When an award-winning photojournalism photo has been toned to look like a movie poster, you are signaling to next year’s entrants that the bar has moved. Find the best retoucher you can, and heighten the drama as much as possible. We don’t care about factual statements. We care about visceral reaction and entertainment value. Make us feel something! Truth be damned.
via PetaPixel/a>.
Photographer: Kevin Scanlon
Hello, Controversy. Como estas? We haven’t had a chance to catch up lately. How have you been? Keeping busy, I’m sure.
I’m well, thanks. I made it to Texas and back without getting hassled by the fuzz. It hasn’t been as cold here recently, so I don’t have anything to complain about. I’ve been trying to push the envelope as a writer, but some weeks I just don’t have it in me.
But what about you? I was thinking it might be fun to invite you into the column again this week. Sometimes, it’s tricky to predict your next visit. Like that RJ Shaughnessy dustup. Who knew people would get so worked up because I kinda-liked a book about pretty LA teenagers self-published by a commercial photographer?
Other times, though, it’s not hard to guess. Take Pieter Hugo, for instance. That guy courts you like a horny hedge funder sniffing around an ovulating supermodel. You and Mr. Hugo have dinner together every week, right?
Yes, Pieter Hugo is guaranteed to get people talking. But so is the idea of plagiarism. (Or copying.) Do people actually do that? Ideas are in the air, and everyone’s afraid of getting ripped off. Personally, I’ve never had the stones to ask that guy who did “The Poverty Line” if he saw my work before making his. Too unseemly. What? I just called him out? Shit.
But what about Mr. Hugo? Let’s deflect it back. His new book, “There’s A Place in Hell for Me and My Friends,” is compelling and taut, like everything he does. Super-well-made. It consists of photographs of his friends, made in color and then converted in the computer. He manipulated the channels to make the portraits reflect the damage done to skin by UV rays.
Which is almost exactly the same project done by Cara Phillips a few years back. (To be clear, she used actual UV photography, and he digitally altered. She photographed with eyes closed; he with eyes open.) What happened here? Who made the work first? Did he know of her project? (Or she of his?) If so, did he decide to proceed because it was his right to make whatever he wants to make?
Or is this just another instance of two people having a similar idea around the same time, and then coming to market separately? I’ve seen it before. At Review Santa Fe in ’09, Emily Shur showed me photos of cell phone towers masquerading as trees. The next month, I saw the same idea, done by a German photographer, published in Aperture. Did she abandon the project, knowing she was beat to the punch? I don’t know.
But the book, you say? Well, Controversy, it’s a good one. Super sharp, weird portraits. This guy is a pro, and really knows how to make a picture. The images definitely reference old school photography, like new school wet-plate-collodion. (That filter has to exist somewhere, right?) And some of the subjects’ eyes are totally possessed, referencing back to his Nollywood pictures. The dirty-ish faces also make me think of miners, which in South Africa is an apt reference.
But what about the Elephant in the room? Since these were photographed in Africa, ought we not mention the unmentionable? Mr. Hugo, as you know best, Controversy, is often lambasted for being a white guy who photographs black people, sometimes in unflattering ways. So I can’t omit the fact that in some of these pictures, it appears as if he’s painted his friends in blackface. (If I didn’t say it, someone else would have.)
Of course, I like this book. And I like the pictures. They’re raw and experimental and powerful. Did he cop the idea off of someone else? I don’t know. Am I accusing him? Definitely not.
But in the Internet age, it’s easier to steal or be influenced by ideas than ever before. We’re all inundated all the time. It’s often hard to know when you saw something, forgot it, and then it popped back up in your head later on. Nobody remembers every page they breezed through, or every status update they liked.
Take my Texas Roundup article series, for example. Did I steal the name from that recent photo event, the Texas Photo Roundup? Of course not. Had I ever visited their website? Yeah, a few months ago. Did I remember it when I came up with the name? No. Do I feel bad about it? A little. My apologies.
Bottom Line: Terrific photographs of a project you might have seen before
To Purchase “There’s A Place in Hell for Me and My Friends” Visit Photo-Eye
Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.
Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.
The ruling does not break new legal ground, but supports a long-standing legal principle that copyright law protects artistic expression, but not ideas. In the Harney v. Sony Pictures case…
The limits on copyright for unprotected content “is not some unforeseen byproduct of a statutory scheme,” the Supreme Court said. “It is, rather, ‘the essence of copyright,’ and a constitutional requirement. The primary objective of copyright is not to reward the labor of authors, but ‘[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts’ [according to the US Constitution]. To this end, copyright assures authors the right to their original expression, but encourages others to build freely upon the ideas and information conveyed by a work.”
Read more:PDN.
Photographer: Hendrik Kerstens
Still Images In Great Advertising, is a column where Suzanne Sease discovers great advertising images and then speaks with the photographers about it.
As I search for great ads for this column, I was intrigued when I stumbled across this campaign for Absolut Vodka. This recent campaign goes back to the roots of the classic campaign from years ago and away from the recent “In an Absolut World”. What I found even more intriguing is this was shot by Erik Almas. In Erik’s recent work, it is taking a new challenge; a new direction and I think a better one.

Suzanne: Looking at your website, I feel as if you are evolving in style and production. You are shooting more bold colors and higher production. It is so important for a photographer to grow and push out of their comfort zone. Would you say this is true about your work?
Erik: It’s very important for photographers to grow. I think that if you don’t challenge yourself somehow in the pictures you take you will very quickly become irrelevant in today’s increasingly visual and restless culture.
I feel I evolve visually but within that progress also stay quite faithful to my photographic voice and esthetic. What I have found, and this is probably what you are responding to, is that I’m now more frequently asked to apply my style to subject matters that is not necessarily in my portfolio.
Suzanne: When I look at this campaign, I see images from a casino, a campaign with a shield and several others that tell the art director that you could work well with props and retouching. Would you agree with that and why you were a candidate to shoot this campaign?
Erik: I’m sure an art director could see the translation of the Union Pacific shield standing tall in a landscape to the Absolut Vodka bottle doing the same but I don’t think this parallel were the reason I got hired to do this Absoult campaign.
The creative team on Absolute came from a different perspective and approach… In the great tradition of the Absolut campaigns these images are also executed with actual sets built around the bottle. The crew at NewDeal Studios started with a 1 liter bottle and scaled everything around it so that the bottle would feel over sized. These grand spaces we see in these pictures are actually not more than 4×4 feet in size…. I don’t know the full story behind choosing the photographer but know the creatives at TBWA/Chiat/Day were looking for someone to bring life to the sets more so than lighting the bottle perfectly. This led them to look beyond still life photographers to someone that could bring a landscape atmosphere and esthetic to the sets.
Through my agent I got introduced to the agency and we were the ones that, proud, lucky and honored, got the job and got to be a part of the Absolut Advertising Campaign.
Suzanne: I was talking to another well-known photographer and he said the best projects that took him out of his comfort zone, created the best results. Since this campaign is so different for you, would you agree with that statement?
Erik: In general I think repeating oneself will rarely be considered great in our own eyes. Photographers, or any artist for that matter, always seek new ways to express one. In this quest the best work will then always be found outside of our comfort zone… So yes I would agree with that.
The measure of these being better or not though I’ll leave to others…
Suzanne: Can you tell me about this campaign and all the elements to it that were later composited to this campaign?
Erik: Got tons of great feedback when the campaign was released. A lot of curiosity of how it was done and a good amount of comments were suggesting CGI and different elements being put together.
It’s great that the Absolut team went for building sets as it ensured the bottle being the real thing and completely integrated into the environment.
As described above these images were pretty much done in camera. The image of the bottle being unveiled from the wrapping paper is as captured but for wire removal and simple darkroom work and for the other 2 images the shot glasses is the only composite element.
