Tag Archives: Photography

A Year in Books/Day 110: Ansel Adams An Autobiography

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  • Title: Ansel Adams An Autobiography
  • Author: Ansel Adams
  • Year Published: 1985/This Edition:1996 (Little, Brown and Company)
  • Year Purchased: 2000/2001
  • Source: Barnes & Noble clearance rack
  • About: Iconic is an over used word and idea. Very few people truly and permanently achieve that status. Ansel Adams, the Californian known for his crisp black and white nature photography, certainly deserves the label. His expansive, down-to-earth and gruff nature flies off the page, making 82 years of wide experience seem fresh, lively and interesting. For eight decades, he witnessed the extremes of a rapidly changing America; as a pioneering artist and activist, he was responsible for much of that transformation.

    A photo portrait of photographer Ansel Adams, ...

    A photo portrait of photographer Ansel Adams, which first appeared in the 1950 Yosemite Field School yearbook. Deutsch: Portrait des Fotografen Ansel Adams, erstmals 1950 im Jahrbuch der Yosemite Field School erschienen. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Motivation: I love to learn what drives and shapes creative people and their processes.
  • Times Read: 1
  • Random Excerpt/Page 55: “The snapshot is not as simple a statement as some may believe. It represents something that each of us has seen-more as human beings than photographers-and wants to keep as a memento, a special thing encountered. The little icons that return from the photo-finisher provide recollections of events, people, places; they stir memories and create fantasies. Through the billions of snapshots made each year a visual history of our times is recorded in enormous detail.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9 1/2

A Year in Books/Day 107: Redheads

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  • Title: Redheads
  • Author: Joel Meyerowitz
  • Year Published: 1991 (Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.)
  • Year Purchased: 2000?
  • Source: Edward R. Hamilton Bookseller Company
  • About: This photography book is a visual declaration of love to all redheads. The subjects are real people-male and female, of all ages. No models, no insane airbrushing. There are freckles, wrinkles, imperfections and wildly different personal styles. The images are easily dated to the period of publication but are otherwise lovely.
  • Motivation: Ahem. I’m a natural ginger.
  • Times Read: Several.
  • Random Excerpt/Page 17: “Photography quite often overturns preconceptions. In this burst of curiosity about what a portrait is and how to go about making it, I discovered that, out of a hundred or so portraits I had made during an intensive month’s work some summers ago, thirty-five were of redheads. How had that happened?”
  • Happiness Scale: 7

My Love of All That is Bizarre

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“I know, my dear Watson, that you share my love of all that is bizarre and outside the conventions and humdrum routine of everyday life.”-Sherlock Holmes, The Red-Headed League (by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle).

Sherlock

Sherlock

Yes, I know that Sherlock is a surname here. That doesn’t stop me from giggling every time I walk by this grave at my favourite hiking spot. I’m such a hopeless LitGeek.

Diversions-15 April 2012

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  • The Fictional Characters Birthday Calendar on Flavorwire  is the best thing I have seen all year! Unfortunately, I share a birthday with a character from Type-Moon. Oh, well, it is still a fun bit of fluff.
    • When I saw the amazing band Alabama Shakes in concert back in December, I knew they were standing on the edge of big-time success. Their free show at a local dive bar brought out a few hundred of us die-hards. My friend and I were lucky enough to spend about 40 minutes chatting with the entire band; we even shared pet pics with Brittany (she has a bunny!). Now their first album has dropped and the Alabama Shakes are everywhere. Including on Letterman. Check out this brief profile of the band on Bust Magazine‘s blog, which includes footage of their recent Late Show performance.
    • I’ve been doing yoga and pilates for years. When I recently saw my first pair of Blake Brody In-Studio Footwear  ballerina flats, I squealed. Meant to be worn while working out, they combine comfort and eco-consciousness with serious style. They’re slightly pricey (for me, anyway) but I’m eager to invest in a pair, as I know I will get more than my money’s worth. By the time I decide between the Amanda and the Daryl, I should have enough dosh to make the purchase!
      The Daryl in Leopard by Blake Brody

      The Daryl in Leopard by Blake Brody. Image courtesy of blakebrody.com.

      • The closer I get to going home, the more homesick I become! I’m really looking forward to my (brief) visit in early May. Until then, I’m stalking Etsy for reminders of Columbus. I love this photo by illumiquest.

        Columbus Ohio Downtown Photograph by illumisquest

        Columbus Ohio Downtown Photograph by illumisquest. Photo courtesy of illumiquest on Etsy.

