The Online Photographer

This picture (by Gijsbert Hanekroot) should go in the blank white space*

He was known to the public at large as the writer of Eric Clapton's hits "After Midnight" and "Cocaine." But then, he never wanted to be known to the public at large.

Oddly, people cover "Call Me the Breeze" on Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute albums...even though Lynyrd Skynyrd's version was a cover of J.J. Cale.

He was called J.J. rather than the name he used in the first half of his life, John, to avoid confusion with the Velvet Underground's John Cale.

Neil Young once said, "Of all the players I ever heard, it's gotta be Hendrix and J.J. Cale who are the best electric guitar players." Eric Clapton said simply that J.J. Cale was the person he most admired.

If you're unfamiliar with him, download "Naturally" from iTunes, his 1971 debut effort for Denny Cordell and Leon Russell's Shelter Records. You'll either be hooked or you won't be—Cale was laid-back to a fault, and sounded just like an old black man even when he was a young white man. The modality is country blues, the riff on it unique.

I adore the song "Magnolia." But "Clyde" no less, really.

My favorite of his albums is probably Shades, with its cover reminiscent of a pack of Gitanes. Most people have a favorite album, one or another, often the one they got to know first.

Late in life he said, "If it weren't for Eric Clapton, I'd be selling shoes now."

He died of a heart attack on Friday, age 74. On jjcale.com it says, "Donations are not needed but he was a great lover of animals so, if you like, you can remember him with a donation to your favorite local animal shelter."

You know what's playin' Chez TOP today on the downstairs system. J.J. Cale on scratchy old vinyl. Perfect art.

Mike
(Thanks to Steve Rosenblum)

"Open Mike" is a series of off-topic essays by Yr. Hmbl. Ed. that appear here on Sundays.

*But I don't want G*tty climbing up my a**.

Original contents copyright 2013 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Andrew Molitor: "Cale's a perfect metaphor for a lot of what I think about photography. Some of his best recordings are just some session players he grabbed from someplace and a drum machine. You don't need a bunch of gear to make great music. You don't even need good gear. You didn't even need gear capable of making particularly high fidelity recordings. What you need, what you can't escape from, is some great music. Extending this to photography is left as an exercise for the student!"

Hans Muus: "Don't know where to begin—there are so many Cale songs that I love. 'Crazy mama,' on the first album (Naturally), will always be one of my favourites (note the beautiful, archetypical wah-wah slide guiter by Mac Hayden that fits in so well with the groove that J.J. Cale is laying down). And I was there  at the (single) concert Cale gave in 1974 in Amsterdam where the backstage picture by Gijsbert Hanekroot was taken that TOP is linking to! J.J. Cale, sitting on a chair, half of the time with his back to the auditorium, seemed a little shy. The show lasted exactly sixty minutes—we were actually surprised it was over so fast. To my (young) mind, there were quite a few old blokes in his band—but they all played marvelously, including the almost invisible master himself. (In the Europe of that time, rock music was pretty much a youth-only thing.)

"In later years, my musical friends and I have practiced hours and hours on end trying to emulate the typical Cale sound. It is all about laying down the right groove, in which each single instrument involved does very little individually, but what it does has to be just right. A true joy when it happens (not very often...) and a thing of beauty when you hear it practiced by J.J. Cale and his friends.

"I hope he has not suffered much and may rest in peace. Been listening to his music (LPs and CDs) for the past two days to no end."

Photo by Malcolm Browne for the Associated Press, 1963

It's one of the very few photographs that anyone can visualize instantly from a verbal description. "The burning monk." You know the picture.

Malcolm Browne was the photographer; he died yesterday after a long and full life.

I knew little about the photo and nothing about him. I was fascinated to learn from the obituary that many foreign journalists and photographers were alerted a day in advance to show up for the event—but only Malcolm Browne did.

Good call.

I decided yesterday that I should mentally replace the word "iconic" whenever it appears with the word "famous," which is more often what people mean. But is this photograph ever...famous. An image check on the web reveals tattoos, T-shirts, macabre spoofs, a rendering in Lego, colorized versions, posters, art prints, on and on.

Malcolm Browne worked for the Associated Press when he took the picture, which was voted the World's Best News Picture of 1963 at the seventh World Press Photo contest in The Hague. He joined the New York Times in 1968.

As for Thich Quang Duc, who had acquired such mind control that he meditated peacefully as he perished, his death was not in vain. His protest actually did influence international policy.

...With a little help from the only foreign photographer who showed up to witness it.

