multimedia, 65 years ago

so i was watching turner classic movies the other day, and this little classic movie short from 1944 called “jammin’ the blues” came up:

this featured legendary jazz saxophonist lester young, along with a bunch of other musicians that i’m embarrassed to admit that i don’t know.  kinda like an early music video.  pretty cool little flick.  has a great film noir feel to it.  keep watching it, there’s some really cool graphic composition and lighting thinking going on.

but what’s really amazing about this is that the film’s director is legendary life magazine photog gjon mili.  for those who might not know who he is, shame on you.  here’s one of his more famous pictures, this of pablo picasso:

do a google image search for gjon mili to see what else he shot.

with all the recent flurry of photographers shooting video, i’m loving this reminder that while we fumble with our fancy video-enabled DSLRs, there are legends past who can run circles around our pathetic attempts at moving pictures.

and while i’m at it, let us not forget the master of all modern renaissance men, gordon parks.  the gordon parks of life magazine fame, the gordon parks who was an accomplished painter and music composer, and the gordon parks who happened to direct this movie below:

some new work

so i had a shoot not too long ago for men’s journal. this is the first time i’ve ever shot for them. it was a series of portraits of a former us navy seal sniper, shot on location at a shooting range out in the california sierra nevada foothills. great story by rick telander.  ran in the december issue, although this was shot back in july.  had to wait until it ran before i could show these.

the shoot involved my assistant stephen and i setting up a white seamless in the parking lot of the shooting range:

gotta say, the photo equipment geek in me kinda loves doing shoots like these. lots of gear, props, location…

although this was one of their feature stories in the december mag (with alec baldwin on the cover), they ended up only running this photo as the lede image:

not complaining or anything. the pic was across a two-page spread. this was one of the pics that i liked from the shoot (not just because it was shot on a hassy with film). i was just hoping that maybe some of the other portraits on the seamless would have found its way into the layout. oh well.

as an experiment, i also shot some video with the 5d. wasn’t something i really planned, and was definitely an afterthought during the shoot. so as a result, i think i’m missing a few key things that would have helped the video editing. nevertheless, i did a down and dirty edit on quicktime (not even final cut or imovie), and the magazine ran it in their website:

done

apologies

so i apologize for my absence these past two months or so.  the ole missus and i got a bit sidetracked and went off and had ourselves a junior.  this is what i’ve been up to these past two months:

kinda nuts how quick they grow.  like weeds.  at left is in the hospital around day 1.5.  center pic is about the two week mark.  right pic was about a week or so ago.

one of the many things that i love about this kid is that he doesn’t seem to give a damn when i pop him with a strobe.  i’ve been concocting all sorts of photo ideas for him.  torturously embarrassing photos that i want to take of him in ridiculous buntings and outfits, set into absurd backdrops.  think terry gilliam.  i plan on starting these after the holidays.

-30-

here’s a few pics from the very last issue of its 68-year life, a beautiful rural pennsylvania thanksgiving spread shot by roland bello:

friggin beautiful spread.  so classy.  it’s simple, as if you just happened upon this little buffet.  very random, but not.  i especially like the quad detail photos of the plates.  it’s could be a pretty version of what william eggleston might have done.

so this is the way they’re going out, huh?  a bit anticlimactic.  and to continue the thought i had from a few posts back, i wonder what the gourmet staff would have pulled off had they been able to plan for a finale.  not saying that the work in this issue isn’t good, just seems very down-to-business.  not very celebratory.  very abrupt.  if they were going to end their 68 years right, they should have gone out with a bang like hunter s. thompson did, when his ashes were fired from a cannon.

strewn throughout this last issue are ads for gourmet subscriptions:  ”12 issues just $15″.  maybe they should have upped the price a bit.  maybe those few little extra pennies from raised subscription fees could have made their books look better and pushed them just past the axe.

funny little tidbit about my efforts to get a copy of this final issue…  i guess it came out on newsstands on oct 20th.  i spent several hours running from newsstands to bookstores to supermarkets throughout san francisco looking for a copy of this final issue.  seemed that others had the same idea i had.  i finally found a few copies at a crappy barnes and noble in the city of colma, where the dead outnumber the living 1,000 to 1.

oh well.  sorry to see you go gourmet.  i was just getting to know you.

prof. scorsese

once in a while i’ll watch this scene and just giggle like a little girl.  the single best one-camera steadicam scene ever shot in the history of filmmaking.  3 minutes, from the car keys to henny youngman, with everything in between.  hundreds of extras, all timed to hit their marks perfectly.  just thinking about the coordination involved in producing this scene makes me dizzy.

really great stuff

miki johnson, the social butterfly of the photo set, just posted this on her facebook, of some really cool rock portraits:

http://www.pastemagazine.com/blogs/lists/2009/10/ten-killer-rock-n-roll-photographs.html

you know what i really like about these?  it’s that with the exception of the albert watson shot of mick, they’re all super simple images.  no fancy lighting, no big studios, no big productions.  just great immediate moments.  simple, honest and unmolested.

