Archive for the ‘Commentary’ Category
Retake Melbourne!
Screenshot of Retake Melbourne on Pozible.com Here is Retake Melbourne on Pozible.com, the crowd-funding website. To contribute to this worthwhile project you simply pledge an amount, which is recorded, but not withdrawn from your account until/unless the target figure of $6000 is reached. As explained in posts below, the money is needed for the design of […]
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Tags: photographic "time travel", Retake Melbourne, Retake Melbourne on Pozible, Strizic photos of Melbourne
Retake Melbourne on You-Tube
To help explain our Pozible.com crowd-funding appeal, Retake Melbourne, my associate James McArdle has put together this video for You-Tube. The project needs funding for the design of an app that will enable anyone to upload a Strizic photo of Melbourne, and determine his exact location when the picture was taken. They can then make […]
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Tags: James McArdle, Mark Strizic on Pozible, Retake Melbourne, You-Tube James McArdle
The Australian photograph
Photo from The Australian newspaper, May 8, 2013 Last Wednesday The Australian newspaper featured a photo of me with my associate James McArdle. The occasion was the release of a Pozible.com crowd-funding site for our Mark Strizic project. James and I are paying hommage to the great Melbourne photographer through an app that would enable […]
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Tags: Bourke Street Mall from the GPO, Commonwealth Bank tower, GPO Mark Strizic, James McArdle, Pozible.com crowdfunding project
Blad dead
Here’s some news to make you grind your teeth: Hasselblad has announced an end to production of its V line of cameras. Hasselblad CEO Dr. Larry Hansen described it as “the camera of choice for discerning professionals and aspirational amateur photographers.” This means the end of film camera production by the company that raised it […]
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Tags: end of film cameras, Hasselblad CEO Dr. Larry Hansen, Hasselblad ends, Hasselblad ends V line cameras, Hasselblad has announced, Margot Sharman, photographs of The Bell Jar by poet Sylvia Plath, Reflective Reading
Allan Arbus dies
…… Allan Arbus in recent years, and with Diane in the 1940s Allan Arbus, actor, photographer and former husband of Diane Arbus, has died at 95. Arbus was born in 1918 and became the childhood sweetheart of Diane Nemerov. They married during World War II and soon established themselves as fashion photographers in New York. […]
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Tags: Alan Arbus and Diane Arbus, Allan and Diane Arbus, Allan Arbus death, Allan Arbus dies, Allan Arbus husband of Diane Arbus, Doon Arbus, Glamour magazine 1948
Focal length conversion
Focal length conversion chart – click for larger view If you’re like me, you’ll always have trouble knowing which focal lengths are equivalent across different formats. There’s a formula for converting it based on the diagonal of the frame, but I couldn’t remember it. Fortunately, viewcamera.com solves the problem with a chart that lays it […]
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Tags: focal length conversion chart, focal lengths on different formats, how to compare focal lengths, viewcamera.com
What was lost
Nicholas Caire, Collin Street, Melbourne, 1902 Did you know that Victoria had a second Gold Rush, 100 years after the first? The wealth of this state and its capital city was established by the discovery of gold in the 1860s. Money poured out of the ground and much of it went into building Marvellous Melbourne, […]
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Tags: 19th century photos of Melbourne, Collins St Melbourne, destruction of Melbourne, Nicholas Caire, Nicholas Caire photo of Collins St., old Melbourne, old photographs of Collins Street
Never mind the quality…
Washington, D.C., circa 1917, Harris & Ewing Collection glass negative I’m constantly struck by the high technical quality of old commercial photographs. This image from 1917 is so sharp and clear it could be an advertisement for tailoring or wool manufacturing, “never mind the quality, feel the width.” In that era the combination of technical […]
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Tags: 1917 portrait, glass negative, Harris & Ewing Collection, head of the FBI, Hoover John Edgar, J. Edgar Hoover, old commercial photographs, shorpy, studio portraits 1917, www.shorpy.com
Inspiration – Sommer
Frederick Sommer, Medallion, 1948 The strange photographs of Frederick Sommer struck me like a bell when I was shown them in 1983. Sommer combined the democratic gaze of the camera with an attitude influenced by Surrealism. He would collect detritus found in Arizona rubbish dumps and arrange it in his studio in bizarre assemblages that […]
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Tags: art made with rubbish, art of doll. photographs of dolls, Frederick Sommer, Frederick Sommer Medallion 1948, influence of Max Ernst on photography, junk art, Keith F Davis, photographs of detritus, surrealist photograph
Strizic flat bed
Mark Strizic, Centreway Arcade, 259 Collins Street, Melbourne, 1960 Here’s a curiosity: Mark Strizic was not long in professional photography when he made this image in Collins St – when there was still a Collins St to photograph. He had taught himself photography with 35mm cameras, but with architectural commisions, he needed a more adjustable camera […]
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Tags: 5x4 wide angle lens, Centreway Arcade, Collins Street, Mark Strizic, Mark Strizic photo