Mike
(Thanks to Pierre Munson)

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Featured Comment by Photoelectric: "The Austin [the car —Ed.] in the photo, in which Thich Quang Duc arrived that day, is still parked in a garage at the Thien Mu temple in Hue. It's rusty and neglected and would be totally unmemorable except for that photo, which gives it a strange sort of power when you see it."

Featured Comment by Rob Atkins: "Unfortunately, self-immolation of Buddhist monks has been in the papers with disturbing frequency lately, as the Chinese government continues its repression of Tibet."

Featured Comment by PWL: "Remember seeing this photo as a kid, when it first came out. Shocking. It was photos like this, plus the stuff that photographers like Larry Burrows did (I particularly remember 'One Ride With Yankee Papa 13') which made me realize that war was very different—and a lot uglier—than what we were presented with in TV shows like 'Combat.'"

Featured Comment by peter: "Interesting Malcolm Browne's commentary on the event...."

By Barry Myers

I first met Dick when I was a student at RIT in 1970. I enrolled at RIT in 1969 but dropped out then weeks later. After two quarters of being a non-degree student, I decided that I wanted to get a degree, but on my own terms, designing my own program of studies, which drifted far from RIT's policies at the time. After several disheartening and heated meetings with the Photography School’s dean and other RIT administrators, I was pointed in the direction of the college's director of educational research, Dr. Richard Zakia.

My only experience with the name was through the Photographic Sensitometry I had taken the previous year, taught by Hollis Todd, using the text he co-authored with Dr. Zakia. I was apprehensive at best.

At our first meeting I was one angry, frustrated, anti-establishment young man, and I recall him as a sympathetic soul who made me feel at ease, who was also interested in furthering educational opportunities at RIT. After additional meetings where I showed Dick some of my work and put together a detailed proposal for a program of study, he scheduled a meeting with the administration. Recognizing that Dick was the diplomatic one, I let him present my case, and watched him convince a skeptical administration that a custom course of study could not only be done, but would benefit them as well.

The last picture of mine that Dick asked me to send him for his collection.
It shows a groom and his partner at the Del Mar Racetrack,
for a recent book project.

From that time onward, our relationship became one more of friends than that of research director and student. Dick had me out to his house several times where I met his family, and I also had him and his wife over for dinner as well. Every four or five weeks we would have lunch together in RIT's faculty dining room to talk about our work. By that time I was taking an independent study with him in Visual Perception—an area where he became a noted authority and which I think was his first love, especially as it related to photography.

Generous, facilitator, teacher, innovator, insightful and intuitive are words that I think of as I think of Dick. Many of my life experiences turned on these. While at RIT, he introduced me to Ralph Haber at the University of Rochester, then head of the Center for Visual Science there, and with whom I did two research projects. Dick had a way of visualizing how people with seemingly very different interests might benefit from working with each other.

On one occasion, he introduced me to Jim DeCaro, then a civil engineering teacher at the newly opened National Technical Institute for the Deaf (NTID) who wanted to make instructional television programs for his students on surveying. As I was taking a television production course at the time, Dick suggested I direct a 10-minute production on surveying as my term project. Jim and I hit it off, and produced the program, and I then went on to write another 15 programs for him. Jim later became the Dean of NTID and is now the director of Pen International, an organization that trains faculty to apply innovative technologies to expand the career opportunities for deaf and hard-of-hearing students. After graduate school at the U of R, I wrote a series of television and audio programs for special needs children which were hosted by Fred Rogers.

After I left Rochester in 1974, Dick and I only saw each other a few more times. He'd call when he was in Washington, and going to the National Gallery with him was a very special treat. He loved to talk about the paintings, how they worked from his point of view, and how much in awe he was of the artist's intuitive vision.

We kept in touch, by letters, phone calls and of course, recently by email. He would tell me about his travels, what new book he was writing or revising, and about his family. I sent him photographs from projects I was working on and occasionally he'd see one he really liked and ask me to send him a print for his collection. He used several of my photographs in his books and I feel honored to have had them included.

My deepest condolences go out to Dick’s family and his many friends, colleagues, and students. We all have been influenced and changed.

Barry

Barry Myers has been a professional photographer since 1972, dividing his work between commercial and personal assignments that concentrate on people and their relationships to work, family, and community. His book Del Mar at 75: Where the Turf Meets the Surf comes out in June.

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Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Dick Zakia in the summer of 2011. Photo by Willie Osterman.

I was just reached with the news that Richard Zakia has died, last March 12th.

Richard (born Rashid Elisha) Zakia was one of the great photography teachers of his era in the United States. A member of the stellar 1956 graduating class at the Rochester Institute of Technology that included Carl Chiarenza, Peter Bunnell, Bruce Davidson, Ken Josephson, Pete Turner and Jerry Uelsmann—and that numbered Minor White and Beaumont Newhall among its teachers—he did a stint at Eastman Kodak as an engineer out of school, and then returned to RIT, where he taught for 34 years, eventually serving as the chair of the Fine Art Photography Department and Graduate Program in Imaging Arts.

