Staged Images

 Currently on exhibit at the Albuquerque Museum is the photographic work of Cara Romero and ceramics by her husband, Diego.  She is an enrolled citizen of the Chemehuevi Indian Tribe.  He is from the Cochiti Pueblo in New Mexico.  The photographic images ranged from large posters to billboard-sized images.  I have never been a fan of elaborately staged work, but I found the exhibition interesting for several reasons.

A video narrated by the photographer provided a good overview of style and techniques.

There are online videos which also illustrate the technical aspects of the work, including this shot from a PBS presentation which reveals the image making instrument to be a Canon digital camera.

 Back home after viewing the exhibit I searched online to try to get some idea about how the work was being received.  While I found a lot of links to show Cara Romero has had her work exhibited in museums all over the country, there really seemed to be no critical assessments, but only often-repeated boilerplate publicity.

My conclusion at this point is that even though there may be a lot of talk about contemporary photography, there seems to be no general agreement on exactly what that may be.  High-tech digital imagery and directorial staging certainly are prominent, but how any of that relates to the history and practice of photography over the past two centuries is not at all clear.

It is perhaps not surprising that the statements made by the artist are not particularly helpful, as such self assessments and explanations seldom are.  Romero relates that she was initially very enthusiastic about some of the early work by people like Curtis in portraying indigenous people.  As she got more into developing her own ideas and style, however, Romero decided that there was not much done since the early days to bring forth an updated view of how indigenous people are encountering the world today.  So she offers her current work as an effort to fill the perceived void.

The problem I see with that self assessment is that Romero seems to be working with a pretty narrow slice of indigenous experience.  Most of her models seem to be young creatives living in Santa Fe; they and Romero are certainly interesting and often beautiful people, but the pictures resulting from  their collaboration leave aside rather a lot of daily life of the greater community.

I think it relevant to note that elaborately staged photography is not a new idea.  Perhaps due in part to the cumbersome equipment  of the very early photographers and the hurdle of very long exposure times,  staging images - often depicting biblical subjects - was a very prominent technique.  Here, for instance, is a shot by Julia Margaret Cameron.

 Stieglitz and Strand led something of a rebellion which devalued staged work in favor of more spontaneous straight photography, and that trend predominated for the next half century in defining what should be considered as photographic fine art.  However, some staged work continued to wiggle its way into museums and art publications.  One practitioner who has been particularly enduring is Cindy Sherman, whose explorations of female identity were incorporated in self portraits which she called Untitled Film Stills.

And, finally, it cannot be overlooked that staged images have been the backbone of  advertising illustration without a letup since very early in photography's history. 

In a recent online presentation to the New Mexico Film Photographers group Chip Greenberg presented convincing evidence that the role of photographers in producing the avalanche of staged image ads which we have all been accustomed to may be close to an end.  What he did was produce an image using an AI image generator which was very close in appearance to an image he had made in his commercial photography studio years ago.  That AI image - even after some refinement - probably took less than an hour to make, while the original image on film was the product of days of work.

Following Chip's lead and shamelessly borrowing Cara Romero's concept I picked an online AI image generator of many available with a quick Google search and made the following image in under five minutes.  It won't end up in any museum exhibits, but I think it should generate some soul searching by curators and critics.

Celebs

I've never had patience for fashion photography or celebrity portraiture.  The purpose of such pictures is mostly about selling something, usually clothing or personalities.  As a result I've largely managed to ignore the work of Annie Leibovitz.  The recent review in Vogue of Leibovitz's reissued and expanded book, Women, has made me rethink my estimation of the photographer's talents.

It has taken some effort to ignore Leibovitz for so long because articles and coffee table books by and about her are everywhere. Her Wikipedia bio covers the essential facts of her life and career, including a list of the cameras she has used. Most of her work has been recorded on film.

The examples of Leibovitz's work in the Vogue review is a pretty good selection from what she has done over the years.  The ones I particularly like fulfill my basic requirements for portraiture; they suggest something significant about the subject's character, or maybe something surprising and unexpected.  I think the 2025 pictures of Angela Davis and Michelle Obama meet those criteria.

So, next time I'm at the library I'll see if my new regard for Leibovitz's celebrities holds up well enough to motivate me lugging home one of those big books.

Laurie Smith at the Border

 In the November issue of The Sun magazine I came across the extraordinary work of Laurie Smith which I had not known before.  Her photo essay about immigrants at the southern border is all black and white, and apparently done with some kind of Leica. 

Smith's career as a photographer was built mostly on 30 years making magazine food photographs, which is perhaps the reason I did not find her earlier.  Meanwhile, she has apparently done a lot of photography along the Southwest border with Mexico.  Her essay, At The Border, is by far the best I have seen on the subject.  She has also done some excellent color work in Haiti.

Graciela Iturbide Retrospective

 The Mexican photographer, Graciela Iturbide, is a long-time favorite of mine.  She is just two years younger than me and is still out there making pictures on film, mostly in black and white.  The International Center of Photography in New York is currently showing a big retrospective of her work.  She has traveled all over the world making her images, but is best known for her depictions of Mexico's indigenous women.

Iturbide has a rare talent for explaining her own work as is evident in the The Guardian review of the current ICP exhibit.

Graciel Iturbida - self portrait - 1979

OSTLICHT KAMERA- & FOTO AUKTION

 Even if you don't happen to have € 50,000 on hand, the online catalog is worth a look for the vast presentation of prints from the old masters.  I might even be tempted to get the hard copy.

Included with the displays of prints are good descriptions, as well as high-res details.

Brooklyn, 1967

 I'm having some trouble getting out to make new pictures with my recently acquired Nikon S. (I blame the weather.)  So, until the weather improves, I thought I would show some more portraits from the first Nikon S made before the Chinatown series.

In spite of their imperfections these shots of two Brooklyn kids earned me a year's membership at the Museum of Modern Art.  That was crucial in my development as a photographer as it gave me a first hand look at actual prints by people like Weston and Adams.

I made quite a few portraits with the Nikon S, some of them while I was attending the commercial photography course in Manhattan.  I got no credit for the pictures because they were made on 35mm rather than the large format equipment used in the classes.  I also spent some time walking around the streets of Brooklyn and grabbing shots which I coulld sell to the local newspapers.

Family Pictures

I received a packet of pictures recently from the wife of my cousin, Jim.  She has been going through his things to decide what to keep and what not.  I think he had likely inherited them from his mother.  I recalled seeing a couple before, but most were new to me.  Many had notes on the back, usually in my mother's hand, which included the date the pictures were made.

There is no date on the back of this picture of my mom and the date of the Time cover is not visible.  I''m pretty sure it was made in the mid-1940s.
 

My half-sister at two in our Eastgate house; she came along fifteen years after me.

Early 1950s.  My stepfather, my mother, my uncle and me eating.  We are in the West Seattle house my mother helped my grand-parents to buy.  The leg and elbow on the right likely belonged to my grandfather as he always sat in that chair to watch tv.  It's a flash shot, probably not from the only family camera I remember from those days which was my grandfather's Kodak folder.  I don't know who made it.  It is a pretty silly picture for several obvious reasons, but it contains a great mystery.  I am wearing glasses!  I don't remember putting on a pair of glasses  before I got some readers at about the age of 60.  No way now to know the real story.