a very poor decision

condé nast is shuttering gourmet magazine because a bunch of ivy league consultants told them to.

in all fairness, that’s what mckinsey does, so it’s not really their fault. condé nast asked them for their opinion, and they gave it to them.

maybe the condé nast roster has no need for two similar culinary mags.  and according to this explanation by condé nast chief charles townsend, bon appétit is much stronger by the books.

fine, i get it.  business is business.  and if you had to make a decision based off of numbers, then you cut gourmet.  my rationale would be to cut details instead, because that’s an unnecessary magazine all together.

it just seems so absolutely knee-jerk to ditch the 69-year-old gastronomical institution.  perhaps you make cuts elsewhere.  maybe you get rid of golf world.  or maybe they should have pulled back on anna wintour’s fur coat budget.

it also seems to me that killing the magazine is a big waste of a brand.  why not sell it to someone else and let them try to keep it going?  condé nast would at least reap the immediate benefits of some capital from the sale.  not sure whether they ever floated that balloon.  i tried googling “condé nast gourmet sale” and nothing came up.

well, below are a few pages from the october 2009 issue, an piece about a restaurant in louisville, ky.  beautiful photography by john kernick. too bad the final issue of gourmet (november) is already on its way to print.  i would have loved to see what ruth reichl and her team would have done with their final issue if they had time to plan for it.

pretty cool

i’ve seen this kind of stuff done very well, and i’ve seen it done horribly. this falls under the former.

more about "pretty cool", posted with vodpod

interesting, if futile

this in the nytimes today, about how the french and british are contemplating legislative action to control digitally altered photos in ads:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/business/media/28brush.html?ref=media

kinda thinking this is a bit futile.  yeah this would be nice, since it would in theory force us to move back to keeping image-making in the camera.  too many photoshop assembly jobs these days.  and quite frankly, i’m somewhat offended by the practice of hiring photographers to scavenger hunt with a camera, solely to provide glorified stock imagery for a photoshop tech to randomly assemble the pieces into a fictionalized scene imagined by a team of ad creatives.

but isn’t that kind of photography just another form of illustration anyway?  what’s the difference between hiring an illustrator with a pencil/mouse and hiring a photographer with a camera?  i guess not much really.

when i think about it, shooting everything “in the can” (camera) is really just a form of antiquated purist nostalgia.  kinda like shooting film these days.  (don’t get me wrong.  i love film.  i love black hassy borders.  and i love 4×5 notches.  i think that’s one of the many reasons why i love dan winters’ work. but even he’s starting to shoot digi these days.)

in the nytimes piece, british parliament member jo swinson opines: “When teenagers and women look at these pictures in magazines, they end up feeling unhappy with themselves.”

yeah, true.  but teenagers really don’t need help feeling unhappy with themselves.  their zits, raging hormones, bad taste in music and cheap fashion sense are forwarding their ennui as it is.

besides, teenagers might be more aware about digitally altered truths than we are.  while we grownups feign intellectual chatter about woody allen or the latest errol morris doc, teenagers are groping each other in front of the most recent michael bay abomination in all it’s CGI glory.  and if you were to ask said teenagers about whether there’s digital manipulation in movies, they would dismiss you as some old fool who just discovered facebook.  no doubt these teenagers are savvy enough to know the difference in still photography as well.

so maybe this anglo/franco alliance against photoshopping the hell out of kate winslet is really just them thinking aloud.  when it comes down to it, not much will come from this.  well, perhaps a few lawmakers in europe will get re-elected for their grandstanding efforts.

squares

so wardrobe stylist rachel esterline turned me onto this iphone app for photo:

www.shakeitphoto.com

it’s billed as a polaroid emulator for the iphone camera.  i’m kinda digging it.  no, i’m REALLY digging it.

i’ve always had a thing for shooting in squares.  my mind sees differently when composing in squares.  that’s why i’ve been devoted to hassys for just about my entire photo life thus far.

up until recently, i was a bit schizophrenic when it came to picture-taking.  when i would shoot with a 35mm-style camera (horizontal aspect), i would default to photojournalism.  but when i would switch to a square camera, something just clicked.  i became a different photographer.  i’m sure it had something to do with jiggling my mind around a bit, forcing my eyes to confront the change.

i’m sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the years and years of television that i watched growing up.  years and years of looking at a flickering horizontal screen.  nah, that had no effect on me whatsoever…

nevertheless, it’s taken me about 4 years to break myself of this habit.  i think i’m about 95% cured.

well, when i started taking with the iphone, i initially approached it from a “purist” point of view.  or at least as much as one can be a “purist” while using a cameraphone.  i didn’t want to crop, i didn’t want to do too much manipulation beyond basic toning.  if it wasn’t full frame, it was crap.

so this shakeitphoto app is me sorta breaking my own rules.  well, but only sorta, since i’m now forcing myself to shoot iphone pics with square in mind.  i’m such a rebel.

here are some pics con shakeitphoto: