Category: photography
Richard Avedon (May 15, 1923 â October 1, 2004) was an American fashion and portrait photographer. An obituary published in The New York Times said that “his fashion and portrait photographs helped define America’s image of style, beauty and culture for the last half-century.”
Avedon was always interested in how portraiture captures the personality and soul of its subject. As his reputation as a photographer became widely known, he brought in many famous faces to his studio and photographed them with a large-format 8×10 view camera.
His subjects include Buster Keaton, Marian Anderson, Marilyn Monroe, Ezra Pound, Isak Dinesen, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Andy Warhol, and the Chicago Seven. His portraits are easily distinguished by their minimalist style, where the person is looking squarely in the camera, posed in front of a sheer white background. By eliminating the use of soft lights and props, Avedon was able to focus on the inner worlds of his subjects evoking emotions and reactions.
He would at times evoke reactions from his portrait subjects by guiding them into uncomfortable areas of discussion or asking them psychologically probing questions. Through these means he would produce images revealing aspects of his subject’s character and personality that were not typically captured by others. (read more) (photos)
- Labels: art, beauty, photography
‘ Tis strange – but true; for truth is always strange;
Stranger than fiction; if it could be told,
How much would novels gain by the exchange!
How differently the world would men behold!
How oft would vice and virtue places change!
The new world would be nothing to the old,
If some Columbus of the moral seas
Would show mankind their souls’ antipodes.
Lord Byron, in the satirical poem Don Juan, 1823.
- Labels: art, history, philosophy, photography, poetry, truth
Manuel Ãlvarez Bravo (February 4, 1902 â October 19, 2002) was Mexicoâs first principle artistic photographer and is the most important figure in 20th century Latin American photography. He was born and raised in Mexico City.
While he took art classes at the Academy of San Carlos, his photography is self taught. His career spanned from the late 1920s to the 1990s with is artistic peak between the 1920s to the 1950s. His hallmark as a photographer was to capture images of the ordinary but in ironic or surrealistic ways. His early work was based on European influences, but he was soon influenced by the Mexican muralism movement and the general cultural and political push at the time to redefine Mexican identity.
He rejected the picturesque, employing elements to avoid stereotyping. Over his career he had numerous exhibitions of his work, worked in the Mexican cinema and established Fondo Editorial de la Plástica Mexicana publishing house. He won numerous awards for his work, mostly after 1970. (read more)
- Labels: art, photography
The Hindenburg disaster took place on Thursday, May 6, 1937, as the German passenger airship LZ 129 Hindenburg caught fire and was destroyed during its attempt to dock with its mooring mast at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station, which is located adjacent to the borough of Lakehurst, New Jersey. Of the 97 people on board (36 passengers, 61 crew), there were 35 fatalities; there was also one death among the ground crew.
The disaster was the subject of spectacular newsreel coverage, photographs, and Herbert Morrison’s recorded radio eyewitness report from the landing field, which was broadcast the next day. The actual cause of the fire remains unknown, although a variety of hypotheses have been put forward for both the cause of ignition and the initial fuel for the ensuing fire. The incident shattered public confidence in the giant, passenger-carrying rigid airship and marked the end of the airship era. (read more)
- Labels: death, disaster, film, photography
Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming / Saying something about a queen / There were peasants singing and drummers drumming / And the archer split the tree / There was a fanfare blowing to the sun / That was floating on the breeze / Look at Mother Nature on the run / In the twenty first century
Photo of ~> [ Coral Reefer ]
- Labels: bill, marijuana, music, nature, photography
*Move the slider to compare satellite images, taken by GeoEye, from before and after the disaster.
- Labels: Japan, photography, tsunami
ThÃch Quảng Äức (1897 â 11 June 1963) was a Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk who burned himself to death at a busy Saigon road intersection on 11 June 1963. ThÃch Quảng Äức was protesting against the persecution of Buddhists by South Vietnam’s Ngô Äình Diá»m administration.
Photos of his self-immolation were circulated widely across the world and brought attention to the policies of the Diá»m regime. Malcolm Browne won a Pulitzer Prize for his iconic photo of the monk’s death, as did David Halberstam for his written account.
After his death, his body was re-cremated, but his heart remained intact. This was interpreted as a symbol of compassion and led Buddhists to revere him as a bodhisattva, heightening the impact of his death on the public psyche. (read more) (mooncake)
War, it’s all fun and games until somebody gets hurt.
Decapitation of prisoner in Korean War.
Nguyá»
n VÄn Lém (referred to as Captain Bảy Lá»p) (died 1 February 1968 in Saigon) was a member of the Viet Cong who was summarily executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams, and the momentous image became a symbol of the inhumanity of war.
On the second day of Tet, amid fierce street fighting, Lém was captured and brought to Brigadier General Nguyá»
n Ngá»c Loan, then Chief of the Republic of Vietnam National Police. Using his personal sidearm, General Loan summarily executed Lém in front of AP photographer Eddie Adams and NBC television cameraman Vo Suu. The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing the anti-war movement; Adams won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his photograph. (read more)
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| Love doesn’t make the world go round. Love is what makes the ride worthwhile. Franklin P. Jones |
Photograph: courtesy of Angad Singh
All rights reserved by Angad Singh
- Labels: love, photography
“You want to hear about insanity?
I was found running naked through the jungles in Mexico”
…Dennis Hopper…
Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 â May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker and artist. As a young man, Hopper became interested in acting and eventually became a student of the Actors Studio. He made his first television appearance in 1955, and appeared in two films featuring James Dean, Rebel Without a Cause (1955) and Giant (1956). Over the next ten years, Hopper appeared frequently on television in guest roles, and by the end of the 1960s had played supporting roles in several films. He directed and starred in Easy Rider (1969), winning an award at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Original Screenplay as co-writer. Film critic Matthew Hays notes that “no other persona better signifies the lost idealism of the 1960s than that of Dennis Hopper.” (read more)
- Labels: lucky, movies, philosophy, photography, rebel, truth
Muhammad Ali training underwater
Photograph by Flip Schulke
Miami, August,1961
Richard Avedon
Dovima with elephants
evening dress by Dior
Cirque d’Hiver, Paris
August 1955
- Labels: art, beauty, insight, perspective, photography, truth