Photojournalist murdered in Afghanistan

Posted on April 7, 2014 by David

Sadly last Saturday (March 29th) veteran war photographer and Pulitzer Prize winner Anja Niedringhaus of the Associated Press was murdered in Afghanistan. She and news reporter, and Kathy Gannon, were shot in the back seat of their car by an Afghan Police Commander with an AK-47 assault rifle. Ms. Niedringhaus was killed instantly, Ms. Gannon gravely wounded. They were covering the Afghan elections. It can truly be said that this is only the latest incident in a war where the boundaries between friend and foe have become inexorably blurred.

We have spoken often of the important role that press photographers have played not only in covering the events of the day, but also in bringing personal reality to gruesome realities. And it is ultimately this reality that comes to shape world opinion. Before photography war was a detailed story written in a newspaper. With photography, with video the world was transformed.

And it is not just war correspondents. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, 1054 journalists have been killed worldwide since 1992, fourteen already in 2014. They cover not only war but: corruption, crime, human rights, and politics. One has to marvel at the bravery of these correspondents, as we watch them reporting in their flack jackets from darkened balconies. One has to wonder about their motivation and bravado. Why not jut stay home in secure comfort? But without doubt they enlighten us in ways not otherwise possible and the world is indebted to them all..

Changes to the Hati and Skoll Gallery

Posted on April 6, 2014 by David

Figure 1 – The Corrigan Gallery at # 62 Queen Street, Charleston, SC, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

It’s time again to update and make a few changes to the Hati and Skoll Gallery. But I always like to start by thanking the growing number of people who are visiting Hati and Skoll and commenting on the site, through social media, and by email directly to me. I appreciate your interest and love your feedback.

The changes today are fairly straight forward. I have populated the “New Gallery” with pictures from my Charleston, SC trip. Some of these I’ve posted before, and others you haven’t yet seen.

A wonderful spring to everyone, except of course to our many readers in the Southern hemisphere! 8<)

David

The face of the Devil on Market Street

Posted on April 5, 2014 by David

Face of the Devil, Charleston, SC, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

If you’re a dieter, then let me show you the face of the Devil – something sinful and irresistible. We bought it at River Street Sweets, 100 Market Street in Charleston, SC, transported it back to Boston, and there it sits on a plate begging to be eaten. This is a genuine River Street Sweet’s praline. You are lured from the street by a warm and wonderful smell, you are given a sample by a sweet talking confectioner, and then you are sent to the back of the line where you purchase your own supply.

I first encountered pralines years ago in New Orleans and as a physicist I am mesmerized by them . It just does not seem quite possible to pack so much carmelized sugar and nutty wonderfulness into so small a space.

Have one by itself. Have one with coffee. Have one with champagne. But you must have one.Sigh!

Espresso, photography, and good company at the City Lights Cafe in Charleston, SC

Posted on April 4, 2014 by David

Figure 1 - Greg Lampton-Carr at Citylights Coffee, Charleston, SC, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

Figure 1 – Greg Lambton-Carr at City Lights Coffee, Charleston, SC, (c) DE Wolf 2014.

My wife and I were escaping a very cold rain one afternoon, when we wandered into Charleston’s City Lights Coffee at 141 Market Street. For people like me, this is just what you are looking for in a coffee shop: excellent coffee (made by people who care), wonderful coconut cake, and if you are looking for something more substantial breakfast and lunch. It is just wonderful. The cafe also features the work of local Charleston artists.

I love the ambiance of genuine coffee houses; so I asked proprietor Greg Lambton-Carr if he would pose for a picture against the apparatus and paraphernalia of coffeedom (Figure 1). He was gracious enough to agree, and then my wife commented “watch out this is liable to appear on his blog” (which BTW it now has). This immediately led to the question of what my blog is about, and it turned out that Greg is himself a professional photographer and blogger. He is a South African, fairly recently settled in Charleston. He works in both film and digital media. His work can most recently be found in Oblique Magazine and Charlie Magazine. I highly recommend a to Greg’s website. There you will find wonderful examples of his fashion work (including underwater fashion shots), charming portraits, and wildlife photographs.

So what was meant to be a quick espresso and coconut cake on a cold afternoon turned into a warm discussion of photography and gravity waves. As I’m writing this, back in Boston I find myself wishing that I was back in City Lights Coffee. So anyone who gets the opportunity should really do so. You won’t forget it!

