Kodachrome

Ever since last week's announcement that Kodak was discontinuing production of Kodachrome film, professional and amateur photo-
graphers alike have been busy mourning its demise. Kodachrome was known for its rich color saturation and was widely used by professional print photographers since it's introduction in 1935.

Depending on how you see and process the world, Kodachrome can either look very realistic or not. I happen to find it pretty accurate but to many people it does seem oversaturated.

Unlike other color films, Kodachrome, is purely black and white when exposed. The three primary colors that mix to form the spectrum are added in the development steps rather than built into its layers. Because of the complexity, only Dwayne’s Photo, in Parsons, Kan., still processes Kodachrome film. The lab has agreed to continue through 2010, Kodak says, but the reason the film's demise has been getting so much attention is that it's yet one more sign that the pre-digital world is irrevocably behind us.

For the record, I'm a big fan of digital - mostly because it's so easy to manipulate and control. However, I also love the look of Kodachrome, so here are a few gems. An early shot of Marilyn Monroe, above, by Andre de Dienes. Below, a group of pictures from the archives of FORTUNE Magazine kindly sent to me by their deputy photo editor Scott Thode. (For the full FORTUNE album click here.)

This shot of caddies from the Pinehurst Golf Course in North Carolina in 1957 was taken by Walker Evans!

From the same year, W. Eugene Smith caught this moment at the headquarters of the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company.

The celebrated French photographer Robert Doisneau was commissioned to shoot a story on Palm Springs where he grabbed this shot.

And lastly, it should come as no surprise to any regular followers of this blog that my very favorite story shot on Kodachrome was of course Paul Fusco's "RFK Funeral Train". Below, one of my favorite images from the series.

Weekend Video

It’s been fascinating to hear and read so much about Michael Jackson in the wake of the sad news of his death – the balance of commentary between his strange acts v.s. his contribution to music and culture at large, the questions about his attitude to race and his own color.

Dying prematurely is like reading an obituary of someone who passed at a ripe old age but is pictured in their prime. It's a time disconnect and revision warp. His "moonwalk" will clearly be a large part of his legacy, hence the video above. But the most poignant aspect of his work for me was that for the last two decades, in a hip-hop environment of what were, shall we say, not the nicest lyrics - Michael Jackson's refusal to get nasty and to steadfastly focus on love and justice and harmony was a surprisingly courageous and hopeful stand.

Dutch Seen

I had been looking forward to the exhibition “Dutch Seen” at the Museum of The City of New York since I first heard about it. The show celebrates the 400th anniversary of the Dutch arrival in Manhattan by featuring the work of 15 contemporary Dutch photographers, and the hook is that these photographers have all created work about New York – most of it done expressly for the show.

Curated by Kathy Ryan, The New York Times Magazine’s always brilliant Director of Photography, and under the auspices of FOAM (Photo Museum of Amsterdam), the show promised to be a strong and original one, but what impressed me most was the clarity of the concept and cleanness of the layout. It’s refreshing to come into a show that’s simply laid out with one interesting body of work after another.

The Museum of The City of New York can be a tricky space but the north ground floor gallery has been opened up so that it’s just a wooden floor, white walls, and the pictures. The only design flourish is the simplest use of orange construction webbing (as you can see in the picture above) used sparingly to float the exhibition title in the entrance to the main gallery and elsewhere as punctuation. Anyway, it’s one of the shows not to be missed this summer and it runs through September 13.

One of the highlights of the show is a series of portraits by Hendrik Kerstens of his daughter with a series of New York related objects on her head. She’s always had a remarkable Dutch Old Master face which her father has taken full advantage of, but here he plays with us by using things like a napkin and a plastic bag as well as a Yankee cap, to go back and forth between modern and classic, past and present.

Other highlights include a small series of landscapes by Misha De Ridder (below) who set out in search of "the qualities that made New York such an ideal place to settle 400 years ago".

Danielle van Ark set about photographing more than a hundred art openings as a way of observing a particular social structure in the city. That's Chuck Close and Peter MacGill chatting it up below with someone I presume is a collector or patron.