CREDIT:
Advertising Agency: TBWA\Cheat\Day, New York, USA
Global Creative Director: Sue Anderson
Creative Director: Hoj Jomehri
Associate Creative Director: Kevin Kaminishi
Senior Copywriter: Madeleine Di Gangi
Senior Art Producer: Julia Menassa
Account Director: Hugo Murray
Account Supervisor: Jessica Beck
Photographer: Erik Almås
CGI (Glasses): HacJob
Producer: Stuart Hart
Props: New Deal Studios
Note: Content for Still Images In Great Advertising is found. Submissions are not accepted.
Restless, driven, always pushing himself toward new means of technical and aesthetic expression, Erik has made a name for himself creating award-winning imagery for esteemed clients such as: American Airlines, Dodge Ram, Absolut Vodka, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts, Intercontinental Hotel Group, Microsoft, Puma, Spanish Tourism, The Ritz-Carlton, The United States Postal Service, and Union Pacific.
Having been introduced to digital technologies in the latter part of his academia, Almås quickly discovered this equipment was the future to brining the old-fashioned qualities of film characteristics and darkroom techniques to his images. By embracing Photoshop, he had access to a creative tool that continues to evolve as a key part in the extension of his style. This embrace ensures that every client continues to receive bespoke images that are a true representation of a photographic vision – a vision always steeped in down-to-earth sensibilities influences by his childhood in Norway, fed by a love of world travel and practices in his day-to-day.
In addition to commercial assignments, Erik brings his sought after sensibilities of art and beauty into creative collaborations for fashion, travel and fine art.
APE contributor Suzanne Sease currently works as a consultant for photographers and illustrators around the world. She has been involved in the photography and illustration industry since the mid 80s, after founding the art buying department at The Martin Agency then working for Kaplan-Thaler, Capital One, Best Buy and numerous smaller agencies and companies. She has a new Twitter fed with helpful marketing information. Follow her@SuzanneSease.
he finds the photography world ‘very narrow in what it appreciates’ (a sentiment echoed by Brian) and that ‘ninety percent of the books that Steidl produce are just a little bit dull’. In a nice, if rather unexpected, synchronicity with another interview he even complains that the photo world is made up of 40-year-old men (notwithstanding his own proximity to that club).
Photographer: Tom Fowlks
The “War/Photography” exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston lured me into town. When I heard that Anne Tucker, the long-time chief curator and power broker, had spent the better part of ten years on the project, I figured that was enough of a reason to head Southeast. (On Southwest, ironically.) Political capital is scarce in this world, and I figured if she’d gone all in, the result would be worth my time. And it was.
As I entered the spacious gallery on a breezy Tuesday afternoon, my attention was pulled from the exhibition map by a strange clomp, clomp, clomping sound. I looked up, and saw a scruffy, messy college kid in a ratty t-shirt and gym-shorts. His flip-flops were slapping the ground like an obnoxious metronome. Rarely have I seen someone dressed like that in a fancy museum, but rarely have I been in Texas.
The show was daunting and grand, with galleries off-shooting a main hall, like capillaries stemming off a blood-filled artery. Pump, pump, pump. It took forever to make it out of the first big room, dominated by historical and contemporary journalism, and a multi-image panel of the second plane striking a Twin Tower, by Robert Clark. He got to the roof of his apartment building just in time, after seeing the first crash on television.
Other highlights: Roger Fenton’s horse drawn photo van from the Crimean War in 1855, and Ashley Gilbertson’s photo of a soldier watching George Bush’s apology for Abu Ghraib on TV. When I finally looked down said hall, it seemed to be 100 yards long, like a football field in a Texas High School stadium. (Side note: I once flew into Dallas and saw two full-sized High School stadiums on opposite sides of the same street. Different school districts.)
Calculating the distance, my spirit was crushed. So much violence, so little time. Three hours, all told, I spent in the custom-built-hanger space, filled with almost five hundred photographs that presented as categorical a photographic depiction of War as has likely ever been assembled. In the end, the nice Vietnamese guards insisted I had to leave, as the museum was closing. (Actually, they subtly suggested it, and as I didn’t get the hint, they got a bossy colleague to shoo me out the door.)
