Posts from the “Photography” Category

Photographing Modern Witches

Posted on October 30, 2019

Shine (New York, NY),” 2017. © Frances F. Denny

Loved, revered, and feared — this is the way of the witch from time immemorial to our present day.

Although they may be any gender, witches have become emblematic of the feminine spirit, often vilified as handmaidens of the devil for refusing to kowtow to patriarchal constraints. While witches went underground to protect themselves from persecution, torture, and death, they have always been an integral part of society, immortalized in popular culture, literature, and art. Recently, many photographers have started reconsidering witches as a culturally charged muse, as the archetype embodies the spirit of the independent woman who wields power on her own terms — reclaiming the maligned and marginalized figure from the clutches of those who would sooner destroy her.

Read the Full Story at The Luupe

Takara, Black Spirituality Project © Felicita “Felli” Maynard

Categories: Art, Photography, The Luupe, Women

Hugh Holland: Silver. Skate. Seventies.

Posted on October 30, 2019

Silver Skater, Del Mar Racetrack in San Diego county, 1975 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

In the summer of 1975, Hugh Holland noticed something – teenage boys on skateboards were cropping up all across Los Angeles. Holland, then in his early thirties, was fascinated by these daring young men, who surfed drainage ditches on new-fangled urethane wheels which allowed them to transform a novelty toy into a tool that combined artistry and athleticism.

Holland took up photography just as the skaters were inventing a brand new sport on the streets of Los Angeles. As fate would have it, a drought hit the city in 1976 and all the backyard pools were drained, beckoning this small band of innovative outcasts to transform the barren landscape into a creative laboratory for their newfound pastime.

Over a period of three years, Holland amassed thousands of images of the emerging scene, documenting the skaters and the atmosphere, crafting a vivid portrait of rebellious youth living their best lives under the Southern Californian sun. Now, in the new exhibition Silver. Skate. Seventies., and accompanying book published by Chronicle Books, Holland presents never-before-seen black and white photographs from his archive. Here, he reflects on the importance of DIY culture, sport and art, and the rewards of doing something you love.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Night Pier Rider, Huntington Beach, 1975 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

Solo Scott at Kenter Canyon Elementary in Brentwood, Los Angeles, 1976 Photography by Hugh Holland, from Silver. Skate. Seventies. published by Chronicle Chroma 2019

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Photography

KK Ottesen: Activist – Portraits of Courage

Posted on October 28, 2019

Angela Davis © KK Ottesen

Never let it be said that one person can’t change the world. That is the central tenet of KK Ottesen’s new book, Activist: Portraits of Courage(Chronicle Books). From Angela Davis, Tarana Burke and Gabrielle Giffords to Bernie Sanders, Edward Snowden, and Avram Finkelstein, Ottesen profiles 40 American activists who have dedicated their lives to the fight for human rights.

“They say leaders are born; I think they are made,” Dolores Huerta, labour leader and civil rights activist tells Ottesen in the book. “People choose to be activists, choose to be leaders. Anybody can do it, but you have to make the decision. And you have to sacrifice the most precious resource that you have, which is your time.”

Activism is not a one-time action, but a mindset – a commitment to the ongoing struggle against oppression, exploitation and injustice that has fired up mass global movements today from Hong Kong to Chile. “I think it’s important to realise that ‘there are no final victories,’ as Dr. Harry Edwards put it,” Ottesen says.

Read the Full Story at Huck

Harry Edwards © KK Ottesen

Categories: Art, Books, Huck, Photography

Elinor Carucci: Midlife

Posted on October 24, 2019

Winter, 2016. © Elinor Carucci

Popular culture purports midlife is the provenance of men — the time where he gauges his mortality by trading in the mini-van for a sports car, leaving his wife of 20 years for a younger model. But what of the middle-aged woman? What happens to her? It seems she often just disappears from the narrative altogether.

But behind closed doors, whispers occur, stories of “the change” or something far worse. Midlife, for women, has been treated like a curse, as internal and external signs of aging have been used to erase women, keeping their struggles largely hidden from view. Midlife (The Monacelli Press) by Israeli-American photographer Elinor Carucci breaks this unfortunate history.

“I didn’t set out to make Midlife; it dawned on me at some point that I am creating it,” says Carucci, who worked on the project for seven years. She began by making works she saw as different series – photographs of her mother and daughter, her father and son, herself and husband, as well as poignant photographs of abstract paintings she made with her own blood.

