A Visit to Cold Spring, NY – A photo exhibition

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Here Coffee + Beer was holding a exhibition of photographs by Brian Avenius. It’s called Lost and Found and it’s running through February. Some very impressive, large format photographs here.

I’ve often thought about printing some of my photographs larger, but I always talk myself out of it. Since I don’t have a large format printer, it would cost me quite a bit to print them, and I’m not sure what I would do with them afterwards. I certainly don’t have any wall space in my house, and I don’t sell any of my photographs. I think I’ll stick to printing smaller format photobooks.

It might be nice to print a couple of them though…just to see how they look.

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Taken with a Sony RX100 MVII

A recent discovery on YouTube

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Actually, it’s not all that recent. I’ve been following this channel for some time. It’s called “Sharing the Work of the Photography Masters” and its creator, Joel Ulises, describes it as follows:

On this channel, I share the work and stories of the greatest photographers—past and present. My goal is to bring their masterpieces to life and inspire a deeper appreciation for the art of photography. Whether you’re a fan of iconic images or curious about the stories behind the lens, you’re in the right place. Join me on this visual journey, and let’s explore the magic of photography together.

So, if you’re interested in the work of “Photography Masters” this might well be for you.

Photography: Essays and Images

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The back cover of the book provides the following, which describes the book better than I possibly could:

This handsomely illustrated volume presents a fascinating pictorial and literary experience, bringing to life through their own words – and photographs – the scientists, artists, philosophers, innovators and entrepreneurs who in the last century (Note: the book was published in 1980) and a half have formulated a new art and a new era of communication.

Beaumont Newhall calls this book “an autobiography of the art of photography, written by some of the men and women who by their inventive genius, their scientific skill, and their artistic sensibility have forged a technique into a vital visual medium. We have allowed them to speak to us directly, without condensing, excerpting, or otherwise editing their words, so the volume may be both an authentic source book for students of the history of photography as an art and a narrative for the general reader”.

Mr. Newhall has chosen 190 photographs to illustrate the reports, criticism, and points of view expressed by the writers of the “autobiography,” many from the photographic archive of the Museum of Modern Art, others from collections throughout the world. He also provides brief introductory comments to place each selection in historical context. Photographs and text are carefully integrated.

The selections in this volume include first-person accounts of the inventions of the basic photographic techniques; newspaper reports of the discovery of the daguerreotype and of early photographic exhibitions; criticism by Baudelaire, Léger, Moholy-Nagy; personal statements from Stieglitz, Steichen, Strand, Lange, Adams, Weston, Evans and others. This basic source material, presented at length and accompanied by relevant photographs, provides a rich background for the chronological history of the medium so masterfully presented by Mr. Newhall in his classic work, The History of Photography.

To give a better sense of the scope of the work I’ve scanned the table of contents (see below)

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Film Camera 2024 -3: Fujifilm Instax Square SQ-6 – Results

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So, after finding the results from the SX-70 and the I2 somewhat disappointing, how did I like what I got from the SQ-6?

It’s an easy camera to use, largely point and shoot with relatively few additional functions that you might use. The learning curve with this camera is certainly much shorter than, for example, the I2.

At first glance the prints looked better, with more vibrant colors if a little underexposed. However, after scanning I realized that pretty much all of the prints were out of focus. Now I’m new to instant photography and mostly likely a problem with the photographer (i.e. me) rather than the camera.

I also found that the prints were a lot smaller than I had anticipated. Mea Culpa again. I was somehow thinking that they would be the same size as the Polaroid prints of yesteryear. Moreover, I’m also not entirely comfortable composing with a square format.

Of course, the film is expensive, but that’s true of all instant film nowadays.

So far, my attempts at instant photography have not been particularly successful and it seems to me that I now have two options:

  1. Decide that instant photography is not for me and give up.
  2. Don’t blame the cameras and accept that there’s always a learning curve and try harder until I get to a point where I’m satisfied.

I prefer the second option. There were reasons why my first few attempts didn’t succeed. The SX-70 was an old camera bought second hand. It clearly wasn’t working as originally intended. I might get it checked out, if possible fixed and try it again. The problem with the I2 was known (the autoexposure didn’t work correctly) and I chose to use it anyway. This has now been fixed in the recent firmware up, which I’ve now applied. I’m keen to try again and this will be my next attempt. The SQ6 was, I suspect, just plain lack of knowledge and familiarity with the camera.

Clearly, I have to use the cameras much more frequently. As the saying goes “if at first you don’t succeed try, try again”. It’s not rocket science.

