Annie Leibovitz's new book "At Work" was perhaps the stealth photo event of the year. Primarily a text rather than a picture book, it is nonetheless one of the most interesting photography books of the year, taking us behind the scenes to reveal not so much the technical aspects of a shoot, but the mental and physical preparations before and the psychological and strategic footwork during the taking of many of her most famous images.
Seamlessly interviewed and edited out of Leibovitz by the skilled editor, Sharon Delano, the book is a smooth and engrossing read from start to finish that entertains with all manner of autobiographical stories from Leibovitz's student days to the present, as well as her almost awestruck perspective and stories about other famous photographers.
There is an interesting selection of photographs - a mixture of iconic images and more obscure ones - and it's surprising to see how well they work printed smaller than postcard size. Much credit is obviously also due to the printers.
For anyone looking for lighting tips this isn't necessarily the book (although Leibovitz does provide a technical glossary as well as answers to her ten most frequently asked questions) but for readers looking to understand more about Leibovitz's art as well as what really counts - what's in an artist's head - this book is a treasure.
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Top Ten #2 – Annie Leibovitz: At Work
Top Ten #3 – Paul Fusco's RFK Rediscovered
In terms of something I was personally involved in, the opportunity to work with Paul Fusco on rediscovering, editing and exhibiting photographs from his RFK Funeral Train series was one of the highlights of my entire gallery career.
I've written a number of times about the pictures (just enter Fusco on this blog's search box) so I won't repeat myself, but to give you a sense of the depth and quality of the work, here are just ten out of the nearly 2,000 images we had to choose from that didn't make the cut of the final 20 selected for the master set. (Simply choosing these ten out of the 50 or so that were under final consideration was heartbreakingly hard.) However, many of the unseen images can now be found in Aperture's newly released book.
Excuse the poor quality of these reproductions, but the images are of the original 35mm kodachrome slides shot in low-resolution off a Library of Congress lightbox.
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Laetitia Casta Wallpaper
Laetitia Casta sexy wallpaper
Laetitia Casta wallpaper
Laetitia Casta hot wallpaperMonday, December 29, 2008
Top Ten #4 – The Laramie Project
I like to put a recent film release in the top ten list, but this year the most impactful cinematic experience I had was sitting at home watching a 6 year old HBO Film on DVD – Moises Kaufman’s “The Laramie Project”.
As some of you know, I have been developing a film based on the life and autobiography of the legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland. It’s a long process in the course of which I have had the opportunity to meet with a number of renowned directors, most recently Kaufman himself, the founder of The Tectonic Theater Project.
Moises was recommended to me by Colin Callender at HBO, for whom Kaufman had made the film adaptation of his play “The Laramie Project” – an examination of the events and more particularly the people connected either to the murder of Matthew Shepard or the town of Laramie, Wyoming. (Matthew Shepard was the gay college student who in 1998 was kidnapped, beaten, and tied to a fence on the outskirts of Laramie and left to die.) Both the film and play came out of more than 200 interviews conducted by Kaufman and other members of the Tectonic Theater Project who traveled to Laramie a mere 5 weeks after the murder.
Talking to residents as varied as the bartender who served Shepard his last drink, the policewoman who untied the body, and a local limousine driver, the plays blends a narrative account of the event with an oral history of the townspeople. A stellar cast including Steve Buscemi, Peter Fonda, Bill Irwin, Laura Linney, Amy Madigan, and Christina Ricci, play the various interviewees with remarkable self-effacement, and as the film proceeds, the many subjects covered – crime, punishment, justice, gay rights, hate, values, pride, AIDS…. and on and on – spread like ripples on a pond.
After ordering the film on Netflix I have to say I had to steel myself for the viewing. But just over an hour and half later I felt I had seen one of the great films of the decade – and one, given its horrific subject, that was handled with remarkable creativity, restraint and life affirmation. I can’t recommend it strongly enough.
As a postscript, it should be noted that this year members of the Tectonic Theater Project returned to Laramie to find out what has happened to the community over the last 10 years. From their interviews an epilogue for the play will be created and added to the script.
Additonally, Tectonic’s newest production, “33 Variations”, about a musicologist who becomes obsessed with a mysterious chapter in Beethoven’s life, will open on Broadway on March 5th starring Jane Fonda.
Vida Guerra Hot American Models
Vida Guerra sexy body
Vida Guerra hot bikini
Vida Guerra hot wallpaperSunday, December 28, 2008
Top Ten #5 – Ryan McGinley
I was thinking about which photography exhibition was the breakout exhibition of the year. I remember past years in which shows by Sally Mann, or Richard Misrach, or Thomas Struth significantly altered the aesthetic landscape, and while no single show provided those kind of breakout moments, I think Ryan McGinley has to be the photographer of the year.
Emerging as something of a celebrity (this year he was featured in both GAP and Marc Jacobs ads); McGinley affords us the pleasure of following his career. He regularly has new work published in magazines as varied as The New York Times Magazine, TAR, and Purple. He has started to make films. He exhibits regularly at his gallery, TEAM. And he can be seen to consistently expand his photographic vocabulary, most recently with black and white studio portraits.
McGinley’s luminous and edenic youthscapes may not at first seem to define the zeitgeist of these perilous times, but he’s proven to be ahead of the curve before and perhaps his insistence that youth can lead the way is the best sign of hope out there.
TEAM Installation shot
From TAR Magazine
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Stephanie Seymour Sexy Picture
Stephanie Seymour Sexy Actress
Stephanie Seymour sexy picture
Stephanie Seymour sexy wallpaperRachel Stevens Celeb Sexy Hollywood
Rachel Stevens sexy picture
Rachel Stevens hot pose
Rachel Stevens hot wallpaperTop Ten #6 – The Daily Beast
At last, an innovative, original, professional, and beautifully designed web magazine has arrived with the gravitas and best qualities of a traditional print magazine coupled with the nimbleness required by the web . While there are of course many fabulous blogs, and a smaller number of more esoteric webzines, it has taken the touch and verve of Tina Brown coupled with the deep pockets of Barry Diller to make something on a grand scale that looks and feels like the real thing. I am talking about The Daily Beast.
Launched during the presidential campaign (very smart move) the first thing that struck me about Beast was how ground-breaking the design and functionality of the site was. Where The Huffington Post is a steadfast Volvo, delivering its news in boxy and predictable chunks, The Daily Beast is a svelte Maserati – elegant, cool, able to turn on a dime, and waiting to pounce and surprise you.
They have excellent writers – from Brown herself to Chris Buckley, Susan Cheever, and Michael Korda – but keep their pieces at just the right length for reading on the screen. And last but not least, they understand that the web is a visual medium and illustrate everything they can with photographs that catch our attention.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Alyssa Milano Picture
Alyssa Milano top celebrity
Alyssa Milano hot pose
Alyssa Milano beautiful wallpaper
Top Ten #7 – Friends with Cameras
Now that there’s no question we’re truly in the digital age, a place in the top ten has to go to friends with cameras who know how to take good pictures and are quick to e-mail them to the people they know would appreciate them. Top of my own list is Leslie Simitch, the executive vice president of Trunk Archive.
I’ve always felt Leslie was good enough not just to manage photographers, but to be a photographer herself – as these two pictures that I just received from her current Roman holiday amply display. However, Leslie was also the first person I knew who understood and took advantage of the seamless delivery system of digital photography from camera to e-mail inbox. We're talking ten years ago here!
We all have friends who are early adopters and Leslie got me going on iPhoto, passed on the invaluable advice to always use a card reader to download my photos instead of connecting directly from the camera (less risk of screw-up), and generally got me up to speed on all things digital. Much of this knowledge has now been passed on to countless friends and family – the circle of iLife, so to speak.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Top Ten #8 – WFUV
WFUV is a non-commercial, listener-supported public radio station, that has been broadcasting from Fordham University for 60 years. Serving nearly 350,000 listeners each week in the New York area and thousands more worldwide on the web, WFUV offers an eclectic mix of rock, singer-songwriters, blues, world and other music. If your taste is somewhere between pop and rock and you like to be ahead of the curve, their DJ's have broken just about every new musician I listen to - Corinne Bailey Rae, Matthew Ryan, David Ford, Brandi Carlile - and previewed new albums by all the old favorites like Bruce Springsteen, Ryan Adams, and Shelby Lynne.
They've been on a Christmas kick the last few days and as an example of their range - two versions of the same song by two groups I never would have heard of without them - Sonos (above) and The Fleet Foxes (below).
Merry Christmas!
Cameron Richardson Sexy Actress
Cameron Richardson sexy lips
Cameron Richardson sexy body
Cameron Richardson hot pictureTuesday, December 23, 2008
Top Ten #9 – Stephen K. Schuster
One of my favorite photo books this year was a little sliver of a book sent to me by Stephen K. Schuster, a New York City based magazine photographer. Titled simply "Kelly" the book is in Schuster's words “a limited-edition photography book on a past relationship". Limited to 25 initial booklets, I have no idea if any are left, but there's a nice selection of pictures on Schuster's website.
I'm not sure whether Kelly got any veto power over the images selected, and there are a handful of fairly revealing shots, but the pictures were taken with skill and love and the book seems to be much more about coming to terms with a break-up than exploiting a failed relationship.
Photographer/loved-one pictures are always fascinating because they show the shifting ways we view those closest to us. A psychology teacher I had at college once told us that there is so much information in the human face we can at best process about 10% of the information. Thus we selectively, but subconsciously, pick out the features that fit our mood and emotions. Happy - the person looks at their most appealing. Angry, betrayed, we focus on all the same person's worst features and physical flaws.
Schuster has pretty much kept to the positive, but in the 22 pictures of Kelly interspersed with a few location shots, he has created a moving visual haiku on love and loss, and the powerful relationship between photography and memory.
Monday, December 22, 2008
Top Ten #10 – McDonald's Southwestern Salad
To repeat what I said last year at this time: I’ve never been a huge fan of top ten lists (other than David Letterman’s). Too often they seem obvious or self-congratulatory. But as I’m taking off for the holidays, for the next week and a half I hope you’ll find some interest in a countdown of the top ten things that enriched my life in 2008 in all kinds of different ways.
With best wishes to all for a Happy New Year!
I first discovered this dish at Art Basel Miami when I was looking for a quick and relatively healthy lunch and passed a McDonald's. (I know - oxymoron time.) But their salads really are quite fresh and depending on whether you add chicken and how you have it (grilled or crispy) you can moderate your caloric intake if you want. Most importantly, due to the unexpected mix of ingredients and the piquant Paul Newman dressing that comes with it - it makes for a surprisingly sophisticated and tasty meal.
Back in New York I tried it for lunch again with my assistant Julia, who not only gave it a big thumbs up, but a few days later went out and got it again!
So in tribute to Paul Newman, appreciation to McD's for the adventurous offering, knowledge that you can probably find this all over the country, and realization that even for us picture people there are other senses to care about - the Southwestern Salad takes a surprise spot in the Top Ten.
P.S.
I get the crispy chicken, but ask them to leave off the glaze.
