The Office

Lee Friedlander immortalized cubicles in his series entitled At Work. The lack of emotion on the faces of the employees match their drab surroundings.

http://think-in-pictures.com/2007/10/25/lee-friedlander-at-work/

Take a look at these offices from well-known companies. Shouldn’t they all be as creative as these?

http://www.eightyonedesign.co.uk/how-would-you-improve-your-graphic-design-studio-or-office/

Wild life

Think all wildlife photography looks the same? Take a look at Nick Brandt’s work. Original, up close and personal portraits of lions, zebras, giraffes, elephants, and more. His new book due out in September is bound to be a top seller.

http://www.nickbrandt.com/

All in vein

Watched a lightning storm outside my window yesterday. My son took the opportunity to read aloud from a young reader’s science book on lightning. I learned that lightning is no wider than  your big toe and it’s caused be a cloud’s desire to rid itself of energy.

But it’s the form of the lightning that I find fascinating. It often consists of one main vein with several smaller branches emanating from the main, or perhaps feeders stretching to the main. It reminded me of photos from space that were taken by the space station astronauts — the rivers and inlets that were photographed bear the same shape, as do some of the mountain ranges. Roots have the same structure. Our circulatory systems have an identical structure, as do veins in leaves, and branches, too. All have a connection to water. All seem to mark a flow of vital energy.

A gallery of lightning images: http://www.genesisfineart.com.au/lightning_gallery/lightning_strike_05.html#IMAGE

Astronauts’ views of earth — scroll down to see the rivers, lava flow, and ranges: http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/06/recent_scenes_from_the_iss.html

Evidence of things seen

Proof that we live in a beautiful world. Thank you Mr. Parker for showing me places I may never go.

http://www.kennethparker.com/

Faux photo

I find Peter Funch’s images visually arresting. I know they’re not quite real but I want to believe they are.

http://www.peterfunch.com/

Transformers

I heard a lot of talk today about Transformers 2 opening tonight. Fathers who were planning on taking their teenage sons to the midnight show, colleagues planning their week around it.

Take a look at the work of An-My Le, a transformer herself who became a political refugee from Vietnam and came to America at age 15 in 1975. Still intrinsically involved with war subjects, she documents the real transformers of today, regardless of whose side you’re on. I’d stay up past midnight to watch more of this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiV3nWX5oO0

In the mid-90s, Ms. Le travelled back to Vietnam and found a landscape transformed but a visage hauntingly reminiscent of the war she fled thirty years earlier.

http://www.artnet.com/artwork/425550718/423969340/an-my-le-ho-chi-minh-city.html

http://www.murrayguy.com/current/index.html

Authenticity

Documentary photographer Susan Meiselas is well known for her work in Central America and Kurdistan. After spending time in Iraq in the early 1990s and publishing a book of her photographs from there, she started a Web site as a place for Kurds as a collective memory. Archivists, journalists, and Kurds are encouraged to upload their photos and stories of Kurdish life at http://www.akakurdistan.com/. She graciously allowed me to showcase her work at the Sundance Film Festival’s first annual documentary photography show, and recently had a show at the International Center of Photography in New York.

See some of her more recent work here: http://www.magnumphotos.com/Archive/c.aspx?VP=XSpecific_MAG.StoryDetail_VPage&pid=2K7O3R14FH45. These photos display her awareness of the front and back of the frame — giving her images great depth.

The whole picture

A few years ago I was invited to participate as a photo editor in a photography program in Havana, Cuba. Lucky for me, I was paired with Alex Webb’s class. I had always admired his photography and found out that not only is he a skilled photographer but he is also a terrific teacher.

His work is sophisticated with levels of complexity, often poignantly telling more than one story. Alex has an incomparable ability to see light and dark, front and back, and height and width all at once. For many of his photos, at first glance they may appear to be about contrast — literally, the light and the dark. His subjects are often emerging out of shadow into bright light or starkly juxtaposed against colored backgrounds. But the real narrative in his images are the connections, or lack thereof, between the subjects. He composes many of his photos with several subjects, frequently people and dogs, that are near to each other though not touching or barely touching. Figures in the background are as alluring as those in the foreground, giving each character their own space and their own story, and giving rich dimension to the images. I find myself wondering about their lives, each of them integral pieces of the whole.

See for yourself and let me know what you think.

Alex Webb 1
Alex Webb 2
Alex Webb 3
Alex Webb 4
Alex Webb 5