Quote of the Week - Brassai

"Why did I write, in what was undoubtedly the most obscure of my letters, dated August 2, 1939, “It was obvious that, come what may, I had to free myself from photography”? Why did I still consider it merely a “springboard to my real self”? To understand this thinking, one shouldn't forget that photography was my livelihood, a means of support that sometimes involved assignments that I carried out with reluctance. It was mainly this “subservience” that I was attempting to escape."


- Brassai


Via.

Quotes of the Week - William Wegman

Total geek out video by William Wegman and Michael Smith on Blindspot. I'm glad it found a home and I think I understand Wegman a little more now:


"Rule Number 6: Be Creative.  Nobody likes a straight on shot - that's dull"


Runner Up:

Wegman: What were you thinking about in this one?

Smith: Man and nature.

Wegman: Hmm...


2nd Runner up:

Wegman: Now it's a big boot.

Smith: Will that give it more meaning?

Wegman: It'll give it more size.


The World of Photography from Blind Spot on Vimeo.

Photo LA this weekend - Opening Thurs.

It's that time of year again.  I'll be attending the opening reception  for Photo LA on Thurs. but there's a lot going on all weekend so get your tics to the programming now.  I'm excited to see what's in store this year.

Happy Holidays and New Year!

Posting can be a bit slow for me this time of year, as it's my busiest so signing off until the new year.  Thanks for another great one.

Looks like it's going to be 72 degrees on Christmas day.  I love LA.

These are from my favorite Facebook "like" of the year, Vintage Los Angeles.

Peter Bohler for NYT Magazine

I apologize for the NYT Mag back-to-back blast but be sure to check out Peter Bohler's series on California sand dune racing in this week's edition here.

On Photoshop

Wow, a fair bit of Photoshop went into making this image by Mark Peterson into the cover of the NYT Sunday Magazine this week.  I found it interesting that they showed the original right after the click-through on the cover.

Cover:

Original:

Copyright Mark Peterson/Redux

WTF Quote of the Week - White Cube

Copyright Jeff Wall


"In the ground-floor gallery, Wall will show, together for the first time, three documentary pictures of Sicilian landscapes. The composition of Hillside, Sicily (2007) imbues the picture with a powerful downward motion, emphasized by the truncation of the slope, while the scale of the picture and stippling of the flora puts the work in dialogue with Modernist abstraction."


Source


Translation: Jeff Wall can do whatever the hell he wants, even show a bland photo of a hill, much like many that can be easily found on Flickr.  He's gangster. That's why he chose a hill in Sicily.

New Feature - Historic LA

So that other new feature isn't going so well. I just haven't come across any egregious statements these past two weeks so it's probably going to be more like a monthly feature that a weekly one.

I'm going to try my best to keep up with this one, though.  Introducing: Historic LA.  I'm going to feature a new neighborhood each week through vintage photos found in the excellent Los Angeles Public Library Photo Collection. From what I can gather, many of the photos are from unidentified photographers.

First up: My new neighborhood, Echo Park.  Did you know that Ayn Rand, Steve McQueen, Woodie Guthrie, Leonardo DiCaprio, John Huston, Jackson Pollack, Elliot Smith, Tom Waits, Frank Zappa, Babe Ruth, and Richard Neutra all called Echo Park home?

Here we go. Click each one to view larger.

Turn of the century - Echo Park Lake

 Fishing Rodeo held at Echo Park Lake, 1967

 Learn to canoe class @ Echo Park Lake, 1965

 Flag Salute, Elysian Heights School, 1964

Dance Practice at Echo Park Clubhouse, 1963

Take Cover Drill at Elysian Heights School, 1962

Anyone else remember that?  Ours were for earthquakes but this is in case of a "national emergency."

Students practice "drop drill," George O'Day, 1962

You can tell by the rear-end's facing the window that this one's for an earthquake.

New moving mountain slide, 1958

Model yacht races at Echo Park, 1956

Huck Finn day at Echo Park Lake, 1954

Evidently, a lot of fishing went down.

