Paul Freiberger Car on Cobblestone Street (Strasse) 1930
lunes, 31 de julio de 2017
Abelardo Morell 1948
Foto / 2006
Abelardo (Abe) Morell (born 1948 in Havana, Cuba) is a Boston-based photographer. Morell and his family fled Cuba in 1962, moving to New York City. Morell earned a Bachelor of Arts from Bowdoin College in 1977, and a Master of Fine Arts from Yale University School of Art in 1981. He received an honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from Bowdoin in 1997.
Morell is well known in the photographic community for creating camera obscura images in various places around the world and photographing these. Morell was awarded the Cintas Foundation fellowship in 1992 and the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship in 1993.
Morell is currently a professor of photography at the Massachusetts College of Art. He is represented by Bonni Benrubi Gallery, NYC. A documentary on elements of Morell's life and work, Shadow of the House, was released in 2007.
Lightbulb
1991
Camera Obscura
I made my first picture using camera obscura techniques in my darkened living room in 1991. In setting up a room to make this kind of photograph, I cover all windows with black plastic in order to achieve total darkness. Then, I cut a small hole in the material I use to cover the windows. This allows an inverted image of the view outside to flood onto the walls of the room. I would focus my large-format camera on the incoming image on the wall and expose the film. In the beginning, exposures took five to ten hours.
Over time, this project has taken me from my living room to all sorts of interiors around the world. One of the satisfactions I get from making this imagery comes from my seeing the weird and yet natural marriage of the inside and outside.
A few years ago, in order to push the visual potential of this process, I began to use color film and positioned a lens over the hole in the window plastic in order to add to the overall sharpness and brightness of the incoming image. Now, I often use a prism to make the projection come in right side up. I have also been able to shorten my exposures considerably thanks to digital technology, which in turn makes it possible to capture more momentary light. I love the increased sense of reality that the outdoor has in these new works .The marriage of the outside and the inside is now made up of more equal partners.
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Abelardo Morell nació en Cuba en 1948 y emigró a Estados Unidos con su familia en 1962. Quería ser ingeniero pero no se le daban bien las matemáticas así que acabó atendiendo a un curso de fotografía en el que descubrió la que se convertiría la pasión del resto de su vida. En 1977 se licenció en Arte en Bowdoin y en 1991 realizó su primera fotografía usando la técnica de la cámara oscura por la que hoy es ampliamente reconocido gracias a su original planteamiento y a la irresistible belleza de sus imágenes.
Absorción
Absorción
(Optíca).- Propiedad que tienen algunos cuerpos de no reflejar la luz. Los cuerpos que la absorben, dan la sensación de negro, que en realidad, no es un color, sino la ausencia de luz reflejada. Los objetos de colores oscuros absorben más luz que los de colores claro. Estas diferencias entre absorción y reflexión motivan, los contrastes de color.
Olga Desmond (1890-1964)
Olga Desmond (born Olga Sellin 2 November 1890 in Allenstein in East Prussia (now Olsztyn, Poland); died 2 August 1964 in Berlin) was a German dancer and actress.
Olga Desmond studied drama and earned her living as a model for artists and painters in Berlin. In 1907 she joined a group of artists and appeared as Venus during the group’s nine-month tour at the London Pavilion where they put on “plastic representations.” In Berlin she co-founded the Association for Ideal Culture and gave shows called “living pictures” in which she posed after the manner of ancient classical works of art. These so-called “Evenings of Beauty” (Schönheitsabende) were prohibited on more than one occasion starting from 1908, because the actors usually posed nude or wearing only bodypaint.
The “heroine of living pictures,” Olga Desmond became one of the first to promote nudity on the stage in St. Petersburg, Russia, when in the summer of 1908 the German dancer arrived there with her repertoire of performance. Olga Desmond’s Evenings of Beauty quickly became the subject of a great debate in the Russian media. At least one of the representatives of official “justice” wanted to haul Desmond into court for “seduction.”
Olga Desmond herself persistently defended her right to appear naked. “Call it daring or bold, or however you want to describe my appearance on the stage, but this requires art, and it (art) is my only deity, before whom I bow and for which I am prepared to make all possible sacrifices,” she told the Russian press. “I decided to break the centuries-old heavy chains, created by people themselves. When I go out on stage completely naked, I am not ashamed, I am not embarrassed, because I come out before the public just as I am, loving all that is beautiful and graceful. There was never a case when my appearance before the public evoked any cynical observations or dirty ideas.”