Vivian Maier revisted

Posted on April 3, 2014 by David

Last July, I posted about the discovery of an unknown photographer, Vivian Maier, and the website that now posthumously displays her work. Maier was a nanny and amateur street photographer, who chronicled New York City and Chicago in the 1950’s and 1960’s.

Maier died in a nursing home in 2009, on the verge, as it were, of being d”discovered.” John Maloof bought a box of her negatives at a Chicago auction in 2007 for about $400. A Google search revealed nothing about Maier. But never-the-less he was drawn to the images. In 2009 he scanned some of the images and put them up on Flickr. He had about 30 to 40,000 of her negatives. Many of these were marvelously and cleverly constructed selfies in a mirror. Mr Maloof established a website of her work. Now there is a just released documentary entitled “Finding Vivian Maier,” and we will be able to explore further the meaning of her work.

Ms. Maier had a wonderful vision and talent. But she did not pursue photography as a profession, only as a pastime or, better said, as an artistic expression and outlet. In a poignant way her story is the story of many of the readers of this blog and many of the members of social media photography SIGs. You just have to look and you find some very serious talent out there. It is truly an expression of the democracy that modern photography represents – and also of the freedom that digital photography offers in enabling production of a quality image so easily. I have found that everyone has their own special and unique photographic vision. It is like a fingerprint or even DNA.

Where does true artistic vision lie? In Ms. Maier’s case you see something else that we have spoken of so often, and this is the way that photography transcends time and takes you back to now long lost places and days. As someone who grew up in New York City in the 50’s and 60’s, I can relate ever so personally to Ms. Maier’s images – and I love them for it. The people are there, captured in silver and electron states. But they are merely specters. The actual subjects have moved on inexorably through time. And in saving Vivian Maier’s life’s work, John Maloof has truly given us a great gift. It is the gift of vision.

Pause and smell the cherry blossoms

Posted on April 2, 2014 by David

Well, there are definitely signs of impending spring, even here in the Northeast. For the last few days on social media my Japanese friends have been furiously posting glorious images from Tokyo of the cherry blossoms. And frankly, I want to be there! Washington, DC is predicting, depending upon whom you listen to, cherry blossoms peaking next week or the week after.

So for today, I thought that Hati and Skoll would just pause and offer up for peaceful contemplation this beautiful picture by Toru Hanai for Reuters of Tokyo in full bloom. Be sure to notice the little bird sitting on a branch in the picture. Doesn’t this image just make you ever so peaceful and happy?

The Little Mermaid it’s not

Posted on April 1, 2014 by David

Well, April Fools’ Day and I suppose that I have to pick up on the theme that I started on Sunday – of great hoaxes. My favorites are images of great dictators and the people that they have airbrushed out of the photograph. And there are a lot of those! But I always find these more and a little gruesome. Afterall the people in question were usually “airbrushed” out of living as well – so a story more fitting for Halloween than April Fools’ Day.

So how about a photograph taken by Luke MacGregor for Reuters on June 7, 2010 showing an employee of Christie’s Auction house in London looking at a late eighteenth century hoax that was meant to be the mummified skeleton of a mermaid. She was part monkey, part fish and part papier-mache. Ariel she’s not!

Circus Knie

Posted on March 31, 2014 by David

In follow up to my discussion of a few days back about photographing horse, yesterday I came upon this absolutely wonderful image by Walter Bieri for the EPA showing circus artist Maycol Errani standing astride two horses. He was in dress rehearsal for a new by the Swiss national Circus Knie in Rapperswil, Switzerland, on March 27.

A vouple of points about this photograph. Again there is eye contact with the horse and the photographer is engaged with them. Second the perspective creates tremendous interest making the horse huge and, of course, creating the tension as to whether the horses or the rider are the true subject. And finally the dramatic back-lighting to me creates another worldliness. The horse don’t seem to be normal horses. They appear way too wooly, perhaps like something out of the Pleistocene.

Spaghetti harvesting

Posted on March 30, 2014 by David

Hmm! Tuesday is April Fools’ Day and in honor of that I was looking through some of the greatest photographic hoaxes of all time. As it turns out we’ve actually spoken about more than a few of them, classics being Oprah Winfrey’s head transposed on Ann Margaret’s body and Abraham Lincoln’s head onto John Calhoun’s body. It struck me in the end that there was none better than one shown in an April Fools’ Day 1957 edition of the BBC program “Panorama” purporting to be a woman harvesting spaghetti in Ticino, Switzerland. It’s just ridiculous! Everybody knows that spaghetti really comes from Italy!