The Online Photographer

...Is International Street Photographers Day. (Henri Cartier-Bresson's birthday, August 22nd. He would have been 105.)

Henri Cartier-Bresson, Coronation of King George VI, London, 1937

Plan to take your camera down to the street sometime during the day!

Mike
(Thanks to Jan Kwarnmark)

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Herman Krieger: "The Decisive Moment: Documentary and Street. Juried by Christopher Rauschenberg, Black Box Gallery, Portland, Oregon."

Mike replies: Congratulations on your inclusion Herman. I remember that shot of yours.

Bear.: "Take your camera down to the street. But don't shoot into open windows!"

Gill: "you might be interested in this selection of street photography, from the 1870s...I stumbled across these photographs from the London School of Economics Digital Library and thought they are an absolutely fascinating historical insight. The LSE even has a PDF of the book in which they are published available for download."

Photograph by John Thomson

Mike replies: Thanks Gill. A famous and historically significant book. Maybe for those who don't get out with their cameras tomorrow—not everyone is a street photographer or even wants to try—an online stroll through Thomson would be a good alternative way to celebrate the day.

cb: "...But not in France any more."

Mike replies: Yes, but funnily enough, my response to that Lens piece was that photographing angry people objecting to having their picture taken in France would be a good idea for a project. Of course, you might need to wear a nose guard (my brother actually got punched in the nose in France once).

A selection of page ones after Andy Murray's historic cliffhanger at the All England Club. Two things I thought I'd never see—Jimmy Connors on a talk show (he was on Leno the other night—he has a new book out) and a male Ginny Wade.

Mike
(Thanks to Andrew Lamb, who thinks The Guardian's is the best)

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Richard Alexander: "The full-page picture on the aforementioned Guardian's front page is the work of Tom Jenkins, who might just be the best sport photographer in the world. He had his own exhibition in London last year (with an accompanying book), and it was astonishing—it turns out that almost every 'iconic' sporting image I've seen in the last decade is a Jenkins picture.

"The Guardian's online gallery of the book is here; his pictures from Murray's triumph are here. U.S. readers will obviously notice a British bias to both the sports and the individuals he covers, but it's impossible not to be impressed by his work."

Today is Independence Day in the United States, a.k.a. the Fourth of July. Traditionally, a day for parades and picnics and, after dark, of municipal fireworks displays. (This year, some places are holding off the fireworks until the weekend.)

I'm not big on fireworks, but I feel almost guilty saying that. As I cast back over the years of my life I can remember a lot of Fourths and a lot of fireworks-watching, in the company of various friends and at various places. My earliest such memory is of tormenting my "girlfriend" Elizabeth Choi, whose Korean-immigrant parents lived near our apartment block in Cambridge, Massachusetts. (I seem to recall that her mother couldn't or wouldn't speak English—Elizabeth's older brother translated for her.) That would have been about 1962 or '63, and Elizabeth (whose nickname was the Korean word for "beautiful," which I can pronounce but not spell) was an older woman...she was in second grade. I was only in first.

In D.C. I used to walk down to the Mall and worm my way up to the steps of the Lincoln Memorial from the Potomac side. The best place to watch the country's best fireworks display...nowhere else can match the spire of the Washington Monument and the glimpses of the Capitol building in the background.

My most vivid memory of Fourth of July fireworks was from the five years Zander and I lived in our loft in Chicago. We could climb up to the roof deck—our building towered over most of the two- and three-story buildings in the neighborhood. Looking out over the rooftops, you could see fireworks at every point of the compass. (Many of the larger suburbs in Chicago put on their own fireworks displays, apart from the city's main show down by the Lake.) The experience was somewhat tempered by all the small-arms fire we could also hear...I ended up not staying on the roof deck for very long, feeling that a stray bullet could have the unwanted effect of ruining our evening. But the visual effect of the 360° fireworks here and there on the horizon—some nearer, some farther off—was striking, and has stuck with me.

