Category Archives: Photography

About Art, Books, Collecting, Photography

Photography Books – a partial listing

January 1, 2014 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

I know folks have asked me about this before, so I thought I’d compile the list of photography books I’ve collected. This is a comprehensive but not complete listing of the photographic monographs and/or compilations in my library. I know I’m missing the vintage Ansel Adams guide to Yosemite that he produced for the Sierra Club back in the 1950s or 60s from this list, but I can’t lay my hands on it at the moment, so it’s missing. Any exhibition catalogs listed here are listed here because they are catalogs from exhibits I did not see in person, and there are probably a half-dozen others just floating around the house and/or the library.

Title	Artist/Author	Publisher	Publication Date	Notes
4 A M	Adu	Formosa Books	2000
Olympic Portraits	Annie Liebowitz	Bullfinch	1996
(Don’t) Call Me Shirley	Brett M. Cochrane	Knopf Australia	1995
Burma: Something Went Wrong	Chan Chao	Nazareli Press	2000
The Great Wall of China	Chen Changfen	Yale University Press	2007
Beauty of Darkness	Connie Imboden	Custom & Limited Editions	1999	1st Edition
The Raw Seduction of Flesh	Connie Imboden	Silver Arts	1999	softcover, Signed
Piercing Illusions	Connie Imboden	Foto Book Press	2001	softcover, Signed
Beijing Spring	David and Peter Turnley	Stewart, Tabori and Chang	1989
All My Lies Are True	David Carol	Kabloona Press	2009	Signed, personalized to me
Edward Curtis – The Master Prints	Edward Curtis	Arena Editions	2001	Hardcover
Edward Steichen – The Early Years	Edward Steichen	Princeton University Press	1999
Edward Weston: The Form of the Nude	Edward Weston	Phaidon Press	2005
Margarethe Mather and Edward Weston: A Passionate Collaboration	Edward Weston, Margarethe Mather	W.W. Norton	2001
Suffering The Ideal	F. Holland Day	Twin Palms	1995	Hardcover, 1st Edition, Limited Edition
F. Holland Day	F. Holland Day	Van Gogh Museum	2001	Exhibition Catalog
Faces of the Eastern Shore	Frank Van Riper	Qesada House	1992	Softcover, signed, personalized to me
The Photographs of Frederick H. Evans	Frederick Evans	Getty	2010	Exhibition Catalog
Foro Italico	George Mott	Powerhouse Books	2003	1st Edition, slipcovered
Inside Life	Greg Gorman	Rizzoli	1997	1st Edition, Signed, Slipcovered with signed print
As I See It	Greg Gorman	Powerhouse Books	2000	1st Edition, signed
Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa	Hans Silvester	Thames & Hudson	2008
Kazu	Herb Ritts	Parco	1995	1st Edition
Tuscany: Inside the Light	Joel Meyerowitz	Main Street	2003
Manzanar: Photographs by Ansel Adams	John Armor, Peter Wright	Times Books	1988
Lengthening Shadows Before Nightfall	John Dugdale	Twin Palms	1995	Signed, personalized to me, dated 2006
Life’s Evening Hour	John Dugdale	August Press	2000	Hardcover, Limited Edition
Picturing Men – A Century of Male Relationships in Everyday American Photography	John Ibson	Smithsonian	2002
The Luminous Years	Karl Bissinger	Abrams	2003
Passage to Angkor	Kenro Izu	Friends Without Borders	2005	1st Edition, signed
Homo Sum	Konrad Helbig	6×6.com	2010	Not dated – guessing at publication date
Skin	Laurent Elie Badessi	Edition Stemmle	2000
Red Color News Soldier	Li Zhensheng	Phaidon Press	2003
Panoramas of the Far East	Lois Conner	Smithsonian	1993
Photography’s Antiquarian Avant-Garde: The New Wave in Old Processes	Lyle Rexer	Abrams	2002
American Photographs: The First Century	Merry A. Foresta	Smithsonian	1996
At First Sight: Photography and the Smithsonian	Merry A. Foresta, Jenna K. Foley	Smithsonian	2003
The Pre-Raphaelite Camera	Michael Bartram	Little, Brown & Company	1985
Eye Mind Spirit – the Enduring Legacy of Minor White	Minor White	Howard Greenberg Gallery	2008
Face to Face: The Art of Portrait Photography	Paul Ardenne	Flammarion	2004
Collaboration: The Photographs of Paul Cadmus	Paul Cadmus	Twelvetrees Press	1992	1st Edition, Limited Edition
Physique: Classic Photographs of Naked Athletes	Peter Kuhnst	Thames & Hudson	2004
Man to Man: A History of Gay Photography	Pierre Borhan	Vendome Press	2007
The Hyena & Other Men	Pieter Hugo	Prestel	2007
Shooting Soldiers – Civil War Medical Photographs by R.B. Bontecou	R.B. Bontecou	Burns Archive Press	2011
Torero	Reuven Afanador	Edition Stemmle	2001	1st Edition
Sombra	Reuven Afanador	Merrell	2004	1st Edition
Mil Besos	Reuven Afanador	Rizzoli	2009	1st Edition
Cuba in the 1850s Through the Lens of Charles DeForest Fredricks	Robert M. Levine	University of South Florida Press	1990
Robert Mapplethorpe and the Classical Tradition	Robert Mapplethorpe	Guggenheim Museum	2004	Exhibition Catalog
Hymn to the Earth	Ron Rosenstock	Silver Strand Press	2003	Signed, Numbered Edition # 597
Maryland’s Civil War Photographs: The Sesquicentennial Collection	Ross Kelbaugh	Maryland Historical Society	2012	Signed, Numbered Edition # 130, personalized to me
America and the Tintype	Steven Kasher	ICP/Steidl	2008
Spirit Capture: Photographs from the National Museum of The American Indian	Tim Johnson	Smithsonian	1998
In Defense of Beauty	Tom Bianchi	Crown Publishers	1995
Tseng Kwong-Chi	Tseng Kwong-Chi	Paul Kasmin Gallery	2008
Taormina	Wilhelm Von Gloeden	Twelvetrees Press	1986