Read the Full Story at The Luupe

Elinor Carucci. Hair Dye, 2016.

Categories: Art, Books, Photography, The Luupe, Women

Hal Fischer: The Gay Seventies

Posted on October 23, 2019

Between 1977 and 1979, American artist Hal Fischer created Gay Semiotics, a landmark series of photo-text works providing a pioneering analysis of gay historical vernacular as it unfolded on the streets of San Francisco’s Castro and Haight-Asbury districts.

Inspired by the work of August Sander, Fischer made a series of street black and white portraits of gay archetypes accompanied by text that deftly deconstructed the symbols of the era’s quintessential looks such as Natural, Classical, Jock, Hippie, Urbane, Forties Trash, Western, Leather, Dominance, and Submission – along with detailed descriptions of signifiers like keys, earrings, handkerchiefs, leather apparel, gag mask, amyl nitrate, and other bondage devices.

In advance of the publication of The Gay Seventies, Fischer looks back on one of the first conceptual works to bring the structuralism and linguistics to photography and reflects on the nature of gay semiotics today.

Read the Full Story at AnOther Man

Categories: 1970s, AnOther Man, Art, Books, Photography

Jessica Lange: Highway 61

Posted on October 15, 2019

New Orleans. From Highway 61 © Jessica Lange

At the age of 18, Jessica Lange boarded a Greyhound Bus outside the Tulip Shop in her hometown of Cloquet, Minnesota, and headed south down Highway 61 on her way to Europe and beyond. The year was 1967, and the winds of change were in the air. A new America taking shape, as fellow Minnesotan Bob Dylan foresaw on his seminal 1965 album, Highway 61 Revisited, the very first album Lange ever bought.

For Lange, the historic 2,575 kilometre interstate highway that runs from the Canadian border down to New Orleans, is a plumb line through her life – a marker of where she has been, who she was, and who she has become, as well as a testament to the changes that have shaped the United States over the past 70 years.

In the new monograph, Highway 61, Lange takes us along for a ride, creating a timeless portrait of America that evokes the work of Robert Frank. A quiet, careful observation of the human condition, Lange’s photographs reveal a sense of solidarity among the working class, recognising that they built this country from the ground up. She visits motels, roadside fruit stands, local bars, vintage diners, amusement parks, farms, private homes, markets, and sometimes just walks the streets as one of the people, rather than Hollywood royalty.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Arkansas. From Highway 61 © Jessica Lange

Categories: AnOther, Art, Books, Photography

Miguel Rio Branco: Maldicidade

Posted on October 15, 2019

Miguel Rio Branco. Preto e rosa com bandeira, 1988-1992-2012

Miguel Rio Branco. Preto e rosa com bandeira, 1988-1992-2012

Cities are unnatural; they are purely man-made constructions of artifice masquerading as civilization that reinforce hegemonic conditioning of behavior and thought. Being adaptable, by nature, we are easily led to believe that the triumph of nature is our birthright despite all evidence that it is our death sentence.

The concentration of people inside a landscape of concrete, steel beams, and glass combined with the decimation of native flora and fauna leads to a curious result. Wo/man is never so lonely as being lost in the crowd, consumed by the shadow of fear — fear of missing out. Everywhere it seems, the illusion of success holds a promise that escapes their grasp: of beauty and joy, of status and wealth.

Here, city dwellers are locked inside a false binary, desperate to believe the illusions they are fed by pop culture and social media. They strive for the impossible, climbing to the top of the short ladder only to learn there’s nothing there; or they find themselves pushed to the bottom of it, excluded from the opportunity to learn that this is nothing more than an illusion.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Miguel Rio Branco. Sombras barrocas de Havana, 1994-2019

Categories: Art, Books, Exhibitions, Feature Shoot, Photography

Ann Ray & Lee McQueen: Rendez-Vous

Posted on October 15, 2019

Follow the Line, 1997. Image courtesy of Ann Ray and Barrett Barrera Projects

The year was 1996, and a young upstart named Lee Alexander McQueen took the helm of Givenchy as head designer at just 27 years old. French photographer Ann Ray stepped inside his fantastical world, spending two weeks with him while he was creating his first couture collection that same year.