Illegal Fishing At Echo Park Lake, 1949

There was a season for it, though, and you could get in trouble if you fished out of season.  That was a motorcycle cop.

"Mr. and Mrs. Floyd Heagle, children Geraldine and Floyd Jr., camping out in Echo Park on July 24, 1946. They join Los Angeles' ever-growing legion of those evicted from their homes, 1946"


These guys occupied LA before anyone.  My guess was that they lived in Chavez Ravine and were among those forced out so Dodger Stadium could be built but this was twelve years prior.

"Prayer services began in Angelus Temple's Prayer Tower soon after the news of the pastor's death was received and continued throughout the night with weeping, grief-stricken followers pleading, "Bring her back!" "May it not be true!" "Take her home." 1944 at Angelus Temple.

 Even Schools were at war in 1943

You have driven up Baxter, LA's steepest street, haven't you?  1939

Remember the lotus flowers? 1932



Evidently, they're coming back once the draining project is complete.

Benjamin Lowy on the Daily Show

It's pretty cool that a photographer was the guest on The Daily Show last night.  Benjamin Lowy, who lives in New York (but this is no time for discrimination, right?) was John Stewart's guest.

The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
Get More: Daily Show Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,The Daily Show on Facebook

Quote of the Week - Charles Saatchi

"For professional curators, selecting specific paintings for an exhibition is a daunting prospect, far too revealing a demonstration of their lack of what we in the trade call "an eye". They prefer to exhibit videos, and those incomprehensible post-conceptual installations and photo-text panels, for the approval of their equally insecure and myopic peers. This "conceptualised" work has been regurgitated remorselessly since the 1960s, over and over and over again."

- Charles Saatchi

From this.

Opening Sat. - Elger Esser at Rose Gallery

Elger Esser: Voyage en Egypte opens at Rose Gallery on Saturday with a reception from 6-8pm.  I'm looking forward to this one.  

Images can be seen here, which is of course a poor substitute for seeing the prints, especially his.

Copyright Elger Esser

2012 Palm Springs

 The website is live for the 2012 Palm Springs Photo Festival.  While I'm not sure it's the "America's most talked-about photography event," there are certainly some interesting things going on.  Sadly, if you're like me and have a day job, you won't be able to attend any of them since they're scheduled during the work week but if you're a freelancer, take a peak at the offerings.

Weegee: Naked Hollywood at MOCA

In 1947, the tabloid photographer known as Weegee relocated from New York City to Los Angeles. In moving west, he abandoned the grisly crime scenes for which he was best known and trained his camera instead on Hollywood stars, strippers, costume shops, and naked mannequins, sometimes distorted through trick lenses and multiple exposures. “Now I could really photograph the subjects I liked,” said Weegee of his life in Los Angeles. “I was free.”


Show info here.

Opening Sat. - Hedi Slimane @ MOCA

It's probably no secret that I'm a Hedi Slimane fan, having given him the only double feature thus far on here. I spent $320 bucks I didn't really have at the time on a copy of his Anthology of a Decade so I could have it signed when he came to LACMA.  His first LA solo show opens at MOCA on Saturday at the Pacific Design Center space.

When I moved back to LA after a decade of living elsewhere, it struck me that people would ask where I was from and when I'd answer that I was from here, they'd find that odd.  There are so many transplants in LA and Hedi is one of our finest adopted photographer sons.

Related NYT article.

The Museum of Contemporary Art presents Hedi Slimane's California Song, the first West Coast solo museum exhibition of the photographer's work, on view at MOCA Pacific Design Center from November 12, 2011, through January 22, 2012. California Songspans the photographer's "California period" and traces his explorations of cycles of urban youth culture and artistic communities, through installations of photographic essays, exhibitions, and publications.


Copyright Hedi Slimane

Quote of the Week - Edward Steichen

"Photography is a major force in explaining man to man."

- Edward Steichen