In the span of those hours, I slowly looked and contemplated. Death and destruction, bombs and ships, planes and slingshots, guns and swords, frightened boys and casualties of War. I thought of all the fat cats that designed these conflicts, plucking hicks from the sticks to use as cannon fodder to advance their greedy ambitions. There were decomposing corpses, burned-off faces, miserable rape victims, and even the goofy Diane Arbus dude in the silly straw hat. Ultimately, it was a joy to witness such sorrow, if that makes sense.
The show clearly lacked an agenda. No obvious “War Should Be Abolished” message here. If anything, it made me grateful to be an American, as we haven’t had to live with the horrific repercussions of grinding conventional War on our shores since the 19th Century. (Excepting Pearl Harbor, I suppose.) Too many others have.
As I crossed the threshold into the first side-gallery, I found myself lamenting the absolute silence in the room. War is the messiest, most sensory overloaded phenomenon humans have created. (See our previously published Ben Lowy interview for confirmation.) The show was so traditional in construction, created to highlight photos and wall text. I craved something to break it up.
No sooner had the thought popped into my head than sirens wailed about the room. Ah, piped in sound, I thought. Now we’re getting somewhere. Then I realized it was just an ambulance going by on the street below; a happy accident. In a more Art World context, (as opposed to Photo-World,) I noted, such things would be built into the experience. Not better or worse, just different. (Co-incidentally, a subsequent visit to the Menil Collection provided the perfect Art World counterpart. I’ll tell you about that one next week.)
As I walked in and out of galleries, back and forth, I appreciated that they were well-attended. People looked like average citizens, out and about, educating themselves. Suddenly, I heard the clomp clomp clomp again, and saw the kid who entered with me. I was impressed, as we’d been there an hour and forty-five minutes by then. I couldn’t help but query him, and learned he was a photography student, an intern at HCP, and was biding his time because he couldn’t afford see the show twice. (There was a surcharge on top of regular admission.)
When I asked him what impact the show was having on him, he grew silent, contemplative. I waited for him to deliver a reply, until I realized it wasn’t forthcoming. He just didn’t know. So I let him off the hook, politely. After all, he didn’t turn up expecting to be interviewed by a pushy fake-journalist with a bushy goatee.
I’ll spare you too many more details, because I was fortunate to interview one of the co-curators, Will Michels, and we’ll bring you that piece shortly. (Natalie Zelt was the third curator behind the project.) Will delved into the specifics of the decade-long process, so I’d rather not repeat. But one point I found incredibly salient was that the show was designed with two audiences in mind: museum goers, and Military viewers. (This being Texas, and not the coasts.)
That’s why it seemed to lack a typical liberal agenda. Personally, I don’t know anyone who served in Iraq or Afghanistan. It’s easy to demonize the evils of war, lacking intimate knowledge of the experience. What do I know about the pride of proper execution, a job well done? Like it or not, violence is embedded into our human operating system, and wishing it away comes to naught.
The show closed in the beginning of February, so this review comes to late for you to check it out. Thankfully, a condensed version of exhibition travels to the Annenberg Center in LA, the Corcoran Gallery of Art in DC, and the Brooklyn Museum as well. If you can, go see it. It’s worth the investment of time, money and precious brain space. You’ll probably feel bad for a while, but in a good kind of way.
I began to disregard some of my earlier feelings about photography, the way that photography worked and notions of documenting truth and representation, and having to take a new position of not caring so much about what was what and where it came from.
–Christian Patterson
via the Trail of Dead | VICE .
Photographer: Mitchell Feinberg
by Bill Cramer, Wonderful Machine
We’ve talked a lot about how to make money with photography, but saving it is a different matter altogether. It’s something that presents a special challenge for many photographers who don’t collect a regular paycheck or have employer sponsored retirement plans. And it’s made even tougher when there’s always some new piece of equipment, software or marketing directory demanding your hard-earned cash. But saving is essential for anyone interested in owning a home, sending their kids to college or retiring some day.
Saving is something that I’ve been conscious of since I was a little kid watching Wall Street Week with my dad on Friday nights. I can remember learning that there were some people in the world who had saved enough money that they didn’t need to work anymore. They had so much money that they could live off of just the interest and dividends from their investments. I remember thinking that that was a great idea and I was going to try to do that. Though I’ve never made a ton of money as a photographer, I’ve always been able to save; even when I was shooting fifty dollar assignments for the AP. Here are some basic tips that can help you get started:
1) Live within your means. Regardless of how much money you earn, you have to spend less than you make. For some people, that might mean living with their parents or buying a coffee maker instead of going to Starbucks. Being frugal is different from being cheap. Cheap is stiffing the waitress. Frugal is skipping dessert so you can tip the waitress. (Actually frugal is staying at home and cooking for yourself!)
2) Only borrow money to buy things that appreciate in value or generate revenue (like school loans, photographic equipment and home mortgages). Borrowing money to go on vacation is foolish because you’ll be paying for it long after your tan has faded. Borrowing money to buy a car is questionable. It’s a depreciating asset, but if you need it to get to your job, it may be worth it. Just don’t let the “free money” seduce you into buying a more extravagant ride than you can afford.
3) Pay off your credit card bills in full. The easy money of a credit card can be seductive, but it’s a Faustian bargain. It’s like buying all your groceries at 7-eleven. You’ll pay a steep premium for that convenience. Better to borrow a lump sum at a reasonable interest rate that you pay off each month. Even if you borrow money from a relative, write up an agreement with a payback plan and stick to it.
4) Reconcile your credit card and checkbook every month. (See how at the bottom of the page.) The process will not only keep you from overdrawing your accounts, but minding every penny you earn and spend is the first step towards saving. Keep your ATM and credit card receipts and make sure they match up with your statements. Those slips of paper will serve as a reminder to make smart choices all month long. Don’t pay ATM fees. Open an account at a local bank and use their free ATM when you need cash.
5) Be satisfied saving small amounts of money at first. Every journey begins with a single step. Develop a habit of saving each month and then gradually increase it as your income grows. Once you get into the habit, you’ll get as much of a thrill from saving as you do from spending.
6) Learn how compound interest works. Some claim that Albert Einstein said that “compound interest is the most powerful force in the universe.” In the short-term, interest may seem like a very small reward for your efforts. But over decades, it’s the interest on the interest that allows your money to grow exponentially. That’s why they say, “the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.” Over an lifetime of saving, the interest that builds up can be double or triple the principle you’ve saved.
7) Charge as much as possible for your photography. There will certainly be times when you’ll do favors for friends and relatives or for a charitable cause. But everyone else should pay top dollar. Your pricing should be dynamic. Evaluate each assignment and stock sale individually and price it to maximize your income. Learn how licensing works, how to write a licensing agreement and how to charge for it. Share pricing information with other photographers. Ignorance drives prices down, knowledge drives them up.
8) Pay as only much as necessary for all of your business expenses. It’s true that you have to spend money to make money, but you have to do it wisely. Be realistic about what kind of return on investment you’re going to get with every person you hire and each purchase you make.
9) Understand the difference between your business and personal money. For a sole proprietor, it may be overkill to have separate credit cards and bank accounts for your personal and business transactions. The important thing is to keep good records of which is which for tax purposes. Don’t mentally spend money as you make it. A 1000.00 assignment fee shrinks dramatically once you pay for your overhead and taxes.
10) Even the 99% must embrace capitalism. The alternative is even worse.
11) Saving isn’t just green in dollars, it’s green in terms of sustainability too. It’s true that spending helps the economy in the short term. But spending is an economic dead end (both individually and collectively) without a proportional amount of savings to go along with it. (Savings provides capital for individuals to buy homes and companies to grow.)