If you're in the U.S. and planning to enjoy parades, picnics, or fireworks, I wish you and your family an enjoyable and safe holiday today. I'm off to Lake Koshkonong for the afternoon, for the first Fourth at my brother and sister-in-law's new place there. Should be fun.

My niece Mari with her parents on the back deck at
Lake Koshkonong, Wisconsin

Mike

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k4kafka: "Some photos just look better in black and white. This isn't one of them."

Mike replies: It really wasn't up to me. The photo was made with the TOPcam, a Sony NEX-6 which I have had specially modified at great personal expense so that it only shoots black-and-white. The RG(2)B filters were all stripped from the photosites and the demosaicing algorithm was rewritten from scratch. Only one laboratory in the country is capable of doing this intricate modification, which takes months and costs thousands. The TOPcam is not capable of recording color—even when confronted with sunsets, single geraniums floating in a sea of green, or colorful hot air balloons.

Today is my brother Charlie's birthday. Happy Birthday Charlie!

It's also a date that getting more and more significant as I get older. I swear I was in my twenties before I even realized that the days are shorter during some periods of the year and longer during others. I guess I never questioned daylight. It just was what it was.

Now I just love the long days and, more and more, dread the short ones. Tonight it was light until nine and twilight stayed for an hour. I went driving in the convertible, top down, along River Drive, flood plain to my left (no buildings). And a gibbous moon. Just beginning to get coolish after a warm day. Dusk falling. Lights beginning to come on in houses here and there. Lovely.

Speaking of lovely—in honor of the seasons and the circling, tilting planets, a lovely video by Mark Gee, who captured moonrise in real time over the Mount Victoria Lookout in Wellington, New Zealand. (Read more about how he did it at Vimeo.) Music by Dan Phillipson. Watch it full screen if you can.

Full Moon Silhouettes from Mark Gee on Vimeo.

Not directly relevant to the date, I suppose, but it does seem apropos. Thanks to Walter Glover, who sent me the link to this.

Mike

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Peter Marquis-Kyle: "Today is my birthday too. Here in the southern hemisphere it's the shortest day of the year."

Roger Bradbury: "'Full Moon Silhouettes' is a film made from a brilliantly simple idea perfectly executed. Nicely done, Mark.

"It's my sister in law's birthday today too. I sang 'Happy Birthday' to her down the phone this morning. Happy birthday, Jane."

Peter: "Apropos: this weekend is 'Supermoon.'"

Peter Barnes: "Gloat on about the longest day of the year, you Northerners. Guess what day it is down here in the Antipodes? Good news is it's all downhill for the next six months for you lot, while our days just get longer and longer...."

Jim Witkowski: "I thought this day would never end!"

Michael F: "As a landscape photographer, I truly appreciate the short days of winter, and dislike the long days of summer. A 7:00 a.m. winter sunrise is reasonable and civilized; getting up for a 5:30 a.m. summer sunrise is torture."

John: "Oh, no, Mike. Don't mention the convertible. Every time you do, I miss my Mazda Miata too much and find myself checking current lease prices. One day, one day...."

Mike replies: I'm not going to be any help to you there, John. The Miata is wonderful recreation, a great way to get sun and see the countryside, and the most fun you can have on public roads with an automobile without getting arrested. And you can get a decent NB (my favorite) for six or seven grand if you look around and shop carefully. If I can afford it, mine's going to Colorado for a rebuild next winter.

Ctein had lots of new work to show me. Appears to be in B&W...*

I trekked westward to the wooly wilds of Madison, Wisc., yesterday for the annual Mike-Ctein meetup. Both Ctein and Laura were in the finest of fettles...Laura was just back from Zanzibar or Kathmandu or somewhere, and appears to be utterly unfazeable by jet lag, and Ctein is getting lots of sleep lest he make mistakes in the darkroom in the last days of the grand dye project. So neither one of them had the usual haggard sleep-three-hours-a-night Sci-Fi convention sleep-dep look. He and I managed to get through half of lunch being sociable before lasering in on some intensive shoptalk.