Lee Friedlander

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Once upon a time I didn’t care for street photography. But I’m an avid consumer of photobooks and after acquiring books by/about such luminaries as Joel Meyerowitz, Gary Winogrand, Robert Frank etc. I began to understand it better and even tried to do street photography of my own. One of the photographers I came across was Lee Friedlander. I saw some of his photographs online and liked them a lot and so decided to find out more. As is the norm for me I decided to get my hands on a book. This turned out to be harder than I thought. He’s a prolific creator of photobooks. See below for a partial list:

  • The American Monument. New York: Eakins Press Foundation, 1976. ISBN 0-87130-043-5.
  • Lee Friedlander Photographs. New City, NY: Self-published / Haywire Press, 1978.
  • Factory Valleys: Ohio & Pennsylvania. New York: Callaway Editions, 1982. ISBN 0-935112-04-9.
  • Lee Friedlander Portraits. Boston: Little, Brown, 1985. ISBN 0-8212-1602-3.
  • Like a One-Eyed Cat: Photographs by Lee Friedlander, 1956–1987. New York: Harry N. Abrams in association with the Seattle Art Museum, 1989. ISBN 0-8109-1274-0.
  • Nudes. New York: Pantheon, 1991. ISBN 0-679-40484-8.
  • The Jazz People of New Orleans. New York: Pantheon, 1992. ISBN 0-679-41638-2.
  • Maria. Washington: Smithsonian, 1992. ISBN 1-56098-207-1.
  • London: Jonathan Cape, 1993. ISBN 9780224032957.
  • Bellocq: Photographs from Storyville, the Red-Light District of New Orleans. New York: Random House, 1996. ISBN 0-679-44975-2.
  • The Desert Seen. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 1996. ISBN 1-881616-75-4.
  • American Musicians: Photographs by Lee Friedlander. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 1998. ISBN 1-56466-056-7. By Friedlander, Steve Lacy, and Ruth Brown.
  • Lee Friedlander. San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery, 2000. ISBN 1-881337-09-X.
  • Stems. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2003. ISBN 1-891024-75-2.
  • Lee Friedlander: Sticks and Stones: Architectural America. San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery, 2004. ISBN 1-891024-97-3. By Friedlander and James Enyeart.
  • Cherry Blossom Time in Japan: The Complete Works. San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery, 2006. ISBN 1-881337-20-0.
  • Lee Friedlander: New Mexico. Santa Fe, NM: Radius Books, 2008. ISBN 978-1-934435-11-3. By Friedlander, Andrew Smith, and Emily Ballew Neff.
  • Photographs: Frederick Law Olmsted Landscapes. New York: Distributed Art Publishers, 2008. ISBN 978-1933045733.
  • America by Car. San Francisco: Fraenkel Gallery, 2010. ISBN 978-1-935202-08-0.
  • Portraits: The Human Clay: Volume 1. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2015. ISBN 978-0-300-21520-5.
  • Children: The Human Clay: Volume 2. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2015. ISBN 978-0-300-21519-9.
  • Street: The Human Clay: Volume 3. New Haven, CT: Yale University, 2016. ISBN 978-0-300-22177-0.
  • Lee Friedlander: Western Landscapes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Art Gallery, 2016. ISBN 978-0-300-22301-9.

All you’ll have seen his books cover a multitude of topics. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what I wanted. I was looking for a fairly recent retrospective covering his work in general. At that time the type of book I was looking for was either out of print, extremely expensive or both. This situation now seems to have changed so when I spotted this book, I immediately acquired it.

It’s quite a large (10″ x 12″) book, which explains why the right side is cut off in the picture. It just wouldn’t fit on my admittedly small scanner.

The book is in four parts. The first is an essay by Carlos Gollonet entitled “The World According to Lee Friedlander”. I found this most informative and refreshingly free of the “critic speak” you often find in such pieces. Instead, it was rather easy to read. I found the second part, “My life with Lee. An Interview with Maria Friedlander” to be absolutely fascinating. Since Mr. Friedlander is known for his reluctance to give interviews, this might be the close as we’re going to get. The third part: “How he sees” by Nichols Nixon is short and left very little impression on me. I guess it’s a personal reflection by someone who knows Friedlander well. The third part, which takes up most of the book is called “Catalog” and contains over 300 photographs, mostly black and white, but a few in color. The book concludes with a chronology of the artist’s life by his grandson Giancarlo T. Roma.

I really enjoyed it.