A Year in Books/Day 102: LIFE Goes to the Movies

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  • Title: LIFE Goes to the Movies
  • Editor: David E. Scherman
  • Year Published: 1975/This Edition: 1986 (Time-Life Books, Inc./Pocket Books)
  • Year Purchased: 1990s
  • Source: On clearance at a forgotten store (likely Waldenbooks).
  • About: The binding of this book is falling apart; if you pick it up carelessly, random pages tumble to your feet. I’ve retrieved the disordered middle third of the book from the floor more than once. It’s that kind of volume-delightful, informative, unique and just damn good to ogle. It’s light on text but big on informatively captioned photographs. The staff of this quintessentially American periodical had a degree of privileged access to film studios and stars that today would be unthinkable. The best of forty years of their coverage is stuffed into 304 kaleidoscopic pages.
  • Motivation: LIFE magazine employed top-notch photographers; many of the images they published are instantly recognizable classics. I knew that I would never tire of looking through it, which I haven’t (apparently to the point of nearly destroying it from the inside out).
  • Times Read: Countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 86: “In the Hollywood of the ’30s and ’40s, stars were not born; they were mass produced. The machinery that swallowed up legions of girls with pretty midwestern faces and that ground out sultry vamps and sexy hoydens gave each young hopeful a buildup that can only be described as relentless.”
  • Happiness Scale: 9

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A Year in Books/Day 96: Marilyn Mon Amour

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  • Title: Marilyn Mon Amour The Private Album of Andre de Dienes, her preferred photographer
  • Author: Andre de Dienes
  • Year Published: 1985 (St. Martin’s Press)
  • Year Purchased: 1991
  • Source: I bought this book in high school. I remember the mall (City Center) and who I was with (my mom and her best friend Debbie) but I cannot recall the name of the book store!
  • About: However slight the connection, men just love to claim that they had an affair with Marilyn. Usually in book form. Fancy that. It’s almost a sub-category of the cottage industry that is the Marilyn biography. And they were never simply lusty flings or misbegotten one-night-stands. They were all, pretty much to a man, life-altering, planet-shifting Love Affairs. According to the gents in question, that is. The reality must be very different. Out of all of these claimants, Transylvania-born photographer de Dienes stands out as one of the most believable. The hundreds of photographs he shot of Marilyn between the years 1945-1953 testify to the fact that they had a viable working relationship; there’s obviously a sense of trust and friendship between photographer and subject. Since I don’t want to turn this from a review into a treatise, we’ll leave the veracity of his story for another day and another form. Instead, we’ll hone in on the real focus of his book: the photographs. What photographs they are! The majority date from the earliest days of her modeling career; they are undoubtedly the best pre-stardom images ever taken of her. They’re lovely. That’s right. Lovely. No big, loftily descriptive words are necessary, not when one word is so wholly perfect and concise. Her wardrobe of all-American basics (she was broke and had to supply her own clothes for the road-trip shoot of 1945) remain fresh and alluring; they set off her glowing, innocent beauty without detraction. This is the definitive Marilyn Monroe book.
  • Motivation: I was a teenage girl, studying acting. This play world was extremely compelling to me at that time.
  • Times Read: Countless
  • Random Excerpt: “I was impatient to train the camera on her, to choose the right light to set off her skin and her hair, to capture her expression, to make her move, run, stand still, arch her back, stretch. I wanted to catch hold of whatever it was I sensed lay behind that candid smile, those blonde curls and the pink sweater. In one fell swoop I was intrigued, moved and attracted by her.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10+++

A Year in Books/Day 84: Picture This Debbie Harry and Blondie

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  • Title: Picture This Debbie Harry and Blondie
  • Author: Mick Rock
  • Year Published: 2004 (Sanctuary Publishing Limited)
  • Year Purchased: 2004
  • Source: Via mail, exact source unknown.
  • About: This is famed photographer Mick Rock’s obsessively lovely visual tribute to Debbie Harry and, casually, by way of association, her bandmates in Blondie. It’s a reminder-for those in actual need of one-of how truly stunning, original and photogenic the singer has always been. He also throws in anecdotes about other  rock and rollers who have been covered by his lens.
  • Motivation: Going into this one, I had to repeat the phrase “Must not natter on about my love for Debbie Harry, must not natter on about my love for Debbie Harry…” The Blondie frontwoman is who I wanted to grow up to be: confident, talented, singular and beautiful. I still feel that way.  I’m equipped with so many thoughts about DH that it is only with real effort that I pack them away for another day. I’ll move on to the next category before this becomes a 3,000 word essay or I stray into suspiciously flowery, fangirl territory.

    Debbie Harry performing with Blondie at the Zw...

    Debbie Harry performing with Blondie at the Zwarte Cross festival on Friday July 15th 2011 in Lichtenvoorde the Netherlands (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  • Times Read: cover-to-cover: 3/picture gawking: countless
  • Random Excerpt/Page 103: “Not that her allure was any less potent, for her appeal did not (and does not) reside solely in her blondness. It’s an innate quality. There has always been a softness,a non-narcissistic casualness about the way she deals with her physical appeal.”
  • Happiness Scale: 10++++++

Creativity and the Macabre: Forever is Composed of Nows

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Ideas often come alive for me at strange or inconvenient moments. After the ever-trusty shower, I usually feel the most open to creativity when I am…….

walking amongst graves. My husband and I are lucky to live a few minutes from the second largest cemetery in the United States. Established in 1845, it is equally an arboretum, with 15 lakes, trees, flowers and wildlife set within what, at times, looks like traditional parkland. Continue reading →