Bye the bye, BTW and apropos of nothing, Ctein has found the camera for him. His 22" prints from OM-D files are superb. (And, yes, in color.)

A couple of Ctein's friends at the convention happened to be former photography collectors (partial to Group ƒ/64 and priced out of that market now), who turned me on to a show just down the street at the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art—in fact, we had walked right past it on our way to and from lunch.

A protest march passes MMoCA (at right).

Later, two cyclists wait for a red light at the same intersection.

It's a marvelous show...at least for me. Much from what I'm beginning to think of as "my era," and yet a lot I've never seen, at least in "real print" form; some great old favorites and some people whose work seldom gets shown. A great variety, which is important to me. And even a discovery! Who is Ida Wyman? A new name to me, but I loved her pictures in the show.

Don't judge the show on the basis of the web page, which really isn't even minimally indicative. Co-curated by Leah Kolb and Richard Axsom (a fact the web page doesn't mention). On view till September 1. The space is really nice, too, open and well lit.

(No pictures allowed in the gallery; I cheated.)

Really a pleasure. Even the museum guards were exceptionally nice! I'm an hour away from Madison, but I might actually make the drive to see "Focal Points: American Photography Since 1950" again.

And you should certainly pop in for a look if you're within a stone's throw of the place and walking past it on the way to a pasta bistro....

Mike

*[As Mike continues a running joke that only he thinks is funny]

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Andreas Friedl: "Thanks for pointing us to this exhibition. I live in Madison and had no idea this exhibit was going on."

Dave in NM: "The problem with the faux filed-out negative carrier effect is that in the real world, only the outer (filed) edges would be uneven. The inner edges would have been nice and straight, like the edges of the camera's film gate...."

Mike replies: I think it's the opposite. The film gate always left a subtle signature, but the outer edge (in my prints at least) was always determined by the easel, so it was always regular and completely straight. What I miss in digital black framing lines is that the inside border is too clean. Should be more like this:

Taran: "Come on man...you can't post a Ctein photo and not give exuberant/exorbitant technical detes. What paper is he using, is he printing 16 bit pigment K3 magenta, normal sharpening routine or what?

"How am I supposed to learn?"

Mike replies: One thing from which one might learn is that despite being 103 years old*, Ctein is still taking pictures and making prints on a regular basis.

*In Venusian years. In Martian years he's only 33.

Gah! I actually almost forgot. The Preakness is today.

...Continuing OT week at TOP.

Here's the TV schedule:

• Preakness Stakes Saturday, Pimlico, 2:30–4:30pm, NBC Sports Network
• Preakness Stakes, 4:30–6:30pm, NBC
• Preakness Stakes Post-Race Show, Pimlico, 6:30–7:00pm, NBC Sports Network

Times given are Eastern.

I still don't have cable TV. One year I will break down.

Here's a basic background article.

Enjoy!

Mike

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ben ng: "My money's on Flying Toasters...."

Mike replies: You laugh but...Flying Toaster, filly, by Mehmet out of Renewable, born 1993. Great-granddaughter of the great Swaps, who won the '55 Derby under Willie Shoemaker. Descendant of Man O'War and War Admiral....

Bodemeister (6) led the whole way in 2012 until being overtaken by little-heralded I'll Have Another at the finish. Note cameras!

Today is the day for the #1 sporting event of the year in America!* The Kentucky Derby at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. Don't forget.

...If the weather holds, that is. I know you must get tired of hearing me gas on about Midwestern weather, but I find this remarkable:

Four days ago: All-time record high temperature for the day in our fair city (Milwaukee): 85°F, which beat the 84°F recorded in 1910.

Two days ago: All-time record high snowfall for the State of Wisconsin in the month of May.

So as I was saying. The Derby—Louisville being not too far south of us and within the strange loop the jetstream's been making lately—might come under the pall of volatile weather. If not, television coverage starts on NBC at 4:00 p.m. Central Time, and the race is at something like 5:26. Recall that I have a bad memory for numbers. If you just want to watch the horses run for the roses, tune in at 5:15 or so and you won't miss it.