Enough platitudes. Here’s what you actually have to do. Start by finding a no-fee (or very low fee) checking account at a bank near you. (Don’t expect that account to pay any interest.) Once you build up enough of a cushion where you can comfortably pay your bills each month, open an interest-bearing money market account (Vanguard is a good place to do that). Let’s say you decide to keep $5000 in your checking account. Each month, when you balance your checkbook, transfer any excess money to your money market account. Maybe you decide to keep $20,000 in your money market account as a reserve. Every quarter, as that money builds up, transfer it to a long-term (more than 5 years), low-cost index fund that invests in shares of lots of big companies (I recommend the Vanguard 500 Index Fund or Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund). That’s where you’ll get (on average) good appreciation in exchange for moderate risk. When you get close to a big purchase that you’re saving for, stop moving money into your long-term account and let it build up in your money market account.
You will want to set up two long-term accounts – one for retirement and one for other long-term goals like buying a home or college for your kids. The advantage of a retirement account like a Simple IRA or SEP IRA is that you don’t have to pay income tax on the money that you put in or on the resulting dividends or capital gains until you start withdrawing that money many years down the line. Consequently, it will grow much faster.
You might wonder how much money you need in order to retire comfortably. Certainly, it depends on the kind of lifestyle you’d like to grow accustomed to. On one hand, the cost of living in retirement can be less because you’ll probably have fewer mouths to feed (with any luck, your kids will be self-sufficient by then) and your house will be paid off and you won’t have to save for retirement anymore because you’re retired. But some things will cost more. Chances are your health will only get worse, which will be expensive. And if you’re lucky enough to stay healthy, you might want to travel and enjoy yourself a little after all of those years of hard work – and that ain’t cheap. So I say it’s a wash. Plan on giving yourself the income that you have towards the end of your career.
At the moment, a modestly middle-class life in America for a family of four will run you about $100k/year before taxes. In order to make that off of interest and dividends, you’ll need 17 times that or $1.7 million. Over the past 100 years, the stock market has provided the best return on investment compared to alternatives like bonds, commodities (like gold, silver, pork bellies) or real estate. Of course unlike putting your money in the bank (or in your mattress), any investment can lose money. But the longer your horizon time, the safer the bet is that you’ll be ahead of the game when it’s time to collect. The U.S. stock market has returned an average of 9% over the past 100 years. Inflation has been on average 3% over that period. So adjusting for inflation, you might reasonably expect to get a 6% appreciation on your money in the long run. (The numbers below allow you to see the appreciation in “today’s dollars,” as though there was no inflation to consider.)
So here’s one way you could map out your route to getting that $1.7 mil:
Of course, you’ll see that even after saving for more than 40 years, you could still come up a little short. I’m assuming that since you’re a sensible person and you’ve saved all along, your parents were probably sensible people too and that they left you a little something in their will (in this case, we’re hoping for $325k). And if not, maybe Social Security will not yet be bankrupt and help out a little. Saving for retirement isn’t easy. But with a little planning and discipline, it’s an attainable goal for most photographers.
How to reconcile your checkbook:
As you make each deposit and write each check, you’ll want to write an entry in your ledger to keep track. At the end of each month, your bank will send you a statement detailing all of the transactions that they’ve recorded. But since the checks you write aren’t necessarily cashed in the order that you write them and since many of them won’t show up on your new statement, you need to reconcile the bank’s records with yours to make sure every transaction eventually turns out the way it should.
If you use Quicken or some other personal bookkeeping application, it will prompt you to balance your account and guide you through the process. If you keep track on paper, you’ll have to reconcile your account manually, but it’s really easy. All you have to do is check off each transaction as it appears on your statement, then check off the corresponding transaction on your ledger. When you get through the whole bank statement, write out this equation, filling in the numbers for the following items:
ending statement balance
+ outstanding deposits
– outstanding withdrawals
– outstanding checks
= ending checkbook balance
If those items add up correctly, you’ve successfully reconciled (some call it “balanced”) your checkbook. If it doesn’t add up, you’ve either made an arithmetic error or you’ve omitted or incorrectly recorded a transaction. On rare occasion I’ve even found errors in my bank’s records. Go through your entries and rework the math until it comes out right. (One common mistake I used to make is putting a deposit in the withdrawal column.) Reconciling your bank account is worth the time and effort because it allows you to know exactly where your money is and it allows you to be decisive about moving your money around to where it needs to go.
