CONCEPTS

What I would call, "provocative". Photo: Albert Watson

What I would call, "kitsch". Photo: David Lachapelle

What I would call, "theatrical". Photo: Adolph de Meyer

What I would call, "playfully patriotic". Photo: William Hundley

What I would call, "chic". Photo: Constantin Joffe

What I would call, "a sense of place". Photo: Robert Frank

What I would call, "sweeping and momentous". Photo: Henri Cartier-Bresson

What I would call, "transcendent". Photo: Sarah Moon

What I would call, "pushing boundaries". Photo: Sally Mann

What I would call, "moving". Photo: Philip Jones Griffiths

What I would call, "a great example of conceptual". Photo: Steven Meisel

What I would call, "a brilliant observation". Photo: Diane Arbus

What I would call, "elegant and regal". Photo: Erwin Blumenfield

What I would call, "definitively sexy". Photo: Phil Poynter

To be continued ...

Photographs from Kazakhstan / Sergei Ivanovich Borisov

I was looking up something on Kazakhstan and came across these beautiful photographs.  The photographs were taken between 1911 and 1914, and they are the work of Sergei Ivanovich Borisov (1867-1931), a Russian photographer.  More than 1000 of his images from his trek across the mountain areas of Altai were used as postcards for the Russian Empire.  They appear to be black & white photographs that were then hand-coloured, but I have not been able to confirm that.  Meanwhile, Sergei Prokudin-Gorski, another Russian photographer from that same period, had a few patents for his colour technique.  [Source]  So, indeed colour images were being produced at this time, but, these shots by Borisov still look to me to be hand-coloured b&ws.  Whatever they are, I hope you enjoy them! 

Kazakh woman in traditional wedding dress

Kazakh man on horse with Golden Eagle



 Inside a Kazakh Yurt

View of Cherga Village

Chuya Trakt on the Slopes of the Boma Kyngrar

POSTSCRIPT:  As it turns out, two days prior to this post without my having seen it, there was a post on The Photo-Eye Blog featuring the work of John Delaney and his series of photographs on the nomadic people of Kazakhstan and Mongolia and in particular, their training of Golden Eagles.  Uncanny timing!  I am happy to now have a context for the shot of the man holding the Golden Eagle.  Now we have a story behind it.  You can read an interview with John Delaney and see some of his work on the Golden Eagle Nomads by clicking here.  

Marc Riboud

Disclaimer: This post does not do Marc Riboud justice! There is the Pentagon March shot of 1967 (seen at the end of this post), along with additional iconic images that are instantly recognizable, but there are other images equally compelling, some poignant and others just powerfully quiet. This is just a small sampling of some of his less seen work. To read the Magnum bio on Marc Riboud, click here. I encourage you to visit Riboud's website which houses a vast amount of his portfolio material.














Here is the iconic 1967 Pentagon March shot:

Ken Pivak

My friend, Ken Pivak, has been working on a new series he calls, "Housewives". He works in collaboration with his models in order to come up with images that catapult our notions of a traditional housewife into either fantasy or an interpretation of what it might be to relish the escape, endure the drudgery, or take glory in the privilege. This concept makes me wonder, why has no one ever done this before?! Brilliant!

Before I display the images from the "Housewives" series, I am showcasing some photographs from a series Ken did as an editorial for San Francisco Chronicle about couture designers in San Francisco, all shot in famous restaurants. This series is what first grabbed my attention to his work.



Housewives Series:





Ken is also the founder of Digital 1 to 1.
Article on Digital 1 to 1, including Ken's bio click here.

Timothy Allen

I came upon a BBC site for which photographer, Timothy Allen, kept a blog as he shadowed BBC film crews shooting the BBC series entitled, Human Planet.

Rather than post so many worthy images, I am sharing the following link so you can see what he has determined to be his Top 40 favorite photographs from his Human Planet journey. I would have had to paste 40 images were I to show you why this photographer is being featured on my blog ... so I'm taking the easy way out. Click here: Timothy Allen Top 40 Roundup of Favorite Photographs, Human Planet Journey

I realize a picture is worth a thousand words, but I encourage you to read the captions associated with each image in this compilation. The photographs are powerful enough, but to then find out that, for instance, the children at the open fire pit are cooking Goliath tarantulas in Venezuela, gives new meaning to the photograph. The captions allowed me to view the images with greater appreciation -- the photography often brings us to places we have never been before, and at least for me, I want to know where these places are ... Mongolia where we see the beauty of the landscape and a nomadic family moving across the frame to their winter camp ... the "Urban Jungle" of Jaipur, Rajastan, India where we see monkeys sitting on the rooftop in a matter-of-fact, ordinary way -- just another "day in the life" sort of moment.

When have you seen a Huli Tribe in Papua New Guinea or seen the Tun Sakaran Marine Park in Sabah, Malaysia? I am compelled more than ever to see more of the world, but at least this brings me a little closer to fruition.

This photograph: Mombasa, Kenya

Top photograph: Huli Tribe, Papua New Guinea

Herbert Ponting

With the recent release of "The Lost Photographs of Captain Scott" (Robert Falcon Scott's Lost Photographs -- click here to see the New York Times articles and slideshow), I thought it would be fitting to also mention the work of Herbert Ponting.

Herbert Ponting started out as the photographer and cinematographer for Robert Falcon Scott's Terra Nova Expedition to the South Pole (1910-1913). Once the sledging began, a strenuous trek to move supplies across the Ross Ice Shelf, Ponting returned to civilization in 1912. He had amassed more than 1700 photographs and he was spared the ill fate of the expedition. Robert Falcon Scott continued as photographer in place of Ponting but he perished on the Ross Ice Shelf in November of 1912. Along with Scott's photographs, his diaries and journals were found and I think they may be even more moving than the photographs -- how could they not be? They describe the last days of life and pleas to their countrymen to look after the expedition's widows and survivors.

In this post, however, I am featuring the work of Herbert Ponting.

It is worth noting that Ponting was the first man to use a portable movie camera, a "cinematograph" in Antarctica. He also took some of the first known color still photographs and used a flash for several of the photographs.

Also related, is a post I did on Frank Hurley (click here), the photographer of Douglas Mawson's Antarctic Expedition (1911-1914) and Ernest Shackleton's Trans-Antarctic Expedition (1914-1917).










Self Portrait