Here's I'll Have Another's late upset from last year.

Mike

*Two-minute sporting event. I keep forgetting to add "two-minute" in there.

UPDATE: What a lovely run in the mud! I picked Verrazano, who finished 15 1/2 lengths back after keeping up with an overly fast early pace—which keeps my record for picking winners fully intact!

Congratulations to Orb, first-time winning jockey Joel Rosario, and first time winning trainer "Shug" McGaughey. The owners, first cousins Stuart Janney III and Ogden Mills Phipps, despite being among the bluest of blue bloods in horse racing, have also never won a Derby before. (The two are great-grandsons of Carnegie Steel magnate Henry Phipps; both inherited famous stables.)

I love the pomp and ceremony, suffused with a sense of celebration—of Spring, of tradition, of the magnificent animals. Nice to visit that world briefly every year. Hope you caught it.

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Photo by David Green

It's been fascinating to watch the role of photography—particularly, personal photography by citizens—in the affair of the bombing at the Boston Marathon. A marathon participant from Florida, David Green, snapped this picture of the aftermath before going to try to help victims. Later, after he put his picture on his Facebook page, many of his friends realized that he had inadvertently taken a picture of one of the suspects the FBI had asked for help in identifying. When David sent the picture to the FBI, it turned out that for a short time it was one of the clearest pictures they had of suspect Dzhokar Tsarnaev.

Meanwhile, here in Milwaukee a couple of guys are making and selling "BOSTON STRONG" T-shirts; $15 out of every $20 sale will be donated to the bombing victims' fund. They started out trying to sell 110 of them. More than 12,000 have been ordered as of this writing.

Here's the link.

Closest to home
We had our own terror scare around here this week. On Tuesday, a man with a gun caused the local college to go on lockdown. More than 30 squad cars converged, choppers circled overhead, police with dogs searched.

Eventually, Michael Weidemann was arrested at his house.

"It was a dumb mistake on my dumb part and I'll never do it again," said a contrite Weidemann. A local dumpster-diver, he had found an airsoft gun in the trash and had been carrying it around hoping to sell it to someone for $5 or $10. "I walked past some college girls and I must have scared them half to death."

Once the story of what really happened got around, students at Carroll University (as they call it...it's really a college) used social media to collect enough money to pay Weidemann's fine for him.

So, student John Heavey said, "this is really a tale of understanding and sympathy."

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Al Patterson: "This amuses me. Many times I have been hassled by police for taking pictures, now they want our pictures? Can't have it both ways folks. Choose wisely...."

Dennis Mook: "The irony is that this same Boston Police Department, who have in the past arrested citizen photographers for taking photographs of them and others in public, now utilized those same citizen photographers to help solve this heinous crime. Thank goodness for citizen photographers. Boston PD should welcome them with open arms in the future.

"As a retired chief of police, I find the conduct of police officers around the country who harass and arrest citizens exercising their First Amendment rights in taking photographs in public places shameful and inexcusable. They should be welcoming citizen photographers as, in Boston, they proved to be a key to solving a terrorist act. Photographic crowd-sourcing could be put to work in every community to assist in identifying criminal suspects and assisting in removing them from the streets.

"I'll close with a heartfelt congratulations to all the federal, state and local law enforcement agencies who worked extra hard to solve this crime. Additionally, I would be remiss if I did not mention that my heart goes out to the families of the slain and injured citizens as well as the murdered and wounded police officers."

View of beaver you never want to see

Okay now—I certainly can't make light of this, because an actual person died—a real person, with grieving family and bereft friends. I have too many readers to make jokes. (I learned this when, in one of my first editorials at Darkroom & Creative Camera Techniques, I made a flippant reference to "janitors from Dubuque." I subsequently got a lengthy letter from, yes, a janitor in Dubuque, who took pains to rip me several new ones. Yes, sir. Lesson learned.)

This post might, however, require a little theme music.