Chance Chemistry
Greg Neville, installation at Edmund Pearce gallery Chemistry of Chance, my exhibition with Greg Wayn, has opened at Edmund Pearce gallery, the excellent photography gallery situated in the Nicholas building. This project is a first experiment in abstract photography, a category I’ve always been suspicious of as it contradicts the mission of photography to record […]
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Tags: abstract photography, Chemistry of Chance, Concrete photography, Edmund Pearce gallery, exhibition Greg Wayn, experiment in abstract photography, photo-chemical photography
The Red Desert
The Red Desert, 1964. Directed by Michelangelo Antonioni When the director Michelangelo Antonioni set out to make his first colour film, The Red Desert, he decided to use colour as an expressive component rather than just the natural colour of the background. With his production designer Piero Poletto and cinematographer Carlo di Palma (later Woody […]
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Tags: cinematographer Carlo di Palma, colour and industrial landscape, colour in cinema, Michelangelo Antonioni, production designer Piero Poletto, production designer Piero Poletto and cinematographer Carlo di Palma, The Red Desert
Seinfeld’s camera
Jerry Seinfeld’s latest project is simple, it’s comedians in cars getting coffee. The show is so simple he named it Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee! Seinfeld picks up a comedian in his car and they drive to a café and get coffee. The banter between them is what makes the show, which is natural and […]
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Tags: Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee, filming inside cars, GoPro cameras, Jerry Seinfeld, TV camera in 1962, TV cameras in 1960s
Instagram’s Time
Instagram photograph by Michael Christopher Brown There’s a lot of talk in the ether about Instagrammers versus ‘real’ photographers, but Hurricane Sandy has settled the case. The Instagram format has proved ideal for capturing the event at the neighbourhood level and for its instant dissemination over the internet. With smart phones in millions of hands, […]
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Tags: Ben Lowy, Instagram and Hurricane Sandy, Michael Christopher Brown, Time magazine and Hurricane Sandy
The Polaroid 20×24 lives on
The Polaroid 20×24 camera, opened to reveal the film carriage. Somehow, despite Polaroid’s recent near-death experience, the 20×24 inch camera format has survived. While traditional Polaroid films have disappeared, this most exotic product is prospering. John Reuter is the long time operator and specialist in Polaroid procedures. He teamed up with some technical experts and Impossible Project founder Dr. Florian […]
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Tags: 20×24 inch camera, Chuck Close Polaroid, Impossible Project founder Dr. Florian Kaps, John Reuter Polaroid, Polaroid studio Tribeca
Obama Close
Chuck Close, portrait of President Obama 2012 Chuck Close with President Obama selecting prints Artist Chuck Close has made an official portrait of President Obama. Using the 20×24 inch Polaroid camera he made a series of colour and black & white studies which were transformed into tapestries and digital watercolour prints. Close stated that Obama was ”was […]
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Tags: Chuck Close 20x24 Polaroid, Chuck Close portrait of Obama, Obama & Chuck Close, portraits of President Obama
The Crewdson academy
Gregory Crewdson, Untitled 2004, from Beneath the Roses The Crewdson show at the CCP is an impressive spectacle, rooms full of very large photographs made with complex and expensive Hollywood expertise. The images are beautifully lit and staged with a theatrical precision normally beyond the resources of the photographic still. A camera usually just captures […]
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Tags: Academy art and photography, Beneath the Roses 2004, Crewdson and painting, Gregory Crewdson, Orchardson The First Cloud, The First Cloud, Untitled 2004, William Orchardson
Is this the first photograph?
Joseph Niecephore Niépce made the first (known) photograph with a camera in 1826, a view of his farm buildings. But there is an earlier image, a contact print of a drawing and it’s from a year earlier. The ‘photograph’ is of a drawing of a boy leading a horse. Sotheby’s, who sold it to the French […]
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Tags: first known photograph, Joseph Niecephore Niépce
Talbot at Lake Como
William Henry Fox Talbot, Villa Melzi, drawing, 5th October 1833 The most important drawing in the history of photography! In 1833 Henry Fox Talbot was on his honeymoon at Lake Como in Italy. One day he was trying to draw the landscape from the grounds of the Villa Melzi using a camera lucida, an artist’s […]
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Tags: Lake Como from Villa Melzi, Talbit's camera lucida, Talbot's drawing, Villa Melzi, William Henry Fox Talbot
Gottscho’s order
Samuel H. Gottscho, Vista under elevated railroad at Coenties Slip c1930 From all the evidence, Samuel H. Gottscho was a neat photographer. He certainly knew how to organize a picture. Look at these tidy compositions of New York city taken well back in the 20th century. The sweeping lines of elevated railway are framed by […]
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Tags: 42nd St from Tudor City, Coenties Slip, Museum of the City of New York, photographer of New York, photos of the El, Samuel H. Gottscho, Tudor City New York