How to reconcile your credit card statement:
The credit card statement is a little easier to reconcile. You don’t need to keep your own ledger the way you do with your checking account. You just need to keep all of your credit card slips and then match them up with the list of charges when you get your statement.
This post was created by the fine folks at Wonderful Machine.
All cameras introduce varying degrees of imperfections. While these imperfections are undesirable for the consumer, they can be highly informative in an image forensic setting. Sensor imperfections, thermal effects, compression, etc. each introduce noise in the image. This noise manifests itself as slight variations in the recorded intensities of light. If a portion of an image is altered then it is likely that the underlying noise pattern will be disrupted. Differences in the noise pattern can therefore be used to detect and localize image tampering.
via Image Authentication and Forensics | Fourandsix Technologies.
click images to make bigger
Note: Content for The Daily Edit is found on the newsstands. Submissions are not accepted
Every year, I have countless college seniors come by to meet and show me their portfolios, many of which show very good work. Then I pose the question, “How long did it take to create those 12-20 images?” The answer is always the same, “This is my work, which I did over the last year.”
That’s wonderful, but in the professional world, that you need to be creating 12-20 AMAZING images day-in and day-out, everyday, regardless of circumstances, since that’s what is demanded (expected?) of you as a professional.
Photographer: Ryan McGinley
I’m addicted to Project Runway. There, I said it. Since the beginning, I’ve been beguiled by the tangential relation to the fashion world. So close, and yet so far.
To make matters worse, a few years ago, my wife began subscribing to Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar. Which means I can now recognize Michael Kors style from Burberry. And as to the models? It’s pathetic that I can name drop Karlie Kloss, Lara Stone, Karmen Pedaru, and more. My good friend Melanie mocked when I correctly recognized Karen Elson in a photo she shared on FB.
The industry may be leagues away from my little horse pasture, but the fantasy and feast of consumerism still make sense. This is America, after all. Selling fancy clothes is not that much different than selling beer. Like everything else, it’s all about the Benjamins.
Lately, the worlds of art and fashion seem closer than ever before. Exhibitions laud both, and the upper class consumers that buy one luxury good often buy the other. What has that got to do with us?
Well, I just had a look at Viviane Sassen’s new book “Roxane.” (It took me three glances to realize it was spelled non-traditionally. Thereby depriving me of any jokes about putting on the Red Light.)
The book is cool, no doubt. And it doesn’t really make any sense, in a narrative sort of way. Which is not a problem to me. It just adds to the off-putting vibe that so many fashion mags court anyway. Feel bad about yourself for being too fat or poor, and then buy this Hermes scarf to feel better. (Ah, capitalism.)
The awkward poses are straight off the runway, as are the clothes and the strange-but-hot heroine. Throw in the natural landscape locations, and the obligatory Paris reference, and you’re good to go. Sarcasm aside, though, I do like the photographs very much.
The poses are sculptural, and the mood is almost surreal.
Ms. Sassen is in demand these days, from MoMA to the fashion houses. And the last-page-thank-you notes, which name drop Celine, Nina Ricci, Maison Martin Margiela and a few others, leave no doubt about that. No Marchesa, though. Pity. A few pictures of Georgina Chapman would have definitely put the book over the top.
Bottom Line: Fashiony photos of fashion as art
To Purchase Roxane Visit Photo-Eye
Full Disclosure: Books are provided by Photo-Eye in exchange for links back for purchase.
Books are found in the bookstore and submissions are not accepted.
The Time & Life building, an edifice standing tall in the middle of Midtown, was long a revered totem of the publishing business. To people in the industry who came of age back when things were good, Time Inc. was legend, having grown up not just on the force of its journalism but on tales of editors’ offices the size of racquetball courts and liquor carts rumbling through the hall spreading cheer and an aura of privilege.
via NYTimes.com.