I do feel vindicated for never pursuing nature photography. Always knew it didn't pay in more ways than one. I'll just repeat the actual headline:

"Man tries to take photo of beaver; it kills him."

Apparently the beaver have had quite enough of us, according to the article. Beaver will attack when threatened, and you have to remember that they chew through wood for a living: big teeth, strong jaws. And remember which direction they're coming at you from. They don't attack from above. As we learn from Primus, you don't want to tickle his chin and give him a pinch or he'll grab you by the kiwis.

It's not funny. It's a little scary, though. Nature photography can be dangerous. Here's the article.

Mike
(Thanks to Steve Rosenblum)

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Paul: "[insert inappropriate joke here]"

James Sinks: "I don't know if you've ever seen a beaver up close and personal, but they're big animals. With tail, some of them are 3–4' long, and they're very heavily muscled animals who shred trees with their teeth. And they can move surprisingly fast when they put their minds to it. Luckily they're very timid and their first reaction when they're menaced by a human is to flee. I've spent quite a bit of time with beavers and have taken photos of them up close—even flash photos in the middle of the night—and have never seen anything approaching an aggressive response. They're very placid animals by nature. Not that that's any comfort when there have been two rabid beaver attacks one county over and your activities for the night involve spending several hours standing very still in 9" of water just upstream from a known beaver haunt."

Rob Young: "In Australia, tourists often make the same mistake with kangaroos."

Hugh Crawford (partial comment): "That music video you linked to has about the worst case of 'digital makes everything look like plastic' that I have seen in quite a while."

Will Whitaker: "Somewhat apropos to TOP, similar stories abound regarding badgers."

Photographs by Peter Turnley

As you no doubt know, today is the 10th anniversary of Donald Rumsfeld's "Shock and awe," the beginning of the U.S. war in Iraq.

Our friend Peter Turnley has posted a portfolio of pictures from early in the war, called In Memory: The War in Iraq, Ten Years On. Take a look back with Peter....

Mike

[UPDATE: It's understandably difficult to discuss photographs like these without letting the discussion become dominated by the underlying issues. I waited until the "here's my opinion about the war" comments and the "that other commenter is an idiot" comments outnumbered the ones that were at least vaguely concerned with the pictures; then I closed the post. Thanks to everyone who commented, whether it was published or not; I hope you can understand that I didn't want the comments to the post to become completely dominated by arguments about American foreign policy, partisan politics, whether there were or were not Weapons of Mass Destruction, whether liberals are traitors, etc. As I always say, TOP isn't a forum. —Mike]

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A book of interest today:

Part I of Kevin Phillips' book American Theocracy, subtitled "Oil and American Supremacy," is still the best basic primer of energy politics I've read in the past ten years. Phillips is a somewhat polarizing writer: he was one of the early founders of Movement Conservatism (he wrote The Emerging Republican Majority in 1969 and was one of the authors of the notorious "Southern Strategy,") but is now considered apostate.

"Oil and American Supremacy" is not available separately, but it's a quick read, only 95 pages long, and it's easily worth the price of the paperback. (The Kindle e-book is priced higher than the paper book.) Here's the U.K. link —and yes, it would definitely be of interest to non-U.S. readers.

I've read lots more about the subject, but this is my kind of readin': short, smart, and right to the point.

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Rick D: "Fine, gut-wrenching work. Thank you, Mr. Turnley, for bearing witness to the human face of war. (Has it truly been ten years?)"

I mentioned my friend "Bobby B" (an occasional nickname he acquired from Maya Rudoph's impression of Whitney Houston on SNL), in the "Items" post, as the person who alerted me to the long-lost minimalist masterpiece "November." He's Bob Burnett, Creative Director of GVI, a production company based in Washington, D.C.

Bob and his crews just finished doing all the videos for the MacArthur Foundation's Awards for Creative & Effective Institutions that were just announced. Seems appropriate to give him a shout—Bob is a fount of the intriguing, the arcane, and the out-of-the-way, and not infrequently enriches TOP quietly from behind the scenes.

Mike

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