Group items tagged

Looking In: Robert Frank's The Americans - Expanded Edition by Sarah Greenough, Robert Frank Steidl First published in France in 1958, then in the United States in 1959, Robert Frank's The Americans< changed the course of twentieth-century photography. In eighty-three photographs, Frank looked beneath the surface of American life to reveal a people plagued by racism, ill-served by their politicians, and rendered numb by a rapidly expanding culture of consumption. Yet he also found novel areas of beauty in simple, overlooked corners of American life. And it was not just his subject matter - cars, jukeboxes, and even the road itself - that redefined the icons of America; it was also his seemingly intuitive, immediate, off-kilter style, as well as his method of brilliantly linking his photographs together thematically, conceptually, formally, and linguistically, that made The Americans so innovative. More of an ode or a poem than a literal document, the book is as powerful and provocative today as it was fifty years ago.

The iconic South African photographer, in conversation with Max du Preez, discusses the literary influences on his work, including Athol Fugard and Herman Charles Bosman.

American photographer and journalist Eve Arnold delves into her relationship with Marilyn Monroe, whom she photographed possibly more than any other photographer. This documentary explores the general relationship between a photographer and her living subject, as well as the specific task Arnold accomplished in capturing a cinematic icon.

Photographer Annie Leibovitz has produced some of the most memorable and iconic images of the last 30 years, from her work with Rolling Stone magazine through to her Hollywood cover portraits at Vanity Fair. She has also recorded the horrors of war in Rwanda and Sarajevo and taken intimate shots her own friends and family, including Susan Sontag. This documentary, directed by her sister, is a fascinating portrait of a great talent, featuring vintage footage of Leibovitz in action during the 1960s and contributions from Arnold Schwarzenegger, Hillary Clinton, Mick Jagger and George Clooney.

Albert Maysles on Documentary Filmmaking With his late brother David, Albert Maysles is a giant among documentary filmmakers. Over the past half century, he has produced behind-the-scenes chronicles of cultural icons (the Beatles, Rolling Stones, Marlon Brando, Truman Capote, Vladmir Horowitz, Christo, Jessye Norman), and is best known for "cinema verite" documentaries such as "Grey Gardens," in which the camera captures natural conversations and activities without the intrusion of interviews or narration.

PhotoPlus Event: Elliott Erwitt and Alec Soth\n\nElliott Erwitt and Alec Soth, two great photographers widely separated by their vision, style, and generations--but sharing a sense of irony, self-effacing wit, and a photo agency (Magnum)-took the stage at New York's Javits Center last night to talk to a packed audience about their work and careers.\n\nPrompted by the moderator Harald Johnson and a projection of some of his most iconic images, Erwitt spoke first, offering a brief, matter-of-fact accounting of his career and work, which he peppered with one-liners.\n\nErwitt is a keen observer of people and dogs, and the absurd things they do. He also has a sharp comic sense of visual timing and juxtaposition. All of that was on display in his slideshow. Describing one image of a dog in jumping straight upwards, Erwitt said, "People ask, Why is he jumping?' It's because I barked. I bark at dogs, they jump."

Kim Phuc was the subject of a famous photo from the Vietnam war which shows her as a child running naked after being severely burned by a napalm attack. She is joined by UC Davis faculty to consider photographic images that have changed history. Series: "Mondavi Center Presents" [5/2007] [Public Affairs] [Humanities] [Show ID: 12409]

Wars have a way of reducing themselves to moments, single memories, tiny episodes. Here, pictures have a thousand-to-one advantage over words. The 10-year Vietnam War was summed up in four photographs: Associated Press photographer Eddie Adams captured the instant in 1968 when South Vietnamese Brig. Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executed a Viet Cong prisoner on a Saigon street. Nick Ut snapped a picture of Kim Phuc, a Vietnamese girl, fleeing naked down a highway in Vietnam after a napalm attack in 1972. Ron Haeberle took a picture of the limp bodies of the My Lai massacre victims after they were shot in 1968. John Filo caught Mary Ann Vecchio screaming over the body of a fellow student slain by National Guardsmen during a war protest at Kent State University in Ohio in 1970. These photographs, it could be argued, tilted the whole balance of public opinion against the war. What occurred on the battlefield was rendered largely irrelevant by what occurred when certain photons massed themselves into images and rushed into the retinas and minds of the American public.

Sharbat Gula - 'The Afghan Girl' photographed by Steve McCurry for National Geographic.