He was the author or co-author of 13 books, and edited, with his colleague Leslie Stroebel, the mammoth third edition of The Focal Enclyclopedia of Photography. His most interesting book to me is Perception and Imaging, a fascinating and learned tome on how we see, how the camera sees, and where the twain meet. His most recent book, with co-author Glenn Rand, is Teaching Photography: Tools for the Imaging Educator, published in 2006.

Our condolences to Dick Zakia's family, his friends, and his many students.

Mike
(Thanks to Barry Myers)

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Featured Comment by Slobodan Blagojevich: "I second your choice of Perception and Imaging...it has been the most influential book in my photographic library. I used to study perception in business school (as in: in marketing, perception is reality), but in photography, Zakia's book was an eye-opener. I often use the concept of optical illusions (mentioned in the book) to introduce the concept of cognitive biases in decision making: we are by now, being familiar with certain well-known optical illusions, quite ready to accept that our brain can play tricks on us, but we are somehow still very reluctant to accept—or, even worse, to consider—that our brain can play tricks on us using cognitive biases."

Lewis Kostiner, Harry and Eleanor Callahan, 1996

Many people familiar with the history of 20th-century American photography know Eleanor Callahan. If you don't yet, you have something to look forward to.

Wife, muse, and frequent photographic subject of Harry Callahan, one of the major American photographers, she has died, in Atlanta, at the age of 95.

In 63 years of marriage, often using his wife as a model, Harry Callahan slowly created a tender portrait of connubial life that, in his pictures, conveys an unparalelled sense of quiet intimacy and personal connection. (I've often said that Eleanor seems present even in some of his pictures in which she does not appear.) She deferred all credit to him, but of course she holds the status of collaborator in their work together.

One of Harry Callahan's many famous photographs of Eleanor

I was surprised to find that the elegant 2008 book Eleanor is still in print. There's also a DVD , which I haven't seen.

Here's the obituary from the WBPM, and an earlier 2007 article.

Harry died in 1999.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Rob Atkins: "I almost feel as though a somewhat distant relative has died. Studying Callahan's photographs of his wife and collaborator for so many years—decades, actually—Eleanor Callahan long been a part of my understanding and love of his work."

Featured Comment by Kenneth Tanaka: "She was here at the AIC in 2007 for a retrospective of Harry's work. I did not personally meet her but remember my astonishment when Liz Seigel introduced her in the audience during her lecture. May we all have such remarkable circumstances in long lives! Thank you for your patience and indulgence, Eleanor!"

Michihiro Yamaki of Sigma being presented with the Golden Photokina pin by Oliver P. Kuhrt, Executive Vice President of Koelnmesse GmbH, on the opening day of the CP+ Camera and Photo Imaging Show in Yokohama, Japan, last February 9th (photo courtesy Sigma).

A pioneer of the photo industry has died. Mr. Michihiro Yamaki, founder of Sigma Corporation and its longtime Chairman and CEO, passed away on January 18th. Michihiro Yamaki began working in the optical industry while still a student, and started Sigma when he was just 28 years old.

The heart and soul of Sigma Corporation for many years, he was passionately interested in photography. In the last years of his life he was shown great appreciation throughout the industry, awarded Person of the Year from The PhotoImaging Manufacturers and Distributors Association, the Hall of Fame award from the United Nations, and, at the CP+ photographic show in Japan, the Golden Photokina Pin from Photokina—its highest honor.

Our respects and condolences to his family and all those who knew or worked with Mr. Yamaki.

Mike
(Thanks to Jim Kofron)

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A moment of appreciation for Willard S. Boyle, who passed away on May 7th. Dr. Boyle, a Canadian, with his co-laureate, American George E. Smith, won the 2009 Nobel Prize for Physics for the invention, at Bell Labs, of the charge-coupled device (CCD), which made the digital camera possible.

There is a good obituary article at the Los Angeles Times. The writer notes that the CCD "allowed engineers for the first time to store a visual image in digital form, revolutionizing photography and a host of other fields. CCDs are at the heart of smartphones, camcorders, telescopes, supermarket bar-code scanners, fax machines and scanners."

Dr. Boyle was a resident of Wallace, Nova Scotia, where he died of kidney disease at the age of 86. He is survived by his wife, three children, and 11 grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

A quote, from the Canadian Science and Engineering Hall of Fame: "Know how to judge when to persevere and when to quit."