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Washington DC

Glen Echo Carousel, Twilight, Fall

December 30, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Here are a few loose odds-n-ends I shot back at the end of September, but kept on the shelf until I was all done with the Paris photos. I like playing around as light levels fall – it’s a challenge to balance foreground and sky, but when it works, it’s beautiful. I also like the colors you get when you mix different kinds of lighting.

I was walking around Glen Echo Park in the evening after visiting for (I think) an exhibit opening. I had the Rollei with me, and a roll of Kodak Portra 800 loaded. Portra 800 is another one of those “miracle” emulsions, in my estimation. It is expensive (almost $10/roll), but when you need it, it’s there and it works so well at what it does. Yes, it does have more grain and less contrast than Portra 400, not to mention Portra 160, but the difference compared to what you would have seen in older 800 speed films is almost not worth mentioning. It’s a specialty film, and because of the price, not something I’d shoot every day in lieu of a slower film. But using it is not a sacrifice, like other films used to be.

Here is one of the street lights in the park, glowing in the pre-dusk.

The Dentzel carousel is endlessly fascinating. The bright colors, the lights, the music, the motion – it’s a nostalgic combination that provokes a range of emotions from childish joy to melancholy. Here the lights of the carousel are glowing inside the carousel house, and the neon of the old Midway perks up the background through the trees.

Another view of the carousel house, framed with ornamental grasses. The glow of the lights is particularly inviting – I’d love to go for a ride.

One of the circus masks on the crown of the carousel peers out at you through the reflections on the carousel house window. The lighting and the stillness gives it a slightly sinister air.

The neon of the arcade reflects in the windows of the carousel house, and I’ve caught myself taking the photo in the reflection as well. The reflected neon gives it a true carnival atmosphere – it almost feels like a real live amusement park, instead of the culture and arts center it has become. Which is not to say that the park lacks vibrancy and vitality, but it has a new character now, a lovable low-key quality that reflects and honors its past while preserving the facility for the future.

About Art, books and manuals, Collecting, Exhibitions, Photography

Museum Exhibition Catalogs

December 24, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

While I was in Paris, I went to see a major exhibition at the Musee D’Orsay, Masculin/Masculin, a retrospective of the male nude in art from 1800 to the present. It was beautifully presented, almost overwhelming in size and scope, and extremely memorable. At the time, I thought about buying the catalog because it had outstanding reproductions of the work in the exhibit, including many works and artists I was unfamiliar with. I decided not to because of the size and weight of the catalog, especially considering that it was only available hardcover and my bags were already close to the weight limit. After I got home, I was kicking myself for not buying it after all. I got a second chance, however, when a friend who lives in New York told me he would be going in early December, and he offered to bring me back a copy. It arrived today, just in time to be a Christmas present to myself.