Asked whether a stage costume would interfere with her, Olga Desmond answered: “To be completely graceful in a costume or even in a tricot is unthinkable. And I decided to throw off this needless yoke.” Objecting to the claims that she excites “base instincts” of the public, the dancer said: “I purposely set a high admission charge for my shows so that the street would not get in, for it has little understanding of pure art, but so that people with broader demands for it would come, people who will look on me as a servitor of art.”
The authorities in St. Petersburg paid little attention to the explanations offered by the dancer from Berlin, and her first appearance in the imperial Russian capital was also her last: further shows were forbidden by the mayor. Many artists in the capital took the side of the authorities. For example, Konstantin Makovsky sharply denounced what he called the “cult of the naked body,” saying that “beauty, like much else in life, must have its hidden secrets, that we don’t even have the right to expose.”
Olga Desmond was no less the subject of controversy in her own country. In 1909 her appearance in the Berlin Wintergarten was the cause of such a scandal that it became a subject of discussion even in the Prussian State Assembly. But “scandalous” also meant well-known, and as a result of her renown, there were cosmetic products that carried her name. She traveled through Germany on numerous tours until 1914, when she married a Hungarian large landowner, and went off with him to his estate.
From 1916 through 1919 she appeared in various films including Seifenblasen (Soap Bubbles), Maria's Sonntagsgewand (Maria’s Sunday clothes) and Mut zur Sünde (Courage for sin). In the latter film she played opposite the later well-known German actor Hans Albers. In 1917 she separated from her husband and returned to the stage. Her first appearance took place on 15 April 1917 at the Theatre of the Royal University (Theater der Königlichen Hochschule) in Berlin. In the same year she appeared in a performance of Carmen in Cologne. She presented dance evenings and other things in Warsaw, Breslau (now Wrocław), and Kattowitz (now Katowice).
Thereafter, she made fewer public appearances and from 1922 devoted herself entirely to teaching. Among her best-known students was Herta Feist, who later became a member of the dance group of Rudolf von Laban.
After the First World War she married her second husband, Georg Piek, a Jewish businessman with a studio for stage equipment, decorations, and special fabrics. After 1933 Piek left Germany. Olga Desmond continued to manage the business.[citation needed] After World War II, Desmond lived in the eastern part of Berlin. When the wall was built, she was unable to leave.[citation needed] In her late years, forgotten by the public, she worked as a cleaning woman. To make a living, she also sold vintage postcards and other memorabilia from her time as a renowned dancer.[1] Olga Desmond died on 2 August 1964 in East Berlin.
«Call it daring or bold, or however you want to describe my appearance on the stage, but this requires art, and it (art) is my only deity, before whom I bow and for which I am prepared to make all possible sacrifices. I decided to break the centuries-old heavy chains, created by people themselves. When I go out on stage completely naked, I am not ashamed, I am not embarrassed, because I come out before the public just as I am, loving all that is beautiful and graceful. There was never a case when my appearance before the public evoked any cynical observations or dirty ideas.»
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Su aparición data de 1870, en la Estrasburgo asediada por el ejército Alemán. Allí surgen las primeras fotografías de desnudos tal y como consta en una exposición del Museo de la Fotografía de Berlín que estudia su proliferación en postales o tarjetas. Se trata del desnudo como objeto de la fotografía, no de fotografía erótica o perversiones fotografiadas, que también son relativamente frecuentes en esa época, y demuestra que arte y desnudo, unidos desde el principio de los siglos, viven una nueva etapa en su relación con la llegada de la fotografía, que permitió a los artistas, incluso aquellos sin formación académica ni dotes plásticas, plasmar con el mismo realismo o más ese encanto que también buscaban pintores y escultores.
En 1909, el espectáculo de la Desmond como bailarina desnuda, en el Berliner Wintergarten, fue todo un escándalo y su nombre se hizo tan famoso que se utilizaba en la promoción de perfumes y cosméticos, de manera que la fotografía de su desnudo se nutrió también del empujón de la publicidad. El género cobró cuerpo, nunca mejor dicho, y ya no abandonó la historia de la fotografía hasta nuestros días.