Mike
(Thanks to K.T.)

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Featured Comment by Carl Blesch: "I had the pleasure of interviewing Dr. Boyle when he retired from Bell Labs as a research executive in 1979. I was new on the staff of our in-house company newspaper, the Bell Labs News, and an executive retirement profile was considered a reasonably meaty yet low-enough risk story to assign to an entry-level writer. A few months earlier, my wife and I had taken a vacation in Nova Scotia, indulging our hiking and my photography passions. So I had the perfect chit-chat to get my interview with this scientific leader and down-to-earth Canadian off to a good start."

Featured Comment by Lancelot Gobbo: "Bill let me take his photo (with a CCD-containing camera, of course) when he came to see me one day:

Brian Lanker, Katherine Dunham, from the book I Dream A World

The NPPA has let us all know that Brian Lanker, a quintessential newspaper photojournalist (I always liked this shot), died suddenly yesterday evening, after learning only a few days ago that he had a fatal cancer.

Lanker won the Pulitzer Prize in the same year that Nick Ut won for his world famous picture of the so-called "napalm girl"—Brian's set was a sort of bookend, in that it showed a woman giving birth by the then-new Lamaze method of childbirth.

Improbably—he hadn't known the couple before photographing them for the story—the woman later became his wife, and the baby whose delivery he photographed his stepdaughter.

He is perhaps best known for his book I Dream a World : Portraits of Black Women who Changed America. Just recently out of print, it is one of the very rare photography books that have been huge bestsellers, crossing over to find fans among many people throughout our culture.

Our thoughts and condolences to all his friends, and especially to the Lanker family.

Mike

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Anne and Milton Rogovin, 2001, by Harvey Wang

I've just been reached by the news that the great leftist photographer Milton Rogovin died today, just past his 101st birthday. He was a wonderful, kind, compassionate man who lived a life true to the cause of civic decency, equality, and social justice.

Originally an optometrist, Milton was persecuted during the un-American McCarthyite inquisitions of the 1950s. With his practice in rapid decline as a consequence, he turned to photography to express his values, and for fifty years photographed the poor and the working class with a clear eye—surely one of the few positive outcomes of the McCarthy witch hunts. The title of his most recent (2003) book perfectly expresses his photographic concerns—it's called The Forgotten Ones.

One of the best acquisitions I made this year for my fledgling photograph collection is a wonderful portrait of Milton in his darkroom, by Diane Bush, signed to Diane by Milton—a lovely picture and a lovely print, and one I'll treasure.

Milton Rogovin in his darkroom. Photo by Diane Bush.

It might be hard to shed a tear for a man lucky enough to end his days a centenarian, but it's certainly appropriate to reflect on an upright life well lived. He won't be forgotten.

Mike

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Featured Comment by Jeff: "A worthwhile video on 'The Forgotten Ones'..."

Mike adds: For those of you who might have gotten into this pursuit a little later in life, note what the video says...that Milton didn't become a photographer till he was 48! It's never too late.

Generations of British photographers have lost a friend, mentor, and fellow enthusiast. For decades the name of Geoffrey Crawley has been hard to miss in photographic circles. He was associated with The British Journal of Photography from the early 1960s until 2000, including a 21-year tenure as that publication's Editor-in-Chief. More recently he wrote as the photo-science consultant of Amateur Photographer magazine.

Like Ansel Adams, Paul Caponigro, and Charles Cramer, his first love was the piano.

An inveterate photo-chemist, Geoffrey Crawley formulated some of the Paterson line of chemicals, including Acutol, for years a well-known fine-grain developer. He devised many fine-grain, high-acutance, and high-sharpness formulas with the prefix "FX," most recently FX-55, an environmentally friendly "Vitamin C" developer based in part on the work of Patrick Gainer. He was also known as an enthusiastic and exhaustive lens tester.

The first of what later became known as the "Cottingley Faeries" photographs, taken of Frances Griffiths, 10, by her cousin Elsie Wright, 16, in 1917.

At the end of the 1970s Crawley became known to a broader public for definitively exposing the ruse behind the previously mysterious "Cottingley Fairies" pictures of 1917, known as the longest-running photographic hoax in history (the story is the basis of not one but two movies). The photographs were promoted by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, of Sherlock Holmes fame, who was an enthusiastic spiritualist. They caused quite a sensation with a hopeful public reeling (as Conan Doyle was) from the shocks and losses of the Great War.

In the process of his investigations, Crawley became friends with Elsie Wright, one of the schoolgirl cousins who took the famous photographs. The BJP's obituary tells a more complete version of the story.

There is also an obituary at AP.

Mike

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Original contents copyright 2010 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.