This got me thinking about museum exhibition catalogs. I generally try to buy them for exhibits I’ve enjoyed when I have the chance, because it serves as a reminder of the work exhibited, and it goes a long way to helping support the museum mounting the exhibit, especially when the museum (like all the galleries of the Smithsonian and the National Gallery of Art) does not charge admission. As a result, I thought I’d list the exhibitions I’ve collected catalogs from.

In rough chronological order, descending, they are:

Charles Marville, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2013
Masculin/Masculin, Musee D’Orsay, Paris, France 2013
Photography and the American Civil War, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York 2013
Faking it: Manipulated Photography Before Photoshop, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2013
40 under 40: Craft Futures, Renwick Gallery, Washington DC, 2012
Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2010
Hide/Seek: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture, Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, 2010
Framing the West: The Survey Photographs of Timothy H. O’Sullivan, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington DC, 2010
Truth/Beauty: Pictorialism and the Photograph as Art – 1845-1945, Phillips Gallery, Washington DC, 2009
Faces of the Frontier: Photographic Portraits from the American West, National Portrait Gallery, Washington DC, 2009
Titian, Tintoretto, Veronese: Rivals in Renaissance Venice, Boston Museum of Fine Art, Boston, 2009
Impressed by Light: British Photographs from Paper Negatives, 1840-1860, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 2008
All the Mighty World: Photographs of Roger Fenton, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2004
Segnali di Fumo: L’avventura del West nella Fotograffia, Castello Sforzesco, Milan, Italy 1994
Circa 1492: Art in the Age of Columbus, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 1992
Treasure Houses of Britain, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 1985
Tutankhamen, National Gallery of Art, Washington DC 1977
The Family of Man, Museum of Modern Art, New York, 1955*

*obviously I did NOT attend the Family of Man exhibit, as I wasn’t even a fantasy in my grandparents’ minds in 1955. But I do have the exhibition book.

Also note that I’ve listed where I saw the exhibit, not necessarily who published the catalog.

Perhaps the oddest is the Segnali di Fumo catalog, purely on account of the incongruity of going all the way to Milan, Italy to see photographs of the American West (well, I didn’t GO to Milan to see the exhibit, but happened upon it as I was leaving the Castello Sforzesco), with a significant body from the Amon Carter museum in Texas. Which I haven’t been to yet, but really ought to. It would also help close the loop on my France trip, for it is there that the first known photograph ever is held – Niepce’s first known heliograph of the view out his studio window at his estate near Chalon-sur-Saone (that I couldn’t visit because it was closed for the season). I’m sure I’m missing one or two from my collection, and my collection of catalogs is a pale shadow of the total number of exhibits I’ve been to either because no catalog was produced (producing an exhibition catalog is a major undertaking and not done casually or cheaply) or because I couldn’t afford it at the time.

Another day I’ll put together a catalog of my photography monographs, as I know this is of interest to some. It’s not a huge collection, especially in light of my overall library size, but it is a work in progress.

Color, Photography, Travel

Paris in October – part 40 – Versailles Exteriors

December 24, 2013 dcphotoartist 1 Comment

This is the last post in the Paris in October series – with this, I’ve finished uploading new images from the series. I may go back and revisit a theme or two that span multiple posts, like staircases, but I’m pretty much done. It’s been a long, fun ride – two months worth of postings from a single nine-day trip. A lot of work, but well worth the effort. I hope you all have enjoyed the series as I’ve been posting them.

These are exterior views of Versailles, or at least view of/toward the exterior. I did not go out into the gardens – my feet were worn out at that point and they wanted an additional 9 euros to enter the gardens because they were going to be doing the musical fountain show, so I did not get around to the famous garden facade of the palace.

The entrance gates when you first approach are gilded iron. It’s one of the very first things you see, and it certainly makes an impression. Impressive as they are now, can you imagine what it would have been like in the 18th century to walk up to these gates?