Esta muestra, titulada 'La verdad al desnudo y otras...', nos confirma que nuestros bisabuelos no eran nada mojigatos a la hora de experimentar con la imagen del desnudo y nos descubre un hecho sociológico: con la fotografía, el desnudo pasó a ocupar un lugar en el ámbito público, una nueva fase de conciencia cultural. En cuanto el desnudo se hizo presente en la fotografía, fue producido en masa y la censura no pudo hacer gran cosa.
Tomado de una nota de Rosalía Sánchez para El Mundo 13 de mayo 2013
domingo, 30 de julio de 2017
Ansel Adams (1902-1984)
«Hay dos personas en cada fotografía: el fotógrafo y el espectador»
Ansel Easton Adams nació el 20 de febrero de 1902 en San Francisco, California. Fue considerado fotógrafo y ecologista. Cuando Adams tan solo tenía 4 años, estuvo presente en el terremoto de San Francisco de 1906, donde sufrió una rotura de tabique nasal. Hijo único de Charles Hitchcock Adams y Olive Bray, creció en un ambiente Victoriano (social y conservador). Pese a ser inteligente, era muy tímido, lo que, unido a la dislexia que padecía, le causó ciertos problemas al intentar integrarse en la escuela. Ansel Adams luchó durante toda su vida por defender y proteger la naturaleza. Estudió piano durante varios años, lo que le dio disciplina y estructura. Se inició en la fotografía utilizando una cámara Kodak #1 Box Brownie que le dieron sus padres. Se unió a un club donde conoció a su esposa, Virginia Best, y se casaron en 1928, engendrando a 2 hijos.
En 1927 apareció Albert M. Bender en su vida, quien le ayudó dándole energía y seguridad.
En 1930, Ansel Adams conoció al fotógrafo Paul Strand. Sus imágenes tuvieron un gran impacto en Adams, ayudándolo a alejarse del estilo pictorialista y a encaminarse hacia el estilo de «straight photography» (fotografía directa, o pura), donde la claridad de la lente es lo más importante, y donde la fotografía ha de sufrir el menor número de ajustes y retoques posible.
En 1927 Ansel Adams conoció a Edward Weston, con quien entabló una gran amistad. Juntos, Adams, Strand, Cunningham y Weston formaron un grupo llamado «f/64» en 1932. Éste grupo promovió y evolucionó «straight photography». Adams fue destacando cada vez más por su energía y entusiasmo. Visitó por primera vez Nueva York en 1933 y conoció a Alfred Stieglitz, un fotógrafo al que siempre había admirado. Stieglitz le ayudó a hacer su primera exposición. En 1936 colaboró organizando la primera sección de fotografía en el Museo de Arte Moderno de Nueva York (MoMA). Ahí conoció a Beaumont (historiador de la fotografía) y a Nancy Newhall (escritora-diseñadora). Más tarde colaboraría con Dorothea Lange para un trabajo de la revista Life.
El 6 de agosto de 1953, Adams le escribió una carta a Stieglitz, para hablarle de su precaria situación económica. Fue entonces cuando comenzó a hacer fotografía comercial. No era algo que le encantase, puesto que creía que no lo dejaba explotar su creatividad, aunque le proporcionaba suficiente dinero para vivir. Trabajó para marcas como IBM, AT&T, Nacional Park Service y Kodak, y para revistas como Life y Fortune, además de ser fotógrafo asesor para Polaroid y Hasselblad. Este trabajo no sólo sirvió a Adams para el mencionado sustento financiero, sino que hizo de sus fotografías un icono de las bellezas naturales norteamericanas reconocidas en todas partes del mundo. Weston y Strand le comenzaron a pedir consejos técnicos. Adams desarrolló el famoso «sistema de zonas», un método de medición y revelado que se utilizaba para dividir la graduación de luz de una escena en 11 zonas diferentes, del blanco al negro. Esto le permitía visualizar los diferentes niveles de gris en la fotografía final con gran precisión.
Sus imágenes empezaron a volverse símbolos de Angloamérica, muchas de ellas centradas en el parque natural Yosemite. Ansel Adams luchó por defender la naturaleza y a sus animales, siendo los paisajes el principal tema de sus fotografías. Precisamente por esto fue criticado a menudo, ya que raramente se podía ver a una persona en una fotografía suya. El fotógrafo francés Henri Cartier-Bresson dijo sobre él: «El mundo se está cayendo a trozos y todo lo que Adams y Weston fotografían son piedras y árboles». Pese a opiniones como ésa, recibió en 1981 el Premio internacional de la fundación Hasselblad.