“I had to move to London, so Lee asked me to photograph his collections and basically, I never stopped,” Ray tells AnOther while visiting New York. The result was a lifelong friendship and creative collaboration that would continue until his tragic death at the age of 40 in 2010. Given unprecedented access to document his design process and behind-the-scenes moments during his legendary runway shows, Ray spent 12-hour days in the atelier over a period of 13 years, making more than 35,000 photographs that capture the complexity of McQueen: the man, the artist, and the iconoclast.

Now, in the new exhibition Ann Ray & Lee McQueen: Rendez-Vous, Ray reveals a portrait of the artist as a young man ascending to the heights of fashion by breaking all the rules to create an avant-garde spectacular replete with theater, performance art, and gothic fairytales. Here, Ray shares her memories of life in the inner circle, sharing a side of McQueen that only those closest to him ever knew.

Read the Full Story at AnOther

Home, 2000 Image courtesy of Ann Ray and Barrett Barrera Projects

Categories: 1990s, AnOther, Art, Exhibitions, Fashion, Photography

Who Is Michael Jang?

Posted on October 15, 2019

Hailing from California, Michael Jang came of age during the 1970s. Over that decade, the photographer would amass several series of work, including The Jangs (1973), Beverly Hilton (1973), San Francisco (1973–1987), College (1972–1973), and Punks & Poets (1978–1980).

However, although he has been working as a portrait photographer ever since, Jang never showed anyone his work from this period until he submitted selections to San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art in 2001.

“The museum had a drop off policy and I remember thinking I had nothing to lose,” Jang says. “The work was already three decades old, so I no longer had any emotional attachment or investment in it. But the lesson is you have to keep trying to get your work out there. You never know who will see it and what might happen.”

Read the Full Story at Huck

Categories: 1970s, Art, Books, Exhibitions, Huck, Photography

Martha: A Picture Story

Posted on October 15, 2019

Selina Miles’ new documentary film – Martha: A Picture Story

When Martha Cooper quit her job as a New York Post staff photographer to photograph graffiti full time, she did what all true believers must do: she sacrificed financial stability, status, and recognition from the establishment. All to pursue a passion rooted in the love and understanding for that which is universal and transcendent. When her first book, Subway Art (Henry Holt, 1984), co-authored with Henry Chalfant tanked upon release, Cooper was disappointed to discover her gamble did not pay off.

“I was shooting up until Subway Art got published, and I imagined it was going to be — maybe not a bestseller, but I did think there would be more of a reaction, but there was virtually no reaction,” Cooper says. “The trains kind of died off right then. They had cracked down right at that moment. Maybe it had to do with the book? I didn’t think so then.”

Unbeknownst to Cooper, the book took on a life of its own as it found its way into the hands of graffiti writers in every corner of the globe. It had become the “Graffiti Bible,” inspiring generations of artists to pick up a can of spray paint and leave their mark on society. Over the years, countless artists have studied the book with reverence, Cooper’s photographs providing not only a template of style but also a wealth of knowledge about the underground culture that birthed it.

Read the Full Story at The Luupe

Martha Cooper’s first book: Subway Art, with Henty Chalfant (Henry Holt, 1984)

Categories: 1970s, 1980s, Art, Books, Graffiti, Photography

Stephan Bridgidi: Rome 1970s – A Decade of Turbulent Change

Posted on October 15, 2019

Rome is a cinematic wonderland: a landscape made to be immortalized in photography and film. It’s grandeur lies in the dereliction of empire everywhere you look, the inevitable, inescapable decay of the imperialist impulse. It is pure romance in the nineteenth century sense of the word: the sublime awe-inspiring knowledge that all that remains of the past is fantasy and myth.

By the 1970s, Rome had become a restless place, one of innocence long faded away. In its place, a new spirit emerged, one that evokes the pride of those who are determined to survive at any cost. It is anything but la dolce vita, though a Fellini-esque spirit lurks in the shadows of debauched darkness punctured by quivering beams of shining light.

It is in this city that American photographer Stephan Brigidi took aim, capturing slices of daily life in his new book Rome 1970s: A Decade of Turbulent Change(Daylight). Like many world capitals of the era, Rome had become a harsh, sinister place, the breeding ground for the kidnapping and murder of prominent politician Aldo Moro by the Red Brigades.

Read the Full Story at Feature Shoot

Categories: 1970s, Books, Feature Shoot, Photography