Inez Van Lamsweerde and Vinoodh Matadin weigh in with a grid of famous people illustrating the beauty and star power of the city. That's Shalom Harlow below.

Erwin Olaf created an entire construction inspired by Frances B. Johnston's famous turn of the century photographs of middle class African Americans.

Rineke Dijkstra - described on the wall as "the matriarch of today's generation of Dutch photography" is included with a group of her early 90s portraits of Coney Island bathers. It's a testament to the quality of the work that they seem as fresh as though they were just taken.

Charlotte Dumas - another interesting pick - has concentrated on photographing animals in a unique style that's part documentary, part conceptual. For her New York project, she chose to photograph some of the stray pit bull and pit bull mixes found in so many New York shelters. An interesting and astute metaphor for New Yorkers!

Hellen van Meene, meanwhile, continues her study of adolescent girls but these are her first pictures of American subjects.

Lastly, Wijnanda Deroo looks at New York through it's many and varied restaurants - from Papaya Kings to The Tavern on the Green. Her colorful interiors from what has to be the eating out capital of the world again serve as fitting metaphor for the city's energy and diversity.

Our Troops

These snaps were passed on to me by Michel Mallard from an e-mail that's on its way to going viral titled "Military Humor from Ron". He did not know who Ron was, but they show the kind of humor that troops get up to when they're bored or being silly. In any case, in their goofy inoffensiveness, they're a welcome respite from the Abu Ghraib photos.

317 & Counting ...

For fans of fashion photography in general and Steven Meisel in particular, "Three Hundred And Seventeen And Counting" - a complete collection of all the covers Meisel has shot to date for Italian VOGUE - should be something to swoon over. The brainchild of Michel Mallard, former art director of VOGUE HOMME, and the organizer of the Hyeres Photo Festival, the book illustrates the extraordinary collaboration between the magazine and Meisel - who has shot every single cover since July 1988!

Launched in conjunction with a display of the covers at this year's Hyeres Festival, that's Mallard in the middle of the exhibition, above, and the book cover, below.

What's particularly interesting is the freedom given to Meisel to explore his own interests. Unlike American fashion magazines where the cover is an essential sales tool and the bigger and more timely the celebrity the better - Meisel's Italian covers play with all kinds of narrative references, are a place for him to promote his latest unknown discovery, are often obsessed with "twinning", and are frequently the opposite of what would be considered a good cover at American VOGUE. So there's much to analyze and enjoy. It's the visual beach read of the summer!

The book has a very limited run, but if you're interested, you can browse a little further and buy the book here.

Weekend Video

Nouvelle Vague have always been extremely popular with readers of this blog, so for this weekend's video here's their version of "Love Will Tear us Apart" by Joy Division. There are a lot of covers of this song out there, but I definitely like this one best.

LATE ADDITION

As I was driving to work after posting the above, I heard this new single from Regina Spektor's forthcoming album "Far" (to be released next week). I'm somewhat of the mind that this video might take away from the song - but the song's a beauty and certainly unusual for a summer release!

Alejandra Laviada

From the series "Juaraz 56". Photo by Alejandra Laviada.

It's always exciting when one of the photographers you represent gets a major award, and I'm proud to share the news that Alejandra Laviada has been named the winner of this year's Descrubimiento Award - the star prize at PhotoEspana. According to the official press release:

Her 'photo sculptures', using ordinary objects that she rearranges in the places she finds them, fits this year's festival theme - 'the everyday' - perfectly.

Her work will now be shown at next year's festival.

She was selected from more than 1000 entries submitted, the best of which took part in portfolio reviews organised by the festival in Mexico City, Lima and Madrid. The jury included Susan Kismaric, curator in the photography department at MoMA in New York; Colette Olof, curator at Foam Fotografiemuseum in Amsterdam; and Lesley Martin, executive editor at Aperture Foundation in New York.

So congratulations to Ms. Laviada, who is clearly headed for international stardom. And here are a few more pictures from her series - "Juarez 56".