The words on the building portico say, “A Toutes Les Glories De La France” – to all the glories of France. For a shining period, that was literally true of Versailles. It encapsulated the magnificence and power that was the French state in the era of Louis XIV. I don’t know when that phrase was placed on the building – it has much more of a Second Empire or Third Republic feel to it. It doesn’t seem like something one of the kings would have done – the palace itself screamed that sentiment in spades, putting it down in writing on the facade was superfluous and a bit gauche.

This is a view looking back at the town of Versailles from the palace entrance. The statue is the cousin of the one on the other side that I photographed in black-and-white with the grotesque figure providing a seat with its back for the allegorical female.

This is the palace’s front door. You can tell this is one of the older parts of the palace by the style – some brick instead of stone, less monumental in appearance. Less monumental, perhaps, but no less ostentatious. It had been raining that morning and so the marble tile courtyard surface was still wet.

Entrance Facade, Versailles, After the Rain

A view of one of the fountains immediately adjacent to the house:

A view of the garden facade through a window of another wing of the building. The colors of the sky were beautiful with all the rainclouds breaking up. You can see down the long walk with the ponds in the middle, how far off the estate stretches.

CDVs, Celebrities, Collecting, Performers/Athletes/Artists, Photography

An Actor in Costume, by Camille Silvy, London, ca. 1860

December 23, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Here’s another rather rare image – a portrait of what appears to be an actor by Camille Silvy. Camille Silvy was a French photographer who moved to London in 1858 and opened a studio at 38 Porchester Terrace, Bayswater. He photographed society clients, including many members of the British royal family, as well as royals of other nations (the queen of Hawaii among others). According to Wikipedia,

He closed his studio and returned to France in 1868. He himself believed that his nervous system had been damaged by exposure to potassium cyanide in the darkroom but it more likely that he suffered from manic depression. The last thirty years of his life were spent in a succession of hospitals, sanatoria and convalescent homes.

So he had a working career in London of approximately 10 years, in which he made over 17,000 sittings – rather productive for a short career. That’s about six portraits a day, 300+ days a year. According to the Wikipedia entry, the National Portrait Gallery in London has his daybooks, which include 12,000 photo illustrations to accompany the records of sittings. I’d love to visit them and see if I could find out who this actor was. Maybe next year when I return the favor to visit my friends Peter and Mirza who came to see me in Paris.

Black and White, Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel

Paris in October – part 39 – Staircases at Versailles

December 23, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

These first two are of the service stairs that lead from today’s restaurant and snack bar to the ground floor and the exit to the gardens. By the time I got to the dining room, my feet were screaming at me from all the continuous marching through the palace and across the cobbled courtyards. I did not eat in the main dining room but instead got a sandwich from the cafe. There was no place to sit (the only available tables were the stand-up kind, every chair was taken). Leaving the cafe to be faced with this staircase, then, was suddenly a daunting task. What to do, then, but photograph it?

To proof the images I wanted to scan and print bigger, I had a set of 5×5 inch proof prints made at the time of developing the film. Sometimes, the minilab prints looked better than my final scan results, but more often, they look worse. Based on the minilab prints, I excluded these two from my rough edit. Going back over the film while scanning everything else, I looked at the negatives and they looked good, so I took a whirl and scanned the first one. As it turned out, they were much better than I thought they would be based on the proof prints.

These next two are a memory refresher from an earlier post. With the exception of the last photo in this post, the only staircases I photographed at Versailles, it seems, were service stairs. I guess everyone is content to ignore them and only pay attention to (and mob) the Queen’s Stairs. Their loss, my gain.

When I originally posted this staircase, I mistakenly labeled it “The Queen’s Staircase”. It is not. The Queen’s staircase is far more opulent and magnificent than this, although I wouldn’t complain about having this be the main stairs in my house…

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel

Paris in October – part 38 – Versailles Interiors in color

December 22, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

I’m sure you’ve read my rant about how crowded Versailles was. It seriously cramped my style trying to photograph any of the spaces on the main circuit of the house, even with my cellphone. That said, the whining ends here. I’m happy with the pictures I did take; I just wish I could have taken more. When I go back, and I WILL go back, sometime, I’ll do things differently – I’ll do the gardens first, then the house, and I’ll go in the dead of winter, on a weekday. Preferably during a snowstorm.

There are multiple halls filled with statues of great Frenchmen. Here are two such passageways, one with and one without tourists. The shot with tourists provides a human scale and a modern reference point for the house. The one without gives an architectural scale.