Algunos dicen que Adams fotografió lugares que ya ni existen, pero para otros ocurre lo contrario; algunos lugares siguen existiendo debido a Adams y su entusiasmo y esfuerzo por salvar estos lugares, a través de sus fotografías. Murió el 22 de abril de 1984, debido a un fallo en el corazón, posiblemente agravado por un cáncer pancreático.
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«El componente más importante de una cámara son los 30 cm tras ella..»
«You don't take a photograph, you make it.»
«You don't make a photograph just with a camera. You bring to the act of photography all the pictures you have seen, the books you have read, the music you have heard, the people you have loved.»
«When words become unclear, I shall focus with photographs. When images become inadequate, I shall be content with silence.»
«To the complaint, 'There are no people in these photographs,' I respond, There are always two people: the photographer and the viewer.»
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Bridal Veil Fall,
Yosemite Valley
c. 1927
Monolith, The Face of Half Dome,
Yosemite Valley, California
c. 1927
Nevada Fall,
Yosemite National Park
c. 1932
Clearing Winter Storm,
Yosemite National Park
1942 or earlier
Minarets, Evening Clouds, California
c. 1937
Moonrise, Hernandez, New Mexico
1941
Lake MacDonald,
Glacier National Park
1942
Old Faithful Geyser,
Yellowstone National Park
1942
The Tetons and the Snake River,
Grand Teton National Park, Wyoming
1942
Winter Sunrise, the Sierra Nevada,
from Lone Pine, California
1944
Central Park and Skyscrapers
New York City
c. 1945
Mount Williamson - the Sierra Nevada,
from Manzanar, California 1945
Nevada Fall, Rainbow,
Yosemite Valley
c. 1947
Tenaya Creek, Dogwood, Rain,
Yosemite Valley
c. 1948
Mount McKinley,
Denali National Park, Alaska
1948
Mono Lake, California
1948
Oak Tree, Snowstorm,
Yosemite National Park
1948
Aspens, Northern New Mexico
1958
Aspens, Northern New Mexico
1958
Moon and Half Dome,
Yosemite Valley
1960
El Capitan, Winter, Sunrise,
Yosemite National Park
1968
Georgia O'Keeffe and Orville Cox, Canyon de Chelly National Monument
Yosemite Valley Winter
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Gates of the Valley
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Golden Gate from Baker Beach 1953
Half Dome, huerto de manzanas, Yosemite, 1931
In Joshua Tree National Monument
Manequin, movie lot 1940
Manequin, movie lot 1940
sábado, 29 de julio de 2017
Jules Gervais-Courtellemont (1863–1931)
Jules Gervais-Courtellemont (1863–1931) was a French photographer who was famous for taking color autochromes during World War I. He was born in the province of Seine-et-Marne, near Paris, but grew up in Algeria, where he developed a passion for the pre-colonial Orient and devoted most of his professional career in search of the exotic.
In 1894 converted to Islam prior to making a pilgrimage to Mecca. Images collected in Turkey, Palestine, Egypt, Tunisia, Spain, India, Morocco and China formed the basis for his popular illustrated lectures, which he illustrated with lantern slides. With the outbreak of World War I, Courtellemont returned to his home province to record the war. After the war, Courtellemont began working for an American publication. He eventually became a photographer for National Geographic. In 1911, Courtellemont opened the «Palais de l'autochromie» in Paris, which comprised an exhibition hall, studio, laboratory, and lecture hall with a seating capacity of 250. It was in this hall that Courtellemont would project his autochromes both of the Orient and, after 1914, of the war, particularly the Marne battlefields. These lectures proved to be so popular that Courtellemont issued a twelve-part series later bound in book form called The Battle of Marne and later a four-part series entitled The Battle of Verdun. These are the first books ever published in color on war. Between 1923 and 1925 he wrote a three-volume work entitled La Civilisation – Histoire sociale de l'humanité, illustrated with his photographs. He was a lifelong friend of the novelist, Orientalist and photographer Pierre Loti. While over 5,500 Gervais-Courtellemont autochromes survive in various institutional collections, his work in private hands is quite rare and sought after. Courtellemon died in 1931. His German counterpart is Hans Hildenbrand.
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Devastated landscape at the French lines.
Les Champs de bataille de la Marne
French artillery men and 75-millimetre gun.
General Philippe Pétain.
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