Hoboken Almanac - The Neophyte - October

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The Neophyte - October - November, 2002

The neophyte updates his column sporadically with whatever he finds interesting.
You can e-mail him here - shawn@hobokenalmanac.com
copyright © 2002 by Shawn Liu
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November 17th, 2002
From the Ethics Department
As if we don't have enough ethical problems in the news these days, PDNewswire reports that a New York Times photographer, Edward Keating, was witnessed to have staged a shot. Supposedly the Times have published an editorial note "stating that the picture violated its policy on journalistic integrity because it 'had not been spontaneous.'" (I quote PDNewswire who quotes the Times)

What happened? Mr. Keating staged a boy with a toy gun in front of a sign that says, "Arabian Foods." Three photographers, Charles Lewis of The Buffalo News, Shawn Dowd of The Rochester Democrat & Chronicle and David Duprey of The Associated Press witnessed Keating talking to a family and then walking side-by-side with the kid.

What were those three photographers doing? They were waiting for someone to walk by so they can then snap a picture - a "spontaneous" picture. I guess I should feel comforting that we have some photographers who have higher moral standards than the CEOs today, but without sounding like a cynical pig here, I think this is a bit silly. John Filo removed an object (the pole above the screaming woman's head) in his famous Kent State photograph, and he received a Pulizer Prize for that. Is staging a boy in front of a sign, which doesn't have much to do with anything anyway, so much worse than retouching a photograph?

If you care, there is an extensive and perhaps a bit too personal report in Village Voice on this story and Edward Keating (most of the report is about Keating, and a rather unflattering portrait of him).

November 17th, 2002
Punch-Drunk Love
A film by Paul Thomas Anderson, who seems to have found a niche in musicals. I heard it somewhere that Mr. Anderson wrote the screenplay of his last movie, Magnolia, with Aimee Mann's songs in mind. Somewhere near the end of that movie, he makes all the main characters take turns singing a song by Ms. Mann. It is abrupt, and so are the frogs, but everything just somehow work great.

Anderson's new movie continues this fantastic and musical theme. There isn't as strong of a story here as in Magnolia, but it didn't bother me at all while seeing the movie - I was too absorbed in the acting, the visuals and scores. After the movie I saw some flaws, particularly in the story, but somehow they were easily forgotten. Punch-Drunk Love is a good movie, close to being magical, with a breathtaking first half. I'm beginning to sound like a foolish critic here.

One thing particular struck me - a scene in the supermarket, the beginning shot of all the aisles reminded me of Andreas Gursky's supermarket photograph (99 Cent). Silly me thought that I had an "original discovery", turns out that many others have thought of it way before I did - I searched on Google ("punch-drunk love gursky"), and look what turned up -

www.ptanderson.com - Punch-Drunk Love
... Jeremy Blake did the art work for Punch Drunk Love (those wonderfully colorful transitions ... Many of commented that this painting by Andreas Gursky, may have been ...

As far as I know, Gursky doesn't print, or at least 99 Cents, I think, is a photograph and not a painting. But that's a small detail. The photograph sticked in my head. And whether or not the cinematographer of Punch-Drunk Love, Robert Elswit, had that in mind, his filming was beautiful, or maybe it was the work of his first assistant cameraman, Michael Riba. Oh, who the hell knows who filmed what, it was just beautiful photography.

October 30th, 2002
Magnumarchive
Magnum's website has a new look and a new address, www.magnumarchive.com. If you go to their old address, www.magnumphotos.com, you'll get redirected to this new site, designed by Orange Logic. Actually, it might be a few months old - I just happened to notice it recently. Why this new name? Who knows and who cares?

The new look has a light gray scheme, with some blue and red, made up of mostly text except for the photographs and some icons. It looks clean, which makes it good enough for its purpose. The navigation is standard, with some quirks here and there, but there's not much to complain.

I believe the reason for this new construction is its "e-commerce ability". Now we can add whatever photograph we see on the site to a shopping cart. But what are we buying? I'm not sure. Neither did I try to find out - it asked me to register, and there were too many fields to fill out.