The royal chapel is one space in the palace that truly gives you a sense of not only the grandeur of the palace but also the extreme disparity of wealth between the aristocracy and the peasants.

A huge part of the purpose of Versailles was to show off the wealth and power of the state. To that purpose, it lived up to it in spades. This mantlepiece is about level with my shoulders, and the head in the center is about the size of my head. You could actually walk into this fireplace.

Here is Louis XIV as Mars, the God of War.

This is the one view of the Hall of Mirrors I was able to take. It’s an atypical view of the room, and as a result I’m particularly proud of it because it is representative without being cliche. Most people when viewing the room are paying attention to the mirrors and never look up, but half the brilliance of the room comes from the crystal chandeliers reflecting and amplifying the light.

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel

Paris in October – part 37 – Chalon Odds and Ends

December 21, 2013 dcphotoartist 1 Comment

Here are some loose ends from my sojourn in Chalon-sur-Saone. You may remember the Valentin Paint ad in black-and-white – here it is in color.

The black-and-white version, as a refresher:

I couldn’t help but photograph this storefront for the combination of the beautiful if faded 1940s Art Deco facade and the psychologically jarring name. Fagot (pronounced Fah-GO) is a family name, not a slur aimed at someones sexual orientation. Today, instead of the original business that built the building, it is occupied by the offices of a political party.

I’m a sucker for Art Nouveau and Art Deco architecture. So when I see a building like this, I have to photograph it.

Apartment Building, Boulevard de la Republique, Chalon

The first and last view you have of Chalon when traveling by rail is of this plaza with the modern arbors forming a tunnel to point you toward the center of town. To camera right is the St. Georges hotel, where I stayed, and to the left across the plaza is the english pub-style restaurant where I had the delicious breaded veal with the pasta the French don’t know quite what to do with. Behind is the Maitre Pierre restaurant you saw in my night photos from the hotel balcony.

About Art, Exhibitions, Large Format Cameras, News/Announcements, Nudes

More images published at Eastern Sierra Center for Photography – male nudes

December 21, 2013 dcphotoartist 2 Comments

I have had eight images published at Eastern Sierra Center for Photography’s website in their “Paradigmatic Nudes” gallery online. Most of these images you’ve seen here before on my blog. The images featured are my whole-plate sized gum bichromate prints of Philip, a model I’ve worked with and my Type 55 Polaroid 4×5 format shots of my friend Jose. I’d like to give a big shout-out to Laura Campbell, their curator and director, for repeatedly selecting my work and having faith in my creative vision. Please go check out their website and see the entire gallery.

Large format Nudes at Eastern Sierra Center for Photography

Cameras, Color, Medium Format Cameras, Photography, Travel

Paris in October – part 36 – a Courtyard in Chalon

December 21, 2013 dcphotoartist Leave a comment

Around the corner from the Musee Niepce and the Chalon tourism office, I encountered this fascinating courtyard. Perhaps the single most surprising element was the massive bronze Laocoon statue in an otherwise ordinary if picturesque courtyard. Why and how the statue ended up there is a mystery.

If you remember your mythology, Laocoon was a Trojan priest who predicted the Greek gift of the Trojan horse but was not believed. There are multiple versions of why the gods sent serpents to strangle him and his sons, ranging from dishonesty to defiling temple virgins. Regardless of the why, his story became famous, and has been commemorated in art from ancient times. There is a Roman marble of this scene, probably modeled after a Greek one, which was then emulated multiple times in stone and metal during the Renaissance.

Someone who lives in this courtyard favors geraniums.

Courtyard residences seem to be extremely popular in France. I suppose it’s for the relative privacy you have compared to facing the street, especially in older urban areas where stepping out your front door puts you literally a sidewalks’ breadth away from traffic. And it provides opportunities for parking that you wouldn’t get elsewhere. I think I’d like to live on a courtyard if I lived in Paris, or even in a town like Chalon. Who wouldn’t enjoy walking down the stairs every morning to be greeted by your own classical Greek statue?

Greenery of all kinds, in fact, is a hallmark of the space. These flowering vines had taken over the wall and partially obscured the window into the workshop. If my understanding of French is any good, the workshop behind these windows was a specialist in antiques and restoration. I couldn’t tell if they were open at the time so I didn’t try to venture in.

Another somewhat Swiss-looking architectural element, the peaked gabled windows in the roof:

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