way I see it" seems to allow for anyone to produce anything and call him or herself a photographer. 

"Just the way I see it!"

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Review: Singh, R. (1996). Tamil Nadu. New York: Distributed Art Publishers.

Raghubir Singh turned up in my FB newsfeed a few weeks ago, which sent me on a search for his work.  The only thing I was able to find is this 1996 volume on the state of Tamil Nadu, available through the UAE university library system.  

There are a variety of images here, including what look like typical tourist photos of temples, landscapes, and cityscapes.  There are also clearly abstract images, such as the shape of a tree shot in silhouette against the sun, coils of green pipe accented by a round mirror (reflecting the photographer), or a close-up of a mud carving of the face of a deity that is all swirls and whorls.  There are also a series of landscapes shot from with an automobile and framed by car windows, and the somewhat typical old/new contrasts, such as a satellite dish foregrounded against an ancient temple, or an electric fan between two ancient bronze statues.  

Much is made of Singh’s use of color.  He was, it appears, an early adopter, but I don’t see much color here that is especially redolent.  The collection does capture the essence of the India I have seen and know and evokes a feeling of nostalgia and the desire to travel again.  I look forward to exploring more of Mr Singh’s work.  

A small selection of images are available here:  http://121clicks.com/inspirations/raghubir-singh-inspiration-from-masters-of-photography

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This kind of work is somewhat amusing

But her idea that by looking at these images viewers are somehow compelled to reconsider the value of elderly women - please.

http://petapixel.com/2016/01/13/this-65-year-old-photographer-is-recreating-famous-paintings-as-self-portraits/

Japan's oldest known photograph

Oldest extant photograph made in Japan by Japanese: Shiro Ichiki's Portrait of Shimazu Nariakira (the daimyo of Satsuma), 1857, daguerreotype.

Moving on

I started this blog for a new OCA course in Documentary, later changed to Landscape.  That was before my marks for P&P came in and I lost faith in OCA.  That didn't stop me, though, from reading and photographing.  I began exploring a few of my own projects and find I am now in the habit of blogging.  Rather than starting yet another blog, I'll just carry on here.

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