Magnumarchive.com has a lot more photographs than magnumphotos.com used to carry. I click on the "photographers" link, and there are over 70 names. I chose "Euguene Richards", then click on his new book Stepping Through Ashes, then "view thumbnails" and I get 9 small photographs, each one with a little shopping cart next to it (and there are also two buttons, "A" and "B", next to each picture, for adding to separate "light boxes"). I then click on a thumbnail picture, get a bigger version of it and see that the photograph has watermarks, "Magnum Photos" in light arial fonts, all over. I guess this is better than Corbis' way of having their big logo right in the middle of a picture, but still, if anyone wishes to "steal" the photograph, they can just buy the book and scan it in. This "seurity measure" seems more psychological than practical, but what do I know?

Oh, there are more than just 9 photographs. A little "next" button at the bottom takes me to the next page for 9 more pictures - there are a total of 98 photographs. And that's just for one book. If not anything, magnumarchive.com presents us a nice, extensive online gallery of a lot of good photographs by a lot of good photographers. Good enough.

October 30th, 2002
Tricky Wording
From Photo District News Online's "PDNewswire":

Beginning with its January 2003 issue, 65-year-old Popular Photography will be rechristened Popular Photography and Imaging. The move is designed to coincide with the magazine's greater editorial emphasis on digital imaging. The title is published by Hachette Filipacchi Media.

Now what's the difference between photography and imaging? My American Heritage College Dictionary (third edition) defines photography as "the art or process of producing photographs". And to image is defined as "to make or produce a likeness of". Huh.

October 15th, 2002
Moscow + New York in Hoboken
The Almanac Gallery of Photography has opened last Thursday with the exhibition "Moscow - New York" by Jürgen Wassmuth. It's more difficult to park a car in Hoboken than it is in New York, and most people from the island who don't know about the buses from Port Authority would have to take a PATH in and then get into a taxi, or walk about 15 blocks. Not the most accessible exhibition, and it was raining. But (and of course there's a but) a good number of adventurous people came, stayed, looked, talked, and had some of Ben's famous Chili. Our Chili King and Mr. Wassmuth were happy with the outcome. All is good.

Here's my review - the show was good, but the Chili could've had more flavor.

The most amazing thing about the exhibition was the space. I've witnessed how Ben Fernandez, Siiri Fernandez, Marco Prinz and Marita Theiling have completely transformed the first floor of 1252 Garden Street from just a regular looking living room into a professional gallery/studio. The walls are freshly painted, the wooden floor shiny, and the white boards for exhibition look fantastic. It was Ben's idea, executed perfectly by all four people.

We originally planned to have the next exhibition in November, with about 25 prints of David Vestal's photographs of New York. We scheduled the opening to be on November 7th, and careless me just realized that Mr. Vestal won't be able to be here because he's somewhere out west teaching. We're delaying the exibition to next year, but readers of Photo Techniques will find the now outdated information in the November/December issue. Sorry. We have all the prints ready, but we feel that it is important to have Mr. Vestal present at the opening.

And speaking of Photo Techniques, they've published Mr. Vestal's "Photo 303, The Pratt Institute Handouts" with a new name, Advanced B&W Printing in magazine format, 52 pages, $5.95, on display until the end of this year. It's advertised now on Photo Techniques's website, where you can also purchase the book, but for a bit higher price. Also on the website is a book review by Mr. Vestal on Helen Levitt's wonderful Crosstown.

October 15th, 2002
Portraits
In my column in March ("Barely hanging by the thumbs") I wrote about the Barely There ad campaign. It's been out now for a few months, and you can see Richard Avedon's newest photos on many phone booths around the city of New York. It's not so difficult to spot them - very pink, and the female model has these dark grayish green lips. I can't imagine anyone who'd want to buy their bras after seeing these ads. Well, these new portraits aren't featured in Mr. Avedon's exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, called "Portraits," which features better pictures than the bra ad, but there's a suggested fee of $12.00.

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